Master of Passion

by Jacqueline Baird

  '"Our case",' he parroted. 'Which reminds me, did you have a good weekend?'

  'Strenuous, but good fun.' She wondered how he knew and couldn't resist asking.

  'I rang on Saturday morning. Didi told me you had left for the weekend. It is rather a humiliating experience to be told by the housekeeper where one's wife is and who with. David, wasn't it?' he sneered and straightened up, his black eyes seeking hers as he continued, 'Your old boyfriend.'

  Her blue eyes widened in astonishment. There was nothing unsure about him. He looked furious, but what had he said? Didi had spoken to him.

  'Was he good, Parisa? Did he make you cry out the way I can?' he demanded icily, advancing towards her with an ominous expression on his rugged face. 'Did you wrap this glorious silver hair around him?' His hand snaked out and caught a handful of her long hair, tugging her towards him, the icy anger in his tone giving way to something much more sinister... 'Did you cling and whimper his name? Did you? You bitch...'

  'What's it got to do with you?' she bit out, her hands pushing against his massive chest, as she looked a long way up into his furious black eyes. 'You and I had a deal, and it's finished.' How dared he call her names, assume she was as immoral as he was, the swine? She had wept buckets for this man. What a waste of emotion...

  He went oddly white round the mouth. 'Dio, Parisa. Don't try me too far or I'll make you regret it.'

  A bitter smile contorted her full lips. As for regret, she already rued the day she had ever met him. 'And you have a lot further to go, so I suggest you leave now...' she said sarcastically while battling to subdue the wayward feelings his closeness aroused in her traitorous body.

  'No one, least of all you, my darling wife, gives me my marching orders,' he snarled, his voice deep and harsh. His mouth crushed down on hers in a savage, brutal assault. When he finally lifted his head to stare with hostile eyes into her flushed face, she was clinging to his broad shoulders, her robe gaping open, her body melded against his, to her shame once mote a slave to his passion.

  'This David of yours certainly didn't satisfy you, my insatiable little wanton,' Luc rasped savagely, and, lifting his hand, he stroked over the burgeoning fullness of her breast. 'You want me still, Parisa. I can see it in your eyes, so don't try to deny it.'

  It was true; she did want him. She stilled in his arms, and forced herself to ignore the rising heat in her overwrought body. She took a step back, pushing him away, her blue eyes brilliant with sensuous arousal but, even more, with a fast growing, furious rage.

  'No denial, Parisa,' he mocked, once more reaching for her.

  The last slender thread of her self-control finally snapped as she looked up into his dark face and saw the smug, knowing gleam in his black eyes. She turned on him like a virago. 'You conceited, arrogant bastard!' She pushed him again in the chest, and, recovering once more, he reached out for her. But she avoided him. 'You call me a wanton! That's rich, coming from you. At least if I have a lover it's one at a time, but you... You couldn't stay true to one woman for two weeks.' Wildly she flung out her hand in a gesture of dismissal. ' "You go down to Hardcourt, Parisa",' she parodied his voice.' "I have a lot of work", you said. Work! What a joke. Work on your mistress, Margot. Do you think I am a complete idiot? You're a raging bloody sex maniac. I'm an angel in comparison. And as for wanting you... well, buster,

  I have news for you. I'd see you in hell before I would let you touch me again. Now get out...'

  'You know about Margot?' he prompted, his handsome face paling beneath his tan, his strong hands dropping to his sides.

  Parisa laughed, a harsh, cynical sound. 'I've known about Margot Mey since before I ever met you again.' Revenge was sweet, she thought furiously. 'When I burgled your apartment I entered by the bathroom window, not the door, and overheard you telling Miss Mey you hadn't time. A first for you, no doubt,' she couldn't resist observing mockingly. 'But you promised to make it up to her later. I must say, Luc, you could do with expanding your English. You used almost the same words to me when you left me in Italy.' Her blue eyes clashed with black and the anger she saw in his made her sick. He was furious because he had been found out, she thought bitterly. 'It only surprises me that your usual super efficiency let you down at last, though, given your appetite, no doubt two at a time would probably appeal to you.'

