Bound By The Marcolini Diamonds

She nodded, hastily disguising a nervous swallow.

‘Only if I am invited,’ he said with a sexy slant of his mouth.

Sabrina pulled her own mouth into a prim line. ‘That is not going to happen.’

‘No, of course not,’ he said as his smile turned to a sneer. ‘You have a taste for the forbidden, do you not? The married man is more your style.’

‘I can assure you that all of your married friends will be quite safe from me,’ she said with a lift of her chin.

He took her chin between his finger and thumb, his eyes boring into hers. ‘I perhaps should remind you at this point of the behaviour I expect from you during the period of our marriage,’ he said.

Sabrina considered pulling out of his hold, but, though it was firm enough to make her think twice, it was somehow gentle enough for her not to even want to try. She felt the slow but steady burn of his touch, the heat of him going to her core where a cauldron of need was still on the boil from the last time he had come this close. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, her stomach giving a little kick of awareness when he brushed the pad of his thumb over where her tongue had just been. It was like negative meeting positive, fire meeting fuel, flame meeting tinder. She felt her whole body respond; her breasts peaked, her inner thighs trembled and her heart didn’t just pick up its pace, it all-out sprinted. ‘I—I’m not sure what you expect me to do,’ she said, trying to steady her out-of-control breathing. ‘It’s not as if we are, er, in love or anything—and for that matter I am not prepared to pretend we are.’

His eyes continued to hold hers. ‘I am glad you mentioned that particular four-letter word,’ he said. ‘You are more than welcome in my bed, but do not get any ideas about making this arrangement more permanent. I know how a woman’s mind works, so any vows of love from you will be disregarded henceforth.’

Sabrina was taken aback by his words. She bristled at his arrogant assumption that she would fall in love with him so readily or, even more insulting, pretend to do so for personal gain. It just went to show the sort of women he sought to warm his bed. He wanted shallow and short term, not deep, caring and committed. ‘I could never love someone like you,’ she threw back. ‘You are the very opposite of what I want in a partner.’

He smiled that mocking smile again. ‘Is that so?’

She pulled her shoulders back, her eyes flashing their dislike of him. ‘You are selfish, for one thing,’ she said. ‘And ruthless, and…and…’ She hunted for some other words to describe him, but it totally confounded her that all she could think of was how good he was with Molly. For a playboy he certainly was astonishingly at ease around a tiny baby. He handled Molly with care and confidence. He had been the same at the christening, kissing her tiny nose and each of her miniscule fingertips one by one, his normally cynical and hard, black-brown eyes all but melting.

‘But I am rich,’ he said, still smiling. ‘That surely makes up for what else I lack, sì?”

‘You do not have enough money to tempt me,’ Sabrina said with a toss of her head.

‘We will see,’ he said, and opened the passenger door.

She frowned at him again. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I am holding the door open for you.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Yes, I can see that, but why? I can’t drive it from this side, in case you haven’t noticed.’

‘I will drive,’ he said. ‘You can tell me where to go.’

‘That will be the easy part,’ she said with a pert look. ‘Go to hell.’

His dark eyes glinted with amusement. ‘Not unless I get to take you with me,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling we could really ramp up the heat down there with just a kiss or two, let alone the full works.’

Sabrina pressed her lips into a flat line of disdain. ‘You don’t get to sample the goods, Mario, they’re not on offer.’ Not any more, she mentally tacked on, not entirely sure if it was a promise or a prayer for help in resisting temptation.

‘I know what you are doing, Sabrina,’ he said. ‘You have been doing it from the first moment we met. You like to slowly reel a man in, do you not? That is your modus operandi, no? Little by little you up the ante until he finally capitulates.’

She took a step backwards. ‘I am doing no such thing.’

He leaned closer, capturing her chin again, his eyes locking on hers. ‘I will take your slim little body any time you like,’ he said in a low, spine-tingling drawl. ‘Any time, any place, any position. You just have to say the word. Just like the last time.’

Sabrina felt her insides erupt into flames, the hot spurts of need anointing her intimately as she thought of what he would be like as a lover. Inexperienced as she was, she knew enough about him to know he would be everything a woman could want in a sexual partner: demanding, exciting, daring and dangerously attractive. The one kiss they had shared had shown her that and more. It had sent shooting sparks from one end of her body to the other, licking her senses into a frenzy of want. She could feel the pulse of her blood now, hectic and overly excited at his nearness. Her eyes went to his mouth, his fuller lower lip drawing her gaze like an industrial-sized magnet. All she had to do was step up on her tiptoes and their mouths would touch and burn…

The sound of other guests spilling out of the house was the only thing that saved Sabrina from making a total fool of herself all over again. She pulled out of Mario’s hold and slipped into the passenger seat, her legs still trembling long after he had stridden around and got in behind the wheel of her four-cylinder car.

