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to be afraid of. It’s going to be all right…“
    „Will you stop talking to me as if I were an hysterical sheep or something!“ Alina exploded. „I’m not afraid of you, I
    ’m simply trying to tell you I’m not interested in an affair with a man I’ve barely met and with whom I’ve exchanged
    nothing but arguments!“
    „You knew me well enough to take the risk of using my name to sweet-talk Vittorio Molina into having those
    documents filmed.“ He grinned engagingly.
    „That’s got nothing to do with it! I’d have done just about anything to get hold of a copy of those letters! And if
    you’re suggesting I should be willing to go to bed with you in order to repay you, you’re out of your mind!“
    „You just said you’d do just about anything to get hold of them….“ he taunted lightly, confidently.
    „It’s much too late to convince me I need to go to bed with you in order to get them. I’ve already got my hands on
    them. The first you’re going to know of the contents of that film is when I publish my rebuttal in the Journal of
    Renaissance Notes and News!“
    „By that time I won’t care about your rebuttal. I’ll have you safely in my bed.“
    She shook her head disdainfully. What was the matter with him? Didn’t he know how to take no for an answer? „I
    meant it, Jared,“ she told him steadily. „You’re not going to be allowed to disrupt my life. No man is. I've got
    everything I want, and there’s no room for an affair with you.“
    For the first time she saw a flicker of doubt in the green gaze.
    „Are you,“ he asked very carefully, „trying to tell me there’s someone else?“
    „A whole roomful of someone elses,“ she retorted. „Didn’t you see that tonight? I get all the masculine attention I
    need or want, Jared.“
    He went very still. „You’re not in love with any of the men who were here tonight I would have known!“
    „I love them all.“ She smiled easily. „And they love me.“
    „Don’t you dare try to tell me you’ve been to bed with any of them! I’d have known, dammit! Oh, I saw all those
    charming good-night kisses, but that’s all they were. There wasn’t a male in the group who’s getting any more man a
    good-night kiss from you!“
    „I’ll grant you that,“ she agreed lightly, slipping out of his slackened grip and stepping just out of reach. „And
    that, too, is precisely the way I want it Everything in my life is precisely the way I want it I’ve worked hard to make it
    that way.“
    „And a serious commitment to one man doesn’t fit into your gracious, superficial, courtly little world, is that it?“ He
    searched her face so intently that Alina experienced another little shock of guilt As if she was deliberately demolishing
    the private fantasy he’d come here tonight hoping to find.
    „Serious commitments, as I’ve learned the hard way, have a habit of dissolving overnight No, Jared, I’m not
    looking for a serious commitment Not anymore. That was a stage I went through in my twenties. I’m over it now.“
    His face softened as he observed the remoteness in hers. „Tell me about it,“ he said.
    She quirked an eyebrow, stooping gracefully to pick up a couple of empty glasses. Deliberately she started toward
    the kitchen, aware that he was following her. „Confession time?“ she murmured. „I tell you about my great
    disillusionment and you tell me about yours?“
    „Why not? It’s as good a place to start talking as any.“
    She swung around in the kitchen doorway, and he nearly collided with her. „You’re serious, aren’t you?“
    „Very.“
    Something in him tugged at her, filled her with a hopeless sense of loss. Which was utterly crazy. She’d made her
    decision and she intended to stick to it Alina lifted her chin in unconscious defiance. „I will try to explain this in the
    simplest possible terms, Jared. I was married three years ago to a handsome, charming, brilliant professor of
    twentieth-century