Passionate Possession. PENNY JORDAN
on her face she recognised, too late to do anything about it, that he had probably seen the traces of her tears as well.
That knowledge made her glower at him, tilting her chin firmly as she waited for him to speak.
‘I’ve just been speaking with Don,’ he told her tersely.
‘Oh, yes. Why? Were you demanding that he sacked me?’ she asked him acidly.
It gave her a great deal of pleasure to see the angry burn of colour run up under his skin.
‘He explained your situation to me,’ he continued coldly. ‘And it seems that—’
‘That what?’ Lucy interrupted him sarcastically. ‘That I’m not the wealthy money-dominated landlord you described over dinner tonight?’
She made no effort to hide her resentment or her bitterness.
‘I have no intention of trying to evict your uncle or to sell the cottage,’ she told him fiercely. ‘Even if it were in a fit state to be sold, which it most certainly is not.’
‘I agree,’ he told her tightly. ‘In fact—’
‘In fact what? In fact, that’s why you’re here now…to demand your pound of flesh, or rather your saintly, timid uncle’s pound of flesh.’
Lucy was well into her stride now, half of her marvelling, half of her appalled by where her temper was taking her. Never had she felt like this or behaved like this before.
‘I’m surprised I didn’t guess the relationship between you,’ she told him acidly. ‘I ought to have recognised the resemblance immediately. You’re obviously two of a kind.’
She heard his indrawn breath and knew that she had pushed him too far, but she didn’t care. How dared he have said the things he had said to her? Inwardly she wept with pain and shame over them. Inwardly she was bitterly, deeply hurt, but she would never, ever allow him to see that.
‘Now just a minute,’ he began. He was coming towards her and immediately Lucy panicked, stepping back from him, tensing as she saw the anger darkening his eyes. He reached for her, grabbing hold of her, while she tried to pull away, demanding to be let go.
No man had ever touched her in anger…no man had ever taken hold of her against her will. No man had ever imposed himself on her senses as this man was doing, and she fought frantically against him, driven by fear and panic.
‘For God’s sake, you little fool. Will you keep still?’ she heard him saying, and then he was dragging her against him and she could smell the hot male scent of him, feel the anger and power in his body.
She reacted instinctively to it, lifting her hand, hitting him as hard as she could, feeling the stinging sensation in her palm as it connected with his face.
The sound of the blow shocked her into sharp awareness. A feeling of sick dismay drowned out her fear and anger. How could she have behaved in such an uncontrolled way, even with such provocation?
She was aware that he was still holding her, but it no longer seemed to matter. She made tiredly to pull herself free. She would have to apologise, she acknowledged miserably, and then she realised that he wasn’t going to let her go, and as she looked uncertainly up at him she saw that, unlike hers, his anger still burned furiously.
‘My God, I’m not going to let you get away with that,’ he told her thickly, and then before she could stop him he twisted both her hands behind her back, holding her imprisoned frighteningly easily with one hand, while he used the other to hold the back of her neck.
And even then she had no realisation, no warning of what he intended to do. She was too taken off guard by his physical imprisonment of her to realise what was going to happen.
All she did know was that she had to apologise to him now before the whole thing got completely out of control. She looked up at him and her heart suddenly missed a couple of beats, shock arcing through her as she finally recognised his intention.
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