One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  So what had happened between her and her precious Roy Stanton? Because something must have done to bring her here, like this, when she had vowed that she would rather die than come back.

  ‘On second thoughts…’

  He turned towards the door, where his black towelling robe hung. Grabbing it, he tossed it roughly in Becca’s direction, not caring that it overshot by several metres and landed on the floor on the other side of the bed.

  ‘Put that on. I’ve had enough of the sight of you.’

  Liar, his conscience reproached him. Hadn’t today—the past couple of days—taught him anything? He could never get enough of the sight of her, the feel of her, the taste of her. He doubted if he ever would. The truth was that passion made him a fool where Becca was concerned and that was a feeling he didn’t like one little bit.

  ‘And then we talk. You can start explaining just what the hell you are up to.’

  ‘I’m not “up to” anything!’ Becca protested, struggling to get off the bed and reach the black robe, while at the same time keeping the sheet securely wrapped around her.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘It seems that way to me. You surely don’t expect me to believe that you turned up here out of love for me—to beg me to take you back? No—I thought not,’ he added when he saw the way her face changed, her lips pinching tight together. ‘So you’ve obviously come for something, and I want to know what.’

  And when he did know he would take a great delight in throwing his rejection of her request right back in her face, Becca told herself as she tried once more to grab the black robe. She’d really messed up this time. What had possessed her to fall into bed with him like that, forgetting all about the reasons why she was here? She should have known that there was a chance that something like passionate lovemaking—passionate sex, she amended painfully—together with the fact that she’d been wearing the lavender costume that had practically been the last thing he’d seen her in, would be likely to stir his memories, if not actually bring them right back. She would never be able to forgive herself if she threw away Daisy’s chance of the life-saving operation because of her own foolish passion.

  She had the robe in her hand now, but when it came to pulling it on, while still holding on to the sheet that was wrapped round her, she found the situation was impossible. And it was made all the worse by the fact that Andreas stood, dark and devastating, on the far side of the room, watching her through cynically amused black eyes.

  ‘You might have the courtesy to look away,’ she flung at him in indignation, knowing that the struggle she was having was making her face look pink and flustered.

  ‘Why?’ he shot back, leaning against the wall and folding his arms across his chest as he met her furious glare with icy calm. ‘Did you do that for me? Did you look away when I got out of bed—or before that? Did you insist on covering your own eyes then?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘Is it? Then will you please tell me how? I’d like to know why it’s fine for you to ogle me when I’m naked but not for me—’

  ‘I did not ogle!’ she flashed furiously.

  ‘Seemed that way to me. I could almost feel your hot little eyes on me all the way across the room. But then I am not so much of a hypocrite as to pretend to a rush of false modesty so soon after I have been—what is it you say?—rolling around in the sack just a short time before.’

  ‘It’s not a pretence! I—I don’t feel right that way. Not any more.’

  ‘Not any more,’ Andreas echoed darkly and the cynicism of his tone made her tense instinctively, waiting for the brutal lash of his tongue in quick response.

  To her surprise it didn’t come. Instead, Andreas’ face closed up, setting hard and cold until it looked as if his features were carved from granite, his eyes just polished jet.

  ‘My apologies,’ he declared in a tone that made a mockery of the polite words. ‘In that case, I will wait for you downstairs. I think we would both feel more capable of holding this discussion on more neutral territory. I’ll make us some coffee—you’ll be…what? Five minutes?’

  That ‘five minutes’ was an order, not a suggestion, and, leaving Becca still fighting to find a way to respond that didn’t make her look petty or weak, he turned on his heel and walked out.

  She could almost hear the steady ticking of some imaginary stopwatch as she listened to his footsteps going down the landing.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHE made it downstairs in seven minutes.

  She had been determined not to let Andreas think that he could just click his fingers and she would jump to do as he said. But all the same, stirring it too much by keeping him waiting deliberately was not a clever idea. His temper would only darken by the minute and, as he had already started out with it almost as black as it could be, she didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.

  First she had had to go to her own room to find her clothes and snatch a quick shower. The extra seconds had ticked away while she had dithered over what to wear.

  Just what did one wear to a sort of emotional trial? she wondered on a wave of near-hysteria. A trial in which Andreas was not only judge and jury but also very definitely counsel for the prosecution all at once. The lightweight sun-dress that was her first choice was discarded as being too revealing and frivolous. A white T-shirt and Indian print skirt went the same way when the button on the waistband of the skirt proved suddenly to be somehow too complicated for her unsteady fingers to fasten easily.

  In the end she had kept the T-shirt and pulled on denim jeans to go with it before deciding that enough was enough—she’d made her point without risking him actually losing it completely—and hurrying down the stairs after him.

  Andreas was in the big sitting room that opened onto the pool area. The first thing that Becca noticed about him was that he too had taken a moment to dress and was now wearing a short-sleeved black shirt, hanging open over his tanned chest, and loose black linen trousers that hung low on his narrow hips. Like her, he was barefooted, as he so often was around the house.

