Bedded by Blackmail

For an instant longer he had stayed, with her hand curved around his jaw, and then suddenly, as if a bullet had been fired, he’d pulled free from her, put her from him and risen from the bed.

He had walked to the bathroom, and she had seen the play of muscle and sinew in his powerful, sculpted back, had felt again for one fragile, fleeting moment the wonder that had consumed her, and then, at the door to the en suite bathroom, he had turned, glancing back at her, his expression blank, indifferent.

‘Use the other bathroom, Portia. And then get dressed. Be ready in fifteen minutes—don’t keep me waiting.’

Then he had shut the bathroom door.

And in that moment, that sickening, hideous moment, she had realised with punishing, brutal clarity just why she had always run from Diego Saez…

Shame had burned through her. Hot, coruscating shame at her own blind, unforgivable folly.

That feeling was with her still now, as she sat, silent and strained, in the first-class airline seat.

And the same question burned through her mind, round and round.

How—how could I have responded to him like that?

To her, the experience had been wondrous, magical. A revelation so exquisite that she had been consumed by it.

To Diego Saez it had been nothing more than a quick lay with a woman he’d had to blackmail into bed with him…

And when it was over, he was done with her.

Until the next time he wanted sex.

Tightness garrotted her throat as she sat in the plane, feeling the low, betraying throb of her flesh, hating herself.

Desperately, brokenly, she had gathered to her the only armour that she had been able to find, like tattered rags to cover her shaming nakedness. And by the time she had walked out into the reception room of the suite, showered and reclothed, her hair redressed in its chignon, only the faint stain of colour along her cheeks and her swollen lips to betray what her state had been such a short time earlier, she had donned that armour, her only frail defence

He’d been standing at the table, immaculately attired in a dark business suit, freshly shaved, white cuffs gleaming against his tanned skin. He’d been closing down his laptop, clicking down the lid and zipping up the case with swift, decisive movements.

Something had gone through her as she’d watched his tall, powerful frame.

She had crushed it down.

It had no place in what had been between them.

He’d turned round.

His face had been shuttered, the way it had been when he’d walked into Salton.

‘We’ll stop off at your flat on the way. You can pick up your night things and your passport. Don’t take long. The flight won’t wait.’

She’d stared.

‘Flight? I…I don’t understand.’

His mouth had tightened.

‘You’re coming to Singapore with me.’

‘Singapore? But—but I—’

He walked to the door and opened it, pointedly waiting for her to walk through.

She took a breath.

‘I have a job,’ she said in a clipped voice. ‘I can’t just go…go off to Singapore!’