Unnerved by that still intense scrutiny, and by his silence, Kimberley scrambled to her feet.
‘You must be Harrison,’ she blurted out, in nothing even resembling her usual calm, confident manner.
‘And you must be the fortune-hunter,’ he observed caustically, withering contempt written all over his face.
For a moment Kimberley thought that she must have misheard him; it was just not the sort of thing which one expected to hear, certainly not in civilised company, but there again, with that raw, scornful censure blazing from those amazing eyes, this man didn’t look in the least bit civilised. He looked…
Kimberley shuddered.
Almost barbaric.
She forced herself to remain calm, because some instinct told her that if she responded on his level she would live to regret it. She raised her eyebrows fractionally. ‘What did you just say?’ she queried, quite calmly.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said mockingly, and sighed. ‘I should have guessed that it was too good to be true—you couldn’t possibly have brains as well as beauty. I called you a fortune-hunter, my dear. It’s an old-fashioned term, whose meaning is quite simple——’
‘I’m well aware of what it means.’ Kimberley cut in, but her voice was shaking with rage, and deep within her a seed of hostility blossomed into rampant life. ‘How dare you?’
He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Quite easily. You see, you might find this peculiar, but I happen to be rather protective of my kid brother. And what else am I supposed to think when I hear that he’s about to marry someone he hardly knows, who happens to be years older——?’
‘Only three,’ she interrupted furiously. ‘And what difference does that make? Lots of men marry women older than them.’
‘Do they?’ His look was cool, assessing. ‘And do lots of older women marry inexperienced collegeboys, who stand to gain huge inheritances? Is that what turns them on—Kimberley?’
She shivered with some dark nebulous recognition as he said her name, the way his tongue curved round it making the very act of speaking into the most sensual act she had ever encountered.
‘I don’t have to stay here and listen to this,’ she said shakily, but her feet were rooted to the priceless Persian carpet and she was incapable of movement as she gazed into mesmeric grey eyes.
‘But stay you will,’ he ordered silkily. ‘And listen.’
She watched, horrified, as his eyes dropped to her body and lingered insolently on the lushness of her breasts beneath the thin cotton T-shirt she wore, and Kimberley was powerless to stop what that appraising stare was doing to her.
She felt a dart of something which was a combination of pain and acute pleasure, felt her breasts grow heavy, hard, swollen. She saw his mouth twist with derision as he observed the blatant tightening of her nipples, and at that moment she felt utterly cheap.
He nodded his head, as though satisfied by something. ‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘As I imagined. A hot little body and a face like a madonna—quite exquisite, but unfortunately they are such ephemeral assets. And, wisely, you’ve decided to capitalise on them. But I’d prefer you to do that with someone other than my brother. Understand?’
Kimberley bit back her rage, her normally sharp mind in dazed turmoil because he was still staring at her breasts, and her nipples were torturing her with their exquisite need to have him take each one into his mouth, to suckle slowly and lick and…
Horrified, she stared back at him, her body’s appalling reaction to his scrutiny stinging her into defending herself. ‘I don’t have to capitalise on any assets I might have, actually,’ she retorted. ‘Because I happen to have a very successful career in a merchant bank.’
‘And how did you get it?’ he queried insultingly. ‘On your back?’
His hostility rode every other thought out of her mind. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she whispered incredulously.
He shrugged. ‘I told you. I’m looking out for my brother—and he needs shielding from women like you.’
‘Women like you’.
Her face flaming, Kimberley lifted her hand and slapped him hard—very hard—around the face. She should have been shocked at her violent reaction but she wasn’t; it was the most satisfying thing she had ever done in her life. But he didn’t flinch. Only the angry spark which glittered ominously from the grey eyes betrayed his emotions.
‘In a minute,’ he said calmly, ‘I shall respond to that. But first I want you to listen very carefully to what I’m going to tell you.’
‘I don’t have to listen to anything you tell me. You insulting——’
‘Spare me your misplaced anger and shut up, Kimberley,’ he said in a voice soft with menace, and Kimberley felt a shiver ice its way down the entire length of her spine. ‘My brother is on the threshold of his life. Emotionally he is immature. If he marries now it will be a huge mistake. He is not ready for marriage.’
And neither was she, though Harrison Nash did not know that. She saw the grim determination on his face, the arrogance and the dominance. A man used to getting his way at all costs. How far, she wondered, would he go to prevent her from marrying Duncan?
And Kimberley suddenly knew an overwhelming and very basic urge to get her own back for his insults, for that sexual scrutiny which had had her responding in a way which sickened her.
All at once she was filled with the most tremendous exhilaration, exultant with the sense of her own power to anger this man. ‘You can’t stop us marrying!’ she told him coolly.
The grey eyes narrowed calculatingly as he registered her change of mood. ‘No, you’re quite right. I can’t.’ And here he paused, so that there was a brooding, forbidding silence before he resumed speaking. ‘But what I can do is to withhold any of the financial hand-outs from my company to which Duncan has quickly become accustomed. This house is legally mine, although I have always intended to transfer the deeds to my mother and Duncan, since I have enough homes of my own. However, I could change my mind…’ He gave her a questioning look. ‘I imagine that Duncan’s attraction might wane if he didn’t come with all the trappings you’d expected?’
Kimberley had met many cynical, ruthless men during her years in the City, but this one, this dark and cruel stranger, made the others look like amateurs.
She lifted her head proudly. ‘If I wanted to marry Duncan, then nothing you could say or do would stop me,’ she said truthfully. ‘So you’ve lost, haven’t you?’
‘I never lose, Kimberley,’ he contradicted her softly. ‘Never.’
She fixed him with a look of mock-polite disbelief, fascinated in spite of herself to know just how far he would go to achieve what he wanted. ‘Oh, really?’
‘I have a proposition to put to you.’
‘Go on,’ she said, very quietly.
He spoke with a certain reluctance. ‘I’m prepared,’ he said heavily, ‘to offer you a financial incentive of your own if you agree to call the wedding off. If, on the other hand, you refuse and the wedding goes ahead, then I’m warning you that you will receive nothing from Duncan’s inheritance unless I am satisfied that the marriage is a good one, and one with solid foundations. Do you understand?’
The grey eyes were so hard and so cold, making a mockery of the rugged perfection of his features, and another shiver of apprehension sent icy claws scrabbling all over Kimberley’s skin. ‘It isn’t just because I’m older, is it?’ she whispered, shaken by his venom, her desire for revenge for his insults momentarily forgotten. ‘Or even because you think that I’m marrying Duncan for his