IF ONLY she’d pulled back and slapped his face straight away.
But she didn’t. There was a second or two of frozen shock but then her mouth melted beneath his.
Her lips fell wantonly apart, allowing his tongue easy entry. By the time she did struggle out of his embrace it was way too late. The smouldering fire of his passion for her had burst into flame and his conscience was well and truly routed.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she gasped, her eyes wide, the back of her hand lifting to press against her mouth.
‘Showing you the real reason behind my offer of marriage.’
She just stared at him.
‘As unlikely as it might seem, Kat, darling,’ he said with a wry little smile, ‘I want you, the way men have been wanting women since Adam and Eve.’
‘I don’t believe you!’ she blurted out.
‘Shall I show you again?’
She took a shaky step backwards.
Hugh slid his hands in his trouser pockets for safe keeping.
‘I’m not sure how it happened,’ he went on, having decided that the unvarnished truth was the only road to success at this stage. That, and her obsession with this house. ‘I didn’t hire you initially because I fancied you. I’m not stupid enough to do something like that. This unwanted attraction crept up on me. By the time I became aware of it, you were engaged to Daryl. Whether you believe me or not, I do not tamper with engaged—or married—women. Though heaven knows, I’ve been tempted. When you announced this morning that your marriage was off I couldn’t have been happier. At last, I thought. But then you said you were going to resign.’ He gave her a look which carried considerable frustration. ‘That was the straw that broke this camel’s back!’
Kathryn could not believe what she was hearing. She did not know whether she felt flattered, or furious.
‘So you offered to marry me, not because you wanted me to have this house, but because you wanted to to have sex with me?’
‘Ultimately.’
That was the part she couldn’t get her head around. That he fancied her like that. Why her? She wasn’t anything special. ‘But you said it was to be a marriage in name only.’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t think you’d go for anything else to begin with. I was playing for time.’
Playing for time. And playing with her. And there she’d been, thinking he was sensitive. And kind!
‘You planned to seduce me,’ she said, her voice incredulous but her heart thumping madly behind her ribs.
‘I’m not keen on the word seduction. I hoped to persuade you into my bed.’
‘My God ’ Why, oh, why did she have to find his actions so exciting? She should have been tearing strips off him. Instead, wildly erotic thoughts were running around in her head, rendering her temporarily speechless.
‘I take it you don’t like the idea,’ he stated flatly. ‘In that case let me put it to you another way: if you still want this house, I suggest you start liking the idea.’
‘That’s blackmail!’
‘I prefer to call it negotiation.’
Kathryn hoped that her underlying excitement came over as anger. ‘So you won’t marry me now, unless I let you have sex with me.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite that crudely. But yes, that’s the bottom line.’
‘For how long?’
His eyebrows arched. ‘Are we referring to individual acts here, or the length of our sexual relationship?’
Now she was angry. ‘Stop trying to be funny. I don’t find this funny at all. It’s humiliating and demeaning.’
He looked genuinely surprised. ‘I don’t see why. You went to bed with Daryl, a man you didn’t love. You were even prepared to marry him, just to get this house. Now, that would have been humiliating and demeaning.’
‘It wasn’t like that and you know it.’
‘Actually, no, I don’t know it. If you’re honest, Kat, darling, you’ll see I’m telling the truth.’
‘Don’t keep calling me that ridiculous name.’
‘Methinks she doth protest too much.’
‘And what does that mean?’
‘It means that you betrayed yourself a little while ago when I kissed you.’ Taking his hands out of his pockets he walked slowly towards her. ‘You responded for a few seconds, Kat, darling,’ he said as he lifted a gentle hand to her cheek, the one without the bruise. ‘You liked my mouth on yours. You liked it,’ he repeated, his eyes locking onto hers.