Mistress of Deception

But how could he turn a blind eye to betrayals such as were perpetrated in that hotel room last night? What would happen the next time she was denied sex for a while? Hell, he'd never be able to trust her out of his sight for a moment.

On the other hand, if he didn't marry Ebony, he would never marry anyone, never have children, never give his mother the grandchildren she so longed for. She loved Ebony like a daughter and would continue to love her without reservation, provided he never enlightened her of Ebony's failings. The girl was not all bad, having but the one fatal flaw in her character: she had no conscience about sex.

Could such a marriage work? he agonised. Was he strong enough, bold enough, forgiving enough to take on such a woman?

That was the dilemma facing him. Yet when he looked deeply into her eyes as he was at this moment, there didn't seem to be any dilemma. Her gaze was truly loving, and oddly innocent. Maybe she didn't realise how wrong her behaviour was. Maybe, in her mind, sex and love were two entirely different things.

Her father had been like that. Pierre had seemed to love his wife, yet that hadn't stopped him seducing every pretty girl who came his way. Judith had done her best to keep her husband faithful, always travelling with him wherever he went, but Pierre was incorrigible. He often boasted to Alan that he only needed an hour here and there to accomplish his adulterous adventures. There were some women, he'd claimed, who liked to be treated as sex objects. They enjoyed strictly sexual encounters, the risk of discovery increasing their passion and pleasure.

Alan had not agreed with him. Till now...

Suddenly, his mind was made up, his insides tightening with the acceptance of what he was going to do.

'Being a softie is not always a good thing for a man to be,' he told Ebony brusquely. 'I won't be letting it become a habit. Shall we move along now? I'd like to reach our destination while the sun's still high in the sky and has some warmth in it.'

Ebony thoroughly enjoyed the cruise through the heads of Sydney Harbour and up the coast, loving the feel of the sea breeze and the salt spray in her face. Alan had occasionally taken her out like this when she'd been home on holidays from boarding-school, and they had been outings she'd treasured. Usually it had been in the summer, and she'd loved to watch him move around the boat dressed in shorts and little else. She'd been very aware of him as a man even then, loving the look of his lean male body and dreaming what it would be like to touch it, kiss it.

Her heart squeezed tight and she gripped the railing harder. Alan's body had turned out to be every bit as good as she'd originally fantasised. She'd adored the feel of the steely muscles in his flat stomach, the broad shoulders and hair-roughened chest, the taut buttocks and powerful thighs. -

But today... today it would be even better, because it would not only be the body of the man she loved, but the body of the man who loved her. God, but she'd waited a lifetime for that kind of lovemaking.

A shiver of anticipation ran through her and she turned to glance back at Alan, her hair whipping across her face as she did so. He was in the cabin behind the wheel, his dark good looks and tanned skin enhanced by the white shorts and open-weaved white top he was wearing.

Sweeping her hair off her mouth, she went to smile at him. But the smile died before it was born once she saw the way Alan was looking at her. No,

staring at her. The wind was lifting the beach-coat away from her thighs and buttocks, revealing the high-cut black lace swimming costume Alan had asked her to put on before leaving Double Bay. His gaze was riveted to the revealing costume and the flesh therein, and it didn't look like a loving gaze to her eyes. It was the same way Alan had often looked at her since they'd become lovers— with a combination of lust and contempt.

Shock turned her mind off the necessity to keep a firm hold on the railing, and when the nose of the boat crashed into the top of a wave Ebony lurched sideways, almost losing her balance.

'Hey, watch It! * Alan yelled out to her, his face flashing true alarm. His instant and very real concern brought some soothing to the sickening suspicion that he'd lied about loving her.

But she was not entirely soothed. There remained an apprehensive niggle of doubt, her mind racing to find evidence to support or tear down such a destructive fear.