by Lynne Graham
His clear-headed focus was being eroded in this woman’s presence. Why was he even wondering anything about her? He didn’t care what her nefarious motivations were. He’d satisfied whatever curiosity he’d had.
He clenched his jaw. ‘Your time is up. The car will be waiting outside for your return to the airport. And I do sincerely hope to never lay eyes on you again.’
So why was it so hard to rip his gaze off her?
Anger and self-recrimination coursed through Luca as he stepped around Serena and stalked back to his desk, expecting to hear the door open and close.
When he didn’t, he spun round and spat out tersely, ‘We have nothing more to discuss.’
The fact that she had gone paler was something that Luca didn’t like to acknowledge that he’d noticed. Or his very bizarre dart of concern. No woman evoked concern in him. He could see her swallow again, that long, graceful throat moving, and then her soft, husky voice, with that slightest hint of an Italian accent, crossed the space between them.
‘I’m just asking for a chance. Please.’
Luca’s mouth opened and closed. He was stunned. Once he declared what he wanted no one questioned him. Until now. And this woman, of all people? Serena DePiero had a less than zero chance of Luca reconsidering his decision. The fact that she was still in his office set his nerves sizzling just under his skin. Irritating him.
But instead of admitting defeat and turning round, the woman stepped closer. Further away from the door.
Luca had an urge to snarl and stalk over to her, to put her over his shoulder, physically remove her from his presence. But right then, with perfect timing, the memory of her lush body pressed against his, her soft mouth yielding to his forceful kiss, exploded into his consciousness and within a nano-second he was battling a surge of blood to his groin.
Damn her. Witch.
She was at the other side of his desk. Blue eyes huge, her bearing as regal as a queen’s, reminding him effortlessly of her impeccable lineage.
Her voice was low and she clasped her hands together in front of her, knuckles white. ‘Mr Fonseca, I came here with the best of intentions to do work for your charity, despite what you may believe. I’ll do anything to prove to you how committed I am.’
Anger surged at her persistence. At her meek Mr Fonseca.
Luca uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on the table in front of him, leaning forward. ‘You are the reason I had to rebuild my reputation and people’s trust in my charitable work—not to mention trust in my family’s mining consortium. I spent months, years, undoing the damage of that one night. Debauchery is all very well and good, as you must know, but the stigma of possessing Class A drugs does tend to last. The truth is that once those pictures of us together in the nightclub surfaced I had no defence.’
It almost killed Luca now to recall how he had instinctively shielded Serena from the police and detectives who had stormed the club, which was when she must have taken the opportunity to plant the drugs on him.
He thought of the paparazzi pictures of her shopping in Paris while he’d been leaving Italy under a cloud of disgrace, and bitterness laced his voice. ‘Meanwhile you were oblivious to the fallout, continuing your hedonistic existence. And after all that, you have the temerity to think that I would so much as allow your name to be mentioned in the same sentence as mine?’
If possible, she paled even more, displaying the genes she’d inherited from her half-English mother, a classic English rose beauty.
He straightened up. ‘You disgust me.’
Serena was dimly aware that on some level his words were hurting her in a place that she shouldn’t be feeling hurt. But something dogged deep inside had pushed her to plead. And she had.
His eyes were like dark, hard sapphires. Impervious to heat or cold or her pleas. He was right. He was the one man on the planet who would never give her a chance. She was delusional to have thought even for a second that he might hear her out.
The atmosphere in the office was positively glacial in comparison to the gloriously sunny day outside. Luca Fonseca was just looking at her. Serena’s belly sank. He wasn’t even going to say another word. He’d said everything. He’d just wanted to see her, to torture her. Make her realise just how much he hated her—as if she had been in any doubt.
She finally admitted defeat and turned to the door. There would be no reprieve. Hitching up her chin in a tiny gesture of dignity, she didn’t glance back at him, not wanting to see that arctic expression again. As if she was something distasteful on the end of his shoe.
She opened the door, closed it behind her, and was met by his cool assistant who was waiting for her. And who’d undoubtedly been privy to the plans of her boss well before Serena had been. Silently she was escorted downstairs.
Her humiliation was complete.
* * *
Ten minutes later Luca spoke tersely into his phone. ‘Call me as soon as you know she’s boarded and the plane has left.’
When he’d terminated the call Luca swivelled around in his high-backed chair to face the view. His blood was still boiling with a mixture of anger and arousal. Why had he indulged in the dubious desire to see her face to face again? All it had done was show him his own weakness for her.
He hadn’t even known she was on her way to Rio until his assistant had informed him; the significance of her arrival had only come to light far too late to do anything about it.
