LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

a vicuna coat? What do you pay janitors in Hungary?’ She laughed. ‘And would he be so bossy?’ she asked wickedly. Vigadó gave her a shrewd look. Divert him! her brain screamed. All she could manage was a simpering look of the utmost stupidity.

      ‘Mimi, I do believe you’re up to no good,’ he said softly. The glint in his eyes looked lethal.

      She did a mock ‘who, little me?’ expression because she was temporarily lost for words, her throat dry with fear. It could be her paranoia that sensed a sinister meaning behind that remark. Or…Her heart somersaulted. There was a chance, a remote chance, that he’d glimpsed her at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.

      Except…No! That had been the month she’d had long hair the colour of coal-tar—and had flown home early with flu. How could he recognise her? As a mere assistant to her last editor, she’d been one of the insignificant crowd, far from Vigadó’s glittering entourage. And she’d been power-suited, immaculately made-up and wearing her frigid ‘no-dice, hands-off expression to keep three lusting authors at bay—and cursing her editor for entrusting them to her care.

      Today, she was a blonde waif in cut-off, ragged shorts and a vest T-shirt and no make-up. He was being naturally suspicious, nothing more—and it wasn’t surprising.

      Cautiously, pretending to be fussing with her hair, she checked that no conker-coloured strands were escaping from Marilyn and then tried a resentful look on him. She had to fight this to the last ditch. It was all or nothing, sink or swim!

      ‘I think you’ve got a nerve! I’m doin’ everyone a favour, being here!’ she declared stoutly.

      ‘By waving your legs around enticingly? By launching yourself prettily into my arms?’ he purred. It was like the caressing purr of a contented tiger, who was about to pounce…devour flesh and crunch bones!

      ‘I told you. Me and my mates is decoratin’ the place,’ said Mariann, her perkiness not too successful because of the shake in her voice.

      ‘I haven’t seen them, but I’ll agree that you decorate it very prettily,’ he husked, his smoky accent deeper, more distracting than ever.

      ‘Ta. Mind you, if I’ve still got me looks, it’s no thanks to you,’ she reminded him, putting him firmly in the wrong. ‘It’s a miracle I’m in one piece at all, what with you comin’ in without warning.’

      ‘Why is an English girl working as a decorator in Budapest?’ he asked reasonably, but sardonically.

      She simpered and launched into her story. ‘I’m helpin’ a couple of fellers I know. András and János. They’re fittin’ this job in as a favour. My mum’s Hungarian. I got family over here,’ she added truthfully. ‘Not a crime, is it? I got to eat, you know.’ A mischievous impulse, born of desperation, made her launch into wild, inventive improvisation to establish her credentials before making a quick exit. ‘I hope you know you’ve ruined me snake ‘n’ adder!’

      His eyebrow rose quizzically, as well it might, she thought ruefully. And then she caught an excitement running through her veins and realised that playing risky games with the master of deception was rather enjoyable!

      ‘Snake and…adder?’ he drawled, his eyes narrowing.

      ‘Cockney rhyming slang. Adder—ladder!’ she explained sweetly, reasoning that it was rather unlikely that a Hungarian would be any kind of an expert.

      ‘I’m fascinated by your barrow-boy wit!’ he marvelled sarcastically. ‘This is almost like My Fair Lady.’

      ‘It is?’ A little puzzled, Mariann let her eyelashes do a bit of overtime and prayed that that was admiration gleaming in his eyes.

      ‘The simple Cockney girl in that particular musical turned into a raving beauty with a shrewd mind and a cut-glass accent,’ he murmured and she smiled uncertainly.

      ‘Oh, yeah. Audrey Hepburn. ‘Scuse me,’ she said, trying to ease out of his vice-like grip. Her hand looked decidedly white. Didn’t he care about hurting women? ‘I’d better give me ladder the once-over before I clean me brushes and go—’

      ‘I was intending to give you the once-over, after your fall down the…’ he paused, delicately, his mouth ironic ‘…adder!’

      Mariann squirmed, not wanting to risk having a handson experience with Mr Bedroom Eyes himself and wondering what it would take to free herself.

      ‘You tryin’ to stop the blood flowing to me fingers?’ she asked in pointed objection.

      ‘Is that what I’m doing? Dear me! No wonder I’m known for breaking butterflies’ wings on wheels,’ he said in a low, unnervingly cruel undertone. He smiled unpleasantly, as though contemplating a few butterflies he’d destroyed, and Mariann’s pulses lurched erratically. ‘In certain circumstances, I use more force than necessary.’

      ‘What circumstances?’ she asked hoarsely.

      His sharply sculptured lips curled into a calculating smile that coincided with the pressure of his hips against hers. ‘When I’m aroused in one way or another.’

      Aroused. Mariann swallowed hard. Was that anger or passion in his tone? She found it confusingly hard to tell. ‘You come to the boil a bit quick!’ she observed, her jaunty tone belying her fear.

      ‘Depends how high the heat is turned up,’ he said meaningfully. Mariann took the hint. She’d overdone it. This guy needed no encouragement for his sexual urge to take over. ‘Now let’s find out all about you, shall we?’

      ‘I’m better at talkin’ when I can breathe,’ she husked. His thumbs were now massaging in an irritatingly rhythmic way over her flesh. Her tingling flesh. How could it tingle? she thought in mortification.

      ‘And I’m better at getting information out of people when I have some kind of a hold over them,’ he replied coolly.

      She gasped at his blatant threat and decided it was time this trickster experienced a dirty trick or two in return. So she inhaled deeply. Vigadó’s avid eyes fell to her T-shirt, which he watched with close interest as it rose beneath the strain of her lifting breasts.

      And then, ‘Read all about it!’ she yelled, approximately two inches from his mesmerised face.

      ‘What the devil—?’ he roared, flinching violently.

      She was free!’ ‘Just checking my lungs work all right,’ she said with bright innocence, taking a precautionary step or two nearer to the sanctuary of her outdoor clothes. A bit of bleached-blonde Marilyn slid seductively over one eye and she decided to leave it there. Her giggle surfaced at his pained expression. ‘I haven’t gone mad.’ She grinned. ‘That was-—’

      ‘I know,’ he grated irritably. ‘I’ve heard newspaper venders shouting that phrase in London. You bring the city sounds vividly back to me,’ he added in icy sarcasm. ‘You’ll be doing the Lambeth Walk and impressions of Big Ben chiming next.’

      She flung him an amused look and then her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a laugh. ‘Oh, my!’ she gasped. ‘The paint’s gone all over your nice pin-stripe!’

      His gaze followed hers. ‘Dammit!’ he cried irritably, slipping his arms out of the expensive coat—mercifully untouched—and passing it imperiously to her. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

      Annoyed by his arrogant manner, she flung the coat in the general direction of his luggage and decided to have a dig at him. ‘I didn’t ask you to clutch me to you like a drownin’ man grabbin’ a lifebelt!’ she argued indignantly.

      ‘I was steadying you, after your launch into space,’ he said in chilling tones. ‘And I don’t quite see myself as a drowning man.’

      ‘Like a leech, then,’ she said in a kindly way, because he was, having sucked the life blood from her boss’s business.

      His

Скачать книгу