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As Luccy was actually staying at this particular hotel he wouldn’t have far to go!
But she had absolutely no intention of revealing that she had a suite booked on the fourth floor above them. As she had no intention of being alone anywhere with Sin, this evening or at any other time.
Coward, a little voice taunted inside her head.
Maybe. But she was too physically aware of Sin, remembered all too clearly where that physical attraction had taken her the last time they were alone in a hotel suite together, to want to tempt providence a second time.
Or herself!
‘I wasn’t intending to leave just yet,’ she informed him. ‘And even if I were, you would be the last person I would want to have take me back to my hotel!’ she added insultingly.
Sin narrowed his gaze on her, knowing that the flush in her cheeks was no longer caused by anger, the blue of her eyes now mistily shimmering, her breasts swelling creamily over the scooped neckline of her gown.
Luccy was aroused by him.
As Sin was once again aroused by her.
And considering they were both consenting adults, with absolutely no illusions between them this time concerning their motives, he didn’t see why the hell they shouldn’t have each other if it was what they both wanted!
‘Let’s get out of here.’ He firmly repeated his earlier suggestion.
‘No.’
‘Luccy.’ Sin became very still as he looked down at her with glittering silver eyes. ‘We can do this the hard way or the easy way. It’s your choice.’
Luccy looked up at him searchingly, knowing by the tightness of his mouth and that angry glitter in his eyes that he meant what he said.
But she meant what she had said, too! ‘Then it will have to be the hard way.’ She faced him challengingly.
Sin’s gaze narrowed on her speculatively for several long seconds, and whatever he saw there in her expression was enough to relax some of his tension. ‘At this moment you want me as much as I want you,’ he murmured confidently.
She could deny it, of course. But what would be the point…?
Instead she gave him a mocking smile. ‘And does the spoilt little rich boy always get what he wants?’
‘No.’ His teeth showed in a humourless smile of his own. ‘But Jacob Sinclair the Third does!’
‘Really?’ Luccy gave a softly derisive laugh. ‘Then he’s going to be awfully disappointed when he finally realises I’ve turned him down, isn’t he?’
Sin really couldn’t help but admire this woman. Almost as much as he desired her…
He quirked dark brows. ‘You’re leaving some time tomorrow, you said?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ she confirmed warily.
‘I could always offer to fly you home on the Sinclair jet when you’re ready to leave.’
‘Is that supposed to impress me?’ she scorned.
‘It sure as hell impresses me every time I climb aboard it!’
‘It’s an indulgence I think I’ll manage to forgo, thanks,’ Luccy told him with saccharine sweetness.
This man—the Sinclair family, at least—owned their own jet!
She was way, way, way out of her depth…
She gave a bright meaningless smile as she prepared to leave. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to lie and say what a pleasure it’s been to see you again?’
He grinned unconcernedly. ‘The pleasure has been all mine, I assure you.’
‘If you enjoy being with a woman who holds you in nothing but contempt, then, yes, it would appear so,’ Luccy snapped.
His eyes narrowed dangerously, telling Luccy that she had probably gone too far with that last remark.
‘If you won’t have lunch with my grandfather tomorrow perhaps you would have it with me, instead,’ he bit out coldly.
Luccy’s eyes widened. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’
Sin shrugged. ‘Perhaps because you would like to be the one given the photographic contract with PAN when it’s reviewed next month?’
Luccy frowned. ‘We both know that isn’t going to happen.’
‘Do we?’
Luccy looked at him searchingly, noting the challenge in his expression, the hard twist to his mouth. ‘Yes,’ she finally sighed. ‘It’s common gossip that Roy Bailey wants that contract.’
‘What Bailey wants and what he gets could be two different things. I really do have the final say on who gets the contract, Luccy,’ he said.
Luccy raised incredulous brows. ‘Are you by any chance using blackmail into forcing me to have lunch with you tomorrow, Mr Sinclair?’
‘I believe the word you prefer is leverage. And the answer to that is yes,’ he confirmed unapologetically.
This man—He—Ooh! Luccy gritted her teeth to keep the words back. She could never remember feeling so frustratedly angry before! What she wanted to do was tell this man what he could do with his contract, but caution warned her that it would be better if she was on the other side of the Atlantic—well out of Sin’s reach—when he learnt that she had already told Darren Richards she had no interest in signing another contract with PAN even if it was offered to her.
She flicked a look at him from beneath lowered eyelashes. ‘What time do you want me and where?’
Sin didn’t show by so much as a flicker of an eyelid that he was disappointed by her answer. Part of him had wanted—hoped—that Luccy would tell him what he could do with both his lunch and his contract.
Face it, Sin, he told himself derisively, Luccy really is only interested in what she can get from you. So much so that she would even agree to have lunch with you tomorrow.
‘Here at one o’clock,’ he rasped. ‘The penthouse apartment at this hotel, like the one at The Harmony, is always available for family use,’ he added mockingly as she raised questioning brows.
Providence was already working against her, Luccy acknowledged heavily. ‘How convenient for you,’ she drawled.
Sin bared his teeth in a humourless smile. ‘It can be.’
Luccy would just bet that it could!
She had assumed, naïvely, that they would be having lunch in a restaurant, not in the privacy of another hotel suite.
Could she handle being alone with Sin again? Did she want to be alone with Sin again?
What choice did she have? Once she was back in England she would be safely out of his reach, but until that happened she had to go along with Sin’s belief that she was still interested in renewing her contract with PAN. At any price, apparently!
‘Very well,’ she accepted briskly. ‘But it will have to be a very brief lunch,’ she added warningly. ‘I really do intend getting on an earlier flight back to England tomorrow.’
