‘Shut up!’ she gasped out shrilly. ‘How dare you speak to me like this? Get out of here, Luis—get out!’
He did the opposite, pushing those muscled shoulders away from the door and striding forward so purposefully that Cristina found herself pressing back hard against the sink. It was like being trapped in a cage with a lean, dark green-eyed predator. She had never felt so afraid.
‘No,’ she breathed as a set of long fingers closed over a bare shoulder.
The other set lifted to curl around her nape. As she arched her back in an effort to put space between them he stepped in close. The solid bar of his hips made contact with her stomach. She quivered. He smiled—then stopped smiling. His eyes glittered, his lips parted, then he tugged her head forward and captured her mouth.
The predator—the predator—the hungry predator. She was devoured without mercy, lips prised apart and her mouth invaded by the kind of kiss that locked every muscle tight with shock. Her mouth filled with the taste of him, sensitive tissue untouched for too long pulsing with pleasure and crying out for more. He explored her teeth, the excruciatingly sensitive roof of her mouth, her fiercely retracted tongue.
Long fingers stroked across the satin skin of her shoulder, then slid to her back, to begin a slow gliding down the length of her spine. She was quivering all over by the time he heaved her tight up against him. The heady scent of him, the sensual knowledge of his touch, the unholy eroticism of his kiss wiped away six years without having to try hard, and as her arms lifted up and around his neck she marked her surrender to him with a pained little moan.
After that they were kissing like sex-starved wild things, hotly, deeply. It was mad. Moving against each other, heaving and panting, gripping and clawing—or she was. Anything—anything—to keep this from stopping. The heels of her shoes were screeching against marble, her fingers clutching at his silk dark head. Her skirt had rucked up round her hips, aided by the seeking slide of his hand, and he was touching with the intimate familiarity of a passionate lover—her thighs, the tight curve of her bottom—pressing her legs that bit wider to accept the taut, probing thrust of his manhood, straining against the zip of his trousers, while she tasted him, clung to him, moved and invited him.
It was desire gone rocketing out of control. She was hot, yet shivering, appalled with herself, yet desperate for more.
‘Now?’ he posed softly. ‘You want it right here and now, viuva de Ordoniz?’
The widow Ordoniz. It was an icy douche that brought her gasping back down to earth.
Opening her eyes, she found he was standing there studying her through eyes that were cynical and cold. Oh, he was aroused. She could feel the power and strength of that arousal pushing against her. But the man himself was in complete control.
Unlike her.
His hand still claimed the heated dampness of her arousal. Shame had her push it away, only to release a revealing shudder at its removal. He found it so easy to let go and take a step back that she wanted to die where she stood.
‘Who do you think you are to treat me this way?’ she choked out, desperately tugging at the hem of her dress.
‘The bit of rough you are clearly still partial to,’ he answered, watching her go pale as his cutting reference hit home. Then he turned away. ‘Now, pull yourself together.’ It was hard and cold. ‘We need to talk and we don’t have much time.’
He glanced at his watch as he said that, not a crease on him, not a hair out of place. While she was a sizzling, quivering wreck he was a man so completely contained that tears of self-disgust stung at the backs of her eyes.
‘We have nothing to talk about.’ She just wanted him to get out of here.
‘Oh, we do,’ he turned to insist. ‘You are in deep trouble, Cristina, not least because I am back in town. But we will deal with that some other time. I have a proposition to put to you.’
‘I want nothing to do with you.’
‘But you will by the end of this evening,’ he assured her with cool confidence. ‘And stop looking at me as if I’m some kind of snake because you find that you’re still hot for me. It’s in your favour that you do feel like that, or I would be leaving you to the hungry wolves out there.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’
‘Yes, you do. And sticking that defiant chin up to me and firing contempt from those eyes won’t cut it,’ he sliced at her deridingly. ‘You always were a skilled little liar—and you do know what I am talking about now, I see…’
His eyes raked her face as it paled with understanding.
‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘You made a big mistake six years ago when you tossed me aside with your lies and then trotted off to marry an old man with one foot already in his grave. You should have listened more closely to me when I told you how much I was worth. Even my unworthy half-English blood has a sweet taste to it when it comes wrapped in billions, amante. Now look at you,’ he mocked. ‘A pariah in your so-precious Portuguese society. And look at me, the half Englishman, holding the only chance you will have to save your Marques pride.’
‘You are not the only rich financier here tonight,’ Cristina hit back, wanting to sink weakly back down on the toilet seat and keeping herself upright only with the help of that Marques pride he’d just tried to crucify.
Beautiful, Anton thought. Sensational—exciting. Even while she stands there still trying to kill me with her eyes. And, yes, I’m up for it, he reaffirmed angrily. Whatever the lying sob story that was fed to Enrique Ramirez about our relationship six years ago, I am willing to fulfil his conditions and marry the Ordoniz widow. I’ll fill her up with my seed and I will make reparation to myself, by never telling her how that seed is as Portuguese as her own.
Revenge, he decided, will taste sweet.
