The Spaniard's Inconvenient Wife Read Free Page B

incentives the deal is still way too expensive.’
    ‘I wasn’t offering,’ Estrella snapped back. ‘I was simply pointing out just what you’ve missed. There is no deal on offer, Señor Dario, nor ever will be—at least not where you’re concerned.’
    Coming out from behind the chair, she marched across the room towards the door, twisting the handle with a violence that made her wish it were his neck, and smiled grimly to herself at the thought.
    ‘All negotiations are closed,’ she said, opening the door wide and standing aside so as to give him more than enough space to get through without having to come within an inch of her. ‘This meeting is at an end. I would appreciate it if you would leave.’
    ‘Willingly,’ Ramón returned, sharp as a stiletto blade, and he actually sketched a small, cynical parody of a courtly bow in her direction before he moved too.
    His every stride, the tautly upright, uptight way he held his strong body, told exactly the mood he was in. He was furious, and it showed. He also despised her totally, wished he were anywhere but here, and couldn’t get out of the room quickly enough.
    Which made a total nonsense of the sudden, overwhelming feeling she had: the impossible, unbelievable, but savage sense of regret that tore at her with the realisation that in two minutes, maybe less, he would be gone. And she would never see him again.
    But that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To have him out of her life, never to see him again. Never to have to look into his eyes and see the burning scorn, the icy contempt that made her shiver like a leaf in the wind.
    It was what she wanted, but, just watching him, she was a prey to a sudden shaft of pure need. She didn’t know how, she didn’t know why, but something about this man had hit home to all that was female in her. She had been able to let all the others go without a single qualm—but not him. He hadn’t even touched her—or kissed her and if she let him go now, like this, then he never would.
    The need to have known this man’s kiss, if only once in her lifetime, was so overpowering that she almost spoke of it. She actually opened her mouth to beg him to stay, just for a moment. To pause and turn away from his determined path.
    But she didn’t dare. Her tongue seemed tied into knots and she could only watch in silence as Ramón continued on his way towards the open door.
    But not out of the door.
    Instead, just as he came near, he made a tiny detour, coming close to her instead. The look in his eyes warned her, but before Estrella could quite work out just what was in his mind he had already acted.
    Reaching out, he caught hold of her shoulders, pulling her up to him with a sudden, jerky movement. All the breath escaped from her lungs in a gasp as her breasts made contact with the hard, warm wall of his chest, and she had no time to think, or resist, before his hand came under her chin and pushed it upwards so that her angry black eyes clashed with the cool, assessing grey of his.
    ‘I’ll leave,’ he muttered roughly, his voice thick with suppressed rage and something else, something that made her shiver inwardly, but whether in fear or a thread of excited anticipation, she was unable to say. ‘I’ll leave—and willingly—but first there’s something I just have to do.’
    Storm cloud eyes dropped to her lips just in time to catchher slicking them nervously with her tongue before his gaze flicked back up to meet her nervous ebony one.
    ‘Something I’ve been wanting to do since the moment I met you. Something you’ve been tempting me to do since you walked through that door.’
    ‘I—’ Estrella tried to protest, but the words were crushed back down her throat as his mouth came down on hers, taking possession of her lips with a wildly demanding hunger that struck with all the force of a tidal wave.
    A tidal wave that swept her away completely with its power, driving all thoughts from her mind. Instead, she was only