Cathy Williams - Ruthless Revenge - Passionate Possession

But for the moment...

He really liked the way she blushed. He could almost forget that she was the scheming young girl who had played him for an idiot.

‘So we just need to talk about the details. And stop glaring. I thought all women liked to show off their bodies.’

Sophie glared. ‘Really, Javier? You really think that?’

‘Who wouldn’t like to be asked to model?’

‘Is that the message you’ve got from...from the women you’ve been out with?’

Javier looked at her narrowly because this was the first time she had ventured near the question of his love life. ‘Most of the women I’ve been out with,’ he murmured, ‘were already catwalk models, accustomed to dealing with the full glare of the public spotlight.’

She’d wondered. Of course she had. Now she knew. Models. Naturally. He certainly wouldn’t have dated normal, average women holding down normal, average jobs. He was the man who could have it all and men who could have it all always, but always, seemed to want to have models glued to their arm. It was just so...predictable.

‘You’ve stopped glaring,’ Javier said. ‘Which is a good thing. But now there’s disapproval stamped all over your face. What are you disapproving of? My choice of woman?’

‘I don’t care what your choice of girlfriends has been!’

‘Don’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Because you look a little agitated. What’s wrong with models? Some of them can be relatively clever, as it happens.’

‘Relatively clever...’ Sophie snorted. Her colour was high and the look in his sinfully dark eyes was doing weird things to her, making her feel jumpy and thrillingly excited.

Making her nipples tighten...stoking a dampness between her thighs that had nothing to do with her scorn for his choice of dates, whoever those nameless dates had been.

Instant recall of that kiss they had shared made her breath hitch temporarily in her throat.

Just as she had stridently demanded, no mention had been made of it again. It was as though it had never happened. Yes, that was exactly what she had wanted, but it hadn’t stopped her constantly harking back to it in her head, reliving the moment and burning up just at the thought of it. How could a bruised and battered heart take second billing to a body that seemed to do whatever it felt like doing?

‘You used to tell me that you liked the fact that I had opinions!’

‘Many models have opinions—admittedly not of the intellectual variety. They have very strong opinions on, oh, shoes...bags...other models...’

Sophie felt her mouth twitch. She’d missed his sense of humour. In fact, thinking about it, he’d been the benchmark against which Roger had never stood a chance. Not that he had ever been in the running...

In fact, thinking about it, wasn’t he the benchmark against which every other man had always been set and always would be? When would that end? How could she resign herself to a half-life because she was still wrapped up in the man in front of her? Because that intense physical reaction just hadn’t died and could still make itself felt through all the layers of sadness and despair that had shaped the woman she was now.

She hadn’t looked twice at any guy since she’d been on her own. Hadn’t even been tempted!

Yet here she was, not only wanting to look but wanting to touch...

Why kid herself? Telling herself to pretend that that kiss had never happened didn’t actually mean that it had disappeared from her head.

And telling herself that she should feel nothing for a guy who belonged to her past, a guy who wasn’t even interested in her, didn’t actually mean that she felt nothing for him.

Lust—that was what it was—and the harder she tried to deny its existence, the more powerful a grip it seemed to have over her.

And part of the reason was because...he wasn’t indifferent, was he?

Heart racing, she looked down and gave proper house room in her head to all those barely discernible signals she had felt emanating from him over the past few weeks.

For starters, there had been that kiss.

She’d felt the way his mouth had explored hers, hungry and greedy and wanting more.

And then, working in the same space, she’d lodged somewhere in the back of her head those accidental brushes when he had leant over her, caging her in in front of her computer so that he could explain some detail on the screen.

She’d committed to memory the way she had occasionally surprised his lazy dark eyes resting on her just a fraction longer than necessary.

And sometimes...didn’t he stand just a little too close? Close enough for her to feel the heat from his body? To smell his clean, masculine scent?

Didn’t all of that add up to something?

She didn’t know whether he was even aware of the dangerous current running between them just beneath the surface. If he was, then it was obvious that he had no intention of doing anything about it.

And then, one day, he would no longer be around.

Right now, he was making sure that his investment paid off. He had sunk money into a bailout, and he wasn’t going to see that money flushed down the drain, so he was taking an active part in progressing the company.

But soon enough the company would be on firmer ground and he would be able to retreat and hand over the running of it to other people, herself included.

He would resume his hectic life running his own empire.

And she, likewise, would return to Yorkshire to take up full-time residence in the family home, which she would be able to renovate at least enough to make it a viable selling proposition.

They would part company.

And she would be left with this strange, empty feeling for the rest of her life.

She felt guilty enough about the way they had broken up. On top of that, he would remain the benchmark against which no other man would ever stand a chance of competing for ever.

She should have slept with him.

She knew that now. She should have slept with him instead of holding on to all those girlish fantasies about saving herself for when that time came and she knew that they would be a permanent item, for when she was convinced that their relationship was made to stand the test of time.

If she’d slept with him, he would never have achieved the impossible status of being the only guy capable of turning her on. If she’d slept with him, she might not feel so guilty about the way everything had crashed and burned.

Was it selfish now to think that, if she righted that oversight, she might be free to get on with her life? Things were being sorted financially but what was the good of that if, emotionally, she remained in some kind of dreadful, self-inflicted limbo?

She wasn’t the selfish sort. She had never thought of herself as the kind of pushy, independent type who took what she wanted from a man to satisfy her own needs.

The opposite!

But she knew, with a certain amount of desperation, that if she didn’t take what she wanted now she would create all sorts of problems for herself down the line.

She wondered whether she could talk to her mother about it and immediately dismissed that thought because, as far as Evelyn Griffin-Watt was concerned, Javier was a youthful blip who had been cut out of her life a long time ago, leaving no nasty scars behind.

Besides, her mother was leading an uncomplicated and contented life in Cornwall; was it really fair to bring back unpleasant memories by resurrecting a long, involved conversation about the past?

‘Okay.’

‘Come again?’

‘I’ll do it.’

Javier smiled slowly. In truth, the whole modelling idea had sprung to mind only the day before, and he had anticipated defeat, but here she was...agreeing after a pretty half-hearted battle. At least, half-hearted for her.