Her jaw rose defensively as she deliberately met the cold disdain of his gaze. ‘What are you doing here, Wolf?’ she challenged, her voice—thank goodness—not showing by so much as a quiver how much his presence here unnerved her. And unnerve her it did. The two of them were completely alone here, with not much chance of an early reprieve for Cyn.
His mouth twisted, accentuating those deep grooves in his cheeks. ‘You surely didn’t think our conversation was over?’ he drawled derisively, giving her a pitying look now for her naïveté.
She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Which conversation would that be, Wolf?’ She arched blond brows questioningly. ‘The one from this morning—or the one from seven years ago?’
If she had thought he looked harshly remote before then now he looked positively icy, his eyes hard gold orbs, his mouth a thin slash of anger, his jaw clenched at an aggressive angle.
‘The two are surely connected?’ he bit out through clenched teeth, as if it was taking every effort of will on his part to stop himself from physically hauling her out of the chair, lifting her completely off her feet, and shaking her until her teeth rattled.
Cyn forced herself to remain seated, when what she really wanted to do was jump out of the chair and run, just run and run, until she was sure this man couldn’t catch her. But as she knew from experience, if Wolf really wanted to catch up with someone then he would.
So instead of running she gave a dismissive movement of her head. ‘I don’t see how,’ she shrugged, her fingers white as she held tightly on to the pen she had been using to work with when Rebecca’s call came in.
Wolf’s eyes narrowed on the pale defiance of her face. ‘Was that Gerald on the phone just now, arranging to have lunch with you tomorrow?’
The change of subject was so totally unexpected that for a moment Cyn was taken aback at the sudden twist, then a resentful flush darkened her cheeks. ‘Whether it was or it wasn’t is none of your business, Wolf,’ she told him as she finally stood up—not that it gave her much of an advantage, as Wolf still overshadowed her by more than a foot. But at least she was mobile now if the need to run should become a necessity! ‘I can have lunch with whoever I damn well please,’ she added defiantly. She was sure it wouldn’t even occur to him that it was Rebecca Harcourt who had arranged to meet her for lunch tomorrow. And she had no intention of telling him that little fact either!
One of his hands moved so fast that Cyn was barely aware of the movement, although she couldn’t mistake his grasp on her wrist as his long fingers curled about her tender flesh like steel bands. Just as she couldn’t mistake the warm flush that suddenly emanated through her body at the touch of those long tapered fingers, which she knew could caress with such tenderness, move over the soft curves of her body with such—
No! She hadn’t thought about Wolf in that way for seven years, hadn’t allowed herself that luxury, and to do so now, when he was about to marry another woman, was sheer madness!
‘Let go of me, Wolf,’ she instructed tautly, unable to look into the dark tormented beauty of his face, staring down at the spot where his flesh touched hers, his hand so dark against her much paler skin.
Again long-denied memories came flooding back to pain her, and, with a strength she hadn’t known she was capable of, she wrenched her arm out of his grasp, the pain this caused her a physical one rather than an emotional one. And she could deal with the physical pain so much more easily than the emotional one this man had once inflicted on her; she knew that the bruises on her skin would fade, that the inner ones never would.
‘How is your family, Wolf?’ she asked with disdain, her expression one of challenge.
His eyes glazed over coldly. ‘Family?’ he repeated, dangerously soft. ‘There’s only my mother and Barbara now.’
Only his mother and Barbara? There didn’t need to be anyone else; the pair were formidable enough on their own!
Cyn gave an acknowledging inclination of her head. ‘And how are they?’
His mouth twisted. ‘Do you really care?’
No, she didn’t care in the least, but at least the mention of the two of them had diverted his attention away from the source of that telephone call he had just interrupted. ‘No,’ she answered truthfully, unflinching as the dangerous glitter deepened in his eyes, remembering all too well the dislike the other two women had for her, and the way, in the past, they had never lost an opportunity to show that dislike. She was sure they would be no more interested in her well-being now than she was in theirs! Although, to be fair, it had always been Claudia Thornton who had disapproved of her the most, being totally against her son’s relationship with Cyn. Barbara had represented a different sort of threat completely.... Did she still? If she did, then Cyn had more reason to pity Rebecca than she had originally thought.
‘I didn’t think so,’ Wolf rasped now, the suppressed anger in his body a tangible thing, his very stillness unsettling.
Cyn gave a weary sigh. ‘What do you want here, Wolf? Rehashing the past isn’t going to help anyone. It’s your future you should be concentrating on,’ she added with a frown, her thoughts once again on the strange behaviour of Rebecca Harcourt this morning, and the even more enigmatic telephone call she had received from the other girl a short time ago.
Wolf was watching her closely, that amber gaze narrowed coldly. ‘And just what do you mean by that?’ he finally prompted softly.
Cyn had no intention of betraying Rebecca, and shrugged dismissively. ‘Do you love Rebecca Harcourt?’
He drew in a harsh breath. ‘What the hell do my feelings for Rebecca have to do with you?’
A lot more than any friendship she might have with Gerald Harcourt had to do with him! Wolf seemed to think he could walk back into her life after seven years, albeit unknowingly, and demand all sorts of things from her, but she wasn’t to be allowed the same privilege where he was concerned!
‘Feelings, Wolf?’ she scoffed with derision. ‘I don’t believe you have any for Rebecca.’ She shook her head. ‘At least, not the sort of feelings you should have towards the woman you intend making your wife,’ she frowned.
Wolf moved now, crossing the room with soundless footsteps, to stand only inches in front of her, his very proximity intimidating—as it was meant to be. ‘And what would you know about that, Cyn?’ he scorned forcefully. ‘What the hell did you ever know—or care!—about the way I felt?’
That was unfair—totally unfair. For a few weeks, a few precious weeks that had affected the rest of Cyn’s life, she had thought she knew this man—and his emotions—very well. The fact that that belief had been proved incorrect couldn’t take that away from her. And she was sure—dammit, she knew—that Wolf wasn’t in love with Rebecca! So why was he marrying her? Why had he never married Barbara, as she had thought he eventually would?
Cyn looked up at Wolf now, a sheen of tears blurring her vision of him, blunting all the sharp edges and angles to his face, briefly giving him the appearance of the man she had known all those years ago, a man who, although confident of himself and his own abilities, certainly hadn’t been possessed of the hard arrogance this almost-stranger portrayed.
And then she blinked, erasing the tears—and that erroneous impression of Wolf being at all the approachable man she had once known. Before her stood a man whose face was lined with bitterness, a sharp dissatisfaction about the thin line of his once sensual mouth, his eyes no longer like liquid gold but hard and unyielding. Perhaps he had always been this way, and she had just been too infatuated to realise?
No! She couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe that, because that would make a mockery of all she had once felt for him. And it had been so important in her life.
She drew herself up defensively. ‘We aren’t discussing