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Again, it was almost as if he touched her, as if those big, capable hands had actually caressed her, leaving heat wherever they touched.
‘I think,’ he finally said huskily, ‘that you might have trouble imagining being a boy of any age!’
Her heart gave a leap at the warmth she could see in his eyes, the complete awareness of her treacherous body making her answer him sharply. ‘How typically sexist of you, Mr Prince!’
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Not at all, Jinx.’ It seemed he deliberately used her nickname, the name only close friends used. ‘Merely stating it as I see it.’
‘Well, it would appear that you see it wrong, wouldn’t it?’ she taunted.
He looked at her with narrowed eyes now. ‘It would appear so…’ he slowly echoed her words.
Too much, Jinx, she reprimanded herself, she had said far too much; she wanted this man completely out of her life and that of No Ordinary Boy, not to make him all the more curious about its author!
She shook her head. ‘I simply don’t believe that the book would transfer to the big screen.’
He looked derisive now. ‘You don’t?’
Her cheeks flushed angrily at what she sensed was his amusement at her lack of faith in his ability as a film director. Oh, she knew all about this man’s successes, the awards, the Oscars—just as she knew that No Ordinary Boy was so personal to her that she couldn’t allow a third party to rip it apart in order to make a ‘marketable’ film.
‘No, I don’t,’ she snapped.
‘Why don’t you let me be the judge of what does and doesn’t transfer to the big screen?’
He was laughing at her, damn him. When she found little or nothing about this situation in the least amusing. ‘My answer is no, Mr Prince,’ she told him with finality, bending to pick up her bag from the carpeted floor. ‘It will remain no.’
She was leaving!
This tiny slip of a woman, with ice in her eyes and fire in her hair, was walking out on him!
That definitely had to be a first…
He had thought at the weekend, once he had established that Juliet India Nixon was more probably the author of No Ordinary Boy than her father, that he finally had her at a disadvantage, that it would simply be a case of meeting with her today to tie up the loose ends regarding the movie rights. But Jinx Nixon was anything but amenable, was just as determined as she ever had been to thwart him.
‘Just what is it with you, Jinx?’ he challenged as she stood up. ‘Could it be that it’s beneath the highbrow Dr Juliet Nixon to be associated with a work of fiction like No Ordinary Boy?’
If he had thought her eyes cold before, they now turned to fire, her beautiful face flushed with the same anger as she flicked that blazing red hair back over one slender shoulder to glare down at him.
Nik had hoped to evoke some sort of response by his challenge—he just hadn’t been quite prepared for the one he got.
This woman was so beautiful when roused, so vibrantly alive, that he immediately saw her aroused in a completely different way, the image of her lying naked and wanton in his arms causing him to shift uncomfortably as his body responded to that image.
It was totally amazing; he hadn’t physically responded like this just at the thought of a woman in his bed since his college days, but ten minutes in Jinx Nixon’s company and he was doing exactly that.
Something, given the circumstances, he stood about as much chance of achieving where Jinx was concerned as flying to the moon!
He grimaced. ‘I apologize for that remark.’ He sighed, shaking his head. ‘I just don’t understand you.’ Something else that hadn’t happened in a long time.
Perhaps he had become jaded over the years, too accustomed to women wanting something from him, from the power he wielded as head of PrinceMovies, but nothing he said or did seemed to make any difference whatsoever to Jinx’s resolve not to have anything to do with him or his movie company. By itself that was enough to frustrate the hell out of him, but taking his personal—physical!—response to this woman into account, it only made the situation more explosive.
Jinx seemed to be confused herself now, as if she wasn’t quite sure what to do next, either.
Nik knew exactly what she wanted to do—tell him goodbye and walk out of here!—but he could also see by the perplexed frown of indecision on her creamy brow that something was holding her back from doing that.
What could it be?
What was this woman still hiding from him?
God, he was arrogant, wasn’t he? Nik recognized with self-disgust. There must be any number of things this woman wasn’t telling him. Probably not just him either; Jinx Nixon came over as a very private person, indeed. In fact, he had a feeling Jinx was the sort of woman it could take a lifetime to get to know.
Hell! It was dangerous to even think about the words ‘Jinx’ and ‘lifetime’ in the same sentence. It wasn’t that he was particularly anti-commitment; after all, his parents had been happily married right up until the day his father had died, and his sister Stazy was certainly happy in her marriage; it just wasn’t an option Nik had ever considered for himself.
So why was he considering it now?
He wasn’t, came the blunt answer. Not seriously. Damn it, he barely knew Jinx Nixon, and the little he did know, that she was stubborn, sassy and highly intellectual, totally nullified the fact that she was so incredibly beautiful.
Nevertheless, Nik still had a feeling, for his own selfpreservation, that the idea of seduction was no longer an option where this woman was concerned.
‘Please sit down again, Jinx,’ he persuaded, still sensing her indecision.
