The Parenti Marriage: The Reluctant Surrender. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ he was repeating tauntingly. ‘How are illegally parked cars normally removed? And as to where…’

      She’d stepped back from him, giving him a haughty look that suggested his proximity was something she wanted to reject, Saul recognised, and his male pride was now as antagonised by her attitude as his temper. Women did not step back from him. Quite the opposite. They clung to him—sometimes far more than he wanted them to do.

      Just for a moment Saul mentally allowed himself the pleasure of picturing Giselle clinging to him, her face turned up beseechingly towards his own. That would be a pleasure? Having her want him to bed her? Was he going mad? There was nothing about her that aroused him sexually, nothing at all. He liked his women softly feminine, not challenging and aggressive. He liked them warm and welcoming, not icy cold and rejecting. The thought of taming such a shrew might excite some men, but he was not one of them.

      Having stepped back from Saul to what she hoped was a safe distance from the lure of his sexuality, Giselle managed to drag together the determination to insist, ‘My car was not parked illegally, and if you’ve had it clamped and towed away then you are the one who is breaking the law.’

      Oh, yes, she was definitely a shrew, Saul decided as he bent to retrieve a stray sheet of paper that had fluttered close to his feet. Automatically he scanned the print on it and then paused to read it more slowly before demanding, ‘You’re working on this project free of charge?’

      Desperate to retrieve the paper, Giselle reached for it, almost snatching it from him in her fear of accidentally coming into physical contact with him.

      ‘And what if I am?’ she defended herself sharply. ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with you, and you have no right to question me.’

      There she went again, challenging him with her open animosity to him, when by rights she ought to be humbling herself, admitting her previous fault and seeking his forgiveness.

      He had, Saul decided, had enough.

      The history of his genes meant that he was not a man who allowed anyone to challenge him, and for a challenge to go unanswered was unthinkable. He might not rule Arezzio, but his ancestors had. They had ruled it and held it against all those who had challenged their right to it. Their blood flowed in his veins and those who defied him—in any way—did so at their own risk.

      ‘You think not?’

      The silky tone of his voice had an electrifying effect on her, causing the fine hairs at the nape of her neck to stand on end, her flesh to react as though he had touched it, caressed it.

      ‘I understand from Mr Shepherd at the practice that your job is very important to you?’

      ‘He told you that?’ The words were spoken before Giselle could hold them back. She shivered inwardly with apprehension, unable to conceal the shocked fear that darkened her green eyes to a deep jade. She hadn’t realised that Mr Shepherd even knew how much her job security mattered to her, never mind discussing it with someone else.

      So he had found something that made her feel vulnerable. Saul applauded himself.

      ‘He said that you had turned down far more prestigious job offers and career opportunities to remain with the firm—something which he appears to consider a mark of employee loyalty. I, on the other hand, believe your motivation must be something far more powerful, and am curious to know just what it is.’

      He was curious about her? Even as he had spoken the words Saul had felt the jolt of wariness that had shocked through him.

      What was it about this woman that was having such an unprecedented effect on him? First she antagonised him and aroused his anger. Now she was arousing his curiosity. Deep within him a normally silent voice was asking him the unthinkable. If she could touch the emotions he normally controlled so tightly that they were immune to being touched, and if he allowed himself to be aroused physically by her, then what would happen? Did he really need to ask? He knew, after all, what happened when someone put a light to a keg of dynamite. The result was destruction. Destruction? Did this infuriating woman have the power to arouse him to the point where that arousal could destroy the barriers he had put in place to keep him immune to the weakness of needing one specific other person in his life? Impossible, Saul reassured himself.

      Saul was waiting for her response, Giselle knew—just as she knew that she didn’t want to answer him.

      ‘Why stay in a job for which you are over-qualified and I daresay underpaid? Unless, of course, you fear that all those qualifications of yours are merely pieces of paper and that in reality you are not up to the work you would be required to do at a higher level.’

      Saul pressed her, determined not to step back from his probing just because of an inner warning he refused to give credence to.

      His accusation jolted Giselle into an immediate repudiation.

      ‘Of course I’m up to it.’ Angry pride reflected in both Giselle’s voice and the look she gave him. ‘And I am confident that I could do any job I was offered.’

      ‘Are you now?’ Her assertion showed him yet another strand to her personality. With the revelation of each new strand he felt increasingly compelled to know more about her. Because she infuriated and antagonised him. Because she was so unlike any other woman he knew. Because she didn’t treat him as they did, with delight and docility, eager to please him and pleasure him, his own inner voice dryly mocked him.

      She was obviously determined not to answer him, but Saul was equally determined that he would have an answer. He changed tack, saying silkily, ‘Correct me if I am wrong, but the Kovoca Island project is, as I understand it, all that currently stands between your employers and insolvency—and with that insolvency the loss of your job?’

      Giselle’s mouth went dry and her heart started pounding wretchedly heavily as she recognised the threat in his words. She was forced to concede. ‘Yes, that is correct.’

      ‘Given your employer has suggested to me that it will facilitate matters if you are seconded to me, to ensure that in future all redrawn plans and costings are in line with my requirements, I should have thought that it is only natural that I would have the right to enquire into your reliability and your probity—in all professional matters.’

      Silenced by the shock of what she had just learned, Giselle could only stare at him in appalled dismay.

      This couldn’t be happening. He—her tormentor—could not be standing there saying that she would be working directly with him, that she would in effect be responsible to him and thus in his power. But he was, Giselle acknowledged as she fought against the panic washing through her at full flood force. If only she could tell him to find someone else to be seconded to him. If only she could turn on her heel and walk away from him…if only he didn’t affect her in the way that he did. So many if onlys. Her life was full of them—heartsickening, cruelly destructive words that spoke of what could never be. She was trapped, by duty and by love, and she had to hold on to this job even though that now meant that she would be in Saul’s power.

      At least he did not know how vulnerable she was to him as a woman, Giselle tried to comfort herself. A man like him must be so used to arousing desire in her sex that he simply took it for granted—just as he seemed to take his pick of the beautiful women who flocked around him, from what Emma had told her. Well, he’d certainly never want to pick her. Thank goodness.

      ‘It is not my choice that you СКАЧАТЬ