The Santorini Marriage Bargain. Margaret Mayo
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Название: The Santorini Marriage Bargain
Автор: Margaret Mayo
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Modern
isbn: 9781408912645
isbn:
But to bed her best friend! Why, she asked herself, had she never seen the signs before? How had they managed to keep their liaison a secret?
She slammed the door shut, and immediately Zarek crossed the room and pulled her hard against him. He didn’t speak; he seemed to know instinctively that no words would make her feel better.
Rhianne felt his strength seep into her. It was easy to forget that he was a stranger whom she’d met only a few hours ago. He was her saviour, holding her strongly when she felt like collapsing, stroking her hair, murmuring in his native language, finally, tilting her chin with a gentle finger, compelling her to look into his face.
And suddenly he was kissing her—and she was kissing him back! Hungrily and deeply, taking and savouring, her body flooding with alien passion. How could it be happening? How could she react like this when she was still upset by Angus’s cavalier attitude? The truth was Zarek’s kiss meant a whole lot more to her than Angus’s ever had.
Angus had considered himself a lady’s man, God’s gift to women—which she had blindly ignored—but Zarek was in a whole different league. She sensed that immediately. He wasn’t taking advantage of her weakness, he was comforting her. And how!
Her head began to spin, and when he put her from him she clung to the doorpost for support. Wow! A raging heat consumed her, and she was in such a daze that it was impossible to move.
Whether Zarek knew that it was because of his kiss, or whether he thought it was still a reaction to her fiancé’s perfidy, she didn’t know. But, whatever, he took command.
‘Let me help you pack,’ he said. ‘Where are your suitcases?’
Rhianne ineffectively tried to clear her head. He must think her an idiot standing there with her mouth open and her eyes wide. She pointed across the room, and he dragged them from the cupboard.
‘Right, I’ll empty your wardrobe, you do the drawers.’
Never had she imagined that she would let a man, a stranger at that, fold her dresses and skirts and place them carefully into a case. She was mesmerised by the way he did it, by the way he stroked out the creases before putting the next garment on top. Until he looked at her, until his dark eyes smiled and teased. ‘Do I have to do everything?’
Mentally shaking herself, Rhianne slid open drawers and threw her undies into the other case, going hot at the thought that if he hadn’t urged her into action, it would have been his hands lifting her intimate garments. And then the next time she wore them she would have remembered that he had touched them, maybe even covertly examined them. It didn’t bear thinking about.
How one comforting kiss could have sent her into such a tizz she didn’t know. Because that was all it had been. He had meant nothing by it.
‘You shouldn’t have kissed me,’ she said, and then wished she hadn’t because it gave too much of herself away.
‘You were hurting, I wanted to kiss you better.’
‘I’m not a child,’ she shot back, knowing she was overreacting but unable to help herself. She had enjoyed the kiss! Enjoyed it, for heaven’s sake, and that scared the hell out of her! She felt awful. How could this be happening? But worse still, she had promised to work for him. They would be in close proximity for several hours each day. She couldn’t do it. Not with the memory of his kiss hanging between them like a tantalising fruit.
‘I’m very much aware of that fact,’ Zarek informed her, his voice suddenly terse. ‘I am merely here to provide support. What happened was unfortunate. If you can put it behind you then the job is still yours, if you cannot forgive me then I will take you to your friend’s house, and you will never see me again.’
He paused for a moment, his eyes connecting with hers, cool brown fighting hot blue, and Rhianne knew that she had a hard decision to make.
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