His Most Exquisite Conquest: A Delicious Deception / The Girl He'd Overlooked / Stepping out of the Shadows

‘Is there any improvement in his condition?’

‘Does this mean Clayborne shares in all areas are set to rise further with the expectation of your taking outright control?’

Questions came thick and fast, with microphones being thrust towards them, so that Rayne realised just how influential and newsworthy the Clayborne name was.

‘You’ve heard the clinic spokesman’s statement. My father’s condition is stable,’ King answered, pressing forward unperturbed, taking it in his stride. ‘I’ve nothing more to add.’

‘Mr Clayborne!’ a female journalist shouted over the jostling heads. ‘Can we deduce from your arriving here accompanied this morning …’ her gossip-hungry gaze fell pointedly on Rayne ‘… that your relationship with super-model Sophie Ringwood is well and truly over?’

Rayne gave a small gasp as a flashbulb suddenly went off in her face.

‘No comment,’ King said, his arm coming instinctively around her.

Rayne was glad of his shielding strength, turning her head into the immaculate pale jacket covering his shoulder as the camera flashed again before he hustled her inside the building.

‘I’m sorry about that.’ His face was grim as they came into the bright modern efficiency of the airy clinic. ‘It comes with the territory, I’m afraid.’

‘Naturally,’ Rayne returned, breathless from all the commotion, feeling the sudden loss of his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t think she could ever get used to living life in the spotlight as he obviously had, she thought, trying not to dwell on what that reporter had said about his super-model girlfriend as he guided her towards a waiting lift.

‘Remember he’s ill,’ King warned when she refused his offer to accompany her into Mitch’s room as they were stepping out of the lift, insisting on going in alone. ‘And it won’t do either of you any good to get into a stew.’

‘As if I would!’ she breathed. ‘Unlike your father, I do have ethics,’ she added under her breath as a passing nurse, looking interestedly at King, gave Rayne the remainder of her smile.

The stark reminder of just how attractive he was to the opposite sex, coupled with nerves over how she was going to broach the subject with Mitch, made her look flushed and uneasy as she steeled herself to enter the man’s room.

It was light and beautifully furnished, with only the bleep of a machine and other necessary equipment around the bed where Mitch was lying, propped up by pillows, reminding her that this wasn’t some luxury hotel.

‘How are you?’ she asked with genuine concern, despite everything. He looked less florid and much more relaxed than she’d seen him before.

‘No need for preliminaries, child.’ Still his impatient self, he was waving her concern aside. ‘You can see how I am. Alive! And you, I believe,’ he went on, his watery blue eyes unsettlingly direct, ‘have something you want to say to me.’

‘All right, then.’ Now she wondered why she had been worrying about exactly what she was going to say, but she should have known how much he was like King. Love them or hate them, the Clayborne men always made things easy by cutting to the chase. Always taking command. Well, like it or not. She could do that too! ‘Why did you do what you did to my father?’ she demanded with her breasts lifting rapidly under the light fabric of her flattering yet simply tailored shift. ‘I don’t care how many agreements he signed. You could have acknowledged that MiracleMed was his concept and you didn’t.’

Mitch’s mouth twisted as though he was considering how best to answer. ‘Did King tell you that?’ he enquired. ‘That I could have done the decent thing and decided not to?’

‘No. He didn’t have to,’ she murmured torturously, guessing that Mitch must have told him that yesterday, which was why King had looked so … what was it? … devastated, almost, she decided, when he had returned from here last night. But he hadn’t told her because, of course, he would have wanted to protect his father, even though deep down he must have been shocked and thoroughly appalled. She didn’t know how she knew that. She just did.

‘Oh, I know about your … wife.’ It hurt excruciatingly to say it. To have to accept that her father had been having an affair. ‘And yes, King did tell me that. But surely that wasn’t enough reason to …’ She couldn’t go on. Pain and resentment, anger and betrayal—it was all there in the anguish marring her face.

‘Have you ever been in love, Rayne?’ The man’s tone had softened as his silver head tilted to study her. ‘No, don’t answer that.’ His breath seemed dragged from him. ‘That wasn’t any excuse. But Karen was the only woman I’d loved since King’s mother deserted me—deserted both of us—for an Australian rancher. I couldn’t bear it when I saw the whole thing happening again. I was demented with anger—and jealousy.’ His voice sounded even more gravelly than usual from his emotion. ‘I figured that Grant had stolen from me—and something that no amount of money could buy—although I’ve realised since that I was half-crazed and too dim to see that she’d only married me for my money. I thought I was justified in taking something that belonged to him, but it’s haunted me all these years in having done that to a colleague and a friend and, for what it’s worth, I am truly, truly sorry.’

