Olivero's Outrageous Proposal

You lose! If earlier she had felt like some vulnerable prey, now the sensation was much more like some tasty bone being fought over by two bad-tempered dogs.

What did he think she was? Some sort of trophy—just a notch on his bedpost? Not that they had got as far as the bed! Just let them get rid of Marcus and she would make him pay for that.

Dario moved past her, taking hold of the door and moving it to block Marcus’s entrance.

‘Goodnight, Marcus,’ he said pointedly.

‘I swear you’ll regret this.’ It was so different this time. The voice of darkness with threat threaded through every word. ‘You’ll...’

‘Goodnight, Marcus.’

Dario pushed the door even closer to being shut, blocking out the sight of Marcus’s enraged face. Alyse found that she was holding her breath, not knowing what she would do if he refused to leave. Would they have to call the police?

She could just imagine what her father’s reaction would be if she was involved in some scandal that hit the newspapers, tonight of all nights. He had asked her—begged her—not to rile Kavanaugh, to keep the family name out of the gossip columns. It would just destroy her mother, who had recently retreated into one of her black depressions. That was why she had decided on the plan that was supposed to make Marcus reject the idea of marriage. A plan that now seemed to have had more effect than she could ever have dreamed of.

‘Damn you to hell, Olivero!’ Marcus flung one more violent outburst at the other man.

But then, to Alyse’s relief, he finally turned and marched off down the corridor, swearing as he went.

‘At last.’

Dario kicked the door shut behind him, his smile an expression of grim satisfaction as he turned back to Alyse.

‘I think we’ve seen the back of him.’

‘Mmm...’

Alyse was preoccupied with finally hitching her dress up so that it sat securely on her shoulders again, struggling to get her hands on the pull of the zip at her waist, to restore her appearance to normality.

‘So where were we?’

She hadn’t seen him come closer, prowling soft as a hunting cat, so she jumped violently when he touched her, warm and soft on her cheek.

‘What?’ Her head snapped up, her fumbling grip freezing on the tab of the zip.

His hand was on her hair, long fingers tangling in the fall of blonde, smoothing through the silky strands when she realised just what he meant and tensed up sharply.

‘You think we— You can just take up from where you left off?’

‘Why not?’ He actually sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘What’s changed?’

‘What’s... You...’

The words spluttered to a halt inside her head, shock, disbelief and sheer blind fury warring to find the uppermost spot. Fury won. It was the memory of that casually triumphant ‘You lose