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Blackmailing the Society Bride
PENNY JORDAN


Marriage: Millionaire banker Marcus Canning has decided it's time to become a father–and a husband….Penniless: Lucy is facing crippling debts alone–having kicked out her cheating, stealing ex-husband….Wedded: Lucy knows she's been chosen by Marcus for convenience–but she's always loved him and she can't resist his passionate lovemaking….Sex: That's all it is for Marcus–until he discovers his wife is being blackmailed by another man….






Party girl Lucy Blayne has barely been out of the news ever since it was revealed that her husband cheated on her and embezzled from her business, stealing millions from her trust fund and from many of her prestigious clients at PrГЄt a Party. I understand she has quite rightly divorced him, but her business is struggling regardless.


Bravely, she’s battling on, though, determined to transform her business back into the success it once was. Now her chief advisor is none other than incredibly trustworthy—and handsome—Marcus Canning, banker to the seriously rich and famous.

For years Marcus has been a confirmed bachelor, running a mile at the merest mention of the word wedding. But my sources, a variety of paparazzi journalists, have passed on to me that Marcus and Lucy have been caught in flagrante in a number of risqué locations! This couple is seriously hot for each other. Could it be that it’s the great sex that has changed his mind?

An engagement announcement has been published in the Forthcoming Marriages section of every national newspaper. Marcus Canning is to wed Lucy in just a few weeks’ time.

This will most definitely be the society wedding of the year….


PENNY JORDAN has been writing for more than twenty years and has an outstanding record: over 150 novels published, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honor and Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Penny Jordan was born in Lancashire, England, and now lives in rural Cheshire.




Penny Jordan

BLACKMAILING THE SOCIETY BRIDE















CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE




CHAPTER ONE


�SO WHAT you’re saying is that my ex-husband has damaged my business so badly that it and I are both virtually bankrupt?’

Lucy stared at her solicitor. A deepening sense of sickening shock and fear was gripping her, a feeling that the situation she was involved in was so frightening and unbearable that it could not possibly be real.

But it was real. She was here, seated in front of Mr McVicar, while he told her that her ex-husband had so badly damaged the reputation and financial status of the event organisation company she had set up with such enthusiasm and delight prior to their marriage that it was no longer viable.

Nick had cheated her sexually and financially all through their brief marriage…but then, hadn’t she done some cheating herself? A guilty conscience wasn’t going to help her now, Lucy warned herself, as she struggled with the massive weight of the problems she now faced.

�I’ve got some commissions for events for the rest of this year,’ she told the solicitor, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping that he wouldn’t ask her how many, since in reality there were so few. �Perhaps, in view of that, the bank…?’

Her solicitor shook his head. He liked his pretty young client, and felt very sorry for her, but in his opinion her nature was too gentle for the unforgiving world of business.

�I’m sorry, my dear,’ he told her. �As you’ve already said yourself, several potential clients have cancelled their events and asked for their deposits back already, and I’m afraid…Well, let’s just say we live in a harsh world, where confidence is something no one can put a price on.’

�And because of what Nick has done no one will have any confidence in Prêt a Party any more—is that what you mean?’ Lucy asked him bitterly. �Even though Nick is no longer a part of the business, or my life, and I was the one who started it up in the first place?’

The solicitor’s sympathetic look was all the answer she needed.

�I dare say I shouldn’t blame clients for backing out. After all, I suppose in their eyes if I was stupid enough to marry Nick then I can’t have much credibility,’ Lucy said with bitter humour. That was certainly what Marcus believed. She knew that well enough.

Marcus. If there was one person she would like to somehow magically remove from her life and her memories for ever, that person wasn’t Nick, but Marcus.

�Is there nothing I can do to save the business?’ She appealed to her solicitor.

�If you could find a new partner—someone of probity and known financial stature, whom people respect and trust, and who is willing to inject enough capital to settle all Prêt a Party’s outstanding obligations…’

�But I intend to pay those off myself. I still have money in my trust fund,’ Lucy interrupted fiercely.

�Yes, of course. I realise that. But I’m afraid that clearing Prêt a Party’s debts, whilst a very honourable thing to do, will not revive client confidence in you, Lucy. Regrettably, the actions of your ex-husband have damaged the reputation of the business virtually beyond repair, and the fact that both your partners have left Prêt a Party—’

�But that’s because they both got married and have other responsibilities now, that’s all. Not because of anything else! Carly’s pregnant and has her son to look after, as well as working alongside Ricardo with the orphanages he has set up, and Julia has a new baby to look after—plus she’s involved in the Foundation—’

�Of course.’ Her solicitor soothed her sympathetically. �I know all this, Lucy, but unfortunately the eyes of the outer and greater world—the world from which you hope to attract new business—do not see it. I really am sorry, my dear.’ He paused. �Have you thought of approaching Marcus? He—’

�No! Never! And I absolutely and totally forbid you to say anything about any of this to him, Mr McVicar.’ Lucy spoke fiercely, standing up so abruptly that she almost knocked over her chair. Panic and misery gripped her by the throat as powerfully as though it were Marcus himself closing his fingers around it. How he would love this. How he would love telling her that he had warned her all along that this would happen. How he would look down that aristocratic nose of his with those ice-cold eyes while he ticked off a list of all that she had done wrong, all the ways in which she had failed.

Sometimes, in the eyes of her family and Marcus, Lucy felt as though she had spent the whole of her life failing. For a start she had been a girl and not a boy, a daughter and not a son—a daughter to be married off and not a son to be an heir. And, even though her parents had gone on to have a son, Lucy had somehow always felt she had let them down by being born first, and the wrong sex. Not that her parents had ever said that she was a disappointment to them, but Lucy had been born with a sensitive kind of nature and did not need to be told what people felt. She had sensed her parents’ disappointment—just as in later years she had recognised Marcus’s impatient irritation with her.

Not that anyone ever needed to guess what Marcus thought or felt. She had never known anyone more capable of or uncompromising about saying exactly what he thought and felt. And he had made it plain from the first moment he had confronted Lucy across the large desk in his London office that he did not approve of the fact that her late great-uncle had left her such a large sum of money.

�I suppose that’s why you agreed to be my trustee, is it?’ Lucy had accused him. �Because you don’t approve of me having the money and you want to make life as difficult for me as possible!’

�That kind of remark merely confirms my concern about your late great-uncle’s mental state when he made his will,’ had been Marcus’s caustic response.

�I suppose you were hoping he would leave his money to you?’ Lucy had shot back.

In response, Marcus had given her a look that had made her face burn, and made her feel as though she wanted to crawl into a corner.

�Don’t be so bloody infantile,’ he had told her coldly.

Of course she hadn’t realised then that Marcus had millions, if not billions of his own, tucked away in the vaults of his family’s merchant bank, of which he was the CEO.

Mr McVicar watched her sympathetically. He knew perfectly well of the tension and ill feeling that existed between his client and the formidably wealthy banker her late great-uncle had appointed as trustee for the money he had left her.

That money had nearly all gone now—swallowed up by the greed and fraudulent actions of Lucy’s ex-husband and the failure of her once-successful small business.

