A Savage Betrayal

Cesare sent her an insolent smile. ‘What’s it worth to you?’

Her skin burned. ‘No…’

He skated a long forefinger very slowly down her slender thigh and looked at her with sizzling challenge. Mina went rigid, every physical sense leaping back on to red alert with a raw immediacy that horrified her. He had stopped smiling, his strong face taut, his eyes flaring. He curved his hand over her knee and reached for her again, without warning bringing his mouth smashing down on hers hard enough to hurt.

Only it didn’t hurt, it thrilled. Electrifying excitement engulfed her in a tidal wave. His tongue drove between her lips, searching her out, tasting her, emulating a far more intimate possession with an explicit sexuality that overwhelmed her. It felt as if the top of her head was flying off. Her fingers dug forcefully into his shoulders, dragging him closer because she wanted more, so much more, and the hunger he had unleashed on her was a wildly potent provocation.

Cesare tensed, momentarily holding himself back, and then her tongue flicked against his in an enticement that was entirely instinctive and, with a raw groan of need, he ravaged her reddened mouth with potent hunger. Suddenly she was no longer upright but lying back. His hand slid up one trembling thigh, wrenching the dress out of his path.

She was out of control, her breath sobbing in her throat, her heart racing. She clung to any part of him she could reach, her fingers clutching at his hair, the back of his neck, splaying against the silk-clad heat of his taut abdomen, scratching down his long spine, clothes, always clothes getting in her way, driving her mad with frustration.

Cesare suddenly stilled and dragged his mouth from hers. Then she heard the noise. Someone was banging on the window and shouting. Her heavy eyelids lifted very slowly. A fire-alarm couldn’t have dredged a faster response from her. Her body was on another plane, her mind absent without leave.

Cesare swore in guttural Italian, a dark flush accentuating the fevered glitter of his eyes as he registered their surroundings. ‘Cristo… you make me do crazy things!’ he condemned as he abruptly swung back into his seat.

As he did so, Mina clumsily began to sit up. She made him do crazy things? The eternal Eve syndrome, she reflected bitterly. Only then did she see and recognise the red car parked and evidently abandoned in a hurry to one side of the gates…

It was her sister’s car. Sheer horror turned Mina white.

While Cesare, awesomely in control at having been surprised in such a situation, inexplicably lowered the window on the driver’s side when he could simply have driven out on to the road, Mina attempted to shrink backwards and conceal herself behind him, panic taking hold of her as Winona’s shaking and outraged voice fill the car.

‘Do you think this is a lovers’ lane?’ Winona was shrieking in fury. ‘How dare you park in the entrance of my home and behave like that? It’s disgusting!’

CHAPTER FIVE

SICK with horror, her sole ambition escape without detection, Mina hissed at Cesare in a frantic whisper, ‘Drive off, for goodness’ sake!’

Dear heaven, how could she have sunk this low? In broad daylight in a car parked on a driveway where anyone could have come upon them! But she had no doubt that the police moving them on would have been infinitely preferable to Winona. Her pride in tatters, her sense of humiliation overpowering, Mina sat there like a graven image just waiting for the axe to fall. She couldn’t understand why Cesare hadn’t driven off or why he was so silent.

‘Oh, my God,’ Winona suddenly gasped, and peered into the car, fixing stricken and incredulous eyes on Mina and then switching them to Cesare in belated recognition. ‘Get out of his car!’ she screeched full blast.

‘At first glance, the resemblance is really quite startling, but you’re not identical. Sisters?’ Cesare queried in a staggeringly controlled tone, only his thickened accent betraying that he was not quite as in control as he wanted to appear to be.

‘Did you hear me, Mina?’ Winona positively shrieked. ‘Get out of his car!’

‘Twins.’

‘At least I didn’t bag the hysterical one,’ Cesare murmured flatly.

‘Who the hell are you calling hysterical?’ Winona screamed at him, banging a fist on the windscreen.

With admirable cool, Cesare shot the car into reverse again and began backing up the driveway. ‘So your sister lives here too. Interesting.’

‘She’s married to Baxter’s other grandson.’

‘Why did she go crazy when she saw me?’ Cesare probed.

‘It really would be better if you let me out here and left,’ Mina managed tremulously as Winona’s car roared up the drive and raked to a halt beside them. It was a relief to note that Steve’s Range Rover had gone. He must have left by the back lane.

‘But I wouldn’t miss this for the world. It’s like one of those mystery weekends in a country hotel.’ Cesare watched in apparent fascination as Winona hurled herself out of her c

ar and raced past the Ferrari like a maniac. ‘She’s pretty, not beautiful like you. Does she envy you?’

‘Not at all.’

As Winona vanished into the house, Mina clambered out on cotton-wool legs. ‘Please go,’ she pleaded without a lot of hope.

Cesare slid out and slammed the door again with an air of pronounced finality. He straightened his tie, smoothed back the hair her fingers had tousled. Then he stilled, his dark features tautening. ‘You’re not married to Clayton, are you?’ he suddenly demanded.