  Parisa spun around and headed for the door. Margot had described Luc as a 'master of passion', and to Parisa's shame, he had been where she was concerned. But no more... She couldn't stand to look at the man any longer. Remembering the last time she had seen him was too painful. He had left her in bed, sated by his loving, but with someone else lined up to take her place. He had caused her nothing but pain and heartache from the minute she had first laid eyes on him. She almost made it out of the room...

  'Wait, Parisa.' A strong arm curved around her waist, lifting her from the floor.

  'Let me go, you pig!' she spat.

  'No, Parisa, please...'

  She began fighting in earnest, but Luc was a very big man, and with insulting ease he manhandled her to the old four-poster bed and dropped her in the middle. Following her down, he grasped her wildly flaying arms and pinned them to her sides, while the pressure of his huge body held her a prisoner beneath him.

  'You cannot fling accusations like that around and not give me a chance to repudiate them!'

  'Why not? You do...' she sneered, still furious at his assumption that she had spent the weekend with a man.

  'Dio! Parisa, what kind of a man do you think I am?' he demanded hoarsely. 'Do you honestly believe I have so little respect, so few morals that I would keep two women at the same time?'

  'Yes. Now let me up,' she said coldly. 'You and I have nothing more to say to each other.'

  'Well, I have plenty to say to you, and you are not going anywhere until we have talked.' His handsome face was flushed and frowning. 'First I want to know what you meant by saying my usual efficiency had deserted me. You were talking about the last night at the hotel.' She watched him and could see his astute brain mulling over her words. 'What exactly happened after I left to visit Mother that made you run away?'

  'What's the point?' Parisa turned her head to one side. She didn't want to face him, suddenly afraid she might have revealed more than she wanted him to know.

  'Tell me; I demand to know,' he insisted. 'I left a willing woman in my bed and came back to an empty suite, and a lipstick scrawl on the mirror.'

  'The colour of the lipstick should have told you,' she snapped.

  'Bright red. His hard body moved restlessly above hers. She could feel the heat from his long limbs burning into her, but was powerless to move. She could almost hear his brain ticking over.

  'You never wear scarlet lipstick. Margot called at the hotel.'

  'Got it in one.'

  'You were jealous...

  Parisa stared up at him, and the devil was actually smiling. 'You're mad—stark, staring mad...' she told him bluntly.

  'Yes, you're right, I am mad,' he agreed. His mouth twisted in a derisive smile. 'I suspect I've been slightly mad for years, and I know for a fact I've been crazy for the past few months. Crazily in love with a blue-eyed cat burglar.'

  Parisa blinked. She was dreaming again; she had to be. She imagined she had heard Luc declare he loved her. But no, it wasn't a dream. She heard his shaky sigh as he rolled off her, and, swinging his legs to the floor, he sat up.

  'Nothing to say, Parisa?' The silence was agonising, but she could not break it. She did not dare let down the precarious barrier she had built around her heart in the past few weeks. She was terrified of making a fool of herself yet again with this man. 'Why should you believe me?' he continued, and she was presented with his forceful profile, which revealed nothing. 'I've treated you abominably, and my only excuse is madness.' A harsh laugh escaped him. 'You were right in my anger and conceit when you ran away from the hotel. I packed up your clothes in a fit of rage, and thought, let her stew for a couple of weeks.
God knows! I spent two months agonising over you and in the end had to come and find you. But this time I've left it too late. You've found someone else, and all I can do is attack you like a madman.'

  Parisa felt her heart swell with burgeoning hope. 'I've spent the weekend teaching white-water canoeing to the scout troop. David happens to be the captain, and at the minute he is barely speaking to me because I married you. I was in the tent with the girls, David with the boys,' she offered quietly.

  His dark head jerked around and his black eyes sought hers. 'Canoeing? Scouting? God!' he said incredulously. 'I should have guessed. Didi told me you had gone away with David and you let me think you had been with him.'

  'I did not have to think. You were with another woman—I met the lady,' Parisa said soberly.

