Craving Her Enemy's Touch

Not a good idea, not when his body was reacting so wildly to her sexy curves. He wanted to drag the damn chair back out, keep the barrier between them. Maybe then he’d be able to think about the reason he’d come here instead of this long neglected need for a woman’s body.

‘The car is due to be launched. I want you there.’ The words rushed out and he had the strangest sensation that she was depleting his control, weaving some kind of spell around him.

‘You want me there?’ Her voice raised an octave and he blinked hard, then realised how it had sounded to her. A little pang of conscience surged forwards but he pushed it back. Clearly she held him responsible for that night and he couldn’t sully her memories with the truth. Not after the promise he’d made.

‘Sebastian wanted you there.’ What was the matter with him? This woman wasn’t at all what he’d expected. She didn’t look glamorous and the idea that she had, until recently, been living a luxury lifestyle didn’t seem remotely possible.

Why did this ordinary and plain version of Charlotte Warrington, tousled and unkempt from the garden, arouse him so instantly? He couldn’t process thought coherently, his body flooding with lust, demanding satisfaction.

She shook her head. ‘No, he wouldn’t have asked that. But then he wouldn’t have been killed if it wasn’t for you and your stupid car.’

‘You know he lived for cars, for the thrill of speed. It was what he did, what he was good at.’ Sandro pushed back the image of the accident, shelving the terror of all that had unfolded minutes after the crash, which had proved, within hours, to be fatal. He could relate to her pain, sympathise with her grief, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t allow her to apportion the blame to him.

He’d kept the truth from the world and the gossip-hungry media, out of respect for the young driver who’d quickly become his friend. Now it was time to carry out Seb’s final request. He’d wanted his sister at the launch, wanted her stamp of approval on the car, and that was what Seb would have—whatever it took.

‘It is also how he died.’ Sadness deflated her voice and he saw her shoulders drop. Was she going to cry? Panic sluiced over him.

As she composed herself, his gaze scanned the small country kitchen, typically English and not at all the sort of thing he’d imagined her living in. Herbs hung drying from a beam and various fresh versions adorned the windowsill. Nestled among them, in a small frame, was a photo of Sebastian and Charlie.

He reached for it and saw her gaze dart from him to the photo, but she said nothing as he picked it up and looked at the picture. Instead of being drawn to his friend, he looked at the image of the woman who now stood close to him. A woman he knew through the media but had never met. The same woman who was now having a strange effect on him—or was that just his conscience?

From the photo her eyes shone with happiness, her deliciously full lips spread into a smile. She was leaning against a sports car, her brother, his arms wrapped protectively around her, pulled her close, equally happy.

‘Rome. Two years ago,’ she said, her voice almost a whisper, and he sensed her move closer to him, felt the heat radiating from her body. ‘Before he became embroiled in your project and forgot about us.’

He took a deep breath in, inhaling her scent, something light and floral, like jasmine, mixed with an earthy scent from her time just spent in the garden. Carefully he replaced the photo on the windowsill, ignoring the barb of accusation in her last words. That was not a discussion for now. ‘You are alike.’

‘Were.’

That one word ratcheted up his guilt, the same guilt he’d told himself again and again he shouldn’t carry and, finally, he’d thought he’d convinced himself. He should have known that coming here, facing this woman wouldn’t be easy. That it would only increase the self-apportioned guilt instead of lessen it. The fact that he still kept Seb’s darkest secret from everyone didn’t help.

He looked down at her as she stood at his side and when she looked up, her mossy green eyes so sad, so vulnerable, his chest tightened, almost crushing him with a need to chase away that sadness, to put that happy smile back on her sexy lips once again.

‘It’s what he wanted, Charlotte,’ he said softly, unable to break the eye contact.

‘Charlie. Nobody calls me Charlotte. Except my mother,’ she whispered. The kind of sexy whisper he was used to hearing from a woman after passionate sex. Inside his body, heady desire erupted as he imagined her lying in his bed, whispering with contentment.