by Dani Collins
The tension grew so intense she tried to close her thighs, but she couldn’t. She was at his mercy, the coil of desire pulling into unbearable need that made her catch back a sob.
She clutched the back of the chair and closed her teeth on his bottom lip, trying to fight the rising wave, but he palmed her breast and kept up the relentless lift of his hips against hers. Shivers went down her spine, making her shoulder blades flex. She arched as the tingle spread across her lower back, then poured like liquid pleasure through her loins and thighs.
Release shuddered through her in a rush of joy. Sexy, hungry pulses followed, making her grind against him with abandon, eager to wring every last clench of deliciousness from their encounter.
It was so good...so good.
And so solitary.
She felt the dry laugh that went through him. The hoarse sound could have been a saber, it rent her so badly.
She wilted into his caging arms, shaken and breathless. Defeated.
This man had possessed her attention for far too long and now owned what shreds of dignity she had managed to preserve.
This was the most humiliating encounter of her life.
And there was no coming back from it.
CHAPTER SIX
“COME HERE,” RAMON said the second he closed the door of his flat.
He could barely speak and didn’t even remember getting here. He vaguely recalled a quick exit through a service door and a brisk walk through a bustling kitchen to the underground car park. That sort of disappearing act was exactly what he paid his security service to provide.
All that mattered was that he had her alone now. Properly alone, where he could strip off that maddening jumpsuit and satisfy both of them this time. If she had been wearing a dress tonight... But she hadn’t been and damn it, he was aching to finish what they’d started.
She sent him a baleful glance. “Where are the extra blankets? I’ll take the sofa.”
She clutched her sheer black wrap like it was a trench coat, her mouth clean of lipstick from their kisses, her eyes dark with betrayal.
“Qué?” His voice came out harsher than he intended as he clung to something he could see was already moving beyond his reach, even before she spoke again.
“I told you I wouldn’t sleep with you.”
Then she had lap-danced him into believing she wanted to. She had come apart in his arms with such abandon, he’d nearly exploded. His heart was still thudding, hammering an obsessive pulse in the stiff flesh between his thighs.
Want. Need. Have.
But the wariness in her expression put the brakes on that. He firmly believed in a woman’s right to change her mind, but he searched her expression, trying to understand how they had gone from ecstasy to aversion in a five-minute car ride. It put his lungs in a vise.
“Why did you say you wanted to leave, then?”
I want to go. The crack in her voice and the final twitch of postclimax that had shivered through her as she’d sat up, pressing her weight into his straining flesh, had been all the excuse he’d needed for a very swift and wordless departure from his own party.
“I couldn’t face people after that!” She hugged herself, eyes wide and appalled.
“Dios,” he muttered, not expecting her to be shy about it. “No one knew what we were doing. They didn’t even know where we were.”
“Oh, please.” Her fingertips were digging so hard into her upper arms, she was going to leave bruises. “Everyone wants to know where you are and what you’re doing at all times. I guarantee someone was watching and that your friend Kiergen will be adding this to his roster of stories. ‘Remember that time Ramon pulled his fiancée behind the curtain for a blowie?’”
“Well, he’ll be wrong, won’t he?” Her crude talk didn’t bother him so much as the fact she might be right. But he had had to become inured to gossip long ago. “Who cares what people say? We know the truth. That’s all that matters.”
“I care! And the truth isn’t any more palatable.” She let out a choked laugh. “I criticize you for not being able to share a night with a woman, but I can’t even share a chair.” She hung her head into her palm.
“We are not still fighting about your mother.” His teeth came together and the rest came out between them. “I didn’t have sex with her. Believe me this time because I’m not going to say it again.” Inside his pocket, his hand closed into a fist.
She averted her face, but he watched her profile struggle with anger and a despair that made his chest feel tight.
“Whether you did or not doesn’t matter. I’m sure you’re both well over it by now. But I’m not like that, okay? I don’t sleep around. I don’t have sex in public. I’m not like her, Ramon.”
Ah, hell.
“I know you’re not like her,” he said more gently.
Her head came up to send him a look of misery. “Judging by tonight’s performance, are you?”
Which is when he realized this wasn’t a case of self-consciousness or embarrassment, but shame. Deep shame. Her face was an agonized red, the corners of her mouth dragged with disgrace. She wore the cloak of someone who didn’t know how to hide from herself.
“Don’t.” The word came out from deep in his chest, where a pressure settled, heavy as a piano. He couldn’t bear that she regretted one of the most erotic and exciting experiences of his life. “Isidora—”
He started forward, but she retreated. Recoiled. She caught at the back of the chair that she bumped into, swaying before she gathered her excuse for a jacket around herself again.
A breath gusted out of him, leaving a hole in his chest.
“You know I’m not going to force you into anything. Don’t you?” He was surprised his voice was so steady when he felt so flabbergasted.
“Except an engagement?”
“Sexually,” he clarified. “You know enough about Trella’s experience to believe me when I say I would never take advantage of a woman that way. That’s why I was angry with you that morning at your mother’s,” he added with a return of ire. “You knew me. I was offended that you jumped so quickly to thinking I’d had sex with her.”
