Forgiven but Not Forgotten?

Andreas smiled. ‘Of course you will.’

Siena had a vision of walking out of here with him and fresh panic galvanised her to ask, a little belatedly, ‘What..what will you expect of me?’ She held her breath.

Andreas’s smile faded. He suddenly looked harsh, forbidding. Not like a man who wanted her in his bed so badly that he’d sought her out and was prepared to pay her in kind for it.

‘Considering the price you’ve put on yourself…I will expect you to be a very willing, affectionate and inventive lover. I’m a very sexual man, Siena, and I pride myself on satisfying my lovers, so I expect the same in return. Especially from you.’

Siena struggled to hold down a hysterical giggle. Inventive lover? He’d be lucky if she managed not to betray her innocence, and she could imagine now with a lancing feeling of pain just how unwelcome that knowledge would be. It might even be enough to turn him off altogether. As tempted as Siena was to suddenly blurt out that intimate truth, she thought of her sister and clamped her mouth shut. No going back. Only forward to accept the consequences of her actions, which she’d set in motion five years before.

Not wanting to think of how his assertion that he was ‘a very sexual man’ had impacted her deep inside, Siena asked rather shakily, ‘How long will you want me for?’

Andreas came close to Siena, where she stood near the door, and touched her jaw with his finger, making her shiver with helpless sensation. His eyes travelled up and down her body with dark intent and then rose back to hers.

With almost insulting insouciance he said, ‘I think about a week should satisfy my desire for retribution and for you.’

Siena flinched minutely. There was a wealth of insult in his assumption that a week would be enough, and Siena hated that it felt like an insult when it should feel like a reprieve. Anyone could handle anything for a week. Even this.

‘A week, then.’ Siena assured herself that seven days was a blip in the ocean of her life. She could do it.

Andreas smiled, but it didn’t reach those dark eyes. ‘I’m already looking forward to this time next week, when the past truly will be in the past. For ever.’

Siena’s sense of vulnerability increased. ‘The feeling is mutual, believe me.’

After a tense moment Andreas dropped his hand, stepped back and said, ‘Get your stuff packed, Siena, and don’t leave anything behind.’

‘But I’ll be coming back here…’

Andreas’s mouth thinned as he took in the meagre furnishings with a disdainful glance. ‘You won’t be returning here. Ever.’

Siena opened her mouth to protest and then stopped. Of course he thought she wouldn’t be coming back here if she was going to turn his gifts into cash. Andreas didn’t know that in a week’s time she’d be as broke as she currently was, and she didn’t want his razor-sharp brain to pick that up.

Faintly she assured herself that she’d worry about it when the time came and went into the tiny bedroom and pulled out her case. Only a few hours ago she’d had nothing more on her mind than how to get through the evening without keeling over from exhaustion and the constant niggling worry about how she would be able to look after Serena, because they didn’t have enough money to continue paying for her psychiatric care.

But now her life had been turned upside down and she had a very unexpected and unwitting benefactor for Serena.

The next week stretched ahead like a term of penal servitude. But, treacherously, Siena felt a shiver of anticipation run through her. Would Andreas expect her to sleep with him tonight? The thought made her heart leap into her throat and her mouth went dry. She wasn’t ready—not in a million years.

The thought of all that intense masculinity focused on her was overwhelming when she was so inexperienced. Siena felt numb as she started to pull the paltry collection of clothes from the rail. She didn’t even have a wardrobe. She could almost laugh when she thought of the palatial bedroom she’d had all her life, with its medieval four-poster bed. It would have encompassed this entire flat about twice over…

A huge shadow darkened her bedroom door and Andreas rapped out with clear impatience, ‘Actually, you can leave everything here. Unless there’s something of sentimental value. I’ll be supplying you with a new wardrobe.’

Siena just looked at Andreas. She saw an austerely handsome man, eager to get out of this hole of a place and take her with him so that he could mould her into what he wanted. He was so sure of himself now—a Titan of industry, used to having what he wanted when he wanted.

Siena didn’t doubt that most of the women in Andreas’s life were only too happy to comply with his demands, and she had to quash the

dart of something dark at the thought of those women. Dismay gripped her. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be jealousy. She hated this man for what he was doing and what he’d become—he was welcome to his hordes of satisfied lovers.

Self-derision that she could allow this to happen to her and the knowledge that she had no choice because this was her only hope to help Serena made Siena’s spine straighten. Tersely she bit out, ‘Give me five minutes.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘WHAT WILL HAPPEN to my flat?’

Siena was trying not to notice Andreas’s big hands on the steering wheel of his car, the way he handled it with such lazy confidence. Of course his car hadn’t been on blocks when they’d gone outside. The young kid had been watching it like a hawk and had stared at Andreas as if he was a god.

Siena didn’t know how to drive. Her father hadn’t deemed it necessary. Why would she need to drive if she was going to be chauffeur-driven everywhere?

Sounding crisp, Andreas replied, ‘I’ll have my assistant settle up with your landlord. She can also inform your employers that you won’t be coming back.’