The Heat Of Passion

by Lynne Graham

  her dress. She heard something tear. It meant nothing to her.

  With a ragged gasp of pleasure he bent over her bared breasts, shaping her, touching her. She closed her eyes, arched her slender throat and was lost in a world of sensory overdrive, more powerful and more primitive than anything she had ever dreamt of experiencing. Scorching heat surged through her shivering body in an unstoppable surge.

  Her hands fluttered over every part of him she could reach, torn between the black silk luxuriance of his hair and the oiled smoothness of the muscles flexing on his back. She wanted to touch him everywhere at once, burned to explore him as intimately as he was exploring her.

  Her nails skidded down the long sweep of his back and he moaned against her mouth, biting erotically at her lower lip in punishment. Rawly impatient hands dealt with the scrap of silk that was all that shielded her from him. When he found the damp, eager heat of her, a wild cry escaped her. She was poised like a diver on the edge of a deep, beckoning abyss and she knew she would throw herself off even though she couldn't swim. The sheer primitive need she was controlled by was closer to agony than ecstasy.

  'You're mine... from this moment on,' Carlo spelt out roughly, 'you are mine.'

  She collided with glittering dark eyes, unreadable in the moonlight, and her mouth ran suddenly dry, a shaft of returning sanity tightening her every muscle in rejection.

  But his hand slid over her quivering body, shattering her with her own response. There was a buzzing sound somewhere in the background. She closed it out but after a while Carlo began to tense. Abruptly, he lifted his dark head and swore viciously under his breath. A second

  later, he rolled away from her and the light went on as he answered the phone.

  It took several seconds for Jessica to appreciate that Carlo was talking in fast, urgent Italian. He cast aside the phone, his starkly handsome features pale and rigidly cast, his brilliant dark eyes hooded. Without a word or a glance, he strode out of the room.

  Jessica was in a passion-induced daze, only slowly fumbling her way back to the real world. But at Carlo's exit she sat up. Dear God, had he had bad news about his father? In confusion she absorbed her own nudity and, hurriedly vacating the bed, found a robe to pull on. She wanted to go to Carlo, offer sympathy and comfort, and the instant she recognised that need within her, she collapsed down on the edge of the mattress and covered her face with unsteady hands.

  Dear heaven, what was happening to her? What was going on inside her head? For six years she had told herself that she hated this man and yet a mere second ago her most driving urge had been to rush to his side and ease his pain by whatever means were within her power. Suddenly, she was plunged into complete turmoil by the conflicting signals between her thoughts and her emotions. Fearfully she sought to rationalise her feelings.

  So much had happened so fast, she told herself weakly. This whole situation put her under severe strain. In addition, she was deeply ashamed of the fact that she could not withstand Carlo's blatant sexuality. Really it was hardly surprising, she decided, that her emotions should become wildly confused as well. She was only now learning the kind of things that most women already knew by their late teens. Desire was not love but maybe her puritanical inner self wanted her to behave as though it were. Was that what was the matter with her?

  She didn't know how long she had been sitting there when she glanced up and saw Carlo framed in the doorway. He was still and silent as a statue.

  Jessica swallowed hard, intimidated by his aggressive stance. 'What’s wrong?'

  Carlo released his breath with an audible hiss. 'Why didn't you tell me that your father was in a nursing home?' he demanded.

  'How did you find out?' Sharply disconcerted, Jessica stared at him wide-eyed.

  'My PA, Spiros, attempted to contact him this evening. He called to let me know and I have just finished speaking to Dr Guthrie on the phone,’

  Jessica lost every scrap of colour.

  'Why didn't you tell me?' Carlo thundered with sudden raw condemnation. 'Why didn't you tell me that he was in an unstable frame of mind?'

  Jessica rose unsteadily upright, shattered by his fury.

  'I didn't think '

  'What didn't you think? That it would make any difference to me?' Carlo's outrage was so great, he could barely vocalise the question. Strain had etched lines into his sun-bronzed skin, flattened his sensual mouth. 'Is this your opinion of me? That I would happily drive a man to suicide?'

