Resisting The Tycoon's Seduction (The Berutelli Escape) (4 page)

Of course, she could also just walk out of here, get her sister and drive away, never to come back to her father’s house again.  Would he look for her?  Would he care?  How strong was his desire to have a grandson?  If they were gone, would he just accept one of his nephews as his heir? 
Would her father hurt Zeke to get what he wanted? What if Zeke refused?  Other men had died after opposing her father. 

“Marissa?” Zeke prompted and she
flinched, looking up and realizing that he was sitting on the sofa right next to her looking like he was ready to catch her if she passed out.  She almost laughed since fainting in this man’s presence might actually happen if she ever worked up the nerve to do what her father had commanded. 

Pushing her ridiculous thoughts aside, she focused on her mission. 
“I’m sorry,” she said and cleared her throat.  “I just need a moment.”  She took the crystal glass filled with water, careful not to touch his fingers.  She desperately wanted to just run away. 

“Take your time, but understand that I’m intrigued.
  I’m also thrilled that you called me.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to get you to meet me again, but rest assured, I would have found a way.”

She tried to smile, but
it probably came across more like a grimace.  She took a sip of the water he’d handed to her.  She would have loved to swallow all of the cool liquid, just toss it back which might help her overheated skin.  But her nervousness was closing up her throat and the best she could do was take a careful sip before placing it meticulously on the elegant, glass coffee table in front of her.

Clasping her knees, she turned to face Zeke, her eyes unable to look at his face so she chose to look only at his hands which were resting casually on the leather arm rest of the sofa. 
Those hands had touched her, gently but with desire.  They were tender hands, she knew but what would he do with her after she proposed?  Or should this be more appropriately called a proposition? 

She wanted to laugh and realized she was becoming hysterical.  The longer she stalled, the more crazy her thoughts were becoming.  Better to just blurt out her…proposition.  Get it over with and deal with his reaction. 

“I wanted to suggest…” she started to say, then stopped, trying to figure out the best way to propose to a man she barely knew.  Good grief, she’d just learned his first name two days ago!  And she’d barely even heard his last name that day in the lingerie shop, too angry to have absorbed it. 

Zeke took pity on the lovely woman, his curiosity ramping up as she sat there working herself
into a deeper state of anxiety.  “Why are you so nervous?” he asked, taking one of her hands in his large, hard hand, gently rubbing her knuckles in an effort to soothe her.  Unfortunately, his touch only made her more skittish, but for slightly different, although connected, reasons. 

“I just…that is…I was wondering if…” she sighed and let her head drop.  She stood up,
relieved to have a reason to pull her hand away from his.  Turning her back to him, she stared out the window but then squeezed her eyes shut.  “Would you marry me?” she blurted out.  Her whole body was trembling now and she was afraid he might be able to see it.  She clasped her hands in front of her, gripping them together in an effort to brace herself for his imminent rejection. 

Unfortunately,
there was only silence behind her and the tension tightening in her stomach increased to an almost painful level.  But she’d said it!  She’d finally gotten it out.  He could reject her or accept it and she could go back to her father with a clear conscience.  She’d figure out how to get out of marrying Jimmy somehow.  Just one problem at a time, she told herself. 

When she finally heard him move, her back stiffened even more and she squeezed her eyes shut to keep herself from crying. 
She hated for him to see how this little travesty was making her act, but she couldn’t completely hide her feelings from him.  He wasn’t a stupid man.  He could see her tense muscles, and probably her shaking as well. 

“What’s going on Marissa?  Do you need money?  Are you in trouble in some way?”

With his words, so kind and concerned, she couldn’t help the burst of laughter that erupted from her tense body.  “Money?  No, I don’t need money.  But thank you very much for your concern.  I really just…I need to marry you.”

He stood in front of her looking down into her eyes, trying to determine what was going on.  She looked like she might snap at any moment, her eyes had dark circles underneath and her whole face was pale.  Even her lips were pale and her fingers were clenched together so tightly, her knuckles white and straining. 

He lifted her hands and gently pulled them apart, holding them lightly.  His thumb rested on her wrist while his mind absently noted that her pulse was rapid.  “Need is a far cry from ‘want’,” he said softly.  “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

She desperately wished she could confide in someone, but this wasn’t a conversation she could have with anyone, and especially not him.  She felt trapped, isolated. 
She shook her head.  “No.  I just need to marry you.  Yes or no?” she demanded, ready to bolt no matter what his answer.  She was pretty sure what he would say, but she waited tensely for his response. 

He wouldn’t let her pull away from him.  “Marissa, talk to me.  I can help you
, I promise.”

She laughed
harshly, thinking about Jimmy waiting on the sidelines and her revulsion caused her to shiver once again.  Taking a deep breath, she shook her head.  “Not this time!” she claimed and tried to pull away.  “I’m guessing this is a no.”

He smiled slightly and let her hands drop since she was trying to walk away from him.  He wouldn’t let her leave his office though.  Not until he figured out what was going on.  She was in trouble, he just couldn’t figure out the whole issue.  And until he had the facts, he couldn’t help her solve the problem. 

“Maybe we could go out to dinner one night?  Get to know each other?”  He turned her around so she was facing him again.  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that you should never marry a man until you knew his shirt and neck size?”

She laughed, but it came out sounding a bit more like a sob.  “My mother died a long time ago,” she said simply.  “So no, that little gem of advice never made it to my ears.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied, feeling like an ass for being so cruel.  Her mother’s status hadn’t made it into the background information he’d received from his head of security.  “That was heartless of me.”  He pulled her against his chest, relieved when she curled her body into his.  It occurred to him that this slender woman with the softest hair he’d ever felt in his life, fit his body perfectly.  He liked it when she turned her face towards his chest, her soft breath tickling his neck.  He rubbed her back, trying to soothe the shivering in her body but the more he touched her, the worse it seemed to get.

