Maggie took a perverse pleasure in shaping by hand the stars that topped the mince pies, before finally making her way to her room to get ready. By the time she pushed into the bedroom, she had barely ten minutes left in which to make herself ready.
Fortunately, Lady Cressida had gone to great lengths to ease her preparations. She eyed the dress that had been selected with a dubious expression.
She lifted it up and held it against her body. Despite being nothing like her usual style, it was a garment of great beauty. A deep, jade green in color, it was a perfect foil to her Irish complexion. It was strapless, designed to sit straight across the bust and tight to the hips, it then fell in a swathe of gauzy chiffon, to the floor. If she wore heels, it would be too short, leaving her with no choice but to stick to a pair of glittery gold ballet slippers she’d brought with her.
Cressida had also left out a fur shawl. Maggie ignored it. She’d been vegan for over a decade. Her step-mother would accept it one day.
As she descended the central staircase, she could hear the party was in full swing. Perhaps thirty or forty guests – intimate and cozy, Cressida had called it – would be swilling the finest champagne, enjoying Maggie’s canapés, and swaying their hips to the jazz band Clint had organised for the affair. He and Cressida always argued when it came to music. She adored classical and opera. Clint preferred rock and roll, and jazz.
He’d won, on this occasion, for two reasons. The party was being held in his home, and Cressida was nothing if not well mannered. And because he’d told her more people would sing along to jazz style carols than classical, with all those poncy violins to confuse things. Besides, he’d added a third point, though it had been unnecessary. “The classical band will take up half the drawing room, meaning we’d need to spill into the ball room, and you’ve made it clear that you want it to feel ‘intimate’.”
Maggie paused, halfway down the stairs and cursed. Her phone was in her room, and she needed to keep it with her. She began to retrace her steps, smiling distractedly as she thought of her little May. A weekend with Rosie, Luca and their daughter Marianna would be enormous fun for the one year old, but Maggie was missing her already.
Phone in hand, she moved back down the stairs, and turned towards the party.
In the two years, since that wild, impassioned night with Dante Velasco, she had imagined that she’d seen him everywhere she went. That night was no exception. A dark head in the corner of the room had her freezing, her whole body going into overdrive as her eyes hungrily, hopefully devoured the man.
It was not Dante. And nor would it be. This was a small party in the middle of the English countryside. Hardly the place she was most likely to run into Spanish wine-making royalty. Besides, if she’d wanted to see him again, she could have. But his words had taunted her since that night: I am my own person. I do not want to compromise that with commitments – to a family. That is not my way. How furious he would be to think she’d fallen pregnant! That she’d had his baby! No, it was better that the past stayed in the past, even if it meant her body would always long for his.
“Hello, darling,” Clint crossed to her, his mischievous eyes twinkling in his face. “You look like Cressida has waved her magic wand over you.”
Maggie pulled a wry face. “Not the kind of thing I usually dress in, that’s for sure.”
Clint rubbed a hand across his chin. It had been, once. A long time ago. Maggie had been the quintessential socialite. So much so that he’d been worried she’d end up married to some stuffed-shirt banker at twenty one. He’d certainly not expected her to be a vegan, part-time caterer with a secret love-child by God only knew who at twenty six.
“You look lovely, anyway.”
“Thanks, dad.” She kissed his cheek. “It looks like more people than expected.”
He shook his head drolly. “No. Just several of Cressida’s family are the size of two or three.”
She laughed at his unkind observation, though it was accurate. As she looked around the room, she saw many portly, overweight family members, who had nonetheless valiantly squeezed themselves into the latest fashion week dresses.
“Except that one, who looks like she hasn’t eaten in a month,” he said with more irreverent humour, nodding to a waif-thin woman against the far wall. Painfully slender, with a face Maggie recognised from a billboard in the West End, and dressed in a barely there sheath of a dress. The woman was stunning, in that heroin addict way.
