Unscripted Seduction - Chapter 4
'That sounds suspiciously like a threat.’
Damian emerged from the shadowed corridor ahead with maddening calm, one shoulder brushing the wall as though he had all the time in the world and she was the one making a spectacle of herself.
‘It’s an astute observation,’ he said, his dark gaze settling on her with surgical precision, ‘although whether it is so received is, I imagine, a different story.’
Ama arched a brow. ‘Everything with you comes back to stories, doesn’t it?’
His eyes narrowed a fraction. ‘Ah…there it is.’
‘What?’
‘The cliché.’ He kept coming until there were only a few feet between them, the cold air from the house lifting the loose ends of her hair against her throat. ‘The woman sent to manage the difficult writer making some tired remark about how he sees life through narrative. I’m almost disappointed you didn’t mention tortured genius while you were at it.’
She smiled without warmth. ‘We can waste time trading insults if you like, but I asked my driver to come back in two hours, and I’m not leaving without what I came for.’
That made his gaze drop…almost insultingly slow, assessing a problem he hadn’t expected to come packaged in linen trousers, sharp heels and a mouth that kept daring him to lose patience.
It should’ve infuriated her outright.
Instead, to her deep annoyance, she caught the first unmistakable flicker of something hotter beneath the contempt. A flash in his eyes. Gone quickly, but not before it registered in her own body, leaving a definite frisson behind.
‘Two whole hours?’ he drawled.
The rough texture of his voice dragged a line of shivers over her skin, and she hated that he might have seen it. Hated more that she couldn’t be certain he hadn’t caused it on purpose.
‘Or,’ she snapped, ‘we can be done in ten minutes.’ Ama let her gaze skim over him in return, measured and cool. ‘It entirely depends on how efficient you are. Or if your stamina is up to it.’
Sweet Lord, did she just pull a double entendre out of her back pocket?
For the first time, something almost human moved at the corner of his mouth. Something more dangerous than a smile. The suggestion that one might happen under the right provocation.
‘With a line like that,’ he said softly, ‘you should be careful I don’t start overestimating you.’
‘And with a line like that, I should probably lower my expectations now and spare us both the disappointment.’
He gave a quiet huff that might have been amusement reluctantly dragged into existence. ‘You’re
very sure of yourself for someone who’s been on the ground in Ghana what, five minutes?’
That he knew about her recent arrival disarmed her. But she shrugged it off. ‘Long enough to know Obibini has a flagship script with missing pages, a crew losing confidence and a writer who thinks petulance is a creative process.’
His face hardened again so quickly it felt like a correction. ‘Be very careful.’
‘Why? You’ll slam another door in my face?’
‘I might be tempted to improve on that.’
Ama held his gaze, refusing to move even as something taut and volatile gathered in the space between them. He was taller up close than he had looked at the threshold. Broader too. Not soft or polished in the way money often made men. There was something lean and dangerous about him, as though all that control had been lashed down over a temper with teeth.
And still, maddeningly, awareness pulsed under her irritation like a second heartbeat.
Her phone vibrated again in her bag. She ignored it.
‘So let’s stop circling each other,’ she said. ‘You don’t want me here. I don’t particularly want to be here either. But the project is bleeding, Damian, and unless you’ve suddenly decided you’d like your name attached to a spectacular flop, you need to tell me what the hell is going on.’
He looked at her for a long moment, expression unreadable now, all that heat shuttered away beneath something colder.
‘What’s going on,’ he said, ‘is that everyone around this film has started mistaking urgency for insight. Pages arrive when they are ready. Not when frightened executives develop ulcers.’
‘Ashon Biney doesn’t get ulcers. He gives them.’
That almost got her another not-smile.
‘Then perhaps you should all be grateful I’m doing the difficult part.’
‘The difficult part,’ Ama repeated, ‘being what? Sulking in a mansion until the script writes itself?’
His eyes flashed.
There. Finally.
She took one step closer.
‘What exactly is this about?’ she asked, her voice lower now, sharper, each word deliberate. ‘What are you afraid of? Writer’s block? Or is it something more disturbing?’