tell me what you want from me, Dominick,’ she snapped. ‘And let’s stop playing games!’
‘You really aren’t being very—gracious, are you, now that I’ve kept my side of the bargain?’ he chided.
Kenzie opened her mouth to give him another sharp reply, instead firmly closing it again, her lips clamping together as she realized that he was only speaking the truth.
But he was the one who had made a bargain of this and only after she had told him she really would be very grateful if he would do her this favour…
Yes, but—
No buts. She had said that, and that was exactly what he had done. Was it any wonder that he now wanted payment?
‘Sorry,’ she muttered between stiff lips. ‘What is it you want from me, Dominick?’
‘Well, let’s get one thing straight from the first, shall we?’ He put his coffee cup down to sit forward in his chair, his expression intent, his gaze narrowed as he looked deep into her eyes. ‘I have never been into taking unwilling women into my bed!’
He had never needed to, she thought. Before the two of them had met Dominick had been known for his numerous affairs with glamorous, beautiful women, affairs that he had always ended rather than the other way around. In fact, she was probably the first woman to ever walk away from him!
Which was the reason for Dominick’s anger, of course…
But they couldn’t just—she couldn’t just—
Going to bed with Dominick in that way, so cold and calculated, was completely against the way she had lived her life so far. But all of Dominick’s comments so far over the course of the weekend seemed to suggest that was exactly what he was going to demand.
Kenzie willed herself to calm down, to settle into the mental relaxation she often escaped to during the long, interminable waits she experienced between photographic shoots. She tried to breathe deeply and evenly, and was able to meet Dominick’s gaze quite calmly when she looked at him.
After all, hadn’t he just told her that he wouldn’t take an unwilling woman to his bed?
She would just have to try to ensure, no matter what the provocation, that she was never willing!
Dominick stood up abruptly, moving over to look at the bookcase along one wall of the room. ‘You obviously like to read.’ He nodded at the well-thumbed rows of paperbacks lined on the shelves.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged quietly, slightly thrown by his change of subject.
He nodded. ‘So do I. In fact, I’ve read most of these titles, too.’
Her eyes widened in spite of herself. ‘I never remember you reading anything but contracts and the business section of the newspaper when we were together!’
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘That’s probably because we always found plenty of other things to do when we were together other than reading fiction books.’
Like making love.
How strange that she should learn now, after living apart for months, that the two of them actually had a similar taste in reading.
What else was there about him, other small personal details, that she hadn’t had the opportunity to learn during their nine months of marriage? All they had been able to think about at the time, all that had interested either of them when they hadn’t been caught up in their individual business commitments, was being with each other…
Dominick could see the surprise, and the puzzled interest, in Kenzie’s eyes, and decided that he had probably gone far enough for one day. The best way to succeed in anything, he had learnt over the years, was to always walk away leaving the other person wanting more, wondering…
And he did intend succeeding where Kenzie was concerned. In not only getting her back into his bed, but getting her there willingly. Willingly was the most important part, if she did but know it!
He bent to put his empty cup on the low coffee-table before straightening. ‘Are you free next weekend?’
‘I—yes, I think so,’ Kenzie confirmed vaguely, obviously surprised by the question as she stood up to follow him to the door.
Dominick paused in the open doorway. ‘Then keep it free, hmm?’
‘Why?’ she said sharply.
He shook his head. ‘I have—some details, to finalize, before I can confirm that. Perhaps we could have dinner together one night in the week—’
‘Dinner?’ she repeated in frustration, shaking her head. ‘Dominick, I’m not going out on a date with you!’
‘—so that we can discuss this further,’ he finished pointedly, his brows rising over reproving brown eyes.
‘But—’
‘In the same way that we met for dinner last week when you wanted to discuss your sister’s wedding with me, remember?’ he reminded, in a mocking tone.
‘Oh. Yes.’ She looked uncomfortable now.
‘Although I would like the two of us to actually eat something this time!’ he added derisively.
‘Don’t take me to Rimini’s, then,’ Kenzie told him firmly. ‘It would remind me too much of when we used to go there together when we were married,’ she added dismissively as he gave her a questioning look.
When they were married?
They were still married, damn it!
But if it meant Kenzie would relax a little, he was quite happy to fall in with her suggestion that they go somewhere else. Somewhere new, perhaps, where the restaurant didn’t remind either of them of someone else.
His mouth thinned as he thought of Kenzie’s ‘someone else’.
‘Or when you went there with Jerome, perhaps?’ he asked impatiently.
Kenzie gave an irritated shake of her head. ‘You know, Dominick—’ she sighed in despair ‘—one day you’re going to actually listen to me when I tell you I wasn’t involved with Jerome Carlton four months ago, and that I’m not involved with him now, either!’
‘Oh, I listen, Kenzie,’ Dominick assured her. ‘I just happen to know that you aren’t telling the truth!’
She could accept that the fact she had spent so much time in Jerome Carlton’s company just before she’d left Dominick, and that when she had left it had been to fly to America with the other man, could have all looked more than a little suspicious to Dominick’s accusing eyes.
But what she hadn’t accepted then, and still didn’t accept, was that Dominick hadn’t even attempted to believe her denials. He had seemed convinced from the outset that she was involved in an affair with Jerome, and nothing she said or did would convince him otherwise.
She certainly wasn’t convincing him now, she thought, seeing the cold scepticism in the hardness of his eyes.
‘Let me know about dinner, hmm?’ she prompted abruptly, really wanting—needing!—him to leave now, the strain she had been under this weekend definitely starting to catch up with her.
‘Oh, I’ll let you know, Kenzie,’ he assured her, seeing that strain in her eyes, and the paleness of her cheeks, his mouth twisting derisively as he knew just his presence was causing her this distress.
He’d barely begun!
‘OKAY, Dominick, that’s it! I refuse to let you play this game with me any longer!’
Dominick swivelled his chair slowly from his quiet contemplation of the river