He smothered a savage oath. The young waiter cleared his throat impassively and smoothly advanced, placing the champagne in its bucket of ice on the table set before one of the tall windows. He opened the bottle deftly, replaced it in the cooler.
‘Five minutes, sir?’
‘Thank you.’ Sebastian didn’t know how he got the words out and still managed to sound in control. Hoist by his own petard, wasn’t that the saying? Having the caterers around, in and out of the room, had been a way of making sure that he kept his hands off Rosie. But that had been when he’d been still fighting what he felt, still unsure. Now he wished them a million miles away.
His smile tinged with irony, he slipped an arm around Rosie’s tiny waist and led her to the table. He poured the wine and handed her a foaming flute of the pale golden liquid, noting the feverish brilliance of her eyes, the way her nipples were standing proud beneath the fine gold covering, tormenting him.
Dios! How was he going to get through this evening? Gritting his teeth, he pulled out a chair for her, then sat down himself.
Quickly. Using the large linen napkin to cover his lap, he hid the evidence of what she was doing to him.
Rosie gulped the cool liquid gratefully. She felt almost unbearably hot. Heated. Fire pulsing through her veins. He had been going to kiss her. Her fantasy had been changing into reality.
Her eyes on the city lights that spangled the night sky, Rosie desperately cast round for something to say to break the suddenly deafening silence. The fantasy creature, the Spaniard’s golden woman who had smiled at her from the mirror earlier this evening, wouldn’t be tongue-tied and all knotted up inside in this sort of situation. She’d be sparkling, relaxed, seductive and secure. And she knew she was none of these things as she heard herself blurting, I’ve never been to London before. My own capital city and I know next to nothing about it. You know loads more, and you’re a foreigner!’
Her words sounded crass. Rosie flushed. Deeply disappointed by her gaucherie, she swallowed the remaining contents of her glass in one huge gulp, then prayed she wouldn’t further disgrace herself by burping and vehemently vowed to kill herself if she did.
‘Then one day it will be my pleasure to introduce you to this city.’ Urbanely, Sebastian refilled her flute. ‘The whole tourist bit. Yes?’
Kind eyes, kind smile. Kind words to put her at her ease. Rosie knew he didn’t expect her to respond. Taking him at his word would presuppose they would be meeting up in the future, on her return from Spain—or after the pregnancy issue had been settled one way or another. And they both knew that wouldn’t happen.
Thankfully, the waiter appeared with the first course. Prawn and rice vinaigrette. Pushing the intrusive question of her possible pregnancy out of her head, Rosie determined to make the best of this evening, the last she would ever spend alone with him. She loved him desperately so she was entitled, wasn’t she?
Through the first course he talked easily of many things, his sexily accented voice velvety and low. Rosie responded as best she could; a bit difficult because her throat kept closing up.
He’d been on the verge of kissing her; she just knew it. When the caterers had left, would he still want to kiss her then? The way he seemed unable to take his eyes off her, his main course of tender lamb chops with herb butter as barely touched as hers, told her he would.
Mental images of how willingly she would go to him, their bodies fusing as he bent his handsome dark head to take her eager lips with his, burnt gaping holes in her brain.
Her heartbeat accelerated alarmingly and her bones felt like hot, melted honey. She wanted him so badly.
The hired waiter came to remove their plates. Rosie didn’t know whether or not he raised his eyebrows at the amount of the delicious food left uneaten. Her eyes had again collided dizzily with the sizzling molten silver of Sebastian’s.
She felt her heavy lids drop lower. She couldn’t look away. He mesmerised her. His eyes dropped to her softly parted lips and the note of command was back in his voice as he instructed, ‘You may as well clear up and call it a night, Adrian. Should we want coffee we’ll fix it ourselves.’
Rosie shivered convulsively, her veins coursing with excitement. She knew now what her mother had felt for her father. She was lost in love, drawn by a force far stronger than herself, all her principles forgotten in this clamouring need for just one man.
Alone. Silence.
