His Brand of Passion. Кейт Хьюит
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glanced back at Aaron and saw he’d recovered his composure. His eyes were narrowed to black slits, his mouth compressed into a very hard line. He looked as if he were carved from marble, hewn from granite—hard and unyielding and, yes, maybe even a little scary. But beautiful too, like a darkly terrifying angel.
Zoe felt her heart give a little tremor and she reached for her bread roll as if she hadn’t a care in the world. ‘Where,’ Aaron asked in a low voice that thrummed through his chest and through Zoe, ‘did you get that phone?’
She swallowed a piece of roll and smiled. ‘Where do you think I got it?’
His eyes blazed dark fire as he glared at her. ‘From my pocket.’
‘Bingo.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘So you’re a thief.’
She tilted her head to one side as if considering his statement, although her heart was beating hard and adrenalin pumped through her. ‘That’s a bit harsh.’
‘You stole my phone.’
‘I prefer to think of it as borrowing.’
‘Borrowing.’
She leaned forward, anger replacing any alarm she’d felt. ‘Yes, borrowing it—for the duration of my sister and your brother’s wedding reception. Because, no matter how much of a bigwig business tycoon you might be, Aaron Bryant, you don’t text during a wedding ceremony. And I don’t want you ruining this day for Millie and Chase.’
He stared at her, colour washing his high cheekbones, his eyes glittering darkly. He was furious, utterly furious, and Zoe felt a little frisson of—fear? Maybe, but something else too. Something like excitement. Smiling, she patted her bag with the still-buzzing phone. Good Lord, he received a lot of calls. ‘You can have it back after Millie and Chase leave for their honeymoon.’
Aaron’s expression turned thunderous and he leaned forward, every taut line of his body radiating tightly leashed anger. ‘I’ll have it back now.’
‘I don’t think so.’
She saw him reach for the bag and quickly she grabbed it and put it in her lap. Aaron arched an incredulous eyebrow.
‘You think that’s going to stop me?’ he murmured, and it sounded almost seductive. Zoe felt a sudden, prickling awareness raise goosebumps all over her body. Before she could make any answer, Aaron slid his hand under the table. Zoe stiffened as she felt his hand slide along her thigh. The man was audacious, she had to give him that. Audacious and fearless.
She felt his fingers slide along her inner thigh, his palm warm through the thin silk of her dress. To her own annoyance and shame she could not keep a very basic and overwhelming desire from flooding through her, turning her insides warm and liquid. She shifted in her seat, and just as Aaron’s hand reached the bag in her lap she slid the phone out of it.
‘Give me that phone, Zoe.’ His hand was clenched in her lap and, even though seduction had to be the last thing on his mind, Zoe could still feel her body’s pulsing awareness of him. All he’d done was touch her leg. She had to get a grip and remember this was about the phone. Nothing else.
She raised her hand above the table, the phone still clutched in it, and slowly shook her head. ‘No.’
Aaron’s lips thinned. ‘I could take it from you by force.’ She had no doubt he could. ‘That would cause a scene.’
‘You think I care?’
No, Zoe realised, she didn’t think he did. Considering his behaviour so far, she didn’t think he cared at all. She imagined him prying the phone from her hand. It would be like taking candy from a baby. She was no match for his strength, and she couldn’t stand the thought of enduring Aaron’s mocking triumph for the rest of the evening.
Impulsively, her gaze locked on Aaron’s, she slid the phone down the front of her dress. he stared back at her and something flared in his eyes that made the awareness inside her pulse harder.
‘That looks a little…strange,’ he remarked, and Zoe glanced down to see her cleavage obscured by a bulky object in the middle of the dress. It did, indeed, look a bit strange.
‘Easily fixed,’ she replied breezily, and with a bit of pushing and pulling of the strapless dress she managed to get the phone to lie flat under the shelf of her breasts. Still a little strange, but not too bad. And totally impossible for Aaron to access.
He sat back in his chair, shook his head slowly. ‘You really are a piece of work.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It wasn’t meant as one.’
‘Even so.’
He chuckled softly, the sound hard and without humour, and leaned forward again. ‘You think,’ he murmured, his voice stealing right inside her, ‘I can’t get that phone out of your dress?’
Zoe glanced at him, tried for haughty amusement. ‘Not easily.’
‘You have no idea what I’m capable of.’
‘Actually, based on your behaviour so far, I think I have a fairly good idea of the level of boorishness you’re willing to sink to,’ she replied. ‘But even you, I believe, would draw the line at mauling the maid of honour in the middle of a wedding reception.’
Aaron stared at her for a few seconds, his gaze flicking over her face, seeming to assess her. His face had turned blank, expressionless, which made Zoe uneasy. She couldn’t read him at all. Then he shrugged and turned back to his meal. ‘Fine,’ he said, and he sounded completely bored, utterly dismissive. ‘Give it back to me in a couple of hours.’
Zoe sat there, the phone hot and a little sweaty against her chest, and felt weirdly deflated. She’d enjoyed sparring with him, she realised. It had been invigorating and, yes, a tiny bit flirtatious. But, based on the way Aaron was now focused completely on his salad, she was now the furthest thing from his thoughts. Well, she thought with a sigh, wriggling a little to make herself a bit more comfortable with a phone inside her dress, at least she’d taught him a lesson.
Aaron knew about patience. It was a lesson he’d learned from childhood, when his father would summon him to his study only to make him wait standing by the door for an hour or more, while he concluded some trivial piece of business.
It was a lesson he’d needed, for it had taken patience to rebuild Bryant Enterprises from the ground up when his father had left it to him fifteen years ago, utterly bankrupt.
It was a lesson he would use now, for he knew it was only a matter of time before he found an opportunity to corner Zoe and get his phone back.
He had to admire her bravado and tenacity, even if the whole exercise annoyed the hell out of him. She was different from most women he knew, utterly uninterested in impressing him. In fact, she seemed to want the opposite: to aggravate him. Well, it was working.
An hour into the festivities Zoe excused herself from the table. Aaron watched her head to the ladies’ room with narrowed eyes. He waited a few seconds before he excused himself and followed her out of the ballroom.
The ladies’ room was one of those ridiculously feminine boudoirs, complete with spindly little chairs and embroidered tissue boxes. Aaron slipped inside and put a finger to his lips when an elderly matron applying some garishly bright coral lipstick stared at him in shock.
‘I want to surprise my girlfriend,’ he whispered, and then mimed getting down on one knee as if in a marriage proposal. The woman’s face suffused with colour to match her mouth and she bobbed her head in understanding before hurrying outside.
He was alone with Zoe.
He heard the toilet flush and stepped back so she couldn’t see him as she came out of the stall. He watched as she moved to the sink and washed her hands, humming under her breath. He took the opportunity to admire her figure,