Ellery stared down his nose at Aidan and pushed the rest of his chips forward. ‘I’ll raise you.’
Aidan snorted. He gave the man’s meagre chips a cursory glance. ‘You’ll need more than that to stay in the game, old man.’
‘You’re a bastard, Kelly.’
‘Actually, I had a father.’ Aidan’s tone hardened until it could have decimated granite. His heart shrouded in ice. ‘Now, correct me if I’m wrong.’ He frowned as if confused. ‘But you’ve already staked your business, the family cattle station and the company jet. So what else have you got up your worthless sleeve, old man, that you could possibly raise me with?’
Someone gasped but Aidan didn’t care. His attention firmly focused on the wounded animal in front of him.
Ellery swallowed, the full import of Aidan’s intentions registering on his pale Botox-heavy features and Aidan felt victory course through his veins like a caffeine rush. This was what he had waited so long to achieve. Martin Ellery on the ropes. A smirk crossed Aidan’s face as the moment of truth neared, his gaze lazy and predatory as he watched the older man. ‘Come on, Ellery,’ he drawled. ‘What else you got?’
Ellery’s gaze briefly shifted to the bar and his face took on a smugness his situation didn’t warrant. ‘I got something, Kelly. Something I know you want.’ His gaze cut to Cara Chatsfield, who was now looking across at them, her lower lip caught between two straight white teeth. ‘I’ve got her.’
Aidan felt his brow furrow. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘A night with Cara Chatsfield. That’s what I’ll raise you with.’
Aidan’s first thought was that a night would be nowhere near enough with Cara Chatsfield.
His second wasn’t so pleasant.
Ominously the events of the evening crystallised in his mind like ducks lined up at a shooting range. The Chatsfield socialite running into him at the airport, his hijacked limousine, her request for him to go easy on Ellery. That kiss. Had it been to distract him?
Another glance towards the bar revealed that she was still looking his way. Her eyes wide, and from where he sat it looked like her breathing had suddenly grown shallow as if in anticipation of later on. Give the girl an award, he thought acidly, she certainly knew her game.
Aidan’s gut knotted and the word fool ricocheted inside his head. Yes, he’d bet that kiss had been nothing more than an attempt to throw him off his game, and it very nearly had.
Anger surged through him. Anger that he’d almost been played.
‘Meet me later. After the game,’ he’d said like some eager beau.
‘Yes,’ she’d breathed as if she couldn’t wait.
What a joke. And, unfortunately now that he had worked out exactly what was going on, the joke was on them, not him.
Aidan forced his features to remain impassive but inside fury had strung his muscles tight. Why hadn’t he considered all this before?
Because he hadn’t been able to shift his mind from sex every time he looked at her, that was why.
Well, she’d certainly put paid to that. He wouldn’t touch her now in a New York minute.
Cocking his eyebrow as if in weary amusement he forced an easy laugh. ‘Really?’ he drawled, focusing entirely on Ellery. ‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’ He had Ellery’s head on the chopping block; there was no way he would concede to him now. ‘You can’t meet my bet with a woman.’
‘The rules of the house say that you have to accept any wager I propose, boy,’ Ellery said with cocky self-assurance.
‘Any wager that’s reasonable. Yours is ludicrous. Now find something else.’ Aidan’s tone hardened with every word. ‘Or fold and pray you have a friend whose couch you can sleep on tonight.’ He’d waited a long time to strip this man of everything he owned and nothing but his absolute—and very public—humiliation would suffice to make Aidan feel that his father had finally been avenged for the wrongs perpetrated by his once-good friend.
A piece of weighty jewellery clunked as a woman raised her arm, the sound elevated by the anticipatory stillness in the room.
The old man fidgeted, sweat beading his brow. The background noise from the bar filtered into Aidan’s consciousness. ‘You’re done for, Ellery,’ he said softly. ‘Admit it.’ The moment of victory was so close he could taste it. So why did he feel so tense? Shouldn’t this moment of triumph relieve him of this unbearable burden? Make him feel light? Make him feel happy?
