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overinflated ego obviously didn’t need any help from her.
    â€˜I didn’t see him. As I said, you were blocking my view of the room.’
    â€˜Unfortunately, I wasn’t blocking his view of you. He now has a picture of us—’ his expression was grim as he watched her ‘—together.’
    As the implications of his words sank home, Evie felt her limbs weaken. ‘Hold on a moment. Are you telling me that some stranger just took a picture of me, naked on the bed?’ Panic and horror rushed up inside her. She hated having her picture taken, even when she was fully clothed, but naked—?
    â€˜I’ve already warned you—I’m not in the mood.’ There was no mistaking the deadly warning in his tone or the tension in his body language. He was a man no one was likely to mess with and Evie felt her mouth dry as her gaze clashed with pitch-black eyes.
    â€˜I’m not in the mood, either,’ she squeaked. ‘And I’m not playing games. How did a photographer get in here? Why would he want to take a photograph of me? What’s he going to do with it?’ Anxiety set her tongue loose but he silenced her with a single searing glance.
    â€˜If you utter one more ingenuous question I just might drop you naked on the street outside. How much did he pay you?’
    Struggling to keep up with his thought process, Evie opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘You honestly think anyone would pay to take a picture of my body? Are you mad?’ Her voice rose. ‘Presumably, you’ve already noticed that I’m not exactly a supermodel! The only way anyone would be interested in looking at me naked is one of those hideous before and after photos. You know— “and this is Evie before she went on the wonder diet and lost twenty kilos.” ’
    His eyes blazed dark with incredulity. ‘Is that all you can think about? Whether the photographer took your good side?’
    â€˜No, because I don’t have a good side! I look the same from every angle, which is why I never let anyone take my photo!’ She’d never before met a man she wanted to kiss and slap at the same time and it was such a shockingly confusing sensation that her head spun. She wanted to defend herself. She wanted to protest that she wasn’t superficial and that having a photograph taken of her naked was right up there with her worst nightmares. It was like being back in the playground.
    Evie the elephant—
    â€˜Wh…what’s he going to do with that photograph?’ She tried to calm herself down with logic and reason. This wasn’t the playground. ‘No one is going to want to look at a picture of me naked. There is no reason anyone would want to publish a picture of me…’ as she stared into his taut, handsome face, her voice faded to a horrified whisper ‘…but there’s every reason why they’d publish a picture of you .’ And she was in that picture. Suddenly, everything was clear. She thought of all the vile, degrading ‘kiss and tell’ stories she’d read. ‘Oh, my God—’
    Rio was watching her, his mouth tight. ‘How much did he pay you?’
    â€˜Nothing! I don’t know anything about this! I’m as innocent as you are.’ But she could tell he didn’t believe her and what she saw in those glittering black eyes was so terrifying that she wanted to confess everything on the spot. Because his expression was so scary, she looked at his mouth instead and suddenly all she was thinking about was that scorching kiss. Where had he learned to kiss like that?
    â€˜Innocent girls don’t lie in wait, naked, on a guy’s bed.’
    â€˜I wasn’t lying in wait! How could you even think that? I’ve been kicked out of my flat and I had nowhere to go last night and—’ Evie thought about the sequence of events. Carlos had offered her the use of the room. When