Taken for Revenge: Bedded for Revenge / Bought by a Billionaire / The Bejewelled Bride

She was halfway down Marylebone High Street when she heard a distinctive voice calling out her name and the sound of footsteps behind her. When she turned round, there was Cesare—his dark face a picture of barely repressed rage.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he demanded.

‘To the station! I wasn’t going to hang around while you and Maceo had your Italian conversation class—I’d already had an exhausting morning.’

His mouth twisted. ‘Yes, I could see that.’

The undertone of accusation in his voice was unmistakable. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Do you think I am blind, Sorcha?’ he asked hotly. ‘I saw what was going on between you and Maceo.’

‘Going on?’ she choked. ‘You mean the flirting, which I assume he does as automatically as breathing with every woman he photographs?’

‘I know what kind of a man he is!’ he declared. ‘And the reputation he has with women. He does not know that there is anything between us, so why wouldn’t he make a pass at you?’

‘But there is nothing between us!’ she flared. And didn’t part of her just long for him to reject that assumption?

But Cesare didn’t seem remotely interested in defining relationships—he was not letting up on the subject which interested him far more. ‘You are saying that you didn’t find him attractive?’

Sorcha sighed. This was difficult—but keeping her own emotions in check to lessen the risk of getting hurt did not mean that she couldn’t be in some way honest about the way she felt.

‘Under different circumstances, I suppose I might have done,’ she said carefully.

His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of circumstances?’

If she had been a child, she would have stamped her foot. ‘Oh, you can be so dense, Cesare! I thought I’d made it clear to you that just because I wasn’t a virgin when I slept with you it doesn’t necessarily follow that no man is safe from my advances! I don’t deal with a multitude of partners at the same time.’ She stared at him. ‘Do you?’

‘No.’ There was a long silence while he stared at her, and suddenly some of the tension left him. Some, but not all. ‘Am I going crazy?’ he questioned softly.

‘I don’t know—are you?’

‘Yes,’ he groaned as he pulled her into his arms. He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t supposed to be like this—he had thought he was going along in a straight line, yet he was encountering twists and turns all along the way.

‘I find myself wanting to kiss green-eyed women in the middle of a busy street,’ he murmured.

‘Cesare—you can’t.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘Think of your reputation.’

‘What about yours?’

Sorcha couldn’t remember the last time she had been kissed in public. It didn’t last long, and it wasn’t one of those awful kisses which made other people feel sick—with the couple looking as if they were enjoying a threecourse meal.

No, it was brief and hard and intense—in effect, it was a powerful stamp and a demonstration of Cesare’s mastery, and when she drew back from it she was breathless, oblivious to the red double-decker bus which trundled by and the people who were turning to look at them.

‘Now what?’ she questioned.

‘Let’s find a hotel,’ he said unsteadily.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SUNLIGHT streamed in through the windows and Sorcha sleepily opened her eyes and yawned. She had often wondered what kind of people spent the afternoon in bed in a hotel, and now she had discovered the answer.

People like her.

She glanced at the figure in the bed beside her. Cesare was sleeping, his magnificent body stretched out like an artist’s model, the olive skin glowing against the rumpled tangle of white sheets. But while his muscular body was hard and lean, his face in repose had a curious softness about it. Thick black lashes formed two shadowy arcs, and the luscious mouth was curved into a sensual little pout.

How many beds had he lain in like this? she wondered. Had he spent anonymous afternoons in luxury hotels in all the major cities around the world? For this was a very different venue from the Urlin Arms, with its faded carpets and temperamental staff. Here the drapes were pure lined silk, the chandelier French, and the writing desk antique.

How many women? Did they all blur into one eager and giving body? In a year’s time would he have to frown to remember just where it was he had stayed with her?

There was a glint from between his half-closed eyes, and a hand reached out to rest with easy familiarity on her thigh. How well sex could mock real intimacy, thought Sorcha with a pang.

‘You look lost in thought,’ he murmured.

‘I was.’

‘Are you going to share it?’

What an emotive word share could be—did he know that? Did women leap on it like hungry little puppies because it hinted at something beyond the communion of bodies which had just taken place?

‘You won’t want to hear.’

‘Try me,’ he murmured, stretching his legs and making no attempt to hide his renewed stirring of desire.

‘I was wondering if you made a habit of this.’

‘This?’

There he was—already playing for time! ‘Having sex with women in anonymous hotel rooms.’

He studied her thoughtfully. ‘What do you think? That every time I visit a city I pick up a beautiful woman and take her to bed?’

‘Do you?’

He laughed. ‘Once—a long time ago—I went through a stage of doing exactly that.’ It had been when he had left her, when he had been hurting—not expecting to hurt, nor wanting to, as if he had a divine right to somehow be immune from the pain of relationships.

There had always been willing women—and at that time it had seemed that the supply of them was endless. It was almost as if his icy indifference had turned them on, providing them with the challenge that they might be the one to break through that cold heart to find the warmth of the man beneath. They never had, of course—and Cesare had turned away more than he had slept with. He had felt like a gorged child who had been given permission to spend the night in a sweetshop.

‘It sounds like every man’s idea of heaven,’ said Sorcha, hoping that her voice didn’t sound sour—because how he lived his life was his business, not hers.

‘It wasn’t,’ he said flatly. ‘Predictability is boring, and when something is so easy to get, it doesn’t have the same value.’

Sorcha went very still. ‘You didn’t have to fight very hard to get me into bed,’ she said in a small voice.

His voice was cool and mocking. ‘You don’t think so? This seduction actually started seven years ago—and, using those sums, I’d say that you were actually the hardest of all.’ Black eyes hardened, became watchful. ‘And what about you, Sorcha, since this seems to be true confession time?’