This Man's Magic

by Stephanie Wyatt

  'Got it in one.' Hywel pushed his bowl of soup away hardly tasted. 'I did hope for a while…' He hesitated, then plunged on, 'Well, you were seeing a lot of him, and I saw the way he looked at you, as if he wanted to eat you… ?' He broke off questioningly and Sorrel's cheeks burned.

  'I told you, that was just publicity,' she protested, hoping the blush wouldn't give away how much further than a publicity stunt it had gone.

  'Yes,' he said heavily after the waiter had cleared away their plates. 'Though I wouldn't put it past Luc to take advantage of the situation.' He hunched his shoulders, adding explosively, 'You'd think Bianca would have more pride! I mean, she knows about all the other women he sees. She's even seen the way he looks at you.'

  Sorrel put her knife and fork down abruptly. 'She—she's seen?' She swallowed down a lump of guilt. 'What—did she say anything?'

  'Oh yes, that in that case I shouldn't have any scruples about taking her out.' He stabbed the steak on his plate as if he wanted to kill it. 'But if she thinks I'm going to play second string to Luc Amory, let her use me to bring him to heel…'

  Sorrel was horrified to realise that not only had Bianca noticed Luc's pursuit of herself but she had actually discussed it with Hywel. 'Was she—upset?'

  'Bloody angry,' Hywel revealed, and Sorrel winced. 'Anyway, the question's academic if they're going to be virtually living together,' he finished.

  They were both busy with their thoughts, only toying with their food, until Sorrel gave up the effort and Hywel signalled the waiter. Both of them declined dessert and settled for coffee, but before it could be brought there was a slight commotion and they both looked up to see Luc bearing down on them with a set face and Bianca following in his wake.

  Without ceremony Luc pulled the astonished Sorrel to her feet. 'Bianca wants to talk to Hywel,' he said, pushing the girl into the vacated chair and marching out with Sorrel dangling from his wrist like a dog on a leash.

  'Luc, what on earth are you playing at?' Out on the pavement Sorrel managed to get him to stop, but only because he was opening the door of the Mercedes to push her inside. 'Luc…' She tried again as he took the seat beside her. 'Look, you can't do this. Bianca looked terribly upset when you left her in there.'

  'Of course she was upset, you stupid bitch,' he snarled, and in the face of his incomprehensible anger she shrank away. Slamming the car into gear he pulled away with a screech of tyres. 'She had to listen while her man made a date with you, see you just now mooning over him while he sweet-talked you. And she's not the only one who's upset.'

  Sorrel stared at him, shaking her head in bewilderment. 'I don't know what you're talking about. I've made it very clear to her that all my dates with you were a publicity—'

  'God, how can a supposedly intelligent woman be so thick!' he said rudely. 'It's Hywel we're talking about. Hywel, that fancy Welshman. He's the man Bianca wants, not me. God, I've tried hinting, even tried telling you point-blank that Bianca and I don't have any kind of romantic attachment. Now will you shut up and let me drive?'

  Sorrel bit her tongue on all the questions she was burning to ask. Indeed, all her energies were needed holding on to the edge of her seat as Luc made for Wapping at a speed that made her expect to hear the wail of a police car at any moment.

  Luc's face was still livid with rage as he manacled her wrist and dragged her to her door, snatching the key from her and marching her up the stairs.

  As he pushed her into the apartment she made haste to put some distance between them, only turning to face him once she was behind the comparative safety of the largest sofa. 'Now perhaps you'll tell me what's eating you and stop behaving like a madman,' she said bravely.

  'If I am mad, it's you who's responsible,' he ground out, advancing on her. 'What do you mean by dating Hywel? You're mine, I told you that days ago. I will not have you making it with other men.'

  'I was not!' she began indignantly. 'We were having dinner, for heaven's sake!' She edged round the other end of the sofa, alarmed now as well as bewildered. 'Please Luc… sit down and let's talk about this sensibly…'

  But he still kept coming. 'Oh no, a little retribution's called for after all you've put me through these last few weeks, never mind tonight. We'll talk, but not until I've kissed you senseless.'

