Cordinas Crown Jewel by Nora Roberts Page A

you won’t, but I won’t argue if that’s what you’ve decided to do.”
    Did he think she played dirty? he mused, eyeing her over the rim of his cup as she stood, solemn and patient with ham sizzling at her back. A heavyweight champ wouldn’t last a full round with her.
    “Let’s just forget it.”
    Relief trickled through her, but she couldn’t relax until she’d finished. “That’s very generous of you.” She shifted to pick up the kitchen fork and turn the meat. “I’d like to tell you I’ve never done anything like that before.”
    He thought of the kiss, the smoldering punch of it. “Like what before?”
    “Pushed myself on a man.” The memory of it had hot color washing into her cheeks, but she continued to cook with a steady hand. “It occurred to me afterward that if the situation had been reversed—if you had pushed yourself on me, particularly when I was incapacitated—”
    “I’m not incapacitated.” Irritated, he swallowed coffee, then went for more.
    “Well … in any case, it occurred to me that it would’ve been contemptible, perhaps even criminal, so—”
    “We locked lips. Beginning and end,” he snapped out, growing more and more uncomfortable. “It’s not a big damn deal.”
    She slid her gaze toward him, then away again. The deal, big or otherwise, had kept him out of his own house most of the night. So she
would
finish groveling. “A sexual act of any kind must be mutual or it’s harassment. Worst, molestation.”
    “The day some skinny-assed woman can molest me is the day pigs go into orbit.”
    “I’m not skinny, assed or otherwise, but to finish. I was angry and I’m attracted to you—God knows why—and both those reactions, as well as the simple curiosity I felt, are my responsibility to control. I appreciate your acceptance of my apology. Now if you’d like to sit down, I’m going to make crêpes.”
    She stabbed the ham, dumped it on a plate. Before she could turn to the crêpe batter, he spun her around, clamped his hand over her throat. And lifting her to her toes closed his mouth over hers.
    The fork she still held clattered to the counter. Her arms fell helplessly to her sides. It was an assault, a glorious one that made her weak-kneed, light-headed and hot-blooded all at once. Even as she started to sway toward him, he gave her a light shove. Stepped back.
    “There, that clears the slate,” he said, then picking up his coffee again, sat. “What kind of crêpes?”

Chapter 5
    The beard irritated him. So did the woman. His ribs were a constant dull ache. As was his libido.
    Work helped such nagging and unwelcome distractions. He’d always been able to lose himself in work—in fact he figured anyone who couldn’t just wasn’t in the right field.
    He had to admit she didn’t annoy him when she was helping transcribe and organize his notes. The fact was, she was such an enormous help he wondered how the devil he would get anything done when she was gone.
    He considered playing on her gratitude and wheedling another couple of weeks out of her.
    Then he’d be distracted by something as ridiculous as the way the light hit her hair as she sat at the keyboard. Or the way her eyes took on a glint when she looked over at him with a question or comment.
    Then he’d start thinking about her. Who she was, where she was from. Why the hell she was sitting in his kitchen in the first place. She spoke French like a native, cooked like a gift from God. And over it all was a glossy sheen of class.
    He hated asking people questions about themselves. Because they invariably answered them, at length. But he had a lot of questions about Camilla.
    He began to calculate how he could get some information without seeming to ask the questions.
    She was smart, too, he thought as she painstakingly filed and labeled on-site photographs while he pretended to study more notes. Not just educated, but there was plenty of that. If he had to guess, he’d say private schools all