Secret Passion

One hand curved about her nape while the other one held her tightly about the hips, making her aware of the difference in their heights as the hardness of his thighs was crushed against her stomach, stirring a strange emotion there while the hand at her nape offered her mouth up to his like a sacrifice. Like a starving man he took and took, and still he hadn’t taken his fill. Not that Aura didn’t take too, standing on bare tip-toes to entangle her hands in the thickness of his hair as she matched the hunger.

She looked up at him with dazed eyes as he slowly put her back down on the carpeted floor, wondering how she had ever thought him unapproachable, his emotions held firmly in check; there was no mistaking the hunger displayed in his eyes—and it was all directed towards her!

She stepped back, swallowing hard. ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ She should have sounded firmer and not quite so breathless! He shouldn’t have done that, had left her weak and dazed.

‘I’m going to do it again in a moment,’ he promised throatily. ‘But before I do we had better get business out of the way; I don’t think either of us will be capable of discussing it later on!’ he added ruefully.

She held up protesting hands. ‘What happened between us——’

‘Happens every time I look at you,’ he admitted softly, dark green eyes devouring her parted lips as his gaze rested upon them. ‘I want you.’

Aura was speechless. Men just didn’t say things like that, so bluntly it made her blush. They flattered, and cajoled, and coerced, they didn’t tempt. And that last description fitted exactly what James was doing to her, only having to look at him to feel a leap of her senses. But the first three exactly described what Adrian had tried to do to her.

Her mouth tightened at the thought of the other man. ‘You said you came here to discuss business,’ she prompted abruptly.

‘To start with,’ he drawled, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket to hand her the envelope he had removed. ‘Your lease,’ he explained at her questioning look. ‘All it needs is your signature, duly witnessed, of course.’

Aura gaped at him, sure she couldn’t have heard him correctly, quickly opening the envelope to stare at the legal document. It was the lease to her shop, for the length of five years. It was more than she had hoped for. More …?

Her smile faded as she looked up at James warily. ‘What’s the price?’ she snapped.

He frowned. ‘The terms are in the agreement——’

‘I meant your price.’ She looked at him challengingly.

He became suddenly still, and if she had thought him unapproachable this morning she now knew what unapproachable was! His eyes were glacial, his mouth a thin angry line, those ominous slashes grooved into his cheeks. And Aura knew with certainty that she had completely misunderstood this man’s motives in helping her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she rushed into breathless speech. ‘I just—why did you—and your partner, change your minds?’ she frowned.

‘We didn’t,’ he rasped. ‘I had never refused to renew your lease, and Adrian obviously only made the mistake in his haste to be off on his holiday. I’m sorry you’ve had to be upset in this way, but that’s the only explanation I can give you for the mistake.’

She had really insulted him, and he wasn’t going to forgive her easily. But she had been so used to dealing with men like Adrian! ‘I really am sorry I thought— that, about you, James. I——’

He visibly relaxed. ‘I’ll forgive you—because you called me James for the first time.’

He had far from forgiven the slight, she could see that, but he was willing to forget it, for the moment. ‘I—if your partner is away, and unable to sign this document,’ she began slowly, chewing on her inner lip, ‘is it still legal? And binding?’

James smiled at her suspicion this time. ‘Completely,’ he drawled.

‘But——’

“‘Oh ye of little faith”,’ James mocked. ‘One of these days you’ll have to tell me why you’re so distrusting. But not now,’ he accepted ruefully at her silence. ‘OK,’ he sighed. ‘Well, whenever either my partner or I are away the other has complete power. My God, if I had to wait for Adrian’s approval to anything every time he took his wife on holiday I’d never get anything done!’ he scorned.

Aura felt herself pale. Wife? Adrian was married? Oh God, not again, she couldn’t go through that again!

CHAPTER TWO (#u0a695ac5-d2e6-5482-8f2c-9ba99d5e945d)

‘HE,’ James continued gratingly, unaware of Aura’s distress, ‘takes Selina away with sickening regularity.’

She swallowed hard. Married. Why hadn’t she realised that? ‘Sickening?’ she echoed dully, lost in the misery of what could have happened if she had been attracted to Adrian enough to accept the intimate relationship he had wanted.

‘Mm,’ James sighed his impatience. ‘You would have to know Adrian well to realise why. My business partner isn’t—well, he isn’t as faithful as he could be. Damn it, he isn’t faithful at all,’ he rasped disgustedly. ‘As soon as his latest affair ends he whisks his wife away on an expensive holiday. I think his guilty conscience catches up with him,’ he added grimly.

Latest affair? Oh God, was that her? Well, unless Adrian had met someone in the last week it had to be! She felt ill. ‘Doesn’t his wife realise what’s going on?’

James turned away. ‘I’ve never spoken to her about it,’ he bit out.

A wife could usually tell if it went on long enough, and if Adrian made a habit of this …! ‘Perhaps she doesn’t mind,’ Aura suggested lightly. ‘Some women don’t, you know.’

He shrugged. ‘I really wouldn’t know, Selina doesn’t discuss her marriage with me. But after ten years of it——’

‘He’s been unfaithful to her all that time?’ Aura gasped.

His mouth twisted. ‘I would say that even Adrian was faithful to begin with. Besides, there was Robert to consider.’

Aura blinked, almost afraid to ask the question, but knowing she had to. ‘Robert?’

‘Their son,’ James confirmed her worst dread. ‘He’s nine now, and away at boarding school most of the time, but I’m sure my partner would have been a little more discreet in his actions when the boy was still at home.’

A child was involved too. It was like a sickening rerun of a nightmare. Adrian had acted nothing like a man with a wife and child to go home to, hadn’t seemed to care what time of night he left her, or how often he came to see her and took her out. Surely his wife had to realise there was something strange about his constant absences? Maybe she considered the holidays ample recompense. She knew of other women like that.

But what she had learnt about Adrian today made Aura want to run away and hide so that no one need ever know that she had been out with him. My God, when she considered the times she had been out with him; anyone could have seen them together. She wouldn’t be able to survive another scandal like that.

She looked at James Ballantine with wary eyes. ‘I shouldn’t keep you any longer. Thank you for bringing round the lease, and——’

‘Aura,’ he cut in gently, ‘when I told you earlier today I don’t have a mistress, a girlfriend, or a casual date, I should also have included a wife to that list.’ He put his arms about her. ‘I’m not a married man.’

She was relieved to learn that, but she still couldn’t have anything to do with this man. If he should ever realise that she had been his partner’s ‘latest affair’ … Well, not quite, but who would believe a denial of that coming from her? And she was sure that when this man looked at a person with disgust they would feel as if they had been burnt.

She tried to pull out of his arms. ‘I think you should go——’

‘I’d rather not,’ he groaned into her hair.

She stod completely still. ‘I’m asking you to go,’ she said shakily.

He drew back slightly to look down at her. ‘Aura, I realise we don’t know each other very well——’

‘We don’t know each other at all,’ she corrected— and as far as she was concerned it was going to remain that way!

James smiled at her stubborn expression. ‘That can easily be remedied——’

‘I don’t want to know about you,’ she told him vehemently.

‘—I’m thirty-four,’ he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted. ‘The only son of deceased parents. I like children, and animals—especially cats,’ he added as the sleek ginger tomcat entered the room. ‘Hello, boy,’ he greeted, going down on his haunches to tickle the ecstatic animal behind the ears.

‘Marmaduke,’ Aura supplied abruptly. ‘He belongs to my mother.’

‘He’s a beauty.’ Piercing green eyes suddenly looked up at her. ‘Couldn’t we have dinner together one evening?’