And the Bride Wore Black

‘Forget Brian,’ he snarled savagely. ‘I’ve made it clear to that scum that you are strictly out of bounds. Just concentrate on me for now.’ He straightened slowly, staring at her from eyes that were slanted into narrow gold slits. ‘Brian is the least of your problems, angel-face, believe me.’

She remained frozen in her chair, her face upturned to his, hardly daring to breathe.

‘No one has ever been foolish enough to treat me like this before and I’m going to make damn sure you never make that mistake again. I don’t know what’s gone on in your life and at this moment in time I don’t care, but you are going to be brought to heel, my girl, severely to heel.’

‘Alex—’

‘Don’t Alex me.

’ His voice was soft now with a quiet deadliness that chilled her blood. ‘From now on we play the game my way, understand? I’ve tried the softly-softly approach but you don’t understand normal reasonable behaviour, do you?’ His eyes glittered furiously. ‘No matter, angel-face, we’ll communicate on your terms. You will come with me to my grandmother’s home for Christmas whether it fits into your plans or not, and you will do exactly as I tell you. Is that clear?’ His eyes raked her ferociously as he spoke.

‘I will not!’ She had been too stunned by his unexpected rage to react before but now an anger to match his had her in its grip. ‘You can’t make me! With all your money you can’t make me!’ She made to rise but he pushed her down violently.

‘Don’t make me show you what I can or can’t do,’ he said slowly, the authority in his voice intimidating her even as she tried to fight it. ‘You’ll regret it, bitterly, if you do. I won’t be taken for a ride by you or anyone else.’

‘I wasn’t—’

Her voice strangled in her throat as he reached out a hand and grasped a handful of hair, drawing her up to him slowly. ‘How can anyone who looks so...fragile be so hard?’

‘I’m not hard!’ Her body was pressed into his now and her head tilted to look up into his dark face.

‘No?’ His mouth twisted in the semblance of a smile. ‘You mean there’s another side I haven’t been privileged enough to glimpse yet?’ His fingers loosened in her hair, slowly moving across her head to the back of her neck as his breathing thickened. ‘I don’t know why the hell I’m bothering with you at all except that maybe I believe that other side is there after all.’ She stood absolutely still, hardly daring to breathe. The look on his face and the stirring in the hard male body pressed against hers told her more clearly than words of his arousal and she had never felt more vulnerable in her life, more threatened. Not so much because of his rage or passion, she was honest enough to admit to herself, but more because she couldn’t trust herself not to respond.

‘Fabia...’ Her name was a groan on his lips as he bent to nuzzle his face in the soft silk of her hair, his mouth moving to her ears and throat in soft feather-like kisses that brought an immediate hot ache trembling forth in her lower stomach, and as his mouth fastened on hers with a touch of violence in its intensity she found herself straining to meet his need with her body even as her mind told her this was madness.

‘Why do you fight me when it could always be like this?’ His voice was so soft that she could barely hear it and as she felt his fingers on the tiny pearl buttons of her blouse she shut her eyes tightly. She had to stop this; what was she doing...?

‘No, please, Alex...’ Her voice was lost as he claimed her mouth again, and as she felt her bra slip and his fingers move to cup the silky fullness of her breasts a piercingly sweet pleasure took over her senses at the same time as a little cold voice hammered into her brain, Again? You are inviting all this again? And with him?

‘I said no!’ As she wrenched herself backwards out of his arms she pulled her blouse so violently across her chest that she felt the thin material tear. ‘Don’t touch me!’

‘What the—?’ As he saw the panic in her eyes his hands, which had gone out to grasp her, froze in mid-air, a stillness taking over his features as he turned away, walking over to the other side of the room and standing with his back bent and his hands resting palm down on the small coffee-table as he struggled for control.

She sank down into the chair she had vacated, her mind numbed and blank and her breath coming in little panting sobs. They remained suspended in a frozen tableau for a full minute and then he raised himself slowly, turning and looking over to where she sat huddled in the chair, his eyes as cold as ice.

‘I don’t know what all that was about, Fabia, but if you thought you could twist your way out of doing what I want you are dead wrong.’ She stared at him silently, her eyes huge in her white face. ‘You owe me and you are going to pay your debt. You’ll come to Cumbria and behave beautifully, not a foot—not a toe—out of place. Do you understand?’

‘I hate you.’ As her whispered words reached him his face stiffened.

‘Maybe.’ His voice grew softer. ‘But you’re still coming. And afterwards I shall let you go, a few days older but a whole lot wiser.’

‘You can’t make me—’

‘I can and I will, sweetheart.’ He was calmer now but with a ruthless severity that was more chilling than his anger. ‘I’ve given you every chance and you’ve blown it. Well, such is life.’ He shook his head slowly as he walked to the door, his eyes resting on her face with a touch of biting contempt in their gold depths.

‘I don’t like to be played with, and, until you learn that, life is going to be very difficult.’ He paused with his hand on the handle. ‘And a word of warning: don’t try and escape again, Fabia. The world isn’t big enough to hide you. One of the advantages of having money is that it makes the world considerably smaller. I’ll be in touch. Goodnight.’

It was a full minute before she could persuade her trembling legs to move after he had left, and then she stumbled over to the door, shooting the bolt into place with shaking hands and sinking down on to the carpet weakly.

He had trapped her! She groaned softly. Or maybe she had trapped herself? Why, oh, why had she told Brian she was spending Christmas with Alex? She could have handled Brian, but not this man. Not this man with his tawny cat-like eyes that could harden into stone and his limitless, terrifying wealth. He was too powerful to fight, with his sensual charm and compelling sexuality, and she seemed to have no defence against him. At the last thought she stiffened. No! He could attempt to subjugate her, impose his will over hers, but the final outcome would be up to her. She raised herself from the floor slowly. And, as sure as she drew breath, never, never again in the whole of her life would she allow herself to be crushed and defeated, broken at the feet of some man. She would rather die first.

She straightened her slender shoulders for battle, her mouth set in grim determination. She would go with Alexander Cade to his grandmother’s home and act the part that fate, and a big golden-eyed barbarian, had allotted to her to the best of her ability. She had no other choice. But if he thought he had won he was wrong! Her eyes narrowed ominously.

He would never reach the real Fabia Grant, never touch the woman who had been born that night seven years ago amid heartbreak, disillusion and bitter humiliation, never touch the core on which she had built a new life.

She simply wouldn’t let him.

CHAPTER FOUR