Enemies at the Altar

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘I told her not to worry,’ he said. ‘I am well aware of the tricks you might feel compelled to play.’

  Sienna shrugged off his comment. ‘Well, you can assure her I only want the money,’ she said. ‘The chateau is nice and all that, but what would I do with a place this size? I’d have to sell it. I could never afford to maintain it. The heating bills in winter must be crucifying.’

  Andreas took a sip of his drink, still watching her with his hazel eyes. ‘Just so you know, Sienna,’ he said. ‘I will not be tricked out of inheriting this property. You can do the time the nice way or the hard way but, either way, I am not leaving until I inherit what rightly belongs to my family.’

  ‘Fine,’ Sienna said, throwing him a testy look. ‘But the same goes for you. I’m not going to be forced out by your brooding, boorish behaviour or your bad moods.’

  Andreas gave an ironic chuckle. ‘You’re a fine one to talk of bad moods,’ he said. ‘You’ve been spoiling for a fight from the moment you stepped in the room. I can see it in your eyes. They’ve been flashing like sheet lightning for the last five minutes.’

  Sienna glared at him. ‘Maybe that has something to do with your own chicanery in making sure I have no choice but to sleep in your bed,’ she said.

  ‘What is the problem with sharing a bed that is large enough to house a family of five?’ Andreas asked. ‘I bet I won’t even notice you’re there.’

  She set her mouth. ‘Just another nameless woman lying beside you, eh? Nice one, Andreas. You have such class.’

  ‘Are you jealous?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not!’ Sienna gave her head a toss. ‘It’s just that I don’t like the thought of you suddenly forgetting who’s lying beside you. You might take liberties that I’m not comfortable with.’

  ‘Take liberties?’ He gave a little snort of amusement. ‘You sound like someone out of a Regency period drama. What, are you worried I might see one of your naked ankles or wrists, are you? I’ve seen a lot more of you than that, Sienna, and you know it. So, too, did most of the cyber world when your little bedroom peccadillo was aired, so don’t play the outraged virgin card with me. It just won’t wash.’

  Sienna turned away so he couldn’t see the way her cheeks coloured up. She concentrated on drinking her champagne, desperately trying to appear cool and collected when inside she was anything but. She hated him for reminding her of that wretched event. How like him to needle her with her past, the past she wanted to forget about, the past she wished had never happened. She pretended it didn’t hurt but it did. Every time she saw a photo or snippet about herself in the press she cringed in shame. How could her life have come to that?

  ‘Dinner will be waiting for us,’ Andreas said after a moment. ‘I hope you’re hungry?’

  Sienna gave him one of her arch looks. ‘It sure beats making small talk, doesn’t it?’ she said and sashayed past him to the dining room.

  Dinner was a tense affair. Sienna knew she wasn’t helping things by being prickly but she resented the way Andreas always saw the worst in her. He assumed she would try to wangle him out of his inheritance, but if it weren’t for the money she needed to kick-start her life she would have already defaulted so he could have the chateau. She wanted to be free of him just as much as he wanted to be free of her.

  Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true, she thought as she toyed with her glass. The physical fascination she felt for him was something that drew her to him irrespective of the ill feeling between them. She could feel the tension of it brewing in the air. It was an atmospheric change that occurred every time they were on their own.

  Knowing he wanted her made her need for him all the harder to ignore. She could feel the traitorous pulse of it in her blood, the way her insides clenched every time his gaze encountered hers. Those tense little eye-locks unfurled something deep inside her until she had to look away or betray herself completely.

  ‘More wine?’ Andreas offered.

  Sienna covered her glass with her hand. ‘I think I’ve had enough, thank you.’

  There was a ghost of a smile in his eyes. ‘Always wise to know when to stop, sì?’ he said.

  She gave him a direct look. ‘Do you know when to stop, Andreas?’ she asked. ‘Or do you keep going just because you can?’