  Luc reached down and covered her hand where it lay on the bed, his fingers entwining with hers. 'I swear to you, Parisa, I have never looked at another woman from the day I threw you to the floor with a rugby tackle in the company apartment. I love you, and I came here today to convince you calmly and sensibly to give our marriage a chance, and also to kill you if what Didi told me on the telephone was true,' he said with wry self- mockery. 'The thought of any man touching you drives me mad with jealousy.'

  Was this vulnerable man, her arrogant husband, truly jealous of her? She couldn't quite believe it, but oh, how she wanted to. 'I think Didi has been trying to do a little matchmaking. Whatever she said, you shouldn't believe her.' She pushed herself up and pulled her robe around her. Luc was sitting on the side of the bed but she couldn't look at him, as she added quietly, 'You never told me you cared.'

  'Never told you...?' He laughed in self-derision. 'Oh, Parisa, every time we made love I told you over and over again. I poured out my heart to you in my native language.'

  'Oh, Luc.' She swallowed hard. 'I didn't know.' He had always been a very verbal lover, but she had never understood what he was saying. 'I thought it was... was your mother and everything...' she muttered, hardly knowing what she was saying, as Luc put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her unresisting body into the curve of his side.

  'Parisa, I am ashamed to confess I used my mother quite deliberately. Contrary to the impression I have given you over the past weeks, much as I love my mother, I rarely spend much time with her. She has her own apartment in Genoa, and her own circle of friends. She doesn't actually live with me. It was only for her birthday party she stayed at the villa, simply because it was big enough to accommodate all the guests. It was true she wanted me to settle down, but I have spent thirty-seven years avoiding any commitment, and I certainly would never have considered getting engaged solely to please Mamma.'

  'But you said-- ' She wanted to believe him, but...

  His hand tightened on her shoulder. 'Shh, Parisa, and listen. I have to say it all now before I lose my courage, I was smitten from the first time I lay on top of a certain lady dressed all in black and wearing a Balaclava, of all things, or perhaps before that, when a certain blue-eyed schoolgirl flirted outrageously with me, I don't know. I only know that when we met in the company apartment I wanted to see you again. When you started babbling about blackmail you gave me the ideal opportunity, and I couldn't resist the temptation of having you to myself for a few days. It was rotten of me to trick you, I know. But it was only when we had arrived in Italy and I was trying to seduce you in your bedroom and you were terrified and called me a blackmailer that the full realisation of my actions was brought home to me. I suddenly saw that in a way I was just as guilty as the original villain. That night over dinner when mother had pointed out how innocent you were, I felt a complete heel, and it wasn't a very good feeling. I knew then I loved you, and I wanted to confess everything, and persuade you to make our engagement real. I took you to the study with that thought in mind, but before I could get up the nerve we were arguing, then mother joined us for coffee.' Luc grinned. 'And it was too late.

  'The following day we had so much fun I could not bring myself to spoil it by admitting my duplicity. I thought I had plenty of time; I had no intention of rushing you into a full relationship. Unfortunately I was hopelessly unprepared for the effect you have on my libido, and before I could control myself I was making love to you that very night. It never occurred to me that you could doubt how I felt about you. But when I had the accident and you never got in touch-'

  'I didn't know. I waited in Moya's apartment for five days, for your call. I only left when it was time to return to work,' Parisa inserted.

  'Yes, well, we won't go into that; it is over and done with,' Luc commanded, suddenly sounding quite harsh.

  'But Luc--- '

  'Parisa, I'm not asking you to love me straight away. I know you don't feel the same. When I left the message on the answering machine at Moya's apartment I did think the least you could have done was respond.'

  'What message?' she squeaked. 'I never-- '

  'Please, Parisa, don't bother with excuses. You told me yourself you shared her apartment and kept in touch with Moya. I rang ten days later, as soon as I could speak. She must have passed the message on.'

  'Oh, Luc...' she sighed, burrowing closer to his male warmth. 'You're so wrong. I never received your call, and neither did Moya, I'm sure. She left London the same Sunday as I did. She went home to prepare for her wedding, and stayed there until going off on honeymoon. She isn't due back until tomorrow. I would have dashed straight to your side if I had known.'