‘By all means spend the rest of the evening taking your begging bowl round the present company,’ he invited. ‘You never know—you might get lucky and snag some other old man willing to bail you out in exchange for the use of that perfect body of yours. But if the bowl remains empty, then call this number…’ Taking a business card out of his pocket, Anton handed it to her. ‘It has my private line via the hotel switchboard,’ he explained as she stared down at the card embossed with the logo of a top hotel in Rio. ‘And remember, querida, when you do use that number, to ask for Anton Scott-Lee—not Luis.’
With that cutting stab at the other intimacy they had shared, he turned and walked to the door, unbolted it and walked out, leaving Cristina staring numbly after him as the door slid quietly back into its housing.
Silence clattered down. She began shaking all over, shock overlaying the skin-burning residue of his touch, holding her still as she listened to the sound of his deep voice as he began speaking to someone in the foyer, advising them to find another bathroom because this one was broken.
‘Believe me, you really don’t want to go in there,’ she heard him say in smoothly amused cultivated English which brought forth a fluttering flirtatious female laugh that for some silly reason flooded her eyes with hot tears.
When he turned on that voice he could charm anyone, she remembered. He’d charmed her into his life and into his bed without having to try very hard.
For an impressionable young woman up from the country used only to meeting the dow old friends of her father or solitary gauchos out on the plains, Luis had been like a fairytale figure to her—young, handsome, light-hearted, passionate, and so exciting to be with he’d turned her escape to Rio into the most magical time of her life.
And she’d loved him totally. Still loved him like that, she admitted as a second wave of pained tears burnt her eyes. When she’d thrown Luis away so callously she’d thrown her heart away with him, and lived the last six years without one.
The shared laughter on the other side of the door grew quieter as they moved away, then there was silence. With an effort Cristina pulled herself together, turning to check her hair and her make-up in the mirror and hurriedly trying to cover the swollen
evidence of his kiss with a layer of red lipstick. It was not successful—how could it be when her lips continued to pulse, her eyes shone too brightly and her skin wore a flush that was not all to do with humiliation and shame?
She looked away, turned away, then took in a deep breath and made herself go back to the party—to hear from a disgruntled Gabriel that Luis had already left with his beautiful companion.
‘Where do you know him from? How did you meet him?’ he demanded to know. ‘Do you know who he is? He owns big stakes in just about every banking house between here and the moon, and if I had known you knew him we could have used the connection. But the way you just walked away has probably blown that opportunity.’
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, not sorry at all. ‘I felt ill suddenly. I thought you would prefer it if I didn’t embarrass you by throwing up on his shoes.’
The begging bowl remained empty. By the time Gabriel saw Cristina into his car, the mood between them had turned very grim. As he drove them towards his apartment the silence grew like a heavy weight around both of them.
Then he told her why. ‘The word is out, Cristina. You are untouchable. Most of the people there tonight have a stake in the Alagoas Consortium. They want you to surrender and sell.’
Strangely enough, she was not surprised—though she did wonder how big a stake Luis was holding.
It was the first question she asked him when she rang him from the privacy of the bedroom Gabriel had loaned her for her stay in Rio. She’d left Gabriel stretched out on a chair in his living room, brooding about the evening over a glass of brandy before going out again to meet up with his lover.
‘Is it relevant?’ Luis countered.
‘If you want to see me fail as much as everyone else does, then yes,’ she said. ‘It is relevant.’
‘Be here at my suite at twelve o’clock sharp,’ was all he said. ‘And don’t bother to bring the lover along with you.’
‘Lover?’ she echoed blankly.
‘The handsome blond with the very white teeth,’ he extended with a sarcastic bite from his own white teeth.
‘You mean Gabriel?’
‘Yes, I mean Gabriel,’ he mocked her.
‘But he is—’
‘Out, querida,’ Anton said coldly. ‘And I mean right out—of your life and the business loop. If you want me to save your precious Santa Rosa then from now on you deal only and exclusively with me.’
The line went dead. Anton let the receiver fall onto his naked chest and released a surprised laugh.
She’d cut him off, the reckless little witch!
The laugh changed into a smile as he relaxed back on to the pillows to stare at the ceiling while he imagined the way her eyes would be flashing with fury right now. He might have her cornered, shocked and frightened, but he had not scared her enough to make her behave herself when she was angry.
Nobody told Cristina Marques what to do. The moment anyone attempted to lay down the law with her she turned into a she-devil with bite. She got fiery and feisty and sometimes totally, excitingly unmanageable. They’d had rows in their twelve months together that had made Rio shake. She’d slammed doors, spat insults and all but lit up with defiance—while he had remained so laid back and cool about everything it had used to send her wilder still.
He’d used to love her wildness. He’d used to stand back and calmly goad her on, then wait for the moment when she would fly at him with her angry claws drawn. Fielding her with the ease of a man virtually born on an English rugby field had been a delight and a provocation in itself. She would kick, she would bite, she would scratch—or try to, without a hope of wounding him. And he would urge her on with taunts from his eyes and provoking comments while he went looking for the nearest horizontal surface on which to safely drop her.
