Except she wasn’t mine. Because then my father turned up, sliding an arm around her waist and drawing her close. He knew I wanted her and she knew that too. But her own desire—her desire for me —she hid like the coward she is.
I did my due diligence. I found out just who and what she was, and I had the glorified sugar-baby matchmaking service she was registered with investigated. I have no issues with women who use their looks to make money and are upfront about it, because that’s honest at least and I value honesty.
But Beatrix Morgan is not honest, and I know this because after that moment in London I contacted her through that sugar-baby company and asked her to meet me. We could have come to some mutually beneficial, not to mention very pleasurable arrangement, but she refused, telling me she didn’t want me, that she preferred my father. I would have believed her if we hadn’t had that moment at the bar. If I hadn’t met her blue gaze and seen how the fire in her matched the fire in me. But that moment did happen and telling me she didn’t want me made her a liar. And I despise liars.
Especially liars like my father. He was also petty, making sure that when he married her they had a big, splashy wedding. It was to spite me, which I could have forgiven him for, since I try never to let his many little slights get to me, but I couldn’t forgive how it spited my mother, Catalina, too.
She’d been doing better after some time spent in a private facility in Switzerland that I paid an exorbitant amount for, and I’d been confident of her recovery. I’d just bought a house in Paris, her favourite city, and I’d been hoping she would be well enough to come and live with me.
Then came my bastard father’s Society wedding to that pretty little liar, some forty years his junior, which my mother couldn’t help but see reported in all the papers, and it sent her back down into another terrible bout of alcoholism.
So no, I couldn’t forgive him for that. I couldn’t forgive that blonde gold digger either.Beatrix.The girl from a glorified escort service, who married my father and stole my inheritance.
Not that I require that inheritance, not these days. I have more than enough money, with VZ Industries now the biggest research and development company in Europe. I’m branching into space engineering, providing development and design of various technologies to NASA and other private companies interested in space exploration. It’s an exciting field to be involved with and I want to be at the forefront.
Yet all of that seems so unimportant right now. I’m a man who prides himself on his precision, his attention to detail, his ability to see both the big picture and the small, and whose self-control is paramount. Yet all I can think about is the feeling of Beatrix’s palms on my chest. How she somehow took my fury and transmuted it into something molten and demanding, and next to impossible to control.
I only attended the funeral out of duty, not because I actually mourned Antonio. I spent too many years trying to build bridges with him, only to have him burn each and every one, so it’s only a vague disappointment I feel now.
I certainly had no intention of speaking to the woman he married.
Except then I saw her disappear into the alcove and, no matter how hard I tried to resist the urge, like a proton drawn inexorably to an electron, I found myself drawn there too. And, once I was there, proximity turned into an intense chemical reaction that then burst into flame. I’d backed her up against the wall before I could stop myself.
I’m furious, naturally, and disgusted by my own need, by the sexual desire I can’t seem to get a grip on. By the way I’ve backed her into a corner, unable to stop, and by the way I can’t seem to drag my gaze from hers.
Her eyes are still the same deep blue, and her skin is still pale and smooth as cream. That perfect rosebud of a mouth has been haunting my dreams, and the tight black dress she’s wearing outlines every one of her luscious, generous curves.
I don’t know why she has this effect on me. She’s beautiful, yes, but, as I told myself after she declined my offer of an affair, beauty I can get anywhere. There’s no logical reason for the intensity of this desire—it’s likely just chemicals and pheromones—so I’m appalled at myself and my behaviour. She’s my stepmother, a woman my father has already had, and I’d never stoop to avail myself of his leavings.
Except she’s looking up at me now, and beneath all the ice she radiates I can see heat in her blue eyes. No redness and her cheeks are dry, yet that blue has darkened, turning almost violet.
She wants me and we both know it, and that kicks my desire into overdrive, even as it makes me even more furious, both at myself and her.
It’s unconscionable the way my body reacts. The tightening of my muscles, the hardening of my cock, the roar of blood in my veins. I have many lovers, yet I’ve never wanted any of them as badly as I want her.
Except she chose Antonio over me. She chose a vengeful, bitter and selfish old man who could never satisfy any woman, let alone someone as young and attractive as she is. I’d never argue with a woman’s choice, no matter how much I didn’t like it, but the thing that gets to me about her is that she lied about that choice.
She’s a coward and I should let her push me away, not stand here, relishing the heat of her palms on my chest and the delicate feminine musk of her scent. Yet I’m not letting her, and in this moment I suddenly understand why.
A part of me wants to get the truth from her one way or another.
I reach out and grip her jaw in my hand, her skin petal-soft against my fingertips, turning her face from one side to the other, staring at the pure lines of her cheekbones and arched blonde brows. Her straight nose. Her pretty, pretty mouth. I’m a scientist and so I need to discover what it is about her that gets me this hard, this hungry.
‘When you were in bed with him,’ I grind out, wanting to make her as furious as she makes me, ‘did you have to fake it?’
She’s trembling, but she makes no move to push me away again or to pull out of my grip. Her ice-queen mask is melting though—I can see the blue sparks of temper glitter in her eyes. ‘No,’ she says in her husky little voice, defiant still. ‘He satisfied me completely.’
Another lie. My body is inches away from the warmth of hers, both of us held in place by the intensity of our need. ‘Is that why you chose him?’ I demand, even as some part of me is enraged at how I’m letting this despicable sexual jealousy get to me. ‘Because he made you come?’
‘What do you care?’ she snaps back. ‘Stop manhandling me.’
‘You want me to manhandle you,’ I snarl, keeping a tight grip on her. ‘You’re desperate for me to manhandle you.’
Her delicate jaw is in the palm of my hand, my thumb pressing into her cheek, and those blue sparks in her eyes are flames and they’re burning high. Burning for me.
‘Why would I want you?’ Her gaze falls to my mouth and rises again. ‘When I could have your father?’
It’s a goad, and I shouldn’t let such petty sexual insults get under my skin. I’m secure in my ability as a lover. I have nothing to prove, still less to her. Yet all I can think about now is showing her exactly why she should want me instead of him. Prove to her that she’s lying and uncover the real truth.
