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“Because there isn’t one,” she said quietly, something that looked much darker than simple panic in the green of her gaze. “For you. It actually matters to me that people will see me as a hypocrite. That, in fact, I’ll be a hypocrite.” She made a low noise. “Not everything is for sale.”
“Spoken by someone who never had to sell something precious in order to stay alive.”
He couldn’t hide his impatience—nor his irritation at her and all the people like her, who had been born rich and privileged and would never know what it was like to have to choose between their pride and their survival. Much less fight for it with their own hands. Much less lose so much of themselves, and everything else that mattered, along the way.
“I understand you, too, Professor,” he told her, his own voice much colder than it had been. “You’re not the only one who studies their opponents. I know precisely what kind of princess you like to pretend you never were.”
Her eyes flew to his, stricken, and that delicious color rose in her cheeks again, making him feel the same kind of rush he’d felt in the ring when he’d won a tough round. He supposed that confirmed that he was exactly the Neanderthal she believed he was, and in that moment he didn’t care.
“That seems like an ineffective bargaining tool,” she said after a short pause, and while he could hear that he’d got to her in the scratchiness in her voice, see it in that extra bright sheen to her dark jade eyes, she still said it calmly. Coolly. As if she was utterly unfazed. He felt a trickle of reluctant admiration work through him. “Bludgeoning someone you’re trying to persuade with a highly slanted interpretation of their biography. Not the smoothest approach, I’d have thought.”
“Try this one,” he suggested. “Guberev actually is the animal you would like to think I am.” It shouldn’t bother him in the slightest to lie to her, to manipulate the fear he’d seen she felt. It was one more strategy, wasn’t it? All worth it in the end, no matter how it felt now. No matter that it made him who she thought he was. “I don’t know what he wanted from you, but the fact that he felt comfortable showing up at a summit and approaching you in the way he did should give you pause.”
“It does.”
“Then I offer you, again, the perfect solution to make sure he keeps his distance from you.”
“Because he is like a dog who responds to shows of domination, is that it?” she asked. “Does that make you the alpha in this scenario?”
Her smile was wintry then, and he should not have felt it like a touch. He should not have wanted to lick into it, beneath it, to taste her again. He should not have been contemplating the best way to get under her too-privileged skin. He should not have been so conflicted about what he was doing here. He should not have worried if his brother was right, after all—that there were too many ways to lose, and he was courting every one of them.
Miranda’s cold smile only deepened, as if she could read him, too. “Because if so, I’m afraid I know exactly what it makes me,” she said.
* * *
The room seemed to stretch tight around them, and Miranda couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a full breath. No wonder she felt so off balance.
It wasn’t only that he’d called her a princess in that insulting way, as if she was some kind of socialite. It wasn’t only that he wanted to date her, of all things—but only as an elaborate ruse. It wasn’t the fact of him, so big and male and inarguably powerful, sitting there so close to her, like he was waiting to pounce. She concentrated on filling her lungs. In. Out. It was the only thing she was sure she could control.
Ivan started to speak again, but she threw up one of her hands, palm out, and stopped him, happy to see that for some reason, her hand wasn’t shaking the way she was afraid the rest of her was. Or soon would.
“I’m going to have to think about all of this,” she said, and she hated that there was a part of her that sounded almost pleading, as if, by walking into this hotel suite tonight, she had handed over her right to make decisions about her own life. “I’ll get back to you—”
