About the Author

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and eighty books for Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Tall, Dark & Rich
His Christmas Virgin
Married by Christmas
A Yuletide Seduction
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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His Christmas Virgin

CHAPTER ONE

MAC came to an abrupt and wary halt halfway down the metal steps leading from the second floor of her warehouse-conversion home. She’d suddenly become aware of a large figure standing in the dark and shadowed alleyway beneath her.

A very large figure indeed, she noted with a frown as a man stepped out from those shadows to stand in the soft glow of light given out by the lamp shining behind her at the top of the staircase.

The man looked enormous from where Mac stood, his wide shoulders beneath the dark woollen overcoat that reached almost to his ankles adding to that impression. He had overlong dark hair brushed back from a hard and powerful face that at any other time Mac would have ached to put on canvas, light and piercing eyes—were they grey or blue?—and high cheekbones beside a long slash of a nose. He also possessed a perfectly sculptured mouth, the fuller bottom lip hinting at a depth of sensuality, and a firm and determined chin.

None of which was of the least importance—except maybe to the police, Mac wryly acknowledged to herself, if the man’s reasons for being here turned out to be less than honest!

She repressed a shiver as the chill of the cold wind of an early December evening began to seep into her bones. ‘Can I help you?’ she prompted sharply as she finished pulling on her cardigan, using both her hands to free the long length of her midnight-black hair from the collar. All the time wondering if she was going to have to use the ju-jitsu skills she had learnt during her years at university!

The man shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Perhaps. If you can tell me whether or not Mary McGuire is at home?’

He knew her name!

Not that any of her friends ever called her Mary. But then, as Mac had never set eyes on this man before, he was hardly a friend, was he?

She glanced at the brightly lit studio behind and above her before turning to eye the man again guardedly. ‘Who wants to know?’

‘Look, I understand your wariness—’

‘Do you?’ she challenged.

‘Of course,’ he confirmed. ‘I’ve obviously startled you, and I’m sorry for that, but I assure you my reasons for being here are perfectly legitimate. I simply wish to speak to Miss McGuire.’

‘But does Miss McGuire wish to speak to you?’

The man gave a hard, humourless smile. ‘I would hope so. Look, we could go back and forth like this all night.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Mac shook her head, deciding that perhaps she wouldn’t need to use those self-defence lessons on this man, after all. ‘The Patels shut up shop in precisely ten minutes and I intend to be there before that.’

Dark brows rose over those light-coloured eyes. ‘The Patels?’

Mac elaborated. ‘They own the corner shop two streets away.’

‘The significance of that being…?’

‘I need to get some groceries before they close. That being the case, would you mind stepping aside so that I can get by?’ She stepped down two more of the stairs so that they now stood at eye level.

Blue. His eyes were blue. A piercing electric blue.

Mac’s breath caught in her throat as she stared into those mesmerising blue eyes, at the same time screamingly aware of the subtle and spicy smell of his aftershave or cologne. Of the leashed power he exuded. Even so, Mac was pretty sure she could take him; it was skill that mattered when it came to ju-jitsu, not size, and she was very skilled indeed.

The man looked at her beneath hooded lids. ‘The fact that you’re obviously leaving her home would seem to imply that you’re a friend of Miss McGuire’s.’

‘Would it?’

Jonas deeply regretted the impulse of his decision to call and talk to Mary McGuire this evening. It would have been far more suitable, he now realised—and far less disturbing for one of the woman’s friends—if he had simply telephoned first and made an appointment that was convenient to both of them. During the daylight hours, and hopefully at a time when one of her arty friends wasn’t also visiting!

The fact that the thin little waif standing on the stairs had long, straight black hair that reached almost to her waist, and almond-shaped eyes of smoky-grey in a delicately beautiful face, took nothing away from the fact that she had obviously taken to heart the persona of the ‘artist starving in a garret’!

As also evidenced by the overlarge dungarees she wore over a white T-shirt, both articles of clothing covered by a baggy pink cardigan that looked as if it would wrap about the slenderness of her body twice. Her hands were tiny and thin, the skin almost translucent. The ratty blue canvas trainers on her feet were hardly suitable for the wet and icy early December weather, either.

Jonas had spent the last week in Australia on business. Successfully so, he acknowledged with inner satisfaction. Except he now felt the effects of this cold and damp English December right down to his bones, after the heat in Australia, despite wearing a thick cashmere overcoat over his suit.

This delicate-looking little waif must be even colder with only that thin cardigan as an outer garment. ‘I apologise once again if I alarmed you just now.’ He grimaced as he moved aside and allowed her to step down onto the pavement beside him.

The top of her head reached just under Jonas’s chin as she looked up at him with obvious mockery. ‘You didn’t,’ she came back glibly before wrapping her cardigan more tightly about her and hurrying off into the night.

Jonas was still watching her through narrowed lids as she stopped beneath the lamp at the corner of the street to glance back at him, her face a pale oval, that almost-waist-length hair gleaming briefly blue-black before she turned and disappeared around the corner.

He gave a rueful shake of his head before turning to ascend the metal steps that led up to Mary McGuire’s studio; hopefully she wasn’t going to be as unhelpful as her waiflike friend. Although he wouldn’t count on it!

Mac lingered to chat with the Patels for a few minutes after she had bought her groceries. She liked the young couple who had opened this convenient mini-market two years ago, and Inda was expecting their first baby in a couple of months’ time.

Mac’s steps slowed as she saw the man who had spoken to her earlier sitting on the bottom step of the metal staircase waiting for her when she returned carrying her bag of groceries, those electric-blue eyes narrowing on her coldly as she walked towards him. ‘I take it Miss McGuire wasn’t in?’ she asked lightly as she stopped in front of him.

It had been fifteen minutes since Jonas had reached the top of the metal staircase to ring the doorbell and receive no response. To knock on the door and get the same result. The blaze of lights in the studio told him that someone had to be home.

Or had very recently been so?

Leaving Jonas to pose the question as to whether or not the young woman in the dungarees and baggy pink cardigan, who had hurried off to the Patels’ store to get groceries before they closed, was in fact Mary McGuire, rather than the visiting friend he had assumed her to be.

Something he found almost too incredible to believe!

This young woman looked half starved, and her clothes were more suited to someone living on the streets rather than the successful artist she now was; Mary McGuire had become an artist of some repute the last three years, her paintings becoming extremely valuable as serious collectors and experts alike waxed lyrical about the uniqueness of her style and use of colour.

Her reputation as an artist aside, the woman had also become the proverbial thorn in Jonas’s side the last six months.

This woman?

He stood up slowly to look down at her critically as he took an educated guess on that being the case. ‘Wouldn’t it have just been easier to tell me that you’re Mary McGuire?’

She gave a dismissive shrug of those thin and narrow shoulders. ‘But not half as much fun.’

The hardening of Jonas’s mouth revealed that he didn’t appreciate being anyone’s reason for having ‘fun’. ‘Now that we’ve established who you are, perhaps we could go upstairs and have a serious conversation?’ he rasped coldly.

Smoky-grey eyes returned his gaze unblinkingly. ‘No.’

He raised dark brows. ‘What do you mean, no?’

‘I mean no,’ she repeated patiently. ‘You may now know who I am but I still have no idea who you are.’

Jonas scowled darkly. ‘I’m the man you’ve been jerking around for the past six months!’

Mac frowned up at him searchingly, only to become more positive than ever that she had never met this man before. At well over six feet tall, with those dark and dangerous good looks, he simply wasn’t the sort of man that any woman, of any age, was ever likely to forget.

‘Sorry.’ She gave a firm shake of her head. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

That sculptured, sensual mouth twisted in derision. ‘Does Buchanan Construction ring any bells with you?’

Alarm bells, maybe, Mac conceded as her gaze sharpened warily on the hard and powerful face above hers. A ruthless face, she now recognised warily. ‘I take it Mr Buchanan has decided to send in one of his henchmen now that all attempts at polite persuasion have failed?’

Those blue eyes widened incredulously. ‘You think I’m some sort of heavy sent to intimidate you?’

‘Well, aren’t you?’ Mac bit out scathingly. ‘So far I’ve had visits from Mr Buchanan’s lawyer, his personal assistant, and his builder, so why not one of his henchmen?’

‘Possibly because I don’t employ any henchmen!’ Jonas bit out icily, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he glared down at her.

He had decided to come here personally this evening in the hope that he would be able to talk some sense into the reputed and respected—and mulishly stubborn—artist Mary McGuire, and instead he found himself being insulted by a five-foot-nothing scrap of a woman who had the dress sense of a bag-lady!

Those deep grey eyes had opened wide. ‘You’re Jonas Buchanan?’

At last he had succeeded in shaking that mocking self-confidence a little. ‘Surprised?’ he taunted softly.

Surprised was definitely understating how Mac felt at that moment; stunned better described it.

She had known of Buchanan Construction—impossible not to, when for years there had been boards up on building sites all over London with that name emblazoned across them—when she was approached by the company’s legal representative with an offer to buy her warehouse-conversion home.

Yes, Mac had certainly known the name Jonas Buchanan, and, if she had thought about it at all, she had always assumed that the owner of the worldwide construction company would be a man in his fifties or sixties, who probably enjoyed the occasional cigar with his brandy after no doubt indulging in a seven-course dinner.

The man now claiming to be Jonas Buchanan could only be in his mid-thirties at most, the healthy glow of his tanned face indicating that he didn’t smoke even the occasional cigar, and the muscled and hard fitness of his body told her that he didn’t indulge in seven-course dinners, either.

Mac looked up at him shrewdly. ‘Do you have a driver’s licence or something to prove that claim?’

Jonas scowled as his irritation deepened. He had travelled all over the world on business for years now, and never once during that time had anyone ever questioned that he was who he said he was. Until Mary McGuire, that was! ‘Will a credit card do?’ he snapped as he reached into the breast pocket of his overcoat for his wallet.

‘I’m afraid not.’

Jonas’s hand stilled. ‘Why not?’

She shrugged in that ridiculously baggy pink cardigan. ‘I need something with a photograph. Anyone could have a credit card with the name Jonas Buchanan printed on it.’

‘You think I forged a credit card with Jonas Buchanan’s name on it?’ Jonas was incredulous.

‘Or stole it.’ She nodded. ‘I would much rather see a passport or a driver’s licence with a photograph on,’ she stubbornly stuck to her guns.

Jonas’s mouth compressed. ‘On the basis, one supposes, that I haven’t had either one of those forged in the name of Jonas Buchanan, too?’

She frowned. ‘Hmm, I hadn’t thought of that…’

No, he definitely shouldn’t have given into impulse and come here this evening, Jonas acknowledged with ever-growing frustration as he pulled out the passport that he hadn’t yet had the chance to remove from his pocket following his flight back from Sydney yesterday. He had stupidly allowed his success in Australia to convince him, after months of getting nowhere with the woman, that talking personally to Miss McGuire was the right way to handle this delicate situation!

‘Here.’ He thrust the passport at her.

Mac carefully avoided her fingers coming into contact with his as she took the passport and turned to the laminated photo page. Unlike her own passport photo, where she looked about sixteen and as if she ought to have a prisoner number printed beneath, this man’s photograph showed him as exactly the lethally attractive and powerful man that he appeared in the flesh.

She quickly checked the details beside that photograph. Jonas Edward Buchanan. British citizen. His date of birth telling Mac that he had recently turned thirty-five.

She thought quickly as she slowly closed the passport before handing it back to him, knowing she could continue this game, and so annoy the hell out of this man, or…‘What can I do for you, Mr Buchanan?’ she asked politely.

‘Better,’ he rasped impatiently as he stashed the passport back in his breast pocket. ‘Obviously you and I need to talk, Miss McGuire—’

‘I don’t see why.’ Mac brushed past him and began to ascend the stairs back up to her home, seeing no reason for her to linger out here in the cold now that she knew—or, at least, assumed—that this man wasn’t about to mug her, after all. ‘I’ll be turning the light out at the top of the stairs in a minute or so; before I do, you might want to get back to the main streets where it’s more brightly lit,’ she advised without turning as she took the key from the pocket of her dungarees to unlock the door.

Jonas continued to look up at her in seething annoyance for a mere fraction of a second before following her, taking the stairs two at a time until he stood directly behind her. ‘You and I need to talk,’ he bit out between gritted teeth.

‘Write me a letter,’ she advised as she unlocked the door before stepping inside and turning to face him, her expression one of open challenge.

Jonas placed his hands on either side of the doorframe. ‘I’ve already written you half a dozen letters. Letters you haven’t bothered to reply to.’

She grimaced. ‘There’s always the possibility that I’ll reply to the seventh.’

‘I doubt that somehow,’ Jonas accepted grimly. ‘I don’t think so!’ He put his booted foot between the door and the frame as she would have closed that door in his face.

She opened it again to glare at him, those smoky grey eyes glittering darkly, bright colour in her normally pale cheeks. ‘Remove your foot, Mr Buchanan, or you’ll leave me with no choice but to call the police and have you forcibly removed from the premises!’

It was all too easy for Jonas to see that she was more angry than alarmed by his persistence. ‘I only want the two of us to sit down and have a sensible conversation—’

‘I’m busy.’

‘I’m asking for two minutes of your time, damn it!’ Jonas exclaimed.

Mac really wasn’t being difficult when she said she was busy; she had a major exhibition at a gallery on Saturday, only two days away, and she had one more painting to finish before then. Besides, no amount of talking to Jonas Buchanan was going to make her change her mind about selling the warehouse she had so lovingly worked on to make into her home.

Her grandfather had left this property to Mac when he died five years ago. It had been one of many warehouses by the river that had fallen into disuse as the trade into the London dock had fallen foul of other, more convenient transportation. Three floors high, it had been the perfect place for Mac to make into her home as well as her working studio. From the outside it still looked like an old warehouse, but inside the ground floor consisted of a garage and utility room, the second floor was her living quarters, and the third floor made a spacious studio.

Unfortunately, the area where the warehouse stood had recently become very attractive to property developers such as Jonas Buchanan, as they bought up the rundown riverside properties to put up blocks of luxurious apartments that had the added allure of a magnificent and uninterrupted view of the river.

It was this man’s bad luck that Mac’s own warehouse home stood on one of those sites.

She sighed. ‘I’ve already given my answer to your lawyer, your personal assistant, and your builder,’ she reminded him pointedly. ‘I don’t want to sell. Not now. Not in the future. Not ever. Is that clear enough for you?’

Jonas Buchanan’s expression was one of pure exasperation as he gave an impatient shake of his head. ‘You must realise that the area around you is going to become a noisy building site over the winter months?’

She shrugged. ‘You’ve fenced off this area for that purpose.’

He frowned. ‘That isn’t going to lessen the noise of lorries arriving with supplies. Workmen constantly hammering and banging as the buildings start to go up, followed by huge cranes being erected on site. Exactly how do you expect to still be able to work with all that going on?’

Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘The same way I’ve continued to work the last few months as you’ve systematically pulled down all the buildings around this one.’

Jonas’s mouth firmed at the implied criticism. ‘I offered several times to relocate you—’

‘I have no wish to be “relocated”, Mr Buchanan,’ Mary McGuire growled out between clenched teeth. ‘This is my home. It will remain my home still, even once you’ve built and sold your luxurious apartments.’

And, as Jonas was only too aware, be a complete eyesore to the people who lived in those exclusive multimillion-pound apartments! ‘In my experience, everyone has a price, Mary—’

‘Mac.’

He frowned. ‘Sorry?’

‘Everyone who actually knows me calls me Mac, not Mary,’ she explained. ‘And maybe the people you’re acquainted with have “a price”, Mr Buchanan,’ she said scathingly, smoky-grey eyes glittering with contempt. ‘I happen to believe that my own family and friends have more integrity than that. As do I!’

Jonas now fully understood the frustration his employees had previously encountered when trying to talk to Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire; he had never before met a more stubborn, pigheaded and unreasonable individual than this particular woman!

His mouth thinned. ‘You know where to reach me when you change your mind.’

‘If I change my mind,’ she corrected firmly. ‘Which I won’t. Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Buchanan?’ She raised ebony brows. ‘I really am very busy.’

And Jonas wasn’t? With millions of pounds invested in one building project or another all over the world, Jonas’s own time was, and always had been, at a premium. He certainly didn’t have any more of it to waste tonight on this woman.

He stepped back. ‘As I said, you know where to reach me when you’ve had enough.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Buchanan,’ she shot back with saccharin—and pointed—sweetness, before quietly closing the door in his face.

Jonas continued to scowl at that closed door for several minutes after she had carried out her threat to turn off the outside light and left him in darkness apart from the lights visible inside the warehouse itself.

He had already invested too much time and money in the building project due to begin on this site in the New Year to allow one stubborn individual to ruin it for him, or Buchanan Construction.

Obviously the money he had so far offered for this property wasn’t enough of a reason for Miss McGuire to agree to move. Which meant Jonas was going to have to come up with a more convincing reason for her to want to leave.

CHAPTER TWO

‘CHEER up, Mac,’ Jeremy Lyndhurst teased as the first of the guests invited to this evening’s viewing began to come through the gallery. The fifty-something coowner of the prestigious Lyndwood Gallery continued, ‘A few hours of looking good and being socially polite this evening, and tomorrow you can go back to being reclusive and dressing like a tramp!’

Mac chuckled huskily—as she knew she was meant to—at this reminder of the affront it was to Jeremy’s own impeccable dress sense whenever she turned up at his gallery in her paint-smeared working clothes. Which she had done a lot the last few weeks as she came to deliver the individual paintings due to be exhibited at this evening’s ‘invitation only’ showing of her work.

Jeremy’s partner—in more ways than one—Magnus Laywood, a tall, blond giant in his forties, was at the door to ‘meet and greet’ as more of those guests began to arrive; mainly art critics and serious collectors, but also some other individuals who were just seriously rich.

There were twenty of Mac’s paintings on show this evening, and all of them expertly displayed by Jeremy and Magnus, on walls of muted cream with their own individual lighting so that they showed to their best advantage.

It was the first individual exhibition of its kind that Mac had ever agreed to do—and now that the evening had finally arrived she was so nervous her knees were knocking together!

‘Here, drink this.’ Jeremy picked up a glass of champagne from one of the waiters who were starting to circulate amongst the guests in the rapidly filling room, and handed it to her. ‘Your face just went green!’ he explained with a chuckle.

Mac took a restorative sip of the bubbly alcohol. ‘I’ve never been so nervous in my entire life.’

‘Oh, to be twenty-seven again,’ Jeremy murmured mournfully.

Mac took another sip of the delicious champagne. ‘What if they don’t like my work?’ she wailed.

‘They can’t all be idiots, darling,’ Jeremy drawled. ‘It’s going to be a wonderful evening, Mac,’ he reassured her seriously as she still looked unconvinced. ‘I know how hard this is for you, love, but just try to enjoy it, hmm?’

The problem was that Mac had never been particularly fond of exhibiting her work. Selling it, yes. Showing it to other people, and being ‘socially polite’ to those people, no. Unfortunately, as Mac was well aware, she couldn’t make a living from her paintings if she didn’t sell them.

‘I’ll try—Oh. My. God!’ she gasped weakly as she saw, and easily recognised, the man now standing beside the door engaged in conversation with Magnus.

Jonas Buchanan!

He was as tall as Magnus, and dark and dangerous where the other man was blond and amiable, there was no mistaking that overlong dark hair and those hard and chiselled features dominated by piercing blue eyes that now swept coldly over the other guests.

Mac’s heart hammered loudly in her chest as she took in the rest of his appearance. Dressed like every other man in the room, in a tailored black evening suit and snowy white shirt with a perfectly arranged black bowtie at his throat, Jonas nevertheless somehow managed to look so much more compellingly handsome than any other man in the room.

‘What is it?’ Jeremy followed her line of vision. ‘Who is that?’ he murmured appreciatively, his longstanding relationship with Magnus not rendering him immune to the attractions of other men.

Mac dragged her gaze away from Jonas to look accusingly at the co-owner of the Lyndwood Gallery. ‘You should know—you invited him!’

