'Saffron, where did you go?' She opened her ayes. Alex was staring down at her, a chagrined look on his harsh features. 'I must be losing my touch,' he said with a husky chuckle.
Saffron didn't believe him for one moment: his male ego was too huge for him to imagine that a woman might not find him irresistible. But not by a flicker of an eyelash did she betray her thoughts. Instead she wound her sleader arms around his neck and lifted her head for his mouth. 'You caught me by surprise, knocked the breath from my body,' she offered, her slender fingers tangling through fee dark hair at the back of his neck, when what she really wanted to do was strangle the devil. . .
She'd thought that it would be easy to suffer his kiss, but realised he was far too astute; she had to make some response, and, opening her mouth over his, she flicked her tongue against his lips. She felt his large body jerk at her tentative caress, and was congratulating herself on her acting ability when insidiously the kiss changed. She was so longer the instigator; Alex had taken over.
The slow kiss became a blazing statement of intent. His tongue plunged in the deep, moist interior of her mouth as his hand smoothed down between their two bodies. She trembled as heat suddenly ignited in her stomach, and his mouth moved down over her firm breast and began to suckle it through the fabric of ¡ser dress. She arched and gasped at the same time, mortified by the force of her reaction.
No! her mind screamed. This could not be happening; his touch revolted her. Unfortunately, however, her body seemed Incapable of absorbing the message.
Suddenly Alex's hand was on her thigh, the dress pushed up around her waist and then he was touching her intimately, urging her legs apart, his long fingers sliding beneath the edge of her briefs and stroking her soft feminine folds with devastating effect. Her eyes closed; she could sot fight the incredible tide of pleasure that his touch evoked. His teeth found the top of her dress where it left one shoulder bare and pulled it roughly down, exposing her firm, full breast to his hungry eyes.
'Alex, you can't.' She knew she had to stop him, but no man had ever touched her so intimately before, and she wanted to drown in the pleasure she was experiencing.
His hand moved to stroke across her thigh and slowly up over her hips, leaving her aching. His black eyes burst with triumphant masculine passion. 'Let me get you out of this and I'll show you I can,' he said arrogantly, holding her shocked eyes with his own as he stood and stripped, speedily down to his briefs, then, finding the gip of her dress, eased it down her body in one swift movement.
Defensively she crossed her arms over lier naked breasts. How had he got so far so fast? She didn't know, and fought to sit up, but Alex was too quick for her. Hs caught her hands and spread their; out from her sides while he lowered his hard, near-naked body back over her.
'You're beautiful, more beautiful than I remembered,' Alex husked, glancing down at her bare breasts.
'Stop,' she demanded harshly. This had gone far enough.
'No. I want to look at you,' he said, his dark gaze, hard and hot, flashing to her face, and colliding with her glittering green eyes. He moved slightly and she felt him swell against her. She looked down between their two bodies, a soft gasp escaping her,then her frantic gaze swept back to his face. His jaw tautened and she felt his body surge even more against the cradle of her womanhood. She trembled, her whole body flushing scarlet.
His hands lifted and covered the soft, creamy mounds of her breasts. 'So soft, so perfect.' He rolled his palms over the rosy peaks, bringing them to aching tips of taut arousal, and then gently he trailed his fingers around each dark aureole, 'You are so beautiful; your skin is like sun-brushed magnolia.' He took each burgeoning nipple between a finger and thumb and plucked gently, teasingly.
A line of fire shot from Saffron's breast to her groin and her body arched helplessly beneath his teasing caress. Then he leant forward, his hands curving her shoulders, and brought her up towards him, her hair flowing down her back in a riot of shimmering curls. Mindless, she lifted her face for his kiss. His night-black eyes held hers as, instead of kissing her, as she had expected, he slowly, delicately brushed his hair-roughened chest over the hard tips of her breasts and smiled a devilish, sensuous smile at her shuddering reaction.
Dear heaven! she groaned inwardly as her body instinctively curved against his chest, her lips parted softly, invitingly. She had to get away. Stop him. But his hand tracing her spine and the soft trail of his lips down her throat and around to her ear, his tongue licking around the soft whorls, sent shimmering arrows of delight through every nerve m her body.
