A Mistress, a Scandal, a Ring

She felt equally annoyed at how devastatingly gorgeous he looked, standing there in the middle of his living room in his dark grey suit, every bit as sleek and expensive-looking as the designer decor and stunning pieces of artwork that lined the interior walls.

She licked her lips, but there wasn’t enough moisture in her mouth to alleviate their dryness.

‘Why am I here?’ she challenged, choosing to skip the more obvious Why are you angry?

She didn’t need a psychology degree to work that out. Anyone who spent time with this man would see he had a penchant for control—and people who liked being in control didn’t like surprises...unless they were doing the surprising.

She guessed her upping and leaving without saying goodbye in person had surprised him.

Throw a hefty dose of male ego and dented pride into the mix and you had all the ingredients for a grown man’s temper tantrum.

So, yes. She wanted to know what he planned to do now.

Vent his anger?

Yell a bit?

Yell a lot?

She shook off any lingering cowardice and raised her chin, giving him a bold, defiant look.

Do your worst.

Because, really, how frightening could his worst be? She was a trauma nurse who’d worked the weekend night shift in Accident & Emergency. She had placated belligerent drug addicts. Fended off breast-and-butt-grabbing drunks. Had the unmentionable contents of a bedpan thrown at her...

A billionaire in a bad mood? Pfft. Child’s play.

His eyes narrowed. And then he did something surprising and removed his suit jacket, shrugging his broad shoulders out of the expensive fabric and dropping the jacket onto the end of the long, coffee-coloured sofa behind him.

Jordan’s eyes widened, but he didn’t stop there. He upped the surprise factor another notch by lifting his hands to his throat, working his tie loose and sliding it out from under his collar.

Her breath shortened, and for one slightly hysterical moment she wondered if they were playing some kind of bizarre game of one-upmanship. Because when she thought about it they’d been surprising the hell out of each other from the moment she’d walked into his office last week and told him her late stepmom was his biological mother.

If she were keeping score she would have said before yesterday that they were level pegging. But then Xavier had stormed into the lead with that blistering, spine-loosening kiss she was trying very hard not to think about right now.

He threw the tie onto the sofa, then undid the button of his collar one-handed. His gaze stayed on hers, direct and unsettling, and she couldn’t for the life of her look away.

‘We have unfinished business.’

She swallowed, but her throat was dry and her voice came out husky. ‘What business?’

He stalked across the plush carpet towards her and she stood like a deer in headlights, trapped by the silver snare of his gaze. On some deep, instinctive level she understood what was happening. Understood that beneath the ruthless self-control there wasn’t only anger and ego railing against their restraints but something much more primal and volatile. Something that, if he chose to unleash it, neither of them would escape from unscathed.

And yet her conscious mind couldn’t process it. Couldn’t reconcile the hot, glittering intent in his eyes with the cold slap of his words from last night.

‘It was a mistake—and it won’t happen again.’

He stopped in front of her and she felt her pulse spike and her entire body tremble. But, even knowing what he intended, she couldn’t make herself move. She felt as if she were in the grip of some sort of delirium—like a storm chaser standing in the path of a destructive tornado, torn between excitement and terror.

His hands came up and bracketed her head, his long fingers splaying into her hair. ‘This business,’ he said, his voice rough and deep. And Jordan had scarcely a second to snatch in her breath before his mouth rocked savagely over hers.

She didn’t feign shock. Didn’t make any token attempts to resist. The simple, irrefutable truth was that she’d yearned for him to do this, ached for him to touch her again, and denying it was like trying to hold back a storm.

Impossible.

She wanted to run into the storm. Wanted it to sweep her up and consume her in its chaos. Drown out the voice of sanity that would tell her all the reasons why they shouldn’t do this.

His kiss wasn’t gentle and she didn’t want it to be. It was searing and fierce. Dominating and deep. He cradled her skull and prised her lips apart, driving heat and sensation into her mouth, demanding a response that she gave with a bold flick of her tongue against his.