  He sat back and surveyed her for a moment before he answered. ‘I don’t believe in losing control in any area of my life.’

  She raised a questioning brow at him. ‘Not even during sex?’

  He continued to hold her gaze with an intensity she found both thrilling and unsettling. ‘It depends on what you mean by losing control,’ he said. ‘If you mean do I lose myself in the moment of orgasm, then yes, that is exactly what happens.’

  Sienna knew her face was hot. She could feel it. So too was her body. Just the thought of him losing control—having an orgasm—with her was enough to send her senses spinning all over the place.

  ‘You’re blushing, ma belle,’ he said with a slanting smile.

  ‘I’m not blushing,’ she retorted. ‘It’s hot in here.’

  He rose from the table and opened one of the windows, letting in the fragrant night air. ‘Better?’ he asked, turning back to face her.

  Sienna felt the caress of his gaze. It touched her from head to foot, lingering on the upthrust of her breasts just long enough for the fiery combustion of her need to engulf her.

  She felt the tingle of her flesh as he came towards her, his eyes still doing that erotic little tussle with hers, as if he was already making love with her in his mind, running through the images of their naked limbs entangled, their bodies joined in the most intimate way possible.

  Her body shivered involuntarily. She could almost feel his hard male presence inside her. It started as a tiny flicker and then it became a pulse that was like a distant drumbeat inside her, growing in intensity as each sensually charged second passed.

  Sienna swallowed as he came towards her with slow but purposeful strides. Her heart gave a stumble as he stood right beside her chair, the tip of his index finger lifting her chin to face him. ‘What are we going to do about this tricky little situation between us, hmm?’ he asked.

  She rose to her feet as if he had drawn her up by tugging on invisible puppet strings. Her body was within a hair’s breadth of his, her insides coiling tightly with lust. ‘I don’t know,’ she said a little too huskily. ‘Ignore it?’

  His mouth tilted in that sexy smile again as his thumb brushed over her bottom lip. ‘Sounds like a good idea in theory,’ he said. ‘How do you propose we do that in practice?’

  Sienna swept her tongue over her lip where his thumb had just been and tasted the salt of him. A shockwave of longing rippled through her. She felt the rush of her blood and the hot tingle of feminine want darted like an expertly aimed arrow deep inside her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light and unaffected. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

  His hazel eyes pulsed as they held hers. ‘Just the one,’ he said in a deep gravel-rough voice.

  Her gaze drifted to his mouth and her heart gave another little tripping movement. ‘I sure hope it’s a good one,’ she said so softly it was barely audible.

  ‘It is,’ he said and, taking her by the upper arms and pulling her against him, chest pressed to chest, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

  His lips were neither soft nor hard but somewhere right in between. They moved with mesmerising magic on the surface of hers before he took things to another blistering level with the bold and commanding thrust of his tongue.

  It was like a flame let loose amongst bone-dry tinder. The kiss was suddenly hot and hard and urgent, just as hot and hard and as feverishly urgent as his body pressed against hers.

  His hands went from their grip on her upper arms to slide down to her waist, one hand slipping behind her to press in the small of her back to hold her against the heated trajectory of his body. She moved against him, an instinctive and utterly primal moveme
nt that signalled her rapidly escalating need for him.

  His mouth explored hers with spine-tingling expertise. His tongue played with hers, teasing and flirting at first, but then with increasing demand as his desire to mate took hold. She felt it in his body, the way he hardened and throbbed against her. Her body responded automatically. It softened and melted against him, her desperate need to get closer taking over whatever objections her scrambled mind tried to put up.

  One of his hands skimmed over her breast in a teasing motion that set every nerve beneath her skin on fire. She whimpered against his mouth, pushing closer, desperate to have him hold her, to caress her, to touch her, to brand her with his lips and tongue.