  He had opened the patio doors and was standing gazing out at the glorious view of the ocean, but Becca had the distinct impression that he didn’t see anything but was intent on his own thoughts. He had a mug of the strong black coffee he invariably drank in one hand, and another mug containing a less potent version of the drink stood on the coffee-table behind him. He didn’t turn when Becca arrived, or make any sign of having noticed that she was there, but continued to stare, frowning, at the horizon until, after waiting a few moments to see what he would do, she cleared her throat pointedly.

  ‘You wanted to talk to me.’

  His turn was slow, deliberately so, she felt and when he was facing her he let those deep-set black eyes run over her from the top of her head, still wet from her shower, down to her feet, and back up again.

  ‘Déjà vu,’ he murmured on a note of irony. ‘Haven’t we been here before?’

  It was only then that Becca realised that they were in fact both dressed as if for a replay of the dreadful scene on the evening of their wedding day. The scene that had ended their marriage. The recollection was enough to drain some of the hard-won strength from her legs and make her think twice about picking up the mug of coffee for fear that her hand would shake so badly it would give away the way her nerves were tying themselves into tight, uncomfortable knots in her stomach. Instead she perched on the arm of one of the big leather-covered settees, hoping she looked moderately at ease.

  ‘So what are we going to talk about?’

  Andreas took a sip from his coffee, stared down into the mug as if looking for inspiration in the dark liquid. The movement made Becca realise that, like her, he had snatched the time to have a fast shower before coming downstairs, his hair was still soaking too. But, unlike hers, the wet look flattered him, giving the blue-black strands a glistening sheen and a slightly spiky look that suited him, while her own heavily flattened, sodden rats�
�� tails had quite the opposite effect.

  ‘Why don’t we start with you telling me just what was so important to you that you were prepared to sell yourself to get it?’

  Becca was glad that she was sitting down. She felt sure that her legs would have gone from under her if she hadn’t, with the cutting force of his attack. But even though she was sitting, she still clung onto the back of the settee for extra support.

  ‘I didn’t—I wasn’t—I didn’t!’

  ‘Oh, so what are you claiming—that you didn’t have sex with me just now, in that bed…?’

  An arrogant tilt of his dark head in the direction of the ceiling and so the bedroom above them emphasised his point.

  ‘I—you know I did.’

  Did he have to keep saying ‘have sex’ in that brutal way? It reminded her too painfully of his cold-blooded declaration that he had married her for sex and nothing more.

  ‘So you must have wanted to use that sex to get something from me.’

  ‘No! No way! I never—I wouldn’t…’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? Well, you do surprise me. So that leaves only one other possible alternative, and I have to say that I really never thought that you’d admit to that.’

  ‘I’m not admitting to anything,’ Becca growled. ‘And what is the only other possible alternative?’

  Andreas flashed her a wide, deceptively innocent look from huge, brilliant jet-black eyes.

  ‘Why, the fact that you were so overcome with need—with passion for me—that you just couldn’t help yourself. That nothing else in the world mattered but that we should come together in bed…’

  ‘It wasn’t that!’

  ‘No? Then—to go back to my original interpretation of your actions—you were using sex to get something from me.’

  ‘I wasn’t—no! I didn’t!’

  ‘Oh, please, Rebecca!’ Andreas exclaimed in exasperation. Coming to the table, he slammed his mug down on it with such force that some of the coffee slopped over the side.

  ‘Credit me with a little intelligence. It’s either one thing or the other. What other possible explanation could there be?’

  The fact that she was head over heels in love with him, crazy about him in a way that made her a fool to herself, weakened all her defences and left her totally vulnerable where he was concerned. That she hadn’t been able to say no to the thought of being with him just one last time.

  ‘A mad moment?’ she said flippantly, trying desperately to distract him from the way that he was thinking. ‘After all, we were always good—great together that way. You said it yourself—no one ever made you as hot as I do.’

  The way his black brows drew together in a dark frown alerted her to the fact that she’d said something he didn’t like. And she winced inwardly as she realised just what it was.

  He’d flung those exact words at her in the appalling row on the day of their marriage, destroying all her hopes and dreams in one blow.

  I married you for sex—for that and nothing else. No other woman has ever made me feel as hot as you do.

  ‘A mad moment, hmm…’

  He had come too close. If she was not careful, then surely he would see the truth in her face, read it at the backs of her eyes.

  ‘Mad, certainly, but not totally crazy.’

  Andreas flung himself down into the chair opposite and sprawled back against the cushions, long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, elbows resting on the chair arms, long fingers steepled together under his chin.

  ‘Which is what you’d have to be to have come here just for that.’

  His brilliant black gaze seemed to sear into her skull, trying to pull out the truth whether she was prepared to give it to him or not.

  ‘My, you do think a lot of yourself, don’t you?’ Becca used defiance to try to hide the way she was really feeling. ‘Do you really think that I’d travel all this way just for a quick tumble into bed with you?’

  ‘No.’

