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‘To me… or the bet?’
‘The bet…naturally’ Cristiano declared.
‘But a guy doesn’t say no to something like that’. ‘It’s all to do with a cool macho bastard who keeps his brains in his boxers’?’ Lydia asked bitterly.
‘Don’t you dare try to make excuses ! It was disgusting-‘
His strong shadowed jawline clenched.
‘1 know it was and it wasn’t my style, believe me.’
Her look was disbelieving.
‘I didn’t see those guys again until the weekend party at my house. By then l had forgotten all about the stupid bet. When the issue was raised-‘
‘Listen don’t use nice clean businesslike words like “issue” to describe what I overheard. l heard those men talking about me in a manner that you should have objected to!
‘I did object…why did you have to walk away before you heard me doing exactly that’?’ Cristiano demanded in a driven undertone a raw light in his dark golden eyes that lent them an unusual degree of clarity. ‘
Philip was drunk. I stopped the locker room discussion and I dropped the bet. ‘
The silence lingered while she considered that explanation. She had never known him to lie. Did he deserve the benefit of the doubt? Although she did not wish to give it to him his patent sincerity was his most convincing defence.
‘Wi1l you accept that’?’ Cristiano prompted.
Lydia gave him a grudging nod for she had enjoyed his discomfiture that rare chance to see him shorn of a little of his glossy patina of aloof indifference.
‘But don’t ever expect me to forgive you for it’
she warned him.
‘The bet is why you took off with Mort Stevens isn’t it’?’ Again, Lydia nodded in confirmation.
‘Why am l only finding out about this now? Why the hell didn’t you talk to me about this when it happened’?’
Cristiano shot at her with a suddenness that disconcerted her.
‘We only had a few dates and it wasn’t going very well for us that particular day, was it’?’ ‘I had no idea you were a virgin. If I had known you were that inexperienced if I had had the slightest suspicion I would have had a totally different attitude. You should have told me.’
‘lt’s so easy for you to say all this stuff now! ‘
she condemned.
‘Have you any idea how I felt after I found out about that bets?’
Cristiano tensed. ‘1 can imagine. ‘
‘How could you possibly? l felt betrayed and humiliated. It was obvious that you were only with me because of a horrible bet and that all you were interested in was sex. ‘
Cristiano sank down on the edge of the bed.
‘lt wasn’t like that.’ . .
‘Then how was it?’ she challenged.
The silence pulsed with undertones.
His lean darkly handsome features were taut his glittering gaze hooded.
‘It’s insane for you to believe that I was only with you because of a bet. That I utterly refute. I saw you; l wanted to get to know you. There was a very strong sexual attraction and I’m not ashamed to acknowledge that. The bet was a piece of foolishness between young men, all of whom should have known better. It was inexcusable and offensive and I apologise without reserve.’
She had clasped round her knees. He had not denied her contention that his sole motivation had been sex, and that hurt. She questioned her own over-sensitivity. So she had loved and he had lusted? So it had been since time began. It was not the stuff of Greek tragedy, so why did she feel as though it was? Hadn’t she always known that she was just another in a long line of fanciable bed partners in his fast-moving life? In an unexpected move that disconcerted her Cristiano tried to tug her back into his arms. Her emotions were already very shaken up and in the grip of that inner turmoil she felt neither gracious nor forgiving.
In fact when she realized that he was attempting to assume a comforting role her pride rebelled furiously. Rejecting him with positive violence, and pushing him away, she retreated to the far side of the bed. ‘Leave me alone! ‘
Cristiano vaulted back upright and spread fluid brown hands in an angrily defensive gesture.
‘1 only wanted to hold you. That at least should not be treated like a crime.’
Her head was beginning to pound with tension and she felt incredibly tired and sorry for herself.
‘That depends on your outlook. Now I want to get up and have a shower in a room of my own-but I don’t know where that is yet. And l want clothes…but l don’t have any within reach. l also want something to eat!
To her dismay her voice emerged with a shrill sharp edge that made her want to wince.
Cristiano strode across the room and cast open a door in the wall.