'You and I don't need anything so antiquated as marriage, little one, or the romantic lies of undying love. Your body needs mine now.' He eased back. 'Look at your breasts, full and aching.' She glanced down as he rasped, "The same as I am full and aching.' He hugged her to him. 'Here? Or the bedroom?' he whispered throatly against her ear. 'I'm easy, but I can't wait much longer.' His body surged against hers once more.
He was easy! he had said. God, what did that make her? Saffron thought in horror, struggling to regain her senses. She hated him and yet she had responded like a sex-starved fool.
She shoved him hard in the chest, not caring what he thought, too horrified by her turbulent emotions to hide the disgust she felt. Catching him off guard, he fell back, lost his balance and ended up on the floor.
Saffron might have found the stunned look on his face amusing at any other time, but right now she was too frustrated and furious. She scrambled to her feet, hauling her dress back on, and snarled, 'You might be easy but I'm not, Mr Statis. Hell will freeze over before I share your bed.' And, with a last contemptuous glance at his sprawled body, she took off at a run for the door.
'What the hell. . .? Wait, Saffron!'
He must be out of his tiny mind if he thought she was going to wait for him, Saffron thought, ignoring his shout, but suddenly she was grabbed from behind and swung round. Without giving her time to catch her breath, a bristling, angry, near-naked Alex was dragging her back to the sofa and flinging her down.
'Don't you manhandle me,' she cried, green eyes leaping with rage.
'Manhandle? I could bloody murder you, you little tease! What was that exhibition al about?' Alex demanded harshly, his eyes narrowed on her red face.
'I—' She almost told him how she really felt. Wild, irrational anger at Alex and, if she was honest, at herself almost made her tell the truth. How much she hated him. . . But she stopped herself just in time. Ales was clever. If she told him she would be out of a job, minus her salary, with any hope of getting revenge on the swine out of the window for good. Thinking fast, she said the one thing she thought might just work. 'I've never. . .' She lowered her lashes over her glittering green eyes, hoping she looked demure. 'I'm still a virgin.'
'You're what?3
'You heard,' she murmured, still not looking at him. She sensed him move towards where she sat, and felt the depression of the sofa as he sat down beside her.
"That's unbelievable; you're twenty-five. . . How on earth has a beautiful woman like you not been caught before now?' The incredulity in his voice was unmistakable.
'I'm not caught now,' she snapped back, and could have bitten her tongue at her hasty response.
'No?' Alex prompted softly, watching her with narrowed eyes.
'No,' she said with a shake of her head, her stormy gage meeting him.
"Then I imagined your complete capitulation just now?' Alex's mouth assumed a cynical twist. 'Give me some credit. Saffron; I'm thirty-nine years old, not a young boy, and I have great difficulty in believing in your innocence, however bashfully you proclaim your virginity.'
The steadiness of her gaze told him exactly what she thought of his cynical tone. 'That's your problem, not mine. ' She got to her feet. "Anna will be needing me; I have to go.'
'What about my needs?' he drawled, his dark eyes gleaming with amusement. 'We are here alone; why not finish what we started?'
'No way.' Her eves brushe
d over his near-nude, lounging form and she despised herself because, for a moment, she was tempted.
'Oh, there is a way,' Alex said silkily as he stepped into his trousers and pulled on his shirt. Draping his jacket over one shoulder, he added, 'Your way—marriage. But I'm not such a fool.'
'Shame, but that's my only offer,' she snapped.
'Jewels, furs, a villa in Greece. You would find me a very generous lover, Saffron. Think about it. I'll give you twenty-four hours to reconsider.'
Saffron should have been delighted that she was getting to him, but instead all she felt was fear. 'You don't believe in love and marriage,' she reminded him curtly. 'I do.'
Five minutes later, sitting in the passenger seat of Alex's elegant car, his dark, brooding presence intimidating as they sped through the streets of London, she had a horrible conviction that, it was an enormous mistake to try and seek revenge from a man like Ales Statis.
