‘So where did I fail you?’ she shot back at him.
His mouth clamped into a grim angry line. His eyes glared black fury at her. His chest rose and fell with a swift intake and expulsion of air. He threw up his hands in an exasperated manner as he finally admitted, ‘You didn’t fail me. I need you back at work.’
The crux of the matter.
Jake was put out.
Merlina folded her arms across her chest in decisive determination to ward off any appeal he might make. Enough was enough. She was not going back. She was moving on.
‘You managed before me. You’ll manage after me,’ she stated with cold precision.
‘I don’t want to,’ he almost yelled at her. ‘What will it take to get you back?’
‘There’s nothing you can offer me that will change my mind.’
His hands clenched into fists at his sides. He looked as if he’d like to strangle her. Obviously the violent energy storming through him needed some outlet. He broke into an angry pacing back and forth across the room.
Merlina remained absolutely still, viewing him with immense satisfaction. How many times had she wanted to strangle him? It was good to have the boot on the other foot for once, good to see him not in control of the situation. The guilt over her choice of a temporary replacement was gone. Jake Devila deserved a bit of heartburn. He’d given her plenty.
‘You can’t marry my grandfather,’ he fired at her, pulling up to deliver the shot, eyes boring into hers with blazing intensity.
It stirred a mountain of belligerence. ‘Oh, yes I can!’
He shook his head in agitated negation. ‘How can you bring yourself to marry such an old man?’
‘I find Byron very young at heart.’
‘He has an eighty-year-old body,’ was sliced back at her with venom.
‘Which he keeps very fit,’ she answered with lofty disdain for his emphasis on the physical.
‘That doesn’t make it sexy,’ he argued fiercely.
‘Your grandfather is every bit as sexy as Sean Connery, who even at his age is regularly voted one of the sexiest film stars in the world. He has exactly the same twinkling brown eyes, the same charm of manner, the same charismatic presence…’
‘So you’re happy to go to bed with him, are you? A man old enough to be your grandfather?’
It did sound off, but Merlina was on a roll and she wasn’t about to give Jake the satisfaction of winning any round of this game. ‘Why not? Byron makes everything a pleasure and he knows what a woman wants.’
Jake’s eyes suddenly narrowed, dangerous sparks shooting out of them as he started strolling towards her. ‘And maybe you don’t know any better. Is that it, Merlina? You’ve always been a good Italian girl?’
Her arms tightened across her chest as she started to quake inside. Jake was coming at her as though he meant to test her sexual experience. She was torn by the desire to know what it would be like with him even as a bitter pride insisted he’d be just feeding his male ego if she allowed him any intimate access to her.
‘That’s none of your business,’ she snapped.
His mouth curled into a smile of sensual promise. ‘I have a mind to make it my business.’
Her head started whirling as he closed in on her. She was so terribly vulnerable to the physical attraction he exerted. If he touched her, kissed her… ‘Stop right there, Jake Devila!’
Her voice sounded shrill, defensive, fearful.
He stopped barely an arm’s length away from her. ‘Come on, Mel,’ he purred seductively. ‘You know it’s always been there, sizzling between us.’
‘My name is Merlina.’
He ignored the frantic protest, his eyes searing hers, demanding the truth. ‘It was exciting, wasn’t it? The way we sparred—punch and counter-punch, me throwing out the challenge, you meeting it, nailing it…’
Yes, it was. But… ‘You’re a playboy, Jake. I’m a thirty-year-old woman. I want to get married.’
‘What for? Security? That’s so boring. What you need and want is…’
‘I want to have a family.’ And she definitely didn’t want to hear about the needs he might fulfil. That would only be a temporary thing with Jake, anyway. It wouldn’t mean anything. If she gave into temptation she would just be another notch on his bedpost.
‘You want children with my grandfather?’ he retorted incredulously.
‘Charlie Chaplin was still fathering children through his eighties,’ she argued heatedly. ‘And Byron has great genes to pass on. Look at you.’
‘What about me?’
‘You’re smart, creative, good-looking. I’ll have wonderful children with Byron.’
‘You could have wonderful children with me,’ he swiftly countered, briefly taking the wind out of her sails.
She came back, blowing hard. ‘But you don’t want them.’
‘Who said I don’t want them?’
‘Do you?’
The direct challenge caught him out. ‘I haven’t thought about it.’
‘Right!’ she mocked savagely.
‘That doesn’t mean I can’t think about it.’
‘For how many years?’
He floundered and she went for the killer-strike, the bottom line. ‘I want to start a family soon, Jake. You’re a playboy who’ll only waste my time. So get out of my life and stay out.’
‘Leaving you to my grandfather?’ The expression on his face underwent a violent change. The moment of uncertainty was swallowed up by impassioned determination. ‘Like hell I will!’ he growled, reaching for her, hauling her into his embrace, his eyes glittering with a wild recklessness. ‘No way are you going to be his bride! You’re mine, Merlina Rossi! All mine!’
CHAPTER SEVEN
MERLINA was so stunned by the raw possessiveness in Jake’s voice and the sudden impact of being arm-locked against his hard muscular body, she didn’t do or say anything to stop his mouth from crashing down on hers, taking instant advantage of the gasp that had left her lips parted, his tongue invading, teasing, goading her into response, twining with hers, activating an intense flood of excitement.
Sensation exploded through her, blowing all reason from her mind, creating chaos everywhere it went, making her heart gallop, her lungs scream for air, her stomach quiver, her thighs quake. Control over anything was completely lost. Her arms struggled out of their fold to wind around his neck, spurred on by her own need to possess, to hold onto this intimate connection with him.
She kissed him back as avidly as he kissed her, again and again and again in a rampant desire to feel his lust for her, the sheer blitzing power of it, the wild urgency of it engulfing her as his arms tightened their hold, pressing her so close her breasts were almost flattened against his chest. She revelled in feeling the strong drumming of his heart, the tense muscles in his thighs, the hard roll of his erection making its indentation on her soft flesh.
He wanted her.
That intoxicating knowledge blotted out every bit of common sense she’d tried to cling to and turned her into a woman who craved every part of this man. His hands slid down her back, curling around her bottom, lifting her into a more erotic fit with his body, and she willingly, wantonly rubbed herself against him, surrendering to the primitive urge to excite the same feverish excitement coursing