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

With a muffled exclamation he did it for her, then he started the engine, turning a taut profile. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked with severity.

“I might ask you the same question,” she retorted, refusing to give him the psychological advantage. “You’re all churned up and it isn’t only Marcus’s sick turn, upsetting as it is. It’s the ring that’s bugging you. So does he have a heart condition or what?”

He didn’t answer until they were out onto the road. “Not that I know of,” he said tersely. “Bart is right. Marcus hasn’t looked after himself in years. We all thought he was committing a form of slow suicide after Lucy died. I know he’s had to have a course of B12 injections. Iron. Ah, what the hell? The sick turn is bound to have happened because he’s worked himself into a lather over you.”

“That’s right, blame me. It’s not unexpected like Marcus giving me the ring was. You need a scapegoat. He’s only fifty-five, isn’t he?” she challenged angrily. “He isn’t seventy or eighty!”

He threw her a scathing glance. “I ask you. Would seventy or eighty have been too much mileage on the clock for you? What about ninety? Would you have said yes, then?”

She drew in a ragged breath. “I haven’t said yes now. I really don’t appreciate being insulted. Marcus asked me in for a few minutes. We went into the drawing room. I sat down. Next thing, Marcus reached into his pocket, and before I could manage a word he’s shoving a ring on my finger.”

He made a sound of utter disbelief. “That must have shocked you out of your mind, Sonya darling.”

The darling was a dark insult, but her heart gave a crazy jolt. “This is no time for us to fight, surely? I’m very fond of Marcus. He’s a good, kind man, but I didn’t ask him to fall in love with me. It took me a while to even see it coming.”

“But you did see eventually, Sonya,” he jeered. “You knew you had him in the palm of your hand. Now you’ve got the pay-off.”

She was so angry she felt like jumping out of the car. “Here, have it!” she cried tempestuously as she wrenched off the ring. “It weighs a ton. You have it. It’ll be a lot safer with you.” She put it into the glovebox.

His smile was one of outright mockery. “You’re lost to the stage, Sonya. But tell me, is there any history of psychotic behaviour in your family? You have to have one, even if they’re tucked well out of sight.”

“Oh, I’ve got one all right,” she answered through clenched teeth. “You wouldn’t know about the sort of people I’ve had to live with, David Wainwright with your life of privilege, loved and admired on all sides. You wouldn’t know much about the kind of relatives I have.”

“Professional con artists, I suspect,” he said when it was cruel. “A crime family, maybe? Some in prison?”

“Why don’t you just drive?”

She had the door of the Mercedes open before he had come to a complete stop.

“That was stupid,” he reprimanded her, getting out. “I’ll see you to your door.”

“You stay here.” Her hostility was in plain sight. “I’m in shock.”

“Me too. But while Marcus is out of commission, I’m responsible for the safety of his fiancée,” he said with suave contempt.

She threw up her shining head. “What part of ‘I’m in shock’ don’t you understand?”

“Let’s go up,” he said, moving purposefully towards her.

Had she resisted, she wouldn’t have been in the least surprised had he thrown her over his shoulder.

A couple from the first floor was waiting for the lift. Good evenings were exchanged. The young woman could scarcely drag her eyes off Holt. Her partner was so busy staring at Sonya when the lift stopped at their floor he forgot to get out. His girlfriend gave him a sharp reminder.

“I don’t think I’ll lose my way if I walk myself to my door,” Sonya said with heavy sarcasm. The lift had stopped at her floor. The door opened.

He held the diamond ring in his hand. He was staring down at it. “I can’t keep this. It was given to you.”

“Okay, I have to give it back!” Sonya’s voice was a blend of anguish and anger. “I’m not making excuses for myself, David, but really Marcus presumed a great deal.”

“Oh, wake up!” he exhorted her. “You knew what you were getting into.” He took hold of her arm, walking her down the quiet corridor. “Give me the key.”

“I won’t let you in if it’s the last thing I do,” she said with vehemence.

“What are you frightened of?” His reply held a taunt.

“What are you frightened of?” She stared up into his fathomless dark eyes.

“Ruining everything for everybody, maybe,” he said bleakly.

It shocked her. She stood back as he opened the door.

He pulled her in, shutting them into the quiet of the apartment. The fragrance she was wearing was swirling about in the air between them. It might have had the power of a drug. “Then there’s this! “ He was caught up by an unstoppable surge. It had him pressing her slender body back against the closed door.

“Oh, yes, there’s this!” Colour lit her flawless white skin. The tension between them was palpable, electric. Once again they were in a dangerous place, the shadowy turbulence growing greater.

“I’m waiting for you to stop me,” he challenged. Adrenalin was flooding his veins. He manoeuvred his body ever closer to hers, the softness of a woman, the hard musculature of a man.

She turned her head from side to side, straining to keep some measure of control over the situation. “Even if I screamed it wouldn’t stop you.”

“Not that you’re about to scream,” he taunted, lifting his arms to position them on both sides of her blonde head. “You’re pinned in, Sonya.” She was staring up at him with her beautiful mesmeric eyes. “How long have I known you?” he asked, astonished by how little time had passed.

“Maybe you knew me in another life?” Her voice dropped low.

Another trick? Her voice was magic, the little foreign accent, the wide range of intonations, the pitch. That was the trouble with powerful attraction. The alarming way it took control.

“Strangely enough, I believe it.” He cupped the globe of her small breast in his hand. Then with a muffled exclamation he bent his head and crushed her captive silken mouth….

Sparks lit into a conflagration. Sensation was boundless; a wild clamouring in the blood that beat up waves of heat. It was as if every single light, every appliance in the apartment were turned on and burning, sucking in all the air. She gave a little moan, thinking nothing could ever be the same again. Her breasts were throbbing under his urgent caressing hands, the nipples gone cherry-hard when she felt her flesh were actually dissolving …

If the ringing phone had not penetrated the thickly meshed web they were caught into, he didn’t know what would have happened. One minute they were mindlessly devouring each other, the next they were forced to break apart, breathless and trembling, trying to make the adjustment to the real world.

“That’s the phone,” she said, now humiliated by her headlong response to him.

He laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it. “Don’t answer it.”

“I should.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her legs were so weak it was an effort to reach the kitchen. When she picked up the receiver, she heard a woman’s familiar voice, speaking with urgency.

“Sonya, it’s Rowena. Would David be with you? I’ve had a call from the hospital. Marcus has been admitted.”

“Then you know he had a sick turn, Lady Palmerston,” Sonya said. “He gave us such a fright. I’ll put David on. He brought me home.”

“Thank you, dear.”

She held out the phone to David. He took it, catching her around the waist and locking her into his grip. She freed herself none the less, moving away to allow him to speak in private. For years she had known the desperation of flight. Of always being on the run from those who would do her harm. She had never known the desperation of passion. He had felt it as much as she.

It was quiet on the balcony. She had filled it with a luxuriant array of plants in large pots; flowering baskets she had attached to the brick wall. She stood in the night air, tears gathering in her eyes. She had long regarded crying as an intolerable indulgence. It had never helped her. Now she found herself on the verge of tears. For years she had told herself she wasn’t scared of anything. But she was scared. She was scared of the depth of feeling she had for David Wainwright. She knew nothing would come of the violent attraction they felt for each other. It could only end badly. She was very worried about Marcus as well. Worried about what she would have to tell him. But when? For ghastly moments earlier that night she’d thought Marcus was about to suffer a heart attack. As it was, they wouldn’t know the results of his tests for days.

You’re in over your head, girl.