Seduced by the Powerful Boss

by Penny Jordan

  ‘I want us to be married,’ Hazard told her abruptly. ‘We belong together, you and I, Susannah.’

  She couldn’t deny his words. She didn’t want to, she admitted.

  A quiver of sensation pulsed through her, a tight coiling sweetness that she instantly controlled.

  As she bent towards the fire they had lit earlier in the evening, her hair slid forward. Hazard reached out to tuck it behind her ear, and instantly she froze. His hand dropped away, his face gaunt with remorse.

  ‘What is it Susannah? Why are you so repelled by my touch?’

  ‘Not repelled.’ Her voice shook, and colour surged up under her pale face. ‘I can’t explain it, Hazard.’ She turned to look at him, her eyes dark with bewilderment. ‘I know I love you, but somewhere deep inside I’m frightened…’

  She actually shivered as she spoke, as though that cold finger of fear was spreading within her.

  ‘Of me?’

  She shook her head. ‘Of what I felt when you left me…when you said you didn’t love me.’

  He groaned, the tautness of his face revealed to her in the firelight, its bone structure stark and sharply drawn. Like her, he had lost weight. She wanted so badly to reach out and touch him, but something prevented her.

  ‘I’ve hurt you so much. What can I say? What can I do?’

  Susannah shook her head, her voice low and uneven. ‘I don’t know.’

  Hazard reached out to her, as though to comfort her, and then withdrew.

  ‘You need time,’ he told her gently. ‘I can’t blame you for not trusting me. In your shoes… Would you like me to leave? To find somewhere to stay in the village tonight?’

  His offer touched her. She had been so afraid that he would rush her; that he would try to make love to her. Part of her almost wanted to do that, she recognised, but another part knew that she wasn’t ready or able to give him that sort of commitment at the moment.

  But neither did she want him to leave.

  ‘Please stay,’ she whispered. ‘I can make up the bed in the room you had before.’

  ‘If that’s what you want.’

  * * *

  It was late when they finally went to bed. The evening had passed quickly as they talked, its peacefulness broken only by the odd tense moment when Hazard came close to forgetting how she felt and instinctively reached out to touch her, only to withdraw as he remembered.

  Her eyelids had been feeling heavy for half an hour or so, but she had fought to stay awake.

  ‘You’re tired. It’s time you went to bed,’ Hazard told her roughly, adding with a grim whiteness around his mouth, ‘You needn’t be afraid I’m going to force myself on you, Susannah. It’s you, the person, I want, not just a body to share my bed.’

  Beneath the grimness, she caught the note of pain and ached to reassure him that he was wrong and that she didn’t fear him in the way he thought. What she really feared was herself and the intensity of her reaction to him, she admitted. It left her feeling vulnerable and afraid. And now that fear was already coming between them.

  Once in bed, she lay there, unable to sleep. The house was still, and she could hear the creak of the bed as Hazard, like herself, moved restlessly within it. How could she conquer her fear? She shivered, seeing with feminine wisdom how easily it could destroy their relationship. Trust was such a tender plant.

  It was her inexperience that lay at the root of her fear, she recognised wisely. The realisation of the strength of her own sexuality, followed so quickly by Hazard’s rejection of her, had created a deep-rooted dread of the abandonment that desire aroused within her. And there was only one way such a fear could be overcome, she acknowledged, trembling within the secure warmth of her bed.

  Hazard’s room was in darkness, but he saw her walk in and sat up in bed.

  ‘Susannah.’ She saw the way his muscles clenched as he said her name in a harsh, unfamiliar voice. ‘For God’s sake, don’t look at me like that!’

  For a moment, she was hurt, and then she realised that she was arousing him. Her pulse rate doubled, her heart thudding frantically. She touched her tongue to her dry lips, a feverish, frantic heat spreading through her body. She shuddered, and Hazard got out of bed, cursing as he saw her widening gaze take in his nudity.

  ‘Susannah, what is it? Are you ill?’

  For a moment, she stared at him blankly; she felt both hot and cold, weak and strong, terrified and brave.

  ‘I want you to make love to me.’

