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Following Luca out into the slightly less intense late-afternoon heat, she could see a Jeep approach in the distance.
Luca looked at his watch. ‘That’ll be our lift to the airfield. We need to pack our stuff up.’
He looked at her and must have seen something that Serena had failed to disguise in time.
His eyes glinted with something indefinable. ‘I thought you’d welcome the prospect of civilisation again?’
‘I do,’ Serena said quickly, avoiding his look. But the truth was that she didn’t...exactly. Their couple of days in the rainforest...the otherworldly pace of life in the village...it had soothed something inside her. And she realised that she would miss it.
Afraid Luca might see that, she folded her arms and said, ‘Are you going to give me a chance?’ And then quickly, before he could interject, ‘I think I deserve it. I don’t want to go home yet.’
Luca looked at her. She could see the Jeep coming closer, stopping. She held her breath. His gaze narrowed on her and became...hot. Instantly Serena felt something spike. Anticipation.
He came closer, blocking out the Jeep arriving, the village behind him.
‘I’ve no intention of letting you go home.’
Serena’s arms clenched tighter. She didn’t like the way her body reacted to that implacable statement and what it might mean. ‘You’re giving me a trial period?’
Luca smiled, and it made Serena’s brain fuzzy.
‘Something like that. I told you I wanted you, Serena. And I do. In my bed.’
Anger spiked at his arrogant tone, even as her pulse leapt treacherously. ‘I’m not interested in becoming your next mistress, Fonseca. I’m interested in working.’
Luca’s eyes flashed at her use of ‘Fonseca’. ‘I’ll give you a two-week trial. Two weeks of working in the charity by day and two weeks in my bed by night.’
Serena unclenched her arms, her hands in fists by her sides, hating the betraying sizzle in her blood. Had she no self-respect?
‘That’s blackmail.’
Luca shrugged, supremely unconcerned. ‘Call it what you want. That’s the only way you’ll get your trial.’
Serena swallowed a caustic rush of tangled emotions along with the betraying hum of desire. ‘And what about your precious reputation? If people see us together? What then?’
Luca moved closer. Serena’s words struck him somewhere deep inside. What was he doing? he asked himself. All he knew was that the things that had been of supreme importance to him for a long time no longer seemed as important. There was only here and now and this woman. And heat. And need.
Yet he wasn’t losing sight of what had driven him for all these years completely. He was cynical enough to recognise an opportunity when it arose. Having Serena on his arm would mean news, and news would mean focus on the things close to his heart. Like his foundation.
He said now, ‘I have every intention of people seeing us together. You see, I’ve realised that seven years is like seven lifetimes in the media world. You’re old news. And if anyone does make something of it I’m quite happy for you to be seen by my side as someone intent on making up for her debauched past by doing charity work. Everyone loves a redemption story, after all. And in the meantime I get what I want—which is you. You owe me, Serena. You don’t think I’m going to give you a two-week trial without recompense, do you?’
Serena just looked at him. She was too stunned to say anything. What Luca had said was so...cold. And yet all she could feel was hot. She should be slapping him across the face and taking a bus back to Manaus and the next flight home. Maybe that was what he was doing? Calling her bluff. Goading her. She couldn’t imagine that he didn’t have a string of willing mistresses back in Rio.
But that only made something very dark rise up: jealousy.
‘We leave in fifteen minutes.’
With that he turned and strode away, as if he hadn’t just detonated a bomb between them. She watched him incredulously, and then stalked to the small hut.
As she packed up her small backpack a few minutes later she alternated between the longing to to find Luca and deliver that slap to his face which he so deserved and pausing to remember how it had felt when he’d kissed her and touched her the other night.
She’d never really enjoyed sex; it had been another route to oblivion which had invariably ended in disappointment and an excoriating sense of self-disgust.
But Luca... It was as if he was able to see right through to her deepest self, to the part of her that was still innocent, untainted by what she’d seen and experienced as a child...
‘Ms DePiero?’
Serena whirled around to see a young man in the doorway of the hut.