But in his view there was still no one better placed to help her in her present difficult situation than Marcus, whose business savvy was both awesome and legendary. Mr McVicar himself had urged her not to agree to her bank’s request that she secure Prêt a Party’s finances by pledging her inheritance, but she had refused to listen to him. Morally Lucy was beyond reproach, but unfortunately she had been too gullible for her own good, and she was paying the price for that now.

He returned to the problem at hand. �If you could attract a wealthy business partner who would be prepared to put money into the business, then—’

�Actually, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.’

As soon as the words had left her mouth Lucy wondered what on earth she was doing. Was it Mr McVicar’s reference to Marcus that had prompted her into lying to him and creating a fictional potential backer? Lucy closed her eyes in helpless acknowledgement of her own vulnerability. Somehow just hearing Marcus’s name was enough to goad her into a fury of defensiveness.

Mr McVicar looked both relieved and surprised.

�Well, that is really excellent news, Lucy. It puts a different complexion on matters entirely,’ he told her enthusiastically, looking so pleased that her guilt increased uncomfortably. �The very best outcome one could have hoped for, in fact. But obviously it is something we shall need to discuss. I think we should set up a meeting with your proposed partner and his or her legal advisers just as soon as we can. Oh, and of course we must let your bank know what is in the wind. I am sure that they will be inclined to be far more flexible once they know that fresh capital will be injected into Prêt a Party. I also think it would be a good idea to go public, even perhaps take a half-page announcement in those papers most frequently read by your clients stating once again that your ex-husband now has no access to or involvement with any aspect of Prêt a Party’s business, and that moreover you now have a new partner. That should do a tremendous amount to offset the upsetting effect Nick’s fraudulent behaviour has had on the business.’

Lucy felt as though she were trapped in ever-deepening mud of a particularly sticky and clinging consistency. Why on earth had she let the thought of Marcus’s disapproval propel her into such stupidity? What on earth had she done? How could she admit now to Mr McVicar that she had lied—and why?

�Er, I can’t tell you who he is at the moment, Mr McVicar,’ Lucy began uncomfortably. �It’s all very much a secret. Negotiations are…um…well, you know how it is…’

�Of course. But I must urge you to remember, Lucy, that time is very much of the essence here.’

Nodding her head, Lucy made her escape as quickly as she could. How could she have lied like that? It went against everything she believed in. Now she felt sickeningly guilty and ashamed of herself, and she had to blink away her self-pitying tears as she stood outside her solicitor’s Mayfair office in the bright autumn sunshine.

What on earth was she going to do? It would take a miracle to save her now. Automatically, she turned the corner and hurried into Bond Street, not bothering to glance into the windows of the expensive shops lining the street. Designer label clothes were not really her thing. She liked vintage clothes, salvaged from street markets and family attics. Their fabrics were so lush, the feel of them against her skin something she treasured and loved: real silk and satin cashmere; sturdy wool; cool cotton and linen. Man-made fibres might be more practical for modern-day city living, but in many ways she was an old-fashioned girl who craved a return to a quieter, more gentle way of life.

The truth was that secretly she would have loved nothing more than to marry and produce a large brood of much-loved children whom she and her husband would raise in an equally large and loved country house. She envied her two best friends their happy marriages and new young families more than they or anyone else knew—after all, she had her pride, just like anyone else. It was that pride that had led her into setting up Prêt a Party in the first place. The very same pride that had just led her into telling that stupid, stupid lie, she reminded herself miserably.

The magazines on a nearby newsstand caught her eye, and she stopped to study them. To the forefront, as always, was A-List Life. Lucy started to smile.

Its eccentric owner and editor Dorland Chesterfield had been such a good friend to her, using Prêt a Party to organise several of the events he had hosted—events attended by the world’s top celebrities. She might even have considered turning to him for help to get her out of the mess Nick had left her in were it not for the fact that she knew if there was anything guaranteed to overwhelm his genuine kind-heartedness it was his love of passing on gossip. The last thing she needed right now was to have the story of her downfall spread over the pages of A-List Life.

Of course both her friends—now ex-partners in Prêt a Party—had extremely wealthy husbands, and both of them had in turn come to see her and gently offered financial help, but Lucy could not accept it. For one thing there was that wretched pride of hers, and for another it was not just money she needed, but someone to work in the business with her. Being given money to clear Prêt a Party’s debts was a kind gesture, but she wanted—needed, in fact—to prove that she was not the silly fool everyone obviously thought her, and that she could make a success of her business.

Yes, marrying Nick had been a mistake, and, yes, she had—as Marcus had unmercifully pointed out to her—rushed into the marriage, but she’d had her own reasons for doing that. Reasons she could never, ever allow Marcus to discover.

She picked up a copy of A-List Life and handed over some coins, giving a reciprocal smile to the newsstand vendor before turning to cross the road. The sunlight glinting on her shoulder-length naturally blonde hair caused the driver of a large, highly polished, diplomat-plated Mercedes to slow down and study her appreciatively.

As she regained the pavement Lucy flipped open the magazine and quickly checked the contents—more out of habit than anything else. It was over three months now since Prêt a Party had managed a large event of any kind, never mind one glitzy enough to merit page-space in Dorland’s magazine, but to her astonishment she suddenly saw Prêt a Party’s name beneath the words: A-List Life’s Favourite Party of All Time.’

Bemused, she turned the pages, her eyes widening as she recognised the photographs covering the entire midsection of the magazine. They were from the huge summer party PrГЄt a Party had organised for A-List Life the previous year.

Tears stung her eyes. It was so typical of Dorland to do something so generous—and it was generous of him to republish those photographs, even if at the same time it was also a way of blowing his own trumpet.

Although at the time she had refused to admit it to anyone, she had known then that her marriage had been a mistake, and she had known, too, that Nick was being unfaithful. She had known that Nick was cheating on her, yes, but she had not known that he was also defrauding her business and her customers—even if her two best friends Carly and Julia had suspected what was happening.

Out of concern for her they had kept their suspicions to themselves. Not so Marcus. Lucy knew that she would never be able to forget the searing humiliation of having to stand in front of Marcus whilst he listed with cold fury the fraudulent activities Nick had been engaged in whilst in charge of finances in PrГЄt a Party.

�Why the hell did you marry him in the first place?’ he had demanded savagely, before adding, �No, don’t bother to tell me. I already know the answer. Did it never occur to you that you could have sex with him without marrying him?’

Lucy’s face burned hotly now, just remembering how Marcus had looked at her.

�Perhaps I wanted more than sex,’ she had countered. She had wanted more, certainly, but she had not received it. But then, neither had she given Nick more. And as for the sex…Her face burned again, but for a different reason.

The Nick who had spoken so urgently and flatteringly of his desire for her before their marriage had very quickly turned into a Nick who derided and taunted her for her lack of sexual expertise and desirability after it. And who could blame him? The effort of maintaining the fantasy of hot, urgent longing for him with which she had thrown herself into their relationship had proved too much for her to sustain once they were married. Nick had taunted her for her sexual inexperience, claiming that she was frigid and she turned him off, and she had been in too much torment, compounded by her guilt and self-loathing, to protest.

�More than sex? Really? And you actually thought you would get more from someone like him?’ he had demanded sarcastically.

