The Spanish Tycoon's Temptress Page 0,27
that she didn’t want him in her apartment and here he was! How rude could that man be?
“Open the door now or I’ll just stand out here and make noise. You know I don’t bluff either.”
With irritation, she yanked open the door and glared at him. “Didn’t I mention this afternoon that I don’t want you here?”
He ignored her, pushing past her as he walked into the apartment. “And I don’t care. You didn’t answer my calls so I had to come over here and figure out if you were safe.”
“I didn’t get…” she stopped herself from telling him that she hadn’t received his calls but there had been those two phone calls from an unknown phone number. “I don’t have to answer my phone and you don’t need to keep looking in after me!”
After looking through her apartment and ascertaining that she was alone, he turned around and glared at her, his hands on his lean hips as he confronted the woman who had distracted him all afternoon. He wasn’t sure if he was angrier with her for ignoring his calls or with himself for his inability to focus after their lunch. “So you purposely ignored my phone calls? If you’d just answered the phone and told me that you were okay, then I wouldn’t be here checking up on you,” he snapped, irritated that he even cared. But he’d seen her car in the parking lot around eight o’clock and wanted to make sure that she was leaving earlier than her normal midnight. But she hadn’t answer her phone again and his mind started to think of all the problems a single woman could run into late in the evening. Elana was too distracted most of the time to be aware of any dangers.
With a sigh, he rubbed his hand over his face. She was okay, he told himself. She looked vibrant and amazing and so sexy he could barely keep his hands from reaching for her.
Suddenly, he smelled the garlic and looked around, his eyes darting into the kitchen. He walked to her doorway, ignoring her outstretched hands that tried to push him back and away from her kitchen. “You’re cooking pasta?” he asked, looking down into her worried eyes. He grinned. “I’d love some. Thanks for asking.”
Elana whipped her hands away from his chest and shook her head. “You’re not staying!” she gasped. She started to block his way once again, but he only grabbed her around the waist and almost carried her with him as he moved to the stove. “This smells delicious,” he said and glanced to the left. “You even bought wine?”
He picked up the bottle and read the label. “Pretty good choice,” he commented, looking down into her anxious eyes. “Where are the plates?” he asked, but again, he didn’t bother waiting. He put the bottle of wine down on the counter and started opening cabinets.
“Gaston, don’t you have some beautiful blond woman waiting to do your bidding? Shouldn’t you be on your way?” She quickly stepped to the left after he set down two plates on the counter. “What are you looking for now?”
“Wine glasses,” he said, not even bothering to answer her other question.
“Gaston, you can’t stay here!” she cried out when he pulled down two glasses. It took him only moments to find her bottle opener, probably because she didn’t have a whole lot of drawers or even a lot of items in the drawers. Since she’d practically been in social hibernation for the past seven years, she hadn’t accumulated a great many items for her kitchen, not needing much when she normally had a peanut butter sandwich or a yogurt as her meal.
“The pasta looks done,” he pointed out as he turned the corkscrew down into the cork, then easily pulled it out. He poured the wine into the two glasses and looked carefully at the color of the wine.
Elana pulled her eyes away from his strong, capable hands and looked at her boiling pasta. Sure enough, the pasta was perfectly cooked and she strained the spaghetti out into the sink. With resignation, she put enough pasta on both plates, then spooned the sauce on top, adding a generous amount of cheese to both. She pulled out the salad she’d already cut up and split it into two bowls, then carried it all over to the table. There were stacks of books and reports everywhere, so she set the plates down on the counter so she could unload