He turned his head to look at her then, and with the light coming in from a window behind him his eyes appeared even darker than hers. Two disturbingly black spaces set between slumbrous eyelashes that began lowering as he made a slow study of her from the neatly contained hair and conservative black suit to the unremarkable style of her low-heeled shoes.
She looked as if she’d come here to attend a funeral, Anton was thinking, and felt a wave of anger shoot through him, followed by a twinge of something else that he did not want to analyse.
He’d spent long enough analysing the grim state of Cristina’s finances to know she owned hundreds of square miles of top-quality grazing land, thousands of heads of pedigree beef. She owned a whole mountain and a lush, fertile valley between it and a strip of rainforest that stood between the developers and a prime stretch of Atlantic coastline. But she’d had to borrow the money to make the flight to Rio.
It was no wonder she’d come here wearing unflattering black. The last time she’d worn that terrible suit had probably been to her wastrel of a father’s funeral, and before that the funeral of her lousy gambler of a husband. Today had to feel like yet another funeral to her.
The death of the Marques pride.
That twinge tightened its grip on him. Pity? his mind suggested anyway. But what was there to pity about Cristina? She’d turned her back on him to marry for money. For the thoroughbred continuance of the Marques bloodline. You didn’t pity that, you derided it.
And where was the brood of pure-blood child stock?
Nowhere. Vaasco Ordoniz had died childless, and if anyone knew why then it had to be himself. So, no, he did not pity Cristina, he informed that uncomfortable twinge across his chest.
But he did still desire her—more so when she dared to lift that chin to him, as if to say To hell with what you think of me. I am what I am and you will not change that.
Well, that remained to be seen.
Kinsella demanded his attention then, by touching his arm and saying something softly to him. Forced to drag his eye away from Cristina, Anton found that his secretary was standing a bit too close. He said something curt—he didn’t know what. Then he took a moment to dismiss all three employees while his attention fixed itself back on Cristina’s defiant stance.
What he did not notice until the three shifted into motion was that the electric current running through the room was so strong it had removed the ability to breathe. His two young executives were curious. They’d never seen him this distracted by anything—especially by a woman they believed he was about to indulge in a perfectly ordinary business meeting with. Kinsella, on the other hand, had picked up on the sex sparking through the tension, and he noticed the hostile flash her blue eyes gave Cristina. That look alone told him that she was piqued.
If she did not watch out, his super-efficient secretary was going to have to take a move sideways, out of his orbit, he decided.
Then forgot all about Kinsella as the door closed behind her.
They were alone.
Silence fell.
Was her heart beating as rapidly as his? Was she standing so still because, like him, she was afraid that if she moved all this sexual static would ignite and explode in a glorious barrage of untamed want?
And those eyes…
Those wide-set, almond-shaped, luster-dark eyes were looking at him as if they would dearly love to put a curse on him but were too busy trying not to eat him alive.
The look hit him where he’d expected, hard between his legs, pouring those warm pleasurable hormones into his bloodstream as his sex began to swell. She’d done this to him the first time he’d ever set eyes on her, turning him back into a sex-charged schoolboy unable to control the urge. That she could still do it to him now, dressed as she was and looking at him as she was, should be surprising him. But, having spent the night before in a state of high arousal on her account, he’d had to come to terms with the unarguable fact that this woman did it for him all the time, like no other woman—still.
Then she did surprise him, breaking the tension gripping both of them by dragging her eyes away and moving across the room to stand staring out of one of the side windows at the view. It wasn’t the same spectacular view he got from the windows in the private part of his suite, but then this was a conference room, and conference rooms were designed for business not to give people a riveting vista of Rio. Nor were rooms like this designed for seduction. But in his private suite—
He grimaced, deciding not to let his mind go there—yet.
‘You could at least say Hello, Luis,’ he prompted dryly.
‘You are not Luis, you are Anton,’ she coolly replied.
Another grimace worked its way across his mouth, because he knew exactly who he felt like.
Hell, he knew that.
‘I suppose this means that you expect me to call you Senhora Ordoniz?’ he countered.
She turned to look at him. ‘I am a Marques,’ she announced, in that proud way she had of saying that name. ‘I always have been and I always will be a Marques. I never used the Ordoniz name, so I would therefore appreciate it if you would stop using it and inform that—Kinsella Lane person of this, so she will not make the same mistake again.’
Kinsella? A black satin eyebrow arched in curiosity. ‘Jealous of her already?’
The taunt earned him a flash from her eyes. But she remembered as well as he did what a naturally jealous and possessive little witch she’d used to be.
‘She is your paramour—don’t bother to deny it.’ She dismissed the way he opened his mouth to do just that. ‘I saw it in her face when she looked at you. I heard it in that silly husky voice she used to speak to you when all I received from her was a chill.’
‘Paramour?’ Anton repeated. ‘What an old-fashioned word to use.’
‘Mistress, then.’ It made no difference to Cristina.
‘A mistress is reliant solely on the generosity of her benefactor for her pampered existence. Kinsella holds down a good job and relies on no man for anything—unlike some.’
He meant herself. Cristina stiffened. ‘I was never your mistress.’
‘I housed you, clothed you, fed you and bedded you—good definition of a mistress.’ He shrugged.
She ignored that. ‘Paramour suits her better—the way she flutters around you like some silly fluffy moth.’
‘But she is so beautiful, and so very willing, meu querida.’ He smiled tauntingly. ‘She also comes with no strings attached. How is a man supposed to resist?’