The Greek's Unwilling Bride by Sandra Marton

mornings, afternoons and evenings, and there’re even a couple of special ones I manage to tuck in at teatime. So as you can see, I’ve no time at all for you in my schedule.”
    He was laughing openly now, amusement glinting in his eyes, and it was driving her over the edge. She would slug him, any second, or punch him in the very center of that oh-so-masculine chest...
    Or throw her arms around his neck, drag his head down to hers and kiss him until he swung her into his arms and carried her off into the shadows that rimmed the lighted set...
    â€œLaurel?” Damian said, and their eyes met.
    He knew. She could see it in the way he was looking at her. He’d stopped laughing and he knew what she’d thought, what she’d almost done.
    â€œNo,” she said, and she swung away blindly. She heard him call her name but she didn’t turn back, didn’t pause.
    Moving by instinct, impelled by fear not of Damian but of herself, she ran to the dressing room, flung open the door and then slammed it behind her. She fell back against it and stood trembling, with her heart thudding in her chest.
    Outside, in the studio, Damian stood staring at the closed door. His entire body was tense; he could feel the blood pounding through his veins.
    She’d been so angry at him. Furious, even more so because he’d been teasing her and she’d known it. And then, all at once, everything had changed. He’d seen the shock of sudden awareness etch into her lovely face and he’d understood it, felt it burn like flame straight into the marrow of his bones.
    She’d run not from him but from herself. All he had to do was walk the few feet to the door that sheltered her, open it and take her in his arms. One touch, and she would shatter.
    He would have her, and this insanity would be over.
    Or would it?
    He took a long, ragged breath. She was interesting, this Laurel Bennett, and not only because of the fire that raged under that cool exterior. Other things about her were almost as intriguing. Her ability to play her part in what was quickly becoming a complex game fascinated him, as did her determination to deny what was so obviously happening between them. She was an enigma. A challenge.
    Damian smiled tightly. He had not confronted either in a very long time. It was part of the price he’d paid for success.
    Perhaps he’d been wrong in thinking that he could get her out of his system by taking her to bed for a long night of passion. Laurel Bennett might prove a diversion that could please him for some time. And he sensed instinctively that, unlike Gabriella, she would not want nor ask for more.
    The thought brought another smile to his lips. The women’s libbers would hang him from his toes, maybe from a more sensitive part of his anatomy, and burn him in effigy if they ever heard him make such a cool appraisal of a woman, but they’d have been wrong.
    He was no chauvinist, he was merely a man accustomed to making intelligent assessments. Laurel was a sophisticated woman who’d had many lovers. Even if Gabriella hadn’t told him so, one look at her would have confirmed it. A brief, intense affair would give pleasure to them both.
    He would go about this differently, then. He would have her, but not just once and not in a grimy loft. Damian ran his hands through his hair, straightened his tie and then made his way briskly out to the street.

CHAPTER FOUR
    L AUREL’S APARTMENT took up the second floor of a converted town house on the upper east side of Manhattan. The rooms were sun-filled and pleasant, and the building itself was handsome and well located.
    But it was an old building, and sometimes the plumbing was a problem. The landlord kept promising repairs but the handful of tenants figured he was almost as ancient as the plumbing. None of them had the heart to keep after him, especially when it turned out that Grey Morgan, the hunky soap star in apartment 3G, had