Tyler closed her notebook with a decisive snap before secreting it away in one of those many pockets on her combat trousers. ‘Until today, I really believed all the things written and said about you in the media: that you’re charming, not in the least difficult to work with, affable even!’ She gave a disbelieving snort of derision. ‘When in fact you’re really exceptionally rude, extremely difficult to work with, and not even the tiniest bit affable!’
Zak reached across the tabletop and easily clasped her arm as she would have stood up, his fingers like steel bands. ‘Is that what you intend writing in your article?’ Despite the fact that he had set out to be as unpleasant as possible, he wasn’t used to people disliking him, and found that he didn’t particularly like the experience.
He also discovered that he liked the feel of Tyler’s skin against his fingers. It was soft and silky to the touch, making him wonder if the rest of her body felt as sensuous and warm.
‘Relax, Tyler,’ he told her gently. ‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’
She looked across at him coolly. ‘Do you want me to hang around just so that you can insult me some more?’
His mouth twisted into a smile. ‘I’m all out of insults at the moment—but if you give me a few minutes…! Besides, we’re drawing attention to ourselves.’ He looked pointedly around the lounge to where quite a lot of people, several men included now, were openly staring at them.
‘You’re the one drawing attention to us,’ she corrected him tautly, at the same time sitting back abruptly, releasing her arm from his grasp as she did so.
Zak watched as she ran the fingers of her other hand over the spot where he had held her. Both of her hands were completely bare of rings, and were long and slender, with delicately tapered fingers. He found himself wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers moving caressingly over his bare chest and back. And other parts of his body…
‘We were discussing the argument you had with your editor,’ he reminded her, angry with himself for having those thoughts about Tyler; she was a reporter, for goodness’ sake!
She shook her head, her spiky hair gleaming almost auburn in the overhead lighting. ‘You may have been, I don’t believe I was.’ She met his gaze boldly over the rim of her glass as she took a sip of the mineral water.
Zak suppressed his feelings of irritation with difficulty, finding that this woman pressed buttons in him that he normally kept well away from the public eye—and he didn’t mean physical ones! Although God knew she was attractive enough…
‘What shall we talk about, then?’ he mocked. ‘The fact that you and the handsome photographer Perry Morgan are apparently inseparable? Or shall we—? Going somewhere, Tyler?’ he asked as she put her glass down on the table with obvious force before moving to stand up.
Except she didn’t quite make it, all the colour draining from her face before she collapsed back into the chair, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow.
‘What the hell?’ Zak had been propelled forward as she fell, moving down on his haunches beside her chair now. ‘Tyler!’ He shook her shoulder slightly. ‘Tyler, speak to me, damn it!’ he ground out forcefully.
She seemed to find the strength to open one eye and glare at him. ‘Go away,’ she muttered weakly.
He ignored that, and straightened before bending down and easily sweeping her up into his arms.
She weighed next to nothing, he discovered as he began to stride purposefully across the lounge with her still in his arms, totally immune to the avid stares the two of them were receiving, his expression one of grim determination.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Tyler gasped, both eyes open now as she began to struggle in his arms.
‘I would have thought that was obvious!’ Zak didn’t even glance down at her as he stepped into the waiting lift.
‘It is, but—where are you taking me?’ She was struggling even harder to sit up in his arms.
‘My hotel suite,’ he informed her. ‘And stop struggling like that; you’ll only end up hurting yourself,’ he said as his arms tightened about her. He had no idea what was wrong with her yet, and until he did she wasn’t going anywhere!
‘You’re definitely making an exhibition of us now,’ Tyler protested as the two people waiting to get into the lift stared at them in shocked surprise as Zak stepped out with her still cradled in his arms.
‘Do I look as if I care?’ he dismissed impatiently as he used the key-card to get into his hotel suite, kicking the door shut behind him to stride over to the sofa and lay her down on it. ‘Don’t move,’ he instructed her before moving over to the mini-bar, all the time keeping one eye on her as he searched through the array of alcoholic drinks there.
Although she didn’t seem to be making too much of an effort to get up now, once again lying back with her eyes closed, her cheeks still deathly pale.
Either she really was ill, or this was some sort of elaborate ploy on her part to keep this interview alive. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a woman had tried something like this on him in order to get into his hotel room, although, he had to admit, it wasn’t usually with an interview in mind!
But if it should turn out that was what Tyler Wood was doing, then she was going to find out exactly how ‘exceptionally rude’ he could be!
CHAPTER THREE
‘WHAT are you doing!’ Tyler gasped, eyes wide as Zak raised her head and tipped some liquid into her mouth. Fiery liquid that burned as it went down her throat. ‘No!’ she protested, desperately trying to push his hand away, and not succeeding as he forced another mouthful of the foul-tasting liquid down her throat. ‘What was that?’ she groaned as he placed her head back on the sofa.
‘Brandy,’ he told her with satisfaction. ‘Guaranteed to—’
‘Make me ill,’ she finished heavily. ‘Even more so on an empty stomach.’ A very empty stomach. In fact, it was because she hadn’t eaten anything, since a hurried slice of toast for breakfast this morning, that she had collapsed in the first place.
She had been dismayed when she had first moved to London at how high the cost of living was here, her reporting job not exactly earning her big bucks. So, in order to survive on those wages, as she had sworn she would when she’d walked out of her sumptuous home in New York with claims to her family that she could make it on her own, she had had to economize on things. Like eating.
Bread, milk and cereals were cheap, as well as being quite nourishing, which was just as well, because it was what Tyler had mainly been living on for the last six months, with the odd hamburger thrown in here and there as a treat.
‘Why do you have an empty stomach?’ Zak probed, shrewdly attacking the relevant part of her statement. ‘It’s nine o’clock at night, so why haven’t you eaten dinner yet?’
Because dinner was a luxury she could rarely afford. Lunch, either, for that matter. Although having eaten either wouldn’t have lessened the effect the brandy was going to have on her any second now.
‘I have an allergy.’ She ignored his questions, trying to sit up. ‘And if you don’t get me to the bathroom in the next ten seconds I’m going to be ill all over this expensive carpet!’
‘An allergy?’ Zak Prince repeated with a dark scowl, making no effort to step forward and help her. ‘What sort of allergy—damn it, Tyler…!’ he rasped in disbelief as she put her head over the side of the sofa and was indeed ill all over the carpet.
As predicted.
It had been the surprise of her life to discover, on entering college, and the round of parties that had followed, that alcohol of any kind caused this reaction in her.
‘What—how—what