  'Oh, God, what a fool I've been,' Luc groaned. 'I was furious at what I saw as your heartless neglect. I lay in the hospital in Naples longing to hear the sound of your voice, and then, later, when I could travel, I was so furious you had not returned my call that I was going to come and see you and demand an explanation. But Mother took ill. Then I saw my chance. I had to come to London and I went straight to the apartment and discovered from a neighbor that you had not even given me your own address. I was determined to find you again and make you pay for the heartache you'd caused me.'

  It was ironic, Parisa thought, with a wry smile. Her one moment of caution in Italy, when she had given Luc Moya's phone number, was probably the main cause of all the heartache they had both suffered.

  'It was sheer coincidence I discovered I owned the agency that was selling your title, and I couldn't believe my luck. Yours is an uncommon name and after a few discreet enquiries I realised I had found you. I bought the title hoping to use it to get at you, I freely admit.'

  'Not because your mother had delusions of grandeur or something?'

  'Are you crazy? Whatever gave you that idea?'

  'Anna, in Italy. She said your mother wanted you to marry me as a kind of status symbol.'

  'Rubbish. I'm six-four and filthy rich. I have all the status I need.' Luc smiled down at her. 'Now let me finish. As soon as I saw you again and realised your circumstances, I also realised I wanted you like hell. I was all you accused me of—devious and manipulative. But I thought once I got you back into my bed I would soon convince you to stay there.'

  'You said I was no good in bed,' she reminded him, peeking up into his dark serious eyes.

  'I lied, little cat.' His lips twisted in a wry smile. 'And you know it, but I had to have some defence against the terrible urge to fling you on the ground whenever I looked at you.'

  Parisa sighed. This was where she belonged, wrapped in the warmth of Luc's arms, listening to his confession of love. She felt like pinching herself to make sure she had not died and gone to heaven. Instead she nuzzled into the curve of his shoulder.

  'Stop that, Parisa. I haven't finished yet and I can't stand the distraction,' he murmured into her sweet- scented hair. 'I have so much to apologise for, and I will probably never have the courage to do this again. It is very sobering for a man like me to realise that just one flash from a particular pair of sapphire eyes, and I melt. I put the announcement of our engagement in the paper hoping to force you into accepting me. But when I saw you looking so beautiful and unconcerned I was fur
ious and determined to make you pay for the trouble you had caused me.'

  Now she knew why he had looked angry all the time.

  'I could not resist once more manipulating you into my clutches. I told myself any woman who could desert her first lover because he had an accident was quite likely to be equally mercenary. So I decided to make a deal with you. I told myself it was to teach you a lesson, but I was only fooling myself. Deep down I was praying that after a couple of weeks with me you would not want to leave.'

  'I never wanted to leave you.' She murmured the confession, but it was as though he never heard. Luc was too intent on his own confession.

  'When we got married I thought I had succeeded. The last night, when I got back to the hotel anticipating taking you out for dinner and declaring my undying love, I was quietly confident you felt the same. I couldn't believe you had left me with a scrawled message on a mirror. I was frantic and furious. By the time I discovered the next morning that you had returned here it was too late to do anything about it. I had to accompany Mamma safely back to Italy. Also, the work had piled up in my absence...'

  'You said before you thought "let her stew"...' she teased. 'And actually I am beginning to get rather hot.' She slipped her hand from his and curved it around his waist. She believed him. He was a proud, mature male, and there was no way he would lay his feelings on the line like this if he didn't really love her, she told herself,

  She squeezed her eyes tight shut, so overcome with relief and love. He tilted her chin with one finger and wiped a tear from her cheek.

  'Parisa, is there any hope for me? Will you give our marriage a chance? Forgive me, and let me try and make you love me...

  'I've loved you from the first night in Italy.' She smiled brilliantly up into his tender black eyes, 'But when you never called for five days, I had to return home, 1 told myself you had used me for sex, nothing more. I knew only days before you had seen Margot, and I heard you promising to spend the weekend with her, and then two days later it was me.'