‘I don’t think so.’ Jeremy’s eyes were narrowed as he continued to look across at Jonas. ‘Who is he?’

Mac swallowed hard before answering. ‘Jonas Buchanan.’

Jeremy looked impressed. ‘The Jonas Buchanan?’

As far as Mac was aware there was only one Jonas Buchanan, yes!

‘Ah, I understand now.’ Jeremy nodded his satisfaction as a puzzle was obviously solved. ‘He’s with Amy Walters.’

Mac turned back in time to see Jonas Buchanan placing a proprietary hand beneath the elbow of a tall and beautiful redhead, the two of them talking softly together as they crossed the room to join a group of guests, Jonas easily standing several inches taller than the other men. Mac turned away abruptly.

‘Amy’s the art critic for The Individual,’ Jeremy supplied dryly as he saw the blankness of Mac’s expression.

A completely unnecessary explanation as far as Mac was concerned; she knew exactly who Amy Walters was. It was the fact that the other woman had brought Jonas with her this evening, a man Mac was predisposed to dislike, that made things more than a little awkward; Mac was only too aware that she would have to be polite to the beautiful art critic if the two of them were introduced. Something that might be a little difficult for her to do with the arrogantly self-assured Jonas Buchanan standing at Amy’s side!

The reason for that current self-assurance was obvious; invitations to this exhibition had been sent out weeks ago to ensure maximum attendance. Meaning that Jonas Buchanan had to have known, when they had met and spoken so briefly together two evenings ago, that he was going to be at her exhibition at the Lyndwood Gallery this evening.

Rat!

If he thought he could intimidate her by practically gatecrashing her exhibition, then he could—

‘How nice to see you again so soon, Mac.’

Mac stiffened, her earlier nervousness completely evaporating and being replaced by indignation as she recognised Jonas Buchanan’s silkily sarcastic tone as he spoke softly behind her.

Double rat!

Jonas kept his expression deliberately neutral as Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire slowly turned to face him.

To say that he had been surprised by her appearance this evening would be a complete understatement! In fact, if Amy hadn’t teasingly assured him that the delicately lovely woman with her ebony hair secured on top of her head to reveal the slender loveliness of her neck, and wearing a red Chinese-style knee-length silk dress with matching red high-heeled sandals that showed off her shapely legs to perfection, was indeed the artist herself, then Jonas wasn’t sure he would have even recognised her!

She looked totally different with her hair up, older, more sophisticated, those mysterious smoky-grey eyes surrounded by long and thick dark lashes, the paleness of her cheeks highlighted with blusher, those full and sensuous lips outlined with a lip gloss the same vibrant red as that figure-hugging red silk gown and three-inch sandals.

In a word, she looked exquisite!

Whoever would have thought it? Jonas mused ruefully. From bag-lady to femme fatale with the donning of a red silk dress.

Although the challenging glitter in those smoky grey eyes as she glared up at him was certainly familiar enough. ‘Mr Buchanan,’ she greeted dryly. ‘Jeremy, this is Jonas Buchanan. Jonas, one of the gallery owners, Jeremy Lyndhurst.’

Mac watched through narrowed lashes as the two men shook hands, finding Jonas’s appearance even more disturbing tonight than she had two evenings ago. He was one of the few men she had met who wore the elegance of a black evening suit rather than the clothes wearing him, the power of his personality such that it was definitely the man one noticed rather than the superb tailoring of the clothing he wore.

‘Have you managed to lose Miss Walters already?’ Mac asked sweetly as she saw that the other woman was talking animatedly to another man across the room.

Those electric-blue eyes darkened with sudden humour. ‘Amy pretty much does her own thing,’ Jonas Buchanan replied with a singular lack of concern.

‘How…understanding, of you,’ Mac taunted. Really, she was nervous enough about this evening already, without having to suffer this particular man’s presence!

‘Not at all,’ Jonas drawled with deepening amusement.

‘I do hope you will both excuse me…?’ Jeremy cut in apologetically. ‘Someone has just arrived that I absolutely have to go and talk to.’

‘Of course,’ Jonas Buchanan accepted smoothly. ‘I assure you, I’m only too happy to stay and keep Mac company,’ he added as he took a deliberate step closer to her.

A close proximity that Mac instantly took exception to!

One or other of this man’s associates had been hounding her for months now in an effort to buy her home—but only so that it could be knocked down to become part of the area of ground landscaped as a garden for the new luxury apartment complex. The fact that Jonas Buchanan himself had now decided to get in on the act did not impress Mac in the slightest.

‘You’re looking very beautiful this evening—’

‘Don’t let appearances deceive you, Mr Buchanan,’ she interrupted sharply. ‘I’ll be back to wearing my dungarees tomorrow.’ Mac had made the mistake of dating a prestigious and arrogant art critic when she was still at university, and she wasn’t about to ever let another man treat her as nothing but a beautiful trophy to exhibit on his arm. ‘Exactly what are you doing here, Mr Buchanan?’ she asked him directly.

Jonas studied her through narrowed lids. Two evenings ago he had thought this woman looked like a starving waif with absolutely no dress sense, but her exquisite appearance tonight in the red silk dress—which Jonas realised almost every other man in the room was also aware of—indicated to him that she must actually dress in those other baggy and unflattering clothes because she wanted to.

He shrugged. ‘Amy asked me to be her escort this evening.’

Those red-glossed lips curled with distaste. ‘How flattering to have a woman ask you out.’

Jonas’s gaze hardened. ‘I’m always happy to spend the evening with my cousin.’

Those smoky-grey eyes widened. ‘Amy Walters is your cousin?’

He arched a mocking brow at her obvious incredulity. ‘Is that so hard to believe?’

Well, no, of course it wasn’t hard to believe, Mac accepted uncomfortably. But it did mean that Jonas wasn’t here this evening on a date with another woman, as Mac had assumed that he was…

And why should that matter to her? She had no personal interest in this man. Did she…?

Lord, she hoped not!

The fact that he was one of the most compellingly attractive men Mac had ever met was surely nullified by the fact that he was also the man trying to force her out of her own home, by the sheer act of making it too uncomfortable for her to stay?

She steadily returned Jonas’s piercing gaze as she shrugged. ‘I don’t see any family resemblance.’

He smiled wickedly. ‘Maybe that’s because Amy is a woman and I’m a man?’

Mac was well aware that Jonas was a man. Much too aware for her own comfort, as it happened. At five feet two inches tall, and weighing only a hundred pounds, in stark contrast to Jonas Buchanan’s considerable height and powerful build, she was made totally aware of her own femininity by this man. And, uncomfortably, her vulnerability…

Her mouth firmed. ‘I really should go and circulate amongst the other guests,’ she told him as she placed her empty champagne glass down on a side table with the intention of leaving.

‘Maybe I’ll come with you.’ Jonas Buchanan reached out to lightly grasp Mac by the elbow as she would have turned away.

His touch instantly sent a quiver of shocking awareness along the length of her arm and down into her breasts, causing them to swell inside her bra and the nipples to engorge to a pleasurable ache against the lacy material.

It was a completely unfamiliar—and unwelcome—feeling to Mac. After that one brief disaster of a relationship while at university, she had spent the following six years concentrating solely on her painting career, with little or no time to even think about relationships. She wasn’t thinking of one now, either. Jonas Buchanan was the last man—positively the last man!—that Mac should be feeling physically attracted to.

Her body wasn’t listening to her, unfortunately, as the warmth of Jonas’s hand on her arm began to infiltrate the rest of her body, culminating uncomfortably at the apex of her thighs as she felt herself moisten there, in such a burst of heat that she gasped softly in awareness of that arousal.

She raised startled eyes to that hard and compellingly handsome face above hers, Jonas standing so close to her now she was able to see the individual pores in his skin. To recognise the lighter blue ring that surrounded the iris of his eyes, which gave them that piercing appearance. To gaze hypnotically at those slightly parted lips as they slowly lowered towards hers—

Mac jerked herself quickly out of his grasp. ‘What are you doing?’

Yes, what was he doing? Jonas wondered frowningly. For a brief moment he had forgotten that they were surrounded by noisily chatting art critics and collectors. Had felt as if he and the exquisitely beautiful Mac McGuire were the only two people in the room, surrounded only by an expectant awareness and the heady seduction of her perfume.

Damn it, Jonas had been so unaware of those other people in the room that he had been about to kiss her in front of them all!

Her appearance this evening was an illusion, he reminded himself. Tonight she was the artist, deliberately dressed to beguile and seduce art critics and art collectors alike into approving of or buying her paintings. The fact that she had almost succeeded in seducing him into forgetting exactly who and what she was only increased Jonas’s feelings of self-disgust.

His mouth thinned as he stepped away to look down at her through hooded lids. ‘I really shouldn’t keep you from your other guests any longer.’

Mac trembled slightly at the contempt she could hear in Jonas’s tone. As she wondered what she had done to incur that contempt; he had been the one about to kiss her and not the other way around!

Her gaze returned to those sensually sculptured lips as she wondered what it would have felt like to have them part and claim her own lips. Jonas’s mouth looked hard and uncompromising now, but seconds ago those firm lips had been soft and inviting as they lowered to hers—

Get a grip, Mac, she instructed herself firmly as she straightened decisively. The fact that he looked wonderful in a black evening suit, and was one of the most gorgeous men she had ever set eyes on, did not detract from the fact that he was also the enemy!

She eyed him mockingly. ‘I would be polite and say that it’s been nice seeing you again, Mr Buchanan, but we both know I would be lying…’ She trailed off pointedly.

He gave a humourless smile in recognition of that mockery.

‘I doubt very much that you’ve seen the last of me, Mac.’

She raised dark brows. ‘I sincerely hope that you’re wrong about that.’

His smile deepened. ‘I rarely am when it comes to matters of business.’

‘Modest too,’ Mac scorned. ‘Is there no end to your list of talents?’ She snorted delicately. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Mr Buchanan.’ She didn’t wait for his reply to her statement but moved to cross the room to where she realised Magnus had discreetly been trying to attract her attention for the past few minutes.

Jonas stood unmoving as he watched her progress slowly across the room, stopping occasionally to greet people she knew. Unlike her behaviour towards him, the smiles Mac bestowed on the other guests were warm and relaxed, the huskiness of her laugh a soft caress to the senses, and revealing small, even white teeth against those full and red-glossed lips.

The tight-fitting silk dress emphasised the rounded curve of her bottom as she moved, and the slit up the side of the gown revealed the shapely length of her thigh. Jonas scowled his disapproval as he saw that most of the men in the room were also watching her, with one persistent man even grasping her wrist and trying to engage her in conversation before she laughingly managed to extricate herself and walked away to join Magnus Laywood.

‘So what did you make of our little artist…?’

Jonas turned to look at Amy, compressing his mouth in irritation as he realised he had been so engrossed in watching Mac that he hadn’t noticed his cousin’s approach. A tall and beautiful redhead, with a temper to match, Jonas’s maternal cousin wasn’t a woman men usually overlooked!

‘What did I think of Mary McGuire?’ Jonas played for time as he was still too surprised at his reaction to the artist’s change in appearance to be able to formulate a satisfactory answer to Amy’s archly voiced question. ‘She seems…a little young, to have engendered all this interest,’ he drawled with bored lack of interest as he took two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed one of them to his cousin.

‘Young but brilliant,’ Amy assured him unreservedly as she sipped the chilled wine.

‘High praise indeed,’ Jonas mused; his cousin wasn’t known for her effusiveness when it came to her job as art critic for The Individual.

Amy linked her arm with his encouragingly. ‘Come and look at some of her paintings.’

Mac continued to chat lightly with a collector who had expressed a serious interest in buying one of the paintings on display, at the same time completely aware of Jonas Buchanan and his cousin as they moved slowly through the two-roomed gallery to view her work.

It was impossible to tell from Jonas’s expression what he thought of her paintings, those blue eyes hooded as he studied each canvas, his mouth unsmiling as he murmured in soft reply to Amy Walters’s comments.

He probably hated them, Mac accepted heavily as she politely tried to refer the flirtatious collector to Jeremy for the more serious discussion over price. No doubt Jonas preferred modern art as opposed to her more ethereal style and bright but slightly muted use of colour. No doubt he had only agreed to accompany his cousin this evening in the first place because he had known that by doing so he would undermine Mac’s confidence.

He needn’t have bothered—Mac already hated all of this! She disliked the artificiality. Found the inane chatter tiresome. And she found herself especially irritated by the opportunistic collector she now realised was unobtrusively trying to place his hand on her bottom…

Mac moved sharply away from him, her eyes snapping with indignation at the uninvited familiarity. ‘I’m sure that you’ll find Jeremy will be only too happy to help with any further questions you might have.’

The middle-aged man chuckled meaningfully as he moved closer. ‘He isn’t my type!’

Mac frowned her discomfort, at a complete loss as to how to deal with this situation without causing a scene. Something she knew was out of the question with a dozen or so reporters also present in the room.

In their own individual ways Jeremy and Magnus had worked as hard on producing this exhibition this evening as Mac had. If she were to slap this obnoxious man’s face, as she was so tempted to do, then the headlines in some of tomorrow’s newspapers would read ‘Artist slaps buyer’s face!’ instead of any praise or constructive criticism on her actual work.

She gave a shake of her head. ‘I really don’t think—’

‘Sorry to have been gone so long, darling,’ Jonas Buchanan interrupted smoothly as his arm moved firmly about Mac’s waist to pull her securely against his side. He gave the other man a challenging smile, those compelling blue eyes as hard as the sapphires they resembled. ‘It’s rather crowded in here, isn’t it?’

‘I—yes.’ The older and shorter man looked disconcerted by this unmistakable show of possessiveness. ‘I—If you will both excuse me? I’ll take your advice, Mac, and go and discuss the details with Jeremy.’ He turned to hurriedly disappear into the crowd.

Mac found that she was trembling in reaction—and was totally at a loss to know if it was caused by the unpleasantness of the last minute or so, or because Jonas still held her so firmly against him that she was totally aware of the hard warmth of his powerful body…

Jonas took one look down at Mac’s white face before his arm tightened about her waist and he turned her towards the entrance to the gallery. ‘Let’s get some air,’ he suggested as he all but lifted her off the floor to carry her across the room and out of the door into the icy cold night. Something he instantly realised was a mistake as he could see by the street-lamp how Mac had begun to shiver in the thin silk dress. ‘Here.’ He slipped off his jacket to place it about her shoulders, his thumbs brushing lightly against the warm swell of her breasts as he stood in front of her to pull the lapels together.

Her eyes were huge as she looked up at him. ‘Now you’re going to be cold.’

She looked like a little girl playing dress-up with the shoulders of Jonas’s jacket drooping down at the sides and the bulky garment reaching almost down to her knees. Except there was nothing childlike about the sudden awareness that darkened those smoky-grey eyes, or the temptation of those parted red-glossed lips as she breathed shallowly.

‘How old are you really?’ Jonas rasped harshly.

She blinked. ‘I—What does that have to do with anything?’

He gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders. ‘When I met you the other night you looked like someone’s little sister. Tonight you look—well, tonight you look more like most men wished their best friend’s little sister looked!’

She tilted that long elegant neck as she looked up at him. ‘And how is that?’ she prompted huskily.

This is a bad idea, Buchanan, Jonas cautioned himself. A very, very bad idea, he warned firmly even as his fascinated gaze remained fixed on those moist and parted lips.

A taste. He just wanted a taste of those sexy red lips—

Hell, no!

He was trying to transact a business deal with this woman, and he made a point of never mixing business with pleasure. And Jonas had no doubts it would have been very pleasurable to touch and taste those full and pouting lips with his own…

His expression was deliberately taunting as he looked down at her. ‘In that dress you look like a woman who’s ready for hot and wild sex.’

Mac’s eyes widened as she gasped at the insult. ‘I’ll wear what I damn well please!’

That blue gaze moved deliberately down to the split in the side of her dress that revealed the long, bare length of her silky thigh. ‘Obviously.’

‘You’re no better than the idiot whose attentions you just appeared to save me from,’ she accused furiously as she pulled his jacket from about her shoulders and almost threw it back at him before turning on her heel and marching back into the gallery without so much as a second glance.

Rude. Obnoxious. Insulting. Rat!

CHAPTER THREE

‘I DON’T give a damn whether Mr Buchanan is busy or not,’ an angry voice—that unfortunately Jonas recognised only too well!—snapped in the outer office of his London headquarters at nine-thirty on Monday morning. ‘No, I have no intention of making an appointment. I want to talk to him now!’ The door between the two rooms was flung open as Mac burst into Jonas’s office.

Jonas barely had time to register her appearance, in a fitted black jumper and faded hipster blue denims, her hair a silken ebony curtain over her shoulders and down the length of her spine, before she marched over to stand in front of his desk, her cheeks flushed and eyes fever bright as she glared across at him.

She looked like a feral cat—and just as ready to spit and claw!

Jonas tilted his head sideways in order to look over at his secretary as she stood hesitantly in the doorway. ‘There’s no need to call Security, Mandy,’ he drawled. ‘I’m sure Miss McGuire won’t be staying long…’ He looked up enquiringly at Mac as he added that last statement.

Her eyes narrowed menacingly and she seemed to literally breathe fire at him. ‘Long enough to tell you exactly what I think of you and your strong-arm tactics, at least!’ she snarled.

‘Thanks, Mandy,’ Jonas dismissed his secretary, waiting until she had quietly left the room before looking back at Mac. ‘You appear to be a little…distraught, this morning?’

‘Distraught!’ she echoed incredulously. ‘I’m furious!’

Jonas could clearly see that. He just had no idea why that was.

Thankfully Amy had been ready to leave the gallery on Saturday evening when Jonas returned, allowing no opportunity for him and Mac to engage in any more arguments. Or to tempt Jonas into wanting to kiss her…

In the thirty-six hours since Jonas had last seen Mac, he had managed to convince himself that temptation had been an aberration on his part, a purely male reaction to the fact that she had looked as sexy as hell in that red silk dress.

Except that he now found himself facing the same temptation!

Mac wasn’t wearing any make-up today, and her hair was windblown, her clothes casual in the extreme—and yet he still found his gaze drawn again and again to the fullness of her tempting lips.

Jonas’s fingers tightened about the pen he was holding. ‘Perhaps you would care to tell me why you’re so furious?’ he asked harshly. ‘And what it has to do with me,’ he added.

‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m going to tell you exactly why,’ Mac promised. ‘And you know damn well what it has to do with you!’ she said accusingly.

Jonas raised his palms. ‘I really am very busy this morning, Mac—’

‘Do you have someone else you need to go and intimidate?’ she scorned. ‘Oh, I forgot—you usually leave that sort of thing to your underlings!’ She snorted disgustedly. ‘Well, let me assure you that I don’t scare that easily—’

‘Would you just calm down and tell me what the hell you’re talking about?’ he cut in coldly, those blue eyes glacial.

Mac was breathing hard, too upset still to heed the warning she could see in that chilling gaze. ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about—’

‘If I did, I would hardly be asking you to explain, now, would I?’ Jonas retorted.

Mac’s gaze narrowed. ‘You knew I wouldn’t be at home on Saturday evening because of the exhibition, and you shamelessly took advantage of that fact. You—’

He threw his pen down on the desktop before standing up impatiently. ‘Mac, if you don’t stop throwing out accusations, and just explain yourself, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

The anger Mac was feeling had been brewing, growing, since she’d returned home on Saturday evening. Having no idea where Jonas Buchanan actually lived, she’d had to spend all of Sunday brooding too, with only the promise of being able to visit Jonas at his office first thing on Monday morning to sustain her. Having his secretary try to stonewall her had done nothing to improve Mac’s mood.

She drew in a controlling breath. ‘My studio was broken into on Saturday evening. But, then, you already knew that, didn’t you?’ she said pointedly. ‘You—’

‘Stop right there!’ Jonas thundered as he stepped out from behind his desk.