  There was an undignified scuffle as she tried a last-minute swerve to elude him before finding herself in the coils of a boa constrictor, her mouth being plundered ferociously. But although it might have started out as punishment, her traitorous body's instant response had the hard demand of his kiss softening to supplication. 'Now I've got you where I want you, you blind… prejudiced… blinkered… infuriating… stupid…' Each word was punctuated by a kiss as his mouth blindly explored her face and neck.

  '… thick… puzzled… bewildered…' she added for him, punctuating with her own kisses.

  '… fascinating… bewitching… addictive little darling,' he finished.

  They were words she wanted to hear from Luc, wanted to hear so much she was in danger of actually believing them. 'Luc…' She managed to get her hands between them to hold him a little away. 'Luc, will you please explain that extraordinary statement you made in the car. About Bianca and—and Hywel?'

  'What's to explain, for pity's sake?' he groaned, only reluctantly abandoning his exploration of the whorls and curves of her ear with his tongue that was making it impossible for her to think. 'If you hadn't been so ready to listen to gossip and to leap to all the wrong conclusions, you'd have noticed for yourself that it's Hywel Bianca wants. She's been nuts about him since she worked for him last season, and she thought she was making headway until you came along.'

  'Me? But…' Sorrel shook her head, trying to clear it. 'Hywel only asked me out tonight because you and Bianca—' She suddenly remembered the reason for Hywel's despondency. 'If Bianca loves Hywel, then why is she setting up a flat with you?'

  'With me? What in thunder gave you that idea? I have a perfectly good home of my own.'

  'But—but you went with her to look at the flat, and to see about the lease. Bianca said so.'

  'And your nasty little mind immediately had us shacking up together.' He shook her, not altogether gently.

  'Well, everyone knows how close the two of you are,' she defended, her hair flying in all directions. 'And if I didn't have eyes enough myself, everyone's been telling me so, even my stepmother…'

  'And you listened to them, rather than me!' To her relief he let her go, running his hands through his own hair in frustration. 'Yes, I took Bianca under my wing more than a year ago, and though I care about her, I am not sleeping with her—nor do I intend to. Look, if I tell you that before he died, Bianca's father made me her trustee… now do you see why I was helping her arrange her new flat? I had to be there to authorise the release of her funds to buy the lease.'

  'Is that the truth?' All the longing to believe him was there in her eyes for him to see.

  'It's the gospel truth,' he declared gravely. 'And if Hywel asked you out tonight to get back at Bianca, why did you accept, darling? Dare I believe it was to punish me?'

  Sorrel could find nothing to say, though the colour staining her cheeks was admission enough. He groaned, drawing her back into his arms, 'I told you you were mine, and I meant it. I also promised we would be lovers, and I don't intend to wait any longer.'

  A shudder shook her as desire flared like a forest fire before the wind. Why not? her mind was demanding, even as her body clamoured for the fulfilment only this man could give. Hands and mouth and eyes caressed her as he slid down her zip and coaxed the fragile chiffon from her shoulders, hands that explored the silky skin, mouth that tasted, eyes that worshipped. And Sorrel's hands and mouth and eyes were making their own exploration, easing off his jacket until it dropped to the floor, touching the bunched muscles beneath his shirt until even that wasn't enough. It was his hands that tore off his tie, but hers that scrabbled frantically at the buttons of his shirt, fingertips delighting in the tac
tile pleasure of warm, slightly moist, hair-roughened skin, fascinated and awed by the hard, powerful muscles as she ran her hands over his shoulders; pleasures she had hungered for, yet that faded into insignificance at the explosion of sensation as her hardened nipples touched his bare chest.

  Luc's convulsive gasp told her he was similarly affected, and as his head plunged to taste the creamy mounds with their eager buds with lips and tongue, she arched against him, dissolving into mindless pleasure at the avid tug of his mouth. The room spun round her and she found herself horizontal on the sofa with Luc kneeling beside her. Hywel had commented on the way Luc ate her with his eyes, and he was doing that now, as if what he was seeing was a feast to a starving man, his hands shaping what his eyes were seeing, testing the weight of her breasts in his palms, his thumbs brushing tormentingly over the aroused peaks, smoothing the curve of her waist and the flatness of her belly, caressing away her tights and panties, raising the heat inside her to an intolerable pitch.

