a disparaging assessment. ‘I think that if I were in your position, I would.’
Suddenly Melissa saw her home through his eyes. The tired furniture, which no amount of bright cushions could disguise. The too-low ceilings and the windows which had obviously been low-budget when they’d been put there—but which now badly needed replacing. It was cheap. Everything in the place was on the cheap—which was why she was living here. But what would this cold-hearted beast of a man know about poverty?
‘I don’t want your money!’ she said proudly. ‘I don’t want anything from you!’
‘Well, we both know that’s a lie,’ he drawled. The amber eyes gleamed at her in provocative taunt and Melissa felt colour flaring in her cheeks. How base of him to allude to that frantic coupling back on Zaffirinthos—when she’d welcomed him into her body even though he clearly despised her and all she stood for.
‘Will you please go, Casimiro?’
‘But we haven’t made any decisions yet.’
‘There are no decisions to be made. You obviously don’t want to know your son and I don’t want your money. End of story.’
‘Oh, but that is where you are wrong, cara mia.’ Without warning, his hand snaked out and caught her—pulling her into the hard, muscular length of his body.
‘Casimiro!’ she gasped.
‘The story, you see, is only just beginning,’ he continued resolutely, as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’
‘You think that you just drop a bombshell like that and then walk away from the devastation you’ve wreaked?’
‘Devastation?’
‘Sí.’ Leaning forward, he caught the tantalising drift of lilac mixed in with soap, and yoghurt—and he felt the lustful jerk of his body in response to this strange cocktail of scents. ‘If the boy—’
‘Ben.’
‘Ben,’ he agreed reluctantly—because a sudden image of that angry little face swam uncomfortably into his mind. ‘If he is mine—then it is going to have all kinds of repercussions on his future.’ And on mine, he thought grimly.
‘What kind of repercussions?’
His mind clearing, he looked down at her, at the wide-spaced eyes which today looked so incredibly green—possibly because the light in her apartment was so dim. At the trembling lips and the skin which looked markedly translucent because she’d tied her hair back in a ponytail. She was tall for a woman and she wore jeans which emphasised those long, long legs—and suddenly he remembered them wrapped around his naked back. Remembered her little gasps of pleasure as he thrust into her. And his own delicious completion which had followed.
‘What kind?’ she repeated.
Her eyes looked suddenly very bright and the soft lower cushion of her lips made him want to sink right into them. Surely there could be some pleasurable outcomes which could come out of this unholy mess. ‘This kind,’ he ground out as he lowered his mouth down onto hers.
There were all kinds of kisses, Melissa realised as she felt that first warm brush of flesh. There were tentative first kisses and those deep kisses you drowned in during sex. And then there was this kind of kiss…
It did everything a kiss was supposed to do. It made her open her lips beneath his and her knees grow weak. It made her body begin to melt against his with a terrible pent-up longing. And yet its cold execution drove home with stark emphasis just how little he respected her as a person. Devoid of any affection or regard, the seeking skill of his lips made her feel worthless—as if he had taken a hammer and whittled away at her already low self-esteem.
And she couldn’t afford to let him do that!
It took every shred of resolve she had, but somehow Melissa tore her mouth away from his—even though her traitorous body screamed out its fury.
‘No!” she exclaimed—moving away from his dangerous proximity, over to the other side of the small room. Crossing her arms over her breasts as if to hide from him their prickling response, she tried to control the erratic gasping of her breath.
‘No?’ he echoed incredulously.
‘Wh-what d-did you think was going to h-happen?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘That I’d just let you walk in here and have sex with me?’
‘Isn’t that exactly what happened last time?’ he questioned insultingly. ‘You didn’t exactly put up a fight.’
‘And, of course, you can’t remember the time before that, can you?’ she said bitterly.
Casimiro’s expression didn’t alter. ‘Remind me—did I have to woo you with wine and roses before you’d succumb? Was it a long, hard battle to get you into my bed?’ he mocked, and the hot colour which flooded into her cheeks gave him, not only his answer—but also the upper hand.
Melissa bit her lip. What a cold-hearted brute he was. ‘Well, nothing’s going to happen this time. Apart from anything else—my son is asleep in the room next door!’
And in spite of his frustration Casimiro found her maternal prudishness oddly reassuring—since it suggested that she did not entertain a long line of lovers. ‘You will need to take a DNA test,’ he said suddenly.
Melissa blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You heard.’
‘Well, I’m not—’
‘Yes,’ he cut through her protest with an imperious raise of his hand. ‘Yes, you are, Melissa—you have to. There is no alternative. That is, if the child is to be acknowledged as my heir.’
‘But you’ve seen him!’ Melissa proclaimed. ‘You’ve seen how much he resembles you. My aunt says she’s never seen eyes that colour before.’
Casimiro couldn’t dispute the rarity of the shade nor its almost exclusive confinement to the ruling family of Zaffirinthos, but she was failing to see what for him was simply a fact of life.
‘Do you realise how many crazies we have to deal with every year?’ he questioned.
Melissa froze. ‘Crazies?’
‘It’s one of the drawbacks of the job, Melissa—it brings all kinds of people from out of the woodwork. Futurologists who want to warn me about an imminent death threat. Men who say they knew me when we were children. Women claiming…’
‘Women claiming that you’ve fathered their baby,’ guessed Melissa slowly and she lifted pained eyes to his face. ‘Is that what you think of me, then, Casimiro—that I’m some sort of “crazy”?’
For some reason her dignified little question made him feel a pang of misgiving—but he was not in a position to allow himself to listen to it. ‘No, actually I don’t,’ he said simply. ‘And none of this is about my thoughts or feelings, Melissa. It is about dealing with this matter to the best of my ability—and
