Some minutes later, their orders made, Miranda was speared once more by his piercing, darkly gleaming eyes. “I wasn’t quite sure, until I saw you walking in the door, that you’d come.”
“Your assistant was very…convincing,” Miranda murmured, taking a sip of her wine as she stalled for time. She quelled herself to lift her eyes to hold his gaze again. “On one part, at least. My coming here…was just to find out for myself if this all wasn’t just some crazy ruse. To look you in the eye and discover if it’s really true what she said. That you’re willing to hand back the company on a platter.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t make the offer if it wasn’t possible, Miranda. I don’t make empty promises.”
“But why would you do that? Why would you even want to?”
She couldn’t keep the confusion from her tone, and saw him smile. “Why? Do you really need to ask? Miranda, have you looked in a mirror? I mean, really?” His smile widened as her discomfort increased, her neck flushing. His eyes scanned her swiftly, and it was like a laser passing over her skin.
“I want you,” he said simply, shrugging one hard-packed shoulder. “Right from the moment I set eyes on you, I knew exactly how it could be between us. Everything about you, your sexy curvy body, your feminine air of assertiveness, showed me that you were just the type of woman with the power to drive me wild.”
Miranda chewed on her lip, wondering if her complexion was ever going to shift back from pink to normal. “That doesn’t explain why you’re willing to give up a company you’d taken such time, effort and resources to acquire in the first place. I mean, who does that?”
He lifted his shoulders in a Gallic shrug. “That’s just me. Nothing stands in the way of getting what I want."
His fingers were drumming lightly on the tablecloth, and Miranda felt her eyes unable to shift from his intense gaze. Each word seemed to scald unto her senses like hot wax.
“What I’m trying to say, Miranda is that we have this thing in the way, keeping us apart. And I’m willing to make the obstacle disappear, if that’s what it’ll take.”
“So you’re trying to buy me, is that it? My body for the company.” Miranda’s tone was conversational, meant to hide the turmoil within her. “How dare you think I can be bought?”
“It’s not about buying anyone,” he said with equal mildness, eyes narrowing to slits. “It’s about give and take. Something I’m sure you can understand plainly.”
She watched him coolly take a sip of his wine, and she shivered deep inside. It was becoming clear to her that the man called Jude Stone was calm and calculating in every way – even in matters that were nothing to do with business. Here he was, methodically asking her to give him her body in exchange for returning power of her father’s company to her family. How was she meant to wrap her head around that?
“Oh, I do understand. Perfectly,” she said at last. “I understand that just because you have all that money and power, it means you can acquire whatever you want. But you seem to have the erroneous belief that the only reason I’m resisting you is simply because of the way you took over my father’s company. Has it ever occurred to you that you’re actually not my type? Even without all this bad blood between you and my family, I still wouldn’t be tempted to have anything to do with you. You’re cold, calculating and cocky. Definitely not my kind of man at all.”#p#分页标题#e#
There was a disbelieving look in his eye that made her grit her teeth. “You can tell yourself all the lies you want, Miranda. But if you decide to refuse my offer, then you’re not the smart woman I first thought you to be. Besides – I can’t seem to credit your claim that I’m so loathsome to you. If I remember correctly, you were melting in my arms well enough that night.”
Her lips tilted slightly in a sardonic smile, though once again, he made a pinkness rise in her face. “I guess you’re free to tell yourself all the lies you want,” she murmured, throwing his earlier words back at him. She raised her glass of wine to her lips, noting the slight tremble in her fingers. Damn it! How could she be letting him get to her this way? She could keep putting up the act but she knew in her heart she was no match for him when it came right down to it. Perhaps it was time she stopped thinking she could best him – because it wasn’t going to happen.
“It was a mistake to come here,” she mumbled, laying down the glass and reaching for her purse.