Emma Darcy - The Bridal Bargain

No flirtatious twinkle.

What poured out at her was an almost savage intensity of feeling. It gripped her heart like a vice, squeezing it as though he wanted to extract her life essence, everything she was made of. Not because he wanted it. He just wanted to know. And he was angry at the need to know.

Hannah could feel herself shrivelling inside. She didn’t understand what he found wrong with her, why he was angry. In sheer self-defence, she broke the shattering flow from him by bending over to pick up her bag. He beat her intention by grabbing the straps ahead of her.

“I’ll carry it for you,” he said gruffly.

She didn’t argue. In fact, she snatched her hand back from making any contact with his. When he set off for the parking area where he’d left the jeep, she lagged a pace behind, struggling with a mountain of emotional confusion. She wasn’t sure she wanted to go with him or be connected to him for any length of time.

Rejection hurt.

She’d been there before.

All those months with Flynn…then to find him cheating with her best friend. It had made everything—absolutely everything—feel wrong.

She’d only just met Tony King but…anger started to burn, searing away the hurt. He had no right to treat her as though she was some kind of unwelcome intruder in his life. He could have vetoed his grandmother’s judgement and taken on one of the other applicants for the job of chef. She shouldn’t be fretting over what he might perceive as wrong with her. The fault obviously lay in him.

She was fine.

His grandmother thought she was fine.

The crew of Duchess thought she was fine.

So there had to be something wrong with Tony King if he didn’t think she was fine.

TONY tried to get a grip on himself as he drove the jeep up to Macrosson Street. He’d never felt jealous over any woman in his entire life. Just a harmless comment about Hannah’s dimples and David Hampson could have been a dead man back there, which was a totally over the top reaction.

The effect Hannah O’Neill had on him was getting close to disastrous. Even when she had set him straight in an upfront reasonable manner that should have forced him to be rational about the crew situation, he couldn’t get over the hump of the feelings she stirred in him. He told himself it was stupid to transfer those feelings to every guy who met her. She wasn’t so…stunningly captivating. She was just…very attractive.

Yet when he’d checked her over again with that one modest backpack from the locker telling him she was certainly unique amongst all the woman he’d known—living with so little—bells had definitely been ringing for him, a whole host of physical bells that still had his body buzzing with demands he had to dampen, not to mention the alarm bell in his head that told him he was in danger of losing it, along with all the common sense he’d learnt from past experience.

Remember Robyn, he savagely recited to himself as he spotted a place to park and pulled the jeep into it. He’d taken the tempting bait, fallen into the Robyn trap, then found she was claiming special privileges from the crew on the grounds of being his woman, lording it over them and even being rude to the day-trippers because she didn’t have to please anyone as long as she was pleasing Tony King in bed.

No more of that.

Employees could not be playmates.

Never!

He switched off the engine and steeled himself to look at Hannah O’Neill with no more than polite consideration.

“I have to pick up the apartment key from my brother. It will only take a few minutes.” He pointed to the building he was about to enter. “That’s the control centre for King Investments. Alex runs it. Are you okay waiting here?”

She nodded, her attention turning to the building so he only caught a glimpse of the bewitching green eyes. He got himself moving, determined on swift practical action. The sooner Hannah was delivered to an apartment, the sooner he could get her out from under his skin.

A pity he wasn’t involved with anyone at the moment. That was probably half the problem, missing the intimate company of a woman he liked. There was a hole in his life to be filled, but that was no reason to fill it with Hannah O’Neill. It was just a matter of looking around, putting himself in the social swim. He’d find a woman who attracted him and maybe she’d be right for him. Like Gina was for Alex.

Now there was a marriage he could envy. His brother had hit the jackpot with Gina Terlizzi. And made a lucky escape from the woman who’d thought she had Alex right where she wanted him—a user like Robyn. Self-centred sexy women could be very dangerous. A man definitely needed to keep his wits around them.

He just caught Alex as he was about to leave. Five o’clock. No working overtime now he had Gina to go home to. “Hold on a moment! I need a key to one of the guest apartments,” Tony told him, blocking the doorway out of the executive office.

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