Michelle Reid Collection

Michelle Reid Collection Michelle Reid Michelle Reid is a bestselling Modern author, loved for her intensely passionate romances.Containing a winning combination of 18 glamorous, exciting and sophisticated stories, this collection is set to become a firm reader favourite. Includes…LOVE’S REVENGE - The Italian’s Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian’s Blackmailed BrideHOT-BLOODED HUSBANDS - The Sheikh’s Chosen Wife / Ethan’s Temptress Bride / The Arabian Love-ChildMISTRESS MARRIED! - The Mistress Bride / The Spanish Husband / The Bellini BrideITALIAN DECEPTION -The Salvatore Marriage / A Sicilian Seduction / The Passion BargainBRIDAL BARGAINS - The Tycoon’s Bride / The Purchased Wife / The Price of a BrideGOLD RINGS -Gold Ring Of Betrayal / The Marriage Surrender / The Unforgettable Husband About the Author MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without and produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning. Exotic Affairs The Mistress Bride Michelle Reid The Spanish Husband Michelle Reid The Bellini Bride Michelle Reid Bridal Bargains The Tycoon’s Bride Michelle Reid The Purchased Wife Michelle Reid The Price of a Bride Michelle Reid Italian Deception The Salvatore Marriage Michelle Reid A Sicilian Seduction Michelle Reid The Passion Bargain Michelle Reid Hot-Blooded Husbands The Sheikh’s Chosen Wife Michelle Reid Ethan’s Temptress Bride Michelle Reid The Arabian Love-Child Michelle Reid Love’s Revenge The Italian’s Revenge Michelle Reid A Passionate Marriage Michelle Reid The Brazilian’s Blackmailed Bride Michelle Reid Rings of Gold Gold Ring of Betrayal Michelle Reid The Marriage Surrender Michelle Reid The Unforgettable Husband Michelle Reid www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) Exotic Affairs The Mistress Bride The Spanish Husband The Bellini Bride Michelle Reid The Mistress Bride Michelle Reid CHAPTER ONE IT WAS getting late. Almost too late to bother going anywhere now. Yet Evie stood staring out at London’s twinkling night skyline without any outward signs of irritation. After all, there was nothing particularly unusual in her lover keeping her waiting like this; he did it all the time—duty being the altar at which he worshipped, usually at the expense of everything else in his life. And that included his woman. Beautiful though she might be, special though he might insist she was to him, Evie knew she would always have to take second place to what was really important in his life. So, like some priceless piece of life-size porcelain draped in sensual blood-red silk, she stood there in front of the drawing-room window in his very luxurious penthouse apartment—and waited. She waited for her man as she had been waiting for the last forty-five minutes now, calmly, patiently. Or so it might seem, for it wasn’t in her nature to show what she was really feeling—a habit drummed into her by a very strict upbringing. But only fools took that calmness at its serene-faced value. Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah was nobody’s fool, but he wasn’t here to note the tell-tale signs to Evie’s real mood. And the one person who was attempting to keep her company rarely lifted his eyes high enough to read those signs. He stood by the white marble fireplace with his hands quietly folded across his robed front and his tongue wisely silent, all attempts at polite conversation abandoned long ago, when apologetically late had become unforgivably late. He caught her taking a quick glance at her slender gold wristwatch, though. ‘I am certain he cannot be many more minutes, Miss Delahaye,’ Asim assured her with that quietly soothing diplomatic voice of his. ‘Some things are, I am afraid, unavoidable, and a telephone call from his revered father is most definitely one of those things.’ Or a call from New York, Paris or Rome, Evie silently tagged on. The Al Kadah business interests were far-flung and varied. The fact that Raschid, as his father’s only son, now shouldered the burden for most of those interests since the old man’s minor heart attack last year meant that Evie was seeing less and less of Raschid—her position in the pecking order being as low as it was. A sigh whispered from her. The kind of sigh she would normally only allow herself when she was sure she was alone. But tonight was different. Tonight she was fretting over a very worrying problem of her own, and she could have done without the added aggravation of a long wait like this when she had, in truth, had to force herself into coming here at all tonight. Because she knew that Raschid was not going to like what she had to tell him. In fact, she could positively say that he was going to hate it. Oh, hell, Evie thought heavily, and was just in the process of lifting a decidedly shaky hand to cover the throbbing ache that was taking place behind her eyes when a door at the far end of the room suddenly opened. The raised hand paused then snapped downwards to form a small fist at her side, her body tensing fractionally as she felt the full stinging impact of Raschid’s sharp golden gaze lancing into her slender spine. A taut silence prevailed as Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah paused in the doorway to his own sumptuous cream and gold living room while sharp shrewd eyes quickly assessed the mood of the room’s two occupants. The arrow-straight set of Evie’s spine was, to him, eloquent, his servant’s clear relief at his arrival profound. Grimacing slightly in acknowledgement of both, Raschid dismissed the other man with a silent gesture of his head. But the look in Asim’s dark eyes spoke volumes as he walked towards him. ‘You are in deep trouble, Sheikh,’ those wise old eyes told him. ‘The lady is not happy.’ Asim left them alone with a rather sardonic bow of respect. Which left only Evie, who was taking her time in turning to face him—a message in itself that he completely misread because he was expecting to see anger, so anger was what he saw in the slow, stiff movement of her body. Yet, despite her expected irritation and his own weary mood after having just had to endure one of the worst telephone conversations of his entire life with his father, despite the lateness of the hour, and everything else that seemed to be conspiring against him in an effort to turn his complicated life into absolute turmoil—despite all of that, when their eyes actually met down the length of the beautiful white and gold room there was a single sweet moment when everything came to a delicious standstill for both of them. Evie because she was being assailed by that hot, tight burst of sexual awakening that was always her first response to this man. And Raschid because his own response to Evie was no different at all. The air between them began to pulse, Raschid’s eyes darkening with a very possessive sense of pleasure as he stood taking in the shattering impact of Evie’s beauty, framed as it was by the darkness outside his apartment window. So tall, those glittering eyes measured. So incredibly slender yet so beautifully rounded in all the right places. The whole person so inherently sensual to this man who knew every inch of her as intimately as he knew himself. Skin he knew was as smooth as satin seemed to shine like a pearl against the draping of wine-red silk. Her wonderful hair shone like a coronet of pure gold that had been sleekly contained to frame the most delicately perfect face he had ever seen in his life. Perfect bone structure, perfect nose, perfectly seductive heart-shaped mouth—and those wonderful cold-cut lavender-blue eyes that, even in anger, could not quite disguise what was happening to her as she stood there gazing back at her opposite in every way. For where her skin was pale his was dark, as dark as lovingly cared for wood that had been honed and planed and carefully polished to create the most exotically beautiful male structure Evie had ever set eyes upon. And if she was tall then he was taller, wider, stronger—tougher. His hair was a smooth, slick, uncompromising black, cut to perfection to make the best of his lethally attractive face—a face with a superbly sculpted long thin nose, acutely defined sensual mouth—and eyes like liquid gold that easily countered cold-cut lavender-blue by seeming to induce her to dive right in. Opposites—complete and utter opposites. One as English as afternoon tea, the other as Arabian as a Bedouin warrior. Two years they had been together—two years—and the very air between them could still crackle with that hot, tight sizzle of a fierce sexual awakening that was as strong now as it had been when it began. But then, it had had to be, or the relationship would not have survived the disapproving rumblings across two very proud cultures. ‘My apologies.’ Raschid spoke at last and, like the eyes, his voice was so golden it slid over the senses like warm dark honey. ‘I have just this moment returned from my embassy.’ Which accounted for his eastern attire, Evie assumed as she ran her cool eyes over the long straight white tunic he was wearing beneath a dark blue, loosely flowing top robe. Though he had delayed long enough to remove his headgear, she noted as she watched a small grimace touch the moulded shape of his mouth at her continuing silence. ‘You’re angry with me.’ Dryly he stated the obvious. ‘No,’ Evie countered. ‘Bored.’ ‘Ah,’ he drawled. ‘In one of those moods, are we?’ Stepping further into the room, he closed the door. ‘What would you like me to do?’ he enquired, ever so politely. ‘Grovel at your beautiful feet?’ Which was his own unique brand of sarcasm, Evie made rueful note. Quite deliberately she took the words at their face value. ‘Right now, I would much rather you feed me,’ she replied. ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast this morning, and it is now…’ she paused to glance at her watch ‘…almost nine o’clock.’ ‘So, you do want me to grovel,’ he assumed from all of that, not in the least bit fooled by her cold manner. What he wasn’t seeing was the anxiety lurking behind the coldness—thank goodness—because now that she actually had him here in the flesh Evie had cravenly decided she needed time before she said what she had to say to him. So her barely perceptible shrug sent one of his sleekly defined black silk brows arching, and in two very economical and outwardly innocent gestures war between them was declared. It was not a new aspect of their relationship. In fact the whole foundation of it had been built on a refusal on both parts to pander to the arrogance of the other. Evie refused to pander to his god-like ego and Raschid refused to pander to her ice-princess image. ‘I have responsibilities,’ he clipped out. ‘Really?’ Evie drawled. His eyes began to spark. ‘My time is not always my own to do with as I please.’ ‘So it didn’t please you to keep me waiting for almost an hour?’ Her turn to use sarcasm, his to respond—or not—depending on his mood. What he chose to do was to begin walking towards her with the sleek soft tread of a predator ruthlessly stalking its prey. Her nerve-ends began to tighten, sending out electric signals to all parts of her body as she watched him grow in height, in power, in skin-flaying mastery the closer he came to her. The man was sheer poetry in motion. So lean and lithe and dark and deliciously dangerous that, by the time he came to a stop mere inches away from her, the breath had completely seized in her chest, and tiny tight tingles of a very familiar excitement were beginning to shimmer through her blood. And this, Evie told herself helplessly, was why she could not bear to consider the prospect of giving up this man. He touched parts of her no other living being had ever touched. Liquid gold eyes held iced blue in challenge. A hand with long, lean brown fingers that knew how to be cruel if the moment presented itself came up to take hold of her tilted chin. ‘Word of warning,’ Raschid murmured softly. ‘I am in no mood for temperament tonight. So be wise, my darling, and drop the disgruntled act.’ ‘But I am disgruntled.’ Evie immediately defied the warning. ‘You treat me like a lackey and I don’t like it.’ ‘Because I arrive late once in a while?’ ‘You arrive late more often than you arrive early,’ she grimly pointed out. To her annoyance, his mouth twitched, an unexpected dash of wicked amusement entering the battle. ‘And aren’t you ecstatic that I am such a latecomer, hmm?’ he countered lazily. It took her a few moments, but when his meaning did manage to sink in Evie sighed, wrenching her chin from his grasp as a wave of pink ran into her cheeks. ‘We weren’t talking about your sexual prowess!’ she admonished. ‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘That is a great shame.’ ‘Raschid!’ Evie flashed him a look of irritation. ‘I’m not—!’ In the mood for this, she had been going to snap at him—but he silenced her with a kiss, his arms snaking around her body and crushing her against him while his arrogant mouth took burning possession of hers. But the real crime here was that she didn’t attempt to make a protest—didn’t even pretend to struggle but simply dived right in there with him. She couldn’t stop herself. For Raschid tapped a hunger inside her that had not abated in two long years of being fed exclusively by him. Two years involved in a relationship that had kept their two families pulsing in the background in simmering disapproval, and had kept the world’s tabloids waiting with bated breath to see which one of them would eventually end it. Because it had to end some time, everyone knew that. The heir to a wealthy sheikhdom was expected to marry one of his own one day. While Evie had already blotted her copybook once by turning her back on a marquis to be where she was now. But the pressure was still on for her to do the right thing and marry into her own class—outdated, outmoded and in danger of extinction though that class might be. But it was the undisputed knowledge that the end was as inevitable as night following day that helped keep their relationship this hot and this fevered. ‘So, do we eat or do we continue to fight?’ Raschid murmured as his kiss-warmed mouth lifted away from hers. For ‘fight’ read ‘love’, Evie ruefully translated, and knew without a single doubt which one she wanted tonight. Needed, she thought tragically—oh, how she needed him tonight! She needed his strength, his dark and driving sensuality. She needed to soak herself in him, drown herself in him—die in him. For this one night she needed to pretend that nothing was different between them. Be the woman he knew and loved so that he could be the man she loved so desperately. For he was truly all man, this Arabian lover of hers. A man who could make love with just his eyes—as he was doing to her right now. Teasing, knowing, lazily seducing, and so indolently aware of his power over her senses that he didn’t need to read the darkened look in her eyes to know how much she wanted him. ‘Are you wearing anything at all underneath this?’ she asked, playing for time by stroking her palms along the lean, tight contours she could feel beneath the smooth white tunic. ‘Why don’t you open it and take a look?’ he invited, and began nibbling at the corner of her mouth in encouragement while his fingers played tantalisingly with the thin straps that were holding up her dress. ‘And have the world and his wife witness your strip show?’ she mocked, referring to the fact that they were standing in front of a sheet of well-lit glass through which anyone with reasonable eyesight from Battersea to Westminster would be able to see what they were doing. His solution to that was to reach over her shoulder. A moment later heavy gold silk brocaded curtains came swishing across the glass, smoothly closing down her options so she had nothing left but a straight choice between demanding he feed her stomach or feed her desire. Evie would have had to be really stupid not to know what his preference was since it was pushing so prominently against the tingling wall of her stomach, but she also knew he was going to leave the final choice to her. He knew she was angry with him for keeping her waiting. He knew that if he tried to make love to her now without her say-so she was likely to start spitting all kinds of accusations at him about the way he used her. He also knew that, starving for food or not, in the end she would not be able to resist his seduction. For her own body was also showing the signs of a craving it had never been able to suppress in his vicinity. ‘You are so arrogant,’ she complained in a last-ditch attempt to hold on to some pride. He just grinned, all flashing white teeth and pure male confidence. ‘Say it,’ he prompted, ‘or I shall call for Asim to bring the car round.’ On a driven groan of angry frustration, her hands came up between their bodies and took hold of two fistfuls of his blue outer robe. She used it to tug his mouth back to her own. But she punished him by sinking her teeth into his lower lip before she gave him her complete surrender by fusing her hungry body to his. An hour later Evie came out of a thoroughly satiated daze to find Raschid lying beside her in an indolent sprawl of naked limbs. His eyes were closed, his mouth slightly parted, his breathing a steady rise and fall of a smooth dark gold breastplate liberally smattered with crisp black body hair. Evie smiled to herself, enjoying the opportunity to lie here like this simply feasting herself on him while he didn’t know she was doing it. In fact, looking at a naked and sleepy Raschid had to be one of the best pastimes she had ever experienced. He had a way of lying there that she found unbearably sexy. Arrogant in his nakedness, conceited about his own beauty, so uninhibited in his presentation of his silky dark self that if an army of reporters had suddenly burst into this room he wouldn’t have dreamed of covering himself up! ‘I need food,’ she announced. ‘Pick up the phone and call Asim,’ he advised, refusing to lift himself out of his satiated stupor. On a sigh Evie levered herself up on an elbow then stretched across him for the telephone. Her hair, so carefully worked into a sleekly sophisticated pleat not long ago, was now hanging in a curtain of silk that trailed across his cheek as she talked to his personal servant. ‘Just a cold sandwich will do,’ she was saying when Raschid’s hand came up, reaching for the trailing hair to gently comb it behind her ear. ‘No. He will eat what I choose to order since he kept me waiting so long,’ she said, glancing down to send Raschid a defiant smile. ‘And I may just die, Asim, if I have to wait until you cook me something,’ she concluded before replacing the phone. Those liquid eyes were looking at her in a way that had the muscles around her heart tightening like a coiled spring. He was so beautiful, this man, Evie thought helplessly. His soul talked to her soul in a way she knew she could never survive without now. ‘Why did you miss out on lunch today?’ he asked gravely, his long lean fingers brushing a tender caress across her delicate cheekbone. ‘I didn’t actually miss out on it,’ she confessed. ‘I just didn’t want to eat what was on offer.’ Raschid frowned. ‘Which was—what?’ ‘Humble pie,’ she replied, and rolled away from him, her sigh as she did so the heavy kind that took all the softness he had just spent the last hour loving into existence right away again. ‘Explain,’ he commanded. Evie got up, as exquisite to look at naked as she was dressed—and not many women could promise that. Reaching down, she picked up the robe she had recently taken from his body and dragged it over her own. It almost buried her, but she still looked fantastic. With a flick of a hand, she released her hair so it tumbled in a tangle of golden silk down her back—then turned to face him. ‘Mother,’ she said. That was all. It didn’t need an explanation. And Raschid didn’t comment, but his expression became grim, and he sat up to run his fingers through his hair in a gesture of weary frustration while she walked off towards his bathroom, trailing the dark blue robe behind her like a queen with her train. The bedroom was a masterpiece of interior design, blending two cultures into one with the very modern western use of pale wood floors and furnishings given a touch of the exotic with jewel-coloured silks and priceless Persian carpets. But the bathroom was sheer Arabian luxury, with bright white and royal blue patterned tile-work covering floors and walls alike. A white enamel sunken tub the size of a plunge pool stood on a dais dead centre of the room. Above it was a dome of mirrored glass that was both wickedly naughty and deliciously decadent. The shower cubical took up enough room for three by normal standards, the gold inlaid double glass doors works of art in themselves. It was the shower that Evie made for, turning on a tap that sent no less than seven power jets of water sluicing around her at the absolute perfect temperature. She stayed in there for ages, aware of Raschid moving around in the other part of the bathroom. Aware also that he hadn’t come to join her here in the shower because the mood had been ruined. Her mother—his father. It was usually one or the other of them that put this dampener on their pleasure. But there was worse to come, though Raschid didn’t know it yet. Which was why she had walked away just now rather than have it all out with him there and then. Coward, she accused herself. Then grimaced in acknowledgement of that very obvious fact. But it was not going to be easy to say what she had to say, because the world was about to topple down upon them both, and she didn’t know how Raschid was going to react to that. By the time she left the shower, Raschid had left the bathroom, but a turquoise silk caftan had been draped over a stool and she smiled at his thoughtfulness as she dried herself. She had worn it many times before here. It was one among several Raschid had brought her back from his homeland. Pulling it on over her naked body, she released her hair from the simple knot she had fastened it in before going into the shower, and the long mass fell in a slightly damp tangle down almost to her waist. Finger-combing it as she moved, she went back into the bedroom to discover that Raschid had gone from there also. She found him in the living room, standing by the drinks cabinet pouring sparkling water on to freshly squeezed orange juice. Neither of them drank much alcohol, she because she didn’t care for it and Raschid because his religion forbade it. He was dressed, which surprised her. Normally he was hard put to pull on a robe during evenings like this. But that soft checked cotton shirt, buff trousers and casual slip-ons he was wearing on his sockless feet were sending her messages. Raschid was intending to take her home later rather than keeping her here for the night as he usually would. Well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea, Evie told herself heavily when she felt her heart sink in disappointment. For what she had to tell him was going to necessitate some time apart while they both came to terms with what it was going to mean to them. Hearing her come into the room, he sent her a brief smile over his shoulder. ‘Your food has arrived, ma’am,’ he drawled. ‘Now you may feed that other ravenous appetite of yours.’ It was meant as a joke. But Evie couldn’t laugh. Because the moment she glanced across the room to where an elegant soapstone coffee table stood spread out with a cold meal fit for a king her stomach objected. Having gone from clutching at her with a demand to be fed, it was now clutching with sickening dread because she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘Raschid,’ she said huskily. ‘I need to talk to you.’ Glass in hand, he turned, something in her tone perhaps alerting him to trouble, because his eyes had already sharpened. ‘What?’ he demanded. Her throat dried up, her eyes shifting away from him because she knew she couldn’t look at him and say what she had to say. So instead she walked over to the window where she reached out to send the curtain swishing open so she could fix her gaze on something outside while she decided how to begin. A tense silence followed. One where Evie could feel Raschid’s quick mind grinding into action, picking up on the vibrations she was giving off, sorting through them and—belatedly perhaps—realising that all was not well with his lover. After a minute, he put down his glass and walked slowly towards her. He didn’t attempt to touch her—those shrewd instincts of his warning him that she needed her own space. ‘What’s wrong, Evie?’ he prompted soberly. Tears washed across her eyes and stayed there. ‘We have a problem,’ she began huskily—only to go silent again when she found she couldn’t continue. Raschid said nothing, waiting patiently for her to go on. Evie could see his face reflected in the darkened window. He looked grave, the smoothly handsome lines of his features so very still that she knew he had already prepared himself for something dire to come. And, to her wretched despair, she found she couldn’t do it. He was too important to her. She loved him so deeply that she discovered she couldn’t risk the chance of losing him. Not yet, she thought achingly. Please, not yet. ‘My mother wants you to find an excuse not to attend my brother’s wedding,’ she said, dragging the half-truth out from the depths of a real desperation. Another silence. Evie watched that face via its darkened reflection and saw a frown mar its smooth lines. Her heart began to beat with a sickly pump. He wasn’t a fool, this man of hers. His highly tuned instincts where she was concerned had been warning him of something far more disastrous than a silly problem with her mother. Oh, there was truth in the lie, she grimly acknowledged as she stood there waiting for his response. Her mother had spent the whole of their lunch together today telling Evie in no uncertain terms how much she would prefer it if Sheikh Raschid stayed away from Julian’s high-profile wedding in two weeks’ time. ‘The notoriety that the two of you generate is bound to shift emphasis away from the bride and groom and on to yourselves,’ Lucinda Delahaye had predicted. ‘If he had the smallest amount of sensitivity he would have realised that himself and graciously declined the invitation. But since he has no sensitivity I feel it is your place to tell him.’ But, as both Raschid and her mother knew, Evie was not open to that kind of petty manipulation. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have even bothered mentioning such a conversation to Raschid. So, what had been normal about today? she asked herself starkly as she watched that reflected face shift from puzzlement into annoyance. Within minutes of her getting up this morning the whole day had gone rocketing out of control. Since then she’d felt as if she’d been in a car accident, so shocked and dazed that she’d been barely able to function on a normal level. In fact, the whole day had gone by in a fog. Until Raschid had taken her to bed of course, she mused ruefully. There the fog had cleared up remarkably—only to be replaced with a different kind of fog. The glorious fog of loving. Now even that fog had cleared, she noted heavily, and Raschid was standing behind her looking as if she had really let him down after such a tense build-up. Which was, in effect, what she had just done. ‘Is that it?’ he said eventually. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, pitifully aware of the depth of her own wretched cowardice. ‘Then go to hell,’ he murmured succinctly, refusing the request without any compunction. And turned his back on her to walk away. Her heart took a lurching leap to her throat. The way he had said that told her he knew she had just chickened out over something. She turned too, staring anxiously after him as he crossed the room with that long, lithe, graceful stride of his that always set her pulses racing no matter what the mood was like between them. ‘Raschid, you—’ ‘I refuse to discuss it,’ he cut in, sounding annoyed, offended and just downright disgusted, which made Evie wonder how he would have reacted to what she had cravenly backed out from saying. ‘Your mother is not your keeper and she certainly isn’t mine!’ ‘It’s a fair request,’ she said, surprising herself by jumping to the defence of her mother. It seemed that anything was better than confessing the truth, she ruefully acknowledged. ‘You know as well as I do the kind of interest we generate when we go anywhere together. In this case, it has to be Julian and Christina my mother must consider, not your feelings or mine.’ ‘And my father is a very close friend of Christina’s father,’ Raschid coldly countered. ‘In fact, Lord Beverley is almost solely responsible for helping my father overcome some very awkward political and diplomatic obstacles in his quest to reform and modernise my country. I will not offend Christina’s father simply because your mother wants me to.’ The chin was up, Evie noted. The passionate lover was now in full Noble Prince mode. ‘In the face of my father’s failing health,’ Prince Raschid concluded, ‘it is my duty to be there as my father’s representative.’ Duty. Evie knew all about Raschid’s dedication to duty! It was a shame that sense of duty did not extend to encompass the woman who was his lover. ‘So be it,’ she said, suddenly sounding as cold as ever she could sound when she felt like it. ‘But don’t be surprised if I put into place some contingency plans of my own to keep the gossip to its minimum.’ His eyes narrowed on her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Evie shrugged. ‘Duty,’ she quoted right back at him. ‘I have a duty to ensure that my brother and his bride maintain centre stage on the day of their wedding.’ ‘And how do you intend to do that?’ he mocked her. ‘By pretending I don’t exist?’ ‘Would you notice if I did?’ Evie threw back cynically. She could have bitten off her tongue when his sharp eyes narrowed. ‘Was that it?’ he demanded. ‘Was that remark a big hint to what is actually eating at you tonight, Evie?’ He clarified the question. ‘That I don’t give you enough of my attention?’ So he had guessed that she’d just dissembled. Evie smiled to herself and wondered how he would react if she told him he couldn’t be any further from the truth. ‘Would you care that much if it was?’ she countered, throwing him yet another red herring. He didn’t answer—which was, she supposed bleakly, an answer in itself. ‘I’m tired,’ she said wearily. ‘I think I’ll go home…’ Which was just another provoking remark he let float pointedly by him. ‘I have to go away tomorrow,’ he informed her instead. ‘I will be gone for about a week. When I get back I think we need to talk.’ Evie shivered, feeling the icy fingers of a terrible foreboding go trailing down her spine. ‘Fine,’ she said, moving towards the door. He said not a word, but his eyes did as they followed her passage across the room. He was sharp, he was shrewd, he had a mind like a multi-million-dollar computer that was programmed to make very accurate assessments at lightning speed. He knew as well as she knew that there was something going on here that she wasn’t telling him. ‘Evie…’ He was a master of timing, too, Evie tagged on to her list of attributes as she paused in the doorway. She didn’t turn, and the silence between them lengthened like a wire being stretched to its absolute limit. Unspoken emotions beating out a throbbing tattoo that made her want to just break down, right here and now, and sob her wretched heart out. ‘I would care,’ he murmured gruffly. It was too much. On a whisper of silk, Evie turned and ran to him. I love you so very much, she wanted to cry out, but didn’t dare in case the evocative words started the avalanche she knew would bury that love without a single trace. So instead she wrapped her arms around him and buried her misery in the warmth of his solid presence. I’ll tell him after Julian’s wedding, she promised herself weakly. It can easily wait until then… CHAPTER TWO IT HAD been billed as the wedding of the year, and anyone who was anyone was expected to be there to watch Sir Julian Delahaye and Lady Christina Beverley tie the sacred knot: the rich, the famous, titled nobility, not to mention a heavy presence of foreign dignitaries who had flown in from all over the world to be here—out of respect for Christina’s father, whose diplomatic skills had earned him lifelong friends in far-flung places. The weather was glorious, the location a picture-perfect English castle complete with ramparts and moat set in its very own ten-thousand-acre estate right in the heart of Royal Berkshire. You really couldn’t get any more romantic than that. It was no wonder some people were willing to sell their souls to acquire an invitation. Which made Evie very much the odd one out here today, because she would have sold her soul to be anywhere but here. She should, in fact, have been heading up an entourage of six lovely bridesmaids. You could even say that it had been expected of her. But she’d turned the invitation down, upsetting several and annoying many, but… A sigh broke from her—the pair of lavender-blue eyes staring back at her via the dressing-table mirror she was sitting in front of mocking to say the least. She just couldn’t have done it to the happy couple. After all, how much bad luck did you invite on yourself by having the family black sheep play a major role at your marriage? It just wouldn’t do and they all knew it wouldn’t do—which was why Christina’s mother had found it difficult to hide her relief when Evie had turned the request down. But neither did it mean she could escape her duty altogether. As sister to the groom she had an obligation to be here—if only for Julian’s sake. And, black sheep of the family or not, she was not about to disappoint her brother. She loved and respected him too much. So here she was, quietly preparing herself for the event ahead, in the room allotted to her by the Beverley family in the east wing of their beautiful home—very much aware that her mother was doing the same in another room not that far away, because she could feel the waves of resentment reaching out to her through several layers of solid stone. And why was her mother so resentful? Evie asked that pair of eyes in the mirror. Because Lady Lucinda Delahaye had once been thwarted of the chance to put on a day like this for her own daughter when Evie had turned her back on the chance to marry a marquis so she could be with her lover. ‘He won’t marry you!’ her mother had angrily predicted two years ago. ‘He’s an Arab prince for goodness’ sake! And unlike you he will know his duty! When the time comes he will turn his back on you and marry one of his own. You mark my words, Evie. You mark my words.’ Well, she’d marked them all right—and to this very day she was still marking them. Though the moment of their parting now loomed so very large on the horizon that it actually blocked out her view of anything else. Two weeks you’ve had—two long wretched weeks to find enough courage to tell Raschid what he needs to be told, she castigated those mocking eyes in the mirror. And what do you do? You avoid him. You let him fly home to Behran for a week without saying a single thing, then spend the next week not even daring to let yourself see him. Excuses—excuses. Her life recently had become one long round of lying excuses. Another sigh whispered from her, one of those heavy sighs she had caught herself releasing a lot recently. She looked bruised around the eyes, she noticed, even with the very professional job she had done on her make-up. But then, a worry and lack of sleep had a habit of doing that. Coward, she derided those eyes in the mirror. A knock sounding at the door to her room forced her to put her thoughts aside as she turned on her dressing stool to invite whoever was there to come in. The heavy oak door swung smoothly inwards on well-oiled hinges, and her brother Julian stepped into the room. He looked gorgeous, already dressed in his formal grey morning suit with its dashing silver silk waistcoat and cravat. ‘Hi,’ he greeted. ‘How are you feeling?’ ‘It should be me asking you that question,’ Evie smiled. His answering shrug showed that Julian was not in the least bit nervous about what was to come. He loved Christina to distraction and Christina openly adored him. This was no carefully arranged union between two noble dynasties. ‘Mother’s having a panic attack over the state of her hat or some such thing,’ he drawled. ‘So I thought I would come and hide in here.’ ‘You’re welcome,’ Evie murmured, following him with wryly understanding eyes as he went to stand by her window. Their mother could be an absolute tyrant when she was stressed out or angry. Today she would be feeling stressed out, worrying that she didn’t let the family down, that her choice of outfit was absolutely perfect, that she looked exactly what she was—the upper-class super-elegant mother of the handsome baronet groom. ‘I can’t believe they’ve stuck you right out here on the edge of the world,’ Julian complained, checking out the view she had of the stable block that had been temporarily turned into a car park. The vast fifty-bedroom castle had been split into two pieces for the wedding, the east wing housing guests of the groom while the guests of the bride occupied the west wing. The further east you went, the smaller the rooms became until—this one, where the old tester bed almost filled it and the plumbing was antiquated—a message in itself to the dreaded black sheep. Smiling to herself, Evie turned back to the mirror. ‘I have been put here because this is so obviously a single room,’ she explained, using the exact same words Christina’s stiffly smiling mother had used when she’d shown her in here earlier that morning. ‘And I am so obviously a single woman,’ she tagged on in mockery of herself. ‘They’re all such damned hypocrites,’ Julian grunted in disgust. ‘They might disapprove of you and what you do in your private life, but they don’t have to be so obvious about it. I wouldn’t mind,’ he added, ‘but they had the damned barefaced cheek to invite him!’ ‘Not for my benefit.’ ‘No,’ her brother acknowledged grimly. ‘They invited him because they can’t afford to offend him—despite what he is to you.’ ‘And he had the damned bad taste to accept,’ Evie said. ‘Your doing?’ Julian asked. ‘No,’ she denied, her voice cooling considerably because she’d wondered if Julian had been suspecting her of trying to manipulate the situation. ‘Actually, I asked him not to come.’ And he told me to go to hell, she recalled with a weary grimace. Not that she had expected anything less from him. Raschid was arrogant by birth. It was built into his genes to ignore what it did not suit him to see. And refusing to see his presence here today as an embarrassment to her stupid mother was, perhaps, one of his more understandable bouts of blindness. After all who, in this day and age, condemned a man and woman for wanting to be together so long as they were both free and single? Free and single, she repeated wryly to herself. What a worn-out clich?. For there was nothing free in the way she and Raschid conducted their relationship. It had cost them both dearly in family respect and personal privacy. And she hadn’t felt single since the day she met him, which explained why she had put off telling him what she knew she had to tell him one day. But not today, she told herself as she glanced around at her brother. For today belonged to Christina and this precious brother of hers—who was standing there with his back to her, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets in what she considered his disgruntled pose. Which meant he was cross, and she didn’t want him looking cross. She didn’t want him looking anything but happy today—for they would only blame her if he did. ‘Hey,’ she said, getting up to go and link her arm through one of his. ‘Stop grouching,’ she scolded. ‘It spoils your handsome features.’ He turned a rakish grin on her. Her heart swelled to bursting because she so loved this big brother of hers who she knew loved her unreservedly in return. ‘You look stunning,’ Julian murmured softly. ‘I love the dress.’ ‘Thank you,’ she smiled. ‘I bought it specially for the occasion.’ And to make a statement—a rather obvious statement that announced to everyone that, although she was not playing a major role at this wedding, neither was she about to fade into the background as she was sure most of them would prefer her to do. The dress was short and it was clingy, made of a fine silk jersey material that moulded every slender line of her body from shoulder to well above the knee and so left more than enough of her wonderful legs on show. It was also red. A dramatically unapologetic letterbox-red, with a scooped neck, and a thin gold belt that hugged her narrow waistline. On her feet she was wearing very high-heeled strappy gold sandals, and waiting for her on the bed was a tiny bolero jacket in the same red as the dress. Plus her hat—a wide and floppy-brimmed gold gauzy affair, bought to use as a prop to hide her thoughts and feelings beneath while she got herself through what promised to be one hell of an ordeal of a day. ‘They certainly won’t miss the fact that you’re here,’ Julian observed. Her brother was no fool; he knew what she was trying to do here. ‘The wicked lady in red,’ she grinned. ‘I can’t fight them so I have no choice but to join them in condemning myself.’ ‘Will he mind you taking them on in public like this?’ he asked curiously. Evie’s slender shoulders lifted and fell in a gesture of indifference. ‘He may be my lover but he is not my keeper.’ ‘Ah. I scent trouble in the air,’ Julian sighed. ‘Is this his punishment for refusing to stay away?’ She didn’t answer, her hand sliding away from his arm so she could go back to the dressing table and finish getting ready. There was a moment’s silence, the kind taut with words she didn’t want him to utter. ‘Evie—’ ‘No,’ she cut in. ‘Don’t start, Julian. Not today of all days; I’m just not up to it.’ ‘But—’ ‘But nothing,’ she inserted firmly. ‘What goes on between Raschid and myself is our business. Keep out of it.’ ‘Well, that’s telling me,’ he drawled after a moment. ‘Makes me wonder what you told our dear mother…’ ‘Is that why you’re here, Julian?’ she sighed. ‘To find out if it was me who put her in a temper?’ ‘Was it?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t even seen her since she drove me down here this morning.’ ‘And she didn’t have a go at you then?’ ‘We had guests with us,’ Evie explained. ‘That’s it, then.’ Julian nodded sagely. ‘Poor old thing is feeling frustrated because she’s not had a chance to deliver the big lecture.’ ‘You mean the one about nicely brought up young ladies not sleeping with wicked Arabs?’ Evie enquired innocently while applying a touch of mascara to her lashes. ‘She’s such a social snob,’ Julian sighed. ‘Not a social snob, Julian. A cultural snob,’ Evie amended. ‘If she were just a social snob she would be pulling out all the stops possible to get the dreadful Arab to marry me—a genuine prince with more money than sense being better than an impoverished marquis—socially speaking.’ ‘Actually—’ Julian grimaced ‘—I wasn’t referring to that lecture. I was referring to the one about the two of you not showing the family up by openly fawning all over each other today.’ Surprisingly Evie let out a laugh, her eyes suddenly alight with sardonic merriment as she looked at her brother via the mirror. ‘The day hasn’t arrived when you’ll see Raschid fawning over anyone—in public or out of it!’ she said. ‘He’s too damned arrogant. Too aware of his own worth to stoop that low. Odd really,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘that Mother can’t stand the sight of him, because they’re two of a kind in that respect.’ ‘You make it sound as if you dislike the man,’ Julian murmured dryly. Dislike him? She adored him, Evie admitted silently. It was herself she didn’t like very much. ‘He’s great in bed,’ she offered as a light diversion from where this conversation was threatening to lead her. Another knock sounded on her bedroom door then, and both brother and sister turned to watch the door swing open—and their mother step gracefully inside. Tall like themselves, slender and fair like themselves, she looked the most stylish mother-of-the-groom that had ever been presented, in a pale blue and cream suit that shrieked classical Chanel. ‘I thought I would find you here, Julian,’ she said. ‘Your guests are beginning to arrive. And it’s time for you to be taking your place.’ In other words, she wanted to be alone with Evie so she could deliver the expected lecture. Julian opened his mouth to warn her off the idea, felt Evie’s hand give his arm a warning pinch—and reluctantly smothered the urge. He knew as well as Evie did that to upset their mother today of all days was just asking for trouble. So with a shrug and a kiss dropped fondly on Evie’s cheek he took his leave, though he was unable to do it without issuing a warning of his own as he passed by his mother. Not with words, but the cool look in his eyes had his mother’s lashes fluttering downwards and her mouth staying shut as he left, closing the door behind him. The air in the room suddenly felt very frosty. ‘Is that what you’re wearing?’ Lucinda Delahaye enquired. Evie sucked in a deep breath of air then let it out again carefully before replying. ‘Yes.’ Disapproval was rife in the kind of expression her mother had perfected beautifully. ‘It isn’t quite what I would call appropriate, Evie. Couldn’t you have come up with something less—eye catching?’ ‘I promise not to outshine Christina,’ Evie vowed with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. ‘But you look wonderful,Mother,’ she added. ‘The epitome of grace and style in fact.’ ‘Yes…’ Lucinda Delahaye drawled and walked over to her daughter’s wardrobe, leaving that single word to hang in the air between them as a cutting reference to her daughter’s lack of both. Evie looked on mutely as her mother opened the wardrobe door then stood eyeing its few contents in silent disfavour. Evie knew what she was doing, of course; she was searching for an alternative to the red dress—which was why Evie had made sure she had nothing else with her she could wear to her brother’s wedding. She had been through scenes similar to this before, after all. ‘There is nothing here for the grand ball tonight,’ her mother remarked finally. Evie stared across the room at this woman who was her mother—and sadly wondered if she would ever learn to forgive her daughter for falling in love with the wrong man. She supposed not, she conceded bleakly. Especially not while her mother could blind her eyes to the exquisite length of spun gold silk hanging in the wardrobe that had Raschid and the East written all over it. He had brought it back with him from a visit home a couple of months ago. ‘I saw this when I took Ranya shopping, and immediately thought of you,’ he’d explained. Ranya was Raschid’s sister with whom Evie felt very intimate—though she had never so much as clapped eyes on her. But she was the same age as Evie and maybe because of that Raschid talked about her a lot. He admired Ranya’s unquestioning sense of duty—but whether Raschid also admired the way Ranya’s husband kept a mistress tucked away here in London Evie wasn’t sure. He tended to go all stiff and eastern on her when she brought up the subject—usually in the middle of a row—and their rows tended to be about their respective families’ disapproval of their relationship. But the dress really was a sensational creation, made of gossamer-fine pure silk chiffon that seemed to drip to the floor like gold-spangled toffee. Long-sleeved, low-necked and gathered at the waist, it had a way of moving in opposition to her body that was intensely alluring. ‘Don’t be a bore, Mother,’ Evie said wearily, sighing. ‘Skirting around the subject of Raschid is not going to make him go away, you know.’ ‘Then what will?’ Startled because there had been a definite note of wry sardonicism in her mother’s tone then, Evie glanced warily at her—saw the wryness was showing in her eyes as well—and matched it with a similar look of her own. ‘Nothing while I can hardly bear to be apart from him,’ she answered fatalistically. Which made it her mother’s turn to sigh and she walked over to the window to stand, staring bleakly out at the unremarkable view much as Julian had done a few minutes before her. And on a stab of remorse because—again like Julian—Evie did not want to see her mother looking anything but radiant today she went to brush a gentle kiss across her delicately perfumed cheek. ‘I love you, darling,’ she murmured softly. ‘But you love him more.’ Her mother grimaced. There really was no answer to that except the truth and Evie wisely decided to keep that to herself. ‘I promise faithfully,’ she said instead, ‘that I will do nothing today that could embarrass you.’ Her mother nodded, for once taking Evie at her word, and as a gesture of gratitude for that Evie dropped another kiss on her mother’s cheek before she moved over to the bed to collect her bolero. ‘Harry’s here.’ Evie’s fingers stilled on the tiny red jacket. ‘Yes,’ she answered quietly. ‘I know.’ ‘He never did get over you.’ ‘He will,’ she assured her. ‘Given time and the right woman.’ ‘You were the right woman,’ Lucinda turned to flash at her. ‘Have you spoken to him since you jilted him?’ she then asked curiously. ‘I didn’t jilt him!’ Evie denied. ‘He asked me to marry him. I turned him down,’ she snapped, her patience beginning to wear thin. ‘Harry graciously accepted that refusal two years ago—why can’t you do the same thing, Mother?’ ‘Because I still have this picture of the two of you happy together until Sheikh Raschid came along and ruined it!’ ‘He may have ruined your plans,’ Evie said impatiently, ‘but he certainly didn’t ruin mine! I love Raschid!’ She declared her feelings outright. ‘I adore him! I bless each new day that I am allowed to spend in his life! Does that say it clearly enough for you?’ ‘And when the day comes that he no longer wants you in his life?’ her mother challenged, undeterred. ‘What will you have left, Evie, tell me that?’ More than you can envisage right now, Evie thought tragically. ‘Why can’t you just be happy that I am happy?’ she cried. ‘Because you aren’t happy,’ her mother countered. ‘In fact, Evie,’ she added, ‘I would say that recently you have looked anything but happy! Would you like to tell me why that is, considering this wonderful love affair you’re so blissfully involved in?’ It showed? ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, turning away before her mother could read her shock for exactly what it was. ‘No?’ her mother quizzed. ‘Well…’ she began walking back to the door ‘…I suppose we will soon know the truth in that. Just make sure you don’t make too much of your affair with him in front of everyone today,’ she added curtly—which was what she’d really come in here to say in the first place. ‘There will be representatives from all the Arab states present. I don’t want my daughter’s name being bandied around the Middle East as some notoriously loose woman.’ Loose woman? Oh, good grief! Evie watched the door close behind her mother’s retreating back and wanted to throw something after her! But instead she sank down on to the end of the bed and wilted like a weary flower. This, she predicted, was going to be one hell of a day to get through! And not only because of her mother’s stuffy attitude, but because she knew she was going to have to run the gauntlet of all those other disapproving faces that were waiting for her out there today—and that went for Arab and English alike! Damn you, Raschid, she thought. For being who you are and what you are. And damn herself for being who and what she was, she then added heavily. For if only one of them had been a simple nobody, their relationship wouldn’t cause a single bat of a single eyelid! But he had to be the wonderful heir to one of the noblest families in Arabia and she had to be the daughter of one of England’s oldest names. And even those two points together were not worrying enough to excite all the trouble their relationship incited. No, it was the very disturbing fact that the relationship had been standing firm for so long that caused rumblings of discontent on all sides. Rumblings that were in real danger of becoming major eruptions in the near future, Evie mused bleakly. ‘Damn,’ she breathed. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’ And got to her feet so she could finish getting herself ready to face the day. CHAPTER THREE OUTSIDE the magnificent sandstone castle, the sleek lawns running down from the moat to a beautiful natural lake had been taken over by caterers. A giant marquee now obliterated the view of the lake from the castle itself, while inside the grand ballroom had been transformed into a flower-strewn love-bower—just in case the weather decided to turn inclement. But Mother Nature was being very obliging today. The sun was shining, and the soft summer air was heavy with the scent of roses and resonant with the sound of a military brass band playing catchy medleys of popular classics from its allocated corner of the lawn. Roll upon roll of protective green carpet had been laid out across the grass to form walkways from the house to the marquee and marquee to the separate canopy where the marriage itself was to take place in what had to be an inspired piece of forward planning. For, because there were far too many guests to make the use of the Beverleys’ private chapel a viable proposition today, a huge white canvas canopy had been erected and extended right over the top of the old stone archway that formed the entrance to the chapel grounds. Just inside the arch a stone altar had been erected. Beyond that the brightly coloured stained-glass window of the chapel itself formed the perfect backdrop for the couple when they exchanged their vows on what would be in effect consecrated ground. Everyone was very impressed. Even Evie, who had deliberately left it as late as she could before coming outside, though she was not so late that everyone had taken their seats ready for the bride and her entourage to make their entrance. People were still standing around in the sunshine talking, smiling, laughing, joking. Famous people. Important people. People from all over the world, mingling to form a myriad of colour in the bright sunlight. People who, for once, didn’t mind posing for the half dozen official photographers circulating in their midst, even though some of those photographers belonged to the press—allowed in by special invitation and warned to be unobtrusive—or else. The atmosphere had a warm, festive quality to it that brought a smile to Evie’s lips as she made her way along the green carpet pathway towards the open canopy. People glanced up, smiled, said hello, brushed their lips against her cheek if they knew her well enough, shook her hand if they didn’t. Or some simply gazed upon her in curious speculation because, despite what she had promised her mother about not outshining the bride today, Evangeline Delahaye could not help but stand out as someone very special. She was tall, she was slender, she was stunningly lovely. And she was the famous lover of an Arab prince—a man with more wealth and power at his fingertips than most people here could even imagine. He was also gorgeous—which added even more spice to the affair because it made the whole thing so deliciously romantic. It was the love affair of the decade. The press adored it; their respective families hated it. And everyone else liked to speculate on what the future held for them. While the couple themselves ignored all and everything that was said about them—whether that be by the enthusiastic press or their disapproving families. Which in turn placed them in the dubious position of being the curiosities at functions like this. Especially when it was so absolutely obvious that they were both here today but not as a couple. He was here in his official capacity as representative of Behran, she in her role as sister to the groom. ‘May I take your photograph, Miss Delahaye?’ Glancing around, Evie saw the eager face of a young man who was a photographer for a well-known broadsheet. He was smiling expectantly, camera at the ready and relaxed because everyone here today had been so accommodating. But: ‘Thank you—no.’ Evie refused politely. And kept on walking until she stepped beneath the wedding canopy. Some people were already in their places. Her brother for instance, still looking impressively at ease as he stood talking to his best man and oldest friend, Sir Robert Malvern, while her mother sat in the row of chairs behind him, listening intently to whatever Great-Aunt Celia was saying to her. Lecturing her on how to deal with me, most probably, going by the fierce expression on the old lady’s face, Evie assumed. And moved her bland blue gaze onwards—until she reached the other side of the aisle—and inevitably, maybe, found Raschid. Her heart stopped beating momentarily, the studied blandness softening out of her eyes as they soaked in this man who gave her life meaning. He was standing within a group of his own people, all Arab dignitaries from different Arab states wearing traditional Arab attire. But to her there was only one man standing there. In height, in looks, in sheer masculine charisma he reigned supreme over everyone. He was wearing white, the formal white silk dishdasha of his royal office, with its gold sash wrapped around his whipcord-lean waist, and triple gold bands around the plain white gutra that covered his head. And he seemed to sense the precise moment that her eyes came to rest on him because—despite the fact that he seemed engrossed in whatever the man beside him was saying to him—his head lifted and he looked directly at her. Their eyes clashed and for those few brief moments out of time neither moved a single muscle as their usual reaction to each other held them transfixed in a private world of their own. They did not openly acknowledge each other, though, neither by word nor by gesture. But it was clear that there had to be some way they were communicating, because the vibrations suddenly assailing the humid air beneath the canopy had everyone else going utterly silent. Heads swivelled, eyes growing curious as they flicked from her face to his face then back again. Julian noticed the thickening silence, glanced up, saw and grimaced ruefully. But his mother’s cheeks went pink with anger. She abruptly turned her back on what she saw as her daughter making a spectacle of them—while the Arab standing next to Raschid touched his arm and murmured something to regain his attention. It broke the spell. Raschid lowered his eyes to listen to what his companion was saying to him and Evie slid her cool blue gaze back to where her great-aunt was now glowering at her in pursed-lipped disapproval. After that Evie and Raschid completely ignored one another. Evie went to have a quiet word with her brother before taking her place next to her mother, while behind them the makeshift church slowly filled up as the rest of the guests began to filter in from outside. By the time a rather flustered and watery-eyed Lady Beverley was escorted to her place by one of the ushers, the congregation had fallen into a tense, waiting silence. Then suddenly, piped out to them from the depths of the small chapel, an organ began to play. The sound of a wedding march filled the canopy at the same time as several gasps from the back rows heralded the arrival of the bride. And Evie couldn’t resist turning in her seat to see a vision in white come gliding slowly down the aisle on her proud father’s arm. Christina looked utterly enchanting in a flowing offtheshoulder gown made of the most exquisite Chantilly lace that was such a perfect foil for her dark-haired beauty. In her hair she wore a band of pale pink roses—the same pink roses that made up her bouquet and were an exact match in colour to the pretty organza dresses worn by her five bridesmaids who followed behind. And she was smiling. Christina was so sure of her love for Julian and his love for her that there wasn’t a single sign of wedding nerves in her. It was that which brought a lump to Evie’s throat as she turned to look at her brother to see the exact same expression of pleasure and pride written on his face as he stood there watching his bride come towards him. I wish…she found herself thinking wistfully, and was glad that Raschid was sitting several rows back from her so he couldn’t see her expression. Would he sense it, though? she wondered. Was he sitting there witnessing this very English marriage and comparing what Christina and Julian were doing here with what could never be for them? They loved each other; Evie didn’t for one moment doubt that love. And in a way she and Raschid had made louder statements about that love by upholding it in the face of so much dissension. But loving boldly and pledging oneself to that love before God held no comparison. For one was a solemn vow of commitment as legal and spiritually binding as life itself—whereas the other would always be a tenuous thing without that legal commitment, without the blessing, no matter what the God. ‘We are gathered here today to witness the joining of this man and this woman in holy matrimony…’ Beside her, she felt her mother stir as she lifted a lace edged handkerchief to dab a tear from her eye. Guilt struck a sudden blow directly at Evie’s heart. The guilt of a child who was starkly aware of what a disappointment she was to her parent because Lucinda would never feel the pride and satisfaction that Christina’s mother must be feeling right now, as she watched her daughter marry well and proudly. Oh, damn, Evie thought, feeling utterly depressed suddenly. And on an act of impulse she reached out to grasp her mother’s hand. Lifting it to her lips, she kissed it gently—she didn’t know why—unless it was in mute apology. Whatever, her mother rejected the gesture by firmly removing her hand. Which hurt—hurt so badly that Evie was barely aware of what went on for the rest of the ceremony as she became lost in a bleak little world of her own faults and failures. Her failure as a daughter being only one of them. For she had failed someone else here today—though he didn’t know that. Yet. Prayers, blessings, hymns, vows—Evie responded where expected of her without really knowing she was doing it. In a kind of self-defence she had blanked herself off from everything, walled herself behind a bland smile and glassy blue eyes that only a few people here today would be able to tell were hiding a worryingly unhappy woman. Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah was one of those people. He sat several rows back and to one side of her with his head lowered for most of the service—whilst his senses were picking up the kind of vibrations that made his blood run cold. She appeared tranquil, he observed, taking a brief glance at her under cover of coming to his feet for the singing of a hymn. Her exquisite profile looked as composed as it always was when in public. Her fingers were relaxed, her body revealing no jerky movements that could hint towards tension. Yet every single highly tuned instinct he possessed where Evie was concerned was telling him a completely different story. It had to be this damned wedding, he blamed. For what woman didn’t dream of joining herself in marriage to the man she loved as Christina Beverley was doing today? What man would turn down the opportunity to legally bind himself to a woman like Evie if he had the chance to do it? He shifted restlessly, feeling a wave of angry discontent sweep through him at his own inability to make her feel more secure in his life. He was heartily glad when the service was over and everyone relaxed a little as the couple went off with their entourage towards the chapel itself where the register was apparently signed. It wasn’t often he found himself yearning for alcohol but this moment was surely one of them. ‘On the face of it,’ his companion observed beside him, ‘if you remove the religious inferences, a Christian marriage is not so very different from our own.’ You wouldn’t be saying that if it was me marrying Evie, Raschid thought caustically through the fixed smile he offered in wordless acknowledgement. The band suddenly struck up again, followed by the dulcet tones of a solo tenor, saving him the need to offer a polite reply. Instead, he flicked a hooded glance back to Evie again. She was sitting straight-backed now, most definitely tense, listening to whatever the old lady in the lilac dress was saying so severely. Her mother had gone, joining the rest of the bridal party to watch the signing ceremony—from which, it seemed, Evie had been excluded. By her own choice, he knew that, but it didn’t make him feel any better for hearing her voice in his head saying, ‘Imagine the headline beneath the wedding photograph, Raschid, if I took a major role in this wedding: “Evangeline Delahaye plays chief bridesmaid at her brother’s wedding while her Arab prince lover looks on!”’ she’d quoted caustically. ‘Not “Lady Christina Beverley marries Sir Julian Delahaye at her beautiful Berkshire home”!’ she’d concluded. ‘I refuse to steal their thunder, and that’s the end of it.’ Which was also why she had asked him not to attend today and—arrogant as always—he had treated the request with the contempt he believed it had deserved. But now, as he sat here witnessing the way Evie had been isolated from something she should have been allowed to share, he began to realise just how selfish he had been. The old lady in the lilac dress was scowling, he noticed. Her wizened mouth spitting words at Evie who was sitting there with her lovely head lowered as she listened. Then the head lifted suddenly and turned. She had time only to speak one single word, but whatever that word was the old lady launched herself to her feet, sent Evie one last hostile volley then she stalked angrily away to go and sit herself down several rows back. Leaving Evie entirely alone. The desire to get up and go over there, sit with her—declare his support for this woman whose only sin was in loving the wrong man—almost overwhelmed him. Except he knew she wouldn’t want that, for it would only cause the one thing she was trying so hard to avoid here. Talk, gossip, speculation—shifting the centre of attention away from the bride and groom and on to themselves. But, damn it, she looked so wretchedly deserted sitting there on her own like that! And something very close to a desire to commit bloody murder exploded in his chest—aimed directly at himself for his own lousy inadequacies as the lover of such a beautiful and special woman. Evie could feel the sting of curious eyes on her as her great-aunt stalked away. It took everything she had in her to maintain an outwardly calm composure while inside she felt as if she was being eaten up by a million ravenous worms. ‘And there he sits, surrounded by his own kind,’ her great-aunt had hissed at her. ‘Pretending to be civilised when really he is nothing better than a womanising barbarian!’ Evie would have found the words funny if she’d dared. But Great-Aunt Celia hadn’t finished with her at that point, and the next volley that left the old lady’s lips had not been funny at all. ‘While you, you brazen little hussy, insult the Delahaye name the way you carry on with him! Do you have no shame?’ she’d demanded. ‘No,’ Evie had quite coolly replied. And that was the point where the old lady had stormed off, leaving behind her final shot—‘You could have been a marchioness, but you settled for being a slut!’—ringing in Evie’s ears. Had Raschid witnessed the little altercation? She presumed he had since she could feel the heat of his anger even from here. She only hoped he didn’t decide to come over here in a gesture of support. It would only make everything ten times worse if he did. But Great-Aunt Celia’s cutting demolition of her character had left its mark, and she was glad of her wide-brimmed hat because at least it was hiding the pained flush that was colouring her cheeks. Fortunately the wedding party came back into view then, and the whole congregation rose to applaud them as the newly married couple walked down the aisle with bright beaming smiles on their happy faces. Evie clapped with the rest of them, tears of genuine heart-warming emotion blinding her eyes. So it wasn’t until the whole wedding entourage were out in the sunshine and everyone else began filing out after them that she realised someone had come to stand right behind her. Tilting her head back so she could see who it was over the brim of her hat, she found herself looking through a bank of moisture into the lean dark face of Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah. And her heart turned over. He was smiling down at her, the wonderful shape of his sensual mouth tilted wryly at one corner. But his eyes were sombre, their warm, dark liquid-gold depths burning with a grave kind of understanding that had her sighing as she tilted her head forward again to watch the final few stragglers drift away. ‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured to her gently. ‘But inconsolably sad.’ ‘I think I want to run away and never be found again,’ she confided. ‘Do you think my mother may notice if I did?’ ‘No,’ he honestly replied. ‘But I would.’ Despite her heavy mood, a smile tilted the corners of her red-painted mouth. ‘That’s because you fancy the hell out of me,’ she countered. ‘Whereas my mother doesn’t fancy me at all—especially as a daughter.’ ‘Then she has no taste.’ ‘Gosh,’ Evie gasped. ‘I wonder if she knows that?’ ‘Would you like me to tell her?’ he kindly offered. ‘No. What I would like you to do, Sheikh Raschid,’ she sighed out wistfully, ‘is gather me up on your white charger and take me away from all of this.’ ‘Right now?’ A pair of long-fingered, beautifully shaped brown hands slid around her narrow waist to turn her to face him. His eyes were still sombre despite the light banter they were exchanging. ‘Just say the word, and I will carry you off to my palace in the desert and keep you locked away there for ever.’ ‘A fate worse than death,’ she pouted. ‘You have hor rible dungeons there with no windows to look out of. I know,’ she disclosed sagely. ‘Because you told me.’ ‘I have beautiful rooms too,’ he declared. ‘Which overlook exquisite gardens that cost me an absolute fortune to irrigate. You may have one of those rooms,’ he offered benevolently. ‘Where I will visit you every day to ply you with priceless gifts and incomparable compliments.’ ‘May I move around your desert palace freely?’ she asked. He shook his covered head. ‘You will be my prisoner,’ he explained. ‘With guards posted at the door to make sure you don’t stray.’ ‘What if I fancy one of your guards for a bit of light diversion?’ ‘They would all be eunuchs,’ he came back blandly. ‘The kind of light diversion you are referring to will make them of no use to you.’ ‘I don’t want to go, then,’ Evie decided. ‘I’ll be more miserable there than I am here.’ ‘That’s my girl,’ Raschid softly commended, drawing her even closer to that lean, tight body hiding behind the flowing robes. ‘Counting your blessings is always the wiser course in situations like these.’ She laughed. He smiled, the smile reaching his eyes now that he had managed to banish the sadness from hers. And, dipping his head beneath the brim of her hat, he kissed her. They were by now completely alone beneath the wedding canopy, so Evie didn’t really need to pull away quite as quickly as she did. Their mouths had barely warmed in welcome to each other before she was carefully separating them and placing some much needed distance between their clinging bodies. ‘Are you trying to seduce me in broad daylight, Sheikh?’ she demanded mock sternly in an attempt to soften her rejection of him. But Raschid refused to play the game. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I was trying to demonstrate how deeply I care for you.’ ‘What—here?’ Evie mocked that also, but this time the mockery was ever so slightly spiked. ‘In front of a Christian altar—what will your God say? Or did the tent above your head make you forget where you were for a moment?’ ‘My God is the same God as your God, Evie,’ he answered very grimly. ‘Well, just in case you’re wrong, I’m off, before we get struck down by a bolt of lightning or something,’ she said, clinging to her bantering tone despite his much—much graver one. ‘I’ll see you later—’ ‘Evie.’ She had already turned her back on him when he said her name like that, making her go still as the muscles around her heart gave a painful pinch. Raschid wasn’t stupid, she knew that. Those all-seeing liquid-gold eyes of his had caught the haunted look in her own eyes before she’d turned away. ‘What?’ she prompted warily. There was a moment’s complete silence from behind her that trickled down her rigid spine like a warning. And she closed her eyes, mouth gone dry, heart still pinching in protest at what she was struggling to keep bottled up inside her today. ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Nothing,’ she denied. ‘The same “nothing” that has made you as elusive as a rare butterfly for the last few weeks?’ he grimly suggested. ‘You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy,’ she murmured defensively. ‘You’ve been hiding,’ he corrected. ‘And you are still hiding.’ ‘I just need to get through this day with my dignity intact, that’s all,’ she sighed. ‘And you think that my kissing you here diminishes that dignity?’ He sounded cold all of a sudden—as haughty as hell. Which was a bad sign. For Raschid a bruised ego always—always made him insufferably arrogant. ‘I did warn you not to come,’ she reminded him. ‘And because I refuse to hide like you I am to be punished, is that it?’ Put like that, he had a right to sound offended, Evie wearily acknowledged. ‘You’re a man,’ she said dryly. ‘Bedding one of England’s most eligible females only adds to your standing, whereas I get called a cheap little slut.’ ‘The woman in the awful lilac dress!’ Raschid recognised instantly. ‘The words match her sour expression.’ Despite her heavy mood, Evie couldn’t resist smiling at his caustic description of dear Great-Aunt Celia. ‘To be fair,’ she twisted around to say to him, ‘she did call you a womanising barbarian.’ A sleek, superbly drawn black eyebrow arched in enquiry. ‘And you agree with her?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ she admitted. ‘But then,’ she added softly, ‘I like you barbaric.’ The darkening look in his eyes set her stomach fluttering. ‘I have to go,’ she murmured, turning away what that fluttering sensation was tempting. ‘More evasion?’ ‘I’ll see you later,’ was all she replied, and walked gracefully away. Stepping out from beneath the sultry-aired canopy was like stepping into another world. The sun was bright, the air crystal-clear, and the sights and sounds of celebration were everywhere. The bridal party was posing for photographers in front of a perfectly placed beech tree that looked as if it had been standing there for at least a thousand years. All about them their guests stood around in small groups watching them. A small army of white-jacketed waiters wove in and out with silver trays laden with fluted champagne glasses, trying to avoid the children who were running about like swirling dervishes and letting off steam. The band was still playing, and it seemed odd to Evie that she hadn’t heard a single note while she had been with Raschid. But then, Raschid had that kind of effect on her. When he was there her world began and ended with him alone. Which was why this other world out here felt so very strange and alien. Julian caught sight of her and called out, then waved his hand in an imperious command for her to come and join them. Evie nodded her head in acknowledgement but took her time making her way over there. Her brother didn’t know it, but she had no intention of appearing with them on any photograph. So she stopped a waiter to collect a champagne glass, paused then to chat lightly to the first group of people she came to. Saw, from the corner of her eye, her brother’s attention become claimed by more pressing duties that made him forget all about her, and kept her social smile fixed firmly in place as she wandered from group to group—the only group she carefully avoided being the Arab contingent. Someone appeared at her shoulder and tentatively touched her arm. She turned her head, the social smile still fixed firmly in place, found herself looking into the ruefully smiling face of an attractive man with brown hair, grey eyes and a shy disposition. And instantly her expression mellowed into true tenderness. ‘Harry,’ she greeted softly. ‘How lovely to see you.’ It was purely instinctive for her to go up on tiptoe to press a kiss to his lean cheek. From not very far away several people stood observing the exchange from completely different perspectives. Her mother observed with unmasked satisfaction, Raschid with grim speculation as he watched Evie’s face, saw that smile as the one he’d always believed was reserved exclusively for him—and discovered that it hit him rather hard to know another man warranted such tenderness. He knew, of course, who the guy was, and what he had once been to Evie. They had been childhood friends, sweethearts in their teenage years—but never lovers, he reminded himself as he watched the Marquis of Lister place hands that most definitely coveted around Evie’s slender waist. ‘He’s still in love with her,’ a cold voice murmured beside him. ‘She broke his heart when she left him for you. Will you break her heart, Sheikh Raschid, when it’s time for you to let my daughter go?’ ‘I wonder what appeals to you more, Lady Delahaye,’ Raschid smiled tightly. ‘The prospect of your daughter receiving that broken heart or my leaving her?’ ‘I love Evie,’ Evie’s mother declared stiffly. ‘Really?’ he drawled. ‘Then I beg leave to inform you that it doesn’t show.’ ‘She has a right to be able to stand alongside the man she loves with her head held high in pride, not to avoid his presence at all cost!’ ‘And whose fault is it that she does avoid me?’ Raschid challenged. ‘Certainly not mine,’ he denied. ‘She doesn’t look well,’ Evie’s mother stated tightly. ‘She most certainly doesn’t look happy. And that smile she is offering Harry is the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her today.’ ‘I know…’ Raschid acknowledged quietly, his mind locked on something else Lady Delahaye had said that had managed to strike at the very heart of him. Because, he realised, Evie didn’t look well. He knew she was unhappy—that much had been patently obvious to him for several weeks now. But ill—as in sick? A chill went whipping though him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said curtly, and walked away, leaving Lucinda Delahaye to follow his long, lean, graceful approach towards her daughter with angrily resentful eyes. Resentment that turned to grim satisfaction when she saw her son and his new bride waylay Sheikh Raschid before he could reach his target. She could see his frustration behind the smile of congratulation he had fixed on his lean dark face. And she could see Evie, so engrossed in whatever Harry was saying to her that she wasn’t aware that her lover stood not ten feet away. Thank goodness for Julian, Evie was thinking as she pretended to listen to Harry enthuse about the innovative breeding programme he was using at his racing stud, while her real attention was fixed on Raschid, and the disturbing fact that he had been striding purposefully towards her. She’d seen her mother speak to him, seen by both their expressions that the short meeting had not broken any ice. Whatever her mother had said to Raschid it had made him excuse himself curtly and make directly for Evie, which could only mean one thing. Her mother was stirring trouble. ‘You should come down some time and see what we’re doing there,’ Harry was saying. ‘You won’t believe the changes since you last visited, Evie.’ Laughter suddenly exploded into the afternoon air, Julian and Raschid sounding deep and hearty, Christina’s lighter laughter like the tinkling of fairy bells, sweet and delicate and undeniably happy. And once again Evie was glad of her wide-brimmed gauzy hat that was hiding her envious wish to be with them instead of standing here with Harry. Harry, whom she had once thought she loved to distraction but now couldn’t even remember what that love felt like since it had been so thoroughly overwhelmed by what she felt for Raschid. ‘But your mother tells me you don’t get down to Westhaven much any more.’ Harry’s voice reached out to her from what felt like a long, long way off. ‘Is that because you didn’t fancy running into me?’ ‘What?’ Dragging her attention away from the laughing trio, Evie made her eyes focus on Harry’s uncomfortably flushed face. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Harry,’ she admonished. ‘We were very good friends once. I thought we still were.’ ‘I embarrassed you by asking you to marry me.’ He grimaced. ‘I was very honoured that you asked me,’ Evie replied. ‘And very sad that I had to turn you down. But it wouldn’t have worked for you and me, Harry,’ she added softly, watching the way his restless grey eyes couldn’t look directly at her. ‘We knew each other too well, were too—comfortable with each other.’ ‘There were no exciting sparks flying between us, you mean.’ He laughed tensely. ‘Not the sort that fly between you and your Sheikh, anyway.’ There was no kind way to answer that, so Evie didn’t offer one. Instead she turned the conversation back to the safer ground of horses. Not long after that, the Master of Ceremonies called for them to take their places in the main marquee where the wedding banquet was to be served. Seating four hundred guests around huge round tables was no small feat, and for the next couple of hours Evie didn’t so much as lay eyes on Raschid, her place being with family relatives and his amongst the dignitaries seated right over on the other side of the marquee. So the day crawled on, through course after course of delicately prepared dishes and benign conversation. The speeches began, the champagne glasses being constantly refilled to mark each toast offered to the bride and groom. By the time people began to drift away to go and get ready for the ball that evening, Evie was beginning to feel very jaded. She went to her room and indulged herself in a long soak in the antiquated cast-iron bath in the vague hope it would help remove some of the tension from her body. It didn’t. So the knock at her bedroom door as she was just pulling a satin robe over the flesh-coloured teddy she intended to wear beneath the gold dress tonight made her heart sink in weary anticipation of yet another lecture from her mother as she called a very reluctant, ‘Come in!’ And was therefore surprised when it was Raschid who stepped into the room. CHAPTER FOUR HER horror must have shown on her face, because his expression was not a pleasant one as he firmly shut the door behind him and pointedly twisted the key in the lock. Then he was turning to lean his broad shoulders back against the solid oak and folding his arms across his chest in what she could only describe as his confrontational pose. Gone were the flowing white robes of the Arab and in their place were the clothes of the super-sophisticated western man. White shirt, black bow tie, creamy white dinner jacket and black silk trousers that accentuated the length of his powerfully muscled legs. Evie’s insides began to flutter, her eyes darkening warily as she made herself look into the grimness of his. He was glancing around the room with an expression of unconcealed disfavour. ‘Your brother was not exaggerating when he informed his lovely new wife that you had been insulted,’ he remarked. ‘It is no wonder her cheeks flushed with mortification as she went off to take the issue up with her mother, who then flushed and blamed your own mother—who had apparently…’ his hard eyes flicked to Evie ‘…made a special request that you be accommodated as far away from the west wing of the castle as they could possibly place you…’ The west wing being where Raschid would be accommodated—in one of the very large and very grand bedroom suites, Evie assumed. And was unable to hide the hurt she experienced on learning that her own mother could be so petty in her disapproval of her relationship with Raschid that she could go to such extremes. ‘Just say the word,’ Raschid said coolly, ‘and I will have your things moved in with mine.’ ‘I’m fine where I am,’ she said, wondering if her mother truly believed she could prove a point with such action. Did she honestly think it would keep them apart if they had no wish to be apart? Half a mile of draughty corridor was certainly no deterrent to Raschid, anyway. ‘Is that why you’re here?’ she asked a trifle wearily. ‘To check out my supposedly insulting accommodation?’ ‘No…’ His dark head shook, those golden eyes of his grimly fixed on her tired face. ‘I am here to enquire after your health.’ ‘My health?’ Evie frowned at him in puzzled confusion. ‘Was that your sweet way of being sarcastic?’ ‘No,’ he denied. ‘I was being sincere. To put it bluntly, Evangeline,’ he added, using her full name in much the same way her mother did—as a warning of worse to come, ‘you look wretched.’ Oh, great, she thought. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning away from those too shrewd golden eyes. ‘Pale and pathetic,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Too frail to stand up and too tense to sit down.’ ‘I said,’ Evie flashed at him in irritation, ‘I feel fine! There is absolutely nothing wrong with me!’ The simple fact that she was snapping at him was telling Raschid the opposite. His eyes narrowed, the aggressive stance he had taken up against the door altering to one of dangerous challenge. ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Then you can have no objection to my escorting you down to the ballroom, can you?’ he tagged on very silkily. Evie sighed, wishing that this day were already over and done with. ‘Raschid—’ she began wearily. ‘Raschid—nothing,’ he coolly cut in. ‘I have played my official role here today, to perfection. So have you. Now it is time to relax and begin enjoying ourselves.’ Relax—nothing. Evie parodied him inside her head. He was angry with her for avoiding him all afternoon and he was here to fight, not enjoy himself. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’ he enquired when she didn’t say anything. ‘Several,’ Evie answered dryly. ‘But I don’t think you’re in any mood to hear them.’ ‘Wise girl,’ he commended. ‘Now be even wiser, and slip your delectable body into whatever it is you are wearing tonight before I decide that it may be more satisfying to toss you down on that excuse for a bed behind you and assuage my anger in other ways.’ ‘Novel,’ she mocked, feeling some rather well known but unwanted sensations go chasing through her system at the prospect of his alternative. ‘But I am not walking out of this room with you, Raschid, with my mother standing guard only a few doors away. She would have my guts for garters.’ ‘And I will have them for a noose which I will tie around your beautiful neck if you don’t walk out with me,’ he countered. ‘So, which will it be, Evie? Your mother’s pride or my pride? Take your pick.’ The direct challenge. Evie sighed one of those sighs she’d caught herself doing a lot recently, and went to drop down on her dressing stool. ‘Don’t do this to me tonight, Raschid,’ she pleaded heavily. ‘I’ve got a headache and I’m really not up to it.’ ‘I know the feeling,’ he grimly commiserated. ‘In fact, I am thoroughly annoyed with both you and your prejudiced family,’ he clipped out. ‘To the extent that if I am provoked any further today I may just disgrace myself by telling them all what I think of them!’ ‘And that includes telling me, it seems.’ Despite his anger and her own depression, Evie found a rueful smile from somewhere. ‘Quite,’ he clipped. ‘So be sensible, Evie, and humour me unless you want to see an ugly scene erupt in the Beverley ballroom.’ He meant it too; Evie could see that in the grim cut of his mouth as he levered himself away from the door and walked across the room to the antiquated wardrobe, much as her mother had done several hours ago. Only, the similarity ended with the opening of the wardrobe door. For Raschid took one look at the dress hanging there—and began to chuckle. ‘I knew you were brave,’ he grinned. ‘But not this brave.’ ‘Brazen is the word my great-aunt Celia used,’ Evie informed him. Turning with the dress over his arm, he laid it on the bed then came over to where she was sitting. ‘Up,’ he said firmly, curving long fingers around her upper arms to help her. Then, because she looked so adorably pathetic with that miserable expression on her face, he bent his dark head and kissed her—and when all she did was sigh shakily into his mouth he deepened the kiss until the sighing stopped and she began clinging. ‘Now…’ he said when he eventually drew away again. ‘Do you dress yourself or do I do it for you?’ ‘I don’t suppose you would consider letting me get through the rest of today in my own way?’ she suggested hopefully. The dark head shook, his hands already dealing with the knotted belt around her waist. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured, when her robe fell open to reveal a flesh-coloured silk teddy that hardly hid what it was supposed to be covering. ‘Very seductive.’ Long, knowing fingers made a caressing journey from her tiny waist to the proud thrust of her breasts. His thumb pads teased her with little passes across the tight nubs of her nipples and a different kind of sigh escaped her, one that whimpered like an anxious kitten while her slender hips writhed as those teasing caresses made other parts of her stir into sweet, throbbing life. ‘I’ve missed that little sigh,’ Raschid whispered softly, his eyes possessive on her as he watched her sink into that sensual trance his touch always induced. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he added huskily. ‘I can tell,’ she sighed out pleasurably. He was very aroused—but then, so was she. They had not been together like this for two weeks now—a long time for them. ‘Kiss me,’ she groaned. He responded quickly, hotly, hungrily, his mouth covering hers with a driving force that had her head snapping back on a slender neck while his arms crushed her tightly to him. He was alive and wanting, his mouth urgent now as it kissed and sucked and licked and tasted its way across her cheek and jaw while his hands moved lower again, cupping her around her silky thighs before his fingers slid beneath the teddy and drew her hard up against him. ‘Raschid—’ she groaned as he set his hips moving against her in an age-old rhythm that set an equally old rhythm pulsing inside herself. ‘We haven’t got time for this.’ ‘I can be quick,’ he murmured audaciously. ‘Five minutes and you will feel wonderful, I promise you…’ ‘Incorrigible man,’ she scolded, then gasped when knowing fingers slid along her buttocks until they reached what they were searching for. She was warm and she was moist and she was ready for him. She never could put up much of a resistance to him. Her hands jerked up, clutching at his arms for support as he captured her mouth with a kiss that tossed her into a world of frantic hunger. ‘Release me,’ Raschid pleaded hoarsely against her mouth. Fingers trembling in their urgency, she did as he bade her, drawing down the zip on his evening trousers and releasing him from the silk shorts he wore beneath. He filled her hand, hard and throbbing, smooth as silk, such a potent source of power and pleasure that her control went haywire. It didn’t matter—not when it was so apparent that his control was no better. His heart was pounding, his breathing shot. Two red streaks across his lean dark cheekbones were underlining the ruthless intent burning in his eyes as he edged her backwards until the backs of her thighs met with the edge of the solid oak dressing table. With a fierce sexual urgency he parted her white thighs and pressed his own taut brown ones between them. Then, with the deftness of experience, he released her lower body from the silk teddy and bent his knees so he could enter her cleanly. His grunt of satisfaction as he felt her muscles close greedily around him was matched by her groan of pleasure. Her fingers were clutching his neck, her spine arching over his supporting arm so he could suck on her breasts through the teddy while he drove them both to a place beyond bearing. And he was right. Five minutes later and she did feel wonderful, limp and languid, not a hint of tension or stress in her. ‘Now you look less like a haunted woman,’ he murmured softly, golden eyes darkened to polished bronze by sensual satisfaction as they viewed her. ‘And you look ridiculous with your trousers round your shoes,’ Evie countered tauntingly. But he just grinned, all slashing white teeth and pure male arrogance. Even in a situation like this, Raschid knew he looked devastatingly sexy. He was still inside her, his hands holding her against the cradle of his lean hips while his eyes ran tenderly over her love-softened face. ‘I adore you, you know…’ he softly informed her. ‘If the world stopped turning at this precise moment, I could die a happy man.’ Evie almost told him then. Almost…Almost tested that statement with words that would surely make his world stand still. But— No. The need to get through what was left of today without causing a major disaster was paramount. So, ‘Your five minutes are up,’ she said, and felt his soft laugh vibrate in the very essence of her before he ruefully and reluctantly drew away. He helped her to dress, smoothly drawing up the zip on the gold silk gown then standing back to watch her with darkly possessive eyes as she twisted up her hair, then sat down to replenish her make-up. Getting up to slip her feet into the strappy gold shoes, Evie then turned towards him to announce she was ready. Seeing a question written in his love-sated eyes, she smiled her answer. No more compromising for the sake of her mother. They would go down to the ball together and damn the consequences. For this could be the last time she would be able to show herself in public with him like this. Julian and Christina were dancing the first waltz when they entered the ballroom. The lights had been dimmed, and a single spotlight followed the bride and groom around while everyone was standing around the dance floor, thankfully too busy clapping and teasing the newly-weds to notice Evie and Raschid’s arrival. With her hand resting in the crook of Raschid’s arm, Evie watched from the sidelines as gradually other couples began to join the newly-weds. Lord Beverley with his wife, Robert Malvern gallantly inviting Evie’s mother to dance. ‘Shall we?’ Raschid murmured. ‘Why not?’ she replied, but there was a lot of bravado in her tone and he arched his sleek black eyebrows at her as he drew her into his arms then danced off with a lightness of foot that secretly made her breathless. ‘You’re good at this,’ she remarked, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so she didn’t have to see the kind of looks they would be receiving. ‘It is expected of a dashing Arab prince,’ he blandly mocked himself. ‘I can jive too, and I’m not bad at the Gay Gordon.’ ‘You don’t have a modest bone in your body, either,’ Evie tagged on dryly. ‘Thank you.’ Arrogant as always, he took the remark as a compliment. ‘Of course, a lack of modesty forces me to say that I am also dancing with the most beautiful woman in the room.’ Her mother danced close by, and Evie stiffened slightly at the glowering look she received. ‘Stop it,’ Raschid admonished. ‘Or I will take you back upstairs again.’ ‘Fate worse than death,’ she quipped. ‘So you found her, Raschid.’ Julian and Christina swished up beside them. Christina looked radiant, her gentle eyes sparkling. ‘As you directed,’ Raschid replied. ‘I turned to the east and walked on to the end of the earth.’ Immediately the spark went out of Christina’s eyes. ‘I’m so sorry about your room, Evie,’ she cried in mortification. ‘I didn’t know until Julian told me!’ ‘Don’t be silly, the room is fine!’ Evie assured her. ‘And maybe she deserved it after all,’ her brother put in. ‘Since she couldn’t even bring herself to appear in one small photograph with us!’ Raschid’s eyes narrowed. Evie’s cheeks flushed. The in formation was obviously new to him. ‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘Because she didn’t like the company,’ Julian suggested tauntingly. ‘Don’t be cruel, Ju,’ his new bride scolded him. ‘You know why Evie did it!’ ‘Then perhaps you would like to explain it to me, Christina,’ Raschid drawled. ‘Excuse me, Julian, for I am about to steal your bride for a little while…’ And as deftly as that Raschid swapped partners, and was dancing off with a blushing bride clinging to his tall, lean, elegant frame, leaving sister and brother staring ruefully after them. ‘I think he’s angry,’ Julian remarked. ‘That makes two of you, obviously,’ his sister wearily replied. ‘Three actually,’ Julian said, then sighed as he tugged her into his arms and danced after the other two. ‘Mother came by your room earlier,’ he told her. ‘What?’ Appalled, Evie’s voice left her throat as a half-hysterical squeak. ‘I hope you’re teasing me, Julian!’ she gasped out shakily. ‘Why, what were you doing?’ he asked. Then grinned a typically rakish male grin when Evie blushed from breast to hairline. ‘Oh, wow. No wonder she’s on the warpath again,’ he said. ‘I hope you had the sense to lock the door…’ ‘Raschid did,’ she mumbled. ‘Good old Raschid,’ her brother mocked. ‘Always thinking ahead of himself, that guy.’ ‘She didn’t actually say she heard us, did she?’ Evie asked anxiously. Looking down at her with wickedly teasing eyes, Julian drew out the silence while he pondered whether or not to lie—then laughed out loud as his poor sister’s face went from blush-red to paste-white. ‘She heard the two of you talking, that’s all.’ He finally let Evie off the hook. ‘I think I hate you,’ she choked, her chest feeling as if it had just collapsed. ‘Punishment,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘For being so pathetic as to believe your absence from my wedding photos is going to stop the gossip columnists from marking yours and Raschid’s presence here. What they will do,’ he went on grimly, ‘is make a whole lot of mischief out of the way you carefully avoided him. Intrigue,’ he incised, ‘is the spice of their lives, Evie. And you certainly gave them enough spice to make a meal out of your behaviour today.’ ‘I didn’t want them splashing photos of me and him all over their papers instead of you and Christina,’ she defended herself. ‘Well, having thwarted them of a photograph, they will instead make much of the fact that they couldn’t catch the two of you together—anywhere. And how do I know that?’ he concluded. ‘Because those were the kind of questions most of our guests were pumped with today by the reporters. Which in turn made your entrance here tonight on Raschid’s arm a real revelation—for everyone.’ ‘You noticed?’ ‘You are such a na??ve little baby sometimes, Evie,’ her brother sighed. Standing several inches taller than her, Julian dropped his gaze to her surprised face. ‘I would think that the whole room noticed—which was why Raschid did it, isn’t it?’ he suggested. ‘He’d had enough of playing the nasty skeleton in your dark little cupboard. The man has more than his fair share of pride, and you kicked it today with your behaviour.’ By the time Raschid came back to graciously return the bride to her new husband, Evie was trying to come to terms with the unpalatable fact that she seemed to have upset just about everyone she cared about today, in one way or another. He didn’t speak as he danced her away again, but the fingers that held her were saying a lot and he was wearing that cold, hard mask on his face that she knew very well. ‘I did warn you,’ she said, unable to say nothing even when expediency was telling her that silence in this case was the better part of valour. ‘So you did,’ he agreed. ‘It is a shame there were no hidden cameras in your bedroom earlier, for we could have stopped the gossips in their curious tracks then.’ ‘Oh, don’t be such a boor, Raschid,’ Evie flashed, guilty conscience giving way to anger. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded. ‘What would you have done if our roles here had been reversed, and this had been Ranya’s wedding day, to which, by some utterly amazing quirk of fate, I had been invited?’ The smooth line of his jaw clenched, the angry outline of his mouth tightening even further as he took the very sarcastic scenario on board. ‘You would have asked me not to attend the wedding.’ She gave the answer for him. ‘And if, like you, I had told you to go to hell, you would then have made a point of completely ignoring me! But—unlike you,’ she then added tightly, ‘I would have accepted your desire for privacy, hurt though I may have been by it. The word is dignity, Raschid,’ she clipped at him coldly. ‘Something you should recognise since you have so much of it. Well, today I was protecting my dignity, not yours. And if you don’t like that, then it’s just too damned bad!’ It was fortunate, perhaps, that the music finished then. Evie flashed his ice-cold mask of a face one final searing glance then walked angrily away. But the sense of tight hurt she experienced as she did so was there because he let her do it. After that, she went back to avoiding him—as she did anyone who might think it was their right to castigate her for one sin or another! Instead she stuck to those people who couldn’t care less what she did in her private life. She laughed, she danced, she chatted and teased and generally sparkled like a golden icon to beauty and social charm. While inside she had never felt so lonely in her entire life. The time came at last for the bride and groom to depart and everyone gathered in the castle’s great hallway to see them off. They were staying at one of the hotels close to Heathrow tonight before flying off to Barbados first thing in the morning. Christina appeared at the top of the grand staircase dressed in a blush-pink Dior suit. In her hands she carried her wedding bouquet, and behind her Julian was grinning as he listened to the calls for his bride to throw the lucky flowers. Evie stood and teased and called with the rest of them, but it was only the sudden flash from Christina’s eyes that warned her what was coming—as the bouquet came spiralling through the air and landed against her chest. If silence could be measured in decibels, then the sudden silence that encompassed the great hall at Beverley Castle hit whole new levels. Everyone just stood there and gaped at Evie. No teasing, no jokes. They simply did not know what to say as Evie’s cheeks mottled with embarrassed colour. From the back of the hall, Raschid witnessed it all in a kind of frozen stillness, the appalling truth that every single person here knew there was no hope of Evie marrying while she stayed with him hitting him like a punch to the solar plexus. ‘Well…’ Evie’s voice came out light and rueful. ‘We can all live and dream, I suppose.’ And dutifully the crowd laughed, but nervously, tensely. For Evie it was the worst moment of her life. She kept smiling, though. With a teeth-gritting will-power she kept that darned smile in place. She hugged and kissed her brother, received a penitent Christina into her arms. ‘I’m sorry, Evie,’ the bride whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to—’ ‘Shh,’ she cut in, and kissed Christina’s cheek. ‘Just go away, have a lovely honeymoon!’ By the time the car went off down the driveway, flying streamers and rattling tin cans, Evie had had enough. Seeing her mother making a beeline for her had her turning quickly in the opposite direction and slipping away into the soft summer darkness. The lake beckoned, its moon-kissed silk-smooth surface acting like a soothing lure to her storm-tossed senses. Walking around the main marquee, she stepped up to the lake rim, and watched bleakly as the view in front of her went out of focus through eyes that slowly filled with tears. Well, she told herself. She’d done it. She had got through today—though not quite as she’d wanted to get through it. She’d upset many and pleased none. But at least now she could concentrate on pleasing Evie. And Evie wanted to— Her heart began to throb. The deep dark well of frustration and misery she had been keeping such a firm hold on all day suddenly burst through its constraints. And with a fierceness that said it all she stretched out the hand still clutching Christina’s bouquet and with as much power as she could muster tossed the flowers as far as she could into the lake. The bouquet landed with a soft splash, bobbed a couple of times, then lay there floating in a pool of moon-kissed ripples. ‘Feel better for that?’ a dark voice said behind her. ‘Not so you would notice,’ she said, not bothering to turn because she knew who it was. ‘Go away, Raschid,’ she then added flatly. ‘I don’t need another round in the verbal boxing ring with you, right now.’ ‘No,’ he murmured gravely. ‘I can see that…’ She heard him move, her body tensed up as muscles tightened in screaming protest. The tears came back, so strong this time that they set her throat working and her soft mouth quivering. She closed her eyes over the tears, clamped her quivering mouth shut and clenched her hands into two tight fists at her sides while she waited for him to take the hint and leave, or ignore the hint with his usual arrogance. The silence hummed, the tension along with it. After what felt like an age and no more sound came from behind her, Evie began slowly to relax the tension out of her body. He had shown sensitivity for once and left her alone, she assumed. And on a long, long heavy sigh that seemed to come from the very lowest regions of her she kicked the strappy high-heeled shoes from her aching feet, released her hair from its uncomfortable knot, then lowered herself on to the bone-dry short-shorn grass to sit staring out at the glassy still lake. In a little while, she told herself, she would go back into the castle and creep away to her room. Then tomorrow— Another sigh. Tomorrow was just another day fraught with a different set of pressing problems. Tomorrow would be deal with mother time, deal with Raschid time. Somewhere in the darkness an owl began hooting, sounding bleak and lonely as if it was calling hopelessly for a mate. A fish rose to the water’s surface, its tail making a lazy flapping noise as it rolled over, setting the bouquet of flowers bobbing again in the ripples it left behind. She really shouldn’t have done that, Evie mused guiltily. Christina would be so hurt to know that her lovely bouquet had finished up in such a watery grave. She shivered, and her knees came up, her arms wrapping round them, her loosened hair sliding in a thick silk curtain around her slender shoulders as she lowered her weary brow to rest it against her knees. The feel of a jacket dropping across her hunched shoulders should have surprised her, but oddly it didn’t. She would have been more surprised if Raschid had simply walked away and left her to it. ‘I thought you’d gone,’ she said. ‘No,’ was all he replied, and dropped down on the grass beside her. Turning her face on her knees so she could look at him through the curtain of her hair, Evie found herself gazing at a sombre profile that was, even so, the most beautifully structured profile she had ever seen. Like her, his knees were up, but parted so his wrists could rest upon them. His dress shirt stood out bright in the moonlight; his skin was like polished bronze. Her heart swelled in her breast, swelled and swelled until she thought it was going to burst under the power of her wretched love for him. He turned to look at her, sombre-eyed and flat-mouthed. ‘Are you ready to tell me what is wrong, now?’ No, she thought miserably. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready. And she turned her face to stare moodily at the lake so she didn’t have to look at him. ‘Your mother thinks you are ill,’ he added when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to say anything. I am, she thought. Soul-sick and heartbroken. ‘I didn’t know you had that kind of conversation with my mother,’ she remarked. ‘I don’t, usually,’ he dryly admitted. ‘But this one took the form of a—confrontation.’ Ah, Evie was very intimate with those kinds of conversations with her mother. ‘I’m not ill,’ she assured him. ‘Then what the hell is the matter with you?’ he rasped, suddenly losing all patience. ‘Because it has been patently obvious to me for weeks now that something certainly is!’ ‘I thought I told you I didn’t want another verbal battle tonight!’ she snapped right back. ‘Then don’t turn this into one!’ He turned the tables on her as quick as a flash. ‘You are my life, my heart, my soul, Evie,’ he added gruffly. ‘I would do anything for you; I thought you knew that.’ ‘Except marry me,’ she said, then grimaced at herself for stupidly blurting it out like that. His answering sigh was heavy. It wasn’t words but—good grief—it spoke volumes in other ways. ‘Is that what this is all about?’ ‘No,’ she denied, and went to get up, but his hand came out to press her down again. ‘Talk,’ he commanded. ‘Or reconcile yourself to the uncomfortable prospect of spending the night right here.’ He meant it, too; that tough macho gleam was in his eyes again. On a sigh she subsided. He let go of her, recognising the sigh as a gesture of defeat. Evie turned her gaze back to the moonlit lake once again, felt a tightness pull around her chest, and said flatly, ‘I’m pregnant.’ CHAPTER FIVE AS ANNOUNCEMENTS went, this one truly took the trophy. To his credit, Raschid didn’t groan in horror or curse and shout, or demand to know how the hell she had allowed such a stupid thing to happen. All the things he certainly had a right to do. In fact, he didn’t do anything. He just continued to sit there, as silent as death, as still as stone, utilising that impressive bank of self-discipline Evie knew he possessed to hold himself in check while he attempted to take the shocking news in. And it was awful—worse, much worse than she’d even envisaged this moment was going to be because she knew this man so very well, and knowing him meant she understood exactly what his silence was actually saying. Raschid’s world and all it meant to him had just been effectively brought tumbling down around him. And this was more than just the noble Arab prince holding his emotions in check as he had been trained from birth to do in times of disaster. He was sitting there like that because he was literally paralysed with dismay. ‘Say something,’ she prompted when she could stand his silence no longer. ‘Like what?’ he asked, then admitted grimacingly, ‘I find I am struck speechless.’ Well, speechless just about covered it, Evie thought painfully. ‘How, where and when seem good places to start,’ she huskily suggested. ‘Okay…’ At last he moved, turning his head to look at her—though Evie couldn’t bring herself to look back at him now. ‘How?’ He began with her first suggestion. Her hunched shoulders gave a helpless shrug. ‘I don’t know how,’ she answered honestly. ‘Somewhere along the line, my birth control has let me down but I just don’t know how it did. The where depends on the when,’ she went on huskily. ‘Which was about six weeks ago,’ she calculated. ‘Which in turn probably means it happened during the weekend we spent together on your yacht in the Mediterranean,’ she assumed. ‘Though I will know better when I see a doctor…’ ‘So this is not yet confirmed?’ Did he have to sound so damned hopeful? Her chest began to hurt with the tension she was putting on it, her throat locking up on a tight ball of emotion she didn’t dare release. ‘Home testing sets are pretty accurate these days,’ she informed him flatly. Another long silence followed that, one that throbbed and pulled and picked at the flesh like an animal chewing on a dead carcass. Only Evie’s carcass wasn’t dead. It was alive and hurting in more ways than she would have believed possible. Out on the lake the owl hooted its lonely call for a mate again. The moon slithered its eerie way across the glass-smooth waters—and Christina’s bouquet continued to float right there in front of them, making really heavy irony now of its good-luck significance. ‘You knew about this two weeks ago, didn’t you?’ he said suddenly. What was the use in lying? ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘Damn it, Evie!’ His control suddenly exploded, launching him to his feet as shock gave way to a burst of anger. ‘Why didn’t you tell me then? Do you have any conception of what those two weeks are going to mean to me?’ He lashed at her. ‘The problems they are going to cause?’ A sigh shot from him, his dark face contorting with blistering condemnation as he violently spun his back on her. ‘What a mess!’ he muttered thickly. ‘What a damned mess!’ White-faced and shaken by his scorching response, Evie came more slowly to her feet to stand staring at him in utter dismay. For, no matter how terrible she had expected his reaction to be, she hadn’t expected anything quite so brutal as this. ‘What difference can two weeks possibly make to the situation?’ she demanded shakily. He didn’t answer; instead a hand went up to grip the back of his angry neck, the action showing all the horror and frustration he was currently experiencing. In fact, he couldn’t have been more horrified if she’d told him she’d infected him with some dreadful social disease. ‘Unless, of course, you’re hoping I may offer to do something about it?’ she then suggested, wanting to twist the knife she could almost see sticking out of his ribs where she had apparently plunged it. It worked. He flinched. ‘No!’ he ground out, spinning round to glare at her. ‘Don’t ever,’ he gritted, ‘make a suggestion like that again!’ Well, at least that was something, Evie grimly acknowledged as she stood there staring into those glitter-hard golden eyes. But then, if he had said anything else—so much as glanced at her with a hopeful look in those wretched eyes—she would never have forgiven him. As it was, Evie shuddered on a wave of sickening self-disgust for voicing such an option just because she wanted to score points off him. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It was never a choice you were going to be offered.’ ‘Then why say it?’ he lashed at her. Her small laugh was forced and shrill. ‘You couldn’t make your horror clearer if you were being faced with the end of my brother’s shotgun!’ She angrily derided the question. ‘You expect me to be ecstatic?’ ‘No,’ she said heavily, turning away from him to stare bleakly out across the moon-kissed lake because looking at him now hurt just too damned much. ‘But a bit of tender concern at some point wouldn’t have gone amiss…’ The dry remark had his chest expanding on a strained intake of air. When he let it out again most of his anger went with it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised gruffly. ‘But, as you can no doubt appreciate, it is going to take me some time to get my head around this.’ ‘Get your head around what exactly?’ Evie drawled, withdrawing behind her own stone-cold shell of selfprotection. ‘The problematic mistress who has stupidly gone and got herself pregnant?’ ‘It takes two to make a baby,’ he sighed. ‘But only one to bring it safely into the world,’ Evie pointed out. ‘Your part is done. Mine is just starting.’ A small silence followed that remark. Then Raschid demanded, ‘Are you suggesting that I ignore the fact that you are having my baby?’ Why? Evie thought bitterly. Are you offering up a suitable alternative? ‘I am suggesting that you get your priorities right,’ she said. ‘And remember your duty.’ Raschid stood staring into cold-cut lavender-blue eyes set in an excruciatingly beautiful face that showed not a hint of emotion anywhere on it—and at last it began to hit him just what she was saying here. ‘Don’t be foolish!’ he snapped. ‘In this case my duty is to you and the child!’ A long-fingered hand flicked out in a grim, tight throw-away gesture. ‘We will have to get married, of course.’ Still no words of love, Evie noted painfully. Still no words of caring. But oh, so arrogant, she observed. So damned sure of himself—so utterly dismayed by what he was so magnanimously offering. ‘We don’t have to do anything,’ she countered, feeling so cold inside now that she wished she hadn’t let his jacket slip to the grass when she’d got to her feet earlier. ‘I will have to speak to my father…’ he muttered, too busy lost in his own frowning thoughts to have heard her. ‘It is going to cause problems at home, but that cannot be helped now. I will…’ ‘Excuse me,’ Evie inserted, and this time the sheer coldness of her voice managed to gain his attention. ‘But the way I see it, Raschid,’ she said firmly, ‘you don’t have a problem here. I do.’ ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ he jerked out, beginning to look just a little shell-shocked now. ‘I’ve never expected marriage from you,’ Evie informed him. ‘And I am not asking you for it now.’ ‘Are you mad?’ he choked. ‘Of course you will marry me! What else can we do?’ Oh, his sensitivity knew no bounds! Evie mocked him bitterly as she bent to retrieve her discarded shoes. ‘I wouldn’t marry you, Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah, if you came gift-wrapped in rubies!’ she hissed as she straightened up again. ‘I have too much damned respect for myself, you see!’ ‘Are you saying that I don’t respect you?’ ‘Do you?’ Evie flashed back. ‘You see, I find it hard to reconcile the fact that I wasn’t fit to marry before I became pregnant with your child!’ At last those angry golden eyes began to burn with a pained understanding of what was actually going on here. Remorse tightened his arrogant features. ‘Evie…’ he sighed, the hand he used to capture her wrist tense with frustration. ‘I have handled this badly,’ he acknowledged. ‘I apologise.’ ‘Don’t bother,’ Evie snapped, tugging angrily at her imprisoned wrist. ‘Let go of me,’ she commanded shakily. ‘Not until you listen to me,’ he refused. The hand pulled her closer, drawing her fully against his powerful chest. ‘You cannot expect me to pretend to be pleased about a baby when you know as well as I do the kind of problems that are going to erupt around us!’ ‘Funny really,’ she said, lifting lavender eyes turned into dark purple pools by the sudden flood of tears washing across them. ‘But I expected nothing more than I got from you, Raschid. Which just about says it all, doesn’t it?’ His sigh was driven, the hand he brought around her waist there to stop her from pulling against her captive wrist. ‘I thought we loved each other well enough to be honest with each other.’ ‘There is honest and there is brutal,’ Evie said thickly. ‘I feel frightened. I feel vulnerable. I feel as if I’ve ruined both our lives. And all you can do is worry about how this is all going to affect you!’ ‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed yet again. But—too late, Evie thought, and pulled herself free of him. ‘Listen to me,’ he pleaded. ‘We need—What are you doing?’ he raked out in disbelief as Evie began to walk away. ‘Come back here, you exasperating creature!’ he growled after her. ‘You cannot just walk away from this!’ Just watch me! Evie thought wretchedly. ‘In the profound words of a certain arrogant swine I know,’ she tossed at him over her shoulder, ‘go to hell!’ Two people knocked on her bedroom door that night. Both tried the handle when they received no response. Both discovered that the door was locked. One was her mother; Evie knew that because Lucinda had called out to her, the usual sharpness honed out of her voice by the thickness of the wood. The other was Raschid. She knew that because he didn’t call out, he just stood on the other side of that door like a silent but dark presence—and used other means to make her aware that he was there and hadn’t given up on this. Evie didn’t sleep that night; she merely dozed, shifting restlessly about the lumpy old bed that had been her mother’s idea of a punishment for a daughter who refused to toe the moral line. So, what would the punishment be for conceiving an illegitimate baby? she wondered grimly. Total excommunication from the family? And Raschid, she moved on to consider with the same sense of wretched derision. Did he really expect her to be grateful for his belated and very reluctant offer of marriage? And don’t forget the ever-vigilant press, Evie reminded herself as she lay there in the darkness. They were going to make a real meal out of all of this if or when they ever found out about it. And neither excommunication nor marriage was going to stop their acid pens from writing their poison. Maybe the other option was the better one. Maybe a quick if bloody end to this was the only way to save everyone’s embarrassment. But even as the thought popped into her head Evie dismissed it with a telling shudder. She was whole, she was healthy, and she had no excuse—moral or otherwise—to put an end to a life before it had barely started. And this little life had been conceived with love, even if that love now lay floundering somewhere between here and the Beverleys’ private lake. She loved this baby. She loved where he came from and who he was going to be. She wanted to be there to watch him become that person. And, no matter what his father, grandmother or even his grandfather thought about it, she would make sure her child grew up feeling pride in his mixed heritage, she vowed fiercely. By dawn she’d had enough of lying there trying to sleep when it was clear that sleep was a million miles away. Getting up, she showered in the antiquated bathroom, pulled on fresh underwear, a pair of jeans and a white tee shirt. Brushing her hair back into a simple ponytail, she then pushed her feet into lightweight slip-ons, and quietly let herself out of her room with the intention of going for a long walk before she had to face Raschid again. There was no one about as she walked down the stairs. The hour was too early for most people after last night’s partying, so she wasn’t particularly surprised about that. But the house had been carefully locked up for the night, she realised belatedly, and the huge cast-iron bolts that were still rammed across the double front doors looked lethal, much too big for her to attempt to shift them. Luckily a servant appeared in the hallway. He looked a trifle disconcerted when he saw Evie standing there so early. But he recovered quickly. ‘Good morning, Miss Delahaye,’ he greeted politely. ‘If you’re looking for the breakfast room, it’s this way…’ ‘No—’ He was about to move off when Evie stopped him. ‘I was hoping to go outside for some fresh air before breakfast, but the bolts on that door look pretty much beyond me,’ she explained with a rueful glance at the door. He smiled back, half relieved he wasn’t going to have to serve her yet, and came quickly towards her. Two minutes later the front door stood open, and Evie was stepping out into one of the soft, still, slightly misty mornings that were so typical of an English summer. About to walk off to the right with the intention of making for the lake, she was stalled by the sound of a car coming up the driveway that skirted the lake on its left-hand side. A moment later the car appeared around the side of the chapel, where it stopped and the driver got out. He saw her, and waved. It was Harry. ‘Morning, Evie,’ he called out, striding briskly towards her. ‘You’re an early bird!’ ‘So are you.’ She found a tight smile from somewhere. ‘Force of habit in my business.’ He grimaced. ‘But—didn’t you stay here last night?’ Evie asked frowningly. He shook his head. ‘I bunked down with some friends a couple of miles away,’ he told her. ‘But I left my jacket here last night, so I decided to collect it on my way home.’ ‘You’re going home?’ Evie’s heart stopped beating for a moment, a sudden, very cowardly idea popping into her head. Harry lived only ten miles outside London. ‘I have a mare due to foal at any minute,’ he nodded. ‘It will be her first, so I want to be there just in case there are any problems.’ ‘Harry—can you give me a lift home?’ she asked, suddenly very sure it was what she desperately needed to do. Get away—escape. ‘Of course,’ he agreed, frowning slightly when he noticed belatedly the bruises around her eyes and the strained pallor of her skin. ‘Can you wait while I throw my things into my bag?’ Evie was already turning eagerly back to the house. ‘Five minutes, Harry. I just need five minutes.’ But she was back down the stairs in only three, looking flushed rather than pale now and ever so slightly hunted as she came towards Harry who was waiting by the door with his recovered dinner jacket draped over one arm. ‘Is everything all right, Evie?’ he asked worriedly. She nodded, allowing him to take her bag from her. ‘It’s all right,’ she assured him. ‘I left a note in my room for my mother, explaining where I’ve gone.’ ‘And Sheikh Raschid?’ Evie didn’t answer; instead she walked out of the house again, head down, back straight, the tension apparent in her slender frame enough to snap wire cables. She was already sitting in the front passenger seat by the time he’d stashed away her things then climbed in beside her. Wisely holding his own counsel, Harry started the engine and turned them around. Neither spoke until they had put several long miles between them and Beverley Castle. Then, ‘Thank you,’ Evie whispered. Harry sent her a concerned glance. He had known her for most of her life, so he recognised distress when she was suffering it. ‘Would you like to talk about it?’ he asked. ‘It’s over between Raschid and I,’ she heard herself announce, and wondered how she was able to say the words without breaking up inside. But what was worse was that Harry was painfully unsurprised by the announcement. ‘The rumours about it were rife last night,’ he nodded. ‘Something to do with his father being ill and him having to go home and marry before he can officially take over from the old man…’ For a space of thirty long, dreadful seconds, Evie didn’t move—didn’t breathe—didn’t function on any basic level. Harry’s words simply hung there in block letters in front of her while other words uttered in the heat of the moment began to take on an entirely different shape. Words like: ‘Do you have any conception of what those two weeks are going to mean to me? The problems they are going to cause?’ Had his father laid down an ultimatum during Raschid’s last visit home? Was that why those two weeks had been so important? ‘And what does rumour say, exactly?’ she asked carefully. Changing gear with a flourish, he sent her a small grimace. ‘That he has a month to sort his life out before he goes home to marry some cousin of a cousin or some such person. Is it true?’ he asked curiously. ‘Is that why he’s finished it?’ Evie didn’t answer. She didn’t do anything but sit there staring directly ahead of her while new horrors settled over old horrors. Some cousin of a cousin being the new horror. For Evie knew all about Aisha. Raschid had never been anything but honest about his cousin of a cousin who had been nothing more than a shadow in the wings of his life while she grew from child to woman enough to marry a prince. ‘Are you okay?’ Harry asked. ‘You’ve gone awfully pale…’ No, Evie thought. I’m not okay. ‘What a mess!’ Raschid had muttered. ‘What a damned mess!’ He hadn’t been joking. The whole thing was a mess! She had already been living on borrowed time with him when she’d broken her news last night. And, what was worse, she had probably been the last one to know it! It didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter any more. It was over. In every which way she looked at it, the affair was most definitely over. She only wished now that she had kept her stupid mouth shut about the baby. At least then she could have walked away from him with some semblance of dignity intact. Now? The whole wretched thing was just destined to get ugly. With their families, with the press, between themselves. For she was not going to go down in history as the woman who held her Arab sheikh lover to ransom with a baby! Evie grimly promised herself. And Raschid, she was sure, was not going to go down in history as the Arab sheikh who deserted his pregnant mistress to marry elsewhere! The car ate up the miles while Evie sat there so sunk in the wallowing mire of her own muddy thinking that she wasn’t aware of the frequent worried glances Harry kept on sending her, or what he was seeing when he did look at her. She didn’t look well. There were bruises around her eyes and a white ring of tension around her mouth. Her skin was too pale, and her fingers trembled where they rested on her lap. They arrived in Chelsea where her mews cottage stood only a short walk away from the World Aid Foundation, where she worked on a purely voluntary basis, drumming up gifts of money from the wealthy. The cottage belonged to Julian. It was one of several properties the family owned in and around London. Her mother resided in something similar in Kensington. And Julian himself used a classy apartment not far from Hyde Park. Great to have money, Evie bleakly acknowledged. Great to able to do what you wanted when you wanted to do it without having to consider the cost. Great to know that she could bring up her baby without having to accept a single penny from Raschid to do it, she tagged on cynically. The car had stopped. Looking around a little dazedly, Evie realised that Harry had already got out and was striding towards the boot. She climbed out too, the sunlight just managing to seep over the rooftops feeling warm on her icy face. Walking to the back of the car, she waited until Harry had closed the boot lid then went to take her bag from him. ‘Thanks for the lift, Harry. I…’ The bag was swung out of her reach. ‘I’m coming in with you,’ he insisted. ‘But your foal. You should…’ ‘The least you can do is offer me a cup of coffee for my trouble,’ he pointed out gently. ‘Of course, I’m sorry,’ she murmured contritely, and turned to cross the pavement to her white-painted front door. The telephone was ringing even as she stepped into the house with Harry right behind her. Evie froze where she stood, counting off the rings until the answering machine took over. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears as the machine chanted out her recorded message. A moment after that and her mother’s voice came whipping across the room towards her. ‘Evie, I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, walking out like this. God knows what the Beverleys are going to think!’ A sigh rasped like sandpaper across the room. ‘I don’t care what a mess your private life is in, this is so bad-mannered! Now I suppose I will have to make up excuses for you. It just isn’t fair, Evie! Don’t you think I spend enough time making excuses for you as it is?’ Another sigh, then came a few tense moments when nothing happened while her mother seemed to be getting a hold on her temper. ‘Look,’ she said, sounding marginally less aggressive. ‘Call me here when you get home. I need to know you arrived there safely…’ ‘You didn’t tell her you came away with me?’ Harry asked when the call had finished. Evie shook her head. ‘I just said I’d got a lift home,’ she explained, forcing her stiff legs to move towards the kitchen. She hadn’t wanted to involve Harry’s name in all of this; it would cause too many complications when things were complicated enough. Her mother didn’t need any help to cast Harry in the role of saviour. Give Lucinda an inch and she would take a mile… ‘Are you going to call her back?’ Evie didn’t answer. Instead she picked up the kettle and took it over to the sink to fill it with fresh water. She didn’t want to talk to anyone—not even Harry—though it would be churlish under the circumstances to tell him that. ‘Evie…’ The phone started ringing again, cutting off whatever Harry had been about to say and turning Evie to stone again where she stood clutching the kettle while she waited to hear who was trying to contact her this time. A moment after that and Raschid’s voice came, sounding hard and tight and very, very weary. ‘Pick up the phone, Evie,’ he commanded. ‘I know you are there…’ Evie didn’t move. The seconds ticked by, the silence picking at tautly stretched nerve-ends. ‘Evie!’ Impatience roughened his voice now. ‘This is foolish! You are being foolish! Pick up the phone!’ ‘How does he know you are here?’ Harry asked curiously. ‘Would your mother have told him?’ Incapable of speech, Evie gave a small shake of her head. Her mother would rather die than tell Raschid anything. No, Raschid must have seen her leave, she decided. Like herself, she presumed, he must have spent a lousy sleepless night wondering what the hell he was going to do about her, and had probably been staring out of his bedroom window when she and Harry took off together. A disembodied sigh rushed impatiently around the room when her refusal to comply made Raschid angry. Teeth clenched, body—the very muscles that made her heart beat—all locked into a dreadful straining paralysis, Evie waited to hear what was going to come next. ‘I am on my way to you,’ he grimly informed her. ‘Make sure you get rid of that fool who is there with you, or I will not be responsible for what may happen to him!’ ‘What the…?’ Harry burst out in disbelief. Snap, the line went dead. Evie jumped, almost dropping the kettle. ‘How did he know I was here?’ Harry gasped. ‘Does the man have special powers or something?’ ‘Or something,’ Evie tightly replied. And from being frozen the muscles around her heart were now accelerating wildly as anger began to take her over. Putting down the kettle, she walked out of the open-plan kitchen and across the sitting room to glance out of the window. There were several cars parked in the mews, but only one had somebody sitting inside it. ‘He must have seen us leave Beverley together,’ she told Harry as he came to stand beside her. Then she nodded her head towards the occupied car. ‘There is the object of his special powers,’ she dryly concluded. ‘You mean—he’s having you watched?’ Harry was beginning to look hunted. ‘But why should he bother to do that? The man is marrying another woman!’ But this one is having his baby, Evie added grimly to herself as she winced at Harry’s thoughtless reminder. ‘Look,’ she said, turning towards him, ‘I’m very grateful to you for bringing me home. But I think you should leave before he gets here.’ ‘I’m not leaving you alone with him!’ he declared, coming over all macho and protective. ‘The man sounded damned dangerous,’ he added. ‘For all I know, he may have plans to spirit you away to his harem, or something.’ Evie allowed herself a wry smile at that scenario—though the real joke of it was that Raschid might well be planning to do just that. She wasn’t sure. She didn’t understand him any more. After two years of believing that she knew him inside out and back to front, she was now discovering that he had hidden depths she had never allowed for. The main one being his determination to hang on to something that he hadn’t even wanted. The baby—the baby. Not Evie or what they felt for each other, but a baby that he deemed as his possession. And it wasn’t in Raschid’s nature to let go of something he believed belonged to him. So, maybe the harem theory wasn’t so far-fetched. Maybe he could see her hidden away there with only his eunuchs for company while his new wife lived in complete ignorance of her new husband’s intimate prisoner. Or maybe not so ignorant, Evie then amended, remembering his sister Ranya’s meek obedience to the men in her life. A different world, a different culture, a different view of life. She shuddered. ‘He’s started the car engine,’ Harry said. Evie turned to see tell-tale blink of an amber indicator—and felt a tiny quiver of alarm go slinking through her blood. It could only mean that Raschid was mere seconds away. ‘Harry—!’ she pleaded urgently. ‘Get out of here before Raschid arrives. Please…’ ‘But—’ ‘But nothing,’ Evie interrupted, already moving to open the front door. ‘He won’t hurt me, but I can’t say what he may do to you.’ She was nervous, she was anxious. Harry didn’t like the look of either. And her slender fingers had that open front door in a death grip. A black Mercedes drove slowly by them. ‘Take the lady’s advice,’ a deep voice dropped smoothly into the tension. ‘She knows what she is talking about…’ They both jumped, both turned, both stared at the man who was now filling the doorway. CHAPTER SIX DRESSED entirely in black—black jeans, black tee shirt, soft black leather jacket—he looked mean and he looked dangerous. Evie stared at him and felt her mouth go dry, felt her skin begin to prickle, and felt that terrible sizzle of sexual attraction rush through her blood as it always did when she looked at him. ‘Raschid—’ she began warningly. He ignored her. His attention was fixed upon poor Harry who was beginning to look a little hot around his shirt collar. ‘Evie needed a lift,’ Harry explained, trying to sound belligerent but only managing to sound defensive. ‘And we thank you for your time and effort,’ Raschid responded politely. ‘But I believe you have a rather valuable mare in need of your personal attention. So we will understand your desire to rush off…’ As a dismissal it just about said it all, but what struck Evie harder was the fact that Raschid knew all about Harry’s pregnant mare. Maybe he did possess the second sight, she thought a little breathlessly, her eyes locked with unwilling fascination on those narrowed golden eyes of his. ‘Now, just a minute…’ Harry decided to dig his heels in. Evie flicked her gaze in his direction and almost groaned when she saw the sudden stubborn jut of his chin. Harry might be a shy and self-effacing kind of person, but, like Raschid, he had been born to cherish his own high station. ‘You can’t just—’ ‘No, Harry.’ It was Evie who stopped him, Evie who knew that if it came to a hands-on battle Harry would lose out on all counts, and that included his pride. Without thinking what she was doing, she stepped up to him and touched his cheek with gentle fingertips to gain his attention then sent him a sad, apologetic smile. ‘You’ve done enough,’ she told him softly. ‘But he—’ This time Evie stopped the words by placing her lips against his. It startled him enough to render him silent. Behind her she could feel Raschid’s anger reaching out towards her like tentacles that wanted to rip her apart for daring to kiss another man in front of him like this. She ignored the sensation. Ignored the man. ‘I am very grateful for what you’ve done, but it really is best that you leave now. Please, Harry.’ She pleaded with him when she saw the stubbornness still setting his jaw. Indecision began to cloud his grey eyes. ‘You will be okay?’ he asked, ignoring the way Raschid stiffened at the question. Evie smiled reassuringly and nodded. ‘I’ll call you,’ she promised as an added incentive. ‘Later on today.’ Another few moments of high-tension silence, then Harry reluctantly gave in. His hands came up to cup Evie’s shoulders, his head lowering so he could place a brief kiss against her mouth, then he was letting her go and with a cold nod of his head in Raschid’s direction he stepped out of the cottage and walked off towards his car. Evie’s sense of relief was very short-lived. She glanced at Raschid who was looking back at her with narrowed eyes that were not pleasant. Alarm went tingling down her backbone. ‘Very touching,’ he drawled, holding her defiant gaze captive as he stepped into the cottage and closed the door behind him. ‘Little scenes like that force me to wonder if I asked all the wrong questions last night.’ ‘I don’t recall you asking any questions,’ Evie replied with tight derision. ‘No?’ As threatening as hell, he took a step towards her, mouth thin, eyes as hard as pebbles. ‘Then allow me to ask this one,’ he requested. ‘Is the baby mine?’ It took several moments for the question to sink in, and even when it did Evie continued to stand there staring at him in stunned disbelief. Then they came—the anger, the sense of personal offence; they swam up from the very depths of her loins to course like fire through her blood. ‘How dare you?’ she breathed in shimmering fury. ‘Answer the question,’ he demanded thinly. His eyes were glittering, his bared teeth gleaming white between the taut stretch of his lips. Evie stared into those threatening gold eyes, and saw the word traitor blazing from them. ‘It’s not yours,’ she said, turned her back on him and walked away, leaving him standing there with his arrogant guns most satisfyingly spiked for once. The cottage wasn’t big, just one long room really, split into two by a breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the living room. The living-room window looked out on the cobbled street at the front of the cottage, the rear window on a tiny walled garden. It was nothing more than an old-fashioned back yard, alive at the moment with summer blooms planted by herself in hanging baskets and an array of terracotta tubs. It was to that rear window that Evie went, leaning her slender hips against the built-in unit and folding her arms across her front while she stared out at the flower-filled little garden with absolutely no pleasure whatsoever. The reason why she was feeling no pleasure in what was on show outside was that she was feeling no pleasure in anything right now. ‘Liar.’ Raschid’s smooth voice dripped with a dry lazy confidence. Evie grimaced, not in the least bit surprised that it had taken him mere seconds to work that one out. Turning round, she found him standing in the opening between the kitchen and living room. His jacket had gone, his casual stance as he leaned a broad shoulder against the wall beside him a masterpiece in long, fluid, muscular lines. Nothing about him was left wanting. Not the cut of his silky dark hair or the colour of his beautiful skin or even the casual clothes that covered a body built to god-like proportions. He was Man personified—to Evie at least. And the real point here was that he knew it. Which was why he could call her a liar so confidently. ‘Rumour has it,’ she continued, ‘that marriage to the cousin of a cousin looms large upon your horizon.’ That made his eyes narrow slightly, fixed his attention on her cool expression that was challenging him to dare deny the charge. Of course, he didn’t deny it. ‘Marriage to Aisha has always loomed large on my horizon, Evie; you know that,’ he answered levelly. ‘I have never tried to hide it from you.’ ‘Until last night,’ Evie said bitterly. ‘Is that why you ran away with the Marquis this morning?’ he demanded. ‘Because you heard a rumour that may or may not have been true?’ He wasn’t denying it, though. ‘I ran away because I didn’t want another ugly scene with you.’ He sighed—which was something, she supposed, and at last began to look as weary as she felt. ‘But we have to talk this through, and you know that, Evie.’ Oh, yes, she thought heavily. She knew that. But Raschid’s idea of talking was to give orders that she was supposed to obey. ‘I need time to myself, to decide what I want to do,’ she told him huskily. ‘Time is something I don’t have,’ he countered very grimly. ‘Because your father has issued you with an ultimatum?’ she asked. His shrug was eloquent, his indifference to the question more so. ‘As I am going to marry you, the question of my marrying anyone else is therefore rendered useless.’ Given just who and what he was, Evie wasn’t so sure about that. Turning away again, she went back to filling and plugging in the kettle. Behind her she could feel Raschid watching her, trying to calculate her mood and what she was thinking. It didn’t take much perception to see that, despite his reaffirmation about marriage, Evie was still not accepting it as the natural solution. ‘They say your father is ill again,’ she remarked, reaching into the cupboard for the caddy of his favourite mint tea without really knowing she was doing it. ‘He has to undergo some open heart surgery,’ Raschid confirmed. ‘But he is refusing to do so until I am safely married and settled in his seat of power.’ ‘Which you won’t be if you marry me.’ ‘I cannot lie and say that people are going to be delighted,’ Raschid sombrely acknowledged. ‘But given time they will become used to the idea. We all will,’ he added carefully. Meaning her, Evie supposed. The teapot was special, more a tiny silver urn that Asim had given her as a gift last year when she had got him to show her how to prepare the mint tea the way Raschid liked it. It had been a nice thought—a caring thought. But even Asim, whom she was perhaps closer to than anyone else attached to Raschid, would stare in horror at his master actually marrying her. ‘I won’t marry you, Raschid,’ she said, spooning the pale green coarse-cut leaves into the urn. ‘It would be wrong for me and disastrous for you.’ ‘Define disastrous,’ he requested. One of those weary sighs whispered from her. ‘Your country’s stability depends upon its Muslim roots,’ she explained. ‘Marrying a Christian would weaken those roots. Which is why the cousin of a cousin has always hovered in the shadows throughout the time we’ve been together.’ He didn’t bother to argue the point, which made her want to weep. ‘Now explain why it would be wrong for you?’ he prompted instead. Another sigh—one that was caught back before it was uttered this time, but her heart lay heavy in her breast as she stood there watching the kettle come slowly to the boil. ‘You would stifle me. The situation would stifle me. As our relationship stands at the moment I have the freedom to do more or less as I please. The restrictions placed on a Muslim wife are stifling enough, but for one who would be as disapproved of as I would be…I would suffocate,’ she predicted. ‘And the child you carry?’ he continued levelly. ‘What is supposed to happen to him while you protect yourself from a stifling marriage and save my country from instability?’ He was mocking her but angrily. He didn’t like the picture she was painting but couldn’t come up with a better one to paint over it. ‘The he may be a she,’ she smiled. ‘Which would not be so big a problem, would it?’ ‘We are not barbarians, Evie,’ he said tightly. ‘We do not drown our female offspring at birth, I promise you.’ ‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she said, pouring boiling water into the urn. ‘Tell me…what would your people think of a half English boy child who would in effect be his father’s heir if we married?’ ‘He will be my heir whether or not we marry,’ Raschid informed her with a grimness that had Evie spinning round to stare at him in horror. ‘No, Raschid!’ she cried out in protest. ‘You—’ ‘Watch out!’ he rasped at her. But it was already too late. ‘Oh, damn!’ Evie gasped as pain like nothing she had ever felt in her life before forced the air to rush from her lungs. She hadn’t even realised she still had hold of the hot urn! The jerky way she had spun around had sent the hot tea shooting out of the spout and over her arm. ‘Here!’ Raschid was suddenly in front of her and grabbing hold of her hand to yank her over to the sink. Ice-cold water gushed over burning hot skin, sending heart-stopping shock waves shooting through her system. Her eyes were closed, and she was shaking so badly that even her teeth chattered. If Raschid hadn’t been holding her up with his arm clamped around her waist, she would have fallen in a trembling heap to the tiled floor. ‘Did it splash you anywhere else?’ he asked harshly. It was all she could do to shake her head. She felt sick, she felt dizzy, the shock and the pain driving her to breathe in choked whimpers. Raschid hissed out something nasty from between violently clenched teeth. ‘You fool,’ he muttered, ruthless in his determination to keep her arm beneath the agonising coldness of the water. ‘Did I ask for tea—did I? If you’ve damaged this beautiful skin I will throttle you!’ ‘Sh-shut up,’ she breathed, in too much pain to want to listen to him taking his own distress out on her. ‘I should have seen it coming!’ he railed on regardless. ‘When you play the super-controlled ice-maiden, it usually means you’re struggling to keep yourself together for one reason or another!’ Well, she wasn’t together now, Evie thought painfully. She was literally coming apart at the seams. Her arm hurt, her body hurt and her heart hurt. ‘I w-won’t marry you,’ she choked out, his remark reminding her why she had ended up scalding herself like this. The hand clamped around her slender wrist tightened its grip, then grimly lowered the arm into a sink now full of icy water before he let go of her. The tap was switched off, Evie wilted weakly against the unit, her body sliding away from his until she was hunched over the sink with her arm immersed up to the armpit. Leaving her standing there weak and shaking, fighting to keep the sickness, the dizziness and now the onset of wretched tears at bay, Raschid strode angrily away. A moment later she heard him running up the stairs, and a minute after that and he was back with the first-aid box from her bathroom and a snowy white towel, both of which he angrily tossed down on the unit beside her. Then he was gently lifting her arm out of the water and laying it on the towel. He didn’t speak as he bent over to inspect the damage, but his face was cast in stone, his eyes glittering from between lushly curling lashes, his mouth nothing but a thin tight line. She watched his brown fingers move gently over the reddened area of her arm, watched him carefully cover it with the towel then turn to open the first-aid box. Most of the heat had been neutralised by the water by then, although Evie still could not stop shaking. Producing a tube of antiseptic, he deftly unscrewed the cap then began lightly smearing the ointment on her arm. ‘Does that hurt?’ She shook her head in answer. ‘If it blisters we will have to call in a burns specialist. But at the moment you seem to have been lucky.’ Lucky, Evie thought. There had to be an irony in that somewhere though she didn’t feel like looking for it. ‘Raschid—please listen to me,’ she pleaded. ‘You can’t—’ He glanced up, those golden eyes so hard they silenced her utterly. ‘Don’t force me to get tough with you,’ he warned. ‘For you will not like the tactics I will employ.’ ‘Was that a threat?’ she gasped. He didn’t answer, didn’t need to while he continued to look at her like that. Raschid had a ruthless streak running through him that could, when invited, become quite cruel—though until now Evie had never been a party to that side of him. ‘The child is mine.’ He reinforced the main points of conflict here. ‘You are mine. I have not the slightest intention of giving either of you up. Which means I must make your place in my life official.’ ‘And damn the consequences?’ He grimaced but nodded. ‘And damn the consequences,’ he flatly confirmed. The phone began to ring, slicing through the tension like a knife. ‘Do you want me to answer it?’ Raschid asked quietly. Evie shook her head, her eyes lowered while she waited for the answer machine to take over. It was her mother again. ‘Have you seen this morning’s paper?’ Her shrill voice slashed across the room. ‘I have never been so embarrassed in all my life! If it isn’t bad enough that you disappear without a word of thanks to anyone, that wretched man only goes and does the same thing—then I have to contend with the pair of you staring out at me from the front page of the newspaper!’ Evie looked up at Raschid, a question in her eyes, but he shook his dark head in grim answer. ‘I’m telling you, Evie,’ her mother said tightly. ‘I am so darned angry with you I could very easily disown you! Front page you stand wrapped in his arms! Centre page he stands with his father announcing his upcoming marriage to another woman!’ Raschid hissed out an acrid curse, his big frame taut as he strode across the room towards the telephone. He was about to snatch it up to demand what the hell Lucinda was talking about when her voice came again. ‘And where is the picture of Julian and Christina?’ she demanded tearfully. ‘Nowhere to be seen! Scandal—that’s all you’ve ever brought me, Evangeline! Pain, disillusionment, embarrassment and scandal! The Beverleys are upset and trying not to show it! I am upset and trying not to show it! But where are you? That’s what I would like to know! With him somewhere? Are the pair of you nicely holed up enjoying your last passionate tryst before he dumps you to marry someone else? Perhaps you would like the press to cover that shocking event too!’ The connection was severed. In the drumming silence that followed it, Evie stood cradling her towel-wrapped arm against her and wondered bleakly what her mother was going to say when she found out about the coming baby. A loud knock suddenly sounded on the front door. Evie jumped violently, the air shivering out of her lungs as she automatically walked forward to go and answer it. ‘No,’ Raschid bit out forcefully. ‘Check who it is first.’ Diverting towards the window, Evie glanced out then gave a gasp of surprise. ‘It’s the press!’ she exclaimed, and began quickly dragging the curtains across the glass when half a dozen of them saw her and began converging on the living-room window. Within seconds the noise was unbelievable, people knocking on the door and on the window, calling out her name and shouting out questions. White-faced, she turned towards Raschid. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked bewilderedly. ‘What was my mother talking about? Why are they here?’ ‘I don’t know.’ Frowning, he was already lifting the telephone up and stabbing in a set of numbers. Evie stood, still trembling with shock from her scalding without the added confusion that was now taking place outside her home. Raschid’s voice was tight with anger as he spoke in his own language to whoever it was he had contacted, his dark face growing darker by the second, while the thumping on the door and window grew so loud Evie could barely hear herself even think. On a violent curse, Raschid slammed down the receiver. At the same moment a newspaper was pushed through the letterbox. It landed on the doormat with an ominous thud. Evie went to get it but Raschid was there before her. ‘Do you have anything to say about this, Miss Delahaye?’ a muffled voice shouted through the letterbox. ‘Front page. Can’t miss it!’ the voice added helpfully. Front page. Can’t miss it. Evie stood by Raschid’s arm and simply stared at what she was seeing. It was a photograph of herself and Raschid kissing beneath the wedding canopy at Beverley. Above it the headline read: ‘Is This Farewell?’ Below it was the sub-heading: ‘Behran Embassy announces the forthcoming marriage of Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah to neighbouring sheikh’s daughter! The marriage will unite two of the most powerful sheikhdoms and effectively put Evie Delahaye out in the cold.’ ‘This has not been announced with my approval!’ Raschid insisted forcefully. ‘My father is attempting to force my hand!’ ‘Oh, no,’ Evie whispered, sinking into the nearest chair when her legs went weak beneath her. Raschid stood gripping the newspaper between white-knuckled fists while he read on, his dark face locked up like a steel trap. Neither spoke again; neither needed to. They both knew very well what this was going to mean to them. For, no matter how much he would like to deny what his father had announced, Evie knew Raschid dared not. To deny it would be tantamount to insulting both his own father and Aisha’s family. So this is it, Evie concluded hollowly. Her instincts had been sending her all the right signals, and this was the end for her and Raschid. No more mouthing words that she didn’t really mean. No more pretending she wouldn’t marry him. For it was only now as she sat here accepting that she could never marry him that she realised she had been pretending to herself. And it hit her hard, so hard she could barely function. The telephone began ringing again. Neither of them heard it. Just as they didn’t hear the pounding on the front door and the window any more. For those few stark minutes the very walls could have come tumbling down around them and neither would have moved a muscle. Then the letterbox flew up and a pair of eyes appeared in the opening. ‘Did you know about this yesterday, Miss Delahaye?’ a voice demanded. ‘Is that why you and the Sheikh were careful to avoid each other at your brother’s wedding?’ Not careful enough, was Evie’s hollow answer to that as she thought of that revealing photograph. And we didn’t avoid each other, she reminded herself as, with glassy eyes, she watched Raschid throw down the newspaper and angrily reach for one of her cream linen easy chairs. Picking it up, he rammed it against the door, effectively trapping the letterbox shut. We danced together, her own train of thought went on uninterrupted. We made love in my room before we went to the ball together. Raschid had been angry with her for avoiding him. He hadn’t known about this then, she was sure of it. For, whatever he was, he was not devious. Angry again later, yes, when she told him about the baby, she acknowledged. Seeing all the problems a baby was going to cause because his father was already laying the pressure on him to marry Aisha. But this—this was cruel. This did not take into account her own feelings. This publicly stripped her of her pride and left her heart exposed and bleeding. Raschid just wouldn’t have done that to her. ‘I’ll go away,’ she whispered as one thought led haphazardly on to another. ‘I have relatives in Australia. I can—’ ‘No!’ Raschid ground out at her furiously. Glancing up, she saw him through a haze of tears. His wonderful skin had lost most of its colour, his eyes standing out like two golden suns locked into fierce eruption. ‘You will do nothing—nothing until I can get this sorted out! There is a way—there has to be a way!’ he raked out hoarsely. And it was that hoarseness of voice that cut her to the quick. For Raschid, like herself, knew the emptiness of that statement. Outside, the noise was growing. Inside someone was shouting questions at her via the answering machine. With an angry jerk, Raschid bent down and pulled the plug on the phone. Then, on a growl, he muttered, ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ and retrieved his leather jacket to take his mobile phone out of one of the pockets. Tossing the jacket aside again, he stepped into the kitchen to peer out of the rear window, looking to see if they had been besieged at the rear of the cottage as well as the front. No tell-tale camera lens came poking over the top of the seven-foot-high brick wall that protected the back of the property. ‘Get the car around the back of the cottage,’ he rasped tersely to whoever he was speaking to. ‘Keep the engine running and be prepared to move.’ With that he came back to Evie’s side, bent to grasp her uninjured arm and lifted her to her feet. ‘Come on,’ he urged grimly. ‘But—’ She looked dazed and shaken. Raschid shook his dark head. ‘You can’t stay here,’ he clipped out. ‘And I certainly cannot. Going by the questions they have been throwing at you, I don’t think they even know I am here—which is to our advantage. I arrived before they did, and my car was parked around the corner. With a bit of luck,’ he added as he unbolted the back door and pulled it open, ‘we can be out of here before they realise you’ve escaped.’ ‘Escaped to where?’ Evie asked bleakly as he pushed her outside and followed her, pulling the door shut behind him. ‘To my apartment,’ he replied as if the question had been a serious one and not a stark response to her own bleak sense of isolation. ‘At least there I can protect you from all of this until we decide what we are going to do.’ Do? Evie let out a nervy little laugh that verged on the hysterical. They both knew what he had to do. It was her future that was hanging in the balance here. CHAPTER SEVEN IT WAS another warm sunny day and the enclosed back yard acted like a suntrap. But Evie felt shivering cold as she let Raschid take her over to the solid wooden back gate that led out into the narrow alleyway, which ran right along the row of terraced cottages. They paused there in the sunshine, Raschid sliding back the two bolts that secured the gate then going still with his hand on the latch while he listened for the sound of his car arriving. Evie stood beside him with her face lowered where she stared blankly at the white towel still covering her scalded arm. The skin was burning a little, but it didn’t seem to matter, not when her whole world felt as though it was slowly but surely falling in on her. Raschid put a hand to her waist, then sent it travelling up her trembling spine until it reached her nape where his long fingers gently closed so he could use his thumb beneath her chin to lift her eyes to his. Her heart turned over at the dark glow she could see burning in his eyes. He was so handsome, she thought tragically, so dark and smooth and so right for her somehow—how was she ever going to survive without him? ‘I love you,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Don’t let anyone or anything ever try to convince you otherwise.’ And he did love her. Evie only had to look into those rich golden eyes to know it was true love that burned from them. ‘But love isn’t enough, is it?’ she said, her mouth quivering on the true wretchedness of that comment. Bending his head, he caught her quivering mouth, tasted it—soothed it with his own firmer lips. ‘I will find a way through this,’ he gruffly vowed. ‘You are mine. I am yours. Nothing can change that.’ Evie wished with all her aching heart that she could believe that—but she couldn’t. ‘Duty can,’ she replied. Raschid didn’t answer but his expression clouded—and she couldn’t even swallow against the thickness that was suddenly clogging her throat. The car drew up beyond the gate then. Lifting the latch, Raschid stepped out to check the alleyway before he opened the rear door of a silver Mercedes then quickly urged Evie inside. ‘Right—go!’ he commanded the driver as he got in beside her. It was the sheer urgency in his voice that made Evie turn to look through the car’s rear window. A man with half a dozen cameras hanging around his neck had just appeared at the other end of the alleyway. He was desperately trying to bring one of those cameras up to his face as they took off across the cobbles at speed. ‘It’s all right,’ Raschid soothed, seeing Evie’s anxious expression. ‘He is on foot. By the time he has collected his own form of transport we will be gone.’ ‘But he now knows you’re with me,’ she pointed out heavily. Which made for just another bit of delicious scandal for them to feed upon. ‘I will always be with you,’ he replied with a flat-voiced sincerity that only helped to heighten her anxiety. For how could he make a pronouncement like that knowing it was only going to cause more distress for all of them? ‘Raschid—’ ‘No.’ His hand came out, reaching across the small gap separating them to close warmly around one of her own tightly clenched hands. ‘We will not discuss this now,’ he ordained. ‘You are too upset and I am too confused by what my father has done for either of us to discuss anything constructively.’ ‘But—’ ‘But,’ he intruded, turning dark eyes on her that issued one very dire warning, ‘you are carrying my child, Evie, which is one fact we are not in any confusion about. And that child will have my name no matter how many problems we have to surmount to reach that goal.’ A vow from the soul that filled her breast with warm honeyed love for this man who valued her so dearly. But it didn’t stop her mind from gnawing away at the problems they were about to face as the car reached the end of the alleyway and shot out on to the main street, heading towards the river. The sound of Raschid’s mobile phone bursting into life brought her sharply to attention. His hand left hers, and for the next few minutes he talked at length in his own language. His voice sounded hard, the answers he was receiving to any questions he shot out doing nothing to ease his temper. ‘They’re all over the place,’ he muttered when he eventually sat back again. ‘Besieging my apartment block as well as your cottage! I could really have done without all of this!’ He could? Evie’s head was beginning to swim with it all. ‘You got me out of my house so fast, I haven’t even got my purse,’ she said, adding to his problems. ‘And we didn’t lock the doors behind us.’ ‘Your cottage will have been secured within minutes of us leaving,’ Raschid assured her. ‘And you can survive without your purse, surely?’ He was terse to the point of being cutting, and Evie turned her face sideways and pretended he wasn’t there. She wasn’t hurt or offended by his tone; in fact she sympathised with it. The whole situation had exploded into something way beyond what either of them could control, and that was what was so hard to swallow. Being out of control. ‘How is your arm?’ Evie glanced down at it, rather confused to see it was still wrapped in the white towel. ‘It still burns a little,’ she replied. But then, so did her eyes; they felt sore and gritty through lack of sleep and a dire need to sob her heart out. Perhaps he knew it, because, on a heavy sigh, Raschid slid across the gap separating them so he could pull her against him. ‘Asim will take care of your arm as soon as we reach my apartment,’ he murmured. ‘All we need to do first is get past the press waiting for us there, and that should be easy enough when they cannot follow us underground, into the car park.’ ‘Then what?’ she asked. ‘Do we hide away like fugitives in your apartment instead of my cottage?’ There didn’t seem to be much difference between the two locations to Evie. ‘At least I can protect you there,’ he countered. ‘Because,’ he then added very grimly, ‘this is only the beginning of it all, not the end of it.’ The beginning, not the end. Evie shuddered. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d never met you,’ she sighed. Surprisingly he laughed, albeit ruefully. ‘Only sometimes?’ he mocked. ‘There is a chance for us yet, then.’ It was merely one of those light, throw-away remarks people made in times of trouble that really did not mean anything in particular. But still, it weighed heavily on Evie’s mind as the car swept up to the security-protected entrance to his basement car park, because she didn’t think they had a chance whichever way you looked at it. Evie sank deeply into the rear seat when she saw the gaggle of press people standing around waiting for them, and Raschid’s arm drew her tighter against him as he clipped out a terse order to his driver to run them over if he had to. Luckily such a dire response wasn’t necessary; as the car drove towards them the rat-pack parted, their cameras flashing against the car windows as it forged its way down into the relative sanctuary of the basement. The car stopped and Raschid jumped out to stride around the car so he could open Evie’s door for her. The lift waited; they entered it together and travelled upwards in complete silence. It stopped and the doors slid open directly into Raschid’s private white marbled foyer. Asim was standing there waiting for them. When he saw the way Evie was cradling her towel-wrapped arm he gasped in horror. ‘Someone has harmed you, Miss Delahaye?’ he asked sharply. ‘I did it myself,’ Evie dryly replied. ‘Hot tea,’ Raschid inserted tightly. ‘From that urn you gave to her.’ It was a rotten thing to say, especially when poor Asim suddenly looked as if he’d poured the stupid tea over her himself. ‘Stop taking your bad temper out on Asim!’ she snapped. ‘It’s not his fault your life is in such a mess!’ ‘What a damned mess!’ he had rasped at her last night. And just now he had added an apt little rider to that with his, ‘This is only the beginning of it all, not the end of it.’ Without waiting for instruction, Asim quietly bade Evie to follow him into the living room where he sat her down on one of the chairs then squatted in front of her so he could gently unwrap her burned arm. The skin looked red, but it hadn’t blistered, although when he touched a cool fingertip to it she jumped in pained response. ‘It is still hot?’ he asked. Evie nodded her head, weak tears suddenly flooding her eyes. ‘Do something about it!’ Raschid grated from behind the older man. ‘Of course.’ As impassive as ever in the face of Raschid’s anger, Asim rose up and moved quietly away. ‘You’re horrible to him,’ Evie snapped out accusingly. ‘Ever speak to me like that and I will slap your face!’ ‘Before you burst into tears or after?’ he countered. Then sighed and turned his back on her, his stance taut and angry. ‘I don’t like to see you hurting,’ he tagged on gruffly. Well, I’m hurting in a whole lot of other places you don’t even know about, Evie thought bleakly. Asim came back. Raschid looked relieved. Squatting down in front of her again, the older man unscrewed the top off a jar and began gently smearing a clear ointment on her scalded skin. It was delicious, so cooling. Evie sighed softly and relaxed back in the chair to close her aching eyes. A few minutes later a moist bandage was being carefully wrapped around her arm. ‘The heat is receding?’ Asim asked her. She nodded. ‘Thank you, Asim.’ ‘We will repeat the process again later,’ he said. ‘But for now, Miss Delahaye, I really think you should lie down on the bed and rest. You are looking exceedingly pale…’ ‘But—’ ‘Good advice.’ Raschid was suddenly standing over her. ‘But…’ she tried again. ‘But nothing. To put it bluntly, Evie, you look dreadful.’ She felt it too—shock, she assumed, the delayed kind of shock that was making her feel ever so slightly woozy. ‘I haven’t had a single thing to eat today,’ she remembered as Raschid helped her get to her feet. ‘Then while we get you comfortable in bed Asim will prepare something—what would you like?’ It was weird, but having felt her stomach growling for want of sustenance, it was suddenly churning for an entirely different reason. ‘Oh, no,’ she choked, bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. ‘What’s the matter?’ Raschid demanded sharply. But Evie had already broken free from him to run. A single glass of water drunk at five-thirty that morning was no real problem to bring back up, but Evie remained leaning over the bowl in the bathroom for a long while afterwards, still feeling sick and dizzy enough not to dare to move away. After a while, she straightened carefully and went in search of the minty mouthwash she knew Raschid kept hidden behind the large mirrored wall cupboard. Finding it, she shut the cupboard door and was just about to unscrew the cap when a reflection in the mirror caught her attention. And it came as a shock to see that both Raschid and Asim were standing in the bathroom doorway gravely watching her. ‘Oh, go away!’ she cried out on a sudden loss of dignity. ‘Can’t a girl even be sick in private here?’ ‘We were concerned,’ Raschid said. ‘Well, don’t be,’ she snapped, then sighed as her stomach made another grasping clutch at her. ‘It happens,’ she added fatalistically. A baby…she thought dazedly. They had made a baby. Lifting her eyes, she stared at Raschid’s sober face through the mirror then turned her gaze to Asim. He knew, she realised painfully. It had quickly hit him just what was not being said here. And the horror he was having difficulty in disguising brought the weak spill of tears washing into her eyes. ‘Oh, damn it,’ she choked, and turned away from both the mirror and the two men to tip a small quantity of mouthwash into the plastic cap. But her hand was shaking badly, and she spilled more than she caught in the cap before she had enough to warily swill her mouth with. ‘Come on…’ Raschid’s arm came around her shoulders, his voice deep and heavy as he gently turned her. ‘You may feel better if you lie down for a while.’ Quietly dismissing Asim, Raschid led her through to the bedroom, and Evie found she just didn’t have enough energy to argue with him when he began to undress her. So she simply let him get on with it, lifting a foot when required or an arm, then finally allowed him to slide her between the cool linen sheets. ‘He’s going to hate me now,’ she murmured dully as Raschid straightened away from her. ‘For messing up your life.’ ‘Don’t be foolish,’ he admonished, not even pretending to wonder whom it was she was talking about. ‘Asim has great affection for you, and you know it.’ As he moved away from her, Evie let her eyes follow him. He went to touch the button on the wall that would bring the curtains swishing across the windows. The instant transformation from bright sunlight to a mellow half-light helped soothe the ache going on behind her weary eyes. ‘If he seemed upset,’ Raschid continued as he walked back to her, ‘then it is because he sees the problems facing us just as clearly as you and I do.’ ‘Your father will hate me.’ Evie was in no mood to be consoled right now. ‘My mother will hate me…’ ‘Shut up,’ Raschid said. ‘Or I may just decide to exert other methods to rid you of your melancholy.’ Lavender eyes that he expected to slice him in two at such an audacious threat were instead blunted by a vulnerability even Raschid had never seen in them before. It moved him to see it, touched a painful chord deep inside him that wrenched free the impassive mask he had been wearing, and replaced it with a complexity of emotions, all of which revolved around several different kinds of frustration. ‘Oh, what the hell?’ he muttered to himself, and with a slick economy of movement his tee shirt came off over his head to reveal that wonderful polished bronze breastplate set between wide, muscled shoulders. Evie watched him wordlessly as he stripped himself naked, let her eyes feast on every beautiful inch of him as he lifted the sheet and slid into the bed. Her arm lifted in welcome; he coiled himself around her. Their mouths touched briefly, then not so briefly. ‘This really isn’t the time for this.’ Evie made a halfhearted attempt to stem what was already rushing through both of them. ‘I blame you,’ he informed her arrogantly. ‘Seeing you lying here looking so vulnerable and knowing you nurture my child inside you has made me feel most disgustingly macho.’ ‘I can tell,’ she drawled in mocking acknowledgement as her hand slid down the flat plane of her stomach to cover the warm, tight evidence of his feelings. A shiver ripped through him, the kind of shiver that was always his response to her initial touch of him. ‘Then you tell me,’ he murmured in sudden seriousness, ‘how we give this up when we can’t even control it while the world falls in on us.’ ‘I don’t know,’ Evie sighed heavily. ‘Well, I do,’ he said as he pushed her on to her back then carefully placed her bandaged arm out of harm’s way before he came to lean over her. ‘We stay together. Somehow, some way, I will make it happen,’ he vowed. ‘You are mine. This child you carry is mine. I will lay claim to you both with pride and with honour. And that, my darling, is my promise to you.’ Fine words, wonderful words. But could he bring them to fruition? And if he could, at what cost to all of those other things in his life he held so dear to him? Evie let herself be drawn down into that deep well of sensuality where Raschid’s loving always took her, but her mind didn’t follow; that remained locked in the tight coil of their problems even as they flew. CHAPTER EIGHT EVIE came swimming up from the deep dark slumber she had escaped into after Raschid had moved away from her, and frowned as her ears picked up on the muffled sound of voices raised in anger. One was Raschid, sounding cold and cutting. The other was… ‘Oh, no.’ Her mother. Groaning, she pulled herself up and out of the bed. In a flurry of urgency she grabbed the first thing that came to hand—a raspberry-coloured long silk wrap that Raschid must have left out for her, which she dragged on and began tying around her as she hurried, barefoot, towards the bedroom door. The moment she was out in the hallway she could hear clearly what was being said. ‘Love?’ her mother was deriding icily. ‘Love doesn’t take and take without giving back! What have you given back during this affair, Sheikh Raschid?’ she demanded. ‘For I don’t see your reputation lying in shreds at your feet, or you becoming the object of everyone’s pity!’ Pity? White-faced and shaken to the roots by the very sound of the word, Evie pulled to a halt beneath the open archway that connected the sumptuous living room with the hallway which led to all the other rooms in Raschid’s vast apartment. Her mother was standing there wearing a snow-white suit that was so dramatically effective against her milk-white skin and pale blonde hair—while Raschid was draped from neck to ankles in the flowing dark blue robes of his native culture. And the two of them were facing up to each other like two very dangerous substances that should never, ever be allowed to mix. Mutual hostility and dislike was rife. ‘Yesterday was supposed to be a very special day for my family,’ Lucinda Delahaye continued angrily. ‘And, to give Evie her due, she tried her level best to make it that! But you had to come. You had to upstage the bride and groom by getting yourself in the papers as usual. You calmly danced with my daughter while the rumours flew thick and fast about your coming marriage to another woman. And if that wasn’t enough your own father had made sure the whole world knew what a gullible little fool Evie is where you are concerned!’ ‘Try trusting her judgement for a change,’ Raschid coolly suggested. ‘You never know, you may find that Evie can pleasantly surprise you.’ ‘Not while she continues this shameful affair with you, she won’t.’ ‘Our shameful affair is none of your business.’ ‘Why don’t you just go home to your oil-rich desert—marry your cousin of a cousin and leave my daughter alone?’ her mother cried. To Evie’s horror, Raschid laughed. ‘If only you knew,’ Raschid murmured dryly. ‘Frankly, I don’t want to know,’ her mother said dismissively. ‘All I want to do is speak to my daughter.’ ‘Evie is resting.’ Raschid refused. ‘She was feeling—unwell,’ he explained. ‘She—’ ‘I’m here,’ Evie said, quickly cutting off whatever Raschid might have been going to say by stepping into the room. They turned together—and slid their gazes over her together, the cold blue eyes in stinging condemnation, while the gold ones were carefully hooded so she couldn’t read what they were seeing as they checked her out. Still, it was like being scrutinised by two tough critics. So much so that one hand went up to clutch at the gaping lapels of her robe while the other hand ran self-conscious fingers through her tumbled hair. ‘What’s supposed to be wrong with you?’ her mother demanded with deep suspicion. ‘N-nothing,’ Evie replied, carefully avoiding Raschid’s gaze as she stepped further into the room. ‘I w-was tired, that’s all. Wh-what do you want, Mother?’ she asked. ‘What do I want?’ Lucinda repeated. ‘I want to know what you think you are doing, lying in this man’s bed while he plans his wedding to another woman! Have you no pride—no shame? Have you even bothered to consider what it has done to your reputation to have openly come here with him today knowing full well what he intends to do?’ ‘Your tone, Lady Delahaye, leaves a lot to be desired,’ Raschid inserted grimly. ‘My tone, young man,’ Evie’s mother countered haughtily, ‘is none of your business. I was talking to my daughter, not to you.’ If the antagonism between the two of them got any worse, Evie had a horrible feeling they would start telling each other what they really thought, and she didn’t think she could cope with that right now. ‘Raschid…’ It was to him that she turned to plead anxiously. ‘Would you mind giving us a few minutes alone—please?’ He didn’t look happy. In fact, he didn’t look anything but hard and cold and utterly offended by the request. But Evie couldn’t let herself be moved by that look. She might not have the perfect relationship with her mother, but she had no wish to see her demolished by him, which Lucinda certainly would be if Raschid decided to take her on. ‘If you wish.’ He agreed to her request with an icy politeness that made Evie shiver. And with a stiff bow of his head in her mother’s direction he strode from the room, leaving the kind of tension behind him that threatened to suffocate. ‘That man is so arrogant, he makes my blood boil,’ Lucinda said tightly. ‘Your own arrogance wouldn’t pass scrutiny,’ Evie returned heavily. ‘This is Raschid’s home,’ she pointed out. ‘Yet you treated him as if he were the intruder here.’ Stiffening slightly, her mother had the grace to take the criticism without defending herself. ‘I don’t like him,’ was all she said. And the feeling, Evie thought, is entirely mutual. ‘He treats you terribly and you let him get away with it.’ ‘He treats me beautifully,’ Evie declared. ‘It’s just that you choose not to see it.’ Sighing because this encounter had no hope of being anything but hostile as things presently stood, Evie moved off towards the well-equipped drinks bar and bent to open the chiller door to extract a bottle of still water for herself. ‘Can I get you anything, Mother?’ she asked as she straightened. ‘No, thank you,’ her mother replied. Then, on a heavy sigh of her own, Lucinda unbent a little and tossed her white clutch purse to one side before deciding to take an interest in her surroundings. There was nothing in the room that could be called brash, excessive or lacking taste. The floors were polished maple scattered with beautiful Persian rugs, the furniture a clever mix of off-white fabric and polished stone that was gentle on the eye. And the plain-papered oatmeal walls were hung with a rich display of original oils, mostly depicting sights and scenes from Raschid’s own country. Walking over to one of these paintings, her mother studied it carefully while Evie poured the water into a glass. ‘Is this his palace?’ Lucinda enquired curiously. ‘Yes,’ Evie confirmed. ‘Or one of them,’ she then added. The Al Kadah family owned several impressive-looking homes similar to the one her mother was studying. But that particular one belonged exclusively to Raschid. ‘It possesses a rather dramatic beauty, doesn’t it?’ her mother opined—a trifle reluctantly. ‘All those different shades of gold set against the blue of the ocean and the sky while the place itself seems to rise quite naturally out of the desert as if it has been put there by a force more powerful than man…’ Evie was staring down at the glass. Her mouth felt parched, but her stomach was still queasy enough to make the act of actually swallowing the water a thing she had to convince herself she needed to do. But she looked up in surprise at her mother’s words. ‘Raschid designed it himself,’ she said, smiling slightly at her mother’s sudden start. It didn’t particularly please her to discover she had been unwittingly complimenting the enemy. ‘He had it built to his own design several years before I met him,’ she explained. ‘It nestles in the foothills of their mountains where the desert crowds in on two sides and the Persian Gulf on the other…’ ‘Oh,’ was all her mother could think of replying to that. ‘The man must have hidden talents.’ More hidden talents than you know, Evie thought wryly, and lifted the glass to her lips. The water went down without causing too much commotion, she noted with relief. ‘Come home with me, Evie.’ Glancing up, she saw that her mother had turned to face her and was looking at her with something close to sympathy in her cool lavender eyes. ‘To be utterly blunt, darling, you look awful,’ Lucinda grimly continued. ‘Everyone is worried about you. Julian called me from the airport, he was so concerned when he read about this latest development in this morning’s paper, and even Lord Beverley is thoroughly shocked and appalled at the way Sheikh Raschid is using you.’ ‘Raschid isn’t using me,’ Evie denied. ‘He loves me.’ ‘Love!’ her mother derided in the same way she had derided the word to Raschid’s face a few minutes ago. ‘The man doesn’t know the meaning of the word or he wouldn’t be planning to betray you like this!’ ‘In this case, it isn’t me who’s been betrayed,’ Evie said. ‘His father placed that announcement without Raschid’s approval.’ ‘Is that what he told you?’ Her mother’s scepticism was clear. But Evie lifted her chin to look right into her mother’s disbelieving eyes when she said, ‘It’s the truth. Raschid wouldn’t lie—especially to me.’ ‘Oh, good grief!’ Lucinda Delahaye exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe you can be so gullible!’ ‘It has nothing to do with gullibility,’ Evie countered. ‘But it has everything to do with trust. I trust Raschid to be truthful with me.’ ‘All right, let us suppose that he does speak the truth,’ her mother clipped, deciding to change tack when she saw that stubborn tilt to her daughter’s chin that she knew so well. ‘What does he intend to do about it?’ Ah, Evie thought, the big question, and she lowered her eyes because she had no clear answer to it. ‘Lord Beverley informs me there is no way Raschid can pull out of this marriage now it has been made public,’ her mother pushed on. ‘Which means that you are out in the cold no matter what Raschid would prefer. His future bride’s family will insist upon it as any family would having followed your relationship over the last two years.’ ‘Do you honestly think I would want to continue our relationship if he did marry someone else?’ Evie questioned coolly. Lucinda didn’t answer, but the look on her face certainly said it all for her, and it came as a horrible shock to realise that even her own mother believed she was prepared to sink that low for her love of Raschid. ‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ she snapped, turning away to rid herself of the glass because all of a sudden her stomach was acting up again. But this time it had nothing to do with overwrought hormones. ‘Then prove it,’ her mother said. ‘Put a stop to this now before you lose what is left of your pride! We can go down to Westhaven together,’ she suggested, pouncing on the flicker of pain she had caught in Evie’s eyes before she turned her back to her. ‘Hide away there until all of this blows over!’ ‘I can’t,’ Evie whispered, lifting a hand to cover her aching eyes. ‘I can’t leave him until I know for sure that there is no future for us.’ ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Evie!’ her mother cried out in angry frustration. Stepping forward, she grabbed hold of Evie’s arm so she could spin her round to face her. ‘When are you going to—?’ ‘Aagh!’ Evie’s strangled shriek of agony slicing through the air utterly silenced her mother. Where he came from, Evie had no conception, but suddenly Asim was standing right there beside them, and was taking hold of her mother’s wrist in a grip that grimly prised her fingers from Evie’s arm. ‘What on earth…?’ Lucinda choked in shocked incredulity. ‘Your daughter has an injury to the arm you hold,’ Asim answered as he let go of her mother. ‘An injury?’ Lucinda gasped. ‘What kind of injury? What have you people been doing to her?’ ‘It was an accident.’ Raschid’s tight voice entered the tension. ‘Evie scalded herself this morning.’ ‘You scalded yourself?’ her mother repeated, aiming the stunned question at Evie. But Evie couldn’t answer. She was too busy cradling her arm where the burning pain was making her feel weak and dizzy. Her face had gone white and her body was trembling with aftershocks of an unbelievable agony. ‘Sit down, for goodness’ sake!’ Raschid raked angrily at her. And before she knew it Evie was being unceremoniously dumped into the nearest chair. ‘Asim!’ He turned that anger on the servant next. ‘Do something!’ With his usual calm, Asim was already squatting down beside Evie and gently taking hold of her arm while Evie just sat, eyes closed, face drained, and shook violently. ‘What does he know about burns?’ Lucinda put in shrilly. ‘More than most,’ Raschid gratingly replied. ‘But she needs to see a damned doctor!’ Lucinda declared in protest as she stood by watching in pulsing horror while Asim began to gently unwrap Evie’s injured arm. In a paper-dry tone that scraped over everyone, Raschid drawled, ‘She is seeing one right now.’ It was shocking enough news to bring Evie’s eyes open to stare at the servant in dumb disbelief. Asim caught the look and smiled briefly. ‘I have been Sheikh Raschid’s personal physician since the day he was born,’ he quietly explained. ‘Well, you old fraud,’ she breathed. ‘You’ve let me believe you were nothing more than chief cook and bottle-washer here for the last two years!’ ‘As you know,’ he replied dryly, ‘he is rarely ill.’ ‘Ouch!’ she gasped when he touched a particularly tender spot on her arm. Looking down, she saw that the skin had blistered. Over her head, she heard Raschid mutter something. Her mother, it seemed, had been struck totally speechless. ‘A burns specialist, Asim?’ Raschid demanded harshly. ‘No, sir,’ the other man replied. ‘But I will need my bag,’ he said, getting up. ‘If you will excuse me for a moment.’ Walking away, he left an atmosphere behind him that would have split atoms. Raschid stood to one side of Evie, her mother on the other. And Evie herself kept her face lowered because she just didn’t feel up to dealing with either of them right now. ‘I’m sorry, Evie.’ Her mother’s voice sounded unsteady. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘To be honest, I had forgotten about it myself until you touched it.’ ‘But it looks so dreadful!’ Evie just smiled bleakly to herself because there was no way she could tell her mother that the blisters which were now broken and weeping were where her fingers had gripped. ‘Was this what you meant when you said she wasn’t well?’ The question was aimed at Raschid, but Evie answered. ‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘No,’ Raschid coolly contradicted her. ‘Evie was feeling unwell because she is pregnant…’ On a sigh that came from the weary depths of her body, Evie sank more deeply into the soft-cushioned chair and closed her eyes again as the new silence that followed that announcement began to explode all around her. And for the space of the next thirty teeth-gritting seconds no one moved, no one spoke, while they waited for her mother’s inevitable reaction. Yet, when it did come, it wasn’t what Evie was expecting. She was expecting anger, disgust, even biting condemnation aimed at both of them. What she got was a groan that had her mother sinking heavily into the nearest chair. ‘Oh, Evie…’ Lucinda sighed out painfully. ‘How could you—how could you?’ Evie’s eyes snapped open, the tone threading through her words bringing a flash of bright anger into her eyes. ‘Are you daring to imply that I got pregnant deliberately?’ she demanded. Her mother didn’t need to answer the charge because it was already written in large letters across her pained face. ‘I don’t believe,’ she breathed, hurt—so hurt she couldn’t contain it, ‘that my own mother could suspect me of doing something so crass!’ ‘Accidents like this just don’t happen in this day and age, Evie.’ ‘No?’ she choked, lurching to her feet like a wounded soldier, with her injured arm cradled against her throbbing breasts. ‘Well, just look at me, Mother!’ she commanded furiously. ‘Because what you are seeing is one hell of an accident!’ ‘Evie—’ It was Raschid who used that rough-toned appeal on her. ‘Your mother meant no offence. It was a natural assumption to make…’ Was it? Was it really? she thought, turning flashing eyes on him. ‘It hadn’t occurred to me before,’ she breathed shakily. ‘But—have you been secretly thinking the same thing?’ ‘No,’ he sighed, but he looked away from her as he said it, and the horrible realisation that the two people she loved most in the world could think she would sink that low struck a severe enough blow to make her sway where she stood. And suddenly she knew she had taken enough. Her chin came up, her eyes glassing over as she flicked her gaze from one uncomfortable face to the other. ‘I don’t think I will ever forgive either of you for this,’ she told them. Then, grimly clinging to what was left of her pride after their mutual slaying of it, she turned and walked away. Asim was just coming back into the room as Evie swept coldly by him. Whatever passed between him and Raschid via the silent clash of their eyes Evie didn’t know or even care. But she had only just sunk weakly down on to the side of the bed when Asim knocked on the bedroom door then let himself into the room. ‘I must see to your arm,’ he quietly explained. Evie didn’t argue. She didn’t say a single thing, in fact, as she allowed Asim to do what he had to do with the broken weals now adorning her arm. But inside her head she was saying a lot—not to Asim but to just about everyone else she could bring to mind. Her family. Raschid’s family. The greedy media who would be oh, so very interested to know what a devious and desperate person she had turned out to be! ‘The situation is very stressful for everyone right now,’ Asim remarked with his usual diplomatic neutrality as he bent over her arm. ‘People say things they come to regret later when things are calmer.’ ‘Which doesn’t mean they weren’t speaking the truth when they said them,’ Evie pointed out. ‘You think I deliberately set out to trap him with this baby,’ she then accused him. ‘I saw it in your eyes when you were too shocked to hide it.’ Only, she had read his expression for one of simple horror then, not suspicion. Now she knew she was going to see the same expression of horrified pity adorning the shocked features of every single person she looked at from now on. It made her insides squirm, so much so that she jerked her arm as Asim was reapplying the bandage. ‘I hurt you?’ he asked sharply. ‘Everyone is hurting me,’ Evie replied with a wealth of pained anger. Surprisingly he seemed to understand the remark because he said nothing else and a few moments later he was getting to his feet. ‘Can I shower with this?’ Evie enquired. ‘It would be better if you didn’t get the arm wet,’ he advised. She nodded stiffly. ‘Then do you think you could arrange a taxi for me while I go and get dressed?’ It wasn’t a request, though it had been voiced as one, and she didn’t wait for his reply before getting up and walking into the bathroom. Ten minutes later she was back in the bedroom, washed, dressed in the jeans and tee shirt she had arrived here wearing that same morning. She was in the process of tying back her hair when Raschid stepped into the room. She glanced at him then away again. But the glance had clung long enough to notice that he had changed too, and was now wearing one of his razor-sharp business suits. She also had time to note an unusual wariness in the way he was studying her—which she gained a nasty kind of satisfaction from seeing, because it meant that he wasn’t quite so sure of her any more. ‘Your mother has gone,’ he informed her. That didn’t surprise Evie. Her mother was going to need time to come to terms with this next dreadful scandal that was about to fall on their seemingly beleaguered family. ‘Asim tells me you have requested a taxi,’ he said next. ‘Why?’ ‘So I can leave here,’ she coolly replied. ‘What else?’ ‘Where do you intend to go?’ ‘Home, to Westhaven, probably,’ she said. ‘To hide away there as dreaded black sheep do when they’re in deep trouble.’ Her sarcasm was acute; his sigh revealed his impatience with it. ‘Don’t deride yourself like that,’ he snapped. ‘Why not?’ she countered. ‘It’s the truth after all—or at least it is the truth as everyone else is going to see it once this mess gets out.’ ‘Don’t be foolish!’ he rasped. ‘You are overwrought and overreacting! Once we marry no one will give a damn when or why our baby was conceived!’ Oh, very tactful, Evie thought acidly. ‘I think I’ve said this to you before,’ she flashed back at him. ‘But this time I mean it—I wouldn’t marry you now if you came gift-wrapped in rubies! I would never be able to live with what you were secretly thinking about me, you see!’ ‘I do not suspect you of getting pregnant deliberately!’ he ground out angrily. Evie didn’t answer, but her cynical expression said a lot as her trembling fingers struggled to capture the final strands of gold hair that had escaped the ribbon she had tied the rest in. ‘Okay,’ he conceded with a heavy sigh. ‘There was a moment—a very brief moment—when the suspicion did occur to me,’ he admitted. ‘What man wouldn’t consider such a proposition given the circumstances of our relationship?’ ‘A man who knew me well enough to know I would rather die than use those kind of tactics to trap him?’ Evie suggested. The sound of his sardonic huff of laughter had Evie spinning around to stare at him. ‘It seems to me that it is you who feels trapped by this situation, Evie, and that is what is really eating away at you.’ Was it? she wondered. Then heavily admitted to herself that he was most probably right. She did feel trapped in a situation that there was no way out of unless she seriously took on board the only other option open to her. An ice-cold shudder went ripping through her; Raschid saw it and released a heavy sigh. ‘Look…’ he said, walking towards her. His hands came up, gripped her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you earlier. But—don’t you think we have enough problems to deal with between us, without you and I fighting with each other?’ ‘It all feels so ugly,’ she shakily confessed. ‘And it’s only promising to get uglier.’ She meant once his father was involved, and Raschid instinctively understood that. ‘Trust me,’ he said. ‘I will turn this to our advantage if it is the last thing I do.’ But at what expense? His father’s pride? His country’s pride? Their own wretched pride? ‘Already your dear mama is feeling most unexpectedly maternal,’ he added softly. Lifting her lashes, Evie found herself looking into warm, dark, wryly amused eyes. ‘Her final command to me before she left,’ he explained, ‘was to be sure I took precious care of her daughter or I would have her to contend with.’ He smiled. ‘I think we found a common ground for the first time ever when we both offended you as we did.’ ‘You are both more alike than you think,’ Evie murmured. ‘You are both arrogant, both pushy, both too full of yourself.’ ‘While you are nothing more than our tragically misunderstood victim; is that what you’re saying?’ Evie grimaced. Put like that, she had made herself sound pathetic. ‘Your own father still has to have his say in this,’ she reminded him. ‘He isn’t some kind of ogre, Evie,’ Raschid replied soberly. ‘If the idea of you carrying a baby can soften your mother’s attitude towards me, then there is a good chance it can soften my father’s attitude to you.’ ‘What—so we can all play happy families together?’ Her tone alone said she didn’t see much hope of that ever happening. ‘At least you can give him a chance before you completely condemn him.’ A chance? Oh, yes, Evie could at least give him that. But she didn’t really hold out much hope for a happy ending to this. ‘So, what happens next?’ she asked. Raschid removed his hands from her and straightened his shoulders in a way that reminded Evie of those occasions she had watched him donning his official robes. ‘I go home to Behran to break the news to him,’ he replied. ‘What—now—today?’ ‘Yes.’ He took a quick glance at his watch. ‘In the next ten minutes to be more precise.’ He looked at her then, golden eyes darkened by questions. ‘I really caused you a lot of problems when I didn’t tell you about the baby two weeks ago, didn’t I?’ she murmured penitently. His shrug said it all. ‘I could have diverted my father from this course he has taken if I had known then, yes.’ ‘I was such a miserable coward,’ Evie admitted. ‘No, you were not,’ he denied. ‘You were shocked, you were anxious, and you were trying to do what you believed was the right thing with your brother’s wedding day so close.’ ‘Trying to please everyone and pleasing none,’ she translated with a rueful grimace. ‘Well, please me now,’ Raschid requested. ‘And stay here while I am away. As it is, your personal possessions are on their way here from your cottage as we speak, and Asim has agreed to stay here with you. He will vet any visitors or telephone calls.’ Be her guard, in other words. ‘Is he a eunuch?’ she asked dryly. ‘No.’ His mouth twitched appreciatively at the reference. ‘But I trust him with my life so I can therefore trust him with your virtue.’ ‘But can you trust me with his?’ Evie threw back provokingly. His answer came quick and fast—so fast she didn’t even see it coming until she was locked in his arms and being utterly consumed by the kind of kiss only Raschid could issue. ‘I can trust you,’ he affirmed as he drew away. And why could he sound so smugly confident about that? Because she was clinging to him, lost in him, drowning in him—as always. But then Raschid had trouble dragging himself away from her, and it was some consolation to feel his mouth come back to hers for a hot, hungry, final kiss before he could bring himself to remove her hands from around his nape and reluctantly step away. ‘I must go,’ he said gently. ‘My flight plan has been filed and I dare not miss my slot.’ Which meant he was intending to fly himself to Behran, Evie realised with a small shaft of alarm that had its roots in the frightening fear that, with their luck right now, anything might happen to him during the long flight. ‘Take care, won’t you? And call me, whenever you can!’ ‘I’ll call,’ he promised. ‘And I will see you again within the week.’ Fine words, sincere words. But he didn’t call her, and neither did she see him within the next two weeks. CHAPTER NINE BY THEN the isolation was beginning to get to her. She hadn’t dared to so much as step out of the apartment for fear of being waylaid by the press or people she did not want to see. Oh, her mother called her up every day on the telephone. In her own way, Lucinda was trying to be supportive, but it didn’t come easily to her. And really it was Evie who found herself ladling out calm reassurance to her mother when each new day went by without hearing a single thing from Raschid. ‘If he lets you down in this, I’ll kill him,’ Lucinda vowed when a full week had gone by with no word from Raschid. ‘Trust him, Mother,’ Evie replied. ‘I do. He loves me as much as I love him and he wants this baby. With that kind of incentive men can move mountains.’ But, as the days went by without any word from Raschid, for the first time ever Evie found herself wishing the newspapers would give her some clue as to what was going on in Behran. But they were frustratingly empty of any reference to either Sheikh Raschid or Evie Delahaye for a change. It was a matter of priorities to them. A juicy scandal had suddenly blown up involving two government ministers and the media were busy covering that. Asim didn’t help. For he too clamped up whenever Evie tried to grill him, feigning no knowledge of what Raschid was doing and advising her to be patient. But he knew more than he was admitting to, Evie was absolutely sure about that, and the fact that he wasn’t prepared to speak could only mean the information filtering back to him from Behran had to be bad. Oh, he tried his very best to make the wait bearable. In fact, she and Asim became quite close friends during those two wretched weeks. He had duties to attend to at the Behran Embassy for part of each day, but otherwise he devoted his time exclusively to her. They walked together each morning on the roof garden attached to the apartment. And in the evenings he encouraged Evie to reacquaint herself with the game of chess—something she had played often with her father before he’d been tragically killed in a horse-riding accident when she was only ten years old. Her arm healed quickly under Asim’s care. He was a good man, a kind man, a pleasant companion, and it was during those two weeks that she began to understand why Raschid kept him close by all the time. He also talked freely and proudly about his country and all of the changes that had been made during the last twenty years. Life in Behran, she discovered, was not as totalitarian as she had believed it to be. The women were not kept hidden behind locked doors. It was no longer compulsory for them to cover themselves when they ventured out in public. Education was compulsory for both sexes, and women were beginning to find a place for themselves in all aspects of the working society. Only a very small section of the people wanted to keep things as they used to be, he’d told her. Most people saw the advantages in moving forward with the rest of the world rather than trying to pull against it. But the most curious point of all she learned from Asim during these talks they shared was that all of the changes made in Behran had been effected through Raschid’s father, which made his old-fashioned attitude towards marriage all the more confusing. But then, religion did that—divided and fragmented a human race that should be drawing closer together. Religion, colour, social tradition. Her own mother was guilty of discrimination in all three areas, so why should Evie expect Raschid’s father to feel any different? And Raschid’s father did not feel different—as Evie found out for herself soon enough. His feelings were made known to her via his personal envoy towards the end of the second week of her enforced isolation. Asim was out attending to his duties as was his habit during the middle part of the day. Evie hadn’t been feeling too well that morning—sickly and aching as if she might be going to come down with a bug. ‘You are unwell, Miss Delahaye?’ he’d enquired when she’d declined their usual walk on the roof garden before he’d left her. Evie had just sent him a rueful look. ‘You’re the doctor,’ she’d said dryly. ‘You tell me why I feel sick all the time.’ Asim had grimaced his understanding of her condition, and left her lounging on one of the living-room sofas, apparently content to read a book, which she did, in a halfhearted kind of way—until the sound of steps in the hallway brought her jackknifing to her feet. Since no one else but Asim had access to the apartment, and he wasn’t due back for ages yet, she thought it was Raschid returning at last. So her eager expression reflected that assumption as the living-room door swung firmly inwards—only to cloud in confusion when two complete strangers stepped boldly into the room. Two Arabs, to be precise, dressed in smart western suits and looking about as innocuous as two gangsters. ‘Miss Delahaye?’ the taller, sharper-looking of the two enquired. Evie’s stomach muscles contracted, her shoulders straightening slightly as if in readiness to receive a dread ful blow. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘What are you doing here?’ She was offered an obsequious bow, and Evie didn’t like it. It sent an icy shiver chasing down her spine, as if the cold hand of fate had just touched her shoulder. ‘My apologies for this intrusion,’ the spokesman murmured politely. ‘My name is Jamal Al Kareem. I am come bearing messages for you from Crown Prince Hashim,’ he explained. ‘And Prince Raschid?’ Evie questioned. ‘Is he not with you?’ ‘Prince Raschid is engaged on—official business,’ she was informed. ‘In our neighbouring state of Abadilah.’ Abadilah…That cold hand touched her shoulder again. Abadilah was the state Aisha’s father ruled. ‘Then how did you gain access to this apartment?’ she asked coldly. ‘As the Crown Prince’s head of security I have access to all Royal residences. It is, I am afraid, a necessary evil for powerful families to take special precautions to protect themselves,’ he explained, moving ever closer to her as he spoke. ‘For power brings with it its own enemies, and those enemies may decide that trouble can best be served from within, so to speak.’ He came to a stop at the rear of the sofa where Evie had been sitting. In response, Evie found herself taking a defensive step backwards, something in his super-polite, very silky tone making her feel threatened. As if he was subtly informing her that she was classed as an enemy here. ‘Y-you said Crown Prince Hashim sent you,’ she prompted, utilising a cool aloofness in an attempt to offset whatever it was this horrible man was giving off. Another bow—another shiver. ‘The Crown Prince is most concerned about the—predicament you find yourself in at present,’ the messenger confirmed. ‘He wishes me to relay to you his most sincere apologies for any—distress you have been forced to endure due to his premature announcement to the media.’ ‘Th-thank you,’ Evie said, her eyes flicking nervously to where the other man was standing by the door—half in and half out of it as if he was on alert, listening for Asim’s return. ‘But you may assure Crown Prince Hashim that no apology was necessary.’ ‘He will be most humbly grateful for your gracious understanding,’ the spokesman returned courteously. ‘But the Crown Prince is—disturbed that your feelings were not taken into account when he released the statement about his son’s forthcoming marriage. It was—insensitive of him, as his revered son pointed out. Now he wishes to make recompense for any distress caused to yourself…’ Watching him lift a hand to his inside pocket, Evie felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten just a little bit more. What she thought he was going to withdraw from that pocket she wasn’t quite sure, but what she didn’t expect to see him holding out towards her was a slender slip of paper. Wary, confused, instinctively suspicious of what was taking place here, Evie stepped forward so she could take the piece of paper, then stepped quickly back before letting her eyes drop from Jamal Al Kareem’s expressionless face to check out what she was holding. And felt a sense of chilling horror slide slowly through her blood. It was a cheque made out to the World Aid Foundation for two million pounds. ‘The Crown Prince is aware of the good work you do for this particular charity,’ the messenger explained while Evie just stared unblinkingly down at the cheque. ‘He begs you will accept this small donation as a—gesture of atonement. And in the light of events,’ Jamal Al Kareem smoothly continued, ‘he feels sure you will understand the sad necessity for him to also offer you—this…’ Evie blinked, glancing up rather dazedly to find yet another offering was being held out to her. It was a business card; she could see that even before she stepped forward to take it. But it was only as she lowered her eyes and found herself staring at the famous logo of a very exclusive private clinic right here in London that the full horror of what was really being relayed to her here finally hit her. ‘The Crown Prince is, of course, confident of your continued discretion during this—delicate time,’ Jamal Al Kareem silkily concluded. ‘In anticipation of your understanding, he remains your most humble servant, and hopes this will put an end to the matter…’ An end to the matter—an end to the matter. Those few terrible words went round and round in Evie’s head as she stared at that wretched business card while her two visitors made their bows and left her to it. She didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t do anything at all as far as she was aware. She felt strange, separated from herself almost. As if she were now standing where Jamal Al Kareem had been standing and was observing from a distance someone who looked like her, staring down at the cheque and the business card she was holding in her hands with absolutely no reaction at all. Her face was very white, her lips cold and bloodless. Her eyes were lowered so she couldn’t tell what they were doing, but her chest wasn’t moving, as if her heart and lungs had simply stopped functioning, effectively cutting the oxygen off from her brain so that it couldn’t even attempt to think. Because thinking meant pain—the worst kind of pain. The pain of knowing that this truly was the—end of the matter. No hope left. No more waiting. No chance that Raschid was going to walk through that door at any moment now and tell her that everything had been sorted in their favour. For Raschid was in Abadilah, with Aisha. And Evie should not be standing here in his apartment. From that very cold, distant place she seemed to have retreated into, she watched her other self open her fingers and let both the cheque and the card drop to the floor. Then that person simply turned and walked away—out into the hallway, out of the apartment and into the waiting lift. It took her downwards. She didn’t even stop when the concierge called out to her sharply. Outside, the good weather was still holding. London was baking beneath a heatwave that had most people walking around in shirt-sleeves. So she didn’t look out of place in her pale blue knitted top and casual white cotton trousers as she joined the lunchtime rush taking place on the pavements. A car followed her for a while, though she didn’t know that, its two occupants pacing her progress along the embankment until she turned onto a paved walkway where a car could not go. An hour later—maybe two—and she was still walking. It must have been instinct that eventually made her aware of where she was, because she suddenly found herself standing outside her mother’s apartment. She rang the bell, and her mother’s disembodied voice sounded in the communication box. ‘It’s Evie,’ she heard herself say. ‘Can I come in?’ There was a moment’s surprised silence, then the buzzer sounded to tell Evie she could open the front door now. Her mother’s apartment was on the first floor. She was already standing at the flat door when Evie got there. Lucinda took one look at her daughter and went as white as a sheet. ‘Oh, my God, Evie,’ she gasped in shaken dismay. ‘You’re bleeding!’ Evie barely heard her; she was too busy fainting at her mother’s feet. * * * It was very late that same evening and Lucinda was sitting beside her daughter’s hospital bed when the door suddenly swung open and Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah stepped into the room with his faithful servant crowding right behind him. He took one look at Evie lying so still in the bed and strode urgently forward. Only to pull to a halt when Lucinda Delahaye jumped to her feet and placed herself firmly between him and her daughter. For once, Lucinda looked less than her usual immaculate self. Her hair was untidy, silken threads of gold were tumbling around her face where they had escaped from the elegant chignon they were supposed to be contained in. She had aged decades, her usually alabaster-smooth skin scored by lines of strain. She grimly ushered them out of the room, firmly closing the door behind her. ‘How dare you people show your faces here?’ she raked at them viciously. Raschid didn’t seem to hear her. His bronzed skin looked grey, his golden eyes blackened by a terrible shock. ‘The baby…?’ ‘Oh, I suppose it would solve all your problems to hear that she’s lost it!’ Lucinda lashed at him. ‘No!’ Raschid ground out, and swayed, his face going so white that it was only as Asim reached out to take hold of him that Lucinda realised how Raschid had misunderstood her meaning. ‘Well, she hasn’t lost it.’ She grudgingly rectified the error. ‘Though how she didn’t after what your henchmen did to her has to be a miracle.’ ‘Is there somewhere we can discuss this in privacy?’ Asim quietly suggested. The hospital corridor wasn’t busy, but some of the patients had the doors to their rooms standing open. They had to be able to hear every word that was being said. Asim still had an arm around Raschid’s shoulders while Raschid himself seemed incapable of anything except just standing there looking devastated. And for some reason that devastation utterly incensed Evie’s mother. ‘You want privacy?’ Lucinda hissed. ‘I can give you privacy,’ she grimly decreed, and stalked off down the corridor with the two men following behind her. And she was in no mood to be pleasant. Having just gone through the worst experience of her life, watching the very lifeblood seep out of her daughter, Lucinda wanted someone else’s blood as recompense. Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah’s blood. ‘Do you know what those two men did to her?’ she demanded the moment they were shut away inside the waiting room. ‘If Evie ever forgives you in this lifetime, Sheikh, then I certainly will not!’ ‘It was a mistake,’ he muttered, still so caught up in his first impression of what Lucinda had said to him that even with her swift correction of that misunderstanding he still hadn’t recovered. ‘Was it also a mistake when you didn’t bother to get in touch with her for two whole weeks?’ Evie’s mother challenged. ‘I had nothing good to say,’ Raschid thickly explained. ‘It seemed—kinder to wait until I could relay only good news.’ ‘Kind?’ Lucinda scorned that excuse. ‘Where was the kindness in keeping her in suspense like you did? She bottles things up!’ she cried. ‘She always has done! I thought you knew that! You told me you loved her! You promised to take care of her!’ she went on remorselessly. ‘Instead she was treated like a whore by your people!’ Raschid flinched then suddenly folded into a nearby chair to bury his face in his hands. ‘Lady Delahaye…’ It was Asim who tried to calm the situation, his voice that soothingly diplomatic one Evie knew so well. ‘We understand and accept your right to be angry. But we would sincerely appreciate it if you could explain to us what happened after Miss Delahaye left the apartment.’ As he stood there, tall and proud beside his crumpled master, Lucinda felt a sudden urge to leap on both of them. Instead she turned her back, folded her arms across her trembling body and tried at last to get a hold on herself. ‘She walked out of there with nothing,’ she whispered starkly. ‘In shock. No money. No idea of what she was doing—’ There was a pause while she swallowed several times before she could continue. ‘I don’t know how long she walked for but she eventually found her way to my door—my door!’ she swung around to fling at Raschid. ‘Do you realise how far that is from your apartment? And she was bleeding!’ Lucinda choked out on a wretched sob. ‘Bleeding and she didn’t even know it!’ Lurching violently to his feet, Raschid took two tense strides towards the door then just stopped, his whole frame clenched by some powerful inner tension that held him locked right there to the spot. ‘Did they touch her?’ he rasped out tautly. ‘Who?’ Lucinda said bitterly. ‘Your men?’ ‘They were not Sheikh Raschid’s men, Lady Delahaye,’ Asim denied. ‘His father’s men, then—what’s the difference?’ she flashed. ‘But in answer to your question Evie didn’t say they physically touched her, only that they made her see that if your father could hate her that much, then there really was no chance for the two of you.’ ‘And her health?’ Asim enquired gently. Tears washed across Lucinda’s eyes but she blinked them away again as determinedly as Evie herself would have done. ‘She lost a lot of blood,’ she replied. ‘But by some quirk of fate managed to hang on to her baby. Now they are prescribing bed-rest, no stress and no confrontations. So I would appreciate it, Sheikh Raschid, if you would respect those things.’ A warning. A threat. The English way of issuing both that was just as effective as the Arab way. Raschid didn’t answer. But he did move at last, lifting a hand to rub wearily at his eyes before turning around to face Lucinda. It was the first time Lucinda had actually allowed herself to look at him—and at last she saw the ravages that had taken place on his face. The man looked tormented, stripped clean to the bone of his arrogance and hurting for it. ‘May I see her?’ he gruffly requested. But Lucinda firmly shook her head. ‘Not without Evie’s agreement,’ she said. ‘Seeing you may upset her, and, as I just said, I won’t have her upset.’ Raschid nodded his head in acknowledgement of that. ‘Then I will wait until you acquire her permission,’ he announced, walked back to the chair and sat down again. He was still sitting there twelve hours later, and even hardhearted Lucinda was beginning to feel sorry for him. ‘I don’t want to see him,’ Evie stated stubbornly. ‘But, darling!’ her mother pleaded. ‘He’s been sitting out there throughout the whole night! Surely that deserves some consideration!’ ‘I said,’ Evie repeated, ‘I don’t want to see him.’ Lucinda looked utterly bewildered. ‘I never thought I would hear myself say this, Evie,’ she admitted. ‘But I don’t think you’re being fair to the man. He’s distraught! It is his baby too, you know! He has a right to reassure himself that you are both okay!’ ‘You reassure him, then,’ Evie suggested coldly. ‘The doctors say I mustn’t get stressed, and Raschid stresses me.’ With that, she turned her head away to stare fixedly out of the window. It was unbelievable what the last twenty-four hours had done to her. It was as if the trauma of almost losing her baby had forced her to grow a protective shell around herself that nobody could penetrate. It had also brought her mother crashing down from the haughty pedestal she usually sat upon. That frightening ride in an ambulance with all sirens blaring had shaken her more than she cared to admit. For a while last night she’d truly believed she was going to lose her daughter. Shocks like those focused the mind on what was really important in life. And nothing could be more important than life itself. By some miracle the doctors had managed to stem the bleeding and keep the baby safe, but at what cost to her daughter’s sanity Lucinda wasn’t really sure, because in all Evie’s twenty-three years she had never known her to cut herself off from others as coldly as she was doing now. ‘I thought you loved him,’ she murmured. ‘In the name of that love, doesn’t he deserve a hearing?’ ‘No,’ was the blunt reply. ‘Evie—’ ‘I’m tired now,’ Evie interrupted, and closed her eyes, bit deep into the inner cushion of her lower lip, and silently prayed that her mother would drop the subject! Surprisingly she slept. She didn’t even hear her mother leave the hospital room. Next time she awoke it was dark outside and a nurse was bending over her. ‘You need to eat something, Miss Delahaye,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone over twenty-four hours without food and that isn’t good for your baby.’ ‘Can I get out of bed?’ she asked; she needed the bathroom badly. But the nurse sadly shook her head. ‘Not yet, I’m afraid.’ Which meant that Evie had to suffer the indignity of using a bedpan. Which also didn’t help her mood when, washed by the nurse and her hair combed and plaited, the mobile tray that held her dinner was moved across Evie’s lap and the nurse said gently, ‘You have a visitor. He’s been waiting for hours. Will you agree to see him, for just a minute?’ Evie stared down at the bowl of soup that suddenly tasted like sawdust in her mouth when only seconds before it had tasted rather pleasantly of chicken. ‘I don’t think he’s going to leave here until you do see him,’ the nurse added. ‘He arrived late last night, and hasn’t left the waiting room since except to wash and change his clothes in one of the spare rooms along the corridor. Your mother has pleaded with him, his companion has pleaded with him and we have pleaded with him. He doesn’t even acknowledge that we’ve spoken! I have never come up against such intransigence in all my life!’ Watch this space, Evie thought coldly, and went on with her soup without making a single comment. After a while the nurse sighed and left her to it. A little while later Evie curled up on her side, folded her arms protectively over her stomach, and went to sleep thinking about Raschid sitting there in the waiting room. The next time she came awake, a grey dawn was just beginning to lighten the bedroom—and there was a man standing at the bottom of her bed, reading her medical chart. He glanced up when she moved. ‘Good morning, Miss Delahaye.’ He smiled before returning his attention to whatever he was reading. ‘Your child is most determined to stay exactly where he is,’ he remarked lightly. ‘I suspect a mixing of two sets of very stubborn genes must give him his tenacity.’ ‘Asim,’ Evie breathed. ‘What are you doing in here?’ ‘I am Sheikh Raschid’s personal physician,’ he reminded her. ‘Which now means I am his child’s personal physician.’ ‘Is that a joke?’ she demanded, using her hands to slide herself up the pillows and into a sitting position. ‘No joke,’ Asim blandly denied. ‘Where Sheikh Raschid’s child goes, I go from now on—Oh, come,’ he said when he saw her expression. ‘We are good friends now, are we not? You do not find me too overbearing. We will get along very well together, I am certain of it.’ ‘And where does Raschid fit into all of this?’ Evie enquired acidly. ‘At this precise moment he sits exactly where he has been sitting since he arrived here two evenings ago,’ Asim replied. ‘Where he now awaits my report on his child’s state of health.’ ‘But not the mother’s,’ Evie bitterly assumed from all of that. ‘At this stage in the proceedings, the child’s health depends entirely on the mother’s health so of course she matters. But as for the woman,’ Asim continued smoothly, ‘he accepts now that he is beyond her forgiveness. Which matters little when it is clear that he will never learn to forgive himself.’ ‘If you’re trying to play on my sympathies, Asim,’ Evie sighed, reaching out for the flask of water sitting on her bedside cabinet, ‘it isn’t working.’ ‘Here,’ Asim offered instantly. ‘Let me do that for you.’ Taking the flask from her, he unscrewed the cap and poured some of the chilled water into a glass before handing it to her. In silence he stood beside her and watched her drink the water, took the glass from her when she had finished and smoothly replaced both glass and flask back on the cabinet. Then he pleaded soberly, ‘See him, madam. For two nights and a day he has neither slept nor eaten and I am seriously worried about him.’ ‘He kept me waiting for two weeks before his henchmen came to evict me.’ ‘They were not his henchmen.’ Asim denied the charge. ‘And if you force him to he will wait two weeks in that waiting room just down the corridor, I promise you.’ Evie could believe that, knowing the man as well as she did. ‘Okay,’ she wearily conceded, deciding that she might as well get it over with. ‘I’ll see him.’ ‘Thank you.’ Asim sent her one of those bows that reminded her of Crown Prince Hashim’s messengers, and she shuddered. ‘He can have five minutes then you make him leave,’ she added on the back of that shuddering reminder. ‘As you wish.’ What Evie wished for was to never set eyes on Raschid again, but she kept that thought to herself as Asim quickly left the room now he had what he had come for. The door opened again in seconds, and what she saw as Raschid strode into the room almost—almost caused the shell she was hiding behind to crack. Not with sympathy but with anger, because if this man hadn’t eaten or slept in two nights and a day, he was looking disgustingly well for it! Evie felt conned. Conned by the pristine neatness of the clothes he was wearing, by the clean-shaven smoothness of his face and the arrogance with which he stood there by the closed door studying her with absolutely no hint of remorse written anywhere on his lean dark face. ‘How are you?’ he enquired. ‘I’m sure everyone has told you exactly how I am,’ Evie replied, in no mood for pleasantries. He nodded politely, taking the words at their face value, then strode smoothly forward to pull out and sit down on the chair beside the bed. It was only when he came this close to her that Evie saw the slight bruising around his eyes, which showed that the man had been going without sleep—but even those bruises added to his dark brooding sensuality, she noted resentfully. That gut-wrenching sensuality that had been catching her out from the first time that she’d ever looked at him. In an effort to stop herself from feeling like that, Evie dragged her eyes away and slid her knees up so she could hug them loosely with her arms. Then, head lowered, mouth clamped shut, she grimly waited for him to say what he had waited around this long to say. Yet he didn’t speak. He dragged out that silence like a taut piece of string that seemed to be trying to tug her chin up so she would look at him. But Evie refused to look at him, because looking meant communicating, as they had always been able to do with just the merest clash of their eyes. And she didn’t want that kind of communication with him any more. ‘I won’t go away just because you wish it, you know,’ he murmured eventually. ‘I can’t deal with you right now,’ she answered flatly. ‘Anyone with a bit of sensitivity would have understood that and left me to myself.’ ‘Because you blame me for what happened?’ Yes, she blamed him. She’d felt used, ignored, abandoned and abused by the time those two men had left her alone. Raschid had promised her protection. He had promised to call her. He had vowed to make everything work for them. ‘I’m sorry my father’s people frightened you so badly.’ ‘Your father’s people are also your people,’ Evie reminded him. ‘I don’t particularly want you to differentiate between yourself and them.’ ‘Why not?’ Why not? she repeated grimly to herself. ‘Because you are no different, and I don’t want to see you as such any more.’ ‘Meaning?’ ‘Meaning, I have been shown the light,’ she answered with spiked mockery. ‘And will you stop throwing questions at me as if I am the one standing on trial?’ she flashed. ‘In case you haven’t realised it yet—I am the victim here!’ ‘And you think I am not just as much a victim?’ His wide chest heaved, lifting and falling on a tense pull of air. ‘I had no idea my father could stoop so low as to pull a lousy stunt like that!’ he said savagely. ‘He now deeply regrets what he did,’ he added, sounding so short and clipped that if she had been anyone else Evie would have read stiff reluctance to offer that information in that haughty tone. But she wasn’t anyone else. And she knew this man inside out, so she also knew what that tone of voice really meant. Raschid was struggling to keep his real feelings about his father under tight wraps. ‘He sends you his most sincere apologies—’ ‘He’s already done that,’ she clipped, her face going white when she remembered the last person who had said those words to her. ‘And begs your forgiveness,’ Raschid doggedly continued as if she hadn’t spoken. Evie clamped her lips together and forbore to repeat that his father had also done that before. ‘He will, of course, tell you these things personally as soon as he is fit enough to leave hospital.’ That brought her eyes up and around to stare at him. ‘What hospital?’ she gasped. ‘The one I put him in,’ he replied, the words hard with a mockery that had no hint of humour. ‘When he refused to accept that I intended to marry you and not Aisha,’ he went on to explain, ‘I abdicated my right to succession. The shock almost killed him.’ ‘Oh, Raschid, no,’ Evie groaned, and wondered wretchedly how many people this whole horror story was going to hurt before it was done. ‘Still,’ he went on coolly, ‘all’s well that ends well, as you British like to say. My father now has a heart which beats as healthily as my own does, and he is also reconciled to the fact that I will marry where I choose to marry.’ ‘Not if that marriage includes me, you will not,’ Evie said stiffly. His dark head turned, and it was only as it did so that Evie realised that he too had been avoiding all eye contact between them. But not now. Those liquid gold eyes now pierced her with a deep, dark, grim intent. ‘You will marry me,’ he proclaimed. ‘I have not spent millions of pounds and too many precious days scouring the Middle East searching for a suitable substitute to take my place as Aisha’s husband, nor did I almost put my own father in his grave and place at risk both you and the child you carry simply to hear you now tell me it was all for nothing!’ ‘Did I ask you to do all that?’ Evie countered tersely. ‘Yes!’ he declared. ‘Every time you told me you loved me, you asked me to do those things!’ he rasped. ‘Every time we simply look at each other, we are demanding from the other that we go to any lengths necessary to be together!’ He got up, the passion sounding in his voice reflected in the angry movement of his body as he walked across the room to stand glaring out of the window. While Evie sat, stunned into utter silence by his vehemence. And the worst of it was that he was right! The kind of love they had shared during the last two years had demanded that they go to any lengths to hold on to it! But not any more, Evie thought on a shudder. Recent events had gone too far and turned too nasty to hang on to romantic ideals that had no place in reality. ‘I can learn to live without your love,’ she told him huskily. ‘I can even live without people’s respect!’ Hadn’t she been doing that very successfully for two whole years now? ‘But I’ve discovered that I cannot live with hatred.’ ‘My father doesn’t hate you,’ he sighed. ‘He simply saw you as a pawn he could use in the battle he was waging with me.’ ‘That makes it all right, does it?’ Evie flashed back bitterly. ‘No,’ he heavily conceded. ‘And I wasn’t the real pawn,’ Evie added. ‘My baby was.’ ‘Our baby,’ Raschid grimly corrected. But Evie shook her head. ‘No matter how you want to cover it up, Raschid, your father wanted this baby dead. I can’t forgive that. I refuse to forgive that! So as far as I am concerned for him this baby is dead,’ she announced. ‘I will not acknowledge you as his father, and he will not bear your name. I will not place his life at risk like that from anyone again.’ ‘And I have no say in this? Is that what you’re saying?’ ‘I am saying,’ Evie wearily asserted, ‘that if you care for this child then you will do the right thing by him and forget you ever conceived him.’ He didn’t say anything for a long time after that. And the silence pealed like the toll of a funeral bell while Evie waited to find out what he was going to do. And he looked every inch the heir to a kingdom, she noted helplessly. Body straight, chin high, that lean dark aquiline profile revealing absolutely nothing when in actual fact she knew she had just cut deep into the very heart of him with those brutal words. ‘So be it,’ he said suddenly, turned and walked stiffly to the door. It came as such a shock, such a terrible, terrible shock to have him concede defeat like that that it literally smashed her control to smithereens. And her shrill cry of, ‘Raschid—no!’ filled the room with more agonised despair than it could accommodate. It made him reel around in its shock-waves, dark face certainly showing emotion now as he strode back to the bed and bent over her, his skin wiped clear of any colour, golden eyes ferocious. ‘I should damn well think so!’ he ground out savagely. ‘I am your other half—don’t you dare discard me like that again!’ Her arms were already clutching at his shoulders, his sliding beneath her so he could scoop her out of the bed. ‘Now we talk sense,’ he gritted, sitting down on the bed with her then, using hard fingers to angle her face so she could see the power of his fury. ‘For if you think I have risked so much only to concede surrender to your sudden cowardice, then you don’t know me as well as you ought to do by now!’ ‘You set me up!’ she sobbed out accusingly. ‘I am supposed to avoid that kind of stress!’ ‘Your stress,’ he said angrily, ‘was there because you were playing the ice-princess to the hilt again!’ His chest heaved on a taut rasp of air; Evie clutched all the harder at him. ‘What your father did was unforgivable!’ she choked. ‘Then don’t forgive him!’ he declared with a shrug that completely dismissed the problem. ‘But you will marry me, Evie,’ he grimly ordained. ‘Proudly and openly. We will bring up our child together and he will bear my name!’ CHAPTER TEN ‘YOU look stunning, Evie,’ her brother murmured huskily. ‘Raschid is a very, very lucky man.’ Is he? Standing there gazing at herself in the mirror, Evie wondered if Raschid was feeling lucky to be marrying her today. Oh, he was quick to say all the right things to pronounce his good fortune. No one but no one could deny that Sheikh Raschid Al Kadah had been very vocal about his good luck when he’d announced his forthcoming marriage to Evangeline Delahaye to the world’s press three weeks ago. But did he feel lucky, when there was so much he was placing at risk by marrying her? And, more to the point, did she feel lucky? Just because, three weeks ago in that hospital bed, she had finally come to terms with the knowledge that she couldn’t let Raschid go no matter what that decision was going to mean to both of them, it did not automatically follow that all the concerns she had been struggling with then had melted away. And as she stood here now, in her old bedroom at Westhaven, alone with her brother because the rest of her family were already making their way to the registry office where she was to marry Raschid in less than an hour’s time, it was those concerns that came back to haunt her. Like the worrying ring of tight security Raschid had thrown around Westhaven when it was decided that she would come here to convalesce until they married. Funny really, she mused, but having been with Raschid for two years and having always been aware that he was an exceedingly wealthy man in his own right, she had never known him make such a dramatic show of that wealth—until they’d come to Westhaven. But that wealth had certainly been put on show in the very high-profile cordon that secured both the grounds and the property. Even Julian had found it necessary to prove his identity before he could gain access to his own home! The curious press loved it; her mother serenely ignored it. Evie, on the other hand, was horrified by it. ‘Is there something going on that you aren’t telling?’ she’d demanded of Raschid when he’d come down to Westhaven to join them for dinner one evening. ‘Am I still at risk—is that what all this security is for?’ ‘No,’ he’d denied. ‘But I learn my lessons the first time they are taught to me, and by leaving only Asim to take care of you at my apartment I devalued your importance to me in the eyes of those who gauge worth by the strength of its protection.’ ‘The Arab mentality, you mean.’ ‘If you wish to call it that,’ he’d conceded, refusing to take up the provoking derision pitched into the remark. ‘But it is an impression that has now been rectified. No one will ever dare to approach you again in threat.’ ‘Does that mean I have my eunuch at last, sneaking up to guard my bedroom door every night after I’ve retired?’ Again the remark had been sharp with acid. ‘Quite obsessed with this eunuch thing, aren’t you?’ he’d drawled, a sleek black eyebrow arching in amused mockery at that suggestion. ‘Could it be you have been weaving secret fantasies in your lonely bed at night? Maybe as a punishment to me because I refuse to share it?’ His determined abstinence in this area of their lives was just another form of protection he imposed on her that Evie found worrying. In all their two years he had never been able to resist her—she only had to remember that brief episode in her bedroom at Beverley Castle to prove that point! But now, suddenly, Raschid rarely even laid a finger on her. Why? What could he possibly hope to gain by his abstinence now, when the damage of their loving had already been done with the conception of their baby? He had, until now, avoided the question whenever she had challenged him with it. And it was just another worry she was having to contend with as she stood here staring at herself in the mirror. ‘If you were me, Julian,’ she burst out suddenly, spinning round to look anxiously at her beautifully tanned brother who had not long been back home from his monthlong honeymoon sailing round the Caribbean, ‘would you be marrying yourself to an Arab who lives in a Muslim state?’ ‘I thought true love could conquer all,’ he replied with a teasing grin. But Evie was in no mood to be teased. ‘His family don’t want me to be his wife,’ she explained tautly. ‘His people don’t want me! For all I know, I may be walking myself straight into purdah!’ ‘Or simply suffering from a bad case of wedding nerves,’ Julian suggested. ‘Oh, come on, Evie!’ he sighed. ‘Since everyone knows exactly what Raschid feels for you, I can’t see purdah being much of a problem when it would most definitely necessitate him having to share it with you!’ Then why does it feel as if I’m doing the wrong thing? she asked herself tautly as she turned back to the mirror. What she saw standing there was a woman who was anxiously attempting to respect the traditions of two completely different cultures. Her outfit had been made for her in-house by a top designer who had been drafted in at enormous expense by Raschid and instructed to create something incomparable, and what he had come up with was both startlingly simplistic and breathtakingly effective. The dress was really nothing more than a long and narrow tunic with a simple high neck and long loose sleeves designed very much on Middle Eastern lines. Made of a fabulously rich antique-gold silk, its only decoration was the narrow band of delicate seed-pearls sewn down the front seam and around the tiny stand-up collar. But it was the addition of a fine gold mesh skullcap dotted with yet more seed-pearls that gave it that special touch of glamour. On the advice of the designer, Evie had left her hair loose so the long silken mass tumbled down her spine in fine gold tendrils. ‘Medieval England meets mysterious East.’ Christina had softly described the effect just before she’d left for the registry office with Lucinda, putting in a nutshell exactly what it was that the designer had been trying to achieve when he’d created this look for Evie. But what would Raschid see when he looked at her? A woman who was trying just a bit too hard to bridge the gap between two cultures? Outside a long white limousine stood gleaming in the summer sunshine that hadn’t eased its grip on England for more than two months now. ‘Cheer up,’ Julian gently admonished her as they drove away. ‘You are supposed to be going to your wedding, not your funeral.’ Too true, Evie thought, but still couldn’t shake off the chilling feeling that a dark presence was casting its shadow over the car as they drove towards Hertford. A shadow which had a definite shape to it—Raschid’s father. His family. His Arabian people. None of whom were to be present today. Oh, the reasons for that had come thick and fast enough. His father was not well enough to travel great distances. His sister could not come because one of her children had been taken ill. His Embassy people were, unfortunately, involved in important matters of state that could not be rearranged to accommodate their rushed marriage. But Evie wasn’t stupid; she could recognise denunciation when she was being fed it so blatantly. Westhaven Town Hall was a rather elegant red-brick building that took pride of place in the old town square where a small crowd had gathered to watch—including the expected clutch of reporters. As the car drew to a stop at the bottom of the steps, Evie could see Raschid waiting for her at the top of them. He was wearing a dark silk suit, bright white shirt and dark tie, she noted, and wondered heavily if the lack of his traditional Arab dress was just another statement she should take grim note of. Yet her eyes clung to him as he came lightly down the steps towards the car. So tall, lean, so painfully handsome, this Arab lover of hers, she thought helplessly. And Julian is right; I can’t live without him. After opening the limousine door for her, his eyes blazed with possessive approval as he helped her to alight. ‘Beautiful,’ he murmured softly. Flash bulbs exploded, people called out. Evie plastered a social smile on her face, and let Raschid escort her to their wedding. The civil ceremony itself was to take place in front of only a few chosen witnesses. Then they were to return to Westhaven where the rest of their guests would be waiting to watch the Christian blessing Raschid had arranged to take place there. There was to be a Muslim blessing, too, but not here in England, and not until Raschid’s father was well enough to attend it. Or when he was ready to accept Evie as his son’s wife, she suspected was the truth. Her mother, Christina and Asim were waiting for them inside the foyer. At least Asim was wearing traditional Arab robes, Evie noted wryly. The service was short, over almost before it had begun. Evie stood beside Raschid and repeated her vows in a frail voice that had their few witnesses straining to hear them. Raschid’s voice was stronger, but slightly constricted, as if he was finding this more of a strain than he had expected it to be. Evie felt the ring slide on to her finger, looked down to see a band of delicate gold twining around the Al Kadah family crest. Did this ring make her one of them now? she wondered. ‘You may now kiss the bride, sir.’ Kiss the bride… Like an automaton, Evie turned towards Raschid as he turned towards her. Lavender eyes clashed with gold. It was like free-falling into a vat of hot honey, and for several long seconds she wasn’t aware of anything but this man and the power he had over her. He didn’t move—didn’t attempt to claim his kiss, but just stood there looking down at her with his darkly tanned face cast into disturbingly sombre lines. The tension grew. Evie’s heart began to stutter, her parted lips trembling slightly as they waited for that kiss. What was wrong with him? Did looking down into this face that bore no resemblance to his own people make him suddenly realise what he was actually putting at risk by joining himself to her? By now the breathless tension was beginning to envelop everyone. No one moved, no one spoke; all eyes were fixed intently on them. Her skin began to shimmer, long lashes flickering as her eyes anxiously asked him a question. Raschid murmured something soft in his own language—a plea to Allah, Evie thought it was. Then she felt his hand searching for and taking hold of her hand—felt the tremor in his long fingers as he drew that captured hand up between their two bodies. His dark lashes fell over liquid gold eyes as he looked down at the crested ring adorning her finger. Then he kissed it gently and lifted his eyes back to Evie’s again. ‘Kismet,’ he said, that was all. Kismet. The will of Allah. Their destiny. Evie’s heart swelled to bursting. And at last she smiled. In the next moment his arms were banding around her and he was claiming his kiss. Outside the registry office, the air had suddenly developed a crystal clarity to it that totally outshone the dark shadow of before. Flash bulbs popped again, people called out to them. Evie smiled for the cameras, serenely ignored the questions and let her new husband lead her down to the waiting limousine, which would take them back to Westhaven. Raschid maintained a grip on her hand as the car sped them away. Evie turned to smile at him, but he didn’t smile back. ‘You look utterly, soul-destroyingly lovely,’ he murmured huskily. ‘But for a while back there you also looked heart-breakingly sad.’ ‘Maybe I was having second thoughts,’ she said teasingly. ‘Were you?’ It was a serious question. Well, Evie asked herself, was I really having second thoughts about marrying this man? ‘Kismet.’ She smiled. The word really did seem to say it all for both of them. He nodded in understanding and dropped the subject to lean over and kiss her instead. But he wasn’t fooled. Evie knew that he was aware that she might have answered one question but she had avoided telling him why she had looked so sad. No giant white canopy awaited them at Westhaven, no brass band—no hundreds and hundreds of guests. Just a few close friends, a clutch of close relatives—and the summer house—where the local vicar waited to bless their union in respect of Evie’s Christian faith. An alfresco buffet lunch had been laid out on trestle tables on the lawn in front of the house. Great-Aunt Celia was present, but she sensibly avoided actually speaking to either the bride or her groom. And Harry was there, escorting a pretty young thing that gazed doe-eyed at him. Evie spied Raschid standing talking to them at one point, and wondered curiously when mutual hostility had turned into friendship. ‘I’ve given him some of my horses to train,’ Raschid explained later when she asked him the question. ‘As a consolation prize for being a good loser.’ ‘What an arrogant thing to say!’ Evie exclaimed. ‘Not really,’ Raschid drawled, sending her a wry look. ‘For I would not have handled losing you to him as honourably as he has handled losing you to me.’ ‘Why?’ she asked curiously. ‘What would you have done?’ The hand he had resting on her still slender waist drew her around to stand in front of him. ‘Guess,’ he whispered. ‘I think we are talking of locked doors and eunuchs again,’ Evie pondered sagely. ‘Preceded by kidnap, of course,’ Raschid added. ‘Which is exactly what I am about to do to you right now…’ As he spoke a helicopter came swooping low around the side of the house, gleaming white against the summer-blue sky and forcing the women to clutch at their hats as its rotor blades churned up the air around all of them. It set itself down on the lawn several hundred feet away. ‘Our transport away from here,’ Raschid announced. ‘I’ll go and get changed…’ ‘No need.’ Raschid stopped her by capturing her hand. ‘You look perfect as you are. Come—say your goodbyes quickly. We are working to a very tight schedule.’ ‘I wish you would tell me where we are going,’ Evie complained. ‘I may have packed all the wrong things!’ He didn’t answer, his attention already diverting to Evie’s mother who was coming towards them and looking tearful. She hugged Evie tightly. ‘Look after yourself,’ she said. It still amazed Evie how tactile her mother had become since she’d witnessed her daughter’s near-death experience. But a bit of the old Lucinda appeared when she turned towards Raschid. ‘I suppose you’re expecting a motherly hug too, now,’ she remarked coolly. ‘Not unless it is genuinely offered,’ he threw back. Lucinda’s eyes flashed, with irritation or appreciation, Evie wasn’t entirely sure. But the curt, ‘Just you take precious care of her!’ was issued alongside a blow-softening kiss brushed against one of Raschid’s lean cheeks. ‘I think she is reluctantly beginning to like me,’ Raschid confided as they settled into the helicopter. Shame the same could not be said of his own family’s feelings towards her, Evie thought—and just like that she felt her mood flip over from light to heavy. He noticed, this sharp-eyed Arab of hers. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded. ‘What did I just say to cause you to look like that?’ ‘Nothing.’ She found a smile from somewhere that only just made it. ‘I’m tired, that’s all—missing the nap Asim daily forces upon me.’ Asim was sitting up front with the pilot. Evie wasn’t surprised to find he was coming with them. Everywhere Evie went these days, Asim was right there with her. He hadn’t been bluffing when he’d told her that this child she was carrying was now his responsibility. ‘Then as soon as we board the plane that is exactly what you will do,’ Raschid ordained. They transferred to one of the Al Kadah personal jets at a private airfield not many minutes away from Westhaven. The moment they were up in the air, Raschid released them both from their seat belts and pulled Evie to her feet. ‘Time for the lady’s rest,’ he explained, drawing her along the luxury main cabin and in through a door that turned out to be a fully equipped bedroom. ‘Oh, very decadent,’ Evie teased, looking curiously around her as Raschid moved over to the double bed that dominated the cabin, complete with passion-purple silk sheets and mounds of richly coloured silk pillows. Picking something up from the bed, he tossed it negligently over his shoulder. It was a short silk nightdress in a very sensual dark red colour. ‘Turn around,’ he commanded, ignoring the taunt. ‘So I can release you from this exquisite creation.’ Evie did as he bade her. ‘I feel I must inform you that as a full-blooded Arab I am feeling very cheated at this precise moment,’ he said lightly as his deft fingers dealt with the long zip that ran down the length of her spine. ‘I was expecting those seed-pearls decorating your front to be my one hundred and one buttons—as is the traditional way Arab women drive their new husbands crazy while they are forced to unwrap their prize inch by painful inch.’ ‘But you don’t want what’s beneath this gown,’ Evie pointed out. ‘So why bother to mention it?’ ‘Is that what you really think?’ The dress was eased away from her shoulders, and allowed to slither to the floor. Evie reached up to pull off the skullcap while kicking off her white satin slip-ons at the same time. She felt Raschid’s fingers at the clasp of her smooth satin bra, and quivered slightly as his warm flesh touched her flesh. ‘Yes,’ she said. She heard his soft laugh as he bent down to deal with the only piece of clothing she had left. Seconds later, she was naked, and his hands were gently clasping her slender hip bones. The brush of his mouth against the curving cheeks of her bottom made her spine arch in stinging response. ‘Liar,’ he drawled. ‘You know I adore every single inch of this delectable body.’ Then he was turning her to face him, his hands still holding her there in front of him while he continued to squat at her feet. In a slow, slow, agonisingly sensual drift of his heavy eyelids, he inspected her from bare toes upwards. Her legs turned to liquid, her thighs began to burn, that hidden place between them pulsing out its needy message. He inspected the pale-skinned flatness of her stomach where their baby was not yet making its presence felt, drifted those hooded eyes up over her rib-cage to her breasts where a new firm fullness was most definitely evident. ‘Every inch,’ Raschid repeated huskily. Evie dragged in a constricted breath of air, her hand snaking up to cup his lean cheek so that she could make him look at her. His eyes changed colour, darkening on a swirling tempest of craving. Her thumb moved, brushing across his lips to gently part them. The moist inner heat lining the recess of his mouth drew powerfully on some inner heat of her own that had her folding to her knees in front of him. ‘I don’t really need to rest, you know,’ she told him softly. ‘But I do need you.’ ‘Ah…’ he sighed sorrowfully. ‘But—’ Evie smothered the ‘but’. She crushed it right back into his mouth with the hungry press of her own. What was absolutely glorifying was the fact that he didn’t attempt to fight her. He let her deepen that kiss to a bone-melting intimacy that made her feel alive and happy for the first time in weeks. He still held her hips tightly between his two hands; Evie used her own hands to begin urgently dealing with his clothes. As far as she was concerned, he was wearing too many; impatient fingers tossed the nightdress to one side then began pushing his jacket from his shoulders before yanking at his tie. In all their two years she had never longed for him as much as she was longing for him right now, and it showed in the small growl of triumph she made against his mouth as the tie came free. Shirt buttons then began popping without a care to how they came free. He wasn’t helping her—which only incited her urgency. The shirt came to rest around his elbows with his jacket, trapped there by the hands he still had clamped to her hip bones. Evie didn’t care; she had warm, tight skin to touch at last, and a wonderful hair-roughened breastplate to reacquaint herself with. Her mouth wrenched itself away from his so it could go and taste that newly exposed flesh. On a tormented groan, Raschid suddenly burst into action. He freed his arms from his trailing clothes, reached for her, pulling her hard against him, his hot mouth homing in on tight, tingling nipples that set her whole body singing. How long had it been since they’d been together like this? Five weeks? It showed in the violence of their breathing, in the urgency with which they began to devour each other. He sucked so hard on one of her nipples that she actually whimpered—then laughed because she had missed his mouth on her like this so very badly. Breathing gone haywire, bodies hot, emotions locked into a raging frenzy. When he dragged himself to his feet, Evie rose up with him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck. His mouth found hers again; she clung to him, her breasts pressing against him in open provocation. But when she dropped her hands to the waistband of his trousers his reaction was so unexpected that it thoroughly stunned her. Picking her up in his arms, Raschid turned and dumped her on to the bed. ‘No!’ he ground out, jerked right away from her, then spun on his heel to bend and snatch up the discarded nightdress, which he tossed at her before bending to snatch up his shirt. ‘Wh-what do you mean—no?’ she gasped, barely able to believe he really meant what he was implying here! ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean to become so carried away. But we must not,’ he added tautly. ‘I made a vow…’ ‘A vow?’ Evie repeated shrilly, beginning to shake all over in reaction. ‘What kind of vow?’ ‘Cover yourself,’ he commanded roughly. Having recently devoured her with his eyes, he was now looking anywhere but at her, his dark face a mask of bone-gripping tension. Evie knew that look. He was hurting, and at this precise moment she was glad he was hurting! ‘What kind of vow?’ she angrily insisted. ‘A vow to Allah,’ he confessed. ‘That I would treat you with respect.’ ‘I’ve got news for you, Raschid,’ Evie informed him, grimly dragging the nightdress over her trembling flesh. ‘This doesn’t feel like respect, it feels like rejection!’ He winced as if she’d hit him, but it didn’t stop that wonderful chest Evie had just eagerly exposed for herself from disappearing behind snowy white linen. ‘That is because you misunderstand my motive,’ he explained, bending to retrieve his jacket and his tie next. ‘For too long I have undervalued your importance to me. It is a sin I am determined to put right.’ ‘What sin?’ she demanded bewilderedly. ‘The sin of wanting to make love to me?’ She sounded so damned offended that his mask of a face seemed to turn to iron. Yet he nodded his dark head in sombre confirmation. ‘And the sinful lack of understanding as to what our relationship was doing to your pride, your self-esteem and your reputation.’ ‘Is this explanation supposed to make me feel better?’ ‘It will, when I’ve finished,’ he said, dragging his jacket back on. He didn’t look so elegant now, Evie noted caustically, with half the buttons on his precious shirt missing! ‘Then by all means please go on!’ she invited. ‘For I find myself completely enthralled by all of this—humility!’ He muttered something she didn’t catch—an Arab curse aimed at sarcastic females, she suspected. ‘I exposed you to mockery, humiliation and danger,’ he nonetheless continued. ‘I stood by and watched your own family shun you at your brother’s wedding. I witnessed the whole party freeze in horror when you caught Christina’s bridal bouquet! I then watched you stand alone by a moonlit lake and toss those damn flowers into the water as if you were tossing away all hope for you and me!’ His chest heaved on an angry rasp of air. ‘Yet, seeing all of this,’ he grimly went on, ‘knowing exactly how wretched you must have been feeling, I still responded badly to your news about the baby! How you could bring yourself to speak to me after that performance,’ he concluded gruffly, ‘I will never comprehend!’ Evie said nothing—what could she say? He was only telling it as it was, after all. She had been tossing away hope with those flowers. He had reacted badly about the baby. ‘You didn’t even carry a bouquet to our wedding,’ he then inserted huskily. ‘Do you think I did not see the significance in that omission? I have this dreadful suspicion that if you ever hold another flower in your hand you are always going to see that cursedly doomed bouquet in its stead!’ He was probably right, so Evie didn’t argue the point with him. ‘I still don’t see what any of this has to do with you and I making love now that we are married.’ ‘I made a vow to Allah,’ he said, bringing the whole unbelievable conversation reeling back to where it had begun. ‘While I waited out my vigil in that hospital waiting room, I promised Him that if He gave me a final chance with you I would never, ever undervalue your worth to me again. And since sex is all I ever gave to you before,’ he finally concluded, ‘then sex will now await its pleasure, until I have proved to you that you mean more to me than just a source of physical gratification.’ And that was what this was really all about? He’d made some silly vow to Allah while sitting in a hospital waiting room turning himself inside out with guilt and worry? ‘In case it has escaped your notice,’ Evie dryly mocked, ‘I tended to use you in exactly the same way.’ To her surprise, he laughed one of those warm, husky, very male laughs that eased some of the tension out of him. ‘Then take pity on me,’ he pleaded, turning rueful eyes on her. ‘And make this penance I have set myself easier to bear by lusting after me when I cannot see you doing it.’ Evie relaxed back into the pillows, no longer angry, but studying him thoughtfully. ‘You won’t be placing the baby at risk by making love to me, you know,’ she said. ‘If that’s what this is really all about.’ ‘It isn’t,’ he denied. ‘I asked the doctor last week when I went for my checkup,’ she persisted regardless. ‘And he assured me that physical intimacy would not be a problem.’ He wasn’t blind; he could see exactly what her lavender eyes were offering him. ‘The world is full of practised sirens,’ he remarked wearily. ‘But why did I have to marry myself to one?’ ‘Kismet,’ Evie said, her eyes openly provoking him now. ‘Purdah is beginning to take on a whole new appeal where you are concerned,’ he warned. Then, on a sigh, he came to sit down beside her, and leant down to softly kiss her cheek. ‘Why don’t you put me out of my misery and go to sleep?’ he suggested. ‘I can’t convince you to change your mind and join me?’ A delicate finger came up to gently play with his mouth. ‘No.’ ‘Even though this is my wedding day and I am feeling terribly neglected?’ The finger moved to his jawline, and began trailing downwards to where the whorls of crisp dark hair were showing above the gap in his open shirt. ‘I promise not to try to seduce you.’ ‘You are seducing me already.’ He utterly derided that promise, pointedly removed the trailing finger, and got to his feet again. ‘How can you make a pact with Allah about something as important to us as sex?’ Evie cried, losing all patience. ‘Rest,’ he commanded, moving back to the door. ‘All right,’ she snapped, sitting up again. ‘I’ll rest when you tell me how long this penance of yours is to last.’ For some reason the question put tension back into his shoulders. Alarm shot through her, the horrible suspicion that he was hiding something from her chilling her blood. ‘Raschid…’ she murmured as a sudden frightening thought struck her. ‘There isn’t something wrong with me or the baby that people aren’t telling me, is there?’ ‘Of course not!’ he snapped, spinning round to frown at her. ‘You and the baby are perfectly healthy!’ he stated tersely. ‘No one has lied to you about that!’ ‘Then what are you hiding?’ The breath hissed from his lungs on a sigh of frustration, and for a moment, a very brief but telling moment, Evie saw indecision flash across his eyes before he turned his back on her. ‘Nothing,’ he said. But it was already too late; Evie had seen that indecision, and panic was suddenly erupting inside her. Climbing off the bed, she walked towards him. Her hand was trembling as she gripped his arm. ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she thrust at him angrily. ‘Don’t ever lie to me! There is something going on here that you aren’t telling me, and I want to know just what it is!’ The muscles beneath her gripping fingers bunched, his lean dark profile clenching on the power of whatever it was he was trying hard to suppress here. Evie watched and waited, his tension becoming her tension, the war he was having with himself becoming her war until the prolonged silence began to buzz like an alarm bell vibrating along tautly stretched nerve-ends. Then he turned his head, saw her strained pallor, the anxiety that was darkening her eyes, and on a soft curse he surrendered. ‘Okay,’ he said, taking hold of her hand to grimly lead her back to the bed. Sitting her down there, he then looked around him for a chair and set it so that he could seat himself right in front of her. ‘I was going to leave this as long as I could before telling you,’ he admitted. ‘But I can see that what you’re thinking is possibly worse than reality. So…’ Leaning forward to take hold of her hands, he announced very gently, ‘I am taking you home, Evie. To Behran…’ Behran—Evie’s mind went up like a volcano, shock, horror, a bone-chilling sense of trepidation all straightening her spine on a constricted gasp of dismay. ‘You have nothing to fear,’ Raschid quickly assured her. ‘Do you think I would be doing this if I believed it would place you in danger?’ No, she didn’t think that, but it didn’t alter the fact that the very idea of going to his homeland was filling her with horror. Yet—she should have seen this coming! Why hadn’t she seen it coming? She had just married this man! She was now the wife of the future ruler of Behran! She carried his child inside her—maybe the next ruler of Behran after Raschid! ‘Why?’ she managed to breathe out frailly. ‘Because this visit is necessary,’ he replied. ‘To have avoided taking you home directly after our marriage would have given rise to the suggestion that I am ashamed of my western wife.’ He was talking pride here—defiance in the face of any dissension. ‘Wh-what is this going to mean?’ she asked, forcing the words past all the horrors that were trying to possess her. ‘Will I have to face them the moment we get off the plane?’ ‘No.’ His fingers were squeezing hers tightly, urging her to trust what he was telling her. ‘We will transfer from the plane to a helicopter at the airport,’ he explained, ‘then fly directly to my private palace. The news will spread quickly enough that we are there together, and thereby lay to rest any suspicion that I am reluctant to bring you home. But you need see no one,’ he promised. ‘We will, in effect, be on our honeymoon, which will give you the chance to acquaint yourself with my way of life before we have to present ourselves officially as a couple.’ He meant to his father, though he was careful not to make the dreaded connection out loud. Aware of his eyes still fixed intently on her, that he was tense, worried, and unsure as to how she was going to respond to this challenge he was setting before her, Evie lowered her eyes to their hands where they rested on her silk-covered lap, and tried desperately to pull her ragged senses together. Raschid was a man of two cultures. He was used to slipping in and out of two different guises depending on which part of the world he was in. But she wasn’t. In all the time they had been together it had never once occurred to him to invite her to his homeland. She hadn’t even been invited to any of the functions Raschid had attended at his own embassy. For two long years she had not existed, as far as his people were concerned. A few weeks ago they had certainly acknowledged her—by declaring her an enemy. Or, to be more precise, her baby was the enemy. She shivered, recalling that memory, recalling too what had happened after it. Raschid felt that shiver and understood exactly what was causing it. ‘Look at me, Evie!’ he commanded. ‘Look into my eyes and see what you always see written there!’ Blinking herself into focus, she found herself staring at strong brown fingers tightly interlaced with delicate white ones like a love knot that was too intricate to break. And there, nestling amongst this mingling of brown and white, was a gold-crested wedding band that seemed to be telling her that this was it. The moment when she finally took on board what it really meant to be joined to this very special man. You stand proudly beside him, and boldly take them all on—or why are you here at all? And really, she told herself, she could have no argument with it. She had married him for good or bad. If the good was in looking forward to spending the rest of her life with him, then the bad had to be where they were going to live out that life. Then she made herself look into those dark gold, passionately glowing eyes. Made herself see what he was insisting she see. Made herself acknowledge it. I love you! those eyes were telling her. You are my heart, my life—my soul! I would lay down my own life before I would let anyone get close enough to hurt you again! ‘Will I have to cloak and veil myself?’ she asked. ‘And make sure I walk two paces behind you?’ It took a moment—more than a moment—for what she was actually saying here to finally sink in. But when it came his reaction took her breath away. The husky growl of exultation he emitted was all the warning she received before she found herself flat on her back with him lying on top of her. ‘I knew you were brave,’ he uttered proudly. ‘I knew you were the right woman for me!’ ‘I should really be telling you to go to hell,’ she said. ‘Get my own back on you for the way you refused to listen to reason about Julian’s wedding. But you like to pick your moments, don’t you?’ she sighed. ‘Nowhere for me to run,’ she dryly pointed out as her eyes made a rueful scan of their present surroundings. ‘Nowhere for me to—’ His mouth stopped the words of complaint with a kiss that was both hot and possessive. But before Evie could turn it into something much more satisfying he was, frustratingly, breaking them apart again. ‘No.’ He refused her yet again. Only, this time Evie was not offended—but challenged. ‘I’ll break that iron will of yours,’ she vowed as he made quickly for the door. ‘I will whittle away at it at every opportunity I’m offered.’ ‘Part of my penance,’ he accepted with a sigh. ‘It will be interesting to discover how long I can hold out.’ Or how long I can maintain this brave face, Evie mused heavily when he had left her. His father…She shuddered, turning to curl into a ball on her side as if making herself smaller would diminish the dread that name filled her with. Did Crown Prince Hashim know they were on their way to Behran? Had Raschid told him? She was to find out soon enough… CHAPTER ELEVEN IT WAS late into the evening local time when the plane finally touched down at Behran Airport. Dressed more casually now, in a turquoise silk wrap-around skirt and long-sleeved cotton top, Evie stared out of the window at a scene that was, as with most airports, a hive of activity irrespective of the lateness of the hour. ‘I didn’t realise that Behran Airport was such a busy one,’ she remarked to Raschid who was sitting beside her. ‘It isn’t—not by international standards anyway.’ He frowned, dipping his dark head so that he too could glance out through the small porthole window. In the next second he was calling sharply for Asim who came hurrying down the aisle towards them. Reverting to Arabic, Raschid shot out a couple of curt questions that had Asim ducking his covered head to peer out of the window himself before he murmured something and walked off towards the flight deck. And Evie felt the tension begin to seep back into her system because neither man looked happy. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked Raschid. ‘I don’t know yet.’ He was still frowning. Like herself he had changed just before they were due to land, only the difference between them was that he had reverted to Arab robes, and suddenly looked all the more alien for it with that black frown marring his face. ‘But there is too much activity out there for this time of night.’ Perhaps not the most comforting thing to tell her, Evie mused as she glanced out of the window again. They were still taxiing towards the main airport building. It was dark, of course, but the darkness had been diminished by the excessive amount of halogen lighting that seemed to be spotlighting the plane as it moved. And beneath the lights she could see people—lots of people standing watching their arrival as if they had nothing better to do. Asim came back, his expression more sombre than when he had walked away. He relayed some information to Raschid in Arabic that had Raschid angrily freeing himself from his seat belt and standing up. Pushing past the other man, he strode off towards the flight deck himself. ‘Be calm,’ Asim told Evie soothingly when he saw her expression. ‘It is nothing to worry about.’ Then why are both you and Raschid looking distinctly worried? she wanted to ask, but managed to keep the challenge to herself while her eyes remained fixed on the doorway Raschid had disappeared through. The tension began to heighten the longer he was away. By the time he did finally reappear, the plane had come to a standstill some way off from the main building itself. ‘Don’t be too alarmed,’ he warned, which thoroughly alarmed her. ‘But my father has been interfering with my plans again.’ ‘Wh-why?’ she said nervously. ‘What has he done?’ ‘He has arranged a reception committee to meet us here at the plane. I’m sorry,’ he sighed, coming to sit himself down beside her. ‘This was not what I wanted. But—if you will just try to see it as a positive manoeuvre—in his own way he is trying to offer you a welcome.’ But you’re not feeling very positive about this, Evie thought as she felt all that bravery he had attributed her earlier drain right away. ‘What do I have to do?’ she asked, glancing warily sideways to see what looked like a dozen people in flowing robes making determinedly for the plane. Her stomach flipped, her legs turned to jelly. Maybe she even trembled a little, because Raschid reached across her and slammed the shutter down over the window. ‘You will be yourself,’ he firmly replied. ‘I ask no more of you.’ ‘Be myself in a cloak and veil?’ she drawled suggestively, expecting him to instantly deny the challenge. But he didn’t. Instead his expression darkened perceptibly. ‘I would request that you wear the gown you married me in today,’ he said. ‘As a sign of respect,’ he quickly explained. ‘For those people who have come here so late in the evening to officially greet you.’ ‘One being your father,’ Evie murmured grimacingly. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘My father is not quite strong enough to leave his palace. So we,’ he added slowly, ‘are to go to him.’ ‘What, now?’ Evie jerked out, twisting her head to stare at him. ‘Tonight?’ ‘It is perhaps a sensible alternative, when my father’s palace is only a few minutes’ drive away from here,’ he said. ‘Whereas my palace is still another hour’s flying by helicopter away.’ But, sensible or not, Raschid was still angry at the way his plans had been outmanoeuvred; Evie could see that in the grim set of his jaw. He was also uneasy about what all of this really meant; she could see that in the frown that still pulled at his brows, and in the perturbed glitter he was trying hard to hide beneath the heavy droop of his lashes. ‘What do you really think this all means?’ she questioned huskily. ‘And be honest with me, Raschid,’ she added. ‘I would rather be prepared for the worst than have it suddenly dumped on me so late that I have no time to react.’ ‘As I dumped this trip on you too late for you to react?’ He grimaced. ‘No.’ Evie smiled, and to her own surprise the smile relaxed some of the tension out of her. ‘Because your in stincts were right and if you’d warned me that you were going to bring me here before we left England, I would probably have refused to come,’ she admitted. Seeing the smile seemed to relax him too, and he reached out to touch a gentle finger to the corner of her upturned mouth. ‘I am going to take my own advice and be very positive about this,’ he murmured softly to her. ‘So I am going to put to you that I think my father’s intentions are entirely honourable, and he is attempting here to heal the breach at the first opportunity we are handing him.’ ‘And you want me to do the same,’ Evie concluded from that. ‘Can you?’ ‘I can try,’ she agreed. ‘But I can’t say I’m looking forward to any of this.’ It took only a few minutes to change back into her antique gold wedding gown. Asim found her a long white silk scarf from somewhere, which he advised her to drape loosely around her face. Stepping back into the main cabin, she found that Raschid, too, had changed the dark blue outer robe he had been wearing for a much more dramatic black silk one trimmed with gold. And as he turned to face her she saw that a wide gold sash was now wrapped around his lean waist. The black and gold made him look different somehow, taller, darker—disturbingly alien as he ran golden eyes still sharpened by anger over her covered head to her satin-shod feet. ‘Well?’ she said, smiling tightly across a tension that was beginning to make her face muscles feel very brittle. ‘Do I look presentable enough for your welcoming party now, do you think?’ Those lushly fringed, heavy-lidded eyes lifted up to clash with mocking blue. They saw the anxiety hiding be hind clear-cut crystal, and the strained pallor behind the creamy smoothness of her skin framed by the silk scarf. Without saying a word he came to her, placed the tips of his long brown fingers beneath her chin to raise it—then kissed her, hard and hot, arrogantly uncaring that Asim stood by the closed exit door witnessing the embrace. By the time he let her back up for air again, the pallor had altered to a soft flush of pink pleasure, and those cut-crystal eyes had darkened. ‘Now you look delicious,’ he murmured huskily, a teasing amusement suddenly dancing in his eyes. ‘Quite the shyly blushing bride in fact.’ Shyly blushing bride indeed! Evie thought caustically. ‘Well, whatever you say, this blushing bride is not walking two paces behind you,’ she warned, taking a firm grip on one of his hands while valiantly hiding her fears behind a mask of black humour. The sound of his deep warm burst of appreciative laughter was the last thing Evie’s consciousness absorbed as she floated through the ordeal of meeting several prominent dignitaries and their wives, all smoothly introduced to her by the man whose hand her own remained glued to. A long black limousine awaited them. It was a relief to disappear inside it. But it seemed that the ordeal was not yet over. Sitting there beside Raschid, Evie gazed out of the car window as the car sped off towards the wire fencing that surrounded the airport complex. Big mesh gates swung open as they reached them, and without a pause the car drove smoothly out on to a tarmacadam road then turned right towards the city she could see lighting up the dark skyline in the distance. But they hadn’t gone many yards before the inky darkness on either side of them was suddenly ablaze with light. Evie sat forward, felt as she did so Raschid’s increased tension as he too did the same, staring out of his own side window. At the very same moment a loud noise erupted, startling her enough to make her gasp. The road was alight with car headlights, the noise deafening with horns being pressed as their car swept by. Beside her, Raschid muttered something, sank back into the soft leather seat and was then oddly silent. ‘What is it?’ she questioned worriedly. ‘Why are they doing this?’ Turning to look at him, Evie was utterly dismayed to see his face had gone strangely grey. And he seemed to be having difficulty swallowing. ‘Raschid?’ Concern for him had her hand reaching out to grasp one of his. ‘Be at peace,’ he soothed her. ‘It is nothing to worry about.’ His voice was unsteady as he said the words, and if he wasn’t worried then something extreme was certainly disturbing him. ‘You look—hurt,’ she whispered, feeling her own throat thicken in aching response to his distress. ‘No,’ he denied. And at last turned suspiciously moist eyes in her direction. ‘They are welcoming us,’ he informed her gruffly. ‘They…’ One long-fingered hand lifted to make an expressive gesture towards the car window. ‘My people,’ he extended, ‘are welcoming us…’ Evie’s heart flipped over, the breath seized in her breast as full understanding finally hit her. His people were welcoming them and Raschid was so moved by the gesture that he could barely contain his feelings. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked softly. ‘Yes,’ he replied, but it was very obvious that he wasn’t. This had come as a real shock to him. He had not expected it and that was why it was having such a powerful effect on him. An effect that had Evie’s own eyes glazing over as she wisely said nothing more while she gave him the chance to get himself together. My people, he had called them. My people, in the truly possessive sense of the words. My people, whom he so obviously loved and whose love and respect he had been prepared to sacrifice for her sake. As Evie sat there beside him while they drove between the cavalcade of lights and sounding horns that lined their route as far as the eyes could see, she finally began to understand what Raschid’s Kismet was doing for them here. And she was humbled. Humbled by its force and by the man beside her who’d had the courage to reach out and grasp his own personal Kismet no matter what the cost might be. For she hadn’t been the brave one here, not really. All she’d done was follow where her heart led her, but Raschid possessed two hearts, one of which had been in conflict with the other since the day he’d set eyes upon her. He must have always known that one day he was going to have to risk breaking one of those hearts. The heart that belonged here with his people, or the heart that belonged to Evie. What he had done was place his trust in Kismet. And this was his reward—not hers. She was so very, very humbled by that. ‘I love you,’ she told him softly, although why she did she didn’t really know now; those words seemed so inadequate when set against all of this. Yet he turned and smiled at her, and that smile was so warm and dark and soul-stirringly tender that she knew the words were not inadequate to him. ‘Look,’ he said then, drawing her attention back to her own window. ‘My father’s palace,’ he said. Out there, beyond the glaring headlights, Evie found herself staring at a gold-lit stone building standing on its own raised piece of desert with a star-studded black velvet sky as its backcloth. Surrounded on all sides by what looked like a twenty-foot-high boundary wall, complete with domed lookout towers on each of its four corners, it was as if the whole scene had leapt straight out of an Arabian nights picture book she remembered having as a child. Awesome, mysterious, breathtakingly dramatic. Two huge wooden gates cut into the wall swung inwards as they approached them. As tall as the wall itself, they were a commanding sight on their own, but when Evie realised that they guarded an entrance that was as deep as it was tall she began to understand what true awe was. Inside was a vast courtyard, softly lit by concealed lighting that sparkled against fine sprinkles of water spouting from ornamental statues set within the exotic shrubs that grew in abundance on either side of the driveway. The entrance to the house was a flower-hung archway of pure white marble. Clear blue light was seeping out from beyond it, and as the car stopped by a pebbled area that covered the last ten feet or so to the entrance Evie saw a woman step out from beneath the archway. She was beautiful, dark-haired and slender but exquisitely rounded, and was wearing a long dark red silk dress that shimmered as she moved. ‘Ranya,’ Raschid murmured softly, and climbed out of the car to stride quickly towards her, too eager to greet his sister to remember his usually impeccable manners. It was therefore left to Asim, who had travelled in the front of the car with them, to open Evie’s door and help her to alight. Despite the fact that the hour was so late, the air was hot and very humid, and redolent with the fragrance of gardenia, oleander and heavily scented jasmine—all overlaid by a seductive aroma of some exotic spice Evie couldn’t quite capture. Music was playing somewhere—that distinctly Arabian sound that was so evocative of her surroundings. Strange, alien, yet so disturbingly seductive it made her toes tingle and her heart thump heavily in her chest. Or maybe those feelings had more to do with the way Raschid and Ranya were embracing each other with an affection that reminded her of herself and Julian. And why should they not? she asked herself. They were brother and sister—true brother and sister, born to the same mother and the only children of a man who, on the distinction alone of being a rich Arab Prince, should have produced a hundred children to a hundred different wives. Yet he had not. Crown Prince Hashim Al Kadah had only ever taken one wife. When she’d passed away while his children were still young, he hadn’t bothered to replace her. But then, she mused as she stood there by the car waiting to be remembered, if his wife had looked anything like his daughter Ranya, then it was perhaps understandable why the Crown Prince had never found another woman who could take his wife’s place. It was Ranya who noticed Evie standing there, but as she went to move around her brother with the intention of coming forward Raschid stopped her with a question. Pausing, Ranya answered him, and there followed a hurried discussion in soft-voiced Arabic that to Evie, witnessing their body language, verged on the heated. Then Ranya sighed, touched her brother’s arm with what Evie read as a gesture of sympathy, before firmly stepping around him to walk towards Evie. After witnessing the heat in their altercation, Evie wasn’t quite sure how she should greet this new sisterinlaw of hers—with open warmth or defensive coolness? she pondered. But the lovely creature made the decision easy. ‘At last we meet.’ Her embrace was both warm and welcoming, touching her lips to each of Evie’s cheeks. ‘I am Ranya, Raschid’s beloved sister, in case he has never bothered to mention me,’ she said with a teasing smile that literally stopped Evie’s breath because it was so like the smile her brother could use on occasion. ‘May I call you Evie, as Raschid does?’ she requested while gently urging Evie into movement. The house waited; Evie wasn’t at all sure, now that she had come this far, that she wanted to enter it. As she drew level with Raschid, she noticed his tension was back again. ‘What now?’ she whispered tautly. He didn’t answer; instead he reached for her hand then turned grimly to the archway. In silence they walked into his father’s home, where the hot desert air instantly tempered to a delicious coolness. Evie found herself standing in a vast reception hallway the likes of which she had only ever seen in history books. It was as big as a moderate theatre hall, with a high domed roof elaborately decorated with pale blue and gold mosaic tilework. The floor beneath her feet was white marble, the eggshell-blue painted walls broken by a dozen archways that led off into what she suspected was a maze of corridors. Above each arch, diamond-shaped grilles covered what Evie presumed were the Arabian equivalent of interior windows where people could look down unseen on the hallway beneath. ‘This is lovely,’ Evie breathed softly. Other than giving a brief smile of acknowledgement, Raschid seemed barely to hear her; his hand touched her arm to indicate which corridor he wanted to take. And the further they went down that corridor, the tenser he became. ‘Raschid—what is it?’ she asked anxiously, very conscious of his sister walking with them. This time he didn’t even attempt to dissemble. Instead he stopped walking suddenly, turned to take her by the shoulders then pushed her up against the corridor wall so he could stand right over her while his sister paused several delicate yards away. ‘We have yet another ceremony to go through tonight,’ he announced, sounding clipped and grim and beginning to look just a little jaded around the edges. ‘Again, my father has arranged this. And again I find I am in no position to argue with his decree.’ ‘A marriage ceremony, you mean?’ she asked. ‘Of course.’ He grimaced. ‘What else? Do you think you are up to it?’ Like him, Evie didn’t think she was being given very much choice in the matter. ‘What do I have to do?’ she asked heavily. ‘Nothing but stand beside me and repeat the vows you will be asked to say in Arabic. And I pray to Allah that then we will be allowed to do what we came here to do and be private,’ he sighed out sardonically. ‘But you don’t hold out much hope,’ Evie dryly assumed from all of that. ‘No,’ he confessed. ‘I do not.’ ‘Raschid—’ Ranya’s voice softly interrupted them. ‘We really must go now…’ Another sigh, then his mouth clamped into a flat line of grim perseverance. ‘Come,’ he said, taking hold of Evie’s hand again. ‘Let’s get it over with.’ Not the most diplomatic thing to say to his bride. But then, Evie mused as they began walking along that long corridor again, how many times did he have to marry this wretched bride before he could be allowed to feel married? They stopped at a door. Raschid seemed to need a moment to compose himself for what was to come next, and his fresh bout of tension became Evie’s tension as, with a perceptible straightening of his broad shoulders, his fingers tightened around Evie’s hand and his other hand reached out to open the door. What followed became lost in the realms of a dreamlike sense of unreality. The room was dark—lit only by wall-mounted candles that gave off too little light for her to see very much of what was around her. She was vaguely aware of people standing in the dimness, vaguely aware of their curious scrutiny as Raschid led her forward. The ceremony was short—shorter than she had expected. Beside her, Raschid quietly translated every word into English for her, before she was then required to repeat them in Arabic. And through it all she kept her body in touch with his body, needing to feel the security of his presence in this alien place with its alien service and its alien sounds and scents and language. When it was over, Raschid’s attention was claimed almost instantly. As he turned to speak to the several men who had come up to him, Ranya appeared at Evie’s side. ‘Come,’ she said quietly. ‘We must go this way…’ ‘But—’ Evie did not want to leave Raschid; glancing around her, her eyes caught sight of him standing several feet away. Her hand went out, anxious to catch his attention, but even as she did so the group of men closed in around him, and Ranya’s hand on her arm was firmly guiding her away through a door that led into frighteningly unfamiliar territory. Not a corridor, but another dimly lit room which then led through to another and another…All were richly furnished, all wore the stamp of eastern luxury. At a fourth door, Ranya paused and turned what Evie presumed was supposed to be a reassuring smile on her before she was knocking on the door. Someone called out in Arabic. A man’s voice. A sudden sense of dreadful foreboding shot like a steel rod along her spine. Ranya opened the door and stepped inside with Evie in tow. After the eastern splendour of all the rooms they had passed through, Evie was expecting to find herself stepping into yet more of the same. She was therefore surprised to find herself standing in a big but definitely old-fashioned library that could have been transported right out of Victorian England. It was all oak panelling lined with shelves upon shelves of leather-bound books. Richly coloured Persian rugs covered the polished wood floor and there was even a large polished oak fire surround with a log fire burning in the grate—although it did so behind a shield of heat-reflective glass. The chairs and sofas were of old English dark red velvet, and several huge desks were groaning under the weight of the books and papers scattered across them. And it all felt so very strange—as if she had just walked into her grandfather’s study on one of those duty visits she used to make to his home with her mother when she was a child. Her grandfather had been a stern, sombre man who’d married very late in life and never seemed to quite understand how he had produced someone as beautiful and sophisticated as Lucinda. But this wasn’t England, this was not her grandfather’s Victorian study, she reminded herself. This was Behran, and the man who was at this precise moment carefully pushing himself up from one of the wing-backed chairs was most definitely not her grandfather. ‘I bring Raschid’s wife to you as requested, Father,’ Ranya quietly announced. And it was at that precise moment that Evie froze. Eyes cold and fixed, the breath catching in her throat, Evie found herself staring at the tall and lean figure of—the enemy. An enemy that could be no other person than Raschid’s father, simply because looking at him was like taking a glimpse into the future and seeing exactly how Raschid was going to look thirty years from now. Even the eyes were the same colour—though this pair was guarded as they studied her stiff form. He seemed to be waiting for her to do something. Make some gesture in respect of his high station maybe. But for the life of her—call it pride if you will—Evie could not offer this man any kind of gesture of respect. Instead her chin came up, her eyes glassing over in a way Raschid would have instantly recognised if he had been here to see it happen. His ice-princess was still alive and flourishing. But Raschid wasn’t here, and the slick way she had been separated from him had her turning those cold eyes on Ranya in accusation. The other girl’s lovely cheeks flushed slightly in response, her soft lips mouthing a silent sound of apology. ‘Thank you, Ranya,’ Crown Prince Hashim murmured coolly. ‘You may leave us.’ ‘No!’ It was sheer self-preservation that forced the protest from Evie’s throat. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him,’ she pleaded with Ranya. Ranya looked uncertain suddenly. ‘Papa…’ She turned anxious eyes on him. ‘Go!’ he commanded. The voice was strong, dictatorial—yet right on the back of that harsh command came a sudden weariness. ‘Please, child,’ he added heavily. ‘Trust me. Give me some privacy to do what I have to do.’ With a rustle of silk and a touch of her hand to Evie’s arm in mute apology, Ranya obeyed without further hesitation. The door closed softly behind her, leaving a stifling silence behind. Neither moved. Neither spoke. Evie felt that tension in her back increase to tingling proportions. Once again, the Crown Prince seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but once again Evie refused to utter a word until she knew exactly what it was she was dealing with here. ‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You are the golden icon my son was willing to forfeit his illustrious heritage for.’ ‘I love your son,’ Evie threw back coolly. ‘Too much to expect him to do anything so drastic for me.’ ‘A moot point,’ the old man said. ‘For he was prepared to do it with or without your blessing.’ ‘I’m—sorry if that hurt you,’ Evie murmured stiffly. ‘But, as you and I both know, Raschid has a mind and a will of his own.’ ‘Too true—too true,’ he ruefully acknowledged. ‘A fact that was brought home to me in the severest way possible. Call me arrogant if you wish, but I did not expect my son to defy me as he did,’ he confessed. ‘It came as a—shock to discover he had grown a strength of will that by far outstretched my own…’ He paused then to study her curiously, as if he was trying to discover what it was about her that had given his son such strength of will. Evie could have told him, but she was refusing to give this man anything. Maybe he understood that. ‘Still,’ he shrugged. ‘Who am I to complain when Raschid is proving to be the kind of man I always prayed he would become? And I am sorry for frightening you with my unfair tactics while my son taught me this salutary lesson. There,’ he concluded. ‘Does that clear the air between us a little?’ ‘Not if you’ve brought me here to repeat the offer,’ she said. To her surprise he smiled. And it was like watching Raschid come to life in this older version. That smile flipped her heart over. ‘No.’ Ruefully he shook his covered head. ‘A lesson learned so painfully is usually an unforgettable one.’ He went quiet for a moment, his eyes clouding over with what Evie could only interpret as remorse. ‘The child is safe?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Your health is quite recovered?’ Evie gave a stiff nod in reply to both questions. But mistrust in his sincerity kept her lips tightly shut on the return query as to his own health. His half smile told her he knew exactly why she was refusing to ask that question. ‘If you give my son this much trouble when he does something you do not like, then I pity him,’ he drawled. ‘Please…’ he then said suddenly. ‘Will you come and sit?’ Evie’s instinct was to refuse. She had no wish to move one inch away from this door behind which lay relative safety. But it suddenly struck her that he wasn’t standing so tall as he had been—as if the strength was slowly seeping out of him. Like his son, she realised, good manners were bred into him. Love her or hate her, he could not bring himself to sit while a lady remained standing. And, determined though she was not to soften her feelings towards him, neither could she keep a sick man standing when it wasn’t necessary. So she moved warily across the cluttered room to the other wing-backed chair set across the fireplace from the one the Prince had been sitting in when she arrived. He waited until she sat down on the edge of it before he lowered himself carefully into the other one. ‘Thank you,’ he sighed, easing himself back into the chair then wearily closing his eyes. An uncomfortable feeling of concern began to gnaw at her. ‘Are you all right?’ she felt constrained to ask. ‘Would you like me to get someone?’ ‘No, no.’ He refused the offer. ‘I can sit, I can lie, but I must not stand for long periods,’ he explained. Then his eyes suddenly flicked open, homing in like two sharp golden lances on her face. ‘I offer you this information because I understand that you are loath to request it,’ he said with a small wry smile that made her rather disturbingly aware of just how easily he was seeing through her. Just like his son. Then his eyes were suddenly darkening into true gravity. ‘Despite your opinion of me, I am not a barbarian,’ he grimly announced. ‘I do not kill babies.’ Instantly Evie’s chin came up, her lavender-blue eyes filled with damning scepticism. ‘You may believe that or not.’ He coolly dismissed her expression. ‘For as it stands I am guilty as charged of attempting the subtle bribe to get you out of my son’s life,’ he admitted. ‘But the other suggestion presented to you was most definitely not sanctioned by me.’ ‘Are you saying that the bed reserved in the private clinic was not your doing?’ Evie questioned. The nod of his covered head confirmed the point. ‘Though I can accept,’ he added, ‘that I must have given the impression that it would have been better if the coming child had not been conceived or my ill-chosen messenger would not have taken the initiative upon himself to add such a grave suggestion in my name. Needless to say—’ he shrugged ‘—Jamal Al Kareem no longer holds such a trusted position in my employ—or any other position, come to that.’ ‘If this is the truth, why hasn’t Raschid told me all of this?’ Evie was already questioning the truth in what he was saying here, for there was no doubt in her mind that Raschid would have rushed to tell her—if only to help clear his father’s name. But the Crown Prince was shaking his head. ‘Raschid cannot tell you what he does not know,’ he said, then added with a shrug and a grim smile, ‘He would kill the man if he discovered this. Better I continue to shoulder the blame than have my son imprisoned for murder in one of our own jails. He will learn to forgive me in time, you see. Whereas you,’ he added shrewdly, ‘I suspect will never forgive—or even let me get close to my grandchild if you continue to believe me capable of such a dastardly crime. Which is why, of course, I am making this confession to you.’ He was right, and Evie didn’t even bother to pretend otherwise. Now all she had to do was decide whether she could risk believing him or not. Then she looked into that face that was so like Raschid’s face. Saw the pride there, saw what it was costing that pride for this man to make this confession to her, and at last felt the tension begin to ease out of her backbone. ‘Your people lined our route here,’ she remarked, quite out of context. ‘Raschid insists they were welcoming us. Were they?’ ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. ‘And was that your doing?’ ‘Ah,’ he said, and his smile was wry to say the least. ‘I understand what you are attempting to do here. You are attempting to bestow upon me qualities I do not possess,’ he perceived. ‘But—I will reluctantly decline the redeeming offer. So—no.’ He replied to the question. ‘I did not command my people to welcome you both here tonight. In fact, I confess that their response came as big a shock to me as it did to Raschid. You see…’ he added softly, ‘I saw my son’s marriage to you as a sign of weakness in him—whereas my people surprised me with their perception in seeing only strength in a man who stands by his principles, no matter what those principles are going to cost him.’ ‘Kismet,’ Evie murmured softly. ‘My son’s definition?’ he asked, then smiled. ‘He could be right,’ he quietly conceded. ‘And who am I to be so conceited as to pull against the will of Allah?’ You are a man who is seeing your own power diminish as your son’s grows stronger, Evie realised on a sharp pang of understanding as she watched those eyes so like Raschid’s eyes cloud with a sadness at his own dulling senses. And without letting herself think about it she got up and walked over to squat down beside him. ‘If I promise to be as good a wife as any woman could be for your son,’ she offered, ‘do you think you and I could call a truce? ‘And what would you require from me in return?’ ‘Acceptance,’ Evie answered instantly. ‘That I am what Raschid wants—even though I absolutely refuse to walk two paces behind him, no matter how exalted he is,’ she added with a teasing smile that at last melted the ice from her eyes. The Crown Prince burst out laughing. And that was how Raschid caught them when he strode into the room a moment later. His face was hard, his eyes angry, his body taut with a desire to taste someone’s blood. ‘Ah,’ his father murmured in greeting. ‘My prodigal son at last. You have married well, Raschid.’ He dryly announced his approval. ‘She is beautiful. She is tough, and she is blessed with compassion. I commend your good taste and your good fortune.’ ‘I wish you would tell me what he said to you,’ Raschid sighed out in heavy frustration. ‘I told you,’ Evie replied, leaning contentedly against him. They were standing on the balcony of Raschid’s private apartment in his father’s palace. The stars were still out, though not for much longer. Dawn was on its way. ‘He apologised. I accepted his apology. Then we called a truce.’ ‘Just like that?’ He didn’t believe her. ‘Well, not—just like that,’ she allowed, but still had no intention of breaking his father’s confidence. ‘I liked him,’ she confessed. ‘He showed dignity in defeat and apologised with grace. And I felt sorry for him,’ she added with a small sigh. ‘He sees his own strength fading as yours grows stronger. It hurts him.’ ‘And because of that you decided to forgive him?’ ‘Well, no. But…’ Twisting around in his arms, Evie gazed up at him solemnly. ‘He is your father,’ she explained. ‘Which means that without him you would not have been born. Now…’ she continued, moving closer to the lean, hard length of his body. ‘Just think for a moment what that would mean to me. No you and me coming together like this,’ she said as her fingers began trailing across his silk-covered shoulders. ‘No one for me to love and be loved by. No fantastic sex on a starlit balcony…’ ‘No, Evie,’ he groaned, catching hold of her fingers. ‘I—’ ‘I know,’ she cut in. ‘You made this vow. But—tell me, Raschid, how much more proof does Allah need that you must truly love me, having just watched you marry me not once, but three times? And anyway,’ she went on before he could answer, ‘I have come up with a really ingenious strategy to get around your silly vow,’ she confided, reaching up to run the tip of her tongue along the rigid line of his jaw. ‘I seduce you…’ she whispered, freeing her captured fingers so she could slip the bootlace straps that were holding up her nightdress down her arms. ‘You don’t have to do a single thing, I promise you…’ Fine silk whispered to the ground around her bare feet. ‘This way, your honour remains firmly intact and I get what I want…’ she explained as her hands then became busy with the belt on his blue silk robe. She found warm, tight male flesh and pounced hungrily on it. Her body arched, stretched sensually then moved even closer until she was pressing herself to the full length of him. ‘You see,’ she breathed against his mouth, ‘you taught me well. I know all the right moves to make this work for us…’ As she spoke one of her legs hooked itself around his leg, the pad of her bare foot stroking caressingly along a rock-solid calf muscle. The action brought her hips into more intimate contact with what was cradled between his hips. If he was fighting to withhold his response to this blatant bit of female provocation, he wasn’t being very successful, and Evie sighed with pleasure against his mouth as she moved softly against him. It took just two minutes to make him weaken, and another two to have him scoop her up in his arms and carry her inside. The bed waited—a wickedly decadent affair with silk sheets strewn with jewel-coloured cushions, which he settled them both down amongst. Then there were too many long, delicious minutes to count when he took over the seduction, drawing her down through layer after layer of pleasure until she lay, boneless, beneath him. ‘A thousand years from now,’ he murmured as he paused above her, his face a dark gold map of intense desire, ‘I will still remember this night.’ ‘Why this night, in particular?’ Evie questioned curiously. They had done this many times before after all. ‘Because of—this,’ he muttered, reaching out to take hold of her hand and bringing it to his mouth. ‘Mine,’ he breathed, taking a biting grip on her wedding ring at the same moment that he entered her. It was such a possessive, pagan, passionate thing to do that Evie laughed as her long legs wrapped themselves around him so she could draw him in deeper. ‘Barbarian,’ she accused him. It never occurred to her to question the thousand-year memory he had just laid claim to. But that was because she didn’t need to. Kismet was like that—answered questions that most people would find absurd. The Spanish Husband Michelle Reid CHAPTER ONE CAROLINE was pacing the floor and becoming more agitated with each step that she took. She arrived at the window which led out onto the terrace, saw nothing of the beautiful view the elegant two-bedroom suite offered her of the famous Puerto Banus, and turned to pace back the way she had come, glancing impatiently at her watch as she did so. Nine o’clock. Her father had said seven o’clock. He had promised seven o’clock. ‘Just going for a stroll before I need to change for dinner,’ he’d said. ‘To check out the old place and see if it’s changed much since we were here last.’ He loved Marbella. They’d used to spend most of their summers here once upon a time, so she’d understood his eagerness to reacquaint himself with the resort—but not his refusal to let her go with him. ‘Don’t be a pain, Caroline,’ he’d censured when she’d instantly started to get anxious. ‘I don’t need you to hold my hand. And I certainly don’t need a watchdog. Show a little faith, for goodness’ sake. Haven’t I promised to behave myself?’ So she’d showed a little faith—and now look at her, she mocked herself bitterly. For here she was, pacing the floor like a worried mother hen with every nerve-end she possessed singing out a warning of trouble! He wouldn’t let her down—would he? She tried to reassure herself. He had been so firm, so needy for her to believe in him that he wouldn’t, surely, fall prey to his old weakness when he knew how important it was to them for him to remain strong? Then where is he? A very cynical voice inside her head taunted. He’s been gone for hours. And you know what he can get up to when left to his own devices for too long. ‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered as the agitation suddenly reached whole new levels, and, in tight and angry surrender to it, she snatched up her little black velvet evening bag and headed for the suite’s outer door. If she discovered that he had sneaked off to feed his damned habit then she would never forgive him! She vowed as she stabbed a hard finger at the lift call button then stood waiting impatiently for it to come. Things were bad enough already. More than bad enough, she groaned inwardly. Or she wouldn’t even be here, her father knew that! He knew how much she hated this place now, hated the whole morass of painful emotions it evoked. Seven years since their last visit, she recalled as the lift doors slid open. Seven years since they had been forced to leave beneath a dark cloud of pride-shrivelling humiliation and soul-destroying heartbreak, vowing never to return again. Yet here they were, not only back in Marbella but staying in the same hotel. And once again she was having to go and hunt her father out in the very last place on this earth she ever wanted to step foot in! The casino, she named it grimly as she walked into the lift. The wretched in-house casino, where she was all too aware of the damage her father could do in such a terrifyingly short space of time. And how long had he been missing? she asked herself as she pressed for the ground floor. Two hours at least. Her fingers stood out white against her black evening bag while she waited for the lift doors to shut. In two miserable hours he could lose thousands. Give him a whole night and he would, quite happily, lose his shirt! Like the last time. A wave of sickness suddenly washed over her, sending her slumping weakly against the lift wall just as the doors began to close. A hand snaked out, compelling the doors to open again, and she found herself quickly straightening as a tall dark man of Spanish descent, dressed in an impeccably tailored black dinner suit and bow tie, stepped lithely into the cabin with her. ‘My apologies for delaying you,’ he murmured in smoothly modulated English, swinging round to offer her a smile. A smile that instantly arrested when his eyes actually focused on her. ‘That’s okay,’ she replied, and quickly dropped her gaze so as not to encourage any further contact. The lift began to sink. Standing tensely by the console, Caroline was stingingly aware that he was still studying her, but pretended not to notice. It wasn’t a new experience for her to be looked at like this. She had the kind of natural blonde, curvaceously slender, long-legged figure that incited men to stare. And the stranger was good-looking; she had noticed that about him before she’d lowered her gaze. But she was in no mood to be chatted up in a lift—if she was ever in the mood anywhere, she then added, bleakly aware that it had been a long time since she had let any man get close to her. Not since Luiz, in fact, right here in Marbella. Then. No. Abruptly she severed that memory before it had a chance to get a grip. She wasn’t going to think of Luiz. It was a promise she had made to herself before she came here. Luiz belonged in the distant past, along with every other bitter memory Marbella had the power to throw up at her. And this tall dark stranger looked too much like Luiz to stand the remotest chance with her. So she was relieved when the lift stopped and she could escape his intense regard without him attempting to make conversation. Within seconds she had completely forgotten him, her mind back on the problem of finding her father as she paused at the head of a shallow set of steps which led down to the main foyer and began searching the busy area in front of her. This was one of the more impressive hotels that stood in prime position on Marbella’s Puerto Banus. Years ago, the hotel had possessed a well-earned reputation for old-fashioned grandeur which had made it appeal to a certain kind of guest—a select kind that had once included both herself and her father. But the hotel had only just been re-opened, after a huge refurbishment undertaken by its new owners, and although it still held pride of place as one of the most exclusive hotels in the resort, it now displayed its five-star deluxe ranking with more subtle elegance. And the people were different, less rigidly correct and aware of their own status, though she didn’t doubt for a moment that if they were staying here then they must be able to afford the frankly extortionate rates. It was a thought that brought home to her just how much she had changed in seven years. For seven years ago she too would not have so much as questioned the price of a two-bedroom suite in any hotel. She had been reared to expect the best, and if the best came with a big price-tag attached to it then that was life as she had known it. These days she didn’t just question price-tags, she calculated how long she would have to work to make that kind of money. In fact money was now an obsession with Caroline. Or at least the lack of it was, along with a constant need to keep on feeding that greedy monster her family home had become. A frown touched her brow as she continued to search for the familiar sight of her father’s very distinctive tall and slender figure among the clutches of people gathered in the foyer. For two hundred years there had been Newburys in residence at Highbrook Manor. But the chances of there being Newburys there for very much longer depended almost entirely on what her father was doing at this precise moment. And he certainly wasn’t in evidence here, she acknowledged as, with a grace that belied her inner tension, she set herself moving down the steps and across the foyer to see if he had left a message for her at the reception desk. He hadn’t. Next she went off to check out the lounge bars in the faint hope that he might have met someone he’d used to know, got to talking and lost track of the time. Again she drew a blank, and her heart began to take on a slower, thicker beat because she knew that there was now only one place left for her to look for him. Grimly she set her feet moving over to a flight of steps set in their own discreet alcove that led the way down to the hotel basement. Walking down those steps took a kind of courage no one would understand unless they had known her seven years ago. By the time she reached the bottom she was even trembling slightly. For very little had changed down here except maybe the decoration, she noticed with a sickly feeling of d?j? vu. The basement area still possessed its own very stylish foyer, still had a sign pointing to the left directing the guests to the hotel’s fully equipped gymnasium, beauty therapy rooms and indoor swimming pool. Still had a pair of doors to her right, which were as firmly closed as they always had been, as if to keep carefully hidden from innocent eyes what went on behind them. But the sign hanging above the doors was not innocent. ‘Casino’ it announced in discreet gold lettering. Her father’s favourite playground of old, she thought with a small shiver. A place where compulsive excitement went hand in hand with desperation and the flip of a card or the roll of a dice or the spin of a wheel had the potential to make or break you. If he had given in to himself and gone in search of excitement, then she was sure she was going to find him on the other side of those wretched doors, she predicted as she took a reluctant step forward. ‘You will be disappointed,’ a smoothly accented voice drawled lazily. Spinning round in surprise, Caroline found herself looking at the stranger who had shared the lift with her. Tall, dark, undeniably good-looking—her stomach muscles flipped on yet another sense of d?j? vu. For he really did look uncannily like Luiz. The same age, the same build, the same rich Spanish colouring. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said, thinking that even her first meeting with Luiz had been right here in this basement foyer, with her hovering uncertainly like this and him smiling at her like that… ‘The casino,’ he prompted with a nod of his dark head in the direction of the closed doors. ‘It does not open until ten o’clock. You are too early…’ Pure instinct made her check the time on her watch, to discover that it was only nine-fifteen. Sheer relief had her winging a warm smile at the stranger—because if the casino wasn’t even open, then her father could not be ensconced in there, wrecking what small chance they had of saving their home! And now she felt guilty. Guilty for mistrusting him, guilty for being angry, guilty for thinking the worst of him when of course he wouldn’t do that to her! ‘Perhaps I could persuade you to share a glass of wine with me in the lounge bar, while we wait for the casino to open?’ the stranger invited. Caroline flushed, realising that he had misinterpreted her sudden smile, and the pick-up she had carefully avoided in the lift was back on track with a vengeance. The kind of vengeance that made him flash her a megawatt smile. By contrast she completely froze him. ‘Thank you, but I am here with someone,’ she informed him stiffly, and pointedly turned back to the stairs. ‘Your father, Sir Edward Newbury, perhaps?’ he suggested lightly, successfully bringing her departure to a halt. ‘You know my father?’ she questioned warily. ‘We have met,’ he smiled. But it was the way that he smiled that chilled Caroline’s blood. As if he knew something she didn’t and was deriding that knowledge. Or deriding her father. ‘I have just seen him,’ he added. ‘He crossed the foyer towards the lifts only a few short minutes ago. He seemed—in a hurry…’ That lazily mocking smile appeared again, making her feel distinctly uneasy. ‘Thank you,’ she said politely. ‘For letting me know.’ And she turned away from him once again. The feel of his fingers closing around her wrist came as a shock. ‘Don’t rush away,’ he murmured. ‘I would really like to get to know you better…’ His voice was quite pleasantly pitched—but his grip was an intrusion and alarm bells were beginning to sound in her head, because she had a horrible feeling that if she tried to break free his fingers would tighten—painfully. She didn’t like this man, she decided. She didn’t like his smooth good-looks or his easy confidence or the lazy charm he was utilising—while using physical means to detain her. She didn’t like his touch on her skin, or the itchy suspicion that he had been shadowing her movements since the lift, and had timed his approach to coincide with the fact that they were standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs well away from other people. And she didn’t like the uneasy sensation of feeling vulnerable to someone stronger than herself and clearly so sure of himself that he dared detain her like this. ‘Please let go of me,’ she said. His grip did tighten. Her pulse began to accelerate. ‘But if I let you go you will not learn how I became acquainted with your papa,’ he pointed out. ‘Or, perhaps more significantly, where I became acquainted with him…’ ‘Where?’ she responded, aware that he was deliberately dangling the knowledge at her like a carrot on a stick. ‘Share a glass of wine with me,’ he urged. ‘And I will tell you.’ And it was such a juicy carrot, she noted, one that was trying to make her go one way while every single instinct she possessed was telling her to run in the other. At which point anger took over, for if he believed she was open to this kind of coercion then he was severely mistaken! ‘I’m sure,’ she replied in her coldest voice, ‘that if my father thinks your meeting memorable enough he will tell me about it himself. Now, if you will excuse me?’ she concluded, and gave a hard enough tug at her captured wrist to free it, then walked stiffly up the steps without glancing back. But her insides felt shaky, and the nerves running along her spine were tingling, because she half expected him to come chasing after her. It was an unpleasant sensation, one that stayed with her all the way up that flight of steps and across the busy foyer into one of the waiting lifts. In fact it was only when the doors had shut her in without him joining her there that she began to feel safe again. And her wrist hurt. Glancing down at it, she wasn’t surprised to find the delicate white skin covering it was showing the beginnings of bruising. Who was he? she wondered. What was he to her father that made him believe it was okay to accost her like that? It was a concern that took her into her suite and immediately across to her father’s bedroom door with the grim intention of finding out. But, having knocked sharply and then pushed open the door, she knew she was going to be unlucky, when it became immediately apparent that he had already been here and gone again. And the way his clothes had been discarded on the floor told her he had changed in one heck of a hurry. So as to avoid her? Oh, yes, Caroline conceded heavily. He was trying to avoid her—which could only mean one thing. He had fallen off the rails again. In a fit of angry frustration she bent down to snatch up the pair of trousers he had dropped on the floor and was about to toss them onto the bed when something dropped out of one of the pockets. It landed with a paper-like thud on the toe of her shoe. Bending to pick it up, she discovered that she was holding what appeared to be a set of receipts, and with her fingers actually tingling with dread, she slowly unfurled them. After that she didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t even think a coherent thought for long, long seconds. Then, with a calmness that bore no resemblance to what was actually taking place inside her, she began to check with the methodical intent of one well-practised at doing it, every pocket in every item of clothing he had brought with him to Marbella. Ten minutes later and she was standing there in the middle of her father’s room, staring into space like someone turned to stone. They had been here in Marbella for less than twenty-four hours and, going by the tally on the receipts, in that time her father had managed to gamble and lose the best part of one hundred thousand pounds… Standing by the window of his hi-tech control room, Luiz Vazquez looked down on the casino floor of this, the latest acquisition in his growing string of deluxe hotels. He could not be seen from down on the floor. The window allowed him to look out but did not let anyone look in. And behind him the really serious viewing was going on, via closed circuit television screens watched over by his eagle-eyed security staff. The window was merely a secondary source by which the casino floor as a whole could be observed. Luiz preferred to check out the floor with his own eyes like this. It came from once being a serious gambler and trusting nothing he could not see for himself. Now things were different. Now he didn’t need to gamble to earn enough money to live. He had wealth and he had power and a kind of deeply satisfying sense of self-respect that had taken a whole lot of earning and yet… A frown brought the two dark silk strips of his brows together across the bridge of his long nose. Possessing respect in oneself did not automatically win you the respect of others. A salutary lesson he had learned the hard way, and one he intended to rectify very soon. It was, in fact, his next major project. Vito Martinez, the hotel’s Head of Security, came to stand beside him. ‘She’s gone back to her room,’ he said. ‘He’s just arrived in the casino bar.’ ‘Tense?’ Luiz asked. ‘Yeah,’ Vito replied, ‘humming with it. Ripe, I’d say,’ he added, the evidence of his on-the-street New York upbringing more pronounced in the dry-edged judgement. A single nod in acknowledgement and Luiz Vazquez was turning away from the window, his expression, as always, a tightly closed book—not surprising for a man who’d used to play poker as lethally as he had. ‘Buzz me when he comes to the tables,’ was all he said. Then he was walking out of the control room, his long, lean level stride taking him across the elegant cream and black marbled floor of this tightly secured inner sanctum, then in through another door, which he closed behind him. Silence suddenly prevailed. Where the other room had been alive with a busy hum of activity, this room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop on the thick cream carpet covering its huge expanse. It was a luxuriously furnished room, plain but dramatic, with its modern black lacquered and leather furnishings enhanced by the simplicity of cream-painted walls. Like the man himself, the room revealed nothing of his true personality. Except, maybe, for the black-framed picture hanging on the wall behind a large black-lacquered desk. In its own way the picture was as dramatically plain as everything else in here—nothing more than the faint gold outline of a scorpion clinging to a white background with its lethal-looking tail curving upwards and over its scaly body in preparation to strike. But it made the blood run cold just to look at it. For, although it was Luiz Vazquez’s chair that was situated directly beneath that lethal claw, it was not him the scorpion seemed to threaten—but whoever was unlucky enough to sit in the chair placed on the other side of the desk. Its message was clear. Mess with me and I strike. It was his mark—his logo. Or one of them, at least. But once upon a time the sign of the golden scorpion had used to adorn everything Luiz Vazquez was involved in. He had since learned to be much more subtle. And he just kept this one picture around him for personal reasons now—and as a warning to anyone who was unfortunate enough to find themselves summoned to these private rooms, that the cool-headed, soft-talking Luiz Vazquez still had a vicious sting in his tail. But these days he was known better for his new logo. The one which gave his string of exclusive, internationally renowned hotels their name and had earned him quite a reputation for quality service and comfort during the last ten years. For this was an Angel Hotel. Angel as in Luiz Angeles de Vazquez. Angel as in good, honest and true. The sublime to the ridiculous. And an example of what good marketing could do because all of his hotels possessed in-house casinos which were the real draw. The luxury his admittedly well-heeled guests enjoyed while they played was just an added bonus. The scorpion was probably a far more honest representation of what Luiz Vazquez really was. Luiz went to sit beneath that scorpion now, sliding his perfectly contoured frame into a thickly padded swivel desk chair before reaching down to unlock and open one of the drawers in the desk. His fingers, so long and lean and beautifully coordinated that they revealed even more about the man’s extraordinary powers of self-control in the way they did everything with such neat precision, took out the only item in the drawer and placed it on the desktop. It was a leather-bound dossier, expensive but nothing particularly ominous about it. Yet he didn’t immediately open it. Instead he leant back in the chair and began swinging it lightly while one set of neatly filed fingernails tapped an absent tattoo against the desk. His expression revealed nothing, as usual. Whatever was going on in that shrewd, sharp mind of his was being kept hidden beneath the curling black lashes that usually shrouded his eyes. Beautiful eyes. Eyes of a rich, dark fathomless brown colour that sat in the sleepy hollows of an arrestingly handsome face. A full Spaniard by birth, though raised in America, he undoubtedly had the warm golden skin of his Spanish forebears, the high cheekbones, the nose, the rocksolid, firmly chiselled jaw-line, and the shadowy outline of a beautifully moulded mouth. But, for all of its good points, it was still the face of a cool operator. Of a man reputed to possess no heart—or, to be less fanciful, to possess the heart of an athlete, able to maintain the calm, steady pace necessary to keep the oxygen pumping into his clever brain no matter what pressure he put it under. The fingers suddenly stopped tapping and moved, sliding over the desk and across smooth leather until they could curl and flick open the dossier cover to reveal a thick wad of documents stacked inside. With a supple dexterity that had been trained into his fingers years ago, he began sifting through the papers until he found the one he was looking for. Removing it from the stack, he set it neatly back down upon the top, then simply went still, his eyes glowing with a sudden burn as he sat there looking at a seven-by-nine colour photograph of—Caroline. She was without doubt extraordinarily beautiful. No one with eyes would ever say she was not. Hair the colour of ripening wheat framed the most delicately perfect face even Luiz Vazquez, for all his thirty-five years of worldly experience, had ever set eyes upon. She had the flawless white skin of a pale English rose and eyes the colour of amethyst. Her small straight nose was classically drawn, like the finely defined curve of her delicate jaw-line. But it was her mouth that held Luiz’s attention. Soft, warm, pink and full—it was a mouth made to drive a man wild with pleasure. And he should know, Luiz mused cynically. For he’d had plenty of experience of just what that mouth could do—and he meant to have some more very soon. It was a prospect that had the burn in his eyes changing back to their normal inscrutable cool as he utilised yet another facet of his strong character. Patience. The man was blessed with unending patience when it came to goals he had set himself. That next goal was Caroline. And he was so sure of success that in his mind Caroline already belonged to him. It was this kind of belief in himself which gave him the power to put her photograph aside and basically forget it was there while he set about reading through the rest of the papers in the bulky dossier. They were mostly bills. Final demand notes, warnings of foreclosure on bank loans, property mortgages, and, most sinister of all, the long list of unpaid gambling debts—both the old and the very new. He read each one in turn, consigning every detail to his photographic memory before setting it aside and doing the same with the next one. A light on the desk console suddenly began flashing. Reaching out, he stabbed at the console with a finger. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘She’s on her way down,’ Vito Martinez informed him. ‘He’s playing for big money.’ ‘Right,’ was all Luiz replied, and another stab at the console brought silence back to the room again. Turning his attention back to the papers in front of him, he picked them all up—including the photograph—deftly re-stacked the pile, then shut the dossier and locked it away in its drawer before getting smoothly to his feet. Then, with a deft tug which brought white shirt-cuffs into line with the edge of his creamy white dinner jacket, Luiz Vazquez rounded his desk and strode out of the room. Back in the control room, Vito Martinez was still standing by the window. Luiz went to join him, saw Vito’s nod and followed its direction to one of the roulette tables. Tall, lean, quite good-looking for his age, and, as always, impeccably presented, Sir Edward Newbury was playing big chips—and the expression on his face was a mere hair’s breadth away from fever-pitch. Luiz recognised the look for exactly what it was—a man in the last throes of civility. Sir Edward was hooked—overdosing, in fact, and ready to sell his soul to the very devil. Ripe, as Vito had said. Grimly unsurprised by what he was seeing, Luiz then shifted his attention away from Sir Edward Newbury as, with his usual faultless timing, he looked towards the casino entrance just as Caroline appeared. And everything inside him went perfectly still. Seven long years had gone by since he had last physically laid eyes on her—yet she had barely changed. The hair, the eyes, the wonderful skin, the gorgeous mouth with the vulnerable upper lip and cushion-soft lower one he knew tasted as delicious as it looked. Even the long and slender line of her figure, so perfectly outlined by the exquisite styling of her black dress, had not lost any of its youthful firmness—as his own body was in the process of informing him, growing hot around the loins in a way only this woman had ever managed to kindle. ‘His weakness’, he labelled the sensation. The Spanish bastard’s desire to possess the forbidden in this woman, who was an icon to class and breeding. Even her name was something special. Miss Caroline Aurora Celandine Newbury…Luiz tasted the name on his silent tongue. She had a family tree that read like a history book, a background education fashioned exclusively for the ?lite, and a stately home any king would envy. These were the credentials that gave the Newburys the right to consider themselves noble, Luiz judged cynically. To be good enough to be accepted by them you had to be someone at least as special. Even now, he predicted, when metaphorically they were down on their knees and could not afford to be too choosy, quality of breeding would be the yardstick by which they would measure whether or not you were worthy of their notice. Caroline looked very pale, he saw as he watched her anxiously scanning the casino in search of her wayward father. She also looked tense and severely uncomfortable with her surroundings. But then she never had liked places like this. She caught sight of Sir Edward as the roulette wheel began to spin. Luiz watched her body stiffen, watched the strain etch itself onto her lovely face and her small white teeth come pressing down into that exquisitely shaped bottom lip as she made herself walk forwards. He felt his own teeth set hard behind the flat line of his lips as he watched her pause a couple of steps behind her father, then knot her fingers together across the flatness of her stomach as if she wasn’t quite sure just what to do next. Really, what Caroline would have liked to do was get hold of her father by the scruff of his neck and drag him by it out of there. It was the breeding that stopped her; Luiz knew that. In the laws of polite society one did not make ugly scenes in public, no matter how bad the situation. Even when you knew that your finances were already in Queer Street and that what your father was doing was nothing short of criminal. Black. Even. Sir Edward lost, as he had been doing steadily since they’d arrived here in Marbella late yesterday. As the old man made a gesture of frustration, Caroline visibly wilted. ‘Daddy…’ Luiz could actually feel her wariness as she placed a hand on the sleeve of her father’s tux in an attempt to make him listen to reason. No chance, Luiz judged. The man was half crazed with gambling fever. Once it hit there was no quick cure. Sir Edward could not give up now, even if he lost the very shirt from his back, and more. It was the ‘more’ Luiz wanted. After an initial start of surprise, then a guilty glance over his shoulder, Sir Edward Newbury turned petulant, and, with a tersely uttered sentence, shrugged off his daughter’s hand so he could place another stack of chips on the table. All Caroline could do was stand and watch as five thousand pounds sterling hovered in the balance between a ball landing on black or on red. Black. Sir Edward lost again. Again Caroline attempted to stop him. Again her pleas were petulantly thrust aside. Only this time Luiz found his hands clenching into tight fists at his sides when he caught the briefest glint of telling moisture touching lovely eyes. It was sheer hopelessness that sent them on a hunting scan of the crowded casino, as if searching for help where none would ever be found. Then, without any warning, she suddenly glanced up at the control room, those incredible eyes homing directly in on him with such unerring accuracy that he caught his breath. So did Vito. ‘Jeez,’ he breathed. Luiz did not so much as move a single muscle. He knew she couldn’t see him; he knew the glass did not allow her to. Yet… His skin began to prickle, a fine tremor of response rippling through his whole body on a moment’s complete loss of himself as he stared straight into those beautiful, bright tear-washed eyes. His throat had locked; his heart was straining against a sudden fierce tightening across his breastplate. Then her soft mouth gave a tremulous quiver in a wretched display of absolute despair—and his whole body was suddenly bathed in a fine layer of static electricity. That mouth. That small, lush, sensual mouth—‘He won,’ Vito murmured quietly beside him. From the corner of his eye Luiz caught Sir Edward Newbury’s response as he punched the air with a triumphant fist. But his attention remained fixed on Caroline, who was just standing there watching, with a dullness that said winning was as bad as losing to her. Abruptly he turned away. ‘I’m going down,’ he told Vito. ‘Make sure everything is ready for when we leave here.’ And neither his voice nor his body language gave away any hint of the burst of blistering emotion he had just been put through before he strode away. ‘Yes!’ On a soft burst of exultation, Sir Edward Newbury turned and scooped his daughter into his arms. ‘Two wins on the trot! We’ve hit a winning streak, my darling! A couple more like this and we’ll be flying high!’ But he was already high. The wild glint burning in his eyes was frightening. ‘Please, Daddy,’ Caroline pleaded. ‘Stop now while you’re ahead. This is—’ Madness, she had been going to say, but he brusquely cut her off. ‘Don’t be a killjoy, Caro. This is our lucky night, can’t you see that?’ Letting her go, he twisted back to the table as the croupier was about to slide his winnings over to him. ‘Let them ride,’ he instructed, and Caroline had to look on helplessly as every penny he had won was instantly waged on one feckless spin of a roulette wheel. A crowd had started to gather around the table, their excited murmurs dying to a hush as the wheel began to spin. Caroline stopped breathing, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her paper-dry mouth as she watched that small ivory ball perform its tantalising dance with fate. Inside she was angry—furious, even. But she had been reared never to make scenes in public. And the fact that he knew it was a weapon her father was more than happy to use against her. It was the nature of his weakness to rely on her good behaviour while he behaved appallingly. So much for sincere promises, she derided as she watched through glazed eyes as the wheel began to slow. So much for weeks and months and years of careful vigilance, when she’d learned that trusting anything he said was a way to look disaster in the face. She was tired of it, wearied with fighting the fight at the expense of everything else in her life. And she had a horrible feeling that this time she was not going to be able to forgive him for doing this to her yet again. But for now all she could do was look on, feeling helpless, locked inside her own worst nightmare in the one place in this world her nightmares could be guaranteed free reign. This place, this hotel—this wretched casino. All she needed now was for Luiz Vazquez to materialise in front of her and the nightmare would be complete. Like lightning striking twice. She shuddered. Someone came to stand directly behind her, she felt their warm breath caressing her nape, though she only registered it vaguely. Her attention was fixed on that tormenting little ball and the rhythmic clacking noise it made as it jumped from compartment to compartment in a playful mix of ivory, red and black. And the tension, the pulsing sense of building expectancy that was the real draw, the actual smell of madness, permeated all around her like a poisonous drug no one could resist. ‘Yes!’ Her father’s victorious hiss hit her eardrums like the jarring clash of a hundred cymbals as he doubled his reckless stake—just like that. The gathered crowd began enjoying his good fortune with him, but Caroline wilted like a dying flower. Her heart was floundering somewhere down deep inside her. She felt sick, she felt dizzy—must have actually swayed a little, because an arm snaked around her waist to support her. And it was a mark as to just how weak she was feeling that she let that arm gently ease her back against the hard-packed body standing behind her. This was it, she was thinking dully. There would be no stopping him now. He wouldn’t be happy until he had lost everything he had already won—and more. She didn’t so much as consider him winning, because winning was not the real desire that drove people like him to play. It was, quite simply, the compulsion to play no matter what the final outcome. Winning meant your luck was in, so you played until your luck ran out, then played until it came back again. A fine shudder rippled through her, making her suddenly aware that she was leaning against some total stranger. With an abrupt tensing of her spine, she managed to put a little distance between them before turning within that circling arm to murmur a coldly polite,‘Thank you, but I’m—’ Words froze, the air sealed inside lungs that suddenly ceased to function as she stood there, staring into a pair of all too familiar devil-black eyes that trapped her inside a world of complete denial. ‘Hello, Caroline,’ Luiz greeted smoothly. CHAPTER TWO HER heart flipped over, then began to beat wildly. ‘Luiz…’ she breathed through lips gone too numb to move while, No, her mind was telling her. She was hallucinating—dreaming him up from the depths of her worst fears—because this place and her father’s madness were all so synonymous in her mind with this man. ‘No.’ She even made the denial out loud. ‘Sorry but—yes,’ he replied with a real dry amusement slicing through his lazy tone. But it was an amusement that did not reach the darkness in his eyes, and the room began to blacken around its edges as yet another dizzying sense of pained dismay took the place of shocked numbness. ‘Please let go of me,’ she said shakily, desperately needing to put some distance between the two of them before she could attempt to deal with this. ‘Of course.’ The hand was instantly removed. And for some crazy reason she found herself comparing his ready compliance with the complete disregard the stranger in the basement had shown when she had made the same request of him. A man who had reminded her of Luiz. A man she hadn’t liked on sight, whereas Luiz she… ‘Your father’s luck is in, I see,’ he remarked, his gaze now fixed on what was going on behind her. ‘Is it?’ Scepticism sliced heavily through the two short syllables, bringing his dark eyes back to her face. But Caroline could no longer look at him. It hurt to look at him. For Luiz personified everything she had learned to despise about her father’s disease. Obsession, machination, deception, betrayal. Bitterness suddenly rose to almost completely engulf her. She went to spin away from him, but at the same moment the crowd began to surge in, jostling her in their eagerness to congratulate her father, wanting to demonstrate their delight in seeing someone beat the bank against all the odds for once. Luiz’s arm came back, looping round her in protection this time against several elbows being aimed in her direction, and Caroline found herself being pressed so close to him that she would have to be dead not to be aware of every hard-packed nuance of the man. Her heart-rate picked up and her breathing grew shallow. It was awful. Memories began to flood her mind. They had been lovers once. Their bodies knew each other as intimately as two bodies could. Standing here, virtually imprisoned by the crowd closing round them, was the worst kind of punishment that fate could have doled out to her for being stupid enough to agree to come back here. It was a knowledge that filled her with a kind of acrimony that poured itself into her voice. ‘Still playing games for a living, Luiz?’ she shot at him sarcastically. ‘I wonder what the management would do if they found out they have a professional in their club.’ His dark eyes narrowed. And it was because she was being forced to stand so close to him that she felt the slight tensing of certain muscles—like a dangerous cat raising its hackles. ‘Was that your version of a veiled threat by any chance?’ he questioned very carefully. Was it? Caroline asked herself, aware that all it would take was a quiet word in the ear of the management to have Luiz very quietly but very firmly hustled out of here. But— ‘It was merely an observation,’ she sighed, knowing that she had no right to criticise Luiz when her own father was just as bad. ‘Then, to answer your observation, no,’ he replied. ‘I am not here to play.’ But Caroline wasn’t listening. A sudden idea had hit her, one that had her heart leaping in her breast. ‘Luiz…’ she murmured urgently. ‘If I had a quiet word with the management about my father, would they stop him from playing any more?’ ‘Why should they?’ His mouth took on a derisive twist. ‘He’s no professional, just a man with a vice he has turned into an obsession.’ ‘A suicidal obsession,’ Caroline extended with a shiver. The hand at her spine gently soothed her. And what was worse was that Luiz didn’t say a single word. He knew her father—knew him only too well. ‘I hate this,’ she whispered, wishing she could just creep away and pretend it wasn’t happening. But she couldn’t, and somehow, some way she had to try and stop this madness before her father ruined them completely. ‘Do you want me to stop him?’ Luiz offered. Her eyes flicked up to clash with his. ‘Do you think you can?’ she murmured anxiously. In response Luiz simply lifted his gaze to where her father was emerging from his sea of congratulations. ‘Sir Edward,’ he said. That was all. No raising of his voice, no challenge in the tone. Just the two quietly spoken words. Yet they carried enough impact to cause a small cessation in the buzz of excitement taking place. And the fine hairs on the back of Caroline’s neck began to tingle as she sensed her father spinning around. She couldn’t see him because Luiz was keeping her pressed against him, but in the following long seconds of tense silence she certainly felt the full thrust of her father’s shock. His recovery was swift though. ‘Well,’ he drawled. ‘If it isn’t Luiz. This is a surprise…’ Eton-educated, brought up to be always aware of his own worth, Sir Edward Newbury’s King’s-English accent was a pitch-perfect blend of sarcasm and condescension that made his daughter wince. Luiz didn’t wince. He just offered a wry smile. ‘Isn’t it?’ he agreed. ‘Seven years on and here we are again. Same time, same place—’ ‘It must be fate,’ her father dryly tagged on. And fate just about covered it, Caroline was thinking hollowly. Ill fate. Cruel fate. ‘I see your luck is in tonight,’ Luiz observed. ‘Taken the bank to the cleaners, have you?’ ‘Not yet, but I’m getting there.’ Her father sounded different suddenly. Enlivened, invigorated. At which point Caroline made herself turn in the circle of Luiz’s arm to witness for herself the covetous gleam she knew was going to be in her father’s eyes. But she also saw the childlike pique that took hold of him as he skimmed his gaze over her face. He knew very well how badly he was letting her down tonight, but was belligerently defiant about it. It made her heart want to break in despair. ‘How much do you think you’ve managed to win so far?’ Luiz questioned curiously. Sir Edward didn’t even give his winnings a glance. ‘Bad luck to count it, Luiz. You know that,’ he dismissed with a shrug. ‘But if you’re feeling really lucky, then perhaps you could be tempted into a private bet with me?’ Luiz suggested. ‘Put the lot on the next spin,’ he challenged. ‘If you win, I’ll double the amount, then play you for the lot at poker. Fancy the long shot?’ he added provokingly, ignoring Caroline’s protesting gasp. Their curious audience was suddenly on edge. Caroline simply went cold. Luiz called this stopping him? In all her life she had never felt so betrayed—and that included the last time Luiz had betrayed her trust in him. ‘No,’ she whispered, her eyes pleading with her father not to take Luiz on. But he wasn’t even aware of her presence any more. And she knew exactly what he was doing; he was busily adding up his present winnings, doubling them and doubling them again, then playing Luiz at a game even she knew Luiz was lethal at, and seeing all his problems melting away in one sweet lucky night. ‘Why not?’ He accepted the challenge, and as his daughter stared at him in dismay he turned and, with a brief nod of his head to the waiting croupier, coolly instructed, ‘Let it all ride.’ And the wheel began to spin once again. Behind her Caroline could feel Luiz watching things over the top of her head. In front of her, her father stood, outwardly calm and supremely indifferent to the eventual outcome even though their lives, in effect, stood hovering in the balance. And all around it was as if the whole casino had come to a breathless standstill while everyone watched the game play itself out. There wasn’t a person present who believed that Sir Edward could win on the same col-our for a fourth time. Caroline certainly did not believe it. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ she told Luiz, and shrugged herself free of his grasp. He let her go, though he remained standing directly behind her. And, like everyone else, they stood watching as the wheel began to slow, allowing that wretched ball to bounce playfully from slot to slot. It was torture at its worst. She had known they should not have come here, had told her father over and over again that Marbella was the last place on earth they should look for salvation. But he hadn’t listened. He was desperate, and desperate men do desperate things. ‘We have no choice!’ was all he’d said. ‘The finance company that bought up all our debts is based in Marbella. They refuse to speak to us unless we show up personally. We have to go there, Caroline.’ ‘And your gambling debts?’ she’d hit out at him angrily. ‘Do they have their greedy hands on all of those too?’ He’d flushed with guilt, then gone peevish on her as he always did when caught by his own inadequacies. ‘Do you want to help sort this mess out or not?’ he’d challenged harshly. She had, but not this way. Not by banking everything they had on the spin of a stupid roulette wheel. The dizziness returned, the blood seeping slowly out of her head as if squeezed by that steadily slowing wheel. Then, quite suddenly, it stopped. Silence hit the room. No one moved for the space of a few tense breathless seconds—until Sir Edward said, very calmly, ‘Mine, I think.’ Without uttering a single word, Caroline turned and walked away, leaving the melee to erupt behind her. How much had he won? She didn’t know. When would he play Luiz? She didn’t care. As far as she was concerned the whole miserable thing was well and truly over. She’d had enough—more than enough—and she never wanted to step foot in a place like this again. She even felt a real disgust with herself for being talked into coming here at all. She should have known he couldn’t keep his word. Should have known he didn’t really care what happened to them so long as he could get his kicks. The casino doors swung shut behind her. Eyes bright, mouth tight, body stiff with tension, she walked towards the stairwell with the intention of going back to their room. But suddenly she knew she couldn’t do that, couldn’t just go back there and await the next instalment in her father’s quest for utter ruin. And on an impulse she didn’t think to question, she found her feet were taking her across the basement foyer and towards the pair of doors that stood opposite the casino. She’d half expected the swimming pool room to be locked at this time of the night but it wasn’t, she discovered, though the lights had been turned down to their minimum, so only the pool itself was illuminated, showing glass-smooth cool blue water—and not another person in sight. Without really considering her next actions, Caroline stepped out of her shoes, unzipped her dress and draped it over the back of a nearby chair, then simply dived cleanly into the water. Why she did it, she didn’t know, and cared even less that she had dived in wearing bra, panties and even her black stockings and suspenders. She just powered up and down that pool like someone intent on winning a medal. She was performing her fourth lap when she noticed Luiz sitting in the chair next to the one on which she had placed her dress. The cold cut of her eyes completely blanked him as she made a neat rolling turn then headed back down the pool. He was still there when she made her sixth cutting crawl through the water, still sitting there on her eighth. By the tenth her lungs were beginning to burst and she had to pause for breath. Crossing her arms on the tiled rim, she rested her brow against them and stayed like that until the panting began to ease. ‘Feel better for that?’ Luiz questioned levelly. ‘No,’ she replied, and at last lifted her face to look at him. ‘Do you, for playing the voyeur?’ ‘You are wearing more than most women do who use this pool,’ he casually pointed out. ‘But a gentleman, on noting the difference, would have had the grace to leave.’ ‘And we both know that I am no gentleman,’ he smilingly tagged on as if on cue. Had she been cueing him to admit that? Caroline asked herself. Yes, she accepted, she had. It pleased her, for some reason, to make Luiz admit to what he was. Or wasn’t, she amended. ‘Where’s my father?’ ‘Counting his winnings, I should imagine.’ His shrug demonstrated his complete indifference.‘Are you ready to get out of there?’ he enquired then. ‘Or are you expecting me to strip off and join you?’ ‘I’m coming out,’ she decided immediately, not even considering whether or not his suggestion was a bluff. Past experience of this man’s dangerous streak made her sure that he was quite capable of stripping to the skin then joining her without hesitation. And she had no wish whatsoever to see Luiz Vazquez strip. Didn’t need to, to know exactly what he looked like naked. Just as he didn’t need to see her remove the black silk bra, stockings and panties to know exactly what was hiding beneath, she added grimly as, with another neat roll, she took herself underwater to swim to the nearest set of steps. By the time she rose up again Luiz was standing at the edge, waiting with a large white towel stretched out at the ready. Where he had got it from Caroline didn’t know, and found that once again she didn’t really care. It was as if her brain had gone on strike where caring was concerned. So she climbed up the steps and calmly took the towel from him with a ‘Thank you’ murmured politely, and no hint of anything else in her tone. He noticed the absence of emotions, of course. ‘You’re being very calm about this,’ he remarked. Caroline wrapped the towel sarong-wise around her body. ‘I hate and despise you. Will that do?’ she offered, bending to squeeze the excess water out of her hair. He grimaced. ‘It’s a start. Do you want me to get another towel to dry your hair with?’ Finger-combing the wet tangles, she tossed back her head to send the chin-length bob flying back from her face. The swim had seen off most of her make-up other than her mascara, which now stood out sooty black in a naturally porcelain-white face. ‘I want nothing from you, Luiz,’ she told him. ‘Because your idea of a favour is to cut off the outstretched hand.’ ‘Ah…’ His own hands slid smoothly into the pockets of his black silk evening trousers. ‘The hand I cut off, I have to presume, belonged to you?’ She didn’t want to talk about it, so she turned away. Spying her dress on the chair, she went to pick it up. ‘I’m going to my room,’ she announced, walking towards the pool house door. ‘Goodbye, Luiz,’ she added coldly. ‘I would like to say that it was nice to see you again, but I would be lying, so I won’t bother…’ It would have been the perfect exit line too, if Luiz hadn’t spoiled it. ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ he prompted lazily. She stopped, turned, and frowned at him in puzzlement. He was still standing more or less where she had left him, tall, lean, superbly presented against a backcloth of shimmering blue, and sexily dark and disturbing enough to make any girl’s heart squeeze. Caroline’s heart gave that terrible little squeeze. And she despised herself for being so susceptible to him, knowing him for what he was. ‘Your purse and your shoes,’ he kindly pointed out to her, and went to collect them from where she had left them, the purse thrown down on the chair, the shoes kicked carelessly beneath. The shoes he casually held out towards her, dangling them from their straps on long lean fingers. Tight-lipped she took them, but when she went to reach for her purse Luiz slid it smoothly into one of his cream tux pockets. ‘Give it back to me, please,’ she commanded. But he just offered her a lazy smile. ‘With that prim tone you could be my headmistress,’ he mocked. ‘How would you know?’ she hit back. ‘The way I remember you telling it, you rarely bothered to attend school.’ His soft laugh was appreciative, but his tone held something else entirely when he added, ‘Oh, I’ve known a few stiff-backed, cold-eyed females in my time.’ Which instantly reminded her of all the state institutes he had lived in during his childhood. And her inner eye was suddenly seeing a dark-haired, dark-eyed, lonely little Spanish boy who, even at the tender age of nine, had known exactly what it was like to rely only on himself for survival. How many confidences had they exchanged during that long hot summer seven years ago? she wondered as a disturbing little ache took up residence in her stomach. And how much of what he’d told her had been the truth? she then added cynically. And how much merely words calculated to earn her soft-hearted sympathy—while he quietly and calculatedly fleeced her father across a green baize table? ‘What’s the grimace for?’ Huskily intimate, disturbingly close. She blinked, glanced up, found he had shifted his stance slightly and now had a shoulder leaning against the crack between the two doors. It was such an obvious blocking tactic that Caroline was instantly on her guard. ‘My bag please, Luiz,’ she insisted, ignoring his question to hold out the hand from which her shoes now dangled from her own slender fingers. He in turn ignored both the command and the outstretched hand. ‘Did you know that your eyes go grey when you’re angry?’ he murmured. Messages began to sting through her blood. Sexual messages. ‘My bag,’ she repeated. He sent her a spine-tingling smile. ‘And your mouth goes all prim and—’ ‘Stop it,’ she snapped. ‘This is childish!’ ‘Exciting…’ he argued. She heaved out a breath that was supposed to relay irritation but only managed to sound fraught. And her outstretched fingers began to tremble, so she closed them into a fist and returned them to what they had been doing, which was keeping her towel in place. ‘I’m beginning to catch cold standing around here like this!’ And sure enough she started to shiver, though whether from cold or from something else entirely she refused to let herself consider. But, whatever the reason, it diverted Luiz away from his lazy teasing. And, with a swiftness that completely threw her, he straightened from the door to whip off his jacket then settle it around her wet shoulders. The oddly gallant gesture sent her defences crumbling. Tears flooded into her eyes. ‘Don’t play him, Luiz,’ she pleaded huskily. ‘Here,’ he prompted, taking her dress and shoes from her fingers. ‘Feed your arms into the sleeves then get rid of that wet towel…’ It was a refusal to listen in anyone’s books. Despair wriggled through her while she obeyed him without thinking and pushed her arms into the sleeves of his jacket. The silk lining was warm against her cool damp skin, the scent of him suddenly swirling all around her. ‘I thought you were going to help me,’ she choked. ‘But all you’ve done is make matters worse!’ ‘Madness only responds to the prospect of more madness,’ he answered quietly. ‘The only way to stop him tonight was by giving him a good reason to stop. So we play in an hour, away from the hotel, because I am not—’ His words were cut off mid-flow when Caroline reached up to press both hands to his shirt-front in pained appeal. ‘Please don’t do it! How can you want to do this to me all over again?’ But Luiz wasn’t listening. Instead he was staring down at the place where her hands lay spread across the fine white linen covering his breastbone. His own hands came up to cover hers, and suddenly she was made acutely aware of hot flesh, of the prickly evidence of very male body hair, of the hard pack of muscle and the solid thump of a living heart beating steadily beneath it all. A heart she knew could rage out of control when he was in the throes of passion. A silk-fleshed body she could remember moving against her own. And that thick crisp mat of chest hair sweeping down like an arrow, aimed directly at his— Her mouth ran dry. The sex was back. That burning, pulsing, nagging ache that was tugging her senses into life. His hands moved, leaving her hands so he could slide his fingers beneath his jacket, and the towel suddenly slid to the floor. Skin touched skin. Caroline arched on a gasping response. ‘No,’ she groaned when she dared to let her eyes make contact with the burn now taking place at the back of his. Luiz didn’t answer. It was too late anyway, because he’d closed the gap and was kissing her—kissing her like a lover—fiercely, deeply, and so very intimately that she was utterly shattered by how beautiful it was. I’ve missed him, she thought, and felt the tears return. I’ve missed the power with which we affect each other, the passion we can generate with just a simple touch. Her fingers moved, drifting up his shirt and to his face, where they traced each contour with the fever of a blind woman Braille-reading her most treasured possession. He responded with a sigh that shivered through both of them, and he brought her into even closer contact with him, close enough for her senses to fly when she felt the throbbing evidence of his pleasure. And she knew it was crazy, but in these few brief sensual moments, she knew that Luiz belonged to her. She owned him. She possessed him. If she said, Die for me, Luiz, he would die. But, more than that, as incredible as that might seem, she would also die for him. ‘Luiz…’ she breathed into his mouth. The soft breathy sound had the most powerful effect on him. On a low growl, he literally submerged her in a hot and hungry flood of heat that completely consumed her will to fight. If she’d ever had any, she derided herself. Luiz was her weakness, just as gambling was her father’s. Once you acquired an addiction it remained with you for life. Starve it for years and it would still erupt at the first tiny, tempting sip. And she was certainly sipping at her addiction, she admitted as she fell into the kiss with all the urgency of starvation, tasting him, touching him, needing him, wanting more! His hands caressed her and she let them, his mouth devoured hers and she allowed it to. She could taste mint on his breath and on the moistness of his tongue, and feel the deep throb of his heart beneath her restless fingers. Something gave between them. She hardly understood what it was until her breasts were swinging free and Luiz’s hands were taking possession. After that the whole thing became a banquet at its most ravenous. He deserted her mouth to go in search of other delights, and she tossed back her head and simply preened with pleasure while he licked and sucked and teased her breasts. It felt perfectly natural to lift up one long silken leg and hook it around his lean waist for balance as she arched to offer him easier access. But the action brought her into even more intimate contact with the hard masculine core of him. And after that she became lost in a burning bright kaleidoscope filled with touch and feel and sound and scents that were so entrenched in her psyche because this man had been her first lover. The one who’d taught her to feel like this, to respond like this, to need like this! Her only lover—though she hoped to goodness that Luiz couldn’t tell that was the case. Couldn’t tell that she was responding this wildly and this helplessly because he was the only man ever to make her feel like this. And while it happened it didn’t seem to matter that he was also the man who’d completely shattered her once, betrayed her so badly that she had never been able to recover. Her father didn’t matter. The game didn’t matter. The knowledge that Luiz could only hurt her again didn’t matter. In fact she was so lost in what he was doing to her that when the knock sounded on the pool room door she could barely comprehend what the sound meant. Until Luiz straightened abruptly, thrust her leg away, then clamped her weak and trembling frame to his own pulsing body before reaching out to open the door a crack. At which point the shock waves of what they had been so close to actually doing, began ricocheting horribly through her system. Seven years with no contact, she was thinking dizzily, and they’d fallen on each other like a pair of hungry animals at the first opportunity they had been handed. It was all so utterly, shamefully vulgar that she buried her burning face in Luiz’s throat and hoped to God that the person knocking on the door was not her father. A man’s voice she had never heard before, but which had the same American drawl as Luiz, said, ‘It’s all arranged. You have half an hour.’ ‘Okay,’ Luiz acknowledged gruffly, quickly shut the door again, then with a firmness that utterly shook her, he put her from him. It took her a few moments to realise what was happening, but one glance at his coldly closed face and she knew that the passionately out-of-control man she had been kissing had suddenly turned back into her enemy. ‘What’s arranged?’ she asked tautly. ‘What do you think?’ he replied. He meant his game with her father, she realised. Even after what had just erupted between them he was still going to play him. ‘Here…’ Bending down, he picked up her dress where it had fallen to the floor at some unknown point. ‘Put this on; you’re dry enough. We have things to do and you can’t leave here looking like this.’ Looking like this…Through glazed eyes Caroline stared down at herself, saw the pulsing tightness of her distended nipples, her flushed skin, her long white thighs still trembling from the way he had made her feel. Even Luiz’s jacket was no longer where she’d thought it was. He was shrugging it back onto his own broad shoulders with what was a callous disregard for her raw sensibilities as she stood there almost naked in front of him, feeling completely humiliated and cheap. Instead of burning up with undiluted passion she was now icy cold with dismay. The nausea arrived, attacking her throat and forcing her to swallow thickly a couple of times before she dared let herself speak. ‘I hate you,’ she whispered. ‘Not as much as you would like to, I think,’ was his reply. She was completely demolished by it, because it was such a dreadful truth. Slipping back into her dress took the concentrated effort of just about every brain cell that hadn’t been atomised. As she shimmied the black cre?pe up her body, she noticed her bra lying on the tiled floor and wanted to crawl away in shame. Luiz bent to scoop it up, stuffing the flimsy piece of silk into one of his pockets before turning her around to do up her zip. She moved like a rag doll, unable to think, unable to speak, and just stood there while he bent to feed her feet into her strappy black shoes. He straightened again, then waited while her shaky fingers attempted to smooth some of the creases out of her dress. And the tension sizzling between them was dreadful. Not once did either attempt full eye contact. Not once did either of them attempt to speak again after that last telling comment of his. When she eventually went still, in an indication that she had made the best of herself she could under the circumstances, Luiz opened the door, then stood back in a grim gesture for her to precede him back into the basement foyer. The stranger she had encountered in the lift was standing talking to one of the dinner-suited bouncers. He glanced up as they appeared and was suddenly riveted. Caroline didn’t even notice him; she was too busy being repulsed by the feel of Luiz’s hand resting on her back as he escorted her to the stairwell. She didn’t want him to touch her now. She didn’t want Luiz anywhere near her. Her chin was up, her head held high and her body erect—but her eyes were blind and inside she felt as if she were dying. The moment they reached the upper main foyer, she stepped right away from him. ‘Where are you going?’ Already two blissful steps away, Caroline paused but didn’t turn. ‘If you want to ruin my father a second time then go ahead,’ she invited coldly. ‘I certainly can’t stop you—but I don’t have to watch you.’ After that, she began walking again. ‘But we haven’t finished.’ His hand came out to capture one of hers. And without another word he began trailing her across the foyer towards a door marked ‘Private’ that seemed to open magically as they approached it. Frowning, because she just didn’t understand what was happening here, she found herself inside yet another foyer that had her high heels tapping on black and cream marble. Luiz led her across to another door, which he opened by hand this time, gestured her to precede himself inside, then quietly closed the door behind them. It was an office, Caroline saw. A very elegant black and cream office. ‘What is this place?’ she asked warily. Stepping past her, Luiz walked across the room towards the desk, then placed himself behind it. ‘My office,’ he answered, bending down to unlock and open a drawer. ‘You mean…’ Her eyes flickered around the room. ‘You mean, you actually work here?’ ‘Work here. Live here…’ He placed a heavy leather-bound dossier on the desk in front of him. ‘This is my hotel, Caroline,’ he added levelly. CHAPTER THREE HIS hotel…? Caroline gave a small shake of her head. ‘But this is an Angel Hotel,’ she stated. ‘Part of the Angel Group!’ And the Angel Group was huge. Not just because of the string of deluxe hotels it owned throughout the world, but because it had other, much more powerful interests wrapped up in its multinational package. Lifting his dark head, Luiz just looked at her. It was all it needed for the penny to drop. Angel as in Luiz Angeles de Vazquez, she was suddenly remembering. But it was the Angel in the Angel Group that was slowly filling Caroline with a new sense of dismay. Because it was also the group which had very recently acquired a bank in London that the Newbury family knew very well. ‘Oh, my God,’ she breathed, as full enlightenment finally began to dawn. ‘It’s you we have been summoned here to Marbella to see about our debts, isn’t it?’ He didn’t answer. But then he didn’t really need to when confirmation was already written on his lean dark face. And she could only stand and watch as every image she had ever built in her mind to form Luiz Vazquez slowly cracked, then shattered right there in front of her until she could no longer see Luiz the exciting lover. Or even Luiz the ruthless con-man who’d fleeced her father of tens of thousands of pounds. ‘What is it you want?’ she whispered frailly as the shattered pieces that had once been Luiz settled back into their new order of things. And now she was seeing Luiz the ice-cool operator, whom, it seemed, had only gone up and up in the world while she and her father had gone steadily down. ‘I want you to come and sit down,’ he said. ‘We haven’t got much time. And now that you understand just why you are here we may as well get down to business…’ Business. The word sent an icy chill chasing down her spine. As she walked across the room towards him on legs that were shaking badly Luiz sat himself down, opened the dossier, selected a piece of paper from it, then slid it towards her as she sank into the chair placed opposite him. ‘Tell me if you agree with what’s written on there,’ he invited. Eyes flickering in an effort to get them to focus, heart slowed by the weight of what was unfolding in front of her now, Caroline pulled the piece of paper towards her, then picked it up in trembling fingers and forced herself to read. Finely listed, tightly lined, it was a very precise inventory of every penny she already knew they owed—and a whole lot more that she actually hadn’t known about, but she couldn’t doubt their authenticity when the names of all her father’s favourite London haunts were inscribed next to them. And the bottom figure was so utterly repellent that her skin began to crawl. ‘Could I have some water, please?’ she breathed. Without a single word, Luiz got up and walked over to a black-lacquered sideboard. He returned in seconds to place a frosted glass of iced water down in front of her, then just as silently returned to his chair while she picked up the water and sipped at it sparingly. ‘We can’t pay you, Luiz,’ she told him, once she’d found enough voice to speak. ‘N-not all of it anyway.’ ‘I know that,’ he returned. She swallowed thickly, and took a couple more sips of water before making herself go on. ‘If you refuse to play him at cards tonight, then the money he won in the casino plus some money I have of my own should clear a small part of this.’ But not all, she added with a silent bleakness. Not anywhere near all… ‘The planned card game and this are two separate issues,’ he informed her. ‘And I never—ever—mix business with pleasure, Caroline. Understand me?’ Understand? No she didn’t! ‘But we have the means to clear s-some of this, Luiz!’ she cried, tossing the wretched debt list back at him. ‘And you want to play card games just for the hell of it? Where is the business sense in that?’ Sitting back in his chair, Luiz didn’t even deign to watch as the piece of paper skidded across the table then floated down onto his lap. His face was inscrutable, his manner relaxed. ‘Where is your own block of money coming from?’ Smooth as silk, he kept the discussion fixed to his own agenda. Her breath shuddered on an overwrought sigh. ‘None of your business,’ she muttered, then got up and paced tensely away from the desk. ‘It is if you borrowed from Peter to pay back Paul, so to speak,’ he pointed out. ‘Which would only make the bottom figure here worse, not better.’ ‘I have money left over from my mother’s bequest,’ she told him reluctantly. ‘No you don’t.’ ‘What—?’ Stung by his quiet certainty she spun to stare at him. Instantly she felt under attack. It was his eyes, and the knowledge of truth she could see written in them. ‘Your mother’s money went on paying back debts years ago,’ he informed her. ‘After that you spent the next few years selling off the family heirlooms one by one, until there were very few left worth selling. Then came the quiet period when your father behaved himself for a couple of years—or so you believed. When it all started up again, you resorted to selling off small plots of land on the far edges of your family estate to wealthy businessmen who were looking for somewhere to build a country retreat. But the council eventually put a stop to that, quoting the rape of country heritage law or some such thing. ‘So what’s left to sell, Caroline?’ he asked. ‘The ancestral home, which is already mortgaged to the hilt? Or the few heirlooms that are left—which probably belong to the bank already, on paper at least? Or maybe you were thinking of paying me back with the commission you earn working for those London-based interior designers who pay you peanuts for your considerable knowledge of all things aesthetic, to hunt out pieces of artwork and various objets d’art to decorate the homes of their wealthy clients?’ It was like being pummelled into the ground by a very large mallet. She had never felt so small in her whole life. ‘What next, Caroline?’ He pummelled her some more with the soft pound of his ruthless voice. ‘What could you possibly have left that would appease any bank holding a debt the size of yours? Yourself, maybe?’ he suggested silkily. ‘Are you thinking of prostituting yourself to the highest bidder so that Daddy can keep on feeding his addiction because he can’t help himself?’ ‘Stop it!’ she choked. ‘Just shut up—shut up!’ She couldn’t listen to any more! White-faced, totally demolished, she stared at him in blank incomprehension as to why he was being so cruel. ‘How do you know all of this? Where did you get your information? How long have you been compiling that—’ she waved a shaky hand at the thick wad of paper sitting on the desk in front of him ‘—dossier on me?’ ‘Information can be bought any time, anywhere, so long as you have the money to pay for it.’ ‘And that makes it all right to pry into my life?’ she cried. ‘Why, Luiz—why?’ She just didn’t understand it! ‘What did I ever do to you to make you want to pursue me in this h-horrible way? It was you that once used me, remember!’ she added painfully. ‘You slaked one of your lusts with my body, night after wretched night, then went off to slake your other lust at a card table with my father!’ ‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ he gritted, and he was suddenly on his feet. Tense—like her. Angry—like her. As bitter as hell—like her. ‘Oh, that’s rich!’ Caroline scorned him. ‘When it comes to your faults, you don’t want to talk about it! Yet you’ve just taken great delight in listing my faults and failings—and even had the gall to call me a prostitute!’ ‘I made it an option, not a fact,’ he corrected. But he looked pale—pale enough for Caroline to know that she had touched a raw nerve somewhere inside his ruthless soul. ‘And we both know who sold himself for the pot of gold, Luiz,’ Caroline persisted angrily. ‘We both know that your motive for keeping me in bed with you was so I couldn’t be keeping an eye on my father!’ ‘All right, let’s have that one out,’ he decided, swinging round the desk to begin striding towards her. Caroline wanted to back off, but hell could freeze over before she would let herself do so. He arrived, big and threatening, right in front of her. ‘You think I prostituted myself for the pot of gold seven years ago.’ She had hit a raw nerve, Caroline confirmed. ‘So let’s just see which one of us can delve the depths this time. Here’s the deal, Caroline. Take it or leave it,’ he announced. ‘Sleep with me tonight and I won’t play your father.’ Sleep with him? He was lucky she didn’t wing her hand at his face! ‘Well, if that isn’t mixing business with pleasure—what is?’ she spat at him in disgust. ‘No—no,’ Luiz argued. ‘This is called mixing pleasure with pleasure.’ And he was even smiling, the black-hearted devil. ‘Go to hell,’ she told him, then spun on her heel with the intention of walking out of there as fast as she damn well could. ‘The offer holds only as long as it takes you to open that door,’ Luiz fed swiftly after her. Her footsteps stilled, though her heart-rate didn’t, it raged on right out of that door and onto the next flight out of this awful place! She converted that rage into a different kind of action by wheeling back round to face him. Luiz didn’t need words to know what she was thinking. And his answering shrug spoke for itself. ‘Everyone has a price, Caroline,’ he taunted silkily. ‘I am just trying to ascertain your price, that’s all…’ ‘I’ll never forgive you for this,’ she breathed. ‘By that, are you trying to tell me that it would hurt you to go to bed with me?’ he questioned smoothly. From feeling chilled she went hot—hot with discomfort. Because, after what they had just almost done in the pool room, there was no way she could pretend that sleeping with Luiz would be anything but a whole lot of pleasure! A light suddenly began winking on the desk console, saving Caroline from having to make the worst decision of her entire life. Luiz swung back to his desk, sat down in his chair again, then reached out to flick a finger at a switch. ‘Yes?’ he prompted. ‘It’s time we were leaving,’ the same deep voice Caroline had first heard through the narrow gap in the pool room door informed him. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully on Caroline. Quite unexpectedly she began to shake so badly that she just had to sit down. The chair she had just vacated was nearest. Almost stumbling over to it, she lowered herself down as Luiz murmured a quiet, ‘Two minutes, Vito…’ and cut the connection. Too long spent riding a roller coaster of too many shocks and worries had shaken her insides to pieces. She stared helplessly at Luiz, and knew he was waiting for her to voice her surrender to him out loud. On a sharp stab of pain she flicked her eyes away, because she couldn’t bear to look at him and give him that surrender. It was then that she saw it. ‘Oh, good grief,’ she gasped. She had only just noticed the scorpion crawling down the wall behind him. The picture was so life-like that she actually reared back in the chair to take instinctive avoiding action. ‘Luiz—that thing is hideous!’ ‘But effective,’ he smiled. It was then she remembered that the first business he had ever owned outright had been a small nightclub in New York called, as he had informed her rather deridingly, The Scorpion, and bought from an old friend whose deteriorating health had forced him to accept a quieter way of life. Within two years Luiz had sold the club on to a big inner-city developer for the kind of money that had allowed him to give his own life new direction. ‘And I haven’t needed to look back since,’ she recalled him saying to her with quiet satisfaction. But the scorpion itself must still linger on in his affections for him to have it hanging there on his wall. Or was there more to its being there than mere affection? Was it a warning that this lean, dark, smoothly sophisticated man had another side to him that was as lethal as the scorpion’s tail? Glancing back at him, she found him watching her with the kind of mocking twist to his mouth that said he knew what she was thinking and was wryly amused by it. ‘A scorpion stings its victims quick and clean, Luiz,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘What you are proposing here is neither clean nor quick.’ ‘Unparallelled sex between two people who excite the hell out of each other? I should hope not.’ He smiled, picking up the dossier to replace it in its drawer. Then he was suddenly on his feet. ‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘Let’s go…’ Let’s go? Caroline’s skin began to prickle as a fresh burst of alarm went chasing through her. ‘But I haven’t agreed to do anything with you yet!’ she protested. ‘Decide later,’ he said as he came striding round the desk towards her. ‘We haven’t got time to deal with it right now.’ With that, Caroline found herself being lifted firmly to her feet. Her options, she realised, had dwindled to nothing. Time had seemingly run out. Without another word, Luiz was escorting her from the room and they were outside in the silky warm darkness before she realised what they were doing. A top-of-the-range black BMW stood purring at the front entrance. Luiz opened the rear door and urged her inside before going round to climb in on the other side of the car. The moment the door shut the car was moving, driven by a man who was hidden behind a shield of smoked glass. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘You’ll see,’ was the very uninformative reply she received. It was late, but outside, beyond the car’s side window, the resort was still alive with people out to enjoy themselves with a visit to one of Marbella’s elegant night-spots or just simply taking a late stroll along the yacht-lined waterfront. It was years since she’d been able to do what they were doing, since she’d felt carefree enough to want to. Years and years of self-restraint, of living under a thick grey cloud with no hint of a silver lining. Years playing watchdog to her father’s sickness, because she knew that if she didn’t look out for him then nobody else was going to do it. ‘He’s fine,’ Luiz murmured huskily beside her, reading her mind as if it already belonged to him. ‘Stop worrying about him.’ Caroline heaved out a soft deriding laugh at the remark. For when had she not worried about her father? He had been a good old-fashioned rake in his heyday, and marriage hadn’t really changed him. Though she thought—hoped that he had at least remained faithful to her mother. No, she told herself firmly. Her father had been no philanderer. A rogue and a gambler, yes, but he’d loved her mother. If anything, all his old weaknesses had only reemerged after her mother had died and he’d missed her so badly that he’d had to look for forgetfulness somewhere. Or at least that was how it had been in the beginning. Now…? Her eyes glassed over, blocking out the need to look for the answer to that question because she already knew it. The car began to climb out of the bay and into private villa country. Caroline recognised the area because she’d used to know so many people who owned holiday homes here. This had been her playground, a place for fun and carefree vacations away from the restrictions of boarding school during the long summer breaks. She’d used to have as many friends here as she had back home in England then. Now she could barely remember a single one of them, and could only shudder at the memory of her last disastrous visit to Marbella. The car made a sudden turn to the right, driving through a pair of open gates and up the driveway to a private villa. Built on one level, it sprawled hacienda-style right and left of a stone-built archway which took them into a central courtyard. As soon as the car stopped at an imposing wide framed entrance, Luiz was out of the car and coming around to her side to help her to alight. ‘What is this place?’ she asked, glancing furtively around the whitewashed vine strewn walls that were now surrounding them. But what really captured her attention was the fleet of other cars all parked up here. Cars meant people, and people meant— ‘Luiz!’ she protested in dismay when he caught hold of her hand and began pulling her in through the entrance. ‘What’s going on here?’ ‘A party,’ he said. Caroline began to wonder if she was losing her sanity. He had just put her through one of the worst evening in her entire life, and now he was casually dragging her off to a party? ‘No way,’ she refused, tugging to a standstill. ‘I don’t want to party. And I certainly don’t want to do it looking like—this!’ He turned round to look at her, and something very hot suddenly burned in his eyes. ‘You look sensational,’ he told her huskily. Sensational? She almost laughed in his face! ‘That’s the best lie you’ve told me to date!’ she scoffed. ‘I’ve just been swimming. My hair is a mess and I have on no make-up. My skin smells of chlorine and I’m not even wearing a bra!’ He just smiled a sinfully sexy smile and murmured, ‘I know. I was there, remember?’ The smile had her floundering—floundering because it was pure old Luiz. The one who’d used to smile at her just like that when they’d been passionate lovers and so very at ease together that she would have cut out anyone’s tongue if they’d tried to tell her he was using her for a fool! It played oddly on her defences to remember that. Made her want to relax her guard and smile back at him, be the old Caroline, from when life had been wonderful and she’d been in love and thought she didn’t have a single care in the world. Her hand twitched in his—reacting to secret wishes. His own fingers tightened, as if he thought she was trying to get away and he was making sure that she didn’t. ‘Luiz…’ she pleaded, responding to that glimpse of the man she used to know. It was like watching warm living tissue turn to stone. ‘If you are going to start begging, then don’t,’ he advised. ‘We went way beyond the point where it could be of any use to you to do so, a long time ago.’ When had that point been exactly? she wondered, taking his verbal slap-down with a wince she didn’t even bother to try and hide. When they’d been kissing each other into a frenzy in the pool room, perhaps? The twist to her mouth mocked the suggestion, because the man who had all but completely devoured her had recovered too quickly and too well to be vulnerable to anything—including the begging voice of the woman he’d held in his arms at the time. In his office then, when he had cruelly and efficiently slayed her with words? No room for begging there, she thought grimly. No room for anything but bitterness and anger and pain and… ‘Negotiations are over, I take it,’ she clipped. He gave a curt nod. ‘All I want from you now is a simple yes or no to my proposition.’ ‘Your blackmail, you mean,’ she countered thinly. ‘Okay, blackmail.’ He gave an indifferent shrug to her play on words, and took her into a large white hall constructed almost entirely of marble. A pair of narrow hallways led off to the left and the right of her, linking the separate wings of the villa, she assumed. But it was to one of the rooms directly off this main hallway that Luiz took her. ‘Who does this house belong to?’ she asked tartly. ‘Only I suppose I should know just whose hospitality I will be offending, coming to their party looking like this…’ ‘Then you don’t need to think about it,’ Luiz answered pragmatically. ‘Since it is me you will be offending.’ In a night of hard shocks, this was just another one to help keep her knocked permanently out of kilter, she supposed, remembering the Luiz of seven years ago telling her smilingly that he lived out of hotels. ‘Homes are for families, and I don’t have one,’ he’d told her casually, but she’d seen the bleakness in his eyes when he’d said it, and known that inside he hadn’t been feeling casual at all. It was a memory that brought with it another question that almost blew her mind apart. ‘You’re not married now, are you?’ she choked out. His answering burst of laughter took them in through the door and offered no warning whatsoever of what she was about to come face to face with. Her heart dropped with a sickening thump to the pit of her stomach. The roller coaster ride of emotion she seemed to be on swung her through yet another violently swerving dive. Admittedly, it was a beautiful room, furnished in the very best that was tasteful in Spanish architecture. But it wasn’t the room that held her frozen. Or even the blanket awareness of a couple of dozen people turning in their direction—though their sheer elegance was enough to have her shrinking back to half hide behind Luiz, while sheer vanity sent her fingers up to self-consciously touch her tangle-dried hair. No, being aware that she must look as if Luiz had just plucked her out of the sea like a mermaid and decided to bring her along here for her novelty value was not what was filling her with a dizzying dismay. It was the sight of a green baize table waiting at the ready, barely three feet away from where she stood, with a solemn-faced croupier standing nearby, counting different coloured gambling chips into neat stacks on a separate counter. ‘Where is he?’ she whispered, her voice thickened by the actual reality of what Luiz had set up here. He didn’t even try to misunderstand the question. ‘In one of the bedrooms,’ he replied. ‘Taking a rest before the evening begins.’ Begins…The word played back and forth across her frozen senses, her glazed eyes barely seeing the waiting party of people now, even though they were standing there in expectant silence, obviously waiting for Luiz to introduce her. But Caroline didn’t want to be introduced. In fact she felt positively sick with revulsion at the very idea. Because if they were here, and that table was there, then they were all no-good gamblers like her own wretched father. Like the man standing at her side. And it was decision time, she realised starkly. Now, before this situation got any worse! Without any further consideration of what she was about to do, she slid herself stealthily round until she was standing directly in front of Luiz. ‘All right,’ she breathed into his left shoulder. ‘All right, what?’ he quizzed, aiming a puzzled frown down at her. ‘All right. I’ll sleep with you,’ she whispered. Cold fingers took a fierce grip on his sleeve. ‘Now,’ she added tautly. ‘We’ll go and do it right now…’ CHAPTER FOUR HIS sudden tension suggested that she had just managed to shock him. Caroline didn’t care. She wanted out of this room and she wanted her father kept out of it too. Hard hands suddenly grasped her shoulders, the slender bones almost snapped under the tension she was placing them under. ‘Caroline—’ ‘No!’ she interrupted with a choke that was almost a sob. Her mouth was quivering, she couldn’t seem to stop it, and her throat was hot and tight. ‘Negotiations are over, you told me,’ she reminded him. ‘You wanted my answer. Well, you’ve got it. So now get me out of here!’ His chest heaved on the sigh that shot from him; his fingers increased their grip. ‘You fool!’ he muttered, then, on a complete change of manner, said sardonically to their audience. ‘My apologies, but I seem to have inadvertently embarrassed my companion. Please, go on enjoying yourselves while I take her away and attempt to make my peace before I bring her back again.’ The answering rumble of surprise and consternation flicked at her like the stinging tip of a whip. Luiz was smiling back at them through violently gritted teeth. His hands left her shoulders, an arm returning to clamp around them instead. Then he walked her stiff and quivering frame back through the doors, letting them shut behind them. He was furious with her for causing that scene. Caroline knew that, but had gone way beyond the point where she could do anything about it. The knowledge of what she had just agreed to was clinging like a tight steel band around her aching chest and stopping her from uttering a single word in her own defence. With a grimness that made her feel like a child being marched off by a stern parent, Luiz took her across the foyer and along the opposite hallway. At the other end was a door that opened into a large bedroom furnished with the same stylish elegance as the other room, only this room had a king-size bed occupying prominent position instead of a card table. The door closed them in. Caroline stood just in front of it with her head held high and waited to find out what was to come at her next. Would he order her to take all her clothes off and climb into the bed? Or was he going to offload whatever it was he was keeping severely damped down inside him before he ordered her out of her clothes? She couldn’t see his face because he had his back to her, but she could certainly see his tension. And on one level she was rather satisfied to see that she seemed to have managed to rock the unrockable poise of Luiz Vazquez. He moved at last, breaking the throbbing silence with a short heavy explosion of air before dipping his hand into one of the pockets of his cream tux. It came out again with her evening bag, which he tossed onto a nearby chair. She’d forgotten he even had it. Next came her black silk bra—which she had forgotten about also. But she was now painfully reminded of their passionate interlude in the pool room as she watched that item land on top of the bag. He removed his jacket next. It landed on the bed. Broad shoulders, tanned neck, bright white dress shirt made of a fine enough linen for her to see the darkness of his skin showing through. Her heart began to stutter. Her throat went dry. The steel band around her chest tightened its grip a little more. He swung around to look at her appraisingly, making her sharply catch her breath. She couldn’t speak. She was too stressed out to speak. But even if she’d been able to she knew that she wouldn’t. She had played her last card. Whatever was left was for Luiz to play. ‘You have fifteen minutes to do whatever it takes to make you face my guests without the expression of horror.’ The command utterly threw her. She had expected anger, she had expected seduction, she had even expected a heavy mix of both! But she hadn’t expected to feel the slap of his icy contempt. But her chin tilted even higher, amethyst eyes glinting with a defiance that hid whatever she was feeling inside. ‘But I don’t want to face your guests in any way,’ she stiffly informed him. ‘Nevertheless,’ he drawled, ‘it is what you are going to do.’ ‘They have nothing to do with what we are here for!’ she protested, breaking free from her steel casing when all Luiz did was swing away again, to stride across the room towards a long line of floor-to-ceiling cupboards. ‘And it wasn’t your friends that filled me with horror,’ she added as she followed angrily in his footsteps. ‘It was that card table standing there ready and waiting, like a stage prop, for you to play out some hideous act of destruction on my father!’ ‘You are still assuming that I am going to win, then,’ he remarked, opening one of the cupboard doors. Her footsteps stopped. ‘Whether you will or not no longer comes into it!’ Despite the anger, her anxiety was beginning to show in the faint tremor of her voice. ‘We made a deal where if I sleep with you, you don’t play him! You proposed it, Luiz!’ she reminded him. ‘And I just agreed!’ In the process of withdrawing a fresh dinner jacket from inside the cupboard, Luiz glanced at her anxious, defiant face, flicked a similar glance at the waiting bed, then smiled the kind of smile that could freeze a fast-flowing river. ‘I just upped the ante,’ he told her softly. Then calmly shrugged himself into his jacket while Caroline just stood there dumbfounded. ‘I d-don’t understand…’ she stammered. ‘W-what do you m-mean?’ Smoothly, he repeated it for her. ‘I just upped the ante.’ With a deft tug he pulled bright white cuffs with black and gold cufflinks into view. He worded it differently. ‘The deal has just changed.’ ‘But—you can’t do that!’ she protested. He looked at her. ‘How,’ he oh, so tauntingly enquired, ‘are you going to stop me?’ ‘But—I’ve already agreed to your sordid little deal,’ she cried out in complete bewilderment. ‘What else can you possibly want from me, Luiz?’ ‘That’s it.’ He nodded, as if she’d said something memorably fortuitous. ‘Sordid,’ he explained. ‘I’ve decided that I don’t want sordid.’ He moved briskly to check out his bow tie in the sleek gold-framed mirror hanging on the wall above a rosewood tallboy. ‘In fact sordid doesn’t suit my plans at all, which is why I’ve decided to up the ante.’ ‘To what, for goodness’ sake?’ she asked in pure frustration. His fingers stilled against the bow tie. Via the mirror he looked at her. Via the mirror his cold, dark inscrutable eyes captured hers. And Caroline found herself holding onto her breath in a way that starved her brain of oxygen during a pause that seemed to go on for ever—before he answered her with the silk-voiced simplistic use of a single word that completely blew her mind. ‘Marriage,’ he said. Seconds, minutes—Caroline didn’t know how long it was that she just stood there staring at him, as if he was on one planet while she was on another. Then she gave a shaky laugh. ‘You’re joking,’ she decided. But his deadly smooth, deadly calm, deadly serious expression told her that this was no joke. He meant it. Marriage. Luiz wanted marriage. To her. Without a single word, she turned and walked back to the bedroom door. This had gone far enough, she was telling herself grimly. And it had gone on long enough. Now she was— ‘We have been here before, Caroline, but I am quite happy to act out the scene again if you need me to do it…’ Luiz’s voice slid snake-like after her. ‘So, walk out of that door and I will play your father tonight at poker…’ Her fingers curled around the brass doorhandle, actually gripped and began to turn it before she lost the will. Slowly she turned, weakly she leaned against the door now behind her, defeatedly she stared across the room to where Luiz was now propped up against the rosewood tallboy, with his ankles crossed casually and his hands resting comfortably in his trouser pockets. Tall, dark, undoubtedly the most attractive man she had ever met in her entire life, he exuded self-assurance from every supremely relaxed pore. The self-assured kind of man who wanted his pound of flesh, for some utterly obscure reason. ‘I suppose you have a good reason for making this proposition?’ she prompted shakily. His lashes flickered, hiding dark brown eyes as they slid over her. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed. Caroline’s mouth tightened. ‘Am I to know what that reason is?’ she asked. ‘Not until you agree to do it,’ he replied. ‘And maybe not even then, depending on how you agree to it.’ ‘Then how would you like me to agree to it?’ she enquired ever so, ever so sweetly, beginning to pulse with anger at the way he was making her pull answers out of him. A smile touched his mouth, a very wry smile that acknowledged her sarcasm. ‘Well, a simple yes would do for starters,’ he drawled. ‘But to hear you say yes because you simply can’t imagine the rest of your life without me in it would be absolutely perfect.’ Since the chances of that happening were less than nil, she didn’t even bother to remark on the suggestion. ‘And what are the chances of the ante going up again before you’re finished with me?’ she asked instead. ‘Finished with you?’ Curiously he picked up on the word, then gave a shake of his head. ‘In this case, my ever being finished with you doesn’t apply,’ he told her. ‘I may sound like a fully emancipated all-American guy,’ he said, thickening his accent to suit the remark, ‘but remember that I am Spanish. And, being Spanish, I marry once and for life. So take that on board while you make your decision,’ he advised her. ‘I want your life Caroline,’ he spelled out. ‘And, because I have raised the stakes,’ he added, ‘I will not only not play your father tonight, but I will also agree to pay off all his outstanding debts, get your home out of hock and ensure that it remains that way for the rest of your life. At the same time I will take over your watchdog role with your father.’ He seemed to decide that covered it nicely. ‘Does that sweeten the deal a little for you?’ Sweeten it? It made it positively compelling, she thought with heaviness that took her that little bit closer to defeat—though if she had any choices at all she wished someone would point them out to her. ‘If this is for life, then why me?’ She frowned, wishing she understood what was really going on. And she knew there just had to be something going on that Luiz wasn’t talking about. ‘Why not you?’ Luiz countered with a shrug. ‘You are beautiful, you are well bred, and you would enhance the arm of any man,’ ‘A trophy, in other words,’ she likened bitterly. ‘If you like.’ He wasn’t going to argue with that belittling description. ‘But honesty forces me to add that I still fancy the hell out of you or you wouldn’t be standing here at all, believe me.’ His dry smile made her flinch. But she received the message well enough. Be glad I do still fancy you, Caroline, or you would now be standing in deep trouble somewhere else entirely. ‘Yes. I will marry you,’ she said, that briefly and that simply. To give him credit, Luiz didn’t try to draw out his victory. ‘Good,’ was all he said, then, straightening his lean frame away from the tallboy, turned to slide open the top drawer. Standing there, watching him, Caroline thought she saw the merest glimpse of a tremor in his hand as he took it out of his pocket to open the drawer. But by the time he turned, with a clean handkerchief in a hand that revealed only super-sure steadiness, she decided that she must have been mistaken. ‘You now have ten minutes to make yourself feel better about meeting our guests,’ he said, with a subtle alteration in the possessive that didn’t pass Caroline by. ‘Bathroom through that door.’ He indicated. ‘Clothes in the cupboards. I have a few phone calls to make.’ With that he began walking towards her, looking the cool, calm, inscrutable Luiz Vazquez who utterly scorned the idea that anything so weak as a tremor could dare to touch him. She was blocking the door he obviously wished to go through to make his precious calls, but for the life of her Caroline couldn’t give another single inch to him by stepping meekly to one side. He reached her, stopped. Her heart began to thump. Taller than her, wider than her, darker than her in every way there was, he intimidated her on levels she had not known existed before she knew him. His eyebrows arched. ‘Is there something we missed?’ he prompted, softly mocking her stubborn refusal to budge. She had to swallow through a terrible tension before saying what was on her mind, but she was determined to say it anyway. ‘Didn’t you hurt me enough seven years ago without continuing this vendetta you seem to have going for my family?’ His hand came up, touched her pale cheek, and the skin beneath began to burn as if branded. ‘Seven years ago you would not have needed to ask that question,’ he murmured. ‘Seven years ago I thought you loved me,’ she replied huskily. ‘But it wasn’t love, was it, Luiz? I was merely there, and easy, which provided you with a bit of light amusement in between all the really serious stuff.’ He smiled an odd smile. ‘Is that what you think?’ ‘It’s what I know,’ she insisted—even now, seven years on, still able to feel the bitterness of learning that eating away at her. His dark head came down, making her stiffen and tingle when he brought his lips into contact with her ear. ‘Then how can you bear to have me touch you?’ he whispered in soft, moist, sensual derision—and dropped his fingers from her cheek to place them over her breast where the thin fabric of her dress did nothing to disguise her instant response to him. With a jerk she stepped sideways and right out of his reach, hating herself and despising him so much that she could barely cope with what was now tumbling about inside her. Luiz said nothing, but then he really didn’t need to—which was the real humiliation as he simply opened the door she was no longer guarding and stepped through it. Left alone, it was all she could do just to sink weakly into the nearest chair. Instantly she felt something beneath her, and reached down and plucked out both her bag and her bra. The flimsy piece of black silk dangled like a taunt from her trembling fingers, reminding her why it wasn’t on her body. It was still slightly damp. On another thought she got up and walked over to the bed, where Luiz had dropped his discarded jacket. The moment she picked it up the clean scent of him began to completely surround her. Her eyes were still glazed but her other senses were working just fine, she noted grimly. For touching this jacket was like touching Luiz. Smelling him, feeling him, wanting him—wanting him… The jacket, like her bra, was damp, which was obviously why Luiz had changed it for another one. Damp around the pocket, where he’d stuffed her bra, damp around the shoulders from when he’d placed it around hers. A sigh whispered from her that was so bleak and hopeless she was glad there was no one around to hear it. Seven weeks loving him, she thought sadly. Seven years hating him. And probably only seven seconds back in his presence and she had been fighting a losing battle against the way he could make her feel. It was awful, like coming face to face with her own darkest secret. For hate was merely the other side of love. Weren’t the romantics always saying that? Which left her with what to comfort herself? she wondered as she dropped all three items on the bed and turned her back on them. She didn’t know—didn’t think she wanted to know. The clothes he had told her she would find in the cupboards happened to be her own clothes, which brought home even harder the amount of calculation he had put into all of this. He had been very sure of himself, very positive that she would end up here with him, one way or another. In fact everything she had brought to Marbella with her was now residing in this room. Except for her father, she added—then instantly began to worry about him, maybe wandering about this villa like a loose cannon searching for some explosive excitement. The prospect had her hurrying to change. She spent less than five minutes in the well-equipped bathroom, showering away the effects of her swim and then hurriedly blowdrying her hair before she applied a quick, light covering of make-up and went to decide what she was going to wear. Luiz arrived back as she was slipping her feet into high patent leather shoes. Her chin-length bob was soft and shiny, her make-up underplayed, and her dress was made of dark purple silk cre?pe, with a neckline that scooped down to caress the soft swell of her breasts and skimmed rather than clung to the rest of her curves. Dramatically simplistic it its design, still the dress did things for her that made his eyes glint beneath the heavy shading of those long lashes he so liked to hide behind. ‘I’m impressed,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you could do it in the time allocated.’ Caroline just sent him a coldly dismissive look. ‘Is my father awake yet?’ ‘It’s almost midnight, Caroline,’ Luiz drawled back lazily. ‘The time people usually go to bed, not think about getting up.’ ‘People don’t usually throw parties this late, either,’ she pointed out. He smiled at the curt censure. ‘I’m an owl.’ ‘So is he,’ she countered. ‘Where is he?’ ‘In the kitchen playing blackjack with the chef,’ he replied laconically—then, at her look of slack-jawed horror, he grew angry. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ he bit out. ‘It was a joke!’ Some joke, she thought painfully. Luiz strode forward; a hard hand grabbed one of hers. ‘He’s comfortably ensconced in the main salon enjoying the company of my guests!’ he told her impatiently. ‘Will you lighten up?’ Lighten up? she repeated furiously. She was tired, she was stressed, she had just gone through some of the worst few hours in her entire life—and he was now demanding that she lighten up? ‘If I had a punch worth throwing I would probably hit you,’ she whispered. With a heavy sigh, Luiz pulled her towards him, and it showed how bad she was feeling that she let him hold her against his chest. ‘He’s fine,’ he assured her huskily. ‘And he will stay fine now that I’m looking after him—I thought you understood that.’ ‘He’s an addict, Luiz,’ she stated with heart slaying honesty. ‘They don’t get cured overnight.’ ‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘Does he know?’ she then asked sharply. ‘About this deal you and I have just made?’ ‘He knows you are here with me, but that’s about all.’ Which made just one more problem she still had yet to confront, she thought heavily, and moved right out of Luiz’s arms. His eyes narrowed on her weary profile, but he didn’t try to detain her. Instead he moved back to the door, then stood waiting for her to join him. Caroline did so without uttering another word. As they walked side by side back towards the main salon she thought she could actually feel the vibration of her own body it was so beset by nerve-tingling tension. ‘Do I get to know who any of these people are before I have to meet them?’ she asked without much hope of an answer, since he was very economical with those. ‘Nervous?’ Luiz questioned as they crossed the foyer. ‘Yes,’ she confessed. ‘Then don’t be.’ He sounded eminently confident of that. ‘You are about to meet my family,’ he told her. ‘Not a firing squad.’ His family? ‘But you told me once that you don’t have any family!’ She stared at him in disbelief. He just smiled another odd smile. ‘I don’t,’ he said, but the sudden cold glitter that struck his eyes sent a chill chasing down her spine. ‘Enigmatic as ever, I note,’ she drawled. He responded with a different smile. ‘My secret weapon,’ he admitted. But not his only one, she thought as she felt his hand make contact with the small of her back as the other hand reached out for the door. His touch stung through her like an electric power source, making her spine arch fiercely. Her reaction made him pause, his features hardening. ‘Just remember who you are and what you are to me when we walk in there,’ he warned very grimly. ‘It is very important to me that you give a good impression of a blissful bride, not a resentful one.’ Refusing to look at him, Caroline said nothing. But her chin dutifully lifted and her expression became smooth as he pushed open the door to the main salon. The first thing her eyes went to was the green baize table, which she was relieved to see had been deftly covered with a white linen tablecloth on which several bottles of champagne now lay, chilling on a bed of ice. And the croupier, who had been stacking coloured chips earlier, now stood polishing fluted champagne glasses with the innocence of a waiter. The next thing she allowed her eyes to take in was the room full of people. What she had seen only as a couple of dozen blurred faces the first time around, now became two dozen separate individuals who were, almost without exception, Spanish. ‘Highborn’ and ‘haughty’ were the mocking words that came to mind to describe the way they were looking back at her. Which then made her think that if these people were related to Luiz, then he had to come from some very rare stock. Some young, some old, some distinctly curious, some noticeably cautious, she noted. But what struck her the fiercest were the waves of antipathy she could feel bouncing off them, even though she could sense they were trying hard to hide it. They don’t like Luiz, she realised on a blinding flash of insight. They might be here in his home, enjoying his champagne and his hospitality, but they resent it for some baffling reason. Which served to further confuse a situation that was already muddled enough. Then, at last, she noticed her father, standing slightly apart from the others and seemingly not at all pleased, by the look on his face. He was frowning into the whisky glass he held in his hand instead of bothering to glance their way, as everyone else had done the moment the doors had opened. She knew what he was thinking. He was thinking—When the hell, with all these people around, am I going to get my game of poker? Because that was the way his mind worked when he was in the grip of his personal madness. Well, he is about to receive a rather nasty surprise! she predicted with no sympathy for him whatsoever. He had let her down tonight, let her down so badly that it was going to be hard for her to forgive him this time. This time—she repeated. How many ‘this times’ had there been over the last ten years? And how many more were there going to be? Plenty, she predicted, despite Luiz’s grand promise. ‘Really, Luiz.’ A rather large-boned lady, wearing a very regal magenta silk gown, decided to break the silence with haughty censure. ‘I am too old to be indulging in late-night parties. Do you see the time? Do you realise how unforgivably rude you have been, summoning us all here then leaving us to kick our heels while we await your pleasure?’ ‘My apologies, Aunt Beatriz,’ Luiz murmured, seeming not to notice the contempt in the older woman’s tone. ‘But I was so sure you wouldn’t want to miss this particular party once you knew the reason for it.’ ‘Reason—what reason?’ Still cross, but curious, the aunt fixed him with a stern glare. ‘A celebration,’ Luiz replied—deliberately, Caroline was sure, titillating everyone’s senses with carefully chosen words. ‘Of my incredible good fortune…’ The moment he said it Caroline’s chest felt tight again, responding to what she knew was about to come. Luiz’s hand slid from her back to her waistline, but whether it was offering warning or support she wasn’t certain. And her father’s head came up, eyes that were more grey than amethyst fixing sharply on his daughter. ‘In the full tradition of the Vazquez family,’ Luiz was saying smoothly beside her, ‘I have brought you all here to introduce you to Miss Caroline Newbury. The lady who has just promised to be my bride—and my future Condesa…’ After that kind of announcement it was difficult to say who was more utterly dumbfounded. His family or Caroline herself. Caroline was certainly swinging dizzily off balance yet again—because to be Luiz’s future Condesa meant that Luiz had to be the Conde! Her heart gave a thudding kick, sending shock waves rampaging throughout her whole system. As she watched, having no ability left to do much else, she saw two dozen faces drop. It was terrible. The whole situation was utterly terrible. Not so much for her but for Luiz. Did none of these people have a single nice thing to say to him? Could they not at least pretend delight at his news? They didn’t know that Luiz wasn’t head over heels in love with his newly betrothed! And further back, standing apart from the others, was her father, his expression completely frozen. He had caught on quickly, Caroline realised. He might be self-obsessed most of the time, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that if Luiz was announcing his intention to marry his daughter, then she had sold herself to him for the price of her father’s debts. ‘No.’ She saw his mouth form the denial, and tears began to clog her throat. Then one voice—just one voice in a wilderness of silence—sighed and said, ‘Congratulations.’ A woman about her father’s age stepped forward. ‘And to think we all thought when you had us gather here tonight that you were about to surrender your title and go back to America!’ Hoped, Caroline grimly corrected as she felt the atmosphere in the room change from hidden hostility to forced elation in one violent swing. After that they were buried beneath a sea of congratulations, and she found herself struggling to keep up with the names and the embraces being thrust her way. Champagne corks began to pop. The waiter-cum-croupier began handing out glasses for everyone to share a toast. While still standing apart from it all was her father, Caroline noticed anxiously. He was staring at her as if a veil had been ripped from his eyes and he was seeing clearly for the first time in years. It frightened her, that look, as did the way his face seemed to be getting greyer with each passing second that went by. ‘Luiz—my father,’ she murmured, an inner sense warning her that something dire was about to happen. But even as she caught Luiz’s attention, she saw, to her horror, her father’s fingers let go of the whisky glass so it dropped with a thud to the carpet. ‘No, Daddy. No!’ she cried out as his face began to distort and his hand went up to clutch at his chest just before he began to crumple. CHAPTER FIVE THE rest became a blur, a cold, dark, muddy blur, where Luiz leapt from her side to catch hold of her father just before he hit the ground. The croupier-cum-waiter leapt also, and between the two of them they managed to get his limp body onto one of the sofas, while Caroline just stood there, lost in the fog of one terrifying shock too many. I did this, she was thinking over and over. I’ve just killed my own father. She couldn’t move a single muscle, while someone else—a perfect stranger to her, though she must have met him just now amongst the confusing melee—strode briskly over to the sofa and knelt down to examine her father. The way Luiz immediately deferred to him was telling her something she was incapable of understanding just then. But she watched as if from behind a pane of glass as the man’s long fingers checked the pulse in her father’s neck before he began quickly untying his bow tie then releasing the top few buttons to his dress shirt. ‘Vito—my bag, from my car, if you please,’ he commanded. The man who’d jumped to her father’s aid along with Luiz now quickly left the room, and an arm came carefully around Caroline’s trembling shoulders. It was the lady in magenta. ‘Be calm,’ she murmured gruffly. ‘My husband is a doctor. He will know what to do.’ ‘H-he suffers f-from angina.’ The information literally shivered from Caroline’s paralysed throat. ‘He sh-should have pills to take in h-his pocket. Daddy!’ she cried out, as at last she broke free of her paralysis and went to go to him. But Luiz’s aunt held her back. ‘Let Fidel do his job, child,’ she advised. Then, with a calmness that belied everything happening around her, she relayed the information Caroline had just given her to her husband, the doctor. Luiz’s head shot round, his dark eyes lashing over Caroline as if she had just revealed some devilish secret aimed specifically to wound him. She didn’t understand. Not the accusing look, or the blistering anger that came along with it. And he was as white as a sheet—as white as her father was frighteningly grey! The slide of pills found, the doctor quickly read the prescription printed across them. By then his bag had arrived at his side and he was demanding Luiz’s attention, instructing him to take off her father’s jacket and roll up his shirtsleeve so he could place a blood pressure pad around his arm. While Luiz was doing that, the doctor was listening to her father’s heart. It was all very efficient, very routine to him, probably. But to Caroline it was the worst—very worst thing she had ever experienced in her entire life. She’d done this, she was thinking guiltily. She had done this to him by not insisting on breaking Luiz’s deal to him in private and in her own less brutal way. But she hadn’t cared. Not until she had seen his face just now. She had been angry with him, and bitter, and had actually wanted to shock him into seeing what he had finally brought her to! But what she had brought him to by far outweighed what he’d done to her. ‘He is beginning to come round,’ Luiz’s aunt murmured. The doctor was talking quietly to him and Luiz was still squatting beside them, his dark face honed into the hardest mask Caroline had ever seen it wear. And everyone else stood about, looking and feeling helpless, while right there in the middle of a beautiful cream carpet her father’s glass still lay on its side in a pool of golden liquid. She saw one of her father’s hands move, going up to cover his eyes. He looked old and frail and pathetically vulnerable lying there, and as her heart cracked wide open she shook herself free from the comforting arm and went to him. ‘Daddy…’ she sobbed. She felt Luiz glance at her, then grimly straighten up to make room for her to take his place beside his uncle. Her hand went out, the fingers ice-cold and trembling as they closed around her father’s then gently pulled his hand away from his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered thickly. ‘It was a shock, that’s all,’ he answered weakly. ‘Didn’t expect it. Forgot to take my pill today. My fault. I’ll be all right again in a few minutes.’ The doctor was waiting with blood-pressure pad at the ready once the pill had been given a chance to take effect. Caroline flicked him an anxiously questioning look and he answered it with a small nod. Relief flooded the tears into her eyes. Her father saw them and his grey face looked weary. ‘Don’t weep for me, Caroline,’ he sighed. ‘I have enough to contend with right now, without adding your tears.’ ‘But it’s all my fault,’ she choked. ‘I should have warned you about Luiz and me. It was—’ ‘Supposed to be a pleasant surprise for all of you,’ Luiz grimly put in, still aware of their audience, and protecting his damned deal from the risk of exposure even in the face of all of this, Caroline realised bitterly. Her father seemed to understand and accept that. His tired eyes lifted to Luiz. ‘We need to talk,’ he murmured grimly. ‘Not tonight, though,’ the doctor decreed. ‘For tonight you will be staying as my personal guest in my private hospital.’ And even as he spoke the sound of a siren whined its way into the room, curdling Caroline’s blood and making her cling tightly to her father’s hand. But what really worried her was that her father didn’t attempt to put in a protest. His eyes fluttered open. ‘Don’t look so stricken.’ He smiled at her wearily. ‘I plan to be a thorn in your side for a long time yet.’ ‘Promise?’ she insisted with the kind of painful seriousness that had those who witnessed it lowering their eyes. ‘I promise,’ he ruefully complied. Then to Luiz, who was standing behind Caroline, ‘Not quite the response you were looking for, I think,’ he drawled. ‘No,’ Luiz quietly agreed. ‘Does she know yet?’ ‘Know what?’ Caroline put in sharply. But on a wince her father closed his eyes again, and all conversation came to a standstill as the doctor began pumping up the blood pressure pad wrapped around his arm. Two medics entered the room then, and Luiz was gently drawing Caroline to her feet, to make way for them so they could do what they had to do unencumbered. But the moment the medics began to move her father onto their mobile stretcher she was back at his side. The rest of the people in the room had slithered off into the ether. She neither saw them nor wanted to see them. The drive to the hospital was undertaken with the minimum of fuss. Caroline travelled with her father in the ambulance while Luiz followed behind in his car. After that everything became a worried blur again as they waited while her father was put through several examinations be fore Luiz’s uncle Fidel eventually came to pass on the reassuring news that it had not been a heart attack as such. ‘But his blood pressure has remained a little high,’ he added. ‘So I am going to keep him in here overnight, just to keep an eye on him.’ With a sinking sense of profound relief, Caroline leaned weakly against the wall behind her. But when Luiz attempted to touch her she shrugged him off abruptly. ‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘You don’t damn well look it,’ he argued gruffly. Ignoring him, she looked at his uncle. ‘Can I see him now?’ she asked. ‘For a few moments only,’ she was told. ‘He is sedated, so he will not know you are here.’ They did stay for only a few moments, for as the doctor had said he was asleep, but his colour was much better. Caroline stood by his bed gently stroking his hand for a few minutes while Luiz looked on in silence from his position at the bottom of the bed. Then, with the helplessness that came from knowing that she could do nothing more by remaining there, she allowed Luiz to take her away. They didn’t speak as they walked through the hospital, but then they had barely exchanged a single word since the whole horror had begun in Luiz’s drawing room. They reached the exit doors to find Luiz’s uncle was waiting for them. He glanced gravely from one face to the other—seeing too much maybe; Caroline wasn’t sure. ‘He is going to be fine,’ he assured her gently. ‘It really was only a small scare.’ ‘Yes, I know…’ Nodding, Caroline fought yet another battle with tears, then impulsively stepped up to embrace Luiz’s uncle. ‘Thank you for being there,’ she whispered simply. ‘It was my pleasure,’ he replied, but his attention was fixed on her own drained pallor. ‘Take her home,’ he said to Luiz. ‘Make her go to bed, and don’t allow her to come back here until lunchtime at the earliest.’ They left almost immediately after that. The black BMW was waiting in the car park. Luiz had driven himself to the hospital, Caroline discovered when, after seeing her into the front passenger seat, he climbed in behind the wheel. His expression was closed, and he still didn’t speak as he set the car in motion. Outside it was dark and very quiet now, the hour one of those ungodly ones where even the owls Luiz likened himself to had retired. ‘I want to go back to the hotel,’ she said—and received no answer. Turning her head to look at him, she saw only that closed cast of a profile. ‘Luiz…’ she prompted. He changed gear and turned the steering wheel to take them off the main road which would have taken them back into Puerto Banus. He had the long, brown, skilful fingers of an accomplished magician, she found herself thinking stupidly. And she knew she was only letting her mind notice his hands because she didn’t want to get into another heated row with him. Yet she couldn’t let the subject go. ‘I don’t want to face all those people again,’ she told him. He decided to answer that one. ‘They’ve gone home.’ His voice was quiet, flat, utterly devoid of any inflexion when he added, ‘The party, I think you would agree, is well and truly over.’ ‘Did it ever get started?’ she shot at him tartly. If ‘party’ was the right word to cover whatever it was Luiz had been hoping to set up tonight. In truth, the man’s motives baffled her. His family baffled her. One moment they’d appeared hostile and resentful, the next too ecstatic to be real. ‘They don’t like you,’ she said continuing her thought pattern out loud. ‘They haven’t had time yet to make up their mind,’ he answered levelly. Caroline frowned. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘It means I’ve only been an entity in their lives for a few months.’ In profile she caught the slight hint of a grimace. ‘Since my father died, in fact,’ he tagged on, ‘and it was revealed that he had left his estates, his money and his title to the bastard son they’d all preferred to pretend never existed.’ Sitting there beside him, Caroline took her time absorbing this information, because it helped explain so many other things about Luiz that had been a mystery to her until then. ‘Did you know about him?’ she questioned softly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Always?’ ‘More or less,’ he replied. Economical and to the point. ‘But he never acknowledged you until recently,’ she therefore concluded. Luiz turned the car in through the gates of the villa and drove them beneath the arch into the courtyard. As the engine went silent neither tried to get out of the car. Caroline because she sensed there was more information coming, and Luiz because he was, she suspected, deciding how much he wanted to tell her. ‘He tried, once,’ he admitted. ‘Seven years ago, to be exact. But it—didn’t come to anything.’ Seven years ago. Seven. Caroline’s lungs suddenly ceased to work. ‘Why?’ she whispered. Luiz turned to look at her, his closely guarded eyes flickering over her pale, tired, now wary face, and it was like being bathed in a shower of static. For, whatever he was thinking while he looked at her like that, she knew without a single doubt that his thoughts belonged seven years in his past and most definitely included her. Then he flicked his eyes away. ‘He wasn’t what I wanted,’ he declared, and opened his door and climbed out of the car, leaving Caroline to sit there, making what she liked of that potentially earth-shattering statement. Was he was talking about her? Was he talking about them? Was he talking about seven years ago, when he must have been here in Marbella to meet his father and had instead got himself involved with an English girl and her gambling father? Her door came open. Luiz bent down to take hold of her arm to help urge her out. She arrived beside him in a fresh state of high tension, trembling, afraid to dare let herself draw the most logical conclusions from her own shock questions. But Luiz couldn’t have meant that she had been what he had wanted seven years ago, she decided, or he would not have fleeced her father dry at the gambling tables the way he had done. ‘Come on,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘You’ve taken enough for one night.’ Yes, he was right; she had taken enough, she agreed as a throbbing took up residence behind her eyes. She didn’t want to think any more, didn’t want to do anything but crawl into the nearest bed and fall asleep. The house was in darkness. Luiz touched a couple of wall switches as they entered and bathed the hallways in subdued light, then led the way to the bedroom. Once inside, she didn’t seem to have energy left to even undress herself. Luiz watched as she sank wearily down onto the edge of the bed and covered her aching eyes. After a few moments he moved across the room to begin opening cupboards, then she heard his footsteps crossing the cool marble floor towards her and something silky landed on her lap. Drawing her hand away from her eyes, she saw her own smoke-grey silk nightdress. With a cool disregard for her utter bone-weariness, he pulled her to her feet and aimed her towards the bathroom. ‘Wash, change,’ he instructed. She went on automatic pilot, and came back a few minutes later to find that Luiz was no longer there and that the bedcovers had been turned back ready for her to crawl between. She did so without hesitation. She was just sinking into a blissful oblivion when the door opened and he came back in. The distinctive clink of ice against glass brought her gritty eyes open in time to watch him place a jug of iced water on the bedside table, along with a couple of glasses, then he strode off to shut himself away behind the bathroom door without uttering a single word. Caroline lay there, not sure if she should be jumping up and making a run for it while she had the chance, or whether she should just give in to everything and let him do whatever it was he had planned to come next. She didn’t run, was too tired to run. And his next, was to reappear wearing nothing but a short black robe that exposed more of his tanned skin than it covered. He brought the clean scent of soap into the room with him—and a heightening of tension because he looked so damned sexually sure of himself, the way he obviously thought he could climb into this bed with her—and naked, by the looks of things! ‘I won’t sleep with you,’ she informed him flatly. He was hanging his clothes away in the cupboard when she spoke, but he paused, glanced at her. ‘Sleep as in sleep?’ he asked. ‘Or sleep as in make love?’ ‘Both,’ she replied. ‘And I don’t know how you’ve got the arrogance to think that I would.’ He didn’t answer that one straight away. Instead he went back to what he had been doing while Caroline followed his every movement with a heart that was trying hard not to beat any faster. It didn’t succeed very well—especially when he turned towards the bed and began to approach. And his face was wearing that hard, implacable look she didn’t like very much. Bending down, he braced himself with one hand on the pillow beside her head and one right by her curled-up knees. He looked very dark, very dangerous—and very, very serious. ‘Let’s just get a couple of things straight, Caroline,’ he suggested quietly and chillingly. ‘As far as I am concerned our deal still stands. If you decide not to go through with it, then you know the consequences. They haven’t changed because your father was taken ill,’ he pointed out. ‘But,’ he then added, ‘if you decide to keep your side of our bargain, then I will expect you to convince your father, and everyone else for that matter, that I am what you want more than anything else in your life. Understand?’ Yes, she thought dully, she understood. Her choices here were still non-existent. ‘If anything happens to him,’ she said thickly, ‘you know I’ll never forgive you, don’t you?’ He allowed himself a small grimace at that. ‘I think I had already worked that one out for myself,’ he replied dryly. ‘And if you try to touch me now, tonight, I shall probably be sick.’ This time it wasn’t a grimace but a weary sigh, and his dark head came closer—close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath caress her face. ‘If I touched you now, Caroline, you would probably burst into tears—then cling to me as though your life depended on it,’ he taunted softly. And to prove his point he brushed his mouth across her mouth. Sure enough, even as he straightened away, the tears were flooding into her eyes. And she didn’t feel sick. She felt—vulnerable. Too vulnerable to say another word as Luiz reached out to flick a switch that plunged the room into darkness. A few seconds later there was a rustling of fabric before she felt the other side of the bed depress. He didn’t attempt to reach for her, didn’t try to cross the invisible barrier that ran down the centre of the large bed. She fell asleep still struggling with a mix of emotions ranging from the bitterly resentful to the wretchedly disgusted with herself—because he was right, and she did want to cling to him. She awoke during what was left of the night, though she wasn’t sure what it was that had woken her. But in those few drifting moments before she remembered just where she was, she was only aware that she was lying on her stomach, sprawled diagonally across the bed, feeling so sublimely at peace with herself that it came as a shock to realise that not only was it Luiz’s bed she was lying in, but that her cheek was pressed up against his satin-smooth shoulder and her arm was lying across his hair-roughened chest. And, worse, he was awake. She knew he was because he was lying there on his back, letting his fingers stroke feather-light caresses along her resting arm. It wasn’t a sexual gesture; she knew that instinctively. More an absent stroking, as if he was lying there maybe staring into the darkness, lost deep in his own train of thought. It was nice. So nice in fact that she didn’t really want to end it. Though she didn’t know if she could simply go on lying here pretending to be asleep when she wasn’t, because already she could feel her pulse-rate picking up, feel the even tempo of her breathing alter. It was a long time since she’d last felt the warm strength of a man lying beside her. Seven long lonely years, in fact. And even then it had been this man. This same dark, sensually attractive man, with the same clean, slightly musky scent that was so intoxicatingly familiar. It seemed ironic now, to find herself in this situation when it was Luiz who had spoiled her from wanting to go to bed with another man. He released a small sigh. Caroline wished that she could do the same, only she knew it would give the game away. Then her defences would have to go back up, the tension would return, the need to keep on fighting him. The sigh escaped anyway, so she tried to use it as an excuse to slide away, as if in her sleep. Luiz moved at the same time, his fingers tangling with her fingers at the same moment that he rolled onto his side and towards her. She wasn’t quick enough to close her eyes, and it was like looking into a mirror and seeing her own sombre mood reflected back at her. Only his eyes were dark—as dark as the night still surrounding them. He wanted her, she could see the need written there. And the mirror was in knowing that she wanted him. Too late to pretend. Too late to run and hide. He knew just as she knew. It was that simple, that final. With the use of their tangled fingers he drew her up against him, and even as she felt the aroused heat of his body pushing gently against her his mouth was hungrily capturing hers. And—oh, but it felt good, like finding something she had been mourning the loss of for too, too long. And perhaps because she didn’t fight him, didn’t even try to protest, he savoured the kiss, almost as if he was feeling the same way about it as she. Or maybe it had more to do with the lateness of the hour, their slumberous state, the relaxed warmth with which they had come together, or even that all-encompassing darkness itself. Whatever, this kiss was like no other kiss they had ever shared. It was slow and it was deep and it was unbelievably tender. And it went on and on and on, until she felt as if she were floating, lost to a beauty so profound that she had to reach up with her free hand and cup his cheek—just to check that he wasn’t a mere figment of her dreamy imagination. Her fingers found lean, taut flesh that rasped lightly with a five o’clock shadow. She touched his cheekbone, his nose, the corner of his mouth where it covered her own mouth, heard his low groan as if her exploration moved him. Gently rolling her onto her back, he came with her, untangled his fingers from hers and began to touch her face in the self-same way. But the kiss began to alter, subtly at first, then with a deepening of sensuality that quickened the senses. Linking her hands around his nape, she held him, and his touch begin to drift on a gentle exploration of her throat, her shoulders, and finally the satin-smooth slopes of her waiting breasts. As he brushed a caress across tightly budding peaks she gasped her response into his mouth. One of his hands began to dip low over her ribcage, and as she arched in response to his so-light caress he reached up, caught hold of one of her own hands and fed it onto his body. It was a command for her to match his movements. She remembered it from the last time they’d come together like this. Luiz had been her tutor in the art of arousing a lover. What he made her feel, he wanted to feel; what he did to her to make her go wild with pleasure, he expected her to do to him. But that had been seven years ago, and seven years of abstinence had made her unsure of herself. Her fingers fluttered uncertainly against his hair-roughened breastbone, found one small tight male nipple and began a tentative rolling of it between thumb and finger which had him groaning thickly. He wrenched his mouth from hers so he could string a line of heated kisses across her cheek and down her throat until he found and fixed on one of her own tightly drawn peaks. She cried out. It was such a wildly exhilarating sensation. He muttered something she didn’t catch, ran his hand down her body, lifting eager nerve-ends to the surface of her skin as he did so, then caught hold of the hem of her nightdress and deftly slipped it up and over her head. With the silk gone, his fingers began tracing the sensitive flesh along her inner thigh. Her mouth fixed on his shoulder; his returned to her breast. She could feel the heat of him, the burning, burgeoning power of him, pulsating against her hipbone. His hand was beginning to trail ever further upwards, and she knew that if he touched her where he intended to go next then he would expect her to touch him the same way. But— ‘Luiz…’ she breathed, needing something—reassurance maybe, or even a reprieve. She wasn’t really sure. ‘Shh,’ he commanded, deep, dark, tense with arousal. Did he think she was about to call a halt to it all? she wondered. But that was as far as it got—a question forming inside her head—before he literally sent her toppling over the edge as, with needle-point accuracy, he located the very life-force of her. It threw her into a paroxysm of gasps and whimpers. No warning, no mercy. She hovered precariously on the very edge of orgasm, and as if he knew it Luiz uttered a soft curse, caught her mouth again with a hard, hot, urgent kiss that mimicked what he was doing to her. Then he was covering her body with his own and positioning himself so he could enter her with a sure, sleek thrust. Delicate tissue unused to this kind of intrusion tensed on a moment’s protest at his potent demand. Then she sighed softly, slowly relaxed the tension out of her thighs so that she could draw him in deeper. He responded with a husky groan. After that it became a powerful example of intimacy at its most intense level. Mouth close to mouth, breast to breast, hip to taut hip, they began to move as a single entity. Her hands clutched at his silk taut back while his held her possessively beneath him. Her breath shivered from her parted lips to mingle sensually with his. And with her eyes captured by the burn in his everything else was temporarily forgotten. Past betrayals, present mistrusts—nothing else seemed to matter but what they were feeling. And feel it they did—together—together so perfectly that when her breathing grew shorter and her body more anxious he knew the exact moment she was about to leap, and drove them over the edge with a fierceness that was completely soul-shattering. Afterwards, when it was eventually over and Luiz lay heavy on top of her with his face buried in her throat, there was even something perfectly shared in the way neither seemed able to move or speak. Nevertheless, Caroline was glad of the darkness to hide away in when Luiz did eventually find the strength to move. Rolling onto his side, he took her with him, holding her with arms that gave her no room to escape. ‘You’re mine now,’ he said, and that was all. Caroline didn’t even bother to answer. For it didn’t take genius for her to work out that she had always been his, even during seven years of never setting eyes on him. CHAPTER SIX THE next time she woke it was to find a voile-defused daylight eddying around her. She was alone, she realised, lying sprawled naked on her stomach once again, amongst a sea of tumbled white linen, with her arm thrown out in a way that told her exactly what it had been thrown across until that warm male body had slid stealthily out from beneath it. Her heart performed a dramatic flip, the memory of the previous twenty-four hours enough to hold her still with her eyes closed tight while she tried to come to terms with knowing just how easy she had been for him. It was scary. Because even as she coped with the inevitable clutches of shame that knowledge brought with it, she was also aware of a gentle pulsing deep inside that was warm and soft and infinitely sensual as delicate muscles searched for the silken force which had given them so much. ‘Luiz…’ she breathed, then wished she hadn’t, because even whispering his name was a sensual experience. I should hate him, she told herself. I want to hate him for doing this to me again. No wonder it all felt so very scary. A light tap sounded on the bedroom door then, jolting her into a sitting position in the middle of the bed. She had just managed to scramble a white sheet around her nakedness when the door came open and a young woman appeared carrying a breakfast tray. She was smiling shyly. ‘Buenos d?as, se?orita,’ she murmured politely. ‘Don Luiz instructed me to waken you in time to meet him at the hospital at noon.’ Noon. Hospital—her father! Oh, dear God, how could she have forgotten him as thoroughly as she had? She was about to leap from the bed in panic when the little maid added, ‘El se?or also say to tell you that your pap? is well, and will be discharged later on today.’ And as Caroline sat, needing long seconds to take this reassuring information in, the girl walked forward and put the tray down on a small table, then turned to enquire if there was anything else she wanted. ‘Er, no—thank you,’ she answered politely. But as the young maid walked back to the door, a sudden thought hit her. ‘Did el se?or leave the address of the hospital?’ she asked. ‘Only I forgot to make a note of it in the panic last night.’ ‘He has placed Se?or Martinez at your disposal,’ the maid explained. ‘He will know where he is to drive you.’ With that she was gone, leaving Caroline to wonder just who Se?or Martinez was. The maid seemed to think that Caroline already knew. She soon found out an hour later, when, dressed casually in soft doe-coloured trousers and a pale pink V-necked top, she stepped into the villa courtyard and found the croupier-cum-waiter and now chauffeur standing waiting for her by the black BMW. ‘Good morning, Miss Newbury,’ he greeted politely. Deep-voiced, smooth-toned, he had the same pleasant American drawl as Luiz. Which made him—what, specifically? she wondered as she watched him move to open the rear door of the car for her. Luiz’s personal bodyguard? His jack-of-all-trades assistant? His friend? The very suggestion of Luiz possessing a genuine, slapontheback kind of friend made her smile as she sank into squashy soft leather. He wasn’t the type. Luiz was a man who stood alone and softened his guard for no one. Even when he made love he did so with a silent intensity that protected the inner man. She shivered, not liking it. Not liking what he had been able to expose in her while keeping himself hidden. So, he enjoyed making love with her, she acknowledged with a shrug. She would have to be a fool to have missed the power behind the passion with which he had taken her. But he’d done it in silence. And even his climax had been a disturbingly silent thing that had kept whatever he was experiencing locked deep inside him. So Se?or Martinez couldn’t be Luiz’s friend, she concluded, because to a man like Luiz a friend would be seen as a weakness. And, likewise, Se?or Martinez didn’t look like anyone’s idea of a friend, she mused as she watched him settle his bulky size behind the wheel of the car. He had the cold face and tough body of a ruthless terminator—with a hint of the savage thrown in to add extra sinister impact. All of which she was given the chance to consider only as long as it took him to set the car engine running then send up the partitioning piece of glass. Shut out and shut in, she thought, and grimaced. Maybe they were brothers after all. Her father’s room was on the second floor. Her feet trod spotless laminated wood flooring and she became aware of an increase of tension as the moment came closer when she was going to have to face her father with the truth—it was no use trying to pretend. He knew too much—knew her, knew Luiz, and he knew himself. It was being that aware of all involved parties that had put him in here in the first place. What she didn’t want was to risk the same thing happening again once he’d heard the full story. So, nervously she approached the room he had been allotted. The door was standing open; beyond it everything looked clean and neat. She saw Luiz first, standing gazing out of the window. With the sunlight streaming in around him he looked bigger and leaner and more intimidating than usual. A force to be reckoned with, she likened with a small shudder. And had no concept whatsoever of how prophetic that thought was as she took a moment to brace herself, then stepped into the room proper. He heard her and spun round, then went very still, watching her face as she glanced expectantly at the bed and began to frown when she found it empty. The room had its own bathroom. She looked next in its direction, saw the room inside was also empty, then finally—reluctantly—flicked her eyes towards Luiz. ‘Where is he?’ she asked, sounding afraid even to herself. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘He hasn’t had a relapse.’ Relief made her mouth tremble. ‘Then where is he?’ she repeated. There was a lot to be said for having the sunlight behind him, she found herself thinking as she waited for an answer. At least with his face thrown into contrasting shadow she couldn’t tell what kind of expression he was wearing, didn’t have to guess what he was thinking as he stood there looking at her for the first time since they’d shared his bed. ‘Luiz?’ she prompted when she realised he still hadn’t answered her question. ‘He isn’t here,’ he told her quietly. Isn’t here? Isn’t where? Her frown grew more puzzled. ‘You mean—he’s gone for more tests or something?’ The dark head shook and he took a couple of steps towards her. The moment he did it Caroline was having to fight the need to start moving back. It was the loss of the sun to hide his expression and the sudden awareness of his physical presence that intimated her. He was dressed in much the same way that she was, in casual trousers and a plain tee shirt. But it wasn’t clothes that made the man inside them. It wasn’t designer labels or that air of subtle wealth he carried with him that made her insides draw tightly inwards in sheer self-defence. She was too vulnerable to him, she realised helplessly. Too easily diverted by things that held no place in this room. ‘He’s gone home,’ he told her. ‘To England,’ he added almost reluctantly. ‘Home? England?’ She repeated stupidly. ‘But he can’t do that!’ she cried. ‘He isn’t well enough to travel! I need to see him!’ Luiz took another couple of steps towards her as she spun round in a full circle so her dazed eyes could check the room out again, as if she expected him to miraculously appear and prove Luiz wrong. But her father didn’t appear. And as she made herself look back at Luiz the sickly suspicion that this was just another part of his overall plan, to separate father from daughter, began to take a firm grip. ‘You’ve sent him away,’ she breathed. ‘He’s gone home to put his house in order,’ Luiz sombrely replied. But she shook her head. ‘You made him go so we can’t get together and spoil your plans by coming up with an alternative solution to our problems.’ ‘Is there an alternative?’ Gently put, smooth as silk, the question pierced her like the lethal prick from a scorpion’s tail. ‘Then why has he gone?’ she demanded, her heart beating so fast that she could hear it hammering inside her head. ‘Guilt,’ he told her bluntly. ‘He couldn’t face you, so he left before you could get here…’ Deserted her, he meant. Ran away, he meant. Left her here to face the rotten music alone, he meant! It was too much. She couldn’t bear it. She turned to leave, but not quickly enough to hide from Luiz the flood of hurt tears that burst into being. His hand snaked out, caught her shoulder, stopping her from walking away. ‘Try to understand,’ he murmured huskily. ‘He saw himself last night for perhaps the first time. He saw the mess he had made of his life—the misery he had made of yours!’ ‘So he ran,’ she mocked. ‘How brave of him!’ ‘It was for the best, Caroline,’ Luiz insisted. ‘He wants to put his own house in order. Don’t condemn him for at least wanting to try before he can bring himself to face you again.’ ‘In that case, let him swing for his own wretched debts!’ she responded in swift and bitter retaliation. ‘Find someone else to marry you, Luiz!’ she flashed. ‘Because I am now taking myself out of it!’ With an angry shrug she tried to free her imprisoned shoulder. All that happened was that the hand turned into a grip of steel. ‘I am still paying for him to put his house in order,’ Luiz inserted with deadly precision. Caroline sucked in some air, held onto it for as long as she could, then let it go again with such violence that it escaped as a sob. ‘So am I, it seems,’ she whispered then. ‘It is what we agreed,’ Luiz confirmed. And in her mind’s eye she had an image of her father, running away like a frightened rabbit while Luiz stood viewing his departure from his lofty position in his eagle’s nest, happy to let one tasty meal go because he still had another set cleanly in his sights. Then she shuddered, and stopped thinking right there, because she just didn’t want to know how she was going to describe herself. But still the apt description of a lamb being led meekly to the slaughter managed to fill her head. And if cynicism could be measured in fathoms, then Caroline knew she was now plunging the very depths as she made herself turn to face him. ‘Do you ever lose, Luiz?’ she asked him. His grim mouth flexed on a twist of a smile. ‘Very rarely,’ he answered honestly. She nodded, and left it at that. After all, what was there left to say? She was here because Luiz wanted her here. Her father had gone because Luiz had wanted him gone. ‘So what happens now?’ she asked eventually, knowing the question told him that she was right back on track—just as Luiz wanted. ‘Now?’ he said curiously, his dark eyes fixed on her beautiful but cold amethyst eyes set in an equally beautiful but coldly composed face. And the twist to his mouth became more pronounced. ‘This is what we do, right here and now,’ he drawled—and with only that outwardly innocent warning he caught her by the chin, pulled her face up towards him then kissed her—hard. She just hadn’t expected it, so the rush of heat that attacked her nerve-ends had taken tight hold of her before she managed to find the will to pull away. Luiz let her go, but only because he was willing to do so, she was sure of that. And still smiling that twisted smile, even though he had just used that wretched mouth to kiss her utterly senseless, he tapped one of her burning cheeks with a taunting finger. ‘Now that’s warmed you up nicely,’ he noted smoothly. She wanted to hit him. He knew she wanted to hit him. Standing there toe to toe, breast-tips to muscle-padded chest, he held her furious eyes with devilishly mocking ones and just dared her to do it! It was a skin-blistering few moments. Neither moved, neither spoke, neither seemed even to breathe. Tension gnawed and antagonism pulsed—along with a slice of something else that further infuriated her. Sex was its name. Hot sex, tight sex. Sex that plucked at the angry senses until they sang like an out-of-tune violin. And suddenly she could feel the fine lining of her body begin to ripple in an agonising parody of what happened when he was buried inside her. It wasn’t fair. Her senses had no right to betray her like this! It wasn’t fair that her breasts were stinging, their tender tips tightening into hard, tight, eager nubs against his wretched breastbone. ‘Marriage to you is going to be one hell of an adventure,’ he murmured—and effectively brought her tumbling back down to earth with a resounding bump. She should have shattered. She would have preferred to shatter rather than have to continue to stand here knowing that he knew exactly—and in detail—what she had been feeling. ‘I hate you,’ she whispered, and spun her back to him with the intention of stalking stiffly away. But her exit was ruined by the sudden appearance of the doctor, Luiz’s uncle Fidel. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking much as Caroline must have looked when she’d first walked in the room. ‘Your father has left already?’ he asked. ‘There was a spare seat on a flight to London he didn’t want to miss,’ Luiz informed him. ‘He has business that needs his immediate attention if he wants to be back here in time for our wedding next week.’ Next week? Caroline tensed. Long fingers came to clasp her shoulders in a physical warning for her to watch what she said. ‘I pray you will both survive till then,’ his uncle said sagely. ‘If you are to eat at the castle, Luiz, then make sure you take a food-taster with you. For if Consuela could have her wish it would be to see you six feet under the soil rather than have to watch you take what is left of her life away.’ Caroline didn’t understand a single word of what was being said. Except that she and Luiz were, it seemed, to be married in a week! ‘Don’t worry about your father, child,’ Fidel said smilingly, obviously reading her expression as one of anxiety for her father. ‘He was fighting fit when I saw him this morning. And he will not forget to take his medication again after experiencing the shock he had last night.’ The doctor’s beeper began sounding then, cutting short any more discussion other than for him to step up and give Caroline’s cheek an affectionate peck before turning briskly away with, ‘See you both at the church, God willing!’ Then he was gone, scooting away as abruptly as he had arrived. ‘What did he mean, you need a food-taster?’ she asked in his uncle’s wake. ‘And what castle—what wedding?’ ‘The wedding you should have been expecting,’ Luiz drawled. ‘The castle is the one I inherited along with my illustrious title. And the food-tasting quip was a joke—though not a very funny joke, I will admit,’ he conceded. It hadn’t sounded like a joke to Caroline. In fact it had sounded like a bit of very serious advice! ‘I wish you would tell me what is really going on here,’ she bit out angrily. ‘Feuds and fortunes,’ Luiz replied laconically, and halted any further discussion by leading her out into a corridor that had too many other people walking about to allow for private conversation. Vito Martinez was standing by the car waiting for them as they came outside. ‘Any messages?’ was Luiz’s instant enquiry as they approached him. ‘Nothing that can’t wait,’ the other man answered with a telling glance in Caroline’s direction. It niggled her to catch that glance. Just as a lot of other things were now niggling her. ‘You two should think about joining the Secret Service,’ she snapped out tartly, and climbed into the back of the car without waiting for a response. A few seconds went by before Luiz eventually joined her. Car doors slammed, the engine fired and behind his protective shield of glass Vito Martinez set them all into smooth motion. ‘Vito meant no offence,’ Luiz said quietly. Caroline twisted her head to show him amethyst eyes turned smoky grey with anger. ‘Tell me, is that Vito the croupier, Vito the waiter, or Vito the chauffeur you are talking about?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘It is Vito my security chief and most trusted employee,’ he replied very levelly, but it was a silken warning to watch her tongue. Caroline was feeling too fed up with the whole darn situation to watch her tongue. ‘Oh, I see, Mr Versatility, then,’ she mocked. ‘Does that mean he’s the one that pulls out the toenails of your enemies for you in between making sure that sick old men catch flights out of a country you don’t want them to be in?’ ‘Vito did not chauffeur your father to the airport; he chauffeured you to the hospital, if you recall.’ ‘Ah, he has assistants, then.’ She nodded understandingly. The steady gaze hardened fractionally. ‘You, I think, are gunning for a fight.’ He was right; she was. Luiz’s eyes narrowed. ‘Be very—very careful, querida,’ he warned. ‘Stop the car,’ she demanded. Why she said it Caroline certainly didn’t know—but without hesitation Luiz leant forward and pressed a switch that sent the glass sliding downwards. ‘Stop the car, Vito,’ he commanded. The car came to a smooth halt. Caroline was out on the side of the road before she’d had a chance to realise she was there. It was crazy. The whole situation was crazy! She didn’t know what she was doing here in Marbella! She didn’t know what she was doing letting Luiz Vazquez control her life! And she certainly didn’t know what she was doing standing here looking out over the Bay of Malaga beneath a burning hot summer sun—shivering like a block of ice! She heard Luiz’s feet scrape on loose tarmac but didn’t turn around. She felt his closeness when he came to stand behind her but didn’t acknowledge he was there. Her eyes were hurting, and so was her head. And, lower down, that band of steel was encasing her chest again. ‘In the hours since we met, you’ve tricked me, blackmailed me, kidnapped me and seduced me,’ she told him in a tight little voice. ‘You’ve helped me put my father into hospital, then had him neatly spirited away. In short, you’ve layered shock after shock after shock on me, in some neatly worked out little sequence aimed, I think, to keep me constantly knocked off balance. And you know what, Luiz?’ ‘What?’ he prompted. ‘I haven’t got a single shred of an idea as to why you’ve decided to do this to me!’ He didn’t reply—had she really expected him to? Caroline asked herself bitterly as she swung round to look directly at him. His lean hard face was giving nothing away—as usual. And as she stood there, letting the silence stretch between them in the hopes that it would force an explanation out of him, she found her mind scanning back to their seven-week romance seven years ago, looking for clues as to why he was treating her like this. But the only thing she could come up with was the ugly scene they had had on the night she’d left Marbella for good. Luiz had been standing there, much as he was now, tall and tense, while she’d flung accusation after accusation at him. ‘How could you do it, Luiz?’ she could hear herself sobbing. ‘How could you take everything I had to offer you then leave my arms to go and win money from my father in the casino night after night?’ ‘I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that it was your father who was trying to win money from me?’ he’d bitten back coldly. His attempt to shift the blame to her father had only infuriated her more. ‘You’re the professional!’ she’d cried. ‘You told me yourself that you used to make a living from gambling—whereas my father is just a gullible fool!’ ‘He’s an addict, Caroline,’ Luiz had hit back brutally. ‘A compulsive gambler who is therefore willing to play anyone so long as he plays!’ ‘Well, he says he played you,’ she’d told him. ‘Are you telling me that he lied?’ ‘No,’ he’d said heavily. ‘He didn’t lie.’ It had been the death of a beautiful love affair, she recalled as she came swimming back to the present. She had walked away. Luiz had let her go. And not a single day had gone by since when she hadn’t closed her eyes and seen his ice-cold expression as she’d left him standing there—and wished more than anything that things could have been different. ‘This has nothing to do with the past, but with the future.’ Luiz spoke so suddenly that she had to blink a couple of times before she could realise that he was actually answering the question she’d put to him before she’d gone floating off into memories. ‘I need a wife to secure the final part of my inheritance,’ he explained. ‘And, having come to terms with the fact that I have to have one, I have decided that I would prefer that wife to be you. Does that make you feel any better?’ he taunted lazily. No, it didn’t. She went pale. ‘I’m just a convenient means to an end, then,’ she said, seeing just how conveniently vulnerable to persuasion she had been for him. He hadn’t even had to woo her, just make her an offer she couldn’t refuse. ‘As I am to you,’ he pointed out coldly. ‘Which seems pretty fair all the way round, don’t you think?’ She found herself stumped for an argument because, put like that, he was right! Luiz waited, though, ruthless devil, until he was sure she was not going to throw him yet another tantrum on some other quickly thought up charge. Then, ‘Can we go now?’ he requested, oh, so sardonically. ‘Only I have a lot of things to do before we leave here in the morning.’ Leave… He was doing it again! Knocking her off balance with yet another one of his little surprises! ‘Leave for where?’ she gasped out. ‘Cordoba,’ he replied, then turned on his heel and strode back to the car. Caroline followed—did she really have any choice? she angrily mocked herself. ‘What’s in Cordoba?’ she demanded, the moment she was back inside the car. ‘A small valley in the mountains that goes by the name of Valle de los Angeles,’ he explained as the car began to accelerate. ‘And there in the valley stands the Castillo de los Angeles, which belongs to Luiz Angeles de Vazquez, Conde del Valle de los Angeles…’ And if she thought she’d plumbed the depths of cynicism in her own way a while back, then Luiz was now demonstrating what little she knew about cynicism at all. ‘There, el conde,’ he continued in the same nerve-wincing tone, ‘will wed his betrothed in the church of the Valle de los Angeles, as is tradition for all condes del Valle de los Angeles. Then he will carry his bride off to his impressive castillo—just in time to banish the resident wicked witch before he ravishes his new Condesa.’ ‘Wicked witch?’ she quizzed, picking out the only part in the acutely sarcastic agenda that managed to completely baffle her. ‘S??.’ He nodded. ‘Don?a Consuela Engracia de Vazquez—the present Condesa del Valle de los Angeles.’ ‘The lady your uncle mentioned earlier,’ she remembered. ‘S??,’ he said again. ‘T??o Fidel is a very shrewd man,’ he allowed. ‘He is also the only member of my family that you can safely trust,’ he then added, more seriously. ‘It will be wise of you, querida, to mark that I said that…’ CHAPTER SEVEN MARK it, he’d said… But twenty-four hours later it was Luiz who seemed to be marking what he’d said, Caroline noted, as the closer they got to Cordoba, the more uptight he became. Sitting beside him, she stared at the forever-changing vista beyond the car window and wondered what it was that was eating into him today. He should be happy, she mused testily. After all, he’d got himself one very meek and obedient passenger here, who hadn’t put up a single protest against his arrogant take-over of her life—well, not since her performance out on the Marbella road yesterday, anyway. But then she hadn’t been given the opportunity to protest about anything else, she reminded herself. Because as soon as he’d delivered her back to his villa Luiz had shot off again with his security chief, and she hadn’t set eyes on him until he’d come to collect her for this journey this morning. And he had arrived dressed for travelling, in a lightweight black linen suit and white shirt, looking almost as uptight as he did right now! ‘Are you ready? Is that your case? Do you think we can go, then?’ Terse to the point of rudeness, he had barely given her chance to reply. And other than for a quick down and away glance at the dusky mauve skinny top and cream tailored skirt she had chosen to wear for the journey, not once had he allowed himself to make full eye contact with her. Because he’d known that to do so would give her an invitation to start speaking her mind again. Something Luiz obviously didn’t want. Something Luiz obviously still didn’t want, since he’d maintained that barrier throughout the whole time they had been travelling. Maybe he was afraid she was going to start demanding to know where he had spent last night, she mused with an acidity that stung in her blood. Because he certainly hadn’t spent it with her, in his own bed. And he might be refusing to look at her, but she had certainly looked at him enough to notice the signs of a man who hadn’t got much sleep! She had, she recalled smugly. She’d slept like a baby and hadn’t even missed him until she’d woken up this morning to find the place beside her was still as smooth as it had been when she’d fallen asleep! Liar, a tiny voice in her head said. You woke several times and worried because he wasn’t there. You missed him too! Which makes the lie all that more pathetic! ‘Damn,’ Luiz muttered, bringing the car to a sudden stop. ‘I think we just missed the turning…’ Slamming the car into reverse gear, he began driving them back the way they had just come, past a junction sporting a road sign indicating that a place called Los Aminos was off to the left. He stopped the car again, uttered an irritated sigh and reached for the glove compartment to extract a road map, which he then spread out across the steering wheel and began to frown at. Caroline frowned too. ‘Don’t you know where we’re going?’ ‘No,’ he replied. Blunt and gruff, it didn’t really encourage more questioning. But she was confused. It didn’t seem likely, knowing his gift of near photo-perfect memory, that he could have actually got them lost! ‘How often have you made this journey?’ she asked, condescension feathering her tone. A long index finger was following the wavy red line that cut a path through from Marbella to Cordoba. A sudden vision of that same finger tracing circles around her navel sent an injection of heat directly to her thighs. It was shameful. She despised herself. ‘I haven’t,’ Luiz said. It took a moment for her to take that answer in. Then she noticed that the finger had stopped at a road junction. This road junction, Caroline supposed, glancing up at the sign, then back at the map to see that indeed the finger was touching this precise point on the map. ‘You mean you haven’t done it from Marbella before?’ she finally decided. The finger began moving again, mesmerising her when she knew she shouldn’t let it, as it traced a line off to the left that went skirting around Cordoba. ‘I meant I have not been there—period,’ he clarified, bringing the finger to a stop at a tiny dot on the map that bore the name Valle de los Angeles. The remark came as such a surprise that it had her turning in her seat to stare at his grimly taut profile. ‘Why not?’ she demanded. He didn’t answer. Instead he began neatly folding up the map again, and just let the silence fill with the same tension they had been travelling with before he’d lost his sense of direction. ‘Luiz?’ she prompted. ‘Because I knew I wouldn’t be welcome, okay?’ he launched at her tightly. ‘But it belongs to you!’ she exclaimed. ‘What does that have to do with being made welcome?’ Leaning across her, he put the map back into the glove compartment. Sudden enlightenment hit. ‘The one who might poison you,’ she murmured softly. ‘The resident wicked witch—your father’s widow?’ ‘You bet,’ he replied, shifting the car into gear. ‘And she—resents you?’ She tried to put it kindly, but still Luiz released a scornful laugh. ‘Wouldn’t you resent the man who has usurped your own son’s position in the family?’ His father had another son? Luiz had a half-brother? While she sat there absorbing this latest piece of news, Luiz spun the steering wheel and set them moving into the left-hand fork in the road. A long and dusty winding road lay ahead of them. With a surge of power Luiz accelerated along it. Top-of-the-range plush as the car was, custom-built for quality performance with optimum comfort as it was, the BMW could do nothing about the kind of atmosphere its occupants created for themselves. It proceeded to throb with a hundred questions one of them wanted to ask, mingling with answers the other was clearly reluctant to provide. In the end Caroline plumped for the most pressing question. ‘Why you instead of him?’ she queried. ‘Because I am the bastard and he is not?’ Luiz mockingly questioned the question. Caroline flushed slightly at his blunt candour. Luiz might be possessive of his privacy now, but he had not been seven years ago. He had been very open then about his life as a fatherless child, living in a run-down tenement in the backstreets of New York with a mother who had struggled to make ends meet. She knew his mother had died when he was only nine years old and that Luiz had lived out the rest of his childhood in a state institution. ‘I was chosen because I possess a lot of individual wealth and the family itself is practically bankrupt.’ In other words, his father had named Luiz as his successor out of expediency rather than desire, she realised. It was no wonder Luiz sounded so bitter and cynical about the whole thing. ‘And your half-brother and his mother?’ she asked. ‘Where does it leave them in all of this?’ If it was at all possible, his expression turned even harder. ‘Out in the cold, as far as I am concerned. As they have kept me out in the cold for most of my life.’ No wonder he had left it so long without bothering to go and meet his inheritance face on, she grimly concluded. For Luiz was not a fool; he knew what he was going to find waiting for him. Which left begging just one more question she couldn’t leave unasked. ‘Our marriage?’ she prompted. ‘What has it to do with all of this?’ For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to answer. His mouth was tight, his eyes shot through with a hard glitter as they followed the snaking line of the road ahead. Then, ‘Our marriage is the means by which I put them in the cold,’ he replied. ‘For by my father’s decree they may continue to live in the castle only until I marry.’ His ruthless streak was showing again. And Caroline was beginning to feel sorry for Luiz’s new-found family. She had a horrible feeling they had no idea what kind of man it was who was coming to meet them today, or they would have packed their bags and got out before he arrived. ‘Ever heard of the word forgiveness?’ she advanced huskily. ‘Forgiveness is usually only given to those that want it,’ he replied. Slick and shrewd though his reply was, it still made her shiver. She fell silent after that. And they didn’t speak again throughout the miles they ate up until they entered the sleepy little village of Los Aminos. ‘We’ll stop here for some lunch,’ Luiz decided. Caroline didn’t demur. She was beginning to feel stiff and thirsty, and a break for lunch was a preferable option to keeping on driving towards she knew not what. Luiz found a little caf? with wooden tables set outside beneath a faded blue awning. Pulling into the kerb, he climbed out of the car, then stood stretching taut muscles while he waited for Caroline to join him. The inn wasn’t what you would call a fashionable place, but the basket of bread and bowl of crisp salad they were served were fresh and tasty. She asked for a Coke, and Luiz did the same, then they sat sharing the lunch between them as if they did this kind of thing all the time. But the silence was still there, pulsing between them. Reaching for another thick chunk of bread, she asked, ‘How much further?’ in an effort to break the deadlock. ‘Same again,’ Luiz answered briefly, while reaching for some more bread himself. She huffed out a weary sigh that turned into a yawn. The day was hot and the air was humid, and she had lied about sleeping well last night, so now she was beginning to feel the dragging effects of hardly any sleep at all. ‘Tired?’ Luiz asked. ‘It’s the heat,’ she blamed. ‘And the travelling. Where did you sleep last night?’ And she could have bitten off her tongue the moment she caught the sudden gleam in his eyes. ‘Missed me, did you?’ he murmured silkily. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘I slept like a log.’ ‘Well, I missed you,’ he told her huskily. Warily she glanced up, thinking he was just teasing—but he wasn’t. And the atmosphere between them suddenly took a violent change. He was looking at her as if he was seeing her sitting there naked. She looked away again quickly—but not quickly enough to stop her insides from coiling tightly, and she could feel a sensual tingling between her thighs. ‘We could go somewhere,’ Luiz suggested. Caroline almost choked on her bread. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? She picked up her Coke and gulped at it in an effort to disperse the bread. ‘You only have to say yes…’ Oh, for goodness’ sake! she thought. ‘No, Luiz!’ she whispered hoarsely. And made the mistake of looking into his eyes again. They were on fire. He wanted her. And he wanted her now! ‘Stop it,’ she breathed, feeling her cheeks begin to glow, and sent trembling fingers on a wild foray of the salad bowl—only to meet his fingers halfway, because he was reaching for her. It was like making contact with a high-voltage cable. Caroline snatched her hand away on a sharp gasp; Luiz did more than that—he released a low, short, explicit curse, then lurched angrily to his feet. It a state of near shock, because she didn’t know what had happened between them, she watched him dig into his pocket for some money and toss it onto the table before reaching out to grab her hand. And this time there was no snatching it back as if the contact was too electrifying to tolerate because Luiz wasn’t letting go. He turned and began striding off down the sun-drenched and dusty street, trailing her behind him like some recalcitrant child he was taking off to be smacked. She wanted to protest—demand where he thought he was going, when the car was parked the other way! But the sheer ferocity etched into his lean face was enough to keep the words locked up tight in her throat. Suddenly he stopped dead, tightened his grip on her hand and turned to walk her inside the foyer to what turned out to be a small hotel. ‘Luiz—no!’ she managed to gasp out at last, when the disturbing suspicion of what he was intending began to take horrifying shape in her head. He completely ignored her. It was as if the devil was driving him. His face was taut, his jaw set, and she felt her cheeks suffuse with hot self-conscious colour as he grimly began negotiating the price of the hotel’s best suite—on an hourly basis. It was awful, the most embarrassing situation she had ever experienced in her life! The concierge kept on sending her brief but knowing little glances, and she didn’t know where to put herself as Luiz placed a wad of notes on the desk, scrawled his signature in the register, then accepted the key the concierge was holding out to him before turning towards the stairs. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this!’ Caroline choked out as he began striding upwards, pulling her with him. He didn’t even bother to answer, his expression so fierce that she began to quail inside her shoes as he led her along a narrow landing then unlocked a door and swung her inside. The hotel was small and very simple; the room—darkened by closed shutters over the window—was nothing more than a bed, a table and a couple of chairs set on floorboards, and there was no air conditioning to help take away the suffocating heat. But by the time he had closed the door behind them she couldn’t have cared less what the room was like. She was out of breath, feeling a nerve-tingling excitement that didn’t go down well with how she knew she should be feeling in a situation like this! ‘What the hell has got into you?’ she demanded, managing to get her hand free at last. Again he didn’t answer, but then he didn’t really need to, because she knew what had got into him. In fact it was written all over his hard-boned, muscle-locked face! With a growing sense of awareness she stepped warily away from him, only to watch in a kind of wide-eyed fascination as he shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it aside, then began pulling his shirt off over his head. The two items landed on a chair. His bronzed torso expanded, then relaxed, as if removing those garments had been a matter of life or death. Fire and ice, she found herself likening, as she waited breathlessly to discover what was going to come next. The fire was in his passion, the ice the medium he used to keep the other suppressed. It was a dynamic combination, one that set some secret engine she hadn’t known she possessed humming throughout her entire system. She had never experienced anything like it. But it held her completely captivated as she watched the passion melt its way through the ice until all that was left was a blistering intent that began scorching her flesh. ‘Luiz, this isn’t—’ Funny, she had been going to say, but he reached for her, caught her wrists and used them to draw her body against him, then fed them around his neck. Burning eyes became hidden beneath sweeping lashes as he lowered his gaze to where his fingers began to undo the tiny buttons down the front of her top. It was all so intense, so very macho that she didn’t know whether she was feeling fiercely excited by it or just plain scared. But she didn’t attempt to get away from him—which was an answer, she supposed. And as his hands brushed the top aside, to reveal the flimsy thin silk bra beneath, her spine arched slightly in feline invitation for him to touch what he had uncovered. Yet when he did touch her he did it in a way that completely snagged her breath. Because it was not the sensually possessive caress she had been expecting. His hands simply needed to touch her like this. ‘Why?’ she whispered. She just didn’t understand this man one iota. He could be so cold, so utterly ruthless with his demands. But this was different. This was—compulsion. ‘I need you,’ was all he said. Then his mouth was crushing hers apart, and nothing else seemed to matter after that. Their clothes disappeared in hurried succession, their flesh coming together in an intoxicating mix of hunger, heat and sweat. The bed waited, and as they folded down onto its soft mattress the smell of fleshly starched linen came wafting cleanly round them. It was a smell that seemed to make it all perfect, somehow, though Caroline didn’t know why it should. As time made deep and sensual inroads into the afternoon, without them being aware of it passing, they forget where they were supposed to be going—or maybe they chose to forget. It didn’t seem to matter. It was hot and it was steamy and it was a much more appealing journey, one that explored the senses to the exclusion of none, allowed no room for inhibition. It pretended that this was good and right and absolutely the only thing in the world either of them should be doing. So they made love all afternoon, slept a little in an intimate tangle of limbs, before rousing to begin making love all over again. ‘Why, Luiz?’ she dared to ask him again, when they’d quietened. ‘Why are we here like this?’ ‘You’re always asking me why,’ he complained, nuzzling his mouth against her throat. ‘Only because you keep hitting me with the unexpected,’ she told him. ‘Well, I thought the answer this time should be obvious,’ he said with a grimace. ‘You’re so beautiful you make me ache,’ he murmured deeply. ‘And so damn desirable that I can’t even control myself long enough to get us from one place to another without having to stop off in the middle of the journey to do—this…’ His mouth took hers in the kind of kiss that sent any further words spinning off into oblivion. But she knew that, no matter how good for her ego his answer had been, it wasn’t the real reason why they had ended up here in this bed, making love like this. She had triggered something back at the lunch table when she had given away the fact that she’d missed him in her bed last night. She only wished she could understand what that something was, because then maybe she could begin to understand Luiz. Eventually they reluctantly decided that they should be moving if they wanted to reach their destination before dark. Caroline went off to shower in the tiny bathroom they had discovered down the corridor. When she came back it was to find that the sun had left this side of the building and Luiz had opened the shutters and the windows to allow some warm but fresher air to filter into the room. He was standing over a small breakfast-type table on which, she was surprised to find, rested a wooden tray with what looked like a plate of sandwiches and a tall jug full of iced water. ‘Mmm, the hotelier in action, I see,’ she remarked lightly. He glanced round, grimaced a smile at her, then turned back to the two tall tumblers he was in the process of filling. ‘We didn’t really do lunch justice,’ he said. ‘And, knowing the Spanish habit of eating late in the evening, I thought we might as well have a snack before we leave.’ The ice chinked as it fell from jug to tumbler, and drew her across the room. She hadn’t realised she was feeling so thirsty until she heard that irresistible sound. ‘Thank you,’ she said, accepting a glass from him. ‘The sandwiches are only cheese and ham, but help yourself,’ he invited—then turned to go and take his turn in the bathroom, leaving Caroline to gulp thirstily at the water as she took another interested look around her. What had only been quite seductively mystical shadows in the room before had now taken on rather interesting shapes with the light streaming in. The pale green painted walls wore the patina of age, and the polished floor had thick hand-made rugs thrown upon it. The bed was one of those big old heavy things you had to hitch yourself up to sit upon, and the two bedside cabinets had a pair of matching table lamps on them that would probably fetch a tidy sum in today’s post-war collectors’ market. Which was her professional head talking, she acknowledged with a wry smile as she chose a sandwich then sat down in one of the two leather club chairs that flanked the little table. For she liked the two lamps exactly where they were, so to start thinking of how much they would fetch at auction, only to be carried off elsewhere, was not where she wanted her mind to go right now. In fact she liked the whole room in general, and was aware, when she thought that, why she did. This room would always stay in her memory as the place where she finally found peace with her own feelings for Luiz. She loved him, she wanted him, she needed to be with him, no matter how he’d used her in the past or was using her now, in the present. And if Luiz never came to love her back, at least she knew without a single doubt that he wanted her—passionately. She could live with that. She could build on that. He arrived back in the room freshly showered and dressed again, and her stomach gave a soft curling quiver in recognition of the way she was feeling about him now. Picking up a sandwich, he took the other chair and folded his long frame into it. ‘Not quite a palace,’ he drawled, glancing round them. ‘Nice, though.’ She smiled. ‘I like little out-of-the way places like this.’ ‘As opposed to five-star air conditioned luxury?’ he mocked. She nodded, still smiling. ‘This place has soul,’ she explained. ‘It has secrets hidden in its darkest closets.’ Not to mention my own secret, she mused ruefully. ‘It has stories to tell of things long ago. These chairs, for instance,’ she said, reaching for her tumbler. ‘Who sat in them first? Who spilled their pot of ink on this wonderful table?’ she pondered, stroking a loving finger over the black stain. ‘Was it a woman? Was she writing a farewell note to her secret lover, so blinded by her own tears that she knocked the pot over? Or was it a man?’ she then suggested, her eyes darkening subtly as she wove stories in a way her father would have recognised, because she had always done it. But for Luiz this was new, and it held him riveted as he watched her softened face and listened to her dreamy voice. ‘Was he so engrossed in writing his one big novel that he spilled the ink in distraction?’ ‘Both things could happen just as easily in a five-star hotel,’ Luiz pointed out dryly. But Caroline shook her head. ‘If this table had had ink spilled on it in one of your hotels it would have been replaced with a nice new one before you had a chance to blink. No soul in that, Luiz,’ she told him sagely. ‘No soul at all.’ ‘So you like all things old and preferably flawed.’ He smiled. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’ ‘I like some things old and sometimes flawed,’ she amended. ‘I also like new, so long as it tells a story. I like interesting,’ she decided that said it best. ‘Well, I think I can probably promise you interesting where we are going,’ he said. And suddenly the cynicism was back. Impulsively Caroline reached for his hand across the table. ‘Don’t, Luiz,’ she pleaded. ‘Don’t spoil it.’ He glanced down to where her hand covered his. His expression remained cast in stone for a while, then he released a small sigh, turning his hand to capture hers, and got to his feet, pulling her up with him. His mouth was gentle on hers—seeming to be offering an apology. But when she made a move to deepen the kiss he withdrew, and his expression was still closed when he said, ‘We really have to be going.’ The afternoon of near perfect harmony, she realised, was over… CHAPTER EIGHT LEAVING Los Aminos behind, they began another twenty miles or so of driving before they would reach their destination. As the car ate up the miles so the scenery changed, from sprawling plains into rolling hills at first, then eventually into a more rugged terrain, where the hills took on the shape of forest-covered mountains. The quality of the road they were travelling on changed also, narrowing to little more than a single car width as it wound them upwards on a steep climb that hugged a mountain face on one side and left sheer drops into deep ravines exposed on the other. ‘How much further?’ Caroline asked, beginning to feel as if they had been climbing for ever. ‘The next valley,’ Luiz replied. And his tension was back, in the clenched jawbone, the white-knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel. He didn’t want to come here, she silently reiterated. He didn’t want to be this person who had to meet with people who were already programmed to hate and resent him. And there was a hint of ill-omen in the way the air on the mountain suddenly turned colder, raising goosebumps on her arms she rubbed at with a small shiver. Instantly Luiz touched a switch that changed the air conditioning from cold to warm. ‘You should have brought a sweater,’ he said. ‘If I’d known where we were coming, perhaps I might have thought of that myself,’ she smiled ruefully. ‘There’s a car rug on the back seat if you—’ ‘I’m fine,’ she softly assured him, wishing she could say the same about Luiz. But he was far from fine, she observed worriedly. For the higher they climbed the more tense he became. ‘You could always make the grand gesture and pass everything over to your half-brother then just walk away,’ she gently suggested. His dark head shook. ‘That isn’t an option,’ he stated. ‘Because you feel he owes you for the years you had nothing while he had everything?’ she posed. ‘Because it just isn’t an option,’ he repeated in a tight voice that warned her that she was prodding what was really a very dangerous animal, the way he was feeling right now. On a sigh, she took the hint, and fell silent. They were driving between the tall peaks of two mountains now, still hugging the side of one while the other stood guard in the distance. And really, Caroline observed, if they didn’t reach the valley soon then the only place left for them to go would be off the side of the mountain, because surely they couldn’t climb any higher? Then—without warning—it finally happened. They rounded a deep bend, suddenly found themselves driving through a split in the mountain—and there it was. The most beautiful place Caroline had ever seen in her entire life. ‘Oh, Luiz,’ she breathed, while he seemed to freeze for a couple of taut seconds, before bringing the car to a stop. After that they both sat there and just stared in breathless awe at what had opened up in front of them. The Valle de los Angeles…It could not possibly be anything else, Caroline decided. And they’d caught it at probably one of its most perfect moments, with the late sun pouring fire down its lush green slopes to brush everything on the wide valley bottom with a touch of sheer magic. Directly below them blushing white-painted buildings stood clustered around a tiny church sitting in the centre of the village square. From there, and running parallel with the valley, snaked a gentle stream with a narrow dirt road running beside it through line upon line of what looked like fruit trees planted in uniform rows. And there, standing out like the place from which all fairytales were conceived, stood a white-walled, red-roofed castle, complete with battlements and cylindrical towers, and even a drawbridge beneath which the stream ran while the dirt road stopped in front of it. ‘This is perfection,’ Caroline whispered. Luiz stiffened sharply, as if the sound of her voice had woken him from a daze. But he said not a word—not a single word. He just put the car into gear and set them moving again—with a whole new level of tension sizzling around him that kept Caroline’s tongue still. Going down into the valley was not as hair-raising as it had been climbing up to it. Instead of teeth-tingling sheer drops on one side they were zigzagging down through a series of carefully cultivated terraces that spread out on either side of them. It was all so lush and green and obviously fertile that it was no surprise to find herself recognising just about every fruit-bearing shrub and plant imaginable growing here. The road eventually brought them out in the valley bottom, just behind the village. Driving through the village itself was another experience entirely. People were out, strolling or just chatting to their neighbours, while dogs barked around the feet of playing children. It was like entering another world. Nothing about the place seemed quite real. Not the dark-eyed, dark-haired simply dressed people or their immaculate white homes with their brightly coloured painted doors and shutters. And the sense of unreality deepened when everyone went still and stared as they drove by. Oh, my, Caroline thought, they know who we are! Or at least, she amended that, they know who Luiz is. And she felt the hairs on the back of her neck began to tingle as she watched them stare curiously in through the sun-tinted car windows at Luiz’s stern dark profile. ‘Do I start referring to you as el conde now?’ she asked in a shaky attempt to lighten the tension. ‘Try the Vazquez bastard,’ Luiz gritted. And that was the point when she began to lose her patience with him, because while Luiz was busy seeing himself as the Vazquez bastard, he was blinding himself to what these people were seeing when they looked at him. They were seeing the lean, dark, arrogant profile of one of their own. They were seeing their own black silk hair and olive-tinted skin and dark brown eyes that stated, quite plainly, Here is one of us. Their expressions were not deriding or hostile, or even vaguely contemptuous, they were simply curious. If anything, it was the glances she received that brought other forces to the fore. For what was she to these people? She was a pale-skinned, blonde-haired utter stranger, with eyes the colour of amethysts. Nothing even remotely familiar about the way she looked to them. When the road opened up into the village square, with the sweet little church in its centre, the people all jumped to attention—except for one young man, who ran across the square then into the church. Mere seconds later, a priest in his simple black robes appeared in the opening. Very tall, very thin, and with a shock of white hair framing his lined face, he watched them pass by with a solemn shrewdness that made Caroline’s insides tingle. ‘Is this the church where we are expected to marry?’ she asked in a choked little voice. ‘Yes,’ Luiz replied. ‘Then don’t you think we should have stopped and at least passed the time of day with the priest?’ It was censure and anxiety rolled into one question, because she didn’t want to offend these people, and she was sure that once Luiz had got over whatever it was that was slowly killing him he wouldn’t want to think that he had offended anyone either. Luiz shook his head. Not once did he let his eyes divert from the way ahead as he grimly kept them moving across the square and through the next gauntlet of curious spectators. He didn’t even relax when they left the village and began to pass between the neatly tended fruit groves. Orange groves, lemon groves, peach and apricot groves. ‘How can a place like this be bankrupt?’ she questioned on a fresh bout of awe. It was all so rich in everything that life could offer. ‘Through the extravagances of its previous owners,’ Luiz informed her cynically. He had to mean his own father. ‘Nobody owns something like this,’ Caroline objected. ‘They are merely guardians, whose responsibility it is to take care of it all during their term of office. And if they can’t see what an honour and a privilege that has to be, then they deserve to lose custody.’ ‘Spoken like a true lady to the manor born,’ Luiz derided. ‘Maybe I should just cut my unworthy losses and sign it all over to you.’ ‘And you can mock me all you like, el conde,’ she sniped right back, ‘But if you can’t grasp the concept of what I am saying then maybe you should do just that.’ ‘Lecture over?’ Luiz clipped. ‘Yes,’ she sighed, wondering wearily why she bothered to take him on like this. The man was impervious to anything anyone said that didn’t suit his own view of things! ‘I’ve finished.’ ‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘Because I think we’ve arrived, and I am beginning to feel like hell…’ As surprise admissions went, that one really managed to strike at the heart of her. She turned in her seat, saw how pale he had gone, saw how clenched his face muscles were and automatically looked where he was looking—and felt everything inside her shudder to a resounding halt. For while they had been sniping at each other they had come to the end of the fruit groves and driven over the drawbridge, beneath a wide archway cut into the whitewashed wall that surrounded what she supposed must be the castle’s private enclave. She had never, ever seen anything quite like it. From up on the mountain it had all looked pretty stunning, but from down here, on the valley bottom and this close up, the castle was nothing short of enchanting, with its whitewashed walls blushing in the dying sunlight. It was all so outstandingly—dramatically—beautiful. Even the formally laid out gardens they were now passing through took the breath away. The driveway opened up into a wide cobbled courtyard with a statue of Neptune spouting water into a circular pool, guarding the huge arched entrance into the castle itself. Luiz stopped the car. Without a word they climbed out, then just stood gazing around. ‘It’s a folly,’ Caroline murmured softly. ‘Hmm?’ Luiz’s dark head swung round to frown a blank look at her. ‘The castle,’ she explained. ‘It’s not what it appears to be.’ ‘What makes you say that?’ He seemed to have a struggle to get his voice to work, but once he had spoken some of that awful strain eased from his face. ‘Look around you,’ she invited. ‘There is absolutely no reason for anyone to build a fortified castle down here in the valley. The mountains themselves are the only protection needed down here. If you’d wanted to protect what was yours, you would have built up there, where we came in through the pass in the mountain. This…’ she gave a nod of her head towards the castle ‘…was built to satisfy someone’s eccentric ego. A folly,’ she repeated, looking frontward again. ‘But a beautiful folly…’ And if his family were guilty of bankrupting themselves due to their personal extravagances, she added silently, then at least it had not been at the expense of their exquisite home. Luiz’s home now, she extended, looking across the top of the car at this man who was such a complicated mix of so many different cultures that it was no wonder he kept most of his real self hidden—he probably didn’t know who he actually was himself! ‘We’re being watched,’ Luiz murmured. ‘Mmm,’ Caroline replied. ‘I know.’ She had felt the eyes piercing her flesh from behind leaded glass windows from the moment they climbed out of the car. ‘So, what do you want to do now?’ she asked. ‘Bang on the door and claim ownership? Or do we take the more civilised approach and wait until we are invited in?’ But even as she put the two lightly mocking suggestions to him the great door behind Neptune was drawing open. Her heart skipped a beat. On the other side of the car she heard Luiz’s feet scrape against gravel. Without thinking twice about it, she walked around the car and went to stand beside him. As she did so a man appeared in the doorway, small, thin and quite old, his expressionless face giving no hint as to whether they were to be made welcome or simply grudgingly allowed to enter the castle’s hallowed inner sanctum. ‘It looks like it’s showtime,’ Caroline said softly. ‘Looks like it,’ Luiz agreed, and although he reached out to catch hold of her hand, as if he needed to feel her presence for moral support, she was relieved to see that the implacable Luiz Vazquez was back in place again and the other, tense and uncomfortable one had been firmly shut away. Together they walked around the fountain and up to the door. With a slight bow of his dark head, the man murmured, ‘Welcome Se?or—Se?orita,’ with absolutely no inflexion in his voice whatsoever. ‘If you would kindly come this way?’ The man stepped to one side in an invitation for them to precede him inside, and as the door closed quietly behind them they found themselves standing in a vast hallway built of oak and stone, with an eight-foot-wide solid stone stairway as its main feature. The rough plastered walls were painted in a soft peach colour, adding warmth to what could quite easily appear coldly inhospitable. Caroline felt her tummy muscles begin to flutter. Beside her, Luiz’s fingers tightened their grip on hers. He was used to big reception halls. He was used to standing in beautiful surroundings. But this was different. This was his past meeting head-on with his present. Even she, who had always known the place where her roots were planted, was acutely aware of how significant this moment must be for him. Yet his voice was smooth and as calm as still water when he turned to speak to the old man. ‘And you are?’ he enquired, sounding every inch the noble Conde. Considering what she knew he was feeling inside, Caroline was proud of him. ‘Pedro, sir. I am the butler here,’ the old man replied—and there was respect in his tone. He for one wasn’t condemning Luiz for being the Vazquez bastard. ‘Please,’ he invited. ‘If you will follow me…’ He began leading them across a polished stone floor past two suits of armour that were guarding the stairs. There were artefacts scattered about this hall that made Caroline’s head whirl as it went into professional mode. Maybe Luiz knew it. ‘Enough soul here for you?’ he questioned lazily. ‘Interesting,’ she shot back with a smile, then moved a little closer to his side when Pedro opened a pair of huge wooden doors and bowed them politely inside. ‘Se?or Luiz Vazquez and Se?orita Newbury,’ he announced, to whoever was waiting for them. And Caroline hadn’t missed the fact that the butler had not referred to Luiz as el conde once since they had arrived. If Luiz noticed the omission, he didn’t show it. His expression was relaxed, his grip on Caroline’s hand secure, and his stride was as graceful as always as he strode into what turned out to be a beautifully appointed drawing room, with a huge stone fireplace that almost filled one wall—where a woman stood, awaiting their arrival. Black-haired, black-eyed, slender and petite, she was wearing a silver grey silk suit that was as steely-looking as the expression she was wearing on her face as she stared directly at Luiz, while he stared coldly back. For a long, dreadful moment after Pedro had quietly retired, closing the door behind him, nobody uttered a single word while these two main protagonists studied each other, and Caroline stood witnessing it happen without taking a single breath. Then, ‘Welcome,’ the woman said. ‘T??a Consuela,’ Luiz replied stiltedly. Caroline hid the urge to frown. T??a? she was thinking. Why was Luiz referring to this woman as his aunt? Surely if she was anything to him then she was some kind of stepmother? ‘You look like your father,’ the woman observed. ‘And you have a look of my mother—though you look in much better health than she did when I saw her last.’ Incisive, cold enough to freeze the blood, it was also a puzzle solved for Caroline. This woman was Luiz’s mother’s sister. It was no wonder his grip was suddenly biting into her fingers. What had gone on here thirty-odd years ago? Feuds and fortunes, he’d said, she recalled suddenly. And she began to get a sense of what had probably happened, most of it revolving round two sisters, one man, and all of—this… The slight hint of pallor had touched the other woman’s face. But her eyes did not waver. ‘Serena was a romantic fool, Luiz,’ she responded. ‘You will not make me feel guilty for picking up what she so stupidly trampled upon.’ At which point Caroline did actually wince, as her fingers were crushed almost to the bone. Fearing that Luiz was about to do something violent, she burst into speech. ‘Introduce me, Luiz,’ she prompted lightly. For a second she thought he was going to ignore her, then he complied, tersely. ‘Caroline, this is my mother’s sister and my father’s widow, Consuela de Vazquez,’ ‘Hello.’ She winged a bright smile across the room towards his stiff-faced aunt. ‘I’m so excited about coming here. The castle is so beautiful, isn’t it? But I don’t think it’s as old as it would like to be,’ she said, knowing she was babbling like a fluffy blonde idiot, but she didn’t care so long as she could overlay the cold hostility threading through the other two. ‘It wants to be eleventh century, but I would hazard a guess at only sixteenth century.’ ‘Seventeenth,’ another voice intruded. ‘In a fit of pique, when his biggest rival for the hand of a certain lady won the lady’s heart because of the size of his home, our ancestor came home here to the valley and built himself his own impressive structure—then married the lady’s younger sister. History has a habit of repeating itself in this family—as you will soon learn, I predict.’ Caroline had frozen where she stood, the voice familiar enough to send her floundering in a sea of confusion as a tall, dark, very attractive man appeared from way down at the other end of the long drawing room. He paused and smiled at her stunned expression, and—completely ignoring Luiz—went on in that same light, self-assured way which had repelled Caroline so much the first time she’d met him. ‘Felipe de Vazquez,’ he announced himself. ‘At your service, Miss Newbury.’ It was the man from the lift in Luiz’s hotel in Marbella. ‘We never did get around to introducing ourselves, did we?’ he added with a lazy smile. ‘Se?or,’ she acknowledged. And it was only entrenched good manners that made her accept his outstretched hand. His fingers closed around hers, cool and smooth and infinitely polite. ‘Felipe, please…’ he invited. ‘We are going to be related very soon, after all…’ Instinctively her other hand tightened in Luiz’s and she moved a small fraction closer to him. It was strange in its own way, but as she found herself making comparisons between Luiz’s bone-crushing grip on one of her hands and his half-brother’s light clasp, on the other, she knew which grip she felt safer with. But then she was remembering the last time she’d met the man, and the suspicion she’d had then that if she’d tried to break away his grip would have tightened painfully—a sensation that was attacking her again right now. ‘Felipe,’ she acknowledged politely, and used the moment to slip her hand free and place it flat on Luiz’s chest. It was such an obvious declaration of intimacy that no one, not even Luiz, missed that fact. ‘Luiz, isn’t this a coincidence?’ She smiled, keeping her tone light with effort. ‘I met your half-brother in the hotel only the other evening, and had no idea he was related to you.’ ‘Yes,’ Luiz drawled. ‘What a coincidence.’ It was too soft, too smooth, too lazy to be nice. She knew Luiz, knew the way he worked, the angrier he got the quieter he became. Did Felipe recognise that? she wondered, when his dark eyes eventually moved to clash with his long lost halfbrother’s eyes. ‘So we meet at last.’ Felipe smiled ruefully. At last? The words hit Caroline like a punch to her solar plexus. Because surely if she had first seen Felipe at the hotel then Luiz must have known he was there? Obviously not, she concluded, when Luiz replied dryly, ‘Not before time, maybe.’ The atmosphere suddenly became very complicated as a confusion of rather unpredictable emotions went skittering around all three of them. There was ice—a lot of ice. There was curiosity. There was mutual antagonism born from an instant burst of sibling rivalry where both men carefully judged the weight of the other. She wasn’t sure which one of them actually came out on top in that short silent battle, but she certainly knew which one of them held the position of power—no matter what the mental outcome. ‘Welcome home, Luiz.’ With a slightly wry smile that told her Felipe was acknowledging the same thing, he conceded the higher ground to his half-brother. ‘May your next twenty years be more fortuitous than your first twenty…’ It was such an openly cruel thing to say that even his mother released a gasp. So did Caroline, her fingers curling tensely into Luiz’s shirt in sheer reflex, as if she was trying to soothe the savage beast before it leapt into action. But Luiz, to everyone’s surprise, laughed. ‘Let’s certainly hope so,’ he agreed. ‘Or this place could be in deep trouble—as we all know.’ Tit for tat. Cut and thrust. Luiz had won that round. And he hadn’t finished, not by a long shot. ‘Which reminds me,’ he went on in the brisk cool voice of a true business tycoon, ‘I have a lot I need to get through here before our wedding takes place next week. So can we start with a tour of the place, before I settle down to some good old-fashioned household accounting…?’ CHAPTER NINE CAROLINE was sitting quietly in the window of her allotted valley-facing guestroom when a light tap sounded at her door. For a few precious moments she seriously contemplated not answering. It had been a horrible few days. Days filled with wariness and tension and eyes watching everything she did and everywhere she went as if they were worried she might decide to run off with the silver! On top of that, Luiz had taken on the mantle of responsibility here as if it was just another new acquisition in his multinational group. He was quiet, he was calm, he was cool and he was exceedingly businesslike. People—staff, mainly—were already in complete awe of him. They scuttled about like little rabbits earnestly eager to make a good impression. And, all in all, the changes he had put into place already were enough to make the average person gasp. But this wasn’t a business proposition, was it? It was a home—though admittedly a very unusual home. But how did you attempt to point something like that out to a man who barely acknowledged your existence? Luiz wasn’t talking to her. He was angry about something, though she didn’t know what. It was difficult to find out when he seemed to have locked himself away inside a suit of armour that wouldn’t look out of place in the castle hallway! She had an itchy feeling his mood stemmed from the fact that she’d met his half-brother before he had. He’d quizzed her about that chance meeting. No—grilled her was a better word. ‘Where did you meet? How did you meet? What did he say? How did he say it?’ When she’d grown angry and demanded to know why it was so important, he’d simply walked away! Five minutes later she’d seen him standing in the castle grounds with a cellular phone clamped to his ear. Whoever he had been speaking to had been receiving the lash of his angry tongue. Even from up here in this room, looking down into darkness, she had been able to see that. Since then she had hardly set eyes on him, except to share meals across a dining table with others there to squash any hope of meaningful probing into what was rattling him. They even slept in separate rooms. Now if that was a simple case of maintaining some old-fashioned values here in this time-lock of a valley, then Caroline could understand and accept that. But his cold attitude towards her on every count hurt, even though she kept on telling herself that it shouldn’t. The tap sounded again. On a sigh she got up, and went to answer it. It was one of the little doe eyed maids. ‘Excuse me, Se?orita,’ she murmured. ‘Don?a Consuela send me to tell you that the padre is here wishing to talk to you?’ The padre. Her heart sank. ‘All right, thank you, Abril. Will you tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes?’ Where was Luiz? she wondered heavily as she crossed to her bathroom. But she knew where Luiz was—or least where he wasn’t, she amended. Because Luiz certainly wasn’t here in the valley. In fact, Luiz had flown off in the helicopter that had arrived to pick him up early this morning and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. The helicopter landing pad was just one of the changes Luiz had brought into being since they’d arrived here. He’d had ten men from the village clearing a spot over in the far corner of the garden before Caroline had even got out of bed on that first morning. Another addition he’d had put in at incredible speed was the telecommunications mast erected at the top of the valley—to improve satellite reception, he’d explained over dinner. Apparently you couldn’t run a multinational group without good communication. Shame he didn’t apply the same principles to his personal life! But he didn’t, so she now had to go and face the padre without knowing a single thing about the wedding proposed for next week, because Luiz hadn’t bothered to discuss it with her! It was going to make her look really good in the padre’s eyes if he discovered that he knew more about it than the bride herself! I’m going to kill you very soon, Luiz Vazquez, she promised him silently as she checked over her cream skirt and lavender top—which were beginning to look a little the worse for wear now, along with the other things she had brought to Spain with her. When she’d left London she had packed for a three-day short break in a hotel. She had not packed for parties in villas and cross-country travelling, or exploring the many admittedly interesting rooms inside a castle! She found the padre waiting for her in the small sitting room the family tended to use during the day because it opened directly into the garden. T??a Consuela was waiting with him, but once she had introduced Caroline to Padre Domingo, she left them alone. In truth, Caroline felt sorry for Consuela. In the last few months she had lost her husband, seen her own son being disinherited of everything she must know he had every right to consider his, and was about to lose her right to live in the home that had been hers for the last thirty-odd years. Yet the way she had remained on here, taking whatever Luiz wanted to throw at her, had in Caroline’s view been rather impressive. Personally she couldn’t have done it. Pride alone would have sent her running for cover well before her estranged nephew could show his face. But, cold and remote though she always was, she had answered all Luiz’s intense, sometimes acutely detailed questions about the running of the castle, and was quick to refer him on to those who knew more about the running of the rest of the estate. While her son did nothing, offered no information and kept himself very much to himself by riding one of his beautiful Andalusian horses out each morning and not coming back until it was so dark that he had to. Felipe had gone from charmer to brooder in a couple of very short phases. And he might have remained on here, like his mother, but unlike her he did nothing to hide his simmering resentment. Not that Caroline could really blame him for feeling like that. For, no matter what legal right Luiz had to be here, Felipe, had every excuse for feeling angry and bitterly betrayed by his father. She just wished she could like him more on a personal level, then maybe she could become a kind of go-between for the two half-brothers, give them a fine line of communication which might help bring them closer together. ‘Se?orita Newbury,’ Padre Domingo greeted her smilingly. ‘It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance at last.’ Taking his proffered hand, Caroline smiled in answer. ‘I called to see you yesterday but missed you.’ ‘I was visiting a compadre in the next valley.’ He nodded. ‘We like to get together once a week to—compare flocks. But I was sorry to be out when you called.’ Pleasantries over, it was a bit difficult to know where to go from there. so she covered her own feeling of awkwardness by inviting him to sit down. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she offered. ‘Tea, coffee—or something cooler, perhaps?’ But he shook his white head and with a slight wave of one beautifully slender hand invited her to sit before he would allow himself to do so. ‘You liked our little church?’ he enquired when they had both settled into Louis the Fifteenth chairs still wearing their original upholstery. Caroline smiled. ‘It’s the prettiest church I’ve ever set foot in,’ she answered honestly. ‘But then this whole valley is the prettiest I’ve ever stepped foot in,’ she added with a warm twinkle in her eyes. ‘But very isolated,’ the father pointed out. ‘Part of its charm,’ Caroline immediately defended, with that same teasing twinkle. ‘And also very—Catholic…’ Ah, she thought, losing the twinkle. ‘Is that going to be a problem?’ she asked. ‘Luiz and I marrying in your church with me not being a Roman Catholic, I mean?’ she went on, thinking silently—where are you Luiz? You should have seen this problem arising! In his neat black robe with its round white collar the father eyed her thoughtfully from his thin, wise face. ‘Is it a problem for you?’ he countered eventually. ‘Only if you expect me to make a sudden conversion,’ she answered candidly. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not expect that sacrifice of you—as I would hope your English church would not expect the same thing of Luiz if the situation were reversed. See, we are emancipated here.’ He smiled then. ‘Even in our sleepy little valley.’ ‘But there is a problem?’ Caroline prompted shrewdly. It was written in his thoughtful stare. ‘The problem is more one of—sincerity than religion,’ he murmured slowly, and when Caroline began to frown in confusion he seemed to come to a decision. ‘Let me be blunt, Miss Newbury,’ he said. ‘It has come to my attention that you and Don Luiz are intending to exchange sacred vows with each other which may not be exactly truthful, and indeed are merely a means to a rather sinister end…’ Sinister? Caroline picked up on the word and pondered it frowningly, suddenly very wary as to where the priest was going with this. ‘Are you trying to suggest that every marriage in your church has been a perfect love-match?’ she questioned, aware that if any culture was known for arranging loveless marriages, then surely Spain had to be it! ‘In this particular case, it is only your marriage to Don Luiz that I am concerned with,’ the priest replied smoothly. ‘You met for the first time only five days ago, I have been led to believe. Within hours of that meeting Don Luiz was announcing your intention to marry and your own father was collapsing due to the shock. It has also been suggested that your father is in debt to Don Luiz for a rather large amount of money which may well be the motive behind this—arrangement.’ ‘Suggested by whom?’ Even as the full weight of his words came as a bit of a blow Caroline’s hackles were rising—and it showed in the sudden glint in her amethyst eyes. ‘The source of my information is not really important,’ he dismissed with a wave of one slender hand. ‘My concern here is really for you, Se?orita,’ he explained. ‘I came here today with serious concerns that you were being—coerced into the marriage for reasons beyond your control.’ ‘Are you trying to tell me, that you are refusing to marry Luiz and I?’ she challenged, coming stiffly to her feet. She simply had not been expecting him to question their sincerity like this. Inherent good manners made him rise to his feet also. ‘No,’ he denied. ‘Don Luiz is the new conde here in this valley. If he tells me to marry him to a lady gagged and chained to his side, then I marry them.’ He shrugged, adding with a wry smile, ‘There, the old ways are not quite dead, heh?’ And now it was his turn to flick her a twinkling smile. But Caroline was in no mood to twinkle back at him. ‘Then let me put your mind at rest,’ she said coolly. ‘Your information is wrong,’ she declared. ‘Luiz and I have known each other for seven years. We have been lovers for seven years.’ Which was not quite a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth. But in this situation it served her purpose very nicely to make that point. Surprised though the priest undoubtedly was by her correction, it didn’t faze him. ‘But have you loved Don Luiz for seven years?’ he threw right back. Love? Caroline repeated to herself, and smiled a half-smile that was more rueful than cynical, though she had a feeling it should have been the other way round. ‘I’ve always loved Luiz,’ she responded dryly. ‘But if you are going to ask me if he feels the same way about me,’ she added, ‘then please don’t.’ ‘Then of course I will not,’ he instantly conceded, and with eyes which conveyed a gentle apology for making her feel compelled to add that final remark, he gently touched one of Caroline’s hands. ‘Forgive my intrusion into what you clearly feel is your private business. But I had to be sure that you cared for Don Luiz before I could carry out his father’s last wish.’ His father’s last wish? Her eyes grew curious, but the priest had already turned away and was walking across the room to where a rather bulky attach? case she hadn’t noticed before lay on a table by the door. ‘I am now going to place something into your care Se?orita,’ he explained, ‘that I must make you promise to guard with your life and show to no one…’ For some obscure reason, watching him open the attach? case as he spoke those words made her feel suddenly afraid. ‘If it’s something that will hurt Luiz, then you can keep it,’ she told him. ‘I commend your desire to protect him,’ he replied, turning with what looked like several thin ledgers in his hands. ‘And—yes—these will hurt Don Luiz if he ever sees them. He is, of course, the one exception to the promise I am about to make you swear. Can you read Spanish as well as you speak it?’ he asked suddenly. Caroline nodded. She had spent most of her summers since she was a small child right here in Spain, and that meant that Spanish had become her second language. ‘Then, having read these—’ he indicated the ledgers ‘—I will leave it to your discretion to decide whether you think he needs to know all that has been written in here…’ He began to approach her, and it was all Caroline could do not to snatch her trembling hands behind her back. For whatever it was he was about to give her, she knew she didn’t want. He saw it in her face and paused two steps away. ‘These are the diaries of Don Luiz’s pap?,’ he informed her. ‘Left in my care long before Don Carlos was taken ill. They explain why Don Luiz inherits all and Don Felipe very little. They explain why Don Luiz has been his pap?’s beneficiary for the whole of his thirty-five years. So take them,’ he urged. ‘Read them and understand—for Luiz’s sake, please, Se?orita…’ Sombrely he held them out to her. Reluctantly Caroline accepted them, her fingers turning cold as they closed around the diaries; worse her heart felt as if it had turned to stone. She didn’t know why, didn’t understand what any of this was about. But she knew one thing as surely as she knew her name was Caroline: these books were dark things—dark and awful things. ‘I’ll read them,’ she promised. The priest nodded in silent understanding of the expression on her face and simply turned without another word to take his leave. But as he reached the door he paused, glanced back at her, still standing where he had left her in the middle of the room with the books clutched between tense white fingers. ‘You know, Se?orita,’ he murmured thoughtfully, ‘it is, I think, quite a curious coincidence that you should have known Don Luiz for seven years. For it was also seven years ago that he first agreed to come here and meet his pap? for the first time, only to abruptly change his mind. The reason he gave for that change, was that he had met the woman he was going to marry. Courting her, it seemed, was more important to him then than meeting his father. He did, though, promise to wed her here, in the church of the Valle de los Angeles, as was tradition. It seems he is about to keep that promise, hmm?’ He smiled. Then, before she could remark on that fresh piece of shock information, he was turning away again. ‘Read the diaries, Miss Newbury. And learn about the man who loves you as much I think as you love him,’ he advised as he left her alone. Hours later she wished to God that she hadn’t read the diaries. She wished to God that the whole Vazquez family had kept to their old ways and stayed right out of Luiz’s life. She hid the books away in her room on the top of a great oak wardrobe that stood against a wall. Then she went outside into the afternoon heat and paced the garden, lost in dark thoughts filled with heartache and betrayal, and the cruel sacrifice of one innocent child for the sake of another. ‘History repeating itself,’ Felipe had called it. Luiz had called it feuds and fortunes. Caroline called it unforgivable. And if Luiz knew only half of what she had just discovered via those diaries, then it was no wonder he had shut himself away inside an invisible suit of armour since coming here. This family was poison to anyone who touched them. Which brought to mind yet another remark made by his uncle the doctor. ‘Take a food-taster with you,’ he’d advised. He too knew that there was poison in this beautiful place. The only bit of good she had gleaned from those diaries had been confirmation that the priest had been telling the truth about Luiz’s intentions towards her seven years ago. But even that truth had its poisonous side. For, if Luiz had loved her then, why had he gone from her arms directly to a card table to try and bankrupt her father night after night? When the sound of a helicopter came whirring over the mountain, she wished Luiz had stayed away. She was still too upset, too confused. She needed more time to think, to absorb, and decide how much she was going to tell him about what she had learned today—if she was going to tell him anything at all. Yet as the helicopter landed on its newly prepared site she found herself standing there waiting for him. As he stepped down onto solid ground her heart began to fill with a multitude of emotions she just couldn’t separate. Dressed in a dark grey business suit with needle-sharp tailoring, bright white shirt and a steel-grey tie, he looked the true tycoon, the true nobleman. In fact no one looking at his lean, dark, proudly arrogant profile would believe he had spent the first twenty years of his life living literally from hand to mouth. He also looked sombre, she noticed, as if the worries of the whole world had suddenly descended upon him. She knew the feeling, since she was experiencing the very same thing herself. The fault of this valley? Was the fatal flaw in its beauty its need to taint all that came here? Fanciful though she knew she was being, she knew suddenly that she needed to be close to him—very badly. She also knew that she needed to get away from here, if only for a little while, to think, to regain some perspective. So the moment he was free of the helicopter’s lethal blades she began walking across the lawn to meet him. He saw her coming towards him and stopped and stared, as if he was seeing his life’s dream, before those heavily defended eyes were hiding as usual. And for no other reason than because she needed to, she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him urgently. His surprise was evident in the moment of tension she felt grip him, and for a couple of horrible seconds she thought he was actually going to thrust her away. Then his arms looped around her—tightly enough to crush her against his hard-packed body—and he began to kiss her back with a hunger that easily matched her own. It was like finding herself after being lost in a dark place for days upon end. Whatever else was between them that didn’t make sense, this always—always—felt so very right. He broke the kiss. She would have been content to remain right there, kissing him like this for ever. But those dark eyes of his were frowning down at her, probing the whitened pallor even the kiss had not managed to dispel. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded. ‘Who has upset you?’ Caroline just shook her head. ‘I missed you, that’s all,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’ve been missing you for days, though you didn’t seem to notice.’ ‘I noticed,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘I just thought it was better if I gave you time to yourself to—come to terms with all of this…’ ‘All of this’ being the fairytale castle standing behind them, that had suddenly become a very haunted castle for Caroline. ‘I don’t need time to come to terms with it,’ she denied. ‘I have something similar of my own in England, if you recall—though I admit it isn’t as grand as this. But—Luiz…’ Despite trying to, she couldn’t keep the strain from creeping into her tone. ‘Can we get away from here for a little while?’ she begged. ‘Just you and me, somewhere—ordinary? Can that thing fly us out—just for a couple of hours? Please?’ ‘You don’t like it here,’ he sighed. ‘I love it here,’ she insisted, knowing it was a lie and that at that precise moment she hated this valley and everything in it. ‘I just need some time away from it for a little while. Is that too much to ask?’ ‘No.’ He was still frowning, because he knew she wasn’t telling him the entire truth, but one of his hands flicked a staying motion at the pilot aimed to make him keep the engine running. ‘Where would you like to go? To Marbella?’ he suggested. ‘We can be there in—’ But Caroline was shaking her head. ‘There’s this little place I know. A secret place,’ she whispered confidingly, and her eyes began to warm with sensual promise. ‘It has the softest bed on this earth, I think. No air conditioning and a bathroom down the hall. But it has the most wonderfully cool and crinkly starched cotton sheets on the bed, and there won’t be a frosty face in sight…’ He was gazing down at her as if having to convince himself that she was suggesting what it seemed that she was. And Caroline’s breath snagged in her chest while she waited for some kind of response. Agreement or rejection? He was so unpredictable, burning hot, turning cold. Pounce and retreat. Trying to preempt his response was impossible, she acknowledged as his silence began to sew fine threads of tension beneath the surface of her skin. Then a sleek brow arched, mockery spiked his eyes. ‘Is this your ladylike way of inviting me for a dirty weekend, by any chance?’ he questioned sardonically. Put like that, it sounded so brazen that she felt her cheeks go red—then she caught the beginnings of his lazy smile and she smiled too. ‘I suppose I am,’ she admitted. ‘Though if you prefer the company of your family,’ she added innocently, ‘then I am open to compromise…’ His dark head went back and he started laughing. It was the best sound she had heard in days. Her heart literally swelled on the pleasure of it, and he was still laughing after he’d captured her hand and walked her back towards the waiting helicopter. Neither saw his half-brother watching them from the shrubbery. Neither saw the malignant glint in his eyes as he watched them lift off and fly away. They were dropped off in a clearing just outside Los Aminos and walked into the village hand in hand. They must look an odd kind of couple, Caroline decided wryly, with Luiz in his razor-sharp suit and her in her simple cream skirt and lavender top. The hotel proprietor was the same, and his eyes rounded as they stepped through the door. At the appearance of an exorbitant amount of money, the round-eyed look changed to one of obsequious respect which produced the same key to the same room with exactly the same bed. ‘I’m even wearing the same clothes,’ Caroline whispered to Luiz as they climbed the stairs hand in hand. ‘And the same pink bloom on your cheeks,’ he added teasingly. And as the bloom deepened on her first realisation of what she had actually dared to propose here, he shut the door with one hand and reached for her with the other. They didn’t go back to the castle that night. It was a wonderful warm, enchanted experience, where Caroline felt as if she had found the lover she had carelessly lost—not once but twice, when she thought about the last few lonely days. They made love as if there would be no tomorrow. They touched and kissed and caressed each other as if this would be their last opportunity. It was all very hot, very serious and intense. ‘You were my first true love,’ she softly confessed to him at one point. His eyes turned black in their sleepy sockets. ‘And you, believe it or not, were mine,’ he replied. But—no, she couldn’t accept that. For a man who loved someone didn’t take her family for every penny he could squeeze out of it, she thought sadly, and to bury the sadness she took his dark face between her hands and brought his mouth crushing down on top of her own. Maybe he sensed her sadness, maybe he saw it just before she buried it away. Whatever—something thrust him onto a whole new plane of passion. It was devastatingly rich, and left her floating in a place of boneless satiation from which she didn’t return for ages. When she eventually did decide to open her eyes, she found herself curled into Luiz’s side with her cheek resting on his shoulder; it was growing dark outside. ‘We didn’t tell anyone we were leaving,’ she remarked—without much concern for the omission. ‘I sent the pilot back to make our excuses,’ he replied. ‘They are to expect us when they see us.’ He sounded so arrogant then, so much the lord of his valley that she released a soft chuckle. The sound brought his hand to her nape so he could make her look at him. ‘That was the first sound of genuine amusement I’ve heard from you since we met again,’ he told her huskily. ‘What did you expect?’ She pouted. ‘When you’ve done nothing but blackmail and bully me!’ It was supposed to be a tease, but Luiz didn’t smile. Instead his eyes remained darkly probing. ‘I didn’t bully you to get you here tonight,’ he quietly pointed out. ‘No,’ she agreed. She had been the one doing the bullying this time. ‘Are you ready to explain to me now what happened today to make you want to run away like this?’ So he knew she hadn’t been telling the truth back at the castle. She turned her face down again, and began watching the way her fingers were drawing whirls into his chest hair. ‘I had a visitor,’ she said, deciding to come clean with the truth—or part of the truth anyway. ‘The village priest,’ she explained. Luiz had gone still; even his heart seemed to have slowed beneath her resting cheek. ‘And…?’ he prompted very quietly. ‘And he wanted to know if our planned wedding was a sham.’ She smiled. ‘Was he threatening not to marry us?’ Clever, quick Luiz, she thought. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘In fact he assured me that if el conde came to his altar with his bride chained and gagged he would marry them.’ ‘Then what was his point?’ Now there was a question, she thought, and on a soft rueful laugh she sat up, to run her fingers through her tangled hair. ‘His point was, I think,’ she began slowly, choosing her words with care, ‘to make me aware that certain—rumours were circulating the valley about the sincerity of our feelings for one another.’ ‘Rumours?’ he repeated. ‘Mmm.’ She nodded. ‘Apparently it is being said that you and I met for the first time only a few days before you brought me here as your bride…’ ‘And you said—what?’ He hadn’t moved a single muscle since this had started, and Caroline now had her back towards him, so she couldn’t see his face. The worst thing about Luiz, she told herself grimly, was his annoying ability to speak without giving a single hint as to what he was thinking. ‘I told him the information was inaccurate,’ she said. ‘That we had known each other for seven years. Then I lied a bit,’ she added with a shrug, ‘and told him we had been lovers for seven years…’ Only it hadn’t felt much like a lie when she had said it, she recalled. In fact it was probably closer to the truth than anyone would believe—in her case at least. ‘To which he said what?’ ‘You’re very good at this,’ she remarked, turning her head to level him with a dry look. Two sleek black brows rose in enquiry. Her stomach muscles leapt. He’s such a sexy devil, she thought helplessly. ‘The Spanish Inquisition,’ she explained. ‘In fact you remind me of a dripping tap. You just steadily and relentlessly drop your questions until you get to know what it is you’re after.’ ‘To which he said—what?’ he repeated, and there wasn’t a single alteration in those black holes for eyes. She looked away again, and a heavy sigh whispered from her because the truth was out of bounds. And there was another problem she had been worrying over since the priest’s visit. ‘I think he was trying to warn us that someone is making trouble for you,’ she said. ‘Someone is feeding rumours about the valley that you and I are a sham—which is, I presume, their way of making sure we will never gain the people’s respect. The other rumour is that you have more or less bought me from my father. Now, who but you and I know anything about that?’ ‘You think I have been telling tales?’ It was such a ridiculous suggestion that she laughed. ‘You mean it is possible to get blood from a stone?’ she mocked—then released another sigh. ‘What’s worrying me, Luiz,’ she explained, ‘is that someone has to have been spying on us. And it sends creepy feelings down my spine just to think of it.’ She even shuddered. A hand came to her naked back and soothed the shudders. ‘The spy in this case we already know, querida,’ he informed her quietly. ‘And because we also know he has some right to be bitter enough about the situation to spread rumours which may place us in a poor light, we will allow him a small—indiscretion. It is, after all, all he believes he has left to survive on right now…’ He was talking about Felipe. The name didn’t need saying. ‘Okay,’ she agreed, and curled herself back around him, needing to say more but afraid to say more in case too much came pouring out. ‘Okay?’ he repeated quizzically. ‘Just like that?’ ‘Mmm.’ She snuggled herself into his warm, muscled strength. ‘This is too nice to spoil by talking about nasty things. And anyway, I’ve got far more pressing concerns on my mind right now.’ His eyes began to gleam, the humour she could see running through them heating her blood. ‘Shopping!’ she announced in mock censure. ‘I’m talking about my need to go shopping for some fresh clothes, since you abducted me with only enough clothes to last me three days! And I want to buy a really expensive bridal dress with all the trimmings,’ she tagged on, right out of the blue. ‘Because if I have to marry you then I insist that you let me do it in style!’ In the startled silence that followed his eyes narrowed slightly, as if he was reading a return to the old bitterness in what she’d said. It wasn’t there. And a moment later she was being loved again—which she much preferred to talking. They stayed in that hot, dark, old-fashioned hotel room all night, and made love and ate paella cooked specially by the hotel proprietor’s very eager wife, and slept in each other’s arms and awoke there. It was the first time Caroline had woken up to find him still there beside her. It made an oddly painful impression on her to realise that. The next day Luiz had them flown to Cordoba, where Caroline played the future bride to a wealthy man to the hilt and shopped until she dropped. She was bright, she was flirtatious, and she was enchanting to be with. And if Luiz looked at her strangely now and then, as if he was trying to work out what was making her behave this way, Caroline just smiled at him, or kissed him, or demanded more money from him, diverting the risk of any questions. Because how did you explain to someone like him that while reading his father’s diaries she had come face to face with the real Luiz Vazquez? She understood him now, and hurt for him, and loved him more deeply than she dared let herself dwell upon. Even if Luiz could never come to love her in the same way that she loved him, then she could live with that—just. Because the other thing she had learned while reading those diaries was that love was not automatically given back by right. CHAPTER TEN THEY arrived back at the valley to find yet another wave of changes had been wrought while they had been away. The garden had been decorated with fairylights, the castle itself cleaned and polished to within an inch of its life, and the construction of a long banqueting table was in the process of being completed in the main hall as they walked in the door. ‘You are pulling out all the stops, I see.’ Felipe’s lazy drawl emerged before he did, from a dark corner of the hall. He had a habit of doing that, Caroline thought as she took a small step closer to Luiz. His hand closed round her hand. ‘If one has to marry then let no detail be overlooked,’ he mocked. ‘No festive trick be ignored.’ His derision was acute. Caroline wanted to hit him for being so mean-mouthed. But Luiz took the criticism in his stride. ‘It must be the hotelier in me.’ He smiled. ‘If there is one thing I have learned to do well, then it is to put on a good party.’ ‘With the relatives obediently gathered around you to help you celebrate.’ Felipe nodded. ‘It is quite extraordinary what healthy quarterly allowances can make people do that they normally would not deign to tolerate.’ ‘Is that why you decided to hang around, Felipe?’ Luiz countered curiously. ‘Because you see the need to secure your quarterly allowance?’ ‘I have money of my own,’ he declared, but Luiz had hit a raw nerve. ‘My father did not leave me quite destitute.’ ‘No, he left you a finca in the Sierra Nevada and the means to make a success of it, if you could be bothered to try.’ ‘While you get all of—this…’ Felipe’s smile was rancid. ‘Tell me…’ Suddenly he turned his attention on Caroline. She stiffened instantly, sensing it was her turn to receive the whip of his nasty tongue. ‘How did the poker game between your father and Luiz end? There are a lot of people who must be dying to know…’ He must have been there, in the casino, when Luiz had issued the challenge to her father, Caroline realised as she felt her cheeks grow pale. Her hand twitched in Luiz’s, in a silent plea for him to answer that question. He tightened his grip a little, but surprised her by saying absolutely nothing. Instead he lifted his free hand and gave a sharp click of his fingers. Without warning, Vito Martinez materialised in front of them. Big and broad and built to smash rocks against, he stood waiting for Luiz to speak. ‘Escort Caroline to her room, Vito,’ he instructed, without removing his gaze from Felipe. ‘And remain there until I come…’ Caroline’s skin was prickling, and the shivery sense that he was issuing some kind of dire warning to Felipe with his security guard’s daunting presence was enough to keep her silent when Luiz let go of her hand and instructed quietly, ‘Go with Vito. Felipe and I have a few—things we need to discuss in private…’ She went, but she felt sick. She didn’t look back, but she could almost feel the two men sizing each other up as if for battle. ‘What’s going to happen?’ she whispered to Vito. ‘They will talk,’ he answered simply. ‘As Luiz said.’ ‘I don’t like him,’ she confessed, finding herself moving that little bit closer to this big tower of a man Luiz had made her escort. ‘Few people do,’ Vito replied. That was all, but it seemed to say more than enough. Both Luiz and Vito had Felipe’s measure. And that meant that if Felipe had been checking up on them then Luiz had certainly been checking up on him—using this man she was walking beside to do the checking, she suspected. Vito didn’t leave her even when she slipped away to use her bathroom; he was still standing by the door when she got back. ‘You’ve known Luiz a long time, haven’t you?’ she questioned curiously. ‘Since we were both nine years old,’ Vito replied. Which placed them, by her reckoning, in an orphanage together. ‘So you are friends,’ she concluded, smiling wryly to herself because she was remembering her own thoughts from the other day, when she’d been sitting in the back of Luiz’s car while Vito drove her. ‘He saved my life once,’ Vito answered, but didn’t elaborate, even though Caroline stared at him in disbelief because she couldn’t imagine anyone having to save this man’s life for him. He was just too big, too everything surely, to be put into that kind of danger. The purchases she’d made while they’d been away began to arrive then, diverting her attention. And a few more minutes after that Luiz arrived. With a quiet word in Vito’s ear he dismissed the other man, who left with a grim nod of his head that made Caroline shiver. ‘Why the need of a bodyguard?’ she demanded, the moment they were alone again. ‘Am I in some kind of danger I should know about?’ ‘No,’ Luiz denied. ‘Not while I’m still breathing at any rate.’ ‘So you’re the one who’s in danger,’ she therefore concluded. ‘Nobody is in danger!’ he denied. ‘Then why the bodyguard?’ she repeated stubbornly. ‘Escort,’ he corrected. ‘He was sent to escort you up here simply to make a point, okay? ‘ No, it wasn’t okay. And her face told Luiz that. ‘All right,’ he sighed out heavily. ‘Felipe would like to stop the wedding from taking place,’ he said. ‘That much is patently obvious. But how far he would go to stop it I am not entirely sure. So I am protecting my weak spots.’ ‘And I am a weak spot.’ Suddenly his laziest grin appeared. ‘Oh, a very weak spot,’ he murmured seductively, and began to pace suggestively towards her. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she protested, putting out a hand to ward him off. ‘Not here in this house! Not until we are married!’ she added, chin up, amethyst eyes challenging. ‘I will have your respect el conde!’ she insisted when he took another step towards her. He stopped. She had to fight to keep her disappointment from showing. Luiz grinned again, because he saw it anyway. ‘If I touched you now, you would go up in smoke,’ he challenged softly. ‘If you touched me now, I probably would,’ she ruefully agreed. ‘Then I won’t,’ he assured her. ‘Oh,’ she said, and didn’t even try to hide her disappointment this time. ‘Protocol,’ he explained. ‘Thanks for reminding me that in this house I must respect all bridal traditions.’ If Caroline was aware that she had changed a lot in the last twenty-four hours, then she was also aware that Luiz had changed too. Gone was a lot of the stiff tension he had brought with them into the valley, and what she saw now was a wonderfully charming, lazily relaxed and very sensually motivated man—in private anyway. It was that recognition that sent her walking into his arms. ‘Just one chaste kiss, then,’ she offered invitingly, and snaked even closer to him when his arms slid caressingly about her. ‘Chaste?’ he mocked. ‘Mmm,’ she said. But there was nothing chaste in the way they stood there amongst a sea of unopened packages for long, very unsatisfying minutes. ‘I have to go,’ Luiz groaned out reluctantly. Go? ‘Go where?’ she demanded. ‘Work,’ he said, glancing at his watch. And suddenly he was the frustratingly brisk and businesslike Luiz. ‘I have things to do before our wedding. And I need to get out of the valley before it grows too dark to fly…’ ‘But we’ve only just arrived!’ ‘Don’t blame me!’ he countered at her look of dismay. ‘You’re the one who has put my schedule back twenty-four hours! A deliciously welcome twenty-four hours, I will admit,’ he added ruefully. ‘But now I have to play catch-up. So you won’t see me again until we meet at the church.’ ‘Luiz!’ she cried out as he walked off to the door. ‘Wwhat about your weak spot?’ she reminded him anxiously. ‘Vito is staying.’ It seemed to say it all. ‘Anything you want or are worried about, you go to him.’ ‘Because he owes you his life and therefore will do anything for you?’ That stopped him. He turned to stare at her in surprise. ‘You managed to get him to tell you that?’ He sounded truly shocked. ‘Well, that’s a first,’ he drawled. ‘What did you do?’ she asked. ‘Haul him out of the razor fight that put all those marks on his face?’ ‘No,’ he denied, and suddenly he wasn’t smiling. ‘I hauled him out of prison and gave him a life. And that wasn’t kind, Caroline,’ he told her grimly. He was right; it wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled contritely. He nodded. ‘See you Wednesday.’ He was going to go, and she didn’t want him to go with bad words between them. ‘I like him, actually,’ she confessed. ‘Mainly because he’s so loyal to you, I think. You didn’t know Felipe was even staying at your hotel, did you?’ she then asked, on a complete change of subject. ‘He booked in under a different name,’ Luiz explained. ‘And proceeded to shadow both me and my father,’ she mused frowningly. ‘He knew who I was—knew who my father was. Which tells you you have a mole in your midst somewhere, Luiz.’ He nodded. ‘I’m aware of that—and dealing with it.’ ‘Does all of this make my father another weak spot?’ she asked. For some reason the question had him turning to study her curiously. ‘Yes,’ he replied quietly. She released a sigh and began to look fretful again. ‘Are you protecting him too?’ ‘Undoubtedly,’ he assured her, in a strange tone that matched the strange expression he was wearing on his face. ‘He will be here, safe and sound, to give your hand to me on our wedding day. Have no fear about that, querida.’ Then he was gone, leaving Caroline to stand there staring at the last spot he had been standing on, wondering why she was feeling so very chilled again when surely what he had just said should have been reassuring? A tap at the door broke her free from whatever it was that was holding her, and she opened it to find Abril, the little maid standing there. ‘Don Luiz send me to help you unpack your purchases,’ she explained. Caroline was glad of the diversion. It seemed nothing here in this valley could stay happy for long. Together she and Abril unpacked box after box bearing the names of designers Caroline would never have normally been able to afford to buy. When it came to the dress she had chosen to marry Luiz in, the two of them unpacked it together, with a kind of hushed air of expectancy that increased to a breathless delight when the dress was finally hanging on its satin-covered hanger from the tall wardrobe door. ‘This is beautiful, Se?orita,’ Abril sighed out wistfully. Yes, it was, Caroline agreed, smiling softly to herself when she remembered the way she had sent Luiz off to get himself some coffee somewhere while she’d chosen the dress on her own. He’d been all lazy mockery as he strode away. But she suspected that secretly he’d rather liked the idea of her choosing a dress aimed exclusively to please him. ‘You have a sweetheart of your own?’ Caroline asked curiously. The young maid blushed. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘But when I do, I would wish to marry him in something as lovely as this…’ She was lightly fingering the delicate lace when the idea came to Caroline. She hadn’t given a thought to it before, but it suddenly struck her now, when it was almost too late to do anything about it, that she was going to have no friends of her own here to help her dress, or share her excitement, or even one to stand as her witness. Luiz Vazquez, the fine-detail man, seemed to have overlooked that small but important point. ‘Abril…’ she murmured slowly, forming the request even as she spoke it out loud. ‘Would you do something very—special for me?’ ‘Of course, Se?orita,’ the maid instantly replied. ‘If I can get a dress here in time—a pretty dress for you to wear—would you be my bridesmaid?’ For a terrible moment she thought she’d actually horrified the poor girl, she was so still and silent. Then, ‘Oh, Se?orita,’ she breathed. ‘Do you really mean it?’ The doe eyes were suddenly shining with pleasure. ‘Yes, I mean it.’ Caroline found herself smiling too. ‘You must have noticed that I am here on my own,’ she pointed out sagely. ‘My family and friends are all in England, and though my father is coming I will have no one else. It would be nice, don’t you think, to have someone from the valley to stand beside me?’ ‘It would be an honour,’ the young girl answered gravely. ‘But, I will have to ask permission of Don?a Consuela before I may say absolutely that I will do this,’ she added anxiously. ‘Of course,’ Caroline said instantly, not bothering to point out that it was really Luiz’s permission the maid should be seeking. And since she knew what his answer would be without having to ask him, Caroline didn’t think that was a problem. ‘I’ll ask her,’ she decided. Abril looked relieved. ‘In fact I’ll go and do it now, while you finish up here, okay?’ Nothing like striking while the iron is hot, she told herself bracingly as she went in search of Luiz’s aunt. But she was beginning to half wish she hadn’t started this, being a coward deep down inside. She found Don?a Consuela in the main drawing room. She was just standing there, staring out of the window, watching the construction taking place on the lawn outside. And there was a sad, lonely, isolated look to her stance that touched Caroline’s heart a little, even though she now knew exactly how effective this woman had been in ruining Luiz’s mama?’s life. ‘Consuela…’ she prompted. She hadn’t even heard Caroline come in the room, she was so lost inside her own bleak thoughts. But she turned at the sound of her name, her expression as smoothly composed as it always was. Sometimes her relationship to Luiz is all too clear, Caroline mused ruefully. ‘I wondered if you would mind if I asked your advice about something,’ she ventured carefully—though why she had changed from making it a polite request to the more gentle quest for advice she was not entirely sure—unless it was because Consuela had looked a little like Luiz then. Luiz when he was hiding hurt, she extended sadly. ‘Of course,’ the older woman agreed. ‘If you think my advice will be of use.’ Taking a deep breath, Caroline explained what she wanted to do and why she wanted to do it. Consuela Listened to her without expression, and it was therefore a surprise when the other woman smiled a brief, rather bleak smile and said, ‘You are a nice person, Se?orita. It will be comforting to know that I will be leaving the valley in the charge of someone so sensitive.’ ‘Luiz cares too, you know,’ Caroline declared, instantly on the defensive, because she hadn’t expected approval from this particular source and was therefore searching for hidden criticism. The Condesa’s smile grew wry. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘And, yes, it would be a perfect touch for you to have Abril as your maid of honour. The people of the valley will love you for doing it. Give the child my blessing and tell her she is relieved of all her normal duties so she can devote her time to her new exciting role.’ While you do what? Caroline wanted to ask. Keep fading ever more into the shadows of this place that has been your home for so many years? ‘What will you do?’ she asked impulsively. ‘When you leave here?’ The smile was wry again. ‘So, Luiz intends to have me banished,’ the other woman said. ‘I did wonder.’ Caroline felt absolutely horrified that she had inadvertently stepped into something she should not. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered awkwardly. ‘Luiz doesn’t discuss his family with me.’ ‘No, I don’t suppose he does,’ the Condesa murmured, and turned back to the window. It was a dismissal in anyone’s books. Feeling like some kind of heel, Caroline took herself out of the room without daring to utter another word. Next she went to search out Vito. She found him in the garden, overlooking the setting out of what looked as if it was going to be a wooden dance floor beneath a red and white striped awning. ‘Vito—’ She touched his arm to gain his attention then instantly withdrew her fingers again when they tingled as if they’d just touched solid rock. ‘Do you think Luiz would mind if I put his helicopter to use?’ she said. He swung around so lightly for a man of his size that Caroline was startled. ‘Why?’ he demanded sharply. ‘What do you want the helicopter for? What’s wrong?’ ‘Nothing,’ she assured him, but even as she spoke his eyes were flicking in all directions, and he seemed to grow another few inches, like a bear getting ready to enfold its prey. Or, in her case, to protect its cub, she amended ruefully. ‘I need the helicopter to run an errand for me,’ she said. ‘A special errand.’ Then she went on to explain… She was just finishing some breakfast on the morning of her wedding day when her father arrived in Luiz’s helicopter. The moment she saw it was him climbing out she was up and running, out of the hall and out into the sunshine, to meet him halfway across the lawn. ‘Oh, Daddy,’ she sobbed, and launched herself at him. ‘How could you just walk away from me like that?’ ‘Don’t fuss, Caro. I’m fine!’ he censured irritably as she began a detailed check for any physical signs of poor health. ‘You don’t look fine,’ she told him, seeing the changes in him even if he didn’t think they were there. He looked older and thinner and—She sighed unhappily. ‘Some place—this,’ he ventured, deliberately changing the subject, Caroline suspected. ‘Never seen anything quite like it. Coming in over the top of that mountain actually took my breath away. Did you know seven years ago that Luiz was heir to all of this?’ ‘No.’ She was trying to catch his eye, but he wouldn’t let her, and his hands were grimly keeping her at arm’s length. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference to the way I felt about him if I had,’ she added absently. ‘Will you please look at me?’ she said impatiently. He flicked his eyes to hers. She saw the guilt, the shame and the misery, and her own eyes filled with tears. ‘I love you so much,’ she choked. ‘And I’ve been worried about you!’ His defences collapsed. On a ragged sigh he tugged her to him and wrapped his arms around her tight. ‘And him?’ he questioned gruffly. ‘Do you love him?’ ‘Like a second skin,’ she replied. ‘But then I always have done, you already knew that.’ ‘Yes, I always knew it,’ he confirmed heavily. ‘But I’m still sorry for getting you into this dreadful mess.’ ‘No mess,’ she denied, then repeated it when she saw his disbelieving look. ‘No mess, Daddy. Luiz is what I want. He’s what I’ve always wanted.’ He grimaced. ‘But not handed to him on a plate like a damned sacrifice.’ ‘I’m no sacrifice either!’ she informed him crossly. ‘Or are you trying to imply that Luiz feels nothing for me in return? Because if you are,’ she continued angrily, ‘then maybe you should just turn around and go away again.’ ‘I’m not implying anything.’ He sighed again. ‘Good grief,’ he added. ‘The man has twice gone to big enough lengths in his attempts to get you to this day…’ Twice? Caroline felt that chill hit her spine again. ‘What do you mean twice?’ she demanded. ‘Nothing,’ he grunted, going all shifty-eyed. ‘Well, would you look at that?’ he then exclaimed in surprise, diverting her attention to the spot he was looking at near the castle entrance. ‘What’s he doing here? He never told me he knew Luiz!’ He never told me…Caroline repeated to herself as she too turned to stare at Felipe. And so many, many things began to slide into place. Her own father was Luiz’s mole, though unwittingly. Oh, Daddy, she thought sighingly. And when he went to go and speak to Felipe she stopped him. ‘Watch him, Pops,’ she warned, and just the quiet use of her childhood name for him was enough to alert Sir Edward to trouble. ‘Watch every single word you say to him and watch your back.’ ‘Why?’ he frowned. ‘Who is he?’ ‘He’s Luiz’s half-brother—the man who thinks he should have inherited all of this…’ Enlightenment came to him as quickly as it had come to his daughter. His soft curse confirmed it. The helicopter lifted off then, rendering words useless as the sounds of its rotors filled the air. Her father seemed to use the time the helicopter took to sweep off down the valley to come to some kind of decision. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can talk in private,’ he said flatly. ‘I have something I want to say to you…’ Caroline wanted to talk to Luiz. She needed to talk to Luiz. But the juggernaut called her wedding was now rolling ahead at full speed, and Luiz, she assumed, was already waiting for her at the tiny church in the centre of the village where, since her father had arrived, so had gathered the full Vazquez family, to witness the event taking place. ‘You look beautiful, Se?orita,’ Abril’s gentle voice brought Caroline’s anxious eyes into focus on the mirror she was standing in front of. The ankle-length ivory cre?pe gown was quite simply sensational, even if she did think so herself. The corset-like bodice skimmed her slender ribcage and scooped low over the creamy slopes of her breasts, and the little off-the-shoulder sleeves added just the right touch of vulnerable charm to a bride who was about to walk down a church aisle towards her bridegroom. To add a final touch, her full-length veil was secured to her head by a delicate diamond tiara. The overall effect was simplicity itself—her style, her way of doing things. Her wedding. Luiz, she told her amethyst eyes via the mirror. You are about to marry Luiz. But how could Luiz want to marry her, knowing how badly she misjudged him seven years ago? Luiz never said he wanted to marry you, only that he needed to marry someone, she reminded those anxious amethyst eyes. And all you’ve been doing these last few days is pretending that this is a marriage made in heaven. For all you know, Luiz could be planning to cast you aside once he’s fulfilled the legal requirements of his father’s will. The perfect formula for revenge? He walks away from you the way you walked away from him seven years ago? Her stomach wanted to perform somersaults. She wanted to run to the bathroom to be sick in the nearest receptacle. She knew Luiz; she knew what he was capable of. And she suddenly remembered his scorpion. It was sitting there right in front of her now, crawling down the mirror as if ready to strike. ‘Se?orita?’ Abril’s voice sounded concerned. Could she see that Caroline was about to lose every ounce of courage she possessed in one huge wave of guilt? ‘Se?orita…’ A gentle hand covered her forearm, the fingers small and brown against her own pale skin. ‘You are shivering,’ the little maid murmured worriedly. ‘Are you frightened, Se?orita? Please don’t be frightened,’ she urged her comfortingly. ‘El conde is a good man. Everyone in the valley says so. He reminds them of his grandpa, Don Angeles. He was a good man also. A strong man.’ ‘I’m okay.’ Caroline managed to push out the whisper. ‘I just…’ She shivered again, as if something scaly had walked over her flesh. With a blink she attempted to pull herself together, shifting her gaze to her little maid of honour, who was standing beside her in a simple gown of virginal white. She looked enchanting. The perfect foil for a fair-skinned bride, with her black hair and black doe-like eyes and her beautiful olive skin. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her for a second time, and even managed a smile. Reassured, Abril handed Caroline her small bouquet of ivory roses, picked only an hour ago from the garden and woven together by Abril herself. Her father was pacing restlessly in the great hall when he first saw her. He stopped dead and watched as she came down the stairs towards him. ‘Goodness, Caro,’ he murmured thickly, and that was all. The rest was written in his eyes. She was surprised to find that it wasn’t Vito who was going to drive her to the village, since Vito rarely left her side. But this time it was a stranger who drove Luiz’s black BMW. She discovered why Vito had forsaken her only when she entered the church on her father’s arm. For Vito was standing next to Luiz. A Luiz who filled her heart with tears of relief when she saw him standing there in his black tuxedo, his dark head lowered and with a waiting tension clamped across his broad shoulders that made her want to sob with relief—because surely that tension meant this moment was important to him—that she was important? There was a stir as people began glancing round at her; the stir brought up his head. He turned, looked at her—and that was the last thing she remembered for most of the long service. For no man could look at a woman like that unless he was seeing the only person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. And his hand when it accepted hers from her father was even trembling slightly. They made their vows in a hushed atmosphere where no one present seemed to breathe. But when Luiz slid not one but two rings onto her wedding finger she blinked, focused for the first time in ages, and saw a simple but exquisite diamond ring resting next to a finely sculptured gold band. She felt her eyes fill with tears. For this was no ordinary betrothal ring, it was, in fact, her mother’s ring. She glanced up into intensely black eyes. Luiz saw the tears and bent to whisper hoarsely. ‘Don’t…’ It was almost her complete undoing. Then Padre Domingo spoke. ‘If you would place the ring on Don Luiz’s finger, we can continue…’ Outside in the sunshine the villagers had gathered to applaud them. Caroline clung to Luiz as if she had been joined to him in more ways than marriage just now. She blushed and smiled and was aware of Vito standing like a mountain beside the tiny Abril, of her father looking rather sombre and drawn. She was even aware of T??a Consuela, standing cool and erect—seeing the whole thing through to its bleak finish like a martyr to her chosen fate. But Felipe was nowhere. Neither did he turn up when they sat down at the banquet table, now decked out with white linen and the kind of china and silverware that belonged in a museum. Her hand had not been allowed to leave Luiz’s once since he had formally claimed it. Even now, while they sat at the table, they were having to eat one-handed while their entwined fingers lay on the table between them. ‘Thank you for this,’ she said, catching sight of her mother’s ring shining like a prism on her finger. ‘What made you think of it?’ ‘It should have been my mother’s ring,’ he murmured quietly, looking down at the ring also. ‘But she never had one so I went for the next best thing and asked your father for your mother’s ring. He brought it back to Marbella with him, ready cleaned and altered to fit your finger…’ ‘Well, thank you,’ she repeated huskily. ‘It made everything just perfect.’ ‘No.’ Looking up, Luiz caught her eyes with a look that set her head spinning. ‘You are what makes everything perfect,’ he said, and kissed her gently. The gathered assembly began clapping, halting something else that felt absolutely perfect. By the time they retired outside the sun had set and the garden was ablaze with twinkling lights. Luiz drew her into his arms on the makeshift dance floor as a small set of musicians began playing a waltz. It was the closest they had been except for the clasped hands since they had married, and the knowledge of that sparked between them. Electric, tantalising, utterly mesmerising. His mouth brushed her cheek, then stayed there. ‘You look so beautiful today. Walking towards me in the church, you made my heart ache,’ he murmured huskily. When she tilted her head back so she could look at him, her eyes had stars in them. But she paled a little when she remembered how she had been feeling earlier, and—more importantly—why she had felt like that. ‘I’ve been talking to my father,’ she murmured huskily. ‘He told me what really happened seven years ago. I—’ The man holding her suddenly changed into an entirely different person. Seeing it happen stopped her words, and she watched his hardened eyes flick around the garden in angry search. ‘Luiz—’ ‘No,’ he cut in. ‘I am angry with him for breaking his word to me and telling you all of this. I am angry with you for bringing it up tonight of all nights!’ ‘But you didn’t take a single penny from him!’ It had to be said! ‘You left me asleep in bed each night and went down to play cards with him to stop him gambling with anyone else. You knew how I worried about him—so you took it upon yourself to keep him out of danger! I owe so much to you for that, Luiz!’ His face was white, his lips thin, his teeth clenched behind them. ‘You owe me nothing,’ he rasped. ‘I owe you an apology,’ she said thickly, beginning to tremble in his arms as the full cup of her guilt came pouring out. ‘I was in love with you. I should have known you wouldn’t do something so crass as to fleece my own father! But I believed him instead of you—when I knew what a liar he was! I don’t blame you if you never forgive me for that!’ ‘Drop it, Caroline, before I get angry,’ he warned. But he was already angry. ‘You let him win thousands from you—the same thousands of pounds he then told me you had won from him! It’s no wonder he was so eager to play you again last week,’ she said bitterly. ‘He truly believed he was in for another easy killing!’ He flinched as if she’d struck him hard. ‘I didn’t mean it like that!’ she groaned, lifting her hand to lay it in apology against his taut cheek. ‘Luiz—’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘We will not discuss this. Not now, not ever. Do you understand?’ And he took hold of her hand to remove it, then stepped right back, turned and walked away! It was fortunate that the music had come to a stop just then. Luiz’s knack for perfect timing, she supposed. His uncle Fidel took his place. And after that Caroline didn’t see him as she was whirled around in the arms of one relative or another. When she did eventually escape the dance floor to go and look for him it was pitch dark beyond the fairylights, while the castle itself was pooled in lamplight. She couldn’t find him amongst the people in the garden, so she went looking for him inside. She was just crossing the great hall when a waiter came up to her. ‘Excuse me, la condesa.’ He bowed politely. ‘But el conde send me with a message.’ Oh, the relief. ‘Where is he?’ she asked urgently. ‘He say to meet him at the car, just beyond the boundary wall, if you please.’ At the car? What now? she wondered as she moved out of the house again and down the driveway to where all the cars had been left parked outside the castle’s boundary. Was she about to be hijacked again and hauled off somewhere else? Well, if Luiz thought that was going to be a punishment, then he was in for a surprise, she thought, with a smile that took the anxiety from her lips as excitement for the game began to curl through her. The car was just a dark bulk among many cars, but she picked it out soon enough because it was the only one with its engine running, and she caught a glimpse of Luiz’s dark shape behind the wheel just before she opened the passenger door and slipped inside. ‘This is all excitingly clandestine, Luiz,’ she teased, busily tucking her dress and veil inside before she could close the door. ‘But not really necessary any more.’ The door closed, the engine gunned, then shot them forwards. ‘See,’ she said, turning to wave her ringed hand at him. ‘I am…’ Words died, and so did her heart, just before it dropped with a sickening thump to her stomach. As she made a lurch for the door handle the central locking system clicked smoothly into place and Felipe turned a lazy grin on her. ‘Droit du seigneur,’ he drawled. ‘It is tradition…’ CHAPTER ELEVEN HER first instinct was to begin looking wildly about her, to see if anyone had seen them speed away. But there was no one else on this side of the wall to witness their departure, and as Felipe accelerated up the road towards the village her mind was already hearing the smooth, quiet run of the car’s powerful engine. ‘This is stupid, Felipe,’ she said, trying to keep the need to panic under control. ‘I don’t see what you aim to gain by it.’ ‘Satisfaction,’ he replied, and turned an abrupt right. Instead of taking the road through the village he began driving at speed between the narrow rows of fruit trees. It was a hair-raising experience, one that had Caroline clinging to the door handle, her body flinching each time a tree branch scraped across the car. Another abrupt turn and they were skirting the side of the valley on a dusty track she hadn’t even known was there. Within what seemed like only seconds they had skirted round the village and were climbing through the terraces. With her heart pumping so fast with adrenaline that her hands were trembling, Caroline reached for the seat belt and fastened it around her. ‘You’re mad,’ she breathed. Felipe just shrugged, spun the car round one of the acute bends in the narrow road and for a few brief moments brought the whole valley into view. She could see the castle, pooled in light and standing out against its dramatic black backdrop. She could even see the people dancing on the makeshift dance floor, or just standing around in groups, talking. Her heart began to throb, her throat to thicken as she tried to pick out Luiz’s distinctive figure—before Felipe was swinging them sharply in the other direction. By the next abrupt turn the castle was far below them, and it was a shock to realise how high they had already climbed. Another couple of these sharp bends and they would reach the cut, the place where the road became a treacherous pass through the mountains. She didn’t want to go there with Felipe. She didn’t want this madman driving her at this mad speed on that awful part of the road where the edge dropped sheer down hundreds of feet into the ravines below. ‘Stop the car, Felipe,’ she commanded shakily. ‘A joke is a joke, and if it makes you feel better, I’ll admit it—I’m frightened. But now I would like you to stop so I can get out.’ ‘And walk back?’ he mocked. ‘In that dress and in those spindly heels?’ ‘Yes, if necessary.’ She didn’t care so long as he let her out of here. They suddenly swung around yet another sharp bend. Tyres screamed and spun. Caroline hung on for dear life and almost cried out when all she could see in front of her was what looked like a wall of pitch black. Her heart leapt into her throat and remained there until she realised they weren’t about to drive off the end of the mountain but were in actual fact heading straight for it. ‘I will have been missed by now.’ In sheer desperation she tried another tack. ‘Luiz’s car will have been missed. He will be coming after us as we speak. Do you think he won’t have noticed the car lights as we’ve climbed? Drop me off now, Felipe and you will have a chance to get away! Keep going and he will catch up to us and kill you, I swear it!’ ‘Starting to panic a bit, aren’t you?’ He grinned—and swung them round yet another acute turn in the road. He did it so carelessly that it actually threw her hard against his shoulder. By the time she had righted herself again she was looking at stars glinting between two towering black walls, and realised in horror that they had now reached the mountain pass. ‘Felipe!’ she cried out shrilly. ‘Stop this—stop it!’ But he wasn’t going to stop anything. Not the car, not his wild and reckless driving, not the stupidity that was making him behave like this. ‘It might be an interesting form of revenge to see Luiz’s face when he finds you way down there in the ravine amongst the tangled wreckage of his very own car,’ he murmured tauntingly. Then he laughed as Caroline’s face went white. ‘But I am not quite that hungry,’ he said. ‘My original plan suits my idea of revenge a lot better.’ ‘I don’t know w-what you’re talking about,’ she stammered, through tense teeth that were beginning to chatter. ‘Yes, you do,’ he argued. ‘You are from the right stock to know all about ancient tribal rites. If you just think of me as the rightful owner of what we have just left behind, then the whole experience could be quite exciting—a bride on her wedding night who finds herself sleeping with the lord of the castle, rather than the peasant she married herself to.’ ‘Luiz is not the peasant around here,’ Caroline tossed back. ‘And if you think I would let any other man but Luiz touch me, you are sadly mistaken.’ ‘So you are pretending to be in love with the bastard,’ he drawled, eyeing her curiously. ‘Why? Does it make it easier to let him touch you when you can close your eyes and see el conde instead of a New York thug?’ ‘I don’t need to pretend. I do love Luiz,’ she declared. ‘And will you keep your eyes on the road?’ she choked out when he took them swerving round a deep curve in the road with scant regard for what might be on the other side of it. ‘Stop worrying,’ he said. ‘I’ve been driving this road since I was a teenager. I know every twist and rut in it from here to Cordoba.’ Caroline could only hope and pray that was true! One of her hands had fixed itself to the car door handle; the other was clutching the strap of her seat belt. Felipe took in her taut posture—and recklessly swung the car round yet another curve. She closed her eyes, unable to watch any more. ‘You married him because he offered to pay off your father’s debts if you did.’ He calmly returned to the other subject. ‘It had nothing to do with love.’ ‘I married Luiz because I can’t bear to be without him,’ Caroline countered through tightly gritted teeth. ‘Liar,’ he jeered. ‘You were bought! Bought with his money. Bought with his name. Bought by the bastard of Don Carlos Vazquez,’ he spat out scathingly. ‘And you are prepared to lie in his bed and close your sweet English eyes to his low beginnings, his prostitute mama? and the questionable way he earned his millions. Because it is better to close your eyes and pretend he is Don Luiz Vazquez el conde rather than the crook that stole from his own family!’ ‘Luiz didn’t steal from you.’ ‘He stole my title!’ he rasped. ‘He stole my money and my home! He stole what was my God-given right from birth!’ His fist hit the steering wheel in sheer anger. Caroline flinched, and began praying fervently that they made it round the next bend. ‘But I will steal one thing back from him before I leave here for ever,’ Felipe continued thinly. ‘I will steal his wedding night,’ he vowed. ‘And my reward will be in knowing that he will know every time he looks at you that it was me who had his beautiful wife first!’ ‘Luiz and I have been lovers for years!’ She laughed at the sheer idiocy of what he was saying. ‘You can’t steal what he has already had!’ ‘His wedding night, I can,’ he insisted grimly. This was crazy. He was crazy! ‘You stole from him, Felipe!’ Caroline contended shrilly. ‘It was not the other way around! You aren’t even his half-brother! Your mother is a cheat and a liar, and she tricked her own sister out of Don Carlos’s life so that she could take her place! She set up a situation and used it ruthlessly to her own ends. She twisted everything around so that it appeared that Luiz’s mother had been sleeping with her married lover! Then your mother stepped neatly into the breach left by her sister—having first made sure that Serena had safely disappeared to America with her unborn child!’ ‘That is a lie!’ he barked. The car swerved precariously. Caroline’s heart leapt to her throat and stayed there while she clung on for dear life. Don’t argue with him! she told herself frantically. Ignore him and just let him get you down this wretched mountain in one whole piece! But she couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming. They burst forth from the cold dark place she had been keeping them hidden ever since she had read the full horrible truth about the Vazquez family. ‘A few months later your mother married Don Carlos—with her lover’s child already spawned in her belly. That child was you, Felipe,’ she persisted, quoting almost verbatim Luiz’s father’s own wretched words. ‘Your real father was Don Carlos’s best friend. His married friend!’ she declared. ‘And the moment you opened your eyes on the morning you were born he saw his best friend looking back at him and knew—knew he had been tricked and used and betrayed by your mother to secure her own future at the expense of her sister’s! Since that same day Luiz has always been his father’s heir and you have never been led to think otherwise!’ ‘How the hell do you know all of this?’ Felipe rasped, beginning, for the first time, to sound choked by his own wretched lies. ‘From Don Carlos himself,’ she said. ‘He kept detailed diaries of everything that happened, including the years he spent looking for Serena and his true son and the fact that he never kept any of this secret from you.’ ‘I hated the bastard,’ Felipe gritted. ‘He spent thirty-four years of my life mourning a son he never knew while I was right there, waiting to be loved if he could only see it!’ ‘He was wrong to treat you like that,’ Caroline acknowledged. ‘But two wrongs don’t make a right, Felipe! And what you are doing here now is wrong—can’t you see that?’ She hoped she was getting through to him. She hoped that she could make him see sense, maybe even turn them around and take her back again! But he suddenly growled out the kind of curse that said a monster had taken over his soul right now, and with a lurch he threw them round another corner, sending the headlamps scanning out across a terrible nothingness that locked a silent scream into Caroline’s throat. They hit a deep rut in the road. The scream found full voice as Felipe began to struggle with the wheel. He was cursing and cursing, and she was screaming, and the car was careering all over the place. They were going to die; she was sure of it! They were going to tumble off the edge of the cliff and never be found! Sheer terror made her grab hold of the handbrake. Sheer terror made her yank it on hard. On a squeal of hot rubber the car gave a lurch, then began skidding sideways while she sat there and watched in open-eyed horror as they slid closer and closer to the edge of the ravine. Then they hit something solid—a rock on the edge? She didn’t know, but they began lurching back the way they had come. Then, just when she thought the car was going to stop safely, it hit something else, made a terrible groan and toppled very gently onto its side. Shocked and dizzyingly disorientated, Caroline sat for a few moments, not actually remembering where she was. Then her head began to hurt, and it all came flooding sickeningly back as she lifted her fingers to gently touch the sore area by her temple, realising that she must have hit her head and been knocked out for a while. Most definitely frightened of what she might find, she turned to look at Felipe. He was at the very least unconscious, sitting hunched over the steering wheel and slightly below her because of the drunken angle of the car. Carefully, fearfully almost, she reached out and touched her fingers to his neck. She could feel living warmth there and a shimmer of a pulse. ‘Oh, thank God,’ she breathed out shakily. She closed her eyes and said it again. ‘Thank God.’ What now? Where are we? How badly placed are we regarding the ravine? What do I do? It was then she realised that the car headlights were still burning. With the greatest of care she tried edging herself forward so she could peer out of the car windscreen. It was a miracle it hadn’t shattered, she supposed. Beyond it she could just make out in the lights good solid road and the ravine edge, way over to her right. They must have keeled over into a ditch near the mountain, she realised. And it was such a relief to know it that she relaxed back in the seat with a sigh and took a few moments to let her heart-rate steady before she attempted to get out. Felipe had locked the doors, she remembered. But surely there was something somewhere she could pull or push to make them unlock again? With shaky fingers scrambling over pitch black metal and leather, she managed to find something on the door that felt as if it would pull up, tugged it and heard the lock spring free. Next she had to release the seat belt. Then came the tricky bit, opening the car door and keeping it open while she attempted to scramble out. Her dress snagged on something; she heard it rip and lost her shoes in the struggle. But eventually she landed in a heap on the hard road, then just sat slumped there while she got her breath back. It was all so quiet, so eerie. She shivered, then suddenly couldn’t stop shivering—though she didn’t think it was because it was that cold up here. Shock, she presumed. I’m probably shocked. And who wouldn’t be after the ordeal I’ve just had? The last thought brought a smile to her lips. The smile made her feel better, and she scrambled up on her bare feet and began to take careful stock of the situation. Felipe obviously needed help; that was her first consideration. But help was either ten miles or so down the mountain or five miles or so back the way they had come. Not much of a choice, really, she mused helplessly. Staying put seemed to make better sense. Someone should have missed her by now, surely? Never mind merely someone, she then scolded herself. Luiz should have missed her! It was then that she heard it. It was nothing more at the moment than a very distant growl. But it was a car engine, she recognised, fading in and out as it wound round the mountain. In sheer relief she simply sank to the ground by the drunken car, folded her now aching head onto her knees and wrapped them in her trembling arms. It had to be Luiz coming to find her. She didn’t even let herself think that it might be anyone else. In fact, that was the most stupid part of Felipe’s plan of abduction—to actually believe he could just drive away with her without having Luiz hard on his tail. Had he truly believed he would get as far as seduction? The crazy idiot. If she knew Luiz, the road off the mountain towards Los Aminos was probably blocked by now anyway. Felipe would have been stopped before he’d even got started. The car was coming closer; she could hear the smooth, neat way it was being driven into the bends and corners—could even pick out the gear changes, the braking, the steady increase in speed then the smooth throttling back. Yet he arrived round the final bend without warning. Odd that, she thought, as she lifted her head and just watched as he brought the strange car to a standstill perhaps ten feet away. He didn’t get out of the car immediately, either. He just sat there with the headlights trained on her and, she presumed, looked at her looking at him. Then his door came open. His feet scraped on gravel. And, finally, the full lean length of his body appeared. She couldn’t see his face—well, she could have done if she’d looked at it, but for some unaccountable reason she just didn’t want to. He walked towards her. Stopped about two feet away and took a look around their remote surroundings. It was so quiet up here you could hear an ant move a leaf. The sky was a navy blue star-studded cloth and the mountains soared like giants standing on guard. ‘Where is he?’ was the first question he asked her, and he did it softly, with no inflexion whatsoever. ‘Unconscious,’ she replied. ‘In the car.’ Luiz nodded. That was all, no further questions. He didn’t even take a look at Felipe. With a flick of his fingers all the other doors flew open on the car he had been driving. Three men got out; one of them was Vito. They came towards them. ‘Deal with him,’ he said. Caroline felt her blood turn cold. ‘No, Luiz,’ she protested, having visions of poor Felipe being thrown off the edge of the mountain. ‘He’s hurt. He needs help. I…’ Swooping down, he gathered her into his arms and straightened. He began striding back to the car he had arrived in, and Caroline had a ludicrous vision of herself in all her bridal finery, now ripped and soiled, with her pretty lace veil trailing on the dusty ground behind them. It was only when they reached the open passenger door that she let herself dare look into Luiz’s face. What she saw there brought the first tears to her eyes since the whole ordeal had begun. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘Don’t shut me out.’ He didn’t respond, just placed her in the car then walked round to climb in beside her. The engine fired and then they were moving, continuing down the mountain, because even she could see that it was too narrow here to turn the car around. As they passed the drunken BMW she saw Vito heaving Felipe out of the car by using sheer brute strength. But he was gentle when he laid him out on the road to check him over. It was faintly reassuring to see that gentleness. Surely men like Vito would not be gentle with a man they were intending to tip over the edge of a mountain, she consoled herself. A half-mile further on Luiz stopped the car where the road was a little wider and turned them back the way they had come. As they passed by the BMW again, she noticed that another car had pulled up behind it and that Felipe was on his own two feet, leaning weakly against it with his head in his hands, while the rest of the men were wrestling the BMW out of harm’s way. ‘They won’t hurt him, will they?’ she asked Luiz anxiously. ‘No,’ was all he said. It was reassuring, short though it was. On a small sigh she began to shiver. Luiz instantly flicked the car heater on, but the shivering continued. She knew it was shock, not cold—Luiz probably knew it too. ‘Tell me what happened after that fool of a waiter let Felipe convince him he was me so he could lure you out to my car.’ ‘When you start shouting and swearing, I might tell you,’ Caroline countered dully. ‘But not before.’ ‘All right.’ His fingers tensed around the steering wheel. ‘Let’s just deal with your problem with my self-control first,’ he clipped. ‘You want to see the man dead?’ he gritted. ‘You want to see his head hanging from the castle wall? You want to see me drive you up this mountain the same way he brought you down it?’ ‘No.’ She answered all of his questions at the same time. ‘Then tell me what happened after he got you into my car,’ he repeated flatly. So, quietly and as flatly as him, she told him everything, even the way it had been her fault that the car had ended up where it had. The only bit she missed out was the hellish row she and Felipe had had about Luiz’s father. By then they were driving through the village and everyone was out. It was like a replay of the first time they had come through here. Only then it had been daylight and the expressions had been curious. Now they looked pale and worried and anxious. So she waved and smiled and hoped to goodness they couldn’t tell that she was just about ready to cry her eyes out. It was the same when they got back to the castle. Everyone was huddled around Neptune, waiting with anxious eyes as Luiz brought the car to a stop then grimly told her to stay exactly where she was. He got out, ignored everyone, and came around the car to lift her out of her seat. Some gasped when they saw the state of her lovely dress and her pale face. Her father stepped up and took hold of her hand. He looked dreadful. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him, and another one of those reassuring smiles appeared. ‘You don’t look it,’ he rasped. ‘Well, I am—I am,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Nevertheless, I will come with you…’ It was Luiz’s uncle Fidel. He fell into step beside Luiz as they walked into the great hall with her father still clinging to one of her hands. The first person she saw inside was Consuela. She was just standing there by the huge banqueting table, her face so white it could have been marble. ‘Put me down, Luiz,’ Caroline insisted. He paused in his step but didn’t immediately comply. ‘Please,’ she pleaded. Without a word, and with his dark face still that tightly closed book, he set her feet onto the cool stone floor and made sure she was steady before letting go of her. Caroline walked up to Consuela and simply—sadly—just put her arms around the older woman. Instantly Consuela stiffened so violently that Caroline thought it was with rejection. Then she realised, as that stiff body began to tremble, that Consuela just wasn’t used to being held in any way. For all she had deserved punishment for what she had done to her own sister, she had paid for it—with thirty-five years of a barren marriage living in a barren atmosphere where love and affection had been non-existent. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered, for the other woman’s ears only. ‘He’s fine. Luiz’s men are looking after him.’ ‘He should not have done it,’ Consuela said, but some of the tension eased out of her. ‘He’s bitter,’ Caroline explained. ‘And he has a right to be bitter, T??a Consuela,’ she added gently. The older woman looked into Caroline’s face and sighed knowingly. ‘The padre gave you the diaries,’ she said. At Caroline’s nod, she nodded also. That was all. They understood each other. If Caroline had read the diaries then she knew that if Luiz thought his life had been hard, growing up in the slums of New York, then Felipe’s life had been no easier, living here with a father who had despised him and a mother who had locked herself away in an emotional prison of her own making. Then Consuela said. ‘We will leave here tonight.’ It was a decision that made Caroline glance at her anxiously. ‘You don’t have to do that, Consuela,’ she told her. ‘This is your home. It’s Felipe’s home. Can’t we at least try to live here together?’ ‘No.’ Consuela shook her head. ‘In truth, I will be glad to go. It is time. Perhaps…’ She heaved out a heavy sigh. ‘Perhaps more than time that we began making a life for ourselves.’ In a lot of ways Caroline could only agree with her. Felipe, at least, needed to get away from here. It was the only way he would learn to put aside his bitterness. The sound of another car arriving alerted Caroline to the return of the others, and her immediate concern turned to getting Luiz away from the hall before his men brought Felipe into it. Releasing Consuela, she turned back to Luiz. He looked so big and grim that she felt the threat of tears tighten her chest muscles as she walked back to him. She turned impulsively to Luiz’s uncle. ‘Felipe will need you more than I do, T??o,’ she told him. There was a moment when he looked as if he might argue with her, then with a glance at Luiz he changed his mind and nodded. To her father she gave a hug and a kiss. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she said quietly. He too understood. He was being dismissed. Standing back, he watched her slip her hand into Luiz’s hand, saw the larger fingers tighten possessively around her more slender ones, and together the two of them moved up the stairs. Behind them, not a single word was spoken. Instead of to her old room Luiz took her directly to his. It was the master suite of the castle. Huge. Grand. All heavy baroque furniture and ancient artefacts. The moment the door shut behind them Caroline felt reaction begin to set in. Her legs felt suddenly weak, sending her over to the nearest chair to drop shakily down into it. Still without a word, Luiz walked across the room and into his bathroom. Ten seconds later she could hear the sound of running water. Coming back into the room, Luiz found her sitting there, with her face hidden in her hands. A muscle along his jaw clenched, but that was the only reaction he showed as he came to stand over her, then bent to gently remove the tiara and veil from her hair before scooping her into his arms again. ‘Oh, very macho,’ she said, trying to lighten the leaden atmosphere. He didn’t respond to it. Grim-eyed, tight-lipped, he carried her into the bathroom, then set her down on her feet and turned her back to him so he could begin untying the silk lacing that was holding the bodice of her wedding dress together. ‘If you don’t start talking to me, I’ll throw a tantrum,’ she informed him quite casually. The lacing gave, the bodice slipped, sending her hand up to catch it before it revealed her breasts. ‘Luiz!’ she snapped, spinning round to face him. His eyes caught fire. The fury he had been keeping severely banked down now came bursting out through those hot, bright, burning black eyes to completely envelop her at the very moment his arms did the same. And he was lifting her off her feet, so he could bring her startled mouth on a level with his own mouth. It was a kiss like no other. It didn’t just burn, it consumed. Her arms went up, slender forearms using his wide shoulders as a brace to keep that fierce mouth-to-mouth contact. She didn’t care now that the dress was slipping, that her breasts were bursting free to press against him. She didn’t care that the knock on her head hurt or that her bare feet were stinging or that he was holding her so tightly that he was in danger of crushing her ribs. But she cared that she could feel him trembling, that even his mouth, where it fused with hers, was struggling to maintain some control over what was finally pouring out of him. ‘I love you,’ she murmured through a fevered grab at air. ‘I love you so much, and I hate it when you hide away from me!’ ‘It’s either hide or devour you,’ he muttered. And he meant it, fantastic though the statement might seem. He meant every harsh, rasping word of it. He claimed her mouth again, putting a stop to any more talking, because at this moment doing was more important. Caroline wound her thighs around his hips, long skirts rustling as she locked her bare feet together at his back. Her fingers were in his hair, her thumbs urgently caressing the tension along his rigid jaw. On a driven groan he turned back to the bedroom. ‘The bath,’ she reminded him. He issued a hoarse curse against her lips and changed direction without breaking the heated contact of their mouths until he absolutely had to. But he refused to let go of her as he bent to turn off the taps. And when he straightened again she was waiting for him, flushed-cheeked, misty-eyed, the two creamy slopes of her breasts heaving against the boned bodice now resting beneath them. His dark lashes floated downward as he looked her over. She looked delectably pagan, uninhibitedly wanton. A bride ready for the taking by her passionate Spanish husband. Looking upwards again, he studied her soft, full, inviting mouth, pressed another claiming kiss to it, then let his eyes clash with hers. He was moving again. Back into the bedroom, across the priceless Indian carpet covering its solid oak floor, to the bed, which looked like an island you could quite easily live upon without needing to leave for a long, long time. Caroline certainly didn’t want to leave it. She wanted to take off her clothes and crawl beneath its snowy white linen topped by the really decadent blood-red and dark gold brocade coverlet, to survive on hot kisses and rich dark flesh and the passions of a man who was incomparable. Allowing her feet to slide to the floor, Luiz took a step back, then began undressing. She didn’t move, didn’t attempt to take her own dress off. That was for him to do. It was his duty to unwrap his bride himself. But her breasts pouted provocatively at him all the while he was undressing, and the moist pink tip of her tongue kept snaking slowly around her kiss-swollen lips in needy anticipation. ‘You,’ he murmured when he eventually reached for her, ’ought to be locked up.’ She just smiled a very wicked smile and lifted up her arms to receive him. The dress slipped lower. On a growl, Luiz helped it the rest of the way, and had seen off everything else she was wearing before he straightened up again. Outside, beyond the four-foot thick walls, the party went on without them. Somewhere else, in another wing of the castle, two people were packing. ‘Luiz…’ Caroline murmured tentatively a long time later, when they lay curled up against each other. ‘Can we talk?’ she begged. ‘About Felipe?’ It ruined the moment. His body went taut, his jawline clenched. ‘Only if we have to do,’ he said tightly—which didn’t offer much encouragement. Caroline pushed on anyway. ‘I know you have every right to hate him and his mother,’ she allowed. ‘And I know he behaved appallingly tonight. But…’ Leaning up a little, she looked anxiously into his ice-cold eyes. ‘It isn’t his fault his mother told wicked lies about your mother, or that she tricked and deceived your father! Just as it isn’t Felipe’s fault that you had the childhood you did. He is your cousin—and it’s been tough for him too, you know!’ she insisted at Luiz’s lowering frown. ‘Growing up in your shadow, with a mother who could barely live with herself for what she’d done to her own sister and a so-called father who rejected him at birth and hated his mother for putting him in your place. It’s all so very tragic and sad,’ she said. ‘And I know your father had a right to feel bitter as he wrote it. He broke his own heart by believing your aunt instead of your mother, and spent the rest of his life punishing himself for it. But Felipe should not have been made to pay. It—’ ‘What do you mean—how my father wrote it?’ Luiz put in. ‘Oh!’ she gasped in horror when she realised what she’d said. Then a long sigh whispered from her, and with a twisted smile that acknowledged it was probably for the best she lifted sombre eyes to his darkly glowering ones. ‘How he wrote it in his diaries,’ she said gently. Softly and quietly she began telling him everything she had learned. When eventually Luiz asked her where the diaries were, she told him, and without another word he got out of bed, pulled on a robe and went to get them. A long time later, on his way back from Caroline’s bedroom, he saw Felipe and his mother just about to leave the castle. Standing there on the upper gallery, he viewed their sober features and felt something pick at the stone it was reputed he had for a heart. ‘Felipe,’ he said. The other man’s dark head came up and he spun on his heel to glance upwards. ‘We need to talk,’ he murmured quietly. Instantly Luiz could see the battle taking place behind the defensive aggression pasted onto his handsome features. Then, on a sigh, Felipe gave a curt nod of his head. ‘One day,’ he replied. Maybe he, like Luiz, had had enough of the lies and bitterness and betrayal. ‘One day…’ he repeated, and turned away again. Luiz watched gravely as his aunt lifted her pale face up to him. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all she said, but Luiz understood. After all, what else could she add that could take away what had gone before? When he went back into his bedroom, he found his bride no longer there. Tossing the diaries onto the tumbled bed, he went looking for her and found her soaking in a bath of steaming bubbles. It took him ten seconds to join her, uncaringly sloshing water over the rim onto the tiled floor as he climbed in behind her then sat down and drew her back against him. ‘I’ve just seen Felipe and my aunt leaving,’ he told her levelly. Caroline nodded. ‘She told me they would leave tonight.’ ‘I didn’t want them to do that.’ He sighed. ‘I never meant to actually throw them out of here. Family is family…’ ‘Warts and all?’ She nodded, ‘I know,’ she said referring to her own feckless father. Picking up one of his hands, she began kissing his fingers. ‘Did you read the diaries?’ she asked. ‘Mmm.’ His other hand slid up her slippery flesh until it found and closed around one of her breasts. ‘I knew some of it,’ he confessed. ‘First from my mother and then from my father, when we did eventually attempt to communicate.’ ‘Seven years ago,’ Catherine sighed out bleakly, thinking of all those years they’d lost. ‘Seven years ago,’ he agreed. ‘When I made the trip to Spain to arrogantly lay claim to my roots and met the woman who claimed me instead.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, thinking about how ruthlessly her father had used one of them against the other. ‘I told your father that I was in love with you and wanted to marry you,’ he informed her heavily. ‘He politely informed me where I could go. I wasn’t good enough for his daughter, he said. At the time I agreed with him.’ He grimaced. ‘Still do, actually.’ ‘But you’ll have me anyway,’ Caroline added smilingly. ‘There really isn’t much to pick between you, my father and poor Felipe,’ she said. ‘You’re all too self-motivated to be true.’ ‘Felipe was right when he compared my father’s life with the life of the ancestor who built this castle,’ Luiz remarked gruffly. ‘It was history repeating itself.’ Twisting in the water until she was facing him, Caroline murmured softly, ‘Not this time, though. This time the Conde got his woman. That makes for a happy ending.’ Eyes like dark chasms filled with satisfaction. ‘A very happy ending,’ Luiz agreed huskily, and began to kiss her… The Bellini Bride Michelle Reid CHAPTER ONE THE BED was a sea of rumpled white linen. Tangled amongst it Marco Bellini could see a long golden leg bent at the knee and the smooth silken-curve of a hip and thigh. The rest was covered by fine white sheeting but for a slender arm and the rippling swathe of strawberryblonde hair flowing away from the kind of profile that would have launched ships in times gone by. Only her name was not Helen, it was Antonia, and, although her beauty might have launched many metaphorical ships in her time, there was no disputing to whom she now belonged. Leaning back against the balcony rail, Marco allowed himself a smile as he brought his coffee cup to his lips. It was still very early, but the sun was already hot against his naked back. He had come out onto the terrace directly from his shower, and the white towel draped low around his narrow hips was his only concession to modesty, here, in his summer villa perched high on the hill above Portofino, where the only eyes to see him belonged to the seagulls soaring on the early morning currents of air. And Antonia, of course, if she bothered to wake up. But, unlike him, she didn’t have to be back in Milan by nine o’clock, so she had no reason to rise this early. Although…he then added ruefully to that, if she did happen to awaken now, it would be the simplest thing in the world for him to linger long enough to drop the towel and join her back in the bed. But not yet, Marco told himself as he took another sip from his cup. The coffee was hot, black and strong and was just another pleasure he enjoyed lingering over while he leant here watching his woman sleep. In the year they had been together he had never seen Antonia look anything but beautiful. Dressed to slay or stripped bare to the exquisite skin nature had given her, she exuded a beauty that by far outclassed any other woman he had known. He was proud to be her lover, proud that only he held the right to place a possessive hand upon any part of her anatomy. Proud that she only had eyes for him. But did he love her? he asked himself. No, he admitted heavily. He didn’t love her. He loved how she looked, and how she always made him feel. And he would willingly have laid down his own life if it meant him saving hers. But true love had to go deeper than that. He had to love what she was, and he didn’t. A sigh caught in the depth of his chest. A cloud blotted out the sun. A seagull shrieked in protest. The coffee suddenly tasted bitter. Putting the cup aside he turned to stare at the misted-blue waters of the Mediterranean shimmering in the distance—and wished to hell he knew what he was going to do about her. Letting her go was out of the question. Letting her stay meant trouble in more ways than one. Out there, across hills and lush valleys that made up his beautiful Italy, trouble was brewing. It came in the form of an autocratic mother and an ailing father with an urgent desire to see his son safely married and settled before he died. Marrying Antonia, even without the true-love bit, would be the easiest thing in the world for him to do. She was young, she was beautiful and she loved him totally. But what parent would condone their only son, and the heir to the great Bellini fortune, marrying himself to a woman like Antonia? A woman with the kind of past that was destined to dog her for ever. A woman with the kind of past that would reflect poorly on him and his family name. A woman who made the perfect mistress—but could never be the perfect wife for him. Another sigh whispered from him. Maybe Antonia heard it, because she began to stir. Recovering his coffeecup, Marco turned to watch her slide lazily onto her back then, even before she bothered to open her eyes, send an arm out to search the empty space beside her in the bed. It was a gesture so familiar to him that he actually felt the hairs on his chest prickle as if she had reached out and touched him. The sensation placed the smile back on his lips, because it pleased him to know that the first thing she always thought about on waking was him. When she found no warm male body lying beside her, her next move was to open her lovely eyes, pause for a moment to allow the remnants of sleep to disperse, then, in a single smooth graceful movement, she sat up and began to search for him. She found him almost instantly. A warm lover’s smile touched her lovely mouth. ‘Ciao,’ she greeted him softly. His response was a lazy masculine gleam over the rim of his cup, while inside he became aware of the chemical responses already beginning to stir his blood. She moved him in so many ways he didn’t dare count them. Sliding out of the bed, she lifted her arms above her head and indulged in a long lazy stretch that highlighted every perfect contour of her very naked frame from slender toes to delicate fingertips. Her light golden skin shone like the finest silk ever created. Her wonderful hair tumbled in loosely spiralling threads down her arching spine. In all his life Marco had never known any woman quite so perfect as Antonia. Her face, her hair, her sensational body—the way she moved as she began to walk towards him. Like the world’s most dangerous siren, she roused the male senses without even having to try. Even the sun worshipped her by coming out from behind its cloud at the same moment she stepped onto the terrace, pooling her in soft golden light as she continued her slow graceful journey towards him. It was no wonder Stefan Kranst had been so obsessed with her, Marco thought with a sudden grimness. No wonder he’d painted her every single way an artist could paint an obsession. Seeing her like this, he could easily understand why the man had felt so compelled to preserve her naked image. For years Antonia had appeared in all of his paintings, not always the main focal point but always the slender naked figure you looked for whenever you found yourself viewing a Kranst. But in his desire to make Antonia immortal he had turned her into every man’s titillating fantasy. Her naked form now adorned the walls of the rich and famous. When she walked into a room those in the know stopped and stared in intimate recognition. Did she care? No. Did she blush with embarrassment or hide her eyes in shame? Not this woman, who was as comfortable with her body as she was comfortable with those wretched paintings. As for him? Marco was very much aware that Antonia’s notoriety as Stefan Kranst’s famous nude model gave him a certain kudos amongst his envious peers. But it didn’t mean he liked it, only that he had learnt to accept it because, like Kranst in a way, he was obsessed with the woman—though not the haunted creature held captive in oils. Coming to a halt directly in front of him, Antonia said absolutely nothing but just held his gaze as she folded slender white fingers over the strong brown ones he had wrapped around his coffee cup. Her eyes gleamed like topaz in the sun, his darkened into humour as she guided the cup towards her own mouth and took a few delicate sips at the coffee before just as silently lifting the cup to his own mouth. More than happy to play this little game the way she wanted him to play it, Marco obediently drank while their eyes remained locked in the beginnings of seduction. With both mouths moistened by warm black coffee, she then guided the cup away, lifted herself up on bare tiptoes, and replaced it with a kiss. The aroma of coffee swirled all around them, its erotic taste flavoured their mouths, the points of her breasts hovered a soft-breath away from his chest and, beneath the towel, his body began to respond. This was making love on a different level, this was intimacy so deep it touched parts of him never otherwise touched. As she drew away again, her eyes held a promise. Maybe he would take her up on it in a minute, Marco idly considered. But for now he was content to enjoy the more simple pleasure of being the passive one while she did the seducing. She began it by touching a finger to the satin tight hollow of his shoulder. ‘You showered without me,’ she complained. He smiled a lazy smile. ‘You were asleep,’ he reminded her. She was not in the least bit impressed by that answer, and her mouth took on a sulky pout. Taking the coffee-cup from his fingers she put it aside, took possession of both his hands and fed them round her slender waist, then lifted her own up to curve his nape. One small step and she was fitting her hips into the cradle of his hips and pressing her wonderful breasts against him. Then her head tilted back a little, her sulky mouth parted—and claimed his with another kiss designed to devour. He would have to be made of stone not to respond to her. He would have to be half the man he actually was not to want what was being offered to him. It was special. She was special. He didn’t want to lose it. ‘What was that for?’ she broke the kiss to demand when she felt him shiver. ‘The sun has gone in again,’ he said. And it had, he noticed. Like a bad omen, it had slid behind another cloud the moment he’d begun thinking about the future. ‘Big softy,’ she chided, her fingers tangling lovingly into his hair. ‘You want to try standing like this on an English balcony. You would die of frostbite, being such a thin-blooded Italian.’ He was supposed to laugh or come back with a light counter-charge, Marco was well aware of that. But he could do neither because he was suddenly seeing her standing naked on that English balcony. Seeing her exactly as she had once been caught for posterity in a Kranst painting. ‘You would know, of course,’ was therefore the cynical taunt that slid from him. Her sudden stillness was electric. If he’d slapped her he couldn’t have achieved a better response. Kiss-warmed lips lost all of their softness. Warm topaz became cold grey glass. With a single step she completely separated herself from him and, without a single word, she turned and walked back into the bedroom. Remorse played havoc with his conscience as he watched her sensual stride take her towards the bathroom. The urge to go after her and apologise came a couple of short seconds too late. The door closed, he heard the bolt slide home and knew he now had one hell of a task on his hands to put right the wrong he had just done. ‘Damn,’ he cursed as he spun away. The sun crept out from behind its cloud again. He scowled at it. Scowled at the seagull soaring overhead. Then he scowled at himself because he knew that putting right a wrong would not solve the dilemma that was sitting right on his doorstep waiting to be addressed. On the other side of the bathroom door, Antonia stood with her eyes closed, waiting for the hurt contracting the muscles around her heart to ease. It hadn’t been the words but the way he had said them, with derision, deliberately aimed to cut. Stefan, she thought wearily. It always came back to Stefan, and Marco’s inability to accept the life she had led before she met him. For a man who prided himself on his fast-track modern sophistication, he harboured some truly archaic principles. One of these days she would find the strength to stand firm and challenge those principles, and this right he felt he had to speak to her like that, she promised herself. But not yet, she conceded heavily. She just didn’t have that kind of strength yet. Because to challenge him meant challenging their whole relationship, and the day she did that Antonia knew would be the same day she lost Marco for good. Though that moment was coming closer, she recognised, as the hurt began to fade much sooner than it usually did after one of his well-aimed barbs. And she found she could open her eyes and actually look at herself in the mirror opposite without wincing at what she saw. And what did she see? She saw a scarlet woman, she grimly mocked that reflection. A woman who was a mistress to a man who wasn’t even married but who still classed her as a mistress not a lover. In her view, there was a very important difference between the two titles. To be a man’s lover carried a certain amount of moral equality. To be his mistress showed a distinct lack of moral value. And was there such thing as a master to level out the playing field? No, of course not. He remained simply the lover, with no stigma at all attached to the title. You could have a pair of lovers but you could not have a pair of mistresses—not in this context anyway. No, that unenviable title belonged exclusively to her own fair sex. Sex being the operative word here. She lived in his home, she slept in his bed, and she relied on his financial generosity for her day-to-day survival. In return she gave him her absolute loyalty and her body—the true definition of a mistress, in other words. Not a bad life for a girl who came from nothing, she supposed. In fact, it would be pretty much a perfect life—if she didn’t love him as desperately as she did. Loving Marco made it a miserable life. How had Stefan described Marco when he’d tried to talk her out of coming to Italy to live with him? ‘He’s one of life’s ?lite,’ he’d said. ‘He might want your body, but he will never want you the way you want him to want you. You’re not of the fellowship, my darling. It is a simple fact of life that ?lite marries ?lite.’ Tough but wise words, as she’d found out the hard way. And if she had any sense at all she would get out, she told her reflection. She would gather up what little bit of pride she had left, and go, before he cleaned her out completely. And maybe she would do—soon, she resolved. But she turned away from the mirror as she thought it, knowing that it would take more than the occasional cruel remark on his part to make her leave him. She loved him too much and had stuck with him too long to give up so easily. Which didn’t mean she was going to forgive him, she determined as she stepped into the shower cubicle. Forgiveness came at a price, and Marco was going to have to pay that price with some serious grovelling. A smile touched her mouth, the very idea of making the arrogant Marco Bellini grovel doing wonders for her mood. He was gone from the bedroom by the time she appeared. Gone from the villa too, she discovered when she came downstairs to find Nina, the maid, clearing away what looked like a hastily eaten breakfast. ‘Signor Bellini left for Milan ten minutes ago, signorina,’ she informed her. ‘He said to remind you about the party tonight and to tell you to drive carefully, for the summer traffic between here and Milan is reputed to be very bad.’ Antonia thanked the maid for the message, and smiled in recognition of the routine. Marco was making himself scarce because he knew he had hurt her, but making sure he kept the lines of communication open as he went. Why? Because for a big tough corporate leader, with a reputed heart of stone and a tongue of steel, when it came to her, he hated dissension. He might not love her the way she wanted to be loved, but he loved her enough to feel uncomfortable when he had upset her. And, being a very selfish man, Marco liked to be comfortable in his private life. Hence the message telling her to drive carefully, and the reminder about the party tonight. This was Marco putting down the first stepping-stones back to his precious comfort. Other stepping-stones would follow at timely intervals, Antonia predicted as she sat down to eat breakfast, alone for the first time in the week they had just spent here doing very little but making love and sleeping. A week he’d arranged as a surprise treat for her birthday—along with the natty red Lotus which now stood in the courtyard waiting for her to drive it back to Milan. Last year he had given her a sweet little Fiat to use to get around in. But she had only been with him for a month then, so the value of the gift had reflected that. Like a bonus for time put in, she likened, and wondered what he would think a fitting bonus for her next birthday. If she was still around, she added, felt her heart give a tug, and got up from the table to go back upstairs to pack, refusing to answer that little sarcasm—or question why her heart had given that singular tug. An hour later, dressed in a pair of slender white Capri pants and a skimpy-red T-shirt, her hair stylishly contained on the top of her head, Antonia was sitting in the creamy interior of the red Lotus, reading the note Marco had left for her on the dashboard. ‘Respect the car’s power and it will respect you,’ it said. ‘I prefer you to arrive home to me in one beautiful piece.’ Antonia’s smile held a hint of softness this time—not at the message itself so much as the way that Marco had taken time to pause long enough to sit here and write this before climbing into his Ferrari and driving away. It was another stepping-stone neatly laid, and she was still smiling when she put her new toy into gear, then began following his long journey back to Milan, idly pondering on what his next move would be. He was nothing if not a brilliant tactician. He waited until she’d reached the outskirts of Milan before making contact again. Then her mobile began to ring. Glancing down to where it sat in its hands-free housing, Antonia pondered for a few rings whether to ignore it and just let him stew. But, in the end, irresistible temptation won over stubbornness and, with a flick of a button, she sanctioned the connection. ‘Ciao, mi amore.’ The deep dark tones of his voice filled the car-space, soft, warm and aimed to seduce, she felt tingles of excitement run down her spine. ‘You were, of course, too busy concentrating on your driving to answer the phone straight away.’ Not a question exactly, but more a remark loaded with satire. He knew she had hesitated over whether to speak to him. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded curtly. ‘That depends,’ he murmured suggestively, ‘on where you are right now…’ ‘Walking naked down Monte Napoleon, living up to expectations,’ she promptly tossed back at him, naming a particularly classy area within Milan’s famous Quadrilatero. As a direct hit back at what he had said to her this morning, it should have caught him on the raw. Instead, it was the turn of his appreciative laughter to coil itself all around her. Antonia wriggled in her seat and wished she could hate him. But what she was experiencing was far from hate, and it took a couple of risky manoeuvres through the heavy traffic to help dispel the sensation. ‘And to think,’ he said eventually, ‘I refused lunch at Dino’s just to talk to you.’ ‘Bad move, caro,’ Antonia responded. ‘Dino’s was by far your better option.’ ‘And you sulk like a prima donna,’ he smoothly threw back. He was right and she did. But then she felt justified. Still, the remark held a warning she would be a fool not to heed. ‘You told me you had back-to-back meetings all day,’ she murmured with less sarcasm. ‘Lunch at Dino’s is usually an all-afternoon thing.’ ‘I surprise myself sometimes with my own efficiency,’ was his light reply. ‘And your conceit,’ she added. ‘Si, that too,’ he had the arrogance to agree. Despite not wanting it to, Antonia felt her mouth twitch into a grin. In truth, his arrogance and conceit were major parts of what made Marco the charismatic person he was. Plus his sensational dark good looks, she then wryly added as she sped off the autostrada and headed for the city centre. Then there was his great body, and his prowess as lover, and the way he… ‘In truth, lunch at Dino’s was never an option.’ The sound of his voice grabbed her attention back again. ‘The morning meetings ran overtime. The first one of the afternoon begins in half an hour. So here I am, sitting at my desk, with a take-away sandwich to ease my hunger, a newspaper to feed my mind—and a desperate desire to hear you say something nice to me.’ ‘Huh,’ was all she offered. ‘You really want me to grovel, don’t you?’ his rueful voice drawled. ‘Preferably on your knees,’ Antonia confirmed. ‘Mmm,’ Marco murmured. ‘Now this sounds interesting. There are so many—many ways I can beg your forgiveness from that position.’ Her impulsive burst of laughter refused to be held in check. Across the city haze, in his plush office, Marco leant back in his chair and smiled a satisfied smile. Then, with the charm of a master, he turned the conversation to more ordinary things, like the performance of the Lotus, what she intended to do with her afternoon, and what time they needed to leave the apartment this evening to attend the first wedding anniversary party being thrown by his best friend Franco and his lovely wife Nicola. By the time he replaced the receiver, Marco was satisfyingly sure that this morning’s stupidity on his part had been carefully soothed away and he could begin to relax again. Reaching out, he picked up his sandwich and removed it from its wrapping, then collected up his newspaper, he lifted his feet onto the corner of the desk, and settled back to enjoy a half-hour of leisure before his next meeting began with a pair of young hopefuls who wanted his financial backing for their very good idea but fell short of his investment criteria by possessing the business skills of a pair of gnats! Until five minutes ago he had been intending to send them away with the curt advice to learn how to run a business before attempting to start one. But now he felt much more amenable. Maybe he would even offer to oversee the project himself! Then he opened the newspaper and any hint of amenability died a death in that moment. For there staring out at him was none other than—Stefan Kranst. He was standing inside one of Milan’s most respected private art galleries. And the full-page article was really a plug for the Romano Gallery, where the artist was planning to exhibit next week. But that wasn’t the thing that was knotting up Marco. It was the unsavoury suspicion that if Kranst was in town then Antonia must know about it, but she hadn’t mentioned a word to him! Did she know? Was she planning to meet up with him secretly? She had done it before at least once, to his knowledge. Antonia might have left Kranst to come to live in Milan with him, but the ex-lovers had not parted enemies. During a trip to London earlier this year, he had discovered by pure accident that she had spent a whole day with Kranst. ‘Don’t tell me who I can and who I can’t see!’ she’d declared when he’d objected. ‘Stefan will always be very special to me, and if you can’t cope with that, then that’s your problem, not mine, Marco.’ It had been one of a very few times when she’d actually looked ready to walk away from him if he tried to push the issue. He hadn’t pushed it. But, for the first time in his life, he’d experienced the ugly burn of jealousy, when he’d realised that Kranst held a power over Antonia that was a challenge to his own. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the knowledge that he’d backed down from taking up that challenge. And he didn’t like Kranst turning up in Milan just when Marco was having to do some serious thinking about his relationship with Antonia. It was either immaculate timing on Kranst’s part or yet another bad omen. Either way, the sandwich never got eaten and the two young hopefuls lost all chance of meeting an amiable Marco Bellini that day. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Marco was still functioning clearly enough to recognise an unmissable opportunity in what they were proposing, he would have taken great delight in kicking them out! Irritation alternated with disturbing bouts of skin-prickling restlessness throughout the rest of the afternoon. Sudden flashes of Antonia and Kranst holed-up somewhere secret played games with his head. In the end he could stand it no longer and went back to the privacy of his office to pick up the phone. Her mobile was switched off. Irritation ripped through him, then he remembered her telling him she was going straight back to the apartment, so he rang there instead. All he got was his own pre-recorded message telling him that no one was available to take his call. Antonia was standing in a tiny backstreet in another, less fashionable part of the city, fitting a key into a door. Once inside, she walked the narrow hallway and began climbing bare-boarded flights of stairs, passing by small dingy offices belonging to the kinds of businesses Marco looked down upon from his lofty position at the top of the corporate tree. Some of the tenants knew her, some didn’t, most looked curiously at her, smiled politely and left her alone. She liked it that way. For this place was her secret. A part of her life Marco didn’t control. On the very top landing, she went to the only door there and fitted another key into its lock. Stepping inside, she carefully closed the door again and then, turning round, she looked about her and quite simply smiled… CHAPTER TWO WALKING through the front door to the Milan apartment was always a pleasure. And the first thing Antonia did as she stepped into it some hours later was pause for a moment to reacquaint herself with surroundings that were a thousand times different from those she had just come from. Occupying the entire top floor of a modern city block, Marco’s home was an interior designer’s idea of heaven. No detail had been skimped in an effort to achieve its harmonious ambience. The hall was large and light and airy, the rooms leading off from it furnished with a clever mix of classical, old and new. Nothing offended the eye. There were formal rooms used only for entertaining, less grand rooms for when they did not. The kitchen was a cook’s paradise, all four en-suite bedrooms designed to co-ordinate with the pastel colours applied to the walls. And everywhere you went you walked on the very best in Italian ceramic, passing between priceless works of art that adorned the walls. Like his famous art-collecting ancestors, Marco had inherited an eye for what was just that bit special. Both he and his mother were generous patrons of the arts. What either of them bought, others took particular notice of. And, as with his taste in d?cor, he thought nothing of mixing the totally unknown with old respected masters—and of course it had worked beautifully. But she didn’t have time to stand here considering all of this right now, Antonia told herself wryly. She was late and she knew it. Somehow, time seemed to have got away from her today, and she was aware that she’d only just made it back before Marco usually arrived home. Live dangerously, why don’t you? she scolded herself as she headed directly for the bedroom, meaning to make it look as if she had been in there for ages getting ready for the evening when he did eventually get in. It turned out to be a wasted effort for, as fate would have it, Marco didn’t appear until she was already dressed for the evening and beginning to wonder what had happened to him. Then the bedroom door suddenly swung open and he came striding in. ‘You’re late,’ she immediately chided. ‘I have a watch,’ he clipped back, and walked right past her without even sparing her a glance. Frowning slightly, Antonia watched him begin pulling off his jacket in a way that spoke volumes about his mood. ‘Bad day?’ she quizzed. ‘Bad everything,’ he said grimly. ‘Hence no welcoming smile for me, no kiss hello?’ Teasing though her voice sounded, she was serious. After the efforts he’d put in, sweet-talking himself back into her favour, this new attitude was threatening to send him right back to square one if he wasn’t careful. Maybe he realised it because, after tossing the jacket onto the bed, he then stood for a moment flexing his wide shoulders as if he was trying to dislodge whatever it was that was bugging him. As she watched solid muscle move beneath pale blue shirting, Antonia felt the usual sprinkling of pleasure warm her insides, and would have gone to him and helped ease those tense muscles—if he hadn’t released a sigh and turned to look at her. The expression on his face held her stationary. His eyes were glinting with barely suppressed anger, his features hard and grim and unusually pale. In a single brief sweep he gave her appearance the once-over, then his mouth tightened and he turned away again. Warning bells began to ring in her head. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked sharply. ‘Nothing,’ he clipped out. Then on another short sigh added, ‘Give me ten minutes to make myself human and we will begin this conversation again, I think.’ ‘Fair enough,’ she agreed. It wasn’t often she’d witnessed the darker side of Marco, but on those few occasions she had done so, she’d learned very quickly to tread warily around him until he had calmed down. But she was still frowning as she let herself out of the bedroom, wondering what could have happened this afternoon to put him in that kind of mood. Bad meeting? A fortune lost on the Stock Exchange? she mused as she walked into the small sitting room and straight over to the drinks bar to mix him his favourite whisky sour while she waited for him to join her. The ten minutes he’d allocated himself had obviously not been long enough, was her first observation when he joined her. He came into the room with his hair still slightly damp from his quick shower and his fingers impatiently tugging the white cuffs to his shirt into line with the black silk edges of his dinner jacket—and it was clear, by the look on his face, that he was feeling no better. ‘Here, try this. It might help,’ she drily suggested, offering him the prepared drink. But, ‘No time,’ he refused. ‘And anyway, I’m driving.’ With that, he diverted over to the mirror and began messing with his bow-tie. And the hand holding out the whisky sour sank slowly back to the drinks bar as it began to dawn on Antonia that his mood had nothing to do with a bad day at the office, but had something to do with her. ‘All right,’ she said, deciding to take him on so they could get whatever it was that was annoying him out of the way before the evening began. ‘Tell me what it is I’m supposed to have done to make you so angry.’ ‘Who said you’d done anything?’ Bow-tie perfect, shirt-cuffs straight, he turned his attention to checking his watch. ‘If you’re ready, we should get going…’ If she was ready…Dipping her eyes to look down at the slender red silk dress she was wearing—newly bought this afternoon with Marco in mind because he loved to see her in red—Antonia felt her own happy mood shatter. The dress, the way she’d done up her hair so only the odd fine silk tendril caressed her nape, and even the blush-red lipstick she was wearing, had all been chosen with his pleasure in mind. And it hurt that he was deliberately ignoring that. That his voice might sound mellow but the message was cold. Cold like the silence he was now allowing to develop, even when he must know what she was thinking because he deciphered atmospheres in a room as easily as he deciphered a page full of figures. The man was an accounting genius, it therefore went without saying that he wanted her to feel this hurt. But more painful was the knowledge that he had done this to her twice in one day. What was the matter with him? What was he trying to tell her with these violent swings in his mood? That he’d had enough? That she’d begun to irritate him so much that he couldn’t seem to look at her without taking a verbal swipe at her? The idea wasn’t a new one. She had been suspecting it on and off for a while, though until this morning they had just enjoyed a whole week of near perfect harmony and she had begun to believe that she’d been imagining his growing irritation with her. But now, as she stood here in this carefully orchestrated silence, the suspicion returned with a vengeance. Was she growing stale? Did he want out? Had the week away been arranged in an effort to recapture what he was no longer feeling for her? Twice in one day, she repeated to herself. Twice he’d been deliberately hurtful. ‘Cara?’ he prompted her to answer. The endearment made her insides wince. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m ready.’ But, as she turned away to retrieve her little red purse from where she had left it, she found herself wondering exactly what it was she was ready for. Losing him? A sharp pain caught her breath for a moment, holding her still while she waited for it to ease in much the same way she had done this morning. By that example the sensation should have dispersed quickly. But it didn’t. In fact, the more sure she became that he was tiring of her, the more it was beginning to hurt. Yet she had always known that this could only ever be a temporary affair, she tried to reason. And, as some people were always eager to tell her, she had lasted longer than most. Those were usually the same people who were also quick to explain that when Marco Bellini married it would be to a woman of his own social standing. Someone with money, someone with class, someone with a lineage to match the superior weight of his. And, most importantly, someone his parents would welcome with open arms. Certainly not a little English nobody who had never known her father. A woman who wasn’t deemed fit to even be in the same room as any of his relatives. And, worse, a woman who didn’t mind exposing her body to the world. ‘What’s this?’ The questioning sound of Marco’s voice impinged on her bleak summing up of herself. Having to blink a couple of times before she could face him, she found him standing there with a gold-wrapped flat package in his hands. ‘Oh, it’s a gift for Franco and Nicola.’ Eyes still slightly glazed, she turned away again. ‘I realised we hadn’t got them anything, so I went shopping before coming on here…’ Shopping. For several moments Marco couldn’t move a single muscle. Remorse was cutting into him for the second time that day. While he’d been suspecting her of meeting secretly with Stefan Kranst she’d been trawling the shops, looking for an anniversary gift for his own two closest friends. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to say to put right the wrong he’d done her—yet again. ‘I’m sorry, cara,’ seemed the only thing to offer. ‘I should have thought about this myself.’ There was a double meaning to the last part, though he was relieved Antonia couldn’t know it. She winced at the cara, though, he noticed. Shrugged at the rest. ‘It doesn’t matter. Your money paid for it.’ With that she walked stiffly away, leaving her very derisive offering hanging in the air behind her. With a silent curse aimed at his own nasty suspicions, Marco followed, grimly deciding to keep his mouth shut since he was well aware that he had successfully managed to wipe her clean of all hint of good humour by now. And she looked gorgeous, delectable, good enough to eat—though he knew he had left it too late to tell her that. The dress was short, red and very sexy the way it clung to every slender curve she possessed. It made him want to run his hands all over her, but that was just another pleasure he had denied himself with his lousy mood. Antonia lifted the latch on the front door and stepped through, leaving Marco to set the alarm and lock up, while she called the lift. It arrived as he did. They stepped inside it. The lift took them down towards the basement with Antonia occupying one corner, he another, and the atmosphere was so thick he could have cut it with a knife. If the English were brilliant at only one thing, then it would have to be their ability to freeze people out, he mused as he viewed her glacial expression. ‘Do you want me to apologise for taking my bad temper out on you?’ he sighed eventually. ‘What—again?’ she drawled. Then, ‘No, don’t bother,’ she advised, before he could answer. ‘No doubt you’ll be doing it again before too long, which renders your apologies pretty meaningless gestures.’ Perhaps he deserved that, Marco conceded. But irritation began to bite into him again. He didn’t like being treated like a leper just because he’d made a natural mistake. Natural? He quizzed himself. Yes, damn natural, he insisted arrogantly. He might no longer suspect her of spending the afternoon with Kranst, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know the man was here in Milan! Well, he was damned if he was going to bring the subject up first, he decided, grimly aware that he didn’t really want to know the answer. For to know the answer meant dealing with it. And he didn’t want to deal with anything that could risk his relationship with Antonia. Not until he had made up his own mind where it was going to go, anyway. So, with that niggling little confession to chew on, he let the atmosphere remain thick for the next thirty seconds it took the lift to sink. They left it side by side, to walk between the rows of parked cars towards his Ferrari, passing by her neatly parked red Lotus without either of them sparing it a glance. Three days old and she doesn’t even see it. Which, in its own way, made the car just another wasted gesture on his part, he noted testily. She had been ecstatic when he took her away for a week as part of her birthday present, but the car had produced only the usual polite remarks people use when they’re given something they’re really not that impressed with. With ingrained good manners that went back a lifetime, he opened the passenger door of the Ferrari and remained standing by it while Antonia slipped gracefully inside. For the briefest of moments only a few centimetres separated them. It was the closest they’d been since this morning on the balcony in Portofino, he realised, as her delicate perfume filled his nostrils and his senses reacted in their usual way. Grimly, he ignored their message, when only yesterday he would have been freely indulging every sense he possessed. With his lips pressed together in a steadily darkening mood of discontent, he placed the gift for Franco and Nicola on her lap, closed the door, then rounded the car bonnet to get in beside her. As he settled himself into his seat he caught a glimpse of her icy profile, clenched his teeth together, and turned his attention to getting them moving. And the silence between them was still so bad it murdered normal body functions like breathing and swallowing. He couldn’t stand it. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s in the parcel?’ he asked as lightly as he could in the circumstances. ‘A painting,’ she answered briefly. Having already worked that part out for himself, by the shape and the feel of the gift, Marco took a deep breath for patience. ‘What kind of painting?’ he prompted. ‘Why?’ she flicked back. ‘Are you worried that I don’t have the right credentials to choose something acceptable for your friends?’ At which point he gave up. In this kind of mood she was impossible. Sinking back into stiff silence, neither spoke again for the rest of the journey. Franco and Nicola de Maggio lived in a large house in one of the select residential areas out on the edges of the city. Arriving so late meant it was difficult to find a parking space in the long driveway. Cursing beneath his breath, Marco had to do some pretty deft manoeuvring to slot the long car in between two others already parked. By the time he switched off the engine the atmosphere between them was so tight you could have played an overture on its taut threads. It was no wonder Antonia was eager to escape from it. Marco released a hard sigh as he watched her fumble in her rush to unlock her seat belt. ‘The filthy atmosphere remains here in the car,’ he bit out warningly. They were about to go amongst his friends, after all. He had no wish for them to witness his less than harmonious love life. The false smile she turned on him set a nerve ticking in his jaw—and had other parts of him rising to its provocative bait. He could soften her in seconds, right here, in these cramped confines. He knew a few simple moves that would remind her as to why she was even sitting here at all! ‘Get out of the car,’ he growled at her before he replaced the thought with a very satisfying action. Antonia didn’t need telling for she was already opening the door. Stepping out of air-conditioned coolness into the heat of an Italian summer evening, she stood there taking in a few deep breaths of that air in the vague hopes that it would help warm her up inside. No chance. Now the suspicion that he was growing weary of her had set itself as cold hard fact in her head, the idea of feeling warm ever again was impossible to imagine. In truth, she had almost refused to come tonight. For a few minutes, back there in the apartment, she had almost taken the mammoth step of taking the initiative and calling it a day. She had her pride after all. And it had no wish to cling on to something that was already dying, even if Marco was willing to hang on until the whole affair had finally strangled itself to death. But then he’d brought her attention to the gift for Franco and Nicola and she’d changed her mind. The couple might be Marco’s friends, but they had also become her friends over the last year—Nicola especially. Leaving Marco was one thing. Doing it on the night of Nicola’s wedding anniversary party would cast a black cloud over her friend’s special night, and she had no wish to do that. And anyway, she admitted, as she waited for Marco to come and join her, she wanted to be here. She wanted to go out with a smile and her head held high, not slink off into the darkness like a pet dog that had lost favour with its master. Tomorrow she would leave, she determined, as the master arrived at her side. His hand came to rest against her back. His jacket sleeve brushed her bare arm. Her flesh began to tingle as she absorbed the impact of a pure male magnetism that never ceased to excite her, no matter what the mood between them was like. Her chin was level with his shoulder, her eyes with his mouth. If she turned her head just a fraction she would be able to see the perfectly honed contours that made up his handsome face. But she didn’t even need to move her head to pick up the tangy scent of him, because she was inhaling it with every breath that she took as they walked together towards the house. Inside was awash with music and laughter. The moment they walked through the door it was like stepping into a different world. It came as a shock—the kind of shock that made Antonia pause and blink a couple of times in an effort to make the transition from hostility and darkness to merriment and light. Then a cry of delight went up, and she saw their hostess separate herself from the group of people she had been with. In tow behind her was the man she had been married to for a year today. Tall and dark, handsome and sleek, Franco de Maggio was very much of Marco’s ilk. It should have made the two men natural rivals—but the truth was the opposite. They had known each other since kindergarten and been close friends ever since. With her long black hair, stunningly beautiful dark brown eyes and dressed in slinky black cre?pe that moulded her sensational figure, Nicola de Maggio was everything that Antonia was not. She was Italian, she had money in her own right, and her place beside Franco or another man like him had never been in any doubt from the day she had been born into her privileged life. She belonged here. To Nicola, being a part of this society came as naturally to her as the inner warmth she exuded, which defied anyone not to instinctively like her simply for herself. Antonia had liked her from the first moment they met, she as Marco’s very new lover, Nicola as Franco’s new bride. Liking had deepened into real affection since then. They were now good close friends—much like Marco and Franco. Yet Antonia had never ceased to be aware that she was the cuckoo in the nest. Their smiles were genuine, their greetings were warm—and gave Antonia the excuse to move away from Marco’s touch. On receiving their gift, their thanks were sincere. With a few teasing quizzes on what it might be, it was placed with all the other gifts waiting to be opened. ‘It feels like our wedding day all over again,’ Nicola sighed out happily. ‘Wait until it’s your turn, Antonia, and you will know just how blessed I feel.’ Marco stiffened, Antonia froze. Seeing their reaction, Nicola went quite pale. With a sharp glance at all three of them, Franco swiftly stepped into the breach. ‘I think you should explain how blessed, amore,’ he murmured softly, placing an arm around his wife’s slender shoulders. And it was a protective arm. An arm that said, It’s okay. Not your fault. I’m here to smooth this out for you. Antonia wanted to run away, because it was as clear as day that Marco wasn’t here to smooth anything out for her. ‘We are going to have a baby!’ Nicola suddenly announced in an anxiously rushed hush. ‘Only we weren’t going to say anything until later…’ She should be smiling, bubbling over with delight, but she couldn’t because she was feeling so uncomfortable after what she’d said. So, pulling herself together, Antonia did it for her. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful news!’ she exclaimed, and smiled—my God, how she smiled. She smiled as she hugged Nicola, and smiled as she kissed Franco’s rather grim cheek. She even smiled up at Marco, though she wanted to hit him rather than smile at him. His arm found her waist and he drew her close again. It was such a brave gesture, considering Nicola had just turned him to stone in horror. He even found a light rejoinder. ‘Dinner next week,’ he insisted. ‘Just the four of us to wet the baby’s head.’ I won’t be here next week, Antonia thought, and smiled through that little knowledge also. ‘You do that after the baby is born!’ Nicola protested. ‘Then we will wet the waiting mamma’s head,’ Marco compromised, and kissed the waiting mamma’s now smiling mouth. Between them all a nasty moment had been neatly smoothed over. Nicola was happy again, as she should be. Franco on the other hand looked curious as to what was going on between Marco and Antonia but was willing to hold his tongue. Thankfully, a new bunch of latecomers arrived, giving the happy couple an excuse to escape. Once again, Antonia moved away from Marco’s touch. The worst of it was, he let her go. So she threw herself headlong into the party to end all parties, as far she was concerned. For tomorrow I leave, was the chant playing over and over inside her head as she laughed and chatted happily away in Italian, the language being second nature to her, having spent the first five years of her life living here. And she danced, and ate very sparingly, and drank champagne by the glassful without knowing she was doing it. Managing to corner her an hour later, Nicola demanded to know what was going on. ‘If you two are avoiding each other like this because of what I said, then I am so sorry!’ she cried. ‘I can’t tell you how awful I felt, setting you up in that dreadful way!’ ‘Don’t be silly.’ Antonia tried to smile it off—again. ‘It really didn’t matter.’ ‘If course it mattered,’ Nicola insisted. ‘I hurt you and infuriated Marco! He’s barely speaking to anyone while you are partying as if this is your last night on this earth!’ Many a true word, Antonia thought bleakly. ‘If Marco is still angry over an innocent remark, then shame on him and his overgrown ego,’ she said. ‘What did he think I was going to do? Jump in and ask him when I get to feel blessed?’ ‘You’ve lasted longer than any of his other lovers.’ Nicola gently offered a phrase Antonia had grown very weary of hearing recently. Especially when it helped to mark that the end was most definitely nigh. ‘That has to mean something, doesn’t it?’ Nicola pleaded. Did it? ‘It means I must be good at my job,’ she provided, eyes hardening into cynicism. ‘Do you think I’ll be head-hunted when word gets around that I’m back on the market?’ Nicola’s beautiful mouth dropped open. Across the room, standing by the drinks bar, Marco saw it happen and wondered what the hell Antonia had said to make Nicola gape like that. Nothing nice, he concluded as he watched Nicola search the room until her eyes made contact with his. In a definite flurry, she looked quickly away again. And his senses were suddenly on full alert. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like any of it. The whole damn day had gone from bad to worse, seemingly without him having any control whatsoever over it. Now something else was happening here that he didn’t understand. Okay, Antonia was angry with him, he allowed. So he was a moody devil and probably deserved the way she was avoiding him like the plague. But whatever she’d just said to Nicola had been more than a complaint about his bad temper. His friend’s wife had actually looked shocked and horrified. Nicola was talking to her urgently—telling her that he was watching them, he realised, when Antonia turned so he could see the cold cast of defiance in her beautiful face. Their eyes made contact. If looks could kill, he’d be dead now, Marco acknowledged, and raised his glass to her in a silent toast meant to convey that he really didn’t give a damn if she was hating him. But it wasn’t true. And that was his biggest problem where Antonia was concerned. Even now, while exchanging metaphorical knives across a crowded room, she lit him up so fiercely inside that if there was a polite way of doing it he would be getting her out of here and alone so he could demonstrate just how she affected him. And that just about said it all as to why he was having these damned hard constant battles with himself. He wanted her. He always wanted her! Angry or not. Crowded room or not. Why the hell should he give up something he still desired as much as this? Almost as if on cue, the moment he planted that important point in his head, fate dealt him a lousy hand just to show to him that he wasn’t the only person with a choice in this relationship. A slight disturbance by the door caught Antonia’s attention. She looked that way, Marco followed her gaze—then felt everything inside him close down completely when he found himself looking at none other than Stefan Kranst himself. The moment Antonia saw him her beautiful face lit up, her gorgeous mouth broke into a sensational smile. And she struck out towards Kranst like a pigeon recognising home. CHAPTER THREE STANDING on the sidelines, Marco watched them meet, watched them smile, watched them murmur to each other. He watched Antonia lift her hand to his shoulders and Stefan Kranst slide his hands around her waist—then their mouths came together in a tender soft kiss. He tried telling himself that it was just a greeting—that it was as natural as any other kiss exchanged tonight. But it wasn’t true, and everyone knew it. Which was why conversations stopped, heads turned, and the whole room watched Marco Bellini’s mistress embrace her ex-lover with brazen ease. Strikingly tall and fair, Stefan Kranst might be ten years older than Marco, but he had as little trouble as Marco securing any woman of his choice. And Dio, he had secured a few during the year since Antonia had left him, Marco recalled deridingly. But this woman was now his woman. She lived in his home, she slept in his bed, and she clothed herself with his money. Which made that lush red-painted mouth Kranst was kissing his exclusive property. The primitive heat of an age-old burn of possessiveness began to form blisters inside the wall of his chest, the urge to go over there and drag them apart holding him absolutely still while he fought to contain such an utterly crass act. Everyone was watching, waiting—hoping, in their cruel little way, that he was going to do exactly that and cause the kind of nice juicy scene they could dine out on for the next month. And her dress was too short, her legs too long, and her slender ankles too sexily elevated by the heels of her shiny-red backless shoes, Marco observed—refusing to remember that he had thought the exact opposite before he had witnessed her wrapped in that particular man’s arms. Had she done it for effect? Had she worn the dress because she’d known all along that Kranst would be here tonight and had wanted to please him? No bra, he remembered, dropping his eyes to the twin points of her breasts hovering a half centimetre away from Kranst’s chest. He knew what that felt like. He knew what was happening to Kranst right now, because the bastard also knew what it felt like to hold Antonia that close. No proper panties, either, knowing her. His eyes moved lower, checking for a tell-tale panty-line and finding none, which meant she was wearing one of those sexy little g-strings she liked to favour now and then. Usually for his exclusive pleasure. So, when he saw Kranst’s long artistic fingers splay over the slender curve of her hips, Marco took it as a personal insult to see her accept the intimacy as if the man still had every right to place his hands on her like that! The sudden burst of soft laughter brought his hard gaze flicking upwards in time to catch that laughter animating just about every exquisite feature on her face. Then one of her hands curled around Kranst’s nape, and they began talking to each other as if it was perfectly acceptable for them to behave like this in public. But it was not acceptable, and she should know it. She should know that such behaviour with a man everyone here knew had been her lover before Marco only made her look cheap and made him look a fool! Was she doing it deliberately? Was this her way of letting him know that he wasn’t the only fish in her sea? Sometimes he hated her. Sometimes he hated her so much he was bewildered as to how he could want her so badly, feeling the way he did. She wasn’t his type. She had never been his type. She was too young, too uncultured and just too damn flighty! Or why else would she choose to stand out like an exotic flower in flimsy red silk while the rest of the room wore classy black chic? Someone slid up beside him. ‘Well, caro, she certainly knows how to make a man welcome,’ a very mocking female voice drawled. Gritting his teeth together behind the determinedly relaxed line of his mouth, Marco ignored Louisa Florenza’s silken barb, and maintained his silence as the two of them stood watching Stefan Kranst begin edging Antonia backwards a few steps until he had put them both on the tiny dance floor. Her hand remained curled around his nape. Both of his rested on her slender waist as he set them swaying to the music while they continued to talk. And their concentration on each other was so absolute that it was clear Antonia had completely forgotten all about the man she had actually come here with! ‘You know, you cannot fail to be impressed by her complete lack of guile.’ Louisa smoothly injected her next poisoned barb. ‘Most women would be dying of embarrassment if they were confronted by their ex-lover in a room packed full of the friends of her present lover. But she doesn’t seem to care at all!’ ‘You are standing next to me, cara,’ Marco pointed out. ‘Do you see me dying of embarrassment?’ As a reply, Louisa linked her arm through the crook of his arm. ‘We had some good times, Marco, hmm?’ she murmured wistfully. Good times? Watching Antonia swaying sensually to the music, he promised himself that if the gap between their bodies grew any smaller he would go over there and…‘You were a cat with claws, Louisa,’ he drily reminded her. ‘Which made the good times very few and far between.’ ‘I purred like a kitten in your bed, though,’ she came back, with an example of that sensual purr. It did nothing for him, which further annoyed him because it had used to do many things for him. But now all he could hear was another woman’s soft sighs breathing tremulous pleas that could drive him out of his mind. ‘And you liked to feel my claws now and again…’ ‘I still bear the scars,’ he clipped. ‘Good,’ she said, but he sensed the knowledge getting through to her that his mind—and his body—was very much elsewhere right now. ‘I hope you will always bear them. For what you are feeling now, as you watch her make love to him on the dance floor, is what I feel every time I see you with her. And those scars will last for ever, Marco, I can assure you.’ The bitterness in her tone finally caught his attention. Turning his head, he looked down into the face of one of Italy’s most beautiful women—and smiled a very sardonic smile. ‘Any scars you retain from me, bella mia,’ he drawled, ‘belong exclusively to the loss of that intravenous drip you had attached to my money.’ Unfazed by the accusation, Louisa held his very mocking gaze. ‘Are you implying that she does not enjoy the same privilege?’ ‘No,’ he conceded, and his smile began to tighten as he returned his attention to the two closely linked bodies on the dance floor. ‘But she has yet to abuse that particular privilege.’ ‘Clever girl,’ Louisa commended. Not so clever, Marco countered silently as he watched her soft-blonde head give a small shake that set the paste diamonds decorating the clasp holding up her lovely hair shimmering in the lights. Then she put her hand across Kranst’s mouth to stop whatever it was he was saying to her. Was he asking her to go back to him? Was he asking to paint her again? Was he talking sex to her just as Louisa was talking sex to him? Intimacy was the absolute devil, he decided. A forsaken intimacy was even worse. It gave people you no longer felt a thing for a power over you you could never take back. ‘He still wants her.’ Louisa’s remark hit him dead centre, as if she could tap into his thoughts. ‘His desires don’t interest me,’ he answered dismissively. The real point was—did Antonia still want Kranst? Then another thought slid silk-like into his head, filling him with something disturbingly like dismay. Could it be that Antonia was becoming tired of him? The very suggestion was so alien to him that he couldn’t quite work out how to handle it. No woman in his memory had even considered walking away from him until he was ready to let them go! Then—no. Marco dismissed that idea with a contempt even he recognised as arrogance. She adored him. She always had done. If he walked over there right now and took her in his arms she would become his loving siren again within seconds, and Kranst would be the one left forgotten on the sidelines. ‘He has the looks, caro.’ Once again Louisa tapped into his thinking. ‘He has the body and the reputation of a great lover. And although he may not have the social standing you possess, he can claim star quality, which cancels out the proud Bellini name. In fact,’ she concluded tauntingly ‘the only thing you seem to have that he doesn’t are the financial resources you claim she doesn’t abuse. But it is interesting how it always comes back to the money, hmm?’ Even to his own surprise, Marco released a burst of laughter. Because he was seeing the new red Lotus Antonia had walked past tonight as if it wasn’t there. He was seeing a safe full of jewels she hardly ever asked to wear because she preferred to wear paste, like the clasp dressing her hair. And he was seeing an account in his own bank into which he paid a regular amount of money that she rarely spent. So, no, avarice was not Antonia’s besetting sin. But at least Louisa’s peevish barb had put the humour back into his mood, so he repaid her by bending down to kiss her pouting mouth. She clung to him. He wasn’t surprised—only indifferent—which was a shame, really, because Louisa would be his mother’s idea of the perfect Bellini bride. Shame—big shame—she wasn’t his own. ‘There,’ Antonia declared. ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Antonia was seeing that kiss Marco had just bestowed on Louisa Florenza as the final proof she needed to confirm that he was tiring of her. ‘Men like Bellini do not replace old with older,’ Stefan drawled sardonically. ‘And you’ve just been kissing me,’ he further pointed out. ‘I would be flattered to think it was because you wanted me as your replacement lover, but we both know it wouldn’t be true.’ ‘I love you more than anyone else on this earth, and I wish I’d never met him,’ Antonia told him so tragically that Stefan had to sigh. ‘My darling, the man is besotted with you. One only has to look at the too-cool way he is handling this little scene you’re so carefully laying on for his benefit to know he’s paying you back by doing the same to you.’ ‘If he loved me, he would be over here punching your lights out instead of laughing with her.’ ‘Well, thanks a lot,’ Stefan drawled. ‘It’s all your fault, anyway,’ she informed him churlishly. ‘If you hadn’t put my likeness into your stupid paintings, he wouldn’t have bothered coming looking for me in the first place!’ ‘I didn’t encourage you to fall for the rake.’ It was Stefan’s turn to laugh, and Marco’s turn to listen to him doing it. ‘You did that all on your own, Antonia. And I distinctly remember warning you off.’ It was such a painful little truth that she felt the tears suddenly flood into her eyes. Seeing them, Stefan released another sigh and pulled her just that little bit closer. ‘You’ve been with him for over a year,’ he gently reminded her. ‘That’s a whole lot longer than any other woman in his harem.’ ‘And the next person to tell me that will probably receive a slap,’ she responded bitterly. ‘But it still has to count for something, my darling,’ he persisted. ‘Can you honestly swear that he’s actually said he no longer wants you?’ All Antonia did was smile cynically. For how many hints did she need tossed at her to know what was going on inside Marco’s head? Even the week in Portofino was beginning to look like their swan-song to her. They’d had a row a few days before, over his intention to spend several days with his parents on their Tuscany estate. And she’d taken offence that even after a year together he was still refusing to let her meet them. ‘Anyone would think you were ashamed of me,’ she’d said. ‘My father is ill,’ he’d replied. ‘Show a little consideration for the plight of others.’ But he hadn’t denied the accusation that he was ashamed. And his face had closed up, just as it always did when they touched on the subject of his exalted family. So he’d gone alone to Tuscany. She hadn’t heard from him once in the three days he’d been there. And when he’d come back he’d been so moody and irritable that the sudden decision to spend a week together in Portofino had come as a complete surprise. ‘That depends on your definition of want,’ she said to Stefan with a bleak little smile. ‘He still wants me in his bed, but out of it I just irritate the hell out of him.’ ‘Hence the hungry vamp act here with me, designed to irritate him even more so,’ Stefan heavily concluded. ‘Do you have a death wish or something, Antonia? Because, love you or hate you, Marco Bellini is not the kind of man you embarrass in front of his friends,’ he warned very seriously. ‘He’ll strike back so hard you won’t know what’s hit you.’ From the corner of her vision she saw Marco join them on the dance floor with Louisa clasped in his arms. As Stefan swung her around she caught sight of Nicola standing watching them with anxious eyes while, beside her, Franco simply looked angry. And as it suddenly occurred to her that there was a lot of watchful tension eddying around in the atmosphere, she finally realised what had made Stefan issue the warning. A calamity was brewing in Nicola’s drawing room and, in her eagerness to score points off Marco’s arrogant pride, she was unwittingly the cause of it. ‘How did you manage to get an invite to this party?’ she asked Stefan, suddenly realising that neither Franco or Nicola would be so insensitive as to invite him here, knowing his past relationship with their best friend’s current mistress. He smiled a brief smile. ‘I came with Rosetta Romano,’ he explained, naming the famous owner of the Romano Gallery in the Quadrilatero. ‘I was good enough to step into the breach at short notice when her planned artist cancelled during a fit of temperament. So hawking me around Milan’s most fashionable is her way of buying a bit of free advertising before the show opens.’ ‘Signora Romano obviously didn’t know she would be causing one hell of a gaffe putting you, me and Marco in the same air-space,’ Antonia said drily. ‘Of course she knew.’ Stefan grinned. ‘How much free publicity do you estimate she’ll get from setting up this potentially explosive scene?’ ‘And not just for the Romano Gallery,’ she added, meaning that Stefan Kranst wasn’t opposed to using notoriety to alert interest in his work. His shrug was an arrogant acknowledgement of that. ‘I’m a painter, not a diplomat. And anyway,’ he added, looking into her eyes again, ‘I wanted to see you, but trying to reach you through normal sources is virtually impossible. I’ve been leaving messages with your housekeeper all week, Antonia. Did you actually receive any of them?’ His meaning was clear. But Antonia shook her head at it. ‘We’ve been away on a week’s holiday,’ she explained. ‘And only arrived back late this afternoon. Today is the housekeeper’s day off. I haven’t seen Carlotta, had a chance to check messages or do anything other than get ready to come here.’ ‘So the guy hasn’t resorted to censoring your messages yet?’ He smiled a trifle cynically. ‘I did begin to wonder when I couldn’t get to speak to you personally,’ he admitted. ‘Because you can bet your sweet smile, my darling, that the moment I agreed to show in Milan, then Mr Patron of the Arts knew about it.’ He was implying that Marco had known about him being here in Milan and had deliberately kept the information from her! It seemed an appropriate moment for the music to stop. Stefan walked her to the edge of the floor and said nothing while she came to terms with the ugly possibility that he could well be right. For if anyone knew exactly what was happening on the art scene, here in Milan, then it was most definitely Marco! The rat, she fumed. He might no longer want her for himself, but his inflated ego wouldn’t sanction him having to witness her with a man who would always want her! ‘Here.’ Stefan offered her a glass of champagne. ‘Drink this. You might feel better.’ Stubbornly dismissing the knowledge that she’d probably had more than enough champagne for one wretched night, she accepted the glass and drank the whole lot in a couple of determined gulps. Champagne bubbles began to mix with anger in her blood. It was a dangerous combination. ‘I think I hate him,’ she announced with a deep sense of satisfaction for having said the words out loud. ‘Well, in that case the next few minutes should be interesting,’ Stefan murmured levelly. Dropping his eyes from a point somewhere over her left shoulder, he mocked her vehemence with a wry challenge. ‘This may be a good moment for you to decide how much you hate him,’ he suggested. ‘Because war is about to be declared, my darling.’ He had to mean Marco, she realised, and felt the champagne bubbles start to pop. Her soft mouth parted, her eyes grew dark, and a helpless kind of indecision sent her hand out to swap her empty glass for his full one. On a sigh, Stefan gave a shake of his head. ‘You sweet idiot,’ he murmured. ‘Didn’t it occur to you even once that you might not be ready for a showdown with him?’ An astute question, and a painful one, because she had considered and accepted only this morning that she wasn’t ready for any kind of showdown with Marco. Now here she was, standing on the very threshold of one hell of a row—and in a room packed full of his loyal supporters. Cuckoo in the nest didn’t even cover what she suddenly began to feel like. ‘Be brave, my friend,’ Stefan softly encouraged. Then—‘Good evening, Marco.’ He smiled. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again…’ But it wasn’t a pleasure for any of them. Standing close to Stefan still, Antonia was assailed by the familiar scent of Marco before she was assailed by the full impact of his physical presence. He arrived at her side, his shoulder level with her chin. As usual her skin began to shimmer at the near contact, her fingers curling tensely round the glass while she waited for him to say something totally unforgivable. Yet all he did was offer Stefan his hand to shake and return the polite greeting without any obvious sign of animosity. ‘You’re showing at Romano’s all next week, I believe.’ As smoothly as that, Marco informed Antonia that he had known Stefan was here in Milan but had not bothered to tell her. ‘The doors open on Saturday,’ Stefan confirmed. ‘I was just asking Antonia if you were both coming to my private viewing on Friday evening,’ he added, with lying ease. ‘And of course she assured you that we wouldn’t miss it,’ Marco returned in the same lying vein. ‘Of course,’ Stefan smoothly confirmed. ‘Especially when I told her I have something for her to collect from me while she’s there.’ The smile at her puzzled frown and the teasing brush of a finger to her jutting chin were done, she was sure, simply to annoy Marco. ‘Let’s call it a belated birthday surprise,’ he suggested. ‘If you still have my Mirror Woman, Marco, then it may have some interest to you too,’ he added lightly. It was a baited hook. ‘Sounds intriguing.’ Marco smiled, but Antonia stiffened at the mention of the painting that had given Stefan his fame—and herself her notoriety. She had only seen it once since the first evening she had arrived in Marco’s apartment a year ago. The painting had been hanging in his study. When he’d shown it to her she hadn’t been able to hide her dismay, because she hadn’t realised that Marco actually owned the painting. Marco had since moved it to a secure room connected to the study where he kept his more—personal investments. Now Stefan was implying that he had another one just like it. And though she knew he was quite capable of producing a hundred paintings exactly the same, without needing the live model to do it, it disturbed her deeply to hear Stefan taunting Marco with the suggestion that he had returned to putting her in his paintings. Which led her straight to another question that set her trembling a little as she looked into his lean smooth indolently smiling face. Had Stefan gone back on his promise to her? Her eyes begged the question but Stefan refused to notice. Beside her Marco was playing it so casual she wondered if he even cared. But then, if she was on her way out, why should he care? she then asked herself. And, like this morning, she simply turned and walked away, with no stomach to play this game. Only this time Marco didn’t let her get far before his hand was capturing one of hers. She tried to tug free. ‘Stop it,’ he said, turning her round until he could see her face. Her eyes were too dark, her cheeks too pale, and her soft mouth was trembling. Marco knew the look, he knew she was hurting, but the knowledge that it wasn’t him who had done the hurting this time didn’t help to lighten his mood one little bit. One part of him wanted to beat the hell out of Kranst for being so insensitive as to mention the Mirror Woman, when Marco was sure he must know the way it could upset her. While another part wanted to blast her to smithereens for still being so vulnerable to something she had, after all, posed for in all her naked glory! ‘You reap what you sow, cara,’ he told her grimly, took the glass from her fingers and put it aside, then pulled her the few steps needed to bring them onto the dance floor and folded her into his arms. ‘Now dance,’ he commanded, holding her close even while she tried to strain away from him. ‘Remember where you are and who you will be hurting if you cause a scene here.’ As if on cue, Franco and Nicola danced in close to them. ‘Ciao,’ Nicola greeted awkwardly. ‘You two enjoying yourselves?’ She had to know that enjoyment was the last thing either he or Antonia were experiencing. ‘We’re having a wonderful time,’ Antonia answered smilingly, coiling an intimate hand around Marco’s neck—and dug her nails in. ‘I love it when Marco comes over all macho.’ Franco flashed him a sardonic look, Nicola avoided eye contact completely. ‘So long as you’re happy,’ their poor hostess mumbled, and looked relieved when her husband manoeuvred them away again. ‘She hates scenes,’ Marco sighed. ‘She always has done.’ ‘I hate you,’ Antonia responded. ‘Does that mean I get a sympathetic sigh too?’ One part of him wanted to grin, the other part was furious. ‘No,’ he retaliated. ‘You get to go home with the guy you hate and receive your just reward in private.’ With that he reached up and unclipped her nails, held onto the hand and trapped it between their bodies. ‘Now look at me and smile,’ he gritted. ‘Or I think I might just kiss you senseless.’ If he expected the threat to subdue her, he soon learned otherwise when she had the absolute audacity to pull out one of her secret weapons that she kept under wraps for most of the time. Her head tipped backwards, her eyes grew sultry, and, setting the pink tip of her tongue between her even white teeth, she snaked up on her toe-tips and licked the thin line of his angry mouth. Fire engulfed his body at the speed of lightning. Erogenous zones came alive with an urgency that stung. Had she kissed Kranst like this? Made him feel like this? Madre di Dio, he couldn’t deal with the green streak of furious jealousy that went rampaging through him. ‘We’re leaving,’ he announced. ‘I want to stay,’ she pouted, playing the seductress for all she was worth now, with sensual eyes and promising mouth and the inviting sway of her beautiful body. In one corner of his consciousness he was totally engrossed in her, loving it—loving her defiance, her willingness to take him on, her deliberate public seduction. But another part was wondering if Kranst had incited this. With the flat of an angry palm pressed to her lower body he felt the smoothness of naked flesh beneath the clinging red fabric, and remembered Kranst’s hand grazing the same area. She quivered for him. Had she quivered for Kranst? From the periphery of his vision he could see Kranst standing there watching them. He felt a bloody black fury begin to throb with his heartbeat, and he bit out silkily, ‘I’m game if you are.’ Lips gone so dry they were fused together, Antonia felt the sheer heat of that challenge burn right down to her tingling toes. In any mood Marco was a breathtaking study of male beauty, but bad tempered and aroused he was awakening senses she hadn’t known existed before she met him. Weak, sensual, female senses. The one which made man the aggressor and woman his more than willing slave. She hated it—hated all of it. ‘Okay,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘We can leave…’ CHAPTER FOUR THE drive back to the apartment was achieved in silence. Both tense, both angry for their own reasons. Both so sexually on edge that the atmosphere almost sizzled. Antonia was out of the car even as Marco was still parking it. Making straight for the lift, she then committed the ultimate sin of not waiting for him before sending it up to the top floor. Having to kick his heels in the basement waiting for the lift to come back for him did nothing to improve his temper. He arrived in the bedroom to discover that she had already locked herself into the bathroom. He could hear the shower running, and her red dress lay like a stain on the bright white tiling, the scrappy red shoes lying discarded beside it. With frustration attacking him from all angles, he dragged off his jacket and had to really fight the temptation to slam it down beside the red dress and shoes in a counter-declaration. It was realising the childishness in the act that made him stop to wonder bleakly what was happening to him. Anger, frustration, childish acts of temper? These were not the scenes he expected to fill his home with! They lacked the sophistication with which he liked to run his private life. And, on top of that, he was beginning to feel like a jealous husband without the official bit of paper that said he had to put up with this. Hot anger suddenly turned to ice, the mere suspicion that Antonia was digging her claws into him deeply enough to make him feel that way, literally horrifying the heat out of him. Marco was draping his suit jacket on a hanger when Antonia came out of the bathroom. Wide shoulders, long body, tight behind, powerful legs and a sleek olive hue to his skin that made her fingers itch to stroke it. She wished so much he had the face of a Gorgon to offset the perfect rest of him. But he didn’t. So when he turned to face her, even looking as coldly remote as he did, her body stirred beneath the silk robe she was wearing. She wanted to hate him for being able to do that to her. Especially when all he did was freeze her with a look of contempt before turning away again. ‘You’ve been working with Kranst again,’ he declared flatly. Without bothering to answer, she walked over to pick up the red dress and shoes from where she’d stepped out of them, and carried them over to the wardrobe next to the one he was standing by. She opened one of the doors as he flicked one shut. ‘Answer me,’ he commanded coldly. ‘I wasn’t aware you’d asked a question,’ she tossed back with equal cold. ‘It sounded more like a statement of fact to me.’ From the corner of her eye she saw his mouth tighten, ignored the stinging warning in his eyes, and placed the shoes on the shoesrack before reaching up to pluck a hanger from the rail and begin hooking the thin shoulder straps of the dress onto it. ‘Explain to me, then, what he was implying tonight, when he talked about something interesting.’ She shrugged as she re-hung the hanger on the rail. ‘I have absolutely no idea.’ Though she certainly had a few worrying suspicions. ‘You must do,’ Marco insisted. ‘You know the man. You lived with him for over five years.’ Ten, she wanted to correct, but held back the information. ‘And I’ve lived with you for all of one,’ she pointed out as she closed the wardrobe door. ‘But knowing what makes you tick is beyond me.’ ‘Oh, very trite,’ he mocked. ‘Now, answer my first question and tell me if you’ve been secretly working with him again.’ ‘For a man famed for the sharpness of his intelligence, you can be really dense sometimes,’ she derided. ‘Ask yourself—when?’ she suggested. ‘Have I had the opportunity to work or do anything else with Stefan?’ He didn’t like the derision, his eyes darkened. ‘For all I know the man might have a secret studio set up right here in Milan where the two of you meet on a regular basis.’ ‘So, I’m keeping the two of you happy?’ Her laugh was scornful. But even Antonia was aware that her expression was suddenly guarded, because Marco had unwittingly drifted too close to a carefully kept secret of her own. He saw the change. Of course he did. Reaching out with a hand, he drew her across the few feet separating them. His eyes were hard, his features grim and his grip on her wrist was firm. ‘You’re hiding something,’ he gritted. She refused to answer, her mouth set in a defiant pout. Marco formed his own conclusions, his expression darkening some more. ‘If the two of you are plotting my embarrassment on Friday, then I’m warning you, you will regret ever knowing me!’ ‘Why won’t you listen?’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know what Stefan is planning for Friday!’ ‘Then why the shifty look?’ ‘You don’t own the right to know my every secret!’ she hit back bitterly. ‘I’m your mistress, not your wife!’ This came hard on the fact that he had just reminded himself of the same thing, and his expression hardened into steel. ‘The way the two of you were lost in deep conversation while you clung to him like a vine says to me that you were discussing something important while you made love to each other in front of everyone. And I want to know what that something is!’ ‘We were discussing you!’ she flashed. ‘And whether it was time for me to leave you or not!’ The claim had hit a nerve. Antonia actually saw it flick like the tip of a whip across his taut cheekbones. ‘Are you saying he wants you back?’ he demanded thinly. ‘He will always have me back!’ she flung at him recklessly. ‘And when I’m ready to leave you, then I probably will go back to him!’ With that, she gave a tug at her wrist to free herself and walked proudly away, trying not to show how badly shaken she was feeling at this, the worst row they’d had to date. Needing something to do in the drumming silence that followed her, she sat down on the stool in front of the dressing table and began to let down her hair. ‘If there was the remotest possibility of you actually walking out on me, you would have done so without the warning,’ Marco drawled in a voice loaded with derision. ‘You think I’m a real push-over, don’t you?’ she muttered, tossing hairpins in an angry scatter across the dressing table top. ‘You think that because you’re as sexy as hell and so darn wealthy you can afford to buy anything, that I should be grateful that you decided to buy me!’ ‘I did not buy you,’ he denied. ‘I chose you. There is a definite difference between the two.’ His arrogance, she noted, really showed no bounds. ‘Whether or not you sold yourself to me, though, is a question I have no wish to hear the answer to.’ ‘Why not?’ she challenged, via his reflection in the mirror. ‘Are you afraid to discover that maybe your wealth is more appealing to me than your body?’ About to undo his bow-tie, she watched him stop and stiffen as if something really nasty had just stepped into the room. Antonia was very pleased to watch him do it. The man could be so insufferably conceited sometimes that it made her want to hit him where it would hurt the most! ‘I sit here swathed in the finest silk,’ she continued, to compound his momentary disconcertion, ‘with my flesh pampered by the finest beauty products money can buy. I live in the kind of luxury most people only see between the pages of glossy magazines, and downstairs in the basement sits the kind of car most women only dream about owning—’ ‘The car belongs to me,’ he inserted. ‘You are merely permitted the use of it.’ ‘Permitted—!’ A choked gasp brought her twisting round on the stool to stare at him. Then, ‘Ah…’ she said. ‘So now we get down to the nitty-gritty. The car is yours. The luxury accommodation is yours. The expensive clothes I wear belong to you, as does the wonderful array of priceless jewels you keep carefully locked away in your safe until I require the use of them. So—yes,’ she acknowledged, ‘I suppose it is natural for you to believe that I sold myself to you.’ ‘I never said that,’ he snapped, a deep frown suddenly darkening his features as fresh irritation flicked into life. ‘Then let’s just clarify the point, shall we, so that it can be done with once and for all?’ Getting up, she went to stand right in front of him. Confrontation wasn’t in it. ‘If, let’s say, I decided to walk out on you right here and now, what would I be allowed to take with me?’ ‘This is stupid,’ he sighed, sliding the strip of black silk out from under his shirt collar. ‘When we both know you have no intention of walking anywhere.’ ‘The car? No,’ she continued, regardless. ‘The jewels? Definitely no. What about all the designer clothes, then? Have I performed well enough to earn the right to take those, Marco?’ she questioned provokingly. ‘Or do you intend to let me walk out on you naked? If so,’ she added, without giving him a chance to answer, ‘then you surely can’t say that I sold myself to you. For what exactly is it I am supposed to have gained from doing so?’ ‘A year of great sex?’ he suggested nastily. ‘Oh,’ she pouted. ‘I was hoping you would have the good taste to leave the sex thing out of this.’ ‘Why?’ he asked tauntingly. ‘When it is all I—’ Marco stopped himself—but not soon enough. And the black anger went flooding through him again as he watched her annoyingly provocative face blanch. ‘You asked for that,’ he insisted, wishing to hell he had never started this. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘I surely did.’ But the fight had disappeared from her tone, and his jaw felt so tight it was in danger of snapping. She went to turn away from him. It was sheer frustration with the whole sordid scene that made him stop her, he told himself. It had nothing to do with the sudden suspicion that if he let her turn away she would never turn back to him again. So his hands found her shoulders and drew her against him, then, simply because he needed to do it, he lowered his head and his mouth took her mouth by storm. At least she didn’t fight him, but neither did she respond. She just stood limp and lifeless against his body while his mouth ravaged hers without receiving any feedback at all. Not liking what was happening here, and liking even less the knowledge that she could stand there lifeless while his own body was reacting as fiercely as it always did to her, he went for the kill with a pride-staking vengeance aimed at demolishing her resistance. For he knew this woman, he consoled himself grimly as he began covering her face with the kind of small light teasing kisses guaranteed to drive her wild. Her cheeks, her jaw-line, her firmly closed eyes, the length of her small straight nose. His kisses found all the right pleasure points while carefully avoiding her mouth even when, with a helpless whimper, she slackened its tense little line in sensual expectation. Yes, he confirmed triumphantly. He knew her so well. The way her breathing quickened, and she began to vibrate to the feather-light stroke of his fingers. It was easy to urge the silk from her shoulders and leave it to slither down her body until the only thing holding it up was the belt knotted around her waist. As she released a gasp in startled surprise he at last captured her mouth again. She fell into his kiss like a woman with a fever. When her fingers came up to clutch at his rock-solid biceps, he stroked her hair, stroked her body, and stroked her beautiful breasts with their sensitive points that simply begged for his further attention. He gave it willingly, knowingly—ruthlessly, arching her over his arm so far that she had no choice but to reach up and hook her hands around his neck to maintain some control over her own balance. Within seconds she was groaning. Eyes closed, head tilted right back so her long silken hair swung in a rippling swathe over his arm as he grimly tore through every veil of rejection she had dared to pull on against him. When the groans became hot little gasps of pleasure, he consolidated his success by gliding a hand along a silken thigh until it found the cluster of golden curls that shrouded her sexuality. The robe was no barrier; it had already slid apart to give him easy access. But the real triumph came when her thighs parted for him in all-out invitation. The battle, in his mind, was surely over. Having won it, as abruptly as he had started it, he brought it to an end and watched with a grim detachment as she leaned weakly against him, dizzy and disorientated enough to find it impossible to support herself. ‘You want me, Antonia,’ he declared in a tough cold voice that made her shiver. ‘Try dangling another man in front of me in an effort to improve on what we have, and you will find yourself having to learn not to want.’ It was an outright warning. Standing there in his arms, Antonia said absolutely nothing. He’d done this to her merely to make a point. It was humiliating. After a moment, he sighed and let go of her. She swayed a little, but found her balance, and remained exactly as she was while he strode for the door. And what was the picture he took with him? Antonia asked herself as she watched him go. His suitably chastened mistress standing there with her seduction-red silk robe still hanging from her waist by the belt, and her breasts still taut and alive and throbbing. Like her mouth—like her sex. She had never felt so sickened in all her life. Sickened by herself—sickened by him. Sickened by the knowledge that really they were both as bad as each other. For Marco might take and take and take, but she had let him do it. ‘I hate you,’ she whispered, not sure if she was telling herself that or the wretched man striding out of the door. Whichever, he heard it, paused and turned. There was contempt in that lean hard handsome face of his. Enough contempt to make her skin crawl. ‘Take my advice, cara, and think carefully about on which side your bread is buttered. Beautiful women come in disposable packs of ten these days.’ The cut of his cynicism was deep enough to draw blood. ‘A poor performer can therefore be tossed onto the scrap heap and replaced as easily as—that.’ The snap of his long brown fingers made her flinch. Marco gave a curt nod of his dark head to acknowledge it, then left the room. But he took with him the sight of her standing there still half stripped of her robe. It made him sigh again as he slammed into his study. For, no matter how ruthlessly he had just set out to demolish her, the way she had refused to cover herself seemed to give her the last word that was strangely demolishing him. What was it exactly he had been trying to prove? he asked himself as he made directly for the whisky bottle. That she had to love him more than she loved Kranst? She’d left the handsome bastard for him, hadn’t she? Marco argued with his own angry head. And why bring the love thing into it when he had never asked or wanted love from any woman? But neither do you want to believe she could have the capacity to love another man, his conceited side answered the question. You’re an arrogant swine, Bellini, he told himself. You want it all. You always have done. But you’re never going to give that much back in return. Snatching up the bottle and a glass, he took them over to his desk then threw himself down into the chair. Whisky splashed into the glass. He tipped it down his throat, swallowed, then sat back to glower darkly at nothing. He’d never felt like this before, and he didn’t want to feel like this now! Angry and guilty and—yes, he admitted it—riddled with confusion and jealousy. It creased his insides every time he heard Kranst’s name leave her lips in that oh, so tender way she always said it. And seeing her clinging to the man tonight had forced him to trawl whole new depths of jealous resentment. ‘He still wants her,’ Louisa had said. Well, so do I! Another splash of whisky burned its way down to his stomach. And he wasn’t giving her up just to watch her walk straight into the arms of her ex-lover as if Marco Bellini had never even been there! Was that it? he thought suddenly. Was that what was really bugging him? The idea that if he did send her packing she would simply go back to where she had been before she met him and pick up where she’d left off, with hardly a tear to say she was sorry to do it? To hell with Kranst. Antonia was his woman! And Kranst could go and look elsewhere for his inspiration. Which reminded him about the painting the guy had been taunting him with tonight. Getting up, he staggered, frowned down at the whisky bottle, and was amazed to discover how much of it had gone. Drunk. He was drunk. Well, that was a first since his reckless youth, he thought with a grimace. Would Antonia be pleased to know what she had driven him to? Concentrating on walking in a straight line, he went over to a door and punched a set of numbers into the security console, heard the lock shoot back and pushed the door open on the investment side of his art collection—the Rembrandt, the Titian, the Severini and the Boccioni, which his insurers insisted he kept housed in a secure room. Would Antonia be pleased to know what else he had in here? he mused as, with glass in hand, he walked right past the masters, his attention fixed only on Stefan Kranst’s Mirror Woman. It was only one of a series the artist had produced over several years. Each painting was different, but the theme was always the same—perfection seen through the eyes of the artist via a mirror reflection. What had Kranst really been trying to say when he’d painted Antonia like this? Marco pondered thoughtfully. That the mirror reflected her perfection where reality did not? Or had Kranst merely been the voyeur, capturing on canvas something he knew he could never have any other way? Marco frowned as he always did when he tried to understand what Kranst had been trying to relay here. No suggestion he could come up with ever truly fitted. The idea of Kranst as the mere voyeur, for instance, was shot to pieces the moment you saw the two of them together. They knew each other intimately. Touch, taste, sight, sound. In fact he had never experienced intimacy like it between two people, unless he included himself with her. As for the mirror-perfection versus reality: the painting didn’t lie. Antonia was as perfect in real life as Kranst had portrayed her here. The Mirror Woman was easily the best of the series—which was why Marco had bought it. It was also the most disturbing, because this was the only painting where Antonia stood in full focus. She was standing on a balcony—an English balcony, he mused with a grimace. Long and slender, naked and sleek, with an early-morning sunrise caressing her skin with pale gold silk. She was looking back over her shoulder towards the mirror with a terrible—terrible sadness in her beautiful eyes. Frowning, he reached out to absently graze a fingertip over an unusually careless brush-mark blemish that shouldn’t be there on her left shoulder. Then her eyes were drawing his attention again. Those dreadful, empty, haunted eyes. What was she supposed to be seeing when she looked into the mirror like that? Herself? The artist? Something else unseen by anyone else from this angle? He’d once asked Antonia why the look. ‘Life,’ she’d answered flatly. ‘She’s seeing life.’ Then she’d shuddered and walked away and never asked to see the painting again. It had been an unexpected response from someone who refused to reveal any hint of embarrassment whenever she came up against her own nudity in one of the many other forms it had taken since Kranst had painted her. The signed prints, the calendars, greetings cards, etcetera, being the mediums by which the artist earned his real fame and fortune. Only this painting upset her. Or was it the fact that he owned it that made her walk away? She refused to talk about it, and would be appalled to find out that to acquire it he’d had to convince his own mother to sell it to him. The irony in that put a smile on his lips. ‘Stefan Kranst is a worthy investment,’ his mother had said. ‘He has a gift for catching the inner soul of his subject. This poor creature, for instance, is dying inside that beautiful outer casing. I feel for her. I feel for the artist because he so clearly loves the inner woman.’ The word dying was a disturbing description. He preferred the word empty, because it soothed some part of him to know that Antonia had never looked empty while she had been with him. But his mother had admired the woman in the painting before she had known Antonia had moved in with him. Now all she saw was a woman willing to expose herself for all to see and who possessed no conscience about doing it. She also despaired, because her son had not yet assuaged what she saw as his obsession with both the painting and the woman. The smile turned itself into a sigh, because he was aware he hadn’t assuaged anything where Antonia was concerned. Not his desire for the woman or his fascination with this painting. Now Kranst was implying that there was another painting, like this one. Which meant what, exactly? That Kranst hadn’t painted out his obsession with Antonia? That this new painting was going to tell him things he didn’t want to know? If that was Kranst’s motive, then Marco didn’t want to find out, but he knew he needed to. He didn’t want to go to Kranst’s damned private viewing, but he would have to go. And he didn’t want to lose Antonia, but he had a horrible feeling he was going to lose her one way or another. By his own stupid actions or with the help of exterior forces like Kranst or his mother or the compelling pull of his sick father’s need. The whisky no longer had any flavour. The painting of Antonia suddenly did nothing for him. He wanted the real woman. The one he had just hurt for no other reason than a need to reassure his own ego. But she was still the warm and pliant woman probably lying fast asleep in his bed now, he then added, with yet another kind of smile as he left the room and closed the door behind him. Then, with a walk that was almost unwavering, he rid himself of his glass and went to join her. The bedroom was in darkness, the bed a mere shadow on the other side of the room. Making as little noise as possible, he stepped into the bathroom, silently closed the door to spend a few minutes trying to shower off the effects of the whisky, before going back into the bedroom and over to the bed. He meant to surprise her awake with some serious kisses in some very serious places. She would be sulking, of course, but he could deal with that. She would fight him too, he would expect nothing less. And he would grovel a little because she deserved to have him grovel—before he drowned himself in the sweetest pleasure ever created for a man to share with a woman. Then he stopped and frowned when he found himself staring down at the smooth neatness of an untouched bed. CHAPTER FIVE ASHAFT of alarm went streaking down his backbone and massed deep in his abdomen. He spun, sharp eyes piercing the darkness to scan the room for a sign of her shadowy figure—curled in a chair, maybe, or standing by the window. She wasn’t there. The alarm leapt up to attack his heartbeat. She wouldn’t, he told himself. She couldn’t have quietly dressed and left him while he’d been busy drowning his sorrows—could she? No, he wouldn’t have it. He might have behaved like a rotten bastard, but Antonia would never just walk out and leave! But then there was Kranst waiting on the sidelines, he remembered, and started moving, unsure, so damned unsure of himself that the uncertainty was actually making his legs feel hollow with fright! It was the whisky, Marco told himself. But he was still going to kill her when he found her for scaring him like this, he vowed, as he began striding round the apartment opening doors and closing them until he came to the locked door belonging to one of the spare bedrooms. Relief shuddered through him, followed by a shaft of white-hot fury at her whole attitude. Stubbornly forgetting his own bad behaviour. he banged hard on the door. ‘If you don’t unlock this door I’ll break it down!’ he shouted threateningly. And kept on banging until the door flew open. Antonia was already walking away from it even as it swung back on itself. Her hair rippled about her naked shoulders and his body almost screamed as it responded to the carelessly sensual sway of hers. And it was the turn of the red silk wrap to lie in a discarded blot on the floor. ‘Don’t ever lock me out of a room in my own home again,’ he ground out as he strode forward. ‘I have nothing to say to you,’ she replied in a voice meant to freeze a man’s nether parts. A willingness to grovel was forgotten—ousted by a much more satisfying desire to remind her just who called the tune around here. Arriving at the bed, she prepared to climb back into it. In two long strides he stopped her, by the economical act of scooping her off her feet. Her protesting shriek was ignored, as were her wriggling attempts to get herself free. Without a single word from his tightly clamped lips, he turned and began carrying her out of this bedroom and down the hall to his bedroom. ‘You are such a primitive underneath the layers of breeding,’ she sliced at him disgustedly. He stopped dead and kissed her—so hot and so hard she was gasping for breath by the time he lifted his head again. ‘Is that primitive enough?’ he asked, not in the least bit insulted she’d called him that. In fact he liked the whole scenario, since he was feeling very primitively aroused right now. Marco shut the door behind them with a very satisfyingly primitive kick. The bed waited. He dumped her on its pale blue cover, then followed with the long hard length of his body in a very primitive manontopofwoman pinning down. Her angry eyes shot amber bright warnings at him. Her beautiful hair streamed out above her head, and her clenched fists made a puny but determined effort to do him some damage. ‘Get off me,’ she insisted. ‘You’re just a big brute—and you taste of whisky!’ ‘And you taste of champagne and woman—my woman,’ Marco growled back, enjoying this new primitive role that allowed him the rare luxury to completely dominate. Her breasts heaved against the solid wall of his chest and her slender hips writhed delightfully beneath the pressure of his. She felt the rise of his passion and spat her utter contempt at him, while the mocking arch of his eyebrows asked her who was to blame. She hit back with more than her fists, ‘Stefan was right about you,’ she lashed. ‘You are a—’ Ducking between the flailing fists, he stopped the words with his mouth. Discussing Kranst was not going to happen in his bed! he grimly determined, and kept on kissing her until her hands stopped punching and began to anxiously knead his shoulders instead. Triumph sizzled through his system; the red-hot heat of desire spun through his blood. He made love to her as if there was no tomorrow and, because there was still the heat of an angry fear burning behind the passion, he drove her to the edge more than once before ruthlessly drawing back again. ‘I hate it when you do this to me,’ she sobbed in frustration. ‘You would hate it more if I didn’t do it at all,’ he threw back. Her breath broke on a whimper because she knew he was right. The helpless little sound did things to him no woman could ever begin to understand. He thrust into her with the force of absolute possession. ‘You belong to me. Just remember that next time you feel like wrapping yourself around another man.’ If he’d expected her to respond at all, it was not the way she did. With the slick roll of her body he suddenly found he was the one pinned down and she the one most definitely on top. For the next few minutes he experienced what it was like to be utterly seduced by a woman hell-bent on making him embarrass himself. It didn’t happen. He was no one’s easy victim. But Antonia in this mood was irresistible. She was the true sensualist born to pleasure man. She kissed him and stroked him and rode him towards heaven. And when his body began to tighten and his heart began to pound, she gave him back a taste of his own medicine by pulling away to rise up and stand over him. Feet planted either side of his body, hands resting in the delicious groove of her slender waist, and her wonderful long golden hair spiralling around the face of an absolute wanton, she asked, ‘And who do you belong to, Marco?’ The little minx. The beautiful, outrageous little minx! he thought, and, with a laugh of appreciation, he jackknifed into a sitting position, clamped his hands to her hips—and gave his mouth the pleasure of bringing her to heel again. The battle progressed to a different level. She gasped and protested and tugged at handfuls of his hair in an effort to dislodge him, and eventually lost the ability to stand. She was groaning and trembling but still in there fighting, matching him kiss for kiss, caress for caress, intimacy for exquisite tortuous intimacy, which had them crossing a few boundaries they’d never attempted to cross before in their quest to get the better of the other. By the time he was back where he belonged—on top and deep inside her—he had lost the will to pull back again. Hot, bathed in sweat and no longer on this planet, they rode the fiery dragon with a focused compulsion that blocked out everything else. He climaxed first—she was so damned determined to make him do that. But she followed a half-second later, urging him on with the convulsing tug of her muscles towards the kind of prolonged orgasm that laid them both to waste for long minutes afterwards. Yes! he thought with a deep satisfaction as he lay heavy on her, fighting for breath. This was it, the elixir of life, and to hell with the covetous Kranst. To hell with his disapproving mother! he added fiercely to that—he couldn’t bring himself to repeat the dismissive curse regarding his father, but inside he was aware that the need to hold on to what he had here was beginning to overshadow everything else. Lying there beneath him, almost completely engulfed in his body and his scent and the glorious weight of his utter satiation, Antonia wondered ruefully if she would ever find the energy to move again. Her bones felt like liquid and certain muscles were trembling in the aftermath of something pretty spectacular, even for them. What she couldn’t understand was how it could be like that after what had gone before it. She should have been repulsed by his touch. She should have lain like a stone beneath him. But she hadn’t—she hadn’t… Weak, you’re weak, she derided herself miserably, and made a move to remind him that she was still here, just in case he’d forgotten while he basked in sexual bliss. With a kiss to her brow, he acknowledged her presence, then relieved her of his weight by rolling them onto their sides so he could wrap her against him. ‘You move me like no other woman,’ he murmured huskily. Did he think that was a compliment? she asked herself. Because it wasn’t. She had no wish to be tagged and sorted according to performance. In fact, if she had the energy she would take serious offence and get up and leave! But she didn’t have the energy. And, in truth, lying here against him in the soft darkness of the summer night, with one of his hands gently stroked the curve of her hip while the other absently grazed over her left shoulder, she could think of no other place she would rather be. Weak, she repeated. It was her biggest problem. She needed to be with him though she didn’t want to need. He was arrogant, self-motivated, insensitive and… Her sigh warmed his throat. Dipping his dark head, he caught the sigh with the kind of kiss that squeezed the heart dry. When it was over she reached up to touch his lips with her fingertips, unable to believe that a mouth could be so tender and not feel something deeper than desire for her. ‘I wish I’d never met you sometimes,’ she quietly confided. ‘Only sometimes?’ he threw back. Tipping her head, she expected to find him smiling. But he looked quite sombre as he gazed down at her through swirling smoke-blue eyes set between kohl-black lashes in a polished bronze framework no gifted sculptor could improve upon. ‘Do you want me to apologise for my earlier behaviour?’ he asked her. Huskily spoken, sincerely meant. No, she thought sadly. I want you to love me. Then had to swallow the lump of tears in her throat as she gave a shake of her head. ‘I just want you to promise never to do that to me again,’ she replied. Smoke-blue eyes darkened with repentance. ‘On my life,’ he vowed, and sealed it with a kiss, then repeated it again and again until both the vow and the kiss became yet another seduction. It was his way, a willingly humble side to his proud character, which had the power to demolish her resistance far more easily than the ruthlessness he had meted out before. Her fingers began trailing tender caresses across hairpeppered, muscle-hard, satin-tight flesh. He was built to worship, she thought mistily. Built to make any woman melt with desire. It was she who deepened those soft penitent kisses into one long sensual banquet. She who slid onto her back and drew him over her, then slowly relaxed her thighs so he would settle between. In a wonderful intimacy that had her long legs tangling with his and her body arching to a sensual rhythm, they indulged in a different kind of kiss. His mouth left hers to taste other parts of her, and she sighed in pleasure as it closed on her breast. Fingers trailed into his hair, stretched out to glide down the satin smoothness of his back. He shuddered in response and drew on her nipple until she felt the needle-sharp pleasure reach deep down into her very core. As quickly as that, it all began again. No tormenting this time, no battle of wills. In only seconds he was feeding his powerful arms beneath her so he could lift her into closer contact with the pulsing length of his sex. Dragging his mouth from her breast, he requested, ‘May I?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ she invited, aware that they were both more than ready for this. This time he came into her with the gentle force of a man who was very mindful of his own power. She willingly accepted him, and wasn’t surprised to hear them both utter those exquisite sighs of pleasure because, quick though this was, they were perfectly in tune. Can I walk away from him? Antonia found herself questioning as not just her senses but her whole world began to quicken. Can he really want this to end? As if he could sense that her mind had strayed, Marco was suddenly rearing up and over her. His eyes were like two dark circles of passion, his mouth warm and moist and hungry for hers. ‘This is special,’ he said roughly. ‘And it is ours.’ ‘Sometimes it feels as if you hate me,’ she whispered. ‘No, never,’ he denied, and crushed her mouth beneath his and crushed all thoughts from her head by other means. The next morning, the light brush of his lips on her cheek awoke her. Opening her eyes, she smiled sleepily at him. Clean-shaven and smelling deliciously vital, he was already dressed for his busy day in a dark grey suit and pale blue shirt that did sensational things to his golden features. ‘Get up, get dressed and come and join me for breakfast,’ he invited. ‘I have a surprise for you.’ ‘A surprise?’ she repeated, yawning while stretching. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured, and it was the sexiest murmur Antonia had ever heard in her entire life. It brought an invitation to her eyes and a hand reaching up for him. ‘Show me now,’ she commanded in a tone which was demanding something else entirely. He caught the hand, kissed it, then firmly replaced it back on the bed. ‘Not on your life.’ He grinned. ‘You have to come downstairs looking prim for this surprise.’ And with that thoroughly intriguing statement he turned and strode out of the room. Antonia watched him go with a smile in her eyes, quietly amazed at how a night of loving could turn their relationship around. The man was an enigma of complicated mood codes: one minute looking as if he wished to see the back of her, the next almost dying with pleasure in her arms. Now he wanted to please her with surprises—though how he’d found the time to come up with anything to surprise her with at—she checked the bedside clock—seven o’clock in the morning was completely beyond her. Innovative, that was what Marco was, she thought indulgently as she climbed out of the bed and went off to shower and dress, as instructed, in something prim. Her choice was a white tailored linen suit teamed with amber accessories that almost matched the colour of her eyes. On her way to the breakfast room, she popped her head into the kitchen and was surprised to find no housekeeper there to exchange the usual morning greetings. Still frowning slightly at Carlotta’s absence, she entered the sunny breakfast room to find her favourite breakfast bowl of fresh fruit and a steaming pot of hot coffee waiting for her on the table—and her favourite man reclining in his chair reading his morning newspaper. But he paused to watch her walk towards him with his eyes narrowed in male appreciation. ‘Perfezione,’ he murmured, as she leant down to press a morning kiss to his ready lips. ‘Grazie,’ she returned in mocking relief. ‘For this is about as prim as I get.’ The sun caught the strawberry highlights threading through her neatly pleated hair, and played sultry games with the amber colour of her conservatively styled silk blouse. On her feet she wore classically plain court shoes and a simple string of pearls she had owned for ever and didn’t warrant locking away in Marco’s safe circled her slender throat. Her make-up was so natural there was barely any sign of it and her smile said everything was right in her world. ‘Where’s Carlotta?’ she asked as she sat down next to him. ‘Called in sick,’ Marco explained. ‘I found her message waiting with our answering service, along with a hundred and one others…’ Antonia’s hand froze momentarily on its way to pick up the coffee pot. Stefan, she remembered. Stefan had said he’d been leaving messages for her all last week. A small silence began to vibrate with the hum of expectancy while she waited for what Marco was going to say next. But he said absolutely nothing, and when she dared a glance at him, he was behind his newspaper again. He wasn’t going to mention Stefan’s calls, she realised. And she was damned if she was going to mention them and put at risk all this wonderful harmony they had managed to recapture. So, ‘Did Carlotta say what was wrong?’ she enquired instead. The newspaper twitched, long brown fingers flexed slightly, as if he was aware that she was aware of Stefan’s calls and those fingers were reacting to the fact that she too was going to pretend they had never happened. ‘Summer flu,’ he replied. ‘She does not wish to pass it on, so she expects to be away for the rest of the week.’ ‘Poor Carlotta. I must send her a get-well card,’ she murmured, and finished pouring her coffee before transferring her attention to her bowl of fruit. ‘Did you prepare this?’ she asked. ‘Mmm.’ It was not quite the sexy Mmm of before. Was he angry? Was he annoyed that she wasn’t going to ask about Stefan’s calls? ‘Molti grazie, mi amante,’ she returned, determinedly keeping her tone light. ‘This unusual act of servility is most definitely your biggest surprise to date.’ The husky dark tones of a very male laughter flipped her heart over, then it flipped again with relief when he folded the paper away and she was able to see the humour also reflected on his beautiful face. He wasn’t brooding about Stefan. He wasn’t going to let this newly attained harmony spoil because of a few silly messages. ‘Eat your fruit. Drink your coffee,’ he advised indulgently. ‘We have approximately ten minutes before we have to leave.’ ‘Leave?’ She frowned. ‘Why? Where are we going?’ ‘I’m going to Venice,’ he replied as he got to his feet. ‘And you, mi bellisima, are coming with me.’ With that, he dropped a casual kiss onto the top of her head and began to stroll arrogantly for the doorway. But this time no warm smile followed him. No feeling of delight that he was planning to take her along on one of his business trips for the first time since she’d entered his life. So much for protecting harmony, she mused grimly as she felt it all wither away. ‘When did you decide this?’ she fed quietly after him. ‘Before or after you played back the messages?’ He stopped walking and turned, an almost saturnine figure with his features suddenly cast in bronze. ‘Before,’ he replied, earning himself a flash of scepticism. ‘It was learning that Carlotta would not be around to play chaperon that clinched your fate for you,’ he answered that scepticism. ‘For no woman plays Marco Bellini false while he is safely ensconced elsewhere, capisce?’ Oh, she understood all right. He didn’t trust her to be alone in Milan with Stefan in the same city. ‘So the surprise you promised was never intended as a pleasant surprise,’ she concluded, and smiled cynically. ‘How typical of you to give with one hand and take back with the other.’ ‘On the contrary,’ he argued. ‘The trip to Venice could be a pleasure for both of us. It really depends on whether you want to make it so.’ ‘Or not, if I decide to stay here instead,’ Antonia pointed out. The threat had him walking back to her. When he reached her side, he bent to place one hand on the back of her chair, the other flat on the table. The way he loomed over her hinted at menace. Placing her fork in the bowl of fruit, Antonia refused to let her fingers shake as she placed them down on her lap, then sat back in the chair to face his hard gaze squarely. ‘You prefer to stay here?’ His eyes held hers, and were loaded with challenge. Answer yes and she would be lying, not to mention confirming his suspicions about her motives. Answer no and she would be feeding his ego with something she had no wish to feed him now. She went for the compromise. ‘Stefan is my friend. Why can’t you accept that?’ His eyes didn’t waver, not for a second. ‘Do you prefer to stay?’ he repeated. Hers did, though; they flickered away on a frown of irritation. ‘Of course I would rather be with you,’ she sighed. ‘But not under duress, and not because you feel it’s your only option!’ ‘I could throw you out. That’s another option.’ ‘I could walk!’ she lashed back. ‘That’s an even better one!’ ‘Are you coming?’ The wretched man wasn’t fazed in the slightest. ‘Yes!’ she snapped, and dislodged his hand by pushing back her chair and shooting to her feet with a jolt of anger. He just sent her a mocking look. ‘Then eat your fruit and drink your coffee,’ he suggested, and with a wave of a hand walked away again. ‘Come and get me from my study when you’re ready to leave.’ ‘I’ll need longer than ten minutes to clear up here before we go,’ she threw impatiently after him. ‘For you, mi amante, I will delay our flight!’ Magnanimous in victory, he left her standing there not sure whether to smile or scowl. The smile won, twitching impulsively at the corners of her mouth as she sat down to finish her fruit. Twenty minutes later she was annoyed again because he hadn’t told her until just before they were leaving that they were going to stay over in Venice, so she hadn’t bothered to pack a bag. ‘Shop for what you need when we get there,’ said the man to whom money had a different meaning. ‘For want of a further five minutes it seems terribly extravagant,’ she complained. ‘Time is money to me, cara,’ he pointed out. ‘Then I’m sorry for costing you money while you waited,’ she said primly. ‘What a problem I am to you.’ Sarcasm or not, he slashed a grin at her. ‘My biggest problem is going to be keeping my mind on business when I know you’re within easy reach of me,’ he murmured lazily. ‘Then I hope you spend your meetings in a state of permanent distraction.’ ‘While you do what?’ ‘Spend your money as fast as I can produce the credit cards,’ she answered. He laughed, and kissed her until the lift arrived. After that it didn’t really matter any more that he was only doing this to keep her and Stefan apart. The harmony was back, and she was happy to bask in it. Happy to bask beneath the amount of care and attention he paid her throughout their short flight to Venice and the ensuing journey along the canals until they came to their hotel. Heads turned, people stared. She basked in that also. For being with a man like Marco Bellini was a bit like walking alongside royalty: paths were smoothed, people deferred. He was rich, he was known, he was handsome and single. Women envied her place in his life. Men envied all his many advantages. Having safely delivered her to their hotel, he left her to her own devices while he went off to keep his appointments. She shopped till she’d dropped, and spent the rest of her time trailing around some of the tourist sites amongst the thick summer crowds and the heat that melted. By the time she arrived back in their suite she was so exhausted it was all she could do to run a bath and sink into it. On the bed lay the smart designer bags to go with her new smart designer purchases. On the floor lay the scatter of her discarded clothes. Letting himself in a few minutes later, Marco smiled at the evidence of her occupation. Antonia was untidy by nature, though she would make the effort to try not to be because she thought it must irritate him. Being brought up to strict rules set by a succession of nannies meant that regimental neatness had become second nature to him. But it didn’t irritate him. In truth, he liked to walk into a room and see instant proof of her presence. The bathroom door stood ajar, and from behind it he could hear the lazy slap of water which told him what she was doing now. It was the easiest thing in the world to strip off his clothes and go in there to join her. Up to her neck in bubbles, she smiled as he approached, lifted her knees to allow him room to sit down opposite her, then, on a contented sigh fed her feet up his chest as he stretched his long legs on either side of her. ‘Long day?’ he enquired. ‘Spent your money. Played tourist. Got too hot. Killed my feet. Came back here to die peacefully. And you?’ she returned the enquiry. ‘Made a few lira, invested a few lira.’ His accompanying shrug said it was par for the course. ‘Threw my impressive weight around a bit. Came back here to make love to this woman I know.’ Her eyes began to gleam. ‘Is she any good?’ So did his. ‘Molti bellisima,’ he softly confided, and picked up one of her feet to begin an expert massage to its slender sole. She liked that. Closing her eyes, she simply lay back and let him indulge her. In fact Marco indulged her in many ways during the next few days. They dined in quiet out-of-the-way places where the tourists didn’t go, walked hand in hand through narrow streets like dark caverns, and made love for most of the night. When he had to leave her to attend his meetings he made it brief, and secondary to what was really going on here in Venice. Which was the steadily strengthening realisation that she was becoming more and more important to his happiness than he had ever allowed himself to believe before. By the time they caught the flight home to Milan, on Friday afternoon, he knew he was almost ready to make the ultimate commitment. Only— He wanted to see what Kranst had planned before he laid himself open. Antonia hadn’t mentioned Kranst. He hadn’t mentioned him. But had she been in touch with him? Did she know what Kranst was up to? Did she know that Marco was worrying about it? Did she care? He needed to know the answers before he made any kind of commitment because, damn it, he had his pride to protect here! It was a hesitation that was going to cost him, though Marco couldn’t have any way of knowing it then. They arrived back at the apartment late on Friday afternoon, to find Carlotta back at her post and smiling her usual welcome. She thanked them for the postcards Antonia must have sent her, then went on to relay a series of messages, most of them business, but some from his mother wanting him to call her as soon as he got in. ‘My father?’ he questioned sharply. But Carlotta shook her head. ‘I asked,’ she said. ‘Your mamma assured me he was pleasingly well.’ So he nodded, and decided to leave any calls home until after this evening was over. That was another mistake. There were also several calls for Antonia from Stefan Kranst which, from their content, told him that Antonia had held faith and not attempted to contact Kranst while they’d been away. He wanted to wrap her in his arms and kiss her for that, but good sense warned him not to make an issue of it—just as she was sensibly asking no questions about that other taboo subject, his parents. Franco rang as they were sharing a pot of coffee while relaxing for an hour in front of the TV before they needed to start getting ready to go out. Marco felt fine, very at peace with himself and the beautiful creature curled up beside him. He and Franco chatted as best friends do. He was thanked for the painting they’d given the de Maggios as an anniversary present, and for the thought which had gone into it, and tried to pass the whole thing off as if he knew exactly what Franco meant. But he didn’t, and his gaze was sardonic when he remembered how easily he had let Antonia off without answering that little bone of contention between them. Then he suggested dinner somewhere after the Kranst showing. It was at that moment that the tension began to creep in. Antonia sat up and away from him. Studying her profile, he heard Franco telling him that he and Nicola were not going tonight because they were spending the weekend up at Lake Como with her parents. Franco suggested Wednesday instead. Marco agreed, then hurriedly rang off. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked instantly. ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I think I’ll go and get my shower now—’ But he wasn’t so easily fooled. ‘Kranst can only hurt you if you let him,’ he said quietly. ‘It isn’t me Stefan hurts, Marco,’ she replied, smiled a sad smile and walked away. She was referring to him, of course, and it was a strange experience to acknowledge that she was right. Kranst did have the power to hurt him. He hurt Marco’s pride and his ego, because the artist had a part of Antonia he had never been able to touch. What part that was exactly he had not been able to work out, but it had something to do with the way she refused to accept any hint of criticism where Kranst was concerned, whereas Marco she could find fault with very easily. CHAPTER SIX THE Romano Gallery claimed prestige position in the famous Quadrilatero. It was double-fronted in plate glass, with black steel framework, and Rosetta Romano’s name made its point with eye-level modesty in black lettering on the door. Class wasn’t in it. Only people of substance dared place their fingers on that door. A black-suited lackey did it for Marco and Antonia, pulling it inwards with panache and a crisp, ‘Buon giorno, Signor Bellini—signorina.’ The interior was an artistic exhibit in its own right—white walls, white floor and a white stairway leading up to the main gallery rooms. Its only decoration was a single black spot, strategically placed on one wall to offer perspective. Marco’s hand at the base of her spine kept her moving towards the stairway. They took it together, climbing towards the two black-clothed waiters stationed at the top, holding trays loaded with glasses of champagne. Neither took a glass. To swallow right now would be an impossibility, with the tension rising steadily since they’d left the sitting room back at the apartment. She had thought of ringing Stefan and insisting he explain about the painting so she could then decide whether to come or not. But two things had stopped her. One had something to do with a complicated thing called loyalty. To speak to Stefan just now seemed to be putting her loyalty to Marco into question. And the second was because she knew Marco would insist on coming here tonight no matter what she wanted to do. It was a male pride thing. Stefan had thrown him a challenge and Marco would rather slit his own throat than decline it. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t spent time on her own, going over every painting from her days living with Stefan, looking for the one he had not shown in public before. As far as she could recall there wasn’t one—which worried her all the more, because he had to have something up his sleeve or he wouldn’t have thrown down that teasing gauntlet to Marco in the first place. Dressed from neck to toe in black, at least she blended in with the status quo tonight, she then observed, as her gaze flicked around a semi-packed ante-room that fed into the main viewing rooms. Her hair was up, caught in a twist of black velvet, and her only adornment was a gold chain necklace with a single tear-drop diamond that Marco had placed around her throat just before they left the apartment. The diamond nestled against the black of her dress and sparkled as she moved. ‘Stunning,’ Marco had called her. ‘Too lovely to resist. Too perfect to touch.’ But she still didn’t deserve his surname, she mused, with a mockery that was a long way from humorous. ‘Ah, buona sera!’ Rosetta Romano came to greet them with all the extravagance of an Italian hostess. ‘Marco, mi amore…’ Both elegant hands touched his face, then were replaced with kisses to both cheeks. ‘Do you realise it must be over a year since you visited me here?’ It was a scold issued in the nicest possible way. While Marco said all the right things in reply Antonia studied Rosetta Romano, who had been a legend in her time for choosing husbands by the size of their wallets. Now that her beauty was fading she preferred to be known for her artistic eye. All the big names had exhibited here. Two years ago Stefan would not have stood a chance. Now—? Rosetta turned her attention to Antonia. Her eyes sharpened, then narrowed searchingly. ‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘I see it. Stefan assured me I would. Buona sera, Signorina Carson,’ she greeted with a slightly wry smile. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you at last.’ Kisses on both cheeks were compulsory in Milan. The whisper Rosetta placed in her ear was most definitely not. ‘Stefan is such a wicked man. I do hope you are prepared for this.’ No, she wasn’t, and keeping that from showing on her face took a lot of self-control. But she wasn’t able to stop the small anxious shiver from chasing down her spine. Marco felt it, and his hand moved on her waist to draw her closer to his side. ‘What did she say to you?’ he questioned when Rosetta floated away to greet her next arriving guests. Antonia didn’t even try to dress it up. ‘She wanted to know if I was ready for whatever is coming,’ she told him. ‘And are you?’ he asked curtly. She flashed him a look. ‘The point is, are you?’ she coolly countered. ‘Since you seem to believe that anything to do with me and Stefan is deliberately engineered to reflect badly on you.’ She was right and he knew it. A muscle flexed in his jaw. Then he was forced to offer an amiable smile to some friends who immediately accosted them. After that it was other friends. Progress towards their main objective became a laboriously slow affair. With his hand never leaving contact with her, Marco conversed lightly with acquaintances while Antonia stood beside him, eyes constantly looking around the steadily thickening crowd in search of Stefan. But still he hadn’t put in an appearance. What was he up to? Why was he piling on the tension like this? People began filtering off into the adjoining rooms. With the smoothness of a man in no kind of hurry, Marco manoeuvred them into doing the same. Antonia held her breath, Marco’s hand pressed her just the bit closer to his side as they stepped through to the main gallery. Together they paused, together they took stock of what was presented—and together they began to frown. For there was nothing on these walls that could warrant the challenge with which Stefan had lured them here—if you didn’t count the evidence that Stefan had seemingly found himself a new subject to occupy his genius. She was tall, she was dark, she was exquisitely different, and her rich African beauty could not have been further removed from what had gone before her. The long slender line of her body laid bare a sensuality that curled around the senses, the silken quality of her skin set fingers twitching with a need to reach out and touch. But, as usual, with Stefan, it was her eyes that drew you. No hint of mirrors or ghosts anywhere, but a luxurious darkness that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe. Understanding came, trailing gentle fingertips over her emotions in the heart-rippling realisation that here, in these frames, was Stefan’s salvation. He had set himself free. ‘Are you all right?’ Marco asked gruffly. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. But he knew that she wasn’t. He could feel her fighting a battle with tears as they walked from frame to frame. ‘She’s incredible, don’t you think?’ ‘Bellisima,’ Marco quietly agreed. And he knew he should be pleased by what he was seeing, but in truth he wanted to wring Kranst’s selfish neck for choosing this way to tell her he had finally found someone else who drew this depth of emotion from him. ‘I presume by your response that you knew nothing about her?’ ‘Not a thing,’ she replied, having to swallow the tears again. ‘Maybe you should ask him,’ he suggested, and drew her attention to where Stefan Kranst was standing, not far away, watching her responses with an intensity that made Marco’s blood boil. Her head twisted round, her breath caught for a second, then her slender waist was sliding away from his hand. Without another word to him, she crossed the room towards a man who had always held too much power over her for Marco’s peace of mind. Grimly he watched her pause a step away, watched her head tilt to one side as it tended to do when she asked a question. He saw Stefan Kranst’s handsome face break into a rakish grin, and wanted to hit the self-obsessed bastard! ‘Who is she?’ was the question Antonia had put to Stefan. ‘My saviour,’ Stefan had grinned. ‘Her name?’ she demanded. ‘Tanya,’ he provided. ‘Tanya…’ Antonia repeated, and let her gaze drift to the nearest painting, where Tanya’s smile held the rich knowledge of all men’s needs. ‘It suits her,’ she murmured, then on a burst of soft laughter she went into his arms. ‘Oh, I’m so happy for you!’ she cried. Across the room, Marco turned away from that embrace to continue to view the painting in front of him as if he had no problem at all with his woman falling into her ex-lover’s arms once again. Someone sidled up beside him. Of course it had to be Louisa. ‘I do admire your confidence in those two, Marco,’ she drawled lightly. ‘Now, if, for argument’s sake, he belonged to me, I would be over there scratching her eyes out by now.’ ‘But he doesn’t belong to you—he belongs to her,’ he said, indicating the beautiful black woman whose naked form exuded sexual contentment from every gifted brushstroke. ‘And Antonia,’ he then added very softly, ‘belongs to me.’ With that he walked away, in no mood to play tit-for-tat word games tonight. He wanted his woman back, and he wanted her now! ‘When do I meet her? Where is she?’ Antonia was demanding of Stefan. ‘Back in London, hiding away from you,’ he drawled lazily. ‘Just in case I was wrong about you, and you are secretly in love with me.’ Catching her soft burst of laughter as he approached, Marco also heard Antonia’s amused reply. ‘Of course you told her that I will always love you?’ ‘Hello, Marco,’ Stefan greeted, a trifle drily. ‘Come to claim Antonia?’ The man could read minds. ‘We have to be leaving soon,’ Marco answered smoothly. ‘Another engagement, I’m afraid,’ he invented with bland ease. The moment he began speaking Antonia moved to his side and slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. She was making a point here, Marco recognised. And it should feel good. So why did he feel as if she was taking second best by coming to him like this? Irritation flicked to life. What the hell was he talking about? He scorned his own crazy imagination. He had never played second best to anyone in his life! ‘Dare I ask the expert for an opinion?’ Kranst reclaimed his attention. His expression was slightly wry, slightly challenging Marco to do his worst. But Marco found he no longer wanted to play tit-for-tat games with Kranst, either. He just wanted to get Antonia somewhere private so he could make her forget Stefan Kranst’s name! So, ‘You must know you’ve done it again,’ he said easily. ‘Have you sold the reproduction rights yet?’ ‘Still negotiating.’ Stefan smiled. Then, ‘Thank you, Marco,’ he added seriously. ‘Your opinion means a lot to me.’ And to your reputation, Marco added silently. Though anyone with eyes should be able to see that the man was about to make his second killing here. Glancing down, he found Antonia was smiling up at him as if he had just bestowed the greatest accolade he possibly could. It made him want to shake her for still caring so much about Kranst’s precious ego when it was clear the man didn’t give a damn about hers! ‘It’s time we were leaving,’ he told her, wishing they hadn’t bothered to come here at all. The man was a menace—to him and to Antonia! ‘Before you do that,’ Stefan Kranst inserted, looking at Antonia, ‘I have something for you, my darling, if you remember…’ Beside him, Marco felt her stiffen. ‘You mean this isn’t surprise enough?’ she laughed, in a voice strapped by strain. ‘No.’ The artist’s smile was rueful. ‘Special gifts come in solid form.’ Marco frowned at the answer, because it wasn’t true. Not where Antonia was concerned. It was a lesson he had learned himself only last week via the red Lotus. Then he remembered Kranst’s remark about the Mirror Woman, felt his own tension rise up to meet Antonia’s, and realised that she had remembered a whole lot sooner than he had done. ‘I have it waiting in Rosetta’s office,’ Stefan Kranst said smoothly, and turned away to stride purposefully towards Rosetta Romano’s private office. It really left them with no choice but to follow. ‘This had better be worth the build-up,’ Marco muttered, unable to stop himself. ‘I hope not,’ Antonia mumbled in reply, which just about said it all for both of them. Rosetta Romano’s office was a large white space of modern stylism. The only thing, therefore, that stood out in the room, was the giant black easel holding a large frame covered by a piece of fine black muslin. The moment she saw it Antonia released a gasp of recognition, ‘Stefan…no!’ she shot out. But Stefan was not willing to listen. He was already standing beside the easel and, with an agonising smoothness he trailed away the fine sheet covering. Total silence arrived in starbursts of pain-bright recognition. Antonia began to tremble. Marco simply left her standing there and moved on legs suddenly in danger of collapsing to stand right in front of the painting. It could have been a copy of the Mirror Woman. Certainly it was the same balcony, the same morning half-light touching that same sensual hint of gold to her silk-smooth skin. And it was certainly Antonia standing there naked, looking back over her shoulder in much the same way as the Mirror Woman did. But it wasn’t the same painting. For this was no mirror reflection, there was no emptiness in her beautiful eyes. Instead they were filled with the truth. Antonia was held paralysed by exposure, static eyes fixed on Marco’s hardening profile, static heart threatening to burst in her breast. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t. She wanted to say something in her defence, but she couldn’t do that because the evidence was so terribly damning. Stefan came to stand beside her. His hand took hold of her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze. But she didn’t feel comforted. Standing here watching the man she loved grimly coming to terms with the knowledge that she had been deceiving him filled her with the kind of dread that made every nerve-end she possessed scream in agony. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this without my approval,’ she managed to breathe out frailly. ‘If I had asked, you wouldn’t have given it,’ Stefan gently replied. ‘But why have you done it?’ It seemed such a betrayal from the one person in this world she trusted completely. ‘It was time he knew,’ he said simply. ‘You’ve let it go on too long. You must know that by now, my darling.’ Knowing it and wanting this were two separate issues! ‘You should not have done it,’ she whispered, and felt her eyes start to burn as Marco reached out to touch the painting. A long finger gently grazed across a perfectly formed, blemish-free shoulder. Antonia felt that graze as if he’d reached out and touched her. Response shuddered through her on an electric spasm. ‘I’ll never forgive you,’ she told Stefan, and stepped away from him with the intention of going to this other man who was so very important to her— Only to freeze yet again, when Marco chose the same moment to turn. His face looked as if it had been chiselled out of marble. ‘You didn’t paint this.’ He honed his cold eyes directly on Stefan. It was a clearly defined accusation. ‘There speaks the voice of an expert,’ Stefan smiled. Then, ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘This was—’ ‘Mine,’ Antonia put in unequivocally. ‘It belongs to me!’ She looked at Marco for understanding. ‘It isn’t even Stefan’s to give to me! I own it! No one is supposed to—’ Marco’s hard-eyed narrowed look silenced her. ‘Who painted it?’ he demanded. ‘Does it matter?’ she begged. ‘It has never been put on public display and it never will be, Marco! I never—’ ‘I didn’t ask if it had been shown,’ he cut in. ‘I asked you who the hell painted it!’ His fury was spectacular. Antonia drew back a step in dismay. ‘I think you’re missing the point, Marco,’ Stefan put in quickly. ‘I didn’t show you this to—’ It happened so quickly that Stefan had no time to react to it. With a smoothness of movement that gave no indication whatsoever of what he was intending to do, Marco took two strides and, with a lightning move of his long lean body, he floored Stefan with a punch to his jaw. With a grunt, Stefan landed in a sprawl in front of him. Antonia’s cry as she lurched towards them filled his ears. ‘Why did you do that!’ she choked as she bent down beside Stefan. ‘For messing with your life. For messing with my life!’ he ground out violently, then just turned and strode out of the door. Antonia watched him go with her heart in her eyes. On a groan, Stefan sat up and put a hand to his jaw. He was shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe he had allowed that to happen. ‘What have you done to me?’ Antonia sobbed out. ‘Fulfilled one of your dearest wishes and got him to punch my lights out,’ Stefan very drily replied. Not the least bit in the mood for his kind of dry humour, she came upright then bent to help him get up. ‘Has he hurt you?’ she asked. ‘Don’t sound so sympathetic.’ He mocked her frosty enquiry. ‘Split my lip, that’s all,’ he then answered, only to really infuriate her by suddenly beginning to laugh! ‘Stop it!’ she choked. ‘How dare you laugh at a time like this? What have you done to me, Stefan? Why have you done it?’ The tears began to swim as she stared at the closed office door. ‘He’s never going to forgive me for this. You do know that,’ she told him thickly. ‘He’s even left without me!’ ‘Not that man,’ Stefan stated confidently. ‘Give me a minute to put some ice on this, and we’ll go out there and find him. I promise you,’ he assured her pained white expression, ‘he’s going to be there…’ But Marco didn’t want to be found for, having walked out on one ugly scene, he now found himself standing outside Rosetta Romano’s door, flexing his abused fist and staring directly at the looming threat of yet another scene. His mother had arrived. God alone knew where she had come from—and God alone knew why, when he’d believed her safely ensconced in Tuscany. But there she was, holding court in the middle of the ante-room surrounded by a host of delighted old friends and acquaintances. In the black mood he was in, he actually contemplated pretending he hadn’t seen her and getting the hell out of there before she saw him! Only he was not leaving without Antonia, he determined, with a grimness that promised a glimpse at hell for someone. And it took only a thin sliver of common sense to get through his anger, to tell him that he couldn’t avoid speaking to his own mother, for goodness’ sake! But a meeting between her and Antonia? His blood ran cold at the very idea of it. It was a sensation that forced him to work hard at pulling a smooth mask down on his bubbling anger and then striking out towards his mother with the grim intention of getting the mother-son reunion out of the way before Antonia decided to put in an appearance with her famous ex-lover in tow! But lady luck was not working in Marco’s favour tonight. The room was pretty crowded with Milan’s best. People who more or less knew each other on first-name terms. Isabella Bellini was known and liked by many. Her son even found an amused smile as he approached and saw just how many people were gathered around her slender form. She saw him coming, and her lovely face broke into a welcoming smile. His smile became a rakish grin as he took this beautiful, delicate creature he adored into his arms and let her shower kisses all over his face. Hands replaced kisses, followed by remarks to the crowd on how handsome he was, how cruel he was to his mother for not returning her calls. It was the Italian way. He accepted it and even enjoyed it. His apologies were profuse, his enquiries about his father sincere. ‘He is having a good week,’ his mother informed him—and the smiling circle. ‘So he threw me out and told me not to come back for at least two days. He says I fuss too much, but in truth,’ she confided, ‘he plans to play cards, drink wine and gamble with his friends without me around to disapprove.’ The laughter was warm and appreciative. From the corner of his eye Marco saw the door to Rosetta Romano’s office open; his skin began to prickle. Isabella looked back at her son. ‘And this one,’ she announced, ‘cannot even find the time in his busy life to answer his mother when she calls to him! I get his housekeeper,’ she informed her audience. Antonia was approaching him from his right. She looked pale, she looked anxious. She had no idea what she was going to walk into. ‘I get the message service,’ his mother was continuing. ‘I have to ring his friends to discover where he might be this evening!’ Marco smiled the expected rueful smile, and wondered which friend it was who had dropped him in this mess. Antonia had now come to within a few paces of his right. Beside her was Stefan Kranst, wearing a bruise on his lip and a crooked smile. It was decision time, Marco accepted heavily. He either drew Antonia towards him, introduced her to his mother and risked offending his mother’s outdated ideas on what was acceptable in polite society, or he ignored Antonia standing there and offended her. It was a lousy choice to have to decide. Someone arrived at his left side, diverting his mother’s attention. Her face broke into a beatific smile. ‘Ah, Louisa,’ she greeted. ‘There you are! And looking so beautiful, as always. I was just telling everyone how I had to call you up to discover where my own son would be tonight…’ Louisa. It had to be Louisa, Marco noted grimly. The knowledge tipped the balance of his decision away from his mother. For no one had the right to try manipulating either him or his life, and maybe it was about time that his mother and Louisa realised that! Louisa was being welcomed with the usual kisses from his mother when Marco turned the half-inch it required to catch Antonia’s gaze. He saw the uncertainty there, the knowledge that she had recognised whom it was holding centre stage. His heart turned over. She was so beautiful. So much his woman, no matter what secrets she had been keeping from him, that it was suddenly no decision at all to smile and hold out his arm in invitation for her to come to him. Her relief shone like the diamond at her lovely throat as she took the final irrevocable step which brought her beneath the protection of his arm and into the smiling circle. Slender-boned, exquisitely turned out in matt-black cre?pe, her satin-black hair sleek to her beautiful head, Isabella Bellini was just emerging from her embrace with Louisa when she observed this little interplay—and her eyes began to cool. ‘Mother,’ Marco said formally. ‘I would like you to meet—’ As if he hadn’t spoken, and Antonia wasn’t there, Isabella Bellini simply turned her back on them. The deadening silence that followed was profound. It was such a blatantly deliberate act, that it was all Antonia could do to remain standing there, with her stinging eyes lowered, hiding the deep gouge of humiliation that was tearing into the very fabric her pride was made of. While Marco emulated a pillar of stone. How many people actually witnessed what had just happened, Antonia didn’t know. But it really didn’t take an audience for her to understand that the cuckoo had just been devastatingly exposed. The hum of conversation suddenly rushed into overdrive as people attempted to cover up the dreadful moment. Someone gently touched her arm. It was Stefan. ‘That—’ he growled, ‘was unforgivable.’ She began to shake. Stefan glanced angrily at Marco, who still hadn’t moved a single muscle. Then, ‘Come on,’ he murmured gruffly. ‘Let’s go back to Rosetta’s—’ ‘No,’ a hard voice countermanded. And with it Marco broke free from his stone-like stasis. ‘We are leaving,’ he announced. The hand tightened on her shoulder. Antonia could feel the anger in its biting grip and clenched the muscles beneath it. ‘I’m coming with you,’ Stefan declared, still gripping Antonia’s arm. ‘I have no wish to—’ ‘No.’ Once again Marco cut him short. ‘We appreciate your concern, but this is not your problem.’ ‘It is when it’s Antonia who has been insulted,’ Stefan said angrily. ‘And my mother who did the insulting,’ Marco coldly pointed out. ‘Excuse me,’ Antonia whispered, and broke free from both of them. She needed to get away from here, and she needed to do it now. Fighting tears, fighting the crawling worms of humiliation, fighting to keep her head up high as she went, she walked quickly for the stairs. If she’d cared to look back, she would have seen that Marco’s mother was already feeling the discomfort of what she had done. She was touching her son’s arm, trying to get his attention. But Marco didn’t even offer her a glance as he strode after Antonia. His hand found her waist and clamped her close. Together they started down the stairs. In her haste Antonia tripped over her own spindly shoes. Marco grimly held her upright, and kept her moving while the throb of his anger pulsed all around her like the heartbeat pound of a drum. They reached the plate-glass door at the same time as the doorman pulled it open. Neither realised the door was being opened to allow someone outside to come in. There was a bump of bodies. ‘Scuze signor—signorina,’ a deep, quietly modulated voice apologised. It was automatic to glance up. Automatic to attempt the polite reply to the apology. Antonia looked into the stranger’s face, he looked into hers, and any attempt to speak was thoroughly suffocated beneath yet another thick layer of appalled dismay. Black hair spiked with silver, grey eyes with a hint of green. As tall as Marco, but more slender than Marco, he was a man in the autumn years of his life. Still, she knew exactly who it was she was staring at—and, worse, he knew that she knew. ‘Madonna mia,’ he breathed in shaken consternation. ‘Anastasia.’ Anastasia... It was too much in one short evening for Antonia to deal with. It was all she could do to shrink back into the only solid thing she could rely on right now. Marco might be immersed in the red tide of anger, but he saw the exchanged looks, heard the name shudder from the other man’s lips. Knew there was yet something else going on here that he wasn’t privy to, and felt his anger switch from his mother and back to the woman now shrinking into his side. ‘You are mistaken,’ he clipped at the other man. ‘Please excuse us,’ he added coldly, then got them the hell out of there before anything else smashed into them. Outside, the Quadrilatero was busy with windowshoppers. Marco’s car was parked in a side street not far away. Holding on to his temper until he got them there was a case of clamping his mouth shut and saying nothing. Opening the passenger door, he helped her into the plush black leather seat, then squatted down to lock home her seat belt. She didn’t seem to notice. With yet another lash of anger, he grabbed her chin and made her look at him. Her eyes were almost black, her skin paste-white and her lovely mouth completely bloodless. She looked as fragile as a piece of fine Venetian glass, likely to shatter without careful handling. But he didn’t feel like handling anything carefully. In fact, he wanted to shatter her into little pieces so he could reach the real woman, because this one had become a complete stranger to him! With a harsh sigh he released her chin, stood up and closed the car door. He got in beside her, then fired the engine. Jaw locked, teeth clenched, he set them moving, bullying his way into the nose-to-tail traffic clogging up Milan’s crazy one-way road system, then took an amount of pleasure in doing the same thing in his quest to forge them the most direct route home. Car horns blared at him in protest. Headlights flashed. Abuse was thrown at him in colourful Italian. He didn’t care. He was so angry! Angry with Kranst and his little party piece. With his mother and her unforgivable behaviour! And he was angry with Antonia for allowing him to believe the painting he had in his apartment was of her! And then there was the man in the gallery doorway, he added to his long list of grievances because, despite appearing otherwise, he’d recognised him. His name was Anton Gabrielli, a wealthy industrialist turned recluse, who had rarely been seen in public since his wife died several years ago. And he might have called Antonia Anastasia, but the error had been irrelevant. He knew her! And, more to the point, Antonia had recognised him! ‘How do you know Anton Gabrielli?’ he demanded. It was like talking to a puppet. ‘I’ve never met him before in my life,’ she answered woodenly. ‘Don’t lie to me!’ he rasped. ‘He may have got your name wrong, but you knew each other all right. The mutual horror was all too revealing.’ ‘I said I’ve never met him before!’ she shouted. It was so out of character that he threw a sharp look at her. No puppet now, he noted. She was shaking so badly that it made the diamond at her throat shimmer. On a choked little gasp, she turned her face right away from him so he couldn’t read it. It was the act of someone caught in a lie. Without another word, he turned his attention to getting through the traffic, while a new filthy suspicion began to tear into him. Anton Gabrielli was about the same age as Kranst. If she’d enjoyed Kranst as a lover then why not Gabrielli? After all, what did he actually know about Antonia’s life before Kranst? Nothing, he realised. Absolutely nothing. As the ugly green stuff began to replace his blood again, he finally managed to reach his goal and pulled them to a screeching stop in the basement car park of his apartment. He switched off the engine—then clamped a hard hand on Antonia’s thigh as she released her seat belt. ‘Stay,’ he gritted. It was a dire warning. She wasn’t going to make him kick his heels down here for a second time while she rode the lift alone. The fingers fluttered, then went to rest on her lap, her body melting back into the seat. With a tight hiss of satisfaction he got out, swung round the car, opened her door then bent to help her alight. The lift took them upwards, with her shaking like crazy and him with his fists clenched to stop him taking hold of her and shaking her some more! When they reached the apartment door it was Marco who opened it; Antonia didn’t seem capable. But, once inside, the few seconds it required for him to deactivate the alarm system gave her the chance to get away from him. She headed straight for the bedroom. He stayed where he was long enough to utter a few choice curses before grimly striding after her. If she’d locked the bedroom door on him then she was in for one hell of a shock! he vowed. But the door wasn’t locked. And what he found when he tossed it back on its hinges stunned him to a complete standstill. CHAPTER SEVEN ‘—WHAT the hell are you doing?’ he raked out incredulously. But he could see what she was doing. A suitcase already lay open on the bed and she was tossing things into it like a criminal on the run. ‘Antonia!’ he demanded when she didn’t answer. ‘I’m l-leaving,’ she stammered, then froze within the midst of what he realised was full-scale panic to stand with body stiff, arms straight, fists tightly clenched, while she fought a battle with whatever emotion was suddenly trying to overwhelm her. ‘The hell you are,’ he grimly countered, but his own voice no longer sounded quite so steady. He began striding towards her, and the act jolted her back from wherever she’d gone to and she turned on him, paste-white, stark-eyed—he had never seen an expression like it in all his life. ‘Cara…’ he murmured hoarsely. ‘For goodness’ sake…’ ‘I’m leaving you, Marco!’ She almost screamed the words at him she was so out of control. ‘Now—tonight! I n-never want to see you again.’ The fact that he could see it had almost killed her to say that didn’t make him feel any better, because he could see she actually meant it—and that was scaring the life out of him. She turned back to the suitcase. With a swipe of his hand he sent it flying to the floor. Clothes scattered everywhere. Silly things like a couple of sets of underwear, a couple of skirts, a couple of simple cotton tops. He tried swallowing and found he couldn’t. He tried making sense of the evidence he was looking at. He couldn’t do that either. For no woman—no woman! left Marco Bellini with only the clothes she’d come to him with! No woman left Marco Bellini. ‘You aren’t going anywhere until you’ve answered some questions,’ he growled, and grabbed her hand. ‘Maybe once you’ve done that I’ll be glad to see the back of you!’ he threw in for furious good measure, and began trailing her behind him out of the bedroom and down the hall while she tried her best to get free of him. No chance, he vowed silently. No damn chance. Throwing open the door to his study, he strode them over to the locked door. Still holding her hand prisoner, he stabbed in the security pin-number, hauled her inside, then over to the Mirror Woman. ‘Now, let’s start right here,’ he gritted. ‘Who is she?’ Anastasia, Antonia thought tragically, and began shaking all over again, fighting a battle with tears that reached right down to her abdomen. Sad, tragic—beautiful Anastasia. ‘Mirror—mirror,’ she whispered thickly. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Marco said harshly. It was no use lying, no use trying to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. The game was up. She had been exposed as the fraud she was. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Anastasia…’ It took a few moments, then it hit him. ‘My God,’ he rasped. ‘Are you saying that she is your twin?’ A laugh left her throat on a strangled sob. Her amber eyes shimmered with tears and a pained kind of humour, because Anastasia would have so loved to have been here to hear this big handsome Italian say that. ‘No, not my twin,’ she murmured softly. ‘She was my mother…’ My poor, wretched, haunted mother, she silently extended, while the silence grew thick all around her. ‘Mother,’ Marco repeated, as if he had to do so to understand the concept. ‘You mean, you and Kranst actually….’ The words stopped. Antonia turned to look at him. For once he was literally floundering on the rocks of shock. And he looked white. He looked horrified. ‘What?’ she snapped as anger began flooding up from the depths of a bitter knowledge of where they were about to go with this. ‘Did we collaborate to deceive everyone? Yes.’ She openly admitted the charge. ‘Did I pose nude for Stefan so he could pretend I was my mother? No, I did not,’ she denied that. ‘Stefan and my mother were lovers for ten years! He adored her. And no again, before the cogs inside your head start turning to something nasty,’ she sliced at him. ‘Stefan did not bed-swap between my mother and myself!’ ‘I was not about to assume—’ Marco began stiffly. But angrily she cut in. ‘You’ve always assumed!’ she cried. ‘From the very beginning you assumed we were lovers. But Stefan is my friend!’ she threw at him. ‘My dear, dear friend who arrived in our lives when we really needed someone warm and loving and endlessly giving like him! Between us, we nursed my mother through a long and miserable illness. And the result of those dark years?’ She gestured with a trembling hand towards the painting. ‘How my mother wanted Stefan to remember her. Not the withered and worn-out shell she became towards the end!’ Tears flooded her eyes. She looked away from him, her whole torso heaving with the fight for control. ‘So he painted a lie,’ Marco said grimly. ‘And what if he did?’ she replied. ‘What does it matter to anyone else that the image they see isn’t the gruesome reality?’ ‘Hence the mirror.’ Oh, he was very good, she had to give him that. ‘It reflects what was,’ she confirmed. ‘Stefan could pick up a paintbrush even now and paint her looking exactly like this. He loved her so very much…’ ‘Yet he was quick to sell these when opportunity knocked,’ Marco pointed out cynically. ‘And he was quick to let you masquerade as her to add a bit of juicy notoriety to the sales!’ ‘I didn’t say he was perfect,’ she snapped. ‘And the paintings went on show before my mother died!’ she pronounced. ‘At her request! For her pleasure! It amused her when people mistook me for her! And anything that made her happy, Stefan and I gave her!’ Her eyes flashed, tear-bright but unrepentant. His hardened into bitterness. ‘That’s all fine for everyone else. But don’t you think you owed it to me to tell me the truth?’ ‘Why should I have done that?’ she gasped out in angry bewilderment. ‘You got what you came looking for, Marco,’ she told him. ‘You got the woman in the painting. You had no interest in me as a living breathing human being!’ Two streaks of colour hit his cheekbones, his whole body stiffened in affront. ‘That’s not true,’ he denied. ‘Yes, it is,’ she insisted. ‘Take away the kudos in being able to lay claim to Stefan Kranst’s notoriously sexy model, and it would take away the desire; I always knew that.’ He didn’t answer. For her, his silence said it all. Looking back at her mother for one last time, Antonia touched a gentle finger to the tiny birthmark on her shoulder, smiled a sad ‘I love you’ smile, then withdrew again, curling her fingers into her palms as she turned for the door. ‘Where are you going?’ She paused, but didn’t look back. ‘Home,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going home. There’s nothing left for me here.’ ‘I’m here,’ Marco murmured gruffly. ‘No, you’re not.’ Antonia shook her head. ‘You’re standing aloft in a place I can never reach you. It’s called the social ladder. You don’t mind coming down to the bottom rung to enjoy life with the masses now and then, but when it comes to elevating someone up to your top rung—no chance.’ She laughed. It was a bitter sound. ‘E ? lite marries ?lite. Darling Mamma expects it.’ ‘Leave my mother out of this,’ he rasped back angrily. ‘But why should I?’ she spun round to demand. He looked so grim and remote it was almost as if he was already climbing back up that ladder and away from her. ‘In truth,’ she said, ‘I’m actually grateful for what your mother did tonight. Because she forced me to take a good look and see just how I had been wasting my life living here with you.’ ‘Wasting it because I haven’t asked you to marry me?’ he threw back with contempt. ‘Is that what your year-long investment in me has really been about, cara? Give a man what you think he wants. Lie to him, cheat him if necessary, in the wild hope that the dividend will give back the jackpot billionaire with all the luxury trimmings?’ He saw himself as the jackpot? ‘You arrogant bastard,’ she said scornfully. ‘I invested in love!’ she cried. ‘As in my love for you being strong enough to ignite some love back by return! But it never happened, did it, Marco?’ Her eyes began to shine like the diamond at her throat. ‘And even after a whole year of living together you can still freeze up in dismay when confronted with the disapproval of your mother, and still stand here and toss your contempt at me for actually daring to think myself fit to marry you!’ ‘I did not freeze in shame because of you!’ he raked back angrily. ‘I froze in shame of my wretched mother!’ But he was shouting it to an empty space. Antonia had already walked away. For all of five seconds he remained where he was, wanting to just let her go and stew in her own dignity. But then he remembered the suitcase on the floor of the bedroom and calculated how quickly it would take her to repack it. Anger shot through him. Curses rattled from his tense lips. But alarm set his feet moving. He hated it—hated feeling like this! Sure enough she was in the bedroom, standing over the bloody case. ‘All right!’ he lashed out. ‘Marry me! If that is what it takes to stop this—craziness. Marry me—marry me!’ She turned to look at him. It was like watching snow cover a mountain her skin turned so white. Then the rain came, flooding into those beautiful amber eyes and her lips erupted with an agonised quiver. Shaken to the roots by his own proposal, stunned beyond movement by her response, he watched one of her hands come out and give a flick in a bitter throw away gesture. Then she began walking towards him. His skin came alive to a million bee-stings; his heart lost the ability to beat. When she reached him she paused, and those awful tear-washed eyes looked right into his. ‘May you go to hell, Marco,’ she whispered thickly, then pushed him out of the way so that she could get past him. It took him several moments to gain the will to move again. By then, a door further down the hallway had shut and the key had been turned. Staring round the chaos she had left behind her, he suddenly felt like a man standing in the middle of a ruin. Helpless, hopeless, unable to come to terms with how quickly it had all come tumbling down around him. His legs eventually managed to take him forward, his feet picking their way through the debris of her clothes. Sitting down on the bed, he leant forward and clasped his head between long tense fingers. He could have played an old scene again and gone charging after her, but it didn’t even come up as an option this time. She needed to cool off, and he needed to get a grip on what had just happened because at this precise moment he didn’t have a single clue! One minute he had been the one with all the grievances, the next Antonia had been spilling hers out all over him. His sigh was heavy, shot with a residue of anger and frustration because so much of what she had thrown at him was true! Her mother…he remembered, and got up with a swing of his body that responded to a sudden clutch of dismay. His feet took him back to his study, took him back to the Mirror Woman where he stood gazing into a face he’d believed he knew. But the differences were already manifesting themselves, as if someone had come along and altered certain brushstrokes. The curve of her eyebrows, the tilt of her jaw, the way her slender neck blended into her slender shoulders. The birthmark he’d assumed was the artist’s carelessness with his paintbrush. All very subtle differences that only an expert eye would ever notice. He’d thought he had that expert eye. He’d believed he was a great connoisseur, when in actual fact Antonia was right and he was merely one of many, seeing only what he wanted to see. Now he could look at this sad creature and pick out a hundred differences between her and her beautiful daughter—if he could bring himself to look at the rest of her, that was. It felt like a sin to do so now. He’d always thought Kranst the voyeur in this painting, and it didn’t sit comfortably to realise that the real voyeur had been himself. It made him want to turn the darn thing to the wall and forget he’d ever seen it. But— This was Antonia’s mother, he reiterated bleakly. Antonia loved this woman. It had been there in every word that she spoke! To turn her to the wall would be a rejection of someone who was as precious to Antonia as his own mother was to him. Though he didn’t want to think about his own mother right now, he accepted with an angry hardening of his jaw. And Antonia had never been uncomfortable with the nudity in this painting. Her discomfort had been in looking at someone she had loved and lost, not the nudity itself. Not her own nudity—or her mother’s, he extended, as many things began to make sense. She had lived for ten years with an artist who specialised in the naked female form. He had a gift—no, a genius—for the genre, therefore it was only natural that she would learn to see nudity as something to appreciate in its own right, and not something to turn away from in shame. As it had been to him until he discovered who it was he was actually looking at! Since when had he developed a bigot’s view of something this special? Marco asked himself. This was art! Master-class art! If he’d been in a better frame of mind, he would have been purchasing one of Kranst’s latest offerings. And not just for the investment, but because he liked what Kranst painted on the canvas! But who had painted Antonia’s nude image? he then asked himself, and felt his whole sophisticated outlook tumble like a house of cards. Anger enveloped him, spewing forth from a strange place inside him that could now accept Kranst as her painter—but not some other man! How the heck had she managed to divert him so thoroughly that he hadn’t demanded some answers about him? And there was Anton Gabrielli lurking in the shadows. Behind Marco the telephone started ringing. If it did nothing else it diverted his attention away from what was beginning to flood his veins again. He walked over to his desk and stood there making no attempt to pick up the receiver. His mother? he wondered. Wanting to voice her disapproval in more detail? Kranst, wanting to know if Antonia was still alive? He let his answering service take over. By the time it had silenced the telephone ring he had closed the door on the study. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, and he certainly didn’t want to listen to them prose all over him. What he wanted was Antonia. But not yet, he grimly reiterated. And not at all tonight, until all of these ugly feelings rattling around inside him had been given a chance to calm down. Antonia’s insides were shaking, the fight to hold back the tears strangling the ability to breathe. Without really knowing what she was doing, she walked over to the bed and began tugging at the back zip to her dress as if it was perfectly natural to undress—when in actual fact she should be getting away from here. Not hiding behind a locked door which only extended the agony! The zip snagged between her shoulderblades. She struggled with it for a while, with her head lowered and her eyes concentrated on the diamond at her throat. The zip wouldn’t budge. It seemed a kind of justice, after the night she had just had, that it should do so at a point where she had no hope of wriggling out of the dress. On a trembling sigh of frustration she diverted her fingers to the necklace, removed it, then just stood there staring at nothing. Had he really had the gall to offer to marry her, then stand there looking as if he’d just committed a mortal sin? ‘Oh.’ She choked on a tear that managed to escape. I should hate him. I should hate him for saying it the way he did, she told herself. But it wasn’t hate she was feeling, it was hurt, because he hadn’t meant it. He had merely been determined to grab the higher ground in an argument which made little sense to begin with! What a dreadful night, she sighed out bleakly. What a terrible, eye-opening, miserable night. Beginning with Stefan springing that painting on them without warning. Then moving on to Marco’s mother’s neat little snub that was still managing to crease her up with pained mortification. And, if all of that wasn’t enough, she had to come face to face with Anton Gabrielli. A shiver ripped through her as something hard and cold turned pain to anger. How he dared to even whisper her mother’s name after what he had done to her, she would never know! But to do it in front of Marco of all people, was the ultimate sin she would never forgive Gabrielli for. He had been the final ruin of everything. He was the reason she had to leave here or risk the kind of scandal Marco would never forgive her for. Did Anton Gabrielli know? Had he guessed by now that he had just come face to face with his daughter? Then—no. She denied that. She was not his daughter. His was merely the seed which had formed the base of her conception. She’d never known him, never met him and didn’t want to. In fact, she would rather remain the notorious Mirror Woman than lay claim to a father who had deserted her mother as soon as he’d known she was pregnant. And what immortal words had he used to do it? ‘Men like me don’t marry their mistresses. It is not your function.’ God, she hated him. Therefore she should hate Marco too, since he had used similar words to her not that long ago. What would his mother say if she knew about Anton Gabrielli? ‘The sins of the mother,’ would be oh, so appropriate. The same looks, the same paintings, the same attraction to tall dark handsome Italian billionaires! Bitterness welled. Tears still cut her throat in two. She turned for the door with the intention of keeping to her original decision and just getting away from here! Yet when she reached the door she just couldn’t do it! Oh, what was to become of her if she couldn’t even bring herself to walk away now, when there was nothing left for her here? Nothing! ‘I’m here,’ Marco had said to her. Wrapping her arms around her body, she hugged that gruffly spoken statement to her for all she was worth as her restless feet took her the other way, over to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows which gave access out onto the terrace. Sliding one of them open, she stepped outside in the vague hopes that some fresh air would clear her confusion. But it was stifling out here after the air-conditioned interior. Still, rather than go back inside, she moved over to one of the sun loungers, slipped out of her shoes, sat down and curled her knees up so she could rest her chin on them. The terrace was a very impressive part of the apartment, which wrapped round two full sides of the building. When Marco threw one of his extravagant parties all the doors would be opened so every room leading in from the terrace could be used for one function or another. And the sound of music and life and laughter would follow you everywhere. But tonight it was more silent than she’d ever known it. Even Milan’s constant traffic way down below her seemed to have stopped running. Or maybe it’s me who’s stopped, Antonia mused bleakly. The way fate had come along and hit her with just about everything tonight, it could be its way of making her stand still and face reality. But she didn’t want reality, she thought with a sigh that sent her brow onto her knees. She wanted things back the way they used to be—lies, uncertainties and all… CHAPTER EIGHT IT WAS around two o’clock in the morning when Marco slid open the door to the terrace and stepped outside. Behind him lay the rumpled bed he had just given up on. He couldn’t sleep. The bed felt strange without Antonia sharing it with him. So he’d pulled on a thin black robe and gone to the kitchen to raid the fridge before deciding to come out here to eat his sandwich, drink a glass of soothing red wine—and brood. Making for one of the loungers, he adjusted the backrest into its upright position, sat down, then stretched out his long legs with an accompanying sigh. It was a hot humid night, but anything was preferable to that bed without Antonia in it with him. In fact, he might just spend the rest of the night out here. It was either this or he convinced Antonia to open her door for him. And since he’d lasted this long without giving in to that particular urge, he could last until dawn, he told himself, and made his shoulders more comfortable against the cushions, took a sip at the wine, then closed his eyes. It was peaceful, he noticed. Pleasant, if you didn’t count the heat. And the darkness was acting like a shroud, holding at bay all of those things he didn’t want to think about. Shame a soft sound had to disturb him. In fact he would have ignored it if there hadn’t been something very familiar about it, like one of those sensual soft sighs Antonia had a habit of making when she was sleeping. Opening his eyes again, he turned his head. She was less than ten feet away, lying on her side with her back towards him. If it hadn’t been for the oatmeal colour of the lounger cushions he wouldn’t have seen her through the darkness, but the black dress outlined her slender shape. The muscles around his heart contracted, knocking its even rhythm onto a different beat. Getting up, he put the plate and the wineglass down on a nearby table then began walking towards her with the silence of bare feet. Rounding the end of the lounger, he stood for a moment gazing down at her. There was a painfully vulnerable look about the way she was lying on her side, with her arms crossed over her breasts and her head turned downwards so her hair covered her lovely face. Squatting down beside her, he gently lifted her hair up and brushed the silken spirals over her shoulder. The first thing he noticed was how hot she felt to the touch; the next was the evidence of tears on her cheeks. His heart pulled a different trick by actually hurting. He didn’t like to think she had been alone out here crying. He didn’t like to know that she had probably been crying because of him. She must have sensed his presence because her eyelashes fluttered, her soft mouth parted on another one of those sighs. Then her eyelids lifted to reveal sleep-darkened beautiful eyes—and she smiled at him. When had she ever opened her eyes and not smiled at him like this? Marco asked himself painfully. And those eyes were awash with love for him. Always love. Why did he find it so impossible to return the words? Because he felt the emotion—Dio, he felt it. In fact he had been feeling it for ever, only he’d refused to acknowledge it to himself. A set of slender white fingers came up to touch his cheek. They moved to his eyebrows then dropped to run the length of his half-smiling mouth. For a man who had been used since birth to having his face lovingly touched like this, this was touching like no other touching he had ever experienced. It was like being anointed with the sweetest blessing ever. Lifting his hand to capture those fingers, he made his own loving gesture by pressing a kiss to her palm. Her eyes flooded with warmth and his began to gleam. They had always been able to make love with the smallest of intimacies. It was what made their relationship so special. ‘Hi,’ he murmured softly. ‘What are you doing sleeping out here?’ It was then that she realised where she was—and, more to the point, why she was out here. The hand was withdrawn, along with the smile and the love. Looking away from him, she slid her feet to the floor so she could sit up. It was his cue to stand up and give her some space, but he was damned if he was going to withdraw now he had her within touching distance. So he remained squatting there in front of her while she made a thing of finger-combing her hair and trying, he supposed, to regroup her defences. ‘What time is it?’ she asked. Irritation sparked to life. What did it matter what time it was? ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he prompted. ‘The zip caught on my dress,’ she replied, as if that should explain everything. But it didn’t. ‘And you couldn’t come to me for help with it?’ Of course she couldn’t, and her expression told him that. On a sigh he stood upright. So did she, then went to move around him, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. ‘Don’t go, cara,’ he said. ‘At least not until you have asked me what I am doing out here.’ The prompt made her hesitate. She glanced up at him warily. He smiled a wryly self-mocking smile. ‘The bed was too empty without you in it beside me,’ he confessed. He felt the tension easing out of her shoulder and added huskily, ‘Come back there with me?’ She wanted to. He saw it written in her eyes before she lowered them again with a small shake of her head. ‘I don’t think it would be a good idea,’ she murmured. ‘Because we argued?’ he said. ‘We always argue. It is a part of who we are.’ But this was different. He knew it was different. And by the shake of her hair, Antonia did too. ‘Too much has happened…’ ‘Nothing we cannot work out, cara mia,’ he gently certified. And if she shook her head again, he swore he would use other methods to persuade her! She didn’t shake her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about it—’ ‘I never mentioned talking,’ he murmured drily. Her eyes came back to his. ‘I don’t want to do that either,’ she flashed. That assumption earned her a lazy grin—until he felt her begin to tense up again. ‘Sleep,’ he offered. ‘Where we both prefer to be. In our bed, curled around each other. Nothing more, nothing less. What do you say, cara, hmm?’ What did she say? Antonia asked herself wistfully. She said yes to him because she had never been able to say no. And she was tired and miserable, so she might as well be miserable curled up against him than miserable out here on her own, she justified her weakness. So with a small nod of her head she gave him his answer. His arm came about her shoulders. It felt so good to feel it there that she released a sigh, gave in and leaned closer. They didn’t speak again as they walked the terrace towards their bedroom. Marco was keeping silent because he had got what he wanted and didn’t want to chance spoiling it. Antonia was silent because she knew she should not be letting him this close again, yet couldn’t bring herself to turn away. He was her weakness. He always would be. The first thing she noticed when they stepped through the open window was the room had been swept clean of her clothes and suitcase. The next was the rumpled bed, which told its own story. Still maintaining the silence which this short truce had been built upon, when they reached the bed Marco turned her so he could deal with the snagged zipper on her dress. Her hair was in the way. She reached up to gather the silken tresses over one shoulder. It was as dark in the bedroom as it had been out on the terrace. The dress was black, the zipper was black, so it took a little while for him to untangle the teeth from the snagged piece of fabric. By the time he sent the zip sliding free Marco had a feeling Antonia had stopped breathing. And the first moment she could she stepped away from him, to remove the dress herself. He grimaced, and contained the urge to finish a job he had always found a pleasure. Instead he turned his attention to straightening out the crumpled evidence of his restless hours alone in here. When he turned back to her again the dress had gone, to reveal black silk underwear that did wonderful things to her pale skin. And, though he couldn’t be sure in the darkness, he had a suspicion she was blushing, which made him frown, because he could not remember a time that she’d ever been shy in front of him, other than the first time they’d made love. And then, if he hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn he’d been her first ever lover. But there was worse to come when she actually tried to get into the bed without removing anything else. The fault of those paintings? His mother? Or was it his fault that she wanted to hide what she had always been so comfortable with? ‘No,’ he said. Then, ‘No,’ again, with a completely different meaning placed in the word. The first had been a protest, the second a plea. When she hesitated, he used the moment to step behind her and unfasten her bra strap. Black silk fell away from pale satin flesh, her beautiful breasts were set free. She removed the rest herself without comment then slipped between the sheets—all without once letting him see her face. Grimly he stripped off his robe and joined her. In silence he drew her into the curve of his body. She settled as she always did, but he could feel the guard she had placed on herself that was stopping her from melting against him. The urge to say something got the better of him, even at the risk of causing yet another scene. ‘I don’t like to fight with you,’ he admitted as he nuzzled his lips into the scented flow of her hair. ‘I know,’ she replied. And she did, he realised. He found it rather disturbing to have to admit that she knew him a whole lot better than he actually knew her. ‘But this changes nothing, Marco,’ she obviously felt compelled to add. Was she talking about leaving him? On that dark thought, one of his hands found her breast, one of his legs hooked over hers to keep her close, with the curve of her lower body nestling into the cradle of his hips. ‘Go to sleep,’ he said on a heavy sigh, while willing himself not to challenge that final statement and just take his own advice and go to sleep. It was a crazy idea. You didn’t sleep when you’d both been through the emotional mill as they had tonight. You didn’t sleep when it was all still churning round in your head. And you didn’t sleep when the woman in your arms was implying that she intended to leave you. What you did was move closer to that same woman. You let your hand increase its pressure on what it was holding. You buried your face in the sweet scent of her hair. Beneath his palm he felt the tightening of her nipple, lower down, his own natural response caused the muscles in her body to flex sensually. He allowed his thumb to replace his palm and began a slow circling of that pretty rosebud tip. Her pulse began to quicken, her breathing altered pace. On a muffled groan he nuzzled deeper into silken tresses until he found her nape. Her response was to twist around until she was facing him. Their eyes met. He knew what his were saying, but hers were still trying to fight it. ‘You don’t play fair!’ she protested. ‘Grazie,’ he replied, as if she had just paid him a great compliment, and claimed her mouth with a kiss aimed to kill any kind of argument. What followed was an in-depth demonstration as to why what they had was too special to throw away. It was hot and it was good, and as his body hardened with masculine arousal hers began to soften to a sensual pliancy that invited any intimacy. She was beautiful. He adored her. No other woman had ever made him feel this deeply. He kissed every sweet sensational inch of her until she gave up trying to hate what he was doing and, on a helpless sigh, began to join in. What she found she couldn’t reach with her mouth, she touched with tender knowing fingers. By the time he took final possession she was his entirely; there was no doubt about it. He watched her build towards her climax, he watched her reach and tumble into it, and he held her there. With gritted teeth and burning loins he held her, held her in magical suspension for as long as he could possibly manage it. Only when she eventually opened her eyes to look at him in dazed astonishment did he surrender and give her back what she had just given him. Himself. He gave himself. It really was the perfect moment to glide past everything that had gone before it and just be content to drift into sleep on the soft cloud of knowledge that neither of them was going to throw this away. Lying there, with her cheek resting in the hollow of his shoulder and her hand covering the steady beat of his heart, escape into sleep was certainly all that Antonia wanted to do. But Marco didn’t agree. He was basking in self-confidence again, and that set his brain working. ‘Tell me what Anton Gabrielli is to you,’ he said, and very effectively shattered the peace. ‘You just can’t stop yourself, can you?’ she snapped, pulling away from him to sit up with a sigh. ‘I don’t like mysteries,’ he explained. ‘And you knew the man, cara, no matter what you try to say.’ Knew him? A short laugh accompanied the weary shake of her head. Well, she mused bleakly, did she tell him and get it over with, or was this one secret better kept to herself? ‘My mother was his mistress years ago.’ She went for the compromise with part of the truth. ‘He set her up in an apartment in Naples, visited her regularly, and took her out with his friends. He adored her on the face of it—but forgot to tell her he was married. When she found out, she left him.’ That seemed the simplest way of saying it. ‘You were around to witness this?’ Quiet though it was, huskily gentle though it was, Antonia knew what he was thinking. Learn by example. ‘Yes, I was around,’ she answered, while her fingers plucked at pale blue sheeting. Then, with a toss of her head, she made herself look at him. ‘So you see, it was just another case of mistaken identity,’ she explained bitterly. ‘Then we will make it a priority tomorrow to correct the mistake.’ It was just so typically arrogant of him. ‘Are you planning to put an ad in the newspaper, Marco, announcing to the world that your mistress is not the Mirror Woman? And do you honestly think anyone will believe you if you do?’ ‘We can at least try to set the record straight.’ ‘For what purpose?’ she asked. ‘To make you feel better? Your mother? Me? Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter who the model is; people will always look at me and see the same woman! I can’t change that. I look like her! In every way but name I could be her! Either you have to learn to accept it or we have nothing left here to—’ Firm hands toppled her back down to him. ‘Shut up,’ he gritted. ‘I know what you were going to say, so just shut up!’ ‘You started it,’ she sighed. ‘And I am finishing it!’ And he did, by launching into a second seduction. It was all very fierce, intense and possessive, but sex didn’t solve everything. Okay, so in bed they were as compatible as any two human beings could be. But out of it? Nothing could change. He wanted to fix what couldn’t be fixed. Which was why she hadn’t told him the full truth about Anton Gabrielli. She might love Marco, but some secrets you could only trust to someone who would love you enough not to care what you had to tell them. And Marco didn’t love her that way. This time her drift from satiation to sleep was allowed to happen uninterrupted. But Marco lay awake, frowning into the darkness until dawn eventually began to filter into the room, when, carefully untangling himself from Antonia, he slid out of the bed. Two hours later he was in a helicopter heading for his parents’ Tuscany home, intent on an interview with his father. And Antonia was just awakening to find the place beside her empty—if you didn’t count the written note waiting on the pillow. ‘Don’t worry me, cara,’ it said. ‘Be here when I return.’ Don’t worry me, she read again. Be here... Such emotive words, she thought sadly. But what did they tell her, except that he didn’t want her to go? They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t put right what his mother had done to her self-esteem. She would have to be really brazen to go amongst his friends after last night’s public humiliation and boldly outface their new perception of her. And she wasn’t that brazen. Though she didn’t think Marco would understand if she tried to explain it to him. He would probably think she was angling after another marriage proposal. When in actual fact the one he’d given her had been more than enough for her. So was she going to ‘be here’ when he got back? Her indecisive sigh told its own story. She just couldn’t make up her mind. To go was going to hurt. To stay was going to hurt. Her problem was deciding which one was going to hurt more. Getting out of bed, she showered and dressed in a simple dusky-mauve skirt and a cerise top, then went to search out Carlotta to see if she knew where Marco had gone. It was Saturday, after all, and she had rarely known him to work on Saturdays. He preferred to laze around and do as little as possible. Carlotta was just placing a pot of coffee, a bowl of freshly sliced fruit and some toast down on the table for her when she arrived in the sunny breakfast room. No, she didn’t know where Marco had gone. The smell of the toast made Antonia realise that with last night’s drama she hadn’t eaten a scrap since late afternoon yesterday and she was hungry, which was a much simpler problem to solve. Or was it that she didn’t really want to look for the answer to where Marco had gone? she wondered as she sat down. He’d threatened to go and see Anton Gabrielli. He also had to smooth things out with his mother. Who else? she asked herself. Confront Stefan with what she had told him? Demand his money back for the Mirror Woman? The list could go on and on. Any interview between Marco and Anton Gabrielli did not sit comfortably with her, although the man could only tell Marco more or less what she had already said, she attempted to reassure herself. As for an interview with his mother—the outcome of that depended entirely on which one of them was the more committed to his or her offended senses. Either way, it did not promise to be a pleasant conversation. Nor did it sit comfortably with her that she was the cause of dissension between mother and son. Then there was Stefan. Annoyingly unpredictable Stefan, who was likely to say anything if Marco pushed hard enough. And, since he knew just about everything about her, it was yet another confrontation she would prefer didn’t take place. Which leaves you with what? she asked herself as she poured a second coffee. All of these people discussing you as if you didn’t have a voice of your own? When all it would take is for you to face the man and tell him everything, warts and all, then stand back and see what the full truth brings you back by return. Maybe she would. Maybe she would wait around after all, do just that, and tell Marco everything. Carlotta appeared. ‘A Signor Gabrielli is in the foyer, signorina,’ she informed her. ‘He is asking if you can spare him a few minutes of your time?’ Signor Gabrielli. Her stomach turned over. The coffee suddenly lost flavour. He couldn’t know—could he? No, she told herself firmly. He couldn’t know. He was here to ask about Anastasia, probably. Wanting to find out how his ex-mistress had faired in the twenty-five years since they’d last met! Well, she was ready to tell him that, Antonia resolved, and came to her feet. ‘Let him come up and show him into the small sitting room, Carlotta, if you please.’ The sheer formality of her words set the housekeeper frowning. The way Antonia’s face had suddenly turned so cold caused a hesitation before Carlotta turned away without saying whatever had been on her mind. Alone again, Antonia made herself sit down, made herself sip at the coffee and eat a piece of toast. And she made herself ready for a meeting that was coming twenty-five years too late. CHAPTER NINE HE WAS wearing a dark suit, white shirt and dark tie. And Antonia’s first impression as she stepped into the room was—stiff. In the single grainy newspaper cutting she had of him he didn’t look stiff. He looked young and vital—very much as Marco looked. But that had been taken twenty years ago. In twenty years maybe cynicism with life could change Marco into this man’s image. Though she hoped to goodness that it didn’t, she thought with a distinct shiver. ‘Good morning, signor,’ she greeted him in cool English. ‘I believe you wanted to see me?’ Gracious, polite, giving no hint that she knew anything at all about him. She was leaving it up to him to give away as much—or as little—as he knew about her. He didn’t return the greeting. In fact he didn’t do anything but narrow his eyes and look her over like something in a specimen jar. Her nerve-ends began to tighten. He had a face cast from iron and a thin-lipped mouth that appeared to have forgotten how to smile. Already predisposed to dislike him, what she was feeling bouncing back from him gave her no reason to alter that view. ‘You are Anastasia’s daughter,’ he eventually announced, as if he’d needed that detailed scrutiny to make absolutely sure before he committed himself to the statement. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘Is it about my mother that you wish to see me?’ He shifted his stance. It wasn’t by much but it was enough for her to know that he was intensely uncomfortable at being here. ‘Si,’ he replied. ‘And—no,’ he added. ‘By your response, I have to assume that you know about me?’ ‘Your affair with my mother? Yes.’ She saw no reason to hide it. He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘It was perhaps unfortunate that we should meet as we did last night.’ Unfortunate? ‘I think I shocked you,’ she allowed. ‘And I’m sorry for doing that.’ His eyes contained a distinctly cynical glint at her apology. ‘Until I saw you I believed the Stefan Kranst paintings were your mother. But then,’ he said curtly, ‘I did not know that you existed.’ For the first time someone had made the correct assumption about Stefan’s model. It was ironic that he was now changing his mind to suit what everyone else believed. ‘We were extremely alike,’ she said. ‘Few people could tell the difference.’ ‘Were—?’ he picked up sharply. ‘My mother died two years ago,’ she explained. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he murmured politely. ‘Thank you,’ she replied. This couldn’t become any more formal if they tried. Shouldn’t she be feeling something? Antonia asked herself curiously. Shouldn’t she at least sense a genetic bond, even if it was only a small one? Realising she was still standing by the door, she began to walk forwards, gauging his tensing response as a man very much on his guard. What did he think she was going to do—physically attack him? ‘You even walk like her,’ he uttered. Antonia just offered a brief smile. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t already know. She looked like her mother. She moved like her mother. ‘Would you care to sit down?’ she invited politely. ‘Can I offer you a drink—espresso or—?’ ‘I am your father,’ he ground out brusquely, bringing her to a breathtaking stop. Then, with a slash of a hand, ‘There,’ he said. ‘It is now in the open between us. So we may stop this civility. What do you want?’ ‘I b-beg your pardon?’ Antonia blinked in astonishment. ‘You heard me,’ he said. ‘I want to know your price.’ Antonia could not believe she was hearing this. ‘But you came to see me,’ she reminded him. ‘I didn’t—’ ‘It is called pre-empting your intentions,’ he cut in. ‘I decided that it would only be a matter of time before you came after me. So here I am.’ He gave a shrug. ‘All I want to know is how much your silence is going to cost me.’ Her silence? Antonia stared at him in disbelief. He had come here to face her because he thought she was about to start blackmailing him? ‘But I don’t w-want—’ ‘Your kind always want.’ Suddenly it hurt to breathe. His voice held contempt. His eyes held contempt. He hated the sight of her! He didn’t even know her yet he was judging her to be mercenary. And, her kind? A flashback came to her of Marco’s mother wearing the same expression, showing the same arrogant superiority that they thought gave them the right to treat her like this! Glancing up, he caught her expression; his own turned graven. ‘Anastasia let me down,’ he ground out bitterly. ‘You should not be here. It is most unfortunate that we have to have this conversation at all.’ Was he saying what she thought he was saying? Sickness began to claw at her stomach. ‘You thought my mother would go back to England and rid herself of me simply because it was what you expected her to do?’ ‘Anastasia demanded money,’ he explained. ‘I automatically assumed she meant to use it to—rectify the problem.’ The problem? ‘I was not my mother’s problem!’ she cried. ‘You were that! She needed money to survive!’ God, she felt so disgusted. ‘You walked away, closed the lease on her apartment, bank accounts, everything!’ ‘It is the way these things work.’ He was callously unrepentant. ‘As you will find out yourself, no doubt, when your moment arrives.’ Was this how he had treated her mother on that final confrontation? Was this the reason why she never really recovered her self-esteem? How could she have loved this man? How could she have not seen through him? ‘You make me feel sick,’ she breathed. ‘Don’t take the high moral ground with me, signorina!’ he suddenly barked at her. ‘For here you are, living with a man who makes you the scornful talk of all Milan!’ His face was hard again, his accent cold and his opinion of her set in stone. ‘Think before you speak, whether you would prefer me to announce to the world that Marco Bellini’s mistress is Anton Gabrielli’s bastard daughter! And the Mirror Woman is actually her cheap slut of a mother!’ She slapped him—hard. For which part she wasn’t sure, but the hand flew out when he insulted her mother. Standing there facing each other, both emanated intense dislike, and she did not feel even a small hint of remorse for that slap. His hand came up to cover his cheek and his eyes burned vows of revenge on her. ‘I heard what Isabella Bellini did to you last night,’ he said. ‘The whole gallery was buzzing with talk of the incident.’ And he smiled that thin smile again when she turned white. ‘Do you think you will still be here if this situation ever becomes public?’ he posed. ‘Do you think because you can lay claim to a father worth as much as the Bellinis they will turn a blind eye to what you actually are?’ ‘How can you stand there and preach over me when your own sins are staring right at you?’ Antonia gasped. ‘And why come here at all, if you don’t care if I speak out? You have a wife. Don’t her feelings count for anything?’ ‘My wife is dead,’ he said. ‘You cannot hurt her. But I can most certainly hurt your present position here in this place of luxury if you dare to make our connection public.’ ‘But I don’t understand why you should think I’d want to!’ The whole thing had become so bewildering, she couldn’t follow his logic at all. ‘I don’t,’ he said. ‘I merely wanted to be sure that you understand your position here. For you don’t have one.’ He made the point plain. ‘I am no use to you as a lever towards marriage to Bellini. In fact I am most probably your biggest danger to that goal. But I am willing to accept you possess a certain right to lay embarrassment at my doorstep,’ he conceded. ‘And, bearing in mind that one day in the future Bellini is going to tire of you, I accept I owe you some—incentive to keep your silence about me when that time comes.’ ‘I want you to leave,’ she announced, beginning to shake on the inside. ‘This is not your home to order me out of,’ he replied, and at last his thin lips did what she suspected they had been wanting to do since he arrived here and twisted into bitter dislike. ‘Just name your own figure…’ Staring at him, she realised he’d had the absolute gall to reach into his inside pocket and take out his cheque-book! He was expecting to pay her off! Anger returned, and she was glad to feel it rise up inside her because it saved her from bursting into tears. He was standing there with book and pen, waiting for her to say something. So she did. It was really too irresistible not to. ‘Everything you’re worth,’ she announced, then folded her arms and watched his face turn to plastic. Money, it seemed, was all-important to him. Oh—and his reputation, she added, since he really couldn’t cope with the idea of having a twentyfiveyearold mistake come back to haunt him! Irritation flashed across his face. ‘I don’t think you understand—’ ‘My own worth?’ she put in. ‘Or how much you are worth signor?’ She took delight in watching him stiffen. ‘Well, let me put that question straight before there is any more confusion here. You are worth precisely nothing to me—capisce?’ She even used Marco’s way of saying it. ‘So you may write on your cheque “I give my illegitimate daughter Antonia Carson exactly nothing!”’ Her eyes flashed with disgust. ‘Now excuse me,’ she said, and turned and left the room. If Marco had been there to watch her do it, he would have recognised the move as Antonia showing her contempt. But Marco wasn’t here. And neither did she intend to be by the time he arrived home. If her own father could view her like that, what hope did she ever have of gaining the respect of anyone while she continued to stay with Marco? She had to go—and right now, she decided. Before Marco had any chance of convincing her otherwise! And the saddest thing was she knew he could do it. One word, one touch, and she was as weak as a kitten where it involved him. Carlotta was hovering in the hallway. Her face looked concerned, which made Antonia wonder if the housekeeper had overheard what had been said in the sitting room. But, ‘Will you see Signor Gabrielli out for me, please?’ was all Antonia said to her. Then walked past her and into the bedroom… At about the same time that she was confronting her father, Marco was confronting his own across the desk in the family library. All around them stood the results of centuries of time-honoured collecting. The house itself was a national treasure. And out beyond the window spread a whole valley strung with the vines which made the wine the Bellini name was as famous for as its centuries-old corporate leadership. ‘I need your support,’ Marco was saying grimly. ‘I have no wish to feud with my own parents, but push me and I will.’ It was both a threat and a warning. ‘You are expecting me to dictate to your mother?’ the older man asked, then released a laugh of fond derision. ‘Sorry, Marco. But I am too sick and too wise to accept the task.’ But he wasn’t as sick as Marco had expected to find him. ‘You’re looking better,’ he remarked—perhaps belatedly. ‘Thank you for noticing.’ His father thought it belated too. In height, in looks, in every way there could be, Marco was his father’s son. But a few months ago a virus had sucked the life out of Federico Bellini. By the time the doctors had managed to stabilise him he had halved his body weight, lost the use of one lung and damaged his heart, liver and kidneys. ‘New drugs,’ the older man dismissed with the same contempt with which he had always treated the medication which kept him living. ‘Who is this woman your mother sees as such a threat that she publicly offends her?’ Subject of his health over, Marco noted. It was his father’s way. It would be Marco’s way, given the same circumstances. ‘You know who she is,’ he sighed. ‘She’s been living with me for the last year.’ ‘You mean you’re still with the same one?’ Federico pretended to be shocked, but Marco wasn’t taken in by it. Though he did allow himself a wry little smile of appreciation for the thrust. ‘No wonder your mother is in a panic.’ ‘It isn’t her place to panic.’ ‘Then I repeat,’ his father incised, ‘who is she?’ And the accent was most definitely on the who. Dipping his hand into his inside pocket, it was not a chequebook that Marco retrieved, but a photograph, taken at his best friend’s wedding. He dropped it on the desk in front of his father. Federico picked it up, studied it. ‘Your good taste has never been in question,’ he drawled. ‘But—?’ Marco prompted. ‘I might have been out of circulation for the last year, but I have seen the painting,’ Federico said. ‘She has an exquisite body and sad eyes.’ The photograph came back across the desk. Odd, Marco noted, that when he could have challenged that comment with the truth he did nothing of the kind. Because Antonia was right, he realised. Look at the naked mother and you see the naked daughter. So it didn’t really matter what people were told. And anyway, there was a point of honour here he was determined to hold on to. He had a right to choose his own future, and Antonia had a right to be accepted for that choice. If his parents could not bring themselves to do that, then… Then what? he asked himself. ‘Nice to own. Nice to sip,’ his father murmured. ‘But that’s about all, Marco…’ It was a refusal of support. Marco picked up the photograph and placed it back in his pocket. ‘Is that your final word?’ His father sent him a grim look as he stood up to leave. ‘Is she pregnant?’ he asked. Now there was an interesting concept, Marco mused cynically. A Bellini child, born out of wedlock. A wry smile touched his mouth ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But I could easily make it so.’ Ah—now he was actually being taken seriously, he saw with grim satisfaction as his father’s expression sharpened dramatically. ‘Sit down,’ Federico commanded. Marco complied, but only because it was what he had expected to be told when he’d stood up in the first place. ‘Now, explain to me why this woman, when you could have any woman you wanted?’ Arrogance abounded. Antonia would have just loved to hear his father say those words. ‘She’s what I want.’ He stated it simply. Then he sat forward and looked his father directly in the eye. ‘She is what I intend to have,’ he extended with deadly seriousness. ‘Comprende…?’ The silence lasted for all of thirty seconds, the sabre fight with their eyes an evenly matched thing. Then Federico Bellini sat back in his thick brown leather chair, huffed out a short laugh, gave a shake of his head and said, ‘Next weekend. Here, I think. We will keep this official, above-board and on the right side of the sheets, if you don’t mind.’ ‘Grazie,’ Marco thanked him, and not by a flicker did he wallow in his triumph. But his father hadn’t finished. His eyes suddenly took on a devilish gleam. ‘Now all you have to do is get your mother to see things your way…’ Carlotta had already been in and returned the bedroom to its usual pristine smoothness, Antonia found. Nothing out of place, nothing to show that the room had been used at all. Walking over to a built-in closet, she took out the small leather suitcase again. She wasn’t really surprised to find that Marco had neatly returned her clothes to their appropriate places in the room. It was the way of the man. The way of his housekeeper. Everything neat and in its place. This bedroom was Antonia’s place. Last night should have reminded her of that. This time no angry male strode in to halt the process of packing. The suitcase closed with a snap. But as she set the case down on the floor a knock sounded on the door and Carlotta stepped inside. Of course, she had to see the suitcase. Her eyes shot to Antonia’s. ‘No, signorina, you—’ Something stopped her. An awareness of her place in the order of things? Acceptance that, for Antonia at any rate, leaving was perhaps the wise thing for her to do? Looking away again, she walked forward. ‘Signor Gabrielli asked me to give you this,’ she said, and handed Antonia a cheque, then turned and left again without uttering another word. It kind of said it all. Without so much as glancing at the cheque to see how much money her father considered his daughter’s silence worth, she ripped it into small pieces and deposited it in the waste-paper basket, then, simply because she needed to do it, she walked over to the terrace window and stepped outside. Milan shimmered in the blistering heat of yet another hot summer’s day. Way down there below her the traffic made up for its unusual silence of the night before. And one of the first things her eyes fell upon was the imprint of Marco’s body still hugging the cushions on the lounger he must have used. Carlotta had obviously not got around to coming out here yet, because a sandwich and a glass of red wine were standing on a table close by. When he hadn’t been able to sleep last night, he must have gone to the kitchen to make himself a late night snack and brought it out here to enjoy. But he’d seen her lying asleep on the other lounger. Food and wine had been forgotten in favour of other forces. Like the recovery of his woman, she mused. The putting her back where she belonged, in his arms, and in his bed. Her eyes glazed over. She had to turn away to stop the tears from flowing. It was then that she remembered the tear-drop diamond necklace, and set her feet moving further down the terrace to find it still lying exactly where she had placed it beneath the lounger. Recovering it, she took it back into the bedroom and was about to put it down on her dressing table when she noticed the note from Marco folded there. ‘Don’t worry me, cara,’ it said. ‘Be here when I return.’ It came without warning. The first sob, followed quickly by another—and another. Dropping onto the dressing stool, she covered her face with her hands then simply let go and sobbed her heart out. When it was over, she stood up. Took a moment to compose herself and decide what she needed to do before she left here for the last time… Marco was standing alone in his father’s library, using the landline telephone to connect him with the Romano Gallery. He wanted Stefan Kranst. He got Rosetta Romano. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded. ‘He flies home to England this afternoon,’ Rosetta told him. ‘I thought you must know that he never meant to stay longer than the first-night viewing. What do you want me to do with Signorina Carson’s painting?’ she asked. ‘Stefan never said, and Signorina Carson rang off before I could ask her when she called looking for Stefan not ten minutes ago.’ The painting. Marco frowned. He’d forgotten all about it. ‘Have it packed up and delivered to my apartment,’ he instructed. ‘Did Antonia say why she wanted Kranst?’ ‘No. She just asked where he was staying and rang off, that was all.’ Marco rang off too. It wasn’t that he was worried any longer about Stefan Kranst, he told himself. But his feet took him in search of his father to wish him a quick farewell before he was heading outside and to the waiting helicopter. It didn’t occur to him, until he was in the air again, that he could have rung Antonia before leaving, just to check that she was okay. Okay, he then repeated drily. You want to check that she’s actually there! He didn’t trust her. Could he trust her? ‘This changes nothing,’ she had told him in the depths of a night of loving. Impulsively he fished out his mobile. One glance from his pilot and he was reluctantly putting it away again. Antonia was arguing with Stefan. ‘You have to do this for me, Stefan—please,’ she begged him. ‘You owe it to me after last night’s fiasco!’ ‘Isabella Bellini was contrite afterwards, if that helps you any,’ he told her. ‘I don’t care what she was!’ It was almost a sob. ‘It doesn’t make any difference. My mind is made up. I’m leaving Milan.’ ‘And Marco?’ he included. She swallowed and nodded. ‘These are the keys.’ Her fingers shook as she held them out to him. ‘All you need to do is pay off the lease then get my things and bring them with you back to London.’ Stefan refused to take the keys. ‘What in heaven’s name happened after you left with him?’ he demanded impatiently. But she shook her head. ‘I’ll tell you another time. I have a plane to catch.’ ‘Does he know you’re going?’ Stefan asked. She didn’t answer. He released a sigh. ‘My darling, I’ve told you something like this before but I am going to say it again. Marco Bellini is not a man to cross swords with.’ Her chin shot up, jewel-bright eyes sparkling with something he had never seen there before. It was bitter, blinding, gut-wrenching cynicism. ‘Is that your way of saying that you don’t want to cross swords with him?’ ‘My God,’ Stefan breathed, and took the keys. ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Go!’ he repeated. ‘I’ll follow on tomorrow if I can get a flight. But go if you must.’ ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, kissed his cheek and left his hotel suite without looking back again. If she had done she would have hesitated, because Stefan was wearing a look fit to slay any dragon that might be threatening her. And she didn’t want Marco slayed. She needed to know he was alive and happy. In fact, it was essential to her own sanity that he remained exactly the way she wanted to remember him. Tall and lean and suave and sophisticated, but wearing one of those lazy grins that oozed sex appeal. She wanted to remember him laughing with his friends. Talking seriously about art. Or lying on a sun lounger in the middle of the night with a glass of red wine and a sandwich—missing her. Oh, yes, she needed him to miss her, she admitted, as her taxi began a battle with Milan’s mad Saturday traffic. She had managed to reserve a seat on a flight out of Linate airport, which was only four miles outside Milan. But it was tourist season and the roads to the airport were as busy as she had ever seen them. As the taxi eventually made it to the perimeter of the airport compound she glanced outside in time to catch the sun sparkling on a helicopter as it hovered just before landing. Marco’s preferred form of transport to his parents’ home, she recalled, with a sad little smile, and turned away quickly, not wanting to think about Marco right now when she could still weaken and change her mind. Marco saw the traffic as he came in to land, and cursed it. It was going to take an age to get back into the city through all of that. With a quick thanks to his pilot he got out of the helicopter and strode off towards the airport building. Any other time he would be heading for the executive car park and jumping into his car. But the Ferrari had been booked in for a service this morning, so he’d had to come here by taxi. Which meant he now had to walk right across the airport concourse to find the nearest taxi rank. If he’d thought about it, he could have used the Lotus and saved himself a lot of hassle, because he had things to do, people to see, before he could get back to Antonia. Which reminded him. Taking out his mobile, he tried getting a signal. It was only when nothing happened that he realised he’d forgotten to put the battery on charge the night before. The damn thing was dead. Sighing, he pocketed the phone again. It was beginning to turn into one of those days. The airport lounges were busy, packed to bursting with newly arriving tourists. Taking the direct route towards the exit doors, he had to squeeze between people and their luggage. There was a moment when he paused though, half considering going to check in the other lounge to see if Stefan Kranst was there. But he decided he didn’t have the time and kept on going towards the exit. Outside again, the queue for taxis was long. Frustration bit into his patience while he waited with the rest of them. As one cab drove off another took its place. The constant circling of people to and from Milan must be a very good earner, the banker in him decided. At last he got his turn. Diving into the back of the cab, he gave his destination, then closed the door. As he sat back, he experienced the strangest sensation when he picked up the scent of Antonia’s perfume. On his clothes, on his skin? he wondered. Or was it so impregnated into his senses that it was always there? He liked that idea. It made him smile and relax while he let the driver take on the battle to get him where he needed to go. To Buccellati’s first, to find something that bit special for Antonia to wear on her finger. Then the less palatable task of taking on his mother… By the time Antonia discovered that her flight had been delayed she was beginning to have second thoughts about running away like this. She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to stay. She didn’t know what she wanted to do! Yes, you do, she told herself. You want to have everything go back to how it was. But it can’t. Too much has happened. I love him, though! She lowered her head, glad she’d left her hair down because it helped to hide the tears swimming in her eyes. Her bag lay across her lap. She opened it up to hunt for a paper tissue. But what she came up with was a photograph taken at Nicola and Franco’s wedding. She was standing next to Marco and he had his arm around her. She looked so happy. So did he, though not in the same way. Her happiness shone through with love, his shone with— Sexual contentment. She was right to go, she told herself. But her mouth began to quiver, and the tears were beginning to spread. Stefan thought she was making a mistake. He had been angry—disappointed with her, even. ‘He’ll strike back hard,’ he’d warned her before at the de Maggio’s anniversary party. Oh, yes, please let him do that, she prayed, like the weak little fool that she was. Let him come for me, lock me up and throw away the key—I don’t care! I like being his mistress! It’s everyone else the job seems to offend! Think of your mother, she grimly told herself. Think of Anton Gabrielli and how you could actually see Marco becoming like him in years to come! Then, no, she denied. That isn’t true. If I was pregnant Marco wouldn’t— How do you know he wouldn’t? She didn’t know, and that was the ugly little truth which kept her pinned to the chair in the airport lounge instead of getting up and running back to him. Anton Gabrielli had planted a lot of ugliness into her heart, she realised. The contempt, the accusations, the automatic belief that she must be out for all she could get. He’d despised her mother just for being! He despised her in the same way. So did Marco’s mother. Her chin jerked up. It was a strange sensation, but her heart suddenly felt as if someone had walked past and wiped it clean as a slate! Only a mother could do that. Only a mother had the power to wipe another woman clean of any aspirations towards her son. So maybe it was because of Isabella Bellini’s contempt that she was still sitting on this chair. For, without her blessing, any relationship with Marco would be sordid from now on. It hadn’t felt sordid last night. It had been beautiful last night. It had been special. Marco had made it special. ‘Don’t worry me,’ he’d written. ‘Be here when I return.’ Her heart gave a squeeze. As the muscles relaxed again, all the warmth and feelings of love came flooding back in. Glancing down, she saw the photograph still clutched in her hands. The tears came back. The indecision. She wished they would call her flight. She needed to go—get away from here! Marco strode into the apartment building and headed directly for the lift. He’d had a good day in a lot of ways. A real coup d’?tat! But it had taken too much time, and now he was anxious to see Antonia, begin to put things on a proper footing for them at last. As the lift took him up with its usual smoothness he found himself smiling when his hand coiled round the small ring box in his pocket. The lift stopped, the doors slid open. He strode out. This was it, he told himself as he opened the apartment door. The most important few minutes of his life were about to happen! Strangely, he’d never expected it to feel this good. Stepping inside, the first thing he saw was the large brown cord-wrapped package leaning against the wall—Antonia’s portrait he’d had delivered from the Romano Gallery. The next thing was Carlotta. She was standing there wringing her hands. Ice cold struck right through to his heart. ‘Antonia?’ he rasped. ‘Where is she?’ The housekeeper’s eyes were filled with dismay. ‘She’s gone, signor,’ she whispered. ‘She’s gone…’ CHAPTER TEN HIS legs took him down the hall, into the bedroom and straight to the built-in cupboard. The suitcase had gone. Through the eyes of a man who was still not prepared to take in what was happening to him, he turned to scan the rest of the room. What had once pleased his eye, with its uninterrupted use of space, now looked cold and spartan, as if someone had come along and wiped it clean of its heartbeat. So the few small items carefully placed on the smooth bed caught his attention. Walking over to them, he just stood staring down at the set of keys to this apartment, the tear-drop diamond necklace, the stack of credit cards and the mobile telephone. His skin suddenly felt as if it didn’t fit his body any more. Was that all she felt she was worth to him? Even the bed was playing its part here. He began to feel sick. If she’d tossed down a set of scarlet underwear she could not have made her feelings more clear. The phone gave a beep. He looked at it, saw there was a message written on it in text. Picking it up he stared at the words she had left for him. ‘I’m sorry,’ was all that it said. In English too. He sometimes forgot she spoke English her Italian was so good. But, maybe in this case I’m sorry said it better for her than mi despiace did. It didn’t for him, because sorry wasn’t enough! He wanted to know more. He wanted to know why! Could she not have held faith with him for just one more day? ‘When did she leave?’ He was aware of Carlotta standing in the doorway, watching him with anxious eyes. She obviously had something to tell him or she wouldn’t be there invading his private moment like this. ‘Just after the signor left,’ the housekeeper answered. Signor. Marcos swung round. ‘Signor Kranst?’ he demanded. But Carlotta shook her head. ‘A Signor Gabrielli,’ she informed him. ‘I think they argued,’ she added, looking uncomfortable for saying so. ‘The signorina had me see him out. It is when he gave me the cheque to give to Signorina Antonia.’ Her eyes flickered, then dropped to the waste-paper basket standing by the dressing table. ‘She was very upset,’ she added, as Marco’s gaze followed hers to the basket. A bell sounded then, saying that someone was in the foyer wanting to come up. ‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ Marco grimly instructed. With a nod, Carlotta left, leaving him alone to walk over to the waste-paper basket. About the same time that Stefan was using tough talk on Carlotta to gain his way into the apartment, Antonia’s flight was being called at last. It was now two hours late and her nerves were completely frazzled. Gathering her things together, she stood up, then paused to take in a careful breath. This was it, she told herself. She could leave now. No more arguing with herself. No more agonising over what she really wanted to do. It had to be better to go while she still had the strength to do it, rather than wait until she was thrown out then spend five years pining for his return, as her mother had—wasn’t it? So move, Antonia, she told her feet. Follow the general exodus towards the gate as if you’re just another tourist on her way back home. ‘No luggage slip, signorina?’ She looked down at the cabin-weight suitcase which suddenly seemed a pathetic judgement on her year in Milan. When she’d packed it, in London, she had meant to send for her other things once she was settled with Marco. But he had done away with the need by buying her new things. Anything else of value to her would be coming back to London with Stefan. She shook her head at the attendant who was checking her boarding pass. ‘This is all I have,’ she said. And a heart full of tears, she added silently. Marco was leaning against the open window, which led out onto the terrace, when Stefan Kranst had the arrogance to stride into the room. ‘I want words with you,’ he insisted grimly. ‘I don’t know what happened last night after you left Romano’s with Antonia. But—’ ‘Anton Gabrielli happened,’ Marco inserted, without bothering to turn. The name met with silence. Not the blank, who-are-you-talking-about kind of silence. But the dear-God-in-heaven kind, that throbbed with grim recognition. ‘What did he want?’ Stefan asked him. ‘I see you know the man,’ Marco drily responded. ‘What did he want?’ Stefan repeated harshly. His anger jolted Marco enough for him to wave a hand towards the bed. ‘See for yourself,’ he invited. And turned to study Stefan Kranst’s face as he walked over to look down at the neat row of items set out on the bed. The diamond, the keys, the credit cards, the phone still displaying its message. And the cheque, carefully pieced back together. Stefan stared at it for a long time before he spoke. ‘I saw him at the gallery last night,’ he admitted. ‘I hoped you’d got Antonia away before he arrived.’ ‘They came face to face. He called her Anastasia…’ Other than for a tightening of his lips, Stefan made no comment. ‘When did this arrive?’ he asked grimly instead. ‘The man delivered it himself this morning,’ Marco told him, ‘while I was out,’ ‘No wonder she left in a hurry. He threatened her, didn’t he?’ Hard eyes lifted to Marco. ‘Do you know who he is?’ The question earned him a grimace. ‘Her father, at a guess.’ ‘She told you that?’ Stefan looked so surprised that Marco couldn’t hold back the wry smile. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I managed to work it out.’ She didn’t feel able to trust me with it, he added silently, and sent his gaze flicking back to the view beyond the terrace. She hadn’t really trusted him with anything, when he came to think about it. Not the truth about the Mirror Woman. Not the father he hadn’t known she had. Even her innocent relationship with Kranst had been kept a titillating secret. Out there, above the city, he saw a flash of light as the sun caught the tips of a plane as it took off. ‘Do you know where she is?’ he asked quietly. ‘Not on that flight, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Stefan Kranst replied. ‘She left for England hours ago, Marco,’ he added almost gently. The gentleness was almost his undoing. Moisture dared to slide across his eyes. He stiffened up, shoved his hands in his pockets, heaved in a deep breath. Felt the ring box, felt some other emotion wreak havoc with the wall of his chest. ‘I’m going after her,’ he announced, keeping his face turned away from Kranst as he shifted towards the bedroom door. ‘I came here for a reason,’ Stefan reminded him. Marco paused. ‘To gloat?’ he suggested. Stefan released a heavy sigh. ‘Give me a break for once, Marco,’ he begged wearily. ‘I care about Antonia more than her real father does. That means I care about what’s been happening here! She came to see me before she left,’ he went on tightly. ‘I didn’t like the way she looked. Now I know why, if Gabrielli’s been here,’ he added cynically. ‘But the point is, she gave me something I think you should know about…’ Marco spun around. ‘Keys.’ Stefan took them out of his pocket. ‘And an address in Milan. I came to see if you were as interested as I am in finding out what the hell she has been keeping from both of us!’ She couldn’t do it. Standing here at the departure gate, with her boarding pass in her hand and only a short walk to freedom, she couldn’t take another single step! Tears clogged her throat, burned her eyes, hurt her stomach. I love him! she cried inside, and just couldn’t go! ‘Are you all right?’ someone asked her. Someone else pushed impatiently past. ‘You don’t look well, signorina…’ I’m not. I’m sick with love. ‘I’ve just r-remembered s-something,’ she murmured shakily. ‘I have to go back to Milan.’ She swallowed at the attendant’s shocked expression. ‘Can you take my name off the f-flight register, please? I have my luggage here with me so you d-don’t have to have it removed from the plane.’ Maybe that was why she’d used the smallest suitcase she could find. Maybe she never intended leaving Marco! Maybe she’d needed to get this far before she could finally accept that the man was her other half! You couldn’t go anywhere with only half of you! It just wouldn’t let you. Dropping the tickets and the boarding pass on the attendant’s desk, she turned and started running. She needed to get back to him—fast! ‘Don’t worry me,’ he’d said. ‘Be here when I return!’ He wanted her. What more could she ask of him, for goodness’ sake? He cared that his mother had upset her! He had even asked her to marry him so that she wouldn’t leave! Oh God, why did clarity have to come this late? Why couldn’t she have just waited until he got home and then faced him with Anton Gabrielli, instead of running away without giving him a chance to respond? And he wasn’t like Gabrielli! How dared she compare the two of them? The taxi queue was huge. Strange therefore, after a half-hour wait, she should get the same driver that had brought her to the airport. She gave the address for the apartment. He raised his eyebrows at her via the mirror as he drove off. ‘It is a popular address today, signorina. I collected you from there this morning,’ he remembered. ‘Then I took another person there this afternoon. Now I take you back. Do you think the gentleman will be waiting to catch my taxi for the return journey here?’ He thought it was funny. Antonia didn’t. ‘Do you know the man’s name?’ she questioned huskily. ‘Sure,’ he shrugged. ‘Everyone knows Signor Bellini. He tips well too…’ Marco paid off the driver and got out of the taxi to wait for Stefan to join him. The Ferrari wasn’t back from its service and he was damned if he was going to drive Antonia’s Lotus. That was staying exactly where it was until she came back to claim it. ‘What the hell has she been doing in a place like this?’ he demanded. Stefan didn’t answer. Going to the door, he used the key, then stepped inside. With Marco crowding behind him he took the stairs floor by floor, passing by the doors bearing nameplates of a suspect nature. ‘You do know that this is part of the red-light district?’ Marco growled into Stefan’s back. ‘I do now,’ the other man answered and, though he had a fair idea what it was that Antonia did here, he was beginning to feel a trifle edgy—just in case he was wrong. They arrived on the top landing. Neither spoke as they stepped up to the only door. Stefan turned the key, the tension riding high as he walked inside first. Therefore he had those few split seconds to just stand looking around him before murmuring, ‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Then he added a rueful grin. Not for Marco it wasn’t. How long had he known this woman? he asked himself as he stood there beside Stefan Kranst and stared at what might euphemistically be called an artist’s studio. Light streamed in through a wall of windows, setting dust motes dancing in the air. The room smelled of old wood and oil and turpentine thinner, and everywhere you looked stood the paintings. Some drying, some framed, some waiting to be framed. Piazza del Duomo. La Scala. Pusteria di Sant’ Ambrogio. The bustling Brera, with its trendy little shops and people, and the gardens at Villa Reale. Over by the window stood a huge trestle bench stacked with pencil sketches. On the easel waited a half-finished view from his own terrace, looking out over the top of Milan. Marco hadn’t known Antonia had ever picked up a paintbrush, never mind possessed the capacity to produce work like this. ‘Look at these,’ Stefan murmured. He had moved towards the window and was now sifting through the sketches. Sketches of life drawn with a quick sure hand. Sketches of people going about their business. Something caught in Marco’s chest as he had a sudden vision of her sitting on a bench or a low stone wall just sketching—sketching while he had been safely out of the way in his office playing in the big league, believing her to be doing what the women of wealthy men did, which was basically nothing. Then—no. He amended that notion, and didn’t like himself for admitting that he hadn’t really given much thought to what Antonia did when he wasn’t there. Stefan lifted a sheet of paper to one side, then went still enough to catch Marco’s attention. Marco’s own face looked back at him. It almost took his breath away, at the accuracy with which she had caught his mood of the moment. The shark on his way to hunt prey, he named it with a wryness that didn’t hold any humour. Picking it up, he found another—and another. All revealing his different moods in accurate detail. Then something else caught his eye to divert his attention. It was a half-finished painting of Franco and Nicola about to leave on their honeymoon. Antonia clearly had not been pleased with the result because she had tossed it onto the bench and left it there. But that wasn’t why the painting held him. It was the realisation that, in size, it would have fitted exactly the painting she had wrapped for the anniversary gift. Yet she hadn’t thought to show him, ask his approval. In fact she hadn’t sought his approval on anything she had been doing in here. And it hurt. ‘Why not tell me?’ he murmured out loud. Turning from where he had wandered off to, Stefan Kranst looked at him—just looked—and he knew the answer. She would have had to feel safe from his mockery to tell him about all of this, and she hadn’t. ‘I am no ogre,’ he growled out angrily—angrily because this was just another area she hadn’t trusted him with. Antonia had changed her mind at the very last minute. She didn’t know why she had done it, but some instinct had suddenly spoken to her and said, Better stop Stefan from emptying your studio if you’re intending to stay here. So she’d redirected the driver and realised only after she had let him go that she no longer had any keys to get into the building. Fortunately another tenant was just coming out. He recognised her and, with a smile, stood back to allow her inside. ‘You have visitors,’ he told her. Stefan. She smiled. ‘Grazie,’ she said, and let him close the door behind her. Her case wasn’t heavy, but she was puffing a bit by the time she reached the top landing. The door was open a little. Pushing it wider, she paused to put down her suitcase just as Marco growled out harshly, ‘What did she think I was going to do—laugh in her face?’ Her breathing changed from an out-of-breath pant to a trembling stammer, her mouth ran dry, her eyes glazed. Marco was here, with Stefan, of all people. It felt as if fate was still controlling her actions like a puppet on a string. ‘Well,’ she managed to whisper, ‘are you?’ He spun round to face the doorway. Silence roared, tension sung, the sunlight shone on his black silk hair. He was wearing slate-grey. Slate-grey suit, slate-grey shirt, darker slate-grey tie. His skin had a polished gold cast to it, and his eyes were the same colour as his tie—dark with anger and passion and hurt pride. She wanted to break down and weep at the sheer beautiful sight of him. She wanted to go to him, wrap her arms around his neck and cling so tightly that he would never ever be able to shake her free. But instead her chin went up, it simply had to. No matter how desperate she was to feel his touch, or how shaky she was feeling inside, or even how afraid she was of hearing his answer to the question—she had to challenge him with it. It was a matter of her own pride. ‘You’re on a plane,’ he said. It was really stupid. It was the very last thing she’d expected him to say. ‘I couldn’t go.’ ‘I’m not laughing.’ He answered her question. ‘What I do here is important to me,’ she told him. ‘I can see that,’ he answered. ‘Why couldn’t you go?’ Her eyelashes flickered. Everything felt as if it was coming to her through a confused mist. She wet her lips with her tongue, linked her fingers together in a trembling pleat across her trembling stomach. ‘Y-you didn’t want me to,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘Y-you trusted me to stay but I didn’t trust you to…’ The words trailed away on a wash of distraction. ‘Ththat s-sketch you’re holding isn’t a good likeness.’ Her fingers unpleated so she could point to what he was holding in his hand. He looked down at it like someone who had no idea that he was holding anything. ‘You think I’m a shark,’ he murmured as he looked back at her. ‘Sometimes.’ She nodded. ‘Are you coming in, or are you thinking of running again?’ ‘Oh.’ It was her turn to glance down as if she didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. She was still standing on the threshold, with her case sitting beside her and her bag swinging from one of her shoulders. She went to pick up the case. The moment she moved, so did Marco. He came across the bare-board floor at the speed of lightning. The case was lifted out of her reach. Her arm was imprisoned in long fingers. Before she knew what he was about she was fully inside the room and the door was being firmly closed behind her. That was when she saw Stefan, leaning against a wall with his arms casually folded and his expression—interested. ‘Hi,’ she murmured self-consciously. ‘Hi, yourself,’ Stefan softly replied. ‘I don’t suppose you would like to explain what’s been going on here?’ he drily requested. ‘She doesn’t need to explain anything,’ Marco put in tensely, and his hand tightened on her arm as if he expected her to break free and run, when in actual fact she was already hanging on to his shirt at his waistband and had no intention of letting go of it. Stefan sent the dry look Marco’s way. ‘She does if you want me to get out of here,’ he replied, without bothering to hide his meaning. Marco grimaced and remained silent, conceding Stefan’s right to demand an explanation. Still shaking too much, and not thinking straight, it needed a few attempts at breathing properly before Antonia could find some semblance of intelligence. ‘Y-you know I paint. You taught me to do it,’ she reminded Stefan. ‘You taught yourself,’ he drily corrected. ‘By being a pain in the neck and insisting on placing your easel next to mine every time I worked so you could copy my every damn brushstroke.’ ‘I learned from you then.’ She sighed at the play with semantics. ‘Not this kind of stuff,’ he said with derision. ‘This is chocolate-box art they sell on street corners.’ ‘It’s art,’ Marco sliced back at him in her defence. It was sweet of him, but Stefan was right. ‘Shops,’ she corrected. ‘I sell them to the shops on the Brera. They sell them to the tourists. It—it makes me a nice little living…’ ‘So that’s why you hardly ever touched the money I gave you,’ Marco said bleakly. ‘And your serious work?’ Stefan asked, refusing to be sidetracked. She tensed up; so did Marco. ‘What serious work?’ he demanded. ‘You saw an example of it last night,’ Stefan informed him, without taking his eyes off Antonia’s suddenly angry face. ‘Dio mio,’ Marco breathed, his eyes wide with surprise as he stared at her. ‘You mean you painted your own nude study?’ ‘Sometimes I hate you,’ she hissed at Stefan. Stefan just shrugged, moved out of his lazy stance against the wall and began walking towards them. ‘Ask her about the one she has stashed against the wall over there,’ he suggested to Marco as he passed by them. Then he paused, leaned over to kiss Antonia’s angry cheek. ‘Pack the chocolate-box stuff in before you ruin yourself with it,’ he warned seriously, then pulled open the door and left them to it. Or left Antonia to stand there on her own while she watched Marco stride across the room to the large canvas Stefan had so kindly pointed out to him. Her cheeks began to heat, her body to stiffen in readiness for what was to come. She tried to divert him. ‘Marco, we need to talk…’ But it was already too late. ‘Now, just look at what we have here,’ he drawled lazily. And with a deft flick of his hands he scooped the painting up and took it over to her easel. She struggled not to gasp. Her cheeks were on fire. Standing back, he proceeded to study the nude painting of himself with the all-seeing eye of the complete connoisseur. When he started to grin, she felt like following Stefan. But the way he reached out and touched the lean shape of a sleek male thigh was pure infuriating conceit. ‘It’s all wrong,’ she snapped. ‘The proportions are out. Your nose looks like Caesar’s and your torso is too long!’ ‘I think it’s perfect.’ He would, she thought with an angry frown. ‘I hate people looking at my work until it’s finished!’ ‘You mean you hate me looking at it!’ His mood changed so swiftly she wasn’t prepared for it. From lazy conceit he was suddenly pulsing with fury. ‘Why?’ he demanded, walking back to her. ‘Why couldn’t you tell me that you can paint like this? I thought I knew you! But I’ve been living with a stranger! Your mother sits on my wall but you don’t bother to tell me that! Your ex-lover has never been your ex-lover! In fact, I bet you never even had a lover before me—did you?’ She blushed and shook her head, which only infuriated him more. He continued heatedly, ‘You have a rat for a father. And you have a gift at your fingertips that I would have thought you would have been proud to let me see!’ ‘You own a Rembrandt!’ she fired at him defensively. ‘I own a Kranst!’ he threw right back. ‘Many works by totally unknown artists. And the Rembrandt! Are you saying I am an art snob on top of all my other failings?’ ‘Your opinion meant too much to me!’ she cried. ‘So it was safer not to seek it!’ He grabbed her and kissed her. And about time too, she thought as she fell into the kiss like a woman starved. ‘Dio mio,’ he rasped against her clinging lips. ‘Do you have any idea what it did to me to come back and find you gone today?’ ‘I cried all the way to the airport,’ she confessed, as if that should make it easier for him. It didn’t. ‘Don’t ever leave me like that again!’ ‘I won’t,’ she promised. He sunk them into another hot deep hungry kiss that didn’t last long enough before he was pulling right back. ‘No, you won’t,’ he agreed. ‘Because I am going to make sure that you don’t!’ His hand went into his pocket and came out again, holding a small black leather box. The moment Antonia saw it she knew what it was. And on a choke of dismay, she said, ‘No,’ and snapped her hands behind her back. ‘You don’t have to do that.’ She even started backing away. He followed. ‘Of course I do.’ He reached for her. ‘No!’ she cried, and almost bounced as her shoulders hit the wall behind her. Marco started frowning. ‘Amore, this is what I want. It is what we both want!’ But she kept on shaking her head. ‘I came back,’ she repeated. ‘I don’t need this to keep me here! A ring will just make everything more complicated! I would rather—’ ‘It’s okay,’ he said soothingly. ‘I squared it with my father. He—’ Her eyes shot to his. Her mouth trembled. ‘You told your father about me?’ She looked so horrified it hurt. ‘But you had no right to upset him with this when he’s ill!’ ‘Ill,’ Marco agreed. ‘Not incompetent! And it is out of respect for his illness that I sought his approval. But do you honestly think I am the kind of man who requires the approval of anyone?’ ‘You require mine,’ she pointed out. ‘And I am not prepared to come between you and your parents. I don’t need to do that. I am perfectly happy with things as they were.’ ‘Well, I’m not,’ he announced, his eyes narrowing on the sudden leap of anxiety that claimed her eyes. His teeth began to glint like a tiger preparing to take his first bite. ‘So I made my father an offer he couldn’t refuse,’ he slid in silkily—and followed her until his arm could rest against the wall near her head. ‘I said it was either done this way—’ he lifted the box close to her nose ‘—or I used less—conventional methods.’ ‘There aren’t any.’ In reply he swooped on her mouth. She died for that kiss. Of course she did. ‘An illegitimate Bellini child is just not acceptable,’ he murmured as he drew away again. ‘My father saw my point and—’ ‘You mean you threatened to make me pregnant?’ she gasped. Then her expression hardened. ‘Do you honestly think I would allow you to do that to me?’ His eyes began to gleam with a taunting message: You haven’t got the will-power to stop me. But she had. On this point, if on no other, she had the power to say no to him. ‘A child isn’t a pawn, Marco,’ she said, stepping sideways and away from him. ‘You don’t play Russian roulette with its future just to win an argument.’ ‘Is that the voice of experience?’ His expression had turned curious. She flashed him a wary look. ‘Anton Gabrielli,’ he announced. ‘And a cheque for a serious amount of lira. He was either paying off a mistress or buying your silence,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘And as I was sure you’ve only ever been my mistress, I came to the conclusion he was buying the silence. You won’t believe how good I felt about it.’ He might but she didn’t. She was seeing the glimmer of a chance at an old Italian name making the difference between unacceptable and acceptable. ‘I won’t acknowledge him as my father, you know,’ she warned him. ‘If he announced it to the world I would deny the charge. He will not be walking me down any church aisle just to make me respectable. And if he left me his millions, I would give them straight back again. So if this—’ she flicked an expressive hand at the ring box ‘—honour you are now prepared to bestow on me is built on those assumptions, you’re backing a losing horse here, Marco.’ ‘His billions will go to his son and heir,’ he informed her levelly, and saw her flicker of surprise. ‘I see you didn’t know about him.’ Marco smiled. ‘Handsome guy. Likes the ladies. Plays the field with relish—much like his father did. Married,’ he added succinctly. ‘Two children—a boy and a girl. The wife lives with her fatherinlaw on their private estate on the island of Capri, while her husband enjoys himself elsewhere. As for the Gabrielli name, he can keep it since you will be taking the Bellini name. And if you don’t want him as a father, then fine.’ He shrugged. ‘Because I have one worthy of taking on that role for you. And, despite your natural opinion of both my parents, they are really quite nice people. Their biggest problem is that they love me too much. But in time I am hoping to spread that around a bit to other, newer members of the family.’ ‘Your mother hates me—’ ‘My mother,’ Marco took up. ‘Was so repentant when I saw her this afternoon that she wanted to come back to the apartment to tell you so. Fortunately—’ he grimaced ‘—I talked her out of it. Or she would have been witnessing her son’s complete downfall. Interested in that?’ he quizzed her softly. Her eyes filled with guilty tears. Her mouth began to tremble. He wanted to kiss it until it was warm and red and too full of him to tremble ever again. Instead, he pocketed the ring. She watched him do it, and he was very pleased to see her eyes darken and the way she had to turn and walk away in an effort to hide her disappointment. She might make all the claims in the world about not wanting the ring, but she was lying; she wanted it almost as much as she wanted him. But now she could wait. He had handled it badly anyway. And this was not the setting in which he preferred to commit himself to marriage. So they were leaving—now, he decided. Except first… He spotted everything he required and went over to collect a sheet of brown paper and a roll of sticky tape. She was standing by the window, staring out on the kind of view of Milan that gave this scruffy room reason. Ignoring her, he went over to the nude portrait of himself and, with the efficiency of one who knew exactly how to handle an unframed canvas, he started to package it ready for transportation. Glancing at him over her shoulder, she didn’t even attempt to protest at what he was doing other than to say quietly, ‘It isn’t finished.’ ‘You may have all the time in the world to do so back at the apartment,’ he replied. Sticky tape screeched as he stretched it over brown paper. ‘We will convert one of the guest bedrooms into a studio.’ Sharp white teeth neatly sliced through the tape, long fingers smoothed it into place. ‘Marco—’ ‘Is there anything you want to take with you now, or can the rest wait until we are more able to receive it?’ he cut in smoothly, then lifted the canvas down and finally looked at her. Although the sunlight might be wearing the warm-gold of the late afternoon, the way it touched her hair and her skin reminded him of her own self-portrait. But the expression in her eyes could have been her mother’s. Sad. It was sad. She didn’t believe there was any hope for them. ‘You came back, cara,’ he reminded her soberly. ‘But you did so to a new order of things. That order cannot be returned to what it used to be because you are afraid of what the change may mean.’ ‘It can if you let it,’ she argued. But he shook his dark head. ‘I no longer want what we used to have,’ he explained, so succinctly that Antonia had no choice but to understand his meaning. Her eyes grew so dark that his heart hit his ribcage. It was obvious she saw the choice he was giving her—between leaving him again or facing their future with all its complications—as equal to standing between a black hole and oblivion. But she had come back, he grimly reminded himself. It was the only thing that stopped him from going over there and promising her anything so long as she agreed to stay with him. It was a strange sensation, this fear of losing her, he noted as his eyes—and his bluff—held firm. ‘Ready?’ he prompted. She lowered her eyes, turned away, ran her fingers up her arms to her shoulders as if she was trying to hug something to her. Courage? The chill of fear? The love he knew she felt for him? The need to believe that he felt the same about her? It was time she began trusting in that word ‘love’, he thought grimly. Time she began to trust him. ‘Yes, I’m ready,’ she said quietly. Relief almost floored him. He had to turn away to grimace at the way his legs had just turned to nothing. ‘Let’s go, then.’ Still holding the painting, he went to collect her bit of luggage. As she approached he silently handed over her shoulder bag, then just as silently turned to the door. CHAPTER ELEVEN THE apartment had a hushed air about it after the taxi ride across the noisy city. A large flat brown card package leant against one of the walls with the Romano Gallery name printed on it. Marco went to place his new find beside it, then walked away down the hall and into their bedroom with her suitcase. He was making some statement about ownership, Antonia recognised that as she followed him. Strange, then, that stepping into the one room where she’d always believed she truly belonged she should suddenly feel as if she was entering alien territory. Yet nothing had changed, the room looked exactly as it should do—if you didn’t count the absence of her few personal possessions. Marco was already putting the case away in the cupboard. There was a statement in the way he did that, also, because the case had not been unpacked and he was shutting the door, turning the key in the lock and even went so far as to remove the key and pocket it. Try running off with only what you came here with, now, the action yelled at her. Unsure how to respond, Antonia was still considering her options when he came back towards her, shut the bedroom door with one hand and removed her bag from her shoulder with the other then simply let it drop. And every action was so deliberate that he set her nerve-ends tingling. Her hand was caught next. He used it to trail her behind him over to the window where he touched the switch that sent the vertical blinds sliding across the glass. The room became shrouded in a soft half-light. Seduction suddenly eddied in the air. Turning her towards to him, he looked down at her, searched her whole face as if he had forgotten what it looked like, then sighed a small sigh. ‘Why the closed blinds?’ she asked him. He had never bothered to do that before. ‘Ambience,’ he replied. ‘A desire for your full attention,’ he added. ‘And the need to shut the rest of the world out while we remind each other what it was we almost lost.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ Antonia said. ‘I—’ ‘Don’t ever use those words to me again,’ he cut in harshly. ‘Especially not in English.’ He even shuddered. ‘They will always represent to me the coldest little goodbye a man could experience.’ He was talking about her text message. Her heart found her throat and blocked it as she gazed into his pain darkened blue-grey eyes. I’m sorry hovered on her lips again. She converted the words into a tender-sweet kiss meant to convey the meaning for her. Pain-dark changed to passion-dark. ‘Si,’ he whispered in approval. The kiss was most definitely preferable to words for him. So one tender kiss led to another, until tender became hungry and hunger converted itself into desire. Desire stripped clothes away in a slow precious reacquainting with what she had put at risk today. This was it. All she needed, she told herself. This man looking at her like this, touching her like this—needing her like this. Anything else he cared to bestow was merely a bonus. Because she could feel the love emanating from him even though he had never said the words to her. But, as she had just demonstrated, words weren’t necessary when there were other ways to relay your feelings. It was special. What they had was special. So they made love as if this was their first time. And as one day slipped harmoniously into another, Antonia began likening it to a honeymoon, where neither was seemingly prepared to allow anything to spoil what they had together. Who wanted a betrothal ring? Who wanted a marriage proposal? This was so much more comfortable. So much more her perception of what real love was about. On Monday, Marco slipped back into his work routine without so much as hinting that he couldn’t trust her to be there when he came home again. And Antonia began converting one of the guest bedrooms into her studio. Tuesday was the day she remembered the two paintings that had disappeared from the hallway and made a note to ask Marco where they had gone, only to forget completely when he arrived home that evening with a letter from Anton Gabrielli. It was an acknowledgement that she was indeed his daughter, apologising for his behaviour, and offering to announce her as such if she wished him to do so. ‘Did you bully him into this?’ she asked Marco. ‘I merely made him see the error in his judgement of you,’ he replied. ‘I thought you deserved that. What you do about him now is, of course, your own decision.’ ‘So you aren’t going to persuade me into making his relationship to me public?’ It was a challenge, and Marco recognised it as such. ‘I don’t need him, cara,’ he stated it quietly. ‘But I wondered if you might feel the need to know him better one day.’ ‘I won’t,’ she said adamantly. ‘It turns me cold just to look at his name.’ ‘Then put the letter away,’ Marco advised, ‘and forget about him. He won’t trouble you again, I promise you.’ Which made her wonder what influence he had brought to bear on a man like Anton Gabrielli that he could sound so sure about that. But she didn’t ask, didn’t want to spoil her new grasp on happiness by contaminating it with questions she really didn’t want the answers to. Wednesday, they went out to dinner with Franco and Nicola, who were just back from their visit to Lake Como. Nicola looked radiant. Her eyes shone with pleasure because it was so very obvious that Antonia and Marco had sorted out their differences. Everyone enjoyed themselves. It was just as it used to be. Thursday and Friday she devoted to overseeing the transfer of her artist’s studio to its new location, and not once…Well, maybe once or twice she found herself thinking wistfully back to a certain ring box she had last seen disappearing into Marco’s pocket never to see again. But then she would pull herself together and get on with whatever it was she was doing. She was content. She was happy. Marco was making her a permanent part of his life and he loved her; she was sure of it. Or becoming more sure of it as the days went by. Then he ruined it. It came so unexpectedly that it just hadn’t occurred to her how she had been living the last week, cocooned in her own sweet dream-world constructed around a comfortable self-denial, until, over breakfast on Saturday, he murmured casually, ‘We are going out tonight. A party. I think we will go shopping for something really special for you to wear…’ A party, she repeated. A party meant people. People meant facing her public humiliation from the week before. She couldn’t do it. ‘No,’ she breathed. Lifting his eyes from his ever-present morning newspaper, he narrowed them on her paling face. ‘Red,’ he murmured softly. ‘I think we will go for something truly outrageous in red. Long. Slinky. Strapless and backless to show off your wonderful skin.’ ‘I’m not going, Marco,’ she announced more firmly. ‘Wear your hair up,’ he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Let everyone see your beautiful neck and know that the only man allowed to put his lips to it is me…’ ‘I said, I’m not going!’ She jerked to her feet. ‘And I will drip you in diamonds.’ He refused to take any notice of her. ‘Ears, throat, wrists—even a sexy anklet sounds really irresistible.’ ‘Why don’t you just hang a sign round my neck saying Scarlet Woman?’ she flashed at him angrily. Sitting back in his chair, he grinned at the image. ‘Red-painted mouth. Lots of black mascara. And I think a red carnation in your hair might just make the whole ensemble perfect.’ He even kissed the tips of his fingers. Antonia had never felt so hurt in all her life. ‘I can’t believe you’re talking like this to me, when you know what happened the last time you took me into company!’ She was pulsing with hurt, with fright, with indignation, Marco observed ruefully. But he didn’t question any of those emotions. In fact he absolutely understood her right to feel them. But as for the rest? ‘Are you ashamed of who you are, cara?’ he queried curiously. Her chin went up. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘Ashamed of being my woman, then?’ ‘I won’t be pilloried a second time.’ Which was a neat way of getting out of giving him the answer to his question. He stood up. She made to spin away. He held her in place with the firm grip of his hands on her waist. Trapped by the table, their chairs, and his hands, she had no choice but to remain exactly where she was. But the tension in her body was enormous, the need to run again so palpable he could actually feel it dancing along every muscle she possessed. ‘We made a deal a week ago,’ he reminded her. ‘Deal?’ Her eyes flickered restlessly to his, then away again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Liar, he thought grimly. ‘You returned to me wanting the same as what you almost left behind.’ He spelled it out to her anyway. ‘I told you you couldn’t have that.’ ‘But we’ve been so happy this week!’ she cried. ‘Why do you want to mess with something that’s working fine!’ ‘This week I’ve played it your way. I’ve allowed us to hide and pretend everything is fine because you seemed to need to do that. But I don’t want fine I want perfect,’ he added. ‘And perfect comes at a price, cara. The point is, are you prepared to pay it?’ She clearly didn’t like the sound of the word. It was like holding a tiger by its tail. ‘And what is this price?’ ‘Your trust,’ he announced. ‘I want you to trust me to make this work for us. And, just so you understand how serious I am, I must warn you that I will accept nothing less than your total trust.’ Nothing less—as in nothing. No Marco at all was what he was saying here. Antonia shivered at the mere prospect. ‘And this trust comes in the colour red.’ Her sigh turned itself into a grimace. ‘In your face, knock them dead red,’ he confirmed. ‘Will you do it?’ Trust him not to hold her up as an object of scorn? No, she didn’t. For you didn’t dress your woman up, as he had just described, without having some ulterior motive for doing it. But to demand to know what that motive was had now been denied her by that word trust. So, ‘Yes,’ she said. His soft laugh said he was aware of how difficult she’d found it to say that word. But, ‘Good,’ was all he replied. ‘Because I’ve seen the perfect dress on Via Monte Napoleon. Let’s go and buy it…’ It was certainly red, Antonia confirmed, as she stood looking at herself in the bedroom mirror. In your face and knock them dead. A quiver of anxiety went shivering through her. In fact, Marco had described it perfectly. Long and slinky, with a heart-shaped boned bodice that defied gravity and a back that wasn’t there at all. Pinched-in waistline, a long skirt that clung smoothly to every detail of her shape as it made its way down to her ankles, and a kick-back pleat that began at the back of her knees to give her the ability to walk—and her figure an hourglass shape that was so damn sexy it couldn’t be more ‘in your face’. Her hair was up, as requested, and she truly did drip with diamonds. Diamond choker, diamond bracelet at her wrist, diamonds dangling from her ears. Glancing down at her high-heeled strappy red shoes, she caught a glimpse of the diamond anklet he had insisted she wear. In fact the only thing she had been able to refuse, and get away with it, was the red carnation to dress up her hair. Her lipstick was red, her eyeliner so much more pronounced than she would usually wear it that, as she looked into her own eyes, she didn’t recognise them. She looked lush, she looked sexy, and she looked like a wealthy man’s possession. Which she was, she acknowledged. And if this wasn’t dressing up to brazen out whatever was coming, then she didn’t know what was. ‘If I come near, will you attack me?’ a deep voice quizzed her. Her eyes flashed to him via the mirror. Big and lean, too darn handsome for his own good in conventional black dinner suit and bow-tie, he was looking at her as if he wanted to eat her alive as she stood there. ‘I wonder how many propositions I will get tonight?’ she mused by way of getting a hit back at him without the suggested physical attack. Stepping behind her, he slid his hands around her narrow waist, his thumb-pads gently stroking against her bare skin. She quivered in response, despite not wanting to. The sensation centred itself deep in her abdomen and refused to budge. Sex, it was called. Give it to me. He saw it reflected in her eyes. ‘They can try, mi amante, but we both know to whom it is that you belong, hmm?’ Yes, she thought, and for a moment actually hated him for being so sure of himself. It could not go unchallenged, though. So she turned in his grasp and stroked a hand up his dress shirt, found his warm throat, trailed her fingers up to his ear. This man might know her inside out, but she knew him also. The pleasure point behind his ear only needed the lightest of caress to send a shudder through him. ‘And you know to whom it is that you belong, hey, mi amore?’ He caught the trailing fingers, kissed them with a wryly mocking bow, his eyes dark with promises as he straightened again. It was only then that she saw the colour of his jacket lining. It was glossy silk, matadorred. He was most definitely out to make a very big statement tonight, she realised. ‘Where are we going?’ She frowned up at him. ‘So you thought to ask at last,’ he smiled. ‘Well, wait and see. It’s a surprise.’ Opening her red-painted mouth to tell him that she didn’t like surprises, she felt the dark eyes challenge her. She held her breath, thought about that wretched word trust, and closed her mouth again. He rewarded her with a kiss that required his mouth to be wiped clear of lipstick later and her to do a quick refurbishing job on her own. After that they left the apartment and went downstairs to climb into the back of a chauffeur-driven limousine, which meant that Marco intended to enjoy a drink tonight. It wasn’t late, which was unusual here in Milan, where most parties tended to begin way after ten. But she didn’t begin to understand why they had set out so early until they arrived at Linate airport, to a waiting helicopter. ‘Tell me where we are going,’ she pleaded, unable to stop herself. Helping her into the rear of the helicopter, and making sure her dress was neatly folded around her ankles as she sat down, he joined her, closed the door, gave the pilot the nod to get them into the air, then turned and announced very casually, ‘We are going to my parents’ home in Tuscany…’ Nothing—nothing had prepared her for that announcement. Marco could see that as her face went perfectly white. She didn’t speak, didn’t even gasp in shocked horror; she just sat beside him and died a thousands deaths in total silence. His instincts were telling him to say something—anything to reassure her that this night was going to be fine. But that word fine wasn’t enough for him. And the word trust was demanding he make her give him that unequivocally. It was a pride thing; he knew that. For, although he might have forgiven her for keeping so much of herself hidden from him, he still hadn’t come to terms with how little she had trusted him with any of the important issues in her life. Shallow. She’d thought him shallow. An arrogant snob who was quite capable of loving a woman senseless in his bed but could actually despise her for what she was. Well, tonight, she was going to learn a few harsh lessons. And one of them was to spend the next hour stewing in her own anxieties. He felt she owed him that. And anyway, he was excited. He was out to make an impact tonight, and not just on his family and friends but on Antonia too. So, with the smoothness taught to him from the cradle, he began talking, filling in the trip with innocuous discussion about innocuous subjects that forced her to think and answer but did not detract from the tense expectancy that built up the longer they were in the air. They arrived as darkness was falling. It was the perfect time to get her first glimpse of the Casa Bellini. The vine-covered valley, the house in its centre lit from the inside by electric lighting while the final drape of the sun coloured a blush against its outer walls. Waiting for the helicopter blades to go still before he jumped out, Marco turned to lift Antonia down. She slid through his grasp like smooth bone china, no weight, no substance, nothing but fairness and beauty and an anxiety that kicked at his gut. ‘I love you,’ he murmured, and placed a kiss on her brow. It was the first time he had said it out loud. Impact was what he had been out for; impact was what he got. Her eyes washed with moisture, and he felt his own want to do the same. ‘I just wanted to be sure you knew that before we went inside,’ he added very huskily—so huskily, in fact, that he didn’t know his own voice. She didn’t say anything. He didn’t think she could. So he took her hand and walked her towards his parents’ house and in through the huge French windows left open to the evening air. Her fingers clung so tightly to his he knew—knew this woman, this beautiful woman was his for ever now. The first people they saw as they entered were his mother and father, waiting to greet them on the huge expanse of brown and white chequered floor that gave their home such a grand entrance that led right from the front to the back of the house. This was it, he thought. Show time… Dressed in statutory black, but breathtakingly elegant in it, Signora Isabella Bellini walked forwards. She was smiling at her, Antonia noticed. It was an uncertain, slightly wary smile, but at least it was a smile. She tried a smile in return. ‘Welcome,’ Marco’s mother greeted, and leaned forward to place a kiss on each of her cheeks. Her fingers tightened their grip on Marco. ‘Th-thank you.’ Antonia wasn’t sure why she offered those words in English. It simply seemed appropriate. ‘It was good of you to invite me here.’ ‘No.’ Signora Bellini did not accept that. ‘It should have happened a long time ago. I apologise for my rudeness and hope you can learn to forgive me for it. We Bellinis can be too arrogant for our own comfort sometimes.’ It was so gracious, so kind, Antonia felt the tears threaten again. ‘I understood, really I did,’ she assured the older woman. Well—maybe it was a lie, but it was a kind lie. It was a good point for Federico Bellini to step smoothly into the breach. ‘Now I see why my son lays threats at a sick man’s door,’ he remarked, softening the censure with a lazy grin which hit Antonia right in her solar plexus because it was so like Marco’s smile. He was tall like his son, dark-haired like his son—if a little peppered with silver. But it was also clear that, beneath the sophistication of formal black and white clothing, the rest of Signor Bellini had seen better times. Opening her mouth to voice her concern for his illness, the man himself pre-empted her by bending towards her. ‘Don’t say it,’ he confided. ‘It is not necessary.’ Then he kissed both her cheeks, raised his head and smiled his son’s smile again. ‘It’s an honour to meet you at last, Miss Carson.’ Then he turned his attention to Marco. ‘This is your night, Marco. Your guests await. Therefore I suggest you get this started.’ With that hand still firmly clasped in his, Marco felt Antonia’s instant tension, the shock in realising that this was more than just a formal introduction to his parents. His father’s eyes were glinting with sardonic knowledge. His mother was displaying no expression at all. She had not been against what he had set up here, but she had not been sure it was the right way to go about settling the issue of Antonia. ‘Hurt her with this and she will never forgive you,’ she’d warned him only yesterday. ‘You don’t know her as I do,’ he’d replied. ‘I have confidence in her. I trust her to understand.’ Trust. Dio, but that word was playing a major role in his life right now, he acknowledged as he started walking towards the doors which led into the family’s formal reception room. Antonia clung to his side. His parents fell into step behind them. As they reached the doors a waiting servant smoothly pushed them open to reveal a vast room lit by huge mountains of crystal. Marco paused on the threshold, so he could give Antonia a moment to absorb the sheer grandeur of the room and the people who were already present and waiting for their entrance. The hum of conversation dropped into silence. Faces turned, people stared. Beside him, Antonia’s pulse began to quicken as she took in the full impact of the whole assembly. And Marco did nothing, just waited for her restless eyes to finish making a full inventory of what he had set up for them here tonight. Then at last she saw them, standing out like a pair of statements. Bold, brash, utterly scorning any hint of discomfort. Her warm soft red-painted mouth slackened, her ensuing gasp audible only to him. Surprise tingled from her fingers into his, then she simply stood there so breathless and still that he actually began to wonder if he had made a big mistake. This just wasn’t happening, Antonia tried to tell herself. She was having a dream. A very weird dream. She had to be. In a minute all of these people were going to start laughing in gruesome mockery, telling her to get out and never come near them again, which was how dreams like these usually finished. It was the only answer she could form to what it was she was looking at. But it wasn’t a dream. She knew it because she could feel Marco literally vibrating with waiting tension beside her. She tried swallowing and found she couldn’t. She tried turning to look at him, but she couldn’t do that either because her eyes were refusing to move from what they had frozen on. For right there, hanging on his parents’ wall for everyone to see, were two nudes painted in oils and mounted in matching frames. One was herself, looking slender and sleek and coyly seductive. The other was Marco, looking as bold and arrogant in his nakedness as she’d always perceived him to be. Heat roared into her cheeks, then faded away again. Her heart began to thunder on the total shock of seeing the two of them so brazenly presented like this. And suddenly the dress began to make sense, the desire to drip her in diamonds. Marco was taking them all on—his parents, his friends, all those mocking doubters who didn’t believe he could love this woman who could expose her body like this. If you can’t beat them, join them, he was saying. If I can’t make them believe, then—what the heck? Throw these two paintings in their faces and let them think what they like! ‘If you can hack it then I can too,’ Marco murmured beside her, and his voice was soft, layered with warmth and humour and a lazy challenge. She found the strength to look at him, saw the humour reflecting in his eyes, plus something else—a plea, maybe, for her to understand what it was he had been trying to achieve when he’d decided to do this. A short laugh rippled from her. It spilled into her eyes and turned his smile into a grin. She looked frontward again—and continued to smile, because she understood. She knew! This was his way of levelling the differences in them. It was him coming down his lofty ladder. It was her climbing up to meet him. The hand he placed on her lower spine threaded electric sensation across her naked skin as it began drifting up her spine to her slender nape in an act of sensual possession. ‘More to come,’ he warned softly, and urged her into movement again. Her legs felt like rubber. Her pulse was racing, and her mind was lost in a haze of shock and some dismay and a whole lot of sinfully delicious elation. He took them past smiling faces, past rueful faces, past familiar faces like Franco and Nicola. She saw, through what felt like a misted glaze, Stefan grinning knowingly at her, while the woman at his side looked on curiously. She was tall and dark and so beautiful it made Antonia halt for a second to offer her a warm smile. ‘Tanya.’ She whispered the woman’s name. ‘Later,’ Marco advised, and pressed her into movement again. At the other end of the room, he finally paused. It was a staged arrival, which placed them exactly in between their naked images. Lights sparkled, diamonds flashed, faces observed curiously as he turned her towards him. Holding the whole room captive, he looked deep into her eyes, then dropped his gaze to her mouth and allowed it to linger there until the pulse of anticipation became an energy charge all of its own. ‘Right,’ he said huskily, ‘now, this is the deal…’ ‘Another one?’ she whispered back, aware that he was deliberately holding her balanced on a pin-head of expectation with the warmth of his eyes and the promise of his kiss, and the touch of his fingers on her— She glanced down and had to blink several times before she could focus on the ring he was carefully sliding onto her finger. Made of gold and platinum, it was an intricate twist of finely worked metals forming the clasp for a diamond. And not just any old diamond, she realised, as she watched its flawless quality sparkle with a deep yellow lustre which told her instinctively that this was a very rare diamond indeed. ‘What do you think?’ Deep, dark, disturbingly husky, his voice made her senses sparkle like the diamond. ‘It’s—beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘At the risk of sounding really corny, it reminded me of your eyes,’ he drily confessed. ‘But it comes with a price-tag attached to it,’ he then added. ‘Another one of those also?’ she murmured in an attempt to mock. But it didn’t come off, for she was just too filled with the wonder in what he was creating for her. It was pure romance tied up in bows of spicy sensation. The kind of thing you remembered for ever and relayed to your children and your grandchildren. ‘Mmm,’ he murmured, and it was one of the really sexy murmurs that she loved so much. ‘Because with this ring, mi amore, I am about to commit you to a solemn promise that you will trust me to love you for the rest of your life…’ It was too much. Without a care for who was watching, she reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. Not shy and light, or tender and sweet, but with every ounce of love she had in her. A camera bulb flashed. They were caught for posterity locked in a heated embrace with two oil paintings framing why they were kissing like that… The villa in Portofino was the ideal setting for their honeymoon, Marco thought with a sense of warm satisfaction. They’d flown in by helicopter direct from their wedding reception at his family estate in Tuscany. And though it was dark outside the air was fresher here, so close to the ocean, so Marco had no problem leaning against the balcony rail while he watched his bride come towards him. She was naked, of course. But then so was he—if you didn’t count the rich cream-satin waistcoat she had made him put back on before she would allow him to make love to her. It was meant to make a statement, like the fine tulle veil she still had pinned to her beautiful hair, that floated around her exquisite face and shoulders as she moved towards him. Sexy. Very sexy. He allowed himself a lecherous grin. ‘When are you going to take it off?’ he asked lazily. ‘When I feel married,’ she replied. He arched a brow. ‘And you don’t feel married yet?’ ‘No.’ The pout was very spoiled and sumptuously kissable. And, since they’d already made love several times since they’d arrived here, it was also a slight on his virility. ‘Watch it,’ he warned. She had the audacity to look down. He laughed—what else could he do when he was being bewitched by a teasing little temptress with only one thing on her mind. Dio, she made him feel good. She made him feel like the only worthy man on this earth. Her fingers came out, stroked the cream satin lapel up to his shoulders, then made their way back down again. When she reached the open buttons she began to slowly close them. The cutaway edges of the waistcoat suddenly put a whole new meaning on erotic fantasy. ‘If you’re looking so intent because you’re thinking of painting me like this, then take my advice, cara, and change your mind,’ he advised. Lightly said, lazily delivered, but still he meant every word of it. Her chin came up. The pout had gone; the seductress had switched back on. Stepping that tiny bit closer to him, she held his eyes for a long moment and caught his mouth with a kiss aimed to take the legs from under him—while her hands went in search of other weaknesses. His eyes drew shut, his breath escaped on a thickened sigh as she unleashed her magic upon him. If he died right now, at least he would go taking this image with him. Man and wife, belonging to each other. ‘You have no inhibition,’ he censured darkly. ‘I love you,’ she answered simply. ‘It is uninhibited.’ She was right, and it was. The warm, red, kiss-swollen mouth he claimed with his own mouth. The woman he claimed in other ways. Bridal Bargains The Tycoon’s Bride The Purchased Wife The Price of a Bride Michelle Reid The Tycoon’s Bride Michelle Reid CHAPTER ONE ‘ADOPTION?’ Claire repeated in dismay. ‘You want me to give Melanie away to strangers?’ Standing there, white-faced and shaking in the shabby sitting room of her equally shabby little flat, Claire stared at her aunt as if she had just turned into a real live she-devil. In truth, she was having trouble believing that any of this was really happening. In the last few tragic weeks it felt as if her whole life had been wrenched out from under her. Now this, she thought wretchedly. ‘I am going to pretend you never said that, Aunt Laura,’ she said, cuddling the sleeping baby just that little bit closer as if trying to shield her from what was being proposed here. ‘No, you’re not,’ her aunt countered sternly. ‘You’re going to listen to me. Do you honestly think I would be suggesting this if I believed you were coping?’ ‘I am coping!’ Claire angrily insisted. Wearing a pin-neat chic little two-piece grey suit and with her perfectly made up face and elegantly groomed blonde hair, Laura Cavell only needed to send her coldly fastidious eyes on a brief scan of their surroundings to completely denounce that declaration. The place was in a mess, every available space cluttered with all the usual baby paraphernalia—the floor, the chairs, the unit tops in the attached tiny kitchen. It was only October but the notoriously unpredictable British weather was already wintry. Yet what small amount of heat there was coming from the electric fire was being blocked off behind a clothes-horse laden with wet baby clothes. The washing had to be dried somehow and Claire had no other way of doing it now she could no longer afford to use the laundrette in the high street. So the windows were steamed up, the air inside the chilly little room damp with hanging condensation. Claire herself looked no better, her once outstandingly pretty face ravaged by too much grief, by too much worry, and by too many disturbed nights caused by a baby who only seemed to sleep when she was holding her. ‘I only asked you for help with my rent, for goodness’ sake,’ she mumbled defensively, feeling like a stray cat that had dared to beg at a queen’s front door. ‘And sometimes people have to be cruel to be kind,’ her aunt replied with a cold little shrug of her elegant shoulders. ‘If that means I have to use ruthless methods to make you see the error in what you’re trying to do here, then so be it.’ Which, Claire presumed, was her way of saying that she wasn’t going to part with a single penny. But then, Aunt Laura had never been known for her charity. ‘Melanie isn’t even your child, Claire!’ ‘But she is my sister!’ Claire angrily flashed back. ‘How can you want to have her taken away from me?’ It was a cry from the heart—a copiously bleeding heart that had known too much pain and grief over the last half year. Her aunt winced—but her stance didn’t alter. ‘Your half- sister,’ she corrected her. ‘You don’t even know who her father is,’ she added, her red-painted mouth pursing with real distaste as she glanced down at the dark-haired, olive-skinned baby cradled in Claire’s arms. ‘What difference is that supposed to make?’ Claire demanded, her blue eyes widening in affront at the rude remark. So, her mother had a fling with a Spanish waiter—so what? she wanted to shout. At least she’d still been able to attract a man—which was something after what she had been through with Claire’s father! ‘Melanie is still my flesh and blood, and I am still hers!’ she declared, only just managing to bite back the angry reminder that her aunt was supposed to be their flesh and blood also! Not that it had ever shown. Claire’s mother had always said that Aunt Laura had no heart to speak of. She was hard, she was tough, and the fact that she held down a very important job playing PA to the top dog at one of Europe’s biggest merchant banks meant that she was also totally dedicated to her career. The moment that Claire had dared to ask for help, she must have been racking her brains looking for a solution that would put an end to what she must be seeing as the beginning of years of hassle. So, to a woman who had found it very easy to sacrifice love, marriage and the prospect of her own children for the sake of that career, telling her own niece to give her sister away came easy to Aunt Laura. Claire felt sick to her stomach. ‘You’re only twenty-one years old, damn it!’ Aunt Laura sighed out impatiently when she caught a glimpse of Claire’s expression. ‘Until a month ago you were still a student. Now you’ve dropped out of university but you have no job,’ she listed. ‘No means whatsoever to support yourself, never mind a small baby! And now you tell me you can’t even afford to pay the rent on this awful place!’ ‘I will find a job soon enough, I’m certain of it,’ Claire stated proudly. ‘A job doing what?’ she was instantly challenged. ‘Waiting at tables like that—child’s father did? Cleaning floors? Skivvying for others when you could be doing what your mother wanted you to do, and getting your degree? And who is going to look after Melanie while you do scrub floors?’ her aunt pushed on remorselessly. ‘It takes a lot of money to employ a good baby-minder, Claire,’ she warned. ‘Your mother’s estate barely left enough to bury her.’ The derision in that final remark cut Claire right to the quick. ‘I have rights! I must have rights!’ she cried. ‘Surely the State will help me!’ ‘Of course,’ her aunt agreed. ‘But only as much as it absolutely has to do. The days are long gone when the State was prepared to pay up without much of a murmur. They encourage self-help these days—which is just another way of telling you to go away and get on with it,’ she derided. ‘And Melanie has rights too, you know; you seem to have overlooked that. Do you think she is going to thank you for bringing her up in poverty when she could be living with the kind of people who could give her everything?’ With the sheer brutality of her aunt’s words scoring deep grooves into her already lacerated soul, Claire reeled away in an agony of mind-numbing confusion. Would it be better for Melanie if she gave her up? she actually found herself wondering. Suddenly she was starting to see the future through the baby’s eyes. And her aunt could well be telling the truth; Melanie would have no grounds to thank her for condemning her to the kind of life she could provide for her. Silently she moved across the room to go and place the sleeping baby in her crib in the corner. She was so thin now that the pair of jeans and stretch-cotton blouse she was wearing were hanging on her body. Only a couple of months ago they would have been as tightly fitting as you would have expected any healthy young woman’s clothes to be. But a couple of months ago Melanie had not been born. And Claire’s mother had still been here, happily looking forward to giving birth to a new life, which she’d seen as the path to a whole new beginning, after what the previous few years had put them through. Just three years ago Claire had been the only child of two utterly doting parents. Then her father had died at his own hand when he couldn’t face the fact that his business had failed, taking just about everything they owned along with it. They’d lost their home, their furniture—even most of their clothes had to be sold to pay back their debtors. By then they had moved from the Holland Park area of London into rented accommodation here in the East End. Victoria Stenson had never really recovered from the way her husband of more than twenty years had bailed out of life, leaving her to pick up the pieces. On top of all that, she’d had to watch so-called friends melt clean away as her circumstances altered. Claire had had to leave her private school to finish her final year of education at the local state school. She too had had to watch her friends disappear in much the same way her mother had done. It had been a tough, painful time that left Victoria Stenson feeling very disillusioned and bitter. She’d had to find a job, which, having spent the last twenty years of her life being taken care of, wasn’t at all easy. Oddly enough, it was Aunt Laura who’d helped then. She’d found her sister a job working in an up-market fashion boutique where her natural flare for style and what suited people had come in useful. But then, Victoria Stenson had been a very classy lady. As a tall and slender natural toffee-blonde, at forty-two years old she had still been a very attractive woman who proved to be very good at her new job. So when the lady who owned the boutique had suddenly taken ill and could not go on a planned trip to Madrid to check out one of her fashion suppliers, she’d felt no qualms in sending Victoria in her place. The rest was history. By the time she’d come home again, Claire could not believe the change in her mother. She’d looked almost happy; more relaxed, more—at peace with herself. A couple of weeks later she’d found out why. ‘I’m pregnant,’ her mother had announced. And eight months later little Melanie was born. Small, sweet, olive-skinned and with a crop of black hair that they’d both found so comical when compared with their own fair colouring. It was love at first sight for all three of them. They’d brought Melanie home here to this small flat with its two small bedrooms and tiny kitchen and bathroom. A couple of weeks later Victoria had gone back to work. It was August, and Claire was on her long summer break from university, so it had worked well that she could care for Melanie while her mother was out. They would have to find a baby-minder later—they had been aware of that—but for now they were both happy to share the caring between them and all in all things were beginning to look up for them, they’d thought. Then tragedy had struck yet again. Victoria Stenson had suffered a massive haemorrhage that she’d never recovered from, leaving Claire shell-shocked and utterly grief-stricken, with a baby to care for and nothing much else to help her to do it. Outside a car horn sounded. Behind Claire, her aunt Laura took a glance at her wristwatch and frowned. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she murmured impatiently. ‘Oh—for goodness’ sake,’ she then snapped out. ‘Will you leave the child alone for a moment and listen to me?’ As if she could actually feel her aunt’s animosity towards her, the baby let out a soft yelp. It was purely instinctive for Claire to reach down and brush a soothing caress across the baby’s petal-soft cheek, and as she did so a well of love came surging up inside her. It wasn’t fair, she thought tragically. It just wasn’t fair what life was throwing at her! She wanted to keep Melanie with her! She wanted her mother back. She wanted her father back. She wanted her life back how it used to be before all of these horrible things began to happen. ‘What are our options?’ she questioned thickly, tears clearly not far away. Behind her, her aunt sensed success coming closer and smothered a smile of satisfaction. ‘There are waiting lists longer than you can imagine of childless couples who would be very grateful to you for—’ ‘I don’t want gratitude,’ Claire cut in, straightening to slice the older woman to ribbons with a razor of a look. ‘No.’ Wrong move, Aunt Laura realised. ‘People who would give her a loving home, then,’ she quickly backtracked. ‘And a loving family life with all the security that comes along with that.’ But I would not have a place in her life, Claire thought bleakly. And tried to imagine strange arms cradling her sister, strange hands caring for her, feeding her, clothing her—loving her… A cold sense of despair went chasing through her system, her eyes blurring as the tears tried to follow. ‘There are discreet ways of going about it,’ her aunt was saying. ‘Private agencies that only accept the very best of society onto their books. The kind of people who would make sure Melanie wanted for nothing for the rest of her life. Surely it is at least worth considering the idea—if only for Melanie’s sake…’ For Melanie’s sake. Having found the right button to push, the super-sharp PA to one of Europe’s top bankers was now using it ruthlessly. ‘You could go back to university and finish your degree,’ Aunt Laura continued. ‘I would be prepared to help you to do that, because I think it’s the right thing for you to do. But not this, Claire,’ she murmured, with another contemptuous scan of their surroundings. ‘I will not help you to wreck two lives when both you and Melanie deserve better than this…’ Melanie. ‘I’ll—think about it,’ Claire heard herself whisper. But even as she said the dreadful words it felt as if someone was reaching down inside her and ripping her bleeding heart from her breast. ‘Good,’ her aunt murmured approvingly. ‘While you do that, I will approach some of the agencies for you,’ she offered. ‘See what is required and how m—’ The car horn sounded again, cutting her off mid-word. And, on a small sigh of irritation, Laura Cavell glanced at her niece, saw the dreadful misery now apparent on her pale face—and relented a little. Opening her small clutch purse, she withdrew a slender leather wallet. ‘Look, take this…’ she said, sliding a folded wad of paper money out of the wallet which she placed on the arm of the sofa. ‘It should see you through until I can get back to you in a couple of days. By then I will expect you to have made a decision.’ Staring at the money, Claire nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed, but they both knew she didn’t really feel grateful. ‘Please try to think with your head, not your heart, Claire,’ was her aunt’s final volley as she walked to the door. Then she was gone, leaving Claire standing there staring at the money she had left behind her. Her thirty pieces of silver, she likened tragically, and had to wrap her slender arms around her body in an effort to still the icy chill that suddenly ran through her blood. Because that’s what this money is, she acknowledged as she made herself walk forward and sit down beside the wad of notes. The price of betrayal of those we love most. With her heart throbbing dully in her breast, she reached out with a hand and picked up the folded wad with the grim intention of finding out how much that betrayal was worth these days. But she didn’t even get as far as counting the notes when something dropped out from in between them that had her launching herself off the sofa and running to yank open the door. Her flat was on the first floor. She made a dive for the stairwell just as the main front door downstairs slammed shut. Muttering a couple of choice curses that would have drawn her mother’s wrath if she had been alive to hear them, Claire began racing down the stairs in pursuit of Aunt Laura with the wad of bills still clutched in her hand—and with them a gold plastic credit card. An ice-cold north-easterly wind hit her full in the face as she dragged open the heavy front door. She paused and shivered, her thin blouse no protection as she stood there at the top of the steps urgently searching the street in front of her for a glimpse of her aunt Laura’s distinctive figure. It was a narrow street but a busy one, used as a cut-through between two main highways. It was lined on both sides by high Victorian-style terraced houses that would once have been quite elegant until time and decay, and greedy property developers, had turned them into cheap tenement dwellings. The two rows of cheap and old cars parked up against the kerb reflected the quality of the tenants. So the long, sleek limousine Claire could see her aunt climbing into stood out like a rich dark hybrid rose amongst a tangle of briar. It was parked on the other side of the street and facing towards her with its engine already running. ‘Aunt Laura!’ she called out, trying to catch her attention before she disappeared into its spacious rear compartment. But the wind whipped her voice away, the rear door closed her aunt inside and almost instantly the limousine inched into movement. Without thinking what she was doing, Claire darted forwards, the thin-soled ballet slippers she wore around the flat no protection from the cold, hard pavement as she ran across it then out into the street with the intention of stopping the car before it had gained momentum. What came next happened so very quickly that the whole became lost in a blur of confusing sounds and images. She had a feeling, for instance, that she would remember to her dying day the sound of a horn shrilling furiously at her. Just as she would always have a rather curious image of her own golden hair fanning out in a shimmering arc around her face and shoulders as her head spun to register the delivery van bearing inexorably down on her. Then there was the ear-piercing sound of screeching brakes, the acrid smell of burning rubber, and the warning cries from helpless onlookers who were seeing as clearly as she was seeing what was about to happen. And even as the adrenaline did the exact opposite of what she needed it to do for her and froze her utterly to the spot instead of jolting her into taking avoiding action—she still managed to note the terrible look on the delivery driver’s face when he too realised that he was not going to be able to stop without hitting her. Yet—interestingly—the impact itself she barely registered. She felt a thump to her right-hand side, but not the pain that should have come with it. The next thing she knew, she was lying in the road and a dark-eyed stranger was leaning over her while someone in the background was talking wildly in a choked, shocked, shaking voice. ‘She just ran out in front of me!’ he was saying over and over. ‘I didn’t stand a chance! She just ran out in front of me—she just ran out in front of me…’ Was he referring to her? Claire wondered dizzily, and on a frown of confusion attempted to sit up. ‘Don’t move,’ a quiet voice commanded. Vaguely she registered the hint of a foreign accent, liked the deep velvet sound of it and smiled accordingly. ‘OK,’ she complied. Crazily, it really did seem that simple. She still felt nothing, and, in those first few conscious moments, she remembered nothing, which didn’t seem to matter either. A strange state of mind, she decided—all fluffy and floaty. ‘Am I dying or something?’ she wondered curiously. ‘Not while I am here to stop you,’ replied the stranger. She found herself smiling at that too. Arrogant devil, she thought. And became aware of a hand resting on one of her shoulders while another hand was dispassionately travelling all over her body as if it had every right to do something like that. Yet—oddly—she let him. Her worry-bruised deep blue eyes solemnly studied him as he carried out his examination. He wasn’t young, she noted, but he wasn’t exactly old either. And his skin—like his voice—was definitely foreign, bronzed and sleek, and he had a nicely defined mouth that, for some reason, she wanted to reach up and trace with her fingertips. But really it was his eyes that held her attention. They were dark—so dark it was like looking into nothing. Catching her studying him, he sent her a brief grim smile that made something alien stir inside her. She didn’t understand it—didn’t recognise the feeling, but it was disturbing enough to make her close her eyes and shut him out again as a wave of dizziness rolled over her. She began to shiver suddenly—though she wasn’t sure why unless the cold was beginning to get her—yet she didn’t feel cold—not at all, actually—which was strange in itself considering the icy weather. Something warm and silky landed on top of her, and she realised that he had taken off his jacket and covered her with it. It was only then that it occurred to her that she shouldn’t be lying here; that she had been in a hurry to get somewhere—though for the life of her she couldn’t remember where she was supposed to be going. ‘I said—don’t move!’ the deep voice insisted. ‘Did I?’ she asked, frowning confusedly because she certainly wasn’t aware of moving. In fact she didn’t feel able to do anything very much—even breathing in air was strangely difficult. Her chest felt tight, her limbs heavy. And for all she knew she could be very seriously injured. It was well documented, wasn’t it—that the worse you were, the less you felt? ‘My chest hurts,’ she confided, meaning to reassure herself with that bit of information. He didn’t seem to understand that, though, because she heard his harsh expletive muttered beneath his breath. ‘Has someone called the emergency services?’ he demanded of—whoever. Claire wasn’t sure who, nor cared that much really. But she did become aware of hurried footsteps coming towards her. ‘I’ve seen to it,’ another voice announced breathlessly. Then, ‘I can’t believe she just ran out in the street like that!’ the voice added angrily. Her aunt. Claire winced on a rush of total recall. ‘Did that hurt?’ the stranger enquired concernedly. He was touching her right wrist, and, yes, it did hurt, she realised belatedly. But that wasn’t why she had winced. A pair of handmade Italian court shoes appeared beside her. ‘What made you do such a stupid thing?’ her aunt demanded furiously. Lifting up her injured wrist, she opened her fingers with effort. Lying there, half hidden amongst the crumpled wad of notes, was her aunt’s plastic gold card. ‘You left this behind,’ she explained. ‘I thought you might be needing it…’ For the space of thirty long, taut seconds, no one else made a single solitary sound as they stared at the gold card in Claire’s palm. Then the stranger spoke. ‘You know this girl?’ he demanded sharply of her aunt Laura. ‘She is the niece you came here to see this morning?’ ‘Yes,’ Laura Cavell confirmed with enough reluctance to make Claire wince all over again. How can anyone be so uncomfortable with the fact that they possess family? Claire wondered bleakly. And at last managed to pull herself into a sitting position while everyone’s attention was elsewhere. ‘Look, Mr Markopoulou…’ Aunt Laura was saying, sounding unusually anxious for her. ‘If you want to leave this situation to me now, you could still just manage to catch your flight to Madrid.’ That was the moment when Claire realised that the tall, dark stranger was none other than Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon employer! No wonder she is sounding so anxious, she mused ruefully. ‘I thought I told you not to move,’ the dark voice censured. ‘I’m fine now—really,’ she lied. ‘No one needs to miss their flight. In fact, I think I would like to get up now.’ ‘I think not,’ the stranger drawled, his black eyes autocratic. ‘You will remain exactly where you are until the emergency services arrive to check you over.’ No way, Claire thought. If they took her to hospital then Aunt Laura would have her certified as unfit to take care of Melanie before she could even turn around! Then, ‘Oh, no!’ she gasped, scrambling shakily to her feet. She’d left the baby in the flat on her own! Her head felt groggy, her shoulders stiff, and her insides were shaking so badly that they were making her feel sick. ‘Where do you think you are going?’ the stranger demanded, vaulting to his feet like a well-honed athlete. ‘I have to go now,’ she murmured hazily. Barely registering the small crowd clustered around them, she took a few staggering steps forward—then remembered the gold card still clutched in her hand—the cause of all of this trouble in the first place, she acknowledged mockingly as she spun back towards Aunt Laura. ‘Here…’ she said, plucking the card out from amongst the crumpled bank notes and handing it over. Her aunt took it in grim silence, her red-painted mouth tight with angry embarrassment. Turning back to find the stranger had moved to stand directly in her path, Claire mumbled an awkward, ‘Thanks for your trouble,’ went to divert around him only to come to yet another confused halt when she noticed the pristine whiteness of his shirt. No jacket… Glancing behind her, she was appalled to see his jacket lying on the road where it had slid away from her unnoticed when she’d got up. ‘Oh—I’m so sorry!’ she gasped, making a move to go and collect it. He got there before her, though. Tall, dark, whipcord lean, he bent to retrieve it in one smooth movement. ‘I’m so very sorry.’ Claire apologised a second time. His idle shrug dismissed the oversight. ‘Here…’ Instead the jacket landed back around her shoulders. ‘You seem to need it more than I do at this moment,’ he explained. Then he bent his head towards her to add gently, ‘You are shivering.’ ‘But…’ The rest of what she had been going to say got lost in a sudden wave of dizziness. Her wrist was hurting, her chest felt very tight, and her head was beginning to thump. She became aware of a cluster of blurred faces all staring at them in rapt curiosity. An arm came gently about her shoulders. ‘Come on,’ her aunt Laura’s boss said coolly. ‘Show me where you live and I will see that you get there…’ ‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she protested. ‘It is, I assure you,’ he insisted rather grimly. ‘For I am not leaving until I am sure you have been checked out professionally.’ And it was amazing—but he meant it! He even sounded as though he cared! Hot tears suddenly filled her eyes, though she had no idea why they did. ‘It isn’t even as though it was your car that hit me!’ she choked out in something between a sob and a protest. ‘No, my van did that,’ another male voice intruded. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ the newcomer then enquired worriedly. ‘Yes—really.’ Seeing the shock still whitening the driver’s face, she sent him a reassuring smile. ‘A bit winded,’ she confessed. ‘But otherwise I’m OK. I’m sorry I was so stupid.’ ‘No problem—no problem,’ the other man said, and he walked off looking relieved to be getting away from it all without getting into more trouble. Claire felt another wave of dizziness wash over her. The arm resting across her shoulders suddenly became supportive. ‘Lead the way, Miss Cavell,’ his grim voice commanded. Silent as a grave and stiff-backed as a corpse, Laura Cavell stalked into the house while they followed behind her. Her aunt was going to despise her for showing her up like this in front of her boss, Claire thought wearily as they trod the stairs. ‘You don’t have to go to this much trouble, you know,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I really am all right.’ ‘No, you are not,’ the man beside her replied. ‘Your right wrist is injured. You have a cut on your head that needs attention. And when you breathe you gasp—which suggests you may have cracked a rib or two.’ An injured wrist. A cracked rib or two. Claire closed her eyes and wondered bleakly when something good was going to happen. There didn’t seem to be much use in hoping for it, she decided heavily. Things around her seemed to be going from bad to worse with every passing minute. When they reached her flat she broke free from him so she could precede him through the door. Laura was standing by the clothes-horse—valiantly trying to hide it, Claire suspected, with the first hint of humour she’d felt in weeks. Then, from behind her, she could sense her aunt’s boss running his gaze over his shabby surroundings and all hint of humour completely left her. Outside in the street stood a limousine belonging to a man who was rich enough to travel everywhere in absolute luxury. His clothes shrieked of bespoke tailoring. No doubt his many homes were large and palatial, and here he was, Claire concluded, standing in what was probably the shabbiest abode it had ever been his misfortune to experience. Shame washed through her. Why she didn’t know, because the feelings of a complete stranger really shouldn’t matter to her. But something made her turn around to confirm the look of distaste she just knew would be written all over his lean, dark, super-elegant features. It was there. She felt hurt, so very hurt. Then, as if to completely demolish her, a soft snuffling sound came from the corner of the room, and the way his expression altered to a look of shocked horror as he accurately registered just what that sound belonged to finally wrecked what was left of her fragile composure. In an act of teeth-gritting defiance, she whipped off his jacket and threw it at him. Startled, his black eyes widened on her. ‘You don’t have to come in,’ she clipped, suddenly alight with a bristling hostility. ‘And actually I would prefer it if you didn’t.’ ‘Claire!’ her aunt objected furiously. ‘I don’t care!’ she flashed. ‘I just want you both to get out of here!’ Angrily she spun away to hurry over to the small baby crib where Melanie was still sleeping peacefully, she was relieved to discover. But the tears weren’t far away. She could feel them coming as she stood there leaning over the crib with an aching wrist hanging limply by her side and her ribcage beginning to pain her badly. Behind her the silence went on and on. They hadn’t gone and she wished that they would because she was beginning to feel rather hot and shaky. ‘Please go,’ she pleaded. Then, without warning, she fainted. Maybe he saw it coming. Maybe he was already walking over to where she stood without her being aware that he’d moved. Whatever, as Claire felt herself going, as the blood slowly drained away from her head and her legs began to go limp, a pair of arms came securely around her, and the last thing she recalled was hearing the distinctive wail of an ambulance siren as she slumped heavily against him. After that everything became a bit hazy, and she didn’t really start making sense of what was happening to her until she was travelling in the ambulance—accompanied by none other than Aunt Laura’s boss who was cradling Melanie. But no Aunt Laura. ‘She will be joining us later,’ the stranger replied when Claire queried her aunt’s absence. ‘She needed to attend to some urgent business.’ Frowning at him through huge, pain-bruised blue eyes, she wondered why he wasn’t taking care of his own urgent business. But their arrival at the local hospital forestalled any more conversation between them when she was taken away to be examined and x-rayed. Her ribs, she discovered, were only bruised, but her wrist was a different matter. A broken scaphoid, the doctor called it, and they would have to put her out briefly to reset it. ‘What about Melanie?’ she fretted as the pre-med they had given her began to send her brain fuzzy. ‘How am I going to cope with my wrist in plaster? Where’s Aunt Laura?’ ‘If you want your aunt here, then I will get her here,’ a deep voice that was starting to sound very familiar quietly promised. She had expected Aunt Laura’s boss to melt away once they reached the hospital, but to her surprise he had stayed with her the whole time. ‘No,’ she sighed in shaky refusal, shifting restlessly where she lay because he didn’t understand. It wasn’t that she wanted her aunt—she just needed to know where she was and what she was doing because she didn’t trust her not to take matters into her own hands where Melanie was concerned, while she was in no fit state to stop her. ‘Don’t let her take her away from me,’ she mumbled slurredly. ‘I won’t,’ the voice promised. That was the last thing she remembered for the next hour or so, so she had no idea that he continued to stand there beside her bed grimly watching over her until they came to wheel her away. When she did eventually resurface, it was to find herself lying in a small side room with her wrist encased in its new plaster cast and secured by a sling. They had left her fingers and thumb free at least, she noticed—not that she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for that because she knew she still wasn’t going to be able to handle a baby. What did concern her was that it was going to take up to eight weeks to mend. Eight weeks… Sighing heavily, she closed her weary eyes and tried pretending that this was all just a bad dream. ‘Worrying already?’ a deep voice dryly intruded. CHAPTER TWO CLAIRE’S eyes flicked open, something disturbingly close to pleasure feathering across her skin as a tall, dark figure loomed up in front of her in the very disturbing form of Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon banker. ‘How are you feeling?’ he enquired politely. ‘Dopey,’ she replied, with a shy little grimace. His dark head nodded in understanding. ‘Give yourself time to recover a little from the anaesthetic,’ he advised. ‘Then—if you feel up to it—they say you can go home.’ Home…That sounded good. So good in fact that she made herself sit up and slide her feet to the ground. It was only then that she realised what a poor state her clothes were in. Her jeans were scored with dust and tar from the road, and her blouse had managed to lose half of its buttons. No wonder he threw his jacket over me, she thought wryly, making a half-hearted attempt to tidy herself. But it was difficult to look pin-neat after the kind of day that she’d had, she decided heavily. While this man, whose eyes she could sense were watching her so intently, still looked elegant and sleek and clean even though he had spent most of the day rescuing fallen maidens, abandoned babies, and— ‘Where’s Melanie?’ she asked sharply, unable to believe she had been so irresponsible as to not give the poor baby a single thought until now! For the first time today, he suddenly looked cross. ‘I would have expected by now that you would trust me to ensure your child is perfectly safe and well taken care of,’ he clipped out impatiently. ‘Why?’ Claire immediately challenged that. ‘Because my aunt Laura works for you?’ Something made his broad shoulders flex in sudden tension, though what made them do it Claire had no idea, but she felt her own tension rise in response to it. ‘Just because you were gracious enough to pick me up and dust me off, then condescended to accompany me here instead of going off to Milan, that does not automatically win trust, you know,’ she pointed out, coming upright on decidedly shaky legs. ‘Madrid,’ he corrected her absently—as if it really mattered! ‘I don’t know you from Adam,’ Claire continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘For all I know you may be one of those weirdos that prey on innocent young females in vulnerable situations!’ A wild thing to say—a terrible thing to say considering what he had done for her today. Watching the way his elegant frame stiffened in affront, Claire was instantly contrite. But as she opened her mouth to apologise he beat her to it—by retaliating in kind. ‘Young you may be,’ he grimly conceded. ‘What are you, after all—not much more than eighteen? And vulnerable you certainly are at the moment—one only has to look at your face to know that a relatively minor road accident was not enough to cause quite that amount of fatigue in one so young. But innocent?’ he questioned with cutting cynicism. ‘One cannot be innocent and give birth to a child, Miss Stenson. It is, believe me, a physical impossibility.’ Two things hit her simultaneously as she stood there absorbing all of that. One was the obvious fact that he had got her age wrong. And the other was his mistaken belief that Melanie was her daughter! Had Aunt Laura not bothered to explain anything to him? she wondered. And who the hell did he think he was, standing in judgement over her, anyway? ‘I am not eighteen—I am twenty-one!’ she corrected him angrily. ‘And Melanie is not my daughter—she’s my sister! Our mother died, you see, just two weeks after giving birth. And if you hadn’t been so quick to send my aunt off to do whatever business you felt was more important to her than we are,’ she railed on, regardless of the clear fact that she had already managed to turn him to stone, ‘then maybe she would have had the chance to explain all of this to you, so you didn’t have to stand here insulting me! And my innocence or lack of it is none of your damned business,’ she tagged on for good measure. At that point, and giving neither of them a chance to recover, the door swung open and a nurse walked in carrying Melanie. ‘Ah, you’re awake.’ She smiled at Claire, seemingly unaware of the sizzling atmosphere she had walked into. Stepping over to the bed, she gently laid the sleeping baby down on it. ‘She has been fed, changed and generally spoiled,’ she informed them as she straightened. ‘So you need not concern yourself about her welfare for the next few hours.’ ‘Thank you,’ Claire murmured politely. ‘You’ve all been very kind.’ ‘No problem,’ the nurse dismissed. ‘If you feel up to it, you can leave whenever you want,’ she concluded, and with a brisk squeak of rubber on linoleum was gone again—leaving a tension behind her that stuck like glue to Claire’s teeth and her throat, making it impossible for her to speak or swallow. So instead she moved to check on the baby. As the nurse had assured her, Melanie looked perfectly contented. Her left hand went out to gently touch a petal-soft cheek while he looked on in grim silence. ‘I apologise,’ he murmured suddenly. ‘For the—altercation earlier. I had no right to remark upon either your life or your morals. And I certainly had no right to make certain assumptions about either you or your situation. I am, in fact, ashamed of myself for doing so.’ Quite a climb-down, Claire made note, nodding in acceptance of his apology. ‘Who are you?’ she then asked curiously. ‘I mean—what is your name? It seems crazy that we have spent almost half the day together and I don’t even know your name.’ ‘Your aunt never mentioned me?’ he questioned. Claire shook her head. ‘Only that she worked with the head of a merchant bank,’ she told him. He seemed to need a few moments to take this information in, which Claire thought was rather odd of him. ‘My name is Andreas Markopoulou,’ he then supplied. ‘I am Greek,’ he added, as though he felt it needed saying. Feeling suddenly quite painfully at a loss as to what she was supposed to do with his name now that she had it, all Claire could come up with was another small nod of acknowledgement. Consequently, the silence came back, but it was a different kind of silence now as they stood there eyeing each other as if neither quite knew what to do next. It was all very strange, very—hypnotic, Claire thought hazily. Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake and stepped up to the other side of the bed. ‘Maybe we should leave now,’ he huskily suggested. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and bent with the intention of scooping Melanie up with her good arm. But he stopped her. ‘I will carry her,’ he insisted, adding almost diffidently now that they seemed to be trying very hard not to tread on each other’s feelings, ‘Perhaps you would accept the use of my jacket again? The day is drawing in and it must be quite cold outside…’ A hesitant nod of agreement had him rounding the bed as he removed his jacket so he could place it across her slender shoulders, then he was turning to get Melanie. And without another word passing between them they made their way to the hospital exit. Just as he had predicted, it was cold outside, but within seconds of them appearing his car came sweeping into the kerb just in front of them. As soon as the car stopped, the driver’s door shot open and a steely-haired short, stocky man in a grey chauffeur’s uniform stepped out. Rounding the car’s shiny dark red bonnet, he touched his peaked hat in greeting and deftly opened the rear door, politely inviting Claire to get into the car. Wincing a little because her bruised ribs didn’t like the pressure placed on them to make the manoeuvre, it was a minute or two before she felt able to take in the sheer luxury of her surroundings—the soft kid leather upholstery and impressive amount of in-car communications hardware. It all felt very plush, very decadent. Very—Andreas Markopoulou, Claire mused wryly as the door on the other side of the car opened and the man himself coiled his impressive lean length into the seat next to her—without Melanie. ‘Be at ease,’ he said before Claire could even voice the alarmed question forming on her lips. ‘She is perfectly safe. See, I will show you…’ Reaching out towards his door panel, he pressed a button that sent the dark glass partition between them and the driver sliding smoothly downwards. Having to move carefully so it didn’t hurt too much, Claire sat forward a little so she could peer over the front passenger seat—where she found Melanie snugly strapped into a baby car seat fixed to the seat next to the beaming driver. A car seat just for Melanie? ‘You really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for us,’ Claire mumbled awkwardly. ‘You’ve done more than enough as it is.’ ‘It is nothing,’ he dismissed, sitting back and pressing the button that brought the partition window sliding up again. Claire was edging herself carefully back into her seat when a sudden thought hit her. ‘That seat isn’t new, is it?’ she asked. ‘You have borrowed it from someone?’ Oh—please let him say it’s borrowed! she prayed fervently. But the arrogant look he levelled at her spoke absolute volumes, and had Claire stiffening in dismay. ‘But the expense!’ she cried. ‘I won’t be able to pay you back!’ ‘I was not expecting you to,’ drawled a man to whom money had obviously never been a luxury he couldn’t afford to toss away! And with a shrug that dismissed the whole subject as boring he turned his head to glance outside as the car slid into smooth motion. But Claire couldn’t let him just dismiss it like that. It wasn’t right that he should fork out for anything for them! ‘I will have to ask my aunt if she will reimburse you,’ she decided stubbornly. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to forget it!’ she cried. ‘I hate being beholden to anybody!’ Arrogantly, he ignored all of that. ‘Please fasten your seat belt,’ he instructed instead. Then, ‘Leave it,’ he advised when she opened her mouth to continue the argument, the sheer softness of his tone enough to still her tongue. ‘It is done. The seat is bought. Further argument is futile…’ Lowering her face, Claire began attempting to fasten her seat belt around her with fingers that were suddenly shaking badly. In all her life she had never been spoken to quite like that, even by Aunt Laura, who could be intimidating enough. ‘I can’t do this!’ she sighed after a few taut moments of hopeless fumbling that made her frustratingly aware of how incapacitated she was going to be with one hand rendered completely useless, and felt the tears that were too ready to appear just lately begin to fill her eyes again. With a smooth grace, he leaned across the space separating them, took the belt from her trembling fingers and, carefully making sure that the belt sat low down on her body so that it missed both her ribs and her plaster-cast, he locked it into place. He glanced up, saw the tears, and released a soft sigh. ‘Don’t get upset, because I have a tendency to cut into people,’ he murmured apologetically. ‘It is a—design fault in my make-up,’ he explained sardonically. ‘I dislike having my actions questioned, so I react badly. My fault—not yours…’ ‘You should not have spent money on us without my sayso,’ Claire couldn’t resist saying despite the fact that she seemed to know instinctively that—half apology or not—he wasn’t going to like her resurrecting the argument. Still, if he was angry, he managed to keep his voice level. ‘Well, it is done now.’ And although the remark was dismissive again at least he cloaked it in a gentler tone. ‘How is your wrist?’ he enquired, wisely changing the subject. Glancing down to where the sling held the heavy plaster-cast against her slender body, she noticed an ugly swelling around the base of her thumb. ‘It’s OK,’ she lied. In fact it was throbbing quite badly now. But then, so was her head—and her ribcage. Closing her eyes, she let herself relax back into the seat, feeling so tired, so utterly used up now that she had an idea that if she was left to do it she could easily sleep for a whole year. But she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, was she? Instead she was going to have to come up with a way to take care of Melanie while her wrist was like this. Out from behind the dull throb of her physical pain and her mental exhaustion her aunt Laura’s rotten suggestion reared its ugly head. It was enough to make her open her eyes, make her sit up straight as aching muscles knotted up with stress. Unaware of the pair of black eyes that were observing her narrowly, her anxious gaze went dancing around as if on a restless search for deliverance. ‘What’s wrong?’ he enquired levelly. ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. For how could she tell him that his highly respected PA could be crass enough to want to give away one of her own nieces rather than help share responsibility for her? It was wicked, simply wicked. Yet you said you were prepared to consider the option, Claire grimly reminded herself. Her eyes grew stark, the tired bruising around the sockets becoming more pronounced as the weight of all her many problems began pressing on her once again. Then other things began intruding on her consciousness. The fact, for instance, that the car was driving them through a part of London that was very familiar to her since she’d used to live around here until three years ago. But that was a long way away from the East End district where she lived now. Frowning in puzzlement, she glanced around to find Andreas Markopoulou’s fathomless black eyes fixed on her watchfully. ‘This isn’t the way to my flat.’ She stated the obvious. Those dark eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘No,’ he confirmed, adding smoothly, ‘This is the way to my home.’ His home…Claire repeated to herself, and tried to work out why he had used the words with the kind of emphasis that had set instincts firing out all kinds of warnings at her. ‘Your driver is going to drop you off first,’ she nodded, deciding that was what he had been implying. But beside her the dark head shook. ‘We are all going there,’ he said, waited a few moments for his words to sink in—then added gently, ‘I am taking you both home with me.’ ‘But—what for?’ she demanded frowningly. ‘Will my aunt Laura be there?’ There was a long pause when his eyes continued to hold hers but he didn’t answer. He has a beautiful face, she found herself thinking. Good bones and skin and nicely balanced features. It was a shame the whole was spoiled by the cold mask he wore over it… Then she blinked, realising that he still hadn’t answered her but was just sitting there, watching her studying him, and by the sardonic gleam she could see lurking in his eyes he knew exactly what she was thinking but didn’t give a damn. Not just cold, she thought suddenly, but proud of it. And she shuddered as if something unholy had just reached out to brush its icy fingertips along her body. The car came to a stop. ‘We have arrived,’ he announced, and leaned over to flick free her safety belt. Instantly her skin began to prickle, her heartbeat picking up pace as a burst of alarm forced her into taking avoiding action by pressing her body back into the seat. ‘Be calm,’ he murmured dryly as he carefully guided the belt back into its housing so it didn’t whip across her body. ‘You truly have nothing to fear from me.’ No? Claire wished she could believe that—an hour ago she would have believed that! But since then something about this man had altered subtly and what really frightened her was that she just didn’t understand what that something was! Nikos, the chauffeur, was opening her door then, and offering to help her to alight. Feeling stubborn in the face of her own confusion, she ignored his outstretched hand and climbed out of the car under her own steam. But the effort took its toll, and she had to steady herself with her good hand on the bonnet of the car while her many aches and pains made their presence felt. She knew this street, she realised, suddenly becoming aware of her surroundings. It was several streets up from the one where she used to live when her father was alive, though this part of Holland Park was a hundred times more exclusive. But at least she knew where to run to if she needed to get away from here, she told herself. And with that consoling thought, she turned to watch the chauffeur release Melanie from her safety seat, while Andreas Markopoulou stood to one side of him, waiting to receive the baby into his arms. The baby arrived, all cute and cosy wrapped in a shawl her mother had so painstakingly crocheted throughout her confinement. And, for some crazy, unexplainable reason, remembering that brought on a violent surge of possessive jealousy that made her want to reach out and snatch the baby from him! Maybe he sensed her resentment, because he turned then, to glance at her sharply. ‘OK?’ he asked. No, Claire thought. I am not OK. I want you to give me my baby sister then I want to go home, because every single instinct I possess is telling me I should not be going anywhere with you! Aunt Laura—Aunt Laura…Like a chant devised to soothe the troubled spirit, she found herself using Aunt Laura’s connection to them both as an excuse as to why she was allowing herself to be taken over like this. ‘Let’s go…’ Her new guardian led the way towards one of the elegant town houses that stood in the middle of an elegant white-painted row. The door fell open even as they arrived at it, a short plump lady with hair a similar colour to the chauffeur’s appearing in the opening with a warmly expectant smile on her face. The moment she saw Melanie she let out a soft cry of delight, clapped her hands together then opened them up in greedy readiness to receive the baby. ‘This is my housekeeper, Lefka,’ Andreas Markopoulou informed Claire as he dutifully placed the baby in the other woman’s arms. ‘As you can see from her expression, she is ecstatic to be given this opportunity to take care of the child while you are here.’ ‘Oh, but—’ Claire began to protest, but even as the words began to form on her lips the housekeeper began speaking over the top of her, in what Claire had to assume was Greek. Then, without a by-your-leave to anyone, she turned and proceeded to disappear with Melanie into the bowels of the house! ‘Usually her manners are much better than that,’ Andreas Markopoulou dryly remarked as they watched the woman go. ‘No doubt she will recover them once her bout of ecstasy has subsided.’ Then, more formally, he invited Claire to enter his home. The interior was more or less what she had expected—large and warm and beautifully furnished in a tasteful mix of modern and antique. Light hands smoothly removed the jacket. Glancing up and around, she mumbled a wary, ‘Thanks,’ but felt uncomfortably lost without the jacket to hide in. Leading the way across the square hallway, he opened a door and invited her to precede him through it. In silence she went, still telling herself that she was going to find her aunt Laura waiting there—needing to find her aunt Laura waiting there. But, except for the obvious fact that this was a man’s very comfortable study—with its roaring log fire, lightoakpanelled walls and heavy oak furniture—the room revealed no sign of Aunt Laura. Behind her, the door closed. She turned to confront him. ‘Where’s my aunt?’ she demanded. Sleek black eyebrows shot up. ‘I do not recall saying that your aunt would be here,’ he replied, moving gracefully across the room to where a big solid desk stood with its top clear of papers. Had he said it? Claire’s brow puckered up as she tried to remember just what he had said about her aunt, and found she couldn’t say for sure. But the impression had been drawn, she was sure of it. ‘Then why have you brought us here?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘If it wasn’t to meet up with Aunt Laura?’ He had switched on a small laptop computer and was studying whatever had appeared on the screen while casually tapping at one of the keys—though his head lifted at the question, his dark eyes drifting up the full length of her then back down again in a way that raised every fine hair on her body. ‘I would have thought that was obvious,’ he replied, his attention already back on the computer screen again. ‘You are a mess, quite frankly,’ he stated bluntly. ‘And in no fit state to take care of yourself, never mind a helpless young baby. So, for the time being at least, you will stay here with me.’ ‘But I don’t want to stay here!’ Claire cried, too horrified by the prospect to dress up her protest. That brief grim smile of his that he liked to use so much registered her horror. ‘I wasn’t aware,’ he drawled, ‘that I was giving you a choice.’ No choice? Who did he think he was, for goodness’ sake? ‘It isn’t your problem.’ She flatly refused the offer. ‘We will manage somehow,’ she insisted with more confidence than she really felt. ‘My aunt—’ ‘Your aunt,’ he interrupted, ‘is already out of the country. And since we both know that she would rather—break both wrists,’ he said, with a telling glance at Claire’s plaster-cast, ‘than be forced to play housemaid to anyone, then I think we can take her out of the equation, don’t you?’ Out of the country—out of the equation? ‘But it’s you who says where Aunt Laura goes!’ she pointed out confusedly. He didn’t even deign to answer that. Instead he lost interest in whatever was written on the computer screen and snapped it shut then straightened to give Claire his full attention. She was still standing where he had left her, looking pale, drawn, and totally bewildered. A short sigh whispered from him. ‘Look—why don’t you sit down?’ he suggested. ‘And at least allow me to call the kitchen and order you something to eat and drink. I have been with you for most of the afternoon but as far as I have seen you have only taken a couple of sips of water in all that time…’ As it was, she had already determined that she wasn’t accepting anything else from this man until she knew just what it was that was going on here, so the desire to tell him where to put his offer was strong. But she was thirsty and cold, and at this moment she was ready to kill for something hot inside her stomach. ‘A cup of tea would be nice,’ she nodded. ‘Please,’ she added belatedly. Then—seemingly because she had given in to one craving—she found herself giving in to another. While he began talking into the telephone, she turned to walk over to where two dark red velvet recliners sat flanking the blazing log fire. Sitting down hurt. But then, just about every muscle she possessed was beginning to ache now, and the other thing she really wished for was a long soak in a piping-hot bath. No chance of that, though, she thought, glancing dully at her plastered wrist. ‘Don’t get it wet,’ they’d said. ‘Tape a plastic bag around it when you bathe.’ But who taped the plastic bag? she asked herself dully, closing her weary eyes as her body sank into the softest velvet. And how did she undress herself, wash and dry herself? How did she manage all of those other little necessities that she’d taken so much for granted until today? ‘Claire…’ a deep voice prompted softly. Her eyes flicked open. Had she been asleep again? She wasn’t sure. All she did know was that she felt warm and comfortable at last. As she turned her head against the back of the chair, her sleepy eyes met with fathomless dark ones. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said. ‘But Lefka needs to know how Melanie likes her formula milk prepared?’ Melanie’s formula milk? she repeated sluggishly to herself. Oh, good grief! How could she—how could she have forgotten all about the poor baby—again? Without thinking what she was doing, she jolted to her feet. ‘Aggh!’ she cried out, as pain went screaming round her system. She had jarred her bruised ribs and she could hardly bear it! Then he was right there beside her. His long-fingered hands slid around her narrow waist to offer support while her slender body shook with violent spasms as she stood there, half bent over, trying desperately to ride the storm. ‘You little fool!’ he muttered angrily. ‘Sh-shut up,’ she gasped, needing his reproof like a hole in the head right then. Grimly, he was silenced. And for the next few minutes the only sound in the room was her fight with her own body. When it was eventually over, she wilted like a dying flower against his chest—then stayed there, feeling so utterly used up that it was a long while before she began to notice little things about him. Like the padded firmness of his breastplate acting as a cushion for her cheek. And the lean tightness of his waist where her good hand had decided to come to rest. He felt big and warm and very tough, and there was a faint spicy smell floating all around her. It was pleasantly intoxicating. ‘There is nothing of you,’ he grunted. And broke the spell. ‘I’m all right now,’ she said, pulling carefully away from him. He let her go, his hands dropping slowly to his sides while he continued to stand there at the ready—in case she did anything else just as stupid. ‘Melanie’s formula,’ she prompted flatly. ‘I didn’t bring any out with me.’ No formula, no bottles, no nappies, nothing. ‘I’ll have to go home.’ ‘We have everything you will need right here,’ he assured her. Now what was that supposed to mean? she wondered wearily, sensing another battle in the offing. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been out and bought the whole lot along with the car seat!’ she sighed out heavily. He didn’t even deign to answer that. ‘I will take you to the kitchen so you can show Lefka what she has to do.’ It was like dealing with an armoured tank driver, she thought grimly. What he didn’t want to bother with, he rolled right over! ‘Lead the way,’ she said heavily, letting him have that small victory—for Melanie’s sake, she told herself as she followed him out of the study and down the hallway towards the rear of the house. The kitchen was a housewife’s dream, all lovingly waxed wood and red quarry-tiled flooring. There was a huge Aga sitting in what Claire presumed had once been the fireplace, the kind of smells coming from the pots busy simmering away on its top enticing enough to make her stomach cry out in appeal. A young dark-haired woman of around her own age was standing near to the Aga, close to a baby’s travel cot. As Claire made eagerly for the cot, the young woman melted silently away. Melanie was lying there, wide awake for once, and looking curiously around her. She had been changed, she noticed, and was wearing what looked like a brand-new sleep suit in the softest shade of pink that showed off her olive skin and jet-black cap of fine straight hair. There was nothing about her that resembled her dead mama, Claire observed sadly—and felt the tears begin to threaten as they always did when she let herself think of her mother. ‘Please…’ she murmured a little thickly to the man who was standing silently by. ‘I need to hold her—can you get her for me?’ Common sense told her not to attempt to bend down there and scoop Melanie up for herself. ‘Of course,’ he said, and with an economy of movement he bent to lift the baby, straightened and turned towards Claire—only to pause indecisively. ‘How will you do this?’ he asked, frowning over the problem. ‘You don’t want to put any stress on your bruised ribcage.’ Looking around her, Claire decided it was probably best to ease herself into one of the kitchen chairs; at least then she could use the tabletop as an aid to take some of the baby’s weight. A moment after she had settled herself, Melanie arrived in the crook of her arm, and, resting it on the table, Claire released a long, soft, breathy sigh, then lowered her face to the baby’s sweet-smelling cheek. If anyone, having witnessed this moment, could still wonder if she really loved this baby, then they would have had to be blind. Andreas Markopoulou wasn’t blind. But he was moved in a way that would have shocked Claire if she’d happened to glance at him. Angry was the word. Harshly, coldly—frighteningly angry. ‘Ah, you come at last.’ Lefka suddenly appeared from another room just off the kitchen, the sound of her heavily accented voice bringing Claire’s head up. Looking at Claire with Melanie, the housekeeper smiled warmly. ‘You love this baby,’ she said, not asking the question but simply stating a fact. ‘Good,’ she nodded. ‘For this baby is an angel. She has stolen my heart.’ Claire had a feeling that she meant it, too; her dark eyes definitely had a love-struck look about them. ‘But she will not be happy with me if I do not feed her the bottle soon. So you will show me, please—what to do? My daughter Althea will hold the child.’ By the time Claire had escaped from the kitchen, as reassured as ever anyone could be that Melanie was in safe and loving hands, she had come to a decision. Going in search of her host, she found him sitting behind his desk, his fingers flying across the laptop keyboard while he talked on the telephone at the same time. By now, it had gone truly dark outside, and the dark red velvet curtains hanging behind him had been closed, the room softly lit by several intelligently placed table lamps that didn’t try to fight against the inviting glow of the fire. As he glanced up and saw Claire standing there, she saw that the whole effect had softened and enriched his Mediterranean skin tone, helping to smooth out the harsher angles to his lean-boned face so he looked younger somehow—much less intimidating than he had started to appear to her. ‘I’ll stay here,’ she announced. CHAPTER THREE ‘FOR Melanie’s sake,’ she added, knowing she sounded surly, but then, she was resenting her own climb-down so her voice was projecting that. But the last hour spent with Melanie had turned out to be a tough lesson in how little she was able to do for the baby in her present state. And, although witnessing the way Lefka and her daughter Althea had been efficient and gentle and unendingly caring as they saw to her sister had been the main factor that had brought about her decision, her stubborn soul found it a bitter pill to take. So Claire stood in stiff silence, watching those thoughtful eyes study her, and waited with gritted teeth for him to ask her why she had changed her mind. Yet he didn’t do that. All he did was nod his dark head in mute acceptance of her decision. A diplomat, she thought, mocking his restraint. ‘I will show you to your room, then,’ he said, coming gracefully to his feet. ‘No need.’ She shook her head. ‘Althea is going to do that. But I do need some things from my flat,’ she then added. ‘Fresh clothes and—things,’ she explained, feeling a faint flush working its way into her cheeks when she saw the way his gaze dropped automatically to the disreputable state of the ‘things’ she was presently wearing. In truth, she felt a bit like a bag lady that had been brought in off the street and allowed to experience how the other half lived. ‘If you give Althea a list of your requirements, I will send her with her father to collect them.’ Definitely the diplomat, she reiterated silently as she picked up on his carefully neutralised tone. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured politely. Then, ‘Her father?’ she questioned, realising what he had just said. ‘Nikos, my chauffeur,’ he nodded, coming around his desk. ‘They have the top floor to this house as a self-contained apartment.’ As he talked he had been walking smoothly towards her, and the closer he came, the more her nerve-ends began to flutter. Why, she wasn’t sure. Then he came to a stop in front of her and reached out to gently cup her chin, arrogantly lifting it so she had to look at him—and she knew exactly why her nerve-ends became agitated whenever he came too close. Her flesh liked to feel his flesh against it, and that implied a sexual attraction that she just did not want to acknowledge. ‘Stop being afraid of me,’ he commanded, obviously seeing something flash in her guarded blue eyes. ‘I’m not.’ She denied the charge, but pulled away from his touch anyway. Sighing slightly, he turned away from her, but not before she had glimpsed a hint of irritation with her. ‘I have the keys to your home,’ he announced, as cool and flat as calm waters. And, at her soft gasp of surprise because she hadn’t given a single thought as to where her keys were, he turned back again, to flick her with one of his unfathomable looks. ‘As you were being transferred into the ambulance, I instructed Nikos to make your flat safe and lock up,’ he explained. ‘Then if you have my keys,’ she shot at him sarcastically, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t have the whole place transferred here while I couldn’t stop you!’ She was referring to the very unpalatable fact that her sister seemed to have acquired a complete new wardrobe of clothes—plus just about every gadget ever invented to make a mother’s life an easier one! To her amazement he stiffened up as if she had just hit him! ‘I would not be so ill-mannered as to remove anything from your home without your permission!’ he informed her haughtily. ‘It would be tantamount to stealing!’ ‘Yet you felt no qualms about stealing me!’ Claire shot back. Irritation really showed on his hard face now. ‘I—stole both of you.’ He made that fine but seemingly important distinction. ‘For your own good, since we both know you cannot manage without my help. Now, can we drop this—conversation?’ he went on impatiently. ‘It is serving no useful purpose—and I have more important work to do!’ Stung by his tone and being made to feel like an awkward child who had just been severely reprimanded by an adult, Claire turned without another word and reached for the door. ‘Don’t…’ The gruff voice sounded too close to her ear. ‘Don’t what?’ she mumbled, the too ready tears not far away. He didn’t reply; instead he reached around her with his arm, his hand appearing in front of her misted vision as it closed over her own hand and gently prised it free of the door handle. Just as gently, he turned her round to face him and Claire found herself looking at the blurred bulk of his white-shirted chest once again. She heard him sigh, and wished she could stop being so pathetic! It was humiliating to keep wanting to cry like this! ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she choked. ‘Just because we fight,’ he replied, his deep voice completely wiped clean of all hint of anger, ‘it does not mean that we cannot get along with each other. It simply shows that we are two very strong-willed people who both like to win in an argument.’ It seemed to Claire that he had been winning every single battle they’d fought today—which didn’t say much for her own strength of will. ‘Well, try not to be so arrogant,’ she advised, firmly pushing herself away from him. ‘And maybe we will get through this without killing each other.’ With that she turned back to the door, opened it and walked away, rather pleased for grabbing the last word for a change—and surprised that he’d let her have it without cutting the legs out from under her. Althea showed her to a rather elegant bedroom suite decorated and furnished in a tasteful range of soft blues through to watery greens. There was a large white en-suite bathroom that seemed to have been stocked with just about every requirement anyone could possibly look for, plus a cavernous walk-in dressing room lined with custom-designed shelves and hanging space. Her pathetically few items of clothing were going to look really great in here, Claire thought ruefully, turning her attention back to the main bedroom and looking around her to decide where she was going to place Melanie’s crib when it arrived. Then she stopped, realising suddenly that she wasn’t going to be able to have Melanie in here with her! Not unless Althea or her mother came along with the baby—for how was she supposed to deal with nights feeds when she couldn’t even manage to fix a teat into a bottle, never mind everything else? ‘Where is Melanie going to sleep?’ she asked Althea, who was waiting for her to compose the list of things she needed from her flat. And even the writing of a simple list was going to be completely beyond her, she realised next. She was going to have to dictate it to Althea. Softly spoken, gentle, introverted and shy, Althea answered carefully, ‘Mamma suggests, if you agree to it, that perhaps the little one would be best sleeping next to my bed?’ Which placed not just a room between her and Melanie—but a whole wretched floor. It hit her hard, that. It had her standing there gazing helplessly around her, feeling a bit like a boat that had lost its rudder. The list didn’t take very long to dictate. After all, what did Claire need here but a few changes of clothes and the odd personal item? But it was only as Althea left to go and find her father that another thought suddenly struck her, bringing with it a rather ugly clutch of shame at the knowledge that Althea, who was used to living like—this, was going to walk into her shabby little flat and see what Claire and Melanie were more used to. And pride, Claire Stenson, is a very poor companion! She immediately scolded herself for allowing it to encroach. Hadn’t she already learned that salutary little lesson years ago when she and her mother had lost everything—even so-called lifelong friends and most of the clothes off their backs? With that stern reminder, her chin came up, and she turned her attention to something much more important. Namely, needing to use the bathroom quite urgently. Whereby she spent the next ten minutes encountering a whole new set of obstacles that took some trouble to overcome. She would have liked to fill the bath with hot, fragrant water and lie down in it for ever, but that was so much out of the question that she didn’t even bother to do much more than think how wonderful it would be. But a shower was a different proposition, she mused, with a thoughtful look at the clear glass cubicle over in the corner… Spying a long white terry-towelling robe hanging behind the bathroom door made her mind up for her. And with a sudden determination that eventually turned into a panting frustration she struggled out of her dirty clothes. She only hoped that Althea wasn’t long, because there was no way she was putting those clothes back on her body, she decided as she stood there, naked, giving the small pile in the corner of the bathroom a distasteful glare before turning away from it. Which was when she caught a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror that was fixed to one of the tiled walls, and all normal thought processes stalled for the moment as dismay completely froze her. She looked as if someone had given her a good beating. The cut at her temple was pretty minor but the lump that had formed beneath it was distorting the shape of her face! And the bruising on the left-hand side of her lower ribcage had already begun to turn an ugly back and blue. But that wasn’t all of it, she noted woefully. Not nearly all of it. Though the rest was purely personal. A painfully personal view of herself as the man downstairs must have been seeing her each time those dark eyes had settled on her, she realised with a small shudder. How much weight had she actually lost? she asked herself as she stood there feeling the shock of self-awareness ricochet through her for the first time since her mother had died. Two months ago she’d had a nice figure—even if she did say so herself! Slender and sleek, not thin and bony! Even her breasts…these small, pointed breasts had absolutely no fullness left in them! And her hair…Her good hand went up to touch her lank, lifeless hair where it hung around her pale and sadly hollowedout face. What had she been doing to herself? Where had she gone? She used to be happy, bright, always smiling, with hair and skin that glowed with health, and a well cared for, athletic body. Not this thin, lank, dull-eyed person who looked as if she’d been kicked black and blue. She was suddenly filled with an almost overwhelming urge to toss herself in the corner of the bathroom where her ruined clothes lay discarded! Yet, surprisingly, seeing a vivid picture of herself, sitting there slumped in the corner along with her torn shirt and dirty jeans, was so comical that she laughed. By the time she had managed to have a shower and shampoo her hair whilst keeping her plaster-cast dry by winding her arm around the outside of the cubical wall whilst the other hand did all the work, she emerged from the steamy confines refreshed, smelling sweet, and feeling generally a whole lot better all round. Mainly, she suspected, because she’d managed to do it all for herself without having to ask for any help. Encouraged by her own success and thinking on her feet now, she decided to let the terry bathrobe do the job of soaking up the excess moisture from her skin so she didn’t have to jar her bruises by attempting to dry herself with a towel. In fact, the only task that defeated her was knotting the robe belt around her middle. And that was such a minor thing after all the other obstacles she had so successfully negotiated that she thought nothing more about it as she walked back into the bedroom, dabbing a towel at her damp hair—only to stop dead in her tracks. ‘Oh!’ The stifled exclamation of surprise left her throat like a sigh, yet he heard it, and it brought him twisting on his heel to face her. Then, for a few short, thickening moments, neither of them moved again. It’s like having time stand still, Claire thought as she stared at his lean, dark face and felt the strangest sensation wash over her—like a sharp implement being drawn down her backbone, setting off a sensory chain reaction that had her whole system tingling. Then he spoke. ‘For goodness’ sake,’ he bit out. ‘Do you have to look so disturbed that you find me here? I have not come to ravish you—though it may be prudent for you to—do something about the robe,’ he suggested, with a grim flick of the hand that sent her wide eyes jerking downwards. In an agony of dismay she dropped the towel so she could whip the two sides of the robe together across her naked front, then clamped them there with her plastered wrist. ‘Have you never heard of knocking?’ she choked, almost suffocating in her own embarrassment. ‘I did knock,’ he replied. ‘But when I received no answer I let myself in, believing you may well be sleeping.’ ‘Which makes it all right, does it?’ She flashed him a hot, resentful glance. ‘You see nothing wrong in coming into a guest’s bedroom while she sleeps in blissful ignorance of your presence?’ If she said all of that to hit back at him for embarrassing her, it didn’t work. All he did was throw up his arrogant head and glare at her as if he was waiting for her to apologise for his intrusion! Then he let out an impatient sigh. ‘This is all so unnecessarily foolish,’ he muttered, and began striding towards her with the kind of purpose that had Claire backing warily. ‘Stop it!’ he hissed, reaching down to grab hold of the two ends of the robe belt that were hanging at either side of her. With a firm yank he brought her to a standstill, then proceeded to tower over her like some avenging dark angel. He was angry, she could see that. But there was something else going on behind that hard, tight expression that seriously disturbed her—though at that moment she wasn’t sure why. Then he bent towards her. He’s going to kiss me! she thought wildly, and gasped out some kind of shaky little protest as her heart gave a painful thump against her ribs then began palpitating madly when panic erupted in a roaring mad rush that set her brain spinning. What he actually did do was knot her robe belt around her middle. It was like being on a helter-skelter ride of outofcontrol emotion. Instead of feeling high as a kite on panic, she suddenly felt dizzy with the effects of a sinking relief. Then he kissed her. And after everything else that had gone before it she had nothing—nothing left to fight him with. The sense of relief had relaxed all the tension out of her, so he caught her undefended, his mouth crushing hers with a ruthless precision that literally shocked her breathless. Warm, smooth, very knowledgeable lips fused warmly with hers. Blue eyes wide open with shock and staring, she found herself looking straight down into the black abyss of his. The rest of her followed, free-falling into that terrible darkness without the means to stop herself. Then he was gone. As abruptly as he had made the contact, he withdrew it. ‘Now be afraid,’ he grimly invited, and while she stood there just staring at him with huge blank blue eyes he turned on his heel and strode off to the other side of the room. In the sizzling taut silence which followed she could have heard a pin drop on the thick carpet beneath her bare feet. She was too stunned to speak and he was obviously still too angry. For anger it had been that had made him kiss her like that; she wasn’t so punch-drunk as not to have recognised that. It had been a kiss to punish, not a kiss to frighten. He had already warned her several times today that he reacted badly to challenge. Well, she had just received personal experience of that bad reaction, Claire acknowledged. ‘If you ever do that again, I will scratch your eyes out,’ she informed him shakily. ‘Before or after you expose your body to me?’ He was such a merciless devil! If her legs hadn’t felt so shaky she would have gone over there and scratched his eyes out anyway! Then she remembered what it had felt like to fall into them, and shivered, the will to fight shrivelling out of her because she never wanted to risk looking into those eyes like that again. So instead she began looking around her in a rather dazed effort to remember what she had been doing when she’d discovered him here. She saw the white towel lying on the deep blue carpet and remembered she had been using it to dry the excess water off her wet hair. Knowing that bending to pick it up again was completely beyond her physical abilities at the moment, she ignored the towel and went over to the dressing table where, earlier, she had spied a hairbrush. He was standing with his back to her, in front of a polished wood tallboy inside which, Althea had shown her, were housed a television set and a very expensive-looking music system. The room with everything, she thought sarcastically, and grimaced as she picked up the hairbrush and began drawing it through her damp hair. ‘What are you here for anyway?’ she asked, needing to break through the silence. ‘I presume you did have a reason to come in here?’ He turned, stiff, tense, and supremely remote—like a man sitting alone on the top of a mountain, she thought, and felt a return of her earlier sense of humour at the absurd image. No apology forthcoming this time, she noted, and the smile actually reached her eyes. He saw it, didn’t like it and frowned, something interestingly like the pompous male equivalent to a blush streaking a hint of colour across his dark cheekbones. Fascinated by that, Claire turned more fully to face him so she could see how he was going to deal with this momentary loss of his precious composure. Recognising exactly what she was doing and why, he released a heavy sigh. ‘How are the ribs?’ Ah, a diversion, she noted. ‘Sore,’ she replied, telling the blunt truth of it. ‘And the wrist?’ ‘Agony,’ she grimaced. ‘Then maybe I did the right thing coming in here to bring you—these…’ He was holding up a small bottle of what had to be tablets. ‘Pain-killers,’ he explained. ‘Issued by the hospital. I forgot I had them.’ Half turning, he placed the bottle on the top of the tallboy. Then he turned back to Claire. ‘Where is your sling?’ Glancing down to where her plastered wrist was hanging heavily at her side, ‘I must have left it in the bathroom,’ she replied, putting down the hairbrush so she could use her hand to lift the cast into a more comfortable position resting against her middle. Without another word he strode off, his composure intact now, and his arrogance along with it, she observed as she watched him disappear into the bathroom then come out again carrying the modern version of a sling in his hand. About to approach her, he paused, thought twice about it, then—sardonically—requested, ‘May I?’ Her wry half nod gave her permission and he came forward. By then she had moved to ease herself into a sitting position on the edge of the dressing table, so he really towered over her this time as he coolly looped the sling-belt over her head then gently took hold of her plastered wrist. ‘You didn’t even get it wet,’ he remarked. ‘I’m a very clever girl,’ she answered lightly. ‘And sometimes,’ he drawled, ‘you are very reckless and na??ve.’ ‘How you can make such a sweeping remark about me when you’ve barely known me for a day is beyond me,’ she threw right back. Then she broke the banter to issue a wince and a groan as he gently eased the weighty plaster-cast into its support. Instantly his eyes flicked upwards to her face, wondrously lustrous curling black lashes coiling away from those dangerous black holes to reveal—not anger, but genuine concern. ‘How much pain are you actually in?’ he demanded huskily. A lot, she wanted to say, but tempered the reply to a rueful, ‘Some,’ that was supposed to have sounded careless but ended up quivering as it left her. The anger came back then. ‘How much and where?’ He grimly insisted on a truthful answer. ‘All over,’ she confessed as all hint of flippancy drained right out of her and her throat began to thicken with pathetic, weak tears. On a soft curse, he moved away from her again, going back into the bathroom to return carrying a glass of water. Not even glancing her way, he strode across the room to pick up the pill bottle. Coming back, he handed her the glass of water then shook two small pills into his palm. In grim silence he offered them to her. And in tearful silence she took them and washed them down with the water. A tear trickled down her cheek. She went to wipe it away with the glass—but he got there before her, his long fingers gently splaying across her damp hair while he smoothed his thumb pad across her cheek. And the worst of it was, she wanted to lean right into those splayed fingers. She wanted to bury her face in his big hard chest and sob her wretched heart out! ‘I can’t even stand up!’ she confessed despairingly. ‘My hip’s gone all stiff—and my thigh and my ribs!’ A moment later she was being lifted into his arms and it hurt like blazes but she didn’t care. ‘I am such a pathetic baby!’ she sobbed as he carried her across the room towards the bed. ‘You are hurt. You are shocked. You are exhausted,’ he responded sternly. ‘Which means you are allowed to be pathetic.’ A joke! She laughed, and the tears stopped. Laying her carefully on the bed, he reached across her and flipped the other side of the king-size duvet over her. His face was still stern, but she found she liked looking at it now. ‘How old are you?’ she asked curiously. He paused as he was about to straighten. Looked into pool-deep blue eyes—and offered her a cold little grimace. ‘As old as the hills,’ he drawled—and stood back. ‘Now rest,’ he ordered. ‘And let the pain-killers do their job. We eat in…’ he took a quick glance at the paper-thin gold watch he had wrapped around his hair-peppered wrist ‘…two hours. By then Althea should be back with your things. So you may get up and join me for dinner downstairs, or you can eat up here. The choice is yours.’ With that he turned and was gone. It was like having the fire go out suddenly, Claire decided with a shiver, then frowned, wondering why she was comparing him to a fire when he was more like a freezer most of the time… She went downstairs for dinner. Mainly because she didn’t want to be a bigger nuisance to these people than she was already being—and because she was desperate to see Melanie, who was being bathed and fed by Lefka while Althea unpacked Claire’s clothes then helped her to dress in a fresh pair of jeans and a simple black tee shirt that was loose enough and baggy enough to pull on and off without causing her too much trouble. Althea showed her into a large drawing room that was nicely decorated in champagne golds and soft greens. Another fire was burning in the grate and the soft sounds of classical music floated soothingly in the air. Andreas was there, dressed in a fresh pale blue shirt and a pair of steel-grey trousers that sat neatly on his lean waist. But what really surprised her was to find him holding Melanie comfortably at his shoulder. ‘You look better,’ he remarked, bringing her eyes up from the baby to find him running his gaze over her now shiny gold hair. It had dried on its own while she’d rested and really needed styling, but its own slight kink had saved it from looking a complete fly-away mess. ‘I feel it,’ she nodded, with a smile that brought his eyes into focus on hers. Whatever it was that was written in those dark depths, Claire suddenly found herself remembering that kiss earlier, and had to break the contact quickly before she embarrassed herself by blushing. ‘How has she been?’ she then asked anxiously, looking back at Melanie who looked so tiny against the broad expanse of his chest. ‘Like an angel,’ he drawled. ‘So Lefka informs me. She is smitten,’ he confided—then said more softly, ‘And I cannot blame her.’ He really meant it, too, Claire realised as she briefly flicked her eyes back to his face to find it softening as he glanced at the baby. ‘She is awake. Would you like to hold her?’ ‘Oh, yes, please…’ No one—unless they’d experienced it—could know what it felt like to be separated from the baby she had taken care of single-handedly since their mother had died. ‘Perhaps if you sit down on one of the comfortable chairs then you can cradle her in your lap,’ he suggested. Claire didn’t need telling twice; walking over to one of the champagne-coloured easy chairs, she sank carefully into its comfort-soft cushions then eagerly accepted the baby. The moment that Melanie saw Claire’s face smiling down on her, her tiny mouth broke into a welcoming smile. ‘She knows you,’ he said, sounding surprised. ‘Of course,’ Claire answered. ‘I’m her surrogate mother—aren’t I, my darling?’ After that she completely forgot about Andreas Markopoulou, who, after a moment or two, lowered himself into the chair opposite them then sat looking on as Claire immersed herself in the sheer pleasure of her mother’s baby, talking softly to her while Melanie looked and listened with rapt attention. Dinner was pleasant. Nothing fancy, just simple but tasty vegetable soup followed by boiled rice and thin slivers of pan-fried chicken that she could easily manage to eat by only using her fork. Refusing the deep red full-blooded wine he was drinking with his meal, she asked for water instead. And they talked quietly. Well, she talked—Claire made the wry distinction—while he encouraged her with strategically placed questions that resulted in her whole life to date getting aired at that dinner table. When she eventually sat back, talked-out and replete, having refused any dessert to finish her meal, she made herself ask the question that had been troubling her on and off throughout the whole day. Only one day? She paused to consider this with a small start of surprise. It was beginning to feel as if she’d spent a whole lifetime here with this strangely attentive, very intriguing and enigmatic man. ‘Why did you send my aunt away?’ she asked him. He sat back in his own chair to idly finger his wineglass while he studied her face through faintly narrowed eyes. ‘She was never very close to you or your mother, was she?’ he said, frustratingly blocking the question with a question. Still, Claire answered it. ‘They never got on,’ she admitted with a shrug. ‘My mother was…’ She stopped, her soft mouth twisting slightly because what she was going to say sounded as if she was being critical of a mother she’d adored—when in actual fact it wasn’t a criticism but a flat statement of fact. ‘A bit frivolous.’ She made herself say it. ‘Aunt Laura was the older sister. Much tougher and…less pretty,’ she added with wry honesty. ‘People liked to spoil my mother.’ Even I did, she thought, glancing at those slightly narrowed, intent black eyes then away again quickly. ‘Aunt Laura would have bitten their heads off for trying the same thing with her,’ she went on. ‘She’s a staunch feminist with a good business brain and she likes to use it.’ He nodded in agreement and once again Claire felt herself being subtly encouraged to continue. ‘She has no time for—sentimentality.’ Claire thought that described her aunt best. ‘Her philosophy is that if something goes wrong you either fix it or throw it away and start from scratch again,’ she explained sadly. ‘And which category do you and Melanie come under?’ ‘She wants me to have Melanie adopted,’ she replied, her expression turning cynical. ‘So you tell me because I still haven’t decided whether that particular solution is supposed to be fixing us or throwing us out.’ ‘Which means,’ he concluded, ‘that you also have not decided whether to take her advice or not.’ Shrewd devil, Claire thought bitterly, and rose tensely to her feet as the rotten truth in that statement hit sharply home. ‘Why don’t you try answering my question for a change?’ she flashed back in sheer bloody reaction. ‘And tell me why you sent her away when it has to be obvious that we needed her here right now!’ ‘I don’t need to answer the question,’ he replied, super-calm in the face of her sudden hostility. ‘For you have just answered it for yourself.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she demanded frowningly, not understanding what he was getting at. He didn’t seem inclined to explain it either, she observed as he sat there, eyes hooded, face grim while he stared fixedly at his wineglass as if he was weighing up his options. But—what options? Claire wondered in despairing confusion. She didn’t even know why she knew what he was doing! Yet the suggestion stuck while she stood there simmering with frustration and anger, waiting for him to make up his mind. Then he announced, ‘I have a proposition to put to you,’ and got to his feet, obviously having made that decision! ‘But we will go through to my study before I say any more. For we require privacy and it cannot be guaranteed here when Lefka or Althea could walk in at any moment.’ With that he turned and strode off, obviously expecting Claire to follow him. She did so, frowning and tense again—very tense as every suspicious thought she’d had about this man and his motives came rushing back. By the time Claire arrived at the study door he was already standing across the room where a tray of bottles stood on an antique oak sideboard. ‘Please shut the door behind you,’ he instructed without turning. Doing as he said, she watched in silence as he selected, uncapped and poured a rather large measure of a dark golden spirit into a squat crystal tumbler. Clearly, he needed something more fortifying than wine before he put his proposition to her! she noted, and felt her wary tension move up another couple of notches as she waited for him to speak. ‘I sent your aunt out of the country on business today,’ he began quite suddenly, ‘because I decided to get her about as far away from you as I could possibly manage.’ Claire gave a surprised start. ‘But—why?’ she gasped. ‘Why would you want to do that?’ He didn’t answer immediately; instead the glass went to his mouth so he could sip at the spirit, gathering tension all around them as it did so. It was odd—that tension—full of a tingling sense of dark foreboding that even he seemed affected by. As Claire stood there by the door with her wary eyes fixed on his hard, lean face, she gained the strong impression that, despite the decision he seemed to have come to in the dining room, he was still heavily involved in a rather uncharacteristic struggle with himself. ‘I have a—personal problem that is threatening to cause me a certain amount of—embarrassment,’ he said suddenly. ‘I do have a workable solution, however,’ he added, glancing back at his glass and tipping it slightly so the golden liquid clung to the sides. ‘But it requires a wife and a child to succeed. Meeting you today,’ he went on levelly, ‘seeing where you live and, more importantly, how you live—it occurred to me that you may well be the ideal candidate for the position…’ ‘What position?’ Claire asked, utterly lost as to what he was getting at. He grimaced into his glass—she presumed because she was forcing him into being more explicit about what he was talking about. ‘As my wife,’ he enlightened her. Then, when she still continued to stand there blank-faced and frowning in bewilderment, he lifted his eyes until they fixed sardonically on hers and said, ‘I am asking you to marry me, Claire…’ CHAPTER FOUR CLAIRE released a gasp in stunned disbelief. ‘You want to marry me?’ she repeated. Then, almost instantly, she decided, No, I’ve heard him wrong, and laughed—or rather emitted a nervous little giggle that she regretted as soon as it left her lips because the effect it had on him made her feel cruel, as his lean face closed up as tight as a drum. He’s actually serious! she realised. She felt her legs threaten to collapse beneath her and had to move over to one of the dark red recliners and lower herself carefully into it. ‘Please do not misunderstand me,’ he said, suddenly standing high on his mountain of dignity again. ‘I am not suggesting an intimate relationship. Just a—marriage of convenience if you like. Where we will maintain an appearance of intimacy. But that is all…’ No intimacy, she repeated to herself, and as quickly as that her eyes went blank as her imagination shot off to a place where she’d stared into this man’s eyes while his mouth had been fused very intimately with her own. ‘I will, of course, ensure that the—arrangement is a beneficial one for you,’ he coldly continued. ‘The advantages in being the wife of a very wealthy man do, I think, speak for themselves. And it need not be a lifetime thing—although I will have to insist that I become Melanie’s legal father or it will not work.’ ‘What won’t work?’ she questioned helplessly. But he gave a shake of his dark head. ‘I can only reveal that if I gain your agreement,’ he said. ‘But in her becoming my legal daughter,’ he went on as if she hadn’t made the interruption, ‘I will be assuring Melanie’s future—which can only be a good thing for her, since she will also become my sole heir. And if and when you decide that it is time for you to leave me so you can get on with your own life you will not go empty-handed.’ Claire’s mind was starting to scramble. She was sure that what he was actually saying here, in a carefully veiled way, was that he wanted Melanie, but if Claire had to come along with her, then he was prepared to agree to that. ‘I think you’re crazy,’ she told him. He grimaced, but didn’t argue the point. ‘You don’t even know me!’ This time it was a shrug. ‘I am a man who has always relied on my first impression of people—and I like you, Claire,’ he said, as if that should mean something special to her. ‘I even admire you for the way you have been coping on your own with a child and little to no help from anyone.’ ‘I do have help!’ she cried, her hackles rising at his too accurate reading of her. ‘Do you mean—this kind of help?’ he asked, and from his trouser pocket he withdrew a wad of bank notes. As she stared at them as if she had never so much as laid eyes on paper money before, it took a few moments for it to sink in what he was actually showing her. Her eyes shot to his. ‘Is that the money Aunt Laura left for me today?’ ‘You dropped it on the floor in your flat when you fainted,’ he explained. ‘I picked it up and placed it in my pocket for safekeeping. I counted it earlier; there is exactly one hundred pounds here,’ he informed her grimly. ‘Knowing the dire straits of your circumstances, that you owe at least four times that amount on your rent and being fully aware that you also have to exist somehow, your aunt condescended to leave you a paltry one hundred pounds.’ To Claire, who had nothing, one hundred pounds was an absolute fortune! But it obviously wasn’t to this man. For the way he tossed the money aside made his disgust more than clear. ‘In effect, what she was doing,’ he went on, remorseless in his determination to get his own point across, ‘was wearing you down so that you would begin to look on her proposal more favourably. I got that much out of her while you were half comatose,’ he inserted tightly. ‘And she was trying her best to explain to me why her only relatives were living in that kind of squalor.’ Claire closed her eyes, the word ‘squalor’ cutting right to the heart of her. ‘You already knew about her suggestion before I told you,’ she breathed, feeling the sharp sting of one that had been well and truly tricked by his quiet interest in her during dinner. Maybe he saw it. ‘I am sorry if that offends you,’ he said. ‘But it is important here that you keep your mind focused on what is best for you and Melanie. And if it has come down to a choice between having the child adopted and my offer, then I think mine is your better option.’ ‘But then you would, wouldn’t you?’ Claire pointed out, and came stiffly to her feet. ‘Now I want my baby and I want to go home,’ she informed him with enough ice-cold intent to match any he could dish out. It made his face snap with irritation. ‘Don’t be foolish!’ he rasped. ‘That is no solution and only promises you more misery!’ I’m miserable now, Claire thought unhappily. ‘I thought you were kind!’ she burst out, blue eyes bright with a pained disillusionment. ‘I thought you genuinely cared about what had happened to me! When all the time while you’ve been shadowing me around today you’ve been plotting this!’ Her voice rose on a clutch of hurt. He winced at the sound of it. ‘I am kind!’ he growled, looking faintly uncomfortable with his own role here. Claire’s thick huff of scorn made his eyes flash warningly, then, with a grimace, he seemed to be allowing her the right to be scornful. ‘I can be kind,’ he amended huskily, scraped an impatient set of long fingers through his hair, then even amended the amendment. ‘I will be kind,’ he declared in a voice that made it a promise. Still, it held no sway with Claire. ‘Thank you for the offer but no, thank you,’ she refused, moving stiffly towards the door. ‘Before you walk through that door, Miss Stenson, don’t you think you should take a moment to consider what your decision is going to mean to your sister…?’ Smooth as silk, his voice barely revealing an inflection, his words still had her steps faltering and growing still, the fine quiver touching her soft mouth sign enough that, just like her aunt, he had managed to find the right button to press without having to look very hard for it. ‘But—why?’ she cried, lifting perplexed blue eyes to his deadly ruthless face. ‘If you feel such a strong need to will your possessions to someone, then why not get a family of your own?’ It didn’t make sense—none of it did. Neither did the way he suddenly stiffened up as if he’d been shot. ‘I will never marry again,’ he said. ‘Not in the way you are suggesting anyway.’ ‘You’ve been married before?’ ‘Yes. Sofia—died six years ago.’ The confirmation was coldly blunt. ‘Oh…I’m so sorry,’ Claire murmured, her expression immediately softening into sympathy. His did the opposite. ‘I have no wish to discuss it,’ he clipped, and the way he said it was enough to stop Claire from daring to ask any more questions. But she was curious. Suddenly very curious about the woman he had lost whom he must have loved very deeply if he never wanted to marry again. Not for real, anyway, she dryly tagged onto that. ‘There are other ways these days to get children without having to commit yourself to marriage, you know,’ she pointed out gently. ‘Medical science has become quite clever in that respect.’ ‘I am Greek,’ he replied as if that explained everything. And he didn’t elaborate. Instead he pulled everything back to the main issue. ‘I want you to consider very carefully what you will be gaining if you agree to marry me. For you will get to bring up your mother’s child in the kind of luxury most people only dream of.’ Humility is not one of his strongest points, Claire made wry note. ‘Think of it,’ he urged. ‘No more living from hand to mouth. No more having to go without so you can ensure that the child is clothed and fed. No worrying where the next week’s rent is coming from. Instead,’ he concluded, listing the advantages of his so-called proposal in much the same way her aunt had done when talking about Melanie’s adoption, ‘you will receive a generous monthly allowance to do with what you will. And since all our homes will have more than enough paid staff to relieve you of the less enjoyable chores involved in caring for a baby you will have the time and the leisure to enjoy life rather than sacrificing it to your baby sister.’ ‘I don’t see it as a sacrifice.’ Her chin came up, blue eyes glittering with indignation. ‘And I resent the implication that I may do.’ ‘My apologies,’ he retracted instantly. ‘It was not my intention to offend.’ No, Claire could see it wasn’t. This was just too important to him to want to risk offending her—which immediately brought about her next question. ‘Why does it mean so much to you to get me? To get Melanie?’ she asked. ‘You could walk out of here right now and simply pick up a dozen women with children who could fill this role just as well as we can!’ ‘But I want you both,’ he stated simply. ‘Why don’t you ask yourself why it is that you are so afraid of what I am offering you?’ ‘Because it feels wrong,’ she replied, then added honestly, ‘And I’m too young for this role.’ ‘Or is it me who is too old?’ He’s the type who will never be old. ‘How old is that exactly? And don’t give me the flippant answer I got the last time I asked you that question,’ she warned. ‘Because I’m serious. If you want me to consider your proposition I need to know.’ ‘Thirty-six,’ he replied, and grimaced at her astonished expression. She gave a small sigh, then turned to lean back against the closed door. ‘This is crazy,’ she muttered, thinking out loud. But what was even crazier was the knowledge that she was beginning to waver. No more worries, she told herself. No more living from day to day in a place she hated with no prospect of ever getting something better—if you didn’t count what was being offered here. Then there was Melanie to consider. Melanie, who would want for nothing for the rest of her life, if his sincerity was to be believed. It was all very seductive, she mused, lifting her hand to gently rub at the bump on her temple as her head began to ache. He saw the gesture and was instantly all concern. ‘It is clear that you have had enough for one day,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Let us leave this for now, and come back to it tomorrow when you are feeling more rested.’ He was right—and she had taken enough, Claire acknowledged wearily. But she said, ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘I won’t sleep for worrying about all of this unless we resolve it now.’ She lifted tired, bruised, anxious eyes to his. ‘Will you please tell me why you need a ready-made wife and baby?’ she begged. There was a pause, then he asked smoothly, ‘Are you telling me you are going to accept my proposition?’ He isn’t going to give a single inch to me, she noted. ‘I’m thinking about it,’ she replied. ‘Then while you think I will think about telling you why I want you to marry me.’ Cat and mouse. Cut and thrust. ‘Then goodnight,’ she said, and turned back to the door. ‘I like the hair, by the way…’ Her hair? Her hand went up, self-conscious fingertips lightly touching the ends of a fine silk tendril. ‘It is such a wonderful colour…’ ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, blushing slightly at the unexpected compliment. ‘Neither blonde nor red,’ he softly observed. ‘But a rather fascinating mixture of the two…I wonder what colour it will go with a Greek sunset pouring all over it?’ ‘I’ve never been to Greece,’ Claire sighed, heard the wistful note in her voice and knew that he must be able to hear it too. ‘You’ll love it,’ he promised as he walked towards her. ‘Sizzling hot days and delightfully warm nights. Though you will have to protect your fine white skin from the sun,’ he warned. ‘But Melanie’s skin will love it. Whatever nationality her father was, he gifted her with the rich olive skin of a true Mediterranean.’ ‘Spanish,’ Claire inserted. ‘Her father was Spanish.’ Then a sudden thought had her glancing sharply at him. ‘Is that why you want her?’ she asked. ‘Because she has the right skin tone to be passed off as your daughter?’ But he shook his dark head. He was standing so close to her now that she could actually see the wry humour hovering in his dark eyes. ‘With a golden-haired, pale-skinned English wife, my child could have been blessed with her colouring,’ he pointed out. Looking away again, Claire frowned, the conundrum behind his reason for wanting them beginning to irritate her like an itch she couldn’t quite reach. ‘Well…’ She gave a small shrug of one narrow shoulder as if the itch were situated there, and turned away from him yet again. ‘I’ll…’ ‘My family is trying to make me marry again, and produce an heir to my fortune.’ He caved in so suddenly and produced the information that for a moment Claire couldn’t believe that he’d actually done it! It went so against what she’d believed she’d already learned about his calculating nature! ‘They have my proposed bride already picked out for me,’ he went on. ‘And the pressure is mounting because my grandmother is ill. She wants to hold her great-grandchild before she dies. And since I am the only grandson she has it is up to me to grant her that wish.’ ‘How ill?’ Claire asked gently. ‘Very.’ The shadowy outline of his mouth flicked out that grim brief smile again. ‘She is ninety-two years old and has just suffered her second stroke. She does not have long left on this earth.’ And he loves her and is going to miss her dreadfully, Claire realised as she saw a darkness come down over those unfathomable eyes, and felt her heart give a pinch of well understood sympathy. ‘I don’t have time to play around with alternatives,’ he admitted. ‘So your arrival in my life was a piece of good fortune I could not afford to dismiss. As I have told you before, I respond to my instincts. And my instincts tell me that we three could make a good team.’ His eyes flicked up, clashed with her eyes and Claire suddenly felt as if she were falling again. ‘When my grandmother is no longer here to see it happen, you can leave whenever you are ready to…’ No hearts compromised, no feelings touched. ‘More like a temporary job, in fact.’ ‘For you, yes,’ he agreed, with a small shrug. ‘But not for Melanie…’ he made firmly clear. ‘Melanie will be my daughter in every way I can make it so. I want her, Claire,’ he added huskily. ‘I need her.’ ‘But will you love her?’ she challenged. ‘As my own and all my life,’ he vowed. And he meant it; Claire could see that in the fierce glow of a powerful intent that suddenly lit his eyes. I wish somebody wanted me like that, she found herself thinking wistfully. ‘And when I decide to go—what happens to Melanie?’ ‘She goes with you,’ he said—but only after a hesitation that hit a warning button inside her head. ‘So long as you will promise to respect my rights as her legal father, we will agree on an affable arrangement which will suit both of our needs where she is concerned. For Melanie’s sake alone, it has to be her best chance in life, don’t you think?’ For Melanie’s sake, Claire repeated silently, knowing exactly where she had heard those words before, and not liking the sensation that trickled down her spine at the connection. But, despite that nasty sensation, one important thing she did know for sure was that, having once lived in privileged comfort herself—though not anywhere near the style he was offering Melanie here—and having gained tough experience at the poorer end of the scale, Claire knew which end of that scale she preferred to be. ‘I’ll do it,’ she heard herself say. ‘For Melanie’s sake.’ And only wondered as she did so whether this hadn’t been a case of him caving in first, but simply a very astute man knowing exactly when to play his final card. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘I will promise you, Claire, that you will never have cause to regret this decision.’ But she was already regretting it as early as the next morning when she came down the stairs ready to tell him that she had changed her mind. At which point she discovered that Andreas Markopoulou had pulled yet another tactical move on her, by going abroad on business for the next frustratingly long week. Melanie, in the meantime, was beginning to bloom with all the tender loving care both Lefka and Althea were ladling upon her. Claire didn’t hear her cry once! Secretly she found it hurtful. For, under Claire’s exclusive care, the little girl had hardly ever stopped crying since their mother had died. Then, most hurtful of all, was the way her aunt hadn’t once bothered to get in touch with her. Whether that was her aunt’s own indifference or Andreas Markopoulou’s doing she didn’t know. But, knowing Aunt Laura as well as she did, if she’d wanted to contact Claire then she would have done, no matter what her big tycoon boss might say. But, as the week slid by, at least her body began to heal; the bump on her temple disappeared altogether and her bruises began to fade. Even her hurt feelings had given way to a dull acceptance—along with her acceptance that she could no more take Melanie away from what she was receiving here than sprout wings and fly. So it was that she was sitting in the solarium at the back of the house, gently pushing Melanie’s pram to and fro to rock the baby to sleep, when a voice murmured to one side of her, ‘You look a lot better…’ She didn’t turn to look at him, but her hand stopped rocking the baby carriage. And her heart gave an excited leap that left her feeling tense and shaky. Still, at least her voice was steady when she answered coolly, ‘A week is a long time.’ ‘Ah…’ He came forward, his footsteps sounding on the quarry-tiled floor beneath his feet. ‘I thought it best to leave you alone to—come to terms with your decision.’ So he was admitting to a retreat, she noted, and was oddly pacified by that—then even more so when he paused at the pram to bend down and inspect Melanie. ‘She’s asleep,’ he whispered. But it was the way he stroked a gentle finger over the baby’s cheek in much the same way that Claire did that touched a warm spot inside her. Then, pulling up one of the other cane chairs, he sat down beside her. ‘How is the wrist?’ he enquired. ‘Better,’ she told him. ‘And the ribs?’ ‘They don’t hurt when I laugh any more,’ she replied with a grin she turned to offer directly to him. Then wished she hadn’t when her heart gave that funny leap again, making the tiny muscles deep in her stomach coil up in reaction. He looked lean and dark and sun-kissed, as if he’d just stepped off a plane from a place where the weather had been a lot pleasanter than it had been here in England. She felt a tingling urge to reach out and touch his face just to feel if it was as warm as it appeared to be. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked instead, leaving the less tactile medium of words to assuage her curiosity. ‘You sound like a wife,’ he mocked, his dark eyes flickering slightly as he scanned her face where even Claire had noticed the stray-waif look was beginning to fade. ‘Not yet,’ she drawled in answer. ‘And for all you know I may have changed my mind.’ ‘Have you?’ The urge to prolong his agony and lie almost got the better of her, but in the end she said, ‘No,’ and they were both silent for several minutes. The baby made a snuffling sound and she began rocking the pram again. It was all very—ordinary. ‘I’ve been in Greece,’ he announced, answering her earlier question. ‘With my grandmother,’ he added, and though his tone was level Claire knew instinctively that something was wrong. ‘She’s worse, isn’t she?’ she said. ‘Fading fast,’ he grimaced—then added briskly, ‘So I have set her a task to do to keep her mind occupied. She is planning our wedding as we speak.’ Startled, Claire straightened in the chair. ‘Our wedding?’ she repeated. ‘But I thought you wanted to present her with a fait accompli!’ ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That would not have worked quite so successfully as the story I have now fed her.’ ‘Which is—what?’ she demanded, only managing to keep her angry voice down in respect of the sleeping Melanie. ‘That you are young and very beautiful…’ Beautiful? Claire stared directly ahead and wondered how he could lie so glibly, because the one thing she wasn’t was beautiful! Passably attractive when at her best, she conceded. But nothing more than that. ‘I told her that we had shared a—liaison some time last year,’ he went on. ‘But because of your youth I broke it off, not knowing I was leaving you carrying my child…’ Lie number two, she counted, and began to see for the first time what mire of deceit she was about to fall into. ‘But I could not get you out of my mind—which was why I found it so impossible to agree to marry another woman while I still wanted you. So I went to see you,’ he explained. ‘And as for the rest—’ he shrugged ‘—it tells itself.’ It certainly did, Claire agreed, seeing herself as this tragic young woman who’d fallen for the big handsome Greek tycoon who was, by the sound of it, not far off his dotage. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘the new slant I have put on our—story—’ he used the word dryly ‘—was done to serve a second purpose…’ Now what? Claire wondered, feeling the fine hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle warningly. ‘For this way you don’t have to like the fact that you are marrying me,’ he explained. ‘Being the arrogant dictator that everyone seems to think I am—including you—no one is going to question the idea that you have been—coerced into becoming my wife for the sake of our child. Which also means you get your own bedroom without tongues wagging,’ he pointed out. ‘While I must—earn your affections again.’ ‘And thereby ends the tale when I eventually turn my back on you and walk away,’ Claire finished for him. ‘Not quite the stuff of a romantic novel, is it?’ she mocked. ‘Life rarely is,’ he drawled, sounding suddenly so cold that Claire couldn’t believe her ears! With one lightly mocking comment she seemed to have turned him to stone! Stiffly, he came to his feet. ‘We leave for Greece in the morning,’ he announced. ‘Now I have some work to do. So if you will excuse me…’ And, with a curt little bow, he was gone! What was all that about? Claire found herself wondering in blank bewilderment. And spent the next half an hour trawling over every single word they’d said to each other without coming up with a single thing which could have caused that kind of reaction! His grandmother: she finally decided to blame it on her. It had to be because he was worried about her. But deep down inside she somehow knew that wasn’t true. CHAPTER FIVE THEY flew out to Athens by private charter then transferred to a helicopter for the final leg of the journey. It was all very comfortable, a very trouble-free way to travel in fact. Claire was impressed—despite not wanting to be, for she still hadn’t forgiven Andreas for his sudden coldness the day before. Melanie was with them, which had surprised her rather. She had expected him to insist that the baby travel with Lefka and her family, who were to close up the London house before catching a later flight. But what really astonished her was the way Andreas took personal responsibility for the baby by seeing to her needs throughout the whole journey. He was more relaxed than she had ever seen him before. A bit quiet, maybe, but very attentive. So much so that it was a shame that she was still feeling so annoyed with him, because she suspected that he was doing all of this as a way to make up for his bewildering attitude. Yet he hadn’t apologised for it, or explained it. He blew hot and cold on her so swiftly that it seemed to be easier to withdraw and keep herself aloof from him rather than risk having it happen all over again. ‘Here, let me help you…’ Cradling the baby in one big arm, he offered Claire the steadying strength of the other to help her negotiate the long step down from the helicopter. With one hand out of action and because she was wearing her only good suit today—a summer-blue silk-linen mix with a fitted jacket and skirt that would not allow her much flexibility in her steps—she needed his help, so she couldn’t refuse. But feeling that rock-solid forearm flex beneath her palm had such a disturbing effect on her that she removed her hand just as soon as she could do it. But, worse, she knew that he had sensed her reluctance to touch him when she saw his mouth tighten as he turned away to carry Melanie away from the noise of the rotor blades. Smothering a heavy sigh, Claire followed more slowly, feeling decidedly at odds with herself and most definitely at odds with him. She hadn’t slept last night for worrying and fretting about this whole crazy situation. Now she felt tired and fed up and… ‘Oh,’ she gasped, coming to a surprised standstill at his side as she focused at last on her new surroundings. Set in vast formal gardens, the house stood like a statement to all that was right in grace and architectural posture. No one feature had been allowed to dominate. The walls were painted in the softest cream, the woodwork glossy white, and the roof was constructed in flat grey slate rather than the terracotta she would have expected. A first-floor veranda ran right across the front of the house, casting gentle shade onto the terrace below, where the palest blue-cushioned wooden garden furniture waited invitingly. Over to one side of the house, she could see a large swimming pool shimmering in the afternoon sunshine, and even spied a second pool under a high domed glass roof attached to the house itself. If there was a road nearby, she could neither see nor hear any evidence of it, but a long straight driveway led off into the distance, lined on either side by tall cypress trees. ‘But this is lovely,’ she murmured. ‘Praise indeed,’ he drawled with cutting sarcasm. ‘I was beginning to think that nothing was going to please you.’ With that he turned his back on her again to walk off towards the house. With a small grimace, Claire followed, half allowing him his right to have lost his grasp on all of that quiet patience he had been doling out to her all day. He had stepped beneath the shaded end of the terrace before pausing to allow her to catch up with him, his long, lean body making a half turn so he could watch her approach through slightly hooded eyes. Glancing up and noticing his scrutiny, Claire felt a self-conscious flush of heat wash through her system and quickly looked away again. What was he seeing when he looked at her like that? she wondered. A very big mistake walking towards him? While she saw a tall, dark, very handsome man with cold black eyes, an unsmiling mouth, and a proud tilt to his chiselled chin that seemed to be trying to tell her something. Though what that something was, she couldn’t have said. The man was a complete enigma. Hot-cold. Soothe-cut. Approach and retreat. She listed these characteristics of his behaviour with a rueful tilt to her unhappy mouth that seemed to further annoy him. He shifted slightly, looking stiffly tense. The baby woke up with a start and gave a small cry. Claire covered the final few yards in a couple of light dancing steps, her mothering instincts alerted without her even being aware of it. In the end she wasn’t needed. When he glanced down at the baby to find her eyes were open, all the hardness simply melted clean out of him as he lifted a finger to gently touch the baby’s small, pointed chin. But what really took Claire’s breath away was the way Melanie’s sweet little smile appeared. She knows him already! she realised with a shock. ‘Hey,’ she complained, peering over his arm so she could look at her sister. ‘Those smiles are supposed to belong to me!’ she scolded. As she heard her voice, Melanie’s eyes found her face and stuck firmly to it. ‘That’s better,’ Claire grinned, so engrossed in the baby that, far from being disturbed by his closeness, she didn’t even notice the way she was leaning against Andreas so she could monopolise the baby’s attention. If she had, she would have realised how still he had gone. How his hooded eyes had become even more hooded as he settled them on the top of her golden head. ‘What a seductive picture,’ a beautifully cultured but coldly sarcastic voice intruded. ‘I wish I had my camera,’ it drawled. ‘Then I could capture the image for posterity and you could hang it on the wall as an example of perfect family harmony…’ Two heads came up, one dark, one fair, both faces revealing different expressions. Claire’s was startled by this totally unexpected attack; Andreas’s was—resigned. ‘Desmona…’ he greeted smoothly. ‘How—nice to see you.’ But it wasn’t nice. Desmona wasn’t nice and Andreas wasn’t being nice. The warm Greek air had suddenly turned chilly and Claire shivered accordingly as she watched the other woman begin walking towards them along the shaded terrace. She was outstandingly beautiful. A tall and willowy silver-blonde in her early thirties, at a guess, whose silverbluesilkencased body glided gracefully as she moved. Money, class and a lifetime of believing herself to be special were reflected in that walk, Claire noted. Though it was Desmona’s eyes that held her thoroughly captivated. If Andreas’s eyes could remind her of black ice sometimes, then the silver-grey ones looking at her now could have been set in permafrost, and they intimidated enough to have Claire inching backwards in wary retreat. The back of her head hit a firmly cushioned shoulder at the same time as an arm curved around her, angling across her rigid back so long, lean brown fingers could rest on her narrow waist. Claire never even considered the idea of moving away from him—not while those silvery eyes were fixed on her anyway. Was she family? Did she live here? she wondered curiously. I hope not, she prayed, with a small shudder. ‘This, Claire,’ Andreas informed her levelly, ‘is my sisterinlaw Desmona Markopoulou…’ Sister-in-law? With a small start, she flashed him a frowning glance. She was sure he had told her that he was the only grandson. ‘Widowed sister-in-law.’ It was Desmona herself who unwittingly cleared the puzzle as she came to a smooth stop just in front of them. But Claire didn’t even like the way she said that. ‘May I be the first to welcome you to your new home?’ Desmona murmured graciously. ‘Thank you,’ Claire politely replied. She was offered a long-fingered, very slender white hand. Claire’s own palm began to tingle in anticipation of having to brush against the other woman’s satin-smooth skin. Then the need to touch each other at all was suddenly saved when Claire remembered belatedly that her right hand was in a sling—at about the same moment that Desmona noticed it. ‘Oh, you are injured,’ she remarked. Her English was superb, spoken with an accent that was barely noticeable. Claire smiled nervously. ‘An accident.’ She didn’t bother to elaborate. ‘So I am afraid I can’t…’ She gave a jerky gesture towards Desmona’s outstretched hand; the hand fluttered a little then dropped. Clearly picking up on the tension suddenly surrounding them all, Melanie let out another protesting cry. Desmona’s eyes flicked from Claire to the baby, and in the sudden taut silence which followed something in her expression subtly altered. ‘She is like you, Andreas,’ she remarked casually enough, though. ‘She is my daughter,’ he answered just as casually. ‘What else would you expect?’ No reply was forthcoming, but the silence lashed to and fro with the kind of bitter words Claire could sense but not follow. Then the silver eyes were shifting back to Claire, and the cold mask, which had slipped slightly, was suddenly back in place as Desmona politely excused herself before walking gracefully away along a formally set pathway that took her around the side of the house. ‘Good grief,’ Claire breathed as the air left her body in a single relieved whoosh. ‘What was all that about?’ For a moment Andreas didn’t answer, his attention thoughtfully fixed on Desmona’s steadily receding figure. Then he surprised Claire with a short, sardonic laugh. ‘You have just met the family choice for my bride,’ he said dryly. ‘Your late brother’s wife?’ she gasped, tipping her head back to stare at him in shocked disbelief. He was already looking down at her, so their eyes clashed. The surface of her skin began to tingle, her insides along with it. She could feel herself beginning to fall into those devilish black eyes again and couldn’t seem to do a single thing to stop it. ‘Timo was a lot older than me,’ Andreas was explaining, seemingly unaware of the strange sensations Claire was beginning to experience every single time she looked into those eyes now. ‘They think I owe his widow something for inheriting on his death.’ ‘But that’s archaic,’ she denounced, having to struggle to keep her mind locked on the conversation and not on the man she was having the conversation with. ‘When did your brother die?’ The bleak, pained look that came into his eyes occasionally was beginning to make more sense now, she realised as she watched it appear again. ‘Just over a year ago,’ he replied. So, he had lost a wife he loved six years before, and a brother only recently. ‘I’m sorry,’ Claire murmured. ‘So am I.’ He smiled that brief grim smile. ‘I miss him.’ ‘I know.’ She nodded in understanding. ‘You catch yourself looking round to speak to them only to feel that dreadful clutch of emptiness when you find they’re not there and you remember…’ His dark lashes gave a flicker. Claire’s breath caught on a softly inhaled little gasp when she saw the usual knock-back on its way. So she was totally unprepared for it when instead he bent his head and kissed her fully on her mouth. If this was another punishing kiss for encroaching where he didn’t want her to, then it didn’t quite work out like that. Caught so off guard with her lips parted and her body relaxed, she was powerless to stop what happened next as she fell headlong into that kiss. I don’t need to be looking into those eyes to feel like this, she realised as her whole mouth softened and drew him deeper, touching tongues—tongues that caused a sharp, hot electric charge to go racing through her blood. It was devastating, the most passionate encounter she had ever experienced. And if he wasn’t feeling it with her, then he was certainly feeling something that made a muffled groan break in his throat and his chest heave against her resting head before he completely caved in and threw himself passionately into that kiss. If he hadn’t been holding Melanie, Claire had a horrible feeling he would have fallen on her like a ravenous wolf. As it was his stance shifted slightly and the hand resting at her waist became a clamp to wedge her back hard up against the full length of his side with a need to increase and compound upon what was suddenly running rife between them. It was crazy—totally crazy, she kept on telling herself over and over. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was a business arrangement. No intimacy. No intimacy. But if this wasn’t being intimate then she didn’t know what was. And she could smell the clean spicy smell of him—was being enveloped by it—stormed by it! Even her bruised ribs weren’t bothering to put up any protest at being clamped so tightly against him—they were too busy being under attack from the other side where her heart was pounding wildly in response to the whole mad, hot onslaught. Then he groaned again, and in the next moment she was abruptly set free. In a dizzy haze of complete and utter disorientation, she reeled away. Legs like lead, eyes in a fog, she stumbled from beneath the terrace overhang and out into the sunshine. ‘Where are you going?’ His voice sounded hoarse and husky. But it brought her to a stop. ‘I—don’t know,’ she answered honestly, too confused to care how stupid she must sound. Or stupefied, she then thought numbly, and wished the grass beneath her feet would open up and swallow her whole so she didn’t have to make herself turn around and face him. Not that she needed to look to know exactly what she would see—a dark devil who had the kiss of hell in his repertoire, she thought fancifully. A dark devil no less, who was cradling a sweet little baby on his arm, she added, and let out a strangled laugh that seemed to echo plaintively in the somnolent warmth of the afternoon quietness. Yet he didn’t sound like a devil when he said, ‘Come back, Claire,’ very gently. ‘You’re quite safe here; please believe me…’ Safe, she repeated to herself. Tears sprang. Wretchedly she blinked them away. Then, on a small, tight, thickened suck of air, she attempted to pull herself together before turning round again. She didn’t look at him—refused to do so as she made her shaking limbs carry her back into the shade. Coming to her side, he paused for a moment, and her senses began to sting in an agony of need for him to say not another word! He must have sensed it and held his silence, which was something else she was realising about him—he picked up her feelings very easily. Which made her what? Claire wondered dizzily as they both began walking in silence along the terrace towards the door. Pathetically transparent? ‘I…’ Desperately she searched her foggy brain for something casual to say so she could pretend the kiss just hadn’t happened. And found it when the sound of a car engine powering into life reminded her of Desmona. ‘Does Desmona live here in this house?’ ‘She has her own apartment in Athens,’ he replied. ‘But she comes to visit my grandmother quite regularly. Claire, listen to me,’ he then urged huskily. ‘Oh, good,’ she cut in, agitatedly aware he was going to say something about that wretched kiss, and equally sure she did not want to hear it. ‘Then I won’t have to watch my back for flying knives,’ she joked, and managed to gain some reassurance from the fact that she could joke while she was feeling like this. They turned together into a vast hallway with a white ceramic floor, cream walls and a white-painted staircase that swept gracefully upwards to a galleried landing above. It was all very grand. Very— At which point her brain ground to a stop when she found herself confronted by a long line of shyly smiling and expectant faces. Oh, what now? she groaned inwardly, eyeing the long row of what could only be the staff needed to run this big house, looking at the uniform neat pale pink dresses and white aprons the females were wearing, while it was white shirts and dark trousers for the men. Then, on a sudden flashback to a few minutes ago, her face suffused with mortified colour. ‘Do you think they saw us outside?’ she breathed for his ears alone, while having a sudden horrendous vision of them all crowding at the windows to watch Andreas kissing her. ‘If they did,’ he drawled, ‘then we will have no need to labour the game-plan.’ It hit her then just what had been going on outside. That kiss had been part of this deception! No impulse, she realised. But merely part of his precious game-plan to make their liaison appear genuine. She felt oddly cheated. No, worse than that. She felt used. ‘Shall we get this over with?’ he suggested, while she was still struggling with the appalling proof of just how ruthless this man could be! With a light touch to the rigid line of her spine he prompted her into motion. For the next five minutes, face after face went by in a blur of smiles and curiously craning necks as his staff tried to get a peep at the sleeping baby lying in the crook of their employer’s arm. In fact the only face that registered was that of a young girl on the end of the row who reminded her of Althea. She stepped forward and shyly offered to take Melanie from Andreas. While Claire stood by, intensely conscious of everyone’s eyes on her, Andreas exchanged a few words in Greek with the young girl before he handed over Melanie. ‘I don’t believe you put me through that,’ she hissed when eventually he began leading the way up the staircase to the landing above, giving the staff the chance to crowd around the young girl holding Melanie. ‘It was not set up for your benefit but for theirs,’ he came back crushingly. ‘They need to know who it is they are going to be dealing with since you will in effect be the lady of the house.’ Lady of the house? Claire almost tripped over the next stair in trembling dismay! His hand came out to steady her—she didn’t even notice! ‘But I can’t order those people around, Andreas!’ she protested, not noticing either that she had used his name for the first time in her urgency to get her point across. ‘I just wouldn’t know how!’ ‘You will get used to it,’ he murmured indifferently. ‘But I don’t want to get used to it!’ she snapped, and at last realised he was touching her again and angrily tugged her arm free. ‘Fine,’ he concurred, letting her go—but only, she suspected, because they had reached the top of the stairs anyway, so she wasn’t likely to trip over again. ‘Then let Lefka do it when she arrives,’ he suggested carelessly. She had forgotten all about Lefka, who, she had learned in London, presided over whichever household Andreas was staying in. So—yes, she thought in relief, let Lefka do it. And felt her pounding heart settle down to a steadier pace. She was used to dealing with Lefka… She followed Andreas along a galleried upper landing to a glossy white-painted door that led, she discovered, to a suite of rooms very similar to the suite she had been allocated in his London home, only this suite was decorated in neutral shades of the palest gardenia and grey. While Claire walked over to the window to check out the view, Andreas walked across the thick carpet to another door and pushed it open. ‘My rooms,’ he announced, bringing her swinging abruptly to face him. ‘But no key,’ he dryly pointed out. ‘So you will just have to trust me to behave myself.’ Was he really insensitive enough to joke about it after that kiss? Claire wondered furiously, and turned her back on him to walk over to the other side of the room where she opened another door, hoping to find a bedroom where Melanie would sleep. But a bathroom done in colours to match the bedroom gleamed cleanly back at her. ‘Where is Melanie going to sleep?’ she turned to ask. ‘In the nursery on the other side of the house,’ he said. ‘I will show you later…’ He was already striding towards the only other door left in the room to open. Claire watched him, wondering what could be left to uncover. She remembered the huge dressing room in the London house and once again was ruefully envisaging her sad wardrobe inside it. The door came open at his touch, and he turned to Claire. ‘Come and look,’ he invited. Not a dressing room, then, she assumed, walking curiously forward—only to go still in a state of breathless surprise when she realised that she was not only right and that this was indeed a dressing room, but also that her wardrobe of clothes certainly would be lost inside it—amongst the racks and rails and shelves already filled to bursting with the most exquisite things she had ever seen. Expensive clothes. Designer clothes. Some of them very formal evening clothes. Yet still the kind of modern clothes any fashion-conscious twenty-one-year-old would die to possess. ‘For me?’ she asked breathlessly. ‘Yes,’ he replied, and watched grimly the way her fingers trembled as she lifted them to cover equally tremulous lips. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she whispered. ‘Your response says it for you,’ he responded quietly. ‘I will never be able to wear this much!’ she cried, her eyes beginning to shine with unshed tears of excitement as those same trembling fingers reached out to touch a fine georgette top in smoky mauve with a matching shantung silk skirt to go with it. ‘Try,’ he invited. Then she suddenly thought just what she was doing. ‘You must think me very mercenary,’ she groaned, turning to find him leaning lazily against the open door, his dark eyes fixed on her expressive face. ‘I think you are exquisite,’ he answered deeply, reaching out to touch his cool fingertips to the satin-smooth heat in one of her cheeks, his expression so unimaginably sombre that it trapped the air inside her chest. Then he was turning away from her in that now familiarly abrupt way of his. ‘Enjoy,’ he invited with a careless wave of his hand. ‘Enjoy.’ And he was gone, disappearing through the connecting door to his own room, leaving Claire standing there with her own palm now pressed where his fingertips had been. Her thoughts locked on that terrible—terrible expression she had glimpsed on his face before he’d walked away from her. It hurt so much to see it that she had a sudden urge to run after him, throw her arms around his neck and tell him not to be so sad, for she loved him; surely that had to count for something—? Is that what I’m doing? Claire asked herself starkly. Am I falling in love with him? He picks you up off the road, dusts you off, takes you home and feeds you. He then sweeps all your troubles away by replacing them with a whole new set of troubles—and you decide he’s the man to fall in love with? Sold, she grimly mocked herself. For the price of a big house and a load of designer clothes, to the ruthlessly calculating man in the corner with the attitude problem worth falling in love with! Well…Her chin came up, the light of a battle entering her eyes, though she knew the battle was now with herself. Marching forward, she firmly knocked on his door then swung it open. ‘I want to talk to my aunt Laura,’ she announced forcefully. And thereby learned just how he must have felt when she’d walked out of the bathroom in his London home, with her robe hanging open down her naked front! OK, she allowed as her senses roared into an overdrive she had never, ever before had to contend with. So he wasn’t quite naked. But there was only one piece of clothing left on his big, sleek, muscle-rippling dark golden body for him to take off—and those black silk briefs were not hiding very much! Certainly not the powerful build of his legs or the kind of muscular torso Atlas himself would envy! Wonderful wide shoulders, she listed bemusedly. Lean, powerful hips, and the dynamic evidence of a— ‘Get the hell out of here!’ he snarled. Claire almost left her skin behind as she jumped in response. Her eyes flickered then focused too late—much too late—to save her own dignity, never mind his. For it was only then that she realised just where she had been staring! She whipped out of that room as fast as her shaking legs could take her. Pulling the door shut behind her, she wilted weakly against the wall beside it, squeezing her eyes tight shut so she could beg whoever it was who could make these things happen that they take back the last thirty dreadful seconds! No chance. She wasn’t even allowed a few minutes to recover her composure before that damn door was shooting open again. Pausing to scan the room for her, Andreas found her standing there cringing like an idiot against the wall with her eyes squeezed tightly shut. Swinging himself around, he slapped his hands on the wall at either side of her head so he could push his face up close to hers like the dark avenger in search of a victim. ‘What the hell did you think you were doing barging into my room like that?’ he raked at her furiously. ‘I’m sorry,’ she choked, feeling his angry breath warm on her face, but keeping her eyes shut because she still wasn’t ready to take on board how she had been so crass as to stare at his body like that. ‘I didn’t think. I just—’ ‘Didn’t think?’ he interrupted. ‘Have you any idea how close you came to completely embarrassing both of us?’ Oh, yes, she thought, with a telling little shudder, she had a very vivid idea how close she had come. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sorry—I’m sorry!’ Small white teeth appeared, biting hard into her bottom lip, her only good hand clenching into a fierce fist while she tried very hard to dismiss the image that was still cruelly filling her head. Another sigh rasped her face. ‘You idiot,’ he murmured, and the anger seemed to be easing out of him. ‘Next time knock and wait until you are invited before opening that door, and save both our blushes.’ ‘Ditto,’ she found the presence of mind to counter. It took him a moment, then he huffed out a laugh. ‘I suppose you do have a point,’ he conceded. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked then. ‘You have gone a really strange shade of puce. Never actually seen a man naked before, hmm?’ He was taunting her! she realised. ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me!’ she flashed, her eyes shooting open in sheer reaction. Oh, good grief. He was very close. She hadn’t realised just how close until she found herself staring into those devilish black eyes bare inches away. But at least he’d stopped long enough to pull on a robe, she noted with relief. ‘And of course I’ve seen men naked before,’ she lied, lifting her chin to throw the words at him like a challenge. ‘Loads of them as a matter of fact,’ she added for good measure. ‘And you weren’t naked.’ ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he drawled. ‘I certainly felt it.’ His mocking tone sent her eyes tight shut again. This isn’t really happening, she told herself firmly. It’s all just a very bad dream. This time it was a soft huff of laughter that brushed across her heated face. Then—thankfully—he straightened away from her. ‘Now, what did you want?’ Claire shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ In truth, she couldn’t remember now what had sent her into his room like that. ‘You mentioned your aunt, I seem to remember.’ The rotten swine knew she had forgotten. ‘Where is she?’ she demanded. ‘Why hasn’t she been in touch with me?’ ‘Probably because it is more than her job is worth to try,’ he answered laconically. Claire frowned, beginning to relax a little now he had put a bit more distance between them. ‘If you dislike her so much—’ and it was obvious that he did ‘—then why do you employ her?’ His lips compressed, his dark eyes hooding over in a way that told Claire he wasn’t going to answer that question even before he confirmed it. ‘If you never take anything else from me, Claire, then take this small piece of advice,’ he suggested very seriously. ‘Forget your aunt. Or even that she works for me. She is not worthy of a single one of your thoughts. Now,’ he added, giving her no chance to challenge all of that before he was turning back to his room, ‘I am going for my shower. You have approximately half an hour to prepare yourself for an audience with my grandmother, by the way,’ he told her blithely before shutting himself away. His grandmother…? Couldn’t he have told her that before? ‘Oh, heck!’ she gasped, and dropped everything else right out of her mind to make room for this much more nerve-racking prospect. CHAPTER SIX BOTH nervous and anxious about the coming ordeal, Claire rummaged quickly through the rails of her brand-new wardrobe of clothes, and eventually decided on a misty grey silk-lined linen dress that she felt she could easily slip into. Taking it through to the bedroom, she laid it on the bed. But it was only while she was tackling the difficult task of pulling on a pair of fine silk hold-up stockings with only one hand to do it with that she suddenly realised there was no way she was going to be able to pull up the zip running the full length of the back of her chosen dress! Puffing and panting from her excursions, she was standing there in her bra and panties feeling very hot and very flustered, and about to go and select something less difficult to put on, when a light knock sounded on the outer door. Peering warily around a thin crack in the door, she was so relieved that it wasn’t Andreas catching her in a state of undress yet again that she almost dragged the young maid into her room in her eagerness. ‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she sighed, smiling with relief. ‘Do you speak English?’ she asked hopefully, and at the girl’s nod said, ‘Then will you please help me to do up the zip on the back of this dress?’ Scurrying over to the bed, she snatched up the dress, feeling the seconds ticking ever further onwards towards her next ordeal when what she really wanted to do was lie down and rest because her neck was aching after having to take the weight of her wrist in its sling all day. Never mind all the stress and tension, she tagged on hectically as she shimmied into the dress. ‘What’s your name?’ she enquired curiously as the zip rasped up her backbone. ‘My name is Lissa,’ the maid replied shyly, probably wondering if Claire had any brains at all, when it had only been an hour ago that she had been introduced to her downstairs. Which, Claire decided, was probably true because her brains seemed to have gone begging from the moment Andreas had dared to kiss her outside in the garden. And remembering that right now was stupid! she scolded herself as her insides went haywire at the memory. Then she remembered the most recent scene that thoroughly outranked the one with the kiss. And the two together played merry havoc with just about every sensitive nerve she had in her system. Oh, stop it! You don’t have time to fall apart at the seams right now! she told herself crossly. She was just slipping her feet into a new pair of grey low-heeled shoes whilst carefully feeding her plastered wrist back into its support when another knock sounded. At the connecting door. Both Claire and the maid turned to stare at it, and, as quick as that, the tension was back, singing across the room to ricochet off that closed door and back at her—and that was without so much as setting eyes on the perpetrator of it all! At least he’s practising what he preaches, she noted wryly when the door remained resolutely shut. She moved to answer it—the little maid scurried in the opposite direction with a mumbled excuse. Deserting the sinking ship, Claire thought. Then she was gritting her teeth and setting her chin before reaching for the door handle. It was like opening the door on a hot oven. The power of this man’s newly recognised sexuality flooded over her in burning waves. Stifled by it, she could neither breathe nor think. So she just stood there staring at him while his dark eyes hooded over as they began a slow scan of her from shining head to neatly shod feet. Then she began to notice that he was wearing the most casual clothes she had seen him in to date. The lightweight chinos hung loosely from his narrow waistline; the white soft cotton knit polo shirt moulded his well remembered torso like a second skin. No, don’t think of that! she told herself sternly. ‘Will I do?’ she asked, anxiously searching those unrevealing eyes as they made the same journey back up her again. To her consternation, he emitted a rather odd laugh. And his head gave a small shake as if he couldn’t believe what he was actually seeing. Then those wretched dark eyes flicked downwards again, prompting Claire’s gaze to follow them to discover what it was that was bothering him. And at last she became aware of the incredible amount of leg the short dress had left on show! Her mind shot off, seeing through this man’s eyes what his ninety-two-year-old grandmother was going to see: a tall, leggy female who must be a brazen hussy to wear a skirt this short! ‘I’ll get changed,’ she announced, turning jerkily away from him. ‘You will not.’ His hand capturing her good one stopped her in her tracks. ‘You will do fine,’ he added softly at her frowning expression. ‘That wasn’t what you were thinking when you first saw me,’ she pointed out candidly. To her surprise, yet again he uttered one of those odd laughs. ‘You don’t want to know what I was thinking,’ he mocked her dryly. Then, before she could respond to that, he said, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ His hand tightened on her hand to keep her firmly beside him when she would have pulled slightly away. And like that they walked across her room and out onto the galleried landing. In silence she let him lead her, his hand warm around hers and faintly comforting, which confused her rather because she knew she should be shying right away from his touch. At the head of the stairs he walked them beneath a deep archway that led into another wing of the house. With no natural light flooding in from the gallery, in here it was darker, and there was a different atmosphere—a hushed silence that felt slightly suffocating as they travelled along a carpeted corridor towards a pair of double doors at the other end. ‘Where’s Melanie?’ Claire asked in a hushed whisper—it was most definitely a whispering kind of place. ‘The nursery quarters are in the other wing,’ Andreas informed her. ‘She will not be meeting my grandmother today.’ ‘But I thought that she was the sole reason why we are both here at all.’ She frowned in confusion. ‘My grandmother is ninety-two.’ He seemed to feel he needed to remind her. ‘She lives by a different set of social morals than you or I do. She will not acknowledge Melanie until we are married.’ Oh, great, Claire thought heavily. I am about to meet a ninety-two-year-old puritan with the kind of moral codes that will file me under the heading marked ‘loose woman’ for being so free and irresponsible with my sexual favours! The short dress was as big a mistake as she’d suspected it would be, she realised as she stood there with Andreas beside her, his arm casually resting across her narrow shoulders now while his grandmother inspected Claire. Ninety-two was certainly old, Claire noted as she, in turn, studied the elderly lady. She looked thin and very frail, sitting there in an old-fashioned wing-backed chair which suited the old-fashioned possessions that surrounded her. The light in the room was unnaturally dim, made so by a tall folding screen that had been pulled across the window, and the air was so warm it was stifling, yet his grandmother was draped from shoulders to feet in shawls and blankets as if the blood in her veins must be too slow to help keep her warm any more. But the pair of beady amber eyes in her withered face were certainly very much alert. She snapped something at her grandson in Greek. He replied smoothly. ‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’ the old woman scolded, switching to scathing English. ‘Resigned to my lot is the truth of it,’ Andreas threw back lazily. ‘The too old and the too young.’ He dryly marked the distinction. ‘Both of them the bane of my wretched life.’ To Claire’s surprise the old woman laughed, the sound shrilling the stifling air with a high-pitched cackle. ‘I will speak to you later,’ she informed her grandson once she had recovered her composure. Then she flicked her sharp eyes back onto Claire’s face. Claire stiffened in response, readying herself for the blast of criticism she sensed was coming her own way next. The hand Andreas had curved around her shoulder gave a gentle squeeze as if in reassurance. He was still very relaxed himself—which had to mean something, Claire told herself as she waited. As perceptive as her grandson at picking up other people’s vibrations, the old lady challenged, ‘Scared of me, are you? Wondering what I am going to say to you as you stand there next to my grandson with your short skirt and your long legs enough to tempt a saint out of celibacy. Did your mother never warn you that men are weak of the flesh?’ ‘My mother is dead,’ Claire answered levelly. ‘Your father, then.’ Death, it seemed, held no excuse to the old woman. ‘Dead also.’ It was Andreas who answered this time, his tone revealing just the slightest hint of a warning. ‘And treading carelessly on other people’s feelings is unacceptable, even for a dying old woman.’ Claire’s shocked gasp was ignored as the old woman flicked her eyes back to Andreas and glowered at him. ‘Oh, come over here,’ she then commanded him impatiently. ‘I want my kiss now…’ At last he deserted his post beside Claire, walking gracefully across the room to bend over the old lady. They embraced, exchanged a few softly spoken Greek words that somehow made Claire feel rather sad. ‘You next!’ the sharp voice then snapped out at Claire as Andreas straightened again. Going over to her, Claire obediently bent to brush a kiss on the old woman’s lined cheek. ‘What did you do to your hand?’ she then asked curiously. Claire explained. The old woman grimaced then pushed back the blanket to reveal her left arm, which she tried to move but clearly couldn’t. ‘Snap,’ she murmured ruefully. A joke, Claire realised, even if it was a wretched joke. And impulsively she bent to drop another sympathetic kiss upon a withered cheek. The old lady didn’t reject it, and there was something very close to a sad vulnerability in her eyes as Claire straightened again. But the voice was as surly as ever when she said, ‘Now go away, the pair of you; I’m tired. I will see you later, Andreas, before I retire,’ she prompted as Claire moved back to his side. ‘Of course,’ he nodded, making Claire aware that this must be something he always did when he was here. ‘But you come back tomorrow to discuss your wedding dress,’ Claire was then commanded. ‘And we will see if we cannot add ten years to your age to save this family from another scandal.’ Another—? Claire thought sharply. But that was as far as that thought went as Andreas placed his hand on the base of her spine and urged her into movement. ‘I like her exactly as she is,’ he threw over his shoulder in a firm warning. ‘You think we do not already know that?’ the old woman snarled scathingly after him. He just laughed and was still laughing when the door closed behind them. ‘It keeps her will alive to spar with me.’ He seemed constrained to explain the banter between the two of them. ‘Yes, I realise that,’ Claire nodded as they began walking back down the corridor. He nodded too, pacing beside her. ‘I know she is surly,’ he added after a moment. ‘But she feels the weight of her own helplessness. It makes her—’ ‘Surly,’ Claire acknowledged. ‘At least while she snaps people listen.’ ‘Yes.’ He sounded almost relieved she understood that. ‘But she means no harm by it. And, as she will no doubt tell you herself, she does not have the time or the energy to find out what she wants to know by more devious methods. So she jumps straight in there. She meant no offence regarding your mother and father.’ ‘None was taken.’ Claire frowned, wondering, as they walked along, why he felt it necessary to explain all of this to her. ‘Actually,’ she added, ‘I liked her.’ ‘Good,’ he murmured as they reached the arch that would take them back into the other part of the house. Claire stepped sideways slightly so they could both move through it. Andreas did the same—and the front of their bodies brushed. Claire stopped breathing. She had a horrible feeling that he had done the same. Tension was rife. She attempted to break it by sliding away from him—but, on a thickened sigh that was all the warning she got, Andreas placed the flat of his palm on the centre of her back, drew her harder against him—and took hungry possession of her mouth. It was no use trying to delude herself that this kiss was anything other than it was because it didn’t pretend to be. It was need, pure and simple. Even Claire, with her inexperience of these things, recognised that telling little fact as she was pressed back into a darkened corner of the arch and held there by the kind of need that was not going to take no for an answer. Not that she was saying no—or considering saying it. Because from the moment his mouth moulded to the shape of her mouth her lips parted to welcome him. With his expertise to show her the way, she delved into the kind of heated passion that was utterly new to her. She felt hot and breathless, the dim quietness of the hallway helping to fill her head with a steamy mist that made him and what he was doing to her the only thing that mattered. His hand drifted downwards to splay at the base of her spine so he could gently urge her into deeper contact with that part of him that so clearly needed it. He was aroused and pulsing; her gasp of awareness was breathed into his mouth. His other hand was making long stroking movements down her body, stimulating senses she hadn’t even known were there but made her subside against him in drowning pleasure. It went on and on, growing deeper and more intimate with each heated second as his hand made its way down to one of her silk-covered thighs then began a pleasurable stroking upwards again. Long fingers made contact with bare flesh above her lace edged stocking. Claire responded by arching her spine closer to him. In all her life she had never experienced anything like it. It was hungry, it was intense, and it was deeply, deeply sensual, the whole thing coiling around them in burning tendrils of pleasure that poured fire into her veins. A door opened somewhere down the quiet corridor. They broke apart like guilty teenagers. Both dazed and momentarily dysfunctional, he muttered something—a curse, Claire suspected. Then another—and another while he blocked her from sight with his big body as someone walked down the hallway and in through another door. By then she had wilted weakly into the corner, eyes closed, heart fighting to regain control of itself. He seems to like pinning me up against walls, she found herself thinking, and choked on a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. She couldn’t believe she could be thinking such ridiculously flippant things at a time like this! ‘Don’t,’ he rasped softly, and his fingers threaded themselves into her hair so his thumb pad could stroke gently across the new pulsing fullness he had brought to her mouth. Don’t—what? Claire asked herself half hysterically. Don’t laugh? Don’t cry? Don’t fall apart at the seams in confusion because what just happened was not supposed to happen? ‘Don’t look to yourself to find the culprit…’ He thought she was blaming herself? Claire glared at the floor between their two pairs of feet and mulishly refused to answer. After a few taut seconds of this stubborn refusal to offer him a single word, he sighed heavily and his hand fell away, leaving her traitorous mouth pulsing all the hotter. ‘It is my fault, not yours. I am—attracted to you,’ he confessed, seemingly forced into saying that by her silence. ‘But you can trust me not to let this—situation get out of control…’ Could she? At last she found the strength to straighten away from the wall. There had been no control in either of them only a few moments ago. And it was getting worse every time they kissed like that! ‘I do not seduce innocent virgins,’ was his final stiff offering of what she presumed was supposed to be reassurance. Where it came from she did not know, because she had never done anything like it before. But, like a cobra rearing up for a sudden attack, she came away from that wall and pushed him violently out of her way, then stalked angrily off, shaking and trembling and wishing the pompous devil in hell! It was the word ‘innocent’ that had triggered her reaction; she knew that because the condescending sound of his voice saying it was still buzzing inside her head! Because the last thing she felt right now was innocent! She thought crossly as she paced the pale grey carpet in her room. What she did feel was hot and restless and excited! If it hadn’t been for Lissa, the little maid, coming to offer to show her where the nursery was, she probably would have started throwing things just to ease her wretched frustration! I hate him, she thought as she went off to spend the next couple of hours helping where she could with Melanie. I hate him! she repeated after spending ages arming herself ready to face him across the dinner table, only to find that the lucky devil had escaped to calmer places. ‘A business dinner,’ the staff called it. Claire begged to differ. She already recognised the tactics. Playing the advance and retreat game was just another fetish of his. So, having advanced, he was now in retreat, hiding, because he was afraid she might decide to call the whole thing off if he stayed around to let her! The next morning she came awake to find Althea standing over her with a breakfast tray carrying her usual tea and toast. Surprised, she pulled herself up the pillows then blinked the sleep from her eyes. ‘Hello. When did you arrive?’ she asked curiously. ‘Late last night.’ Althea smiled. ‘Andreas wanted to leave you to sleep this morning,’ she then explained apologetically. ‘But his grandmother is already asking for you. So…’ Enough said, Claire acknowledged ruefully as she watched Althea place the tray across her lap and begin pouring her tea for her, just the way she liked it. After that, the two of them fell back into a harmonious routine they had perfected during her stay at the London house. Half an hour later, showered, dressed in a pair of tailored pale blue trousers and a simple white top, she was walking along the gallery to attend the royal summons. Althea was with her, by order of the grandmother, so Claire had been told. Knocking lightly on the old lady’s door, they then waited for the terse, ‘Enter!’ before stepping inside. The room looked quite different this morning. The tall screen had been moved from the window to allow the morning sun to stream in, and was now shielding a corner of the room. And what had looked like heavy and dark old-fashioned bits and bobs yesterday suddenly looked interestingly aged, making Claire want to walk around the room and study them. But the old lady was sitting there in her chair by the window looking cross and impatient. ‘What time do you call this?’ she snapped. ‘We get up at dawn in this country, not the end of the day.’ Knowing it was only nine o’clock in the morning, Claire smiled at this gross piece of exaggeration. ‘But at least I came here first and without even going to see my baby,’ she remarked, taking her lead from the way Andreas had spoken to his grandmother yesterday, and deciding to take her on when she snapped. ‘What baby?’ the old woman shot back. ‘The…’ Ah, Claire thought, biting back the sarcastic reply she had been about to make. Taboo subject, she recalled as those beady eyes dared her—just dared her to say anything more about Melanie. The frail old head nodded when Claire remained wryly silent. Then she was turning her attention on Althea. ‘Althea, go into my bedroom and bring the dress that is hanging on my wardrobe,’ she commanded. With an obedient nod, Althea hurried away, and Claire was ordered to come and sit down in the chair set beside the old woman. ‘Now,’ Andreas’s grandmother said once Claire was seated, ‘you will explain to me, please, while Althea is away, what you have done to upset my grandson. He was here an hour or two ago,’ she informed Claire, ‘and he was bad-tempered and restless. Have you two argued?’ No, Claire thought ruefully, we just kissed each other senseless. Then I pushed him away and he went off in a huff! ‘I haven’t even seen him since I left here with him yesterday.’ She avoided the straight answer. ‘You mentioned his first wife to him; that is what you did,’ the old woman decided. Claire immediately stiffened. ‘I did not,’ she denied. Those amber eyes that had so much life left in them while the body they belonged to was wasting away fixed on her narrowly, looking at her as if they had the ability to see right through the blueness of her eyes to the brain that worked behind them. ‘Then take my advice, young woman,’ she said eventually. ‘If you care anything for Andreas, then never mention her to him, do you hear?’ Yes, I hear, Claire thought, inwardly shocked by the amount of passion the old lady had fed into her words. But I don’t understand. And she was not offered enlightenment—except…‘He needs no more heartache dishing out to him—especially by a nubile young English girl with independent ways and legs that reach up to her armpits! Ah!’ she then exclaimed in pleasure as Althea came back into the room. ‘This is what I want to show you!’ And the other subject was dropped, leaving Claire sitting there wondering bleakly just how deeply Andreas had loved his first wife for even his grandmother to worry about the fragile state of his emotions. But—nubile? she then repeated to herself with a grin. Such an old-fashioned word! Yet, coming as it had from this hypercritical old woman, she found it rather a compliment. ‘Why the grin?’ the sharp tongue demanded. ‘You don’t like my dress? You think it is funny?’ Dress—what dress? Claire frowned, clicking her eyes into focus on what Althea was carefully holding up so the long skirt didn’t touch the ground. ‘Oh!’ she cried out as she jumped to her feet. ‘How absolutely lovely!’ ‘You like it,’ the old woman sighed in satisfaction—then instantly went back to being stern. ‘It was my wedding dress. Now it is yours.’ ‘Oh, but I can’t—’ Even as Claire turned to gasp out her protest, the old lady was talking over her. ‘Of course you can!’ she snapped. ‘It is my wish! So try it on—try it on and let us see how little different my young figure was to yours at your age!’ She sounded so animated—alive and excited—that Claire didn’t have the heart to protest a second time. But as she looked back at the long, soft lines of the beautiful dress she felt like a dreadful fraud. A deceiver of a vulnerable old woman. But, by the time she emerged from behind the tall screen, having had Althea help her out of her clothes and into the dress, she was already head over heels in love with the dress. Made of an intricately worked handmade lace worn over the finest silk under-dress, it skimmed her slender body as if it had been made for it. The neckline scooped gently over her breasts. The long fitted sleeves fastened by tiny pearl buttons that ran from wrist to elbow—one of which had to remain unfastened because of her cumbersome plaster-cast. The skirt was a little short, finishing just above her ankle, but even that didn’t seem to matter. It was the nineteen twenties at its most poetic. It was simply exquisite. And just to see that sheen of tearful joy enter those tired eyes made wearing it a pleasure. The old lady sighed, then ran on in hushed Greek that didn’t need translating for Claire to understand that she was overwhelmed by what she was seeing. Herself maybe? Claire pondered. Was this old woman who was so very close to the end of her life suddenly seeing herself when she was at the beginning? ‘You will do—you will do,’ the old lady murmured huskily. Then she said, with a return of her old sharpness, ‘Nubile, eh? Was I not nubile also?’ she declared triumphantly. And Claire couldn’t help laughing even though she was still feeling like a terrible fraud. ‘You will wear it next week when you marry my grandson and he will bless the day he found you because that dress is lucky,’ she promised, having no idea that Claire had switched off from the moment she’d mentioned marriage next week, which was news to her. ‘I had fifty years of happiness with my husband before the cancer took him. You will have the same luck. You mark my word, child. That dress is lucky…’ ‘But this whole thing is getting out of control, Andreas!’ Claire was pleading with him across the width of his study desk, having come to search him out the moment she had been dismissed from his grandmother. ‘She wants me to wear her own wedding dress!’ ‘You don’t like it?’ Sleek eyebrows arched in haughty enquiry. ‘Like it?’ Claire repeated incredulously. ‘It’s old, it’s handmade, it’s utterly unique and it’s exquisite!’ she sighed. ‘But she loves that dress, Andreas!’ she told him painfully. ‘And she loves you! Yet here we are intending to dupe her any which way you want to look at it!’ The only response she got to that was the slow lowering of lazy lashes then the same slow lifting of them again. But then, he was the ice man today, Claire noted impatiently. Yesterday hadn’t happened. He had clearly dismissed it from his mind. ‘Do something!’ she snapped in sheer frustration. ‘What would you like me to do?’ he asked quietly. ‘Go and tell her that this is all nothing but a lie?’ ‘No,’ she sighed, hating him for his smooth simplicity! ‘I just feel—’ She sighed again, and turned her back on him so she could slump wearily against the desk. ‘I hate liars,’ she said. ‘Yet here I am, lying to everybody I speak to.’ ‘Is she happy?’ Claire dipped her head to stare at her shoes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Did the dress fit you as it must have fitted her more than seventy years ago?’ ‘Yes,’ she said again, seeing the joy in that old woman’s face when she’d seen herself as she would have looked all those years ago. To her consternation he gave a soft laugh. ‘She told me it would.’ He explained the reason for the laugh. ‘Last night, after having met you, she laid a wager with me that if the dress fitted you then I must buy it from her for you to wear on our wedding day. Oh, don’t misunderstand,’ he said quickly as Claire turned to stare at him. ‘She is a shrewd old thing, and she loves a good wager. The dress is a museum piece and practically priceless. She knows this. She means to fleece me, and will enjoy doing so.’ And thereby keep the weak lifeblood flowing through her veins that little bit longer while they haggle, Claire concluded, beginning to see again what her guilty conscience had blinded her to—the fact that this man was willing to do anything to keep his grandmother alive. Today it was a wedding dress. Tomorrow it would be something else. Then there was a wedding to plan and a great-grandchild to meet and… Without really knowing she was doing it, she began planning and plotting herself. ‘She wants the wedding to take place next week.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps, if I insist that we put it off until my plaster-cast comes off, it will—’ But already Andreas was shaking his dark head, the expression on his suddenly grave face enough to tell her why. ‘She hasn’t got that long?’ Claire questioned thickly. He didn’t answer with a straight yes or no. ‘She knows what she is doing,’ he murmured. ‘Let her set her own timetable, hmm?’ A timetable…She shivered, hating the concept so much that she sprang abruptly away from the desk. ‘I’m going to see Melanie,’ she told him as she walked quickly to the door. For at least Melanie was everything that was bright and optimistic about life, whereas— ‘Claire—one more moment of your time before you go, if you please,’ that infuriatingly level voice requested. It reminded her of a softly spoken headmaster she’d once had, who’d used to intimidate everyone with the simple use of the spoken word. Resenting the sensation, she spun around to glare at him. Seeing the glare, he responded with that brief grim smile she despised so much. ‘At the risk of infuriating you even more,’ he drawled, ‘I have to warn you that there will be a party here tomorrow night. My family wish to meet you before the wedding takes place,’ he explained, watching the varying changes in expression cross her face. Annoyance, trepidation then eventually dismay. ‘It will take the form of a—betrothal celebration.’ Smoothly he poured oil on the burning waters. ‘No,’ she refused, point-blank and unequivocally. The leather chair he was sitting in creaked slightly as he sat back into it, the morning sunlight pouring in through the window behind him putting his features into shadow so she couldn’t see whether he was smiling that smile. But she knew it was still there! ‘I’ve done everything you’ve asked me to do to make this lie work for you!’ she informed him hotly. ‘But I will not be paraded in front of your family to be scoffed at because they think I am a—a fallen woman who trapped you with a baby!’ Despite the sun behind him, she saw his eyes flash. ‘Let only one of my family be so crass as to scoff at you and they will never be welcome in my home again.’ At last he sounded as if he had some emotions left. ‘But if that is your wish—’ he stood up, and there was nothing calm or cold in the way that he did it ‘—then of course I will accede to it. I will go and inform my grandmother right now that she must shelve that particular plan.’ His grandmother. He was agreeing to this party thing because his grandmother wanted it. She was only agreeing to any of this for Melanie’s sake. Grandmother—Melanie. Melanie—grandmother. What about Claire? she wondered bitterly. ‘Oh, have your stupid party,’ she snapped. ‘But don’t blame me if they all think that you’ve lost your marbles when they see me!’ CHAPTER SEVEN SHE was still angry about the emotional blackmail being used on her the next evening as she finished getting ready for the party. So the dress was a defiance. Claire knew that even as she stood in front of the mirror frowning in trepidation at the reflection that was coming back at her. Made of pale blue high-stretch gossamer-fine silk tulle, the flimsy bodice was supported by bootlace-slim halterstyle straps that held the two triangles of fine fabric over her breasts. From there it followed the contours of her shape with such an unremitting faithfulness that it really was the most daringly thought-provoking garment. She looked naked beneath it—felt naked! Though she knew that she wasn’t if you took into account the tiniest pair of smooth silk briefs and a pair of white hold-up silk stockings. But nervous anxiety was making the hard tips of her nipples protrude to add to the illusion. And because the fabric clung so lovingly to her warm flesh she could even see the way the point high on her stomach between her ribcage was pulsing in tense anticipation of the evening to come. ‘I can’t wear this,’ she muttered on a sudden arrival of common sense that should have hit a lot sooner. Standing behind her, carefully teasing the final gold-silk strands of a natty fantail knot into which she was dressing her hair, Althea paused to glance over Claire’s shoulder. ‘I think you are so brave,’ Althea confided—which helped not a tiny bit because she didn’t feel brave at all! Not any longer, anyway. This afternoon when she’d picked this dress out off the line of other evening dresses she had been feeling brave—brave, bold and brazen! she mocked herself deridingly. Seeing herself boldly taking on all those critical looks she just knew she was going to receive for not being their first choice of bride for their lord and master. But now, with reality hovering over her like the shadow of a giant black-winged eagle preparing to swoop, her fickle emotions had flipped over into cowardice. And she knew now with absolute certainty that she just was not going to be able to carry this off! A knock sounded lightly on the connecting door. That pulse-point between her ribcage gave a large throb, and she froze. So did Althea, her gentle brown eyes fixing on Claire’s pale face in the mirror. And silence rained down on top of both of them in a fine sprinkle of flesh-tingling static. How much Althea and her parents actually knew for a fact about Claire’s relationship with their employer Claire didn’t really know. She thought that they at least suspected its lack of authenticity. After all, did Andreas look like the kind of man that seduced women like her? But he does seduce me. She instantly contradicted that remark. Those increasingly passionate kisses are definitely seductive. And every time his dark hooded eyes settle on me now I feel dreadfully seduced even though he is trying his level best to pretend that it isn’t happening. ‘What do you want to do?’ Althea whispered in a hushed little voice. Die a thousand deaths by a thousand knives rather than open that door! she thought helplessly. At least you’ve managed to put on some make-up. She allowed herself that one small consolation. Discovering today that she was now able to use the fingers on her right hand for light tasks meant that she had been able to do a lot more things for herself—one of them being the application of a light shadow to her eyelids, some mascara to her lashes without smearing it all over the place, and a rose-pink lipstick that gave her soft mouth a fullness that had not been there before. She looked much better for that, even if she did say so herself. You’re not so bad-looking, you know, she informed that reflection. And despite its daring the dress is truly exquisite—the typically fashionable thing any woman slender enough to carry it off would wear today! The knock sounded again, and she grimly pulled herself together. You’ve created your own monster here, Claire! she told that frightened face in the mirror. Now live with her! With that little lecture to bolster her courage, Claire watched her chin come up, soft pink-painted mouth firming a little as the light of defiance sparked back into her eyes. Seeing it happen, Althea took a step back in silent retreat. And when Claire turned away from the mirror to walk over to the connecting door Althea melted out of the room without another word spoken between them. The way he was dressed, in a conventional black dinner suit, white dress shirt and black bow-tie, was the first thing Claire noticed as she pulled open the door. And the second thing was that he looked big and dark and dauntingly sophisticated. Her pulse quickened; she tried to steady it. He opened his mouth to say something light and ordinary—then stopped when his eyes actually focused on her properly. Claire gave up trying to control her pulse when it broke free and just went utterly haywire as his gaze rippled over her. There was really no other way to describe it since that was exactly what her skin did as he inspected her slowly from the top of her shining head to rose-pink-painted toenails peeping out from the tips of her strappy silver shoes. And he wasn’t pleased by what he was seeing; she could see that immediately in the way his parted mouth snapped shut then tightened. ‘Taking us all on, are you?’ he drawled with super-dry sardonicism. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she answered coldly. He smiled that smile. ‘Then let me put it this way,’ he offered. ‘I don’t think there is going to be any doubt in the minds of anyone here tonight why I find myself having to marry you.’ ‘Lies can be such uncomfortable things sometimes, don’t you think?’ She acidly mocked all of that. ‘But this one you will have to live with,’ she then informed him. ‘Because I am not going to cover myself up just to save your embarrassment.’ His sleek black brows shot up. ‘Did I say I was embarrassed?’ You didn’t have to, Claire thought, and turned away from him as an unexpected wave of disappointment hit. Even with defiance flying as high as a kite from her, she discovered, to her annoyance, that she had still been looking for his reassurance, not his disapproval. Needing something to do to keep her muddled emotions hidden, she was glad that she had it—in the form of a white stretch-silk sleeve Althea had cleverly fashioned for her to wear over her plaster-cast. It was waiting for her on her dressing table, and she walked over to get it, stingingly aware of those dark eyes taking in the amount of naked back the wretched dress left exposed. ‘Where is your sling?’ he enquired levelly after a few moments. ‘I don’t need it any more,’ she said—then, with a half lift of one slender white shoulder, added, ‘Well, not all the time anyway.’ ‘Here—allow me…’ A long-fingered hand appeared from behind her to take the white sleeve from her grasp. ‘To cover your cast, I presume?’ he said lightly. The temptation to snatch it back from him and tell him she could manage very well by herself almost—almost got the better of her. But even in the strange antagonistic mood she was in she knew that would be just too childish. So she stood silent and still while he came to stand in front of her—her very own giant black-winged eagle, she mused as the feeling of being swooped down on overwhelmed her again. But then, she might be tall at five feet eight inches but he was one hell of a lot taller. Taller, wider, bigger, darker, she listed as he picked up her injured wrist and began feeding the sleeve over the plaster-cast protecting it. ‘Is the age thing a big problem to you, Claire?’ he asked her quietly. Older, tougher, calmer, cooler—the list went on. She gave a shake of her head in reply to his question. ‘Perhaps you are still angry with me because I—overstepped the boundaries of our arrangement, then.’ Wiser, she added. Because it hadn’t really hit her until he’d said it out loud that this was exactly the reason why she was feeling as emotionally confused as she was. ‘You blow hot and cold all the time,’ she felt constrained to answer. ‘I just don’t know how to respond to that.’ ‘Then I apologise,’ he murmured rather grimly. Gracious, too, she added to the growing list. Because I’d have cut my own throat before I’d have had the grace to apologise as quickly and as sincerely as that. Giving that small shrug with her shoulder again in acknowledgement of his apology, she then added a small sigh. ‘It isn’t going to be easy for me, you know, having to deal with all of these people who are coming here tonight, knowing what they will all be thinking when they look at me.’ ‘I know.’ ‘Althea said she thought I was brave to dress myself up like this for the party. But I’m not brave, not really. I’m just…’ She ran out of words on a discontented sigh. ‘Trying to cope the best way you can.’ He supplied them for her. Silly tears tried to fill her eyes because now she was having to add understanding and gentle and sympathetic to her list and it really couldn’t get any longer! Yes, it can. She then had to amend that thought as he put his hand to her cheek and used his thumb to gently draw her chin up so he could look gravely into her swimming blue eyes. Because he was touching her for real rather than touching her through the protection of her plaster-cast, and she now had to add dangerous to that list because his touch made her feel so—! He bent down to brush his mouth across hers, and the list was halted right then and there as it suddenly raced away from her in a mad, frantic blur of sizzling adjectives. ‘Althea should have said beautiful and brave,’ he murmured huskily as he drew away again. So he did like the way she looked! If Claire could have seen her own eyes then, she knew it must have been like watching a dark shadow pass over and the sun coming out. He smiled; so did she—the first real smile she had offered him in days. And while she continued to stand there feeling starry-eyed and breathless he picked up her other hand and slid something onto one of her fingers. ‘A betrothal ring for my betrothed,’ he murmured lightly as Claire glanced down then went perfectly still when she found herself staring at the most enchanting little diamond cluster ring she had ever set eyes on. ‘It is a necessary part of the game-plan.’ The game-plan. Her heart thumped in her breast. How could she keep forgetting the game-plan? ‘And it fits, too,’ he added in that same lightly teasing vein. ‘Which means Grandmother is going to make me pay for the pleasure of placing it here.’ ‘It’s your grandmother’s ring?’ Swallowing her silly sense of let-down, Claire glanced up at him questioningly. ‘The first of many my grandfather gave her,’ he said with a small grimace. ‘But this was her favourite. Do you like it?’ ‘It’s a beautiful ring,’ she murmured softly; it was not big enough to be ugly, not small enough to be cheap. ‘Thank you for allowing me to wear it tonight,’ she added, belatedly remembering her manners. ‘I promise to take precious care of it for you.’ He had been about to move away from her when she said that. But now he stopped. ‘It is yours to keep,’ he stated rather curtly. ‘I was not expecting to get it back.’ But Claire shook her head. ‘No.’ This ring did not belong to her and it never would. She could accept the new wardrobe of clothes and the luxury lifestyle she was being treated to here, because they only cost money and, as she had already learned with Andreas, money was a commodity he had more than enough of. But this ring—like the wedding dress—was different. Both had feelings attached to them, memories, for an old lady that belonged to this family, not to Claire, who was only passing through, so to speak. He knew what she was thinking. She could feel him reading the sombre thoughts as they passed over her face. As she stood there with baited breath, waiting for him to start arguing the point with her, he surprised her by not doing that at all. ‘You have integrity, Claire,’ he murmured quietly. ‘That is a rare commodity; try not to lose it.’ ‘Integrity?’ she repeated, sending him a wry little smile that thoroughly mocked the suggestion. ‘Where is the integrity in marrying someone you don’t love, even if it benefits the both of us?’ she asked him cynically. He didn’t answer, and she didn’t blame him because there really was no answer that did not confirm she was telling the truth. ‘Come on,’ he prompted rather harshly instead. ‘It is time for us to go and greet our guests.’ And that small amount of harmony they had managed to create between them withered and died as they both remembered what this was really all about: a stranger’s child that he, for no apparent reason, had decided to adopt as his own. For the first time since he had talked her into this, Claire began to question his reasoning because, knowing him better now than she had when they’d struck this deal, she could no longer accept that he needed to legally adopt Melanie to make this deception work. After all, no one yet had questioned his claim that Melanie was his child. And if he genuinely needed an heir that badly, then why not find himself an olive-skinned boy-child? Unless choosing a girl was all part of the deception—a clouding of the scent to keep people’s minds working on the wrong problem. Could he be that devious? That tactically calculating? Glancing up at him as they began the long walk down the wide staircase, she saw the ruthlessness and cynicism etched into his dark profile and thought with a shiver, Yes, he can be that calculating. Which still did not answer the question as to why he was determined to make it all legal. For if this was for his grandmother’s sake, and from what he had already prepared Claire to expect his grandmother would not be around for very much longer, Melanie was too young to feel the loss of a father who was not her real father in the first place. So what was really going on here? She frowned thoughtfully. ‘Stop worrying,’ he scolded levelly beside her. ‘I won’t let them eat you.’ But they did—or almost did—with curious looks laced with a disbelief that none of them seemed able to keep hidden, which made her feel uncomfortably like an alien being who was trying to infiltrate their selective society. Though, to be fair, no one was openly rude or questioning. The older element said teasing things to Andreas in Greek to which he replied with smooth aplomb. The younger ones—especially the men—ogled Claire in a way that made her blush and earned them a light but real warning to watch their manners from Andreas. All very protective, very—possessive of him, she acknowledged. Like the way he kept her left hand enclosed in his right hand all the way through the ordeal while cheeks were brushed against cheeks in typical continental fashion. ‘See, it was not so bad in the end, was it?’ he drawled when the introductions were over. Where were your eyes? she wanted to counter. But, ‘No,’ was what she actually said. One person in particular gave her reason to feel really uncomfortable. Desmona glided in through the door looking absolutely stunning in the kind of dramatically simple black sheath gown that made Claire stingingly aware of her own complete lack of sophistication. But she had to admire the way the other woman coped with the small silence that fell on her entrance. The rejected one, that silence was shouting. Yet not by a flicker of her silver-grey eyes did she reveal any response to that. She kissed Andreas on both cheeks and exchanged softly spoken words with him in Greek that had him smiling sardonically as he answered. Then she was turning to Claire, and for the next few minutes really impressed her as she smiled pleasantly and asked after Melanie. As Desmona eventually moved away, it suddenly occurred to Claire that her being here to meet them on their arrival in Greece could have been pre-planned with this awkward moment in mind. ‘A very classy lady, don’t you think?’ Andreas remarked. ‘I feel sorry for her,’ she confessed, watching the other woman join a group of people and begin talking lightly as if this were just any old social affair. ‘Then don’t,’ was his rather curt rejoinder. ‘For she is the sleeping panther in our midst whose teeth are none the less still sharp even though she is not baring them at present.’ As a clear warning to beware—though of what Claire wasn’t sure—it certainly sent a cold shiver chasing down her spine. She found that out later when Desmona decided to sink those teeth into Claire’s shaky self-confidence. Feeling flushed and breathless after having been danced around the large hallway by a rather enthusiastic old gentleman called Grigoris who was apparently to give her away at her wedding, Claire stood on the sidelines, alone for the first time since the whole extravaganza had begun. She was watching Andreas dance with a rather lovely dark-haired creature whose name she could not recall. He was relaxed, smiling, and looked a completely different man from the one she was used to seeing. More the urbane man of sophistication, enjoying being with his own kind, she thought. Then a smooth-as-silk voice drawled lightly beside her, ‘Have you worked out yet which one is his mistress?’ Mistress? Claire struggled to keep her expression from altering, but the sickening squirm that suddenly hit her stomach sent some of the warmth draining from her cheeks. Desmona saw it happen. ‘You didn’t know,’ she sighed. ‘Oh, how tragic for you—and on your betrothal night, too. I am so sorry…’ No, you’re not, you’re enjoying yourself, Claire silently contended, aware that she was being baited by a woman who—as Andreas had warned her—was out for her blood. ‘He doesn’t have a mistress.’ She coldly dismissed the suggestion, but in reality she found herself suddenly having to face the fact that he most probably did have one somewhere. A man like Andreas would not put himself in a marriage of convenience without having that side of his needs adequately covered—surely! ‘All Greek men of class have mistresses, darling,’ Desmona drawled deridingly. ‘You could almost say it is expected of them. So, which one do you think?’ she prompted. ‘The lovely thing he is dancing with? Or the other one over there who can’t take her eyes off him—or maybe the one standing in the corner, who looks too besotted with her husband to even notice Andreas.’ Without wanting them to, Claire’s eyes flicked from woman to woman as Desmona pointed them out to her. And all of them—all of them were so beautiful that she wouldn’t have blamed him for wanting any of them. ‘I would go for the besotted one if I were you,’ Desmona advised, not missing a single telling flicker of Claire’s blue eyes. ‘For the way she is clinging to her husband smacks of desperation to me…’ ‘I think you’re lying,’ Claire responded, refusing to let the other woman get to her. ‘Then you are a fool,’ Desmona replied. ‘And maybe you deserve all you are about to receive from Andreas Markopoulou. For he may have good reason to want your child, but I cannot believe that he truly wants you—though he is cold-blooded and ruthless enough to take you if that is the only way he can achieve his aim. There,’ she concluded. ‘I have said what I needed to say. So now I will leave you to enjoy the rest of your betrothal party. Good luck, Miss Stenson.’ She smiled as she turned away. ‘I think you may well need it very soon…’ But why had she said it? Claire wondered as she watched Desmona walk smoothly away. To hurt her—Claire—or to hurt Andreas because he had rejected her? In the end it didn’t matter, because now the seed had been planted Claire could feel herself looking at every female face with new suspicious eyes. Andreas was no longer dancing but talking to the woman Desmona had described as besotted with her husband. Well, she observed, there was no sign of the husband now as she laughed with Andreas, with her big eyes shining up into his. Was she his mistress? It’s none of your business! she told herself furiously. But knowing that didn’t stop her from studying their body language as Andreas touched a light finger to the woman’s shoulder, to her cheek, laughed softly at something she said to him and kissed the hand she used to teasingly cover his mouth when he gave what must have been a wicked reply. The woman spoke again, only this time her expression turned very serious. With her hand still resting in his, Andreas sobered also, then began glancing furtively around them before giving a grim nod of his head. Then, turning, they moved off into one of the other rooms. Even with that quick glance around to check that their withdrawal would not be observed, he didn’t even notice me, Claire noted painfully. Then she saw Desmona’s gaze fixed mockingly on her, and humiliation swept over her in a sickening wave. It was one thing to deceive but quite another to be deceived, she realised, hurt, so very hurt that she didn’t quite know what to do with herself as she stood there alone and feeling utterly unable to pretend it hadn’t happened. So when several of the younger guests approached her to say they had set up a disco outside on the pool terrace, then warily asked if she would like to join them, she was so relieved at the diversion from her own hectic thoughts that she accepted eagerly. Half an hour later she was a different person. A person her mother would have recognised if she’d been there to see the old laughing, teasing, fun-loving Claire who danced disco with enthusiasm rather than stuffy waltzes with reluctance. If there was something rather desperate about the way she threw herself into the fun, then no one seemed to notice that. They were just pleased to discover that Andreas Markopoulou’s newly betrothed was nothing like the hard-crusted English floozy they had all been led to believe she would be. Someone appeared with a case of champagne they’d pinched from somewhere. And for the next few minutes the small group threw themselves into the fun of making corks explode from bottles then quickly supping at the frothy wine as it spilled over the bottle rim. After that the wine flowed like water, and as the intoxicating bubbles entered her bloodstream Claire began to let go of what was left of her inhibitions. The music was throbbing—and she danced like a dream. There wasn’t one person there who didn’t pause to take note of that as her long, slender body swayed and gyrated inside the slinky dress, with the kind of innate sensuality that made the other girls envious and the young men throb to an entirely different beat. One young man who was bolder than the rest stepped up behind her to slide his hands around her silk-tulle-lined stomach and began gyrating with her. Claire laughed and didn’t push him away; instead she began exaggerating her movements to which he had to follow. ‘You are wasted on Andreas,’ he whispered against her ear. ‘He is too cold and stuffy for a wonderful creature like you.’ ‘I adore him,’ Claire lied glibly, when really at that moment she was hating him so badly that she could barely cope with it. ‘He’s absolute dynamite.’ Not so big a lie, she acknowledged bleakly from some darker place inside her that she refused to go off to. Instead she turned her head against her shoulder and smiled a stunning smile into her new consort’s captivated face. That was how Andreas came upon her. He stopped dead in his tracks. ‘Enjoying yourselves?’ his deep voice harshly intruded, and effectively silenced the whole group in the blink of an eyelid as heads came up, twisted round, then simply froze to stare at him like guilty thieves caught redhanded. He was standing in a circle of light being thrown from the open French window that led to the indoor pool just behind him. And even with his dark face cast in shadows there wasn’t one of them present who didn’t know that he was furiously angry. Someone had the presence of mind to switch off the throbbing music. Then the silence that followed was truly stunning as he began striding forward. His hard eyes were on Claire—and specifically fixed on the place where her companion’s hands were splayed across her slender body. Andreas didn’t so much as glance at him, but with a sharp click of his fingers he had the young man snatching his hands away from her waist then stepping right back as if he was letting go of some stolen hot property. Coming to an abrupt halt in front of Claire, Andreas reached out to take the champagne bottle she hadn’t even been aware of holding out of her fingers. Then he stood there, impressively daunting, as he held the bottle out to the side in a grimly silent command for someone to take it from him. Some very brave person did that, for the angry vibrations Andreas was giving off were frighteningly awesome. ‘Now you may all return to the party,’ he said flatly. And not once—not once had he so much as acknowledged a single one of them by eye contact! Not even Claire, who was standing there rather like a puppet that had had its strings removed while the group responded to his command without a single murmur, disappearing en masse through the pool-house doors and effectively leaving her to face the angry wolf alone. Thanks a bunch, she thought ruefully as she listened to their retreating footsteps fade away. ‘Well, that was very sociable of you,’ she drawled in an effort to mock her own tingling sense of trepidation at his continuing grim silence. He didn’t even bother to retaliate. All he did do was reach down to snatch up her only good wrist then turned and began pulling her towards the house. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Claire demanded, trying to tug free of a grip that wouldn’t budge. ‘You are drunk,’ he answered scathingly. ‘I have no tolerance with that, so if you value your life you will be silent.’ ‘I am not drunk!’ She hotly denied the charge—though she had a vague feeling he could well be right. ‘Where are we going?’ she then queried frowningly when, as they entered the indoor pool-room, instead of making for the door which would lead back to the main part of the house, he headed for the private staircase that connected the pool-room to the upper floor. He didn’t answer, but his body language did as he pulled her behind him up the stairs. He was blisteringly, furiously angry. They emerged onto the upper landing. Below them the party was continuing in full swing. The hallway was crowded with people dancing, others spilling out from adjoining rooms. Peering over the gallery as they walked along it, the first person Claire’s eyes picked out was Desmona’s choice for Andreas’s mistress, dancing cheek to cheek with her husband to the slow, smoochy music drifting sensuously in the air. Two-timer, she thought contemptuously. And flashed the man in front of her a lethal glance. He opened the door to her bedroom and swung her inside. Only a single small table lamp burned in the corner, casting eerie dark shadows over the rest of the room. ‘Now,’ he said, shutting the door, ‘you are going to pull yourself together and make yourself fit to be seen with me when we return downstairs to our guests.’ ‘I was with our guests,’ she threw back. ‘And we were enjoying ourselves until you came and spoiled it!’ ‘You mean you enjoyed having that boy paw you?’ A sudden vision of his naked body wrapped around that adulterous woman downstairs had her chin coming up in hot defiance. ‘What’s it to you if I enjoyed it?’ she challenged insolently. ‘I don’t recall either of us making any vows of celibacy when we decided to deceive everyone!’ His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘Explain that remark.’ Go to hell, she wanted to say, but those narrowed eyes stopped her. ‘Let go of me,’ she said instead, and tried to pull her wrist away. He wouldn’t let go. ‘I said explain,’ he repeated. ‘What do you think I meant?’ she flashed, hugging insolence around her like a protective shield. ‘If you think I am going to sit here through this marriage like the ever faithful Penelope while you go off doing your own thing—then you can think again!’ The atmosphere between them was suddenly electric. He wasn’t a fool; he knew exactly what she was saying here. If it were possible his eyes narrowed even more. Her blood began to fizz—not with champagne bubbles any more but with a far more volatile substance. Her heart began to pound, the muscles in her stomach coiling tensely as, in sheer selfpreservation, she gave a hard yank at her imprisoned wrist and managed at last to break herself free then began edging backwards, attempting to put some much needed distance between them. But he followed. ‘You are not taking a lover while you are married to me,’ he warned in the kind of deadly voice that put goose bumps on her flesh. ‘You can’t dictate to me like that,’ Claire protested as she fell back another step—then another, until the backs of her trembling knees hit the edge of the bed. ‘I can do whatever I want to do. You promised me that,’ she reminded him. ‘When I agreed to all of this.’ ‘And you want to take a lover,’ he breathed in taut understanding. ‘Why—will you be jealous?’ she taunted him, with a sense of horror at her own crazy recklessness. Something came alive on his lean, dark face that had her hand shooting up to press against his chest in a purely defensive action meant to keep him back. ‘No,’ she murmured unsteadily. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ He said nothing, but his eyes were certainly talking to her. They were gazing down at the hectic heave of her breasts beneath the stretch-silk tulle as if he could actually see this so-called lover’s hands on her body. And at last the alarm bells began ringing inside her head, warning her that she had finally managed to awaken the sleeping devil she’d always known must live somewhere inside him. She should leave, she knew that. She should get the hell out of this bedroom and hide away somewhere until he had got his temper back. But she didn’t move another muscle. Instead she just stood there and trembled and shook. A little whimper escaped her. It was enough to bring his eyes flicking up to clash with her eyes—and their darkness was so blisteringly intense that her lungs suddenly stopped working altogether. He was faring no better, she realised. His heart was pounding; she could feel it hammering against his ribs beneath the place where her hand lay flat against his chest in its puny effort to ward him off. He felt warm and tough, the masculine formation of well developed muscle so intensely exciting to her that she froze on a wave of horrified shock. ‘No,’ she breathed in shaken rejection—and went to jerk her hand away from him—only he stopped her by covering it with his own hand. It was then that the heat went racing through her. The heat of fear, the heat of desire, the heat of a terrible temptation. But what was worse was she could feel the self-same temptation thundering through him! He was still, he was tense, and he was vibrating with a desire so strong that there really was no denying it. Anxious eyes flicked back to clash with his. ‘No,’ she repeated in breathless denial of what she saw written there. ‘You don’t want me,’ she whispered shakily. To her surprise he laughed, the sound so harsh and tight and bitterly deriding that it managed to make her wince. Yet she received the disturbing impression that it was himself he was deriding. ‘You fool,’ he muttered then, and before she could even feed the words into her brain he had spread one set of long brown fingers across the satin-smooth skin between her shoulder blades, cupped the other to the back of her head. And, with a hard, rough, angrily masculine jerk, he tugged her up against him then took her startled mouth hotly and savagely. CHAPTER EIGHT SHE didn’t stand a single chance. Her senses went haywire, every one of them making a mad scrambling surge towards that life-giving mouth like butterflies set free from the bonds of their chrysalis. Her lips fell apart, her tongue going in urgent search of its partner. He shuddered violently at the intimate contact, his hands banding her more closely to him. Like two magnets of opposing poles, they became locked together in a sizzling exchange that left no room for anything but the burning eruption that was taking place between them. It was wild and it was hot, fuelled by his anger and her refusal to back down no matter what the consequences. It was a lethal combination that flung the whole thing spinning out of control so quickly that neither was able to snatch sanity back. He took her mouth savagely—and savagely she replied, inciting the whole crazed, potent experience into a frenzy of desire that closed down time and space to this one small zone filled with a vibrant, soaring, passionate energy. It was devouring—intoxicating. The more he took, the more she gave, arching to the stroke of his hands on her body, literally sighing with pleasure when he touched her breasts. Her injured hand was locked around his neck so her fingers could cling to his hair, her other hand lost inside his jacket, greedily learning every muscle-rippling contour along his back-bone as he jerked and shuddered to her touch. It was like touching heaven, and if the door to the bedroom had suddenly swung open neither of them would have heard it, they were so lost, so caught up in a conflagration that had been sharply building between them for days. ‘Claire…’ He groaned her name against her hungry mouth. Whether in pleasure or in protest she didn’t know, but the sudden flare of heat coming from him set her own flesh burning. She gasped when she felt the power of his arousal surge against her. It caused an echoing eruption within herself, locking her thighs in an urgent need to maintain that vital contact as a flare of bright, blinding, blistering desire went shooting through her. Like seasoned lovers, she thought dazedly. You would be forgiven for thinking that we did this with each other all the time! When in actual fact Claire had never felt like this before—ever! The halter-style bodice to her dress dropped to her waistline, his hands feathered over newly exposed flesh, and she gasped on a tremor of nerve-tingling pleasure as her knees gave out and she toppled dizzily back onto the bed. He followed her downwards so that they landed in a tangle of limbs that only seemed to intensify their excitement. His breathing was fast, his expression intense, his mouth still moist from their long, hot kiss. But it was the look in his eyes that sent Claire completely still beneath him. In all her life, she had never seen anything like it before. It was hot and it was ravenous but it was also painfully—painfully vulnerable. ‘I want you,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I can tell that you do.’ But it was said very gently. For some reason that she didn’t understand this big, strong, very arrogant man was hurting enough without her adding to it by taunting him. Without really having to think about the wiseness of it, she reached up and kissed him—as a lover would kiss a true lover. Then it was back. The hot, hard, driving passion that had no time or room for gentleness or leisure. He kissed like a man who hadn’t done this for centuries, and she responded with a passion that she’d never known she possessed. Her dress slid away without her even noticing, then his jacket, his shirt and tie. He kissed and licked and caressed and suckled her until she was so lost in the frenzied storm that she had no idea what she was doing any more. So when she dared to fold her hand around the length of his burgeoning sex it came as a shock to feel him go utterly motionless beside her. Opening heavy, love-glazed eyes, she lay there watching as he seemed to take an actual pause in life itself. His eyes were closed, his dark face taut, his mouth flattened into a single white-ringed line of unbearable tension. Yet not sexual tension, but a different tension. ‘Andreas?’ she breathed, unsure what was happening. When he didn’t respond she went to take her hand away, a hot flush of mortification staining her cheeks. But his hand snaked down to stay her, long fingers trembling slightly as they kept hers tightly wrapped around him. Then he let the air out of his lungs in a long, slow, measured way, and his eyes fluttered open, revealing those dark, dark irises where that awful, wretched, pained vulnerability was back again. He didn’t say anything, though, and when he came to lean over her the tempo changed—the man changed, turning from ravaging hunter into devastatingly rich and sensual lover. Still greedy, he was greedy—but then, so was she. She couldn’t get enough of him, her teeth biting deeply into powerfully bunched muscle, her lips and tongue hungry to taste, to acquaint herself with this body that was giving her such untold pleasure. It was as if nothing else in the world existed but each other. The party, the people, the anger—everything had been cast aside for this soul-filling journey into sensuality. He was heavy on top of her but she didn’t care; her long and slender legs were parted while his hips thrust softly against her. He wasn’t inside her yet—but the experience was magical, the expression on his dark face so deeply intense that her heart swelled in her breast with a joy she could barely cope with. I do love you so, she wanted to whisper. But just didn’t dare in case she spoiled the magic. So she did the next best thing and parted her legs that bit wider, smiled provocatively into the dark beauty of his impassioned face, arched her spine towards him—and invited him inside her. His response was stunning. His dark face grew taut, his eyelids drooping over what she’d glimpsed as a flare of unbelievable emotion. Then, with a shudder that seemed to rip right through him, he buried himself in the deep, dark liquid heat of her body. The small sting of pain she experienced at his entry barely registered, his short pause when he realised just what he had taken from her an acknowledgement of his prize. Then the passion coiled its hot, needy talons around them again, and the moment was forgotten—for the time being anyway. No one said that making love had to be an earth-shattering experience. Only the lucky few reached those kind of peaks time after time. They reached those peaks—surpassed them, rose onwards to another place where reality was suspended and the senses took over. When she began to flip over into that final climactic finish, Andreas wrapped her tightly to him, binding her there with his arms. Then, with each new measured thrust of his body, he watched as she shattered just that little bit more for him, her soft sounds of pleasure growing in strength, in volume, in vigour. A sob broke from her—not a gasp, but a wild, bright electric sob of surrender that shook her body and kept on shaking it. And on a rasping growl he too surrendered to his own needs with driving thrusts that shattered what was left of both of them. Coming down to earth again afterwards took a long, long time, Claire discovered as she felt herself drifting gently through layer upon layer of sweet sensual fulfilment. When she did eventually find the strength to take a small peek at reality, she found Andreas still lying heavy on her with his face pressed up against her throat, and his heart thundering against her breast. He was still inside her. She could feel the exotic fullness of his manhood pulsing against the walls of her newly sensitised sex. It was wonderful. From hurt to anger to a blistering passion to this, she listed—this exquisite sense of supine contentment. For the first time in months—maybe even years—she felt true happiness flood through her. ‘I’m in heaven,’ she whispered. Andreas jerked away from her as if she were a poisonous snake. Taken by surprise by his abrupt withdrawal, her eyes flicked open to watch, in a state of bewildering confusion, him not only withdraw from her body but jackknife to his feet. But worse than that was the expression on his face as he did it. He looked utterly devastated. Big and strong and godlike as he was in his full naked glory, when his eyes clashed briefly with her startled eyes he actually shuddered, his dark head wrenching to one side as if he couldn’t bear to so much as look at her. Hurt quivered through her, forcing her to sit up and hug her knees protectively to her chest. ‘What?’ she whispered shakily. ‘No,’ she thought she heard him utter, though even that single word was almost quashed in the way he swallowed thickly. ‘This should not have happened,’ he tagged on hoarsely. What did he mean—it shouldn’t have happened? Claire wondered painfully. ‘Well, it just did!’ she cried, her blue eyes dark pools of anger and hurt at his cruel insensitivity. He didn’t even acknowledge she’d spoken—couldn’t even bring himself to look at her again! Instead he just turned and strode quickly towards his own room, wrenched open the connecting door then disappeared through it—leaving Claire staring after him, white-faced and with her flesh chilling in mind-stunning dismay. It should not have happened… Still sitting there long, lost minutes later, huddled over her own bent knees in the middle of a sea of tumbled white bedding, Claire was bitterly agreeing with him. For if it hadn’t happened, then she would not have had to be sitting here feeling so painfully used then ruthlessly rejected. Or punished would probably be a better word, she thought dully as she listened to him dressing somewhere in his own bedroom. She had also sat here suffering the sounds of him showering her scent from his flesh, because in his eagerness to get away from her he had forgotten to shut the connecting door and it stood half open, allowing her a blow-by-blow account of his every movement. She shuddered sickeningly. Hating him, despising herself. Her first love, her first lover, and now this terrible feeling of hurt and rejection. It should not have happened… She had a horrible feeling that those words were branded in fire onto her very soul for ever now. She should have run when her instincts had told her to. How could she have lost control like that and let him do what he had done? Great to work that out in retrospect, she mused bitterly. ‘I am going back down to our guests,’ a deep voice informed her from the connecting doorway. Claire didn’t even lift her head up. She felt soiled and tainted, and unbearably humiliated. ‘I suggest you remain here,’ he went on stiffly. ‘I will make your excuses for you, blame your early retirement on your recent accident, or bridal nerves or—something. Are you all right?’ he then tagged on with enough clear reluctance to make her wince. ‘I’m not going to be a bride,’ she mumbled from the confines of the white sheet she had pulled around her. ‘The wedding is off.’ ‘Don’t be foolish,’ he sighed. Why does he always call me foolish when I am at my most sensible? ‘I want to go home to England tomorrow,’ she insisted. ‘And I never want to set eyes on you again.’ A small silence followed that, then another sigh to precede a rasping ‘Look—I’m sorry’ that sounded tense and uncomfortable and just damned bloody irritable. No grace in that apology, she noted acidly. ‘It was entirely my fault and I am now thoroughly ashamed of myself. Does that make you feel better?’ To know you’re ashamed? ‘No, it does not!’ she cried, lifting flashing blue eyes to find him standing there looking as if he’d never been out of those clothes all evening. When in actual fact what he had done was simply replace the first lot with the same again from his wardrobe because the ones he’d been wearing earlier were still lying in a crumpled heap on the carpet by her bed where they’d landed after being wrenched off him. Self-contempt rippled through her as she saw herself eagerly helping him to remove them. She shuddered again, and drew the sheet more closely around her. ‘Just go away, will you?’ she choked, realised the tears weren’t far away, and swallowed angrily down on them. For she wouldn’t cry in front of this man ever again! she vowed fiercely. He went to say something, but a raucous laugh filtered into the room from the galleried hallway below, and whatever he had been going to say turned into a heavy, ‘I have to go back down there. We don’t have time to deal with this now.’ I don’t want to deal with it at all! Claire thought wretchedly. ‘I bet they all know by now how you dragged me up here,’ she whispered as humiliation sank its teeth deeper into her. ‘I’ll be the running joke of the party by now. Have you any idea how that makes me feel?’ ‘Don’t,’ he said tautly. Don’t what? she wondered. Don’t hurt, don’t feel used and humiliated—when she had every right to feel all of those things? ‘I hate you,’ she whispered, feeling the threatening tears burn all the hotter in her throat. ‘The deal is off. So instead of lying you may as well go and give them that little piece of juicy truth to joke about!’ Suddenly he wasn’t looking so good either, she noted. Despite the clean skin and the fresh suit of clothes, his skin wore the pallor of a man who still was not comfortable with himself. But his words didn’t sound anything but grimly resolute. ‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ he refused. ‘Things have gone too far for you to pull out of our arrangement now.’ ‘I was not aware that I was giving you a choice here!’ she responded. ‘And I am not giving you the choice to pull out,’ he coldly shot back as he began walking towards her. And—surprise, surprise! Claire mocked herself caustically—the ice was back like the loyal little friend it had always been to him! ‘So listen to me, Claire, because I mean what I say…’ He arrived by the bed, his tone deep with warning. She buried her face in her knees again because she just couldn’t bear to look him in the face this close to. He sighed harshly as if he knew exactly why she was hiding away like that. ‘Our arrangement still stands as formerly agreed,’ he grimly insisted, sounding insultingly as though he were chairing a business meeting. ‘And although I know this development has—complicated things between us slightly nothing has really changed.’ Nothing has changed? What about me? Claire wanted to yell at him. What about the wretched change you’ve brought about in me? ‘If you don’t stop talking to me like a damned computer, I am likely to start screaming,’ she breathed in seething fury. He swung away from her—then back again, the action seeming to ignite his own fury. ‘For the love of God, Claire!’ he rasped. ‘I am trying my best to be sensible amongst all of this—’ ‘Carnage,’ she supplied for him when he bit back whatever choice of word he had been going to offer. ‘Yes,’ he hissed, seeming to accept that this was indeed carnage—which only made her hurt all the harder. ‘But I can absolutely assure you this is not going to happen again. So we will go on as agreed. The marriage of convenience stands. I will take Melanie as my daughter. And you will still be free to get on with your own life unhindered by me just as soon as you are ready to. But if you think,’ he then added very seriously, ‘that I am going to let you break my grandmother’s heart in her final days, by walking away from our deal, then you are heading for trouble. For I don’t take defeat on the chin like a gentleman. I fight back and I fight dirty.’ He meant it, too. Claire could hear the ruthless ice of intent threading every single word. She shivered; he saw it happen and seemed to take that as a gesture of acquiescence because he stepped back from the bed. ‘Now I am going downstairs,’ he announced less harshly—trying, Claire assumed, to defuse the tension simmering between them now he had made his point. ‘Where I will make a very Greek joke about temperamental females with more spirit than any poor mortal male could possibly hope to deal with. And I will see you again in the morning.’ As he walked towards her door, Claire lifted her head to watch him leave with bitterness in her eyes. He turned unexpectedly, catching her looking at him, and she was trapped, caught by a pair of devil-black eyes that held knowledge of her no one else did. It hurt her, knowing that he now knew her so very intimately while she still felt she didn’t know him at all, even after what they had just done to each other here in this bed. ‘Will you be all right?’ he questioned huskily. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, and wished he would just hurry up and go so she could curl up and weep her heart out. Yet still he lingered with those dark eyes flickering restlessly over her. ‘Shall I send Althea up to help you—do whatever it is you need her for?’ he then offered, wafting a descriptive finger at her plaster-cast. ‘I can manage.’ She quietly refused the offer. He nodded and turned back to the door then opened it while Claire held her breath in suffocating anticipation of his finally getting out of here. But almost immediately he changed his mind and closed the door, though he did not turn to face her again. Stiff, tense, almost pompous in his delivery, he then had the gall to murmur gruffly, ‘I would hate you to think that I do not appreciate the—honour you bestowed on me tonight. It was—’ ‘Will you just go?’ Claire coldly interrupted, not wanting to know what it was. He nodded, taking the hint. And this time when the door opened and closed again he was on the other side of it. And at last Claire could do what she wanted to do, which was curl up in a tight ball on her side and sob her wretched heart out. After the storm was over, she made herself get up, tape a plastic bag to her plaster-cast, then stood beneath the shower for long minutes, simply letting the heated sting of the water wash away the lingering pangs of emotion the tears hadn’t cried away. After putting on one of her new silk nightdresses, she began picking up his clothes and folding them neatly before taking them through to his room, reasonably sure she was not going to walk in on him. Like her own room, his was lit by only a single small lamp left burning on the bedside table. In fact, in almost every way the room was a match to hers, she noticed—except his bed didn’t look as if war had taken place in it, she thought with a small shudder as she laid the clothes down on the smooth pale grey counterpane then walked back into her own room to eye with distaste her tumbled bed. An honour, he had called it. She called it a waste of something so very precious and she knew there was no way she could sleep in this bed again tonight. Tears back and burning, with an angry jerk, she turned away from the wretched bed and walked across the room to the soft-cushioned sofa, where she curled herself up, then closed her eyes tightly in a grimly determined effort to shut the last dreadful hour right out of her head. Surprisingly she slept, though she hadn’t really expected to be able to switch her mind off as easily as that. Moreover, she slept long and heavily, and awoke the next morning vaguely aware of half surfacing only once during the night when she’d been dreaming that she was being carried. It had been a disturbing sensation. Strangely painful though not in a physical way, she recalled as she lay there watching the morning sunlight draw patterns on the ceiling via the white voile drapes covering the windows. ‘Don’t cry,’ an unbelievably gentle voice echoed inside her head. Recognising that voice, she sat up with a start, saw she was back in her bed and knew exactly how she’d got there. It had been no dream last night! Andreas had come into her room and found her asleep on the sofa! He’d woken her up when he’d gathered her into his arms to carry her back to bed, and she even remembered the raw humiliation in starting to cry all over again! Oh, how could you, Claire? she chided herself furiously. How could you let him see how hurt you are? And there was worse—much worse, she recalled, closing her eyes in the hopes of shutting it all out again. But it would not be shut out. And she saw herself clinging to him. Saw him lay her gently on the bed then come down to lie beside her. She felt the light brush of his lips on her cheek and the way his hands had stroked her, quietly soothing her back into oblivion before he must have got up and placed the covers over her. I hate him, she thought angrily. I really, really hate him for catching me out like that! Too angry to just sit there tormenting herself, she got up and dressed quickly, needing to soothe her savaged ego by spending some time with Melanie. She could even make herself a drink there, since the nursery came with its own fully equipped kitchen, which would save her having to face Andreas across the breakfast table. The idea lifted her spirits, and as her brain fed that inspired thought to her stomach she realised just how desperate she was for some food and a hot cup of tea. Dressed comfortably in a sage-green tee shirt and a pair of slim-fitting yellow Capri pants, she stepped out of her room to be immediately struck by how quiet the rest of the house was. Early though she knew it was, she had expected the house to be a hive of activity by now as the staff cleared up after last night’s party. But as she peered over the gallery rail at the huge hallway below she saw that the place had already been wiped clean of all evidence of partying. The staff must have been working until the early hours, she realised, leaving them at liberty to have a well-earned lie-in this morning which probably meant that she was the only person up and around. A prospect that suited her very well while she was still struggling to deal with what had happened last night, and she resolved to use their long day yesterday as an excuse for them to leave her to take care of Melanie today. The nursery would give her somewhere to hide. Somewhere to lick her wounds and try to come to a decision as to what she was going to do. For the impulse to just pick up the baby and run before she dug herself even deeper into the mire her emotions were in was a gnawing ache that filled her brain. If it hadn’t been for Andreas’s grandmother, she had a suspicion she would have done it already and stolen away in the dead of night like a thief running off with the family silver. Also there was still Melanie to consider. Melanie who could gain so much from living this kind of luxury life—and so little from the life Claire could give her. Not many pluses in favour of running, she heavily concluded, and she hadn’t even taken into consideration the dire threat of retribution Andreas had laid on her last night. Inside the nursery all was quiet, the early morning sunlight diffused by the pretty apple-green curtains still drawn across the windows. Claire quietly closed the door behind her, and was about to walk over to the crib to check on the baby when a sound in the other corner of the room had her head twisting round, expecting to see Althea—only to freeze when she found herself looking at Andreas. Dressed in what looked like a white cotton tracksuit, he was sitting in the comfortable rocking-chair in the corner, cradling a sleeping Melanie in his arms. His eyes were closed, his dark head resting back against the chair’s cushioned back—though he wasn’t asleep. The way one long brown bare foot was rhythmically keeping the chair rocking while the other rested across its knee told her that. He was just too lost within his own deep train of thought to have heard her arrival. Not pleasant thoughts either, she noticed, looking at the grim tension circling his shadowy mouth. Then she had to suffer a vivid action replay of what that mouth had made her feel like last night and she unfroze with a jolt, her first instinct to turn and leave quickly before he realised she was there. His eyes flicked open, catching her in the act of a cowardly retreat. The chair stopped rocking. They both froze this time. The fact that Andreas was as disconcerted to find her standing there as she was to find him was enough to hold them trapped as a new knowledge of each other raked through the silence in a whiplash so painful it seemed to strip Claire’s tangled emotions bare. Neither spoke; neither seemed able to. Her heart was pounding, her throat thickening up on a stress overload that was seriously affecting her ability to breathe. What he was feeling was difficult to define with a man so good at keeping his own counsel, but something stirred in the unfathomable black eyes. Regret, she wondered, or even remorse? Whatever it was it managed to hurt a very raw and vulnerable part of her, and she would have continued her cowardly retreat if he hadn’t spoken. Speaking softly so as not to awaken the baby, he said, ‘Kalimera…’ offering her the Greek morning greeting that she had grown very used to over the last few days. Slowly she turned back to him. ‘Kal-Kalimera,’ she replied politely, not quite focusing on him. ‘You are up early. It is barely six o’clock,’ he remarked, trying, she knew, to sound perfectly normal but it was a strain and it showed in the slight husky quality of his voice. She nodded, licked her dry lips and wished her heart would stop racing. ‘S-so are you,’ she managed, but that was all she could do. ‘I haven’t been to bed,’ he replied, glancing ruefully at the baby. ‘Melanie has had a disturbed night. Althea was exhausted so I sent her to bed around dawn and took over here.’ ‘Oh!’ Instant concern for Melanie had her moving towards him on legs that were trembling with nervous tension. ‘Someone should have come for me!’ she protested as she peered worriedly at the baby. ‘I was here.’ That was all he said, yet it seemed to say it all. For he handled the baby girl as if he had been doing it all her little life. It was, in fact, the talk of the house how good he was with the baby. Claire already knew he spent time with her sister every morning before he left for Athens, and the same in the evening when he got home again. Bonding was the modern term for it, and Claire supposed it described what Andreas had been doing since Melanie had arrived in his life. ‘What has been the matter with her?’ she asked now. He smiled that brief smile—wry, though, not grim. ‘I have been reliably informed by the experienced Lefka that babies do have restless nights.’ Claire nodded knowingly, her fingertips already stroking Melanie’s cheek without even realising she was doing it. ‘She hardly slept at all after Mother died,’ she confided sadly. ‘You wouldn’t think someone so young could know, but I think she missed her dreadfully.’ ‘As you do?’ Her throat thickened at the gentle question. She answered it with another nod. ‘I’ll take her now, if you like,’ she offered. ‘Then you can go and get some rest…’ But even as she reached out to take the baby from him Andreas caught hold of her fingers. The very fact that he was touching her was enough to bring the panic back. Her tension suddenly soared. Yet, though he had to feel it, he grimly ignored it. ‘She is happy with us, Claire,’ he said urgently. ‘You must be able to see that?’ Which meant what? she wondered. That Melanie had never been happy with only her sister taking care of her? As usual, he read her thoughts. ‘No.’ He renounced them. ‘You misunderstand me. You have both been grieving—both of you, Claire. And although I know you may not be prepared to accept this right now you have both been happier in my care!’ She knew what he was saying. She knew exactly what it was he was getting at. He wanted her to agree to stay without him having to exert undue pressure on her. He wanted her to go on as before as if last night had never happened. As if nothing had changed. ‘Give this a chance,’ he pleaded huskily. ‘Give me a second chance to make this work for us—if only for Melanie’s sake…’ For Melanie’s sake. If this organ throbbing thickly in her breast was still a heart, she mused heavily, then she would have that phrase engraved on it. I did this—for Melanie’s sake. She gave one last nod of her head in mute acquiescence. It was enough. He let go of her fingers and silently offered her the baby. Melanie snuffled then settled into her arms. Andreas stood up, looking taller, leaner, darker in his all-white tracksuit. He was about to step around her so that she could sit down when he paused, touched her pale cheek with a gentle finger, and murmured, ‘Thank you.’ Then he was gone, quickly, beating a hasty retreat now he had what he wanted. Which wasn’t Claire, she told herself in dull mockery. CHAPTER NINE IT WAS a retreat that had in fact taken him right out of the firing line, Claire discovered when she eventually emerged from the sanctuary of the nursery which had turned out to be no sanctuary at all in the end. ‘A problem with one of his latest acquisitions,’ she was told. But Claire knew the real problem was her and that he had simply taken himself away so as not to risk anything else going wrong before the wedding. But then, she was his latest acquisition, she supposed. So she couldn’t call the excuse a lie exactly. The rest of that week slid by quickly. She spent the time sharing herself between Melanie and Andreas’s grandmother, who was determined to make sure her precious grandson’s bride walked down the aisle looking as perfect as she had looked herself all those many years ago. She produced a wedding veil of the same heavy lace as the dress, and commanded Claire to put it on then presented her with two delicately worked diamond and gold hair combs which she then instructed her exactly where to position to hold the veil in place. Next day came the diamond necklace and earrings to match the ring Claire already wore on her finger. ‘My husband gave me these the night before we married,’ she said sighingly. And Claire didn’t have the heart to protest at being given so many precious things to wear when the old woman’s eyes looked so full of wonderful memories. I’ll hand them all back to Andreas straight after the wedding, she consoled her uneasy conscience. At least then I won’t feel like a thief as well as a fraud. After those uncomfortable visits she would steal her sister and push her out in the gardens while she tried to re-convince herself that doing this was not so much deceiving a very old lady as trying her best to make her happy in her final days. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but having no Andreas around to bounce either feeling off meant she had to deal with the conscience-struck days herself. So her wedding day arrived, and behind a protective haze of disassociation she went through with it, stepping into the tiny but beautiful candlelit church on the arm of Andreas’s uncle Grigoris to be handed over to a man who had taken back the guise of tall, dark stranger in the days since she’d seen him last. All those who had been at the betrothal party were here to watch them marry. Like a puppet responding to each pull on its strings, Claire repeated vows she didn’t mean to a man who didn’t mean them, his voice a dark and husky rumble that vibrated through her system like the growl of a hungry animal who saw her as its next meal. Only this particular animal didn’t really want to eat her. So that fanciful impression was just another deception she could add to a growing list of them. A slender gold wedding band arrived on her finger. She was kissed—though she completely shut herself off from it. She caught a glimpse of his eyes, though, as he drew away again. They were narrowed and probing the strained whiteness of her face. She looked away. That kind of intimate contact was just too much for her right now. They arrived back at the house to find that the wedding breakfast was to take place outside on the lawn. But when she went to move in that direction, already armouring herself for the next ordeal of having to face again all those people who, in her mind, had somehow become indelibly linked with the night of her wretched leap into womanhood, Andreas stayed her with the light touch of his fingers on her shoulder. Sensation ripped through her like a lightning bolt, straightening her spine and drawing the breath into her lungs on a stricken gasp. Why it happened, when she had managed to disregard every other time he had touched her today, she didn’t know. But his fingers snapped back, his lean face freezing in what she could only believe was shock. ‘I can accept it is a bride’s right to look pale and interestingly ethereal,’ he rasped out harshly. ‘But do you think you could at least refrain from behaving as a lamb being led to her sacrifice?’ ‘Sorry,’ she said awkwardly, but it was already too late for the apology. He turned away from her, angry, tense. ‘We have another ordeal to contend with before we can go out to greet our guests,’ he then informed her grimly. ‘My grandmother is waiting to meet Melanie.’ Of course, she thought as mutely she followed him towards the stairs. Melanie was no longer an illegitimate member of this family—which was the real point to all of this after all. So why hadn’t she considered this eventuality? Because it had been one lie that had become lost within all the other lies. She answered her own question. The amber eyes flicked over Claire then did the same to Andreas, who was standing beside her holding Melanie. And Claire knew the old lady was superimposing her own and her late husband’s image over the top of them as she did so. ‘Perfect,’ she sighed out in eventual satisfaction. ‘Except for the child, of course,’ she then added censoriously. ‘I would have been banished from the family and my dear Tito would have been whipped to within an inch of his life. Now, get me that soft cushion over there,’ she went on impatiently. ‘Place it on my knee then let me have my great-granddaughter.’ Eager now—almost greedy in her desire to hold the baby, Claire moved to her bidding, collecting the requested cushion and laying it on the old lady’s lap. With infinite care, Andreas followed it with Melanie, then they both straightened to watch as the bony fingers of her only useful hand gently touched Melanie’s cap of silky black hair then stroked her baby cheek. As if she sensed a stranger around, Melanie’s eyes flicked open and stared directly into the wizened old face leaning over her. It was an electrifying moment, though Claire didn’t know why it felt like that. But a few seconds later Andreas’s grandmother lifted her eyes up to his, and static was suddenly sparking between them. ‘You devil,’ she said. That brief grim smile of his appeared. ‘And you are just too shrewd for your own good sometimes,’ he replied. Then they both went on speaking in their own language while Claire stood by, utterly lost to the conversation, though she was aware that it took the form of a very sharp questionandanswer session that seemed to be including her because the old lady kept on glancing sharply at her. The inquisition was concluded with a final thoughtful glance in Claire’s direction and a brief nod of her head. ‘Now send Althea to me,’ the old lady commanded, and her attention was back on the baby lying wide awake now on her lap. ‘And leave me to get to know my great-granddaughter in peace.’ ‘What was all that about?’ Claire dared to ask after they’d left his grandmother with Althea safely ensconced to watch over Melanie. ‘She likes to think she still has control over everything, you know that,’ he drawled dismissively. ‘She called you a devil.’ And she’d meant it, Claire thought frowningly. ‘Maybe I am,’ he replied in a light, mocking vein that nonetheless still made Claire feel that, like his grandmother, he was being serious. She was missing something here; she knew she was; she just didn’t know what the something was. Then Andreas was diverting her thoughts into a whole new area that completely dismissed everything else for a while. Because he took her to his study and produced a set of legal documents that were, he explained, a formal application to the British authorities for them both to legally adopt Melanie. Yet another stage of his carefully thought out game-plan, she mused bleakly as she set her signature to each page as Andreas indicated. A game-plan that had gone very smoothly for him—if you didn’t count that one small glitch in the middle when he’d given in to his baser instincts and seduced one of the expendable pawns. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he said. ‘This will strengthen your claim on Melanie, not weaken it. Trust me.’ Trust me…It was quite a request when she was already being plagued by a feeling that there were things going on here that she didn’t know about. But then, expendable pawns did not necessarily need to know the overall plan of the main player, did they? she mocked herself. Or was she just overreacting and reading too much into light, throw-away remarks that probably held no hidden agenda? It suited her better to believe the latter when she still had one last ordeal to get through—namely playing the happy bride throughout the rest of that day—for her own pride’s sake, because her pride needed to remedy the poor impression she had given of herself in front of these people the last time they’d been together like this. Maybe Andreas was of a similar mind because he never left her side for a moment and played the attentive groom to the hilt. And slowly—slowly Claire began to feel comfortable with him again; she even laughed once or twice at some smoothly whispered remark he made in her ear about one of his relatives. It was nice. She even discovered that she was actually enjoying herself. As the day softened into evening, people relaxed at whitelinen-covered tables with champagne glasses chinking and the light-hearted conversation eddying softly all around. The stars came out. Several tall torches mounted on wrought-iron stakes that had been driven into the lawn were lit to add yet another dimension to the rather seductive scene. Then, to top it all, a group of musicians arrived and set up in a shadowy corner of the garden. Classical Greek music began filtering into the evening air. Without a word, Andreas drew Claire to her feet and walked her over to the terrace then pulled her gently into his arms. Feeling shy and self-conscious when everyone turned to watch them, she looked down at her plastered wrist, which felt very cumbersome suddenly, and wondered flusteredly where she was supposed to rest it while they danced. He solved the problem for her, by lifting it up and around his nape as he set them moving slowly to the music. It brought her too close to his body—reminded her of when she had last placed her arm around his neck like this—and she tensed up accordingly. ‘Stop it,’ he murmured softly. ‘Don’t spoil it.’ Don’t spoil it…She reinforced that remark, and made herself relax, made herself ignore that warm, hard body brushing against her own as they moved. She made herself pretend that the butterflies were not going wild inside her stomach. And she refused to so much as flicker a fleeting glance at the shadowy mouth that only required her to raise her head a half inch for her own mouth to be in burning contact with it. ‘You make an enchanting and very lovely bride, Claire,’ his dark voice inserted into the silence between them. ‘Some day some man is going to be very fortunate to claim you as his prize.’ But not you, she made bleak note, understanding exactly why he felt the need to say that. He was reinforcing his position just in case she might be dreaming of a more romantic ending while she danced with him like this. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she replied, wishing that her response could cut him as deeply as his words had done to her. If he reacted at all Claire never found out because at the same moment Lefka appeared at Andreas’s elbow, the look on her face enough to warn them that something was dreadfully wrong. Bending towards the housekeeper, Andreas listened to what she murmured in his ear. And, as Claire had witnessed many times during the short period she had known him, she saw his expression completely freeze. ‘What’s wrong?’ she demanded anxiously when Lekfa melted away again. ‘One moment,’ he said, no emotion, no warning of what was to come showing in his flattened voice as he glanced around the people present and eventually caught the eye of his uncle Grigoris. The older man came hurrying over. By then Claire was trembling, though she didn’t know why. Andreas murmured something to Grigoris in Greek. The older man’s face dropped in dismay. ‘Take care of my wife for me,’ he then added in English. And, without making eye contact with her once since Lefka had come to him, he turned and disappeared into the house. ‘Please…’ She turned her anxiety on Grigoris. ‘What’s happened? Where has he gone? Is it Melanie?’ she then added on a sudden jolt of maternal anguish. Grigoris shook his steely head, his dark eyes—usually full of laughter—looking unbearably sad. ‘It is Yaya,’ he murmured huskily. Then, while Claire stood frozen herself as realisation began to wash coldly through her, Grigoris placed a hand around her waist for support and turned to the rest of the party. ‘Attend to me, everyone,’ he announced. ‘Yaya Eleni has gone. The party is now over…’ Dressed in a long aquamarine silk nightdress and a matching robe, Claire had fallen into a fitful doze on her bed when a sound in the room woke her. Opening her eyes, she saw Andreas standing by the long French window that led out to the veranda. He had pulled back the voile drape and was staring out at the moon-kissed evening. His jacket and tie had gone and the sleeves were rolled up on his white shirt, his hands lost inside the pockets of his iron-grey trousers. Lying there studying him, Claire felt her heart give a wrench in aching sympathy—because though his broad shoulders were straight and his spine erect he still managed to emit a mood of utter dejection. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, smothering a yawn behind a hand. He glanced at her—then away again. ‘Late,’ he replied sombrely. ‘Very late. Go back to sleep. I had no intention of disturbing you. I just did not want to—’ Be alone, Claire silently finished for him with the pained understanding of one who knew. ‘I wasn’t asleep,’ she said. ‘Just dozing.’ He nodded in acknowledgement but that was all, his concentration seemingly fixed on some far-away point way out on the horizon when she knew he wasn’t seeing anything but the darkened shadow of his own grief. Sliding her feet off the edge of the bed, she sat up then stood up, ignoring the protest of muscles that had been slaves to tension for too long that day as she went to stand beside him. ‘Did she feel anything?’ she questioned softly. He released a short laugh that almost strangled into a choke. ‘She died in her sleep with a smile on her face,’ he replied very dryly. ‘She went happily, then, as you wanted her to,’ Claire pointed out. ‘You have to take some consolation from that.’ ‘Do I?’ He smiled that brief smile and Claire couldn’t bear it because although he was staring directly ahead the moonlight shone on the moisture in his eyes. Without thinking twice about what she was doing, she slipped round in front of him, put her arms around him and laid her cheek against his chest. For if anyone needed physical contact with another human being right now, then it was him. His first reaction was to stiffen at the unexpected gesture. Then, when he came to realise what she was offering him, he muttered gruffly, ‘You are too wise for your age.’ ‘Age is not a prerequisite to feel what you’re feeling,’ she countered. ‘Believe me, I’ve been there, so I know.’ His answer to that was a heavy sigh, then he relaxed a little, and his hands left his pockets to link loosely around her. ‘Grigoris said you disappeared as soon as he had told everyone. Where did you go?’ ‘I hid in Melanie’s room,’ she confessed, lifting her face up to wrinkle her nose at him in acknowledgement of her own cowardice. ‘I didn’t think I could have coped with their pitying looks if I’d stayed there in my bridal finery, looking about as out of place as anyone could look.’ ‘You could have changed into something more—suitable,’ he suggested, refusing to let her off the hook for her desertion. ‘After all the trouble your grandmother went to, to recreate herself in me?’ she protested. ‘She would never have forgiven me!’ He smiled—he actually managed to smile! Claire began to feel dizzy at her success in teasing away his melancholy, even if it was only temporary. ‘But you changed eventually,’ he made wry note, sliding his thumbs against the silk of her robe at the base of her spine, sending a sprinkling of static washing through her. She tried not to respond to it by concentrating all her attention on the remark. ‘After you took her to the chapel,’ she nodded. ‘I felt she wouldn’t mind if I changed then—don’t ask me why,’ she added wryly. ‘Because I don’t really understand it myself.’ ‘It does not need explaining, Claire,’ he murmured very softly. ‘You honoured her passing in the way you thought she would appreciate it the most. I—thank you for that.’ ‘No need,’ she shrugged, and began to ease herself away from him as the moment when she could excuse her closeness to him as comfort began to fade. But he didn’t let her go. Instead his loosely linked arms closed just that little bit tighter around her. And out of sheer desperation she spun in his arms to face the window, so he couldn’t see the kind of control it was taking for her not to show what his touch was doing to her. ‘You know, I won’t hold you to your commitment to Melanie now that your grandmother is no longer here,’ she told him. ‘I thought you understood that I want that commitment,’ he replied. ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘But it is no longer necessary, is it?’ If it was ever necessary, she added silently. She’d never really understood his motives where Melanie was concerned. ‘Which seems to make a mockery of the whole thing.’ ‘Things stay as they are,’ he decreed. ‘And I would prefer not to have this conversation right now.’ ‘Oh, of course.’ Instantly contrite for bringing it up when naturally he wanted to think only of his grandmother, she spun around in his arms to offer him a small smile of apology. ‘Sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I just thought I would…’ ‘Let me off the hook,’ he inserted for her. ‘When it still does not seem to have sunk in with you that I have no intention of being let off—or to let you off it either,’ he added pointedly. ‘Well, a sham of a marriage seems a bit of a wasted gesture now.’ She grimaced. ‘When is a sham not a sham?’ he pondered curiously. Glancing up, Claire stopped breathing when she saw the dark gleam inside the hooded sombre eyes. He wants me, she realised. It’s the reason why he came in here, why he broke the rules and crossed my threshold without first gaining my permission. He did not do it to talk about his grandmother but because he needs a woman to lose himself in tonight and that woman is me! So, what are you going to do about that? she asked herself. But even as the question was filtering through her brain she was going up on tiptoe to brush her mouth against his. His reply was a shaky sigh against the gentle pressure of her lips. ‘What was that for?’ he asked as she drew away again, trying to sound mocking and only managing to sound dreadfully needy. ‘It’s my wedding night,’ Claire reminded him softly. ‘And I want you. Will you make love to me, Andreas—please?’ Had she said it to protect his pride so he didn’t have to lower it to ask her the same question? Claire wondered later. Or was it just that she was responding to her own needs? Whichever it was, at least he didn’t reject her—as she knew he was very capable of doing. Instead he released a muffled curse then was fiercely claiming her mouth. Standing there with the moonlight shining in on them, he caressed and stroked and kissed the nightdress from her body, then stood back a little to sombrely rid himself of his own clothes. He wasn’t happy with himself for wanting her like this, and Claire wished she had the experience to remove his clothes for him in a way that would make him lose touch with himself, never mind his reservations. But she was no femme fatale, and with one near-useless hand she knew she wouldn’t be able to pull it off with any grace. So she had to content herself with watching his moon-kissed, satiny flesh appear as his shirt was removed before he bent down to remove his shoes and socks. Yet he stopped right there. Claire frowned at him as he reached for her again. ‘You haven’t finished,’ she whispered. ‘I will,’ he promised. ‘But later…’ Later turned out to be after he had carried her to the bed and laid her down on it. Later was when he had driven her into a mindless state of unbearable arousal that left not a single inch of her flesh untouched by his touch. Later was after she had driven him almost over the edge by trailing her mouth over his chest and had learned the intense pleasure in toying with a small, tight male nipple. Later was when she had grown bold enough to move on downwards, utilising the expertise with which he had aroused her to arouse him. But when her sensual journey was halted by the waistband of his trousers he stopped her from taking them from him by pulling her beneath him, and, ignoring her small cry of protest at his frustrating tactics, he began the whole wildly erotic process of arousing her all over again. So by the time his idea of later arrived she was so lost in the sensual haze he had created that she didn’t even notice him ridding himself of the wretched trousers until he came over her and she felt the power of his naked arousal just before he pushed urgently inside her… This time, it really should not have happened. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she warned him. She was sitting at Lefka’s huge scrubbed kitchen table, hugging a mug of hot coffee in her hands as if her life depended on it. There was no colour in her face whatsoever, and her hair was a tangled mess around her shoulders, her body cloaked in a towelling bathrobe that covered her from neck to feet. He, by contrast, was fully dressed in fresh trousers and a polo shirt. He looked neat, clean, perfectly presented. But then, he’d shot off into his bathroom so damned fast that he could have had ten showers before Claire had recovered enough to move! After he had lifted his weight from her, of course—quickly, like the last time. Body still shuddering—like the last time. ‘I—’ ‘I said don’t!’ she choked out. The silence screamed. The tension, the bitterness. Like an action replay of last time. Then he sighed and moved away, walking wearily across the kitchen. Checking the coffee-pot with his hand, he poured himself out a cup then came to sit down at the table. Claire flicked him a glance. He was staring down at his drink and his shoulders were hunched over. The strain of the last twelve hours was so severe in his face now that he looked like a man who was having to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. She looked away before she started feeling sorry for him again. He might look like Atlas, but he isn’t, she reminded herself brutally. He is just a man—an ordinary man with ordinary appetites. And an extraordinary way of dealing with the aftermath. ‘Do you have a mistress?’ she shot at him. His head came up, dark eyes very guarded. ‘What?’ he murmured warily. ‘Desmona did warn me that you had a mistress tucked away somewhere, but with everything else I forgot to ask. So I am asking you now.’ ‘Desmona said that?’ He frowned. ‘When?’ ‘At the betrothal thing.’ She refused to call it a party. ‘She pointed out a couple of candidates and suggested I choose.’ Her eyes flicked up again, catching him without his guard, and his expression was— She looked away again quickly, not wanting to acknowledge what that expression was telling her because it had the power to shatter the brand-new shell of protection she was hugging closely around her. ‘You haven’t answered the question,’ she prompted huskily. ‘There is no one,’ he said. Eyes fixed on her cup, she tried to decide if she could believe him when the man found it so easy to be economical with the truth. ‘There is no one, Claire,’ he repeated in the kind of tone that forced her to believe him. ‘I would not do that to you. Desmona was talking like a loser, that was all.’ Which was what Claire had told herself when Desmona had fed her the poison, she remembered. ‘Good,’ she said, deciding to believe him. ‘That means I have one less guilty sin to carry around with me.’ ‘What we did just now was not sinful,’ he denied. ‘No?’ she mocked. ‘Well, it certainly feels as if I’ve just done something dreadful.’ ‘We made love!’ he husked. ‘No—we had sex!’ she burst out. ‘Just the same as we did a week ago. W-we had sex, then you walked away—just like you did a week ago. And I f-feel unclean,’ she added painfully. ‘Just like I did a week ago.’ ‘I did not walk away from you just now,’ he asserted heavily. ‘I walked away from—’ The words stopped. Sitting there with bated breath, Claire waited for him to continue. But he didn’t. Instead he ran a tired hand through his perfectly combed hair—and added nothing. ‘May you burn in hell,’ she murmured succinctly. To her surprise he laughed—albeit cynically. ‘I have been burning away in that place for years,’ he drawled with an irony that flew right by her. ‘You will have to come up with a better curse than that to hurt me.’ And why do I get the impression that he knows exactly what that curse would be? she wondered, seeing a flash of something almost haunted pass across his eyes. ‘Whatever,’ she said, dismissing the look—because she had to do that if she was to remain strong. ‘Burn in hell or laugh at it. It doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t want you to come near me like that ever again—do you hear?’ With that she got up with the intention of leaving him—but his next words stopped her. ‘I’m sorry if I let you down,’ he said very huskily. ‘I didn’t do it to hurt you, Claire. I just didn’t think.’ ‘You mean—you always walk away from a woman directly after making love to her?’ she asked derisively. There was a distinct pause—more a guarded hesitation—before he sighed out, ‘Yes.’ ‘The man on a mountain,’ she murmured softly, aware that the cryptic remark would mean nothing to him. She shivered inwardly. ‘I understand now. It’s yourself you feel the need to walk away from.’ She had been throwing out words haphazardly with the specific need to hurt him, but as she stood there watching his face grow white beneath his olive skin before it closed up altogether Claire realised, with a small shock, that she had hit the nail right upon its head! ‘You know me so well,’ he drawled, offering her that grim brief smile again in an effort to cover his reaction up. And she wanted to hit him—probably would have done if she hadn’t noticed the tremor in his fingers as he reached for his cup. He was more affected by all of this than he wanted her to believe. What was it with him, Claire wondered furiously, that he hated wanting her as a woman so much that he kept his wretched sexuality hidden inside his trousers until the very last moment? As if he had still been praying for deliverance right up until then, she realised with a shudder. And on a muffled sob she turned and ran from the kitchen—kept on running, across the hall and up the stairs, desperately needing to get to her room before she broke down and wept. Panting and sobbing together by the time she reached her bedroom, she barely had a chance to close the door before it was thrust open again. ‘Go away!’ she cried. ‘Don’t…’ he groaned, reaching out to pull her into his arms. To her horror she pressed her face into his chest and sobbed all the harder. It wasn’t fair! she told herself pitiably. He loved his grandmother. He could love Melanie. Why was it so terrible for him to try to love her? His first wife, she then remembered with a sudden chilling of her flesh. She must have been quite something to have locked his heart up as totally as this. Fighting for control of the tears now, she tried to push away from him. ‘No,’ he refused, his arms only tightening around her. Her face lifted away from his chest, blue eyes awash with so many painful things that it was impossible to pick which was hurting her the most. ‘Oh, please,’ she pleaded helplessly. ‘Please, Andreas, let me go.’ For some unfathomable reason, hearing her use his name in that pained, wretched way unlocked something desperate inside him. His chest expanded on a tense draw of air, his eyes flashing with some awful emotion—then he lowered his head and crushed her mouth to his with a hunger so fierce that it caught her utterly blindsided. Once again Claire discovered that she didn’t stand a chance. Not with emotions running as rife inside her as they were doing right now. And his mouth was hot, the taste of her own tears mingling with the moistness of his tongue. It was a seductive combination. The passion ignited like a fork of lightning that exploded to smithereens all hope of control. She didn’t even notice when her robe fell apart, or hear his muffled curses as he struggled with the zip on his straining trousers. He entered her with a thrust that brought him to his knees with her straddled across him with his hands clamped to her hipbones. ‘Oh, dear God,’ she groaned against his devouring mouth as her body went wild for him. But he lost it first, shooting into her like a man experiencing his first release. He couldn’t control it, could not control the gasping pants that shot from his pulsing body. When she joined him his grip on her hips was locked tight. And as she went limp against him he crumbled sideways, his arms shifting upwards to control her fall as they landed in a tangle of trembling limbs on the bedroom floor. What now? Claire wondered as she reached rock-bottom of the slow slide back to wretched sanity. Another quick withdrawal followed by a walk-out? She even tensed herself in preparation for it. ‘I’m still here.’ His voice sounded like gravel, vibrating against her cheek where he had her face pressed against him. He hadn’t let go of her, and she was still lying with her limbs locked around him. ‘I’m going nowhere.’ ‘Why not?’ she whispered. ‘You were right about me,’ he said. ‘I do prefer to stand alone. I don’t find it easy to be open with my feelings. But—as God is my witness, Claire, I want you. I want this with you!’ His arms tightened round her. ‘And if that means I must change then I will damn well change!’ he vowed. ‘And I will start by holding you like this for as long as you want me to.’ He meant it—he really meant it! The tears came back, but she wasn’t sure what they were for any more. ‘Say something,’ he prompted huskily, and she felt the tremor in his lips as they brushed her brow. Say something, she repeated to herself. But what dared she say? Could she take a chance on this actually meaning something? The trouble was, she loved this man—had known that for quite a while now—while he seemed to only lust after her. How long did lust last? Especially with a man as self-contained as Andreas? ‘I want to go to bed,’ she said. There was a short, sharp pause, then a heavy sigh as he went to get up. ‘Your bed,’ she added, lifting her face out of his shirt-front so she could look warily into his equally wary eyes. ‘I want to sleep in your bed, in your arms all night and wake up still there in the morning,’ she told him huskily. ‘Then what?’ Claire gave a helpless little shrug. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered honestly. ‘What do you want?’ ‘You,’ he said gruffly, then repeated it. ‘I want you.’ Her poor heart fluttered, attempting to reach out and grab those words because they were the closest thing she’d had to a declaration of caring from him. CHAPTER TEN DEATH was a strange thing. It brought some people closer together and pushed others wide apart. In Claire’s own experience, she had lost more than a father when he’d passed away; she’d also lost lifelong friends who could not deal with the tragedy of the situation. But when she stood beside Andreas as they buried his grandmother she found herself being drawn closer to the last person she would have expected, when Desmona suddenly broke down and began weeping so desperately that Claire didn’t think twice about going over and gently placing her arms around the other woman. ‘You were very kind to her, considering the circumstances,’ Andreas remarked much later as they were preparing for bed. They shared a room now. They shared a life. Claire was even daring to think that they were sharing a marriage. ‘She needed someone,’ she answered simply. ‘It had never occurred to me until Desmona broke down like that that she and your grandmother must have been close.’ ‘Desmona has been a member of this family for many years,’ he reminded her. ‘We all—care for her, though sometimes she makes it difficult to do so,’ he added dryly. ‘Is that why the family wanted you to marry her?’ she asked curiously. ‘Because they care for her?’ ‘No.’ He laughed, a softly mocking, sexily husky sound that curled up her toes. ‘Wanting me to marry Desmona was an act of expediency. She owns rather large blocks of shares in some of our most lucrative companies and they wanted to keep them in the family.’ ‘But she is in love with you,’ Claire pointed out. ‘Or why would she agree to marry you?’ ‘Desmona loves Desmona,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘But she loves money even more. Marrying me would have given her relatively free access to the Markopoulou fortune once again. A very worthy cause in her eyes, believe me.’ ‘You’re so cynical sometimes,’ Claire sighed. ‘Then reform me,’ he invited, and covered her mouth, effectively ending the discussion when other, far more important things demanded her attention: mainly this man, who had become the centre of her universe so quickly that she didn’t dare let herself consider just how deeply she had let herself fall in love with him. So the next few weeks went drifting by without her giving a single thought to their original agreement. The plaster-cast came off her wrist, and with Andreas looking indulgently on, she celebrated by jumping fully clothed into the indoor swimming pool with a shriek of delight because she had been so looking forward to being able to do that. They visited London a couple of times to appear in front of an adoption panel who wanted to reassure themselves that they were, indeed, fit parents for Melanie. But there was no problem there. For they were lovers. They were husband and wife. They were a couple in every sense of the word, which showed in the way they responded to each other. Life was wonderful, life was great. Claire had never been so happy. And the only blot on her otherwise perfect existence was the way her aunt Laura still hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her. ‘I have to be in Paris for a few days from tomorrow,’ Andreas informed her one morning over the breakfast table. ‘Would you like to come with me?’ ‘Yes!’ she agreed, thinking, Paris! The most romantic city in the world, and she was going to go there with the most wonderful man in the world. ‘Will my aunt be there?’ she questioned impulsively. It was so many weeks since she’d watched his face close up that seeing it happen now came as a bad shock. ‘We will not discuss your aunt,’ he said coldly. ‘But why?’ Claire demanded. ‘Why are you so determined to keep the two of us apart? It isn’t as though she can hurt me, you know. I understand her better than you think I do.’ He got up from the table. ‘We will not discuss her,’ he repeated, and walked arrogantly away. ‘Then I’m not coming to Paris,’ she threw after him. Childish, she knew. Petty, she knew. But she felt childish and petty at that moment. And Andreas responded accordingly—by not even faltering a single step in his retreat. She sulked for the rest of the day and he retaliated by treating her as if nothing was the matter. But when he reached for her in bed that night it was Claire who surrendered to a power much greater than her will to stand aloof from him. The next morning she awoke to find him gone to Paris, and she felt so angry and hurt that he hadn’t once attempted to change her mind about going with him that she paid him back by telephoning her aunt’s London apartment. She got her answering service, which, Claire realised belatedly, she should have expected if Aunt Laura was in Paris with Andreas. So she left a message asking her aunt to call her, then spent the next few days missing Andreas so badly that when he did arrive home she fell on him like a puppy dog who thought it had been deserted by its adored master. A few more weeks went by. Melanie was changing fast now, becoming a real little personality with squeals and smiles, who liked to kick her legs on a blanket in the warm winter sunshine, as if her Mediterranean blood demanded it of her. The day they received official notification that Melanie was now their legal daughter, Claire had also begun to suspect that she might be pregnant. That evening Andreas took her out to celebrate. Decked out in one of her elegant evening gowns and with Andreas in dinner suit and bow-tie, they spent a wonderful evening dining at a very exclusive restaurant he knew in the hills behind Rafina, where they ate food that tasted like a dream and laughed and teased and talked a lot. And as they danced close together to music composed exclusively for lovers there was a point where Claire almost confided her suspicion that she could be pregnant. Only an unwillingness to overshadow the real reason why they were out celebrating like this stopped her. Plus the fact that she wasn’t sure that she was just experiencing a small glitch in her usual smoothly running cycle. But she was so happy. So lost in this all-encompassing love that she felt for this man of hers that by the time they drove home again that evening she was weaving delicious fantasies around the two of them that involved passionate declarations of love and a life spent making babies and growing old together. And she made love with him that night as if there were no tomorrow—sublimely unaware that, indeed, tomorrow was so very close. The next morning, Nikos drove them into the busy sea port of Rafina. Claire had shopping to do and Andreas had several business appointments, so Nikos was to drive her back home when she was ready. Andreas kissed her deeply before climbing out of the car and leaving her to Nikos’s indulgently smiling care. ‘You have made him very happy,’ he replied to the questioning look he caught her giving him via the rear-view mirror. ‘It is a delight to all of us who have known him for most of his life to see him like this again.’ He meant since the death of his first wife, Claire realised, and felt the tiniest suspicion of a cloud begin to shadow her little bit of clear blue sky. Then she firmly dismissed the sensation as she too clambered out of the car a few minutes later. For this was now, not six years ago. The sun was shining. Life was great. And she wasn’t going to let anything spoil it! With the confidence of youth and a determination that it was she, Claire, who counted in his life now, she went about her shopping with her metaphorical chin high and her shining blue eyes set clear ahead—just asking to be tripped up by someone or something. It happened sooner rather than later, too. Unexpected and unprepared for it, she walked out of the chemist shop armed with her only purchase—and stopped dead in her tracks as she came face to face with her aunt. ‘Aunt Laura?’ she gasped in delighted surprise. Dressed to her usual sharp, immaculate standard, Aunt Laura looked so thoroughly disconcerted to see Claire standing there that there was a heart-stopping moment when Claire actually suspected she was going to turn away as if she didn’t know her! ‘Aunt Laura? It’s me—Claire,’ she inserted hurriedly, feeling just a little stupid for declaring herself like that. Her aunt must have thought so too, because her expression was derisive. ‘I know it’s you,’ she sighed. ‘I’m not blind.’ But she had been going to turn away from her; Claire was certain about that now. And it hurt. Hurt almost as much as the realisation that if her aunt was right here in Rafina, then Andreas knew about it but hadn’t bothered to tell her. Her aunt was looking her over now, the derision more pronounced as her cool grey eyes took in the quality of Claire’s casual linen jacket worn with a simple straight skirt and skinny top that still managed to shriek designer at her. ‘Well, you certainly fell on your feet,’ she commented tightly. ‘You’ve caught yourself a rich man with a rich lifestyle—so who the hell can blame you for not caring if it is all just one big sham?’ ‘It isn’t a sham,’ Claire denied, stunned by the bitterness filtering through her aunt’s voice. ‘We’re in love with each other.’ ‘Love?’ Her aunt made a scoffing sound. ‘A man like Andreas Markopoulou doesn’t fall in love, Claire. He makes clear-cut, coldly calculating business decisions.’ ‘Stop it,’ she responded, not understanding why her aunt was being so nasty. Besides Melanie, they were the only living relatives either of them had left in the world. Surely it had to count for something? But then, it never had before, had it? Claire reminded herself heavily. ‘Andreas is your boss,’ she said a little shakily. ‘I thought you admired and respected him.’ ‘My—what?’ Aunt Laura gasped, staring at her niece as if she’d grown an extra head. ‘He isn’t my boss,’ she denied. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’ It was like standing on the edge of a precipice; Claire felt a frightening tingling sensation slither through her body right down to her toes. ‘Don’t play games with me.’ She frowned. Why else would they bump into each other here, in Andreas’s home town of all places? ‘You were both on your way abroad on a business trip the first time I met him!’ ‘Is that what he told you?’ Claire’s own confused expression gave her aunt the answer to that question, and she huffed out a tightly sardonic laugh. ‘You have to give it to the ruthless swine,’ she allowed. ‘He doesn’t miss a trick. Has he told you anything, Claire?’ she then asked cynically. ‘Or has the smooth, slick devil managed to con you into his life and into his bed, and get what he really wanted from you—which was really only ever Melanie—without having to let a single family skeleton out of the family closet?’ She fell off that precipice. Standing there beneath the Greek winter-blue sky and with her feet planted firmly on solid earth, she felt herself beginning to fall a long, long way into a cold, dark place as she heard herself whisper, ‘What are you talking about?’ Aunt Laura’s angry gaze shifted restlessly away as if she was trying to decide whether to say any more. Then she looked back at Claire—and her face hardened. ‘Why not?’ she decided. ‘He deserves his come-uppance, and I owe him one. So, come on…’ she urged. ‘Let’s find somewhere less public for this, because you’re in for a bad shock, and by the look of you it may be better if you receive it sitting down…’ Nikos kept sending her strange glances via his mirror as he drove her home. Claire didn’t really blame him for looking at her like that. For the bright-eyed, happy person he had dropped off at the shops only an hour before had gone, and in her place was someone else entirely: a sad, pale, haunted-looking creature he had once seen before, lying in a road after she had been knocked down. ‘Are you all right, kyria?’ he enquired concernedly. Claire’s eyelashes flickered in an attempt to bring her glazed eyes into focus, but she wasn’t very successful. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, and tried to swallow the huge lump that was blocking her throat—she wasn’t very successful there either. ‘A small headache, that’s all. I’ll be fine once I get back and take something for it.’ But she wasn’t going to be fine. She knew it—and perhaps Nikos knew it, because she saw him lift his mobile phone to his ear and begin talking in Greek just before she shut herself away inside her own head again. He was calling Andreas, she was sure. In a way she was glad. For the quicker Andreas was brought back to the house to find out what was the matter with her, the quicker she could leave it. It wasn’t far from Rafina to the house. Fifteen minutes at most. As Nikos drew the car to a stop, Claire climbed out, walked in through the front door and up the stairs without so much as glancing sideways. In her room—her room, not the one she had been sharing with Andreas for the last few months or so—she came to a stop in the middle of the carpet, then coldly and precisely began stripping off the casual but chic clothes she was wearing. Leaving them to lie where they fell, she then walked naked into the dressing room hung with the kind of clothes most women only dreamed of owning. When she came back out again a few minutes later, she was wearing her old jeans and a tee shirt. In her arms she carried the rest of the clothes that she had brought with her from London and never worn since. Now she was shutting the door on the extravagant dressing room knowing that she would never be wearing a single garment in there again. For he could pay through the teeth for the privilege of having Melanie for his daughter, but he would never pay for the privilege of having Claire again! She heard a car come racing up the driveway as she placed the stack of clothes on the bed, ready for packing. It was Andreas, she was sure of it, though who he had got to bring him home she had no idea—nor cared. By the time he swung in through her bedroom door, she was just placing her rings in the little velvet jewellery box where she kept all of the things his grandmother had given her. She didn’t bother to turn and look at him, but could sense him taking in at a glance the mound of discarded clothes on the floor and what she was now wearing. Only a fool would have missed the significance in the change, and Andreas was no fool. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Explain to me what this is about.’ ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. Not, I’m leaving you, for she no longer acknowledged there was a him to leave. The man wasn’t human. He was cast from some hard, impenetrable metal that gave him the will to do unspeakable things just to get his own way. She heard the bedroom door close as she was rummaging in the dressing-table drawers, picking out the bits that belonged to her and leaving behind the ones that no longer did. ‘Why?’ he asked quietly. She didn’t answer—couldn’t. It was all stopped up inside her as if someone had ground a cork into a fizzing bottle. But what really bothered her was what would happen if that same person came along and shook the damned bottle. ‘Something happened in Rafina,’ he prompted when she didn’t say anything. Naturally he would presume that because that was where she had been when she’d altered into a different person. Or went back to being the person she used to be, she corrected grimly. ‘You saw someone…’ She could feel his footsteps vibrate through the carpet as he came towards her. Her hands began to shake badly as she pulled open another drawer. ‘Desmona, perhaps. Has Desmona been stirring up trouble again, Claire?’ he demanded. ‘Is that what this is about?’ Try again, she thought bitterly. She picked up a framed photograph of her mother holding Melanie in her arms and made as if to edge round him. His hand came out to touch her shoulder. ‘Claire…!’ he rasped out impatiently. ‘This is—’ The cork blew. In a fountain spout of bitter fury, she turned on him and let fly with her hand to the side of his wretched, deceiving face. ‘Don’t touch me ever again—do you hear?’ she spat at him. His hand was already covering the side of his face where she’d stung him. He should have been angry—Claire would have preferred him to get angry so she could feed off it, build on what was bubbling up inside her. But those black eyes of his just looked bewildered. And she couldn’t cope with that. ‘You lied to me,’ she accused him thickly. ‘Ever since the first day that we met you’ve lied and you’ve lied and you’ve lied…’ With that she managed to step around him. On trembling legs she walked across to the bed and placed her mother’s photograph on the stack of things already assembled there. ‘You’ve seen your aunt Laura,’ he realised belatedly. ‘I did wonder if there was a risk of that when she turned up at my office today.’ Claire said nothing. She just stood tautly, with a white-knuckled grip on each side of the photo frame, and let the silence grow to suffocating proportions. ‘What did she tell you?’ he asked eventually, sounding flat and weary, like someone who knew he had been exposed without the ability to defend himself. ‘She doesn’t even work for you,’ she whispered. ‘She never did.’ ‘You made that assumption, Claire,’ he murmured. ‘All I did was allow you to go on thinking it.’ That was his defence? Claire didn’t think much of it, then. ‘But why?’ she demanded, spinning around to lash the question at him, and so hurt by her own wretched gullibility that she couldn’t keep it out of her voice. ‘Why should you want to deceive me and trick me and manipulate me like this—when the truth would probably have given you the same results?’ He released a heavy sigh. His hand fell away from the side of his face and as it did so Claire felt a tiny pinch of remorse when she saw the imprint of her fingers showing white against his olive skin. ‘I could not afford to take the risk that you would not fall in with my—plan,’ he answered. ‘Your plan to take Melanie away from me.’ She spelled it out clearly. ‘That was the original idea, yes.’ He freely admitted it. Then his eyes flicked her a searching look. ‘Your aunt told you about my brother and your mother?’ For an answer, she wrapped her arms around her slender body, her eyes closing as her mind replayed her aunt’s wretched story of her mother’s brief affair in Madrid with the hugely wealthy but very married fifty-year-old Greek merchant banker, Timo Markopoulou, which had resulted in Melanie. ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard him mutter. What for? she wondered. For being responsible for making her feel like this, or was he apologising on behalf of his brother and her mother? ‘Did you know about their affair while it was happening?’ she whispered threadily. ‘I knew about an affair—yes,’ he confirmed, turning away from her to go and stare grimly out of the window. ‘But I did not know who the woman involved was,’ he went on. ‘Or the fact that she had borne him a child, until almost a year after Timo’s death and I was in London on business when your aunt came to see me.’ Claire’s eyes flicked open, the blue bright with a derision she speared at his profile. ‘You mean you went to see my aunt,’ she corrected him. ‘To get her to bargain with me for possession of Melanie!’ ‘Is that what she said?’ His dark head turned. ‘Then she lied,’ he declared, holding her sceptical gaze with a grim demand that she believe him. ‘Your aunt Laura approached me, Claire,’ he insisted. ‘It was she who told me that my brother’s mistress had given birth to his daughter. It was she who wanted to bargain—not for Melanie,’ he made succinctly clear, ‘but for your silence about the affair. Your silence, Claire,’ he sombrely repeated. ‘Your aunt placed herself in the role of mere mediator between myself and her niece—the niece she swore had been my dead brother’s mistress!’ ‘M-me?’ she stammered in shocked confusion. ‘My aunt told you that I was your brother’s mistress?’ Her sense of horror and dismay was obvious. Andreas acknowledged her right to feel like that with a tight-lipped grimace. ‘Apparently you were threatening to sell the story to the papers if I did not pay for your silence,’ he explained. ‘But how could you think such terrible things about me?’ Claire cried. ‘I had not met you then,’ he reminded her. ‘So I gained an impression of a grasping young woman who saw her child’s wealthy Greek relatives as a pushover for a bit of lucrative blackmail.’ It made a kind of sense. Claire felt sick suddenly. Sick with shame at her aunt’s mercenary cunning. ‘I could not afford to risk such a scandal breaking in the press when my grandmother was so frail,’ he continued, whilst, white as a sheet now, Claire stared blindly at the floor. ‘The one thing your aunt could not have known was my grandmother’s dream to hold her great-grandchild before she died. But it was only a dream,’ he sighed, turning back to the window. ‘Both she and I knew she didn’t have a chance of fulfilling it…’ He meant because his grandmother’s days had already been numbered, Claire realised sadly. ‘Learning about Melanie must have seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity, then.’ The dark head nodded. ‘I offered to take the child off your hands for a—certain amount of money,’ he told her. ‘Your aunt led me to believe that you would not be averse to the idea of giving up the burden of caring for Melanie—for the right price.’ Nice of her, Claire thought bitterly. The whole thing was a macabre circle of deceit, betrayal and greed, she acknowledged with a terrible shudder. ‘So you drove her over to my flat then sat outside it in your big limousine, and waited for her to buy your brother’s child for you,’ she concluded, beginning to feel more than a little sick now as the rest fell into place without needing to be dragged out and pawed over. She’d come running out of her flat and got herself knocked over in front of him. He had then been given the opportunity to see where she lived and how she lived, and eventually learned that not only was she innocent of any charge of extortion, but that he would have a hell of a job convincing her to give her sister up to him! So then came the next round of lies, she continued while he remained silently staring out of the window, perhaps doing the same as she, and replaying the whole thing scene by miserable scene! The proposition, the coercion, the sob story gauged to tug at her tender heartstrings about a grandmother who wanted to hold her only great-grandchild before she passed away. The only bit of truth in among all the lies, she noted cynically. ‘Did your grandmother know whose child Melanie is?’ she asked huskily. He didn’t answer for a moment, and there was something very—odd about his hesitation. It smacked at another lie on the way, Claire judged, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘She—guessed,’ he said in the end. Truth or lie? Claire wondered. ‘You devil,’ his grandmother had said to him, she recalled, and got to her feet as an icy chill went washing through her. What a waste of all his efforts, she mused acidly. For by then the wedding had taken place, otherwise he could have saved himself a whole lot of inconvenience. Then she remembered that Andreas had still needed to acquire legal control of his brother’s illegitimate child. So—not such a waste of his time. ‘Did you pay my aunt to keep away from me?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘The reason why she started this was because she had lost her job, was in a terrible amount of debt, and she saw me as a quick way to get herself out of trouble. But she then proceeded to lose the money trying to double it by speculating on the markets.’ ‘So she came to your office today wanting more.’ ‘I kicked her out,’ he stated flatly. ‘She took her revenge. I should have expected it—being a ruthless rat myself dealing with one of my kind.’ Which seemed to round it all off pretty well, Claire thought as the pain in her breast eased to a dull ache. ‘I never did any of this to hurt you, Claire,’ he murmured, as if he could sense what she was feeling. ‘Though you probably find it impossible to believe right now, I acted with your interests at heart also.’ It was impossible, she agreed. People who had your interests at heart did not lie, cheat and plot to steal from you. ‘Your aunt intended to give me Melanie, take the money and run,’ he told her. ‘I could not have done that to you,’ he added huskily. ‘I only had to know you for half an hour to realise I could not have done it. So I lied,’ he admitted. ‘I gave you what you seemed to need then, which was a reason worthy of you staying within my protection. Think about it,’ he urged. ‘When has anything I’ve done—lies or truth—actually been done to deliberately hurt you?’ Silence met that. The kind of silence that throbbed and pulled and prodded at the self-control she was having to exert over herself not to break down and cry all over him. ‘Stay,’ he fed gently into that silence. ‘Don’t let yourself be manoeuvred by a cold and embittered woman who has never done anything but hurt you…’ ‘I can’t think straight,’ she whispered, pushing a hand up to her aching eyes. ‘I need time to come to terms with all of this before I make a decision as to whether I stay or go.’ Andreas seemed to draw himself up. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed, and his tone altered, cooled, and became businesslike. ‘Take your time,’ he invited. ‘There is no rush.’ With that he began to walk away. Making the tactical retreat, Claire recognised as she watched him with the tears already splitting her vision into a million fragmented parts. Halfway to the door the toe of his shoe caught something that lay on the floor amongst the debris of her recently discarded clothes. Through the blur of tears she watched him pause and glance down, watched him go still for a moment before be bent to pick something up. It never occurred to her what that something was—until she heard the tearing of flimsy paper. And, on a lightning shot of panic, she was galvanised into action, darting across the room in an effort to snatch the pregnancy testing kit out of his hands before he realised what it was he was looking at! Too late. He spun to stare at her. Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. He’d gone white—perfectly, sickeningly white. ‘Why have you bought this?’ he demanded hoarsely. He might be white, but Claire wasn’t; she was blushing like a schoolgirl. ‘Please give it to me,’ she insisted, holding out a badly trembling hand. ‘Why?’ he barked. The sheer ferocity of it thoroughly shocked her. Her blue eyes widened in surprise, and she began backing away, cautiously—bewilderedly. Not understanding the need for this depth of anger. ‘Answer me,’ he commanded forcefully. ‘Answer me, Claire!’ ‘I w-would have told you,’ she stammered shakily. ‘If—if it w-was positive.’ Was that why he was so angry—because he believed she’d intended to hide it from him? ‘I would have told you, Andreas!’ she repeated shrilly when he actually took a step towards her. ‘I want you out of this house,’ he hissed furiously at her. ‘Within the hour, do you hear me? I want you gone from my sight and I never want to see you again!’ ‘But—why are you so angry?’ Claire shrilled, still backing while he paced towards her like a wild animal needing to taste fresh blood. ‘We haven’t used protection once in all the weeks we’ve been making love! Surely you must have considered this a strong possibility?’ ‘And I used to get these damned things shoved in my face once a month by my first wife!’ he rasped. ‘For five hellish years, I used to listen to her sob her heart out once a month when the damn things told her what we both already knew! I am infertile, Claire!’ he raked rawly at her—watched her face blanch in shock, and tossed the packet aside in disgust. The dreadful words held her still and shaking, confusion and horror warring for dominance on her face. ‘I know you said you never wanted children of your own,’ she whispered. ‘But…I feel pregnant, Andreas!’ she cried out pleadingly. ‘So did Sofia,’ he growled. ‘Every single wretched month.’ ‘No…’ she breathed, refusing to take on board what he was saying here. ‘I’m not like her—I’m not!’ she insisted as those hard black eyes flicked her a contemptuous look. ‘I love you!’ she cried, saying the words out loud for the very first time in her desperation. ‘I couldn’t hurt you by playing on your feelings like that!’ ‘Sofia loved me,’ he replied. ‘She worshipped the ground that I walked upon! She leaned on me—lived for me!’ A harshly grating sound of scornful laughter escaped him. ‘And in the end she even decided to put me out of my misery by killing herself in the name of love!’ That was six years ago, and he still has not recovered from what that final act of rank selfishness did to his soul, she realised. She was so white in the face now that she began to look like marble. ‘I don’t want to believe all of this…’ she breathed as if in a crazed nightmare. ‘Then make yourself believe,’ he advised her coldly. ‘For I am infertile and this marriage is over. I will not be put through that kind of hell again—not for you—not for any woman,’ he concluded as he strode angrily for the door. This time he passed through it without any hesitation. The door closed behind him, leaving Claire standing there, trembling from the top of her head to the soles of her feet as she tried desperately to come to terms with all the ugliness and horror that had been unveiled in this room today. Infertile… With her head turning on a neck that was too locked by stress to make the movement a smooth one, she stared dazedly at the flat packet now lying on the bed where he had tossed it. What to her had been a silly purchase made in the excitement of the moment was an instrument of torture to Andreas. She shuddered, hating the very sight of it now, and was about to turn away from it in sickened distaste, when something he had said suddenly stilled her. Make yourself believe, Andreas had said. Make yourself believe… Feeling her heart turn to stone in appalled dismay at what she was daring to consider, Claire picked up the packet. The fierce roar of a car racing away from the house filled her head as she walked grimly into her bathroom. CHAPTER ELEVEN IT WAS very late by the time his car swung back into the driveway. Huddled inside a warm winter coat, Claire was sitting on one of the pale blue upholstered chairs on the front terrace, where she had been waiting for him for what seemed like hours now. He had to have seen her sitting there because his car headlights had picked her out as he’d driven by on his way to the garages. Yet long, long minutes went by before his tall, dark figure loomed up at her from the inky darkness. And her first response when she looked up at him was a cold little shiver. ‘Still here, I see,’ he drawled. ‘I needed to ask you a question before I left,’ she explained. ‘So I decided to wait until you got back.’ ‘You mean there is a lie we forgot to rake over?’ he mocked. ‘Maybe.’ She smiled a little sadly. ‘I’m not sure…Will you at least sit down and listen?’ she then requested. ‘Only it’s very difficult to talk to someone who is bent on cutting you to ribbons with their eyes while you speak.’ He smiled that smile she hated so much, and for a moment she thought he was going to tell her to go to hell. The tension soared, filling the cool winter night with a hostility that clutched at her throat. Maybe it did something similar to him, because he released a taut sigh as if attempting to dispel the feeling, then in the next moment was reluctantly dropping down into the chair next to her. ‘Fire away,’ he grimly invited. But now that she had his attention she found she’d lost the courage to say what she wanted to say. Ironic, really, she mused, when you think how many hours I’ve waited so patiently for this moment. ‘Nice evening?’ she asked, merely as a cover while she got her courage back. His dark head turned to look at her delicately drawn profile. She looked so pale, her skin seemed to glow ghost-like in the darkness. ‘Is that the question?’ he enquired. ‘Or just an extra one you decided to throw in?’ In other words, he was not going to make this easier for her, Claire noted. ‘I am not naturally a cruel or vindictive person, Andreas,’ she murmured soberly. ‘I did not set out to deliberately hurt you today.’ ‘Now that definitely was not a question,’ he clipped. And he definitely was not going to make this easy. At which point she decided to just hit him with it and wait to see what he did. ‘Have you been making love to me for all of these weeks just for the hell of it because I was there and so obviously willing?’ she asked. ‘Or did you actually let yourself care something for me before you allowed things to go that far?’ He shifted restlessly, so his chair creaked on the tiled terrace floor. From the way his jaw clenched, he didn’t like the question and liked even less having to offer an answer. ‘I did not make love to you for the hell of it,’ he said. Claire sat there beside him and smothered the urge to sigh loudly in relief as she felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders because, if he had not done it for the hell of it, then he must care—even if he never actually said that he did. ‘Then may I stay?’ she requested huskily. ‘Please?’ He made a jerky movement with his head that made her feel as if she’d hit him again. ‘You said one question,’ he gritted. ‘That makes two.’ So she rephrased it. ‘I’ll go if you want me to, but I prefer to stay. I need to stay here with you.’ ‘And Melanie, of course,’ he cynically mocked. Claire’s blue eyes flashed, glinting a warning at his hard profile. ‘Don’t bring Melanie into this,’ she admonished. ‘What is best for Melanie is a separate issue. I am talking about me here. My needs.’ She tersely pressed the point. ‘What I am going to do!’ ‘And you want to stay,’ he drawled with crushing derision. ‘How very—saintly of you, considering who you would be staying with.’ ‘Do you think that by mocking both me and yourself in the same sentence you will force me to hate you enough to leave without you having to tell me to go?’ she demanded. ‘I thought I had already done that,’ he remarked, saw her wince, and with a sigh relented in his acid tone a little. ‘Listen to me, Claire,’ he prompted heavily. ‘You are generous and loving and selflessly kind,’ he told her. ‘But you are also young and extremely beautiful. If you leave here now, you will soon pick up the threads of your own life, eventually meet a lucky man one day who will fulfil your heart’s desire in every single way. But I am not that man,’ he stated gruffly. ‘I am too old for you, too—flawed, and just too cynical for someone as fresh and perfect as you.’ ‘But you aren’t saying that you wouldn’t like to be that lucky man,’ she said. ‘Only that you don’t think you can be him.’ His laugh was soft and rueful. ‘I forgot to say stubborn, too,’ he murmured—only to tag on harshly, ‘Why can’t you make this easier on both of us and accept that I am not going to let you stay with me?’ ‘Because I love you,’ she replied. ‘Though I don’t think you deserve it. Or you couldn’t be trying to hurt me like this. And if you dare to quote the cruel to be kind thing at me,’ she added warningly, ‘I will probably hit you again—old man.’ ‘Then I won’t say it,’ he promised. ‘But neither will I change my mind.’ He sounded so strong, so—resolved, her heart gave a painful little lurch in response to it. ‘So, if I get up right now and walk off into that darkness leaving Melanie behind—which is what you only ever really wanted—will that make you happy, Andreas? Will it?’ He didn’t answer, but she could feel the sharp increase in his tension. On impulse she stood up—could have wept when his hand snaked out to capture hers and he muttered, ‘No,’ so rawly that it rasped over his throat like sandpaper, and his grip was intense. In a flurry of shaking limbs she spun around to come and squat down in front of him. Her hair had grown longer over the last couple of months, grown thicker and glossier so that even here, in the darkness of the terrace, it shone like golden syrup around the tense pallor of her face as she tried to capture his eyes. Only he wouldn’t let her do that—hadn’t, in fact, since he’d appeared in front of her tonight. And that made her hurt for him, because she understood why he would not meet her gaze. It was wretched—utterly wretched. ‘OK,’ she murmured shakily. ‘New scenario—right?’ Her free hand went up, ice-cold and trembling fingertips touching the white ring of tension circling his mouth. ‘You meet a girl, you fall in love with her. You ask her to marry you. She turns round and tells you that she can’t have children. Do you just walk away, Andreas?’ she asked him gently. ‘Does the fact that she can’t give you children suddenly make her less worthy of your love?’ ‘This is a senseless exercise,’ he gritted, dislodging her fingers with a tense movement of his head. ‘Simply because it is not the case here.’ ‘How do you know?’ Claire challenged. ‘How can either you or I know whether I don’t have my own flaw that will stop me from conceiving? When it has never been put to the test?’ ‘And never will be by me,’ he uttered grimly. ‘But that isn’t the point I was trying to make,’ she pressed. ‘Are you saying that when this fantastic new man comes along to sweep me off my feet I have to have him checked out to see if he’s fertile before I fall in love with him? And that he has to do the same with me?’ ‘Don’t be foolish.’ He began to scowl. ‘And stop this line of argument right now. For I refuse to play mind games with ifs, buts and maybes. Why can’t you simply accept that I am not going to let you stay here with me?’ ‘Then why are you holding so tightly to my hand?’ Claire countered softly. His hand snapped away from her, his hard face darkening with a sudden loss of patience. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he muttered, going to get up. But Claire beat him to it. ‘So have I,’ she agreed, straightening away from him before he could stand up. ‘So I am going to go to my lonely bed to dream of wildly exciting men with very high sperm counts,’ she bitterly informed him. ‘And you never know—if I dream hard enough, by the time morning comes around, I may have managed to purge my love for you right out of me! Then leaving here tomorrow could well turn out to be a pleasure!’ With that she stalked into the house, leaving him sitting there alone with only his stubborn pride to help him mull over what she had just said. On reaching her room, she stripped off her clothes and climbed into bed, closed her eyes and, with gritted teeth, waited to see if her angry words managed to shock a reaction out of him. Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, the door to his own room slammed shut, and a few more minutes after that the connecting door flew open. Claire refused to open her eyes. ‘You asked for this,’ he growled, coming to lean over her. ‘You wanted to make me angry—well, I’m angry,’ he confirmed as his naked body slid between the sheets. ‘You wanted to make me jealous,’ he added as he reached out for her. ‘Well, I am damned well jealous!’ ‘Of my dreams?’ she taunted, opening her eyes. ‘Of everything to do with you!’ he rasped, and imprisoned her very willing mouth. It became a battle of wills as to who could arouse the other more. He kissed and licked and teased her, and shrouded her in the heaviest kind of sensuality. And she returned everything with interest, driving him out of control with the touch of her mouth and the caress of her fingers and the soft urgency with which she whispered her desire to him. ‘Will my other men make me feel as good as this?’ she dared to question curiously. Her innocence before he came along added immense power to the question. But it was dangerous, it was reckless. He responded by entering her like a man who had lost touch with his sanity. And as he drove her before him into the same wild place she thought she heard an anguished whimper, and realised with a sense of wretched guilt that the sound had come from him. ‘I don’t leave tomorrow, then?’ she murmured when it was all over and she was lying curled close up against him, his arms still wrapped around her as if they couldn’t let go. ‘You stay until you are ready to go,’ he replied. ‘I refuse to accept more than that from you.’ Very magnanimous, Claire thought, and broke herself free from his arms to walk off to her own bathroom. When she came back she had something hidden in the palm of her hand—though he didn’t notice that because he was too busy absorbing every nuance of her slender shape as she came back to him. Straddling his lean waist, she sat looking thoughtfully down at his dark face. His eyes were hooded again—but lazily, their dark depths gleaming with a deliciously greedy possessiveness as they looked at her body. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she confessed. ‘But I need you to promise me that you won’t get angry.’ ‘Strange request, that,’ he drawled, lifting up his arms to fold them beneath his head. ‘I feel myself growing angry at the mere suggestion.’ ‘I thought you might.’ She grimaced, sighed and then began. ‘I’ve had a very bad day today,’ she informed him. ‘Almost the worst of my life.’ ‘My fault, I presume.’ ‘Hmm…Yes and no,’ she replied. ‘Meeting my aunt didn’t help. Then you and I rowed and you took off like a maniac. I was feeling pretty miserable by then, I can tell you.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ he sighed. She shrugged the apology away. ‘Then something really frightening happened,’ she told him. ‘So I got Nikos to take me back to Rafina so I could visit a doctor.’ His eyes sharpened, his arms dropped down so his hands could clasp her around her waist. ‘Why?’ he raked at her. ‘What happened to you?’ ‘He examined me,’ she explained as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Confirmed my worst fears…You do trust me, don’t you, Andreas, not to have ever been unfaithful to you?’ she then asked carefully. ‘Of course.’ He frowned, impatient with what he saw as an irrelevance, coming as it did right in the middle of what she was telling him. ‘Stop making a meal of this,’ he rasped. ‘And tell me what the hell is wrong with you!’ ‘M-my uterus is enlarged,’ she said, not finding this as easy as she’d expected it to be. ‘H-he did some tests.’ She took a deep breath, then let it out again. ‘I’m—I’m pregnant,’ she announced. It took a moment, while Claire sat there across him and waited with bated breath. Then he uttered a very rude word, and in an act of blind fury he toppled her off his chest and launched himself out of the bed. ‘I thought you had agreed not to do this!’ he bit out as he paced angrily away from her. ‘S-six weeks to be exact,’ Claire continued unsteadily. ‘Andreas—I need you to—’ ‘How many times do I have to go through this hell?’ he raged right over the top of whatever she’d been going to say. ‘You cannot be pregnant!’ he turned to blast at her. ‘I am infertile, for goodness’ sake! I am infertile!’ Trembling too much to dare try to stand up and go to him, Claire drew up her knees and hugged them to her chest. ‘The doctor explained that,’ she murmured shakily. He went off in a fury of Greek. Sitting there like that, Claire closed her eyes tightly and waited for the furious stream to stop before grimly forcing herself to continue. ‘He said that research into male infertility is relatively new. That they are only just discovering that a man’s sperm count can change virtually by the m-month.’ ‘I’m not listening to this.’ Reeling almost drunkenly, he made for his own room. ‘H-he said if you only did the test once,’ she stammered after him, ‘then you could have just chosen an unlucky day!’ ‘An unlucky day?’ he repeated, coming to a taut standstill. Then he twisted his dark head to look at her. What she saw written on his face made her insides shrivel. ‘I had five years of unlucky days, Claire,’ he reminded her bitterly. ‘Try talking your way around that.’ She nodded, and swallowed, her blue eyes determined even while they swam with tears. ‘Ap-apparently he used to be Sofia’s family doctor,’ she explained. ‘He…’ ‘No.’ Andreas immediately denied that. ‘Our family doctor is in Athens—’ ‘And this doctor was Sofia’s family practitioner before she married you!’ Claire inserted. ‘He—he w-wants to talk to you—confidentially,’ she told him. ‘H-he says he has some information y-you may like to hear ab-about Sofia…’ Something happened, Claire wasn’t sure exactly what, but something most certainly cracked that death mask he was wearing clamped over his face—before he turned and walked into his own room without a word. She wilted like a dying swan, her long neck folding over her knees. Her heart was pounding heavily, her lungs almost completely locked inside the tension surrounding them. And her brain seemed to have closed itself down altogether, because she could not think of a single thing beyond that expression on his wretched face as he’d walked away. Something landed on the bed beside her. Her head shot up, blue eyes despairingly vulnerable as they searched out his. But Andreas had shut off completely. ‘Ring him,’ he commanded. ‘Ring who?’ She frowned in confusion. ‘This—doctor.’ A long, taut finger pointed stabbingly at something beside her on the bed; glancing dazedly down, Claire saw it was a mobile telephone. ‘But it’s the middle of the night,’ she protested. ‘Then wake him up,’ he insisted. When she still didn’t make a move to do his bidding, he bent to snatch the telephone back again. ‘What’s the bloody number?’ he grated. ‘I d-don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘All I did was ask Nikos to take me to see a doctor and he drove me there…’ ‘His name, then,’ he flicked tightly at her. ‘You do at least know the name of this doctor you allowed to make an intimate examination of you?’ ‘An appointment card,’ she suddenly remembered. ‘Over there on the dressing table.’ Grimly he went to find it with hard fingers scattering things anywhere they fell. In that kind of tight, staccato way, he read the Greek symbols printed on the card, and stabbed them into his mobile. Claire couldn’t sit there and take any more. She climbed off the bed and escaped into her bathroom, where she sat on the toilet seat and shivered while she listened to his deep voice firing questions at the poor doctor in Greek. Then the silence came back. She continued to sit there, not sure what to do, until her flesh grew so cold she had to get up and pull on her bathrobe. Shoving her hands into the cavernous pockets, she allowed herself a couple of deep breaths for courage, then let herself into the bedroom again. Andreas was sitting on the end of her bed, slumped over with his face buried in his hands. In all her life she had never seen anything so wretched as this proud Greek man reduced to this. Without a second thought, she went over there, climbed onto the bed behind him then simply wrapped her arms around him as tightly as she could. ‘She lied to me,’ he murmured hoarsely. ‘I know,’ Claire softly replied. ‘She knew even before she married me that she was not able to conceive, yet she put me through all of that—torment. Month after month.’ He laboured the point, dragging his hands away from his face so he could use them to help him. ‘She made me feel useless and helpless and…’ It all came pouring out then. While Claire knelt behind him and held onto him tightly, Andreas drew a vivid picture of what it had been like to live with a woman whose obsessive need to bear a child had turned both their lives into a living nightmare. Not once had Sofia suggested the fault could be hers. Loving him and living in fear of losing him, she had created a web of deceit that involved cruel tricks and lies which kept him balanced on a knife-edge of failure and despair. By the time he had been driven into taking a fertility test himself, the sheer stress of it all must have lowered his count. ‘She took a terrible risk, allowing you to take that test,’ Claire pointed out soberly. ‘Not really,’ Andreas contended. ‘Either way, the torment would have continued. With a strong count she would have merely increased her efforts to conceive. A low count gave her a similar excuse to—be lucky one day—as she loved to say to me.’ A shudder ripped through him; Claire tightened her hold on him. ‘In the end I couldn’t bring myself to touch her, I felt such a pitiful failure,’ he admitted. ‘I think my withdrawal from her bed was what finally tipped her over the edge.’ And left him with yet another sense of failure he had to learn to live with, Claire realised sadly. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured. His shoulders flexed. ‘What have you got to be sorry for?’ he demanded. ‘It should be me apologising to you for the way I behaved before!’ ‘I understood.’ ‘You’re pregnant…’ he husked suddenly. ‘Mmm,’ she softly confirmed. ‘Are you pleased?’ He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Shell-shocked, I think,’ he admitted, but some of the tension began to ease out of him. ‘I have something for you,’ she said, and, taking the pen-shaped tester out of her pocket, she gravely handed it to him over his shoulder. ‘Our baby,’ she confided. ‘What do you think—boy or girl?’ She tried to keep it light, but she could feel the emotion come roaring up inside him as he sat there staring down at that silly little indicator that had been such a source of pain to him before now. When he moved, he did it with a throaty growl as he twisted around and tumbled her onto the bed. ‘From the moment you opened your lovely blue eyes on a dusty road back in London, I knew you were going to mean something special to me,’ he told her deeply. ‘But I never dared to so much as dream of anything this special.’ ‘Here,’ Claire invited. ‘Feel for yourself just how special…’ And, taking hold of his hand, she fed it between their bodies so she could press his palm against her womb. There was nothing to show for the miracle taking place inside her, of course—it was much too soon—but the gesture itself was enough to have her drowning in the intense darkness of his wonderful eyes. ‘I am going to love you until the day I die,’ he vowed. ‘And I am never going to let you go.’ ‘I’ve been trying very hard not to get away, please note,’ she pointed out gently. ‘Stubborn,’ he accused her softly. ‘In love,’ she amended. For that, he kissed her. Kissed her long and deep and with a heart-stirring tenderness that told her more than anything else could do just how much he loved to hear her say that. Timo Markopoulou arrived in the world very early on a bright and hot summer morning. His mother was exhausted, but she couldn’t allow herself to fall asleep. She was too busy observing the way Andreas was sitting in the chair by her bed, with Melanie seated on one half of his lap while his small son occupied the other. He was introducing them to each other, his voice softly reassuring though both babies were too young to understand. Yet, sitting there on his lap, gazing solemnly at her new brother who looked remarkably like herself when she was born, Melanie seemed to understand something of what her papa was saying, because she reached out with a small hand and touched the baby’s cheek in just the same way Claire had always done to her. The incredibly gentle act from one so young had a lump forming in Claire’s throat. It affected Andreas too; she saw the waves of love and pride go washing through him as he caught the little girl’s hand and carried it to his lips. Lifting his head, he caught her watching them, and Claire sent him a soft, understanding smile, but he didn’t smile back. There was just too much emotion at work inside him for him to smile right now. ‘My cup runneth over,’ he murmured deeply. That was all; his feelings at that moment required no further explanation. Needing to make a physical link with those feelings, Claire reached out to rest a hand on one of his wide shoulders. He acknowledged it by brushing it with his cheek as his attention returned to his children. And that was the image Claire took with her as she drifted into slumber. Her love. Her life, encapsulated in that one special moment. Her own cup of happiness was overflowing too. The Purchased Wife Michelle Reid CHAPTER ONE GETTING from flight arrivals to the airport’s main exit was like taking a long walk through hell. The whole route was lined with baying reporters, flashing light bulbs and a cacophony of questions aimed to provoke an impulsive response. Xander kept his mouth clamped tightly shut and ignored provocations like, ‘Did you have anything to do with your wife’s accident, Mr Pascalis?’—‘Did she know about your mistress?’—‘Did she run her car off the road to kill herself?’—‘Is there a good reason why you withdrew her bodyguard last week?’ With his eyes fixed directly ahead Xander just kept on going, six feet two inches of mean muscle power driving long legs towards the airport exit with no less than three personal-security men grouped around him like protective wolves guarding the king of the pack. Through it all the questions kept on coming and the camera bulbs flashed, catching his severely handsome dark features locked in an expression of blistering contempt. Inside, his fury was simmering on the point of eruption. He was used to being the centre of media interest, speculation—scandal if they thought they could make it stick. But nothing—nothing they’d said about him before had been as bad or as potentially damaging as this. He hit the outside and crossed the pavement to the waiting limousine where Rico, his chauffeur, stood with the rear door open at the ready. Dipping into the car, the door shut even before he’d folded his long frame into the seat, while outside his security people dispersed in a prowling circle that kept the reporters back until Rico had safely stashed himself back behind the wheel. Ten seconds later the car moved away from the kerb and another car was pulling into its place to receive his men. ‘How is she?’ he lanced, rough toned, at the man sitting beside him. ‘Still in surgery,’ Luke Morrell replied. The granite set of Xander’s jaw clenched violently on a sudden vision of the beautiful Helen stretched out on an operating table, the object of a surgeon’s knife. It was almost as bad as the vision he’d had of her slumped behind the wheel of her twisted wreck of a car with her Titian-bright hair and heart-shaped face smeared with blood. His jaw unclenched. ‘Who is with her at the hospital?’ There was a short hesitation before, ‘No one,’ Luke Morell answered. ‘She refused to allow anyone to stay.’ Turning his dark head, Xander fixed his narrowed gaze on the very wary face of his UK-based personal assistant. ‘What the hell happened to Hugo Vance?’ ‘Nell dismissed him a week ago.’ The simmering silence which followed that tasty piece of information began to burn up the oxygen inside the luxury car. ‘And you knew about this?’ Luke Morrell swallowed and nodded. ‘Hugo Vance rang to let me know what she’d done.’ ‘Then why the hell was I not told—?’ ‘You were busy.’ Busy. Xander’s lips snapped together. He was always busy. Busy was a damned bloody way of life! ‘Keep something like that from me again and you’re out,’ he seared at the other man with teeth-gritting intent. Luke Morrell shifted tensely, wishing to hell that the beautiful Helen had remained locked away behind the gates of their private country estate instead of deciding it was time to venture out and take a look at life. ‘It was an accident, Xander. She was driving too fast—’ A pair of wide shoulders shifted inside impeccable dark suiting. ‘The point is—why was she driving so fast?’ Luke didn’t answer. In truth he didn’t need to. Xander could put two and two together and come up with four for himself. Yesterday his name had been splashed all over the tabloids alongside a photograph of him standing outside a supposedly discreet New York restaurant with the beautiful Vanessa DeFriess plastered to his front. His skin contracted against tightly honed face muscles when he thought of the incident. Protecting Nell from embarrassing scenes like that was a duty from which he never shirked. But his bodyguard of the evening had been distracted by a drunk trying to muscle in on them, and by the time the drunk had been hustled away and the frightened Vanessa had been peeled off Xander’s front, a convenient reporter had already got his sleaze-grabbing photograph and slunk away. Nell would have been upset, angry—who the hell knew what went on inside her beautiful head? He’d stopped trying to find out a year ago when she’d married him to a fanfare of ‘Romance of the New Century’ then promptly refused to share his bed. By the time she’d finished calling him filthy names ranging from power-driven fiend to sex-obsessed moron, he no longer wanted her anywhere near him. Liar, jeered a voice inside his head. You just had no defence ready when you were hit with too many ugly truths, so you backed off to hide behind your pride and arrogance. Photographs of his relationship with Vanessa had been the catalyst then, he remembered. Tasty snippets of truth printed in with the lies that had made it impossible for him to defend himself. He had been with Vanessa the week before his marriage. He had wined and dined her at a very fashionable restaurant then taken her back to her apartment and gone in with her. The fact that he’d been doing it on the other side of the Atlantic made him stupidly—naively believe he was safe. But back here in the UK, his young, sweetly besotted future bride had been avidly following his every move as it was recorded in the New York gossip columns via the internet. The sneaky little witch had told nobody. His mouth gave a grim, uncontrolled twitch. She’d come to him down the aisle of the church dressed like an angel in frothy silk tulle and gossamer lace. She’d smiled at him, let him take her cool little hand, let him place his ring on her slender white finger, let him vow to love, honour and protect. She’d even allowed him that one traditional kiss as they became man and wife. She’d smiled for their wedding photographs, smiled throughout the long wedding breakfast that followed and even smiled when he’d taken her in his arms for their traditional bridal dance. If there had ever been a man more ready to be a willing slave to his lovely young bride then, by the time they reached the hotel suite where they were to spend their wedding night, he, Alexander Pascalis, was it. She’d waited until then to turn on him like a viper. A cold, glassy-eyed English version of a viper, who’d spat words at him like ice picks that awoke this handsome prince up from his arrogant dream-world instead of the prince awakening his sleeping beauty with the kind of loving that should have made her his slave for life. And sleeping beauty she was then—too innocent to be real. That same innocence had been her only saviour on their miserable wedding night. Still was, did she but know it. Because his marriage might have turned into a disaster even before he’d got around to consummating it but his desire to possess the beautiful Helen had remained a strong, nagging entity amongst the rubble of the rest. ‘I suppose you know why she dismissed Vance?’ he queried now, dragging his mind back to the present crisis. There was a tense shift beside him. Xander turned his dark head again and a warning tingle shot across the back of his neck when he saw the new guarded expression on his employee’s face. Luke was wary—very wary. There was even a hint of red beginning to stain his pale English cheeks. ‘Spit it out,’ he raked at him. Luke Morrell tugged in a breath. ‘Hugo tried to stop her,’ he claimed defensively, ‘but Nell took offence—’ ‘Tried to stop her from doing what?’ Luke lifted up a hand in a helpless gesture. ‘Listen, Xander,’ he said in an advisory voice that sounded too damn soothing for Xander’s liking, ‘it was nothing serious enough to need to involve you but Hugo was concerned that it might…get out of hand, so he…advised Nell against it and she—’ ‘Advised her against doing what?’ Xander sliced right through all of Luke’s uncharacteristic babbling, and by now every bone in his body was tensing up as his instincts shot on full alert. He was not going to like this. He was so damn certain of it that his clenched teeth began to sing. ‘A man,’ Luke admitted reluctantly. ‘A—a friend Nell’s been seeing recently…’ Nell felt as if she were floating. It was a really strange feeling, all fluffy and soft yet scary at the same time. And she couldn’t open her eyes. She had tried a couple of times but her eyelids felt as if they’d been glued down. Her throat hurt when she swallowed and her mouth was so dry the swallowing action was impossible anyway. She knew where she was. Had a vague recollection of the car accident and being rushed by ambulance to hospital, but that pretty much was the sum total of her recollection. The last clear thing she remembered was gunning the engine of her little open-top sports car and driving at a pace down the long driveway at Rosemere towards the giant iron gates. She could remember the wild sense of elation she’d felt when the gates had swung open with precision timing to let her shoot right through them without her having to drop her speed. And she could still feel the same sense of bitter triumph with which she’d mocked the gates’ efficiency as she’d driven past them. Didn’t the stupid gates know they’d just let the trapped bird escape? Escape. Nell frowned, puzzled as to why the word had jumped into her head. Then she was suddenly groaning when the frown caused a pain to shoot right across the front of her head. Someone moved not far away. ‘Nell…?’ a deep, darkly rasping voice said. Managing to open her eyes the small crack that was all they would allow her, she peered out at the shadowy outline of a man’s big, lean, dark-suited bulk standing stiffly at the end of her bed. Xander, she recognised. Bitterness welled as her heart gave a tight, very painful pinch. What was he doing here? Had corporate earth stopped turning or something? Nothing less would give him the time to visit her sickbed. Go away, she wanted to say but did not have enough energy, so she closed the slits in her eyes and blocked him out that way instead. ‘Nell, can you hear me?’ He sounded unusually gruff. Maybe he had a bad cold or a sore throat or something, she thought hazily. How would she know? She’d barely set eyes on him for months—not since he’d turned up like a bad penny on her birthday and dragged her out to have dinner with him. The candlelit-table-for-two kind of dinner with good wine and the requisite bottle of champagne standing at the ready on ice. Her fuzzy head threw up a picture of his handsome dark image, the way the candlelight had played with his ebony hair and the golden sheen of his skin as he’d sat there across the table from her with his slumberous dark eyes fixed on her face. Sartorial elegance had oozed from every sleek skin pore. The smooth self-confidence, the indolent grace with which he’d occupied his seat that belied his height and lean muscle power. The lazy indifference with which he’d dismissed the kind of breathless looks he received from every other woman in the room because he was special and he knew he was special, and there was not a person in that restaurant that didn’t recognise it. Including Nell, though she was the only one there that refused to let it show. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said and used long, tanned fingers to push a velvet box across the table towards her. Inside the box was a diamond-encrusted bracelet that must have cost him the absolute earth. If she was supposed to be impressed, she wasn’t. If he’d presented her with the crown jewels she still would not be impressed. Did he think she didn’t know that a bracelet like that was the kind of thing a man like him presented to his mistress for services rendered? Where was his sensitivity? Where it had always been, locked up inside his impossible arrogance, as he proved when he dared to announce then that he wanted to renegotiate their marriage contract as if some stupid trinket was all it would take to make her agree. She pushed the box back across the table and said no—to both the bracelet and the request. Did it faze him? Not in the slightest. He took a few minutes to think about her cool little refusal then nodded his disgustingly handsome dark head in acceptance, and that was basically that. He’d driven her back to Rosemere then drove away again to go back to his exciting life as a high-profile, globe-trotting Greek tycoon and probably given the bracelet to some other woman—the more appreciative Vanessa, for instance. ‘I hate him,’ she thought, having no idea that the words had scraped across her dry lips. The sound of furniture moving set her frowning again, a pale, limp hand lifting weakly to the pain that stabbed at her forehead. Another hand gently caught hold of her fingers to halt their progress. ‘Don’t touch, Nell. You won’t like it,’ his husky voice said. She opened her eyes that small crack again to find Xander had moved from his stiff stance at the bottom of the bed and was now sitting on a chair beside it with his face level with hers. A pair of dark eyes looked steadily back at her from between unfairly long black silk fringes, a hint of strain tugging on the corners of his wide, sensual mouth. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked. Pain attacked her from the oddest of places—her heart mainly, broken once and still not recovered. She closed her eyes, blocking him out again. He shouldn’t even be here; he should be in New York, enjoying the lovely Vanessa with the long dark hair and voluptuous figure that could show off heavy diamond trinkets while she clung to someone else’s husband like a sex-charged limpet. ‘Do you know where you are?’ Xander persisted. Nell quivered as his warm breath fanned her face. ‘You are in hospital,’ he seemed compelled to inform her. ‘You were involved in a car accident. Can you hear me, Helen?’ The Helen arrived with the rough edge of impatience. Xander did not like to be ignored. He wasn’t used to it. People shot to attention when he asked questions. He was Mr Important, the mighty empire-builder aptly named after Alexander the Great. When he said jump the whole world jumped. He was dynamic, magnetic, sensational to look at— Her head began to ache. ‘Go away,’ she slurred out. ‘I don’t want you here.’ She could almost feel his tension slam into her. The gentle fingers still holding hers gave an involuntary twitch. Then he moved and she heard the sound of silk sliding against silk as he reached up with his other arm and another set of cool fingers gently stroked a stray lock of hair from her cheek. ‘You don’t mean that, agape mou,’ he murmured. I do, Nell thought, and felt tears sting the backs of her eyelids because his light touch evoked old dreams of a gentle giant stroking her all over like that. But that was all they were—empty old dreams that came back to haunt her occasionally. The real Xander was hard and cold and usually wishing himself elsewhere when he was with her. How had he got here so quickly anyway? What time was it? What day? She moved restlessly then cried out in an agonised, pathetically weak whimper as real physical pain shot everywhere. ‘Don’t move, you fool!’ The sudden harshness in his voice rasped across her flesh like the serrated edge of a knife—right here—and she pushed a hand up to cover the left side of her ribs as her screaming body tried to curl up in instinctive recoil. The bed tilted beside her, long fingers moving to her narrow shoulders to keep her still. ‘Listen to me…’ his voice rasped again and she arched in agony as pain ricocheted around her body. He tossed out a soft curse then a buzzer sounded. ‘You must try to remain still,’ he lashed down at her. ‘You are very badly bruised, and the pain in your side is due to several cracked ribs. You are also suffering from a slight concussion, and internal bleeding meant they had to operate. Nell, you—’ ‘W-what kind of operation?’ ‘Your appendix was damaged when you crashed your car; they had to remove it.’ Appendix? Was that all? She groaned in disbelief. ‘If you are worrying about a scar then don’t,’ Xander clipped. ‘They used keyhole surgery—barely a knick; you will be as perfect as ever in a few weeks.’ Did he really believe that she cared about some silly scarring? Down in A&E they’d been tossing about all kinds of scenarios from burst spleen to ovaries! ‘I hate you so much,’ she gasped out then burst into tears, the kind of loud, hot, choking tears that came with pure, agonising delayed shock and brought people running and had Xander letting go of her to shoot to his feet. After that she lost sight of him when a whole army of care staff crowded in. But she could still hear his voice, cold with incision: ‘Can someone explain to me, please, why my wife shares a room with three other sick individuals? Does personal dignity have no meaning here…?’ The next time Nell woke up she was shrouded in darkness other than for a low night lamp burning somewhere up above her head. She could open her eyes without having to force them and she was feeling more comfortable, though she suspected the comfort had been drug-induced. Moving her head on the pillow in a careful testing motion, she felt no pain attack her brow and allowed herself a sigh of relief. Then she began to take an interest in her surroundings. Something was different, though for the life of her she couldn’t say what. ‘You were moved this afternoon to a private hospital,’ a deep voice informed her. Turning her head in the other direction, she saw Xander standing in the shadows by the window. Her heart gave a helpless little flutter then clenched. Private hospital. Private room. ‘Why?’ she whispered in confusion. He didn’t answer. But then why would he? A man like him did not leave his wife to the efficient care of the National Health Service when he could pay for the same service with added touches of luxury. As she looked at him standing there in profile, staring out of the window, it didn’t take much work for her dulled senses to know his mood was grim. The jacket to his dark suit had gone and he’d loosened the tie around his throat. She could just pick out the warm sheen of his golden skin as it caught the edges of a soft lamplight. For a moment she thought she saw a glimpse of the man she had fallen in love with a year ago. The same man she’d seen on the evening she’d walked into her father’s study and found Xander there alone. He’d been standing like this by her father’s window, grimly contemplating what lay beyond the Georgian glass with its hand-beaten distortions that had a knack of distorting everything that was happening in the world beyond. That was the night he had asked her to marry him; no fanfare, no romantic preliminaries. Oh, they’d been out to dinner a couple of times, and Xander tended to turn up at the same functions she would be attending and seem to make a beeline for her. People had watched curiously as he monopolised her attention and she blushed a lot because she wasn’t used to having such a man show a desire for her company. Twenty-one years old and fresh back from spending three years high up in the Canadian Rockies with a mother who preferred getting up close and personal with pieces of driftwood she found on the shores of the Kananaskis River than she did with living people. Nell had gone to Canada for her annual two-week visit with the reclusive Kathleen Garrett and stayed to the end when her mother had coolly informed her that she didn’t have long to live. Nell liked to think that her quiet company had given her mother a few extra years of normal living before it all got too much. Certainly they became a bit more like mother and daughter than they’d been throughout Nell’s life when previous visits to her mother had made her feel more like an unwanted distant relative. Coming back to England and to her father’s busy social lifestyle had come as a bit of a culture shock. She’d gone to Canada a child who’d spent most of her life being shunted from one boarding-school to another with very little contact with the social side of her industrialist father’s busy life. Three years’ living quietly with her mother had been no preparation for a girl who’d become a woman without really knowing it until she met Alexander Pascalis. An accident waiting to happen…Nell frowned as she tried to recall who it was that had said those words to her. Then she remembered and sighed because of course it had been this tall, dark, silent man looking out of the window who’d spoken those words to her. ‘A danger to yourself and to anyone near you,’ he’d rumbled out as he’d pulled her into his arms and kissed her before sombrely asking her to marry him. She looked away from his long, still frame, not wanting to go back to those days when she’d loved him so badly she would have crawled barefooted over broken glass if that was what it took to be with him. Those days were long gone, along with her pride, her self-respect and her starry-eyed infatuation. Her mouth was still dry, the muzzy effects of whatever they’d given her to stem the pain making her limbs feel weighted down with lead. When she tried to lift her hand towards the glass of water she could see on the cupboard beside her, she could barely raise her fingers off the bed. ‘I need a drink,’ she whispered hoarsely. He was there in a second, sitting down on the bed and sliding an arm beneath her shoulders to lift her enough to place the glass to her lips. She felt his warmth and his strength as she sipped the water, both alien sensations when she hadn’t been held even this close to him since the day of their marriage. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed as the glass was withdrawn again. He controlled her gentle slide back onto the pillows then sat back a little but didn’t move away. Something was flickering in his dark eyes that she couldn’t decipher—but then he was not the kind of man who wanted other people to read his thoughts—too precious, too— ‘Your car was a write-off,’ he remarked unexpectedly. Her slender shoulders tensed in sudden wariness. ‘W-was it?’ He nodded. His firmly held mouth gave a tense little twitch. ‘You had to have been driving very fast to impale it so thoroughly on that tree.’ Nell lowered her eyes on a wince. ‘I don’t remember.’ ‘Nothing?’ he questioned. ‘Only driving through the gates at Rosemere then turning into the lane. After that—nothing,’ she lied huskily. He was silent for a few seconds and she could feel him studying her. Her cheeks began to heat. Lying had never been her forte. But what the devil did not know could not hurt him, she thought with a stab at dry sarcasm that was supposed to make her feel brave but didn’t. ‘W-what time is it?’ She changed the subject. Xander sprang back to his feet before glancing at the gold watch circling his wrist. ‘Two-thirty in the morning.’ Nell lifted her eyes to watch the prowling grace of his long body as he took up his position by the window again. ‘I thought you were in New York.’ ‘I came back—obviously.’ With or without Vanessa? she wondered. ‘Well, don’t feel like you have to hang around here for my benefit,’ she said tightly. He didn’t usually hang around. He strode in and out of her life like a visiting patron, asked all the right polite questions about what she’d been doing since he’d seen her last and sometimes even lingered long enough to drag her out with him to some formal function—just to keep up appearances. He occupied the suite adjoining her bedroom suite but had never slept in it. Appearances, it seemed, only went as far as delivering her to her bedroom door before he turned and strode out of the house again. ‘It is expected.’ And that’s telling me, Nell thought with another wince. ‘Well, I hereby relieve you of your duty,’ she threw back, moved restlessly, which hurt, so she made herself go still again. And her eyelids were growing too heavy to hold up any longer. ‘Go away, Xander.’ Even her voice was beginning to sound slurry. ‘You make me nervous, hanging around like this…’ Not so you would notice, Xander thought darkly as he watched the little liar drop into a deep sleep almost before her dismissal of him was complete. The night-light above her bed was highlighting her sickly pallor along with the swollen cuts and bruises that distorted her beautiful face. She would be shocked if she knew what she looked like. Hell, the miserable state of her wounded body shocked him. And her hair was a mess, lying in lank, long copper tangles across the pillow. Oddly, he liked it better when it was left to do its own thing like this. The first time he’d seen her she’d been stepping into her father’s house, having just arrived back from taking the dogs for a walk. It had been windy and cold outside and her face was shining, her incredible waist-length hair wild and rippling with life. Green eyes circled by a fascinating ring of turquoise had been alight with laughter because the smallest of the dogs, a golden Labrador puppy determined to get into the house first, had bounded past her, only to land on its rear and start to slither right across the slippery polished floor to come to a halt at his feet. She’d noticed him then, lifting her eyes up from his black leather shoes on one of those slow, curious journeys he’d learned to recognise as a habit she had that set his libido on heat. By the time she’d reached his face her laughter had died to sweet, blushing shyness. What a hook, he mocked now, recalling what happened to him every time she’d blushed like that for him—or even just looked at him. Xander looked away and went back to his grim contemplation of the unremarkable view of the darkness outside the window, not wanting to remember what came after the blushing look. He should have backed off while he still had a chance then—right off. If he had done they would not be in the mess they were now in. It was not his thing to mix business with pleasure, and the kind of business he’d had going with Julian Garrett had needed a cool, clear head. Sexual desire was neither cool nor clear-headed. It liked to catch you out when you were not paying attention. He’d had a mistress, a beautiful, warm and passionately sensual woman who knew what he liked and did not expect too much back, so what did he need with a wild-haired, beautiful-eyed ing?nue with a freakish kind of innocence written into her blushing face? A sigh ripped from him. Nell was right and he should leave. He should get the hell away from here and begin the unpalatable task of some very urgent damage control, only he had a feeling it was already too late. The tabloid Press would already be running, churning out their damning accusations cloaked in rumour and suggestion. The only part of it all that he had going for him was the Press did not know what Nell had been in the process of doing when she crashed her car on that quiet country lane. His pager gave a beep. Turning away from the window, he went to collect his jacket from where he’d tossed it on a chair and dug the pager out of one of the pockets. Hugo Vance was trying to reach him. His teeth came together with a snap. And so to discover the truth about his wife’s new friend, he thought grimly, shrugged on his jacket, sent Nell one final, searing dark glance then quietly let himself out of the room. CHAPTER TWO FOR the next few days Nell felt as if she had been placed in purdah. The only people that came to visit her belonged to the medical staff, who seemed to take great pleasure in making her uncomfortable before they made her comfortable again. The first time they allowed her to take a shower she was shocked by the extent of her bruising. If anyone had told her that with enough applied pressure you could achieve a perfect imprint of a car safety belt across your body she would not have believed them—until she saw it striking across her own slender frame in two ugly, deep bands of dark purple bruising. She had puncture holes and stitches from the keyhole surgery and her cracked ribs hurt like crazy every time she moved. She had bruises on her legs, bruises and scratches on her arms and her face due to ploughing through bushes in an open-top car—before it had slammed into the tree. And the miserable knowledge that Xander had seen her looking like this did not make her feel any better. It was no wonder he hadn’t bothered to come and visit her again. Her night things had been delivered, toiletries, that kind of thing. And she’d even received a dozen red roses—Xander’s way of keeping up appearances, she supposed cynically. He was probably already back in New York by now, playing the big Greek tycoon by day and the great Greek lover by night for the lovely Vanessa. If she could she’d chuck his stupid roses through the window, but she didn’t have the strength. She’d found that she ached progressively more with each new day. ‘What do you expect? You’ve been in a car accident,’ a nurse said with a dulcet simplicity when she mentioned it to her. ‘Your body took a heck of a battering and you’re lucky that your injuries were not more serious. As it is it’s going to be weeks before you begin to feel more like your old self again.’ The shower made her feel marginally better though. And the nurse had shampooed her hair for her and taken gentle care as she blow-dried its long, silken length. By the time she’d hobbled out of the bathroom she was ready to take an interest in the outside world again. A world in which she had some urgent things to deal with, she recalled worriedly. ‘I need a phone,’ she told the nurse as she inched her aching way across the room via any piece of furniture she could grab hold of to help support her feeble weight. ‘Isn’t it usual to have one plugged in by the bed?’ The nurse didn’t answer, her white-capped head averted as she waited for Nell to slip carefully back into the bed. It was only then that she began to realise that not only was there no telephone in here, but the room didn’t even have a television set. What kind of private hospital was it Xander had dumped her in that it couldn’t provide even the most basic luxuries? She demanded both. When she received neither, she changed tack and begged for a newspaper to read or a couple of magazines. It took another twenty-four hours for it to dawn on her that all forms of contact with the outside world were being deliberately withheld. She began to fret, worrying as to what could have happened out there that they didn’t want her to know about. Her father? Could something have happened to him? Stunned that she hadn’t thought about him before now, she sat up with a thoughtless jerk that locked her into an agonising spasm across her chest. That was how Xander found her, sitting on the edge of the bed clutching her side and struggling to breathe in short, sharp, painful little gasps. ‘What the hell…?’ He strode forward. ‘Daddy,’ she gasped out. ‘S-something’s happened to him.’ ‘When?’ He frowned. ‘I’ve heard nothing. Here, lie down again…’ His hands took control of her quivering shoulders and carefully eased her back against the high mound of pillows, the frown on his face turning to a scowl when he saw the bruising on her slender legs as he helped ease them carefully back onto the bed. ‘You look like a war zone,’ he muttered. ‘What did you think you were doing, trying to get up without help?’ ‘Where’s my father?’ she cut across him anxiously. ‘Why haven’t I heard from him?’ ‘But you did.’ Xander straightened up, flicking the covers over her in an act she read as contempt. ‘He’s stuck in Sydney. Did you not receive his flowers and note?’ The only flowers she’d received were the… Turning her head, Nell looked at the vase of budding red roses and suddenly wished she were dead. ‘I thought they were from you,’ she whispered unsteadily. He looked so thoroughly disconcerted by the idea that he would send her flowers that being dead no longer seemed bad enough. Curling away from him as much as she dared without hurting herself, Nell clutched her fingers round the covers and tugged them up to her pale cheek. ‘You thought they were from me.’ He had to repeat it, she thought as she cringed beneath the sheet. ‘And because you thought the flowers were from me you did not even bother to read the note that came with them.’ Striding round the bed, he plucked a tiny card from the middle of the roses then came back to the bed. ‘Shame on you, Nell.’ The card dropped against the pillow by her face. It was still sealed inside its envelope. And shame on you too, she thought as she picked it up and broke the seal. Even a man that cannot stand the sight of his wife sends her flowers when she’s sick. Her father’s message—brief and to the point as always with him—read: ‘Sorry to hear about your accident. Couldn’t get back to see you. Take care of yourself. Get well soon. Love Pops.’ Saying not a word, she slid the little card back into its envelope then pushed it beneath her pillow, but telling tears were welling in her eyes. ‘He wanted to come back,’ Xander dropped into the ensuing thick silence. ‘But he is locked in some important negotiations with the Australian government and I…assured him that you would understand if he remained where he was.’ So he’d stayed. That was her father. Loving in many ways but single-minded in most. Money was what really mattered, the great, grinding juggernaut of corporate business. It was no wonder her mother had left him to go back to her native Canada. When she was little, Nell had used to wonder if he even noticed that she’d gone. She was a teenager before she’d found out that her mother had begun an affair with a childhood sweetheart and had returned to Canada to be with him. Like mother like daughter, she mused hollowly. They had a penchant for picking out the wrong men. The duration of her mother’s affair had been shorter than her marriage had been, which said so much about leaving her five-year-old daughter behind for what was supposed to have been the real love of her life. ‘You’ve washed your hair…’ ‘I want a telephone,’ she demanded. ‘And the bruises on your face are beginning to fade…’ He spoke right over her as if she hadn’t spoken at all. ‘You look much better, Nell.’ What did he care? ‘I want a telephone,’ she repeated. ‘And you left me with no money. I can’t find my purse or my clothes or my mobile telephone.’ ‘You don’t need them while you’re lying there.’ She turned her head to flash him a bitter look. He was standing by the bed, big and lean, taking up more space than he deserved. All six feet two inches of him honed to perfection like a piece of art. His suit was grey today, she noticed. A smooth-as-silk gunmetal grey that did not dare to show a single crease, like his white shirt and his silk-black hair and his— ‘They won’t let me have a newspaper or a magazine.’ She cut that line of thinking off before it went any further. ‘I have no TV and no telephone.’ She gave a full list of her grievances. ‘If it isn’t my father, then what is it that you are trying to hide from me, Xander?’ she demanded, knowing now that her isolation had to be down to him. Xander was the only person with enough weight to throw about. In fact she was amazed that it hadn’t occurred to her to blame him before now. He made no answer, just stood there looking down at her through unfathomable dark eyes set in his hard, handsome face—then he turned and strode out of the room without even saying goodbye! Nell stared after him with her eyes shot through with pained dismay. Had their disastrous marriage come down to the point where he couldn’t even be bothered to apply those strictly polite manners he usually used to such devastating effect? It hurt—which was stupid, but it did and in places that had nothing whatsoever to do with her injuries. Five days without so much as a word from him then he strode in there looking every inch the handsome, dynamic power force he was, looked at her as if he couldn’t stand the sight of her then walked out again. She wouldn’t cry, she told the sting at the backs of her eyes. Too fed up and too weak to do more than bite hard on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering, she stared at the roses sent by that other man in her life who strode in and out of it at his own arrogant behest. She hated Alexander Pascalis. He’d broken her heart and she should have left him when she’d had the chance, driven off into the sunset without stopping to look back and think about what she was leaving behind, then she would not be lying here feeling so bruised and broken—and that was on the inside! If he’d cared anything for her at all he should not have married her. He should have stuck to his— The door swung open and Xander strode back in again, catching her lying on her side staring at the roses through a glaze of tears. ‘If you miss him that much I will bring him home,’ he announced curtly. ‘Don’t put yourself out,’ she responded with acid bite. ‘What brought you back here so quickly?’ He didn’t seem to understand the question, a frown darkening his smooth brow as he moved across the room to collect a chair, which he placed by the bed at an angle so that when he sat himself down on it he was looking her directly in the face. Nell stirred restlessly, not liking the way he’d done it, or the new look of hard intensity he was treating her to. She stared back warily, waiting to hear whatever it was he was going to hit her with. He was leaning back with his long legs stretched out in front of him and his jacket flipped open in one of those casually elegant attitudes this man pulled off with such panache. His shirt was startlingly white—he liked to wear white shirts, cool, crisp things that accentuated the width of his powerful chest and long, tightly muscled torso. Black handmade shoes, grey silk trousers, bright white shirt and a dark blue silk tie. His cleanly shaved chin had a cleft that warned all of his tough inner strength—like the well-shaped mouth that could do cynicism and sensuality at the same time and to such devastating effect. Then there was the nose that had a tendency to flare at the nostrils when he was angry. It wasn’t flaring now, but the black eyes were glinting with something not very nice, she saw. And his eyes weren’t really all black, but a dark, dark brown colour, deeply set beneath thick black eyebrows and between long, dense, curling lashes that helped to shade the brown iris black. Xander was Greek in everything he thought and did but he got his elegant carriage from his beautiful Italian mother. And Gabriela Pascalis could slay anyone with a look, just as her son could. She’d done it to Nell the first time they’d met and Gabriela had not tried to hide her shock. ‘What is Alexander playing at, wanting to marry a child? They will crucify you the moment he attempts to slot you into his sophisticated lifestyle.’ ‘He loves me.’ She’d tried to stand up for herself. ‘Alexander does not do love, cara,’ his mother had drily mocked that. ‘In case you have not realised it as yet, he was hewn from rock chipped off Mount Olympus.’ She had actually meant it too. ‘No, this is more likely to be a business transaction,’ her future mother-in-law had decided without a single second’s thought to how a statement like that would make Nell feel. ‘I will have to find out what kind of business deal. Leave it to me, child. There is still time to save you from this…’ ‘Finished checking me out?’ The mocking lilt to his voice brought her eyes back into focus on his face. She wished she knew what he was thinking behind that cool, smooth, sardonic mask. ‘I am still the same person you married, believe me.’ Oh, she believed. Nothing had changed. His mother had been right but Nell hadn’t listened. Not until Vanessa DeFriess had entered the frame. ‘Want do you want?’ She didn’t even attempt to sound pleasant. He moved—not much but enough for Nell to be aware by the way her senses tightened on alert to remind her that Xander was a dangerously unpredictable beast. He might appear relaxed, but she had an itchy suspicion that he was no such thing. ‘We need to talk about your accident,’ he told her levelly. ‘The police have some questions.’ Nell dropped her eyes, concentrating her attention on her fingers where they scratched absently at the white sheet. ‘I told you, I don’t remember anything.’ ‘Tell me what you do remember.’ ‘We’ve been through this once.’ Her eyebrows snapped together. ‘I don’t see the use in going through it a—’ ‘You would rather I allow the police to come here so that you can repeat it all to them?’ No, she wouldn’t. ‘What’s to repeat?’ Flicking him a guarded look, she looked quickly away again. ‘I remember driving down the driveway and through the gates then turning into the lane—’ ‘Left or right?’ ‘I don’t remember—’ ‘Well, it might help if you said where it was you were going.’ ‘I don’t remember that either.’ ‘Try,’ he said. ‘What for?’ she flipped back. ‘What does it matter now where I was going? I obviously didn’t get there.’ ‘True.’ He grimaced. ‘Instead of arriving—wherever it was—you left the road at speed on a notorious bend we all treat with respect. You then proceeded to plough through a row of bushes and concluded the journey by piling head-on into a tree.’ ‘Thanks for filling in the gaps,’ she derided. ‘The car boot sprang open on impact,’ he continued, unmoved by her tone. ‘Your possessions were strewn everywhere. Sweaters, skirts, dresses, underwear…’ ‘Charity!’ she declared with a sudden burst of memory. ‘I remember now, I was taking some of my old things to the charity shop in the village.’ ‘Charity,’ Xander repeated in a voice as thin as silk. ‘Well, that explains the need to drive like a maniac. Now explain to me why you dismissed Hugo Vance…’ Nell froze where she lay curled on her side, her moment of triumph at her own quick thinking fizzling out at the introduction of her ex-bodyguard’s name. She moved, ignoring the creases of pain in her ribs to drag herself into a sitting position so she could grab her knees in a loose but very defensive hug, her hair slithering across her slender shoulders to float all around her in a river of rippling Titian silk. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard,’ she muttered. ‘I have three,’ Xander replied. ‘What does that tell you about what you need?’ ‘I’m not you.’ She sent him an acrid look. ‘I don’t stride around the world, playing God and throwing my weight around—’ His eyes gave a sudden glint. ‘So that is how you see me—as a god that throws his weight around?’ The silken tone gave her no clue as to what was about to come next. ‘Well, my beautiful Helen,’ he drawled in a thoroughly lazy attitude, ‘just watch this space—’ In a single snaking move he was off the chair and leaning over her. The next second and he was gathering her hair up and away from her face. A controlled tug sent her head back. A stifled gasp brought her startled eyes flicking up to clash with his. What she saw glowing there set her trembling. ‘You’re hurting—’ ‘No, I’m not,’ he denied through gritted teeth. ‘But I am teetering, cara mia, so watch out how many more lies you wish to spout at me!’ ‘I’m not lying!’ ‘No?’ With some more of that controlled strength he wound her hair around his fingers, urging her head back an extra vulnerable inch so as to expose the long, creamy length of her slender throat. ‘You were leaving me,’ he bit at her in hard accusation. ‘You were speeding like a crazy woman down that lane because you were leaving me for another man and you got rid of Vance to give yourself a nice clean getaway, only that damn tree got in the way!’ Caught out lying so thoroughly, she felt hot colour rush into her cheeks. His eyes flared as he watched it happen. Defiance rose in response. ‘So what if I was?’ she tossed back at him. ‘What possible difference was it going to make to the way you run your life? We don’t have a marriage, we have a business arrangement that I didn’t even get to have a say about!’ Tears were burning now—hot, angry tears. ‘And I dismissed Hugo a week ago, much that you noticed or cared! I have a right to live my own life any way I want—’ ‘And let another man make love to you any time that you want?’ The raking insert closed Nell’s throat, strangling her breath and the denial she could have given in answer to that. Her angry lips followed suit, snapping shut because she didn’t want to say it. She did not want to give him anything that could feed his mammoth ego. The silence between them began to spark like static, his lean face strapped by a fury that stretched his golden skin across the bones in his cheeks as their eyes made war across a gap of barely an inch. Then his other hand came up to cover her throat, light-fingered and gentle but oh, so menacing. ‘Say it, yenika,’ he encouraged thinly. ‘Live dangerously…’ He thought she was holding back from admitting she had taken a lover, Nell realised, and felt the triumph in that tingle all the way down to her feet. She moistened her lips—tempted, so desperately tempted that she did not know how she managed to keep the lie back. Their eyes continued to war across several taut, suffocating seconds. It was exciting, knowing that she had the power to shatter his precious ego with a single soft word like yes. The tips of his long fingers moved on her throat, locating a wildly beating pulse. Nell needed to take a breath, her ribs were hurting under the pressure she was placing on them, and in the end she managed a short, tense tug of air into her lungs before improvising shakily, ‘If you want to strangle m-me then go ahead; I’m in no fit state to stop you.’ Surprise lit his face. He glanced down to where his fingers curved her throat, dark lashes curling over his eyes before lifting again to view the way his other fingers were knotted into her hair. There was yet another second of taut, breathtaking stillness in which the entire world seemed to grind to a halt. Then the fingers began to slide again, moving almost sensuously against stretched, smooth, creamy flesh as they began to make a slow retreat. Relief quivered through her, parting her lips on a small, soft gasp. The fingers paused, she held her breath again, felt a different kind of excitement erupt as she flicked a look into the deep, dark, swirling depths of his eyes and saw what she’d always seen there. Xander had always desired her and Nell had always known it. Whatever else had motivated him into marrying her, the desire had always been the added incentive that made the deal worthwhile. ‘You remind me of a sleeping siren,’ he murmured. ‘It is the only thing that has kept you safe for the last year. Give me one small hint, cara, that you have given to someone else that which I have resisted and you will spend the rest of your days regretting it.’ It was just too tempting to resist this time. Defiance back in her eyes, she opened her mouth ‘I—’ His mouth arrived to stop whatever she had been about to utter. Shock hit her broadside, sheer surprise at the unexpectedness of it holding her utterly transfixed. He hadn’t kissed her once since their wedding night and then he’d been so angry—hard and punishing with frustrated desire. This was different, the anger was still there but the rest was warm, deep and sensually tantalising, the way he used his lips to prise hers apart then stroked the inner recesses of her mouth. It was her very first tongue-to-tongue experience and the pleasurable sensations it fed into her tapped into one of her many restless, hopeless dreams about moments like this. The warm, clean, expensive scent of him, the smooth, knowing expertise with which he moulded her mouth to his, the slight rasping brush of his skin against her soft skin, the trailing, sensual drag she could feel on her senses that made her relax into him. He drew back the moment he felt her first tentative response to him. Eyes too dark to read watched the soft quiver of her mouth before he looked deeply into the swirling green confusion mirrored in her eyes. Then he smiled. ‘There,’ he murmured with silken huskiness. ‘I have just saved you from yourself. Aren’t you fortunate to have a caring husband like me?’ As she frowned at the comment, he brushed a contemptuous kiss across her still parted mouth then drew right away, fingers trailing from her throat and untangling from her silken hair while she continued to puzzle—until she remembered what she had been about to say before the kiss. She shivered, horrified at how easily she had let herself be diverted. Resentment poured into her bloodstream. ‘I still intend to leave you the moment I get out of here,’ she said. ‘You will not.’ He was already on his feet and replacing the chair back from where he’d got it. ‘And I will tell you why.’ He sent her a cold look down the length of his arrogant nose. ‘We still have a contract to fulfil.’ Nell lifted her chin to him, green eyes wishing him dead now. ‘I signed under duress.’ ‘You mean you signed without reading it.’ Because she’d loved him so much she was blind! ‘How many women would expect to be duped by both their own father and their future husband?’ she defended her own piece of stupid folly. Xander nodded in agreement. ‘I offered to renegotiate,’ he then reminded her. ‘You turned the offer down, so the contract stands as written and signed.’ ‘And all for the love of money,’ she said bitterly. ‘A loan of fifty million pounds to haul your father out of trouble is a lot of money, Nell. Have you got the resources to pay me back?’ He knew she hadn’t. The only money Nell had even a loose connection to was tied up in trusts left by her grandmother for any children Nell might have. And what her mother had left would not even pay back a tenth of what was owed to Xander. ‘But I was not referring to the money,’ he slid in smoothly. ‘I was referring to the other clause—the one which involves me protecting my investment by you providing me with my son and heir to inherit from your father.’ Effectively putting Nell right out of the inheritance loop! ‘Not with my permission.’ ‘With your permission,’ he insisted. ‘And at my time of choosing…’ He came back to the bed to lean over her again, ignoring her defensive jerk as he began plumping up the pillows behind her back. ‘I have been very patient with you until now, yenika mou—’ ‘Because you had more—interesting things to do.’ As a direct shot about Vanessa, it went wide of its mark. ‘Because,’ he corrected, ‘when we married you were nothing but a wounded babe in arms only a monster would have forced himself upon. The arrival of another man on the scene tells me I may well have been too patient with you.’ Taking her by the shoulders, he gently urged her to lie back. Then his eyes were pinning her there, relentless and hard. ‘Your growing time is up, Nell. I want a proper wife. Renege on the contract we made and I will take you, your father and your boyfriend to the cleaners and hang you all out to dry.’ ‘And cause yourself a nasty scandal involving yourself, your mistress and your lousy unfaithfulness?’ ‘Is that why you thought you could leave and get away with it?’ Black silk eyebrows made a mocking arch. ‘You think that because Vanessa has suddenly arrived back on the scene it gives you a tasty weapon to wield? I will let you into a little secret,’ he murmured, a taunting fingertip making a swipe of her full bottom lip before he replaced it with the casual brush of his mouth. ‘Vanessa has never been off the scene,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘I am just very discreet—usually.’ It was like being kicked while she was already down on the ground. It didn’t help that her lips had filled with soft, pulsing heat. ‘I hope you both rot in hell,’ she breathed thickly. ‘But you still want me, as that beautiful, quivering, hungry mouth is telling me.’ He smiled a very grim smile. ‘And if you were not so battered and bruised I would show you how much you want me.’ ‘I—’ He saw the lie coming, the tight repudiation of his arrogant confidence, and he swooped, claiming her parted mouth and pressing her back into the pillows. The long length of his torso followed, exerting a controlled power that stopped just short of crushing her beneath his weight. Nell felt taken over, overwhelmed, besieged. The scent of him, the heat, the way he used this kiss to demonstrate the difference between taunting and a full sexual onslaught. Hot tingles of sensation flared up from nowhere with the stabbing invasion of his tongue. Fierce heat rushed through her bloodstream, desire like she’d never known before set her groaning in protest and lifting up her hands to push at his chest. But Xander was going nowhere, the unyielding contours of his body remaining firm as he deepened the kiss with an unhidden hunger that had Nell stretching beneath him in a wild sensual act that arched her slender shape from breasts to toes. He moved with her, a very male thigh finding a place for itself between her thighs. The bedcovers should have lessened the coiling spring of intimacy she was experiencing but did nothing of the kind. She tried to drag in some air but found that she couldn’t. She tried to separate their mouths but he had control. His tongue slid across her tongue and set it quivering as it hungrily began to follow his lead. Nothing had prepared her for a kiss like this. A kiss that sparked senses alive in every intimate place she had. When his hand covered the arching thrust of one of her breasts she almost shattered into little pieces, writhing and gasping as the rosebud nipple stung as it tightened to push into his palm. He muttered something, went to move away, her hands stopped pushing at his chest and slid up to bury themselves in his hair so she could hold this amazing, sensational mouth clamped to her own. She didn’t know she had the ability to behave like a wanton, but wanton she felt and wanton she acted, writhing beneath him, ignoring the many twinges of physical agony because everything else that was happening to her was oh, so much more important. When his thigh pressed into greater contact with the apex of her thighs she went up like tinder, a thick cry of pleasure coiling in her throat. A knock sounded at the door. Xander drew back like a man bitten. Eyes like burning black coals scorched her a blistering look. Two hot streaks raked his high cheekbones; his mouth pulsed visibly even though it was suddenly stretched taut. She was panting and still clinging to his hair, the green of her eyes glazed by the stunning shock of her own loss of control. ‘This had better be your awakening, cara, or you’re dead,’ he blasted down at her, voice rusted by jealous desire. Before she could construct any kind of answer he had moved away, landing on his feet beside the bed. He did not look at her again until he’d stridden to the door and grasped the handle. The pause he made then sang between them, stretched taut and raw by that final rasping threat. He was angry—still angry. The kiss had been delivered in anger, the deliberate assault of angry passion that left her lying here hot and trembling, shaken to her core by her own response, her mouth, her body, her deserted breast with its stinging nipple feeling utterly, shamefully bereft. ‘Hypocrite,’ she heard herself whisper across a throat thickened by the bubble of tears to come. The charge swung him round to lance her with a hard, glinting look. ‘And primitive with it,’ he extended grimly. ‘Forget the lover,’ he warned thinly. ‘You will not be laying eyes on him again.’ The note in his tone brought Nell upright. ‘Why—w-what have you done to him?’ she demanded in alarm. ‘As yet—nothing.’ His eyes blackened dangerously. ‘His fate rests in the future when I have more time to discover if he taught you more than just how to kiss.’ Nell blinked then blushed at his thinking behind that revealing comment. He thought it was Marcel who’d taught her to kiss as she’d just done! Her kiss-numb lips parted to speak a denial then closed again. Let his primitive side twist his gut, she thought angrily, lowering her gaze from the piercing hardness of his. Let him learn what it felt like to imagine her locked in naked passion with another man as she had spent the last year imagining him with Vanessa the tramp! ‘I will be away for the next few days but will be back in time to collect you from here on Saturday.’ This final piece of news brought her eyes flickering up again as he opened the door and left without another word, allowing whoever had knocked on the door earlier to come into the room. It was one of his personal bodyguards, his polite greeting spoiled by the tough look on his face. He placed something down on the bedside cupboard. ‘Mr Pascalis gave his permission for you to have these,’ he said, then went to leave the room. ‘H-how long have you been standing out there?’ she asked, horrified that he might have heard or—worse—seen what had been going on in here through the little window in the door! ‘Since you arrived in this hospital,’ Jake Mather replied. Nell stared at the door closing behind Jake Mather’s bulky frame. She’d been under guard without even knowing it. She was in prison. She had been completely surrounded and isolated from the outside world. A shiver shot through her. It was like being back at Rosemere only worse. Mr Pascalis gave his permission…She turned her head to look at what Xander had kindly given his permission to. It was a neat stack of magazines. Reaching out to pick the top one of the stack, she let it unfold so she could see the front page in all its damning glory. ‘Greek tycoon’s wife tries to kill herself after he flaunts his mistress.’ No wonder he saw no threat in a scandal—it was already here! She plucked up another paper and another, swapped them for the magazines. Scandal galore was splashed across the pages. There were even photographs of her wrecked car! She turned the page on those pictures quickly as nausea swam up inside. But there was no mention of Marcel anywhere, which told her exactly what Xander was doing. Her imprisonment here had nothing to do with contracts or primitive demonstrations of ownership—but with damage control, pure and simple damage control! He didn’t want it reported that his wife had been leaving him for another man when she crashed her car! He would rather they report that she was attempting to kill herself. What did that say about the size of his ego? Kill herself? Where had they dragged up that big lie from? Had Xander himself put it out there? She hated him. Oh, God, she hated him. No wonder she was being so thoroughly isolated. He didn’t want her retaliating with the truth! Leaving him for another man…Oh, how she wished she’d managed to go through with it. She would have written her own headline. ‘Wife of philandering Greek tycoon leaves him for Frenchman!’ CHAPTER THREE STANDING unnoticed in the doorway, Xander watched Nell’s trembling fingers grapple with the intricacies of fastening the tiny pearl buttons on the silky white blouse he’d had delivered to her along with a blue linen suit that did amazing things for her slender shape. Someone had fixed her hair for her and it lay in a thick, shining, sandstorm braid to halfway down her back. She looked very pale, though the bruising on her face had almost disappeared. But it was clear to him that even the simplest of tasks still came as an effort. She was not recovered, though the doctors had assured him that she was fit to travel and for now that was all he cared about: getting her away from here and to a place void of tabloid gossip—and the temptation to contact her lover the first opportunity she was handed. His blood began to boil when he thought about the elusive Marcel Dubois. The Frenchman had disappeared into the ether like the scarlet pimpernel, and maybe showed some sense in doing so—sense being something he had not shown when he’d decided to make his play for the wife of Alexander Pascalis. Wife…He could almost laugh at the title but laughing was not what was lurking inside him. His hooded eyes took on a murderous glitter as he watched Nell struggle with those tiny pearl buttons. Had his wife in name only lain with her Frenchman and allowed him to touch what Xander had not touched? Had Dubois seen power in her soft, willing body and those little confidences a woman like the love-vulnerable Nell would reveal to a lover about the emptiness of her marriage? She turned then and noticed him standing there. His libido instantly kicked in to join the murderous feelings as her eyes began to make their rise up from his shoes to the casual black brushed-cotton chinos covering his legs and the plain white T-shirt moulding his chest. No other woman had ever looked at him the way Nell looked at him, with a slow, verdant absorption that drenched him in hellishly erotic self-awareness. She could not help herself, he knew that, which made the idea of her giving those looks to another man all the more potent. When she reached his shoulders, covered by the casual black linen jacket he was wearing, he could not halt the small recognising shift of muscle that sent a shower of pleasurable static rushing through his blood. One day soon he was going to give this awareness true substance, he promised. He was going to wipe out all memory of her other man and introduce her to his power with all its naked, hot passion. He was no neanderthal; he did not need a woman to be a virgin to enjoy her. But this one, this beautiful freak of modern living with her innocence steeped in womanly desire for him that she still did not have the tools to hide whatever the Frenchman had taught her, was going to open up like a chrysalis under his guidance and fly with him into ecstasy. She owed him that much. She’d reached his face at last and Xander lost the murderous look to give her the benefit of a slow, easy smile, which she dealt with by flicking her eyes away. Nell was no fool. The last time he was here he had thrown down the sexual gauntlet and the smile was to remind her of it. ‘Ready to come with me?’ he enquired with the kind of soft challenge that had her breath feathering a quiver across the thrust of her breasts. ‘I have no make-up,’ she complained. ‘You forgot to send it.’ ‘You don’t need make-up. Your beautiful skin does not need it.’ ‘That’s a matter of opinion.’ Her chin lifted, eyes pinning him with an arctic green look. ‘I’ve seen the waiting Press out there,’ she said with a flick of a hand towards the window. ‘Witnessing me leaving here looking black and blue won’t help your cause, Xander.’ ‘And what cause is that?’ The sexy smile was beginning to fade, Nell noticed. ‘Damage control,’ she replied. ‘I presumed you would want me to look utterly love-blind and radiant for the cameras.’ ‘Your tongue is developing an aspish tone that does not suit it,’ he drawled, moving further into the room with his graceful stride. ‘Can you manage that last button on your blouse or do you need assistance?’ ‘I can manage.’ Her chin dipped, her fingers moving to quickly close the button. ‘The fact that I’m unhinged and suicidal does not make me totally useless.’ Xander hooked up her jacket from where it lay on the bed. ‘You must admit, Nell, it made hilarious reading.’ ‘You think it’s a big joke?’ ‘You clearly don’t.’ Neither did he by the look on his grim face. The jacket arrived around her slender shoulders, held out absolutely perfectly for her to slide her arms into the sleeves without needing to strain herself. ‘They presented me as a spiritless fool.’ ‘And me as the ruthless womaniser.’ ‘Better that than a man that cannot keep his wife happy—hmm?’ Nell turned to face him with that aspish challenge, but it was the first time she’d actually stood in front of him in goodness knew how long and it came as a shock to be reminded of his overpowering six feet two inches of pure masculinity compared to her own five feet five inches’ more diminutive build. Black eyes glinted narrowly down at her. ‘Are you deliberately goading me into proving you wrong?’ Remembering the kiss of a few days ago, she felt her stomach muscles give a hectic quiver. ‘No,’ she denied and lowered her eyes in an attempt to block him out as his long fingers smoothed the jacket fabric into place. ‘Then take my advice and hold back on the barbs until we can achieve guaranteed privacy.’ As if on cue, the door swung open and the doctor who’d been overseeing her recovery strode into the room. He and Xander shook hands like old friends then proceeded to discuss her as if she wasn’t standing right beside them. So what was new there? Nell asked herself as she stood with her eyes lowered and said not a word. From the moment he’d stepped into it, Xander had been arranging her life for her as if she wasn’t a part of it. Their very odd courtship, the contract he had discussed with her father but not with her that she didn’t bother to read. The marriage that had taken place in her local church but was put together by his efficient team with very little input from her. So why bother to make a fuss that he was discussing her health with the doctor he’d probably handpicked to go with the private hospital he’d moved her to without her approval? The only time he’d ever really listened to her was on their wedding night, when she’d refused to make their marriage real. She might have been upset, angry—hysterical enough to be a turn-off for any man, but she also knew that when he agreed to leave her alone, the final decision had been his. He could have changed her mind. He could have seduced her into weakening to him. But no, what Xander had done was walk away—easily. Nell cringed inside as she thought it. He’d gone back to his life as if she was not in it, other than for those few token visits aimed to keep up appearances. As the discussion about her needs went on around her Nell began to feel just a little light-headed because she’d been standing up for longer than she’d done since the accident. Her legs felt shaky and the solid prospect of the nearby chair was almost too tempting to resist. But if she showed signs of weakness now they might decide to keep her here and the risk of being incarcerated for another single hour was enough to keep her stubbornly on her feet. By the time the doctor turned to say his farewell to her, her fixed smile was wavering though. Xander reached out to take her arm, had to feel the fine tremors shaking her and abruptly cut the goodbyes short. Two minutes later she was walking down the corridor with his grip like a vice and his grim silence ominous. They entered a lift, the doors closed behind them. Xander propped her up against the wall then remained standing over her as they shot downwards, his grim face strapped by tension. The moment the doors slid open again, he was taking her arm and guiding her out of the lift. Nell showed a brief start of surprise when she realised they had not arrived in the hospital foyer but in a basement car park and she had never felt so relieved about anything. Not only had Xander pre-empted the Press pack but his black Bentley stood parked right there in front of them with Jake Mather standing to attention by the open rear door. Nell sank with trembling relief into soft leather. The door closed as another opened. Xander arrived at her side and within seconds they were on the move. So what came next? she wondered wearily when, a short minute later, Xander was on his mobile phone, lean dark profile wearing its power mask as he talked in smooth, liquid Italian then switched to rich, sensual Greek for the second call he made. Uttering a small sigh, she closed her eyes and just let the sound of his voice wash over her—only to open them again with a start when her door came open and she found herself blinking owlishly at Xander, who was leaning into the car and unlocking her seat belt. She must have fallen asleep. As she was too disoriented to do more than let him help her out of the car, it took a few more seconds for her brain to register that she was not standing outside Rosemere. ‘What’s going on?’ she questioned. ‘Nothing.’ With a coolness that belied the alarm that was beginning to erupt inside her, he turned her round so she could see the sleek white private jet standing on tarmac a few yards away. ‘We are going home, that’s all.’ ‘By air?’ She blinked again as he drew her across those few yards towards the waiting flight steps. ‘But it’s only an hour by car back to Rose—’ ‘Greece,’ he corrected. ‘I need to be in Athens on Monday morning, and if you think I am leaving you alone at Rosemere to plot assignations with your Frenchman then think again.’ Greece, Nell repeated and stopped dead at the entrance to the plane. Her heart gave a punch against her sore ribs. ‘No,’ she refused. ‘I don’t want to go—’ ‘Don’t make a fuss, agapita.’ The flat of his hand at the base of her spine gave her a gentle push forward. Before she knew it, she’d been hustled inside the plane and the door was being closed. Staring bemusedly at her luxury surroundings, she turned suddenly to make a protest and cannoned right into Xander’s chest. The breath left her body on a tense little whoosh and she tried to take a defensive step back, but his arms came around her, strong and supportive. It was like being surrounded by the enemy, frightening and suffocating. She breathed in anxious protest. ‘Please…’ ‘Please what?’ His voice had deepened and roughened. Glancing up, Nell saw the dark, simmering spark in his eyes and tried one final breathless, ‘No…’ But his mouth found hers anyway, moulding her lips and prising them apart to allow his tongue to make that slow, sensual slide against moist inner tissue that made her breath quiver as her senses tingled with pleasure. She wanted to pull away but instead her mouth crushed in closer. She wanted to deny this was happening at all but once again her mind was not in control. He murmured something, she didn’t know what. But his tongue when it delved deeper sent her hands up to clutch at his chest and, as strong male muscle rippled beneath her fingers, he eased her even closer to him. His thighs pressed against her thighs, the solid evidence of his desire pushing against the tense flatness of her lower stomach. Damp heat sprang out all over her and on a very masculine growl he deepened the kiss some more. Dizzily she clung to him, her breathing coming faster as the intensity of the kiss increased. Her head tilted backwards, arching her breasts into the solid wall of his chest. Her nipples sharpened like stinging arrows against him and she could feel the uneven thump of his heart and the fine tremor attacking him as he used long fingers to draw her more tightly against the sensual movements he was making with his hips. It was all so sexual, so overwhelmingly physical and exciting. A shimmering, quivering shower of desire dragged at inner muscles that seemed to scoop out the strength from her legs. Then the plane’s engines gave a sudden roar, breaking them apart with an abruptness that left Nell staring dizzily up at his face. She saw the tension there, heat streaking across his cheekbones, the flaring nostrils, the predatory burn in his eyes, and quivered out a constricted gasp. He dipped his dark head and caught the sound, burnt this kiss onto her pulsing lips—then without warning took hold of her shoulders, turned and dumped her unceremoniously into the nearest seat then spun away in an odd jerky movement that kept her eyes fixed on him in giddy fascination. He really wanted her. Badly. Now. The knowledge ploughed a deep furrow of heat down her front and held her utterly, breathlessly entrapped. When he suddenly twisted back round to look at her his eyes were so black she didn’t even try to look for the brown. That one glance at her expression and he was growling out some kind of harsh self-aimed curse and coming down on his haunches to grimly belt her in. Her eyes clung to his taut features as he did so. She didn’t even breathe when he moved away to take a seat on the other side of the aisle and strapped himself into it. Nothing going on inside was making any sense to her any more; everything was just too new. The plane engines gave another roar then they were shooting forward with rocket propulsion that only helped to heighten the awareness pulsing back and forth. ‘If you ever let another man touch you again I will kill you,’ he rasped into the charged atmosphere. Kill her—kill Marcel. The primitive man in him was beginning to take on a life of his own. Is this what untrammelled lust did to men—turned them all into angry, murderous, primeval beasts? ‘Speak!’ Xander lashed out, stopping her thought processes stone dead as he seared a blistering look across the aisle. He wanted her to retaliate. To spit something back at him about Vanessa so he could shoot her down with some cruel remark. It was all to do with a need to finding an alternative release for all of this tension, but she turned her face away and refused to respond. Couldn’t respond; she was too locked up inside with what she was feeling herself. They were already in the air and still shooting higher; the pressure in the cabin hummed in her head. Lifting a set of trembling fingers, she touched the place above her nose where the last and worst bruise on her face still lingered. She thought it would be throbbing, it felt as if it was but it was all over that was throbbing. A click followed by an angry hissing sound came at her from across the aisle and she dropped the fingers back to her lap—only to find that Xander had moved with the speed of light, unfastening his belt to come to squat down in front of her again, his own long, cool fingers coming up to cover where her own had just covered. ‘You are hot and in pain,’ he muttered angrily. ‘I apologise for my—thoughtlessness.’ Sounding stiff and very foreign to her now, ‘I’m all right,’ she managed on a shaken breath. ‘You are not.’ His fingers moved to one of her burning cheeks. ‘Don’t give me that stiff upper-lip stuff, Nell. I treated you roughly. You now think I am crass and uncivilised,’ he brusquely pronounced. ‘Did I hurt you anywhere—your injured ribs?’ Nell reached up to curl her fingers around his wrist to pull it away from her cheek so she could give a negating shake of her head and was instantly assailed by the sensation of strong bone and warm skin peppered with crisp dark hair. This was mad, she tried to swallow, found her eyes lifting to clash with his. Darkened emerald-green showing a complete helplessness as to what was happening to her. She’d spent so many months blocking out what she used to feel for him; now it was all pounding about inside her and she didn’t like it. She tugged her hand down again. ‘Let me go home to Rosemere,’ she whispered unsteadily. ‘No.’ It came out hard and gruff. ‘Where I go you go from now on. I want you with me.’ Eyes no longer black with passion but dark—dark brown and swirling with feelings that shattered the breath she tried to take. ‘So you can protect your investment?’ she hit out. ‘Your bodyguards can do that just as well in England.’ ‘So I believed. You proved me wrong.’ He sprang to his feet. ‘We will not discuss this again.’ She only had herself to blame for what was happening to her now, in other words. She looked away from him, and had never felt so trapped in her life. They landed in Athens to a blistering heatwave that almost sucked her of her remaining strength as they transferred to a waiting helicopter and immediately took off again. Three and a half hours on a plane, too much tension and stress, and she was beginning to feel so wiped out she could barely sit up straight. ‘Where to now?’ she asked as they swung out over a glistening blue ocean with this now daunting man at the controls. ‘To my private island.’ Spoken like a true Greek billionaire, with an indifference that suggested that all Greeks owned their own island. Nell was too tired to do more than grimace at his arrogance. But she couldn’t stop the tip of her tongue from running an exploratory track across her still warm and swollen full bottom lip, unaware that Xander witnessed the revealing little gesture and the way he had to clench hard on a certain part of his anatomy to stop the hot response from gaining in strength. The island turned out to be a tiny baked brown circle of land floating alone in a crystal blue ocean. Nell caught sight of two white crescents of sand, a fir-covered hill in the middle, and a beautiful two-storeyed whitewashed villa with a swimming pool nestling in between the two sandy beaches. They landed in an area close to the pool. Jumping out, Xander had to stoop as he strode round to the other side of the machine to open her door, then held out his hand to help her alight. She stumbled as he hurried her from beneath the rotors. A sharp frowning glance at the exhaustion wrenching at her pale face and he was scooping her off the ground. ‘I can walk—’ ‘If you had to,’ he agreed tersely. ‘Which you don’t.’ With a sigh, Nell gave in because she didn’t have the energy to argue with him never mind the strength to put up a physical fight. Her head lolled onto his shoulder, his warm breath brushed her face as he carried her past the glinting blue pool and up a set of wide, shallow steps towards the house. A wall of plate-glass stood open ready for them and a tiny woman dressed in black waited to welcome them with a warm, crinkly smile. She said something in Greek. Xander answered in the same language, his tone short and clipped. The old woman lost her smile and turned to hurry inside ahead of them, tossing long sentences over her shoulder that sounded to Nell as if Xander was being thoroughly scolded, like a child. He seemed to take it without objection, allowing the woman to lead the way across a cool hallway and up a flight of stairs. They entered a beautiful room with pale blue walls and white drapes billowing at the floor-length windows covered by blue slatted shutters that helped to keep out the worst of the afternoon heat. Setting Nell down on the edge of a pale blue covered soft, springy bed, Xander clipped out an order and the woman hurried away, leaving him squatting down in front of Nell, whose head was just too heavy to lift off his shoulder. ‘The journey was too much,’ he hissed. ‘I apologise.’ Again? Nell thought. ‘I just want to go to bed.’ At any other time Xander would have jumped on such an appealing statement. But not right now, when it was clear she was totally wasted and he was worried and feeling as guilty as hell for putting her through such a journey before she had recovered her strength. Reaching between them, he unbuttoned the lightweight blue summer jacket and slid it carefully from her shoulders then tossed it aside. The white blouse was silky, the tiny pearl buttons more difficult to negotiate from this position and he frowned as his fingers worked, the frown due more to her silent acquiescence. It was a good ten seconds before he realised that she’d actually fallen asleep. The blouse came free and landed on top of the jacket, working by stealth, he gently laid her down against the pillows then shifted his attention to removing her shoes then the slippery silk-lined skirt and lace-edged stockings that covered her slender legs. Leaving her dignity intact with her lacy bra and panties, he was just grimacing to himself because this was as naked as he had ever seen his wife of a year—when he saw what he had missed while he’d been busy undressing her and it straightened his spine with a stark, rigid jerk. She was so badly bruised he could not believe the doctor had dared to say that she was fit to travel! One whole side of her ribcage was a mass of fading purple and yellow, and he just stared in blistering horror at the two thick seat-belt lines, one that ran from her left shoulder diagonally across her body to her waist, where the other took over, strapping straight across her hips. What the hell kind of speed had she been doing when she hit that tree to cause such bruising? Had it been deliberate? His blood ran cold at an idea he dismissed instantly. But the cold shock of the thought lingered much longer than that. And the guilt he had been feeling at the rough way he’d handled her on the plane grew like a balloon in his chest. Someone tutted beside him. ‘Oh, poor wounded child,’ Thea Sophia murmured. ‘What kind of man have you become, Alexander, that you bring her this far in this state?’ It was not a question he cared to answer. He was struggling enough with it for himself. Setting his mouth, he bent down to gather Nell into his arms again with as much care as he could manage. ‘Pull back the covers, Thea,’ he instructed gruffly. Ten seconds later he was resettling his wounded bride against the cool sheets of their marriage bed. Did she but know it, he thought as he straightened a second time and stepped back to allow Thea to gently fold the covers back over Nell’s limp frame. Her hair lay in a thick braid beside one of her cheeks and she had never looked so pale—or so vulnerable. God give me strength, he thought grimly, glad that only he knew what plans he’d made for the beautiful Helen involving this island, some serious seduction, this room and this bed. Shelved plans. He turned away, grim face mask-like as he watched Thea fuss around picking up Nell’s discarded clothes and folding them neatly on a chair. He made a decision. One of those quick-thinking, businessminded decisions he was more familiar with. It was called a tactical retreat. Nell slept on through the sound of rotor blades stirring up again, slept through the whooshing din the helicopter made as it took off. She had no idea at all that while she slept Thea Sophia sat in the chair beside the bed, quietly working her lace with gnarled, nimble fingers while a maid just as quietly unpacked and put away Nell’s clothes. The afternoon sun slowly turned the room golden. She only stirred when the sound of rattling crockery made her dry throat and her empty stomach demand she take note. Opening her eyes, she took several long seconds to remember where she was, and a few more seconds’ sleepily watching the old lady in black as she fussed around a table by the window across the room. Then the old lady turned. ‘Ah, you are awake at last!’ she exclaimed and came across the room with her crinkly face full of olive-toned smiles. ‘My name is Sophia Theodora Pascalis,’ she introduced herself. ‘I am Alexander’s great-aunt. You may call me Thea Sophia and I will call you Helen—such a proud Greek name.’ Was it? Nell had never given much thought to her name’s origin. ‘Of course, if Alexander were here he would have made the formal introductions,’ Thea Sophia continued. ‘But welcome—welcome to our beautiful island and our beautiful home, Helen.’ Nell found her face being clasped between two hands in a warm, affectionate gesture, and released again. ‘Th-thank you. I’m very happy to meet you, Thea Sophia,’ Nell returned politely and it was impossible not to smile back in response. ‘Ah, it is I who is happy to see you here at last.’ The old lady stood back to beam a very satisfied smile then turned to walk back to the table by the window. ‘We will become very good friends, you and I, ne? You will like it here,’ she promised. ‘When that stupid boy Alexander decides to get his priorities right and come back here you will makes lots of babies between you in that bed as is Pascalis tradition and we shall be a very happy family, ne?’ The baby part floated right by Nell, pushed out by the much more disturbing part of Thea Sophia’s chatty speech. ‘Xan—Alexander has…gone?’ she prompted unsteadily. ‘He took one look at your poor bruised body and took to his heels,’ his aunt informed her in disgust. ‘You would not believe that such a big strong man could be so squeamish, but there you go.’ She added a very Mediterranean shrug. ‘It will be his guilty conscience taunting him, of course. He was brought up to protect his loved ones. In this, with you, he failed. He will come back when he has come to terms with his…’ Nell had stopped listening. She was pushing the covers away from her body and staring down at her near-naked flesh. Hot colour poured into her cheeks then paled away again when she saw what Xander had seen. ‘W-who undressed me?’ ‘Alexander, of course.’ ‘Then he left…’ ‘Ne.’ China chinked against china. Nell sat up with a jerk and drew her knees up to her chin so that she could hug herself. Tears were burning, hurt tears, angry tears. Xander had brought her to this island to seduce her—he’d left Nell in no doubt whatsoever about that. One glance at her miserable body and he’d seen his plans thwarted so he’d done what he always did. He’d walked away. Left her. Marooned her on this tiny island with this sweet but old, old lady, while he returned to his busy, important life, the seduction of his wife shelved—again. ‘You ready for a nice cup of English tea now…?’ CHAPTER FOUR NELL stepped barefooted onto the sand, dropped her book and her sunglasses down at her feet then removed the wide-brimmed straw hat Thea Sophia had insisted that she wear to shade her face from the fierce rays of the sun. Using the hat as a fan, she wafted it to and fro as she stood looking around the small cove she’d found during her first week here and since then made it her very own. It meant a stiff climb up and down the tree-covered hill to get here but it was worth it. The sand beneath her feet was sugary soft and hot, the sea a crystal-clear, smooth as glass, glistening blue, and in between the two lay a strip of cooler damp-silk sand kept that way by the flow and ebb of a lazy tide. It was the stillest day since she had arrived here two weeks ago. Hot, breathlessly calm, exotically pine-scented and so exquisitely hush-quiet you could hear an ant move a leaf fifty feet away. A wry smile played with her mouth as she stooped over again to place the hat over the book and sunglasses, paused long enough to scoop up a handful of warm sand then straightened again, green eyes fixed thoughtfully on her fingers as she let the sand filter through them while she tried to decide what she was going to do. She was being watched. Not only was she very aware of that pair of eyes fixed on her, but she also knew to whom they belonged. She’d heard the helicopter fly overhead as she’d been strolling up the path that led over the pine-shaded hill on her way here. She also knew how he had found her so quickly. Yannis, the bluff, gruff odd-job man on the island and her latest guard would have told him where to look. It made her curious as to whether it had ever occurred to Xander that having her watched for every waking hour of the day meant that Yannis often saw what he was seeing right now as he stood beneath the shade of one of the trees that edged the little cove. If her instincts were sending her the right messages, that was, and she knew that they were. Only one man had ever filled her with this tingling mix of anger, resentment and excitement just by looking at her. There were two things she could do next, she pondered thoughtfully. She could turn round and confront him or she could ignore him and continue with what she’d come here to do. The smile on her lips stretched wider. It was not a pleasant smile. The first option had never been a real contender, Nell had known it from the moment she’d heard his first footfall on the woodland path behind. There was no way that she was going to turn and let him know that she knew he was standing there. It did not suit her purposes because she was about to show him just what it was he had been consistently rejecting for the last year. Show him how she looked without the bruises he’d turned his back on in favour of Athens and probably Vanessa’s perfect, unblemished, willing charms. Her fingers shook a little, though, as she began to untie the knot holding her sarong in place across the warm rise of her breasts. Her heart pumping a bit too thickly as she let the fine white Indian cotton slide away from her body to land softly on the top of the hat. Underneath the sarong the new honey-gold tan she had been carefully cultivating shone softly beneath a protective layer of high-factor oil. Exercising three times a day by swimming in the pool or here in the sea had toned her up quite impressively—not that she’d been a slouch before the accident, but physical injury had taken a toll on her weight and her muscles. Now, as she stood looking down at herself, a lazy finger absently rubbing in a previously missed smear of oil across the flat slope of her stomach, she was quietly impressed with how she looked even if it was vain to think it about herself. Whoever it was who’d packed her clothes for her in England must have been in romantic mood because they’d more or less picked out everything she’d bought for her non-starter honeymoon, like this bikini for instance, bought along with several others to seduce a husband who should have been her lover by the time she’d worn one of them. The bikini consisted of a tiny white G-string that made only a scornful play at covering what it should, and a skimpy top made of two tiny triangles of silky fabric held together by two bootlace straps, one knotted around her neck and the other around her back. If she swam too energetically she came out of the top but—who cared? she thought with a large dose of defiance. She felt slinky and sexy and the G-string wasn’t going to go anywhere because of the way it was held in place in the tight cleft of her buttocks. So eat your heart out, Alexander Pascalis, she told him as she tilted her face up to the sun. Because here stands the unbattered version of the woman you turned your back on two weeks ago. And on that rebellious thought she moved into a long, slow, sensual stretch that accentuated every slender line of her figure from arms to spine to smoothly glossed buttocks and long, slender legs, held the pose for a few seconds then released it and began running lightly down to the sea. In the shade of the tree, Xander watched the start of her little exhibition from a lazy, relaxed stance with one shoulder resting against the tree trunk. She knew he was here, he was almost certain of it. She had to have heard his footfall on the path on such a still day. So, what was she thinking about as she stood there sifting sand through her fingers? Was she contemplating how he would react to a handful of the sand thrown in his face? He knew she was angry with him. He knew she felt dumped and deserted when he’d left her here the way that he did. But what other choice had he had at the time? He had a wife who was not yet a wife and a marriage bed that was not yet a marriage bed that his aunt fully expected them to share. Playing the loving husband who’d had a whole year to lose the edge to his sexual desires for this woman had not been an option he had been able to take. Put him in a bed next to Nell and despite the bruises he would not have been able to keep his hands to himself. She was beautiful—look at her, he told that nagging part of his conscience that kept on telling him he could have sorted something out which had not involved shifting himself across the Aegean in a bid to put temptation out of reach. The long, slender legs, the slender body hidden beneath the white sarong she had tied round the firm thrust of her breasts. The pale copper hair left free to ripple across slender shoulders tanned to a smooth honey colour since he’d seen them last. Turn to look at me, yenika, he urged silently. Give me that slow, sensual glide with your eyes that turns up my sexual heat. I don’t mind paying the price of the sand in my face. But she didn’t turn. Leaning there against the tree while willing the little witch to turn, Xander watched through eyes narrowed against the sunlight as she untied the knot holding the sarong in place then allowed the scrap of fine white Indian cotton to slide away from her body and fall on top of the hat. His heart stopped beating. His shoulder left the tree trunk with a violent jerk. He could not believe what he was seeing. In fact he refused to believe it. It was the sun playing tricks with his eyes, he decided as he watched her move into a long, lithe stretch, which lifted her arms up as if in homage to the sun. ‘Theos,’ he breathed as his senses locked into overdrive. He’d seen many women in many different stages of undress. He’d seen them deliberately playing the temptress in an effort to capture his interest but he never expected to see this woman do it—never expected to see her wearing anything so damned outrageous! Maybe she did not know of his presence. Maybe she was playing the siren like this because she truly believed there was no one to see! Then he remembered Yannis—warned to follow her every move because he did not trust her not to find some way to flee again. The idea of any other man enjoying the sight of his wife parading herself in what could only be called a couple of pieces of string had a red-hot tide of primitive possessiveness raking through him and sent his head shooting round, glinting black eyes flashing out a scan around the area, hunting out places a silent guard could watch unseen. Then she dropped out of the stretch and his attention became riveted on Nell again as she began to run down to the sea, light steps kicking up soft, dry sand then leaving small footprints in the wet as she went. She hit the water at a run, her beautiful hair flying out behind her. In a smooth, graceful, curving dive, she disappeared beneath the smooth crystal water, leaving him standing there hot, damp in places, feeling as if he had just imagined the whole thing! Nell swam beneath the surface until her lungs began to burst then she bobbed up like a seal, took in a deep breath then struck out with a smooth, graceful crawl towards the edge of the little cove where the rocky landscape on this side of the island rose up in a sheer slab for several feet she’d always thought would be great to dive from but had not yet found a way to reach the edge up there. The tiny cove was perfect for swimming in because its two flanking outcrops gave her something to aim for when she swam across the cove. Making a neat racing turn, she started back in the other direction. She loved swimming, always had from being small. She’d swum for her school and won a few gold medals too. In Canada she’d scared her mother by swimming in the Kananaskis River, and before getting married had been a regular visitor to the local public swimming pool. When she’d married Xander, he had changed all of that by closeting her at Rosemere, which had its own pool, so she did not have to leave home to swim. On the rare occasions he’d turned up at the house unexpectedly to find her using the pool, she’d glimpsed him standing by the bevelled glass doors watching her cut a smooth line through the water—not that she’d ever let him know that she’d known he was standing there. When you hated and resented someone you ignored them as much as possible then they could never know what was really fizzing around your insides. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/michelle-reid/michelle-reid-collection/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. 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