It Happened in Sydney: In the Australian Billionaire's Arms / Three Times A Bridesmaid... / Expecting Miracle Twins

“Certainly.” He rose to his splendid height, torn between anger and amusement. “You can show me out.”

“I will!” There was an extraordinary intensity in her green eyes. Her head was spinning. Her body was alive with excitements, hungers. She moved swiftly ahead of him, so swiftly the tiny bow on one of her silver ballet shoes hooked on the fringe of the rug. She pitched forward, cursing her haste, only he caught her up from behind.

His strong arms encircled her for the second time that day. Surrounded her like a force field. Her heart leapt into her throat as he pulled her back against him, both of them facing the door.

“Tell me again you hate me,” he murmured in a dark velvety voice.

The polished skin of his cheek rasped thrillingly against hers. Every ounce of strength, physical and mental, seemed to be draining out of her body. “You are hateful!” He was reading her reactions, she knew it. He was taking her to a place she had never gone before. Man, the traditional manipulator of women!

“Don’t lie to me,” he whispered against her ear.

The very air was spitting, crackling, with tension. “Don’t you realize what you’re doing?” Her mind was crashing. Her heart was crashing. For these brief moments she was beset by intolerable yearnings, abruptly made aware of the passionate red blood in her.

“David?” She tried to wrest away from him, but he held firm.

A certain contempt he felt for himself was no match for his desire for her. The heady incense of sex was an inciting vapour that hung in the air. There had to be countless instances of overwhelming temptation but he had never felt anything remotely like this before. There were only two possible options available to him. Let her go. Or give into this furious passion. She was bent forward over his arm. His arms had effectively locked her in. The tips of his fingers were pressing into the undersides of her beautiful high breasts. Still he didn’t release her. It was almost as though he were under a spell with all his senses inflamed.

Sonya was frantic to settle on a course of action. Her knees were buckling under the onslaught. Heat had turned to scorch. The delta between her legs had turned moist. “David, you mustn’t do this.”

True. True. True.

The two of them were locked into an impossible attraction. He could feel her trembling. “I know,” he said harshly, turning her to face him. It was a mistake. He had her exactly where he wanted her, only he knew he had to let her go. The pity was he couldn’t find the time or space to regain control. With a half-maddened exclamation, he brought his dark head down low over hers, furious with himself that he wanted her so badly. The voice of reason had quietened into nothingness …

His kiss was fierce. He had her beautiful body in his arms, their two bodies, male and female, connecting in an extravagantly erotic way. His strong male drive was urging him on, fuelling him with energy. At some point he realized she was having difficulty coping with such an onslaught. He lifted his mouth fractionally from hers, allowing her to take breath … only he was back to kissing her. He had never kissed a woman so passionately. He hadn’t even known he could reach such a level of wanting, needing. He was desperate for her response. His fingers twined in a handful of her hair, holding her face up to him. Her mouth was so sweetly, so silkily lush he couldn’t drag his own away.

Stop. You’ve got to stop. Or be damned.

The voice in his head had increased to a warning blast.

This is the woman Marcus has come to love.

Madness to continue to hold her, but he was losing the battling against this wild rage of emotion. He wanted to sweep her up and carry her down the corridor to her bedroom. He wanted to strip her dress from her, ablaze with the desire to feel skin on skin. He wanted to kiss and caress her all over her naked body with its satiny white skin. For minutes there it had felt so completely right.

But it was hopelessly wrong. The verdict cold and hard.

How could he see people hurt? The future of the three of them was in jeopardy. The eternal triangle. Marcus, himself and Sonya, the woman they both wanted. Yet hadn’t it been inevitable from the first moment their eyes met?

With a monumental effort he forced himself to let her go, aware he was breathing as heavily as if he had run the four-minute mile. Her beautiful hair was in total disarray, fanning out like a halo around her emotion charged face. She looked so vulnerable, so young, his heart smote him.

“Sonya, forgive me. I hadn’t meant that to happen.” They were like a pair of conspiratorial lovers filled with as much agony as ecstasy.

Her voice shook so badly, it betrayed her. Could it be possible he had deliberately engineered this, seeking her reaction? “You rich people are so ruthless!” Her distressed mind turned to tactics. “Who are you to drag me into your arms? What is your agenda? We both know you have one.” She had lost sight of her own.

