Rival's Challenge

He’d lost focus. And yet clearly Orla hadn’t. Even now she was moving to the wardrobe to pull out her case. Something hot and black rose up inside Antonio to see her preparing to go home without any further ado, but he pushed it down, aware of that sense of exposure eating his insides.

Instead he pushed the bedcovers aside and stood up, pulling on his jeans. He said coolly, ‘I’ll call the pilot and get the plane ready.’

Orla let out a shuddering breath as soon as she heard Antonio leave the room. Her eyes stung with tears. She’d been downstairs, preparing a very rudimentary breakfast, humming a tuneless song, daydreaming about what they might do that day, after a long morning spent in bed … feeling all soft and tender inside after what Antonio had told her last night. And then she’d nearly jumped out of her skin when her phone had rung.

She’d even forgotten that she’d left her phone on a side table and had been surprised that the battery hadn’t died. That was how little she’d cared about being contactable. How little she’d cared about her work. And it had been her father, wondering incredulously where she was.

For someone who had never rebelled, Orla had felt like a teenager right then. The outside world and all its responsibilities had slammed into her gut like a freight train. Her whole life had been spent focused on one thing: the family business.

But when her father had asked her where she was, the only thing that had risen up inside Orla had been resentment. Resentment that something was intruding on this sensual idyll.

When Orla had heard herself woodenly assuring her father she’d be home later that day, she’d had to come to terms with the fact that she’d woven a fantasy out of nothing. A fantasy out of a hot affair with the man who wanted to take over their business. For heaven’s sake, she’d even been imagining herself here, with a child! Envying Marie-Ange for her air of domestic bliss, her beautiful kids.

She’d lost herself completely. Forgotten who she was. Thought for a minute that she could be someone else. That she could have a different life.

And worse … thought that she’d fallen in love with Antonio Chatsfield. When she’d woken that morning, she’d spent long minutes just looking at him. Her heart feeling full enough to burst.

To recall that now was the worst humiliation of all. Was she so starved of male company and sex that she fell for the first man who offered her some?

As if someone like Antonio could ever really offer her anything; he had effectively cut himself off from his entire family. He was a man who had seen and experienced the worst this world had to offer. He might have been dealing with his demons very effectively but she could see that they lurked not far behind his dark, dark eyes.

And he was clearly committed to one thing right now: the takeover for his sister’s sake. Orla didn’t doubt that he must hope that by doing this, he’d find a way back into his family after all these years. No wonder it was so important.

Antonio Chatsfield was the most self-contained person she’d ever met. He didn’t need anyone. Had she really thought that she could be the one to soothe his soul? How many women before her had wanted that and tried? God, she was such a cliché!

Orla tried to reassure herself fiercely that she hadn’t fallen for him as she dashed away the tears. She hadn’t. It was just hormones. But the assertion sank into a very hollow spot inside her. The sooner she put this whole experience behind her, the sooner she’d be back on track, where she belonged. Building their business from the ground up again.

So why, when her business was her life, did that prospect make her feel so empty and bleak?

Orla heard Antonio’s return into the room behind her and tensed. She wasn’t ready to see him. She felt raw. Exposed. Humiliated. Stupid.

Anger rose up, with herself, and him, for making her feel so out of control. The words came rushing out before she could stop them. ‘I should never have said yes to coming here.’

She could almost sense his tension behind her. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She shrugged minutely, not even bothering to fold her clothes which told of her agitation more than anything else. ‘Just that—we should never have come here. It was indulgent and selfish.’

She heard Antonio moving and then he was right behind her and every little hair stood up on Orla’s body. Her hands tightened around some clothes.

His voice was low and definitely angry. ‘Do I need to remind you that you took all of five minutes to decide to be indulgent and selfish? I didn’t have to twist your arm, sweetheart.’

Something pierced Orla to hear him use the same tone he’d used when they’d first met. She still refused to turn to face him, almost scared to. ‘Well, I think it’s safe to say we fulfilled our remit, and now it’s time to leave. Past time. We’ve forgotten our priorities.’

Big hands were on her shoulders and then she was being whirled around to face Antonio and her heart palpitated painfully. He was bare-chested, and she was aware of his jeans clinging sexily to those lean hips. His eyes were like blazing coals and their feral heat seared her alive.

‘Fulfilled the remit? I should have realised that this exists somewhere on a chart for you of things to check off a list. Your weekly progress report.’

Orla gasped, but before she could say a word, his mouth was covering hers and he was stealing her words. Orla fought against the way her body just wanted to go up in flames.

She bunched her hands to fists against his broad chest. She tensed up. But he was too skilful—his mouth was like a torture device of pleasure. Moving against hers, his rough tongue stroking, teasing. All of the sudden and intense anger that had blown up was fading, treacherously.

He pulled back, breathing harshly, eyes almost burning her alive. ‘You say we forgot our priorities? Well, you might have, but I never did. This was always about getting you where I wanted you.’

Before Orla could respond or even acknowledge the incredible pain that seemed to twist her heart in her chest, Antonio’s mouth was driving down onto hers again, so passionately bruising that she had no defence for it.

She growled her frustration deep in her throat but now Antonio was stripping off her shorts and top and Orla’s brain turned to heat. He laid her down on the bed and stripped off his own jeans.

Electricity crackled between them. Sanity tried to break through; Orla struggled up on her elbows but Antonio was lying beside her now, his hand roving down her belly, under her panties, fingers seeking and finding where she seemed to be perpetually aroused. For him.