‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of what does and doesn’t transfer to the big screen?’
He was laughing at her, damn him. When she found little or nothing about this situation in the least amusing. ‘My answer is no, Mr Prince,’ she told him with finality, bending to pick up her bag from the carpeted floor. ‘It will remain no.’
She was leaving!
This tiny slip of a woman, with ice in her eyes and fire in her hair, was walking out on him!
That definitely had to be a first…
He had thought at the weekend, once he had established that Juliet India Nixon was more probably the author of No Ordinary Boy than her father, that he finally had her at a disadvantage, that it would simply be a case of meeting with her today to tie up the loose ends regarding the movie rights. But Jinx Nixon was anything but amenable, was just as determined as she ever had been to thwart him.
‘Just what is it with you, Jinx?’ he challenged as she stood up. ‘Could it be that it’s beneath the highbrow Dr Juliet Nixon to be associated with a work of fiction like No Ordinary Boy?’
If he had thought her eyes cold before, they now turned to fire, her beautiful face flushed with the same anger as she flicked that blazing red hair back over one slender shoulder to glare down at him.
Nik had hoped to evoke some sort of response by his challenge—he just hadn’t been quite prepared for the one he got.
This woman was so beautiful when roused, so vibrantly alive, that he immediately saw her aroused in a completely different way, the image of her lying naked and wanton in his arms causing him to shift uncomfortably as his body responded to that image.
It was totally amazing; he hadn’t physically responded like this just at the thought of a woman in his bed since his college days, but ten minutes in Jinx Nixon’s company and he was doing exactly that.
Something, given the circumstances, he stood about as much chance of achieving where Jinx was concerned as flying to the moon!
He grimaced. ‘I apologize for that remark.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘I just don’t understand you.’ Something else that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Perhaps he had become jaded over the years, too accustomed to women wanting something from him, from the power he wielded as head of PrinceMovies, but nothing he said or did seemed to make any difference whatsoever to Jinx’s resolve not to have anything to do with him or his movie company. By itself that was enough to frustrate the hell out of him, but taking his personal—physical!—response to this woman into account, it only made the situation more explosive.
Jinx seemed to be confused herself now, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do next, either.
Nik knew exactly what she wanted to do—tell him goodbye and walk out of here!—but he could also see by the perplexed frown of indecision on her creamy brow that something was holding her back from doing that.
What could it be?
What was this woman still hiding from him?
God, he was arrogant, wasn’t he? Nik recognized with self-disgust. There must be any number of things this woman wasn’t telling him. Probably not just him either; Jinx Nixon came over as a very private person, indeed. In fact, he had a feeling Jinx was the sort of woman it could take a lifetime to get to know.
Hell! It was dangerous to even think about the words ‘Jinx’ and ‘lifetime’ in the same sentence. It wasn’t that he was particularly anti-commitment; after all, his parents had been happily married right up until the day his father had died, and his sister Stazy was certainly happy in her marriage; it just wasn’t an option Nik had ever considered for himself.
So why was he considering it now?
He wasn’t, came the blunt answer. Not seriously. Damn it, he barely knew Jinx Nixon, and the little he did know, that she was stubborn, sassy and highly intellectual, totally nullified the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful.
Nevertheless, Nik still had a feeling, for his own selfpreservation, that the idea of seduction was no longer an option where this woman was concerned.
‘Please sit down again, Jinx,’ he persuaded, still sensing her indecision.
She sat, looking down at her hands now, the fiery curtain of her hair falling forward to caress the paleness of her cheeks as those hands clenched tightly together.
What was it? What had he missed? Because Nik was more convinced than ever that he was missing something, that he just had to find the right button to press and Jinx Nixon would be like putty in his hands. He just had no idea what that button was!
‘Jinx, will you have dinner with me this evening?’
Now where the hell had that come from? Nik wondered dazedly. The idea hadn’t even formed in his mind, let alone been processed for viability—if it had he would have told himself what a bad idea it was for him to spend any more time alone with Jinx, that he just wanted her signature on a contract and then he would be on his way.
She was looking at him now, her head tilted thoughtfully to one side, a slight smile curving that deeply kissable mouth. ‘You didn’t mean to say that…’
‘No,’ he admitted with a wry smile. ‘But having said it…?’
She laughed softly, a huskily evocative sound. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nik.’
Neither did he—just the sound of his name on her lips was enough to send a sliver of awareness down the length of his spine. ‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. ‘But I’m asking, anyway.’
How his two brothers would laugh if they could see him now—the arrogantly self-contained Nik willing this tiny woman to have dinner with him tonight. Zak and Rik would find it highly amusing that he had to ask twice at all, let alone exert all of his pressure of will in order to get the positive answer he wanted.
And he did want it. That cautious self-preservation told him to stay as far away from this woman as it was possible for him to be, but all of his natural instincts told him he wanted to be with her again. That he wanted so much more than that.
And he wasn’t averse to using every means at his disposal to achieve his objective!
‘Surely your father won’t mind your going out and leaving him for one evening?’ he prompted softly, closely watching her response to this mention of her father, knowing by the way her expression suddenly became blankly unreadable that he had touched a raw nerve. ‘Just how ill is your father, Jinx?’ he pressed at her continuing silence.
She seemed to flinch at his persistence, her smile having faded long ago, once again withdrawing behind that coolly dismissive mask. ‘I have no intention of discussing my father with you, Nik,’ she snapped. ‘Either now or at any other time,’ she added firmly.
In other words, she wasn’t going to have dinner with him this evening. Damn. Good move, Nik! He cursed his own stupidity in having moved too far, too fast. So much for his finding the right buttons to press…
‘I heard that he had some sort of nervous breakdown a year or so ago?’ he murmured, still sure that Jackson Nixon was the key to this woman’s acquiescence.
Then why did he feel such a heel as her face paled even more, her eyes huge blue pools of pain and confusion as she looked at him incredulously?
‘And where, exactly, did you hear that?’ she demanded, her whole body defensively taut as she sat up straighter in the chair, those tiny breasts unknowingly thrust provocatively forward.
A fact that Nik tried his best to ignore—and failed miserably, able to see the outline of her nipples against the silky fabric of her blouse; indeed, almost able to discern their rosy hue. ‘One of his colleagues at the university mentioned—’
‘You