  'Please… oh please, Luc…' Was that really her moaning and pleading for him to take her? She writhed beneath his tormenting hands, knowing only the driving need to have this man fill all the empty spaces in her.

  'Gently, my darling, gently,' he murmured. 'I've waited too long to blow it now by being too impatient.' But his hands shook as he stood to rid himself of the rest of his clothing.

  She watched, dry-mouthed, the rippling muscles of his arms and shoulders as he bent, the long, straight, muscular perfection of his legs, the narrowness of his hips, and she trembled at the evidence of his powerful arousal. Sitting up with the glazed eyes and raised arms of a sleep-walker, she touched him and felt him tremble, too.

  And then he was lying beside her and she was revelling in the benediction of skin touching skin, legs entwined. She gave herself up to her exploration of this man, this other half of herself, all the fevered dreams and imaginings of weeks culminating in this incredible reality. And she responded to Luc's similar exploration with abandonment, discovering in herself a capacity for voluptuousness and sensuality she had never dreamed of.

  Whispering endearments, telling her how beautiful she was, his hands and mouth plundered all the secret places of her body, teasing, delighting, arousing her to such a pitch she could stand his withholding of himself no longer. Legs twining round his, her hands cupping his neat buttocks, she pulled him into her fiercely, gasping aloud at his penetration, filled with wonder, elation and a deeply possessive joy at knowing him part of her at last. There was nothing… nothing in the world like this. This was what she had been born for, this deep satisfaction, the fulfilment.

  And then, as with a groan he began to move inside her, she realised she had still only reached the foothills of fulfilment. With each slow, deep thrust she climbed a little higher. Inexperienced as she was, her own body moved instinctively to his rhythm in a communion that was as old as time and as new as an undiscovered star, until with an explosion of unimaginable pleasure the star burst into a million shining, scintillating fragments and she began the slow, weightless floating back to earth.

  'My God!' His breath still gaspingly uneven, Luc sounded shaken. 'I suspected you were hiding passion beneath that cool cynicism of yours, but I never dreamed…'

  She arrived back to earth with a bump, reminded that what for her had been the deepest expression of her love had for Luc been merely passion, enjoyable no doubt, but no different to the passion he had shared with many other women. What had seemed at the time to be a communion of body and spirit was now revealed as slightly seedy, merely the gratification of greedy senses on a sofa, with hastily discarded clothing littering the floor.

  Luc was suffering no such disillusion. 'You wonderful, wonderful woman.' His arms still held her possessively as he buried his face against her neck. 'God, I don't think I'll ever have enough of you. Sorrel, will you let me stay tonight?'

  Sorrel closed her eyes, longing to say yes, tempted beyond bearing to experience his devastating lovemaking once more. But already doubts about his true relationship with Bianca were re-animating in her mind. She had allowed his claim that it was Hywel Bianca loved to persuade her into his arms because she had wanted to be persuaded, but she still wasn't convinced. Couldn't he have made that claim in order to get through her defences? He had openly boasted that one day they would be lovers and he wasn't a man who took kindly to being thwarted.

  'Do you think that's a good idea?' Her voice was husky. 'Suppose Bianca tries to contact you tonight?'

  'Then she'll find I'm not at home,' he said reasonably.

  'Yes, but then she'll know where—' Sorrel licked her dry lips. 'She knows you brought me home, so she'll know you stayed and…'

  He raised himself on one elbow, looking down at her frowningly. 'I thought I'd settled the question of Bianca. She's a dear girl but I have never been, and am never likely to be, romantically involved with her.'

  Conscious of her nakedness Sorrel sat up, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around her legs so she felt less exposed. 'Maybe you feel like that, but…' She looked at him with troubled eyes. 'Hywel told me tonight that when he and Bianca discussed your attraction to me, she was angry. Well, she wouldn't be angry if she hadn't been jealous, would she? And she would hardly be jealous if she didn't feel more for you than she would if you were merely her trustee.'

