‘You are no lap-dog!’ She flashed the words at him scathingly. ‘More a scavenging wolf, feeding on the remains of those weaker than you!’
‘Are we talking about the Bressingham and your father again?’ He sighed out wearily.
‘And the Tremount. And the lies!’ Her eyes flashed all hell and damnation at him. ‘And the arrogant belief that you only have to touch me to make me bend to your will!’
‘The lies, I apologise for. The Tremount, I don’t,’ he said. ‘And the last little truth is your own cross to bear, cara mia, not mine!’
And to prove it, he kissed her again. She bent, she melted, she groaned and cursed him and kissed him back as though her very life depended on it. He picked her up in his arms and started walking, mouth to mouth, giving her no chance to come back down to earth again.
Out of the kitchen, down the hall and past the study, still bathed in soft light and the sound of Puccini. Half sobbing in his arms, she was so annoyed with herself for letting him do this. He walked the stairs with his lungs beginning to burst—not from the work of carrying her, but because he needed her so badly he was barely managing to control himself.
The bed awaited, still with the cool white duvet thrown back and the imprint of her body pressed into the sheet. Laying her down on that same imprint, he finally broke the kiss so he could straighten and begin taking off his clothes.
The little witch just lay there and watched him, bold as brass. ‘If you want this to stop, say so now,’ he gritted on a sudden twinge of conscience.
‘What’s the use?’ she said. ‘When we both know you only have to kiss me to change my mind again?’
Had there been resentment in that voice? No, he decided, not resentment, but resignation to her lot, and the eyes were dark and languid, luscious and green and sensually wanting.
‘Take the robe off, then,’ he instructed.
She didn’t even bother to object to his autocratic tone! She simply did it, wriggling herself out of the silk and casually tossing it aside so she could go back to what she had been doing—which was watching him undress.
Her eyes fluttered down as he began releasing his trousers—and remained there watching with the sensual blatancy of a woman who knew what was to come.
He was very aroused and, like her, he was quite blatant about it. As he stepped up to the bed, she reached out a hand and stroked him. That stroke said, Hello, you’re mine. And the passionate way he responded said, Yes, I know.
Even as he eased himself down beside her she was welcoming him, arms up, eyes dark, hair a shimmering splash of fire on snow-white percale. ‘I think you set me up for this, downstairs,’ he murmured suspiciously.
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘What did you expect? A grand announcement that I’d given up the fight and decided to forgive you?’
‘Why the sudden change?’ he asked, gently tracing the delicate oval of her face.
‘I just woke up and I wasn’t angry with you any more,’ she explained. ‘So I decided to seduce you. It always worked in the past, when we’d had a row.’
‘This was no ordinary row, though, was it?’ he pointed out.
‘No.’ Her eyes clouded for a moment. ‘But I also woke up remembering how much I love you.’ She sighed out soulfully. ‘I’m victim to my own emotions. It’s really very tragic, when you think about it.’
‘You little liar,’ he gritted. ‘You woke remembering how much I love you. Don’t think I don’t remember that smug look in your eyes over the honey spoon.’
His hands reached out to draw her so close that their mouths were almost touching and their eyes had nowhere else to look but straight into each others.
‘I loved you more than any man deserved to be loved,’ she whispered sadly, ‘and you threw it all right back in my face.’
‘I know.’ And he did know. It was a truth of his own he’d had to bear the weight of for twelve long, miserable months.
‘But I fell so fast and deep for you that it knocked me for six,’ he confessed. ‘There you were, a completely new phenomenon to me. You were younger than I was used to, more impulsive, as unpredictable as hell…’ His hand came up to touch a lock of silken fire. ‘You flirted with any man who would let you; you teased the life out of me—I was both fascinated and infuriated by the easy way you had other men flocking around you.’
‘I worked in a hotel,’ she reminded him. ‘It was my job to be friendly to people.’
‘You were a flirt in your cradle,’ André dryly responded. ‘I have that on authority—from your father no less. It made me so filthy jealous to watch you behave like that with anyone else but me, that sometimes you were very fortunate I didn’t turn caveman and drag you off by your beautiful hair!’
‘None of that gives you the right to say what you did to me when you found me with Raoul,’ she said painfully.
Releasing a sigh, André kissed her. It was an apology; neither of them saw the kiss as anything else. ‘It wasn’t only your head Raoul messed with,’ he admitted heavily. ‘I couldn’t seem to move without him slipping in with some remark about the men he had seen you with. It was okay. I had no problem with his suggestive remarks when it was always my arms you slept in each night. But then your father died only a few months into our marriage. You were so inconsolable you wouldn’t let me near. I resented that, amore. I resented you shutting me out yet seemingly being quite happy laughing and joking and smiling with other men.’
‘They didn’t expect to sleep with me,’ she responded. ‘And I could sleep with you but I couldn’t—’ She stopped to swallow the tears again.
‘I know. I understand.’ His hand moved on her hair again. ‘You were having to cope with too many other emotions to have room left for what it was you thought I wanted from you.’
‘It was always sex, André,’ she whispered thickly. ‘Every time I looked at you I saw desire burning in your eyes, and I…’
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ he murmured. ‘It wasn’t the desire for sex, it was the desire to share your pain with you. And, as for the sex, I gave you what you only ever seemed to want from me—which made me feel like a damned good stallion but did absolutely nothing for my emotional needs. I only wanted you to love me.’
Unable to remain still any longer, she was so angry, she sat up and away from him, while André bent an arm beneath his head and watched her spark.