Mac instinctively took a step backwards as he towered over her, appearing very dark and threatening in a charcoal-grey suit, pale grey shirt and grey silk tie, with that overlong dark hair styled back from the chiselled perfection of his face.

Those sculptured lips firmed to a livid thin line. ‘You’re telling me that your studio was broken into while you were out at the exhibition on Saturday evening?’

‘You know that it was—’

‘Mac, if you’re going to continue to accuse me like this then I would seriously suggest that you have the evidence to back it up!’ he warned harshly. ‘Do you have that evidence?’ he pressed.

She shook her head. ‘The police didn’t find anything that would directly implicate you, no,’ she admitted grudgingly. ‘But then, they wouldn’t have done, would they?’ she rallied. ‘You’re much more clever—’

‘Mac!’

She blinked at the steely coldness Jonas managed to project into just that one word. Shivered slightly at the icy warning she could read in his expression.

But she didn’t care how cold and steely Jonas was, the break-in had to have been carried out by someone who worked for him. Who else would have bothered, would have a reason to break into a building that, from the outside, appeared almost derelict?

Jonas was hanging onto his own temper by a thread. Angered as much by the thought of someone having broken into Mac’s home at all, as at the accusations she was making about him being responsible for that breakin. She could so easily have been at home on Saturday evening. Could have been seriously hurt if she had disturbed the intruder.

He frowned. ‘Did they take anything?’

‘Not that I can see, no. But—’

‘Let’s just stick to the facts, shall we, Mac?’ Jonas bit out, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

She eyed him warily. ‘The facts are that I arrived home late on Saturday evening to find my studio completely wrecked. The only consolation—if it can be called that!—is that at least all of my most recent work was at the gallery that evening.’

Jonas nodded. ‘So there was no real damage done?’

Mac’s eyes widened indignantly. ‘My home, my privacy, was invaded!’

And he could understand how upsetting that must have been for her. Must still be. But the facts were that neither Mac nor her property had actually come to any real harm.

He moved to sit on the side of his desk. ‘At least you had the sense to call the police.’

‘I’m not a complete moron!’

Jonas didn’t think that Mac was a moron at all. All evidence was to the contrary. ‘I don’t recall ever saying otherwise,’ he commented dryly.

‘You implied it, with your “at least” comment!’ She thrust her hands into the hip pockets of her denims, instantly drawing Jonas’s attention to the full and mature curve of her breasts beneath the fitted black sweater. Making a complete nonsense of how he had mistaken her for a young girl at their first meeting two days ago.

She was different again today, he realised ruefully. No longer the waif or the femme fatale, but a beautiful and attractive woman in her late twenties. A man could never become bored with Mac McGuire when he would never know on any given day which woman he was going to meet!

He sighed. ‘What conclusions did the police come to?’

She shrugged those narrow shoulders. ‘They seem to think it was kids having fun.’

Jonas grimaced. ‘Maybe they’re right—’

‘Kids don’t just break in, they steal things,’ Mac disagreed impatiently. ‘I have a forty-two-inch flat-screen television set, a new Blu-ray Disc player, a state-of-the-art music system and dozens of CDs, and none of them were even touched.’

Jonas looked intrigued. ‘So it was just your studio that was targeted?’

‘Just my studio?’ she repeated indignantly. ‘You just don’t understand, do you?’ she added as she turned away in disgust.

The problem for Jonas was that he did understand. He understood only too well. Having seen Mac’s work for himself on Saturday evening, he knew exactly how important her studio was to her. It was the place where she created beauty deep from within her. Where she poured out her soul onto canvas. To have that vandalised, wrecked, was the equivalent of attacking the inner, deeply emotional Mac.

His mouth firmed. ‘But you believe I’m responsible for what happened?’

Mac turned to eye him warily as she once again heard that underlying chill in Jonas’s tone, the warning against repeating her earlier accusations.

If Jonas wasn’t responsible, then who was? Not just who, but why? Nothing of value had been taken. In fact, the living-area part of her home hadn’t been touched. Only her studio had been vandalised. Surely whoever had done that would have to know her to realise that the studio was her heart and soul?

Which, as he didn’t know her, surely ruled out Jonas Buchanan as being the person responsible for the damage? After all, they had only met twice before this morning, and neither of those occasions had been in the least conducive to them gaining any personal insights about each other. Jonas certainly couldn’t know how much Mac’s studio meant to her.

She gave a weary shake of her head. ‘I don’t know what to believe any more…’

‘That’s something, I suppose,’ Jonas commented dryly. ‘Why don’t we start with the premise that neither I nor anyone I employ had anything to do with the break-in, and go from there?’ he suggested. ‘Who else could have reason for wanting to cause you this personal distress? Perhaps an artist rival, jealous of your success? Or maybe an ex-lover who didn’t go quietly?’ he added.

Mac’s eyes narrowed. ‘Very funny!’

Strangely, Jonas didn’t find his last suggestion in the least amusing. Especially when it was accompanied by vivid images of this woman’s naked body intimately entwined with another man, that ebony hair falling about the two of them like a silken curtain…

He straightened abruptly and once again moved to sit behind his desk. ‘I really am busy this morning, Mac. In fact I have an appointment in a little under five minutes, so why don’t we meet up again at lunchtime and discuss this further?’

Mac eyed him suspiciously. ‘You’re inviting me out to lunch?’ she repeated uncertainly, as if she were sure she must have misheard him.

No, Jonas hadn’t been inviting her out to lunch. In fact, those earlier imaginings had already warned him that, the less he had to do with the volatile Mac McGuire, the better he would like it!

‘On second thoughts it would be far more sensible if you were to talk to my secretary on your way out and make an appointment to come back and see me at a time more convenient for both of us.’

It would be more sensible, Mac agreed, but after arriving back late from the gallery on Saturday evening to find her studio in chaos, and then another hour spent talking to the police, to spend the rest of the weekend alternating between ranting at the mess and crying for the same reason, she wanted to sort this problem out once and for all. Today, if possible.

Her parents, safely ensconced in their retirement bungalow home in Devon, where they also ran a B&B in the summer months, already worried that their move to the south of England had left her living alone in London. They would be horrified to learn that she’d had a breakin at her home.

But was it a good idea for her to have lunch with Jonas Buchanan? Probably not, Mac acknowledged ruefully. Except that he had seemed sincere—no, furious, actually—in his denial that he was in any way responsible for the break-in.

If that were genuinely the case, then she probably owed him an apology, at least, for having come here and made those bitter accusations.

‘Lunch sounds a better idea,’ Mac contradicted his earlier suggestion. ‘In fact, I’ll take you out to lunch.’

Jonas raised mocking brows. ‘Would that offer be the equivalent of wearing sackcloth and ashes?’

Mac felt the warmth of colour in her cheeks at his pointed suggestion that she should appear penitent for her behaviour. ‘It means that for the moment I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt regarding the break-in.’

‘For the moment?’ Jonas repeated softly, trying not to grit his teeth. ‘That’s very…good of you.’

‘Don’t push your luck, Jonas,’ she snapped. ‘I’m only suggesting this at all because this whole situation seems to be getting out of control.’

Jonas considered her between hooded lids. Mac really had behaved like a little hellion this morning by forcing her way into his office and throwing out her wild accusations. And if Jonas had any sense then he would tell her he would see her in court for even daring to voice those accusations without a shred of evidence to back up her claim. He certainly shouldn’t even be thinking of accepting her invitation to have lunch.

Except that he was…

Mac intrigued him. Piqued his interest in a way no woman had done for a very long time. If ever.

All the more reason not to even consider going out to lunch with her then!

She was absolutely nothing like the women Jonas was usually attracted to. Beautiful and sophisticated women who knew exactly what the score was. Who expected nothing from him except the gift of a few expensive baubles during the few weeks or months their relationship lasted; if any of those women had ever harboured the hope of having any more than that from him then they had been sadly disappointed.

Jonas had witnessed and lived through the disintegration of his own parents’ marriage. He had been twelve years old when he’d watched them start to rip each other to shreds, both emotionally and verbally, culminating in an even messier divorce when Jonas was fifteen.

He had decided long ago that none of that was for him. Not the initial euphoria of falling in love. Followed by a few years of questionable happiness. Before the compromises began. The irritation. And then finally the hatred for each other, followed by divorce.

Jonas wanted none of it. Would willingly forgo the supposed ‘euphoria’ of falling in love if it meant he also avoided experiencing the disintegration of that relationship and the hatred for each other that followed.

Mac McGuire, for all she was an independent and successful artist, gave every appearance of being one of those happily-ever-after women Jonas had so far managed to avoid having any personal involvement with.

‘Well?’ she prompted irritably at Jonas’s lengthy silence.

He should say no. Should tell this woman that he had remembered he already had a luncheon appointment today.

Damn it, it was only lunch, not a declaration of intent!

His mouth thinned. ‘I have an hour free between one o’clock and two o’clock today.’

‘Wow,’ Mac murmured, those smoky-grey eyes now openly laughing at him. ‘I should feel honoured that Jonas Buchanan feels he can spare me a whole hour of his time.’

His eyes narrowed to icy slits as he retorted, ‘When what I should really do is take your shapely little bottom to court and sue you for slander!’

Mac’s eyes widened and hot colour suffused her cheeks at hearing Jonas claim she had a shapely little bottom, making her once again completely aware of his own dark and dangerous attraction…

If anything he seemed even bigger today, his wide shoulders and powerful chest visibly muscled beneath the tailored suit and silk shirt, his face hard and slightly predatory, and dominated by those piercing blue eyes that seemed to see too much.

Did they see just how affected Mac was by his dark good looks, and that air of danger?

Perhaps the two of them lunching together wasn’t such a good idea, after all, Mac decided with a frown. She could always claim that she had remembered a prior engagement. That she had to go to the Lyndwood Gallery to check on how the exhibition was going—

‘Jonas, I have the letter here from—’ The blonde, blue-eyed woman who had entered from the adjoining office, and who Mac instantly recognised as being Jonas’s PA, Yvonne Richards—the same woman who had visited Mac a couple of months ago in an effort to persuade her into agreeing to sell her home—came to an abrupt halt in the doorway to Jonas’s office as she saw Mac there. ‘I’ll come back later, shall I?’ She totally ignored Mac as she looked at Jonas enquiringly.

‘No need, Yvonne; Miss McGuire was just leaving,’ Jonas said as he stood up, obviously dismissing Mac.

The fact that was exactly what Mac had been about to do did nothing to nullify the fact that Jonas was trying to get rid of her! Without any firm arrangements having been made for them to meet later today to continue this discussion…

‘There’s an Italian restaurant two streets over from this one,’ she turned to inform him briskly. ‘I’ll book a table for us there for one o’clock.’

‘Perhaps you would prefer me to book the table for the two of you?’ the blonde woman offered coolly. ‘Mr Buchanan’s name is known to the restaurant owner,’ she added pointedly as Mac looked at her enquiringly.

Mac gave the other woman a narrowed-eyed glance as she heard the edge in her tone, recognising that Yvonne Richards, beautiful and in her late twenties, was obviously a typical case of the PA who believed herself in love with her boss. A crush that Mac doubted Jonas Buchanan was even aware of.

Mac gave the other woman a saccharin-sweet smile. ‘That won’t be necessary, thank you; I know Luciano personally, too.’

‘Fine,’ Yvonne Richards bit out before turning to her employer. ‘I’ll come back when you aren’t so busy, Jonas.’ She turned abruptly on her two-inch heels and went back into the adjoining office, the door closing sharply behind her.

Mac turned back to Jonas. ‘I don’t think your PA likes me!’

Jonas’s mouth compressed briefly. ‘She hasn’t known you long enough yet to dislike you.’ Before Yvonne had interrupted them Jonas had had every intention of refusing Mac’s invitation to lunch, and he wasn’t at all happy with the fact that, between them, Yvonne and Mac seemed to have arranged for him to have lunch at Luciano’s at one o’clock today.

Mac gave an unconcerned grin, two unexpected dimples appearing in her cheeks. ‘That usually takes a little longer than five minutes, hmm?’

‘Precisely,’ he growled.

She raised dark, mocking brows. ‘Perhaps she just has a crush on you?’

An irritated scowl darkened Jonas’s brow. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

Mac gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘She seems—less than happy at the thought of the two of us having lunch together.’

‘Will you just go away and leave me in peace, Mac?’ Once again Jonas moved to sit behind his imposing desk in obvious dismissal. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he added pointedly as Mac made no move to respond to his less-than-subtle hint.

‘One o’clock at Luciano’s,’ she came back mockingly before turning and walking over to the door that led out to his secretary’s office.

Jonas’s scowl deepened as he found he couldn’t resist the temptation to look up and watch Mac leave. To be fully aware of his own response, the stirring, hardening, heated pulsing of his thighs, as he watched the provocative sway of those slender hips and pert bottom beneath fitted jeans.

She was an irritation and a nuisance, he told himself firmly. Trouble.

With a very definite capital T!

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THIS is nice.’

‘Is it?’ Jonas asked darkly as they sat at a window table in Luciano’s. It was an obvious indication that Mac was indeed known personally to the restaurateur; Jonas had dined here often enough in the past to know that Luciano only ever reserved the window tables for his best and most-liked customers.

Mac was already seated at the table, and had been supplied with some bread sticks to eat while she was waiting, by the time Jonas arrived at the restaurant at ten minutes past one. Not that he had been deliberately late; his twelve-thirty appointment had just run over time.

Everything had seemed to go wrong after she had left his office this morning. His nine-thirty appointment hadn’t arrived until almost ten o’clock—which was probably as well when Jonas had spent most of the intervening time trying to dampen down his obvious arousal for Mac McGuire!

He had also found himself closely studying Yvonne throughout the morning as he searched for any signs of that ‘crush’ Mac had mentioned. Rightly or wrongly, Jonas didn’t approve of personal relationships within the workplace—and that included unrequited ones. Which meant, if Mac was right, he would have to start looking for another PA. But if anything Yvonne’s demeanour had been slightly frostier than usual, with nothing to suggest she had anything other than a working relationship with him.

Resulting in Jonas feeling annoyed with himself for doubting his own judgement, and even more irritated with Mac for mischievously giving him those doubts in the first place!

Consequently, he was feeling irritable and bad-tempered by the time he sat down at the lunch table opposite his perkily cheerful nemesis. ‘Let’s just order, shall we?’ he grated as he picked up the menu and held it up in front of him as an indication he was not in the mood for conversation.

Mac didn’t bother to look at her own menu, already knowing exactly what she was going to order: garlic prawns followed by lasagne. As far as she was concerned, Luciano made the best lasagne in London.

Instead she looked across at Jonas as he gave every indication of concentrating on choosing what he was going to have for lunch.

Every female head in the Italian bistro had turned to look at him when he’d entered a few minutes ago and taken off his long woollen coat to hang it up just inside the door. They had continued to watch him as he made his way over to the window table, several women giving Mac envious glances when he’d pulled out the chair opposite her own and sat down.

Mac had found herself watching him too; Jonas simply was the sort of man that women of all ages took a second, and probably a third, look at. He was so tall for one thing, and the leashed and elegant power of his lean and muscled body in that perfectly tailored charcoal-coloured suit was undeniable.

His irritation told her that he was also not in a good mood. ‘We don’t have to eat lunch together if you would rather not?’ Mac prompted ruefully.

He lowered his menu enough to look across at her with icy blue eyes. ‘You would rather I moved to another table? That’s going to make conversation very difficult, wouldn’t you say?’ he taunted.

Mac felt the warmth in her cheeks at his obvious mockery. ‘Very funny!’

Jonas placed his closed menu down on the table. ‘I want to know more about the break-in to your studio on Saturday night. Such as how whoever it was got inside in the first place?’ he asked grimly.

Mac shrugged. ‘They broke a small window next to the door and reached inside to open it.’

Jonas noticed that some of the animation had left those smoky-grey eyes, presumably at his reminder of the break-in. ‘You don’t have an alarm system installed?’

She grimaced. ‘I’ve never thought I needed one.’

‘Obviously you were wrong,’ Jonas said reprovingly.

‘Obviously.’ Anger sparkled in those grey eyes now. ‘I have to say that I’ve always found people’s smugness after the event to be intensely irritating!’ She was still wearing the black fitted sweater and faded denims of earlier, the silky curtain of her hair framing the delicate beauty of her face to fall in an ebony shimmer over her shoulders and down her back.

Jonas relaxed back in his chair to look across at her speculatively. ‘Then hopefully I’ve succeeded in irritating you enough to have a security system installed. Or perhaps I should just arrange to have it done for you?’ he mused out loud, knowing it would immediately goad her to respond with the information that he wanted.

‘That won’t be necessary, thank you; I have a company coming out to install one first thing tomorrow morning,’ she came back sharply. ‘Along with a glazier to replace the window that was broken.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t had the glass replaced yet?’

‘I just said I hadn’t,’ Mac bit back.

Jonas gave a disgusted sigh. ‘You should have got someone out on Sunday to fix it.’

Mac’s eyes flashed darkly. ‘Don’t presume to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do!’

‘It’s a security breach—’

‘Oh, give it a rest, Jonas,’ she muttered wearily. ‘I’m quite capable of organising my own life, thank you.’

‘I’m seriously starting to doubt that.’

‘Strangely, your opinion is of little relevance to me!’ Mac snapped. ‘When I suggested we have lunch to talk about this situation I wasn’t actually referring to the break-in.’

Jonas managed to dampen down his impatience as he smiled up at Luciano as he appeared beside their table to personally take their order.

‘I take it you don’t have a date this evening?’ He mockingly changed the subject once the restaurateur had taken note of their order and returned to his beloved kitchen a few minutes later.

Mac knew he had to be referring to the fact that there was garlic in both of the foods she had ordered. ‘I take it that you do?’ she retorted, the Marie Rose prawns and Dover sole he had ordered not having any garlic in at all.

‘As it happens, no.’ That blue gaze met hers tauntingly. ‘Are you offering to rectify that omission?’

Mac frowned. ‘You can’t be serious?’

Was he? Having spent part of the morning in uncomfortable arousal because of this woman, Jonas had once again decided that, the less he had to do with Mac the better it would be for both him and his aching erection! A decision his last remark made a complete nonsense of.

‘Obviously not,’ he muttered.

Mac looked across at him shrewdly. ‘It sounded like you were asking me out on a date.’

Jonas shrugged. ‘You’re entitled to your opinion, I suppose.’

‘You “suppose”?’ she taunted.

He scowled darkly. ‘Mac, are you deliberately trying to initiate an argument with me?’

‘Maybe.’

Jonas narrowed his gaze. ‘Why?’

‘Why not?’ Mac smiled. ‘It’s certainly livened up the conversation!’

Jonas knew it had done a lot more than that. He was far too physically aware of this woman already; he didn’t need to feel any more so. In fact, he was somewhat relieved when the waiter chose that moment to deliver their first course to them.

What the hell had he been doing, all but suggesting that Mac ask him out on a date this evening? Meeting her for lunch was bad enough, without prolonging the time he had to spend in her disturbing company. In future, Jonas decided darkly, he would just stick to taking out his usual beautiful and sophisticated blondes!

‘The reviews of your exhibition in Sunday’s newspapers were good,’ he abruptly changed the subject.

She nodded. ‘Your cousin was especially kind.’

‘Amy is a complete professional; if she says you’re good, then you’re good,’ Jonas said.

‘I went to the gallery after seeing you this morning. It seems to be pretty busy,’ Mac told him distractedly, still slightly reeling from what she was pretty sure had been an invitation on Jonas’s part for them to spend the evening together too. An offer he had obviously instantly regretted making.

Which was just as well considering Mac would have had to refuse the invitation! Going to his office was one thing. Having lunch with Jonas so that they could discuss what was going on with her warehouse was also acceptable. Going out on a proper date with him was something else entirely…

In spite of the fact that Jonas Buchanan was so obviously a devastatingly attractive man, he simply wasn’t Mac’s type. He was far too arrogant. At least as arrogant, if not more so, as Thomas Connelly, the art critic who had considered her nothing but a trophy to parade on his arm six years ago.