Once he was sitting beside her, she suddenly realised how very small her car was. It was like a child’s toy; although he pushed back the driver’s seat to its maximum distance from the wheel to accommodate his length, every time he worked the gears she was aware of his suited arm within touching distance of her thigh.

‘I thought you would have hired some swanky Italian sportscar while you are here,’ she said once they were on their way. ‘Isn’t that what rich men like you do?’

‘I saw no need to waste money on one when I was only going to be here for such a short time,’ he answered evenly.

Sabrina chewed over that for a moment. ‘What if I hadn’t agreed to your plan?’ she asked, not trusting herself to look at him.

‘Then I would have found some way of convincing you,’ he said, equally smoothly.

This time she did look at him. ‘With blackmail, like you did with Ingrid and Stanley Knowles?’

He met her eyes for a brief moment, before turning back to the traffic. ‘I see no reason not to use a bit of pressure when it is warranted,’ he said.

Sabrina huddled in her seat, wondering how far he would have gone to make her change her mind if she had said no—not that she’d really had a chance to say no. Ingrid had come in and the words had tumbled out of Sabrina’s mouth, words that now tied her to a man she knew so little about.

It was a disturbing thought. All she knew was Mario Marcolini was ruthless in business and equally so in his private life. Women came and went from his life like clouds in the sky, none of them lasting long enough to make an impression on him. She wondered if he had been hurt by a past lover, or if he was just one of those men, all too common these days, who shied away from commitment. All she knew about his background was what Laura had told her in snatches, and, because Sabrina hadn’t wanted to sound too curious, she hadn’t asked the questions she had longed to know the answers to. Questions she had no right to even be thinking, let alone asking.

‘Where to from here?’ Mario asked when he came to a crossroads.

‘Turn right at the next lights,’ she said. ‘My flat is in the fourth building on the left, but really I don’t think it’s such a good idea for me to move into your hotel with—’

She stopped when she saw a news van parked outside her building, the cameras already being set up. ‘Oh no…’

‘Put your head down and ignore them,’ Mario said as he parked the car in the tenants’ parking area behind the tired-looking inner-city building. ‘I will deal with them while you go in and pack what you need. I can always send someone over later to get the rest.’

Mario fielded the press with a few short statements about his intentions, even embellishing the facts a little for his own amusement. He watched as the news team drove away a few minutes later, and then with a sigh of satisfaction turned and entered the building.

Sabrina’s flat was neat and tidy inside, but he could see why she had always sought employment in the upper echelons of society. Like the many gold-diggers he had met or had dealings with in the past, she was obviously looking for a way out of her current situation. A rich man, even if he was married, could set her up as his mistress. Things had backfired on her with Howard Roebourne, but no doubt there would be other rich men once he put an end to their temporary marriage, Mario thought sceptically.

‘How long have you lived here?’ Mario asked as she came out with a battered suitcase into the tiny lounge area.

‘A couple of years,’ she said. ‘I’d like something bigger and in a nicer suburb, but there’s really not much point when most of the families I have worked for have required me to live with them for extended periods.’

‘It must at times be difficult to have a private life when you are living with other people,’ he said, taking the bag out of her hand and placing it near the door. ‘No wonder you have been tempted to work and play under the same roof.’

Her grey eyes flashed as they hit his. ‘You think I’m a slut, don’t you? And yet the papers are full of your sexual exploits. Your double standards make me sick.’

‘I have not resorted to sleeping with married women,’ he said. ‘I have plenty of single and unattached ones to work my way through first.’

She swung away from him, snatching up her handbag and hoisting it over her shoulder. ‘I suppose you have a revolving door on your bedroom?’ she said, flashing him another glare.

Mario grinned at the thought. ‘Not yet, but it sounds like a great idea,’ he said.

Her glare intensified. ‘I think you are disgusting,’ she spat. ‘You have no morals. You probably don’t even spare the women you bed with another thought once you have done with them. It’s such a shallow and selfish way to live.’

‘It is no more shallow and selfish than touching what does not belong to you,’ he pointed out.