The Russian's Furious Fiancee Page 0,37
afraid of you! And you flatter yourself to think that you have that kind of power over me.”
He looked behind her and shook his head one more time. “We need to have this conversation in a more private atmosphere.” He stood up and came around the table. “Come along,” he said quickly and took her hand, practically pulling her out of the restaurant.
He stopped briefly to speak with the manager who nodded quickly and hurried off to do whatever it was that Damon had ordered him to do.
She didn’t like the confident look that had come over him a few moments ago. It didn’t bode well for her confidence. Besides, where had her plan gone awry? She’d determined to be cool, calm. To face him with logic and sincerity and try to help him with his problem of finding an acceptable wife while relieving herself of the burden of paying him back all the money he’d donated to the recreation center. “Where are we going? I’m not going back to your place with you!”
He stopped outside the restaurant, smiling briefly while his driver pulled up to the curb. The manager hurried out with a large bag that he quickly handed to Damon’s driver.
Damon looked behind him and then back to her wide, wary eyes. “As much as I’d like to take you back to my place, we both know where that will end up and I made a promise to myself to slow down for your benefit.”
“My benefit?”
He nodded curtly and waved to the open door to the back of the limousine. “Get in the car or I’m going to kiss you in front of all those curious people over there, some of which I’m guessing are paparazzi and would love a picture of the two of us in a passionate embrace. Wouldn’t that make headlines on all the tabloids? ‘Daughter of local business man making out with out of town tycoon’?” He let that headline sink in for a moment before he said, “Has a nice ring to it since it’s true.”
Eva glanced around at the group of people huddled near the entrance to the restaurant and sighed, realizing that he was right. The crowd did look like paparazzi, or at a minimum, celebrity hounds which were just as bad because they stood outside of restaurants and took pictures of everyone, and then sold them to whatever tabloid paid the highest price. They had no loyalty to one tabloid or another so whichever could come up with the raunchiest headline would pay the most. Images of her in Damon’s arms in the past caused her to cringe at the idea. They wouldn’t need to fabricate anything raunchy because Damon did things to her, made her feel things that were decidedly raunchy and naughty.
“Good grief,” Eva groaned and ducked into the back of the black limousine. She quickly slid over to the far side of the vehicle, trying to get as far away from Damon as possible on the soft, black leather seats. “Why do you always need to threaten me? Why can’t you just ask me politely?”
He got in beside her and slammed the door shut before turning to glance at her. “Because you don’t respond quickly enough.”
“How would you know? You’ve never tried it.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out of the window, refusing to look at him. “Would you ask the driver to take me home?”
“We’re going to finish this conversation.”
Gone was her objective to be polite and diplomatic. That was impossible with this man! “The one where you insult me and tell me I’m a liar? Or the one where you ignore everything I say because it isn’t what you want to hear?”
She didn’t turn her head, but hoped that her words dug in to that enormous ego of his. Unfortunately, she should have known better than to leave him unattended. There was a moment of silence before she felt strong arms on her upper arms. Suddenly, she was picked up and plunked down right in his lap with one of his arms around her back and the other holding her legs to the side. “That’s better,” he said. “Now we can talk.”
“Let go of me,” she demanded, starting to struggle, but he was too fast and too strong.
His hand grabbed both her wrists and held her steady. “Now, we’re going to talk. And you’re going to be honest with me so we can move past this futile resistance you have to