Prince's Pleasure

‘No. Well, a woman in your bed is worth two that aren’t,’ he deliberately misquoted.

Her eyes flashed deeply brown. ‘I wouldn’t have thought you were that desperate!’

Zak’s smile widened at her attempts to insult him, easily guessing the reasons behind it—embarrassment, mainly—but having no intention of helping her out. The fact that she didn’t appear in a very good light either should be enough to discourage her from writing about it. Should be…

His mouth firmed as he straightened away from the doorframe. ‘I’m sure you’ll be relieved to know I’m not even the slightest bit desperate,’ he assured her. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I have to shower and change before my luncheon appointment.’

‘I—of course.’ Tyler looked flustered now. ‘Can we meet up again later today?’

‘Okay,’ he said, wondering now about her personal life. Did she have parents still alive? Did she have siblings? Where had she gone to school? Was there a current man in her life? Those thoughts were immediately followed by the question, why did he want to know?

He had been forced into agreeing to have Tyler Wood in his life for a week, and when that week was over he had no intention of ever setting eyes on her again. So why should he care about the answer to any of those questions?

He sighed. ‘I’ve been invited to a party later this evening, so you may as well come with me.’

‘If you’re sure I wouldn’t be intruding—’

‘I thought you were already doing that,’ Zak responded with brutal honesty.

Tyler winced. ‘I’m sure there must be someone in your life at the moment—’

‘If there is I can assure you that you aren’t ever going to meet her!’ Zak cut in harshly.

‘If you resent my being here so much, why did you agree—?’ She broke off as he steadily returned her gaze, blond brows raised. ‘You didn’t agree, did you?’ she acknowledged with another wince.

He gave a derisive smile. ‘You already know that I didn’t.’

Tyler grimaced. ‘I thought your initial—lack of cooperation was because I wasn’t the man you thought you had agreed to be interviewed by. But now I realize it’s much more deep-rooted than that.’

‘Much more,’ he confirmed grimly. ‘Although that doesn’t change the fact that the agreement was made, with or without my consent,’ he continued as she frowned. ‘Now, I suggest you come back to the hotel about eight o’clock this evening. That way I can be sure that you have dinner before we go on to the party. God knows what the speculation would be like if you were to faint halfway through the evening!’

Her cheeks coloured furiously. ‘I’m perfectly capable of feeding myself, thank you—’

‘Really?’ Zak was deeply sceptical. ‘I haven’t seen much evidence of that so far!’

Her eyes flashed. ‘I told you, it was the brandy that made me ill; the fact that I hadn’t had dinner yesterday evening had nothing to do with it!’ She glared across at him.

His gaze narrowed on her speculatively, taking in the hollows of her cheeks, the slenderness of her body, her wrists so delicately thin they looked as if they might break if any pressure was exerted on them. In fact, Tyler Wood was altogether too slim.

‘Tyler, I gave you the brandy because you almost fainted, presumably from lack of food. Which brings us back to the fact that you still haven’t told me why you didn’t eat dinner yesterday,’ he probed.

‘There wasn’t time.’ Once again her gaze seemed to be avoiding meeting his.

Zak didn’t buy that explanation; there had been plenty of time for her to eat in between their parting yesterday morning and meeting up again in the evening. Unless she had been expecting him to give her dinner yesterday evening? That would certainly explain why she looked so uncomfortable about the subject…

‘Just be back here, and dressed for an evening out, by eight o’clock this evening, Tyler,’ he ordered. ‘If you’re not, then I will have already left without you,’ he warned as she would have protested.

She bit down on her bottom lip, looking as if she would like to tell him exactly what he could do with both his dinner and his evening out, but at the same time that impulse obviously warring with the consequences of doing so, namely losing the interview.

Maybe it was a little unfair of him to take advantage of her obvious wish to do the interview, but at the moment, impatient with the situation, puzzled by some of her behaviour, and—yes—frustrated as hell from their passionate kiss earlier on, he wasn’t in a mood to be fair!

Worse, he had a distinct feeling this was only the beginning of his feelings of frustration where Tyler Wood was concerned…

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