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‘I know, Eloise,’ Katy responded, suddenly serious. ‘I’m sorry.’
Marcus glanced back from one woman to the other and for the second time that evening thought there was something going on between them, but dismissed the notion when Eloise spoke.
‘Don’t apologise.’ Lifting defiant green eyes to Marcus, she added, ‘Yes, I’d like to dance.’ She had vowed never to be afraid of any man again, and she was damned if she would allow Marcus to intimidate her.
The others left, and Eloise found herself held in Marcus’s arms, moving around the dance floor to blues music in a state of nervous tension.
Marcus glanced down at her stiffly held head. The thick red coronet of curls had sprouted a few tendrils around her face. He could feel the tension in her and he deliberately tightened his hold, moving more heavily against her.
She shivered in response, but fought the emotion and won, by dint of squaring her shoulders and tilting back her head to stare up into his face. ‘Are you going to tell me why, after three months of ignoring me, you’ve suddenly bought into our company?’
A satiric smile curved his expressive mouth. ‘Perhaps I saw a good deal, and took it,’ he said smoothly. ‘But you and I both know the real reason.’
‘I have no idea,’ she muttered, her eyes wide and puzzled, searched his hard features. Perhaps he wanted to make up to her for ignoring her past three months. The amazing thought popped into her head. It was an extravagant gesture, but maybe—just maybe—it was true, and for a while she allowed herself the luxury of believing it.
‘No doubt you will enlighten me when you want to,’ she said with the first genuine smile she had given him all evening. She was too confused and too tired to argue and, some of the tension easing out of her, she relaxed in his arms.
She knew damn well what he meant. Why else would she relax in his arms and smile? A ploy as old as Eve, but it was too little too late as far as Marcus was concerned. He knew it was a mockery of innocent surrender, but knowing that didn’t lessen the impact of her sexy body against his. Marcus almost groaned out loud. Her softness seemed to accommodate the hard planes and angles of him as if made to measure. She was so beautiful, so sweet and receptive. Christos! Where had that come from? She was about as sweet as a wasp!
Reining in his raging libido, Marcus stopped and pushed her lightly away from him. He saw the surprise in her eyes, but ignored it. ‘I think you and I need to talk, but not here, somewhere private.’ Dropping a hand to her waist, he surveyed her beneath heavily hooded lids. ‘My apartment or your hotel—take your pick.?
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CHAPTER FIVE
SHE had been in danger in falling for his formidable charms all over again, Eloise thought with dismay. He only had to take her in his arms and every sensible thought flew her brain. ‘Your place or mine.’ If he thought she was falling for that corny line, he was mistaken.
‘Really, Marcus, surely you can come up with something better than that?’ She gave a light laugh, casting him a glance from beneath the thick fringe of her lashes. ‘I’ve heard better chat-up lines from a teenager.’
‘I’m sure you have, and acted on them,’ Marcus said, with dark emphasis. ‘But, unlike Ted Charlton, I want a lot more from you than a one-night stand.’
‘You think… Ted and me…?’ Her sophistication slipped, and shock had her spluttering incoherently. ‘Why, you…you…’
Grasping her by the elbow, he led her towards the table, his long fingers biting into the flesh of her arm as his dark head bent intimately towards her, giving the impression to anyone watching they were a close and loving couple, while mouthing harshly, ‘You stole from my family.’
She was badly shaken by his assumption she had slept with Ted, and the instant racing of her pulse as his warm breath caressed her ear didn’t help. She could barely take in what he was saying, until he concluded with sibilant softness, ‘And I want you back in my bed until I consider the debt is paid.’
Involuntarily her jaw dropped. At the same time his hand fell from her arm and Eloise tilted her head to stare at him like a stranded trout, her mouth working and no sound coming out. Feeling the edge of a chair at the back of her knees, she collapsed down on the seat, and cast a panicked glance around the room. She was still in the nightclub, but she felt like Alice in Wonderland falling down the rabbit hole.
Come to think of it, the whole evening had been a bit like the Mad Hatter’s tea party. And Marcus could certainly double as the Knave of Hearts, accusing her of sleeping with Ted Charlton, while he cut a swathe through women, she thought bitterly. She regarded him with wide angry eyes. And stole from him? As far she knew, he’d only been in business with them one day. Was he mad, or what?
‘You’re crazy,’ she declared, finally finding her voice. ‘You’ve completely lost your marbles.’
‘No.’ Marcus looked at her with cold contempt that made her skin crawl. ‘I have the proof, Eloise. This time, you’re not escaping the consequences of your actions. I’m going to make sure you don’t.’
He was towering over like some great avenging angel—or devil was more apt, she corrected in her head. ‘I have never stolen anything in my life. I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she said, conviction in every syllable. ‘I really don’t.’
‘Liar.’ Marcus’s cold eyes raked her with derision. ‘You fell into my bed the last time we met, all wild and willing, simply to soften me up—and I nearly fell for it.’
She flinched as though she’d been struck. If only he knew the courage, the great leap of faith in his integrity it had taken for her to make love with him. If he’d continued their relationship, she might have confided in him by now, but she wasn’t about to reveal her innermost fears to a man who had used her as a one-night stand.
And yet she could not explain to herself why it should hurt so much when Marcus looked at her with derision. She owed the man nothing.
Eloise opened her mouth, about to tell him so, but fear closed her throat as she recalled his other threat to have her back in his bed. Disgusted with herself, not Marcus, because for one heart-stopping moment she was tempted.
She had to get out of here! Picking up her purse, she tried to stand, but his hand on her shoulder forced her back down.
‘Sit,’ he ordered.
