Tall, Dark & Rich: His Christmas Virgin / Married by Christmas / A Yuletide Seduction. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ and he made a point of never mixing business with pleasure. And Jonas had no doubts it would have been very pleasurable to touch and taste those full and pouting lips with his own…

      His expression was deliberately taunting as he looked down at her. ‘In that dress you look like a woman who’s ready for hot and wild sex.’

      Mac’s eyes widened as she gasped at the insult. ‘I’ll wear what I damn well please!’

      That blue gaze moved deliberately down to the split in the side of her dress that revealed the long, bare length of her silky thigh. ‘Obviously.’

      ‘You’re no better than the idiot whose attentions you just appeared to save me from,’ she accused furiously as she pulled his jacket from about her shoulders and almost threw it back at him before turning on her heel and marching back into the gallery without so much as a second glance.

      Rude. Obnoxious. Insulting. Rat!

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘I DON’T give a damn whether Mr Buchanan is busy or not,’ an angry voice—that unfortunately Jonas recognised only too well!—snapped in the outer office of his London headquarters at nine-thirty on Monday morning. ‘No, I have no intention of making an appointment. I want to talk to him now!’ The door between the two rooms was flung open as Mac burst into Jonas’s office.

      Jonas barely had time to register her appearance, in a fitted black jumper and faded hipster blue denims, her hair a silken ebony curtain over her shoulders and down the length of her spine, before she marched over to stand in front of his desk, her cheeks flushed and eyes fever bright as she glared across at him.

      She looked like a feral cat—and just as ready to spit and claw!

      Jonas tilted his head sideways in order to look over at his secretary as she stood hesitantly in the doorway. ‘There’s no need to call Security, Mandy,’ he drawled. ‘I’m sure Miss McGuire won’t be staying long…’ He looked up enquiringly at Mac as he added that last statement.

      Her eyes narrowed menacingly and she seemed to literally breathe fire at him. ‘Long enough to tell you exactly what I think of you and your strong-arm tactics, at least!’ she snarled.

      ‘Thanks, Mandy,’ Jonas dismissed his secretary, waiting until she had quietly left the room before looking back at Mac. ‘You appear to be a little…distraught, this morning?’

      ‘Distraught!’ she echoed incredulously. ‘I’m furious!’

      Jonas could clearly see that. He just had no idea why that was.

      Thankfully Amy had been ready to leave the gallery on Saturday evening when Jonas returned, allowing no opportunity for him and Mac to engage in any more arguments. Or to tempt Jonas into wanting to kiss her…

      In the thirty-six hours since Jonas had last seen Mac, he had managed to convince himself that temptation had been an aberration on his part, a purely male reaction to the fact that she had looked as sexy as hell in that red silk dress.

      Except that he now found himself facing the same temptation!

      Mac wasn’t wearing any make-up today, and her hair was windblown, her clothes casual in the extreme—and yet he still found his gaze drawn again and again to the fullness of her tempting lips.

      Jonas’s fingers tightened about the pen he was holding. ‘Perhaps you would care to tell me why you’re so furious?’ he asked harshly. ‘And what it has to do with me,’ he added.

      ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to tell you exactly why,’ Mac promised. ‘And you know damn well what it has to do with you!’ she said accusingly.

      Jonas raised his palms. ‘I really am very busy this morning, Mac—’

      ‘Do you have someone else you need to go and intimidate?’ she scorned. ‘Oh, I forgot—you usually leave that sort of thing to your underlings!’ She snorted disgustedly. ‘Well, let me assure you that I don’t scare that easily—’

      ‘Would you just calm down and tell me what the hell you’re talking about?’ he cut in coldly, those blue eyes glacial.

      Mac was breathing hard, too upset still to heed the warning she could see in that chilling gaze. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about—’

      ‘If I did, I would hardly be asking you to explain, now, would I?’ Jonas retorted.

      Mac’s gaze narrowed. ‘You knew I wouldn’t be at home on Saturday evening because of the exhibition, and you shamelessly took advantage of that fact. You—’

      He threw his pen down on the desktop before standing up impatiently. ‘Mac, if you don’t stop throwing out accusations, and just explain yourself, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

      The anger Mac was feeling had been brewing, growing, since she’d returned home on Saturday evening. Having no idea where Jonas Buchanan actually lived, she’d had to spend all of Sunday brooding too, with only the promise of being able to visit Jonas at his office first thing on Monday morning to sustain her. Having his secretary try to stonewall her had done nothing to improve Mac’s mood.

      She drew in a controlling breath. ‘My studio was broken into on Saturday evening. But, then, you already knew that, didn’t you?’ she said pointedly. ‘You—’

      ‘Stop right there!’ Jonas thundered as he stepped out from behind his desk.

      Mac instinctively took a step backwards as he towered over her, appearing very dark and threatening in a charcoal-grey suit, pale grey shirt and grey silk tie, with that overlong dark hair styled back from the chiselled perfection of his face.

      Those sculptured lips firmed to a livid thin line. ‘You’re telling me that your studio was broken into while you were out at the exhibition on Saturday evening?’

      ‘You know that it was—’

      ‘Mac, if you’re going to continue to accuse me like this then I would seriously suggest that you have the evidence to back it up!’ he warned harshly. ‘Do you have that evidence?’ he pressed.

      She shook her head. ‘The police didn’t find anything that would directly implicate you, no,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But then, they wouldn’t have done, would they?’ she rallied. ‘You’re much more clever—’

       ‘Mac!’

      She blinked at the steely coldness Jonas managed to project into just that one word. Shivered slightly at the icy warning she could read in his expression.

      But she didn’t care how cold and steely Jonas was, the break-in had to have been carried out by someone who worked for him. Who else would have bothered, would have a reason to break into a building that, from the outside, appeared almost derelict?

      Jonas was hanging onto his own temper by a thread. Angered as much by the thought of someone having broken into Mac’s home at all, as at the accusations she was making about him being responsible for that breakin. She could so easily have been at home on Saturday evening. Could have been seriously hurt if she had disturbed the intruder.

      He СКАЧАТЬ