'Oh, you've got my interest,' he confirmed as he started to mount the stairs. 'Though there may come a day when you wish you hadn't.'
'Are you threatening me?' Her voice sounded much smaller than she had intended.
'I'm just letting you know I'll be watching you.'
Her pulse leapt at the thought, while her mind warned her frantically that this was not a good thing. 'That's fine by me,' she said with a careless shrug. 'You can waste your time watching me all you want. I don't know what you think I'm going to do.'
'Right now you're going to take a shower and change your clothes, and then you're going to meet me in the hall.'
She bridled at his orders. And wearing what? A tee bearing the name of an ancient rock band and a fresh pair of jeans? A wedding had been the very last thing on her mind when she left Skavanga, and it certainly wasn't in her nature to insult the bride and groom by turning up wearing something like that. 'I'd much rather wait on the sidelines for you.'
'I'm sure you would. But that's not how it's going to be, Eva. We're going down to the village together, and we're going to attend the wedding together.'
'Won't people ask questions?'
'And if they do?'
'Wouldn't it be easier for you to spare a few minutes to talk to me before you leave for the wedding?' she suggested, trying hard not to register Roman's intoxicating, warm and spicy scent.
'Easy isn't my way, Eva.'
'Well, if a wedding's more important to you-'
'That's enough,' he rapped, shocking her into silence. 'Shall we both examine our motives for being here, Miss Self-Righteous? I'm here on the island for my cousin's wedding. What's your excuse?'
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS MAN DIDN'T just bore out her eyes with his stare. He bore down on her. Physically. Until they were standing just inches apart. Eva tried not to flinch or step back. If she did she'd fall down the stairs. 'You know why I'm here.'
'Do I? Do I, really?' Roman pressed, smiling in a way that chilled her.
'You should do.'
'Should I?'
His experience was so far in advance of hers, she didn't stand a chance. He actually thought there was some other reason for her visit than concern for the mine.
And wasn't there?
'Nothing to say?' he murmured, the light in his eyes making her feel more awkward than ever.
There was a lot she could say, but nothing she was going to share with him. She wasn't used to being pinned down and made to answer. She wasn't used to a man staring into her eyes as if he could read her private thoughts. 'My only reason for being here is Skavanga. I would have thought that was obvious.'
'To you, perhaps,' he said with that same disquieting look. 'Shall we go upstairs, Eva?'
She moved past him into this very different world, and was almost home free when he put out an arm to stop her. 'You have done your research on the mine, haven't you, Eva?'
That compelling gaze was far too close and far too dangerous. 'Of course I have. I grew up with it.'
'Things change over time.' Roman shifted position slightly, making a little more space between them, but also reminding her of how intensely charismatic he was. 'Iron ore and minerals run out, Eva, and without the diamonds the mine is worthless.'
'Britt said the traditional minerals are close to running out. She didn't say they had run out.'
'It's only a matter of time.'
She shook her head-not just to disagree with this, but to break the disturbing eye contact. 'They've been running out for as long as I can remember.'
'And this time it's true.' Roman stepped in front of her so she had to look at him. 'The mine has only survived this long because Britt has been holding it together as well as she has. She kept the truth from you and your sister so you didn't have to worry. But that's not a situation you and I can allow to continue, is it, Eva?'
Oh, he was good. 'Britt doesn't have much choice but to follow the party line now you and the consortium are in control.'
'Your sister is in full agreement with everything we do. Perhaps you should have asked her about that before you left Skavanga.'
Instead of arguing with Britt as she had. Another wave of guilt washed over her and for once she bit back all the angry words on the tip of her tongue. 'But, honestly, diamonds? Expensive trinkets? Is it really worth ruining the polar landscape for that?'
'You have a lot to learn about diamonds, Eva.'
She remained unconvinced. 'There must be some other way to save the mine.'
'When you find one, let me know. Meanwhile, you're welcome to use one of the guest suites.'
