For Better for Worse

‘And it needn’t end there,’ Venice was telling him. ‘You’re young, Nick, and there’s no limit to what we could achieve. A ministry… the cabinet… A title…’

She had him now, Venice recognised; she could see the bemusement, the bedazzlement, the bewitchment reflected in his eyes. She smiled triumphantly to herself. She had always known she could do it, of course, just as she had known within a very short time of their becoming lovers how ideally he could be moulded to become her ticket to the life she craved.

She could have done it herself, of course; she had the intelligence, the cunning… but the intensely sensuous and sexual side of her nature, the need to control and dominate, the love of secrecy that drove her—these would have been difficult to accommodate in any public role, especially that of a politician. The Press would have seen to that.

No, it was far better that Nick be the one on whom the public attention focused. She looked at him again. He was like a child, dazzled by the bright colours of a pile of cheap toys, not recognising how easily they could break and be worthless. He could not see, as she could, how tight-fitting and restrictive his role would be.

She need never fear that Nick would stray. He might be tempted… he would be tempted; but temptation was all he would experience, she would see to that… There would be no pretty, greedy, ambitious researchers for Nick… No doe-eyed, adoring secretaries… no late-night session with co-workers while she waited demurely at home for him.

The power of wealth was a wonderful thing. They would have a London base, and she would live there when the House was in session.

The child would of course be at boarding-school, it and any others they might have, and she intended to make sure that anyone and everyone who came into contact with Nick understood who actually controlled not just the purse-strings but his strings as well. Poor Nick. He thought he was the one in control, the one with power…

Dazed, Nick shook his head, excitement taking over from shock.

Venice was right. They could do it… He could do it…

‘I know you don’t want to hurt Fern,’ Venice told him. ‘But we have to get everything sorted out quickly, Nick, so that when your name goes forward as a candidate no one can start any kind of smear campaign against you. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Adam decided to try for the candidacy. Not that he could afford it, of course…’

Nick stared at her. He wasn’t going to let Adam take this prize from him. He wasn’t going to let Adam take from him the glory, the power, the prestige Venice had just shown him.

‘Mmm.’ Venice was snuggling up to him now, rubbing her breast against his side, sliding her hand down his body.

‘Mmm. Just thinking about you becoming an important, powerful politician is making me feel so sexy. Let’s go to bed…’ She touched his body lightly but deliberately.

‘That’s something else you’ve got that Adam doesn’t,’ she told him softly as she kissed his mouth. ‘Poor man, it must be dreadful to have so little sex appeal. Now you…’ She kissed him again, flicking her tongue over his lips, rubbing her body against his, slowly starting to unfasten the buttons on his shirt and then drawing her tongue over his exposed flesh.

He smelled and tasted of sweat, reminding her of her first lover. It wasn’t a pleasant association. Contrary to the impression she gave, Venice did not like her men to be openly sexual in that sense. She preferred them almost antiseptically clean and disempowered of their maleness. But she was not going to give Nick the opportunity to back out now. She was almost there… almost…

‘Take me to bed,’ she whispered against his skin, all pleading little girl, all vulnerable supplicant. She knew what Nick liked—what made him feel good and in control. Unlike him. For all his arrogant confidence in his sexuality, he really knew very little about pleasing a woman. Unlike his stepbrother. Now there was a man who…

Under her breath she sighed. What a pity it was that Adam was so impervious to her. But then, maybe perhaps not. It was better this way…

This way she would remain in control… in power.

As she manufactured one of the small, delicate shivers she knew Nick took as a sign of his superiority and her weakness, she smiled triumphantly to herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘I’VE got to go.’

‘No…’ Venice pouted, reaching out to wind her arms around Nick’s naked body. That was one thing he did have, a good body… lithe and firm without too many obvious muscles, his skin sleek and tanned from the sunbed he used at the country club. He really was incredibly vain… but she liked that in a man. It made him more vulnerable.

‘No, stay here with me tonight,’ she whispered. She felt his resistance even before his body tensed. But she was prepared for it.

‘We still have so much to talk about… I want to sell this house, Nick, buy something else. We’ll need to stay within the constituency, of course… somewhere impressive and large enough to entertain. There’ll be people in London we’ll want to invite down…’

‘But what about Fern?’ Nick protested, but he was already weakening, seduced and excited by the picture Venice was so cleverly drawing.

‘Leave Fern to me,’ Venice told him softly. ‘She’s a sensible woman. She won’t be able to deny that your marriage has been in trouble long before you met me. You told me yourself how unhappy you were.’ She paused suggestively. ‘How unfulfilled…’ She touched his face, trailing her fingertips along his jaw, kissing the base of his throat, mentally estimating whether she was going to need to arouse him again before he gave in. If she did she would do it orally. He loved that… lov

ed watching her as she took him in her mouth. Why was it that men were so idiotically proud of that ridiculous few inches of flesh? Had they really no idea how vulnerable it was? It amused her the way he attempted to dominate her, to thrust himself into her mouth.

The first time he had gone too far she had stopped him with a sharp nip of her teeth. She had claimed it was an accident, of course, filling her eyes with tears and the air with abject sounds of remorse.

The trouble was that she had a very sensitive throat… very narrow. She was sorry if she had hurt him. She had never intended…

He had believed her, of course, and she had made sure that he now knew that when she performed fellatio on him she was doing him a very special favour which had to be paid for and with interest.