AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
He collected his scattered clothes from the kitchen floor, and he dressed with true regret. He didn’t want to put barriers up to more pleasure. He wanted to take her to bed and make love to her slowly, to seduce her all night long, like he would any other lover.
But there was danger in that—danger in forgetting why he’d come to her, why he’d spent a year trying to locate her. Why he needed her signature on the documents he’d brought with him, her agreement to sell her shares to him.
He had buried his father a month earlier and there was no way he was going to let his desire for a woman cloud his judgement.
He was so close to achieving his goal, and Amelia diSalvo was the key to that.
Sex with her had been a mistake. A stupid, careless mistake—because it had the power to confuse things between them. Because it muddied the water of what he needed from her.
With a grim expression on his face, he let himself quietly out of the house, walking towards his car with a growing sense of determination. The rain had stopped but the clouds were still overhead, covering the moon and the stars so everything was in pitch darkness.
The documents were on the front seat. He grabbed them out, tucking them under his arm before making his way back to the house. Silence came from upstairs.
He fought a desire to go and check on her, to see if she needed anything. A passionate encounter didn’t a relationship make—there was no need for him to play the part of the solicitous boyfriend. It was better for both of them if he focused on his reason for being in the cottage.
Revenge was close—so close he could feel it. And it would be better than anything he’d ever known—even the pleasure he’d just felt in the bed of his arch-enemy.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I THOUGHT I heard the door.’
She appeared in the lounge and at that moment the lights flickered to life—a stutter at first and then a burst, and her expression showed bemusement.
‘You’re dressed?’ She lifted a brow, padding across the room in only a silk robe. A robe that left little to the imagination, not that he needed to use it. He could remember every single curve and delineation of her body, every indent and hollow. Though he regretted now not making love to her in the brightness of this light, so that he could see her peaches and cream complexion all over, marvel at the contrast of her nipples to her skin.
Damn it—he tightened against his trousers, unwanted desire flooding his system once more.
‘What’s the matter? You’re suddenly struck mute?’ Something like uncertainty fluttered in her expression but she covered it quickly. ‘I mean, I know that was good, but surely not enough to rob you of the ability to speak.’
His smile was tight on his face. Her easy nature was at odds with the direction of his thoughts.
‘I came here tonight to talk to you about something important.’
Confusion clouded her expression. ‘Oh. Right. I’d...forgotten. Something to do with our grandfathers?’ She blinked, her expression still one of trust, and stepped across the room. ‘Surely it can wait?’ she implored, lifting a hand to his chest, her eyes meeting his in both a challenge and an invitation.
God, he wished it could wait. But being caught up in the moment, letting passion override common sense once was one thing. It would be quite another to keep exploiting her sensual need, an appetite he had awakened without realising her innocence.
‘Not really.’ He grimaced. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’
‘I’m fine.’ She shook her head as wariness crept into her expression. A wariness he couldn’t help but resent.
He nodded, a stiff movement, and lifted his hand to rub his neck. He hadn’t thought about what he would say. When he had come to Bumblebee Cottage, he’d expected this to be much like a standard business meeting.
She had something he needed, and he had something he could offer in exchange. Money, in the first instance and, failing that, a promise to bide his time with her brother’s business, not to bring him to his knees in a cataclysmic fashion. Blackmail, yes.
Would he still stoop to that, given what they’d just shared?
He straightened his shoulders, his expression tense. Sex was beside the point. It didn’t change the facts—he wanted what she had and he’d go to any lengths to acquire it.
Too much rested on his success here, and the hatred he felt for the diSalvo family went deeper than anything he’d shared with Amelia this evening.
‘I need you to sign this.’ He pulled the contract from his document wallet and placed it on the table—the coffee table they’d sat at only a couple of hours earlier, tension zipping through the room.
Well, there was tension again no
w, but a different kind altogether.