�It’s all very well for you to stand there and—and cri-ticise me,’ Lucy had told him wildly. �But I don’t see that you are exactly having any success with a long-term relationship!’

�Maybe that’s because I haven’t chosen to commit to one. I can certainly assure you that when I do my commitment to it and my conviction about it will be properly thought out and permanent. My decision won’t be made off the back of imagining myself in love following an alfresco holiday shag.’

Lucy’s hands tightened into impotent fists now, just remembering those contemptuous words, and the manner in which they had been delivered, with Marcus looking at her with that arrogant, obnoxious, Marcus look of his.

She had tried to defend herself, of course. �That was not—I was not—’she had begun, but typically Marcus had refused to allow her to continue. �Oh, come off it, Lucy,’ he’d said harshly, �we all know what happened. After all, the photographs were plastered all over the celebrity gossip rags. You, minus bikini top, draped all over Blayne, saying that you were up for a good time and looking for everything that went with that.’

�Goodness,’ she had retaliated, in a brittle voice, �you’ve actually remembered the caption word for word. Did you have to practise repeating it for very long to do that, Marcus?’

Of course she had regretted the idiotic quote recorded in the magazine. But when you were jet lagged, and you’d packed in such a rush that you’d omitted to pack matching bikini tops and bottoms, and you got caught out and papped by some prowling paparazzi with nothing better to do and no one better to photograph, you naturally did your best to make a joke of your plight—especially when those same paparazzi could sometimes be so important to the success of your business.

Not all celebrities, no matter what they might choose to say in public, genuinely wanted to avoid those camera lenses. Many actively sought out the events and parties where they would be spotted and photographed. Thus, Lucy had felt she could not afford to offend the guy who had snapped her, no matter what her own personal feelings.

If he’d seen her twenty-four hours later, then the photograph he would have taken would have been a very different one. Then, after a decent night’s sleep and with the loan of a bikini from Jules, she would probably have been in control enough to tell him truthfully that she was simply taking a much-needed holiday from the mounting stress of running a successful business.

Unfortunately the photographer had taken it into his head that her life was far more interesting than it actually was, and from then on neither he nor his camera had been very far from her side.

Nick had revelled in the attention. At the time she had taken that as a sign that, unlike the other men she had dated, he would be able to cope with her work and its effect on their personal life. She hadn’t realised that for Nick everything had its price—including photographs of them together, if not actually having sex in a variety of exotic locations then as close to it as was possible, given that she was wearing bikini bottoms and he was wearing swimming shorts.

She had had no idea that she was being set up with a view to them being taken until it was too late and they had been published. And by then she and Nick were married—

Naturally in public she’d had to shrug off her real feelings and pretend that she welcomed her new image as a randy, anything-goes, up-for-it and eager for sex party girl, only too delighted to let the whole world see how much she wanted her new husband. Even if by then that same new husband had been privately calling her frigid and useless in bed, and spending more nights out of their marriage bed than he was spending in it with her.

She looked at her watch a little bit anxiously. She had spent rather longer with her solicitor than she had expected, and she was due to put in an appearance at her great-aunt Alice’s ninetieth birthday party this afternoon.

Great-Aunt Alice lived in Knightsbridge, in a huge old-fashioned apartment that was always freezing cold because, despite her wealth, she refused to have the central heating on.

No one in the family ever wanted to visit her in winter, and even in summer the wise visited equipped with extra layers in the form of cardigans, pashminas and the like, to ward off the icy blasts which Great-Aunt Alice insisted were necessary for good health and were the reason she was still hale and hearty at ninety.

�Balls,’ Lucy’s younger cousin Johnny had always claimed. �The reason she’s still alive is because she’s too bloody mean to die. God knows, I could do with my share of her millions.’

�What makes you think you’ll get a share?’ Lucy’s brother Piers had asked wryly.

�I’m bound to,’ Johnny had replied smugly. �I’m her favourite.’

�Yah? Well, you certainly work hard enough at it,’ Piers had mocked him.

Nineteen-year-old Johnny, with his slightly louche lifestyle, permanent lack of money and winning ways, had a reputation within the family of being someone who was constantly wheeling and dealing. Lucy suspected that Marcus probably disapproved of Johnny almost as much as he did her.

Marcus! But she didn’t disapprove of him, did she? And that was the cause of, if not all, then surely most of the problems in her life. It had, after all, been to escape from loving Marcus and the knowledge that that love would never be returned that she had thrown herself into Nick’s arms. And it was because she still loved Marcus now, despite all her attempts to stop doing so, that she treated him with hostility and resentment. That was her shield, her only protection against the potential humiliation of Marcus—or anyone else—ever discovering how she felt about him.




CHAPTER TWO


�GOODNESS. It’s actually warm in here!’ Lucy removed the cashmere wrap she had pulled on over her delicate silk chiffon dress the moment she walked into Great-Aunt Alice’s hallway.

�Yes, I bribed Johnson to put the heat on.’ Her brother Piers grinned.

�You might have told me that before,’ Lucy grumbled affectionately, as she fanned herself with her hand to cool down her flushed face. �How warm did you tell him to make it? It’s like a sauna in here. The flowers I’ve bought Great-Aunt Alice will have wilted before she gets them.’

�Never mind your flowers—what about my chocolates?’ Piers told her ruefully.

�Piers thought Johnson was probably still working in Fahrenheit,’ Lucy’s father chipped in. �So he told him to set the temperature gauge at sixty-eight. None of us realised what had happened until Johnson came back and said that the gauge only went to forty.’

Lucy joined in the good-natured laughter at her brother’s expense, and then suddenly froze as the door opened and Marcus walked in.

Was it her imagination or was there really a small, sharp silence—as though not just she but everyone else was aware of just how formidable and commanding Marcus was?

It wasn’t only that he was tall—just nicely over six foot—or even that he was sexily broad-shouldered and taut-muscled. It wasn’t even that combination of thick dark hair and striking ice-grey eyes which could sometimes burn almost green.

So what was it about him that made not just her own sex but men as well turn and look towards him? Turn and look up to him, Lucy amended.

Could it have something to do with the fact that he ran the merchant bank which had been in his family for so many generations? Because of that he was in a position of great trust, responsible not just for the present and future of his clients, but in many cases for the secrets of their ancestors as well.

But even if one took away all of that—even if he had walked in as a stranger off the street—women would still have turned their heads to look at him and would have gone on looking, Lucy acknowledged. Because Marcus was sexy. In fact, Marcus was very sexy. Her heart attempted to do a high dive inside her chest, then realised it was attempting the impossible and ended up crashing sickeningly to its floor. She gulped at the glass of champagne Piers had handed to her as much for something to do—some reason not to have to look at Marcus—as for Dutch courage.

He was wearing one of his customary hand-made plain dark suits, a typical banker’s white shirt with a blue stripe, and a red tie.

She took another gulp of her champagne.

�Want another?’ Piers asked her.

