He is leaning against the door and simply watching her.

‘Well?’ she prompted.

‘Are you over eighteen?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am,’ she snaps.  ‘Not that it is any of your business.’

‘What will Lothian get for his money?’

So he did hear.  Oh the shame.  If the ground could have opened up and swallowed her…  Fortunately, a fine anger comes to her rescue.  How dare he?  The audacity.  Overbearing, arrogant bastard.  With all the hauteur she can manage under the circumstances, she grates, ‘That is private if you don’t mind, and if that was all…’

‘It’s not idle curiosity.  I’m quite happy to double the sum if it’s what I think it is.’

She stares at him.  She understands why someone like Rupert would have to pay, but Blake Law Barrington?  He could have anyone he wants.  Then it occurs to her that, perhaps, he is just toying with her.  Perhaps it is a thing all rich men do.

Her pride comes to the fore.  She will not be humiliated twice in one night.  ‘Whatever I have offered is for Rupert and only Rupert.  Now please get away from that door and the hell away from me.’  Her voice has risen in anger.

His eyes spark.  ‘Do you know your eyes are like the blue of struck matches when you are angry.’  Then more softly, ‘Why would anyone, let alone a stunner like you, get involved with someone who, if the most impeccable sources are to be trusted, is an absolute brute?  He beat one woman so badly he broke her jaw, and blinded her in one eye.’

Lana closes her eyes.  She has drunk too much champagne.  The whole situation has become impossible for her to deal with in her present condition.  She has ventured where she should never have gone.  She feels the sting of defeat in her bones.  ‘What do you want from me?’

He leaves the door and walks towards her.  Again that sensation that he is a predatory animal.  ‘Well for a start…’  He reaches her and suddenly jerks her towards him.  She falls forward and is pitched against his hard body.  Her palms come into contact with the smooth material of his jacket.  Shocked, she is filled with the scent that Rupert called old money and establishment.  Difficult to define, but it reminds her of rosemary, not because of its smell, but because it is so clear and distinct.  Nothing wishy-washy about it.

Everything takes on an unreal appearance.  The fabulously wealthy interior.  The man outside that door that wants to rape her for money.  The frighteningly remote man in front of her that brings into her body sensations she has never experienced before.  A pulse at the base of his throat is throbbing.  She watches it curiously.  She has never seen it in a man before.  And then an arm comes around her, a fistful of hair close to her nape is grasped and tugged so her face is tilted up towards him.  ‘This,’ he says and his mouth swoops down to possess hers.  His breath smells like brandy or whiskey.  Wicked, anyway.

Twice today she has had to endure a stranger’s uninvited and unwelcome lips, but her reaction to this overbearing man is shocking and immediate.

His mouth drives her wild in a way that she could never have imagined.  Heat ripples through her and the reasoning, reliable part of her brain, that part that has never failed her before, stops responding.  Stops functioning.  Her arms snake up to twine around his neck and tangle in the thick hair.  She thrills in his possessive hold.

He circles her tongue, sucks it deep into his mouth and kisses her with such ferocity that some slumbering beast inside answers his animal call.  A dangerous excitement kicks hard in the pit of her belly.  No man has ever done this to her in this way before.  She clings to him.  Like a blind animal that moves only with instinct she pushes her body into his.  There is only the need to find more of that addictive heat.  What she finds is the thick hardness of his desire for her.  It presses aggressively against the softness of her stomach and excites her beyond all reason.

A pleasure that is at once sweet and piercing courses through her body.  This rock-hard erection is hers.  She caused it.  Heat pools between her legs.  And suddenly she is wet with wanting and filled with an irresistible desire to have that hard meat inside her, as deep as he will go…

She totally forgets where she is.

It is Rupert’s cold, hard voice that drags her back into that room.  They had both not heard him enter.  ‘I’m afraid she’s rather spoken for,’ he drawls, but there is so much suppressed anger that his voice is like a blast of icy air.

She snatches her mouth away from Blake’s.  He is positioned between her and Rupert so his wide chest hides her from Rupert’s condemnation.  Her eyes, cloudy with confusion and desire, are still caught in Blake’s gaze.  For a few seconds more he does not release her, but simply stares into the blue depths with something approaching surprise.  Then his eyes turn into hard granite chips and his body stiffens as his hands tighten and curve protectively around her waist.  Slowly he turns to face Rupert.

‘But still unpaid for, I believe?’ he says, and looks down with a smile at Lana’s flushed, troubled face.  She has two very quick impressions.  He is a brilliant actor and he is a cold man.  A shockingly cold and unemotional being.

 Rupert directs his astonished, vicious eyes at Lana’s.  ‘You offered yourself to him too?’

 Lana stares mutely at Rupert.  His eyes move derisively, hatefully over her.  She feels herself cringe.

‘Does he know how much you charge?’

‘Do you doubt I will be able to afford her?’

Rupert shrivels the way a leech that has had salt thrown on it does.  ‘This is why you invited me here, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a joke!’ he taunts, but his jibe lacks any real bite.  ‘The great Barrington can’t find his own whore.  He has to steal mine.’

‘I didn’t steal her,’ Blake notes reasonably.  ‘I just offered to pay more.’

Rupert’s eyes bulge, bug-like.  ‘She’s just a cheap bloody tart.  I’ve just finger-fucked her out there,’ he lies maliciously, jerking his dandruff-laden head in the direction of the door.

Lana feels Blake’s hand tighten around her waist.  ‘Consider it an unearned freebie, then,’ he says quietly, but there is warning in the calm words.  A warning that is not lost on Rupert.  The air becomes tight with tension.  Lana looks from one man to the other.  It is like watching two lions fighting for supremacy.  But her body knows which lion she wants to win this fight.

Rupert shrugs.  He knows he’d be a fool to go against a Barrington.  He has much to lose.  ‘If you think I’m going to fight over her you’re mistaken.  Have her.’

He turns on his heel and leaves.

Blake lets go of Lana.  She realizes she is trembling.  She leans against the desk, hating herself, but unable to stop—nothing is more important than the money—she asks, ‘Did you…did you mean it about the money?’

‘Yes.’

A sob of relief escapes her throat.  She covers her mouth with both her hands.  ‘Thank you.’

He looks at her with narrowed eyes, surprised by the intensity of her reaction, but he does not offer any comment.  ‘Did you have a coat?’

She nods, unable to speak.

‘Give me the ticket.  I’ll get it.’

She looks into the purse hanging by her hips, her hands unsteady, and shakes her head miserably.  She cannot remember what she has done with it.  ‘I’ve lost it.  I think it might have fallen out in the…’ She is about to say loo when she decides she is not like them and she won’t pretend to be something she is not… ‘ladies room.’

‘Let’s go.  I’ll get you another.’

‘I can’t leave without it.  It’s not mine,’ she whispers.

He sighs.  ‘It’s all right.  I’ll get it.  Is the coat…er…orange?’

She looks at him carefully.  There is an insult there, somewhere.  But his face is blank.  ‘Yes.’