  'What an uncomfortable conscience you do have,' Luc said irritably, 'especially as I doubt if anyone's ever had a conscience over you. Why should it worry you what Bianca feels?'

  'I'm sorry you find it uncomfortable,' she flashed back. 'But I care about Bianca. I have to work with her for several more weeks and I would have liked to keep her friendship for much longer. I've grown very fond of her. She—she's what I would have liked my sister to be.'

  He sighed and stood up, then without a word and completely unselfconscious of his nakedness he walked to the bathroom, coming back a few moments later wearing her bathrobe. 'A man's robe?' he queried.

  'The ladies' sizes are always too short for me. Luc—'

  'You have another robe?' he interrupted.

  'Yes, in my bedroom, but—' He was already climbing the spiral staircase and when he came down again he tossed a fleecy apricot-coloured robe to her. 'Put that on, this could take some time.'

  While she scrambled into her robe he went over to the windows, drawing the curtain back and staring out into the night. 'The place Bianca has in my life has been a stumbling-block in quite a few of my relationships, but this is the first time it's mattered.'

  Sorrel watched him, sensing a battle going on inside him, then as if making up his mind, he came back across the room to stand before her, his hands fondling her shoulders while his dark eyes seemed to search her brain. 'I want you to promise me that what I tell you now will never go beyond these four walls,' he said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Something in Luc's voice, the way his dark gaze held hers, convinced Sorrel that this was something important to him, and she nodded. 'Anything told me in confidence… you don't need to ask.'

  'No, I don't think I do,' he said softly. 'You of all people should understand…' His hands slid down her arms to her hands, drawing her back to the sofa where he settled into a corner pulling her against him. 'I don't know if you know it, but Amoroso is my family name. My grandparents were both born in Italy and only came to England when they were first married to open the London branch of the Amorcenti Galleries.

  Sorrel's head twisted round to look at him. 'I didn't know you owned Amorcenti, too!' It was a very famous art gallery just off Bond Street.

  He smiled. 'My grandfather, Luciano Amoroso, and his cousin Paolo Viscenti were partners. The Viscenti line still runs the Italian operation but my grandparents prospered here, they liked London and settled. So my father was born and raised here, educated at an English public school and university. He saw himself as more English than Italian. His given name of Giovanni he changed as a schoolboy to John, and later anglicised his surname to Amory, much to my
grandmother's disgust.' A faint smile curled his mouth. 'I can still remember her; she came from a patrician Venetian family and was very proud.

  'As I went through the same educational system, I can see my father's point. Being English with a foreign name must have been a social drawback. His family had wealth and an excellent business reputation, but he wanted social acceptance too, and he achieved it when he married my mother, who was the youngest daughter of an Earl.'

  Sorrel was finding all this of fascinating interest, though she couldn't see where it was leading, or what it had to do with her not wanting to hurt Bianca, but not for anything would she have interrupted.

  'By that time my grandfather was dead and my father was running the English end of Amorcenti, and very successfully too, especially as he began to number 'old wealth' as well as the new among his clients. I don't suppose as a child I was particularly observant, but there was nothing to suggest my parents' marriage wasn't just as successful. I know my father was disappointed there were no more children, but he always seemed devoted to her.

  'I don't know, maybe his Italian blood was stronger than he realised, but on one of his trips to Rome he met a young Italian woman and they fell in love. But he was a Catholic and divorce was impossible. Besides, what reason had my mother given him for deserting her? He might have married her for all the wrong reasons but she had been a good wife to him. So he brought the lady back to England and quietly installed her in a house in Highgate. And for years he lived a double life, visiting his mistress whenever he could.' The look of distaste on his face was marked and Sorrel wondered if this was why he was so against committing himself to any one woman—if, like his father, he was incapable of it.

  The suspicion added another stone to the weight in her heart. 'Did you know about his… other woman?'

  'Not until I was in my middle twenties, but about ten years ago my father suffered a slight stroke. It frightened him, made him realise how vulnerable his Gianetta was. He wanted to make provision for her without it showing up in his will and hurting my mother. So he took me into his confidence.'