It was madness. She was madness. He needed to stick to his plan. This was supposed to destroy her, not him.
They’d dressed her all in white, as he’d requested, the better to appear fresh and lovely next to all of his brute strength that she’d spent so much time criticizing these past years. Soft white trousers clung to her long legs, then flared gently over skyscraper wedged sandals and her brightly painted toes, which he found far more erotic than he should. They’d layered white and cream strappy tops, one over the next, to lick over her small, perfect breasts and flirt with her enticing hips. Her hair was the focal point, tumbling down in a dark enchantment of red, looking slightly tangled, as if someone—and how he wished it had been him—had been dragging his fingers through it while engaged in far earthier pursuits.
“Do I pass inspection?” Miranda asked in that tone of voice that he was developing a small obsession with. It was her snooty, ivory-tower attempt at being polite. Or doing her best to pretend she was being polite, more likely—to act the appropriate part. Her hands were on her hips, the way he’d like his to be. Not that he was at all sure he would stop the next time he got his hands on that lithe, lean body.
A dangerous game, indeed.
He wanted her in ways that worried him. And after that scene in Paris, he couldn’t help but think that seducing her might come at a cost he wasn’t prepared to pay.
But that wasn’t anything new.
He didn’t answer her, knowing full well it would infuriate her, and seeing from the flash of temper in her dark jade gaze that it did. He took the oversized sunglasses one of the stylists had handed him and slid them onto her face, covering up those mysterious eyes of hers, and indulging himself in the fleeting sensation of her skin against his fingers, the fine silk of her hair. Her hands slid from her hips, and her lips softened slightly, and he almost smiled then, because he knew exactly what burned in her then. He felt it, too.
“Come,” he said. He reached over and took her hand in his, amused at the way she flinched and then ruthlessly controlled it in almost the same instant.
He doubted she understood what a lifetime of martial arts did, the ways it forced a man to be aware of his environment. That he knew when she breathed, when she held a breath instead; when she tensed, when she softened. And more. He let their fingers tangle and slide, enjoying the hitch in her breath and the deliberate way she forced herself to curl her hand around his. As if she would much rather dig her nails into his skin until he bled.
He was not a good man, he thought then, biting back a laugh. It was just as well he’d never had any illusions on that score. He was enjoying her bad-tempered, ill-fitting cloak of feigned submission far too much.
He led her over to the sexy little convertible sports car that waited for them, and handed her into it before climbing into the driver’s seat. He signaled to Nikolai and the rest of his security detail, and then he put the car into gear and drove.
“We have to talk about what happened in Paris,” she said the moment they started to move. “There can be no shifting, or whatever game you were playing. We already discussed this. You signed the same document—”
“We are in the open air,” he interrupted her as if she was a fractious child. “Try to contain your need to lecture me until there are thick walls around us.”
She looked at him as if she’d like to club him over the head but lacked only the appropriate instrument, and it nearly made him laugh again.
“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m one of your employees,” she snapped when they slowed at an intersection.
“This is not how I talk to my employees,” he assured her, amused. “They know better than to talk back.”
When she opened her mouth to snap something else at him, he simply reached over and shut it with two fingers over her soft lips, testing himself. Torturing himself. Shifting, perhaps, whether she liked it or not. Whether he did.
“I can’t wait to hear your litany of complaints,” he said, his voice something too close to a growl. She jerked her head back, but he could still feel the press of her mouth against his flesh. The fire of it. The way his whole body hardened, ready for her, dooming them both. “But not right now. Perhaps you can sit back and take in the world-famous view. This is the Côte d’Azur and I am Ivan Korovin. Some people would sell their souls to be sitting where you are right now, and I wouldn’t have to ask them to be still and enjoy it.”
There was a searing sort of pause, and then she pulled a silk scarf from her bag. She tied it around her hair with quick, furious jerks of her delicate hands. She didn’t say another word, and she didn’t even have to look at him, this time, to convey her feelings. He had to bite back his smile. He should not find her very prickliness so delightful. It could only spell disaster for them both.
He guided the powerful little convertible along the Promenade des Anglais, the gorgeous stretch of road that separated the city of Nice from the Baie des Anges and the Mediterranean Sea beyond. He soaked in the views of the French hills in the soft light that made Provence so justly beloved the world over, the sparkling sea, and the intriguing woman beside him whose current deafening silence was only a reprieve—having more to do with the noise of the open air around them as he drove, he imagined, than any particular attempt to do as he’d asked.
It was just as well he was about to give her something to really be angry about, he thought with a certain fatalism as he guided them through the charming seaside village of Villefranche-sur-Mer and then swung out onto the small, decadently exclusive Cap Ferrat peninsula. The narrow lanes were deliberately overgrown, richly forested in lush green vines, sweeping gardens and a canopy of ancient trees. Red-roofed villas peeked out from behind private walls while the stunning views stretched in all directions—the craggy French coastline and the endless cobalt waters of the Mediterranean always just around this curve, through those trees.
Down at the tip of the peninsula, Ivan pulled into the graceful drive that led to the impressive and world-renowned Grand Hôtel du Cap Ferrat. The hotel, now deemed a palace and more than worthy of the term, was an elegant, all-white affair, trumpeting its eminence by commanding one of the finest seaside spots in the south of France.
His professor was so busy gazing up at the soaring, whitewashed beauty of the magnificent hotel before them that she failed to notice the small pack of reporters who waited near the entrance until it was too late. He knew the moment she did as she stiffened in the seat beside him.
“What are they doing here?” she asked as she pulled the scarf from her head and let that exquisite hair of hers fall free.
“I called them.”
There was a small, shocked pause.
“Why would you do something like that?” She sounded genuinely baffled instead of angry. That would come, Ivan thought. It was inevitable. “This isn’t one of the events that we agreed on.”
He reached over and rested his hand high on her thigh, a casual possession, the way he would have if he really had been sleeping with this woman. He enjoyed the way her whole body jolted at the sudden contact. He enjoyed the way his did, too. She sucked in her breath with a sharp hiss.
“Smile,” Ivan ordered her quietly as he slowed the car to a crawl. “Let me do the talking. All you need to remember is that ours is a passionate affair.” He threw her a swift glance. “You want me so badly it overcame every last one of your well-documented, widely televised objections. You can hardly bear it if I am not touching you. That’s the story they’re here to see.”
He couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses she wore, but he saw that fascinating color rise to stain her cheeks and the way she pulled her lower lip between her teeth. He could tell she was holding her breath and he could feel her leg quiver, ever so slightly, more a thrill than a shiver, beneath his hand. He’d already