And himself. Of course himself. A wide naked shoulder gave a shrug as if that was a given. You didn’t catch yourself a wild thing without enjoying all of that fire and passion. You tapped into it. You provoked it further. You let it drive you crazy until that defining moment arrived when—
The phone rang again, vibrating against the smattering of dark hair on his chest. He lifted it to his ear.
‘You will not dictate to me, Luis!’ Her voice came shrill, packed with those sensationally sexy vowel sounds that littered her English. ‘This is business, and in business anyone would be a complete fool to meet with you without their lawyer present also!’
‘Did I say we would be discussing business?’ he questioned. He listened to the sudden silence that clattered down the line at him, then added, ‘Boa noite, amante,’ in husky dark Portuguese. ‘Sonhos doas.’
And he broke the connection.
Cristina stood taut, seething with anger and frustration—and fear. That Goodnight, lover had landed its message. The Sweet dreams had told her exactly what he expected her to go through for the rest of the night.
He was not going to give an inch. He had her hooked and he knew it. Just as he knew that the dreadful kiss in the white marble bathroom had ignited things inside her that were going to haunt her sleep. If she ever slept again, she thought with a shudder, when just thinking about that kiss drenched in her tight, stinging, sensual heat.
She did not want to want Luis again. She did not want to feel so out of control like this!
The knock at the bedroom door was hardly a warning before it swung open—just as she was about to do something stupid like throw herself down on the bed to weep her aching heart out. Gabriel stood there, big and strong, jacket and tie gone, amber eyes still brooding.
‘You were lovers,’ he announced, like an accusation.
She threw herself on Gabriel instead, landing with a sob against his wide, white-shirted front, and just cried her eyes out while he stood, maybe shocked but silently supportive, until it was over. Then he quietly sent her off to the bathroom to wash and change for bed. When she came back he had folded back the bedcovers. Without a single word passing between them he watched her lie down, then curl up like a defenceless child.
The covers were folded over her. Gabriel sat down on the edge of the bed. A gentle set of fingers reached out to brush her loosened hair from her cheek.
Her stupid eyes filled with yet more tears.
‘It was there in the way you called him Luis,’ he explained gently. ‘And in the sexual tension that flashed like static around you both. But I stupidly did not realise it until a few minutes ago. When you ran he followed, like a man with a purpose—a sexual purpose—and earned you an enemy in his lovely companion.’
‘Are they lovers?’ The words shot right out of the sudden burn of acid jealousy clawing at her breast.
‘Well, she certainly wants them to be,’ Gabriel said dryly. ‘And she did not like it when you snatched him literally right out of her grasp.’
‘She can have him with my blessing.’ And she meant it—she did!
‘So tell me about it,’ Gabriel invited.
Cristina closed her eyes and refused to speak—then was almost instantly flicking them open again. ‘What do you think you are doing, Gabriel?’ she demanded as she watched him heeling off his shoes.
‘Getting more comfortable.’ To her further consternation he stretched out on the bed beside her, then reached for her and drew her against him. ‘Be calm,’ he said lazily, when she went to push away. ‘You are as safe here in my arms as you will ever be in a man’s arms, and you know it. But I am not leaving here until you tell me everything. You understand me, Cristina? I want to know it all.’
‘We had an affair six years ago.’ The words left her reluctantly.
‘Ah. Would this be the year of the mysteriously missing Cristina Marques?’
‘I ran away,’ she admitted. ‘My father would not let me go to college, so I went without his permission.’
‘And angered him greatly.’
‘Do you think I cared about that?’ A slender shoulder gave an indifferent shrug to her father’s feelings. ‘He believed a woman’s place was in
the home, playing slave to her men.’ She did not add that he had also believed he had the right to marry her off to whoever would pay him a large injection of cash.
‘He was a bullying tyrant.’
‘Sim,’ she agreed. ‘I thought you were going to go out again?’
‘My lover can survive without me for one night,’ he said. ‘This is much more interesting than sex. How many people would love to know what happened to the beautiful Marques heiress during the year she went missing?’
‘Some heiress.’ She laughed bitterly, thinking that the only thing she had inherited was the useless Marques pride, while Gabriel closed his eyes and envisaged his beautiful gold-skinned lover sulkily awaiting his arrival and understanding nothing.
‘Continue, please,’ he said. ‘You ran away from home and went to college…?’
‘No.’ Cristina frowned. ‘I had to earn the money to pay for college first, so I managed to find a job working in a bar on the Copacabana and slept in a little cupboard of a room on the floor above…’
It had been a hot and airless little room, and the hours she’d worked in the bar had been long. She had just begun to wonder if fate at her father’s hands might not be better than what she had landed herself in, when Luis had strolled into the bar.
Tall, dark, handsome Luis, with the beautiful English accent and the sensational smile. Her heart gave a pained little throb, and, curling up against Gabriel, she told him everything—almost everything—from their instant attraction to each other to her moving into his apartment to live with him.
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