Bedded by Blackmail

Portia eyed her balefully. ‘There is nothing to tell. Susie, please don’t make anything out of this. I don’t intend to have anything to do with the man.’

Her friend stared at her.

‘You’re mad,’ she said roundly. ‘Completely loopy. Anyway—’ she glanced sideways at Portia ‘—I don’t think it’s really going to matter what you intend or not. He doesn’t look like a man who’s used to being turned down.’

‘Well, he’d better start getting used to it!’ Portia snapped.

CHAPTER THREE

HE WAS haunting her. There was no other word for it.

No, that was wrong. Diego Saez was hunting her.

Portia had never felt strongly one way or the other about blood sports. She’d grown up with them, as part of country life, but, being arty rather than horsy, had never hunted.

But now, for the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to be a hunter’s quarry.

Diego Saez was relentless. He had her in his sights and he intended to bring her down. Other men had pursued her in her time, but none like this. Others she had frozen off and eventually they’d given up. Anyway, since Geoffrey she’d stuck to totally safe men, like Simon and a couple of Tom’s friends, if she ever needed an escort anywhere or simply a partner for a dinner party and so on. But she made sure it was understood by any man who accompanied her that sex was not on the menu.

When it came to Diego Saez it was perfectly, glaringly obvious that sex was the only thing on the menu. A man like that wasn’t going to exercise the slightest self-restraint.

She pressed her lips together. Why the hell couldn’t he go and get sex from someone else, in that case? Good grief, it hadn’t taken her long to be informed by a blatantly fascinated Susie that most women were only too keen to get his attention in that way. Not only was he fabulously rich, and exotically South American, he also, Susie confided avidly, when she turned up the next day to drag Portia out to lunch, had a reputation for flaunting one fantastic-looking female after another.

‘Bully for him,’ Portia answered tartly.

‘You should be flattered he’s keen on you,’ Susie reprimanded her reproachfully. ‘I mean, compared with Simon Masters the man is just sex on legs! He’s as rich as anything, and I mean, look at him! Simon’s totally wet in comparison!’

‘Simon’s very sweet!’ Portia retorted.

Susie groaned derisively. ‘Oh, sweet—you don’t want sweet in bed. You want someone like Diego Saez. He just drips sex!’ She gave a delicious shiver. ‘God, Portia, even you must feel it!’

Portia speared a green bean viciously on her plate. Feel it?

Her fingers gripped her fork. Oh, yes, she felt it all right.

She felt those hooded eyes on her, appraising her—waiting for her.

Waiting for her to give in to him. To let those long, skilful fingers brush across her bare skin, as they had already done so devastatingly last night at the opera. He had touched her for only a few moments, but it had been enough—enough to make her realise how very, very dangerous Diego Saez was to her.

Her anger at his insolence—touching her, daring to ask her if she was frigid. Daring to make such a personal, intimate comment to her—had been a relief.

A refuge.

She worked hard to keep her anger at him going. She had to. Had to keep it as her primary response to him when she encountered him—yet again—wherever she seemed to go.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed, Diego Saez had developed an interest in being an art patron. The London art world was delighted—Diego Saez was too rich for them not to be eager for his interest.

She started seeing him everywhere—at private views, art auctions, sponsors’ events and even, worst of all, at private parties. To find him intruding into her own social circuit appalled her, but how could she tell a hostess that if her latest guest was the rich and magnetically attractive South American financier Diego Saez then she, Portia Lanchester, unspectacular art historian, would decline the invitation?

It didn’t matter that he never invited her out again, never even singled her out for conversation. He was just there—everywhere. She couldn’t escape him.

He was like a hair shirt, she thought. Her own personal hair shirt—mortifying

her flesh. Making her, with every amused, taunting glance, punishingly aware of her own physicality. His considering appraisal of her—never overt enough to draw the attention of others, but always there, never turned off, even when he wasn’t looking directly at her—made her hypersensitive to her own body. She saw the graceful twist of her wrists as she ate, felt the movement of her head on her slender neck as she turned to talk to someone, felt the brush of her dress against her breasts, the press of her thighs, one against the other…

It was a constant torment, making her feel like this.

How could he do this to her? How could he make her so aware of herself? And worse, much worse, aware of him?