The Helen Bianchin Collection

Savoir-faire was difficult, given the towelling bathrobe’s hem trailed the floor, the folded-back sleeves had long become unfolded and hung down past her fingertips, and the cross-over front edges were in danger of parting. As to the waist tie…forget it!

She discarded the laptop on one of the wall tables in the lobby, aware Nicos was right behind her.

‘Let’s take it in the lounge, shall we?’

Katrina halted mid-step, and turned to face him. ‘What’s wrong with right here?’ She dropped her bag, placed her clothes down beside it, then tugged the edges of the robe into place, and fastened the tie belt.

She resembled a belligerent child playing dressing up, he mused, fighting a need to verbally flay her for giving him a few of the worst hours in his life.

‘Suppose you explain why you hung up on me, refused to take my calls, didn’t bother leaving a message, weren’t home, and left me to conduct a wild-goose chase in order to track you down?’

A hand lifted and she began counting off each query in turn with an angry indignance that grew by the second.

‘It should be self-explanatory! You declined to tell me you were flying to Brisbane, presumably with the express purpose of seeing Georgia and your son.’ Her eyes glittered with fury. ‘I had to be informed of it by Enrique…a fact you confirmed. How do you think I felt?’

‘So you decided to run away.’

‘I did not run away!’

‘What else would you call booking into a hotel and leaving me no word of where you were?’

‘Dammit, I was so angry, I wanted to hit you!’ she cried, wanting to rail her fists against him. For hurting her afresh.

‘If you’d taken one of my calls—’

‘You could have explained?’

‘Yes.’

Her chin tilted. ‘Told me what you thought I wanted to hear?’

‘The truth.’

‘Which is?’

‘Months of legal dialogue are about to reach a conclusion.’ His eyes darkened measurably. ‘Georgia won a reprieve during her pregnancy against DNA testing to prove paternity. With the birth, that reprieve has been negated.’ Frustration became evident, and he banked it down. ‘There was a delay in the results being given to my legal representative. Today’s meeting between both lawyers was an effort to expedite the release of that information.’ He waited a beat. ‘I went along in the hope of adding some weight to legal argument.’

‘And were you successful?’

‘It may take a few more days.’

‘At the time you asked me to believe Georgia was a psychotic whose jealousy got so out of hand she became pregnant by someone else and named you as the father in a deliberate attempt to break up our marriage,’ Katrina relayed, vividly recalling the photos, dates, that Georgia had presented as proof of her affair with Nicos. ‘I didn’t buy that story at the time…’ she took a deep breath and let it out slowly ‘…any more than I buy it now.’

‘Your trust in me is heart-warming.’

All the anger and pain rose to the surface. ‘Damn you, Nicos. She was your mistress for more than a year!’

‘A relationship that was over long before I met you.’ He paused, his gaze lancing hers. ‘If, as she claims, she was the love of my life…why did I marry you?’

‘My prospective inheritance?’

His eyes darkened with glittering rage, and for one brief second she thought he might strike her. A muscle tensed at the edge of his jaw as he sought control.

‘Get out of my sight before I do something regrettable,’ Nicos demanded in a tight bitter voice that caused her stomach to knot with apprehension.

For a heart-stopping second she hesitated, and he ground out, ‘Go. Or, by the living God, you’ll wish you’d never been born.’

Katrina remained where she was. It was a matter of strength. Hers. Mentally, emotionally. And she refused to slink away from him in fear.

‘Fool,’ he said with chilling softness.

In one swift movement he lifted her over one shoulder and strode upstairs. Restrained violence emanated from his taut frame, and his hands were hard on her soft flesh as he released her unceremoniously down onto the large bed they shared.

He discarded his jacket, tore off his tie, and she watched in mesmerised fascination as his shoes and trousers followed. Then his shirt, and lastly his briefs.

A naked, gloriously aroused male, slim-hipped, superb musculature, he resembled a powerful force as he followed her down onto the bed.

His hands reached for her robe and dragged the edges apart, then he lowered his head and feasted on her breasts in a manner that caused her to whimper as he crossed the line between pleasure and pain.

There were no preliminaries as he took her in one powerful thrust, and she cried out as he plunged deep, then withdrew to plunge even deeper. Repeating the action again and again.

This…this was an annihilation, a primitive, no-holds-barred mating that spared no thought to seduction or pleasure. Only the need to slake a raw, barbarous hunger.

He roused in her a matching anger, and she reared up and sank her teeth into the muscle surrounding one male nipple…and heard his husky growl: his revenge was merciless, and she was repaying it in kind.

It was her only victory as he straddled her and pushed her arms above her head. Helpless, powerless, she tossed her head from side to side as he held her captive and branded her his own.

With each grazing bite, her muscles tightened around him, the spasms increasing in intensity until they merged as one.

It was more than she could bear, and she began to plead, then beg, willing him to stop. He did, emptying himself into her in a shuddering climax, then in one fluid movement he rolled onto his back, taking her with him.

She wanted to disengage and scramble to the outer edge of the bed, except he pulled her down against him and held her close.

His breathing was equally rapid as her own, and she lay still, her eyes closed against the sight of him, her mind blanking out the ravaged, almost savage, sex.

Nicos held her throughout the night, and when she thought he slept she slowly shifted her body, only to have him anchor her in close against him.

CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_a9842559-0c73-5dd1-929f-ca9f8147ff29)

KATRINA woke to find she was alone, and for a moment she lay still as images of the previous night emerged, haunting her with their pagan intensity.

Nicos’s hunger had been wild, unprincipled…without consequence or thought except to assuage a primeval need.

His controlled anger was infinitely more formidable than if he’d raised his voice or had resorted to smashing an inanimate object. Of which there were a few exquisite antique pieces positioned on beautiful rosewood chests flanking the lobby.

She shifted position, tentatively stretching her body…and felt the slight pull of ill-used muscles. There was an ache deep within, a remnant of his possession, and she was conscious of the sensation with each move she made.

What time was it? She rolled onto her side to check the digital clock, then sat upright in shocked surprise. Eight?