“Oh really?”Keyonna breathed, hand on her hip as she glared sideways at him. She dearly wanted to smack that judgmental look off his gorgeous face! Where did he get off speaking to her in such a manner?
“Yes, really,” he said mocking, finally turning to face her fully. Keyonna felt a clap of thunder hit her chest as he speared her with his penetratingly dark gaze. Damn but he was one fine, sexy bastard, Keyonna thought, glaring into his sinfully handsome face and wondering how it was she could detest a man so much and still find him hellishly attractive at the same time.
She must have her hormonal wires crossed or something because Nick Vitale was everything she loved to hate in a man: egotistical, too handsome and rich for his own good. Keyonna told herself she could feel his disdain and aversion for her coming through in waves.#p#分页标题#e#
“I mean, that poor guy must have really been living in delusion all that time he was away, thinking he had a devoted lover waiting patiently for his return from the field. He was right; you couldn’t wait, could you? Girls like you never can,” he drawled.
Keyonna’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Girls like me?”
Nick Vitale actually laughed with derision at her tone. “You know; the cold, manipulating kind. Beautiful, but heartless. We’ve only had to connect a few times, Ms. Hayes, but I’ve been able to figure out a lot about you.”
Keyonna was so shocked and outraged she was struck with silence as he continued in that chilling voice of his.
“I pity the man dumb enough to actually fall for you. In fact, women like you repel me. You lead a guy on, and then break him up into tiny pieces when you realize you don’t want to play the game anymore.”
His words of condemnation really hit her hard but Keyonna was nothing if not matured and confident in her own worth. Growing up in a large family, surrounded by positive influences as well as her own personal development over the years from a shy young female to an accomplished professional woman gave her a strength not so easily shaken.
She was almost too furious to form words but she managed to let out angrily, “How dare you make such conclusions about me? You know nothing about what’s going on, least of all about the kind of woman I truly am.”
He merely huffed and Keyonna would have clubbed him then. She’d honestly never been spoken to in such a manner that smacked of disrespect; especially not from a stranger who didn’t know a damn thing about her. Why Nick Vitale’s opinion even mattered was lost on her, but it hurt all the same that he thought so negatively of her. She really, really wished she could punch him in the face for saying the things he had.
But before she could react with physical violence as she so longed to do, Keyonna’s eyes shifted to beyond Nick Vitale’s shoulder and saw that Mark was making his way back. She could see him approaching the balcony as he weaved through the crowded room beyond the bay windows close to where she stood, heading straight for where she stood with Nick Vitale, both of them glaring at each other.
And then out of nowhere came the craziest, wildest idea. Keyonna was almost snickering with glee as she thought of it.
Her mind racing, Keyonna turned to Nick Vitale with a calculating, half-hooded look that had his dark brows furrowing with instant suspicion. But she merely smiled sultrily.
“Mmmm…and what game am I playing now, Mr. Judge and Jury?” Keyonna purred, leaning close and wrapping her arms around his neck.
She felt his solidly built frame go rigid with shock, right before she inched upwards on tiptoe and locked her lips firmly with his.
His mouth stayed pursed beneath hers and still they felt as soft as silk yet deliciously manly. Keyonna’s heart pounded with excitement as she shut her eyes to the dazed look on his face, tightening her hold around his neck. She was faintly conscious of Mark now standing in the open entrance of the balcony where she heard him come to an abrupt stop.
Meanwhile, Keyonna continued to kiss Nick Vitale with all the passion she could fake.
Fake? Well…maybe she wasn’t being totally honest. Because just at that moment, he’d let his lips finally thaw against hers, opening up his moist heat to her probing tongue which he now incited with his while his hands clamped heavily on her waist.
Keyonna kept chanting to herself that this was just a ploy; to put this damnably arrogant man in his place – as well as to show Mark that she truly, honestly did not love him anymore.
And yet all of a sudden, the tables turned and Keyonna realized she wasn’t proving anything – not to Mark. Maybe to herself though.
Because now she knew that all those smoldering tingles she felt whenever she was near this handsome, undeniably sexy man called Nick Vitale wasn’t dislike as she’d believed, but an earth-shattering attraction she could no longer deny.