‘Your suite is through here. ‘I’ll get you something to wear’
Her eyes felt horribly hot and scratchy, and she bowed her weary head. She had never felt more alone in her life.
Cristiano returned and laid her shabby pale pink cotton wrap at her feet. He maintained a careful distance as though she had an exclusion zone marked around her. A huge lump mushroomed in her throat. She fumbled her way into the wrap, shying away from his silent offer of assistance. Like a snail bereft of its shell she wanted to retreat into hiding-fast. Sliding out of bed she went rigid when she brushed against him.
Her blue eyes glimmered with a determined flame for she felt weak but had no intention of parading that fact.
‘So now you know l wasn’t trying to make you jealous when I walked out with Mort that weekend.’
‘I understand that maybe you weren’t exaggerating when you said that you hate me’.
‘That hasn’t bothered you too much up to now. Let’s face it’.
She sniped hearing the words flowing from her own lips and disliking them but quite unable to stop them leaping off her tongue,
‘You’ re not exactly Sensitive.’
Cristiano watched the door shut. He didn’t like that door closed between them. He swore vehemently under his breath. A gigantic wave of unfamiliar frustration gripped him. He was in shock. He wasn’t used to being taken by surprise or put in the wrong. It was unnerving to suffer that experience twice in the same day. But much that had been obscure was now crystal-clear. She had an exquisite grasp of the concept of revenge. Mort Stevens had been a reprisal attack a direct hit. To accept that he owed that experience to Philip and his own ladyish refusal to admit his distaste for a stupid bet was infuriating! His lean powerful face set into grim lines. He had to make amends. He had misjudged her and she had paid a high price.
A kindly older woman who introduced herself in careful English as the housekeeper, brought Lydia a menu and talked her through it. Having made her selections Lydia went for a soak in the sunken bath and scrubbed her tummy crimson to remove the fake tattoo. Not one of her cleverest ideas, she conceded stifling the memory of Cristiano pressing his mouth there.
Clad in a pair of short pyjamas, she checked her phone for messages. She had been hoping to hear from her mother for she was eager for the chance to tell Virginia that she was now safe from any threat of prosecution. She reminded herself that the older woman had been so scared that it might well be a few weeks before she had the courage to make contact with her daughter. After all, Virginia had anxiously mentioned the fact that mobile phone records could be checked.
Dinner was served at a beautifully set table in the opulent reception room that linked with hers.
/> But she ate sitting cross-legged on the bed next door and endeavoured to watch a gardening programme on the plasma screen she found concealed with other technology behind electronic sliding doors. Replete with food she crawled into bed. She did not think she had ever been so exhausted. It was so emotional and physical. Yet even though she tried to bar Cristiano from her thoughts, she fell asleep with his vibrant darkly handsome image in her mind’s eye.
She did not awaken until mid-morning, when a maid opened the curtains and brought her a cup of tea. Emerging from the bathroom enveloped in a towel she went into the attached dressing room and was astonished to discover that virtually all the outfits she had tried on the night before now hung in colour-coordinated rows in the fitted closets.
She glanced at the functional garments she had already taken out, and then slowly tidied them away again.
If Cristiano wanted her to dress in the latest and most expensive fashion was it really worth of saying no? She snatched in a sustaining breath and compressed her soft lips. It was time to deal with life as it was not life as she would have liked it to be. Shielding her mother and escaping a likely prison sentence came at a cost that she had agreed to pay. Nobody had twisted her arm nobody had forced her to sign that contract she reminded herself doggedly. She was a mistress. She was an accessory, arm-candy, a trophy to be put on display. And whether she liked it or not presentation was everything when only her face and her body counted in the balance.
A little while later Cristiano phoned to ask her to join him for lunch on the terrace. As if she had a choice she thought fiercely, her pride still stinging at the awareness of how much she was in his power. In his country in his house in the very clothes he had chosen and with an intimate ache at the heart of her to remind her if she needed a reminder of his passionate possession.
‘Did you sleep well’?’ he enquired huskily.
His dark sexy drawl made her tingle as much as though he had trailed his fingers down her slender spine. Soft pink burnished her cheeks.
