Mistress of Deception

How come in the movies—and I suspect in life—it's always the bad guy who ends up with the girl? Oh, never mind. I'll be here when you get here, love. See you.' And he hung up.

Ebony lowered the receiver silently back into its cradle, but, when she turned, there was Alan, standing in the open doorway, thunder on his face.

'You can't marry Stevenson,' he ground out. 'You don't love him.'

She glared at him, standing there in the nude, as arrogant as you please. And as lethally attractive. Not an ounce of fat graced his tall, lean body, a light covering of dark hair giving him a primitive appeal. Put a spear in his hand and he would make a good savage, she thought bitterly.

'How do you know?' she said, using her fingers to comb her tangled hair back from her face till it fell into a sleek black curtain down her back.

'Because you're incapable of loving any man,' he stated harshly.

Her short bark of laughter was half disbelief, half mocking. 'Certainly not a man like you!'

His blue eyes blazed for a second before adopting an expression of cold contempt. "Then why keep going to bed with me?'

She' shrugged. 'Perhaps I'm a masochist.'

'A hedonist, perhaps, not a masochist. You enjoy pleasure, Ebony, not pain. And you can't deny I give you pleasure.'

'I wouldn't dream of denying it.'

When she moved to brush past him on the way to the bathroom, his hand shot out to enclose her upper arm in a vice-like grip. 'You can't go from me to Stevenson,' he rasped.

She locked eyes with him, aware of nothing but the emotional quaver in his voice. Could that be love talking? she puzzled briefly before dismissing such a stupid notion. No. Not love. Possessiveness. Jealousy. Male ego. But not love. Alan's heart already belonged elsewhere. If he had a heart, that was. She was beginning to doubt it.

'I have to talk to him,' she admitted, then added, 'I have to tell him personally that I'm not going to marry him.'

There was no way she could have mistaken the relief in Alan's eyes. But that didn't prove anything, except he wasn't ready yet to give up his private supply of free sex. Free in every way. Emotionally, financially and physically. What man would want to give up such a cushy arrangement?

When he went to draw her back into his arms, she yanked out of his grasp and took a step backwards. 'No,' she said coldly. 'I have to shower and dress. Then I'm leaving.'

'What happened to breakfast?'

'I'm not having any. If you want some, get it yourself.'

His smile was sardonic. 'So kind of you.'

'Oh, but I'm not kind, Alan. There again, you don't want me for my kindness, do you?'

'Hardly.'

'Then don't complain. You've got your way. I'm not marrying Gary. What more do you want from me?'

'Not a thing,' he bit out.

'Then if you'll excuse me?'

He watched her sweep into the bathroom, black anger in his heart. What more did he want of her? He wanted her to grovel at his feet, to beg him to visit her more often, to suffer from the same type of blind, obsessive need that was even now sending the blood pounding through his veins, making his flesh expand into a tight, painful instrument of torture.

Only an instinct that seducing Ebony this morning might rebound on him in some way made him put that solution to his frustration aside. All he could do was wait for her to leave and then he would plunge his pained body beneath the coldest of showers till he could comfortably face the day ahead.

Meanwhile he would dive back, under the bedcovers and pass the time contemplating the many and varied ways he could exact vengeance on this creature who had been tying him in knots for years.

Yes, years!

Four, to be exact. He couldn't count the first three. She'd spent most of

them in boarding-school. And while at fifteen she'd been a budding beauty,

her shy, almost introverted nature at that time had protected her from

male admiration, his own included.

Not that he would have dreamt of seeing Pierre's daughter in that light, especially at such a tender age. No, he was not guilty of that, thank God. Still, he remembered having enjoyed her company when he'd taken her on the occasional outing back then, finding her opinions surprisingly mature and her gestures of gratitude towards him quite touching. He actually still kept a pair of gold cuff-links she'd given him for his twenty-eighth birthday after saving the money herself from delivering pamphlets during the school holidays.