Cara Chatsfield mistakenly chose that moment to step slowly onto the dais, her lovely face a mask of innocent concern. Did she know her lover had just wagered her? Was this something else they’d concocted together outside on the balcony?
Then it struck him. It hadn’t been relief he’d seen on her face when he’d approached her and Ellery before; it had been fear. Fear that they’d nearly been caught out.
Logic told him it wasn’t possible. That it was all too elaborate. But logic wasn’t ruling him right now. Instinct was and his instincts told him something was amiss. That something had been amiss from the moment she had stumbled into him hours earlier.
‘On second thoughts,’ he found himself saying, ‘I’ll take your bet.’
Then he’d take her. So fast and so hard she’d rue the day she’d ever tried to cross him.
Cara knew something wasn’t right as soon as she approached the table.
She hadn’t been near it since she’d returned from outside, Aidan Kelly’s kiss on the terrace crowding her mind. At the time she’d been too mesmerised to pull away. His heat, the sheer maleness of his lean, muscular body so close to hers, the intense way his gaze seemed to eat her up. She’d been so enthralled she hadn’t even tried to ward him off as she would have done any other man she barely knew.
Instead she remembered moaning and then she’d felt the hard thrust of his arousal against her belly. She’d felt dizzy, excited. The danger signals and the loud beating of her heart had drowned out everything other than him. Including common sense!
But could she really meet up with him later on? Could she really go through with it? Have sex with a stranger? A stranger whose car she had ‘borrowed’ …
Or maybe this was fate.
Because how else to explain how right it had felt to be held close in his arms. How else to explain the open hunger she had seen in his face that must have surely been reflected in her own?
So why wouldn’t he look at her now?
Icy fingertips stepped slowly down her spine. Something was wrong, something was very wrong.
She’d sensed it from across the room, in the stillness in the air. It was what had drawn her back to the table. Now she wished she’d run in the other direction.
She noted Martin Ellery’s pallor and Aidan Kelly’s warriorlike expression. Despite the fact that he was slouched back in his chair he looked like a weary despot with a thousand men to back him up.
The woman beside her let out a shaky breath and threw Cara a sympathetic look.
Unsure, Cara smiled at her. ‘What’s going on?’ she murmured. ‘What are they betting on?’
The woman raised both eyebrows and let out a shaky laugh. ‘You.’
‘Me?’ Cara could barely get the word out and her eyes flew to Aidan’s. His expression was thunderous, accusatory—as if this was her fault!
‘Are you serious?’ she whispered to the woman.
‘Oh, yes. The older man suggested it.’
Ellery?
Cara swallowed, a sick feeling balled in the pit of her stomach. ‘And … and the other one agreed?’
‘Just then.’
Oh, God. Why? Why would Aidan agree? And what on earth was going on in Martin Ellery’s head for him to suggest such an inconceivable notion? What could she say to get out of it? As if in a warning an image of her father shaking his head with resigned disappointment came into her mind. If she caused a scene now he’d think she had done it deliberately. He might even think it was her idea! Her way of having fun …
Un
sure of how to extricate herself from what felt like a very volatile situation, she didn’t say anything.
Which seemed to give Martin Ellery a victorious cue to crow, ‘She’ll do it!’
All eyes turned back to her expectantly. Cara froze. What could she say? And surely he was only talking about dinner. Like when she’d allowed herself to be part of a charity auction to raise money for the homeless. That had cheapened her enough in her father’s eyes. Tonight, though, Cara felt that she was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
‘Well … if you’re talking about my company for—’
‘Done.’ Martin Ellery thumped the table in an aggressive show of machismo. ‘Show your hand, Kelly.’
Aidan Kelly’s low growl as he sent his cards spinning across the table sent a shiver of alarm down her spine.
He wouldn’t look at her and Cara’s mouth went bone dry. He looked so hard the hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. This was not the man who had kissed her senseless outside before, the man who had gazed at her as if she were the only woman in the world for him.
She wondered what she would do if he won. Then a worse thought hit. She wondered what she would do if Martin Ellery won.
Oh, God.