'Anna, I seed to ask you something and I want an honest answer,' Saffron said. Her employer was lying face down on the bed, and could cot see the grim expression on her face, for which Saffron was grateful. After the fiasco of her dinner date with Alex, she had Iain awake for hours, going over in her head everything he had said since arriving in London., and she recalled Alex's comment about his mother always trawling for a wife for him.
'Yes, what is it?' Anna asked lethargically.
'Your son told me yesterday that you had a habit of. . .' There was no other way of asking except directly. 'Well, he said you turn up with a companion every summer on the flimsiest of pretexts, trying to get hita married off.'
Anna chuckled. 'I may have done once or twice. Surely you can't blame me for trying? God knows I would like some grandchildren before I die, and I'm not getting any younger; neither is Alex, come to that. He is very shortly going to be past his sell-by date, as I have told him frequently.'
'So Ales was right. That is why you employed me.' The disappointment was acute; she had honestly thought of Anna as a friend.
'No,' Anna turned over. 'Not you, Saffy. I wouldn't trick you like that. I needed you, Dr Jenkins told you,' She frowned, but her blue eyes avoided contact with Saffron, 'I still need you, and if Alex has told you anything different ignore him.'
If only she could, Saffron thought grimly, and Anna's denial was not the most convincing in the world. She wouldn't put it past the wily old woman to have set her up. Saffron was proud of her abilities and a professional to her fingertips, It, hurt her pride to think that she had been tricked into working with Anna.
'He's rather too large to ignore,' she muttered drily, realising that Asna was expecting some response, and, with a quick flick of the sheet over the old woman's recumbent form, she added, "All finished. I'll just go and wash my hands and you'd better drink some water; you know the aromatic oils can give you a headache.'
Swiftly she put the bottles of oil back in their slots is her workbag and, taking the mixing bowl, headed for Anna's bathroom. Turning on the tap of the vanity basin, she picked up the soap and began lathering her hands.
She had never thought of herself as a vengeful person, but since she'd realised that Alex part-owned the massage parlour that was really responsible for Eve's tragic death the desire for revenge had become a cancer eating at her mind evaiy minate of the day.
She had dreamt of him last night—a dark, evil figure chasing her along a wild, wind-swept moor to the rim of a huge pit. He'd been almost upon her when the vision of Eve had lifted her to the sky, and the wild, agonised scream of the man as he'd tumbled into the black hole had echoed in her mind long after she had awakened sweating and crying. She recognised the dream as some kind of wish-fulfilment. But the crying she couldn't understand.
Taming off the tap and drying her hands, she sighed dejectedly. In theory revenge was all very well, but in practise it was nowhere sear as easy. Saffron wasn't & fool; she knew that Alex desired her, wanted her—he made so secret of the fact—-but how to tins his want iato hurt was not so easy. She could hurt him through his mote, teïï Anna how he added to the family fortune, but it did sot seem fair to involve her. That left her original plan of persuading Mm to marry her and then leaving him on the wedding night still wanting—a massive blow to his pride and, more importantly, his pocket. . .
She looked at her reflection in the mirror above the basin. Was she a femme fatale! Cool green eyes fringed with thick brown lashes looked back at her. She had been told she was beautiful but she didn't see it herself. Her eyes were slightly slanted, and her mouth a little wide and full-lipped. Then there was the mass of ginger hair. Had these ever been a carrot-topped courtesan? She doubted it. . .
She slipped off her overall. Underneath she was wearing a simple cream cotton jersey sundress, shoestring straps supporting the narrow, figure-hugging tube. Her one good point was that she had a good figure- long legs, slim hips, a tiny waist and a good bust—maybe a bit too much bust.
A vivid image of Alex nuzzling her breast last night flashed in her mind, and a shiver of fear snaked down her spine. With it came the realisation that her foolhardy plot to seduce him into marriage was just that- foolish! However Alex made his money was of so account. He was perceived by the world at large as a respectable, wealthy entrepreneur. Sophisticated, dynamic, an expert lover, he could have any woman he wanted and he knew it. . .
