The Flaw in His Diamond(4)

'That's your opinion. I've come here to change your mind.'

'I wish you luck with that.' The water had made her underwear  translucent. It left nothing to his imagination where her naked body was  concerned. And as she stood confronting him pool water cascaded down  her body, highlighting every line and curve. It was even trickling down  the crack in her butt, he noticed as she turned away to grind her jaw  and tap her foot. Maybe she'd think twice about wearing such a tiny  thong next time she planned to invade a stranger's pool.

'Please pass me a towel,' she ground out, turning back to him. 'They're  just behind you,' she informed him, tilting her chin at a combative  angle.

She could wait. He knew the expression in his eyes offered no reprieve.  Eva stared back at him without blinking. Somehow she managed not to  fold her arms across her chest during this standoff, though he suspected  she dearly wanted to. She needn't have worried. He wasn't interested.

Seriously?

As he held her gaze with what was supposed to be disinterest, something  unique happened inside him: a slight relaxation of his muscles and a  fleeting warmth in his empty heart. He pushed the sensation away, but  then the desire to laugh, and not in a cruel way, overcame him. She was  just so damn cute.

Until she reminded him icily, 'A towel? When you're ready, Count Quisvada.'

'Certainly, Ms Skavanga.' He reached for one without breaking eye contact.

Eva Skavanga didn't have the slightest idea of the effect she was  having on him, and long might it remain that way. She was defensive  because she thought herself unattractive to men, he concluded. That was  why she tried to frighten them off rather than wait for them to push her  away. She was a refreshing change. He was used to glamorous, confident  women whose sole aim was to insinuate themselves into his life. There  was only one thing worse in his opinion, and that was the ambitious  parents with a daughter to trade. He was interested in neither option.  He would rather live and die a single man than endure some fake  arrangement.

'Thank you,' she said grudgingly when he finally gave her a towel.

Failure was not an option for Eva Skavanga, and neither was caution,  apparently. He had to admit, he liked her style. Maybe he wouldn't  despatch her on the next ferry home, but would keep her here while it  suited him. At least while she was here she couldn't cause trouble at  the mine, and by the time he did send her home the work that needed to  be done would have been completed.

* * *

This was not what she had planned. This was not what she had planned at  all. Being caught red-handed by the count-swimming in his pool,  trespassing on his grounds-confronting the man himself, when she might  as well have been naked and he was elegantly clothed. It was hardly the  surprise encounter she had envisaged when she set off from Skavanga, but  of course that was the one where she seized the initiative, while the  count was still reeling from his surprise at seeing her. There wasn't  much reeling going on right now.                       
       
           



       

'So, Ms Skavanga?' he demanded. 'Do you intend to launch a protest at  the side of my pool? Or may I continue on into the palazzo, where I can  make arrangements for your immediate removal from the island?'

Not reeling. And definitely not in the mood for negotiations. The count  was hostile, and embarrassingly unmoved by her all-but-naked body.

'You can't have me removed.'

'I assure you, Ms Skavanga, I can do anything I want to do.'

'But I've come all this way to see you.' And, damn it, her voice was  trembling. She hadn't expected him to be so aggressive. She had imagined  a man with an aristocratic pedigree would soften for a woman. How wrong  could she be? 'Please-'

'Please, would you forgive me breaking in to your home? Or, please  don't deport me from the island?' His voice was wholly mocking.

'Both,' she managed, angry at his tone.

'Begging now, Ms Skavanga?'

'Hardly. I'm merely appealing to your better nature.' She raised a brow  as she spoke, as if to say she realised now how unlikely it would be  that he had one.

He might have expected a trespasser to be mortified to have been caught  out, or to beseech him with pleading in her voice, and maybe even a few  crocodile tears thrown in, all that was reflected in Eva's face was  challenge. So much hung on this meeting with him, according to her, so  couldn't she even manage a climb down this time? Of course she couldn't.  It wasn't in her nature. And that was half her appeal, he realised.  'You have a very high opinion of yourself, Ms Skavanga.'

