A Tangled Affair by Fiona Brand Page A

just slept with should phone another woman in my presence. You could have at least waited until I had left.”
    His gaze narrowed. “My apologies for accusing you of calling the press in. I forgot about Lilah.”
    “Something you seem to be doing a lot lately. I don’t know what you’re doing out here with me when you should be concentrating on getting back with her.”
    A swirling breeze started up, making her feel chilled. She rubbed at the gooseflesh on her arms, suddenly in urgent need of a hot bath and an early night. Technically, she was still recovering from the viral relapse and under doctor’s orders to take it easy, not that she would tell Lucas that. She was supposed to take an afternoon nap if she could fit it in. Ha!
    She started toward her car. Lucas stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
    She stared at his sleek, bare shoulders and muscled chest, the dark line of hair that arrowed down to the waistband of his pants. She was tired, and her body still ached and throbbed in places from what they had done in his penthouse apartment. What they had done was wrong, but that didn’t stop the automatic hum of desire.
    “I have no plans on ‘getting back’ with Lilah. Do you intend to sleep with Panopoulos?”
    She went still inside at the first part of that sentence, although she felt no sense of surprise that Lucas was breaking up with Lilah. If he could gravitate back to her so easily then clearly there wasn’t much holding them together. Then a second thunderbolt hit her.
    Lucas was jealous.
    Make that very jealous. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen it before, but the knowledge demystified his overbearing reaction to her job interview with Alex Panopoulos. It also cast a new light on the dictatorial way he had decided that she would no longer be “The Face” or act in the promotional play she had planned to stage as part of Ambrosi’s product launch. She had thought he was downgrading her both personally and professionally because he didn’t want her, but the opposite was true.
    A glow of purely feminine pleasure soothed over the hurt he had inflicted by demoting her. The launch was her baby. She had meticulously planned every detail, always shooting for perfection, and she needed to be there to make sure everything went smoothly. She still didn’t like what he had done, but she understood his reasoning now and, because it involved his emotions for her, she would allow him to get away with being so high-handed.
    Her chin came up at the question about Alex Panopoulos, although it no longer had any sting. “You’re not my boyfriend,” she said flatly. “You have no right to ask that question.”
    * * *
    Maybe not. But that situation was about to change.
    Lucas’s jaw locked as he controlled the surge of cold fury at the thought of Carla and Panopoulos together. When he had asked her before she had said she hadn’t slept with him, and he believed her, but he knew Alex Panopoulos. He was wealthy and spoiled and used to having what he wanted. If he wanted Carla, he wouldn’t give up.
    His hands curled into fists at the almost overwhelming urge to simply pick Carla up and carry her back up to his apartment and his bed. Instead, he forced himself to stillness as Carla climbed behind the wheel of her sports car and shot away from the curb.
    He was finished with caveman tactics. Finesse was now required.
    He examined his options as he took the stairs into his apartment building and strode through the foyer. They were not black-and-white, exactly, but close.
    He stepped into the elevator, which Tiberio was holding for him. It was a fact that ever since he had first seen Carla he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. His attempt to create distance and sever their relationship had backfired. Instead of killing his desire, distance had only served to increase it to the point that the very thing he had been trying to avoid happened: he lost control.
    He could deny the story the tabloids