His Final Bargain

Eliza rose to her feet rather than have him tower over her so menacingly. ‘You lied to yourself, Leo. You wanted a wife and you chose the first woman to fit your checklist.’

‘Why did you come on to me in that bar that night?

She found it hard to hold his burning gaze. ‘I was at a loose end. I was jet-lagged and lonely. I have no other excuse. I would never do something like that normally. I can’t really explain it even now.’

‘Let me tell you why you did it.’ His top lip curled in disdain. ‘You were feeling horny. Your fiancé was thousands of miles away. You needed a stand-in stud to scratch your itch.’

‘Stop it!’ Eliza clamped her hands over her ears. ‘Stop saying such horrible things.’

He pulled her hands down from her face, his fingers like handcuffs around her wrists. The blood sizzled in her veins at the contact. She felt every pore of her skin flare to take more of him in. Her inner core contracted as her body remembered how it had felt to have him thrusting inside her. His first possession four years ago had been rough, almost animalistic and yet she had relished every heart-stopping, pulse-racing second of it.

‘You still want it, don’t you?’

‘No,’ she said but her body was already betraying her. It moved towards him, searching for him, hungering for him, aching for him.

‘Liar.’ He brought her chin up, his eyes blazing with fiery intent.

‘Don’t do this,’ she said but she wasn’t sure if she was pleading with him or herself.

‘You still want me. I saw it that first day when I came to your flat.’

‘You’re wrong.’ She tried to deny it even as her pelvis brushed against his in feverish need.

He grasped her by the bottom and pushed her hard into his arousal. ‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? You’re desperate for it, just like you were four years ago.’

Eliza tried to push him away but it was like a stick insect trying to shift a skyscraper from its foundations. ‘Stop it,’ she begged. ‘Please stop saying that.’ A bubble of emotion rose in her throat. She tried to swallow it back down but it refused to go away. She didn’t want to break down in front of him. She hated that weakness in her, the one where she became overwhelmed and crumbled emotionally. It was the abandoned little seven-year-old girl in her who did that.

She wasn’t that little girl any more.

She was strong and independent.

She had to be strong.

She had to survive.

She had to withstand the temptation of losing herself in the sensual world of Leo Valente, the one man who could dismantle her carefully constructed emotional armour. Her armour had been just fine until he had come along. It had always stood her in good stead. But now it was peeling off her like a sloughed skin, leaving her exposed and raw and vulnerable.

‘I’m sorry…’ She squeezed her eyes tightly closed for a moment. ‘I just need a little minute…’

He dropped his hold as if she had suddenly burned him. ‘Save your tears.’ He scraped a hand through his hair. ‘It’s not your pity I’m after.’

Eliza forced her eyes back to his hardened cynical gaze. ‘Right now I’m having a little trouble figuring out what it is you actually want from me.’

‘I told you. I want you to fill in for Kathleen. That’s all I want.’

She watched as he strode to the other side of the room, his movements like his words: clipped and tense. Was it true? Was that all he wanted from her? What if he wanted more? Wasn’t it too late? An unbridgeable chasm separated them. He’d had a child with another woman. She was still tied to another man. Even if they wanted to be together, how could she desert Ewan when it was her fault he was sitting drooling in that chair?

Maybe this was about revenge. It pained her to think Leo would stoop to that. Was he so bitter that he had to make her suffer? What good would it do to either of them to spend a month at war over what had happened four years ago? It wouldn’t change anything. Their history would still be the same. Their future would still be hopelessly unattainable.

‘You should go to bed.’ Leo turned to look at her again. ‘Alessandra is not an easy child to manage. You’ll need all your reserves to handle her.’

‘I’m used to dealing with difficult children,’ Eliza said. ‘I’ve made a career out of it.’

‘Indeed you have.’ He gave her a brief on-off movement of his lips that was a paltry imitation of a smile. ‘Goodnight, Eliza.’

She felt as if she was being dismissed again. It didn’t sit comfortably with her. She wanted to spend more time with him, getting to know the man he was now. Understanding the agony he was going through in handling a blind, motherless child. He seemed lonely and isolated. She could see it now that she knew what had put that guarded look in his eyes and that tension in the way he held his body. Who was helping him deal with his little girl’s disability? Was anyone supporting him? She had met parents of special needs kids before. They carried a huge weight of responsibility on their shoulders. They had told her how shocking and devastating it had been to find they were now members of a club they had never intended to join: the autism club, the hearing impaired club, the learning disabled club—the not quite perfect club. And in most cases it wasn’t a temporary membership.