Lucy shook her head. She wasn’t much of a drinker anyway, and her work meant that it was essential she kept a clear head in social situations, so she had quickly learned to simply take a small sip from her glass and then abandon it discreetly somewhere. The up side of this was that she always had a clear head, but the down side was that her body was simply not up to dealing with anything more than one small glass of anything alcoholic. But right now the numbing effect of a couple of glasses of champagne was probably just what she needed to help her cope with Marcus’s presence, intimidatingly up close, if not exactly as personal as her foolish heart craved.

�Oh, good. Marcus has made it after all,’ Lucy heard her mother exclaiming to Lucy’s great-uncle in a pleased voice. �Charles, do go over and ask him to join us.’

�Goodness, it is hot,’ Lucy said wildly. �I think I’d better go and get these poor flowers into some water.’

Her heart was thumping its familiar message to her as she made her escape, champagne glass in hand, heading for the rambling patchwork of corridors and small rooms to the rear of the huge apartment which her great-aunt still referred to as the servants’ quarters.

How on earth did Johnson and Mrs Johnson, aided only by a daily, manage to cope with looking after somewhere this size? Lucy wondered sympathetically as she hurried down one of the corridors and into the �flower room’. A row of vases had already been assembled on the worktop, ready filled with water, and Lucy unwrapped her own offering and busied herself placing the flowers stem by stem into water.

Was she really so afraid of seeing Marcus? Her hands trembled. Did she really need to ask herself that question? How old was she? Twenty-nine. And how long had it been since she had come down from university and looked at Marcus across the width of his desk and known…?

Tears suddenly blurred her vision.

Oh, yes, she had known then, immediately, that she had fallen in love with him, but she had known with equal immediacy that he did not return her feelings—that in fact, so far as he was concerned, her presence in his life was an inconvenience and an irritation he would far rather have been without.

She had been young enough then to dream her foolish dreams regardless, to fantasise about things changing, about walking into Marcus’s office one day and having Marcus look at her as though he wanted to drag her clothes off and possess her right there and then. She had whiled away many an irascible lecture from Marcus by allowing herself the pleasure of imagining him standing up and coming towards her, taking hold of her and putting his desk, or sometimes his chair, more often than not both of them, to the kind of erotic use for which they had definitely not been designed.

But the reality was, of course, that she was the one who wanted to tear his clothes off. And then one day she had looked at him and seen the way he was looking at her. And she had known that her foolish erotic fantasies and her even more foolish romantic daydreams were just that. Marcus did not either want or love her, and he was never going to do so. That was when she had decided that she needed to find someone else—because if she didn’t one day her feelings were going to get too much for her and she was going to totally humiliate herself by declaring them to Marcus.

A husband and then hopefully a family of her own would stop her from doing that, surely? she’d thought. But she hadn’t even managed to get that right, had she? Her marriage had been a disaster—privately and publicly. Very publicly.

She wasn’t the kind of person who wanted to be alone. She loved children, and had known from a young age that she wanted her own. Although she loved them both dearly, sometimes she felt wretchedly envious of the love and happiness her two best friends had found with their husbands. And one day she knew Marcus would marry—and when he did…A shudder of vicious pain savaged her emotions.

When he did, she made herself continue, she hoped to be protected from what she knew she would feel by the contentment and love she had found with another man and her family. How foolishly and dangerously she had deluded herself.

She couldn’t stay here in the flower room for ever, Lucy realised, and with any luck Marcus might actually have already left by now. Giving her flowers a final tweak, she turned to leave.

As soon as she opened the door into the drawing room the first person she saw was her cousin Johnny, who grabbed her arm and announced eagerly, �Great—I’ve been looking for you. More champagne?’ Without waiting for her to respond, he took a glass from a passing waiter and handed it to her.

�Must say the old girl isn’t stinting with the champers. It must be costing her a pretty penny to put this do on. Champers…waiters. Did you organise it?’

�Yes,’ Lucy said ruefully, remembering the hard bargain her great-aunt had driven over costs, and how in the end she had given in and suggested she give Great-Aunt Alice the business cost as her birthday present, provided her great-aunt supplied the champagne, the hors d’oeuvres and the waiters’ wages. Which probably explained the lack of any food, Lucy decided.

She tried not to look at Marcus, who was standing the full width of the room away from her but facing towards her, and watching her, she could see, with a very grim look tightening his mouth. She took a quick, nervous, sustaining sip of her champagne, and then another. She couldn’t bear to think about what would happen if Marcus ever got to hear about that idiotic lie she had told Mr McVicar. In the absence of a miracle, she was going have to dispose of her supposed investor as speedily as she had invented him.

�Actually, Luce, there’s something I need to discuss with you.’

�What?’ Somehow or other Lucy managed to drag her attention away from Marcus.

�I need to talk to you,’ Johnny repeated patiently.

�You do?’ Immediately Lucy was alert to her own prospective danger. �Johnny, if it’s a loan you’re after,’ she began warningly, �I haven’t forgotten that you still owe me fifty pounds from last time. Even if you have.’

�It isn’t anything like that,’ Johnny assured her earnestly. �Fact is, sweet cos, it just so happens that a business acquaintance of mine has asked me if I would introduce you to him.’

�He has?’ Lucy said cautiously.

�Mmm. Have another glass of champagne,’ he added encouragingly, removing Lucy’s half-empty glass before she could refuse or protest and summoning the still-circulating waiter so that he could hand her a fresh glass.

On the other side of the room Marcus’s unwavering focus on her had hardened into a grim-mouthed coldness that caused Lucy’s hand to tremble so much she almost spilt her champagne.

�If he’s thinking of commissioning Prêt a Party to do an event for him…’ she began, trying to move round so that she couldn’t see Marcus, and failing as he moved too.

�No, what he’s got in mind is making an investment in Prêt a Party.’

�What?’ Now she did spill a few drops of her champagne, before managing to take a steadying gulp of it.

�Oh, yes. He’s a bit of an entrepreneur. He’s made absolutely stacks of money from this turnkey business he owns. You know the kind of thing…’ Johnny enlarged. �He employs cleaners, cooks, someone to wait in for the gas man, someone to collect your cleaning—all that kind of stuff—for these rich City types who can’t afford the time to do it themselves. He saw the spread in A-List Life, and heard that you’re my cousin, and he said that Prêt a Party is exactly the kind of investment he’s looking for. So I said I was seeing you today and that I’d sound you out.’

�Johnny…’ Her head was spinning, and it didn’t occur to her to connect that with her unfamiliar consumption of champagne.

�Why don’t you let him talk to you and tell you what he’s got in mind himself? I could give him your office phone number…’

When she had reflected that she needed a miracle she’d never imagined she would get one—and certainly not one of this potential magnitude. She felt positively light-headed with relief, almost dizzy.

�Well, yes—okay, Johnny,’ she agreed gratefully.

�Great.’ Johnny looked at his watch, announcing, �Lord, is that the time? I’ve got to go. His name’s Andrew Walker, by the way.’

She hadn’t finished her champagne, but she put her glass on the tray as the waiter went past, absent-mindedly picking up a fresh glass and wincing slightly as she did so. She knew she shouldn’t have worn these high heels. Shoes were Julia’s thing, not hers, and she had only been persuaded into buying the strappy sandals with their far too high thin heels because they were the perfect shade of cornflower-blue to wear with one of her favourite dresses.

