‘It’s...nice. I’m just tired.’
‘Tired?’ The woman who thrived on celebrations? ‘I thought you loved this sort of thing.’
‘Sometimes.’ Marisa’s smile was perfunctory. Damaso stared at the taut line of her bare shoulders. Stunned, he realised she was anything but happy.
She broke his hold and turned away, lifting an outrageously decorated cocktail to her lips.
His hand shot out, grasping her wrist. ‘Alcohol isn’t good for the baby. Especially the potent cocktails they serve here.’
Marisa’s mouth flattened. The hairs at his nape rose as her eyes narrowed to needle sharpness.
‘You don’t think much of me, do you? Here.’ She shoved the fruit-laden cocktail towards him so hard it sloshed over the edges, dripping onto her wrist and down her dress. She paid no heed. ‘Go on, taste it.’
Dimly he was aware of the buzz of conversation, the curious stares.
‘Go on!’ Her lips twisted derisively. ‘Or are you afraid it’s too strong for you?’
Her eyes blazed as she pushed the neon-tinted straw to his lips. Reluctantly he sucked and swallowed.
‘Fruit juice!’
‘Amazing, isn’t it? Imagine me drinking anything but alcohol, when all the world knows I only quaff champagne.’
Abruptly she let go of the glass and he grabbed it before it fell and shattered. Cold, sticky juice dribbled down his hand.
‘I didn’t have so much as a sip of wine the whole time I was on your precious island.’ Her voice was an acerbic hiss as she leaned close. ‘Yet you assume I can’t control myself as soon as I hit a party.’
A smile curved Marisa’s lips but her eyes were flat. ‘I see my reputation precedes me.’ She drew in a breath that pushed her breasts high and her shoulders back. ‘What else did you think—that I’d be off having sex with some man in a dark corner while you chatted with your friends?’ She paused, her eyes widening. ‘Or, let me guess, with a couple of men? Is that why you looked like some Neanderthal, stomping over here?’
Damaso stared. The whispered vitriol was so at odds with the smile on her delicate features. Anyone watching would think she was playing up to him rather than tearing strips off him.
It hit him with the force of a bomb exploding that Marisa was an expert at projecting an image. Suddenly his certainties rocked on their foundations.
How real had her enjoyment been when she’d laughed with those guys? Had she been putting on a front?
‘I came because I wanted to be with you.’
‘I’m sure you did.’ Her saccharine tone told him she didn’t believe a word. ‘You had to tear yourself away from your girlfriend. I assume she is a girlfriend?’
Damaso stiffened. ‘This isn’t the place.’ He explained his private life to no one, especially to a woman who somehow managed to make him feel in the wrong. It wasn’t a familiar sensation and he didn’t like it.
‘Of course she is.’ Abruptly Marisa dropped her gaze. ‘Well, far be it from me to play gooseberry. No doubt I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She turned away. ‘Goodnight, Damaso.’
Her arm was supple and cool beneath his palm as he wrapped his hand around it.
Her eyebrows arched in a fine show of hauteur, as if he defiled her with his touch. She looked as she had the day in the jungle when she’d dismissed him so disdainfully. It irked now as it had then.
He didn’t give a damn how superior she acted. He wasn’t releasing her.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Back to your city apartment. Where else?’
She looked like an ice maiden, ready to freeze any male foolish enough to approach.
As if that would stop him! She could pretend all she liked but he knew better.
‘Good.’ Damaso said. ‘I’m ready to leave.’
He tucked her hand through his arm and strode out, oblivious to the curious crowd parting before them.
* * *
The short helicopter ride to his penthouse was completed in silence. Marisa sat with her face turned, as if admiring the diamond-bright net of city lights below, her profile calm and aristocratically elegant.
She ignored him, as if he was far beneath her attention. Anger sizzled. He wasn’t the ragged kid he’d once been, looking in on society from the outside. He was Damaso Pires. Powerful, secure, in command of his world.
Yet he’d watched those men eat her up with their eyes and rage had consumed him. Rage and jealousy.
The realisation hit him with full force.
He didn’t do jealousy.
Damaso shook his head.
He did now.
Is that why he’d been so tactless? He had a reputation for sophistication but tonight he’d felt out of control, trapped in a skin that didn’t fit.
The chopper landed and soon they were alone in his apartment.
If he’d thought she’d shy from confrontation, he was wrong. Marisa swung around, hands on hips, before he’d done more than turn on a single lamp. In her glittering stilettos, with sapphires at her throat and her short, couture dress swinging around her delectable legs, she looked like any man’s dream made flesh.
But it was her eyes that drew him. Despite their flash of fury, he saw shadows there.
He’d done that.
‘I’m sorry.’ He’d never said that to any woman. Even now he couldn’t quite believe he’d spoken the words. ‘I overreacted.’
‘You can say that again.’ Absurdly her combative attitude made him want to haul her close and comfort her. In the past, he’d have walked away from a woman who wasn’t totally compliant. But Marisa hooked him in ways he didn’t understand.
‘I didn’t think you’d been drinking or having sex.’ Damaso paused. He could have phrased that better.
‘And I’m supposed to be impressed by that?’
‘No.’ He ploughed a hand through his hair, frustrated that for the first time the words hadn’t come out right. Usually persuading a woman was easy.
‘I’m tired, Damaso. This can wait.’ She turned away.
‘No!’ He lowered his voice. ‘It can’t. On the island, we got on well.’
‘And?’
‘And I want to understand you, Marisa.’ It was true. For the first time in his life, he wanted to know a woman.
What did that mean?
‘I want you to trust me.’ That was better. Women loved talk of trust and emotions.
‘Trust?’ Her voice was harsh. ‘Why should I trust you? We spent one night together. I don’t recall trust being high on your agenda then.’
She clasped her hands, fingers twisting. The movement made her look young despite her expression of bored unconcern, making him recall his suspicion that she threw up defences to hide pain.
‘Your eagerness to leave once you’d had your fill was downright insulting.’ Her jaw angled high but didn’t disguise the flush of colour across her cheekbones.
An answering rush of heat flooded his belly. Shame? He wasn’t familiar with that emotion either.
Whenever he remembered that dawn confrontation, he focused on her disdain. It was easier to concentrate on that than the fact he’d bolted out of her bed, scared by the unaccustomed yearning that had filled him. It wasn’t pressing business that had moved him, but the innate knowledge this woman was dangerous to his self-possession in ways he hadn’t been ready to confront.
He hadn’t stopped to think of her. Now he did.
‘I shouldn’t have left like that.’