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‘And I will put some clothes on.’
Now, what was that look? Relief? Or annoyance? He wasn’t arrogant enough to call it disappointment, no matter how tempting it had been to tease her over that a short time before.
‘You too.’
As he moved past her he paused to lift the edges of the robe up and over her shoulders, tugging them together to remove the temptation of her breasts. The ragged way she was breathing brought those soft curves up to meet his hands, brushing against his fingers for a moment so that he had to complete the movement with an awkward jerk, letting the silk drop into place as he stepped back and away abruptly.
‘Help yourself to a drink.’
He waved a hand in the direction of the rich red wine he’d left to breathe on the dressing table as, impatient to get out of the way of temptation, he snatched up the jeans and shirt that he’d left on the bed on his way into the bathroom.
There wasn’t time to shower all over again, no matter how much he needed the pounding of icy water to suppress the hungry demand that was making his body ache with discomfort. For one thing, Imogen knew he’d just come out of the shower when she’d stumbled into the room.
His pulse rate skyrocketed at the memory of the way she had looked then, appearing like a fantasy in his dream just when he’d been imagining her, remembering that last night in Corsica, before she had turned into another woman, one so like the greedy gold-diggers he’d come up against too often already.
She’d even used the same words that Alice had spoken: ‘I need to tell you something. I can’t let you go…’
No, damn it, no! He forced his eyes away from the shower and instead contented himself with filling the sink with cold water and dunking his head and face deep into it. It did little to quell the throbbing pulse in his groin, but it did force him to clear his mind and try to think as coldly and rationally about things as he could. The memory of the way Alice had used him, taken his love and cast it aside, did the rest.
This was not how he had expected the evening to go. Though, if he were honest with himself, he hadn’t really expected anything.
Certainly not the sudden appearance of Imogen in his room, bringing with her too many memories, too many hopes he had once cherished. Hopes he had once been young enough and fool enough to believe in.
The thought of those naïve dreams threatened to distract him from the path he had determined on. The path that had unexpectedly opened up so clearly and easily in the space of the last hour. When he had planned his revenge on Imogen O’Sullivan he had never really anticipated it being handed to him on a plate like this. But he intended to take full advantage of it.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘HELP YOURSELF TO a drink.’
Imogen gritted her teeth against the irritation those words caused her. The casual invitation drifted over his shoulder as he walked away from her into the en suite. As if he was the host here and she a mere visitor.
Which she might well be soon, cold reality reminded her. The marriage of convenience to Adnan had been their last chance to save the stud, her father’s reputation and her own future. Now those plans lay in ashes, the hope she’d had disappearing out of the door with Adnan in that black rage.
Who could blame him? When she thought of the scene that must have met her fiancé’s eyes—her former fiancé’s eyes—just minutes before, her skin burned, her eyes stinging with hot tears of shame. She had lost Adnan’s friendship as well as everything else, she knew. His powerful male pride would never stand for seeing her in another man’s bedroom, in his arms—and both of them half-dressed.
Shaking fingers moved over the rumpled silk of her robe, feeling how, even now, her insubstantial clothing was still not fully restored to any degree of order. The memory of the cold, indifferent way that Raoul had hauled her robe around her—the speed with which he had pulled his hands away as if, once their audience had gone, it disgusted him to touch her—made her feel as if something cold and slimy had slithered over her skin. Once, he hadn’t been able to wait long enough to peel her clothes from her body, but had ripped them away in the heat of hunger. Several of her dresses had ended up as mere shreds of cotton, discarded on the floor.
