The Heat Of Passion

'How dare you steal Amory's from him?' she had blitzed.

Carlo had poured her a brandy and handed it to her in silence.

She had downed it in one, outraged by his cool.

'I didn't steal it, I bought it. For far more than it's worth in its current state of efficiency,' he had drawled. 'And I am not a man known for my generosity. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have bought. Your father doesn't realise how fortunate he is to possess such an asset.'

'What the hell have I got to do with it?'

'If you had surrendered last week,' Carlo had spelt out gently, 'I would have given him the finance he requires to survive and he would still have owned his business.'

Sick with horror, Jessica had stared back at him. He had cruelly laid the responsibility for the loss of Amory's on her shoulders. And there had been worse to come.

"This week, as you may have guessed, that ^ffer was

concluded and I bought instead,’ he had continued lazily.

'And by next week, I will no longer be prepared to con

sider offering your father the opportunity of staying on

as managing director '

'That's blackmail,' she had whispered incredulously.

'That's business,' Carlo had asserted.

And Jessica had gone crazy, appalled and outraged that he could use her father to pressure her. A violent row had ensued. She had been so furious, she had no memory of her abuse, but Carlo had lost his temper too. Her attempt to slap his face had landed her on her back on the sofa with Carlo on top of her... and then it had begun, in raw mutual anger that, terrifyingly swiftly, had turned into the scorching heat of an uncontrollable passion.

A passion that was insanity to her in the aftermath of shame and disbelief. But he had not held her down and forced her to submit to his mouth and the heated caress of his hands. She had been a full participant. Hating him, wanting him, needing him, hating hersel He had unleashed a woman she did not know and did not want to remember afterwards. When they were interrupted, she had been fathoms deep in shock.

But Carlo had blazed with triumph. He had skated an insolently intimate hand across her breast in an arrogant display of sexual possession. ‘You tell Turner tonight. It's over now. Why did you fight me? From the first, I knew it would come to this.'

And she had lain there listening while she died inside at both what she had almost done and what he wanted to make of her. She had hated Carlo with boiling ferocity at that moment of biting humiliation. She had been repulsed by the future he had offered her so casually.

But that had not been why she had run out of the Deangate like a madwoman.

No, far from it. She had run in terror from her own physical response to Carlo, absolutely convinced that she was as oversexed and immoral as her mother. Carlo had been the very first temptation she had ever had to withstand and she had not withstood him. From the moment he touched her she had been a lost cause, burning with a passion that equalled his and utterly, hopelessly submerged in her own sexuality. And then, she ackn

owledged, she had not been able to cope with that discovery.

Only maturity had brought her closer to understanding. She was a normal healthy woman but for six years she had been forced to repress and deny all her physical urges. Simon's complete indifference to her as a woman had been deeply wounding on every level, a secret shame that had destroyed her faith in her own femininity. Carlo had taught her that she had sexual needs but she had been bitterly ashamed and afraid of those same needs at the age of twenty.

But she owed no other man loyalty now, and why should she be ashamed, she suddenly asked herself angrily—why should she be ashamed of experiencing the natural physical promptings of that side of her nature? Sexual attraction made the world go round. Without it, the human race would die out.

She was not like her mother, ready to jump into bed with any man who took her fancy, she told herself fiercely. If she had been like Carole she would have found it out by now, would have experienced this attraction with a whole host of other men and would surely have ended up having affairs. That she had not told her that she was not as vulnerable as she had once feared, no... not vulnerable at all in that sense.

Take Carlo out of the picture and she could live like a nun. Only Carlo could turn her inside out with one burning glance, only Carlo had the ability to infiltrate

her mind with erotic thoughts and melt her to molten honey in his arms. For the very first time in her life she was attempting to understand the sheer driving force of sexual desire and accept it, rather than run in terror and shame from it. But accepting that those promptings existed did not mean that she wanted to act on them.

Slowly, she straightened and made her way back to her bedroom. As she opened the door, she saw that a light was burning. Carlo, minus his jacket and tie, was reclining on her bed.

On the brink of verbal attack she belatedly recalled that she had told him that she wanted to speak to him. 'I gather this is as private as we can get,' she said coolly. ‘I had a visit from your stepmother before dinner and very interesting it was too.'

The dark planes of his features were impassive.

'She suggested that our engagement was a masquerade and asked me how much you were paying me,' Jessica volunteered. 'She then offered to double it.'