style="font-size:15px;"> ‘It means that I have brought you here to become my wife, the wife your father chose to deprive me of.’ Andreas Vatis’ voice tautened grimly. ‘I have never been particularly attracted to redheads,’ he added insultingly. ‘But then I will not be able to distinguish the colour of your hair in the dark.’
Regan gulped. ‘In the dark?’ she echoed.
He nodded his arrogant head. ‘When I take you to my bed. Only the sense of touch is important at such times, and you look as if your body might be quite—pleasant to touch.’
She blushed under his assessing gaze, feeling as if he stripped the clothes from her at a glance, saw each delectable curve beneath. ‘You're mad!’ her voice quivered in her fear. ‘I'm not going to marry you, and you certainly aren't going to touch me, in the dark or at any other time.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ He seemed unperturbed by her outburst, his calmness making Regan feel even more uneasy.
‘Very sure,’ but her voice quivered uncertainly.
‘Then I will keep you here until you change your mind. Of course I will visit your bed every night until you agree to marry me, which should not be long—Helena was born exactly nine months after the consummation of my first marriage,’ he added with grim humour.
‘You mean——’
‘I mean that unless you agree to marry me now you could find yourself in the even more unwelcome position, in your opinion, of being my mistress.’
‘But why?’ she cried. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Her anguish was obvious, her blue eyes shadowed.
‘I have already explained it to you,’ he told her haughtily. ‘I want from your father the wife he stole from me, and as both he and Gina are dead I intend taking his daughter instead. You will provide me with the sons I need to inherit the Vatis empire, the sons Gina would have given me if not enticed away by James Matthews, your father.’
‘But I——You got me here under false pretences, didn't you?’ she accused. ‘You knew I would never have come here if I'd known I was to be employed by Andreas Vatis. I'm only too aware of how you must hate me, and I wouldn't willingly come within a hundred miles of you. What I don't understand is how you arranged it all.’
He shrugged his broad shoulders, walking over to study the perfumes she had so admired earlier. ‘It was all too easy, Regan. I have always known of your existence, of your adoption by your uncle and aunt, but as a child you were no good to me. Now you are a woman, a very beautiful one——’
‘Except for the red hair,’ she cut in bitterly.
He looked at the waving tresses. ‘Perhaps I will come to like it in time. But as I said, it is not important that I do.’
‘Because you won't see it in the dark,’ she said dully, a terrible feeling of inevitability washing over her. It was as if she had known for the past ten years that something like this was going to happen, that she wasn't really surprised by anything Andreas Vatis was saying to her.
‘Exactly,’ he agreed cruelly. ‘But to get back to how I arranged this meeting.’ He picked up one of the bottles of perfume, smelling its fragrance. He grimaced, and replaced it to pick up one of the others. ‘I have known of your every move since you were nine years old. I knew of your school friends, of your chosen career, of the friends you have made in London.’
‘What if I'd become serious about one of these friends, had decided to marry one of them?’
‘You almost did, did you not?’ he enquired calmly. ‘A certain Rick Davidson. The romance,’ he sneered the word, ‘broke up when you found him at his flat with another girl.’
‘You've certainly done your homework,’ she snapped.
‘Not at all. I have always found Diana very—obliging.’
Regan's eyes widened. ‘You mean you arranged that too?’
‘It was not difficult, let me assure you. Diana liked Rick Davidson very much and your boy-friend was only too willing. They are married now, you know. Since that time you have been escorted by a Donny Paulos.’
‘Don't tell me,’ she scorned. ‘You arranged that too.’
‘It was necessary,’ Andreas Vatis told her coldly.
‘You mean you did arrange it?’ she gasped.
‘Certainly. I felt it safer to put you in the care of one of my employees rather than risk you becoming seriously involved again. Of course, he had no idea of my reason for wanting you watched.’
So this was the reason Donny refused to be shaken off! ‘That's disgusting!’
‘Perhaps,’ he conceded with a nod of his head. ‘But I do not want anything but a virgin in my bed. You are to know only my possession.’
Regan met his gaze challengingly. ‘And how can you be so sure that I haven't been to bed with Donny? He's very attractive,’ she added tauntingly.
‘But aware of his own vulnerability. If he has laid one finger on you that I would class as intimate I will break him. I will make sure he never works again, that all of his friends suddenly forget his existence, that his family——’
‘Okay, okay, I think you've made your point,’ she said miserably.
His eyes narrowed to icy green slits. ‘Did he touch you?’
‘Frequently,’ she answered flippantly.
‘Intimately?’ he demanded to know.
She shrugged. ‘It depends what you call intimate. We all have our own definition. And my idea of intimate may differ from yours.’
He took a threatening step towards her, his strong fingers biting painfully into her arm. ‘You will answer me!’ he ordered. ‘Did he touch you like this?’ His other hand came up to cup one of her breasts through the thin material of her blouse, caressing until he felt the nipple harden to full arousal. ‘Or like this?’ The hand moved to her thighs, moving exploringly over her silky skin. ‘Did he?’ he demanded grimly, his fingers digging into the tender flesh of her thighs.
It was so tempting to say yes, Donny had betrayed her after all. But she didn't doubt that Andreas Vatis would indeed break him, and she wasn't sure he deserved that, for all his deceit. Besides, when he had known of her plans he had tried to stop her. Perhaps he had realised her fate!
‘No, he never touched me like that.’ No man had. She was ashamed of her own response to this man's hands on her body, her breasts still tingling from his touch.
‘Nor any other man?’ he persisted harshly.
‘Nor any other man,’ she admitted dully. No one else had ever induced her to such sexual excitement!
He released her so suddenly she almost fell, but he was seemingly unmoved by the way he had just touched her, moving back to study the perfumes as if he had never deviated his attention from them. ‘When you finished your college course I contacted the employment agency you went to and
