A Secret Seduction: A Secret Until Now / A Sinful Seduction / Secrets of a Shy Socialite

Her eyes widened this time in horror. ‘I do not need a doctor and I’m not overreacting. I’m reacting to you insulting me, interrogating me...’

‘Insult...?’ he drawled, his ebony brows lifting at the suggestion. ‘It is not exactly unknown in the world you work in for people to...dabble.’

Her mouth twisted into a scornful smile. ‘Now, that’s what I admire—a man who isn’t afraid to generalise or judge from his secure position of moral superiority.’

Alex blinked. She had claws and a mouth on her, this woman—a million miles from the two-dimensional sexy purring kitten of his memory. A slow, contemplative smile spread across his lean, hard face. These changes didn’t make her any less attractive, just more of a challenge.

And he had always liked a challenge, or he had once. Recently he had gone for the easy option way too often, as it came with the lack of emotional commitment that was essential to him. To commit yourself to someone and risk losing them, risk losing part of yourself... A man who invited such a thing more than once was to his mind insane.

‘You are clearly feeling better. Actually I was thinking prescription drugs. They can react badly when combined with alcohol.’ He tilted his head in the direction of the room they had just exited. ‘And you were knocking it back a bit in there.’

So not only was she some sort of junkie, he was also calling her a lush!

‘Thanks for the advice.’ Her green eyes glowed with contempt, aimed partly at herself. This hypocritical self-righteous creep was the man she’d waited for? She gave a short bitter laugh. Had she really been that young and stupid?

‘For the record, being a model doesn’t mean I’m part of some seedy subculture. I’m used to people making assumptions—the odd male who thinks that because I’ve advertised underwear I have no problem with being looked at as though I’m a piece of meat on a slab...’ She left a significant pause and had the pleasure of seeing a muscle in his lean cheek clench. ‘Not one of the perks of the job,’ she conceded. ‘However, you have taken insults to a new low. For the record, if I want advice on the clean life I wouldn’t come to you, Mr Arlov. You’re a...a... Not a nice man.’ Not nice? You’re so hard core, Angel. ‘You’re a rodent!’

As she finished on a breathless note of quivering contempt a memory surfaced as strong as it was unbidden: the ferociously strong lines of his face relaxed in sleep, the long eyelashes softening the angle of his carved cheekbones. Not vulnerable and not soft but more... She had never been able to put a name to the quivering sensation in the pit of her stomach. No more could she now, though she felt it again.

Alex’s nostrils flared as he sucked in an outraged breath. He liked feisty but there were limits. ‘And you base this opinion on what?’

‘That you’re a rodent?’ She was already regretting the rather limp animal analogy. If there was an animal she would have likened him to it would have been a wolf, with its piercing eyes, sleek, lean body and dangerous bearing. An illicit little shiver slipped slowly like a cold finger down her spine.

‘I’ve always thought rats got a bad press, but not nice? I’m hurt,’ he mocked. Alex could live without being thought nice.

‘Rodent works for me, but what would you call a married man who sleeps around? For the record, and to save you the effort, these days it takes more than being told someone needs me to get me into bed!’

Even if the person saying the words had a voice that was sin itself.

Six years was a long time and people change but this...! ‘Thanks for the heads up,’ he murmured, adding without missing a beat, ‘What does it take?’

She shook her head, playing dumb because it was on the tip of her tongue to admit not much. It was true, and she was ashamed she had recognised him as her moral Achilles the second he had touched her. It had shocked her so deeply it had triggered the... Whatever it had been, Angel remained reluctant to assign a name to what had happened. She was perfectly willing to accept that panic attacks existed; they simply didn’t happen to her.

‘What does it take to get you into bed these days?’ Whatever it was it would definitely be worth the effort. He had not been this hungry for a woman in a long time—if ever.

‘I’m curious—do you work at being offensive or are you naturally gifted that way?’

‘You didn’t answer my question. On second thought, don’t. Let me get there by myself. It will be more satisfying than being fed the answer.’

The colour flew to her face. The effects of his purred remark on other parts of her anatomy were too mortifying to think about. ‘You’re not getting anywhere with me.’

‘Oh, well, you know what they say—it’s all about the journey not the destination...’ A saying that had always struck Alex as particularly ridiculous, never more so than in this context. He had every intention of reaching, enjoying and extracting every atom of pleasure from his destination. The anticipation of sinking into her warm body and losing himself was strong enough to taste.

She shot him a look of utter disdain. ‘Do you ever listen to anything anyone says?’

He elevated a dark brow and gave a slow smile. Without a word he hooked his hand behind her head and dragged her face up to his. The action was deceptive, the kiss druggingly deep, his tongue sliding between her parted lips while his firm mouth fitted perfectly over hers. Angel registered the heat that was everywhere; she heard the almost feral low moan but didn’t connect the sound with herself.

