And then, to compound it, the heavy room key in her pocket brushed against her leg. Nausea clawed her stomach again. The key to the room upstairs that had been booked by her stepfather. The scene where the seduction was to take place. He even had his man there somewhere, in the shadows, watching, monitoring proceedings…to make sure one or the other didn’t leave too soon. Before the damage could be done.
Dear God. How could she do this?
At the door to the dining room she felt Caleb’s fingers on her shoulders. She half turned, acutely aware of the bare scrap of lace she was wearing. The excuse for a dress that he had bought for her to wear. She wanted to halt the inevitable slide of the coat from her shoulders even as the maître d’ came forward to take it. Panic rose. She couldn’t do this…she couldn’t look. Couldn’t bear to see the reaction on Caleb’s face when he saw her outfit.
She was wearing a slip. That was all. He’d seen more clothes on a lap dancer. It didn’t suit her pale colouring. The rich red hair was pinned up, making his fingers itch to take it down. A curious burning disappointment licked through his veins as he realised that, even in the cheapest outfit, she still had the power to ignite forceful desire in his body. The tingling awareness of which was making itself very apparent. And something else licked through him too. Self-derision. For a brief moment, before he had found out who she was, or what was going on, he had thought…He tried to stop his thoughts going in that direction. But his mind refused to obey.
When he had first met her, something deep and hidden and unknown had been touched. He had been shaken out of his usual cynical inertia. She had looked at him that first time with such sweet shyness and had then smiled. That smile had captured self-deprecation at her response, the current of sexual awareness running between them and something so intangible…but so innocently feminine, that he’d felt a lurch of surprise. He was used to women smiling at him, but usually with such blatant calculation that his blood ran cold.
His mouth thinned as he followed her through the dining room; he was aware of the openly admiring glances she was getting, the sexy sway of her hips, and his eyes, like theirs, were drawn to the scrap of lace and silk that was barely decent. To see her tonight, with her intentions so disappointingly obvious, he wondered again how he could ever have thought he’d been surprised…or that she wasn’t exactly the same as every other woman.
He knew with confident arrogance that she wanted him. She had felt the same immediate impact on first sight—he knew that. But she probably turned it on for everyone, no distinction being made.
She was nothing more than a mediocre actress, but yet…and he hated the admission, she’d almost fooled him, got under his guard. He’d never had a lapse in his attention before now, keeping corporations going in every major city from Tokyo to London. He knew the minutiae of every single one of them, his control legendary and fear-inducing among his competition. A skill that would not let her or her family undermine that control, even now, when they thought they had him. The fools.
He focused on the facts.
She was here to take him to bed, to seduce him and distract him. To act as the honey trap. One of the oldest tricks in the book. If he wasn’t mistaken, he was sure he’d seen the distinctive shape of a key in her pocket as he’d taken her coat. Was it a key to a hotel room there? The disgust rose like bile.
But two could play at that game; he was here to seduce her too. A little luxury he was affording himself, the spoils of war. Because this was war. Since he’d felt that punch to his gut on first sight, had then discovered what their little game was, the way she’d so blatantly been put on display for him…he’d been determined to sample what was on offer.
They reached the table.
Maggie walked to the other side and faced him with a look of almost, for a fleeting moment…unbelievable trepidation on her face. He mentally shook his head. Hell, she was good. He’d never seen anything like the level of her guile. He reasserted his cool mental clarity, ignored the ache in his loins. The slow burning fire that would be sated.
She would soon know just how dismally their machinations had failed. Then he would take his revenge on her family. And then he would be free of this all-consuming desire that held him in its grip.
By the end of the night she would never…ever forget him or want to cross his path again.
CHAPTER ONE
Dublin, six months later…
‘WE JUST have to meet with Mr Murphy and then it’s all over.’ In the back of the car as they left the graveyard, Maggie took her mother’s hand in hers, concerned by her ashen pallor.
Her mother drew in a shaky breath. ‘Love, I don’t think I can sit through it…I really don’t—’
Maggie tightened her hand in comfort as her mother’s eyes filled and her mouth trembled.
She turned stricken eyes to her daughter. ‘I’m not sad…Is that terrible? I’m so relieved that he’s finally gone; when I think of what I put you through all these years, how I could have—’
‘Shh, Mum. Don’t think about it now. It’s over. He’ll never harm either of us again. We’re free.’
Her heart ached at the desolation in her mother’s eyes, the lines on her face, the lifeless hair scraped back. She had once been a beautiful, vibrant woman. The reason why Tom Holland had wanted her for himself after her father’s untimely death. He’d been pathologically jealous of his cousin.
In those days, as a young widow in Ireland with nothing but the house left to her and a small child, Maggie’s mother had been vulnerable. When Tom had promised to look after her if she married him, she had thought she was doing the best thing for her and her daughter. It was only after the wedding that his vicious cruelty had become apparent and, in a notoriously conservative society where divorce hadn’t been allowed until relatively recently, her mother had effectively been trapped. Until now.
‘Look, you don’t have to sit in on the reading of the will; it’s going to be a matter of routine anyway. Mr Murphy knows us well enough not to insist on your being there and Tom left everything to you. It’s the least he could have done.’ Maggie’s voice couldn’t hide its bitter edge.
‘Oh, really love, do you think so? If I could just take a rest…’
‘Of course, everything is going to be fine.’ Maggie tried to inject upbeat energy into her voice when all she felt was drained beyond belief.
A short time later the car pulled off the main road in the small village outside Dublin and swept through the gates of a large, welcoming country house. Maggie took a deep comforting breath. The first glimpse of the house through the trees that lined the short drive never failed to lift her spirits. It had been their own family home—her father and mother’s. It was the one thing her stepfather hadn’t got his hands on. A link back to happier days, the memories of which she knew had helped her mother get through the worst times. It was here she and her mother had moved back to six months ago, after that…Even now she couldn’t bring herself to think of that night. The pain in her heart was still acute, despite her attempts to ignore it, deny it. The awful humiliation was still vivid.
Luckily her mother had listened to her and they’d left London almost immediately. By the time Tom had realised that his plan hadn’t worked he’d been too caught up with his business to come after them. And now he was gone for good. Dead. She brought her mother up to her bedroom and was almost at the door when she called
