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In the beginning, when Charlie and Raymond had been arrested, she’d tried to hide her face as the photographers rushed forward, shouting her and her mother’s names, but she’d quickly realised that there was nowhere to hide. So she’d learned to school her features, to blank her gaze and give nothing away.
It was just a pity that she hadn’t been equipped with that skill on the night of Alicia’s birthday—the night when she’d stripped, both literally and metaphorically, for Basa.
Pushing the memories aside, she glanced up at the Basquiats.
‘They’re incredible. But I would have thought they were a little too edgy for your taste.’
His level gaze rested on her face. ‘Perhaps. But art is like dining. If you always eat the same food, you never expand your palate. Besides...’ he smiled slowly, his dark eyes drifting down over her dress ‘...I like sampling new flavours.’
Her heart jerked inside her chest. Was that what had happened that night? Was that how he had seen her? As a ‘new flavour’? She thought back to his parting remark by the pool, and the ache in her chest solidified into a hard ball of anger.
He was so entitled and arrogant. Lumping her in with every other woman in his sexual back catalogue. But she would see if he liked having the same treatment himself.
Lifting her chin, she held his gaze. ‘I like sampling new things too.’
The lie made her heart race faster, but what did it matter? She’d tried telling him the truth, and it had done nothing to change his low opinion of her, so frankly he didn’t deserve the truth. She watched his eyes darken, felt a pulse of satisfaction and unease bumping over her skin.
For a moment he didn’t reply and then, laying his cutlery down, he said softly, ‘I’m sure you do. Just make sure you don’t sample any at my sister’s wedding.’
Mimi stared at him in silence, trying to remember her private promise to Alicia, but as she looked up into his face something inside her snapped. Thanks to his careless treatment of her she hadn’t had the confidence to so much as kiss a man, much less have sex with him, for two years, and now he was warning her off.
‘It’s none of your business what I do or who I do it with,’ she snarled. ‘You are not my keeper.’
It was the wrong answer—she knew that even before he leaned forward, his gaze narrowing as though he was tracking her with a long-range rifle.
‘It is my business if you start hitting on my guests.’
Her heart was beating so hard she could feel her ribs quivering. Was he for real?
‘If anyone’s going to start hitting on the guests it will probably be you,’ she snapped, the words spilling from her mouth like milk boiling over in a pan. ‘Or have you forgotten what happened at Alicia’s party?’
He stared at her in silence and she felt her pulse accelerate, the palms of her hands grow damp. It was like being in some horrible nightmare when you couldn’t wake yourself up. Only she wasn’t asleep, and this conversation was going nowhere—unless reliving the humiliation of that night was her goal.
But what would be the point of rehashing the past? It was history, fixed for ever in time. What mattered was what was happening here and now—or rather, what wasn’t happening. Not any more anyway.
‘You know, I’d have thought a busy man like yourself wouldn’t have time for playing games,’ she said, leaning back in her chair, wanting more distance between herself and his unsettling dark gaze.
‘I’m not playing games,’ he said softly.
‘Oh, but you are. Nasty, horrible, bullying games.’
He laughed, the sound echoing harshly around the beautiful room, and her heart began to thump hard inside her chest.
‘How exactly am I bullying you, Mimi? Please, I’m curious. Was it your first-class flight? Did you find that too oppressive?’ he said mockingly. ‘Or does coming here to my beautiful home and being waited on by my staff make you feel threatened?’
She glared at him. ‘I didn’t want to come out to Argentina. You made me feel like I had to.’
‘You did have to,’ he said coolly. ‘I have—’
‘Rules. Yes, I know.’ She spat the words at him dismissively. ‘You told me. And I believe you. A stuffed shirt like you probably has a library of rule books—but surely none that required me to come out here in person.’ Meeting his eyes, she shook her head. ‘No, there’s only one reason you dragged me out here, and it’s got nothing to do with how I conduct myself in your Patagonian home.’
His face didn’t alter, but something shifted in his eyes, and she felt her breathing lose its rhythm as she realised that her hunch was correct.
‘You hate it, don’t you? The fact that Alicia is my friend. And you can’t bear it that you haven’t been able to change her mind. That’s why you want me out here—so you can spend two days trying to make me walk away from our friendship. To make me look like the bad girl. Well, it’s not going to happen.’
She breathed in sharply, her pulse accelerating, as without warning he scraped back his chair against the marble floor. The force of his action nearly tipped it over and then, with swift, purposeful intent, he strode around the table until he was standing in front of her.
‘It already has,’ he snarled. ‘You might look like an angel but you’re just like the rest of your family: rotten to the core. Unfortunately, my gentle, big-hearted sister has yet to discover the real Mimi Miller, so I thought I’d speed up the process a little.’