  Andreas’ wickedly slow smile told her how easily she had fallen into the trap he had dug right at her feet. ‘I really do not think that—which is why I keep asking the question that you seem to want to go to any lengths possible to avoid. You’re not drinking your coffee,’ he added in a way that sounded like an afterthought but which left Becca very much afraid that he knew exactly why she wasn’t drinking.

  ‘I don’t fancy it.’

  ‘The coffee or telling me why you’re here?’

  ‘Either, if you must know!’

  She really had to stop trying to be flippant. It was getting her nowhere and was obviously starting to rile him. The way that he compressed his lips into a thin, hard line told her that he was fighting to hold back the sort of acid retort that would be capable of flaying half the skin from her ears just to hear it.

  ‘So what is it you have to hide?’

  ‘Nothing—it’s just…’

  ‘Rebecca!’ Andreas’ tone was low, almost soft, but it was the softness of the hiss of a hooded python, just before it struck with deadly force, and it made Becca flinch inwardly simply to hear it. ‘Tell me…tell me now why you are here or pack your bags and get out of my life—and this time make it for good.’

  If she did that then she would never be able to help Daisy—and she would never be able to see him ever again. Right now, Becca couldn’t begin to think which of those two possibilities hurt most. But then the truth was that when her heart was one mass of pain, how could she tell if any one particular spot was worse than any other?

  ‘Can’t you guess?’ she muttered, low and uneven.

  ‘I want you to tell me,’ Andreas returned, face rigid, expression unyielding.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she no longer cared if she sounded desperate; it was how she felt. ‘You always said I’d come back for money and—well, here I am.’

  ‘You came for money?’ He actually sounded—what? He couldn’t be disappointed but that was the note that was in his voice.

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised, Andreas—you always knew this would happen! You should have made that bet you wanted—the one where you said that I’d come looking for cash before the year was up. Because you’d have been right. Here I am and it’s money I’m after.’

  It was the only way she could get it out. She couldn’t go on her knees and beg. And for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to talk about Daisy—not yet. She didn’t feel strong enough, brave enough, to open herself up to him like that. Not after all that had happened and the brutal damage he had inflicted on her heart. So she’d gone on to the attack, wanting to lash out, repay hurt with hurt.

  ‘Money for what?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘To me it does.’

  ‘But you’ve been proved right. That should give you immense satisfaction. I’ve shown myself to be the greedy—’

  ‘It gives me no satisfaction,’ Andreas cut in, cold and flat. ‘No satisfaction at all. If you want the truth I would rather you had stayed away for ever than that you turned up here like this—for this.’

  How the hell could anyone think it would give him satisfaction to be proved right like this? He had once loved this woman, once wanted her to be in his life for ever—and she had betrayed him even before the vows had been spoken.

  Wasn’t that what his dream had been about? About the way that he had had warning of what she was really like and yet had gone ahead with their wedding all the same. He had wanted to believe in her, to trust her, to put his faith in the one woman he had ever loved with all his heart. And so because he had loved her he had married her, convinced that the terrible things he had heard about her were lies.

  And found out that they were the truth.

  Did she think that he really would enjoy going through that hell all over again?

  ‘So tell me—what is it for? Have you gambled yourself into ruin? Spent a fortune you don’t possess? Developed an appalling cocaine habit?’

  ‘I would never do that!’ Becca pro
tested, looking horrified that he would even consider it. ‘No, none of those.’

  At least that was some sort of a relief. But it still left the other, less endurable reason why she might want the money.

  ‘Then why do you want the money so badly? Who do you want it for?’

  ‘Who?’

  Becca’s head came up and she stared into his face with obvious confusion clouding her eyes.

  ‘Who would I—?’

  ‘Let me make it plain so you have no chance of misunderstanding: tell me that this money is not for him—not for Roy Stanton.’

  ‘Roy…no—no, it’s not!’

  It was almost convincing but he had seen the way that her eyes had dropped, just for a split-second, her sea-coloured gaze sliding away as she gathered herself, thought hastily and then nerved herself to face him again.

  ‘It’s not for him.’

  Andreas couldn’t sit there any longer looking into her beautiful face, into those wide, brilliant eyes, and know she wasn’t telling the truth. He couldn’t stand to watch those soft, full lips frame the lies that made his disgust a fury of rage inside his head.

  He didn’t want to remember the number of times he had kissed those lips, all unknowing of the lies that had come to them so easily. He didn’t want to be tempted by the fact that all he had to do was lean forward, take that sexy body into his arms, press his mouth to hers, and in the fiery explosion of sensuality that was sure to follow they would both forget about the reasons why she was here, the past and all that had come between them.

  If only he hadn’t taken her to bed this afternoon so that the memory of the passion that could flare between them at a touch was now so fresh in his mind. He only had to look at her and his body ached with need; he was hot and hard just thinking of her. His hands yearned to touch, his lips to kiss, every one of his senses clamoured for appeasement of its hunger. He had tried telling himself that she was not as gorgeous as he remembered, but taking her again after so long had only made him realise how wrong he had been. Once had not been enough—it could never be enough. All it had done was to serve to make him realise how much he wanted her again and again, more than ever before.