Maggie hooked an arm through her father’s and leaned closer, so that no one would overhear their conversation. After all, gossiping was bad enough, but being caught out was worse. “Who is she?”
“The God-daughter.” He lifted his brows heavenward. “A terrible bore, if you ask me.”
Maggie laughed, though she felt badly for it. “Oh, daddy, models are never boring,” she remarked sarcastically, watching as the tiny thing flicked her white blonde hair over her shoulder. “Does she always look, so…”
“Like she’s got a stick up her arse? Yes. I suspect there was a bad wind change when she was younger, and her face just got caught like that.”
Now Maggie did laugh, a beautiful sound, like bells in the wind. She looked up at her dad, with every intention of scolding him, but a movement caught her attention instead. A swift, searching turn of a dark head. A response, perhaps, to her laughter.
She shifted her focus, and felt like she’d fallen through a crack in the earth’s surface. The molten lava was licking at her heels.
It was him.
Unmistakable this time. How had she ever mistaken anyone else for him? Two years had passed, but he hadn’t changed a bit. He was wearing a dark suit and a slate grey shirt. No tie, open at the neck, to reveal a hint of the chest hair that she knew ran down his muscled wall of abdominals to the waistband of his pants.
Her face drained completely of color, and she gripped her father’s arm even tighter.
“Darling? Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” she nodded, her throat thick with feeling. She’d spent two years telling herself that her night with Dante Velasco had been a beat out of time. That it had been an aberration. An experience that would never, could never, be repeated. In fact, she’d even come to doubt the strength of what she’d felt. It seemed so unbelievable, to have fallen to his bed within minutes of meeting him. It was as uncharacteristic as it had been stupid.
Her pale blue eyes shone with distress, but the rest of her face was carefully kept blanked of emotion. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“’Fraid not. All a bunch of Cressida’s uptight friends.” He pulled a face. “Shame that Rosie and whatshisface couldn’t make it.”
“Whatshisface?” She remarked with a small smile that almost hid her inner turmoil. “Luca Abramo is one of the best known names in the country, thanks to the recent acquisition of that airline.”
“Oh, yes, well, I liked him anyway. And I always like your Rosie.”
Maggie nodded. She wished they were there too. Rosie always knew just what to say to make Maggie feel better. Even Rosie had no idea about Maggie’s relationship with the Spanish wine baron, and it was better kept that way.
“Dad, I’m just going to go and check on something in the, um, in the kitchen.”
He lifted his brows in an expression of mock fear. “Don’t let Cressida see you. She’s told me I’m to intervene if you so much as go near an apron.”
Somehow, Maggie managed to say something amusing in response. Her mouth moved but her brain didn’t engage. She even smiled as she walked away from him, but inside, her stomach was a swirling pit of anxiety.
What the hell was he doing there?
Of all the places she had hoped against hope to see Dante Velasco, this was not one of them.
Even as she’d fled the party, she had known he would follow her.
As she stepped out of the drawing room and moved in the direction of the kitchen, he placed an arm under her elbow, and silently propelled her into the closet beneat
h the stairs. It occurred to her to wonder how he knew such a closet existed, but the thought disappeared as quickly as it had entered her mind. He was a man who seemed to know everything.
The closet was dark, and musty, despite the fact Cressida had made sure the cleaners had run over the mansion with a fine tooth comb in the week leading up to the party. He dominated the small space with his size, scent and the glowering set of his features. Maggie was shaking like a leaf, her body in some sort of sensory overload as it finally sunk in. It was him.
“What are you doing here?” She whispered urgently, her body pressed as far back against the wall as possible.
“Shut up,” his voice was firm. He put his hands on her hips and pulled her forward, connecting her with his body. “Do not speak.”
Maggie opened her mouth to make some indignant remark, but he took advantage of it and lowered his lips, taking complete possession of her. She moaned, low in her throat, as remembered sensations flooded through her. Bit by bit, her body seemed to lose strength, until she was gripping his shoulders as much for support as a need for contact.