‘Mr Kelly has a straight flush,’ the croupier announced in his perfectly modulated tones. ‘Mr Ellery, your cards please.’
Cara saw Ellery blanch and he almost seemed dazed as the croupier retrieved his cards and sorted them.
She felt a buzzing in her ears as she waited. She could feel people’s curious eyes on her and she knew a dull flush had heated her cheeks.
When the croupier sorted Ellery’s cards into the line-up a groan went through the swelling crowd and Cara tried to make sense of them. Four queens … Did that mean Ellery had won or lost?
‘Mr Ellery has four of a kind.’ The croupier paused and Cara half expected to hear a drum roll. ‘Mr Kelly wins.’
Mr Kelly wins?
It took a moment for his words to sink in and when they did Cara’s head came up and her eyes locked with the man she had only hours before agreed to meet up with for a late-night assignation. His face was hard, the angles seeming to sharpen as he stared at her with retribution burning in the hot depths of his blue gaze.
His expression confused her.
He looked at her as if he knew she was a world-class stuff-up. A fraud. A person who, once you scratched the shiny surface, had no worthy place in the world.
‘Tell me, Miss Chatsfield. Do you deliver on that sex-kitten reputation of yours or are you an absolute let-down when the glamour is stripped away?’
Aidan stood up straight and tall, lording it over those around him. His eyes narrowed and he swept the table with a contemptuous glance. ‘You can have your precious company, Ellery, and your contaminated money. I don’t want any of it.’
Ellery stared at Aidan like a broken man who still stood facing the hangman’s noose. ‘You’re letting me keep … everything.’
Aidan’s lip curled. ‘Almost.’ His eyes cut to hers and Cara felt pinned by his glacier-blue gaze. ‘Everything except her.’
CHAPTER FIVE
AIDAN WAS FURIOUS. Bitterness rolling through him like a steam train. And not only bitterness, but a deep uncertainty he didn’t want to acknowledge. Why had he just thrown everything back at Ellery? Why had he just walked away without exacting his revenge?
He didn’t know, but he did know that he was shaken by the whole experience. Shaken by the woman at his side. Shaken by her kiss, her innocent expression, her lies.
And now she really would pay. Oh, not with her body. He no longer wanted that. No, he’d teach her a different lesson for taking him on.
She stumbled as they crossed the Mahogany Room in full view of the spellbound crowd and he tightened his grip on her elbow.
‘Smile, my lovely,’ he whispered down at her. ‘Everyone will think you’re not looking forward to the night ahead.’
‘Mr Kelly—’
He stopped and curled his mouth into a grim smile. ‘I think we’ve gone way past the Mr Kelly stage, don’t you? In fact, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t give everyone a peek at your performance out on the balcony. From what I saw on that music clip you’re quite the exhibitionist.’
‘No, I—’
Aidan yanked her towards him and her small, icy hands splayed over his chest.
‘Then keep moving,’ he growled low enough that only she could hear him. ‘Or I’ll forget all about being civilised and lift your skirt and take you up against the nearest wall.’
She turned white and he told himself he didn’t care. That she didn’t deserve his gentleness or his consideration. He reminded himself that she had agreed to put herself up as a lure and unfortunately for her she had caught the wrong fish.
Without another word he pulled her into the lift and swiped his key card over the console to take them to the presidential suite.
Ignoring the way her fingers twisted together he pulled her into his room and kicked the door closed behind them.
‘Mr Kelly, please—’
‘It’s Aidan, doll face, and if you’re really lucky, then, yes, I will please you.’
She hovered in the middle of the silk-carpeted room. ‘If you would just let me spea—’
‘I don’t want you to speak,’ he snarled. ‘I want you to strip. And do it slowly.’ He smiled. ‘I want to enjoy every minute.’ He relaxed back on the king-size sofa and stretched his hands along the backrest and watched her. ‘Leave the stockings and heels on.’
She looked unsteady on her feet. ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘Oh, I am. I’ve thought of you bent over my dining room table in those heels and nothing else all night and I can’t wait for the real thing.’