Rosie ran the tip of her tongue over her suddenly parched lips, the greedy starburst of excitement sending her giddy, her legs almost buckling beneath her as he reached over, clamped lean fingers around her narrow wrist and drew her to her feet.
Drew her to him, to the hard, powerful domination of his lean body, his driven groan turning her inside out as he admitted harshly. ‘I have never wanted anything as much as I want you right now. You want this, too.’
The heat of his body sent her up in smoke. The palms of his hands against the bare flesh of her back, the hard evidence of his desire a shaft of dizzying, exultant excitement against the soft curve of her tummy, sent her rocketing into orbit.
Unable to lie to him, unable to verbalise an affirmative because the power of speech had deserted her, Rosie lifted her hands to draw his head down, raising her flushed face, her lips parting to invite his kiss.
Raw passion, shocking in its intensity, had her clinging to his wide shoulders as if her life depended on it and she was shaking all over, gasping for air, when he lifted his head, his eyes glittering, and told her jaggedly, ‘You are sensational, cara mia. Do you know that? You reach me as no other woman ever has.’
On a tide of wild emotion, Rosie took his words and held them deep inside her heart, imprinted them indelibly on her brain.
Her experience of men was about enough to be engraved on the head of a very small pin, and he might be shooting an often-used line, but he sounded really sincere, and just for this magical night she needed to believe him. And willingly she consigned all power of thought to blissful oblivion when his hands drifted upwards, over her bare arms, her shoulders, fire trailing in their wake, as he found the catch that held the halter straps of her dress in place and released it, drawing the soft fabric down to expose her tingling, aching breasts.
His intent gaze sparked a savage ache deep in her pelvis and she clung to him, barely able to stand, as his driven voice told her, I want to look at you. All of you.’ His deft fingers found the tiny concealed zip where the gold tissue ended just above her waistline, tugged it down and allowed the dress to pool at her feet.
A convulsive shudder crashed through her as he knelt in front of her, his hands sliding over the feminine curve of her hips, his dark head bent as his mouth homed in on the blonde curls at the apex of her quivering thighs, separated from the heat of his questing lips by the thin barrier of her lacy briefs.
Throwing her head back, her fingers convulsing in his soft dark hair, a strangled groan of tumultuous, feverish ecstasy was wrenched from her. Lifting her pelvis, drawn by an instinct as old as time, Rosie shifted her feet and parted her legs.
‘Perfeccion!’ Sebastian whispered the word aloud. Rosie was curled around him, her soft fine hair spread out on the pillow. He couldn’t stop looking at her and his heart was bursting with so much tenderness he thought it might explode.
She had slept for a little while. Half an hour, no longer, but by the amber glow of the single bedside lamp he could see she was beginning to wake, the thick twin crescents of her lashes stirring against her fine, slightly flushed skin.
His heart twisted with a happiness he could barely contain. He had found what he’d previously cynically believed to be an entirely mythical creature: a woman he could trust with his life, adorable, trusting, incredibly sexy, open and generous in her lovemaking. A woman without a devious or greedy bone in her beautiful body.
Gently tracing the kiss-swollen outline of her slightly parted lips, he willed her to wake. He needed her to wake, if only for long enough to hear what he had to say
.
Throughout this never-to-be-forgotten night their lovemaking had been too tempestuous to allow for words, and the final time, just before she’d given a drowsy purr of pleasure and fallen asleep in his arms with the total grace of a felled sapling, it had been so slow and beautiful it had brought tears to his eyes.
He would ask her to be his wife. He could no longer envisage a life without her.
Putting a curb on his impatience, he slowly withdrew his fingers from the totally erotic exploration of her mouth and dropped his hand, curving it gently around one pert breast, allowing her to wake naturally.
Rosie couldn’t feign sleep for a single moment longer. How could she when the peaking of her breast as it surged into his hand was a dead giveaway? Her conscience, always such a drag according to her former classmates, was giving her hell. Whatever happened, she would love this man to the end of her days. She had to be honest with him, she thought emotionally.
