he smiled, his teeth were very white. A predator’s smile, Joanna thought, and her heart began to thump suddenly, harshly. ‘Everything I own,’ he said. ‘And everything I intend to own before I’ve finished. Including you, Joanna Chalfont, you beautiful, hostile little bitch.’
For a moment she sat gaping at him, hardly able to credit what she’d just heard. Then,
‘How dare you?’ She could barely squeeze the words out of the frightening, painful tightness in her throat.
Cal Blackstone threw back his head and laughed. ‘Said to the manner born,’ he mocked. ‘The well-born young lady rebuking the upstart pleb. It’s wonderful what they teach you at those fancy Harrogate schools!’
‘I think you must be insane,’ said Joanna, fumbling for the handle of the door. ‘I refuse to listen to any more of this.’
‘You don’t have to.’ He was infuriatingly at his ease. ‘I want you, and I’m going to have you. There’s nothing more to be said.’
‘Well, you couldn’t be more wrong!’ Joanna flung at him. She was trembling all over, fighting to keep her voice steady. ‘I have a few things to say myself, and the first is that I wouldn’t have you, Callum Blackstone, if you came gift-wrapped.’
He was still smiling. ‘And what do you know about it?’ he asked softly. ‘What do you know about anything, Miss Chalfont, except pride and your own version of the past?’ He shook his head slowly, his gaze locked with hers. ‘It’s time you began to think of the future, so let’s start your thoughts in the right direction.’
The car door refused to budge under her frantic fingers. It was clearly linked to some central locking system outside her control, trapping her there alone with him.
Shrinking into the corner of her seat, Joanna saw Cal Blackstone reach for her, felt her shoulders grasped without gentleness, and her whole body drawn inexorably forward towards him. The smile had been wiped from his face, and his grey eyes glittered with something far removed from amusement. Something she barely understood, but, strangely, feared just the same.
She said, on a little sob, ‘No—ah—no,’ then his mouth was on hers and all further protest was stifled.
Nothing in her limited experience had prepared her for Cal’s kiss and nothing could have done. He held her ruthlessly, crushing her soft breasts against the hard muscular wall of his chest, twining his hand in her still-damp hair to hold her still, while his lips plundered hers, relentlessly, hungrily—and endlessly.
She couldn’t breathe. The scent of his skin filled her nostrils with a sudden and desperate familiarity. Tiny coloured lights danced frenetically behind her closed lids. She felt physically overpowered, totally at his mercy. She thought she might be going to faint, and with the thought came a surge of anger, and contempt for her own weakness.
He muttered against her lips, ‘Open your mouth,’ and in a flash she saw her salvation. Pliantly she obeyed. She felt his sigh of satisfaction, was aware of his clasp slackening slightly so that he could turn her in his arms, to hold her more easily against his body, and as he relaxed she bit him hard, sinking her teeth into his lower lip.
Cal jerked his head away, swearing, lifting a hand almost unbelievingly to his bleeding mouth.
‘You little shrew!’
‘Try explaining that to your latest woman!’ Joanna flung at him. ‘And, from now on, keep your distance from me.’
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood. To her fury he was grinning again.
‘Not now I’ve had a taste of delights to come, sweetheart.’
‘You’ll get nothing more from me as long as you live! You might have been able to take advantage of the situation today, but I’ll make sure it never happens again.’
‘Ah, but it will,’ he said softly. ‘I may have lost the first skirmish, Joanna, but the war’s only just beginning. And, I warn you, nothing but your complete surrender will do.’
She drew a swift, blazing breath, glaring at him. ‘You’re nothing but an animal, Cal Blackstone!’
He held out the bloodstained handkerchief, staring grimly back at her. ‘Then I’ve certainly picked the right mate.’
‘You’ve picked nothing and no one. From now on, keep out of my way!’ She turned to wrestle with the door-handle, and to her chagrin it worked instantly.
‘Our paths were made to cross.’ His voice followed her as she stumbled out of the car. ‘If you didn’t know it before, you know it now. So drive carefully, my hot-tempered vixen. When I finally get to unwrap my gift, I want it to be perfect.’
She got to her car somehow, and sat, shaking, in the driving seat, waiting until the Jaguar slid past, and was swallowed up in the mist and rain.
She put up a cautious finger and touched the swollen contours of her mouth. Her lips felt bruised, but the greatest wound she’d suffered was humiliation.
She stared at the grey-soaked landscape, and thought, I’m afraid of him.
Now, in the drawing-room of Chalfont House, Joanna found the same words rising to her lips. I’m afraid of him.
She shook herself irritably. That was what came of letting herself remember—relive things best banished from her mind for good. But oh, God, it had been so real. She could swear she’d almost felt the pressure of Cal’s mouth ravaging hers once more, tasted his blood …
Two years ago she had escaped him, but at what a price. She couldn’t run away again. This time she had to stand her ground and fight him. She squared her shoulders, glancing up again at her grandfather’s portrait.
‘The war’s on again, Grandpa,’ she said. ‘And this time I mean to win—for all our sakes.’
She had to. Because surrender on Cal Blackstone’s terms was unthinkable.
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