A Reputation to Uphold by Victoria Parker Page B

around to face him. Noticed the car was parked outside her boutique. ‘I’m not with you.’
    ‘Have you listened to a word I said?’
    She gave her head a little shake. ‘Sorry, I’m tired. Tell me again.’
    ‘Which is why you need a break, cara. Yakatani has accepted an invitation to my island this weekend. We fly out Friday morning.’
    Eva blinked, her bones freezing despite the warm gush of the air-con. ‘I can’t go anywhere on Friday. I have a meeting with—’ Her brain clicked into gear in the nick of time. She had an arrangement to see Prudence West. To save her deal. Her business. All she’d ever have. But she couldn’t tell Dante that. Because all week he’d been insistent on meeting Prudence with her and she knew it would be an unmitigated disaster. Not only couldn’t she think straight around him, this was her deal and she was saving it by herself. Her way. So, instead, she said, ‘With a client.’
    ‘Eva,’ he said, the first flicker of annoyance firing his words, ‘if all goes well, Hamptons is mine. It is one weekend. That is all.’
    An entire weekend ? No. No ! No more. She couldn’t take any more. ‘I can’t fly anywhere, Dante. I have a meeting at nine-thirty.’
    ‘So change it.’
    Eva locked her teeth, breathed deep. They’d made a deal. Yes, she wanted him to get Hamptons. Of course she did. But she was also sick and tired of him controlling her every move. ‘No. I can’t and I won’t. Why don’t you change your flight?’
    ‘ Cristo , cease with being difficult, Eva! I cannot go back on my word.’
    ‘Oh, but I can? So it’s okay for me to look unprofessional but not you.’
    ‘I did not say that,’ he bit out, raking his hand round the back of his neck.
    ‘Yes, you did. Can you stop thinking of yourself for one solitary second? That,’ she said, pointing one unsteady finger at the façade of her shop, ‘is all I have. While you stockpile billions, that little boutique is all I have.’
    ‘So you intend to go back on your word to me? For a prospective client who you could meet when we return? Cristo , I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.’
    ‘You can trust me! But we’re supposed to be in this together. You never consult me or I would’ve told you. I couldn’t think of anything worse than spending the entire weekend with you but I made a deal and I intend to stick to it. We’ll just have to compromise. Okay?’ Even as she said the words, her stomach cramped with dread. An entire weekend ?
    Two whole days of kissing and touching. Craving the impossible.
    Dante just looked at her as if she’d lost her marbles. Maybe she had.
    ‘ What ?’
    ‘Have you ever heard of the word compromise before?’
    ‘I do not think so,’ he said sardonically. ‘It makes my brain slur, which leads me to believe it is a foreign language.’
    ‘And here I thought you were multi-lingual.’ She ignored the insolent arch of his dark brow. ‘Compromise is when each side gives up something in order to reach a consensus. It is not me kowtowing to you. I’m quite happy to try and move my appointment back to nine but anything before that is a downright unsociable hour to call on someone. So, Mr Control Freak, if you’d like to engage in the foreign concept of compromise, you know where I am.’
    And with that Eva burst from the car, slammed the door and held her head high as she negotiated the slippery foundations that were now her life. Another two days of this charade would bleed her heart dry.
    Once inside, she tore her coat off, slung her bag on the sofa and paced. After two lengths of the room, an angry shrill broke her stride and she glanced down at her phone. And let loose a sigh.
    Snatching the phone, she plunged into the wingback tartan chair. ‘Hello, Dante.’
    ‘Is eleven-thirty enough of a compromise?’ he said, frustration lacing his voice with that yummy accent.
    Eva closed her eyes. Her body at war. Brain screaming she was getting in too deep. Heart demanding