  Jessica trembled. Voiced like that, it sounded ap

  palling. 'I only thought you wouldn't consider it... rel

  evant '

  'Relevant.' Carlo only got the repetition out with the greatest of visible difficulty, his accent scissoring along the syllables like a cut-throat razor.

  ‘My father insists that he was not trying to harm himself,' she heard herself protesting weakly. Carlo was looking at her as if he had never seen her before. And it was equally obvious that he did not like what he did see.

  'Last night you made no attempt to tell me that your father was in such extreme distress... not once did you even hint of such a danger!' he spelt out with sizzling disbelief.

  'I didn't think you'd care,’

  Carlo went white and spun away from her, both hands clenched into fists. 'I don't think I have ever been closer to physical violence than I am now,' he bit out in seething incredulity. 'How dare you say to me that I would not have cared? Dio... to think I almost made love to you! What did I ever do that you should view me in such a light?'

  Jessica bent her head, attacked by sudden shame and

  confusion. Carlo was so absolutely appalled by what he

  had learnt. 'I... I ‘

  'Had I known of your father's state of mind, I would have done everything within my power to reduce his distress. Everything^ he stressed, surveying her with scorching intensity. 'Did you really believe that my desire for you would outweigh the worth of a man's life? Or even the smallest risk of him taking that life?'

  'No, I didn't...' Jessica was shaking.

  Carlo's golden eyes raked her with derision. 'Or were you just looking for a damned good excuse to come back to me without sacrificing your precious pride?'

  She flinched as though she had been struck but she was in no condition to respond. When had she turned Carlo into the very image of vicious corruption inside her own head? When and on what grounds had she shorn him of every decent human emotion? Dear God, why had she deceived herself that way? For she had deceived herself. She saw that now. Had it been easier to blacken Carlo and blame him for everything sooner than face the extent of her own culpability? And worst of all, had she done that purely to avoid coming to terms with what Carlo made her feel?

  'You said that there was no sentiment in business,' she attempted desperately to defend herself. 'You said that you had no interest in my father except as a means to an end and that the subject bored you,’

  Reminded of those harsh words, Carlo swung away from her. 'I had no idea of your father's depression, no knowledge of your parents' divorce or of your mother's death,' he muttered less aggressively.

  Jessica couldn't think straight. She felt sick inside. She saw quite clearly that last night at the Deangate she should instantly have told Carlo what had happened to her father. Yet she had not even considered telling him. She had been so punch-drunk on her image of Carlo as a sadist that she had remained silent.

  'I should have told you,’ she heard herself whisper.

  Carlo wasn't even listening. ‘I will meet with your father tomorrow and set his mind at rest. I will not have him on my conscience,' he asserted, shooting her a glance of smouldering condemnation. 'And to further that end I will tell him that I have offered you a job as my secretary,’

  'That's what I intended to '

  'Believe me,’ Carlo cut in fiercely, 'had I known yesterday what I know now, I would never have touched you! Just to think of you lying in my bed smugly thinking that you were sacrificing yourself
for your father's life.. ,’ His teeth gritted and he spread his hands in violent rejection of the idea, his dark features pale and taut. 'That disgusts me, but it also makes me want to shake you until your teeth rattle!'

  'Don't you dare!' Jessica gasped.

  Carlo reached out a punitive hand and hauled her up against him without warning, his sheer strength intimidating her. Flaming golden eyes clashed with hers and she stopped breathing. 'You're not a martyr, cara... you're a coward!' he seethed down at her with lancing derision. 'You want me every bit as much as I want you but you haven't got the guts to admit it!'

  'Let go of me!' Jessica suddenly sobbed in turmoil.

  Carlo released her so abruptly, she fell back against the bed. Spinning on his heel, he strode out of the room.

