Bond of Hatred

Well, she wasn’t the only one, Sarah decided in sudden fury. She intended to put a spoke in Elise’s wheels. She was going to get in first. Cheeks hotly flushed, Sarah tracked down Henri and asked him what time Alex took lunch.

Henri blinked. ‘It varies...’

‘I need to know what time he’s taking it today and I want a car to Paris to get me there on time,’ Sarah told him. ‘I want to surprise him.’

Henri smiled with sudden cunning. ‘I’ll find out, madame.’

Sarah went upstairs into the dressing-room and began to trawl frantically through the wardrobes for something suitable to wear, something seductive, something that would come off again with the minimum of effort. She couldn’t afford to give Alex ten seconds to recall the lunch date he was about to break. If Alex could use sex as a weapon, as he had on their wedding night, couldn’t she?

She was ready to tear her hair out and scream when she realised that the most basic weapon in any sensual woman’s wardrobe was missing from hers! Downstairs she went again in a rush, straight into the kitchen to find François, her chauffeur, with his feet up, reading a newspaper. ‘I have to go into Tours!’ she announced breathlessly. ‘Now!’

François could take a hint. They made it to Tours in record time. The lingerie shop she finally located offered up a wealth of choice. It took her only ten minutes to grab up those most essential missing items and then it was back home, at the same speed, to go racing up to the bathroom to commence her transformation.

By the time she made it back into the car for the drive to Paris, she was badly in need of a stiff drink to aid her recovery. It had taken so long to do her hair that big way on her own. Of course she hadn’t been bothering since they married. She had just been washing and wearing it, not making any effort at all, hardly even bothering with make-up... As she counted up her sins, she grew increasingly appalled by such thoughtless inattention to the need to hold a man’s interest. Alex was accustomed to such beautiful women. If she succeeded today, she would be spending every spare hour in the beauty salon, concealing nature’s deficiencies. But it would be worth it, if it meant she kept Alex.

Every head turned as she crossed the foyer on the ground floor of Alex’s office block. Sarah endeavoured not to appear self-conscious. After all, she had a coat on. The fact that she was not wearing anything very much at all underneath it did not show but she could feel that lack, feel her own shocking nakedness in the most extraordinary way.

Alex’s secretary on the top floor was not, she was relieved to note, the kind of sex siren most likely to end up on her employer’s lap in a weak moment. From the top of her greying hair to the toes of her flat, sensible shoes, she was efficiency personified. But she looked rather dismayed when Sarah announced her intention to lunch with her husband.

So Elise was pencilled into his diary, was she? Prepared for that eventuality, Sarah waved a supposed to be arrogant but actually rather desperate hand and said, ‘Cancel any other arrangements Alex has made...and hold all calls. I don’t want any interruptions.’

‘But Mr Terzakis never has his calls held while he’s still in the—’

‘He will today!’ Sarah interrupted in a rush and, lest any other arguments were coming, she hastened through the door being guarded.

Alex was on the phone behind his immaculately tidy desk. His dark head swivelled round. Sarah leant back against the door, striving to look exciting, sexually a tigress, but the amount of effort it took to fumble in search of the lock, work out its type and shoot it home without looking round or down rather spoilt the effect, she felt.

‘Sarah?’ Alex looked astonished.

‘I’m here for lunch... I mean, I’m here in place of...’ Stumbling in desperation, she fell silent, moving forward, thinking that if he found her sudden unannounced arrival that astonishing he was going to need resuscitation before she got much further.

Slowly he rose to his feet. ‘What a charming idea,’ he breathed, his dark brows drawing together as he studied her hectically flushed face and air of decided purpose. Then he stole a fleeting glance down at the narrow gold watch on his wrist. He dealt her a distinctly tense smile. ‘Unfortunately, I’m afraid you’ve chosen—’

‘I just couldn’t wait until you got home,’ Sarah broke in feverishly, his glance at his watch not having been lost on her and serving merely to stoke her tension to new heights.

His black lashes dipped lower over his intent, dark eyes, clear bemusement etched into his rigidity. ‘Wait for what?’ he asked with a dismal lack of comprehension.

Sarah abandoned the idea of a slow, seductive wriggle and pitched off her coat to grab his attention. ‘I couldn’t wait for you,’ she said huskily, and embarked on the buttons of her black, narrowly cut coat-dress.

Alex’s gaze had whipped over to the coat now lying in a heap and back to her fast. He seemed welded to the floor with shock. He certainly wasn’t making this any easier for her, she thought painfully, her fingers turning clumsy on the buttons. In fact, the exact moment the penny dropped would probably live with her forever. Alex went from shocked to shattered. Sarah collided with incandescent golden eyes. Her breath rattled in her throat. If he laughed, she would fall apart like shattered glass. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. She could see that he was making a very conscious effort to accept that this was really happening to him, with her in the starring role.

The dress gaped as she finally made it to the last button. Alex made it out from behind his desk but the damnable man was still staring at her, not doing anything.

‘Sarah...’ he murmured dazedly.

Desperate green eyes held his fiercely as she threw back her shoulders and let the dress slide down her arms, baring all. ‘The door’s locked and...I’m all yours...’

Alex’s golden gaze did a lightning-fast appraisal over her pouting, pink-tipped breasts, the suspender belt, the smooth skin of her slender thighs above the black stocking-tops. ‘Cristos...’ he groaned.

‘You see...I can be the sort of wife you want me to be. You won’t need anybody else,’ she completed with unconscious stress.

‘Never...not if you plan to enliven my working day like this,’ Alex confessed raggedly, suddenly reaching for her, letting one unsteady hand slide up over her taut ribcage and close round one tantalising breast before hauling her full length against him, his other hand splaying over her bottom, curving her into contact with his rampant arousal. ‘And, since no other woman has ever done what you do to my libido, I should think you’ve got me exclusively for the next fifty years...but...’

But? Every bone in her body tensed.

‘...I have just one tiny phone call to make,’ Alex muttered half under his breath.

‘No!’ Elise could damned well be stood up, Sarah thought furiously. Spearing one hand up into Alex’s black hair, she drew his head down to hers. ‘I want you...and I can’t wait,’ she swore with positive violence.