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deeper emotion Ivan could only guess at, and damn her, but he wanted to guess more than he should, “that you’re completely insane.”
    “Not at all,” he said. He made no further attempt to conceal his temper, and saw her eyes widen slightly at his tone. “What I am is a businessman. And whatever your opinion of my business, I happen to be extremely good at it. You can’t pay for the kind of exposure and reach that today’s kiss brought us. My people think, and I agree, that we’d be foolish not to capitalize on it.”
    But Miranda was shaking her head.
    “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” she said in that upper-crust voice of hers that intrigued him as much as it slapped at him.
    Ivan felt something twist inside of him. He knew what women like her wanted, and it wasn’t a rough, unpedigreed Russian with big fists, no matter how famous he might have become. It was always the same. They wanted the smooth, polished movie star who only pretended to be a tough guy. They wanted the magazine spreads and the glossy premieres. They never wanted any of the darkness beneath, the things he’d done or the places he’d been—and, in fact, usually bolted at the first sight of it.
    “If you would condescend to sit down, Professor,” he said, unable to keep the edge from his voice, “I would be happy to explain it to you.”
    As expected, she looked at him as if she thought he was some kind of wild dog, howling into the night. She settled herself primly on the edge of the nearest sofa, her back straight, her dark red hair in a long, silken tail down her back. Everything about her deliberate, careful posture, he realized as he threw himself on the sofa opposite her, irritated him. Made him feel too big, too wild, too dangerous. Too dirty, too beneath her. Too much.
    Oh, yes ,he thought. She’d pay.
    “Are you trying to provoke me?” His voice was hard, cracking across the lavish table that slouched between them, glass and gold and a riot of fresh flowers in the center. “Is that why you’re acting as if you’ve been thrown into a lion’s den?”
    “I have been,” she replied, her eyes gleaming green with the temper that didn’t—quite—sound in her voice. “Who knows what you might do next? You introduced yourself mouth-first.”
    “Are you claiming what you feel right now is fear?” he asked, almost amused again. Or so he told himself.
    She only glared back at him, clearly unaware that he found her defiance impossibly sexy. He had no intention of sharing that with her. Women like this one already had far too many weapons at their disposal. Why should he hand her another?
    “Your pulse is racing,” he told her softly, as sure of this, of her, as he would have been about any opponent in any ring. He hadn’t lied when he’d told her he was good at what he did. “And your skin is flushed. Your pupils are slightly dilated and you keep worrying your lower lip with your teeth. That is not fear. It is attraction.”
    For a moment she stared at him, aghast. And then Ivan saw that something else move beneath it, that simmering fire that was causing all of this trouble in the first place.
    “You don’t know me well enough to make that determination.” But her voice was far too constricted and she sat even straighter, if possible, and pressed her soft lips into a tight line.
    He wanted to lick her all over, starting there.
    “I don’t need to know you at all.” He shrugged. “I know people, and I know how to read physical tells.”
    She scowled at him. “What do physical tells have to do with anything?” Her hands tightened on her lap, as if she wanted to clench them into fists, but thought better of it at the last moment. “The physical is the least important part of attraction. It’s nothing but smoke and mirrors. The brain is what really matters.”
    He really was amused. Finally. He leaned back against the sofa. “Then, Professor, I am sorry to tell you this, but