AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I don’t think so…’
‘I know so!’ Mina launched back.
‘You got something else to trade for my silence?’ Cesare enquired smoothly as he slanted a sardonic smile at her.
As the ramifications of that question sank in, Mina’s shattered gaze clung to his cool gold one. ‘You’re trying to blackmail me,’ she whispered in
horror.
‘Has to be the knock-on effect of the low company I’m keeping.’ Cesare cast her an intent look, unconcerned by her accusation. ‘And it’s not one quarter as sordid as what you did to me. You traded sex for information and profit. You sold me out for the requisite thirty pieces of silver. What does that make you? You used me——’
‘I wouldn’t use anyone like that!’
‘Pay-back time, cara. Don’t bother working out your notice for Haland. That’s over and he’ll never know what a narrow escape he had, thanks to my intervention. I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at eight. OK,’ he positively purred, and it wasn’t a question. ‘You can go and get your beauty sleep now.’
Mina swallowed hard and began to slide out of the car, but Cesare moved too and reached for her before she could register what he intended. He tugged her back across the seat as if she were a doll. ‘Come here…’
‘Get your hands off me!’ she exploded.
‘I want something on account first.’
Anchoring long fingers into her silky hair, Cesare held her fast, sweeping her upturned face with heavily lidded golden eyes.
‘Let…go…of…me,’ Mina told him breathlessly.
‘Take up the weight training—you’re likely to be in dire need of it.’ His accented drawl had thickened and fractured, spilling out warning flares into an atmosphere already vibrating with fierce tension.
‘No…’ she mumbled, clashing unavoidably with the scorching charge of his heated gaze.
‘Never say no to me,’ Cesare intoned huskily. ‘When you slam a door in my face, I kick it down.’
She had forgotten—oh, dear God, how could she have forgotten?—how he could make her feel. It was terrifying… It was as though a physical force-field enclosed her, locking out every brain-wave. Her own heartbeat pounded in her eardrums. Excitement, raw and dangerous, leapt through every single skin-cell. Her breasts were already stirring beneath the thin barrier of her bra, her nipples pinching into sudden painful tightness.
‘Stop it…’ she framed unevenly, yet she was trapped in unmoving stasis.
‘But I’m not doing anything…yet.’ He lowered his gleaming dark head slowly. Her breath hung suspended and then he pressed his mouth hotly to the tiny pulse flickering wildly above her collarbone. Every bone in her body melted in a burst of feverish heat. Her head fell back, her throat extending. She trembled violently, an upswell of sensation suddenly released with devastating force. Her hands flew up of their own volition, one finding his shoulder, the other spearing into his hair, and just touching him again felt so good that she ached.
Raising his head, he ravaged her soft mouth with a sudden devouring hunger that took her by storm. He prised her lips apart with the tip of his tongue and then plundered the tender interior with carnal expertise. Her fingernails dug into his shoulder, a passion wilder than anything she had ever known consuming her as she answered that sensual demand, returning his kisses with all the fire of her own response.
Without warning, Cesare tore himself free. Hard hands clamping round her slender forearms, he thrust her back from him, fierce derision stamped in his lean features as he looked down at her and released his pent-up breath in a hiss. ‘Natural talent like you wouldn’t believe,’ he drawled with contempt. ‘Maybe I picked the wrong punishment…or maybe you’re stupid enough to think you can con me into leaving you cosily ensconced in that charity.’
Mina wiped the back of her hand across her reddened mouth in a violent gesture of shuddering self-disgust. Her amethyst eyes shimmered with hatred. Wrenching at the door, she shot out of the car and stood on the pavement, ashamed to discover that her legs felt weak and shaky.
‘If you don’t leave me alone, you’ll find that you’re digging up a whole lot more trouble than you’ll want to handle!’ she told him tightly.
‘Is that a threat?’ Cesare enquired softly.
Mina wanted to scream. Briefly she closed her burning eyes. ‘No, Cesare, that’s not a threat, because, unlike you, I don’t make threats. It’s a warning. You wrecked my life four years ago and only now do I find out why…’ As her throat closed over, her voice cracked and she threw her head back, snatching in oxygen to continue. ‘But whoever it was who traded information for profit it wasn’t me! You’ve got the wrong culprit——’
‘Like hell I have!’
‘I won’t allow you to victimise me again,’ Mina swore tremulously, a tide of dammed-up tears gritty behind her eyelids. ‘I need my job and I’m not resigning from it! So leave me alone!’
‘Tomorrow night—eight,’ Cesare specified, and slammed the door.
Minutes later, Mina sank down on her bed in her tiny room and covered her working face with her hands. Insider dealing—how could he have believed that of her? How many twenty-two-year-olds fresh out of college would be up to such illegality? Where was she supposed to have got the funds which would have been necessary even to begin playing the stock market? Four long years, and she was only finding out now that that was why he had sacked her!
He had accused her of disappearing into thin air. That meant that he must have tried to contact her again. She loosed an embittered laugh. She had received the notice of her termination of employment outside working hours. It had been delivered by special messenger and it had come all the way from Hong Kong, where Cesare had been at the time.
