AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I do not think we need take such drastic action—on either point,’ he added calmly.
Or was it calmingly? Annie focused her eyes on him at last, wary of the expression on his face that was neither gleeful nor, as she would have expected, contemptuous, but strangely—
No. She spun her back on him, arms wrapping tightly around her body in an age-old gesture of self-defence. She refused so much as to put a word to what her senses had told her that new look in his eyes meant!
‘Then what the hell do you want me to do?’ she muttered thickly.
There was a silence behind her that made the fine nerves lying along her spine prickle. She closed her eyes tightly, refusing—refusing to listen to what her senses were screaming at her. It was impossible. No man could find it arousing to have a woman swap insults with him! No woman could find it arousing to spar with a man like him!
Yet—
Oh, God, if he touched her now…And she could feel him fighting the urge to do just that, feel it with every instinct she possessed buzzing in warning that he was—
‘You must convince Hanson that I mean more to you than he does.’ The words came from a throat roughened by the battle he had just fought with himself and won. ‘You must make him believe that I am the man who has managed to take his place in your heart!’
Annie had to swallow to clear the tension from her throat. ‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ she asked, without turning to face him. She didn’t dare.
Didn’t dare.
Another loaded pause shifted the tension upwards another notch. Then he said quietly, ‘In two weeks Hanson will arrive here at my invitation. You will first convince him that you and I have become—passionate lovers, then I will hand him an envelope which will supposedly contain the photographs he desires so much. But before he has a chance to open it you will take it from him and rip it in two.’
‘What?’ That made her turn, her blue eyes dark with confusion as she levelled them at him. ‘But what is that going to prove?’ she gasped.
‘It will prove that your love for me means more to you than your love for him, because you are prepared to ruin him rather than lose me. You see,’ he went on, turning slightly to pick up his glass, ‘I will have issued you with a decision to make. You can save him and lose me, or ruin him and have me. You will, of course, choose me.’
‘But—I thought the whole point of all of this was not to ruin Todd?’ she choked, utterly bewildered now.
‘No—no,’ he denied. ‘The whole point of all of this is to pay you back for the ruin you have wrought in others’ lives and to get you out of Hanson’s life,’ he corrected. ‘And your taking away his best chance at success at the eleventh hour should alienate you completely,’ he decreed with grim satisfaction.
‘But will also lose you my agreement to co-operate,’ she said. ‘Or have you forgotten that I’m only doing this for Todd’s sake?’
‘No.’ He shook his dark head. ‘I have not forgotten. But you seem to have forgotten my cousin Susie waiting in the wings to step neatly into your shoes. Co-operate, and she will convince me to let her take your place. Susie will wear the Adamas collection for Cliché’s European launch, save Hanson from ruin and receive his undying gratitude in the interim. Refuse to
co-operate,’ he added smoothly, ‘and I will simply keep you here out of harm’s way until the very last moment—then pull out of the deal—’ he gave an idle shrug ‘—leaving him with nothing—nothing to fall back on. You understand?’
Understand? Oh, yes, she understood, Annie thought bitterly. Susie gets everything at Annie Lacey’s expense.
‘My God!’ she breathed. ‘You’re worse than Svengali, aren’t you? And what happens to me once this little charade is all over?’ she asked. ‘Am I supposed to keep my mouth shut about the way you and Susie plotted this whole thing against me? Because I won’t, Mr DeSanquez,’ she warned him angrily. ‘And by then Cliché will be launched and you won’t be able to hurt Todd!’
His answering sigh was harsh and driven. ‘Why can you not possess enough simple decency to see without the threats that it is time you let go of Hanson—for his sake if not your own?’
‘You talk to me about decency,’ she countered scathingly. ‘Where is yours while you stand here threatening me like this?’
‘You need teaching a lesson,’ he muttered, but she knew that her words had got through to him because he dropped his gaze from hers.
‘Not in Susie Frazer’s name, I don’t,’ she denied. ‘And you’re wrong to do this to me and wrong to do this to Todd simply on the evidence of that silly, deranged woman!’
Wrong thing to say, Annie realised as anger flared into his vivid green eyes and he took a threatening step towards her. ‘You will take that back!’ he insisted, thrusting his dark face close to her own.
For once he looked and sounded completely foreign—hard and dark and frighteningly alien, his anger so palpable that she could almost taste it. Annie quailed inside but refused to show it, her blue eyes clinging defiantly to his.
‘I will take nothing back!’ she spat at him. ‘In your arrogant self-righteousness you like to believe that I’ve sinned against your rotten family when in reality it is they who’ve sinned against me!’
‘Sin?’ he repeated. ‘You are sin, Annie Lacey. With your siren’s body and your lush, lying mouth.’
‘The lies are all yours, Adamas,’ she threw back. ‘And what do you think it will do to Susie’s chances when Todd finds out what a lie this whole thing actually is?’
‘And you intend to tell him so?’ he demanded.
