Socialite's Gamble

‘No, I—’

Aidan yanked her towards him and her small, icy hands splayed over his chest.

‘Then keep moving,’ he growled low enough that only she could hear him. ‘Or I’ll forget all about being civilised and lift your skirt and take you up against the nearest wall.’

She turned white and he told himself he didn’t care. That she didn’t deserve his gentleness or his consideration. He reminded himself that she had agreed to put herself up as a lure and unfortunately for her she had caught the wrong fish.

Without another word he pulled her into the lift and swiped his key card over the console to take them to the presidential suite.

Ignoring the way her fingers twisted together he pulled her into his room and kicked the door closed behind them.

‘Mr Kelly, please—’

‘It’s Aidan, doll face, and if you’re really lucky, then, yes, I will please you.’

She hovered in the middle of the silk-carpeted room. ‘If you would just let me spea—’

‘I don’t want you to speak,’ he snarled. ‘I want you to strip. And do it slowly.’ He smiled. ‘I want to enjoy every minute.’ He relaxed back on the king-size sofa and stretched his hands along the backrest and watched her. ‘Leave the stockings and heels on.’

She looked unsteady on her feet. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Oh, I am. I’ve thought of you bent over my dining room table in those heels and nothing else all night and I can’t wait for the real thing.’

The silence that followed his deliberately crude statement was loaded and he waited to see what she would do. Waited to see just how far she had agreed to go.

How had she ever agreed to meet this cold-eyed stranger for sex? Cara thought numbly, the hot, savagely pleasurable kiss on the balcony like a distant memory.

Dry-mouthed she stared at him, her mind blanking out as she tried to calm her beating heart long enough to think. He couldn’t mean it, he just couldn’t, and yet … she couldn’t see an ounce of mercy on his hard face.

She didn’t know how to placate him and she shook her head. ‘I can’t,’ she said, swallowing around the croak in her throat.

‘You need a drink first?’ His eyebrows rose with mocking sincerity. ‘I confess I didn’t think it would be necessary considering you knew the score.’

‘Look, we didn’t work anything out downstairs,’ Cara began. ‘I didn’t actually agree to … sex.’

‘You allowed yourself to be bet on in a poker game. Did you think it was just for dinner? Some polite conversation?’ His voice turned hard. ‘Maybe you thought we could sit around discussing the latest movie showing in the cinemas?’

‘I can see you’re angry, but—’

‘Oh, I’m not angry. I’m excited. Not every day a man wins a woman in a poker game.’

‘That wasn’t real.’

It had been the wrong thing to say; she saw that immediately and took a shaky step backwards as he leaned forward, his elbows balanced on his wide-spaced knees.

‘Lady, I had a lot riding on that bet. I had Martin Ellery in the palm of my hand.’ He slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. ‘The palm of my hand,’ he roared. ‘He was broken. And once again you’re there interfering. Making it possible for him to win. If he had, if he had won …’

For a brief moment the air became charged with something other than menace. Cara’s gaze stayed pinned on Aidan’s. Was it … pain?

She should have been scared and she was, but she also understood that whatever was going on between them it had more to do with the man he had left beaten and broken downstairs. ‘Why are you so upset with Mr Ellery?’ she asked softly.

‘What did he do to you?’

‘As if you don’t know?’

Cara shook her head. ‘I don’t.’

He rose slowly from the sofa and came towards her. ‘You’re good. I’ll give you that. I believed everything you said out there on that balcony.’

Cara backed up nervously. ‘I didn’t lie.’

He kept on coming as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I believed you hadn’t encouraged Ellery. I believed he was in the wrong. But the car. The balcony scene. The bet …’ He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘I tell you, you really had me going for a while.’

‘You knew about the car.’ Cara stopped moving and cringed. ‘Oh, God. I knew you knew.’

‘But you weren’t going to tell me, were you? You weren’t going to apologise for stealing it.’

‘I didn’t steal it,’ she spluttered. ‘I borrowed it.’