She picked up her fork to deliberately spear one of the succulent prawns swimming in garlic, before raising it to her mouth and popping it between her lips. Only to glance across the table at the exact moment she did so, her cheeks heating with flaming wings of colour as she saw the intensity with which Jonas was watching the movement.

Dark and mesmerising, his eyes had become a deep and cobalt blue. There was a slight flush to his cheeks too, and those sculptured lips were slightly parted.

Mac shifted uncomfortably. ‘Would you like to try one?’

That dark gaze lifted up to hers. ‘What?’

She swallowed hard, feeling strangely alone with Jonas in this crowded and happily noisy restaurant. ‘You seemed to be coveting my garlic prawns, so I was offering to let you try one…’

Damn it, Jonas hadn’t been coveting the prawns on Mac’s plate—he had been imagining lying back and having those full and red lips placed about a certain part of his anatomy as she pleasured him!

What the hell was the matter with him?

In the last fifteen years he had never once mixed business with pleasure. Had always kept the two firmly separate. Since meeting Mac he seemed to have done nothing else but confuse the two, with the result that he was now once again fully aroused beneath the cover of the chequered tablecloth. Hopefully there would be no reason for him to stand up in the next few minutes or his arousal would be well and truly exposed!

‘No, thank you,’ he refused quickly. ‘I would prefer not to smell of garlic during any of my business meetings later this afternoon.’

Mac gave an unconcerned shrug of her shoulders. ‘Please yourself.’

‘I usually do,’ Jonas said dryly.

‘Lucky you,’ she said.

Jonas considered Mac through narrowed lids. ‘Are you saying that you don’t?’ he taunted. ‘I thought all artists preferred to be free spirits? In relationships as well as their art?’

Mac didn’t miss the contempt in his tone. Or the underlying implication that, as an artist, she probably slept around.

It would have been amusing if it weren’t so obvious that Jonas had once again meant to be insulting!

Oh, Mac had lots of friends, male as well as female, both from school and university, but that didn’t mean she went to bed with any of them. That she had ever been intimately involved with anyone, in fact.

After that fiasco with Thomas, Mac had become completely focused on what she wanted to do with her life. Which was to be successful as an artist in her own right.

From the time she was twelve years old, and her art teacher had allowed her to paint with oils on canvas for the first time, Mac had known exactly what she wanted, and that was to become a successful artist first, with marriage and children second. She had become slightly sidetracked from that ambition during that brief relationship with Thomas, but if anything the realisation of his arrogance and condescension had only increased that ambition.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the ladies’ room.’ She placed her napkin on the table before pushing back her chair and standing up.

Jonas raised dark brows. ‘Was it something I said?’

Mac frowned down at him. ‘That necessitates my needing to go to the ladies’ room?’ she drawled derisively. ‘Hardly!’

Nevertheless, Jonas was left sitting alone at the table feeling less than happy, both with himself, and with his earlier biting comment. He knew very little about her personal life—the fact that he had an erection every time he was in her company really didn’t count! He certainly didn’t know her well enough to have deliberately cast aspersions upon the way she might choose to live her private life.

He forced himself to continue eating his own food as he waited for Mac to return.

And waited.

And waited.

After over ten minutes had passed since she’d left the table, Jonas came to the uncomfortable conclusion that she might have walked out on both him and the restaurant!

Deservedly so?

Maybe. But that didn’t make the experience—the first time that a woman had ever walked out on Jonas, for any reason—any more palatable than the prawns he had just forced himself to finish eating.

He stood up abruptly to place his own napkin on the tabletop and make his way across the restaurant to the door through to the washrooms, determined to see exactly how Mac had made her escape. Only to come to a halt in the doorway and feeling completely wrong-footed as he came face to face with Mac, who was standing in the corridor in laughing conversation with one of the waitresses.

She looked at him curiously. ‘Is there a problem, Jonas?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Your food is getting cold.’

‘Oh, dear.’ The waitress gave an apologetic smile. ‘I’ll talk to you later, Mac,’ she said, before hurrying off in the direction of the kitchen.

Leaving Mac alone in the hallway with an obviously seriously displeased Jonas.

Well, that was just too bad!

Jonas had been deliberately insulting before she left the table, and when she’d bumped into Carla as she was leaving the ladies’ room Mac had felt no hesitation in stopping to chat; Jonas Buchanan could just sit alone at the table for a few more minutes and stew as far as she was concerned.

She raised dark brows as he stepped further into the otherwise deserted hallway and quietly closed the door behind him, enclosing the two of them in a strangely tense and otherwise deserted silence. Mac shifted uncomfortably as Jonas walked stealthily down that hallway towards her. ‘I thought you said my food was getting cold?’ she prompted, suddenly nervous.

‘It’s already cold, so a few more minutes isn’t going to make any difference,’ he dismissed softly.

Mac moistened dry lips as Jonas kept walking until he came to a halt standing only inches away from her. Very tall and large, his close proximity totally unnerving. ‘Why do we need to be a few more minutes?’ She glanced up at him uncertainly.

Jonas was enjoying turning the tables and seeing Mac’s obvious discomfort—God knew she had already made his own life uncomfortable enough for one day! Since the moment he first met her, in fact. He had no doubt that leaving him sitting alone at a table in the middle of a crowded restaurant had been deliberate on her part.

A public restaurant wasn’t the ideal place for what he now had in mind, either, but to hell with that—Jonas had realised in the last few seconds that he didn’t just need to kiss Mac, it had become as necessary to him as breathing.

‘Guess,’ he murmured throatily as he stepped even closer to her.

Her eyes widened in alarm as she took several steps back until she found herself against the wall. ‘Garlic breath, remember,’ she reminded him hastily.

He gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘That will just make you taste even better.’

‘This is so not a good idea, Jonas,’ she warned him desperately.

Jonas was all out of good ideas. At this precise moment he intended—needed—to go with a bad one.

His gaze held Mac’s as he reached up to cup his hand against the silky smooth curve of her cheek and ran the soft pad of his thumb over her slightly parted lips, the warmth of her breath a caress against his own highly sensitised skin. An arousing caress that made his stomach muscles clench and his thighs harden.

He drew in a sharp breath as he stepped closer still and Mac instinctively lifted her hands to rest them defensively against the hardness of his chest, the warmth of those hands burning through the silk material of Jonas’s shirt as he deliberately rested his body against hers.

Mac suddenly found herself trapped between the cold wall and the heat of Jonas’s body, her hands crushed against his muscled chest as he slowly lowered his head with the obvious intention of kissing her.

She knew she should protest. That she should at least try to ward off this rapidly increasing intimacy.

And yet she didn’t. Couldn’t.

Instead her lips parted in readiness for that kiss, her breath arrested in her throat at the first heated touch of Jonas’s lips against hers.

Oh, Lord…

Mac had never known anything like the sensual pleasure of having Jonas’s mouth moving against hers, exploring, sipping, tasting, teeth gently biting before that kiss deepened hungrily, his body hard and insistent against hers as her hands moved up his shoulders and her fingers became entangled in the dark thickness of his hair as she pulled him even closer. Jonas pushed her against the wall and lowered his body until his arousal pressed into Mac, making her respond with an aching hotness that pooled between her thighs in a rush of moist and fiery heat, her breasts swelling, the rosy tips hardening to full sensitivity as they pressed against the lacy material of her bra.

Her fingers tightened in the silky softness of Jonas’s hair as that heat grew, their mouths fusing together hungrily, Mac groaning low in her throat as she felt the firm thrust of Jonas’s tongue enter her mouth. Hot, slow and deep thrusts matched by the rhythmic movement of his thighs into the juncture of her sensitive thighs.

Mac groaned again in pleasure as that hardness pressed against the swollen nub nestled there, creating an aching heat deep inside her before it spread to every part of her body, arousing her to an almost painful degree.

God, she wanted this man with a ferocity of need she had never imagined, never dreamt was possible. Here. Now. She wanted to strip off their clothes and have Jonas take her up against the wall, her legs wrapped about his waist as he thrust deep inside her to ease that burning ache.

As if aware of at least some of her need, Jonas moved his hand to curve about her left breast, the soft pad of his thumb unerringly finding the swollen tip and sweeping across it.

Mac whimpered as the pleasure of that caress coursed down to her thighs, and she wished Jonas could touch her there, too—

‘Well, really!’ a shocked female voiced gasped. ‘This is a public restaurant, you know,’ the woman added disgustedly as she walked past them to the washrooms. ‘Why don’t the two of you just get a room somewhere?’ The door to the ladies room closed behind her with a disapproving snap.

Mac had wrenched away from Jonas the moment she’d realised they were no longer alone in the hallway, burying the heat of her face against his chest now to hide her embarrassment at being caught in such a compromising position.

In a public restaurant, for goodness’ sake!

With Jonas Buchanan, of all people.

What could she have been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking at all, that was the problem. She had been feeling. Experiencing emotions, sensations, she had never known before.

If that woman hadn’t interrupted them then Mac might just have gone through with that urge she’d had to start ripping Jonas’s clothes from his body before begging him to ease the burning ache between her thighs!

Oh, God.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘SO, WHAT do you think?’ Jonas asked as he stepped back from Mac.

‘What do I think about what?’ She blinked up at him as she straightened away from the wall to push the tangle of her hair back from her face; her eyes fever bright, her cheeks flushed, and those sensuously enticing lips slightly swollen from the fierce hunger of their kisses.

A hunger that had made Jonas forget, not only who they were, but where they were. All that had mattered to him at that moment was tasting Mac, devouring those tempting red lips, pressing the heat of his body against hers, her fingers becoming entangled in his hair as she responded to his desire.

Jonas knew he hadn’t been this physically aroused, so totally lost to reason, since he was an inexperienced teenager. And he didn’t like the sensation of being out of control. He didn’t like it at all.

His mouth twisted. ‘The two of us getting a hotel room for the afternoon.’

Mac’s eyes widened. ‘Certainly not!’ she exclaimed indignantly.

‘Why not?’ he taunted.

‘Why not?’ Mac repeated as she glared up at him. ‘I have no idea what sort of women you usually associate with, Jonas, but I can assure you that I do not go to hotel rooms with men for the afternoon!’

‘I wasn’t suggesting you went with men plural, Mac, just me,’ he drawled.

‘I said no!’ She was breathing heavily in her agitation, the fullness of her breasts rapidly rising and falling.

Something that Jonas was all too well aware of as he looked down at her and his still heavily roused manhood pulsed achingly in response. ‘You want me, I want you, so why the hell not?’ he rasped.

He would have felt happier about this situation if Mac had just said yes to the two of them going to a hotel for the afternoon. That way he would have found her less of an enigma than he did now. Less intriguing than he did now.

Because Mac had definitely returned his passion. Yet it was a passion she made it clear she had no intention of doing anything about, probably not now nor in the future. He already knew his own afternoon was going to be as uncomfortable as his morning had been, but how did Mac intend dealing with her own unsatisfied arousal?

‘Unless you’re trying to tell me you don’t want me?’ he murmured.

Mac wasn’t sure which of her emotions was the strongest—the urge she had to slap Jonas’s arrogant face or the one she had to just sit down and cry at her own stupidity.

Because he was right, damn him. She did want him. She had never physically wanted a man more, in fact, her whole body one burning ache of need. Something Mac knew was going to bother her long after he had gone back to his office to attend his afternoon meetings.

But she definitely wanted to slap him too. For bringing that physical awareness down to a purely basic level by suggesting they get a hotel room for the afternoon and satisfy those longings.

She really wasn’t that sort of woman. She had never done anything so impulsively reckless as kissing a man so heatedly on the premises of a restaurant before, let alone gone to a hotel room with him, and she had no intention of doing the latter now with Jonas, either. Much as she might secretly ache to do so. It sounded wild. Liberating. Dangerously exciting…

She deliberately fell back on anger as the solution to her predicament. ‘Whether I want you or not, an afternoon in a hotel bedroom with a man I barely know—and who I really don’t want to know any better—is really not my thing,’ she told him scornfully. ‘If you’re feeling frustrated, Jonas, then I’m sure there are any number of women you could call who would be only too happy to spend the afternoon satisfying you!’

Jonas’s eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘I’ve never been that desperate for sex, Mac.’

Including sex with her, she knew he was implying. Which was no doubt true. Jonas was young, handsome and rich enough to attract any woman he decided he wanted. He certainly didn’t need to trouble himself over one stubborn artist, who obviously irritated him as much as she aroused him.

And Mac had aroused him. She’d felt the hard evidence of that arousal pressed against her own thighs as Jonas kissed her.

Her mouth firmed. ‘I suggest we just forget about lunch,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m really not hungry any more, and I doubt you are either—’

‘Not for food, anyway,’ Jonas muttered.

‘I—’ Mac broke off suddenly as the woman who had interrupted them earlier now came back out of the ladies’ room, her gaze averted as she passed them and returned to the dining room of the restaurant. Mac’s embarrassment returned with a vengeance. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain to Luciano that you had an appointment you had to go to rather than intending any slight to the preparation of his food.’

‘I moved my afternoon around. My next appointment isn’t for another hour,’ Jonas told her.

Her eyes widened. ‘You want us to go back to the table and finish eating lunch together?’

After what just happened between us? Jonas inwardly finished Mac’s question. And the answer to that was no, of course he didn’t want them to return to the table and carry on eating lunch together as if nothing had happened. But neither did he appreciate Mac dismissing him as if the last few minutes had never happened at all.

His mouth thinned. ‘Obviously not,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’ll settle the bill and explain to Luciano that you had a previous appointment.’

Mac frowned. ‘I asked you out to lunch—’

‘I’m paying the bill, Mac,’ Jonas repeated firmly.

Mac continued to look up at him frowningly for several long seconds before giving an impatient shrug. ‘Fine. Whatever.’ Her tone implied she just wanted to get out of here. Away from him. Now.

A need she followed through on as she turned swiftly on her heel and marched down the hallway back into the restaurant, the door swinging closed behind her.

Jonas remained where he was for several more minutes after Mac had gone, eyes narrowed and his expression grim as he recognised that she was no longer just a problem on a business level, but had also become one on a personal level, too.

Perhaps one that would only be resolved once they had been to bed together…

Mac was barefooted and belatedly eating a piece of toast for her lunch when she went to answer the knock on her door later that afternoon, a brief glance through the spy-hole in the door showing her that she didn’t know the grey-haired man standing at the top of the metal staircase dressed like a workman in blue overalls and a thick checked shirt. ‘Yes?’ she prompted politely after opening the door.

‘Afternoon, love,’ the middle-aged man returned with a smile. ‘Bob Jenkins. I’ve come to replace ya window.’

Mac’s brows rose. ‘That’s great!’

He was already inspecting the broken window next to the door. ‘Had a break-in, did ya?’ He gave a shake of his head. ‘Too much of it about nowadays. No respect, that’s the problem. Not for people or their property.’

‘No.’ Mac grimaced as she recalled the mess that had been left in her studio.

‘It will only take a few minutes to fix.’ Bob Jenkins gave her another encouraging smile. ‘I’ll just go and get my things from the van.’

Mac had made him a mug of tea by the time he came back up the stairs with his tools and a pane of glass that appeared to be the exact size of the one that had been broken. ‘How did you know which size glass to bring?’

The glazier took a sip of tea and put the mug down before he began working on the window frame. ‘The boss is pretty good at judging things like this,’ he explained.

Mac sipped her own tea as she watched him work. ‘Was that the man I spoke to on the telephone this morning?’

‘Don’t know about that, love.’ Bob Jenkins looked up to give her a grin. ‘He just told me to get over here toot sweet and replace the window.’

Mac had no idea why, but she had a sudden uneasy feeling about ‘the boss’. Maybe because she didn’t recall telling the man at the glazier company she had called this morning what size window had been broken. Or expected anyone to arrive from that company until tomorrow…

She eyed Bob warily. ‘Exactly who is the boss?’

He raised grizzled grey brows. ‘Mr Buchanan, of course.’

Exactly what Mac had suspected—dreaded—hearing!

After their strained parting earlier Mac hadn’t expected to see or hear from Jonas ever again. Although technically, she wasn’t seeing or hearing from him now, either; he had just arrogantly sent one of his workmen over to fix her broken window.

Why?

Was Jonas treating her like the ‘fragile little woman’ who needed the help of the ‘big, strong man’?

Or was Jonas replacing the window because he knew that he—or someone who worked for him—was responsible for it being broken in the first place?

‘Of course,’ Mac answered the workman distractedly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Bob?’

‘No problem,’ he assured her brightly.

Mac was so annoyed at Jonas’s high-handedness that she didn’t quite know what to do with all the anger bubbling inside her. What did he think he was doing, interfering in this way, when she had already told him that she had arranged for a glazier to come out tomorrow?

An arrangement he had instantly expressed his disapproval of. Enough to have arranged for one of his own workmen to come out and replace the window immediately, apparently! Were Jonas’s actions prompted by a guilty conscience? Or by something else? Although quite what that something else could be Mac had no idea. It was enough, surely, that Jonas was sticking his arrogant nose into her business?

Too right it was!

‘What can I do for you this time, Mac?’ Jonas took his briefcase out of the car before locking it and turning to face her wearily across the private and brightly lid underground car park beneath his apartment building.

He had been vaguely aware, as he drove home at the end of what had been a damned awful day, of the black motorbike following in the traffic behind him. He simply hadn’t realised that Mac was the driver of that motorbike until she followed him down into the car park, stopped the vehicle behind his car and removed the black crash helmet to shake the long length of her ebony-dark hair loose about her shoulders. The black biking leathers she was wearing fitted her as snugly as a glove, and clearly outlined the fullness of her breasts and her slender waist and hips. Jonas couldn’t help thinking of how they were no doubt moulded to her perfectly shaped bottom, too!

But there was no way that Jonas could mistake the obviously hostile demeanour on her face for anything other than what it was as she climbed off the motorbike; her eyes were sparkling with challenge, the fullness of her lips compressed and unsmiling.

Jonas’s afternoon had been just as uncomfortable as he had thought it might be. So much so that he hadn’t been able to give his usual concentration to his business meetings.

What was it about this woman in particular that so disturbed him? Mac was beautiful, yes, but in a wild and Bohemian sort of way that had never appealed to him before. There was absolutely nothing about her that usually attracted him to a woman. She was short and dark-haired, boyishly slender apart from the fullness of her breasts, and not in the least sophisticated; she even rode a motorbike, for heaven’s sake!

Jonas wasn’t particularly into motorbikes, but even he recognised the machine as being a Harley, the chassis a shiny black, its silver chrome gleaming brightly. For what had to be the dozenth time, Jonas told himself that Mac McGuire was most definitely not his type.

So why the hell couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

His eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t you think—whatever your reason for being here—that following me home is taking things to an extreme?’

Her mouth tightened further at the criticism. ‘Maybe.’

He raised mocking brows. ‘Only maybe?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted grudgingly.

He eyed her coldly. ‘And so you’re here because…?’

She glared at him. ‘You sent a glazier to repair my window.’

‘Yes.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You aren’t even going to attempt to deny it?’

Jonas grimaced. ‘Presumably Bob told you I had sent him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what would be the point of my trying to deny it?’ he reasoned impatiently.

Mac was feeling a little foolish now that she was actually face to face with Jonas. Anger had been her primary emotion, as she waited the twenty minutes or so it had taken Bob Jenkins to replace the window, before donning her leathers and getting her motorcycle out of the garage and riding it over to Jonas’s office. Just in time to see Jonas driving out of the office underground car park in his dark green sports car.

Frustrated anger had made her decide to follow him home; having ridden back into the city for the sole purpose of speaking to him, Mac had had no intention of just turning round and going home without doing exactly that.

At least, she had hoped Jonas was driving home; it would be a little embarrassing for Mac to have followed him to a date with another woman!

The prestigious apartment building above this underground car park—so unlike her own rambling warehouse-conversion home—definitely looked like the sort of place Jonas would choose to live.

She stubbornly stood her ground. ‘I told you I had a glazier coming out tomorrow.’