Serena DePiero. Just her name brought an acrid taste of poison to his mouth. And yet the image that accompanied her name was anything but poisonous. It was provocative. It was his first image of her in that nightclub in Florence.
He’d known who she was, of course. No one could have gone to Florence and not known who the DePiero sisters were—famed for their light-haired, blue-eyed aristocratic beauty and their vast family fortune that stretched back to medieval times. Serena had been the media’s darling. Despite her debauched existence, no matter what she did, they’d lapped it up and bayed for more.
Her exploits had been legendary: high-profile weekends in Rome, leaving hotels trashed and staff incandescent with rage. Whirlwind private jet trips to the Middle East on the whim of an equally debauched sheikh who fancied a party with his Eurotrash friends. And always pictured in various states of inebriation and loucheness that had only seemed to heighten her dazzling appeal.
The night he’d seen her she’d been in the middle of the dance floor in what could only be described as an excuse for a dress. Strapless gold lamé, with tassels barely covering the top of her toned golden thighs. Long white-blonde hair tousled and falling down her back and over her shoulders, brushing the enticing swell of a voluptuous cleavage. Her peers had jostled around her, vying for her attention, desperately trying to emulate her golden exclusiveness.
With her arms in the air, swaying to the hedonistic beat of music played by some world-class DJ, she had symbolised the very font of youth and allure and beauty. The kind of beauty that made grown men fall to their knees in wonder. A siren’s beauty, luring them to their doom.
Luca’s mouth twisted. He’d proved to be no better than any other mortal man when she’d lured him to his doom. He took responsibility for being in that club—of course he did. But from the moment she’d sashayed over to stand in front of him everything had grown a little hazy. And Luca was not a person who got hazy. No matter how stunning the woman. His whole life was about being clear and focused, because he had a lot to achieve.
But her huge bright blue eyes had seared him alive, igniting every nerve-ending, blasting aside any concerns. Her skin was flawless, her aquiline nose a testament to her breeding. Her mouth had fascinated him. Perfectly sculpted lips. Not too full, not too thin, effortlessly hinting at a dark and sexy sensuality.
She’d said coquettishly, ‘It’s rude to stare, you know.’
And
instead of turning on his heel in disgust at her reputation and her arrogance, Luca had felt the blood flow through his body, hardening it, and he’d drawled softly, ‘I’d have to be blind not to be dazzled. Join me for a drink?’
She’d tossed her head and for a second Luca had thought he glimpsed something curiously vulnerable and weary in those stunning blue eyes, but it had to have been a trick of the strobing lights, because then she’d purred, ‘I’d love to.’
The wisps of memory faded from Luca’s mind. He hated it that even now, just thinking of her, was having an effect on his body. Seven years had passed, and yet he felt as enflamed by anger and desire as he had that night. A bruising, humiliating mix.
He’d just left Serena DePiero in no doubt as to what he thought of her. She’d effectively been fired from her job. So why wasn’t there a feeling of triumph rushing through him? Why was there an unsettling, prickling feeling of...unfinished business?
And why was there the tiniest grudging sliver of admiration for the way she had not backed down from him and the way that small chin had tipped up ever so slightly just before she’d left?
Copyright © 2015 by Abby Green
ISBN-13: 9781460329689
To Sin with the Tycoon
Copyright © 2015 by Cathy Williams
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“All property, I bequeath to Andre Duchard…”
As the final words of Virginia Mason’s stepfather’s will are read, the silence in the room is deafening. Suddenly, innocent Ginny’s life has shattered. With no inheritance, her future—and her family’s—is entirely in the hands of enigmatic Frenchman Andre Duchard.
Andre is outrageously attractive and everything that Ginny despises in a man—arrogant and cynical. But one devastatingly sensual kiss later, virgin Ginny is already in over her head! How can she convince Andre she’s not part of his inheritance when she so desperately yearns for his complete possession?
“So,” he said. “The polite little girl has spirit. And what else, I wonder?”
Andre jerked her forward, his other arm going around her, pulling her against him, and as her lips parted in furious protest, his mouth came down hard on hers.
Ginny couldn’t struggle or cry out. She could scarcely breathe. He was holding her too closely, her hands trapped between their bodies. Nor could she resist the practiced movement of his lips on hers, or the slow sensual exploration of his tongue as he invaded the innocence of her mouth, tasting her sweetness. Drinking from her. Draining her as she swayed in his arms, her mind reeling from the shock of it. And yet in some incalculable way—not wanting it to stop…
SARA CRAVEN was born in South Devon and grew up in a house full of books. She worked as a local journalist, covering everything from flower shows to murders, and started writing for Harlequin® in 1975. When not writing, she enjoys films, music, theater, cooking and eating in good restaurants. She now lives near her family in Warwickshire. Sara has appeared as a contestant on the former Channel Four game show Fifteen to One, and in 1997 she was the UK television Mastermind champion. In 2005 she was a member of the Romantic Novelists’ team on University Challenge: The Professionals.
