Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure

‘He’ll be worried about me.’

Olivier’s jaw tensed. ‘Of course,’ he said sourly. ‘I’m not good enough to take his little sister out.’

She shook her head and gave a sort of rueful laugh. ‘Not really. Not just that. It’s because I…’ She stopped, and in the orange glow of the street light he saw her bite her lip.

‘Go on.’

‘Nothing.’ She turned to look out of the window, so all he could see was the sharp line of her cheekbone and the hollow beneath it. ‘I’ve given him cause to worry in the past, that’s all. Poor old Miles is the one who has to bail me out and pick up the pieces.’

‘What about your parents? Where are they?’

‘My father’s a diplomat. He’s posted in Cairo at the moment, but my parents have always lived abroad. Because Miles is nine years older than me he’s always taken on the role of looking after me.’

Olivier tapped a finger impatiently on the butter-soft leather upholstery. Looking after her? Was that what he called it? From what he’d seen, Miles was just one in a long line of arrogant bastards who treated his sister like a possession. Like an object, with no right to thoughts and feelings and opinions of her own.

Hatred rose in his throat, hot and acidic, and then the irony of his reaction reasserted itself.

Touché.

The car slowed and came to a halt in a line of traffic waiting to pull up in front of the gallery’s Millbank entrance. As it moved forwards again, to swing across the road, the sudden motion threw Bella against Olivier for a moment, and he automatically put a hand out to steady her. He could feel her heat through the slippery silk of her dress. Lust tore through him, jagged and painful, like shrapnel.