‘I’ll make our—conversation, as brief as I can, Luccy,’ Sin said dryly.
Luccy felt the colour warm her cheeks as she heard the innuendo beneath that statement.
If Sin thought she was going to bed with him tomorrow lunchtime then he was going to be very disappointed!
CHAPTER SIX
‘DO TRY and lighten up, Luccy,’ Sin murmured as Luccy, having refused his offer of a glass of the chilled white wine, now refused to sit down either but instead stood tensely across the sitting-room of the penthouse suite of the Sinclair Hotel. ‘Maybe if we attempted a little polite conversation?’
‘Is that even possible?’ She shot him a scathing glance, her appearance very businesslike in a white silk blouse and fitted black trousers, her hair secured in a neat chignon.
‘I don’t see why not,’ Sin said lightly as he sat down on the cream sofa. ‘Tell me about your family. Do you have siblings? Parents?’
‘Well, of course I have parents, Sin,’ she came back sarcastically.
His mouth tightened. ‘I meant ones that are still alive.’
Luccy sighed impatiently. ‘Yes, I have a mother and father, both still living, and whom I love very much. I also have a sister, Abby. She’s going through a very messy divorce at the moment,’ she added with a frown.
‘That’s a pity.’ Sin also frowned. ‘Any children involved?’
‘Two.’ Luccy nodded.
‘Even more of a pity,’ he sympathised.
‘I think so, yes,’ Luccy said abruptly.
Her sister Abby’s eight-year marriage had been a disaster almost from the beginning, and was one of the reasons that Luccy had always steered shy of relationships herself. The main reason, in fact.
Abby had been eighteen and three months pregnant with Alice when she and Rory had married so hastily. But it had been obvious within weeks of Alice being born that Abby and Rory should never have married each other, the attraction that had been between them when they had first met, and which had resulted in Abby’s pregnancy, having very quickly turned to resentment on Rory’s part and discontent on Abby’s. But instead of ending the marriage as they should have done, Abby and Rory had added to the mess by having Josh just a year after Alice had been born.
After eight years of unhappiness the two of them had finally decided to admit defeat and get a divorce. But even that had turned into a battleground as they wrangled, not just over the children, but the house and everything in it.
Not a shining example of marital bliss for Luccy to want to emulate any time soon!
‘What about you, Sin?’ she queried. ‘I know you don’t have any siblings, but you mentioned your mother is still alive…?’
He nodded. ‘She moved back to her beloved Savannah after my father died, but she comes back to New York on a regular basis.’ The affection could be heard in his voice. ‘She—ah, I believe our lunch has arrived.’ He stood up to answer the knock on the door. ‘I took the liberty of ordering for both of us. I hope you don’t mind.’
Luccy didn’t mind in the least—as long as Sin didn’t question the fact that she might not be able to eat what he had ordered!
She could smell the fish before Sin had even removed the domed silver covers from the plates, her stomach instantly churning in rebellion, feeling the slight sheen of perspiration that appeared on her top lip even as she fought back that nausea.
She lost that particular battle as soon as she looked at the medley of fish laid out so beautifully on the plates. ‘Bathroom!’ she choked weakly.
Sin looked up in astonishment. ‘What?’
‘Bathroom!’ Luccy repeated desperately. ‘Now! Unless you want me to be ill all over the carpet!’
‘Second door on the left,’ Sin told her slightly dazedly, staring after her in consternation as she made a mad dash down the hallway.
What the hell was going on?
‘When were you going to tell me?’ Sin demanded harshly several minutes later when Luccy returned to the sitting-room, her face deathly white.
Luccy stared at him as he stood across the room so broodingly tall and seething with explosive anger.
She moistened dry lips. ‘Tell you what?’
‘I advise you against treating me like a fool, Luccy,’ he warned coldly.
‘Heaven forbid anyone should do that!’ She shook her head, determined not to be cowed by the ruthless expression on his face, or the dangerous glitter in those arctic grey eyes. ‘But I’m really not sure what you want me to say—’
‘I really do advise you to stop right there, Luccy!’ he said in a carefully controlled voice. ‘Do not compound the seriousness of this situation by lying about the reason you were ill!’
Luccy swallowed hard. Sin couldn’t know. He might suspect, but he couldn’t actually know!
‘I must have eaten something that disagreed with me,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘Probably one of the canapés last night. But I’m fine now,’ she said reassuringly.
Sin’s hands clenched at his sides, and his teeth were clamped together so tightly that his jaw actually ached, both in an effort to hold onto his temper. He rarely, if ever, lost control, his anger tending to take the form of icy deliberation rather than a fiery explosion.
But this woman was seriously in danger of pushing him beyond that icy control. He very much doubted that she would like the result if that were to happen!
‘You’re telling me that’s the reason you were ill just now?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ he growled.
She gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘That’s your prerogative, I suppose.’
Sin looked at her searchingly, easily noting the changes in her now that he knew what he was looking for: there were dark shadows beneath those bewitching blue eyes that indicated a lack of sleep, her cheeks were more hollow than they had been, and there were lines of tension beside her unsmiling mouth.
His gaze moved lower. She was still incredibly slender, but he was sure that her breasts were slightly fuller than he remembered…
He wasn’t wrong in his conclusion, Sin was sure that he wasn’t!
He had spent the time while Luccy was in the bathroom considering all the options—including that she might have eaten something that disagreed with her. But the more obvious reason for her sudden nausea was the one that refused to go away…
‘When were you going to tell me, Luccy?’ he insisted.
