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Andreas glanced at her and said curtly, ‘Rocco DeMarco and his wife are friends of mine. I won’t have them feeling the need to leave just because you’re with me. I told them we’d leave.’
Pain, sharp and intense, gripped Siena as the car pulled up beside them and the valet jumped out, handing Andreas the keys. Solicitous as ever, even when he despised her, he saw Siena into the car and walked around the bonnet. Siena had the bleakest sense of foreboding that this was it. And after a silent journey back to the apartment Andreas confirmed it.
Barely looking at her, he was in the act of removing his jacket and taking off his cufflinks when he said, ‘I’ll arrange for a security guard to take you to the jewellers in the morning. There you’ll be able to get your money.’
Siena stood stock-still. The stark finality of his words seemed to drop somewhere between them and shatter on the floor.
Faintly, pathetically, she said, ‘But…there’s two days left.’
Andreas speared her with a cold look. ‘Five days is enough for me.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t dock you any payment.’
His words seem to bounce off her. She was numb. Just like that he’d lifted her up and now he was dropping her from a height. And yet…what else had she expected?
Siena felt sick when she had to admit that on some very deep and secret level she’d imagined that Andreas might not despise her so utterly—but when had they ever had a chance to go beyond that?
He’d stonewalled any attempts she’d made to talk about personal things, or even non-personal things, and yet this evening she could remember a betraying flare of hope at seeing him so possessive when another man flirted with her.
But that had been purely male posturing. No doubt he’d be quite happy to see her in anyone else’s arms when he was done with her. Which was now, Siena realised a little dazedly.
She hated herself for not feeling more relieved, and she felt humiliated. Because she had to acknowledge that, despite telling herself she was with Andreas for this week purely to help her sister, she knew it was a lie. She would have wanted Andreas no matter what. For herself. Because he’d always been her dark fantasy. He would only ever have wanted her in revenge, so she’d had to have him like this or not at all.
Using Serena had been a buffer—a device for fooling herself that she was somehow in control…
Siena felt cold inside. The only good thing that could come out of this now was the help she could give her sister. She would take this man’s largesse and damn herself in his eyes for ever. She’d do it with a willing heart because she had no right ever to have imagined anything else.
Siena forced herself to move, to say something. ‘Goodnight, then.’ It couldn’t be more apparent that Andreas would not touch her now if his life depended on it.
She was walking away when she heard him say, ‘It’s goodbye, Siena. I’ll be gone in the morning. I leave for New York to work.’
Siena turned and a wave of emotion surged upwards. She couldn’t stop the words tumbling out in spite of her best intentions to stay cool. ‘I am sorry, Andreas. Really sorry for what happened…it wasn’t my intention…’
And then, before she could say anything more, she fled.
Andreas looked at the empty space Siena had left behind, along with the most fragile scent, and wanted to storm after her, to whirl her around and demand to know what she’d meant by ‘it wasn’t my intention’. He wanted to put her over his shoulder and take her to his bed one more time.
But it would not be enough, he realised. It would never be enough. His body burned with need. Even after that distasteful scene with her half-brother and the knowledge of what he’d been through.
Andreas had had no idea of their connection. But as Rocco had spoken he’d felt the man’s pain and had all too well been able to imagine the scenario—the two precious blue-eyed heiresses stepping over their prone brother.
It had brought back all of his own anger and rage, far too easily forgotten in the heat of passion or when Siena looked at him with those huge blue eyes. He too had suffered at those hands.
Until she’d reminded him that a week was almost up he had forgotten. And that had sent shockwaves through his system—along with a knee-jerk impulse to negate it, to tell her he’d let her go when he was ready.
But he’d caught himself in time. He’d forgotten and she’d remembered, because she was counting each day and evaluating how much she’d take from him.
She’d made him jealous. He thought of the red haze of rage that had settled over his vision on seeing his friend Rafaele Falcone flirt with Siena. And how she’d smiled at him so guilelessly, as she’d once smiled at him… That was when the scales had finally fallen from Andreas’s eyes, and he’d realised how in danger he was of becoming a slave to his desire for this woman—how, far from being exorcised, she was gaining a stronger hold over him.
Andreas
castigated himself. He should never have looked for her. It had been a huge mistake. Tomorrow she would be gone and he would move on.
A month later, London
Andreas stepped into his apartment, bone-weary. He’d extended his trip to New York, not liking to investigate why he’d wanted to avoid coming back to London too soon. Silence descended around him, telling him he was alone. He ignored the hollow sensation and put down his bag.
He walked into the main salon and a vision hit him right between the eyes of Siena as she’d turned to face him that last evening in her black dress. So perfect. So beautiful. Andreas cursed and quickly walked out again.
He went to the kitchen, but that only brought him back to the moment when he’d heard Mrs Bright clucking and explaining to Siena about the oven. Or how Siena had looked sitting in jeans and a T-shirt, eating a croissant with her fingers.
