He made a sharp, scornful sound—halfway between a laugh and a sneer, which sent a tide of heat flooding into Tamsin’s face and a torrent of boiling fury erupting inside her. Her heart was beating very hard as she whipped round to face him again.
‘You don’t believe me?’
‘Frankly, no.’ He moved around the chair and came towards her. He’d taken off his dinner jacket and undone the top two buttons of his shirt. His silk bow-tie lay loosely around his neck, giving him an air of infuriating relaxation that was completely at odds with the icy hardness of his face. She was pleased to notice that there was a muscle flickering in the hollowed plane of his cheek.
‘You don’t strike me as a girl who likes to try too hard to get what she wants,’ he said scathingly.
The injustice of the statement was so magnificent she almost laughed. Pressing her lips together, she had to look down for a second while she fought to keep a hold on her composure. ‘Don’t I?’ Her voice was polite, deceptively soft as she met his gaze. ‘Well, may I suggest that your assumption says more about you than it does about me, Alejandro?’
He flinched slightly, almost imperceptibly, as she said his name, and for a moment some unfathomable emotion flared in his eyes. But it was gone before she could read it or understand its meaning, and she was left staring into hard, golden emptiness. It was mesmerizing, like meeting the eyes of a panther at close range. A scarred, hungry predator.
‘What does it say about me?’
He spoke quietly, but there was something sinister about his calmness. Above the immaculate, hand-made dress shirt his black eye and swollen mouth gave his raw masculinity a dangerous edge. Tamsin felt fear prickle on the back of her neck, and was aware that she was shaking.
Which was ridiculous. She wasn’t afraid of Alejandro D’Arienzo. She was angry with him. Clenching her jaw, she managed a saccharine smile. ‘Let me see,’ she said with sugared venom. ‘It says that you’re an arrogant, misogynist bastard who thinks that women are for one purpose and one purpose only.’
His mouth, his bruised, sexy mouth, curled slightly in the barest, most insolent expression of disdain. ‘And don’t you rather perpetuate that stereotype?’
Tamsin felt the ground shift beneath her feet. The panelled walls seemed to be closing in on her, leaving her no chance of escape, no alternative but to confront the image he was holding before her of herself the girl who dressed like a slut and had thrown herself at him without even bothering to tell him her name.
‘That was six years ago,’ she protested hoarsely. ‘One night, six years ago!’
‘And how many times has it happened since then?’ he said, draining his glass and picking up another cue.
Surreptitiously holding the edge of the green-baize table, Tamsin took a quick, shaky breath and made herself hold her head high as she gave a nonchalant shrug. The entire contents of the Cartier shop window wouldn’t induce her to let him see how much his rejection had hurt her, how far-reaching its consequences had been. She managed a gratifyingly breezy laugh.
‘I don’t know, it’s hardly a big deal. Don’t try to tell me you’ve lived a life of monastic purity and celibacy for the last six years?’
He didn’t look at her. ‘I’m not going to.’
‘Well, don’t you think it’s a bit much to expect that I have? What did you think, Alejandro, that I would have hung up my high heels and filled my wardrobe with sackcloth and ashes just because you weren’t interested?’ She laughed, to show the utter preposterousness of the idea. ‘God, no. I moved on.’
‘So I saw. A number of times, evidently,’ he drawled quietly, bending down and lining up a shot. ‘The England squad seems to be your personal escort-agency.’
Idly he jabbed the cue against the white ball, sending it hurtling across the table. Tamsin felt like it was her heart. ‘Wrong, Alejandro,’ she said stiffly. ‘The England squad are my clients.’
His eyebrows shot up; he gave a twisted smile. ‘Indeed? My mistake. I got it the wrong way round.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she snapped. ‘They’re my clients because I’m the designer who handled the commission for the England kit. The new strip, the suits and the off-pitch clothing.’
Just for the briefest second she saw a look of surprise pass across his deadpan face, but it was quickly replaced by cynicism again.
‘Did you, indeed?’ he drawled, somehow managing to make those three small, innocuous words convey his utter disbelief. But before Tamsin had a chance to think up a suitably impressive response the door burst open and Ben Saunders appeared, swaying slightly. His unfocused gaze flitted from Alejandro to Tamsin.
‘Oops. Sorry … Interrupting.’ Grinning, obviously misreading the tension that crackled in the quiet room, he began to back out again with exaggerated care, but Tamsin leapt forward, grabbing his arm.
‘Ben, wait!’ she said grimly. ‘Tell him—’ she jerked her head sharply in Alejandro’s direction ‘—about the new strip. Tell him who designed it.’
Frowning, Ben looked drunkenly at her as if she’d just asked him to work out the square root of nine hundred and forty two in binary.
‘Uh … you?’ he said uncertainly.
Great, thought Tamsin hysterically. Brilliant. Hugely convincing.
‘Yes. Of course it was me,’ she said with desperate patience.
Ben nodded and grinned inanely, obviously relieved to have got the right answer. ‘And the shoots,’ he slurred, turning around clumsily to show off his suit, and almost overbalancing. ‘You did the shoots too, didn’t you? Lovely shoot.’ He beamed across at Alejandro. ‘Very clever, Tamsin. Very good at measuring the inside leg …’
Alejandro glanced at her, his face a study of sadistic amusement. ‘I’m sure,’ he said icily. ‘That takes a lot of skill.’
Tamsin clenched her teeth. ‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said, turning him around and steering him towards the door. ‘Now, maybe you’d better go and find some water, or some coffee or something.’ When the door had closed behind him she turned back to Alejandro with a haughty glance. ‘There. Now do you believe that I’m not just some airhead heiress with time on her hands?’
‘It proves nothing.’ Malice glinted in the golden depths of Alejandro’s eyes as he picked up his glass again. ‘I’m sure it makes great PR sense for you to be used as a front for the new strip, but surely you don’t expect me to believe that you actually designed it? Sportswear design is an incredibly competitive business, you know.’
‘Yes.’ Tamsin spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Astonishingly enough, I do know, because I got the job.’
Nodding thoughtfully, Alejandro took an unhurried mouthful of his drink. ‘And what qualified you for that, Lady Calthorpe—your father’s position in the RFU? Or your own extensive research into rugby players’ bodies?’
‘No,’ she said as soon as she could trust herself to open her mouth without screaming. ‘My first class honours degree in textiles and my final year project on techno-fabrics.’ Looking up at him, she gave an icy smile. ‘I had to compete for this commission and I got it entirely on merit.’
His dark brows arched in cynical disbelief. ‘Really?’ he drawled. ‘You must be good.’
‘I am.’
It was no use. If she stayed a moment longer, she wouldn’t be able to keep the rip tide of vitriol that was swelling and surging inside her from smashing through her flimsy defences. She put down the cue and threw him what