“Do not speak,” he repeated firmly, lifting her skirt and gripping her butt with his bare hands. The cupboard was dark, but she could just make out his outline from a tiny sliver of light that the crack in the door allowed. His expression was tormented, and furious. “I could wring your neck, do you know that?”
Maggie was not afraid. Though his anger was impossible to comprehend, she did not fear him. She knew the passion that ran through him found expression in sensual pleasure rather than violence. “And why would you do that?”
He seemed to be waging some kind of silent battle, his face contorted with emotion as he struggled to silence what he knew he should not say. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” He demanded finally, his fingers firm on her shoulders.
“Find out what?” She responded with genuine innocence.
He hissed from between his teeth. “That you set me up!” He shook his head. “You are the lowest of the low. Worse than a prostitute, for you did not give me the decency of knowing I was a party to a business transaction.”
She gaped, her mind blown open by his assertion. So many questions, she said the first one that came to mind. “How did you find out?”
He shook his head, waving her question aside. “It is of no importance. I do know, and I hate you for what you did. To me, and no doubt dozens of other poor arseholes who were hooked by your gorgeous body and willing sexuality.”
Maggie bit down on her lower lip. She’d never slept with a single one of her targets until that night. And she’d not gone on an agency job since. “It’s not like that,” she said quietly, desperation making her voice quiver.
“Are you refuting the fact that you went to my hotel to show me in a compromising position? To advantage my ex-wife’s divorce petition?”
Maggie’s chest was lifting and falling rapidly as each breath burned through her. What could she say? He was right to feel angry. But he was angry at having been caught.
She tilted her chin at an angle that clearly stated her willingness to argue the point. “I didn’t do anything except show up at a bar that you happened to be in. You hit on me, publicly and obviously.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the detailed memory she’d blocked out for two years came flooding back to her. “If you were not an unfaithful pig, your wife would not have had any photographs to use, would she?”
He exhaled an angry breath. He stood, chest pressed to her breast, mouth just an inch or so from hers. He was quiet, except for his ragged breathing, for so long that Maggie wondered if he intended to speak again. “You do not know how long I have waited for this.” And though she couldn’t see him well enough, she could hear the bitter grin in his voice.
“For what?” She asked, her eyes trying to find his in the darkness.
“To find you again. I’ve fantasised about how I could repay your despicable behaviour that night. I didn’t know until now what form that payback would take.”
Bang, bang, bang, her heart was thumping against her ribcage, and a cold sweat had broken out on her forehead.
“Oh, yes? And what form is that?” She employed her iciest tone, and somehow, managed to sound reasonably calm.
“Isn’t it obvious?” His fingers were firm as he pushed her dress down, exposing her breasts. “You might have been working that night, but no one can fake the kind of pleasure you experienced.” He cupped her breasts with his hands, rubbing the pads of his thumbs over her nipples. He felt her harsh intake of breath and knew she was trying to calm her raging senses. “You want me, and before the night is over, I will have you again.”
“No, you won’t,” she choked, but she moaned as he brought his mouth down to her neck and kissed the sensitive flesh where her pulse was beating like crazy.
“Better than reclaiming you, you will be begging me to take you.”
Maggie was in danger of doing just that now. A simple touch and her body seemed to go up in flames. She sucked in a deep breath and tried to calm her aching, throbbing body. “No,” she wailed, more to herself than him.
“You forget, mi dolor, I know what makes you fall into incantations of need. I know your body like I know my own. I know every little inch of you.”
“Why are you here?” She begged, trying not to cry out as he lowered a hand and once more lifted the hem of her dress.
“I came with someone.”
“Who?” It came out as a half-word, as he brought his palm to cup her most private centre.
“A model I also had meaningless sex with.” His words had been designed to hurt, but he could have no idea of just how they would make her stomach ache with envy.
