The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс

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      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—”

      “That is impossible,” he said, cutting her off. When she frowned at him, he only shrugged in that languid, lazy way of his that she was quickly coming to loathe. “We either use the momentum of this kiss to our benefit now, or we wait for it to blow over. For me, that will be very soon. For you? Perhaps not.” His hard mouth curved faintly. He was daring her, she realized, as her skin seemed to pull tight in response. “I wonder, are you more of a hypocrite if you are seen to date me, this man that you so famously hate—or if, having kissed me in so wanton a fashion in front of all the world, you don’t?”

      That question hung there between them. Miranda became aware of the rushing sound in her ears and the rapid clamor of her pulse, just as he’d pointed out before. And that too-tight feeling all over, like her skin was too small for her body. She forced herself to ignore it. And to think.

      The fact was, she knew he was on to something, however far-fetched and insane it sounded. However trapped she felt. She knew that a few accusations of hypocrisy were nothing compared to the kind of notoriety “dating” him would grant her—and notoriety would not only sell book proposals and the books that came from them, but guarantee that her presence as a pundit, as the go-to sound bite, was assured. As her agent had told her already, Ivan Korovin was sexy. The entire world was obsessed with him. If she went along with this, she would build her profile to unimaginable heights and would then be that much more able to get her message out, which was all she’d ever wanted in the first place. How could she turn that down and still live with herself?

      Besides, she thought, letting her gaze sweep over him, he really was the ultimate modern warrior. The biggest and the baddest of all the swaggering fighter types who dreamed of being just like him. These days he dominated the box office the same way he’d dominated the ring, and she’d seen for herself that he was even more formidable in person.

      “Dating” him would be like taking a trip through the belly of the beast. It would be taking her research to a previously unimagined level: testing her theories at the source. Interviewing the monster he’d claimed she’d made him in his very own lair.

      She sat back down on the sofa opposite him gingerly, crossing her legs, and smoothed her hands down the front of her trousers. She could feel his eyes on her, black and hooded, as he waited with a watchful patience that seemed like another kind of caress, and just as dangerous. She told herself it was only the enormity—and inarguable insanity—of what she was about to do that made her hands feel faintly damp against her legs.

      Excitement, she assured herself, not anxiety. And excitement for the book possibilities here, the career boost—not for him!

      But she knew she was a liar when she met his gaze and felt it sear straight through her, down to the soles of her feet, kicking up all of that heat and longing and fire along the way.

      That could only bode ill. She knew that, too.

      She was going to do it anyway.

      “I want to write a book,” she told him, and as she said it, she saw it all flash before her, as if it was preordained. She could call it something like Caveman Confidential. Her publisher would eat it up, and the public would rush out in droves to buy it, so desperate were they for this man. Even if what she said about him was negative. Ivan looked blank. She smiled. “About you.”

      “Out of the question.” He didn’t even pretend to consider it. “I do very minimal press, and no biographies. Ever.”

      “Yes, I know.” Miranda bit back a sigh and schooled her expression into something that might pass for detached. Unmoved. Uninvested. “You refuse to talk about your past. You refuse to discuss your personal life. You refuse, and because of that, you’re everybody’s favorite mystery. Well, if I’m going to risk my reputation, you can’t refuse me. I want total access.”

      “Why would I grant such a thing to someone who has already built her so-called career on tearing me to pieces in the public eye?” he asked with soft yet unmistakable menace. “Why would I give you ammunition?”

      Miranda didn’t much care for the so-called-career comment, but she also didn’t mistake the steel in his tone. It would not do to forget who and what this man was. What he could do.

      “You cannot possibly think me that much of a fool, Professor. Can you?”

      “Consider it your chance,” she said, her mind racing.

      “My chance to do what?” he asked drily. “Deliver myself willingly into your tender claws?”

      “To prove me wrong.”

      He let his gaze drag over her. Her mouth, her neck. Her breasts. Lower. It was deliberate. Obvious. And even so, she felt the heat of it. The kick.

      “I have had more appealing offers.” He was so arrogant. Every inch the wealthy, famous man. It set her teeth on edge, but she pushed on.

      “Then think of it as a challenge.” She raised her brows when his midnight gaze met hers again. “Convince me that I’m wrong about you. Convince me that I’ve been wrong about you all along. Isn’t that what you think?”

      “It is what I know. It is also true.”

      The way he said that seemed to hum in her. Like foreboding. Miranda shoved the feeling aside. She wanted this, suddenly, as if she’d come up with the idea herself. She wanted it fiercely.

      “Show me,” she said quietly, terrified he could hear how much she wanted him to agree in her voice. Terrified he was perverse enough to do precisely the opposite because of it. “Everything. And I’ll pretend to date you. I’ll do whatever you want.”

      Ages could have passed then, as he regarded her calmly from across the table СКАЧАТЬ