“Oh, my fault! Silly me, making things up for no reason.”
Dios. “All right, I know why you assumed I had—”
“No, you don’t know!” Her jagged voice brimmed with acid.
He did. He had lived in Madrid on and off all his life. Gossip about her mother had always been rife.
“She had a rough childhood,” he reminded her. “She told me that night how she’d been bounced between guardians, everyone fighting over her money and not giving a damn about her.”
Francisca had married way too young and her first husband had abused her. The second had been too old, but had doubled her fortune when he died, turning her into the merriest of widows. By the time she had been pregnant with Isidora, not even thirty yet, she was entering her third marriage with Bernardo.
“If she was a man, no one would care how she conducts herself. People shouldn’t judge her just because she’s a woman. You shouldn’t.”
Her jaw dropped. “Don’t you dare tell me how to feel about it! Did anyone ever ask you if your knees were as loose as your mother’s? Were you ever refused service in a restaurant, in front of your friends, because your mother had slept with the owner’s husband? How many times did you lie to your father about why a man was in the house, because you didn’t want to hear another fight go on for days, and were afraid he would leave for good if he knew the truth?”
At the mention of her father, his chest grew too tight for his ribs, but he couldn’t pile on her pain by telling her Francisca had confided to him that Bernardo wasn’t her biological father.
“Isidora—”
“I don’t tell you how to feel about your past, do I?” Her hands flung through the air in agitation. “And for your information, I don’t judge her. I don’t care how many men she sleeps with. I care that she’s hurting so badly she can’t stop herself. I
care that I can’t fix her. I care that men take advantage of her and people say things behind her back that only hurts her more.”
“Well, I didn’t take advantage of her,” he growled. “We talked. Bueno? About my past. It was the anniversary of my father’s death, Isidora. It pisses me off that you’ve never figured that out, which I know isn’t fair, but you know everything about me. I didn’t feel I should have to tell you. I didn’t want to be alone that night and your mother was the perfect companion. She knew Mama from their boarding-school days. Papa had managed her trust from the time she had access to it. She talked about their wedding day. Told me stories I’d never heard, from when they were young and happy. From before.” Before Trella’s kidnapping, he meant. “Don’t begrudge me that. I needed it.”
She stared at him, motionless but for the throb of the artery in her throat.
“It’s the truth,” he said, trying to impress it through her brain, needing her to believe it.
“Then why...?” The profound hurt in her eyes twisted up his insides. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“Because I was angry.” Tempted. Stung. He shook off the confusion that had driven him that morning. The sudden want as he’d realized she was a grown woman and the sight of the dead end they were doomed to hit. “Nothing was ever going to happen between us. You’re the daughter of my father’s friend. My sisters’ friend. Was I supposed to lead you on? Date you and dump you? Marry you? I’m never going to marry anyone and you, in this position of having threats online and a damn army protecting you because of me, have to understand why I say that. So tell me, Isidora. What the hell was I supposed to do about that damn crush of yours except kill it so you could get on with your life?”
She sucked in a breath as though it was the last one she would ever take.
After a moment, she swallowed loud enough for him to hear. The glow that was brimming on her lashes threatened to spill onto her cheeks.
“So what was tonight? Pity? Throw a bone to the girl who used to love you?” Her brow flinched in acute humiliation.
“No.” His ears hung up on used to while the rest of him tried to figure out what it had been. Sex didn’t have hidden meanings for him, but even he knew it hadn’t been the sort of quid pro quo he usually engaged in. The idea of her kissing his twin had set something alight in him. The sense of competition that had come over him had been the least friendly he’d ever felt toward Henri. It had been downright savage. Territorial.
That’s what had driven him to kiss her, at least. A completely uncharacteristic possessiveness had gripped him as he’d held her, making him want to erase thoughts of any other man from her mind and replace them with himself.
Lust had taken over. She’d been so responsive—her breasts were perfection, her weight on him pure seduction, her abandonment to their lovemaking completely enthralling. He was a very experienced man, yet he would never forget something that amounted to adolescent petting behind the bleachers.
“You kissed me. I thought it meant you were willing to settle for an affair.” It sounded lame even to his ears. He wasn’t surprised she only shook her head.
“Maybe I would, if I thought you wanted me, and not just the woman you were stuck with because of this stupid engagement.”
“I want you.” How could she doubt it? “Look in a mirror. Of course I think you’re beautiful. Of course I want to sleep with you.”
“Because I’m here. Not because I’m me.” She pointed to where her pendant hung against her bare breastbone. It swung forward as she leaned into her words. “In the entire time I’ve known you, you’ve never treated me as anything but a giant pain in your behind. Henri used to at least have a conversation with me, but not you.”
She pointed at him to punctuate.
“I was that thing you had to endure coming into your house because I happened to be friends with your sisters. Then you did me this great favor of shattering my heart by appearing to sleep with my mother.”
She straightened, shoulders back, chin up.