Unfortunately, though, they were not parquet-floor-friendly—especially when that floor had been polished in the old-fashioned way and was as slippery as an ice rink.

She looked round the room, but she couldn’t see either her parents or her brother, and she was just wondering if she could make her own escape when suddenly Marcus was standing in front of her, announcing grimly, �Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’

Enough of what? Lucy wanted to ask him. Enough of loving you? Enough of wanting you and aching for you? Enough of dreaming of you whilst the man I married because I couldn’t have you slept in bed beside me? Enough of knowing that you are never ever going to love me? Oh, yes, she’d had enough of that.

�Actually, Marcus, no—I don’t.’ The familiar pain was back, and it was intensifying with every second she had to spend in his company. It seared her and drove her, maddening her with its agonising ache so that she barely knew what she was saying.

Marcus was looking at her with familiar contempt and irritation. Lucy gasped in dismay as someone standing behind her accidentally bumped into her. The combined vertiginous effects of stilettos and Marcus-induced heartache was definitely not good for one’s balance, Lucy thought miserably, as Marcus gripped her arm firmly to steady her.

�Just how much champagne have you had?’ Marcus demanded grimly.

�Not enough,’ Lucy answered, with a flippancy she didn’t feel.

Marcus was looking at her with a blend of irritation and impatience. �You can hardly stand,’ he told her critically.

�So what?’ Lucy tossed her head. She was defying Marcus—baiting him, in fact! What on earth was happening to her? She was winding him up, and pushing her luck as she did so. She knew that, but somehow she couldn’t help herself. Somehow she needed to see that look of angry irritation mixed with contempt in his eyes just to remind herself of the futility of dreaming impossible dreams.

�Actually, I rather think I’d like some more champagne. I’m celebrating, you see,’ she heard herself telling him, uncharacteristically and recklessly emptying her glass before he could remove it and then looking round for the waiter with what she didn’t realise was champagne-induced vagueness. Her lips did feel slightly numb, it was true, but then so did her toes, and they hadn’t had any contact whatsoever with the champagne, had they?

�Celebrating what?’ Marcus demanded tersely, his hold on her arm tightening.

�My miracle,’ Lucy responded, forming the words very carefully.

She might have imagined it, but she thought Marcus actually swore softly. �The only miracle here is that you’re still standing,’ he muttered.

The waiter was almost level with her. She reached out to pick up a full glass of champagne from the tray he was carrying, but Marcus got there before she could lift the glass, the fingers of his free hand closing hard on her own.

�Leave it where it is, Lucy,’ he commanded her calmly.

�I’m thirsty,’ Lucy protested. Thirsty for the nectar of his kiss, thirsty for the feel of his mouth on her own, on her skin, everywhere, whilst she drank in the taste of him. She looked at his hand, at his long, strong fingers curled around her own. She wanted to put her other hand on top of it, so that she could touch him. She wanted to lift his hand to her mouth so that she could breathe in the scent of his skin as she explored it with her lips and with her tongue. Longing burned through her, leaping from nerve-ending to nerve-ending until she was filled with it, possessed by it…

�I think it’s time we left.’ The cool hardness of Marcus’s voice chilled her overheated thoughts.

�We?’ she queried warily.

�Yes. We. I was just about to leave—and, unless you want the remainder of your great-aunt’s guests to witness the unedifying sight of you sprawled on her parquet floor, I rather think you would be wise to leave with me. In fact, I am going to insist on it.’

�You’re my trustee, Marcus, not my guardian or my keeper.’

�Right now, I’m a man very close to the edge of his patience. And besides, I need to talk you about Prêt a Party.’

Lucy stiffened defensively.

�If you’re going to lecture me about Nick again—’ she began, but Marcus simply ignored her and continued as though she hadn’t interrupted him.

�You may remember me mentioning some time ago that my sister Beatrice wants to plan a surprise party for her husband’s fiftieth birthday?’

�Yes,’ Lucy agreed. Beatrice was Marcus’s elder sister, and her husband George was something very important in the mysterious highest echelons of the civil service.

�I have to go and see Beatrice later this week, and she suggested that I should take you along with me so that she can discuss her party with you. I thought you might want to check your diary before we fix on a date.’

Lucy exhaled weakly. She was grateful to be given any business right now—even if it meant having to spend time with Marcus in order to obtain it.

�I’ve got a fairly free week,’ she responded, as nonchalantly as she could. The truth was that she had a wholly free week; in fact the only event she had coming up in the whole of the next month was a launch bash for a sportswear manufacturer.

Somehow or other they had actually reached the door to the hallway, where her great-aunt was already saying goodbye to some of her other guests, and it was obvious that Marcus had every intention of hauling her through it. If she dug in her heels, would he literally drag her across the parquet?

�You’re walking too fast,’ she told him breathlessly, and then gave a small startled �oof’ of exhaled breath as he stopped so suddenly that she cannoned straight into him.

She was standing body to body with Marcus, and he had one hand on her arm whilst his other was pressed into the small of her back. She could smell the faint lemony scent of his cologne, mixed with warm man scent. Suddenly the back of her throat prickled treacherously with tears. How many hours had she wasted after she had first smelled it on him haunting the men’s toiletries departments of upmarket stores? Sniffing and testing and searching, hoping that she might recognise it and find out just what it was he wore, so that she could buy some and put a little on her pillows, so that she could wear it herself if necessary—anything just to be able to feel closer to him. But she had never discovered what it was.

Body to body with Marcus. If only by some miracle he would draw her closer now, and bend his head and cover her mouth with his—if only, if only…

�Marcus, dear boy—so good of you to come. And Lucy…’

Lucy could feel her face burning as Marcus stepped back from her but still continued to hold on to her arm.

The almost flirtatious warmth of her voice as her great-aunt had greeted Marcus chilled quite distinctly over her own name, Lucy noticed cynically. Was there any woman on the surface of the earth who was immune to Marcus’s personal brand of male charm?

�A truly delightful occasion, Alice. Thank you for inviting me.’

�My dear boy, how could I not? After all, your family have been taking care of our family’s financial affairs since before the Peninsular War. Of course there should have been food, but I’m afraid Lucy rather let me down there.’

Lucy gasped in outrage.

�That—Ouch!’ she protested as Marcus trod on her toes, then hustled her out into the street—just as though she were a prisoner under armed guard, Lucy decided indignantly.

�You do realise that you stood on my toes, don’t you?’ she objected, as she breathed in the familiar scent of the sun-warmed city.

�Better my foot on your toes than your foot in your own mouth, don’t you think?’ Marcus suggested.

It took Lucy several seconds to recognise what he was saying, but once she had she glowered indignantly and told him, �It was Great-Aunt Alice herself who decided not to have any food. It was nothing to do with me.’

�You amaze me sometimes, you know, Lucy,’ Marcus told her grimly. �Has no one ever told you that a little tact goes a long way towards oiling the wheels of business and reputation?’

�You’re a fine one to talk! You never bother using tact when you talk to me, do you?’

�Some situations call for stronger measures,’ Marcus answered grimly.

�If you mean my marriage—’ Lucy began hotly, and then stopped.