No more hiding behind half-truths and evasions. He might hate her for what she was going to have to tell him, but it was a risk she was going to have to take.
Her eyes opened unwillingly and met his. She tugged in a sharp huff of breath. Propped up on one elbow, he was leaning over her. His mouth curved in a smile, and if that wasn’t blind adoration on his lethally handsome face then the light, or her wishful imagination, had to be playing tricks on her.
‘Querida—’ The throaty catch in his voice made her almost lose her nerve, abandon herself to the glistening intent in his eyes.
‘But, I have to tell you something.’ She reached up to place a warning finger across his mouth, then hastily withdrew it when he laved it with his tongue. Out with it, she reminded herself sternly, and dragged herself up against the pillows, pulling her knees right up under her chin, unconsciously making the smallest possible target for the distaste that would surely follow.
Her voice rasping as she did her utmost to school out the slightest unsteadiness, she admitted, ‘I should have told you before. I am Sir Marcus’s illegitimate daughter.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
A HEAVY heartbeat of breathless silence. Rosie felt like bursting into tears. He didn’t have to say a word. She knew he had gone from her, retreated behind the bleak facade he seemed able to summon at will. It hurt horribly and, too late, she wished the words unsaid.
Sebastian swung his long legs off the bed, located his towelling robe and shrugged his shoulders into it. Tying the belt around his waist, he turned to face her and said flatly, ‘I don’t believe you.’
His perfect woman was as flawed as all the rest. He had no idea what kind of devious game she was playing, but, by all that was holy, he knew Marcus had adored his wife—his own wonderful, loving Tia Lucia.
Marcus had devoted his life to his invalid wife, caring for her to the end of her days. He could not, would not, believe him capable of straying, much less of getting his mistress with child and casually abandoning her—which was what Rosie had to be implying if what she had let slip about her mother’s single status and financial struggles could be believed.
If he could believe anything she said!
‘I’m sorry, but it’s true.’
Her voice was thick with unshed tears and her eyes were anguished. She could easily convince a more gullible man, he thought, his breath shortening, his mouth flattening. She was a pretty fair actor, he granted her that. Hiding behind that air of injured innocence. Well, it took one to know one—he was just as successfully hiding the savagely painful blow she had dealt him.
Turning sharply, he strode across the room to press the overhead light switch. He needed to see her more clearly, read what was going on inside her beautiful lying head.
In the few seconds while his back had been turned she’d dragged the coverlet up to her chin. A bit late to modestly hide her nakedness, considering the wild intimacies of the past few hours, he decided sardonically. Then he saw the tears that were now flooding and said more gently than he’d intended, ‘I don’t know what you hope to gain by claiming my godfather got your mother pregnant and then apparently washed his hands of her and you. A slice of the good life? Is that what you think you can get? For that you’d need proof. Yes? Your mother is no longer here to provide it, so it’s up to you. Presumably you wouldn’t be making such an outlandish claim if you hadn’t cooked up something to back your story up.’
He turned away. Some weak part of him couldn’t stand to see her crying, the silent tears streaming unchecked against the sudden pallor of her skin. ‘I’m going to take a shower,’ he told her heavily. ‘That gives you five minutes to decide how you’re going to convince me. And I warn you, it won’t be easy. You’re out for what you can get, aren’t you?’ he stated bitterly.
‘Convince Marcus you’re his long lost daughter and sit back and wait for your healthy inheritance. In your dreams, Rosie. It’s not going to happen. I won’t let it!’
Watching him stride into the en suite bathroom, firmly closing the door behind him, Rosie felt her heart break. The beautiful fairytale she’d been part of ever since she’d joined him for dinner the evening before had turned into a black tragedy.
She loved him to pieces and he thought she was scum!
Immediately marking her down as a lying con artist cooking up an evil scheme to somehow convince a wealthy man that she was his flesh and blood just so she could get her hands on a whole load of money! So much for her silly romantic dreams!
