By Royal Demand

He still had the power to hurt her so badly she could barely breathe. Goaded into defiant indiscretion, she hurled back, ‘I can’t think of anything I’d enjoy more. But I don’t know where the wretched necklace is!’

And had to cope with another of those killer silences, seething with unspoken thoughts and hidden emotions.

When he finally spoke it was with a slight sardonic twist to his beautiful mouth. ‘Of course, if money doesn’t work there are always other ways to find out.’

Other ways? One glance at the smouldering depths of his eyes told her what he meant. Now he knew that he could use their potent mutual attraction to seduce her.

And he would, she thought, sickened and horrified. He hated her, but he’d make love to her because he wanted to find the necklace so badly.

Sara panicked. Without thinking, she flung the contents of her glass into his face.

The champagne broke against the granite angles of his face. Appalled at her stupidity, she watched him wipe the liquid away with a handkerchief.

On a broken little gasp she muttered, ‘Oh, hell, I’m sorry,’ and set her glass down.

Gabe balled up his handkerchief and threw it into the grate. Dispassionately he watched it burn, then smiled, and her heart shuddered.

‘It amuses me, the contrast between your elegant, composed face and that passionate, sensuous mouth,’ he said urbanely, his perfect control of English subtly affected so that the sentence had an alien intonation. ‘You look every inch an aristocrat—serene, well-bred, completely in control—and I liked knowing that in my arms, in my bed, you turned into a wildcat—reckless and sexy and elemental.’

Stunned by his words, she stared into his face. Their eyes clashed in primeval combat. Gabe smiled, his dark face compelling in its vengeful strength, and came towards her. Sara’s breath stopped in her throat as she tried to struggle free of the dark spell he’d always been able to cast.

But she left it too late. Even as she twisted to run, his hands closed over her shoulders, and he pulled her into his aroused body.

Heat engulfed her—heat and fire and an untamed, erotic craving that terrified her.

‘It’s still there, damn you,’ he said between his teeth, and he lowered his head and kissed her again.

And she fought him again, furious at her body’s betrayal of her mind and her heart, until the unsparing mastery of his lips summoned a reckless need that consumed everything else in its clamour for satisfaction.

He slid one hand up behind her head, strong fingers working smoothly against her sensitive scalp as he gentled the kiss, and she sighed into his mouth, shivering with pleasure. The smooth touch of his fingers on the back of her head sent arrows of intense delight through every cell in her body; too late, she realised that he was loosening the pins that held her sleek chignon in place. Her hair fell in a warm, heavy mass around her neck and shoulders, adding a sensuous friction to the explosions along her nerves already caused by his addictive mouth and deft hands.

He moved slightly, accommodating her eager body in the cradle of his hips. The appetite he’d unleashed in her increased exponentially at the hard evidence of his arousal. She had to grit her teeth and jerk her head away to stop herself from pressing against him and giving up on the futile struggle to keep her sanity.

Each kiss, each caress, was an exercise in power, she thought frantically: he was showing her how easily he could have her.

Desperately she gasped, ‘No!’

CHAPTER FOUR

THE shifting, flexing muscles in Gabe’s torso and arms locked into stasis.

Sara looked up into blue eyes glittering with lust and saw him reimpose control with an effortless ease that was like a blow to the heart.

Yes, he’d been testing her.

She forced words between her lips, wincing when she heard her voice, husky and rough with a longing she couldn’t hide. ‘You don’t have to pretend that you want me, Gabe. I don’t have any information to give you, so this seduction routine isn’t going to achieve anything.’

‘Beyond using up surplus energy?’ he said brutally, but he released her, turning away as though her violent, unwilling response had sickened him.

As it probably had.

It had certainly sickened her. She looked down at her trembling hands and said tonelessly, ‘I’ve had enough. I’m leaving right now.’

‘You’re not going anywhere.’

Sara marshalled words in her mind, words that might convince him that this was an exercise in futility—and a dangerous exercise at that. Her surrender had been humiliating enough, but what really frightened her was that he’d wanted her almost as much as she’d wanted him. His belief that she’d stolen the ruby necklace should have killed that wildfire hunger completely.

She hated being so vulnerable!

Oh, she was entirely safe from falling in love with him again. Once was enough, she thought bitterly.

But wanting him—that was an entirely different matter.

Even when she’d believed that he’d loved her, the intensity of passion had alarmed her; it had felt like handing her whole self over to him.

Numbly she blurted, ‘If I were a thief I’d have taken the money you just offered me.’

‘Not if you were planning to hold out for more,’ he said coolly. ‘If I’d accepted that Marya had stolen the necklace, you’d have had both the money you got for selling it and an intact engagement, with eventual access to my bank account when we married. By your reckoning, you’ve missed out.’

‘That is a foul thing to say,’ she retorted, shoring up her composure with anger, only to tamp it down because it wouldn’t get her anywhere. She drew in a jagged breath and tried reason. ‘Gabe, holding me prisoner isn’t going to work because I don’t know anything about the theft. For the same reason, seducing me won’t achieve anything. Acting like one of your robber baron ancestors might satisfy your need for revenge, but it won’t get you what you want.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t want revenge,’ he said briefly, and poured more champagne into her glass, his angular, clever face reflective.

Hope warmed into life inside her. Perhaps her refusal of his insulting offer had begun to—oh, not to convince him, not yet, but make him wonder if he might be wrong about her? This whole situation was so unlike him. Although he had a reputation for dangerous manoeuvres, his career had been marked by a keen intelligence that carefully calculated every risk.

Until they’d met. And now, this kidnapping…

‘You could let me go,’ she said quietly, knowing that if he did it would be another, final ending. She’d never see him again except in the newspapers and on television. ‘I won’t tell anyone what happened.’

His expression hardened into cynicism. ‘Nothing’s happened, Sara. And you can stop looking at me with those wide, scared eyes. I don’t plan to torture the truth out of you, or lock you in a dungeon for the rest of your life.’

‘So what do you intend to do?’ she shot back.

He handed her the champagne flute, seemingly not aware of the way her breath caught in her throat when their fingers touched.

Picking up his own glass, he said abruptly, ‘I’ll make a deal with you. If you didn’t have anything to do with stealing the Queen’s Blood, you might still know something that would help—some scrap of information that doesn’t seem important, something that will lead to the thieves. We’ll go over what you recall, and if at the end of the week nothing comes of it then you can go.’

She crushed a spark of angry rebellion. Gabe was arrogantly playing with her life, ordering it to suit himself because she didn’t have the power to prevent him. But that last offer sounded as though he was prepared to compromise.

Dared she trust him? She scanned his handsome, enigmatic face.

No way.

Yet it would soothe some yearning part of her if she could persuade him that she had nothing to do with the theft. Warily, she said, ‘I don’t—’

He cut her off, his expression brooking no further shilly-shallying. ‘Just give me an answer, Sara.’

She said coldly, ‘I have no choice, do I?’