  Picking herself up, Jessica slammed the door after him and then she leant back against it, tears streaming down her convulsed face, trapped in a morass of pain and emotional turmoil. She understood the turmoil but she didn't understand the pain. She could not explain to herself why it should hurt so much when Carlo looked at her with distaste and derision.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  (...A TREMENDOUS opportunity for me,' Gerald Amory continued with satisfaction. ‘A challenge is exactly what I need right now, and I've always liked Scotland,’

  Jessica gave her excited father a strained smile. Carlo had offered him the management of an ailing engineering company in Glasgow. And her father, seemingly a broken man mere days ago, had been so boosted by Carlo's apparent faith in his abilities that he was a changed personality. There was a new spring in his step and a look of energy in his tautened features that she hadn't seen in a very long time.

  'He couldn't have been more understanding,' Gerald murmured, not for the first time. 'But obviously I couldn't let him write off the money I took from Amory's.'

  Jessica gave him a look of shock. 'Carlo suggested that?'

  'Yes, but I couldn't let him do it. I have some very valuable antiques in this house and I intend to clear the lot. I want to start with a clean sheet. I should have done it years ago. I should never have stayed in this house with all its memories of your mother,' he said with a wry grimace. 'Nor should I have agreed to stay on at Amory's, not when I felt like a dog in the manger. That was taking the easy way out. I should have restructured my life then and moved on just as your mother did. I expect to be free of my debt to Carlo within two years and who knows, with a little belt tightening, maybe sooner!'

  This was said with such good cheer that Jessica simply stared, but she was inwardly digesting the astonishing news that Carlo had tried to persuade him that there was no necessity for him to return the money he had stolen.

  'As for Amory's and my abrupt departure...' Gerald sighed. 'Everybody thought I had been suddenly taken ill and that's why I was rushed out of the building. Of course my secretary and the chief accountant know the truth but neither of them will talk. I've been very fortunate, although I'm not quite as slow on the uptake as you and Carlo seem to imagine, Jess.. .’

  In receipt of his suggestive smile, Jessica said, 'Meaning?'

  'Even when I finally managed to convince Carlo that yes, I had reached a very low ebb but no, I did not intend to put an end to my existence,' Gerald Amory asserted squarely, 'Carlo was still set on being extraordinarily generous. And I can think of only one reason for that.'

  Jessica sat very taut.

  ‘He has to be in love with you.'

  Jessica forced a laugh. 'He offered me a job, Dad. That's all!'

  Her father shook his head with a rueful smile. 'You're a very junior employee at Fulton and Greenbury and he's a tycoon. You don't even know how to use a computer, Jess. I don't think he's shipping you out to the Caribbean to stay with his family for your secretarial skills alone. At least, if he is, he's in for a very frustrating time of it!'

  Jessica didn't know what to say but her father didn't seem to expect any response. He was an astute man and she should have known he would pick holes in so thin a cover story. Carlo in love with her? She couldn't even summon up any amusement at the idea. She hadn't seen or heard from Carlo since that night, three days earlier.

  He had been gone when she breakfasted the next morning and she had been driven home to the cottage.

  Spiros, Carlo's PA, had phoned her yesterday to tell her when she would be picked up to be taken to the airport tomorrow. He had also dropped the news that Carlo would only be meeting up with them in Miami for the final leg of the journey.

  Now, as her father took his leave, eager to embark on the challenges ahead of him, Jessica was left to cope with her own confusion. Astonishingly, Carlo had gone to great lengths to help her father without hurting his pride. He had been far more generous than she could ever have expected. She had grossly underestimated Carlo. But then, she reflected ruefully, Carlo had not displayed an honourable or more appealing side to his character six years ago. Carlo had been ruthless, arrogant and aggressive. Feeling threatened, she had clung all the harder to her belief that she loved Simon.

  She had loved Simon for a good half of her Me and had been too inhibited by her mother's promiscuous example to question Simon's lack of sexual interest in her before their marriage. She had been grateful for his restraint, for what she had seen as his respect for her. For the first time she openly acknowledged that Simon had cruelly betrayed her trust.