“Five years go by and do you ask me to help with your sister? No! You threatened my job and pressed on my loyalty to your family. And now, after all of that, I’m supposed to fall down with gratitude that the great Ramon Sauveterre has decided I’m physically attractive enough that he’s inviting me to have an affair? Thanks a bunch.”
This time, her hostility didn’t grate. That vilification clawed past his thick skin to the center of his soul, which he suddenly feared was a vacant space. She’d pulled back the curtain, pointed and made him feel small. Dishonorable.
“So that’s a no, then?” He took refuge behind sarcasm because no one was supposed to be able to hurt him. Not this badly. Not by holding him up to the light and finding such an ugly angle.
He feared the rasp in his voice gave away what a direct hit she’d scored, but she only widened her gray eyes in disbelief. Then she shook her head like she should have expected his callousness.
“When I was young, I used to think your past made you afraid of being hurt. I told myself that’s why you wouldn’t love me back. It made the rejection easier. But you’re actually just a self-important, unfeeling bastard, aren’t you? Here’s news. Some people react to life’s tragedies by being nice. They try to make the world a better place. They don’t ruin it for everyone else. I will never forgive you for forcibly dragging me back to your side so you could teach me again that you’re not worth my time.”
She turned toward the bedroom, one wrist coming up so she could use her sleeve against her cheek.
“Isidora.”
“Really?” she cried. “I have to spell it out?” She kept her back to him. “That was a hard no, Ramon. Step outside if you want sex. I’m sure you can flag some down with that charm of yours. I’m going to have a bath and sleep on the sofa.”
“Take the bed. I have some calls to make.”
“So noble.”
As he heard the tub faucet start, he moved to the cabinet in the lounge and poured himself a strong start on a terrible hangover.
* * *
They both wore sunglasses the next morning. Isidora was trying to hide that she had cried—yes, again—over that stupid man.
She didn’t know what was up with Ramon, though. She didn’t think he’d had that much to drink at the party, but he informed her flatly that he had called in their regrets for a brunch they were supposed to attend. He had a tall cup of the coffee she’d made, but didn’t touch any of the pastries she had sent up.
That suggested an unsteady stomach. She noted a near-empty bottle of Scotch on the end table in the lounge as he moved into the shower she’d vacated, but she didn’t ask.
She wouldn’t spare one word in his direction if she didn’t have to.
And she personally wouldn’t touch alcohol again for a long time. She was still writhing internally at how she had behaved. The part where she had climaxed on his lap was bad enough, but then she had bared her soul and he had only scoffed at her history of unrequited love like it was a skinned knee.
The next few months were going to be interminable.
As if to prove it, they met Kiergen in the lobby as they were leaving. Apparently he had a flat in the building, too.
“Where did you two get off to? As if I didn’t know,” he said with a playful leer.
Before Isidora could smile weakly through her squirming blush, Ramon said bluntly, “A personal matter came up.”
Kiergen’s smile gave way to concern. “I hope everything is all right? Are you still coming to the brunch?”
“No. Excuse us. The car is waiting.” He hurried her out, leaving Kiergen sounding worried as he called out a wish that they travel safe.
As they settled into the cool leather seats and the car pulled way, she glanced briefly at Ramon. He really was a master class in manipulating his own image. Now Kiergen would go to the brunch with genuine concern over this “personal matter.” Speculation would abound, and no one would be aware it was pure red her
ring.
Was she supposed to thank him for covering up her lunacy?
She churlishly chose to read emails instead, doing her best to ignore him while feeling slighted that he did the same.
They had a milk run of business engagements for the next few days, crisscrossing to Italy and Germany before coming back to France. She was mostly arm candy at luncheons and cocktail parties as he shook hands and took photos with newly promoted executives.
It was nice to see a mix of women taking management positions and the conglomerate wasn’t named Sauveterre International for nothing. At least it gave her a broad range of people to chat with as a buffer against him.
They were able to avoid all but the bare minimum of physical contact, too. If they kissed, it was a perfunctory performance—not unlike the kiss she had exchanged with his brother, if distinctly less warm. And while they smiled at each other when they had to, they spoke as little as possible.
It was a delicate balance on the edge of a razor blade, cutting into her relentlessly as they crawled along with this charade.
So, even though she was loath to be without external distractions to keep them apart, it was a relief to board his yacht to sail across the Mediterranean to Málaga, Spain, where their official engagement party would be held.
To the long-lens cameras spying on them from afar, they appeared to be on a prehoneymoon. In reality, Ramon worked tirelessly from his onboard office. She answered emails and wrote press releases while sunbathing in her bikini. They saw each other over meals and confined conversation to work-related topics.
One day, she kept promising herself, she would be over Ramon and would fall for a man who adored her. Their passion would overshadow that bit of petting she had shared with Ramon. They would marry in a dream wedding, have a handful of children and this gnawing ache inside her would subside.
But that was many days away. She still had half of this day to get through.
She gave the purser a brief thank-you smile as she took her seat across from Ramon at lunch. He wore a collared short-sleeved shirt and casual shorts with deck shoes. She had shrugged on a simple red sundress over her bathing suit since they were eating poolside.