‘I shall endeavour to return the favour.’ Bowed over her hand, his eyes were licensed to rove, and made the most of their freedom. ‘Your breasts are truly in magnificent form this evening, Miss Blair,’ he purred. ‘What a pity they’re so much more impressive than your IQ—but I suppose a woman can’t have everything.’
Hearing Merrilyn’s choked whimper of horror, Rachel gulped down her shock and pinned on a blinding smile. ‘Can’t she? What a woefully limited little world you must inhabit, Mr Riordan.’
His eyes flickered, the only indication that she had pinked him with her quick riposte.
‘But I’m forgetting. One should never trust to appearances, particularly where women are concerned,’ he continued smoothly, his gaze openly caressing the bounteous curves which plumped above the beaded edge of the gown. ‘Perhaps it’s your dressmaker or plastic surgeon who should be accepting my compliments…’
‘With compliments like yours, who needs insults?’ murmured Rachel, resisting the urge to hitch up her fitted bodice.
Merrilyn had shrieked with outrage when she had seen the subdued, off-the-rack black dress which Rachel had originally planned to wear.
‘You can’t wear that—it’s not glamorous enough! You’ll stand out like a sore thumb, which is exactly what we want to avoid. Give me your measurements and I’ll arrange for my dressmaker to send over something more suitable.’
It had been Rachel’s turn to be horrified when she had gone up to the bedroom where she was to change and found the strapless, figure-hugging sequinned dress hanging on the closet door. Unfortunately it fitted like the proverbial glove, giving her no excuse to demur.
‘Oh, I do apologise…am I being insulting?’ Matthew Riordan oozed with silky insincerity, making her stiffen as he twisted her wrist to rest his lips against her pulse-point.
By now Rachel could perfectly understand Merrilyn’s panic. His diction was nearly perfect, but his words were stunningly uninhibited and his spectacles could not hide the hot, restless look in the hooded brown eyes. Apart from a streak of colour on his high cheekbones his face was noticeably pale in contrast to his sleeked-back hair and the dark stubble that graced his chin. His sultry air of controlled recklessness bore little resemblance to the grimly reserved chairman of Ayr Holdings whom Rachel had encountered when she had accompanied Frank to re-pitch for a couple of corporate contracts.
The companies, for whom they had run fraud prevention training programmes and provided security patrols, pre-employment vetting and confidential investigations in litigation support, had been involved in a series of mergers orchestrated by the majority shareholder—Ayr Holdings—and, having attained a controlling interest on several new boards, Matthew Riordan had been seeking to centralise their security arrangements.
At the meetings, although it had been made clear from the outset that Rachel was attending as co-owner of Weston Security Services, Matthew Riordan had virtually ignored her, addressing all his queries and remarks to Frank. When Rachel had taken it upon herself to answer or make an informed comment, he had given her minimal responses in a tone of clipped courtesy that had barely concealed his impatience with her interruption. Frank had claimed she was being over-sensitive, but Rachel had come away from their ultimately unsuccessful series of meetings steaming with frustration at being treated more like a glorified secretary than an equal partner.
‘No, just unbelievably crass,’ she replied, striving for just the right note of crushing boredom. She could feel his lips move against her skin as he smiled, the blood thumping through her artery his proof that she wasn’t as calm as she looked. She tried to slip her hand free, but to her surprise she discovered his grasp was unexpectedly strong. A brief, almost invisible power struggle ensued, and Rachel finally resorted to the feminine trick of curling her angry fingers over the edge of his palm and digging her fake nails into the sinewy back of his hand. He didn’t even flinch.
‘What else did you expect?’ he taunted. ‘A woman like you wearing a dress like that…you’re obviously not aiming to appeal to a man’s intellect…’
Even though she knew full well she was being deliberately provoked Rachel couldn’t help snapping at the bait. ‘A woman like me?’
She had narrowed his hostility to a specific focus, and now she was paying the price. His smile was insolent in the extreme. ‘Big, bold and brassy.’
The thin gold rim around her hazel irises glowed incandescently bright as she spluttered, ‘Brassy—?’
‘It means flashy, strident, showy…’ he elaborated, his eyes sliding from her breasts, heaving in outrage, to the tightness of her dress across her round hips and the slit in the side of the clinging skirt which revealed her leg to mid-thigh. ‘I knew the first time you walked into my office what you really were—window-dressing…a showgirl trying to do a man’s job…’
Rachel dug her fingernails deeper into his flesh and he gave an exaggerated wince.
‘Uh, Rachel…’ Merrilyn’s voice fluttered anxiously to her ears and Rachel suddenly remembered the role she was supposed to be playing. She should be pacifying him, not prodding him into even worse behaviour.
She batted her eyelashes and adopted a girlishly meek tone. ‘May I please have my hand back now, Mr Riordan?’
‘It depends what you’re planning to do with it,’ he challenged, and she couldn’t stop her eyes flickering to his temptingly exposed cheek. Unexpectedly he laughed, a purring sound that ruffled the nerves along her spine, and kissed her fingers again, releasing her hand with a slow, stroking motion that made it clear that it was purely his own choice.
‘A toast,’ he said, lifting his champagne glass and leaning forward to brush it against hers. ‘To the unfair sex, who resort to seduction when all else fails.’
‘If it was a man you would call it clever use of available resources,’ Rachel responded tartly. ‘And if you imagine this is a seduction you have some very odd opinions. You don’t like women very much, do you, Mr Riordan?’
His eyes glittered darkly. ‘I like certain women very much.’
‘Let me guess…small, fluffy-headed, delicately built females who constantly defer to your superior intellect and would never dream of challenging your masculine superiority?’
His face tautened. ‘What a sharp-tongued bitch you are!’
Her mouth curved smugly. She had obviously guessed right. She had probably just described Cheryl-Ann Harding to a T. She tossed back her champagne, forgetting that she had simply been holding it as a prop. ‘Not your type, Mr Riordan?’
He looked her over, blatantly undressing her with his hot black eyes. ‘I don’t know—bedding you could have its…compensations,’ he drawled insolently. ‘As long as you kept your mouth shut. Except to scream at the appropriate moment, of course.’
‘You mean the moment of my supreme disappointment?’ she said sweetly, and had the pleasure of seeing his ears turn red. She could almost envisage the steam issuing forth. ‘It must get very noisy in your bedroom, Mr Riordan.’
Merrilyn uttered a choked groan, overridden by Matthew Riordan’s sneer. ‘There’s only one way for you to find out, isn’t there?’
‘Why, is this a proposal, sir?’ Rachel simpered.
‘Miss Blair, the last thing you’d ever get from me would be a marriage proposal,’ he snarled.
‘Good. Because being married to a chauvinist like you would make me feel suicidal!’
His face went stony-blank, his voice as vaporous as dry ice, and just as freezing as it bled from his pale lips. ‘You wouldn’t get the chance. I’d have murdered you beforehand. In fact, I’d be hard put to control my homicidal impulses until after the wedding!’
With