Her marriage was just not something she felt safe discussing with Marcus. The last thing she wanted was to have him probing into the whys and wherefores of her relationship with Nick. There was no point in allowing herself to be drawn into an argument she already knew she was not going to win.

�You can let go of me now, Marcus,’ Lucy hissed valiantly several seconds later, when he was still holding on to her. But Marcus ignored her, keeping a firm grip on her arm as he flagged down a taxi and then opened the door for her, almost pushing her inside it. Lucy resentfully moved as far away from him as she could as he sat down beside her.

�Where to, guv?’ the taxi driver demanded.

�Wendover Square. Number twenty-one.’

�Arncott Street.’

They had both spoken together.

�Make yer mind up,’ the cabbie complained.

�Wendover Square,’ Marcus repeated, before Lucy could speak, leaving her to glower angrily at him.

�It would have been easier if he’d dropped me off first, Marcus.’

�I want to talk to you,’ Marcus told her coolly.

�So talk,’ she said recklessly.

�In private,’ Marcus informed her in a very gritty voice.

The taxi driver was turning into Wendover Square, its elegant Georgian houses overlooking one of London’s most attractive private squares.

Marcus’s house—the same house his grandfather and his great-grandfather had lived in, in fact all his ancestors right back to the Carring who had first begun the bank in the days of the Peninsular War—had just about the best position in the whole square. Four storeys high and double fronted, with a proper back garden, it was a true family house, and Lucy could see how impressed the cabbie was as he pulled up outside it and unlocked the door for them.

�I do hope that whatever you want to say to me isn’t going to take too long, Marcus.’ Lucy was trying to sound as businesslike as possible—a difficult task when suddenly, for no discernible reason, her tongue seemed to be slipping and sliding over her words, and the motion of the taxi had made her feel very dizzy indeed.

�No Mrs Crabtree?’ she managed to articulate, when Marcus opened the door and there was no sign of his housekeeper. As Lucy knew, the woman treated her employer as though he were at the very most one step down from god status.

�She’s gone to stay with her daughter, to help look after her new baby.’

�Oh!’ Lucy gave an exclamation of surprise as she semi-stumbled in the hallway.

�I told you you’d had too much to drink,’ Marcus said grimly. �And you’re certainly in no fit state to go anywhere on your own.’

His accusation stung—and all the more so because it was just not true. She didn’t drink! But before she could say so, he was continuing curtly, �You’re out of touch, Lucy. The tipsy, thirty-something, Bridget Jones-type female is over. The in thing now is the committed working mother with two children and a husband—and if you don’t believe me take a look at your own friends. Carly and Julia are both married now, and both mothers.’

As though she needed reminding of that! Lucy thought miserably.

�I am not thirty-anything,’ she told him crossly instead. �And, just in case you had forgotten, I’ve been married.’

�Forgotten? How the hell could anyone forget that?’

�And I have not had too much to drink,’ Lucy added forcefully.

The look Marcus gave her made her whole body burn, never mind just her face.

�No? Well, all I can say is that if this is the state you were in when Nick Blayne picked you up, it’s no wonder—’

�It’s no wonder what?’ Lucy stopped him. �No wonder that I went to bed with him? Well, for your information, I went to bed with him because—’

�Spare me your reminiscences about how much you loved him, Lucy,’ Marcus told her flatly. �Blayne saw you coming and took advantage of you—financially, emotionally, and for all I know sexually as well. He used you, Lucy, and you let him. Couldn’t you see what he was?’ he demanded in exasperation. �I should have thought even a sixteen-year-old virgin could have recognised that the man was a user.’

�Sixteen-year-old virgins probably have better eyesight than twenty-plus unmarrieds,’ Lucy retaliated flippantly. How many times had she used flippancy as her defence against the powerful blasts of Marcus’s irritated broadsides? Surely more than enough to know how much they increased his ire. But what else could she do? Without her protective shield of nonchalance she might just break down into a sobbing wreck of pleading female misery, and he would like that even less!

�I loved Nick,’ she lied wildly.

�Did you? Or did you just want to go to bed with him?’

�A girl doesn’t have to marry a man in order to have sex with him these days, Marcus. She doesn’t even have to love him. All she needs to do is simply do it.’

She could see the contempt flashing through his eyes as he looked at her.

�Have you any idea just how provocative that statement is? Or how vulnerable you are?’

Lucy stared at him. �What do you mean?’

�I mean that right now any man could get you into his bed.’

�That is so not true!’

�No? Want me to prove it to you?’

�You couldn’t,’ Lucy objected recklessly.

�No?’

He reached for her so suddenly that she didn’t even have time to think about evading him, never mind actually do so. One minute she was standing in his hallway, the next she was in Marcus’s arms, held securely against him. His mouth came down on her own, hard and sure, hot with male pride and anger, and he took her half-parted lips in a victor’s kiss. And she didn’t care, she didn’t care one little bit. A feeling far more potent than the bubbles from a thousand bottles of champagne hit her emotions. He was kissing her. Marcus was kissing her.

Marcus was kissing her.

Marcus was kissing her!




CHAPTER THREE


�OH. MMM. Oh…’ Greedily Lucy clung, both to the sensation and to the man delivering it, reaching up to wrap her arms tightly around Marcus’s neck as she caved in to her own need. She had wanted him too much and for too long to resist this…this miracle of miracles, she decided headily, and she moved even closer to him, trying to ease the ache deep inside her body by arching into him and moving her body against his.

�Oh, Marcus…’ she sighed ecstatically, as she felt the unmistakable surge of his erection pressing into her.

�Lucy…no!’ He pushed her sharply away.

Bereft and stunned, she stared reproachfully at him.

�You see, this is exactly the kind of situation I’ve brought you here to avoid,’ he told her brusquely. �If I’d let you make your own way home—’

�But what if I don’t want to avoid it?’ Lucy demanded provocatively. �What if I want…’ What on earth was she saying? Another minute and she’d be telling Marcus that this was what she had been dreaming from the first time she had stood opposite him in his office. Dreaming of, lusting after, longing for…

�Never mind what you want,’ Marcus told her acerbically. �What you need right now is to sleep off that champagne.’

Reddening and humiliated, Lucy started to walk towards the door. �Well, in that case I’d better go home, then, hadn’t I?’ she said petulantly. The truth was that, whilst she wasn’t drunk, the glass and a half of champagne she’d had was a whole glass more than she normally had to drink—on an empty stomach, too. And there was no doubt that the combined effect of Marcus’s presence, the privacy of his house, plus the intensity of her feelings for him were all working together to make her want to put into practice the feverish lust-filled desires she had kept hidden for so very long. However, dizzy with lust and longing though she was, she was still in control enough to recognise that the best place for her right now was somewhere with a comfortable bed and no Marcus.

�No way.’ Marcus stopped her. �You can sleep it off here. Come on—this way.’

He had turned her round and was practically frog-marching her up the stairs, Lucy recognised wrathfully. She tried to pull away from him, and to her chagrin overbalanced on her spindly heels.

�Right—that’s it,’ Marcus announced, swinging her up into his arms before she could stop him as he climbed the last couple of stairs.