  He continued to kiss her deeply as his hand came back, firmer this time, cupping her, caressing her through the thin barrier of her dress and lacy bra. It was like torture not to have him as close as she wanted him. But then, as if he read her mind, or her body, or indeed both, he slid the shoulder of her dress aside. His warm dry hand on the skin of her neck and shoulder made her flesh sing with delight. He pushed the strap of her bra aside and then lowered his mouth to her skin. She shuddered in response when his tongue grazed the soft skin stretched tightly over her collarbone.

  She snatched in a breath when he pushed the lace cup of her bra away. Her belly clenched with a hard fist of desire as his warm breath skated over her naked breast before his mouth closed over her achingly tight nipple. Thousands of fiery explosions went off beneath her skin at that toe-curling caress. His teeth and tongue teased her into a frenzy of want she had never imagined possible. The sensation of having his mouth suck on her made the hair on her head tingle at the roots.

  Sienna slid her hands up his chest to work on his buttons; one by one she released them, kissing each section of his hot salty skin as she exposed it.

  He made a deep sound at the back of his throat as she went lower, his hands fisting in her hair as she got to his waistband. The jut of his erection tented his trousers and she boldly touched him, caressing the length of him, delighting in the feel of him as he shuddered in response.

  He made another deep guttural sound and pulled her down with him to the floor, his mouth slamming back down on hers as he pinned her with his weight. It was a bruising kiss but she was with him all the way, nipping at his lower lip, her teeth tugging and pulling at him in a desperate urge for satiation. His tongue thrust and stroked, cajoled and teased and finally tamed hers. In between hot searing kisses he got her dress off and her bra and knickers in a wild tangle of fabric and limbs that made Sienna’s heart race with excitement. She only got his shirt off and his belt. There was barely time for the application of a condom before her head snapped back on the carpeted floor as he drove into her with a thick, hard thrust that made her cry out in sharp and sudden discomfort.

  He froze above her. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sienna said, quickly averting her eyes from his. ‘It’s been a long time, that’s all.’

  He captured her chin and made her look at him. ‘How long?’ he asked.

  Sienna caught her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘A while …’

  His frown deepened, making a criss-cross of lines over his forehead and between his eyes. ‘How long is a while?’ he asked.

  She gave a little shrug, secretly holding her breath. ‘I can’t really remember.’

  His eyes were narrowed in focus. ‘You mean it is a while since you slept with your husband?’ he said.

  Sienna found it hard to lie to him when she was facing him eye to eye. ‘I never slept with Brian,’ she said.

  His face blanched, his eyes shrinking back in their sockets as if she had struck him across the face. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘It was a marriage of convenience,’ she said. ‘Brian wanted a wife in name only. I wanted the respectability of marrying well. It was a mutually satisfying agreement.’

  Andreas pulled away from her and got to his feet in an agitated manner. He zipped up his trousers and then snatched up his discarded shirt and handed it to her. ‘Here,’ he said in a gruff tone. ‘Put this on while I get your things.’

  Sienna slipped her arms through the long sleeves and wrapped herself in his warmth and smell. His shirt didn’t offer the same dignity as her clothes would have done but at least it covered her nakedness.

  She watched as he gathered up her clothes from the floor, his hands folding them with meticulous care when only minutes ago he had been all but ripping them from her body. His brow was furrowed with a preoccupied frown as if he was having trouble processing what she had told him.

  He came back over and handed the tidy pile to her, his eyes meshing with hers. ‘I hurt you,’ he said, his voice grave. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t hurt me … not really,’ Sienna said.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked, still frowning.

  ‘Tell you what?’ she said. ‘That I haven’t had sex in ages? You wouldn’t have believed me. The press make it pretty clear I’m up for it with anyone any time. Why would you take my word over theirs?’

  ‘Why do you let them write that stuff without defending yourself?’ he asked.

  She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘I don’t care what people think. I know what’s true. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘Why didn’t you have a normal marriage with Brian Littlemore?’ he asked. ‘He paraded you about enough times. You were always at some gala event hanging off his arm like a trophy. Was it really all an act?’

