Shackled by Diamonds

The look came in her face again, then disappeared.

‘Well, what do you want, then?’ she demanded.

There was belligerence in her voice. It set Leo’s back up.

‘You can start,’ he said tersely, ‘with some civility.’

A choke sounded from her.

‘Civility?’ She echoed the word as if he’d said DIY brain surgery.

Leo’s mouth tightened.

‘We will be here together for at least three weeks—I have no intention of putting up with your ill-humour for that duration.’

She seemed to have gone pale again.

‘Three weeks?’ she echoed faintly. ‘I can’t stay here that long!’

Anger shot through him again.

‘You think your time in jail would be less?’ he riposted sarcastically.

‘I’ve got assignments booked.’

‘I will have them cancelled.’

She leant forward.

‘No, you will not. I will not have my professional reputation compromised by you high-handedly cancelling my assignments!’

Once more Leo was reduced to just staring at her.

‘Your…professional…reputation…?’ he echoed. ‘I don’t believe I just heard you say that! You, Anna Delane, are a thief! You have committed a criminal act. I could have you slung in jail. And you dare, dare to talk to me of your “professional reputation”?’

Leo pushed his chair back and stood up, his hand slashing through the air.

‘Enough! I don’t want to hear one more insolent word from you.’ He relapsed into Greek, and vented his feelings in several choice expletives. Then he stalked away, his mood as black as thunder.

Behind him, Anna Delane sat very, very still.

She wouldn’t crack. She wouldn’t. She would not give him that satisfaction.

Satisfaction.

The word jibed at her with cruel taunting. She could still see it now, etched on her memory, the triumphant satisfaction on his face as she’d opened her eyes to look down at the man who had just done what he had to her.

Self-hatred lacerated through her. How could she have betrayed herself like that? How could she have responded to him, been stroked and caressed and kissed into arousal as she had let herself be?

Until she was helpless, mindless, beyond all control, all salvation.

Beyond anything except the fire that had swept through her body, flamed it to an ecstasy that she had never known existed.

Nothing had ever been like this—nothing.

It had been incredible, ecstatic, exquisite—a stormfire of sensation that had burnt her flesh to the core in a sensual pleasure so intense she had not known it was possible to exist.

I never knew—I never knew it could be like this…

And in that same moment of exultant realisation she had known exactly why she so feared Leo Makarios—just why he was so dangerous to her. She had opened her eyes and realised, with a sickening, ravening horror, what she had done, what she had let him do. What she had wanted him to do!

And he had known it. Wanted her to want it, and what he could make her feel. She had seen the triumph in his eyes.

Self-hatred lashed through her again.

Oh, God, she’d walked to his bed like an ignorant, arrogant fool! Thinking she could stay detached, controlled. Uninvolved with what was going to happen to her. She had prayed for strength, but she had been weak—devastatingly, sickeningly weak.

So pathetically weak she hadn’t been able to resist. Not a single touch or caress; not even a single kiss! Leo had melted her into his arms and she had been able to do nothing, nothing, to hold back from him!

A shaft of fear went through her.

Three weeks, he’d said. Oh, God, she couldn’t last three days here!

Or three nights…

She sat staring out over the beautiful vista of sea and sand as if she were staring at a desert of thorns.

He would do to her again tonight what he had done last night. She knew it. Knew it with a sick, dull certainty. He would take her to bed and stroke, caress and kiss her body until she could fight it no longer. Until her control was stripped from her just as he stripped the clothes from her body, and that mortal, consuming fire would ignite in her again—until she was aching for him…

Anna could feel her body start to respond, feel a prickling in her skin even at the memory of the night that had passed.

Agitatedly she got to her feet, crossing her arms over her chest, crushing down the sensation that was starting to lick at her body. The hunger that was coming to life again, the throb between her aching thighs…

She had to keep busy! Had to do something, anything, to distract her body. She’d already done her morning stretches and skincare routine, using them to blank out her mind as best she could, when she had finally stirred from her exhausted slumber to wake to lacerating consciousness. Sick with horror, she’d bolted from the bedroom, hearing the shower in the en suite bathroom, knowing she had to get away before he emerged.