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Now she was blushing. She knew it. And what was there to blush about?
He folded his arms over his chest.
“Let me save you the trouble. You were thinking that the sex had nothing to do with our situation.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “I’m glad you understand. We’re still adversaries.”
He said nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t understood her. His English seemed flawless but, as an attorney, especially one who worked with the poor, she often dealt with people who seemed to speak excellent English and yet still struggled with words that had a particular subtlety to them.
“You know,” she said carefully. “The land.”
He went on looking at her, saying nothing. A muscle ticked in his jaw; she saw it and she stood up to gain whatever advantage it might give her.
“Look, I’m simply trying to set things straight. We slept together.”
“Such a charming phrase.”
“Why? Because it comes from a woman?”
Draco’s lips drew back from his teeth. “It comes from the Orsini consigliere.”
Anna’s chin came up. “You’re twisting my words.”
“Then let me untwist them. You’re telling me that we had sex. And I should not assume the event was a turning point in our little legal drama.”
His voice was more than flat; it was as cold as winter. Anna moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
“I wouldn’t have put it quite so—so—”
“Bluntly?” He stood up, and she lost whatever pathetic advantage in height she’d had.
“Well, yes. I mean—”
“You mean,” he said with a quick, sharp smile, “I should not think that by sleeping with me, you’ve given up your right to try and take from me that which is mine.”
There it was again, all that upper-class arrogance. That I-am-rich-and-you-are-not rubbish that had driven her parents from Sicily, that she saw every day in her work.
“The land is not yours, and you damned well know it!”
“It is mine, it has always been mine, and no Sicilian thug is going to change that by sending his daughter to do his dirty work in her bed.”
“You—you aristocratic bastard!”
“Tell me, Anna. Whose idea was it to sleep with the enemy? Yours? Or your father’s?”
Anna’s hand flew through the air and cracked against Draco’s jaw. He caught her by the wrist, twisted her arm behind her, brought her to her toes.
“Did you really think I would tell you that I changed my mind? That I would be happy to let you have the land in exchange for me having had you?”
“That’s disgusting!”
“What is disgusting,” he said in a low voice, “is that I should have forgotten, even for a moment, that the blood of thieves and thugs runs in your veins.”
“Get out,” she snapped. “Get the hell out of my room!”
His hand fell from hers. “With pleasure,” he said, turning his back and reaching for his clothes.
“Just get this straight,” Anna said, her voice shaking with anger. “The Orsinis will see to it that you’ll never be able to use that land, not if I have to stay here for the next hundred years.”