Maggie tilted her head back and groaned as he pressed lightly but insistently against the cotton of her underpants. “Dante,” she whispered, lifting a hand and curling it around the back of his neck. “Dante,” she repeated, as he increased his speed and pressure.
And as he had done, that first night, he allowed himself to move one finger inside of her, to feel for himself her moist tightness. She bucked hard, grinding downwards, seeking and needing fulfilment.
He removed himself just before she came. He wasn’t ready to give her that pleasure. Yet. She had a lot of payment to make before he allowed her that release. “I think it’s time you told me your name, don’t you?”
Disappointment seared inside of her. She’d been so close. So desperate. Her body was aching with thwarted desire. “Maggie,” she husked, pulling her hand down and forming a fist by her side. “It’s Maggie.”
“I presume you have more than one name?”
She nodded, struck dumb by what was happening. “Maggie Carrington.”
“Well, Maggie Carrington, I suppose I should thank you.”
“Why?” She asked quietly, sanity returning.
“I was already plotting an excuse to get the hell out of here. Boring parties in the middle of nowhere are not my thing. But now… things are looking up. At least I have some entertainment for the weekend. I will come to your room tonight.”
She wanted to say something. She knew she should. But as she had been, the night they met, she was struck mute. Just as she had done then, she wanted him, and no amount of self-berating could take that away. “I’m the second room to the right, upstairs.”
He opened the cupboard door, and now, she could see his face. Harsh, angular, with that scar she’d liked to run her tongue along. “Wait for me in your bed. Be naked. I have no patience for foreplay with you.”
CHAPTER TWO
His words chased around and around her mind all night.
Somehow, she managed to make the small talk that was expected of her, and even to spend some time in the kitchen ensuring the meals went out according to plan. But all the while, she was conscious of an ache, low and deep in the pit of her stomach, as she spent the night pretending not to seek him out.
Her eyes followed him everywhere.
His dark, intense manner m
ade him easy to find. Amelie’s hand, manicured and tanned, fit perfectly in the crook of his arm. And the sight of it made Maggie’s heart ache. He was the perfect party guest. Good looking, intelligent, well-known and unimpressed. She watched with cynical amusement as various guests tried, and failed, to draw him into conversation.
Damn him, Maggie wanted him. Her body was attuned to his as she’d never known possible. As though they were magnets, drawn together despite the animosity that flowed between them.
At one point, she found herself standing, speaking to one of Cressida’s sisters, when she felt something against her back. And she knew it was him. He made a polite apology to the social doyen and then lowered his head, to whisper against her ear, “Do you remember what it feels like to have me sucking ice cream from your body?”
She gasped, her whole body vibrating at the memory she’d been trying to forget.
“Yes,” she’d been able to squeeze out, before she looked away, her cheeks flaming.
Finally, though, guests had started to leave, and Maggie had taken her opportunity. “I’m knackered, dad,” she’d said with her best approximation of a yawn. In reality, she hadn’t ever felt more alert.
“Of course you are, sweetie. You go on up. I’ll try to hold Cressida off from waking you tomorrow.”
Maggie was too distracted to even acknowledge the joke. Cressida was determined to make an equestrian out of Maggie, and had woken her for early morning rides every morning that she’d spent back at the lodge.
“Thanks, dad. See you tomorrow.”
As she undressed, she despised herself for acquiescing to his demands so easily. But he’d begun something, an inevitable coming together, that she was now desperate to experience.
She rubbed a coconut moisturiser over her body, and brushed her hair until it shone like a Titian painting. She sat on the edge of her bed, feeling alternately stupid and turned on.
Finally, an hour after returning to her room, she pulled a night shirt on and grabbed a book. It was Winter, after all.
Two hours after returning to her room, she got the message.
At the Sheikh's Command: She Was His Prisoner First, His Lover Next. But Would She Be His Princess? Page 16