Feeling rooted to the spot, Rayne didn’t know what to think—to say. What could she say? she demanded of herself, hurting unbearably.

With tears burning her eyes, her emotions riding high, she did the only thing she could.

She fled.

Only to bump into something warm and solid as she rounded the corner at the end of the corridor.

‘What the …?’

King’s hands were steadying her, his eyes scrutinizing her face and, seeing the tension and the tears she was battling to control, he said merely, understandingly, ‘Come on.’

They were out of the building before she had even realised it.

The reporters were still there, eager for news of a budding romance.

King, however, shouldered his way through them, ignoring their intrusive questions until, finally, and much to Rayne’s relief, he brought her—unmolested, but feeling the worse for wear—back to the car.

‘Would you care to tell me about it?’ he invited when they were on the road again in the exclusive, quiet haven of the Lamborghini.

‘No,’ was all she said.

To her relief, he didn’t press the point. Silently, she thanked him for that.

Maybe in time she would forgive Mitchell Clayborne, she thought, sinking against the luxuriously padded pale leather upholstery. And even forgive her father. But right then all she could do was sit there with the sun filtering through the tinted windscreen, staring sightlessly out at the palm-fringed road and the glittering waves of a teal blue sea, wishing she had never come to Monte Carlo, wishing she could simply escape.

And perhaps King was wise to exactly how she was feeling, she speculated, surprised when, without a word, he took her for a long drive along the dramatically sculpted coast.

Above them, pastel-coloured houses seemed in places to cling precariously to cliff ledges among the forested mountains, while parasol pines, their branches spread with welcoming shade, grew abundantly amidst fig and date palms, interspersed with vibrant splashes of colour from the Mediterranean flowers.

She was beginning to feel better by the time he pulled onto the harbourside of an ancient port lined with a mixture of fishing boats and dinghies and exclusive yachts. A row of craft shops, galleries and cafés had been converted out of the old buildings beside the quay.

‘Watch your footing,’ he cautioned when they were out of the car, taking her hand to guide her safely past tethered ropes and crates of provisions being loaded onto vessels that amazed her with their sheer size. But it was those cool fingers around hers that left her breathless, with a sharp thrill running through her as she thought of the passion they had shared both that morning and the previous night.

His yacht was moored at one end of the ancient harbour and, after he had settled Rayne on board, leaving her brewing coffee in the well-equipped galley, King popped back to the quayside shops for some provisions.

The coffee had just brewed when Rayne heard him step back on board.

She was reaching up for two mugs in one of the modern cupboards just as he came down into the galley. His arm going around her waist made her gasp, as did the arrangement of white perfumed blooms he was holding against her breast and which were filling the air with their heady fragrance.

‘Roses!’ She laughed in breathless surprise.

‘A peace offering,’ King told her, ‘for being such an overbearing oaf—and for jumping to all the wrong conclusions.’ And when she looked enquiringly over her shoulder with a velvety eyebrow raised, he said, ‘Mitch’s previous record with a woman young enough to be his daughter resulted in devastating consequences. You couldn’t blame me for being on my guard.’

‘On your guard?’ She gave a censorious little laugh. ‘You’ve been like a prowling tiger!’

‘Because I knew you were hiding something,’ he said. ‘You confirmed that the first morning when you said Mitch had told you I was in New York, because Mitch hadn’t known. But also, I suspect, because I wanted—’ He broke off, exhaling heavily as he pulled her back against him. ‘Correction. Want you myself.’

Want. Nothing else, Rayne forewarned herself as every nerve leapt in response to the lips that were suddenly caressing the sensitive skin exposed to him by the slashed neckline of her simple shift.

‘I just didn’t want to be turned out before I was able to speak to Mitch. That’s why I didn’t tell the truth,’ she murmured with a sensuous little shudder because of what he was doing to her.

‘If you’d come to me—explained how you felt—I’d have at least looked into it,’ he told her softly against her cheek now. ‘Instead, I was left to pre-judge.’

‘Without knowing anything about me,’ she scolded gently. ‘And you still don’t know anything about me. Or very little,’ she tagged on, with colour appearing along the crest of her cheekbones as she reminded herself that after last night and this morning, physically, at least, he knew her very, very well.

‘Don’t I?’ He was smiling as though hugging some secret he wasn’t prepared to share with her. Or perhaps, she thought, he was just remembering their time in bed together too …