Scrubbing her wet cheeks with the sheet, she sniffed inelegantly. She’d never gone so far as to hope he could ever love her; she wasn’t completely crazy. Men like him didn’t fall in love with the likes of her. But she had dreamed of fondness and affection, of a warmth in his memory of her, a tenderness for the gift of her love.
As if!
To him she’d just been a good lay, she decided with rare crudeness. Good sex when he’d wanted it, paid for with a bunch of fancy clothes!
Sliding off the bed, she stalked back to her room. Five minutes to ‘cook something up’! She could give him all the proof he needed in less than five seconds!
Well, he could wait, she decided furiously, swallowing tears and stoking up anger as she scrambled into her jeans and jumper, extracting all the proof she needed from the bottom of her suitcase and stuffing it firmly into a pocket of her anorak and walking out of the door.
Two hours later she walked back in. Cooler now, calmer, that rare flash of blistering temper smoothed over by lots of brisk walking, a cup of strong black coffee and a visit to a chemist.
She’d been severely tempted to stay away longer, to wait until he would have been on his way to the airport. But, besides being cowardly, it wouldn’t have been practical. His apartment would be locked up and she needed to collect the despised and shabby old clothes she’d brought with her. He could do what he liked with the stuff he’d bought; she didn’t want it.
As the lift deposited her into the vestibule Sebastian shot out of the interior door. Her stomach took a nosedive. He looked absolutely furious.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ If his eyes were hard, his mouth was harder. He was probably within an inch of shaking the life out of her, she decided, not caring. He couldn’t scare her. She wouldn’t let him. She wasn’t his prisoner; she could go where she pleased.
Lifting one shoulder, she told him, ‘Out,’ and walked past him, into the huge living area. And he followed her, of course he did, six foot plus of shimmering anger clad in a lightweight business suit. ‘Buying this,’ she explained without inflection, dropping the pregnancy kit on one of the low tables.
Turning, she faced him. Those lean, hard features were carved from stone, but the intense fury in his eyes might have had her running for cover if she really let herself think about it. But throughout their short and strange relationship he had called all the shots. Not any longer. Things were about to change.
‘We need it, remember?’ How cold her voice. She didn’t know how she managed it. Except, of course, something inside her had
died when he’d accused her of being a liar and con artist, out to get her hands on Sir Marcus Troone’s fortune.
‘Depending on the result, you can either breathe a huge sigh of relief or do a runner. As your sainted godfather did, for all I know.’
She only had her mother’s word that Marcus Troone had never known about her existence. Her mother had been a gentle, loving soul who would never do or say a thing to hurt another human being. She could have easily said that to protect the reputation of the man she had loved for all of her adult life and to stop her adored daughter from knowing that her father had turned his back on her and coldly washed his hands of all responsibility.
Now she would never know the truth of it.
‘Is that what you think of me?’ Sebastian demanded harshly, cold eyes raking her pale, set features.
Rosie shrugged. ‘How would I know? I thought I knew what kind of man you are, but I don’t.’
She thought she saw a flicker of something—discomfiture?—pass over his face. Or it might have been pain. She couldn’t be sure and wasn’t interested, in any case. A few hours ago she might have woven a whole load of fantasies about whatever that fleeting look had meant, translated it into regret and contrition. Not any more, though.
She dug into the pocket of her anorak. Best get it over with.
And if he tried to apologise for his rock-bottom opinion of her she wouldn’t listen. He had hurt her too much.
‘You wanted proof.’ She held out the a-bit-battered, a-bit-bulgy brown envelope. It’s right here. Proof of the affair between my mother and Sir Marcus.’ She refused to flinch away from his frowning eyes as his long fingers closed over the offering, adding acidly, ‘Of course, I probably cooked it up. I’m clever like that. Stole one of the items and forged the other. Or it could be genuine. Feel free to choose.’
‘Don’t!’ His silver eyes had somehow darkened to deepest charcoal. ‘I overreacted to what you said, I admit that.’ Santo Dios! He’d been going out of his mind these last couple of hours, starting to believe she’d taken off, that he’d never see her again, have the chance to apologise for his initial reaction.
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