  He froze where he stood, searching her face in the shadows of the moonlight.

  When he spoke, his voice was rough and strained.

  ‘Susannah, think about this. I don’t want to do anything to hurt you. Once I take you in my arms… Once I touch you…’ He groaned, and his body shook, as though possessed by a fever. ‘I’m only a man, only human, and I’ve been aching for the feel of your skin against my own for what feels like a lifetime.’

  He was giving her the opportunity to withdraw, and in that moment Susannah felt a tremendous surge of love flood her body. The fear was still there, but it was receding. She took a step towards him, and then another. His arms opened and she half ran and half stumbled into them. They closed around her, and she felt the fierce tremble of his flesh.

  Like her, he too was vulnerable.

  Before he picked her up and carried her back to the bed, he kissed her, feathering his lips gently against hers, until he felt her response, and then his kiss hardened, deepened, betraying his need of her. His mouth released hers, his fingers tracing the moistly swollen outline of her lips.

  ‘Oh, God, you don’t know what you do to me, darling. You make me want you so much.’

  She trembled slightly as she felt the force of his passion in the aroused heat of his body.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of me, Susannah. I know I hurt you, but try to understand, it was a hurt born of jealousy and despair. I misjudged you. I can never forgive myself for that.’

  She touched her fingers to his lips to silence him. ‘It’s over, Hazard. We both made mistakes. But there’s something I still have to tell you.’

  She felt him tense against her body and she shivered in response. What if he rejected her now? What if he found the fact of her inexperience unacceptable? She had a momentary cowardly impulse not to tell him, but she had been brought up in total honesty and she knew that she couldn’t. Surely, in her inexperience, she would betray the truth anyway, and then he would know that she had deceived him. Their new relationship must not begin under the shadow of any more deceit.

  ‘What is it?’

  His voice was harsh, forbiddingly so.

  ‘Hazard, I… You know that I never had a physical relationship with David, but…there hasn’t been that kind of relationship in my life at all.’

  For a moment, Hazard was so still that she daren’t look at him. What a fool he must think her, and she didn’t blame him. Pain clogged her throat, her chest a tight mass of constricted muscle that made it almost impossible for her to breathe.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered huskily, bending her head so that he couldn’t see the pain in her eyes.

  ‘You’re sorry! Oh, God, Susannah, I’m the one who should be saying that. When I think what I’ve said to you…what I’ve done. I’ll find a way to make it up to you, I promise you. No wonder you backed off from me! I must have half terrified you out of your life,’ he said roughly. ‘It needn’t be like that, my darling, I promise you. I was jealous and angry, driven almost out of my mind by the way I felt about you…’

  ‘It isn’t you I’m frightened of,’ Susannah interrupted him, shocked by the bitter self-hatred in his voice. ‘It’s me.’

  He tensed and she looked at him, seeing the bleakness in his eyes. She took a deep breath to steady herself.

  ‘I wanted you so much, Hazard. It frightened me—’

  The rest of what she had been going to say was smothered beneath the fierce pressure of his mouth, quickly gentled, as though he was fighting to
get himself under control.

  As he picked her up and carried her over to the bed, he said quickly, ‘I want to make love to you, Susannah, but you have to want it as well. For now, just let me hold you in my arms, otherwise I’m not going to be able to believe that you’re real.’

  She didn’t want just to be held in his arms, Susannah acknowledged on a shocked spurt of surprise. She wanted to feel his hands on her skin, his mouth…his warmth and heat…the strength of him around and within her.

  As he lay down beside her, she reached out to him, sliding awkwardly out of her robe, pressing her body eagerly against his. She felt him shudder and then his hands were on her skin, the heat of his nearness searing her. He was breathing harshly, the ragged sound filling the silence.

  A fierce surge of desire arched her wantonly against him, the damp heat of his skin, moving rhythmically against her own, a sensual excitement that made her gasp and shiver, her fear forgotten as she clung eagerly to him.

  Hazard whispered her name, his throat arched with tension. Her tongue stroked its rigid lines, tasting the musky flavour of his sweat. He groaned, shuddering at her touch, his voice hoarse and disjointed as he moaned his need.

