The Morning After

He went still for a moment, his mouth warm where it rested against her softly throbbing pulse. Then, ‘This is no longer your problem,’ he dismissed, returning his attention to her throat.

‘But of course it’s my problem!’ she insisted, trying to arch away from his seeking lips. ‘I’m worried about the Cliché launch!’

‘Worry about me instead,’ he said huskily, and sucked the small fleshy lobe of her ear into his mouth.

She quivered, lips parting on a soft gasp of stinging pleasure. ‘Stop it!’ she said, determinedly pulling away. ‘We need to talk.’

There was another moment’s silence when she thought he was going to ignore her—once again. His head remained bent, his hands braced either side of her. Then he straightened, and his eyes when they connected with hers via the mirror were suddenly inscrutable.

‘So, talk,’ he conceded coolly.

Her heart gave a small flutter—cowardice, she recognised, wanting to drop the whole subject before she spoiled what they had going here. But…

‘What are you going to do about me?’ she said. ‘And Todd and his magazine launch?’

‘You forgot to add Susie into that equation,’ he inserted, turning away.

‘Susie?’ Twisting around on the stool, she stared up at him. ‘But I don’t understand.’ She frowned. ‘Everything’s changed now! Surely you aren’t still intending to—?’

‘And what has changed exactly?’ he drawled as he moved with a lithe, arrogant grace back across the bedroom.

Her heart took up a slow, heavy pumping as she watched him go, the rear view almost as excruciatingly desirable as the front view. The man had muscles where muscles ought not to be!

‘Y-you know I’m no threat to Susie’s personal relationship with Todd,’ she reminded him huskily, having to struggle to subdue the feelings that were threatening to divert her from the subject in hand. ‘But our business relationship is different! I won that contract fair and square, César. And neither you nor Susie can have any justification in wanting to take it away from me now!’

‘You still want to keep it?’ Reaching around the open bathroom door, he hooked a clean towel from the rail inside while holding her gaze with a cool, questioning look.

She frowned. ‘Of course I want to keep it.’

‘Why?’

‘Why should I not want to?’ she countered.

‘Maybe because I am asking you not to,’ he suggested quietly, wrapping the towel around his lean hips.

Annie came stiffly to her feet, not sure whether the sudden movement was brought on by the discomfiting subject matter of this conversation or because of the blatant sensuality with which this man did everything—even held this damned conversation!

‘And why should you want to do that?’ she demanded.

‘Because this particular contract is just one job among many jobs to you,’ he replied, with a dismissive shrug of one taut, bronzed shoulder. ‘But to Susie it would be the making of her career. Oh,’ he continued when Annie opened her mouth to speak, ‘I know she’s good. But she’s not in your league, Angelica. You can survive without the big boost the Cliché launch will give your career, whereas Susie’s career will probably never really recover from losing that contract to you in the first place.’

Her eyes widened at this cool business assessment he made of both herself and Susie. ‘So you want me to give it all up for Susie’s sake?’ she choked in blank disbelief.

‘Would that be such a very big hardship to you?’

Was that a question or a not very subtle statement of command? she wondered. Then sat down again slowly—very slowly because it suddenly occurred to her that it didn’t matter whether it was a question or not. The very fact that he was making the sounds at all was enough to make her legs tremble so badly that she had a fear that they would collapse if she did not keep them under strict control.

Betrayed, she realised painfully. She was feeling betrayed on every level. Betrayed by the subterfuge he had used to get her here to this island in the first place. Betrayed by his later remorse and apparent desire to put things right once he’d realised his mistake, and betrayed by the depth of intimacy he had used to bring her oh, so cunningly to this moment of truth.

And all of it—all of it done in Susie Frazer’s name. Blow his own sister! Blow Luis Alvarez! This—everything that had taken place over the last week—had simply been manoeuvre and counter-manoeuvre on his part, with this one goal in mind!

To make Annie Lacey malleable enough to do anything for him that he asked of her.

What a bloody fool she had been. Now she felt sick.

‘What are you thinking?’ His voice seemed to reach her from down a long, dark tunnel.

‘I’m thinking you’re a bastard,’ she whispered thickly.