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Lia made a sound of frustration and her hands became fists at her sides. ‘You had an unfair advantage with your mask. Obviously you don’t experience many women walking out on dates with you, but if this is just because your pride is dented then—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
The steel underlying his deep voice stopped Lia.
‘You really think I’d be so petty that I’d pay an extortionate amount of money just to buy a weekend with a woman who walked out on a date?’
The man in front of her bristled with lots of things...none of which was pettiness. Lia was suddenly aware that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know exactly why Carter had paid all that money for her.
‘There’s not going to be a weekend,’ she said tightly. ‘It’s ridiculous to think that I would go off with a complete stranger. Everyone will appreciate that it was just a stunt.’
He shook his head and came closer to Lia. She fought to stand her ground and not back away. He was so close now that the disparity in their sizes was apparent again. It brought back the memory of standing on the patio and looking up...aching to feel his mouth on hers...reaching up to take his mask off and having his hand close around her wrist... It was as if she’d blocked it out at the time, but she realised now that she had felt the rough skin of his palms on her skin. But she’d ignored it.
The fact that less than an hour ago she’d been reaching up to kiss him made her feel exposed all over again. She couldn’t even contemplate the suspicion that on some level she’d known who he was all along.
Lia was aware that her reactions to this man were completely out of her control, but she couldn’t seem to rein herself in. This close to him, she couldn’t focus. All she could feel was the threat to her equilibrium and the desire to get away from him. Far away.
‘Look,’ she said, purposely making her voice as chilly as possible, ‘I don’t know how things work here in America, but in England we don’t really go in for such crass displays of wealth. I appreciate that you’ve undertaken to donate a lot of money to the charity, but there is simply no way that I am going to go anywhere with you—a million dollars or not.’
She folded her arms again and regarded Benjamin Carter as best she could from several inches less in height.
Benjamin Carter, damn him, just smiled.
‘There’s no need to be patronising, sweetheart.’
Heat washed up over her chest and neck. She’d never usually descend to such rudeness, but this man, under his guise as a stranger, had seen her react in a way that made her want to crawl under a rock and hide.
‘And, yes’ he said now, ‘you are coming with me. Because if you don’t I will tell the charity’s CEO that contrary to your public acceptance of the bet, you’re not actually willing to fulfil your end of the bargain and therefore I will be withdrawing my funds.’
All the heat left Lia’s body as her blood rushed south. ‘You wouldn’t dare. Not when everyone knows how much you donated.’
He took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms across his chest. ‘Do you really want to test me?’
Right now he looked as immovable as a mountain. And Lia had serious doubts about what he would do if she did test him. Clearly a man like this, who could make such obscenely huge gestures, was beholden to no one and wouldn’t hesitate to prove his point.
Feeling utterly cornered and trapped, Lia said, ‘Why are you doing this...? If it’s not for spite...then what?’
He looked at her for a long moment and she couldn’t read his expression.
Then he said, ‘It’s very simple, Lia. I want you.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE AIR SIZZLED between them and Ben’s very direct words seemed to hang between them like a dare. What was it about this woman that seemed to arouse the beast in him? That made him do crazy things like pretend to be a stranger? And make outrageous public bids?
Her eyes were huge, as if she was still absorbing what he’d said, and then she responded, with a frigid tone to her voice. ‘You want me enough to pay one million dollars for the pleasure? I don’t know who you’re used to consorting with, or who you think I am, but I’m not some kind of high-class—’
‘I know exactly who you are,’ he said curtly, cutting her off, surprised at the rapid surge of anger her insinuation had provoked.
It had been a long time since he’d felt the need to justify himself to anyone—much less to someone who came from the same part of society that had turned its back on him and left him to fend for himself. In that respect England and America were one and the same.
Nevertheless, he couldn’t stop himself saying stiffly, ‘I’ve never paid for a woman in my life. I don’t need to.’
Intriguingly, she blushed, and suddenly she didn’t look so confident. ‘What do you mean, you know exactly who I am?’
The nerve she’d struck, however inadvertently, made him say, ‘You might not be royalty but you’re a princess. Someone who has probably been denied nothing in her whole life. You don’t like me because I turn you on, and you don’t like being turned on by someone you consider beneath you.’ He continued, ‘Out on that terrace, before my identity was revealed, you had no prejudices holding you back because evidently you had judged that I was someone a little more...refined.’
The play of reactions across her face was mesmerising. Shock. Anger. Insult. And then fire. ‘You played with me like a cat with a mouse. And, in light of your opinion, I fail to see why you’d want to subject yourself to spending a whole weekend with me.’
