the lounge-room and marvelled at the effect she had achieved with just a few pieces of furniture. Had she deliberately chosen white as a foil for her colouring, or in cold mockery of what white usually represented? He wouldn’t put it past her. He wouldn’t put anything past her.
She kicked off her shoes and curled herself into one of the squashy white leather sofas that flanked the mock-fireplace. A gas fire was softly burning, highlighting the blue-black sheen on that gorgeous hair as well as sending a warm honey glow to her complexion. She must have washed off some of that stark white make-up, he thought as his hot gaze travelled down her body and up again. Her mouth was still red, though. Red and softly pouting.
Alan swallowed.
Once settled, she threw an indifferent glance at him over her shoulder. ‘Pour yourself some wine,’ she suggested, and waved a scarlet-nailed hand towards the kitchen. ‘The bottle’s in the fridge.’
‘No, thanks,’ he said stiffly, hating her for the way she always made him feel so darned awkward.
She said not a word while she drank the rest of her wine, placing the empty glass down on the marble coffee-table with a small, shuddering sigh. ‘Must you stand there like that with your hands in your pockets?’ she said. ‘You make me uncomfortable.’
His harsh laughter drew her eyes. ‘Do I indeed? That’s only fair, then.’
‘Fair?’ Those exquisitely shaped eyebrows lifted. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing,’ he muttered, and began walking slowly towards her. For a second he could have sworn he saw fear on her face. But just as swiftly, her expression changed to one of cool composure.
‘I have my final cheque ready to give you. I’ll get it.’ She was up and past him before he could do more than breathe her perfume. Still, as the exotic scent teased his nostrils, he felt his loins prickle in instant response. It angered him.
‘I did not come here for a cheque, Ebony. You know damned well I never wanted you to pay me back in the first place.’
Her smile was wry as she produced the cheque from a drawer. ‘Ah, yes, Alan, but what you want does not always have priority in my life.’
‘Meaning?’
Her eyes were like black coals, and just as hard. ‘Meaning I want you to take this cheque and get the hell out of my life. I don’t ever want to see you again. I’m going to be married.’
‘Married!’ Something exploded in Alan’s head. She couldn’t be getting married. He wouldn’t let her. She was his!
‘That’s right,’ she went on brusquely. ‘To Gary Stevenson. He asked me today. He wants me to go back to Paris with him, and I’m going to.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then I suggest you do, Alan. It’s over between us. Over!’
‘Is it, by God? I don’t think so, Ebony. Not at all.’ Snatching the cheque out of her hands, he ripped it into shreds before pulling her into his arms and kissing her till both of them were gasping for breath.
When she spun out of his grasp he caught her and yanked her back against him, one hand pressing her stomach so that her buttocks were hard against his arousal, the other wrapped around her heaving breasts. ‘I won’t let you go,’ he rasped, his panting mouth against her ear. ‘You’re mine, Ebony. Mine!’
In a wild desperation, he started kissing her neck and stroking her braless breasts through the dress, the blood roaring through his veins as he felt the nipples harden beneath his hands. When he finally heard her groan, elation swept through him, steeling his sense of purpose, and his determination to win her total surrender one more time. Tomorrow did not figure largely in his mind. Nor the future. Not even her threatened marriage.
All he knew was that he had to have her naked beneath him, have her tremble as only she could tremble, have her take him to those places no other woman had ever taken him before.
‘Alan, no,’ she groaned again.
But it sounded like a yes to his impassioned ears. He had no mercy for her protests or her tears. He kept up the kissing and the touching till she gave one last shudder and whirled in his arms. Only then could he perhaps have seen the despair in her eyes, if he’d been capable of seeing anything beyond his own excruciating need. As it was, all he saw was that ripe red mouth, soft and swollen and seductive. He wanted to lose himself in that mouth, to have those pouting lips kiss him all over, to have them tease and torment his flesh till he could stand it no longer.
So that when she swept her arms up around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers in a kiss far more brutal than any she’d ever sought before, his only thoughts were of what awaited him behind her bedroom door.
‘I hate you,’ she choked out when he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into that bedroom.
His blue eyes glittered in the semi-darkness. ‘I love the way you hate, Ebony. Keep it up.’ And with that, he dropped her on the bed and started stripping off her clothes.
EBONY woke the next morning knowing that she finally hated Alan Carstairs.
It had been a long time coming.
At fifteen, she had hero-worshipped him. At sixteen, she’d developed a full-blown schoolgirl crush. By seventeen, she was constantly fantasising about him, till finally, at eighteen, she’d made an utter fool of herself over the man.
She cringed at the still sharp memory of her throwing herself at him in the library that night four years ago, gushing with adolescent stupidity that he must love her if he’d paid for her out of his own pocket all these years. He hadn’t known what had hit him when she’d upped and kissed him. How ironic that it had probably been his momentary but stunning response to that foolish kiss that had been responsible for what had happened three years later.
Oh, he’d stopped the kiss soon enough, well before he could have been accused of tampering with her morals. But the memory of his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth, of his arms tightening like steel bands around her even for a split-second, had been enough to keep fuelling her fantasy that underneath his bluster he loved her and wanted her.
And she’d naively told him so.
Of course, he’d torn strips off her at the time, telling her she was acting like a silly little fool, that his paying for her had been his way of showing gratitude to her father who’d once lent him money when no one else would, that he considered her guardianship a sacred trust that could not and would not be sullied by him, that his briefly kissing her back had been meant as a savage lesson on what could happen if a hormone-filled teenager like herself fell into the wrong hands.
She’d finally believed him that night, shame and embarrassment making her flee his presence. How she had cried and cried! Nothing Mrs Carstairs said—and the dear woman had tried everything— could make her stop. All Ebony had been able to think of was that she couldn’t stay in that house, seeing Alan every day, reliving her moment of humiliation, living off his charity. She had seized on this last reason as
