Captive of Kadar

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.

‘Charlie,’ he repeated as wild need pumped through his veins. He really should stop his mind wandering to the subject of sex. He was in danger of complicating this mission beyond all proportions. She was the one woman he shouldn’t want, couldn’t desire. ‘Seb did want you there.’

‘I can’t.’ Her voice, still a throaty whisper, tugged at his male desires as they rampaged ever wilder.

‘You can,’ he said and, without thinking, he reached out and stroked the back of his fingers down her face. Her skin was soft and warm. Her breath hitched audibly and her eyes darkened in a message as old as time itself.

Slowly she shook her head in denial, moving her cheek against his fingers, and he clenched his jaw against the sensation, reminding himself he didn’t mix business with pleasure and this had always been about business—and concealing his friend’s downfall.

He thought again of the recent conversation with her father, of the assurances he’d made to him, binding him deeper into the promise Seb had extracted from him as his life had ebbed away.

‘Your father thinks you should.’

It was as if an explosion had happened. As if a firework had gone off between them. She jumped back from him, the chair scratching the tiled floor noisily, her eyes flashing accusation at him.

‘My father?’ Her voice, laden with shock, crashed into his thoughts, bringing his mind well and truly back into focus. ‘You’ve spoken to my father?’

* * *

Charlie was numb with shock. How dare he speak to her father? And why had her father not mentioned it? Why hadn’t he warned her Alessandro Roselli, owner of one of Italy’s biggest car manufacturers, was looking for her, wanting her to do something he knew she couldn’t face yet? She’d only seen her father yesterday. He should have told her.