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‘My mind may not remember you but my body does. I know that if I kiss a certain spot on your neck you will lose control and your legs will begin to shake.’
Nora gasped, shaking her head in an effort to stop him. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘Stop! No more lies between us.’ His voice was a seductive whisper. ‘I remember touching you, Nora. I remember your beautiful face as you climaxed with the most delicious whisper of a scream.’
He looked into her eyes and Nora was utterly helpless, unable to move under the sensual weight of his amber gaze.
‘I suddenly know all of these things and yet everything else is still in shadow. How can that be?’
Nora wasn’t sure whether he was asking her or himself, but she inhaled a deep shuddering breath and found that the few distraction tactics and acting skills she was able to draw upon had thoroughly escaped her. She felt a mixture of arousal and fear creep up her spine, holding her paralysed and powerless to do anything more than stare at him in damning silence.
‘Am I still mistaken?’
Nora closed her eyes and felt the echo of their passionate whirlwind affair rush through her like a hurricane, destroying all the hopes she’d had of talking herself out of this.
‘It was a casual thing. Barely more than a few weeks until it was over.’ She forced the words out and watched as Duarte’s eyes blazed with triumph, then narrowed on her once again.
‘When?’ The word was a harsh demand.
‘A year ago. Five months before your kidnapping,’ she said, wondering if he was mentally doing calculations.
The idea that he was suspicious enough to ask for that confirmation was more fuel heaped onto the fire of anxiety within her. She had told him the truth. Their short-lived fling had ended the day he’d walked out of her father’s home. But of course there had been that crazy day when he had appeared in the rain outside her university a couple of months later...
An involuntary shiver went down her spine as she remembered the anger and frustration of their conversation erupting into a single desperate explosion of passionate kissing in his low-slung sports car. They’d been parked near the beach in broad daylight, and she had shocked herself when she had moved to spread herself over him and felt Duarte enter her unsheathed.
The madness had only taken them briefly, before they had realised what they were doing and stopped, but apparently that was all it had taken for her to fall pregnant.
She wouldn’t regret it—not when it had given her the greatest gift of her life. Her son.
Duarte took a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak, but just then they were interrupted by the arrival of one of his bodyguards in the doorway. Nora was shocked to see that the man was covered in blood and had a split lip. It suddenly dawned on her that Duarte had told her he’d been in a fight. What had happened?
‘The intruders have been removed, sir.’ The guard spoke quietly but his rasping voice carried on the wind. ‘Senhor Fiero has confirmed that they are members of Novos Lideres.’
Nora felt the ground shift beneath her.
‘There’s been a break-in and you didn’t tell me?’ She gasped, feeling her body begin to shake as she desperately grasped for the baby monitor, half expecting to see her father’s face there instead of her peaceful, sleeping child.
‘Thank you—you can take the rest of the night off.’ Duarte’s mouth was a grim line.
‘That’s not all, boss.’ The guard flashed a glance towards where Nora stood. ‘I don’t think they were here for you. There were months’ worth of surveillance pictures and notes all over their car...photos of her.’
Duarte’s face turned to pure thunder as he instructed the guard to gather the evidence and bring it to his office.
Once the man was gone, he advanced on Nora. He was dangerously still, his arms crossed as he looked down at her like an angry god. ‘Have they approached you since that night in the shipping yard?’
‘I knew I was being watched,’ she answered truthfully.
He closed his eyes, torment in every inch of his face. ‘This is why you fear me. Why you have been so mistrustful of my help. I’ll bet even now you are making plans to run. To disappear from here.’
‘Running is the only defence I have to keep my son safe. Away from the crossfire. From all of you.’
‘All of us?’ His brow darkened with sudden ferocity. ‘You consider me the same as them?’
Nora turned to walk away, but her progress was hampered by a strong, muscular arm against the doorframe. She looked up to find him dangerously close, his eyes twin fires of fury.
‘Don’t ever compare me to that lowlife gangster and his cronies again.’
‘You say you’re trying to help me, but we both know why you’ve really taken me under your protection.’ She steeled herself, determined not to back down in the face of his anger. ‘You’re keeping me here to get information against your enemies. What makes you any different?’
