Something that Sin seemed aware of as his mouth thinned. ‘Lucinda Harper-O’Neill, I presume?’ he drawled with agonising mockery.
Luccy’s eyes narrowed. Obviously she was Lucinda Harper-O’Neill. The real question was, how did he know that?
She made a dismissive movement of her shoulders as she stepped fully into the reception area to sit down behind the empty desk, determined not to be cowed by this man’s unexpected appearance at her place of work. ‘What can I do for you, Sin?’
He gave a smile completely lacking in humour. ‘The way I remember it, Luccy, you’ve already done quite a lot for me already.’
Colour warmed her cheeks, a mixture of anger and embarrassment, her eyes glittering with the former emotion as she glared up at him.
How typical of a man to refer so blatantly to what happened between them in his hotel suite three nights ago! Although it hadn’t been a memory that Luccy had found too easy to forget, either…
Although she had tried. She really had. She’d inwardly cringed with self-recrimination every time she so much as thought about the physical intimacy she had shared with him. Damn it, Sin probably knew Luccy’s body more intimately than she did!
‘Very funny,’ she snapped scathingly. ‘I thought you would have returned to the States by now?’
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘Something else came up.’
Something to do with finding her, perhaps? ‘Well, as nice as it is to see you again, Sin,’ she lied, ‘I really am very busy today. So if there is nothing else you need to say to me I really do have to get on with some work.’ She looked up at him challengingly.
She was certainly a cool one, Sin acknowledged with grudging admiration.
But, unfortunately for Luccy, he had no intention of leaving here today without getting answers to several pertinent questions. He’d thought of little else but finding her again, talking with her, for the last three days.
Sin had known a lot of women in his thirty-five years, had gone to bed with quite a lot of them too, and never once before had he completely lost control in the way that he had with this woman.
Or felt as angry with any of them as he had with Luccy when he’d come back from the shower that night and found her gone.
Enquiries the following morning had revealed that the table in the restaurant the evening before had been booked to Harper-O’Neill Ltd, the representative of that company joined by two guests from Wow magazine.
It hadn’t taken too long after that to ascertain that the photographer Lucinda Harper-O’Neill had represented herself; the names ‘Luccy’ and ‘Lucinda’ had been too much of a coincidence for it not to be the same person, proving that Luccy had lied to Sin when she’d told him she worked for a photographer—she was the photographer.
Unfortunately for Luccy, Sin’s enquiries hadn’t stopped there—he had also had a very interesting conversation with Paul Bridger, one of the senior executives with Wow magazine, earlier this morning. A conversation that had resulted in Sin questioning exactly when Luccy had realised he’d seemed familiar to her that following evening. Before or after he’d come across her with Bridger? After his conversation with Bridger, Sin was betting on it being before. Long before…
There had certainly been no way Sin intended returning to New York until he had seen Lucinda Harper-O’Neill again!
His movements were unhurried now as he strolled over to the chair facing the desk to lower his long length into it before looking across at her with cool deliberation. ‘Go ahead and finish up your work. I’m in no hurry,’ he assured her quietly.
Luccy frowned her frustration with his relaxed attitude—she was even more tense now than when she had first walked out of her studio and seen him just standing there. ‘I told you, I’m busy—’
‘Then I’ll wait until you’re finished,’ he persisted evenly.
There was no way that she could go back into her studio and continue working when she knew Sin was sitting out here waiting for her like that stalking, lethally dangerous tiger he so reminded her of!
‘What is it you want from me, Sin?’ she demanded impatiently.
‘Didn’t the fact that I left that night tell you that I have no interest in pursuing a relationship with you?’
It hadn’t even occurred to her that Sin would attempt to track her down in this way. And for what purpose? Surely he had to realise that she considered what had happened between them to have been a mistake on her part? A mistake she had no intention of repeating!
He relaxed back in the chair as he continued to look across at her with narrowed, unfathomable grey eyes. ‘It told me that you had—finished with me. For the moment…’
Luccy didn’t like the insult she could hear in his tone. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she said as she stood up to glare down at him, too restless to remain seated any longer. ‘Now I really think it’s past time that you left, Mr—’
‘Formality between us seems—a little out of place, in the circumstances, don’t you think?’ he put in mockingly.
Luccy huffed her frustration. ‘I would prefer it. And what I would really prefer is for you to just leave.’
‘Not possible, I’m afraid,’ Sin returned calmly, icily. ‘Not until you’ve given me a satisfactory explanation for your behaviour three nights ago.’
‘My behaviour?’ Luccy gave him a bewildered look. ‘Weren’t you there too?’
‘Oh, yes, I was there,’ he acknowledged. ‘Suitably intrigued. But that was the point, wasn’t it?’
‘The point of what?’ Luccy was fast approaching a feeling of unreality.
They had met, made love together, an action they obviously both regretted; what else was there left for them to talk about?
‘I could always telephone the police and have you forcibly removed,’ she threatened.
‘You could try, I suppose,’ Sin agreed with an unconcerned shrug of his shoulders. ‘Although that might be a little embarrassing for you when I explain to them that this is merely a lovers’ tiff.’
‘We are not lovers,’ she told him forcibly.
His mouth twisted. ‘Oh, but we are, Lucinda—’
‘My name is Luccy!’ she cut in vehemently. ‘And, no, we most certainly are not!’