'But we haven't finished talking yet.'
'I have,' Roman said flatly.
And she was in no position to attract a potential landlady while she was dripping wet with a towel wrapped around her.
'You've got twenty minutes, Eva. And then I'm leaving,' he warned as she jogged past him up the stairs
'I'll try not to keep you waiting.'
'Please yourself. I won't wait.'
'Where is this guest suite?' The palazzo was so huge. She turned back to look at him. 'Where do you want me to go?'
Roman's look suggested he'd like to tell her. 'When you get to the top of the stairs, turn left, and take the last door on your right. You can't miss it-it's got a lion's head handle. And hurry up, Eva, I don't have all day.'
'Thank you, Roman.'
Her attempt at meekness earned her a withering look. Lion's head handle. No doubt the handle on his door was a fist.
Building bridges? Not blasting them sky high...
She felt his gaze following her as she ran up the stairs. Roman was so confident in his masculinity he made her feel awkward and inexperienced, as if all her past failed encounters with men were an open book to him. No doubt he was having a good laugh at her expense. She had left it too long to risk intimacy with a man. She didn't like to do anything unless she did it well, and intimacy was one skill she didn't possess.
'Don't look so worried, Eva.'
She gasped as he bounded in front of her, taking the stairs two at a time.
'You couldn't be safer than you are with me.'
His voice was deep and husky and vaguely amused. He did sense her embarrassment, and he was laughing at her.
So let him. She shrugged as she reached the landing. 'I don't know what makes you think I'm worried. I can handle myself.'
'So I hear,' he said dryly.
She hated herself for reacting so violently. All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and heat pulsed insistently through her veins. The power emanating from him flowed around her, embracing her whether she liked it or not. Her sisters would be amazed to see her shaken like this-when they'd stopped laughing. What was so special about tall, dark and perfect, anyway? Why was her body insisting on behaving like this? Roman was so not her type. He was autocratic and overbearing. He was the most insufferable man she'd ever met.
And the most attractive.
He showed no interest in her as a woman, which was a relief. An absolute relief. But it wasn't normal. He could at least pretend. That would be the polite thing to do. And weren't aristocrats supposed to be courteous? Weren't they all raised to behave differently from other people by ferocious nannies with thick rulebooks on how to behave?
'Turn left, I said,' he called out to her.
I knew that. She casually retraced her steps, vowing to keep her thoughts restricted to what she had to do-which did not include fixating on Roman Quisvada.
She checked each door down the long and airy corridor, longing to be safe behind one of them, and away from him, so she could calm down and cool off. Roman had disappeared somewhere in the opposite direction. Good. She'd had enough of Count Roman Quisvada and his sardonic face to last her a lifetime. But look at it this way: she only had to get through tonight at the wedding party. She would just have to bite her tongue.
So long as she didn't bite anything else, that should work.
* * *
He groaned with pleasure beneath an ice-cold shower. To his overheated skin the freezing water felt like soothing balm. His senses were heated thanks to Eva. She infuriated him. She attracted him, and that was distracting. There was unfinished business between them. Strength and fire had been his first impression of her at her sister's wedding. His impression of her hadn't changed, but Eva was more complex than he had first thought. She was elusive and thoughtful, passionate, and doggedly determined. And he had always liked a challenge. Eva Skavanga needed taming or she would continue to plague his mind.
Quitting the shower, he grabbed a towel and rang one of his trusted aides in Skavanga. He needed more detail about her.
'Mark? I need a briefing. Yes. Eva Skavanga. She's here. What do you mean you knew that? Why on earth didn't you tell me?'
He listened to some rambling excuse and quickly realised that young Mark had fallen under Eva's spell. 'Well, now we both know.' He cut his aide off impatiently. 'Yes, of course she's all right. Which brings me to my next question. You seem to be an admirer of this woman. Why? She seems to me to be more trouble than she's worth?'