How had they got here?
The answer was terrifyingly simple.
They always ended up here. As if an invisible force controlled them.
But she wasn’t a passive passenger, without any say or control in her destiny. On the contrary, faced with temptation such as she’d never known before, her willpower had pulled her though when things got out of hand.
‘We’re going to part in a few weeks...’
His words echoed in her head, intensifying the tightness in her chest and the hollow in her belly.
Perhaps it was the need to eradicate those feelings that made her react. Perhaps her foundations had been badly eroded when she wasn’t looking.
Whatever.
With a rough, unbidden little sound, torn from her throat, Faye wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders and closed the gap between them.
Maceo permitted her free rein for all of five seconds, and then he was pulling her into his lap, disposing of the sundress in two easy moves to leave her clad only in her bikini. He reclined on the lounger, dragging her along his body until she was sprawled on top of him. Then he wove dark magic around them.
Words tumbled from his lips as he tasted her with a ferocity that left her breathless. Moaning, she threw herself into the embrace, the knowledge that this exploration was finite, that some time very soon she would be back in Devon with her mother, memories of Capri and St Lucia a distant dream, sharpening the need to absorb and hoard every second of this experience.
She gasped as Maceo flipped them over and dragged urgent hands down her body. Cupping one breast, he flicked the nipple expertly until it peaked, then groaned under his breath. Searing pleasure darted from the point of contact to her core, making her slick and needy and desperate.
Against her thigh she felt his potent power and shivered.
‘I want you. I will have you,’ he grated against her throat, the sound so raw and deep it was as if he made the oath to himself.
It burrowed deep in
side Faye, and the next shiver that coursed through her, while deeply pleasurable, arrived with a warning. Because for a nanosecond every cell in her body had screamed yes.
Yes to opening herself up to another devastating rejection.
Yes to putting not just herself and her innocent mother in humiliation’s way but Maceo, too.
Because hers was the sort of stigma that could never be washed away.
She’d been selfish once upon a time, had sought solace when she should have kept her secret. She still bore the emotional scars from that.
Matt had only been a fellow university student, but Maceo was Luigi’s godson—part of a family her stepfather had treasured and chosen over her mother and her. And, while the knowledge seared pain into her soul, after weeks in his domain she understood why Luigi had made that choice.
Maceo had impeccable pedigree, and despite his tragic circumstances he had become a powerful, dynamic CEO, revered for his intellect. A man who’d elevated his family’s business to international renown and success.
How could that compare to her, a nobody, an abomination, with a deep, terrible secret?
If she gave in now, even if her secret remained buried for her lifetime, knowing she’d stained him would be unconscionable.
She started to pull away.
He caught her chin and stilled her retreat. The action left her with very little choice but to stare into intense tawny eyes alight with passion.
‘You are thinking of denying me. Denying us. Again,’ he condemned, with a quiet, deadly rasp.
‘I... I have to.’ The words were torn from her soul.
‘The only reason you have to is because something holds you back,’ he announced arrogantly. His eyes narrowed to laser slits. ‘Your HR forms suggested that you are unattached. Is that a lie?’
‘You read my HR forms?’ she asked, momentarily distracted before his firm touch focused her back on the electric present.