  ‘Oh God, Susannah, I want you so much. Give yourself to me, my darling. Trust me…’

  And, unbelievably, she did. Her fear was gone, her body reacting joyously to his physical and vocal urging.

  She felt the first thrust of his penetration and her flesh welcomed it. The heat and strength of him inside made her cry out with pleasure, but instantly Hazard tensed, his eyes dark with remorse as they focused on hers. He started to withdraw from her, but she clung to him, deliberately moving arousingly against him. With an anguished protest, he surrendered to the need within him. His body filled hers. Waves of pleasure gathered her up, carrying her onwards to an impossible crest.

  They reached it together, their bodies sharing the exquisite release. Their heartbeats and breathing hurried, Hazard crying out her name in a long low sound of ecstasy, before collapsing against her.

  Tenderly, she held him, marvelling that she could ever have been afraid of this joyous closeness, this oneness.

  When he had his breathing back under control, Hazard took her in his arms and said huskily, ‘Tonight was a first for me, too. Never has there been a time when I’ve felt the way you made me feel just now. Before, sex was just an appetite that I satisfied within the parameters of my relationships. I’ve never gone in for casual sex. It’s never appealed, but neither have I ever felt for anyone else what I feel for you.’

  ‘And that made a difference?’ Susannah asked softly, shivering slightly as she remembered the intensity of the way he had made love to her.

  ‘All the difference in the world,’ he told her huskily, touching his tongue to her parted lips. ‘We’ll have to marry almost straight away, so now is the time to voice your objections.’

  ‘I’ve no objections,’ Susannah told him. Her doubts and fears had gone, disappeared like a mirage faced with reality. ‘But why straight away?’

  Hazard grimaced slightly. ‘I wasn’t exactly controlled when I made love to you, and when I came up here the consequences of any lovemaking were the last thing on my mind.’ His hand covered her stomach. ‘You could have conceived my child.’

  ‘If I have, will you mind?’

  ‘Not unless you do.’

  She smiled dreamily at him. ‘I wonder if Emma would agree to be godmother.’

  ‘Why don’t we ask her?’ Hazard suggested softly. ‘But not right now…right now, I have other things on my mind.’

  He bent his head and started to kiss her again.

  * * * * *

  Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of USA Today bestselling author

  Dani Collins’s new release,

  XENAKIS’S CONVENIENT BRIDE

  The second book in The Secret Billionaires trilogy!

  Stavros Xenakis refuses to marry—until deliciously tempting Calli proves that a wife is exactly what he needs! Stavros’s proposal gives Calli the chance to find her stolen son. But she doesn’t expect life as Mrs. Xenakis to be quite so satisfying…

  Read on to get a glimpse of

  XENAKIS’S CONVENIENT BRIDE

  PROLOGUE

  STAVROS XENAKIS THREW his twenty-thousand-euro chips into the pot, less satisfied than he usually was postchallenge, but it had nothing to do with his fellow players or his lackluster hand.

  His longtime friend Sebastien Atkinson had arranged his usual après-adrenaline festivities. It had wound down to the four of them, as it often did. Many turned out for these extreme sports events, but only Antonio Di Marcello and Alejandro Salazar had the same deep pockets Stavros and Sebastien did. Or the stones to bet at this level simply to stretch out a mellow evening.

  Stavros wasn’t the snob his grandfather was, but he didn’t consider many his equal. These men were it and he enjoyed their company for that reason. Tonight was no exception. They were still high on today’s exercise of cheating death, sipping 1946 Macallan while trading good-natured insults.

  So why was he twitching with edginess?

  He mentally reviewed today’s paraski that had had him carving a steep line down a ski slope to a cliff’s edge before rocketing into thin air, lifted by his chute for a thousand feet, guiding his path above a ridge, then hitting the lower slope for another run of hard turns before taking to the air again.

  It had been as physically demanding as any challenge that had come before and was probably their most daredevil yet. Throughout most of it, he’d been completely in the moment—his version of meditating.