His other hand came up to rest on her back. It had been meant as a soothing gesture, but she turned on him like the unpredictable firecracker she was. Coming to lean right over him, she hissed into his face, ‘I loved you! How dare you imply I didn’t love you? I lost a year of my life because I believed I would never be allowed to love you again!’
His hand moved, caught her nape, long fingers tangling with her hair and, without giving her a chance to say another stinging word, he brought her mouth down onto his own—and quite simply shut her up.
His hands found her body and hers found his. He kissed her slow and he kissed her deep and she sank seductively into it. No more talk; it wasn’t needed. This said it all for them, despite what they had been saying only minutes before. They couldn’t argue with desire when love surrounded it. It was different, special. It was the true elixir of life.
So they made love like tender lovers, touching, tasting, slow and easy, hot and deep. Their senses knew each other. It was why Samantha had responded every time he’d come near; her mind could shut him out but her senses could not.
For André it was oh, so much more arousing to make love to her mind as well as her body. To look into her eyes and know she was seeing him—the man she’d married. The man she’d loved enough to do that.
So he made love to her in Italian. He made love to her in French—because she’d always loved him doing it and he wanted to give her back every single thing she had forgotten in the last empty year.
And she listened—hell, she listened with every single cell. As he slowly smoothly entered her he had never felt so energised in his whole life.
Afterwards he kissed her slowly back down to reality. He kissed her soft mouth, her closed eyes, the scar at her temple. When she opened her eyes they were heavy, liquid and loved.
‘If I run away again, you’ll come and find me, won’t you?’ she whispered, so very earnestly.
‘Always,’ he replied.
She sighed at that.
They slept in a close love-knot. When André eventually woke up, he glanced at the time and slid stealthily out of the bed, let himself out of the room and quietly went downstairs.
When he came back she was sitting up with the duvet trapped around her breasts. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve just bought another hotel in between orgies?’ she said.
‘No.’ His smile was rueful because of her unwitting connection with what he had actually gone downstairs for. Coming to stand over her by the bed, he placed two packages down in front of her, then bent to murmur. ‘Happy anniversary…’
It took her a moment to realise what he was talking about. Then her cheeks bloomed with colour, her eyes turned black. ‘I forgot,’ she said, and sounded as if she was going to start crying.
‘Take it from me, I’ve got what I wanted.’ He smiled. ‘Here…open this one first, because it belongs to last year’s anniversary…’
Fingers trembling, Samantha did as he said, tearing the plain pink paper away from the flat package folded neatly inside. Opening it up, she read the words on the piece of paper until the tears blurred them away. It was the deeds to the Bressingham. ‘No.’ She sobbed. ‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘It was done a long, long time ago,’ he quietly replied. ‘About an hour after your father signed the Bressingham over to me, to be precise,’ he added gently.
Her eyes flashed and, as unpredictable as ever, she turned on him like an angry cat. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before, when I was spouting out all of that rubbish to you?’ she cried. ‘I feel an absolute fool now!’
‘Good,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘So you should, for doubting me.’
‘And you didn’t doubt me?’
‘We aren’t getting into this one again,’ he ordained. ‘It’s our anniversary. So open your second package.’
Not sure she wanted to, Samantha did as he said. A sigh heaved from her. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said breathily, staring down at the deeds for the Tremount Hotel.
‘I think these two might make you an official member of the tycoon club,’ André drawled, then added lazily, ‘Here, I think this is a good moment to put these back where they belong…’
These turned out to be a simple gold wedding band, which he slid onto her finger, following it with a glowing emerald circled by a ring of diamond fire.
Samantha sat staring down at the rings she’d left behind for so long that she wasn’t really surprised when André prompted ruefully, ‘Don’t I even get a thank-you kiss?’
‘I’m going to cry,’ she told him with a shake of her lowered head.
‘Will it make you feel any better if you do?’ he questioned gently.
‘No.’ She shook her head again.
‘Okay,’ he murmured and reached out to push her down onto the bed then came over her to claim his own kiss.
When it was over, he remained poised above her, looking deep into her swimming eyes, with his own eyes very sombre. ‘The Bressingham was always yours. I never considered it mine from the moment your father concocted his deal. But the Tremount is different,’ he admitted deeply. ‘The Tremount is to say thank you to it, for looking after you when I should have been doing it. And to say I’m sorry for ever doubting you.’
‘Raoul is your brother and you loved him—just as I loved my father.’ Reaching up, she placed a kiss to his sombre mouth. ‘Neither of us expected either of them to deceive us, André.’
‘Your father’s deception was well meant. Raoul’s lies were not. And I deceived you too, don’t forget.’
‘But I want to forget,’ she insisted. ‘With the freedom to choose, I want to forget it all now. Can we do that?’
Her green eyes pleaded. His began to burn. ‘Sure,’ he agreed. ‘Anything you say while you look at me like that… And the honey was a killer, by the way.’
A diversion, Samantha recognised, and let him keep it. ‘I saw it done on TV once,’ she confessed with smile. ‘I always meant to try it out on you but never seemed to get the chance before today.’
His sleek brows arched. ‘Anything else you would like to try out?’
‘Lots,’ she breathed, her eyes darkening in line with the challenge. ‘Anniversary present number one coming up,’ she announced. ‘I think you’ll like this.’
And he did.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0030-2
THE UNFORGETTABLE HUSBAND
First North American Publication 2001.
Copyright © 2001 by Michelle Reid.
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The Unforgettable Husband Page 16