The silence that followed his deliberately crude statement was loaded and he waited to see what she would do. Waited to see just how far she had agreed to go.
How had she ever agreed to meet this cold-eyed stranger for sex? Cara thought numbly, the hot, savagely pleasurable kiss on the balcony like a distant memory.
Dry-mouthed she stared at him, her mind blanking out as she tried to calm her beating heart long enough to think. He couldn’t mean it, he just couldn’t, and yet … she couldn’t see an ounce of mercy on his hard face.
She didn’t know how to placate him and she shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she said, swallowing around the croak in her throat.
‘You need a drink first?’ His eyebrows rose with mocking sincerity. ‘I confess I didn’t think it would be necessary considering you knew the score.’
‘Look, we didn’t work anything out downstairs,’ Cara began. ‘I didn’t actually agree to … sex.’
‘You allowed yourself to be bet on in a poker game. Did you think it was just for dinner? Some polite conversation?’ His voice turned hard. ‘Maybe you thought we could sit around discussing the latest movie showing in the cinemas?’
‘I can see you’re angry, but—’
‘Oh, I’m not angry. I’m excited. Not every day a man wins a woman in a poker game.’
‘That wasn’t real.’
It had been the wrong thing to say; she saw that immediately and took a shaky step backwards as he leaned forward, his elbows balanced on his wide-spaced knees.
‘Lady, I had a lot riding on that bet. I had Martin Ellery in the palm of my hand.’ He slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘The palm of my hand,’ he roared. ‘He was broken. And once again you’re there interfering. Making it possible for him to win. If he had, if he had won …’
For a brief moment the air became charged with something other than menace. Cara’s gaze stayed pinned on Aidan’s. Was it … pain?
She should have been scared and she was, but she also understood that whatever was going on between them it had more to do with the man he had left beaten and broken downstairs. ‘Why are you so upset with Mr Ellery?’ she asked softly.
‘What did he do to you?’
&n
bsp; ‘As if you don’t know?’
Cara shook her head. ‘I don’t.’
He rose slowly from the sofa and came towards her. ‘You’re good. I’ll give you that. I believed everything you said out there on that balcony.’
Cara backed up nervously. ‘I didn’t lie.’
He kept on coming as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I believed you hadn’t encouraged Ellery. I believed he was in the wrong. But the car. The balcony scene. The bet …’ He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘I tell you, you really had me going for a while.’
‘You knew about the car.’ Cara stopped moving and cringed. ‘Oh, God. I knew you knew.’
‘But you weren’t going to tell me, were you? You weren’t going to apologise for stealing it.’
‘I didn’t steal it,’ she spluttered. ‘I borrowed it.’
He leaned against the edge of the table in front of her and crossed his arms, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Borrowed it?’
Cara wasn’t fooled by the supposedly relaxed stance; he looked like he’d be on her in a second if she said one wrong word. Her pulse was racing and she took a deep, calming breath. ‘What I did was wrong and I fully admit that. At the time it was raining and I knew I’d never make it to the hotel on time and … I’m really sorry. I would never normally do anything like that but I was tired and stressed and …’ She groped for more words as his expression grew bored. ‘I was—’
‘Selfish?’ He cut through her stammering apology. ‘Wilful? How about spoilt?’
‘Angry with you, if you must know,’ she snapped.
‘Ah, now the truth comes out.’
Cara took a deep breath. Really, there was no good fighting with this man; she’d seen how that had gone down for Martin Ellery.
‘Mr Kelly—’
‘Come on, baby, surely you can call me by my first name. Especially after the way you gazed at me outside before.’
‘I didn’t gaze at you,’ she denied.
He sneered. ‘You not only gazed at me but you parted those sweet lips for my kiss.’
‘I didn’t … I didn’t want you to—’
He pushed away from the table and slowly stalked towards her. ‘You wanted me to. You wanted me to kiss you and a whole lot more. And you will again.’ He stepped closer and Cara collapsed back onto the sofa chair she had unwittingly backed into. ‘You’ll give me everything you would have given your lover and more.’
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