‘You should smile more often, it changes your face completely,’ he murmured. Then, as she deliberately clamped her mouth tight shut, erasing all traces of her earlier warmth, he pulled out the chair opposite and sat down, reaching for his wine glass. ‘So what were you thinking about?’

Caught off balance, Georgia found that the words were out before she had time to form them fully in her mind.

‘Oh, I was just realising how much you reminded me of my father.’

‘Ah.’ Lucas leaned back in his chair, dark eyes fixed on her face with an unnerving intensity. ‘And is that what put that look on your face?’

‘I-what look?’

‘That “I would rather be anywhere else than here” expression.’

‘Don’t be silly!’ Had she really given so much away? ‘I mean, you know perfectly well why I’m here!’

‘Do I?’ The questioning lift to one dark eyebrow matched the sardonic note in his voice.

‘Of course you do! After all, you’re here for much the same reason.’

‘I’m here to take part in an auction that’s supposed to be a bit of fun, and by doing so help a charity that I—’

‘Which is my aim too.’

‘Really?’

The long, powerful body looked indolently relaxed in his chair, but the watchful darkness of his gaze, with his eyes slightly narrowed, and the restless tapping of one strong hand on the immaculate white linen of the tablecloth, told a very different story.

‘Then why do I feel that there’s some hidden agenda in all this?’

‘Hidden agenda? Oh, really, Mr Mallory!’

‘Lucas,’ he corrected with a soft forcefulness that warned her he would allow for no prevarication.

‘Lucas,’ Georgia amended unwillingly.

His name sounded strange, alien on her tongue, and she had an unpleasant, unnerving feeling of things slipping out of her control.

This was not at all how she had planned that the evening would go. Not that she had really thought beyond the actual auction, she admitted to herself with uncomfortable honesty. She had been determined to be the highest bidder, to secure Lucas Mallory as her ‘slave’ for a day, but after that it had all been vague, to say the least.

One thing she had obviously not taken into account was the part that Lucas himself would play in all of it.

‘There is no hidden agenda, no matter what crazy ideas your over-active imagination has come up with. Like you, I simply came here to support the charity, enjoy a meal and bid in the auction.’

‘And that’s the part that intrigues me,’ Lucas inserted smoothly, throwing her off balance once more. ‘It’s obvious that you haven’t entered into the light-hearted spirit of things like everyone else here. There seems to be a touch of.’

He paused, deliberately appearing to choose his words with infinite care.

‘Of desperation about the way you’re behaving.’

‘Are you implying that the only way I can get a man is to buy one?’

Her voice was too sharp, too high-pitched, giving too much away.

‘On the contrary, I’d have to be completely blind and all sorts of a fool to think any such thing. A woman with your looks would have no need of any such behaviour.’

‘If you think flattery will win me over, you couldn’t be more wrong!’

‘It isn’t flattery, and you know it.’

The indolent pose had been abandoned and he was leaning forward now. The restless movement of his hand had stilled, and one long finger was extended emphatically in order to reinforce his point.

‘You’re a spectacularly beautiful woman. You have style and money of your own. Your clothes would tell me that even if I hadn’t just heard the outrageous amount you bid for my services. My services,’ he repeated with a dangerous edge to his voice that made her heart jerk uncomfortably. ‘You didn’t even look at anyone else.’

The knots into which Georgia’s nerves had twisted tightened painfully as she looked into his black, coldly probing eyes. How did he know that she had shown nointerest in any of the other ‘lots’? Had he been watching her before she had even been aware of him?

‘Which begs the inevitable question—why me? What is it that I can offer you that others can’t?’

‘Well, it’s perfectly simple.’ Georgia snatched at the opening he had given her with a rush of relief. ‘Really, Mr—Lucas—you’ve built this up out of all proportion. I have a rather special party coming up soon, and I need an escort. I don’t happen to have a man in my life at the moment, so when I heard of the auction it seemed too good an opportunity to miss.’

It was half the truth after all, and it sounded perfectly reasonable—to her own ears at least. So why was he looking so sceptical, as if he didn’t believe a word she had said?

‘I mean, they were offering a man’s services for twenty-four hours, and that was all that I needed. And as for the reasons why I chose you, I’m afraid you’ve rather flattered yourself on that score. There was nothing personal in it at all. I simply wanted to give as much as possible to the charity fund. After all, I can afford it. You just happened to be top of the bill.’

Deliberately she made the words sound cold and impersonal, insulting in their objectivity, and she knew that they had struck home as she saw his head go back sharply.

‘It wasn’t that I chose you. It could have been anyone.’

He didn’t look convinced, damn him, but that was all she was prepared to say. Deep down, she had to admit that she was beginning to wish that she had chosen someone else, or had never had this idea in the first place.

‘Any man would have done.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Lucas drawled, lacing the words with silky cynicism. ‘Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t exactly believe you.’

‘Don’t exactly believe’! The arrogance of the man! She’d been warned strongly enough by Kelly, but until now she hadn’t really believed that he could be quite as bad as he was painted. Now she saw he was all of that, and more.

‘I realise that it must be difficult for you to believe that any woman would be able to resist your muchvaunted charms!’ she flung at him, unable to keep her temper under control any longer. ‘But, believe me, such a woman does exist! I want you to understand once and for all that any arrangement between us would have to be strictly business and nothing more.’

Georgia didn’t know if it was devilish amusement or black anger that twisted Lucas’s mouth sharply. She found herself unable to interpret his reaction as his dark head inclined in a gesture that might have been agreement, or something very different.

‘Strictly business.’

‘I want nothing more from you than your time and your—’

Hastily she caught herself up, painfully aware of the fact that she had been about to say ‘your body’. She could just imagine the interpretation he might put on that.

‘And your presence as my escort to the party. Is that clear?’

‘Perfectly.’ Lucas’s tone matched hers in its clipped coldness—matched and outstripped it by a mile as it dripped icy condescension as he added, ‘Though why you need to emphasise that point is beyond me.’

‘What?’ It was as if his words had been an actual, physical slap in the face, leaving her gasping with shock as he got to his feet with leisurely grace. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No?’

When he smiled like that, for all that the room was packed with people, Georgia suddenly felt as isolated and afraid as if she had been alone with him on some dark and deserted street.

Those black eyes held her hazel ones mockingly as he reached into the inner pocket of his elegant dinner jacket and pulled out a slip of white card.

‘Then let me spell it out. You have no need at all to fear that our relationship will be anything other than the “strictly business” deal you’re so determined to insist on. Because, you see, if I did want anything more personal—more intimate—then, believe me, you would be the last woman on earth I would choose.’