  He had expected today to erase the frustration that had been dogging him, but it hadn’t. He might have set it aside for a few hours, but this niggling irritation was back to grate at him.

  Sebastien eyed him across the table, no doubt trying to determine if he was bluffing.

  “How’s your wife?” Stavros asked, more as a deflection, but also trying to divine how Sebastien could be happily married.

  “Better company than you. Why are you so surly tonight?”

  Was it obvious? He grimaced. “I haven’t won yet.” He was among friends so he admitted the rest. “And my grandfather is threatening to disinherit me if I don’t marry soon. I’d tell him to go to hell, but…”

  “Your mother,” Alejandro said.

  “Exactly.” They all knew his situation. He played ball with his grandfather for the sake of his mother and sisters. He couldn’t walk away from his own inheritance when it would cost them theirs.

  But “settle down?” His grandfather had been trying to fit Stavros into a box from the time he was twelve. Lately it had become a push toward picket fences. Demands he produce an heir and a spare.

  Stavros couldn’t buy into any of that so, yet again, he was in a power struggle with the old man. He usually got around being whipped down a particular path, but he hadn’t yet found his alternate route. It chewed and chewed at him, especially when his grandfather was holding control of the family’s pharmaceutical conglomerate hostage.

  Stavros might be a hell-raiser, but his rogue personality had produced some of the biggest gains for Dýnami. He was more than ready to steer the ship. A wife and children were cargo he didn’t need, but his grandfather seemed to think it would prove he was “mature” and “responsible.”

  Where his grandfather got the idea he wasn’t either of those things, Stavros couldn’t say. He upped his ante to a full hundred thousand, despite the fact his hand had not improved. He promptly lost it.

  They played a little longer, then Sebastien asked, “Do you ever get the feeling we spend too much of our lives counting our money and chasing superficial thrills at the expense of something more meaningful?”

  “You called it,” Antonio said to Alejandro, tossing over a handful of chips. “Four drinks and he’s philosophizing.”

  Sebastien gave Stavros a look of disgust as he also pushed some chips toward Alejandro’s pile.

 
“I said three.” Stavros shrugged without apology. “My losing streak continues.”

  “I’m serious.” Sebastien was the only self-made billionaire among them, raised by a single mother on the dole in a country where bloodlines and titles were still more valuable than a bank balance. His few extra years of age and experience gave him the right to act as mentor. He wasn’t afraid to offer his opinion and he was seldom wrong. They all listened when he spoke, but he did get flowery when he was in his cups. “At our level, it’s numbers on a page. Points on a scoreboard. What does it contribute to our lives? Money doesn’t buy happiness.”

  “It buys some nice substitutes.” Antonio smirked.

  Sebastien’s mouth twisted. “Like your cars?” he mused, then flicked his glance to Alejandro. “Your private island? You don’t even use that boat you’re so proud of,” he said, moving on to Stavros. “We buy expensive toys and play dangerous games, but does it enrich our lives? Feed our souls?”

  “What are you suggesting?” Alejandro drawled, discarding a card and motioning for it to be replaced. “We go live with the Buddhists in the mountains? Learn the meaning of life? Renounce our worldly possessions to find inner clarity?”

  Sebastien made a scoffing noise. “You three couldn’t go two weeks without your wealth and family names to support you. Your gilded existence makes you blind to reality.”

  “Could you?” Stavros challenged, throwing away three cards. “Try telling us you would go back to when you were broke, before you made your fortune. Hungry isn’t happy. That’s why you’re such a rich bastard now.”

  “As it happens, I’ve been thinking of donating half my fortune to charity, to start a global search-and-rescue fund. Not everyone has friends who will dig him out of an avalanche with their bare hands.” Sebastien smiled, but the rest of them didn’t.

  Last year, Sebastien had nearly died during one of their challenges. Stavros still woke from nightmares of reliving those dark minutes. He’d wound up with frostbite burns on his fingers, but he’d been frantic to save Sebastien, unable to watch a man die again. A man whose life he valued. He felt sick recollecting it and took a sip of his whiskey to sear away the nausea.