Saffron shook her head at her reflection, her carrot curls swinging loose around her shoulders, a self-derisory smile revealing gleaming white teeth, and she chuckled. How could she have been so stupid as to imagine that she could hurt Alex by tricking him into marriage and parting with a fortune? She could no more play a femme fatale as fly to the moon, and the only person to get hurt would foe herself. Grief at the death of her friend and the shock of recognising Alex Statis had made her act completely out of character. Thank God she had come to her senses in time!
She then felt a pang of sadness. Tilting her head back, she mouthed a silent prayer. Sorry, Eve; if there is any justice in the world Statis will get his come-uppance, but I'm not the sort to do this. Forgive me. And she imagined she heard Eve's hearty laughter echoing in her head. Suddenly she felt as if a ton weight had been lifted from her shoulders, and for the first time in weeks her usual light-hearted optimism lent a glow to her eyes and a smile to her mouth.
She was a mature adult woman, a professional with a business plan to fulfil. She would complete her contract with Anna, and avoid her son like the plague, and by the end of the year she would achieve her ambition and be the proud owner of a small beauty clinic. Her sense of proportion restored, she swung on her heel and went back into the bedroom.
Saffron froze. Alex, wearing well-washed denim jeans and a blue sweatshirt, was leaning against the bedroom door.
Anna turned moisture-filled eyes on her. 'I can't believe it, Saffy, dear.'
What was Alex doing here? And what had he said to upset his mother? 'Don't upset yourself, Anna.' She crossed to her charge and put a consoling arm around her slender shoulders, shooting Alex a vitriolic glance over his mother's head.
'I'm not upset, you silly girl; these are tears of joy. I'm delighted. You and Alex—to marry. . .'
'Marry.' Saffron's arm fell from Anna. She turned slightly, her eyes flying open to their widest extent as Alex crossed the room in long, lithe strides even as she spoke. 'Him,' she muttered, her mouth hanging open in amazement.
'Saffron, darling, I thought over what you said and you were right.' His arms came around her and his lips lowered towards hers.
Hoist with her own petard! immediately came to mind. But she had no more time to think, as he kissed her long and deep. . .
CHAPTER SIX
Numb, paralysed, frozen in shock. No single word could describe Saffron's state of mind. She looked up into Alex's bland face, her eyes searching his for some hint as to what exactly he was playing at.
'A bit more enthusiasm would be appreciated.' His dark glance pierced hers, and it took considerable willpower to hold back an ang
ry retort.
'You said an affair and gave me twenty-four hours,' she hissed angrily.
'So I changed my mind. Mama's watching—look happy.'
'You caught me by surprise,' she managed lightly, her mind spinning with the knowledge of the chance his proposal presented her with. She eased out of his arms only to be clasped by Anna in a motherly embrace.
'I'm so happy for you both, Saffy. Now don't worry about me; get your bag and run along with Alex to choose the ring.' She kissed Saffron's cheek and stepped back, clasping her hands in front of her, as she added, 'Oh, my! Only three days to prepare a wedding. I must dash.'
Saffron followed Alex out of the door and down the stairs still reeling. She wanted to laugh at the irony. She had just decided to forget all thoughts of revenge and avoid the man like the plague, while Alex, in a complete about-face from last night and his declaration that he did not believe in marriage, had decided to do the exact opposite.
Ten minutes later they were seated in his car moving slowly through the London traffic on their way to the jeweller's, Anna's last comment echoing in Saffron's head like a death-knell.
'Why?' she finally asked baldly, all too conscious of the tension building in the interior of the car.
He did not pretend not to know what she meant. 'I never expected to marry, and I don't usually give in to sexual teasing.' He shot her an angry, accusing glance, and she knew he was remembering last night. 'In my experience so-called decent women are out for one thing from a man-a meal-ticket for life, the wealthier the better. I have a grudging respect for whores; at least they state the price up front.'
'And of course you're an expert on the subject,' Saffron snapped scathingly, disgust and hatred making her green eyes glitter angrily,
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