“Agenda? Don’t talk rubbish.” His response was curt. “You know damned well I’m attracted to you.” He could have laughed at the sheer inadequacy of the word. Magnetized? Mesmerized? Spellbound?

“Now this is very interesting.” She was transformed into a state of the utmost hostility. “You’re attracted to me!” The entrenched defence mechanisms were back in place.

“Neither of us sought it,” he said. “Neither of us wanted it. It just happened.”

“Just happened?” she cried. “Oh, you’re very convincing.”

“So were you, just then, beautiful Sonya. Okay, I admit my mistake. I was the aggressor. But it’s too late now to make a fuss. I’m sorry if I hurt you.” His dark eyes moved slowly over her body.

She took a deep shaky breath, feeling weak and ashamed. “You are mad, mad, mad!”

“You’re so damned right,” he agreed tonelessly, his handsome face taut.

“You are leaving.”

It was a statement, not a question.

Still he turned back. “You’d prefer me to stay?” There was hard mockery in his brilliant eyes when the temptation to stay was overwhelming.

“You are leaving,” she repeated. ‘This is not your finest hour, David Wainwright.”

“I agree. I’m afraid I overestimated my powers of self-control. So how do I go about making reparation? I’m too much of a gentleman to ask you to account for your behaviour. There’s a lot of passion dammed up behind the Ice Princess façade, isn’t there, Sonya? Floods of it!”

She felt as if she were thrashing about in a cage. “I’ve had enough! I know what you’re up to. You are not exonerated. You are wanting me to fall in love with you. That is your strategy. I should have been prepared. After all, men have been preying on the weakness of women since the dawn of time. Your precious Marcus would be safe from my greedy clutches. How could dear sweet Marcus compare to you? I can’t deny your sexual power. But I can refuse to succumb to it. I’ve had no ordinary life. I’ve had years and years of—” She had to break off, sick with herself, sick with him. She took a strangled intake of breath. “Don’t ever touch me again!”

“But we can’t forget the here and now.” Some demon was in him. The way she spoke to him. The combative glitter in her emerald eyes. Who did she think she was? She affected him so powerfully in all the right ways. And all the wrong ways. Anger engulfed him. He pulled her back into his arms, outrage overcoming his natural protective feelings towards women. His sexual power? he thought grimly. What about hers?

His kiss was like a brand. Sonya tried to grit her teeth, but his tongue forced entry into her mouth. An avalanche of dark pleasure had her near collapsing against him.

Equally furiously he drew back. “I’d say you returned my kisses, you little fraud.”

Without a second’s hesitation she lifted her arm, hellbent on leaving the imprint of her fingers on his handsome, hateful face.

He caught her wrist mid-flight. “Don’t mess with me, Sonya,” he rasped.

“And blessings on you too!” she cried. “Maybe I will marry your Marcus. Outrage your entire family, Lady Palmerston who has been so kind to me, your friends, your whole circle, that witch of a Paula Rowlands. Go grab her if you want to grab a woman. She’s desperate for you to do it. But you can’t have me.”

He shot out a hand to grasp the door knob. “You sure about that?” he asked with a lick of contempt. “Are you sure you can cross me?”

She laughed, throwing up her chin. “Trust me, David Wainwright. I’ve had plenty of experience of villains.”

It was an admission that sobered him entirely. “I suggest if one shows up, Sonya, you give me a ring.” He couldn’t have been more serious.

“What use are you to me?” The stormy expression in her green eyes became uncertain.

He opened the door. “If you’re in trouble—any kind of trouble—you had better contact me,” he said. “Whatever else I am, Sonya, I’m no villain.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SONYA had never thought to see Paula Rowlands come into her shop, given Paula’s vehement promise that would never happen, but lo and behold there she was!

Another catastrophic day?

And the timing was terrible! She was having lunch with Camilla in just over a half-hour. Paula wasn’t alone. An older woman was with her, both of them stern faced, dressed to the nines. This was the mother from hell obviously. Family resemblance was apparent; the expressions were identical. They might have been called as witnesses in an unsavoury court case involving her.