"Which school?"
"It's very exclusive. I'm sure you wouldn't have heard of it." She absently tapped her nails against her crystal glass. Apparently, he took that as a sign to refill it. Since it was empty.
"Try me."
"It's called Les Vignes."
"Aye, The Vines. Just outside of Paris in Fontainebleau."
She just stopped herself from dropping her jaw. How had he heard of it?
He smirked. "Aristocrats and heiresses."
"Indeed," she said in a pained tone. His gloating look rattled her, but also simply thinking about the school made her yearn for her time there. Life had been simple then. She'd loved it there, loved acquiring knowledge, but most important, Annalía had attained her coveted aura of worldliness.
Unfortunately, this worldliness was, as yet, a façade. She'd never been farther north than Paris or farther south than just past the border with Spain. She had never even seen the sea. The Highlander, just by virtue of his traveling from Scotland to Andorra, was worldlier than she.
But MacCarrick would never know it because she could put on a grand show. She'd learned contemporary American sass and slang from a princess of railroad royalty, fashionable disdain from a pouty French inheritrix of some medical patent, and British loftiness from a "fifteenth from the throne" duke's daughter.
"It's very exclusive," she repeated absently. In fact, she'd scarcely been received. Annalía wasn't so closely related to a throne, unless you followed Pascal's insane despot logic, of course. However, she was distantly related to eight of them.
"Yet you were born and raised in archaic Andorra."
Her expression felt brittle. She should have known he would cut through the façade and go straight to the heart of her insecurities. When she didn't answer, he continued, "I've always said there are just no' enough Andorrans in the world."
"And what makes you so sure I was raised here?"
"I've heard you speak Catalan to the people here. You've never spoken it to anyone outside of Andorra, have you?"
She'd yearned to visit other Catalan-speaking countries, but Llorente had forbidden it. "Why do you ask that?"
"This country hasn't changed much since medieval times and neither has its language."
"Are you saying I speak with a medieval dialect?" She couldn't.
He leaned back and nodded with obvious enjoyment.
"And with you being a Highlander, I'm sure you recognize medieval when you come across it." Ha!
His lips curled at the side. Not quite a smile. "So the Scot and the Andorran. We're no' so different."
She was decidedly different from everything that he was. "I'm Castilian," she snapped, surprising herself. That information rarely came out sounding like a declaration. Next to a Scot she could be proud of anything, she supposed.
"A hot-blooded Castilian, then? Collared with Cleopatra's jewel." Never taking his eyes from hers, he lifted his glass and growled over the rim, "Fascinatin'."
She barely prevented her lips from parting in disbelief. Straight to the heart. How did he manage to brush so closely to her secrets? He didn't know her. He knew nothing. He was merely provoking for reaction....
The next several minutes were odd. If she tilted her head, his eyes narrowed. If she touched her hair, he scrubbed his good hand across the back of his neck. When she drank more, he stilled, as if awaiting something. That was one thing she realized about him - he was always scrutinizing, always weighing, and deciding. She wondered what he'd decided about her.
Here she sat drinking with her worst enemy - well, worst after Pascal - but not because she wanted to be near the man. Certainly not that. And not because she'd forgotten what he was. He was a Highlander, and it was because of people like him and his miserable kinsmen - those cursed killers for hire - that the general had enough power to force her to his will. He was her enemy and she didn't care.
She'd heard that liquor made one brash, but now Annalía knew it also made one uncaring. Underhanded, even.
Because she would use him.
What if she could hire him and his men to help her? What if she could tempt him to want to help her? If she was one of those women - if the whispers about her were true - then surely she could have some effect on a man.
What did she have to lose by trying?
Before her courage failed her, she stood, then walked around the desk toward him. When he quickly stood as well, she stopped and reached back for her glass - just one more little sip for courage.... She turned back and he was directly in front of her, looking at her face in his intense, watchful manner.
He took a gentle, shuffling step closer, as though he didn't want to frighten her away. She backed up to the desk, but he kept drawing nearer, surrounding her with his body, with his appealing scent. And some common, base part deep inside her reveled in his size, reveled in the heat she could feel from his skin.
His gaze caught hers, as if he couldn't stop looking at her. Up so close, she could see how much his eyes had cleared, could see how remarkably dark they were, the irises black like obsidian. And the way he looked at her...as though he was hungry for her. As though he lusted, and understood like no man had before how incredibly much she did, too. She felt like she'd caught fire.
She set her palms against the edge of the desk, wrapping her fingers around it, then nervously licked her lips, unsure of what to do. He must have realized she wasn't leaving, wasn't moving from this spot, because he appeared baffled, his brows drawn. It was as though she could hear him thinking. She knew he was suspicious of her behavior. She also knew he would decide to enjoy now and figure it out later. As if on cue, his expression changed to one of intent.
As she'd seen women do on bridges across Paris at sunset, she brushed her hands up over his chest and then rested them on the back of his neck. When her fingers twined behind him, his breaths hastened. "MacCarrick," she murmured. "Do you...like me?"
His gaze was flickering over her face, sometimes resting on her lips, but now meeting her eyes. "Right now I like you very much."
She threaded her fingers in his hair. "After tonight, do you want to be my...friend?"
His voice was deep and husky when he said, "Among other things."
"Can I trust you?"
He nodded slowly. "With this? Aye, I'll no' tell a soul."
She frowned at his comment, but went forward with what she had to do. "If I asked you for something, would you want to give it to me?"
He seemed to stiffen at her question, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. Then she had the impression that he was forcing himself to relax. "Anna, I will give you something that you want."
Though he'd turned her words around, she still murmured, "MacCarrick..." He bent lower to hear her better, and she whispered against his ear, "Kiss me, MacCarrick."
He shuddered.
Her breath against his ear made this mercenary react so strongly? She wondered what her touch might do. If she was the type of woman people accused her of being, then maybe she was also the type of woman who could "bring a man to his knees." She rather liked the thought.
He put his palm on the back of her head, drawing her in. She thought he would kiss her, but he hesitated, as if to let her body grow accustomed to his, as if savoring that he was about to kiss her as he had savored the whisky.
The second he placed his lips on hers and slanted his mouth, heat shot through her body. When he kissed down the side of her neck, she sucked in a breath, staggered by the feelings. His hands found her backside and he yanked her into him - hard - until she could feel his erection, huge against her belly. This is wrong - His lips were warm and firm and quelled the thought.
He molded her backside with insistent fingers, squeezing her into him, then grasping her around the waist to - oh, Mare de Déu - move her pelvis against him. Wrong! her mind cried.
Just as she would pull away, he gathered her closer to kiss her earlobe, and she wondered, mystified, why she'd deemed this so terrible. They weren't doing more than pressing bodies together. Of course, he wouldn't make love to her.
Before she had any comprehension of what he was doing, he'd unfastened the top few buttons of her shirt and would've done more if she hadn't seized the next button in her fist. He made some noise as if her action amused him, but he didn't continue. He spread what he'd opened, uncovering her upper chest to her chemise, then placed his hands on her back to arch her to him. To her bewilderment, he groaned deeply and rubbed the side of his face against the tops of her br**sts. She felt the low guttural sound, and it frightened her, but not more than it exhilarated her.