For the first time her gaze flickered. It reinforced his opinion that beneath the braggadocio she was insecure.

* * *

Eva shifted uneasily from foot to foot. In her world she was confident,  because people knew her and knew what to expect. She was never  intentionally rude to anyone. She was just forceful. At least, that was  how she liked to think of it.

Guilt flashed into her mind as she remembered the much-regretted argument with her sister.

And sometimes she was just plain rude, she accepted, but now she must  keep the count listening long enough to convince him that the reason she  was here overrode anything she might have done to see him. Extracting  diamonds from the Skavanga mine at any cost couldn't be right. But his  expression suggested she would have to eat some humble pie, or there'd  be no discussion.

'I'm sorry,' she managed to grind out. 'I realise we've made a bad start.'

'You have,' he agreed.





CHAPTER THREE

DID THIS MAN get some sort of kick out of humiliating her? Eva wondered  as she stood tense and angry by the side of the count's fabulous pool.  She might have learned a lesson in where being reckless led, but she  wasn't about to back down. 'If it hadn't been for you accelerating work  at the mine, I wouldn't be here.'

'Is that what you call recovering the situation, Ms Skavanga? I think  you'd better follow me into the house. I'll decide what to do with you  when you've had a chance to shower and change into some fresh clothes.'

The last thing she had expected was that he would invite her into his home. 'Thank you,' she managed awkwardly.

'Don't thank me, Ms Skavanga. Just think of yourself as an  inconvenience I don't intend to suffer much longer. And when I march you  out of here, you stay off my property for good. Is that understood?'

Anger flashed through her as the count turned away and started to walk  towards the house. She had to stop herself saying something she'd  regret. If her concerns for the drilling hadn't been hanging over her-  If the survival of the mine hadn't been largely dependent on this man-

'Do you understand?' he called out.

'Yes,' she fired back, scowling.

'And while you are a guest in my house there will be no door  slamming-no temper tantrums of any kind. Do I make myself clear, Ms  Skavanga?'

'Perfectly.' He was remembering that time at Britt's wedding when her  body had reacted just as violently to him as it was doing now, and  because she was so shocked by her response to him she had slammed the  door in his face. She'd felt feminine at Britt's wedding for about five  minutes, but the count had changed all that. Fairy-tale bridesmaid into  dowdy country bumpkin in no time flat.                       
       
           



       

'Please follow me into the house, Ms Skavanga.'

She could play it tough with the guys back home, because they knew her  and she knew them, but the count didn't have the slightest interest in  her as a woman, or as a companion. She should be pleased. No. She should  be relieved. But being rejected as unfit for purpose wasn't great.

But if that was how it was going to be, she would keep everything on a  business footing. Catching up with him at the door, she offered him her  hand. 'Eva Skavanga-'

He ignored the gesture.

Swallowing her pride, she tried again. 'I didn't expect for us to-'

'Meet like this?' he interrupted, hostility rippling off him in big, ugly waves. 'Who would?'

Hostile was far too mild a word to describe the count. And, yes, she'd  trespassed on his land, but was that a hanging offence? She'd taken a  swim in his pool, but so what? What was the big deal? What was riding  the count? What was his problem?

The count exuded power and menace and sex, in more or less equal  quantities, and admittedly that was fascinating, but it was also  intimidating and she had shivers running up and down her spine. But at  least she had accomplished something, if only the fact that she had  tracked him down.

'Well, at least we're standing face to face,' she said as he opened the door to the palazzo.

'Is that meant to be funny, Ms Skavanga?'

'No. It's merely a statement of fact.'

'Well, here's another fact. Your intrusion in my home is not welcome, and as soon as it can be arranged-'

She pre-empted him. 'As soon as we've talked, I'll go.'

'Go where?' he said, standing back to let her go through the doorway.  'You really haven't thought this through, have you? You rushed here to  confront me, without any thought at all, because you'll stop at nothing  to get your own way at the mine.'