He pulled away slightly and looked down at her.  “Marissa, what’s going on?  Two days ago, you were spitting fire at me.  Now you’re proposing marriage.  Talk to me.”

“I can’t,” she sighed, feeling warm and protected with his strong, muscular arms around her.  At this moment, she knew that nothing could hurt her.  Her sister would be safe, she wasn’t facing the revolting future of marriage to a man who repulsed her, she had a good business running and she could even see a time in her life when she could move out of her father’s home and have more freedom. 

And then he let his arms drop
and that wonderful mirage faded away.  “I’d better go now.  Thank you for your time.”  Zeke didn’t want her to go, wanted to pull her back into his arms and carry her over to the sofa, to demand that she tell him what was going on and why she’d proposed to him in such a crazy fashion.  But he couldn’t hold her like that without scaring her because his body was already hard and aching for her.  Holding her close, she was bound to notice his body’s reaction and she’d run screaming from the room. 

She stepped out of his arms and bent to pick up her purse. 
With a hiccupped laugh she said, “I was given advice to strip out of my clothes and seduce you into marriage.”  She laughed again.  “As if that would work.”

He chuckled, watching her sexy bottom in the tight skirt.  “It might,” he teased, his eyes alight with the idea of being seduced, especially by this woman. 

Marissa stopped, her body frozen in time.  Strip naked?  Now? 

She looked back up at him, saw the amusement in his eyes and her heart sank.  But something happened in that moment.  He realized that she was serious and the laughter
from faded, replaced by something stronger, much more intense.  The flame that leapt into his eyes told her that it might just work. 

Before she could think about it, before her mind rejected the possibility, she dropped her purse.  Lifting her fingers to her silk blouse, her shaking fingers undid the first button.  When his eyes followed her fingers, her stomach twisted with something…it wasn’t fear or anger so much as…excitement?  No, surely not! 
She couldn’t be excited about the idea of him touching her, of him making love to her.  She pushed the possibility away, embarrassed that she felt so wanton. 

But his eyes were heated as he watched her unbutton the next, and then the next on her blouse.  She bowed her head as she reached the bottom of the silk and started to pull the edges away. 

Zeke watched in fascination as she released each button.  More and more skin was revealed and his body hardened as he received a peek of the gentle swells of her breasts.  When the rose colored lace was revealed, he almost sank to his knees with the need to possess her.  And then that adorable, taunting crystal danced between her perfect, lovely breasts.  He inhaled sharply at the sight of her, thinking she had to be the most sensuous woman he’d ever seen. 

He tried to say something, to tell her to stop, but the words wouldn’t come out.  He was too mesmerized by the glorious sight of her
delightful breasts slowly being revealed to him.  When she started to pull the edges away, he looked at her face and knew that this was wrong.  She was doing this for all the wrong reasons.  If she’d been here of her own free will, he would gladly have taken what she was offering.  But she looked so nervous, he thought she might just pass out with the fear racing through her.

When he saw her naked for the first time, he wanted her to be ready to pass out with
mind-boggling passion and not with mind-numbing fear or outright terror.  And he wanted her to be taking off her clothes to show herself to him because she was proud of herself, because she wanted to be as close to him as possible.  Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. 

So he did the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life.  He stepped forward and grabbed those delicate pieces of silk and pulled them together, hiding what he most wanted to see.  “Stop, Marissa.  This isn’t right.”

Wasn’t right?  She looked down and saw his strong, tanned fingers holding her hands still, pulling her blouse closed as if he didn’t want to see her, didn’t think she was attractive.  What was wrong with her?  Why was he stopping her?  She knew he wanted this.  She could feel it as he gathered her closer.  The evidence was right there against her stomach and it both thrilled and terrified her.  “You don’t want me?” she whispered.  “But I thought…”

Zeke wanted to kick himself for not taking what she was offering.  He was all kinds of crazy for rejecting something that he obviously wanted painfully.  But he wanted it for the right reasons.  He wanted her to come to him of her own free will and he suspected that
wasn’t the case at the moment. 

“You thought right,” he growled, gritting his teeth to control the desire that felt like it might just blind him with the need to
have her.  She felt so soft, so perfect in his arms.  But this was wrong and he kept reminding himself of that problem.  “I want you and you damn well know it.  But I want you to be doing this for the right reasons.”

Marissa couldn’t take this any longer.  She’d used up all the courage she had to get to this point but his rejection was just the final stamp on a perfectly horrible twenty-four hours.  Wrenching herself out of his arms, she grabbed her purse and ran out of his office, ignoring his call for her to stop.

She was still gripping the sides of her silk blouse together when she reached the elevator.  She pressed the call button, praying that it would arrive quickly. 

When she heard him call her name once again, she almost cried out with relief when the doors opened up and she was able to almost fall inside. 

They closed just moments before Zeke reached her, his face an angry mask of frustration.  She leaned back against the walls of the elevator, grateful for her relatively easy escape. 

When she opened her eyes, she looked directly into the eyes of, not just one, but five other people.  All of them were on the opposite side of the elevator, and all of them looked almost as embarrassed as she was as she realized that she was still clutching the edges of her blouse together. 

Stuffing her purse under her arm, she hurriedly buttoned her blouse, her fingers shaking with the effort to accomplish the humiliating task quickly.  She was just tucking the edge of her blouse back into her skirt when the elevator doors opened up to the crowded granite lobby.  Praying that her face didn’t reveal the humiliation she was currently experiencing, she stepped out and looked around.  It took her several minutes to get her bearings and remember where she’d parked her car because she was so flustered and humiliated.  Racing towards the appropriate exit, she walked as fast as she could without looking like she was running for her life.