She sat, looking down at her hands now, the fiery curtain of her hair falling forward to caress the paleness of her cheeks as those hands clenched tightly together.
What was it? What had he missed? Because Nik was more convinced than ever that he was missing something, that he just had to find the right button to press and Jinx Nixon would be like putty in his hands. He just had no idea what that button was!
‘Jinx, will you have dinner with me this evening?’
Now where the hell had that come from? Nik wondered dazedly. The idea hadn’t even formed in his mind, let alone been processed for viability—if it had he would have told himself what a bad idea it was for him to spend any more time alone with Jinx, that he just wanted her signature on a contract and then he would be on his way.
She was looking at him now, her head tilted thoughtfully to one side, a slight smile curving that deeply kissable mouth. ‘You didn’t mean to say that…’
‘No,’ he admitted with a wry smile. ‘But having said it…?’
She laughed softly, a huskily evocative sound. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Nik.’
Neither did he—just the sound of his name on her lips was enough to send a sliver of awareness down the length of his spine. ‘Perhaps not,’ he conceded. ‘But I’m asking, anyway.’
How his two brothers would laugh if they could see him now—the arrogantly self-contained Nik willing this tiny woman to have dinner with him tonight. Zak and Rik would find it highly amusing that he had to ask twice at all, let alone exert all of his pressure of will in order to get the positive answer he wanted.
And he did want it. That cautious self-preservation told him to stay as far away from this woman as it was possible for him to be, but all of his natural instincts told him he wanted to be with her again. That he wanted so much more than that.
And he wasn’t averse to using every means at his disposal to achieve his objective!
‘Surely your father won’t mind your going out and leaving him for one evening?’ he prompted softly, closely watching her response to this mention of her father, knowing by the way her expression suddenly became blankly unreadable that he had touched a raw nerve. ‘Just how ill is your father, Jinx?’ he pressed at her continuing silence.
She seemed to flinch at his persistence, her smile having faded long ago, once again withdrawing behind that coolly dismissive mask. ‘I have no intention of discussing my father with you, Nik,’ she snapped. ‘Either now or at any other time,’ she added firmly.
In other words, she wasn’t going to have dinner with him this evening. Damn. Good move, Nik! He cursed his own stupidity in having moved too far, too fast. So much for his finding the right buttons to press…
‘I heard that he had some sort of nervous breakdown a year or so ago?’ he murmured, still sure that Jackson Nixon was the key to this woman’s acquiescence.
Then why did he feel such a heel as her face paled even more, her eyes huge blue pools of pain and confusion as she looked at him incredulously?
‘And where, exactly, did you hear that?’ she demanded, her whole body defensively taut as she sat up straighter in the chair, those tiny breasts unknowingly thrust provocatively forward.
A fact that Nik tried his best to ignore—and failed miserably, able to see the outline of her nipples against the silky fabric of her blouse; indeed, almost able to discern their rosy hue. ‘One of his colleagues at the university mentioned—’
‘You had no right to go anywhere near my father’s colleagues!’ She gasped. ‘This is exactly what I didn’t want! Exactly what I knew would happen once people started snooping about in an effort to meet the author of No Ordinary Boy!’ Two bright spots of colour had appeared in the paleness of her cheeks as she breathed deeply in her agitation. ‘Stay away from my father, Nik! Stay away from anyone who knows him! Most of all—’ she stood up again forcefully ‘—stay away from me!’
He couldn’t do that. Didn’t want to do that. More than ever he wanted this woman to have dinner with him this evening. Forget dinner—he just wanted her with him this evening.
‘Jinx, please sit down—’
‘No way,’ she told him angrily, once again flicking back the fiery length of her hair. ‘I can’t believe you did such a thing! Can’t believe anyone could sink so low as to—’
‘You weren’t exactly cooperating,’ Nik pointed out as he stood up to face her.
Jinx looked at him incredulously. ‘And that was enough for you to pry into my private life, my father’s private life, like some cheap—’
‘Excuse me, Mr Prince—it is Nik Prince, isn’t it?’
Nik had turned sharply at the first sound of the female voice, his angry gaze narrowing warily as he took in the woman’s appearance—short dark hair, deep brown eyes, a pleasantly smiling mouth—as she looked at him enquiringly.
‘The film director?’ the woman pressed brightly.
Nik felt the faint stirrings of unease; in his experience there was only one profession he knew of who pushed their way into other people’s lives in this intrusive way. And as he saw the woman nod to a man who had just entered the lounge, the familiar camera slung about his neck, Nik knew that his guess had been the correct one.
Hell, Jinx was skittish enough already, without finding herself face to face with a reporter and her photographer!
CHAPTER FIVE
‘WHAT do you think you’re doing?’ Jinx squeaked indignantly as she suddenly found her arm grasped in Nik Prince’s vice-like fingers as he began marching her across the room. ‘Nik—’
‘Move!’ he instructed harshly as she attempted to push his hand away from her arm.
