Bedded by Blackmail

He forked the last piece of the Eggs Benedict and sat back. He should be feeling relaxed, but he wasn’t. Sex always relaxed him. And he had had a lot of sex last night. And more just now, on waking.

But he wasn’t relaxed.

Maybe I’m going off her. Had enough of her.

His eyes flickered over her, sitting opposite him. She was wearing an emerald-green silk kimono, embroidered in gold. She must have bought it yesterday, when he’d sent her out to get the evening dress.

The wide sleeves made her hands seem smaller as she lifted her coffee cup with a graceful gesture, cupping it between her pale fingers. The emerald silk fell back slightly, revealing slender forearms.

As she lifted the cup to her lips the folds of the kimono shifted slightly, outlining her breasts at either side of the deep vee.

He felt his body stir faintly, despite its satiation.

No, he hadn’t had enough of her.

Abruptly, he got to his feet. Whatever he might feel inclined to do, he had to make a move. He had a lot to get through today.

Suddenly the day ahead seemed very long. And tedious. He wanted it over.

Irritation nipped at him. Usually he enjoyed his pursuit of wealth, stalking new opportunities, harvesting existing ones. And here in the Far East there was a whole lot of both. Asia Pacific was wide open—the money to be made here was breathtaking.

He liked the attitude to money out here. It was open and honest. These burgeoning economies wanted money—and they were prepared to work their backsides off for it.

The way he had.

But not everyone worked for their money.

He glanced down at the blonde head, bowed slightly as she drank

her coffee.

Portia Lanchester thought she could stay rich just by offering him her body. Even though it meant soiling her lily-white hands on him…

A hard smile curved his mouth.

She wasn’t so fastidious about him now. No lying back and thinking of her precious stately home! No, she shuddered with pleasure in his arms, her body pulsing, unable to stop her response to what he did to her.

His smile deepened, and there was a dark glitter in his eyes.

Making her take pleasure in what she was offering him was his own particular pleasure.

And shocking her with his demands—that added to his pleasure too.

He’d made a lot of those demands in the night.

And there’d be plenty more tonight, too.

But first he had to get through the day.

It stretched ahead of him endlessly.

I’m being a tourist, thought Portia. She had taken a taxi and gone down to the old centrepiece of Singapore, the wide green Padang, where British colonials had once played cricket in the days of Empire. Now the red-roofed cricket pavilion was dwarfed by the giant high-rise blocks that were modern Singapore. She’d seen the greystone Merlion, rising from the sea by the harbour, half-lion, half-fish, symbol of a city called into existence by Victorian merchants and now the busiest port in the world and a global financial powerhouse.

She was lunching at Raffles, the legendary hotel named after Singapore’s founding father Sir Stamford Raffles, flanked by flat-leafed palms, gleaming white in its restoration as a tourist attraction. She sat at a table on the inner veranda, overlooking a pretty courtyard garden, picking at delicious food. She felt bad, because much of it would be wasted, but she could not force more of it down. She set it aside and went back to sipping her iced water.

She felt suspended. A fly in amber. Time was moving, but she was not. Her body ached, as if she’d done too strenuous a workout.

Inside her head pressure seemed to be building.