  Sienna wished she’d kept her mouth shut. What was with her tonight? Such honesty and openness was totally out of character. Before she knew it she’d be spilling the beans on Brian’s ‘mistress’, the male lover he had adored even before he had married his wife Ruth and fathered three children with her. It wasn’t her secret to tell. She had promised Brian on his deathbed she would honour his decision to protect his children from the knowledge of his true sexual orientation. But she realised she would have to be a little more careful around Andreas. He wasn’t the sort to be fobbed off and lied to. His sharp intelligent gaze saw too much as it was.

  ‘I’d rather not talk about it,’ she said, hugging her pile of clothes close to her body. ‘Brian was good to me. I don’t regret being married to him. He looked after me.’

  Andreas screwed up his face. ‘He had a mistress, for God’s sake,’ he said. ‘How could you have so little self-respect to allow that to continue right under your nose?’

  Sienna squeezed her clothes even tighter against her body. ‘I told you I don’t want to talk about it.’

  He studied her for a long moment, his gaze narrowing slightly. ‘You married him soon after the sex tape scandal, didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘It was only a few weeks or so, wasn’t it?’

  She kept her expression closed. ‘What of it?’

  ‘What happened that night?’ he asked. ‘What happened that made you suddenly run off and marry a man nearly forty years older than yourself?’

  Sienna couldn’t hold his penetrating gaze. She stared at the middle of his chest instead. Her chest felt tight and heavy with all the regret she carried inside. She had made such a mess of her life and her sister’s. Maybe it was time to air some of her guilt. To confess how awful she felt about what had happened. Why she felt compelled to confess it to Andreas was something she would have to think about later.

  ‘I was out drinking with friends,’ she said. ‘The girls I hung around with were regular binge drinkers but I never let myself get totally wasted. But that night … I must have had more than I realised or not drunk enough water or something. I don’t remember much other than waking up in some guy’s hotel room. I didn’t know who he was. He was naked. I was naked. I was so ashamed of myself. For the first time I started to feel like the slut the press had always painted me. Before, I used to laugh it off when they wrote something about me being a bed-hopper because I’d only had sex twice.’ She gave a little humourless laugh. ‘By today’s standards, I’m practically still a virgin. B
ut after that night I felt like I deserved it for not taking responsibility for my actions.’

  ‘Did you ever consider you might have been the victim of a drink spike?’ Andreas asked, frowning.

  Sienna tried to shrug it off. ‘I did wonder about that but, even so, it was still my fault for being so careless,’ she said. ‘I should’ve chosen my friends a little more carefully. I think they enjoyed seeing me pulled down a peg or two. I was always the one who kept her head. That night certainly put an end to that.’

  ‘Sienna,’ he said heavily, ‘you were a victim of a crime. Why didn’t you report it to the police?’

  ‘Who would have believed me?’ she asked. ‘Like mother, like daughter, everyone would’ve said. Anyway, I didn’t know if a crime had been committed. The tape showed me kissing that guy and him kissing me and his arms and hands all over me, but there was no way of knowing if anything else had happened.’

  Andreas let out a stiff curse, his hand dragging over his face again. ‘I can’t get my head around this,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you say something when the press named your sister as the woman in that tape?’

  Sienna shifted her gaze from his. ‘I didn’t know about any of that,’ she said. ‘As soon as I woke up in that hotel room I caught the next flight out of the country. I wanted to get as far away from it as I could. That’s when Brian stepped in. I rang him in a bit of a state from the airport. We’d met at a function a few years before and really hit it off in a friends-only way. He was like a father to me, the father I’d never had. He offered me a safe haven. I didn’t think twice when he suggested we marry as soon as possible. I wanted the respectability. I wanted to feel safe.’

  Andreas lifted her chin up so her gaze met his. ‘Why have you let everyone believe such scurrilous lies about you?’ he asked.