With her face buried against his shoulder, and her hand splayed out across his shirt, perfectly able to feel the crisp male hair beneath it, Lucy felt as though she had suddenly become a sort of sexual Lucy in Wonderland, fallen into a magical fantasy world.

Still carrying her, Marcus strode down the landing and in true Hollywood hero fashion pushed open a bedroom floor with one highly polished shoe. How typical of Marcus that he would wear such traditional-looking shoes, Lucy acknowledged, whilst her stomach muscles cramped in pleasure at the exciting discovery that said shoes looked rather bigger than those worn by her unmourned ex-husband. They must be at least a size eleven, maybe even larger…

The room they were in was obviously a guest room, pristinely neat and decorated in a rather old-fashioned and very unadventurous mix of traditional chintz and heavy inherited family furniture.

Not that Lucy had very much inclination to study the furniture—not when Marcus was sliding her down his body in such a delicious and delirium-inducing way. Sliding her down his body and trying to step back from her, she recognised. But she wasn’t going to let him.

The shock of her own thoughts was a powerful adrenaline surge, filling her with a determination that was turning her into someone she hardly recognised. Someone who was demanding to know why she should not have what she wanted; why she should not do as others did and simply take what she wanted. Why she should not for once in her life simply put herself and her own needs first.

She had never experienced anything so alluringly tempting, so wonderfully empowering, so overwhelming irresistible. Why should she try to resist it? Why shouldn’t she seize this opportunity? Why shouldn’t she allow herself to seduce Marcus into taking her to bed? Why shouldn’t she do what other women did all the time instead of denying herself what she so desperately wanted? Why should she always be the one to go without? Why shouldn’t she allow herself this one night?

And tomorrow? When she had to face Marcus’s anger and rejection?

But this wasn’t tomorrow. It was today. It was here and now. She was already dealing with Marcus’s rejection and had been for years. Why shouldn’t she sweeten it with the kind of memories that would burn within the shrine of her most secret places for ever?

�Marcus…Marcus…’ she whispered fiercely against his lips, and she lifted her mouth to his, wriggling as close to him as she could, oblivious to the fact that her movements had caused the press-studs fastening her fragile silk dress to pop open until she felt the unwanted presence of its small cap sleeves halfway down her arms.

The unwanted intrusion of her dress and its unfamiliarly draped sleeves was easily dealt with. She simply dropped her arms and let it slide down to the floor, to pool round her feet, then stepped out of it. Thus freed, she lifted her arms and wrapped them tightly round Marcus’s neck, standing in only one shoe, a thin silk camisole and matching fluted-legged brief French knickers. Ridiculously, perhaps, one of the first things she had done after Nick’s betrayal and their subsequent divorce was to go inside the Agent Provocateur shop she walked past most days on her way to her office and treat herself to the kind of underwear that every sensual woman had a right to enjoy—even if her husband had labelled her as sexless.

Marcus was trying to say something to her, she realised, as she rubbed her nose against the bare flesh of his throat with open sensual pleasure, breathing in the scent of him. And she could feel his fingers biting into the soft skin of her upper arms, too. But she was too lost in the sheer wonder of the moment, and what was happening, to pay any attention to what he might be trying to say. Why speak, after all, when they could be doing this? Lucy decided giddily in adrenaline- and love-fuelled need, as she created around herself the familiar fantasy that had comforted her Marcus-deprived body for so long. The fantasy in which Marcus just could not resist her and didn’t even want to. Poor Marcus. He was probably dreadfully uncomfortable in all those clothes—that tie, that buttoned-up shirt—surely it behoved her to aid him with their removal?

She tried for the tie first, her tongue-tip pressed firmly against her teeth as she worked at the knot with eager fingers.

�Lucy!’

�Mmm?’ She had worn a tie at school, as part of her uniform, so surely unknotting this one…?

�Lucy…’ Marcus’s hands covered her own. Lucy looked up at him and gave him an approving smile. Obviously he shared her own eagerness for him to be rid of his clothes and wanted to help her. She intended to say as much to him, but suddenly she became distracted as she looked at his mouth, and then she couldn’t look away again.

�Marcus.’ She whispered his name in dizzy delight as she looked at it and longed for it, touching her own tongue to her lips as her eyes darkened with the heat of her own hunger for him.

Reaching up, she pressed her mouth tenderly against his. His lips felt firm and strong, his flesh sensuously distracting and hunger-inducing as she breathed tiny kisses against it, little nibbles that grew bolder as each taste fuelled her need for more. Marcus’s hands left her arms and gripped her waist.

It was nice to be held so tightly, she acknowledged, but it would be even nicer if he were to touch her breast. So much easier, surely, for her to simply take his hand and place it against the warm swell of her own flesh beneath the thin silk of her cami and hold it there whilst her tongue darted excitedly against the closed line of his mouth, begging for entrance to the pleasures that lay beyond them…

�Lucy!’

What was Marcus doing? He couldn’t be pushing her away. Frantically she reached out to him, then lost her balance and started to fall backwards onto the bed behind her.

Immediately Marcus made a grab for her, but it was too late, and somehow or other she was lying on the bed, with Marcus on top of her. The full weight of his body was pressing her down into the mattress and it felt so good. In fact it felt, he felt like heaven…like everything good she had ever experienced in the whole of her life, only ten times more than that. She exhaled in delighted bliss and wrapped her arms tightly round his neck, pressing her mouth against his, her lips parted invitingly.

She heard Marcus make a thick muffled sound. Surely not a groan? And then his hands were in her hair, his fingers hard and warm against her scalp as he held her head in sensual imprisonment and his mouth moved on hers.

Had she imagined she knew what a kiss was? She had known nothing—less than nothing, Lucy admitted, as the emotional champagne bubbles of delight and disbelief exploded inside her and raced along her veins into every part of her body. Most especially to those bits of her body that were particularly receptive to the kind of pleasure Marcus was giving her. Even her toes were curling, in a silent exclamation of thrilled awe.

So this was what it felt like to be truly aroused by and responsive to a man. No wonder in times gone by mothers of impressionable daughters had guarded them so ferociously. Already she was hooked on what Marcus was giving her; already she wanted and needed more. His tongue-tip teased the sensitivity of her lips with small, almost whip-like tormenting caresses before suddenly hardening and thrusting deep into her mouth, not just once but repeatedly, until her whole body was shuddering in rhythmic response to those thrusts.

Dizzily Lucy reflected that she’d asked for one miracle but had actually got two! Was that how it worked with this miracle thing? Once you had tuned in to miracles, so to speak, did they just keep on coming? Little miracles popping up here, there and everywhere?

�Oh, I do so hope there will be more,’ she whispered ecstatically as Marcus released her mouth.

�What?’ he demanded, looking down at her, all blazing impatience and irritation and lethal male desire.

�More,’ she repeated sweetly, giving him a beatific smile. �I would like more, Marcus. Much more,’ she emphasised.

�You want more?’ he repeated.

Why was he looking at her like that? As though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing? As though the hard pulse of his erection didn’t exist?

Lucy wasn’t going to let herself be dragged out of her fantasy.

�Oh, yes,’ she agreed. Now that he had kissed her, and she had tasted him, her body was so fixated on him that it would probably mount an all-out rebellion if it was denied him now. She wanted him and she was going to have him, she decided firmly. She deserved to have him.