Other titles by Sara Craven available in ebook:
SEDUCTION NEVER LIES
COUNT VALIERI’S PRISONER
THE PRICE OF RETRIBUTION
THE END OF HER INNOCENCE
SARA CRAVEN
Inherited by Her Enemy
To Eve, with love and thanks.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
GINNY MASON SENT a wave and grateful smile to the last of the departing well-wishers, then closed the heavy front door against the raw chill of the late January afternoon with a deep sigh of relief.
That, she thought wryly, leaning a shoulder against the doorframe as she listened to the car draw away, was the worst part of the day over. At least she hoped so.
The crematorium chapel had been full, because her stepfather Andrew Charlton was popular in the locality and well respected as an employer too, being the recently retired head of his own successful light engineering company. But only a handful of those present had accepted Rosina Charlton’s invitation to return to the house for the lavish buffet she’d arranged and few had stayed for very long.
They still think of us as interlopers, Ginny told herself, pulling a face, and they probably feel that Andrew should have been buried next to his first wife after a church service.
Or, maybe, word of Mother’s plans has probably got around. Today Rosina had been the wistful, gracious chatelaine, fragile in black. Last night she’d declared peevishly that she couldn’t wait to sell Barrowdean House and get away from all these stuffed shirts, to somewhere with a bit of life.
‘The South of France, I think.’ She nodded. ‘One of those really pretty villas in the hills, with a pool. So nice for the grandchildren when they come to visit,’ she’d added with an arch look at her younger daughter.
‘For God’s sake, Ma,’ Lucilla had said impatiently. ‘Jonathan and I have only just got engaged. We won’t be thinking of a family for absolutely ages. I want some fun too.’
Nothing new there, then, Ginny had thought to herself. Although she supposed Cilla could hardly be blamed. She was ‘the pretty one’, whereas Ginny, as her mother often pointed out, took after her father. Her creamy skin and neat figure did not compensate for the fact that her hair was light brown instead of blonde, and her eyes were not blue but grey. And her face could best be described as unremarkable.
Cilla on the other hand was a true golden girl, spoiled since birth by everyone.
Even Andrew had not been immune, because, when she’d returned from completing her education at an expensive establishment in Switzerland, while he might have muttered about her doing some proper training and getting a job, he’d never insisted that she become gainfully employed.
And when she’d caught the eye of Sir Malcolm and Lady Welburn’s only son, and courtship had proceeded rapidly to engagement, he’d nodded in a resigned way, as if weighing up the probable cost of the wedding.
An occasion he had not lived to see, thought Ginny, her throat tightening as she remembered the tall, thin kindly man who’d provided such safety and security in their lives for the past ten years.
As she began to recov
er from the immediate shock of Andrew’s death, she was already wondering why they hadn’t been warned about his heart condition.
But, as yet, she’d had no real opportunity to grieve. Her mother and Cilla’s hysterical reaction to their loss had demanded all her time and attention to begin with, and then had come the bombshell of Rosina’s decision to sell Barrowdean and move as soon as a buyer could be found, which had knocked her sideways all over again.
There was, her mother had claimed defiantly, nothing to keep her here, because Cilla, marrying darling Jonathan, would be well taken care of.
‘While you have your job at that funny little café, Virginia,’ she’d added. ‘I’m sure someone in the village will have a room you can rent.’
It had been on the tip of Ginny’s tongue to say that the café was no longer just a job, but a prospect for the future, and accommodation might not be an issue. However, on second thoughts, she decided to keep quiet.
She moved away from the door and stood, irresolute for a moment, listening to the murmur of voices and chink of china and cutlery from the dining room, where Andrew’s elderly housekeeper Mrs Pelham, and Mavis from the village were clearing away the remains of the buffet.
Which we’ll probably be eating for the rest of the week, she told herself ruefully.
Mrs Pel, of course, was another problem for her to worry about. Not that the old lady was under any illusions. She knew quite well that Rosina had been trying to get rid of her ever since she’d come to live at Barrowdean House, using Mrs Pel’s age and growing infirmity as her excuse. But Andrew had ignored all hints.
Apart from his personal fondness for her, he said, Mrs Pelham was part of Barrowdean, and ran the house like clockwork. When she decided to retire, she would tell him. Until then, no change would be made.