When it stopped and she managed to prise her heavy eyelids open she found herself looking up into a pair of blazing cosmic-blue eyes. So dizzy she staggered, she gave a choked gasp of horror and stepped backwards, once, twice and amazingly stayed on her feet.

‘The truth?’

As if she were emerging from a nightmare—one she had shamefully fully cooperated with and not struggled to escape—Angel fixed her blazing eyes on his face, swallowed a bolus of acrid self-disgust and wiped her hand across her pumped-up plump lips. Where was her self-respect? Where was her pride? When this man touched her she stopped being... She stopped being herself and became someone that scared her, someone whose actions she couldn’t predict.

She took a deep restorative breath; she would not fall apart. Yes, he’d like to... But no way. He was acting as if it was no big deal and so could she. It was just a pity the message of defiance had not reached her trembling limbs or core temperature.

‘You,’ she contended contemptuously, ‘wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you!’ Rich coming from someone who wasn’t telling him he had a daughter, or couldn’t admit she wouldn’t fight too hard if he decided to kiss her again. She lowered her eyes over the shamed acknowledgment and heard his throaty chuckle.

‘The truth is I’m more into body language.’ Especially when the body in question was as lush and perfectly formed as hers. ‘Words can lie...whereas there are some things that you can’t hide....’

Her head came up with a guilty jerk. ‘I’m not trying to hide anything.’ The moment the words left her lips she knew silence would have been more convincing.

‘For instance, your pupils have expanded so much there is just a thin ring of colour left.’ Her eyes were the purest green he had ever seen flecked with tiny pinpoints of swirling gold. ‘You really are a very good kisser.’

So long as his observations did not drop below neck level she could deal. ‘Kissing is not hard.’ It was the knowing when not to that was hard. ‘It’s a...a...reflex,’ she flung back.

His ebony brows lifted. ‘I’ve never heard it called that before.’

Hating the smugness in his voice, she snapped. ‘You think you know body language? Well, study this,’ she invited, pointing to her own face, pale now and set into a cold mask. ‘I was ill in that room because I saw you and was reminded of an episode in my life I’m not too proud of, in fact I’m deeply ashamed of.’

‘That’s your problem, not mine.’ Shame and guilt were not to his mind something to be yelled about. They were things you lived with; they were the price you paid for mistakes.

Angel drew in a deep shuddering breath and revealed the ultimate unforgivable crime that she laid at his door. ‘You turned me into the other woman.’ Her voice dropped to an emotional whisper as she realised. ‘You turned me into the person I never wanted to be—my mother!’

Alex’s jaw clenched but his anger almost immediately faded. He was very good at reading body language but it did not require his talent to interpret the expression in her emerald eyes as shock.

So Angel had mother issues? That was not his problem, and he had no interest in helping her work her way through them. He refused to recognise an uncharacteristic urge to draw out more details, an urge that directly contradicted his determined lack of interest.

Six years, Angel, but you got there in the end. How could she not have seen it before? ‘Madre di Dio!’ she mocked softly, then gave a little laugh.

The throaty exclamation distracted him. ‘Italian?’

She blinked as it took her a few moments to return from wherever she had gone. ‘Half.’ She didn’t elaborate. It seemed, Angel thought grimly, that she had done too much show and tell already!

Economy of detail was something Alex appreciated in his lovers, actively encouraged, but even he liked a whole sentence.

Well, at least the Latin connection explained the golden glowing looks, and possibly the temper too, though if he said so she would probably not waste the opportunity to accuse him of generalising.

‘I’ve heard of people rewriting history but this is the first time I’ve seen it firsthand. You’re acting as though you were some passive victim. The way I recall it you were an equal and active participant, so the outraged-virgin act is a bit over the top.’ Although amazingly she retained the ability to blush like one—the colour that washed over her cheeks deepened the pale gold of her skin with a rosy sheen. ‘This can’t be the first time you’ve bumped into an old one-night stand?’

Her eyes slid from his as she swallowed the insult, though she doubted he had intended it as such. He wasn’t making a moral judgement. That was just who he thought she was. It was easier to let him continue to hold that opinion than tell him the truth.

What would be his reaction, she wondered, if she came out with, ‘You’re the only man I’ve ever slept with’? She almost laughed at the image of his imagined incredulity. Or worse, he might ask her the question she’d asked herself a thousand times—why him?

How could she begin to explain to him something she didn’t even understand herself?

She made herself look at him and felt her insides shudder as their eyes connected. ‘One like you.’

In case he decided to construe her comment as a compliment she added coldly, ‘One who made me feel...cheap.’ Feeling this was an admission too far, she dodged his gaze and missed the expression that flickered across his lean face. When she raised her eyes his face was stone. ‘I may just be a model, which clearly in your eyes makes me a pill-popping bimbo—’ she took a deep breath and made a conscious effort to control her indignation ‘—but I don’t sleep with married men!’