The Morning After

To each his Achilles heel, she mused starkly, opening her eyes to show him a perfectly cool expression. Luis Alvarez’s Achilles heel had been his inflated ego, and the arrogant belief that power and money could buy for his bed any woman he’d desired. Cristina’s had been her blindness to what her husband actually was. And Susie’s was her need to have everything her selfish heart desired.

This man’s was his fierce love for his family.

She then found herself wondering what her own Achilles heel was. She didn’t know, but she had a horrible feeling that in this man’s hands she was going to find out.

‘You have nothing to say?’ Her calmness was irritating him; she could see the annoyance begin to glint in his strange green eyes.

Green. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘Not a single thing.’ And another realisation hit her squarely in the face. Susie had green eyes—the same green eyes. Which seemed to tie the whole situation off neatly for her. She didn’t have a cat-in-hell’s chance of making this man with those eyes see anything from her point of view, so she wasn’t even going to try. ‘Perhaps you would, therefore, like to continue?’ she invited, knowing with certainty that he had not offered her all of this information just for the fun of it.

His sudden burst of angry movement at her seeming indifference took her by surprise, because he had been so purposefully controlled up until then. His hand flicked down from the mantel, his body straightening tautly. ‘Has nothing I have said managed to reach you?’ he demanded harshly.

‘It would seem not,’ she said. ‘All I’ve heard until now is a potted description of your family tree. Very interesting, I’m sure,’ she drawled, ‘but nothing for me to get fired up about.’

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like the fact that she could maintain a cool façade and even go as far as mocking him.

It served him right, she thought, for his arrogant supposition that he had a right to speak to her like this! If he had taken the trouble to find out about her—really find out instea

d of restricting his knowledge to pure tabloid gossip and the malicious judgement of his thankless family—then he would have discovered that few people managed to rile Annie Lacey with mere words. Out of sheer necessity she had grown a thick skin around herself to protect her from the cruel thrust of words, and it would take a better man than he to pierce that protective skin.

‘When they say you possess none of the finer senses they are right, aren’t they?’ he muttered. ‘Do you feel no hint of compassion for others at all?’

‘It would seem not,’ she said again, fielding his contempt with blue eyes that gave away nothing of what she was thinking or feeling inside. Then sheer devilment made her cock a golden eyebrow at him. ‘Is there any in you?’ she challenged right back.

‘For you, you mean?’ He shook his sleek dark head. ‘No, Miss Lacey, I am sorry to inform you that I harbour not an ounce of compassion for you.’

‘Then you have no right to expect more from me than you are willing to give yourself,’ she said, and got up, her slender body no less sensuous in movement because it was stiff with control. He couldn’t know, of course, that she had been through this kind of character-slaying before, and at far more lethal hands than his, or he would not be trying this tactic out on her.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ he demanded as she walked towards the door.

‘Why, to the one place you obviously expect me to go,’ she replied. ‘To the devil. But by my route, Mr DeSanquez, I will do it by my own route.’

He moved like lightning, had to to reach the door even before she had a chance to turn the handle. His hand, big and slightly callused, closed around her own. Even with the light clasp he exerted, the hand managed to intimidate her.

‘And how do you mean to get there?’ he enquired silkily. ‘Fly on your broomstick as witches do? Or are you more the snake, Miss Lacey, prepared to slither your way across the ocean to your devil’s lair?’

‘Funny,’ she jeered, having to force herself to retaliate through the stifling breathlessness that she was suddenly experiencing at his closeness. ‘But I thought this was the devil’s lair?’

‘I am merely his servant, Angelica,’ he stated grimly. ‘Merely his servant.’

There was nothing ‘mere’ about this man. He was larger than life itself—in size, in presence, in the sheer, physical threat of the man.

‘I want to leave here,’ she informed him coldly.

‘But I’ve not finished with you yet.’ The taunting words were murmured against her cheek, dampening her skin with his warm spicy breath.

‘But I have finished with you!’ she snapped, turning to anger to cover up the hectic effect his closeness was having on her. ‘I demand that you fly me back to Union Island!’ She tried to prise his fingers from her other hand. ‘Now—before this silly game gets out of hand!’

He responded by snaking a hard arm around her waist and lifting her off the ground. Ignoring the way she twisted and struggled and kicked out with feet made in-effectual by the way he was carrying her, he walked over to the sofa and dropped her unceremoniously into the soft coral-coloured cushions, then came to lean threateningly over her.

‘Now listen to me,’ he commanded. ‘And listen well, for this is no game. I mean business, Miss Lacey—serious business. You are here on my island for one purpose only, and that is to put you right out of circulation. From now on I am going to ensure personally that you form no danger to anyone in my family again!’

He was talking about Susie now, of course, Annie realised. ‘And how do you intend to do that?’ she asked, blue eyes flashing a scornful challenge at green, absolutely refusing to let him see how very frightened she was. ‘By ruining my good reputation when everyone knows I don’t have one? Or do you have murder in mind, Mr DeSanquez?’ she taunted dangerously.

His anger flared at her refusal to take him seriously, his bared teeth flashing bright white in a cruel dark face as he reached for her again. ‘Murder is too easy an escape for you, you little she-devil,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps this will teach you to have a healthy fear of me!’

She didn’t expect it, which was why he caught her so totally off guard when his hard fingers curled tightly on her shoulders and he brought her wrenchingly upwards to meet the punishing force of his mouth.

It lasted only seconds, but it was long enough for her to feel again the hectic sensation of her whole body burning up, as though something totally alien had invaded her.