‘But I don’t—’ Jinx broke off in alarm as a light was suddenly flashed in her face, momentarily blinding her.
Nik just kept on walking, pulling the semi-blinded Jinx along with him.
What on earth was going on? she wondered dazedly. Who was that woman? The same woman who had been staring at Nik so avidly across the lounge earlier…! Why had Nik wanted to get away from her so quickly? Most puzzling of all, what had been the source of that light that had blinded her?
‘She was a reporter, Jinx,’ Nik told her as he pulled her into the lift and pressed the button to ascend.
But not before another light had flashed brightly, almost in their faces this time, Jinx able to see clearly that the flash had come from a camera being thrust between the rapidly closing lift doors.
‘And he—’ Nik reached out to grab the camera just as the doors closed, the other man’s cry of protest instantly cut off mid-flow ‘—is her associate!’ He released Jinx to open the back of the camera and take out the film and thrust it into his trouser pocket. ‘Damn, damn, damn!’ he muttered grimly as he closed the camera.
A reporter…
Not just a reporter. Paparazzi!
The scourge of the true reporter, whose aim was to report the real news, these other, less professional members of the press weren’t really looking for truth, but went in search of sensationalism.
Jinx felt slightly sick at the realization that she had been in the presence of just such a reporter the last half an hour or so, that she had been completely wrong in her assumption earlier that the other woman had been looking at Nik because she’d recognized him and found him attractive; this woman was out for a story, and didn’t particularly care how she got it.
Her teeth began to chatter uncontrollably in reaction to what had just happened.
If Nik hadn’t realized—If he hadn’t spotted the photographer—If he hadn’t grabbed the camera in that way—!
‘It’s okay, Jinx.’ Nik spoke soothingly as he moved to stand in front of her, touching her gently as he moved the fringe of hair back from over her horrified eyes. ‘It’s okay,’ he repeated encouragingly.
Of course it wasn’t okay. Nik was a personality, a highly photographic one, and if he hadn’t retrieved that film then Jinx knew she would have appeared beside him in a photograph in one of tomorrow’s newspapers—prob-ably with a speculative comment about who this latest mystery woman was in his life. After that, it would only be a matter of time…!
‘Come on,’ he urged as the lift doors opened.
Jinx followed him out of the lift, only to come to an abrupt halt as she saw they were on one of the upper floors. A floor containing bedrooms, she realized as a maid came out from cleaning one of them.
‘Could you see that this is taken down to Reception and returned to its owner?’ Nik handed the camera over to the rather surprised maid. ‘You can’t miss him—he’s the one who looks as if he just found a cent but lost a dollar,’ he added with grim satisfaction before turning back to Jinx.
A Jinx who stared back at him accusingly. This was all his fault—
‘This isn’t my fault, Jinx.’ His words harshly echoed what she was thinking.
Her eyes widened. ‘Then whose fault is it? Mine?’ she asked scornfully. ‘Reporters and their photographers don’t usually follow me around, I can assure you—’
‘They would if they knew you were J. I. Watson!’ he assured her scathingly before turning to open the door across the corridor, standing back to allow her to enter first.
Jinx hung back reluctantly. Did she really want to compound this situation by going into a hotel bedroom with Nik Prince—?
‘Jinx, it’s my guess it isn’t going to be safe for you to leave here for some time yet,’ Nik informed her dryly as he saw her obvious reluctance. ‘In fact, I may have to have some help in creating a diversion.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Jinx queried as she marched past him.
Into what turned out not to be the bedroom she had been expecting, but a sitting-room obviously attached to a bedroom. Of course; she should have known that a man like Nik Prince would have a suite, not just a bedroom!
‘Don’t worry about it, Jinx,’ Nik reassured her as he strode across the room to pick up the telephone receiver. ‘I’ll sort this out in just—’
‘Don’t worry about it?’ she repeated with suppressed violence as she threw her shoulder bag down onto one of the sofas. ‘You’ll sort it out? It’s because of you that I’m in this mess in the first place!’ She glared across the room at him, eyes gleaming deeply blue, her cheeks flushed. ‘Did you organize for that reporter to be there? Is this some trick to force me into giving you the film rights to No Ordinary Boy?’
‘Of course not,’ Nik rasped.
‘I don’t believe you!’ Jinx dissolved into floods of tears, her face buried in her hands.
As if by doing so she could shut out Nik Prince altogether, could fool herself into believing none of this were really happening!
‘Jinx, it was me the reporter spoke to, not you,’ he reminded her. ‘It was me she was after, not you.’
‘Are you sure?’ She so much needed to believe him!
His expression softened, and he murmured her name as he took her into his arms. Arms that felt strong and protective as they completely enveloped her, and Jinx reacted instinctively as she clung to him like a rock in a storm. A storm that seemed to be gaining momentum and force with each passing second.