Jonas nodded tersely. ‘And I seem to recall telling you that wasn’t good enough.’

Her eyes widened. ‘So you just arranged for one of your own workmen to come over this afternoon instead? Without even giving me the courtesy of telling me about it?’

Jonas could see that Mac was clearly running out of steam, her accusing tone certainly lacking some of its earlier anger. He regarded her mockingly. ‘So it would seem.’

‘I—but—you can’t just take over my life in this way, Jonas!’

He frowned. ‘You see ensuring your safety as an attempt to take over your life?’

‘Yes! Well…not exactly,’ she allowed impatiently. ‘But it was certainly an arrogant thing to do!’

Yes, she was definitely running out of steam…‘But I am arrogant, Mac.’

‘It’s not something you should be in the least proud of!’

He gave her an unapologetic, smile. ‘Your objection is duly noted.’

‘And dismissed!’

Jonas gave a shrug. ‘I presume Bob has now replaced the broken window?’

Mac gave a disgusted snort. ‘He wouldn’t dare do anything else when “the boss” told him to do so “toot sweet”.’

Jonas had to smile at her perfect mimicry of Bob’s broad Cockney accent. ‘Well, unless you want me to break the window again just so that you can have the satisfaction of having your own glazier fix it tomorrow, I don’t really see what you want me to do about it.’

Those smoky-grey eyes narrowed. ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you?’

Jonas straightened. ‘No, Mac, I think what I did was the most sensible course of action in the circumstances,’ he stated calmly. ‘If you disagree with that, then that’s obviously your prerogative.’

‘I disagree with the way you went about it, not with the fact that you did it,’ she continued in obvious frustration.

He gave a cool nod. ‘Again, your objection is duly noted.’

‘Right. Okay.’ Mac didn’t quite know what to do or say now that she’d voiced her protest over the replacement of her broken window.

She should have just telephoned Jonas and told him what she thought of him rather than coming back into town to speak to him personally. She certainly shouldn’t—as he had already pointed out so mockingly—have followed him home!

The wisest thing to do now would be to get back on her motorbike and drive back home. Unwisely, Mac knew she wasn’t yet ready to do that…

Just looking at Jonas, his dark hair once again ruffled by the breeze outside, the hard arrogance of his face clearly visible in the brightly lit car park, was enough to make her knees go weak. To remind her of the way he had kissed and touched her earlier today. To make her long for him to kiss and touch her in that way again.

To make her question whether that wasn’t the very reason she had come here in the first place…

Jonas had been watching the different emotions flickering across Mac’s expressive face. First the fading of her anger, which was replaced by confusion and uncertainty. And now he could see those emotions replaced by an unmistakable hunger in those smoky-grey eyes as she looked at him so intently…

A hunger he fully reciprocated. ‘I intend to have several glasses of wine as soon as I get up to my apartment—would you care to join me?’ he offered huskily.

She visibly swallowed. ‘That’s probably not a good idea.’

Again, here and now, Jonas was more than willing to go with a bad idea. His body physically ached from the hours he had already spent aroused by this woman today; the thought of an evening and night suffering the same discomfort did not appeal to him in the slightest. Besides, he really did want to see her perfect little bottom in those skin-tight leathers! ‘Half a glass of wine isn’t going to do you any harm, Mac.’

‘Isn’t it?’

Maybe it was, Jonas acknowledged with dark humour. If he had anything to do or say about it. ‘Scared, Mac?’ he taunted.

Her cheeks became flushed. ‘Now you’re deliberately challenging me into agreeing to go up to your apartment with you!’

He gave her an amused smile. ‘Is it working?’

Mac knew that her temptation to go up to Jonas’s apartment with him had very little to do with annoyance. Just talking with him like this made her nerve endings tingle, the low timbre of his voice sending little quivers of awareness up her nape and down the length of her spine, the fine hairs on her arms standing to attention, and her skin feeling as if it were covered in goose-bumps. She also felt uncomfortably hot, a heat she knew had nothing to do with the leathers she was wearing to keep out the early evening chill, and everything to do with being so physically aware of Jonas.

All of which told Mac she would be a fool to go anywhere she would be completely alone—and vulnerable to her own churning emotions—with Jonas.

Except she ached to be alone with him.

She nodded abruptly. ‘I—Fine. Will it be safe to leave my helmet down here with my bike?’

‘I’m sure your bike and helmet will be perfectly safe left down here,’ Jonas assured her.

The implication being that it was Mac’s own safety, once she was alone with him in his apartment, that she ought to be worried about.

CHAPTER SIX

MAC turned to look at Jonas as he fell into step slightly behind her as she crossed the car park to the lift that would take them up to his apartment. Only to quickly turn away again, her cheeks flaring with heated colour, as she saw the way he was unashamedly watching the gentle swaying of her hips and bottom as she walked.

He eyed her unapologetically as he stood beside her to punch in the security code that opened the lift doors and allowed the two of them to step inside. ‘You shouldn’t wear tight leathers if you don’t want men to look at you!’ He pressed the penthouse button.

Mac looked up at him reprovingly as the lift began to ascend. ‘I wear them for extra safety if I should come off the bike, not for men to look at. And you know how hot you are on safety,’ she prodded.

‘Hot would seem to be the appropriate word,’ Jonas teased.

Mac’s cheeks felt more heated than ever at the knowledge that Jonas thought she looked hot in her biking gear. ‘Perhaps we should just change the subject.’

‘Perhaps we should.’ He nodded, blue eyes openly laughing at her.

Mac turned away to stare fixedly at the grey metal doors until they opened onto the penthouse floor. The lights came on automatically as they stepped straight into what was obviously the sitting-room—or perhaps one of them?—of Jonas’s huge apartment.

It had exactly the sort of impersonal ultra-modern décor that Mac had expected, mainly in black and white with chrome, with touches of red to alleviate the austerity. The walls were painted a cool white, with black and chrome furniture, with cushions in several shades of red on the sofa and chairs, and several black and white rugs on the highly polished black-wood floor.

Mac hated it on sight!

‘Very nice,’ she murmured unenthusiastically.

Jonas had seen the wince on Mac’s face before she donned the mask of social politeness. ‘I allowed an interior designer free rein with the décor in here when I moved in six months ago,’ he admitted ruefully. ‘Awful, isn’t it?’ He grimaced as he strode further into the room.

Mac followed slowly. ‘If you don’t like it, why haven’t you changed it?’

He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t see the point when I shall be moving out again soon.’

‘Oh?’ She turned to look at him. ‘Is that why you haven’t bothered to put up any Christmas decorations, either?’

Jonas never bothered to put up Christmas decorations. What was the point? Only he lived here, with the occasional visitor, so why bother with a lot of tacky decorations that only gathered dust, before they had to be taken down again? For Jonas, Christmas was, and always had been, just a time to be suffered through, while everyone else seemed to overeat and indulge in needless sentimentality. In fact, Jonas usually made a point of disappearing to the warmth of a Caribbean island for the whole of the holidays, and, although he hadn’t made any plans to do so yet, he doubted that this year would be any different from previous ones.

‘No,’ Jonas said shortly. Mac really did look good in those figure-hugging leathers, he acknowledged privately as once again he felt what was fast becoming a familiar hardening of his thighs. ‘Come through to the kitchen and I’ll open a bottle of wine,’ he invited briskly before leading the way through to the adjoining room.

He had designed the kitchen himself, the cathedral-style ceiling oak-beamed using beams that had originally come from an eighteenth-century cottage, with matching oak kitchen cabinets, all the modern conveniences such as a fridge-freezer and a dishwasher hidden behind those cabinets, with a weathered oak table in the middle of the room surrounded by four chairs, and copper pots hanging conveniently beside the green Aga.

It was a warm and comfortable room as opposed to the coolly impersonal sitting-room. The kitchen was where Jonas felt most at ease, and was where he usually sat and read the newspapers or did paperwork on the evenings he was at home.

Although he wasn’t too sure any more about inviting Mac McGuire into his inner sanctum…

‘Much better,’ she murmured approvingly. ‘Did you design this yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘I thought so.’

Jonas raised dark brows. ‘Why?’

She gave an awkward shrug. ‘It’s—warmer, than the other room.’

He scowled. ‘Warmer?’

‘More lived-in,’ she amended.

Jonas continued to look at her for several long seconds before giving an abrupt nod. ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ he invited and moved to take a bottle of Chablis Premier Cru from the cooler before deftly opening it and pouring some of the delicious fruity wine into two glasses.

Mac still wasn’t sure about being in Jonas’s apartment at all, let alone making herself comfortable. And from the frown now on Jonas’s brow she thought maybe he was regretting having invited her, too.

She sat down gingerly on one of the four chairs placed about the oak table. ‘I’ll just drink my half a glass of wine and then go.’

Jonas placed the glass on the table in front of her. ‘What’s your hurry?’

She nervously moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as he stood far too close to her, only to immediately stop again as she saw the intensity with which Jonas was watching the movement. ‘I just think it would be better if I don’t overstay my welcome.’ Her hand was shaking slightly as she reached out to pick up the glass and take a sip of the cool wine.

Jonas smiled slightly. ‘Better for whom?’

She lifted one shoulder delicately. ‘Both of us, I would have thought.’

‘Maybe we’re both thinking too much,’ he murmured broodingly. ‘Have you eaten dinner yet?’

Mac looked at him sharply. ‘Not yet, no.’ Surely he wasn’t about to repeat his earlier suggestion that the two of them go out to dinner together?

‘I only had a few prawns for lunch,’ he reminded her ruefully. ‘How about you?’

‘I had a piece of toast when I got home. But I’m hardly dressed for going out to dinner, Jonas.’

‘Who said anything about going out?’ He looked at her quizzically.

Mac felt an uncomfortable surge—of what?—in her chest. Trepidation? Fear? Or anticipation? Or could it be a combination of all three of those things? Whichever it was, Mac didn’t think she should stay here alone with Jonas in his apartment any longer than she absolutely had to.

‘It’s very kind of you to offer—’

‘How polite you are all of a sudden, Mac,’ Jonas cut in. ‘If you don’t want to have dinner with me then just have the guts to come out and say so, damn it!’ His eyes glittered darkly.

She gave a pained frown. ‘It isn’t a question of not wanting to have dinner with you, Jonas—’

‘Then what is it a question of?’ he demanded harshly.

Mac swallowed hard. ‘I’m not sure I belong here…’

Jonas scowled. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

She gave an awkward shrug. ‘I—This apartment is way out of my stratosphere. That bottle of wine you just opened probably cost what some people earn in a week.’

‘And?’

‘I am what I am. How I am. I hate dressing up in fancy clothes and “being seen”.’ She winced. ‘I’ve already been through one experience where a man thought I would make a nice trophy to show off on his arm at parties—’

‘And you think that’s what I want, too?’ Jonas asked.

Mac looked a little confused. ‘I’m not really sure what you want from me.’

‘Then that makes two of us,’ Jonas told her with a sigh. ‘For some inexplicable reason you have a strange effect on me, Mary “Mac” McGuire.’ His gaze held hers as he reached out and took the wine glass from her slightly trembling fingers, placing it on the table beside his own before grasping Mac’s arms to pull her slowly to her feet so that she stood only inches away from him.

Jonas looked down at her searchingly, noting the almost feverish glitter in those smoky grey eyes, the flush to her cheeks, and the unevenness of her breathing through slightly parted lips. Parted lips that were begging to be kissed.

His expression was grim as he resisted that dangerous temptation. ‘I’m going through to my bedroom now to change out of my suit. If you decide you don’t want to stay and help me cook dinner then I suggest you leave before I get back.’ He released her abruptly before turning on his heel and going out of the room in the direction of his bedroom further down the hallway.

Mac was still trembling somewhat as she stood alone in the kitchen. She should do as Jonas suggested and leave before he came back. She knew that she should. Yet she didn’t want to. What she wanted to do was stay right here and spend the evening cooking dinner with him before they sat down together to eat it in this warm and comfortable kitchen…

Except she knew that Jonas wasn’t suggesting they just cook and eat dinner together. Her remaining here would mean she was also agreeable to repeating their earlier shared kisses.

Mac sat down abruptly, totally undecided about what to do. She should go. But she didn’t want to. She knew she shouldn’t allow that explosive passion with Jonas at the restaurant to happen again. But she wanted to!

She was still sitting there pondering her dilemma when Jonas came back into the kitchen, her breath catching in her throat as she saw him casually dressed for the first time. The thin black cashmere sweater was moulded to wide shoulders and the flatness of his chest and stomach, jeans that were faded from age and wear rather than designer-styled to be that way sat low down on his hips and emphasised the muscled length of his legs, and his feet were as bare as her own had been earlier when Bob Jenkins had arrived at the warehouse to replace her broken window. They were long and somehow graceful feet, their very bareness seeming to increase the intimacy of the situation.

Jonas looked everything that was tall, dark, and most definitely dangerous!

Mac raised startled eyes. ‘I decided to stay long enough to help you cook dinner at least.’

Jonas’s enigmatic expression, as he stood in the doorway, gave away none of his thoughts. ‘Did you?’

She stood up quickly, already regretting that decision as she felt the rising sexual tension in the room, her pulse actually racing.

Even breathing was becoming difficult. ‘Would you like me to help prepare the vegetables or something?’ she offered lamely.

Jonas very much doubted that Mac wanted to hear what he would have liked to ask her to do at this particular moment. He had never before even thought about sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs with a woman’s naked thighs straddled either side of him as he surged up into the heat of her, but the idea certainly had appeal right now. Making love to Mac anywhere appealed to him right now!

‘Or something,’ he murmured self-derisively as he made himself walk across to the refrigerator and open the door to look inside at the contents. ‘I have the makings of a vegetable and chicken stir-fry if that appeals?’ He looked at her enquiringly.

‘That sounds fine.’

Jonas was frowning slightly as he straightened. ‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable out of those leathers? Unless of course you aren’t wearing anything underneath?’ he added mockingly. ‘In which case, neither of us is going to be comfortable once you’ve taken them off!’

It was time to put a stop to this right now, Mac decided. They hadn’t even got as far as cooking dinner yet and already Jonas was talking about taking her clothes off!

‘Of course I’m wearing something underneath,’ she said, scowling at Jonas’s deliberate teasing, sitting down to remove her boots before unzipping the leathers and taking them off to reveal she was wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt and snug-fitting jeans above black socks. ‘Satisfied?’ she challenged as she stood up to lay her leathers over one of the kitchen chairs and place her heavy boots beside it.

‘Not hardly,’ Jonas murmured.

‘Jonas!’

‘Mac?’ He raised innocent brows.

She drew in a deep, controlling breath. ‘Just tell me what vegetables you want me to wash and cut up,’ she muttered bad-temperedly.

‘Yes, ma’am!’ he shot back.

To Mac’s surprise they worked quite harmoniously together as they prepared and then cooked the food, sitting down at the table to eat it not half an hour later. ‘You said you’ll be moving from here soon?’ she reminded Jonas curiously as she looked across the table at him.

He nodded as he put his fork down on his plate and drank some of his wine before answering her. ‘By this time next year we should be neighbours.’

Mac’s eyes widened. ‘You’re moving into the apartment complex next to me once it’s finished being built?’

Jonas didn’t think she could have sounded any more horrified if he had said he was actually moving in with her. ‘That’s the plan, yes,’ he confirmed dryly. ‘Unless, of course, you decide to sell and move out, after all.’

Her mouth firmed. ‘No, I can safely assure you that I have no intention of ever doing that.’

Jonas frowned. ‘Why the hell not?’

‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Try,’ he invited grimly.

Mac frowned. ‘The warehouse belonged to my great-grandfather originally, then to my grandfather. Years ago my great-grandfather owned a small fleet of boats, for delivering cargos to other parts of England. Obviously long before we had the huge container trucks that clog up the roads nowadays.’ She chewed distractedly on her bottom lip.

Jonas’s gaze was riveted on those tiny white teeth nibbling on the fullness of her bottom lip, that ache returning to his thighs as he easily imagined being the one doing the biting…

For the moment Mac seemed unaware of the heated intensity of his gaze. ‘I spent a lot of time there with my grandfather when I was a child, and when he died he left it to me,’ she finished with a shrug.

Jonas forced himself to drag his gaze from the sensual fullness of her lips. ‘So you’re saying you want to keep it because it has sentimental value?’

‘Something like that, yes.’

‘Your grandfather didn’t want to leave the property to your parents?’

It really was difficult for Mac to explain the affinity that had existed between her grandfather and herself. How he had understood the love and affection she felt for the rambling warehouse beside the river. How living and working there now made Mac feel that she still had that connection to her grandfather. ‘My parents had already moved out of London to live in Devon when my grandfather died, and so didn’t want or need it.’

‘No siblings for you to share with?’

‘No. You?’ Mac asked with interest, deciding she had probably talked about herself enough for one evening.

Jonas’s mouth thinned. ‘I believe my parents considered that one mistake was enough.’

Mac gasped, not quite sure what to say in answer to a statement like that. ‘I’m sure they didn’t think of you as a mistake—’

‘Then you would be wrong, Mac,’ he said dryly. ‘My parents were both only nineteen when they got married, and then it was only because my mother was expecting me. She would have been better off—we all would have—if she had either got rid of the baby or settled for being a single mother.’ He finished drinking the wine in his glass, offering to refill Mac’s glass before refilling his own when she shook her head in refusal.

Mac had continued to eat while they talked, but she gave up all pretence of that after Jonas’s comment that his mother should have got rid of him rather than marry his father!

Jonas looked bitter. ‘I have no doubts that your own childhood was one of love and indulgence with parents and a family who loved you?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted with slight discomfort.

Jonas gave a hard smile. ‘Don’t look so apologetic, Mac. It’s the way it should be, after all,’ he said bleakly. ‘Unfortunately, it so often isn’t. I believe it took a couple of years for the novelty to wear off and the cracks to start appearing in my own parents’ marriage, then ten years or more for them to realise they couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Or me,’ he added flatly.

Mac gave a pained wince. ‘I’m sure you’re wrong about that, Jonas.’

‘I’m sure your romantic little heart wants me to be wrong about that, Mac,’ he corrected.

He meant his mockery of her to wound, and it did, but Mac’s ‘romantic little heart’ also told her that Jonas’s taunts hid the pain and disillusionment that had helped to mould him into the hard and resilient man he was today. That had made him into a man who rejected all the softer emotions, such as love, in favour of making a success of his life through his own hard work and sheer determination. That had made him into a man who didn’t even bother to put up Christmas decorations in his apartment…

‘Your parents are divorced now?’ she asked.

‘Yes, thank God,’ he replied. ‘After years of basically ignoring each other, and me, they finally separated when I was thirteen and divorced a couple of years later.’

Mac didn’t even like to think of the damage they had done in those thirteen years, not only to each other, but most especially to Jonas, the child caught in the middle of all that hostility.

‘Which one did you live with after the separation?’

‘Neither of them,’ Jonas bit out with satisfaction. ‘I had my own grandfather I went to live with. My father’s father. Although I doubt Joseph was the warm and fuzzy type your own grandfather sounds,’ he added.

Mac doubted it too, if Jonas had actually called his grandfather by his first name, and if the expression on Jonas’s face was anything to go by!

Jonas would have found Mac’s obvious dismay amusing if it weren’t his own childhood they were discussing. Something that was unusual in itself when Jonas usually went out of his way not to talk about himself. But it was better that Mac knew all there was to know about him now. To be made aware that falling in love and getting married wasn’t, and never would be, a part of his future. Jonas had seen firsthand the pain and disillusionment that supposed emotion caused, and he wanted no part of it. Not now or ever.

‘You said earlier that you didn’t belong in these surroundings,’ Jonas reminded her. ‘Well, neither do I. My parents were poor, and my grandfather Joseph was a rough, tough man who worked on a building site all his life. I’ve worked hard for what I have, Mac.’

