His Scandalous Mistress: The Master's Mistress / Count Toussaint's Pregnant Mistress / Castellano's Mistress of Revenge

Over the years Leonard had found a woman, or women, in every foreign city he visited—despite the fact that he’d had a wife and daughter waiting for him at home in London.

A wife who had loved him so much she had been willing to overlook Leonard’s affairs as long as he always came home to her. But as the years had slowly passed she had become more and more disenchanted and bitter over the man who simply couldn’t, or wouldn’t, remain faithful to her. To the extent that Stella had eventually begun drinking whenever Leonard was away from home, in an effort to block out all thought of him with those other women.

Stella had been drinking heavily the night she had driven into a brick wall and been killed instantly…

Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth had stood beside her mother’s newly covered grave only days later, and had watched as her father wept for his dead and disillusioned wife. She had sworn to herself there and then that she would never, ever love someone in the same helpless way that her mother had loved her father.

In the same way Maggie Sullivan had loved her husband?

It was ironic—unbelievable, really—that two people who were as unalike as Elizabeth and Rogan undoubtedly were had both been shaped into the adults they now were by the unhappiness of their parents’ marriages.

Elizabeth: solitary, serious and academic, determined never to fall in love.

Rogan: just as solitary, but wild and untamed—untameable!—and just as determined never to fall in love…

‘Glass of red wine?’ Rogan indicated the glass he held. ‘Elizabeth?’ he prompted with a frown as she made no effort to move away from the doorway of the drawing room.

But for the moment Elizabeth couldn’t move. In fact, she had been rooted to the spot from the moment she had first entered the room and seen Rogan.

A Rogan who looked so handsome this evening he literally took her breath away!

Over the last twenty-four hours she had become accustomed to seeing him in the black clothing and boots he habitually wore, and which somehow seemed to suit the aura of danger that always surrounded him.

Tonight he wore a silk shirt the colour of freshly brewed espresso coffee that hinted at the muscled chest beneath rather than emphasised it, and a pair of expertly tailored trousers in the same dark coffee colour. With his long hair brushed back from that intelligent brow, and those dark, enigmatic eyes, Rogan appeared every bit as threatening, if not more so, as he had in the black clothing he preferred.

‘Elizabeth?’ Rogan pressed again impatiently; what on earth was wrong with the woman?

After her earlier comments concerning the clothes he wore, he had decided to change before dinner. But as the time to eat had drawn nearer, with no sign of Elizabeth, he had been starting to wonder if she was going to join him after all. If he hadn’t frightened her off completely earlier this afternoon after almost taking her on top of his father’s desk!

Only to turn a few seconds ago and see her standing in the doorway. Unmoving, and warily silent. So far in their acquaintance Elizabeth had seemed to have plenty to say about everything. Including himself.

Not that it was any chore to just look at her. Her auburn hair was arranged in its usual perky style, those sooty lashes perfectly framed the deep blue of her eyes, and she had brushed a peach gloss onto the fullness of her lips. In a fitted knee-length sleeveless dress of midnight-blue silk, Elizabeth was certainly easy on the eye.

Who would ever have guessed that, beneath those unflattering cotton pyjamas and the tailored trousers she had worn today, Elizabeth Brown had the most gloriously sexy legs Rogan had ever seen? Lightly tanned, they were slender and shapely, the ankles appearing delicate above the two-inch heels of the strappy dark blue sandals she wore.

Dr Elizabeth Brown wasn’t just beautiful; she was hot!

‘No red wine for me, thank you.’The snappy anger in the deep blue of her eyes as she walked further into the room told Rogan that she had noted his admiring gaze and didn’t appreciate it.

Well, that was just too bad. If she didn’t want anyone to look—didn’t want Rogan to look—then she should have stayed in the safe businesslike black trousers and blouse!

Rogan looked amused. ‘Is that because you would prefer white wine, or would you like something else instead?’

‘No, thank you. I don’t drink alcohol,’ Elizabeth answered abruptly as she sat down in one of the armchairs. ‘At all,’ she added, just so that there should be no more confusion.

‘Good for you,’ he drawled, before moving to sit in the armchair opposite hers, that dark gaze narrow and enigmatic. ‘Do you smoke?’

‘No.’

‘Take drugs?’

Her mouth thinned in distaste. ‘Certainly not!’

‘Sleep with married men?’

Her gaze narrowed impatiently. ‘Rogan—’

‘Just kidding!’ He grinned, even as he held up his hand in apology. ‘So, you’re a woman without vices… ’

It was a statement rather than a question, and Elizabeth didn’t bother to answer. How could she when this afternoon she had literally melted in this man’s arms?

‘How about you, Rogan? Obviously you drink alcohol.’

‘In moderation,’ he put in softly, and he raised his glass in a silent toast to her before taking a sip of the ruby-red wine.

‘Smoke?’

‘Not for years.’

‘Take drugs?’

‘Never,’ he answered, as flatly as she had earlier.

Elizabeth raised auburn brows. ‘Sleep with married women?’

‘Again, never,’ he stated.

Her mouth twisted humourlessly. ‘How about unmarried women?’

‘I’m thirty-three years old, Elizabeth; what do you think?’ he taunted with a hard grin.

Elizabeth thought she should never have joined in this ridiculous conversation! ‘I think, as you pointed out earlier—’ oh-so-succinctly! ‘—that it’s none of my business!’

Rogan’s grin widened, his teeth very white and even against that bronzed skin. ‘My guess is you didn’t mean to ask that last question.’

No, she hadn’t. Of course Rogan Sullivan slept with unmarried women—although ‘slept with’ was probably a complete misnomer for what he did when he was in bed with a woman!

Elizabeth wasn’t happy about the way his dark gaze followed the movement as she nervously crossed one bare knee over the other…

She instantly uncrossed them. ‘Perhaps we should go through to dinner?’

‘You seem a little… tense this evening, Elizabeth?’ He met her gaze with steady intensity.

Her eyes widened. ‘I’m not in the least tense.’

‘No?’

‘No!’ Elizabeth denied vehemently, knowing that her tone, and the way she stood up so suddenly, instantly gave the lie to her claim.