  He should have told her the truth. He shouldn't have pretended. He had had no right to use her simply to silence his family's suspicions, plunging them both into deep unhappiness and endless pretences. Why had she blamed Carlo for the misery of her marriage? she now asked herself. The reality was that her marriage would have been a disaster even if she had never met Carlo...only, having met Carlo and confessed all to Simon, she had given Simon an excuse to hide behind. Simon had allowed her to believe that her moral lapse with Carlo was what kept him from her bed. It had been a very long time before he'd admitted the truth.

  And in the interim of tortured guilt she had hated Carlo and kept on hating him with quite irrational

  fervour. Carlo had become the focus for her bitter dissatisfaction with her life. But common sense told her that she could never have been that attracted to a man she truly hated. No, what she had really hated was the uncontrollable chemistry she experienced in Carlo's radius, a powerful sexual attraction that she couldn't handle and was deeply ashamed of feeling.

  So where did that leave her now? She had scarcely slept the last few nights. She couldn't get Carlo out of her mind and that, frankly, terrified her.

  Jessica boarded the luxurious jet at Miami and surveyed her superbly comfortable surroundings with a faint frown line between her brows. 'Nothing like travelling in style.'

  Spiros laughed. 'Mr Philippides likes his guests to be comfortable.'

  'Who is Mr Philippides?' Jessica enquired of the likeable young Greek, who had unbent from his strict formality with every hour of the travel they had shared.

  Spiros sent her an incredulous glance. 'You are joking, yes?'

  ‘Why should I be joking?' Jessica dropped into her seat and wondered when Carlo intended to show. Her nervous tension was heightening by the second.

  Spiros frowned and leant forward. 'Lukas Philippides

  is Carlo's father, Miss Amory,’ he proffered awkwardly.

  ‘Of course, you knew... you are pulling my foot '

  'Leg,' Jessica corrected, frozen to stillness by shock.

  Spiros chuckled. 'Who has not heard of Lukas Philippides?'

  'Who indeed?' she mumbled through a dry mouth. Lukas Philippides was one of the richest men in the world and in recent years he had lived like a recluse, encouraging the media to concoct wildly unlikely stories about him and compare him to the late Howard Hughes.

  Spiros was studying her closely. 'You really didn't know,' he realised with unhidden astonishment. 'But the

  relationship is widely known. Carlo dropped the Philippides name and took his mother's many years ago.'

  Damn Car
lo for his refusal to fill her in on the most basic facts! That was her first thought. Her standing as his supposed fiancee might very easily have fallen at the first ditch had she betrayed her ignorance in the wrong company. Lukas Philippides was dying and the media had yet to stumble on that scoop. All that money, an amount of money beyond her comprehension, was shortly to be up for grabs. Carlo had been playing for far higher stakes than she could ever have imagined, she thought sickly. Wealth beyond avarice, the kind of inheritance many would kill for...never mind He and deceive.

  Jessica was badly shaken. Carlo's fury that she had failed to tell him of her father's depression, his astonishing kindness towards her father from that point.. .both those things had demonstrated a new side to Carlo's volatile nature. But now she found her most recent assumptions being flung into chaos all over again.

  Had Lukas Philippides demanded that his son marry before he could inherit? She could think of no other reason for Carlo's deception. And how likely was it that a man like Lukas Philippides would find a twenty-six-year-old widow without any assets an acceptable match for his only surviving son and heir? The plot thickens, she thought hysterically. What the hell had she got herself into?

  The stewardess was speaking. Jessica lifted her head as Carlo appeared. He dropped down with fluid energy into the seat opposite her. His impact was incredibly physical. In a lightweight, exquisitely cut cream suit that threw his exotic darkness into prominence, he was shat-teringly sleek and beautiful in an entirely masculine way. Undoubtedly not a single female head had failed to turn on his passage here. This proximity to Carlo was like being struck by lightning.

  Her body reacted involuntarily to the powerful sexuality he emanated. Beneath her silk camisole she could feel her nipples tighten into hard little points and a quiver ran through her as she attempted to remove her eyes from the magnetic gold allure of his. Her heartbeat thudded in her eardrums and it was suddenly impossible to breathe in the rushing silence.