‘I didn’t mean to imply—’

‘Didn’t you?’ He gave her a grim smile. ‘I probably owe part of my success to the fact that my grandfather had no time for slackers,’ he continued relentlessly. ‘You either worked to pay your way or you got out. I decided to work. My parents had both remarried by the time I was sixteen and disappeared off into the sunset—’

‘Jonas!’ Mac choked as she sat forward to place her hand over his as it lay curled into a fist on the tabletop.

He pulled his hand away sharply, determined to finish this now that he had started. Mac should know exactly what she was getting into if she decided to become involved with him. Exactly! ‘In between working with my grandfather before and after school and cooking for the two of us, I also worked hard to get my A levels. Then I worked my way through university and gained a Masters degree in Mathematics before going into architecture. I worked my ba—’ He broke off with an apologetic grimace. ‘I worked hard for one of the best architecture companies in London for a couple of years, before I was lucky enough to have a couple of my designs taken up by a man called Joel Baxter. Have you heard of him?’

Mac’s eyes were wide. ‘The man who makes billions out of computer games and software?’

‘That’s the one,’ Jonas confirmed. ‘Strangely, we became friends. He convinced me I should go out on my own, that I needed to take control of the whole construction of the building and not just the design of it, that I would never make money working for someone else. It was a struggle to start with, but I took his advice, and, as they say, the rest is history.’ He gave a dismissive shrug.

Yes, it was. Mac was aware of the well-publicised overnight success of Buchanan Construction—which obviously hadn’t been any such thing but was simply the result of Jonas’s own hard work and determination to succeed.

She moistened dry lips. ‘Are you and Joel Baxter still friends?’

Jonas’s expression softened slightly. ‘Yeah. Joel’s one of the good guys.’

Mac brightened slightly. ‘And your parents, surely they must be proud of you? Of what you’ve achieved?’

Jonas’s eyes hardened to icy chips. ‘I haven’t seen either one of them since my father attended my grand-father’s funeral when I was nineteen.’

Mac looked at him incredulously. ‘That’s—that’s unbelievable!’

He looked at her coldly. ‘Is it?’

‘Well. Yes.’ She shook her head. ‘Look at you now, all that you’ve achieved, surely—’

‘I didn’t say that they hadn’t wanted to see me again, Mac,’ Jonas cut in. ‘Once Buchanan Construction became known as a multimillion-pound worldwide enterprise, they both crawled out of the woodwork to claim their only lost son,’ he recalled bitterly.

Mac swallowed hard. ‘And?’

‘And I didn’t want anything to do with either of them,’ he said emotionlessly.

Mac could understand, after all that had gone before, why Jonas felt the way that he did about seeing his parents again. Understand his feelings on the subject, maybe, but accepting it, when the situation between Jonas and his parents remained unresolved, was something else. Or perhaps he considered that just not seeing or having anything to do with his parents was the solution?

She looked sad. ‘They’ve missed out on so much.’

Jonas lifted an unconcerned shoulder. ‘I suppose that depends upon your perspective.’

Mac’s perspective was that Jonas’s parents had obviously been too young when they married each other and had Jonas, but it in no way excused their behaviour towards him. He had been an innocent child caught up in the battleground that had become their marriage.

Was it any wonder that Jonas was so hard and cynical? That he chose to concentrate all his energies on business relationships rather than personal ones?

‘Don’t go wasting any of your sympathy on me, Mac,’ he grated suddenly as he obviously clearly read the emotions on her face. ‘You told me earlier what you didn’t want, and the only reason I’ve told you these about myself is so that you’ll know the things I don’t want.’ He paused, his mouth tightening. ‘So that you understand there would be no future, no happy ever after, if you chose to have a relationship with me.’

She raised startled eyes to look searchingly across the table at Jonas as he looked back at her so intensely. She saw and recognised the raw purpose in his gaze. The underlying warmth of seduction and sensuality in those hard and unblinking blue eyes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE chair scraped noisily on the tiled floor as Mac suddenly stood up. ‘I think it’s time I was going.’

‘Running scared, after all, Mac?’ Jonas mocked, watching her through narrowed lids as she turned agitatedly to pick up her leathers.

She dropped the leathers back onto the chair and faced him, her chin raised challengingly. ‘I’m not scared, Jonas, I just don’t think I can give you what you want.’

‘Oh, I think you can give me exactly what I want, Mac.’ He stood up slowly to move around the table to where she stood determinedly unmoving as she looked up at him. ‘Exactly what I want,’ he repeated as he reached out to curve his arms about her waist and pull her firmly up against him so that she could feel the evidence of what it was he wanted from her. All that Jonas wanted from her or any woman.

Mac gasped as she felt the hardness of his arousal pressed revealingly against her. She felt an instant echoing of that arousal in her own body as heat coursed through her breasts to pool hotly between her thighs.

God, she seriously wanted this man! Wanted him so badly that she ached with it. Longed to strip the clothes from both their bodies and have him surge hard and powerfully inside her and make her forget everything else but the desire that had burned so strongly between them ever since they’d met again at her exhibition on Saturday evening.

She gave a desperate shake of her head. ‘I don’t do casual relationships, Jonas.’

His face remained hard and determined. ‘Have you ever tried?’

She swallowed. ‘No. But—’ Her protest ceased the moment that Jonas’s mouth claimed hers in a kiss so raw with hunger that she could only cling to the hard strength of his shoulders as she returned the heated hunger of that kiss.

Jonas felt wrapped in the luscious smell and heat that was Mac, even as his hand moved unerringly to that strip of flesh between her T-shirt and jeans that had been tantalising him all evening. He needed to know if those full breasts were bare beneath that thin cotton top, and the first touch of her creamy flesh against Jonas’s fingertips made him groan low in his throat.

Mac was pure heat. Silk and sensuality as his hand moved beneath that T-shirt and up the length of her bare spine. Jonas felt the quivering vibration of her response in the depths of his body as he pressed her closer against him. He deepened the kiss, his arousal surging in response as his tongue moved skilfully across the heat of Mac’s lips and then into the hot, moist vortex beneath.

She took him in, deeper, and then deeper still, as her hands moved up Jonas’s shoulders to his nape, her fingers becoming entangled in the thickness of his hair as her tongue touched lightly against his, testing, questioning. Jonas instantly retreated, encouraging, enticing, giving another low groan as that hot and moist tongue shyly followed.

He stroked her satiny flesh beneath her T-shirt, closer, ever closer to the firm mounds that he now knew without a doubt were bared to his touch, loving the way Mac arched into him as his hand moved to cup and stroke one of those uptilted breasts, capturing the soft cry that escaped her lips with his mouth as his fingers grazed across the swollen nipple.

Mac had never felt this way before and felt lost to everything but Jonas as he continued to kiss and touch her, mouth devouring hers, sipping, tasting her, with deep and drugging kisses that drove her wild with longing. While his tongue brushed lightly over the sensitivity of her lips and teeth, his hand—Oh, God, what the touch of Jonas’s hard and slightly calloused hand against her naked flesh was doing to her…

Her whole body felt hot, sensitised, and she gasped and writhed, the moisture flooding between her thighs as Jonas rolled her nipple between thumb and finger. Gently, and then harder, the almost pleasure-pain like nothing Mac had ever experienced before.

Her neck arched when Jonas dragged his mouth from hers, his breath hot and moist against her skin as he left a trail of kisses across her cheek, the line of her jaw, before moving down her throat to the hollows beneath, tongue dipping, tasting, as he seemed to draw in the drugging scent of her arousal with his every breath.

Mac could only cling to the power of his shoulders as he swept her along in a tidal wave of desire so strong she felt as if Jonas were her only anchor. All that mattered. Her only reality.

Jonas had never wanted a woman as much as he did Mac. Had never hungered like this before. Had never needed to be inside any woman so badly that he literally seemed to blaze with that need, every cell and nerve in his body aching for her, robbing him of his usual self-control as he longed to feel her hands on him.

His mouth moved back to claim hers in a kiss that was almost savage, Mac offering no protest as Jonas grasped the bottom of her T-shirt to tug it upwards, only breaking that kiss long enough to pull the article of clothing over her head and throw it down on the floor.

He could barely breathe, his eyes glittering darkly blue as he looked down at her tiny breasts. Their nakedness peaked shyly through that long ebony hair. ‘My God, you’re beautiful,’ Jonas groaned before lowering his head to capture one of those rosy red nipples into the heat of his mouth, intending to drink his fill, to wrest every last vestige of pleasure from her hot and delicious body.

Mac gasped at the first touch of Jonas’s lips against her breast, her back tensing now as she arched into him, cradling his head to her as he drew her deeper, ever deeper into his mouth, tasting her sweetness, her heat, the heady smell of her arousal driving him mad with need.

He raised his head to look down at the nipple that had swollen in size, gaze intent as he turned the attention of his lips and tongue to her other breast. At the same time he released the fastening on her jeans to slip his hands beneath the material and grasp her hips before sliding further back to cup the perfectly rounded cheeks of her bottom encased in lacy panties.

Jonas looked up at Mac with darkened and hungry eyes. ‘Touch me, Mac,’ he growled. He deliberately, slowly, flicked his tongue against that hard and delicious nipple, watching her response as the pleasure vibrated, resonated through the whole of her body.

Mac had never felt so sensitised to the touch of another, so aroused and needy, her body a single burning ache as she moved eagerly to return those caresses, tugging Jonas’s jumper up and off his body to reveal the hard and muscled perfection of his chest before she placed her hands flat against it. He stood immobile in front of her, that glittering blue gaze hidden beneath hooded lids, but the husky exclamation of pleasure he gave as Mac touched him for the first time encouraged her, incited her to explore all of that hard, silken flesh.

He felt like steel encased in velvet, the tiny nipples hidden amongst the light covering of chest hair standing to attention as Mac ran her fingers over them delicately. She wondered curiously whether Jonas would feel the same pleasure as she did if she were to kiss him there.

‘Oh, yes, Mac!’ Jonas moaned at the first flick of her tongue against that tiny enticing pebble, his hand moving to curve about her nape as he threaded his fingers in the dark tangle of her hair and held her against him, encouraging, demanding.

Mac felt empowered, exhilarated with the knowledge that she could give Jonas the same pleasure he gave her, continuing to flick her tongue against him there as her hands roamed restlessly across the broad width of his back and down the muscled curve of his spine.

Mac’s mouth moved down his chest as her fingers moved lightly along the length of the erection pressing against his jeans, able to feel the heat of him through the material as he grew even harder as she touched him.

Jonas stood unmoving beneath the onslaught of those caresses, barely breathing, body tense, hands clenched into fists at his sides as he fought grimly to maintain control as Mac’s lips and hands drove him almost wild with need. Knowing he was losing the battle as that image he’d had earlier, of him sitting on a chair with Mac’s naked thighs wrapped about him, caused his thighs to throb and surge in painful need, his jeans too uncomfortable, too tight to contain him any longer.

‘We need to be somewhere more comfortable,’ he growled before he bent down and swung Mac up into his arms. He moved out of the warm kitchen, down the hallway to his bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them. He walked over to the bed and placed Mac on top of the downy duvet before turning to switch on the soft glow of the bedside light.

He stood looking down at her for several seconds, eyes dark as he looked at that cascade of straight ebony-black hair spread across his pillows, her eyes bright, cheeks flushed, lips slightly swollen from the hunger of their kisses, and then down to the swell of those perfect breasts.

Jonas drew in a harsh breath as he gazed at those orbs with their rosy-hued nipples jutting out firmly, and then down over the curving indentation of her narrow waist, a tantalising glimpse of her lacy panties visible beneath her unzipped jeans.

He sat on the side of the bed, his gaze briefly holding hers before lowering as he slowly tugged those jeans down to fully reveal those white panties with the soft curls dark behind the lace, and the long length of her legs.

Mac was barely breathing as she looked up into the dark intensity of Jonas’s face as his gaze slowly, hungrily, devoured every inch of her, from her head down to her toes.

His face was flushed as that glittering blue gaze returned to meet hers. ‘I’m think I’m going to have to make love to you until you beg for me to stop,’ he muttered gruffly.

Mac longed for that, ached for it, but at the same time she trembled at the depth of the desire she could feel flowing between them. ‘I hope you aren’t going to be disappointed,’ she whispered.

Those blue eyes narrowed. ‘Why should I be disappointed?’

Mac shook her head. ‘I’m not experienced, and—I—I don’t have any protection,’ she warned, not wanting to break the spell of the moment, but only too aware now of the reason Jonas’s parents had married each other. Of how much he would despise any woman stupid enough to make the same mistake with him.

‘You aren’t on the pill?’ Jonas slid open the drawer in the bedside cabinet and took out a small foil packet.

Her cheeks were flushed. ‘I—No, there’s never been any need.’

Jonas looked at her suspiciously as an incredulous thought suddenly occurred to him. ‘You can’t possibly still be a virgin?’

‘Why can’t I? Jonas…?’ Mac frowned her uncertainty as he stood up abruptly.

Jonas stared down at her disbelievingly—accusingly—for several long seconds, before turning away to run an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair. A virgin! Jonas couldn’t believe it; Mac McGuire, a beautiful woman in her late twenties, who looked and dressed like a Bohemian, was a virgin!

He turned back. ‘And exactly when were you going to tell me that interesting little piece of information?’ he bit out angrily. ‘Or were you just going to let me find out for myself once it was too late for me to do anything about it?’

Mac gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.

Jonas glared at her. ‘Virgin or not, you can’t be that naïve!’

Mac was too stunned by the sudden tension between them to know what to think. ‘I don’t believe I’m naïve at all,’ she said slowly as she sat up, her hair falling forwards to cover the nakedness of her breasts. ‘I thought you realised after I told you about my one youthful disaster of a relationship—Jonas, what difference does it make whether or not I’ve had other lovers?’

‘All the difference in the world to me,’ Jonas assured her harshly.

Mac gave a pained frown as she wrapped her arms defensively about the bareness of her knees. ‘But why does it?’

‘Because I have no intention of being any woman’s first lover, that’s why.’ His jaw was tightly clenched.

‘All women have a first time with someone—’

‘Yours isn’t going to be with me,’ he reiterated.

‘Most men would be only too pleased to be a woman’s first lover!’ Tears of humiliation glittered in her eyes as she glared back at him and she resolutely blinked them away. She refused to cry in front of him!

‘Not this man,’ he said fervently.

Mac couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. Couldn’t believe that Jonas was refusing to make love to her just because she was a virgin!

‘Why is that, Jonas?’ she challenged. ‘Do you think that I’m making such a grand gesture because I already imagine myself in love with you? Or do you think I’m trying to trap you in some way?’ Her eyes widened as she saw from the cold stiffening of Jonas’s expression, the icy glitter of his eyes, that was exactly what he thought—and so obviously feared. ‘You arrogant louse!’ she scorned furiously.

‘No doubt,’ he acknowledged. ‘But I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s better if this stops now?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Jonas, it’s stopped,’ she said scathingly as she moved to sit on the side of the bed, grabbed up her jeans from the carpeted floor and started pulling them back on.

‘I’m going back to the kitchen; I suggest you join me there once you’ve finished dressing. You might need this.’ He took a black T-shirt out of the tall chest of drawers and threw it on the bed beside her before turning on his heel and leaving the bedroom, almost slamming the door behind him.

Mac stilled, unsure as to whether the tears now finally falling hotly and unchecked down her cheeks were of anger or humiliation, too confused still at the way their heated lovemaking had turned into an exchange of insults.

Did Jonas really imagine Mac was somehow trying to trap him into a relationship with her by giving him her virginity? Into making him feel responsible for her because he’d become her first lover?

If that was what he thought, what he was desperately trying to avoid, then Jonas didn’t deserve her tears. He didn’t deserve anything but her pity.

Unless you’re in love with him, after all? a little voice deep within her wanted to know.

No. She was most definitely not. Mac had felt closer to Jonas this evening. Felt she understood him and his motivations better after hearing about his parents’ marriage and his own childhood. And she had physically wanted him. That was undeniable. But none of those things added up to her being in love with him.

Not even a little bit? the same annoying voice persisted.

No, not even a little bit! she answered it firmly.

Jonas was arrogant. Cold. And his behaviour just now proved that he was also completely undeserving of her emotions or her body.

Jonas had pulled his jumper back on and was sitting at the oak kitchen table drinking some of the wine when Mac came back into the room, his gaze narrowing as he took in her appearance in his T-shirt. It was far too big for her, so long it reached almost down to her knees, the shoulder seams hanging halfway down her arms—and yet, somehow, she still managed to look sexy as hell.

Nothing at all like the virgin she was.

Jonas couldn’t have known about her inexperience. He would never have guessed it from how she’d responded to him so passionately, so eagerly…

He scowled across at her broodingly. ‘Having dinner together was obviously no more successful than our attempt at having lunch.’ The food remained half eaten and cold on the plates.

Mac strode across the room to grab her own T-shirt from the back of the chair where Jonas had draped it. ‘At least I know who to see now if I ever want to lose weight,’ she retorted.

Jonas’s jaw tightened. ‘You’re too thin already.’

Her eyes flashed a deep, smoky grey. ‘I didn’t hear you complaining a few minutes ago!’

He raised dark brows, his smile sardonic. ‘I wasn’t stating a preference now either, only fact.’

Mac wanted to slap that mocking smile off his face. No—she wanted to pummel his chest with her fists until she actually hurt him. As he had hurt her when he’d turned away from her so coldly.

She held her T-shirt protectively in front of her. ‘Is there a bathroom I can use to change back into my own top?’

He kept one mocking brow raised. ‘Isn’t it a little late for modesty when I’ve already seen you naked?’

Her cheeks warmed hotly. ‘Not completely!’

Jonas gave a shrug. ‘The part you’re going to expose, I have.’

Mac’s mouth set determinedly. ‘Would you just tell me where the bathroom is?’

‘The nearest one is down the hallway, first door on the right,’ he told her before turning away.

It was a cold and uninterested dismissal, Mac realised with a frown as she turned and walked out of the kitchen. Anyone would think that being a virgin at her age was akin to having the plague! Maybe in his eyes it was…

She wasted no time in admiring the luxurious bathroom as she quickly pulled off Jonas’s overlarge T-shirt and replaced it with her own white one, a glance in the mirror over the double sink showing her that her hair was in too much of a mess for her to do any more than plait it loosely in an effort to smooth it into some sort of order.

Her face was very pale, her eyes huge and slightly red from the tears she had shed earlier, her lips full and swollen from the intensity of the kisses she had shared with Jonas.

Most of all she looked…sad.

Which wouldn’t do at all, Mac decided as she set her shoulders determinedly before leaving the bathroom to go back to the kitchen. She was a mature and confident woman—even if, horror or horrors, she was still a virgin!—and she intended to act like one.

Jonas was still sitting at the table surrounded by the remains of their meal, although the level of wine in his glass had definitely gone down in her absence.

Mac placed his T-shirt on the back of one of the other chairs. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiltedly, her face averted as she sat down to begin pulling on her leathers.

This, putting her clothes back on in a strained and awkward silence, had to be one of the most embarrassing and humiliating experiences of her entire life. More embarrassing than if she and Jonas had actually made love completely? Probably not, she acknowledged with a self-derisive grimace, as she could only imagine his reaction if he had discovered her virginity when it was too late for him to pull back.

Once again Jonas watched Mac broodingly through narrowed lids, easily able to read the self-disgust in her expression, the underlying hurt. Damn it, he had never meant to hurt her. Hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He just knew he had nothing to offer a woman like Mac. Beautiful. Emotional. Virginal…

His relationships were always, always based on a mutual attraction and physical need. That desire definitely existed between himself and Mac, but the fact that she was still a virgin, and had been willing to give that virginity to him, had also warned him that if they made love together then she would probably want more from him than that. Much more.

Jonas didn’t have any more than that to give. Not to Mac or any other woman. But that wasn’t her fault.

‘I’m sorry.’

She gave him a sharp glance as she straightened from lacing her boots. ‘For what?’

Jonas grimaced. ‘For allowing things to go as far between us just now as they did. If I had known—’

‘If you had known I was a virgin then you wouldn’t have invited me up to your apartment at all!’ she finished knowingly as she stood to zip up her leathers.

