Ines, who had been frozen in a state of pure, scarlet-red mortification, found her own hands, which had been pressed to her burning face, slowly lowering.
The sight of his amusement, of his smile, did something strange to her. It vanquished her shame.
Her embarrassment, which had been a raging inferno, cooled, replaced by a spark of mortification.
She lunged.
It was not a graceful movement. It was a sudden, furious, cat-like snatch.
"Hey!" Carcel yelped, genuinely surprised as her small, fast hands clamped onto the stack of papers he was holding.
"What a man you are!" she hissed, her voice a low, scandalized whisper as she yanked the pages from his grasp. She pulled them back, clutching the entire, incriminating stack to her chest, as if it were a shield. She was breathing heavily, her eyes blazing, her face still a beautiful, furious shade of pink.
