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‘I beg your pardon?’ Suzy believed that she had misheard him.
‘I want to paint you in a wedding dress but not the same one I found you in. I’ve ordered a selection to be brought here this afternoon and I’ll choose the most suitable. Then you can go for a walk in the woods or something and dirty it up...add a strategic rip or two...’ Ruy shifted a careless hand that implied such behaviour was so normal as not to require further explanation.
‘You’ll have to cut the dress if you want rips,’ Suzy told him, striving not to sound as though she considered the concept to be strange. ‘I tore my dress climbing the tree and jumping out of it and I’m not doing that again.’
‘You can pose for the rough drawings here, but I plan to set the background in Spain. There’s an orange grove at my home there.’
‘You live on a fruit farm?’ she asked with interest.
‘There are orange orchards nearby,’ Ruy parried, knowing he ought to tell her the truth, but holding out for as long as he could because he enjoyed her resolutely unimpressed attitude to him and he was afraid that unveiling the reality of his astronomic wealth would fatally change that.
And he preferred her as she was: an ordinary girl from an ordinary working background. Her breezy irreverence stemmed from that solid base. She had strong values. She respected hard work and was entirely free of snobbery. He had observed her in the pub and interacting with his nieces, learning that she was considerate towards the elderly and that she loved children, who loved her back because she was one of those adults who had never quite buried their inner child. Right now, she was relaxed with him, which was exactly how he needed her to be before he could paint her. How much would her outlook shift once she knew the truth about him?
‘The stylist who is bringing the gowns will also be taking your measurements for the clothes you’ll need to have for Spain,’ Ruy volunteered casually.
‘I don’t need any new clothes for Spain. I have all the stuff I got for the honeymoon I was supposed to be having in Barbados,’ Suzy pointed out.
‘I doubt if there will be an outfit suitable for a high-society wedding. It won’t be similar to a beach holiday where you throw on anything that’s comfortable,’ Ruy murmured drily.
‘You can dress me however you like for painting...that’s what artists do, isn’t it?’ Suzy asked uncertainly and then her triangular face tightened, her chin lifting, her bright eyes glinting back at him. ‘But you don’t get to tell me what to wear any other time or in any other place.’
‘The clothes are merely props for the role you’ll be carrying out for my benefit and I wouldn’t be engaged to a woman who was poorly dressed.’
‘My goodness, what a superficial person you are!’ Suzy scoffed in exasperation. ‘I said no, Ruy. Accept a refusal with grace.’
‘Be realistic, Suzy,’ Ruy breathed coolly. ‘If this is about me buying you clothes, dump them when we part, but don’t make this venture of ours more difficult than it needs to be!’
Suzy spun away from him, feeling rather as if she were trying to face down an invasion force. Given the smallest chance, Ruy would encroach a little way over the line, but if his initial incursion was successful, he would then flood in and take over at ridiculous speed and it infuriated her. She knew very well that nothing in her wardrobe would pass muster at an upmarket wedding. Ruy had been correct when he surmised that most of the stuff she had could be categorised as casual, rather than elegant or expensive. But he set her back up every time he came over all macho and bossy. Six months of having to dance to Percy’s tune had made her touchy on that score.
Even so, Ruy had done her a huge favour when he’d helped her deal with Percy, she reminded herself, and now it was payback time. She whirled back to him, eyes defiant. ‘You’re making me feel like I’m the unreasonable one!’ she condemned.
‘It’s a week of dressing up and acting attached to me...no big deal!’ Ruy shot back at her.
Suzy settled her keen gaze on him. ‘Ruy? Learn to quit when you’re ahead. This is not the time to lay down the law and score points. I don’t work for you. I’m not going to salute you and say, thank you, sir, what would you like me to do next?’
Ruy levered fluidly upright, long lean limbs effortlessly graceful, the power in his smouldering dark golden gaze illuminating his lean, devastatingly handsome features. ‘No, you definitely don’t want to ask me that question because you might not like my answer,’ he breathed thickly.
Sixth sense prompted Suzy to back away until her shoulder blades met the window behind her. Sometimes when Ruy looked at her a certain way it felt like straying perilously close to a roaring blaze.
‘On the other hand, you might like it too much,’ Ruy completed huskily, gazing down at her with extraordinarily compelling golden eyes. ‘And so might I.’
He traced her full lower lip with his fingertip and her stomach turned over and her head swam and her knees felt weak, because he was close enough for her to smell the rawly familiar cologne-tinged scent of him. She teetered forward a few inches, closer. It was dangerous and she knew it was, knew that they were both attempting to respect boundaries and that, maddeningly, it was the most terrible struggle to do so.
‘Kiss me,’ he husked, his breath fanning her cheek, making her shiver with awareness.
And she stretched up and he stretched down and their lips collided, hers brushing back and forth with a tantalising lightness of touch, his hotter, harder, claiming her mouth with a fierce, impatient hunger that sent a shower of sparks licking up through her entire body. She had never wanted anything so much as she wanted that kiss to continue, but she also remembered the sensible limits she had promised herself that she would respect. She twisted her head away and sidestepped him, snatching in oxygen as though she had been drowning, denying the sensations rippling through her body in a seductive tide of response. The pulsing ache between her thighs hurt.
‘I choose any clothes and I leave them behind when I’m done,’ Suzy specified tightly, mentally washing away what had just happened between them, ignoring it as best she could.
Ruy clenched his teeth hard, rejection not being a reaction he had much experience with. It galled him that she had backed away first and that it had been the rational thing to do. Sex would muddy the waters of what was essentially a business arrangement, although it wasn’t business when he wasn’t paying her a fee, was it? And business didn’t make him as hard as a rock with frustration either, he reasoned grimly.
‘And we try to keep our connection friendly and...er...distant,’ Suzy suggested shakily.
‘Choose your battles with care, querida,’ Ruy murmured sibilantly. ‘I suspect we’re both bad losers.’
