The Sins of Sebastian Rey-Defoe

‘No, there isn’t going to be a wedding.’

‘Are you all right?’ Fleur couldn’t decide whether she was relieved or disturbed that her handsome brother looked more abstracted than heartbroken.

‘Fine.’ Was it coincidental that the Far East deal was at a delicate stage in the negotiations? The royal family were relatively broad-minded and progressive but by their nature nervous of scandal...and half a dozen members of that family had been sitting out there watching that debacle.

He struggled not to replay the scene, knowing that anger was an indulgence he could not afford. He needed a clear head if he was going to at least salvage the deal of a lifetime, and for that he needed the facts, needed to know there were no fresh little surprises waiting... Afterwards he could throttle the redhead, or maybe kiss her, he mused, thinking of that mouth and feeling a strong slug of lust.

An image of her face drifted into his head. It had surprised him over the years how well he remembered it, how deep an impression it had made, though not as it turned out as deep as the one he had apparently made on her...

‘How did you meet?’

‘Meet who?’ he said, only half listening to his sister, who was trying to keep up with him.

‘Mari, Mark’s sister.’

In the act of dragging a hand across his hair he stopped midgesture and swung back. His sister, two steps behind, dug in her heels to avoid a collision and looked up expectantly at him.

The furrow between his dark, strongly delineated brows deepened. ‘Last month’s boyfriend Mark...?’

His forehead pleated in concentration as he brought to mind the features of the young man in question. Fleur’s boyfriends were pretty interchangeable. This one had been particularly painfully eager to please and say the right thing. Trading on a boyish smile that probably had an appreciative audience, he’d made a pretty inept attempt to sell his latest business venture.

‘You make it sound like I— All right, yes,’ she admitted with a rueful grimace. ‘He didn’t last long. He started getting way too serious so I cooled things. She, Mari, is his twin, which is kind of cool.’

‘You have met?’

Fleur shook her head. ‘No, but he has photos of them, and that hair is pretty unmistakable, but why,’ she puzzled, ‘are you asking me? You must know that if you’re...’

Seb clenched his jaw and bellowed, ‘I’m not sleeping with her!’

‘Seriously?’ She encountered her brother’s stony look and held up her hands in an attitude of defeat. ‘Fine, I believe you.’

Which might, he reflected grimly, make her the only one.

‘Why not?’

He slowed his step slightly and flung over his shoulder, ‘Why not what?’

‘Aren’t you sleeping with her? She is kind of incredible looking.’

‘Until a few minutes ago I was engaged and I have only met the mad woman once, six years ago.’

Fleur’s eyes widened. ‘Six...! Wow, you must have made an impression! What did you do?’

Not nearly as much as he’d have liked to.

‘She acted as though she hated you, Seb.’

‘You noticed that, too, did you?’

‘It didn’t seem likely you were together. She’s not really your type, is she?’

The disappointment in her voice struck a nerve. ‘Sane, you mean,’ he cut back, adding with a satiric bite, ‘Are there any mental-health problems in your boyfriend’s family?’

‘He’s not my boyfriend but actually he— They don’t know. They were found on a church doorstep when they were babies. It was a big headline at the time—he had cuttings.’

‘They don’t know who their parents are?’ He filed away the information; it might be useful but he doubted it.

Fleur shook her head. ‘No, they’ve only got each other, a bit like us.’

* * *

The men’s voices penetrated the fog that cushioned Mari’s thoughts. It was confusing but comforting. She knew that any second it would clear; she also knew that she didn’t want it to.

‘So she’s awake?’

Mari kept her eyes shut, but she could see the flicker of light through the delicate skin of her eyelids. She wished someone would open a window—the scent of chrysanthemums and incense hung uncomfortably heavily in the still air. The man who had spoken had a very deep voice. If it had a colour it would be rich, night-sky blue-black, and the tactile quality in it made the hairs on her nape tingle.

‘Oh, yes, it was just a faint, no serious damage. She landed on someone’s hat.’

‘Thanks, I can deal from here.’

‘You sure, Seb? I could stay...’

The rest of the interchange was too softly spoken for her to catch, but the sound of a door opening and closing sent a soft tickling rush of cooler air across her face.

‘You might as well get up. I know you’re faking it.’

The voice sounded bored. Mari felt her indignation stir lazily; she wasn’t faking anything.

‘What am I doing here?’

And where was here?

She slowly turned in the direction of the voice, realising her head was cushioned on a hard and dusty pillow thing. Teeth gritted, she prised her eyelids apart. They felt as though she had weights attached to her eyelashes. It took several blinks to bring the face of the man who spoke into focus. The only other person in the room, he was standing in front of a deep window, the sun shining through the stained glass behind him and surrounding his face with a halo of blue flickering light.

Even without the light show it was an incredible face. The combination of the starkly drawn lines of a broad, high forehead, aristocratic cheekbones and sensually sculpted mouth was arresting, but it was the hard, brooding quality in his stare that almost tipped her into panic.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ he drawled.

Then the panic made sense. It came rushing back in full relentless detail without the protective cushion of adrenaline-heated anger.

She had done it. She really had! Oh, God!

Wasn’t she meant to be feeling great or at least vindicated? Seeing the villain on the receiving end of the tit-for-tat payback wasn’t as satisfying as she’d imagined.

Struggling to channel calm, she moistened her lips with her tongue and cleared her throat. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting married?’ The aura of masculinity he projected was even more pronounced in the enclosed space of this room. It had a skin-prickling quality that was very disturbing on more than one level.

‘I should be, yes.’