Jonas winced at the bitterness he could hear in her tone. ‘None of what happened was premeditated on my part—’

‘No?’ she challenged.

‘No, damn it!’ A scowl darkened his brow.

Mac shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it, Jonas. Not all men are as fickle as you; I’m pretty sure I can find one who’s more than willing to become my first lover. Maybe I’ll come back once I have, and we can finish what we started?’ she taunted.

Jonas pushed his chair back noisily to stand up. ‘Don’t be so stupid!’ he rasped harshly.

Mac’s chin tilted with determination as she looked up at him. ‘What’s stupid about it?’

‘You can’t just decide to lose your virginity in that cold-blooded way!’

‘Why can’t I?’

He shook his head. ‘Because it’s something too precious to just throw away. It’s a gift you should give to a man you care about. That you love.’

Mac felt a clenching in her chest as she acknowledged that she did care about Jonas. She didn’t think she was in love with him yet—it would be madness on her part to fall in love with him!—but she definitely cared about him. About the hurt child he had once been, and the disillusioned man he now was.

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I believe that’s for me to decide, Jonas, not you.’

‘But—’

‘I would like to leave now,’ she told him flatly.

Jonas stared down at her in obvious frustration. ‘Not until you promise me that you aren’t going to leave here and do something totally reckless.’

‘Like taking a lover?’

‘Exactly!’

Mac gave him a pitying glance. ‘I don’t believe that anything I do in future is any of your business.’

His mouth was set grimly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘If you’re really that desperate for a lover—’

‘Oh, I’m not desperate, Jonas,’ she said coolly. ‘Just curious,’ she added, deliberately baiting him.

Jonas wanted to shake her. Wanted to grasp the tops of Mac’s arms and shake her until her teeth rattled. Except that he didn’t dare touch her again. Because he knew that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to stop…

He sighed heavily. ‘I thought you understood after the things I told you about my childhood. Mac, I’m not the man you need, and I never could be.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t believe I ever asked you to be anything to me,’ she pointed out.

‘But you would.’ That nerve continued to pulse in his jaw. ‘Perhaps you would enjoy the novelty of the relationship at first, the sexual excitement, but eventually you would want more than I have to give you.’

‘You know what, Jonas,’ she said conversationally, ‘I think you’re taking an awful lot for granted in assuming that I would have wanted to continue a—a sexual relationship with you after tonight. I mean, who’s to say I would actually have enjoyed having sex with you? Or is it that you’re under the illusion you’re such a great lover that no woman could possibly be left feeling disappointed after sharing your bed?’

Jonas felt the twitch of a smile on his lips as Mac deliberately insulted him. ‘That would be a little arrogant of me, wouldn’t it?’

‘More than a little, I would have said,’ she shot back. ‘So, how do I get out of here?’ She moved pointedly across the room to stand beside the doorway out into the hallway.

This evening had been something of another disaster as far as he and Mac were concerned, Jonas acknowledged ruefully as he preceded her out of the kitchen and walked with her to the lift.

She grimaced once she had stepped inside the lift. ‘I’m not sure if I said this before, but thank you for sending Bob over this afternoon to fix my window.’

Jonas had totally forgotten that was the original reason she had followed him home! ‘But don’t do anything like it again?’ he guessed dryly.

‘No.’

He nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. I—If I don’t see you again before then—Merry Christmas, Mac.’

She eyed him quizzically. ‘And I’d already marked you down as the “bah, humbug” type!’

‘I am the “bah, humbug” type,’ he admitted with a quirk of his mouth.

Mac nodded as the lift doors began to close. ‘Merry Christmas, Jonas.’

Jonas continued to stand in the hallway long after she had gone down to the car park and no doubt driven away on that powerful motorbike as if the devil himself were at her heels.

He liked Mac, Jonas realised frowningly. Liked the way she looked. Her spirit. Her independence. Her optimism about life and people in general. Most of all he admired her ability to laugh at herself.

Unfortunately, he also knew that allowing himself to like Mac McGuire was as dangerous to the solitary lifestyle he preferred as having a sexual relationship with her would have been.

CHAPTER EIGHT

IT WAS late in the morning when Mac parked her four-wheel-drive Jeep next to her motorbike in the garage on the ground floor of the warehouse after arriving back from a three-day pre-Christmas visit to her parents’ home in Devon.

She had felt the need to get away for a while after the disastrous and humiliating end to the evening spent with Jonas at his apartment. And as the men had duly arrived the following day to install the alarm system to the warehouse, and the exhibition at the gallery was going well—Jeremy had informed Mac when she spoke to him on the telephone that the paintings were all sold, and the public were pouring in to see them before the exhibition came to a close at Christmas—she was free to do what she wanted for the next few days, at least.

Just as she had hoped, the time spent with her parents—the normality of being teased by her father and going Christmas shopping with her mother—had been the perfect way to put things in her own life back into perspective. For her to decide that her behaviour that evening at Jonas’s apartment had been an aberration. A madness she didn’t intend ever to repeat. In fact, she had come to the conclusion that ever seeing Jonas Buchanan again would be a mistake…

Which was going to be a little hard for her to do when he was the first person she saw as she rounded the corner from the garage!

Mac’s hand tightened about the handle of the holdall she had used to pack the necessary clothing needed for her three days away, her gaze fixed on Jonas as she walked slowly towards him. She unconsciously registered how attractive he looked in a brown leather jacket over a tan-coloured sweater and faded jeans…

Any embarrassment she might have felt at seeing him again was forgotten as she realised he was directing the actions of the two other men, workmen from their clothing, who seemed to be in the process of building a metal tower beside the warehouse. ‘What on earth are you doing?’ Mac demanded.

‘Oh, hell!’ Jonas muttered as he turned and saw her, his expression becoming grim. ‘I’d hoped to have dealt with this before you got back.’

‘Hoped to have dealt with what? What on earth…?’ Mac stared up at the wooden sides of the warehouse. Her eyes were wide with shock as she took in the electric-pink and fluorescent-green paints that had been sprayed haphazardly over the dark wooden cladding.

‘It isn’t as bad as it looks…’

‘Isn’t it?’ she questioned sharply, the holdall slipping unnoticed from her fingers as she continued to stare numbly up at that mad kaleidoscope of colour.

‘Mac—’

‘Don’t touch me!’ She cringed away as Jonas would have reached out and grasped her arm. ‘Who—? Why—?’ She gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘When did this happen?’

‘I have no idea,’ Jonas rasped. ‘Some time yesterday evening, we think—’

‘Who is we?’

‘My foreman from the building site next door,’ he elaborated. ‘He noticed it this morning, and when he didn’t receive any reply to his knock on your door he decided to report it to me.’

Mac swallowed hard, feeling slightly nauseous at the thought of someone deliberately vandalising her property. ‘Why would anyone do something like this?’

‘I don’t know.’ Jonas sighed heavily.

‘Could it be kids this time?’

‘Again, I have no idea. These two men are going to paint over it. They should be finished by this evening.’ He grimaced. ‘I had hoped to have had it done before you got back—’

‘I thought I had made it plain the last time we met that I would rather you didn’t go around arranging things for me?’ Mac reminded him coldly.

Jonas eyed her with a frown, the pallor of her cheeks very noticeable against the red padded body-warmer she wore over a black sweater and black denims. He didn’t like seeing the glitter of tears in those smoky-grey eyes, either. But he liked the cold, flat tone of her voice when she spoke to him even less. ‘Would you rather I had just left it for you to find when you got home?’

‘I have found it when I got home!’ Her voice rose slightly, almost shrilly.

Jonas shook his head. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be back just yet; I had hoped it would be later today, or even better, tomorrow morning.’

Those huge grey eyes settled on him suspiciously. ‘How did you even know I had gone away?’

Jonas knew he could have lied, prevaricated even, but the suspicion he could read in Mac’s expression warned him not to do either of those things. ‘The Patels,’ he revealed unapologetically. ‘Once I had seen the mess, and you obviously weren’t at home, I went to their convenience store and asked if they had any idea where you were.’

Those misty grey eyes widened. ‘And they just told you I had gone away for a few days?’

He gave a rueful nod. ‘Once I’d explained about the vandalism, yes.’

‘Tarun always puts a daily newspaper by for me,’ Mac muttered absently. ‘I cancelled it while I was away.’

Jonas smiled. ‘So he told me.’

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. ‘Nothing like this ever happened before I met you—’

‘Don’t say something you’ll only have to apologise for later,’ Jonas warned through suddenly gritted teeth.

‘Even before,’ Mac continued as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘when your assorted employees came here to try and persuade me into selling the warehouse, nothing like this happened. It’s only since actually meeting you—’

‘I said stop, Mac!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched cheek.

Her gaze narrowed as she focused on him. ‘Since meeting you, I’ve had my window broken and my home vandalised,’ she said accusingly. ‘And now some helpful soul has decided to redecorate the outside of the warehouse for me. Bit too much of a coincidence, don’t you think, Jonas?’ Her eyes glittered with anger now rather than tears.

Jonas had known exactly where Mac was going with this conversation, and had tried to stop her from actually voicing those accusations.

Damn it, he had considered himself well rid of her once she’d left his apartment on Monday evening. He’d had no intention of going near her on a personal level ever again if he could avoid it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to avoid coming here, at least, once he’d received the telephone call earlier this morning from his foreman.

He certainly wasn’t enjoying being the object of Mac’s suspicions. ‘Only if you choose to look at it that way,’ he bit out icily.

She eyed him challengingly. ‘Did you report this to the police?’

Jonas narrowed cold blue eyes. ‘I have the distinct feeling that I’m going to be damned if I did, and damned if I didn’t.’

Mac raised questioning brows. ‘How so?’

‘If I did report it then I was probably just covering my own back. If I didn’t report it, then again, I’m obviously guilty.’

Mac was feeling sick now that the shock was fading and reaction was setting in. She didn’t want Jonas to be in any way involved in this second act of vandalism. It was the last thing she wanted! It was only that the coincidence of it all was so undeniable…

She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. ‘Your men seem to have everything well in hand,’ she acknowledged ruefully as she glanced up at the two men now scaling the metal tower with the familiarity of monkeys, pots of paint and brushes in their hands. ‘Would you like to come upstairs for some coffee?’

Jonas raised surprised brows. ‘Are you sure it’s wise to invite the enemy into your camp?’

Mac straightened from picking up the holdall she had dropped minutes ago. ‘Have you never heard the saying “keep your friends close, but your enemies even closer”?’ she teased.

His mouth tightened. ‘I’m not your enemy, Mac.’

‘I wasn’t being serious, Jonas,’ she assured him wearily.

‘Strange, I didn’t find it in the least funny,’ he muttered as he began to follow her up the metal staircase.

Those psychedelic swirls of paint were even more noticeable from the top of the staircase, evidence that the perpetrator had probably stood on the top step in order to spray onto the second and third floor of the building. They had certainly made a mess of the stained dark wood.

But why had they?

Was it just an act of vandalism by kids thinking they were being clever? Or was it something else, something more sinister?

Mac gave a disgruntled snort as she unlocked the door and entered the living area of the warehouse, dropping her holdall just inside the door before going over to the kitchen area to prepare the pot of filtered coffee.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice for several seconds that Jonas had closed the door behind him and come to a complete halt. She eyed him curiously. ‘Is there something wrong?’

Jonas was completely stunned by the inside of Mac’s warehouse. He had never seen anything like this before. It was—

‘Jonas?’

He blinked before focusing on Mac as she looked across at him in puzzlement. ‘I—’ He shook his head. ‘This is—’

‘Weird?’ she finished dryly as she stepped out from behind the breakfast bar that partitioned off the kitchen area from the rest of the living space. ‘Odd? Peculiar? A nightmare?’ she concluded laughingly.

‘I was going to say fantastic!’ Jonas breathed incredulously as he now looked up at the high ceiling painted like a night sky, with the moon and stars shimmering mysteriously in that darkness.

The rest of the living area was open plan, the four walls painted like the seasons; spring was a blaze of yellow flowers against burgeoning green, summer a deeper green and gorgeous range of rainbow colours, autumn covered the spectrum from gold to russet, and winter was a beautiful white landscape.

The furniture was a mixture of all those colours, one chair gold, and another terracotta, the sofa burnt orange, with several white rugs on the highly polished wooden floor, that flat-screen television Mac had once mentioned tucked away in a corner. The bedroom area was slightly raised and reached by three wooden steps, the cover over the bed a patchwork of colours, a spiral staircase in another corner of the room obviously going up to the studio above.

And in place of honour in front of the huge picture window was a real pine Christmas tree that reached from floor to ceiling, and was decorated with so many baubles it was almost impossible to see the lushness of the branches.

Jonas had never seen anything so unusual—or so beautiful—as Mac’s warehouse home. Much as Mac herself was unusual and beautiful? he wondered…

He firmly closed off that avenue of thought as he turned to give her a rueful smile. ‘No wonder you didn’t like the décor in the sitting-room of my apartment.’

Mac brought over two mugs of coffee and put one of them down on the low bamboo tabletop before carrying her own over to sit down on the sofa, her denim-covered legs neatly tucked beneath her. ‘Obviously I prefer to go with the rustic look!’ she teased, sipping her coffee.

Jonas picked up the second mug and sat down in the terracotta-coloured chair facing her. ‘Is the studio upstairs like this, too?’

‘I’ll show it to you, if you like.’

Jonas eyed Mac curiously as he sensed the reluctance behind her offer. ‘You don’t usually show people your studio, do you?’ he guessed.

She grimaced. ‘Not usually, no.’

And yet she was offering to show it to him…

Jonas wasn’t sure if he felt privileged or alarmed at the concession, but his curiosity was such that he wanted to see the studio anyway. ‘Perhaps after we’ve drunk our coffee,’ he suggested lightly.

‘Perhaps,’ Mac echoed uneasily, not altogether sure what to do with Jonas now that he was here.

She had only invited him in for coffee because their earlier conversation had been deteriorating into accusations on her part and defensive warnings on Jonas’s. But now that he was here, in the intimacy of her home, she was once again aware of that rising sexual tension between them that never seemed to be far from the surface whenever the two of them were together.

Jonas looked very fit and masculine in his casual clothes, and that overlong dark hair was once again slightly ruffled by the cold wind blowing outside, his face as hard and sculptured as a statue Mac had once seen depicting the Archangel Gabriel. As for those fathomless blue eyes…

She turned away abruptly. ‘You never did tell me whether or not you had informed the police about this second incident of vandalism in just a few days?’

His mouth tightened. ‘I did call them, yes. Two of them arrived about an hour ago and looked the place over. If I understood them correctly, they were of the opinion that the demolishing of the other warehouses around this one has left it rather exposed and so a prime target for bored teenagers wanting to cause mischief.’

Mac was pretty sure that he had understood the police correctly. ‘And what’s your opinion, Jonas?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘I think it’s more—personal, than that.’

She gave a rueful smile. ‘We aren’t back to that disgruntled ex-lover theory again, are we?’ she said dryly.

Hardly, when Jonas now knew only too well that there had never been a lover in Mac’s life, ex or otherwise! Not even the man who had wanted her to be a trophy on his arm to show off at parties…

He gave a tight smile. ‘I prefer to go with the jealous rival theory.’

‘We’ve only been out together once,’ she taunted. ‘And that was something of a disaster, if you remember? I doubt that would have made any of your other…women friends jealous of me.’

Unfortunately, Jonas remembered every minute he had ever spent in this woman’s company. ‘Very funny.’ He scowled. ‘I was actually referring to a professional rival of yours rather than a personal angle involving me.’

‘That would make sense seeing as we don’t have a personal relationship—from any angle,’ she said cuttingly.

Jonas deliberately chose not to enter into any sort of argument as to what there was or wasn’t between himself and Mac. ‘I understand your exhibition has been a tremendous success—’

‘Understand from whom?’ Mac pounced on his comment.

‘Mac, you were the one who asked for my opinion, so would you now just let me finish giving it instead of jumping down my throat after every sentence?’ he snapped his frustration with her interruptions.

‘Fine,’ she sighed.

‘Is there anyone you know, or can think of, who might be—less than happy, shall we say, at the success of your exhibition?’

‘No, there isn’t,’ she answered snippily. Emphatically.

Which brought Jonas back to that frustrated ex-boyfriend again…

He looked at her through narrowed lids. ‘Where have you been for the past three days?’

She looked startled. ‘Sorry?’

‘I asked where you’ve been for the past three days,’ Jonas repeated firmly.

Mac gave an irritated frown. ‘I can’t see how that’s any of your business!’

‘It is if it has any bearing on the unwanted graffiti outside,’ he reasoned.

‘I don’t see how it can have.’ Mac sat forward and put her empty coffee mug down on the bamboo table. ‘If you must know, I went to visit my parents in Devon,’ she explained as Jonas continued to look at her questioningly.

‘Oh.’ He looked frustrated. ‘As you said, that’s not particularly helpful.’

It also wasn’t the answer he had obviously been expecting. ‘Where did you think I’d been, Jonas?’ Mac asked.

‘How the hell should I know?’ he retorted tersely.

Was he being defensive? It certainly sounded that way to her. But why did it? Jonas had made it more than clear on Monday evening that he wasn’t interested in becoming involved with her—or indeed with any woman who was so physically inexperienced!

Thinking about what had happened between the two of them that evening perhaps wasn’t the right thing for her to do when they were sitting here alone in her home. Well…alone apart from the two men she could see outside the window painting the wooden cladding!

She stood up suddenly. ‘I don’t think we’ll achieve anything further by talking about this any more today, Jonas.’

He looked up at her mockingly. ‘Is that my cue to politely take my leave?’

Mac felt the warmth of the colour that entered her cheeks. ‘Or impolitely, if you would prefer,’ she said sweetly.

What Jonas would prefer to do was something he dared not allow himself.

The last few minutes spent here with her, in the warmth and beauty that she had made of her home, made him strangely reluctant to leave it. Or her. Just the thought of going back alone to the cold and impersonal sterility of his own apartment was enough to send an icy shiver of revulsion down the length of his spine.

What was it about this woman in particular that made Jonas want to remain in her company? That made him so reluctant to leave the warmth and vitality that was Mary ‘Mac’ McGuire?

‘Have you ever done any interior designing other than your own?’ he heard himself asking.

Mac raised an eyebrow. ‘Not really. A room here and there for my parents, but otherwise no. Why?’

What the hell was he doing? Jonas wondered, annoyed with himself. The last thing he wanted—the very last thing—when he moved into his new apartment next year was a constant reminder of this unusual woman because he was surrounded by her choice of décor!

‘No reason,’ he replied coldly as he stood up decisively. ‘I was just making conversation,’ he explained. ‘You’re right, I have to get back to the office.’

Mac stood near the door and watched beneath lowered lashes as Jonas strode over to place his empty coffee mug on the breakfast bar, her gaze hungry as she admired the way his brown leather jacket fitted smoothly over the width of those shoulders and how his legs appeared so long and lean in his snug faded jeans.

She wasn’t over him!

Mac had thought—and hoped—that three days in Devon would put this man and that mad desire she had felt for him on Monday evening into perspective. Looking at him now, feeling the wild beat of her pulse and the heated awareness washing over her body, she realised that all she had done was force herself not to think about him. Being with Jonas again, and once more totally aware of that unequivocally passionate response to him, showed her that she hadn’t forgotten a thing about him since she’d last seen him.

She moistened dry lips, instantly aware of her mistake as she saw the way Jonas’s dark gaze fixated on the movement as he walked slowly towards her. ‘I really do need to go out and get some things in for dinner,’ she said desperately.

Jonas came to a halt only inches away from her. ‘Why don’t I take you out to dinner this evening and you can do the food shopping tomorrow?’ he prompted huskily.

Mac blinked her uncertainty, part of her wanting to have dinner with him this evening, another part of her knowing it would be reckless for her to even think of doing so. ‘I thought we had already agreed that the two of us seeing each other again socially was not a good idea?’