�It’s been such a long time, you see,’ she told him. And it had. Such a very, very long time since she had first looked at him and wanted him. And now here was her very own personal miracle, making it possible for her to have him. So of course she wanted more of them—and of him, too. But right now she didn’t have time to explain all of that to him because right now…right now she had far more important and exciting things she wanted to do.

She looked up into his eyes and then gave in to the temptation to stroke her tongue-tip along the line of his throat. She heard him groan, felt him shudder, and then his hands were on her body, as she had so much longed for them to be, cupping her breasts whilst she tugged off his tie and her fingers worked busily to unfasten the buttons of his shirt. The pads of his thumbs were stroking her erect nipples, working the silk of her camisole against them until she moaned in helpless delight at the effect his deliberate stroking of the fine silk against her sensitive flesh was having on her.

But she got her own back. She had unfastened his shirt and was free to slide her hands inside it, palms flat against the hard muscle of his chest. She lifted her head and kissed his collarbone, stringing tiny kisses together in mute arousal. His fingers plucked erotically at one nipple whilst her own urgent movements brought the other free of her cami. She flicked her tongue-tip urgently against the small stone hardness of Marcus’s flat male nipples, tasting first one and then the other, tormenting herself with the knowledge of the pleasure that lay ahead of her when she allowed her hands and her mouth to move down over his body.

Marcus bent his head and kissed her throat. His fingertip traced the shape of her ear whilst his teeth nibbled gently on her lobe, and then his mouth caressed the flesh just behind it. A spasm of intense pleasure and longing shot through her, and she arched her back to bring her breast fully into his hand, a small, keening moan bubbling in her throat. Her toes curled, and automatically she opened her legs in eager supplication.

Against her body she could feel the erect heat and hardness of Marcus’s own arousal, whilst what he was doing to that tiny spot of flesh was practically bringing her to the point of orgasm all by itself.

His hand stroked her hip and then slid lower, finding the soft curve of her bottom beneath the wide silky leg of her fluted French knickers. Some women thought thongs were sexy, but right now Lucy felt that what she was wearing and the access to all areas they gave Marcus was far more alluring. Without any need to remove them, his hand had already moved from her bottom to the soft silky curls of hair between her legs, and his thumb was massaging slow circles against her mound before his fingers started to tease her open.

Lucy moaned and writhed and lifted her body up to his hands, then gasped as he stroked deftly into her wetness in the very same heartbeat as his lips started to caress her tight nipple.

She felt as though a magical cord was somehow stretched from her breast to her belly, and that what Marcus was doing to her was tightening it to the point where she wanted to scream with urgent longing for him to do more, to take her further, deeper.

�Marcus, I’m going to come,’ she protested thickly. But instead of heeding her warning and removing his clothes, so that he could slide into her, he lifted his head and looked steadily at her whilst his fingers moved more purposefully over her. Over her and into her. Stroking her, teasing her, until she was so hot, and so wet, and so wanting…

�I’m not coming until you’re inside me,’ she told him, panting out the words as she struggled to hold back her orgasm, her fingers closing over him through the fabric of his clothes and her body shuddering violently in excitement as she realised how thick and strong he actually was.

He undressed with speedy efficiency, scarcely giving her time to enjoy the pleasure of looking at his naked body. Then he undressed her as well, and then positioned himself between her welcoming, eager thighs.

�Missionary position?’ she huffed, pulling a small face.

�It’s all we’ve got time for if you want me inside you when we come,’ Marcus told her rawly, before bending his head to kiss her naked breasts in turn whilst he rubbed the hard hot head of his erection against her clitoris until she called out frantically to him, begging him to satisfy her.

Lucy felt her orgasm seize her in its seismic grip with his third thrust, her muscles fastening round him to hold and caress him, to draw from him the sharp, sweet juice of life itself.



She knew the moment she opened he eyes that she wasn’t in her own bed. But it was several seconds before she realised just whose bed she was in—or rather whose bedroom, since the room she was in was obviously a guest room. Marcus’s guest room. In Marcus’s Wendover Square house.

She gave a small despairing groan as the events of the previous afternoon and evening formed images inside her head—images she was forced to view without the protection of her earlier adrenaline-induced armour.

What on earth had possessed her to behave like that? Granted, she loved Marcus, and always would love him, but last night she had…She swallowed uncomfortably whilst her whole body burned in the flames of her own shocking memories.

She looked at her watch. Ten a.m.

She shot upright in the bed. It couldn’t possibly be! She’d always woken up at seven at the very latest—always. Even on her honeymoon.

But last night with Marcus she’d had the kind of sex, the quality of sex that she most definitely had not had with Nick—either on her honeymoon or at any other time.

Marcus? Where was he? She hauled up the duvet, holding it to cover her naked breasts, even though some sixth sense told her that the house was a Marcus-free zone. Her clothes, which she could blush-makingly remember abandoning all over the place, had been thoughtfully retrieved and neatly folded—although she couldn’t see her knickers—and there was an envelope propped up on the tallboy with her name written across it in Marcus’s imperious hand. Keeping the duvet wrapped around herself, she got out of bed and padded over to the tallboy. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper on which Marcus had written economically.

Your underwear is in the dryer. Don’t leave without having some breakfast—coffee, fruit, cereal, etc, in cupboards and fridge. Will be in touch this p.m. re visit to Beatrice.

Her knickers were in the dryer! How domestic, how authoritarian—how Marcus.

And how lovely to know they would be clean. If she had one tiny little hang-up, it was that she was almost too neat and tidy—and everything that went with that, Lucy admitted as she hurried into the bathroom. But then boarding school did that to a person, she reflected, as she stood beneath the refreshing sting of the shower, lathering her skin and her hair.

The décor in Marcus’s house might be slightly old-fashioned, but the guest bathroom was well stocked with everything that an overnight visitor minus her sponge bag might need. Lucy smiled approvingly when she found a new toothbrush as well as toothpaste in the basket beside the basin, along with a new comb, a small unopened jar of face cream and even deodorant.

Fortunately her hair was naturally straight, so she had no need to do anything other than wash and comb it, knowing that by the time she reached her office it would have dried. And even more fortunately, given the time and the fact that she had a considerable amount of paperwork to attend to, she could go straight there and change into a pair of jeans once she got there. She always kept several changes of clothes there, just in case.

Her head had begun to ache unpleasantly—a combination of anxiety about what Marcus might be likely to say to her about last night and lack of caffeine, Lucy decided as she made her way downstairs in her silk dress but minus her stiletto shoes.

Marcus’s kitchen was, of course, immaculate. Having retrieved her underwear from the laundry room and quickly put it on—no matter how saucy it might be, she simply was not a �no knickers’ girl, Lucy decided firmly—she hurried into the kitchen, desperately in need of a very strong cup of coffee.

Ten minutes later, after going through every cupboard and finding only decaf, she was forced to admit that there was an unbridgeable gap between her idea of what constituted a proper breakfast drink and Marcus’s.

Decaf. She screwed up her nose in distaste as she made herself a cup and munched half-heartedly on a banana.




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