‘It isn’t,’ Jonas acknowledged wryly.

‘Then—’

‘I want to have dinner with you, damn it!’ he bit out fiercely.

Mac gave a rueful smile. ‘And do you usually get what you want, Jonas?’

‘Generally? Yes. As far as you’re concerned? Rarely,’ he said bluntly.

Mac was torn. An evening spent alone, after being with Jonas again, now stretched in front of her like a long dark tunnel. Alternately, spending any part of the evening with him presented a high risk of there being a repeat of Monday evening’s disaster…

‘No,’ she said finally. ‘I—no.’

Jonas eyed her speculatively. ‘That’s a definite no, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, that’s a definite no? Or yes, I’ve changed my mind and would love to have dinner with you this evening, Jonas?’ he drawled.

He was teasing her! It was so unexpected from this normally forcefully arrogant man that Mac couldn’t stop herself from laughing softly as she gave a slight shake of her head. ‘You aren’t making this easy for me, are you?’

Jonas had no idea what had possessed him to make the invitation in the first place, let alone try to cajole her into accepting it. Especially when he knew that spending any more time with this woman was the very last thing he should do.

He had been telling himself exactly that for the past three days. To no avail, obviously, when the first time he set eyes on her again he was pressing her to have dinner with him!

Even now Jonas couldn’t bring himself to retract the invitation. ‘It can’t be that difficult, Mac,’ he cajoled. ‘The answer is either yes or no.’

Mac looked up at Jonas quizzically, wondering why he had invited her out to dinner when he was so obviously as reluctant to spend time alone with her again as she was with him.

Except the two of them were alone right now…

Alone, and with the sexual tension between them rising just as obviously. The very air that surrounded them seemed to crackle with that awareness; she was so aware of it now that her heart raced and her palms felt damp.

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘I think that has to be a definite no.’

‘“I think” is surely contradictory to “definite”?’ Jonas pressed.

Because Mac was having a problem thinking at all in Jonas’s company!

Because she really wanted to say yes?

Maybe. No, definitely! But the part of her that could still reason logically—a very small part of her, admittedly!—knew it really wasn’t a sensible thing for her to spend any more time in his highly disturbing company.

‘I don’t want to go out to dinner with you, Jonas,’ she stated very firmly—at the same time aware of a sinking disappointment in the pit of her stomach. An ache. A hollowness that instantly made her want to retract her refusal. She bit her bottom lip, hard, to stop herself from doing exactly that.

Jonas looked down at Mac through narrowed lids, physically aware of everything about her; the slender and sexy elegance of her body, the long silky length of her ebony hair, the warm grey of her eyes, her tiny up tilted nose, the satiny smoothness of her cheeks, those full and sensuous lips—the bottom one firmly gripped between her tiny white teeth. Could that be in an effort to stop Mac from retracting her own refusal?

Implying she didn’t really want to say no to his dinner invitation…

Jonas straightened. ‘I’m not asking you out so that you can dress up and be a trophy on my arm, Mac,’ he assured her gently. ‘How about we eat here instead of going out? I’ll come back at eight o’clock with a bottle of wine and a takeaway. Would you prefer Chinese or Indian?’

Mac’s eyes widened. ‘But I just said—’

‘That you didn’t want to go out to dinner,’ he cut in. ‘So we’ll eat dinner here instead.’

She frowned. ‘That wasn’t quite what I meant.’

‘I know that, Mac.’ Jonas smiled.

‘Then—’

‘Look, we both know that we would actually prefer not to spend any more time together,’ Jonas said neutrally. ‘The problem with that is I can’t seem to stay away from you. How about you?’ he asked, eyes suddenly fierce with emotion in his otherwise calm face.

Mac realised from his careful tone and fierce expression that he disliked intensely even having to make that admission. That he was still as disturbed by their physical attraction to each other as she was. A physical attraction that was going precisely nowhere when he distrusted her sexual inexperience and she distrusted her own ability to resist him. To see him any more than was absolutely necessary would be absolute madness.

She drew herself up determinedly. ‘I said no, Jonas, and I meant no!’

His mouth tightened, jaw clenched. ‘Fine,’ he said tersely. ‘I’ll wish you a pleasant evening, then.’ He nodded abruptly before crossing to the door, closing it softly behind him as he left.

That hollow feeling deepened in Mac’s stomach as she watched him go. She knew absolutely that the last thing she was going to have was a pleasant evening in any shape or form.

CHAPTER NINE

‘I HAVE Miss McGuire for you on line one, Mr Buchanan,’ Mandy informed Jonas lightly down the telephone line when he responded to her buzz.

‘Miss McGuire?’ Jonas frowned as he suddenly realised Mandy was referring to Mac; he had ceased thinking of her as ‘the irritating Miss McGuire’ days ago!

He and Mac had only parted a few hours ago, and not exactly harmoniously, so why was she calling him at his office now? Had something else happened at her home?

Jonas put his hand over the mouthpiece to look across at Yvonne as she sat on the other side of his desk, the two of them having been going through some paperwork. ‘Would you come back in fifteen minutes so we can finish up here?’

‘Of course, Jonas.’ She stood up smoothly. ‘Are you having better luck persuading Miss McGuire into selling?’ she paused to ask ruefully.

Jonas gave her an irritated look. ‘It hasn’t come into our conversation for some time,’ he answered honestly. Part of him had forgotten why he had ever met Mac in the first place. Part of him wished that he never had.

‘Oh.’ Yvonne looked surprised. ‘I thought that was the whole point of your—acquaintance?’

‘Did you?’ Jonas returned unhelpfully. Yvonne was a good PA, a damned good one, but even so that didn’t give her the right to question any of his actions. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, this is a private call…?’ he prompted pointedly, regretting the embarrassed colour that entered Yvonne’s cheeks, but making no attempt at an apology as he waited for her to leave his office before taking Mac’s call. ‘Yes?’ he said tersely, not sure who he was annoyed with, only knowing that he was.

Mac had been aware of each second she’d been kept waiting to be put through to Jonas—perhaps because he was unsure about taking her call?—and she could hear the displeasure in his voice now as she held her mobile to her ear with one hand and poured two mugs of coffee with the other. ‘Have I called at a bad time?’

‘No.’

Mac begged to differ, considering that long wait, and the impatience she could hear in Jonas’s tone. She knew she shouldn’t have telephoned him. Had tried to talk herself out of it. Wished now that she had heeded her own advice! ‘I realised after you had left earlier that I hadn’t…I just called to say thank you,’ she said awkwardly. ‘For everything you did for me this morning. Calling the police. Arranging to have the graffiti painted over.’

There was a brief silence before Jonas answered, his voice sounding less aggressive. ‘Have Ben and Jerry finished the painting now?’

‘Ben and Jerry? That’s what they’re called?’

‘Yes,’ Jonas answered dryly.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really,’ Jonas chuckled softly.

Mac felt slightly heartened by that chuckle. ‘They’ve almost finished, yes. I was just making them both a mug of coffee.’

‘That’s very…kind of you.’

Mac bristled. ‘You sound surprised?’

His sigh was audible. ‘Let’s try to not have another argument, hmm, Mac.’

‘No, of course not.’ She grimaced. ‘Sorry.’

‘Was that the only reason you called?’ Jonas asked huskily.

Was it? Mac had convinced herself that it was before she made the call, but now that she had heard his voice again she wasn’t so sure.

They had parted with such finality earlier. Leaving no room for manoeuvre. Something that had left Mac with a feeling of uneasy dissatisfaction.

‘I think so,’ she answered.

‘But you’re not sure?’ he pressed.

‘I am sure,’ she said firmly. ‘I just—Anyway, thank you for your help earlier, Jonas. It is appreciated.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he said warmly. ‘Have you had second thoughts about dinner?’

Second and third ones, Mac acknowledged ruefully. But all of them with the same conclusion—that a relationship between herself and Jonas was going nowhere. Except possibly to a broken heart on her part.

She wasn’t sure when—or even how—the feelings she had for Jonas had sneaked up on her. She only knew that they had.

Quite what those feelings were, she had so far shied away from analysing; she only knew, after seeing him again this morning, that her three days away had achieved nothing and that she definitely felt something for him.

She felt energised in his company. A tingling awareness. An excited thrumming. Whether or not that was just a sexual excitement, Mac wasn’t experienced enough in relationships to know. She only knew that the thought of never seeing him again, speaking to him again, was a painful one.

It made no difference to those feelings whatsoever that she knew there was no future for the two of them. Jonas undisputedly affected her in a way no other man ever had.

‘I’ll take it from your delay in answering that you have,’ he drawled softly.

‘I didn’t say that—’

‘In which case, Indian or Chinese?’ he said authoritatively, rolling right over her vacillation, having no intention of letting her wriggle out of the invitation a second time. Or was it a third time? Whatever. For some reason, Mac had called him, once again opening the line of communication between them, and at the same time renewing Jonas’s own determination to see her again. ‘I’m waiting, Mac,’ he added.

Her raggedly indrawn breath was audible. ‘Indian. But—’

‘No buts,’ Jonas cut in forcefully. ‘I’ll be there about eight o’clock, okay?’

‘I—Yes. Okay.’

Jonas only realised he had been tensed for another refusal as he felt his shoulders relax. ‘We’re only going to eat dinner together, Mac,’ he mocked gruffly—not sure whether he was offering her that reassurance or himself!

Himself, probably, he accepted derisively. Mac had got under his skin in a way he wasn’t comfortable with. So much so that he knew he shouldn’t see her again. So much so that he knew he had to see her again.

She was a magnet he was inexorably drawn to. And resistance on Jonas’s part was proving as futile as preventing the proverbial moth from being drawn to a flame…

‘Very festive,’ Jonas told Mac dryly later that evening once she had opened the door to his knock and he had stepped into the living area of the warehouse, the main lights switched off to allow for the full effect of the brightly lit Christmas tree. The smell of pine was thick in the air, and the branches were heavily adorned with decorations and glittering shiny baubles that reflected those coloured lights.

The dining table in the corner of the huge open-plan area was already set for two, with several candles placed in its centre waiting to be lit, and a bottle of red wine waiting to be opened.

Jonas turned away from the intimacy of that setting to look at Mac instead. Her hair was loose again this evening, and she had changed out of the black jumper, jeans and red body-warmer, into an overlarge thigh-length long-sleeved red shirt over black leggings, with calf-high black boots.

Jonas had spent the remainder of the afternoon telling himself what a bad idea it was for him to come here again this evening. One look at Mac and he didn’t give a damn how bad an idea it was, he was just enjoying being in her company again.

‘Here.’ He handed her the bag of Indian food before thrusting his hands into his jeans pockets in an effort not to reach out, as he so wanted to do, and pull her close to him. Jonas knew that once he had done that he wouldn’t want to let her go again. That he would forget everything else but having her in his arms…

Mac turned away from the stark intensity of Jonas’s gaze to carry the bag of food over to the breakfast bar and take out the hot cartons before removing the lids with determined concentration, feeling strangely shy in his company now that she was aware of—if choosing not to look too closely at—the feelings she had for him.

‘Ben and Jerry did a good job painting over the graffiti,’ she told him conversationally as she carried the warmed plates and cartons of food over to the table on a tray.

Jonas shrugged. ‘It’s too dark for me to tell.’

Mac nodded. ‘They were very efficient.’ Her gaze didn’t quite meet his as she straightened and turned, at the same time completely aware of how vibrantly attractive he looked in a blue cashmere sweater, the same colour as his eyes, and faded jeans of a lighter blue.

‘Mac…?’

She raised her eyes to look at him before as quickly looking away again as she felt that familiar thrill of awareness down the length of her spine. ‘We should sit down and eat before the food gets cold.’

Jonas frowned at the awkwardness he could feel growing between them. ‘Mac, are you even going to look at me?’

She leant back against the table as she turned and raised startled lids, her eyes huge grey orbs in the paleness of her face, her expression pained. ‘What are we doing, Jonas?’ she groaned huskily.

He gave a rueful shrug. ‘Eating dinner together, I thought.’

She shook her head. ‘After agreeing only this afternoon that it was a bad idea!’

‘No, you said it was a bad idea. I don’t think you asked for my opinion,’ Jonas recalled dryly. Although, if asked at the time, he would have said it was a bad idea, too! ‘As you said, the food is getting cold, so I suggest that for now we just sit down and eat and think about this again later?’ He moved to pointedly pull back one of the chairs for her to sit down.

Mac regarded him quizzically as she sat. ‘You really do like having your own way, don’t you?’

‘Almost as much as you enjoy doing the exact opposite of what you know I want,’ Jonas acknowledged with a quick smile as he sat down opposite her before picking up the bottle of wine and deftly opening it.

Mac chuckled softly. ‘Interesting.’

‘Irritating for the main part, actually,’ Jonas admitted as he poured the wine into their glasses. He raised his own glass and made a toast. ‘To—hopefully—our first indigestion-free meal together!’

Mac raised her glass and touched it gently against the side of Jonas’s. ‘To an indigestion-free meal!’ she echoed huskily, not too sure about the ‘first’ part of the toast. It implied there might be other meals to come, and, as Mac knew only too well, she and Jonas always ended up arguing if they spent any length of time together.

Well…almost always. The times when they didn’t argue were even more disturbing…

‘You really do like Christmas, don’t you?’

Mac looked up from helping herself to some of the food in the cartons to see Jonas was looking at her brightly decked Christmas tree. ‘I would have said, doesn’t everyone?’ she replied. ‘But I already know that you don’t.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ Jonas said.

‘No?’ Mac eyed him interestedly.

He shrugged. ‘I don’t dislike Christmas, Mac, it’s just a time I remember when my parents were forced to spend a couple of days in each other’s company, with the result they usually ended up having one almighty slanging match before the holiday was over. As my grandmother died on Christmas Eve, Joseph wasn’t particularly into celebrating it, either.’

‘What about your cousin Amy and her family?’

‘Amy always goes away with her partner for Christmas, and I’m not close to my uncle and aunt. What can I say?’ he drawled at Mac’s dismayed expression. ‘We’re a dysfunctional family.’

It sounded awful to Mac when she thought of her own happy childhood, and the wonderful memories she had of family Christmases, both in the distant past and more recently. ‘Why did you call your grandfather Joseph?’

Jonas gave a humourless smile. ‘Calling out “Granddad” on a building site didn’t go down too well with him, so it became a habit to call him by his first name.’

Looking at Jonas now, so suave, so obviously wealthy from the car he drove and the penthouse apartment he lived in, it was difficult to envision him as a rough and tough teenager working on a building site.

Yet there were those calluses Mac had noticed on his palms three days ago. And there was a ripcord strength about Jonas that didn’t look as if it came solely from working out in a gym. Wealthy or not, underneath all that suave sophistication, she realised he was still capable of being every bit as rough and tough as he had been as a teenager.

‘What?’ Jonas paused in eating his food to look across at her questioningly.

Mac shrugged. ‘I was just thinking that maybe you should think about starting your own Christmas traditions.’

From the way Mac had been looking at him so searchingly Jonas was pretty sure that hadn’t been what she had been thinking at all. Although quite what she had been thinking, he had no idea.

She was still something of an enigma to him, he recognised ruefully. There was no sophisticated game-playing with Mac. No artifice. As she had so emphatically told him, what you saw was what you got. And what Jonas saw he wanted very badly indeed…

He sighed. ‘It’s never seemed worth the bother when I only have myself to think about.’

Mac looked at him assessingly. ‘I’m taking a bet that you usually go away for Christmas. Somewhere hot,’ she qualified. ‘Golden sandy beaches where you can sunbathe, and there are waiters to bring you tall drinks with exotic fruit and umbrellas in them. Somewhere you can forget it even is Christmas,’ she teased.

‘You would win your bet,’ Jonas acknowledged with a smile.

She shook her head. ‘I can’t imagine ever going away for Christmas.’

Neither could Jonas when he could clearly see the distaste on Mac’s face. ‘What do you and your family do over Christmas?’ he asked.

Those beautiful smoky grey eyes glowed. ‘Nowadays we all converge on my parents’ house in a little village called Tulnerton in Devon. My mother’s parents, several aged aunts. All the presents are placed under the tree, and Christmas Eve we all have a family meal and then attend Midnight Mass at the local church together. When we get back Mum and I usually put the turkey in the oven so that it cooks slowly overnight and the house is full of the smells of it cooking in the morning when we sit down to open our presents. When I was younger, that sometimes happened as early as five o’clock in the morning,’ she recalled wistfully. ‘Nowadays it’s usually about nine o’clock, after we’ve checked on the turkey and everyone has a cup of tea.’

Jonas’s mouth twisted. ‘The perfect Christmas indeed.’

Mac eyed him ruefully. ‘To me it is, yes.’

Jonas reached out and placed his hand over hers as it rested on the tabletop. ‘I wasn’t mocking you, Mac,’ he said gruffly.

‘No?’

Strangely enough, no…It was all too easy for Jonas to envisage the Christmas Mac described so warmly. The sort of Christmas that many families strived for and never actually experienced. The sort of Christmas Jonas had never had. And never would have.

‘There are no arguments?’ he prompted.

Her eyes glowed with laughter. ‘Usually only over who’s going to pull the wishbone after we’ve eaten our Christmas lunch!’

His fingers curled about hers. ‘It sounds wonderful.’

Mac was very aware of the air of intimacy that now surrounded the two of them. But it was a different type of intimacy from a physical one. This intimacy was warm and enveloping. Dangerous…

She removed her hand purposefully from beneath Jonas’s to pick up her fork. ‘I’m sure there must have been arguments; you can’t put eight or ten disparate people in a house together for four or five days without there being the odd disagreement. I’ve obviously just chosen to forget them.’ She grimaced.

Jonas looked across at her with enigmatic blue eyes. ‘You don’t have to make excuses for your own happy childhood, Mac.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Weren’t you?’ he rasped.

Yes, she supposed she had been. Because Jonas’s childhood had borne absolutely no resemblance to her own. Because, although he wouldn’t thank her for it in the slightest, her heart ached for him. ‘If you haven’t made other plans yet, perhaps you would like to—’ Mac broke off abruptly, her cheeks warming as she realised how utterly ridiculous she was being.

Jonas eyed her warily. ‘Please tell me you weren’t about to invite me to spend Christmas with you and your family in Devon.’

That was exactly what Mac had been about to do! Impulsively. Stupidly! Of course Jonas didn’t want to spend Christmas with her, let alone the rest of her family; with half a dozen strangers there, as well as Mac herself, he would necessarily have to be polite to everyone for the duration of his stay.

Her cheeks were now positively burning with embarrassment. ‘I think I feel that indigestion coming on!’

Jonas studied Mac through narrowed lids, knowing by her evasiveness that she had been about to invite him to spend Christmas with her and her family. Why? Because she actually wanted to spend Christmas with him? Or because she felt sorry for him and just couldn’t bear the thought of anyone—even him—spending Christmas alone?

His mouth thinned. ‘I don’t recall ever saying that I’m alone when I spend my Christmases sunbathing on those golden sandy beaches.’

‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ The colour had left Mac’s cheeks as quickly as it had warmed them, her eyes a huge and haunted grey as she gave a moue of self-disgust. ‘How naïve of me.’

Jonas knew that he had deliberately hit out at her because pity was the last thing he wanted from her. From anyone. Damn it, he was successful and rich and could afford to do anything he wanted to do. He had never met refusal from any woman he’d shown an interest in taking to his bed. All the things he had decided he wanted out of life years ago when he left university so determined to succeed he had achieved.

Then why did just being with Mac like this, talking with her, make him just as aware of all the things he didn’t have in his life?

Things like having someone to come home to every night. The same someone. To share things with. To laugh with. To make love with.

‘Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it,’ Jonas drawled. ‘In fact, why don’t you consider giving the traditional family Christmas a miss this year and come away with me instead?’ he asked as he looked at her over the top of his wine glass before lifting it and taking a deep swallow of the ruby-red liquid.

Mac stared at Jonas, absolutely incredulous that he appeared to be asking her to go away with him for Christmas.

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