Читать книгу Taken for Revenge: Bedded for Revenge / Bought by a Billionaire / The Bejewelled Bride - Lee Wilkinson - Страница 14

‘THERE’S a journalist outside,’ said Rupert. ‘And he says he wants to speak to Sorcha.’

All eyes around the table looked at her. The boardroom was packed with accountants, operations managers and sales reps, but all Sorcha was aware of was the piercing black gaze which seemed to be stripping her bare—or was that simply wishful thinking on her part? Oh, but she had missed him.

Cesare had been away for weeks. He’d flown straight from the new factory over to the States, and then back to Italy for the centenary celebrations of one of the di Arcangelo department stores. He’d been in regular contact—but you never really knew what was going on behind the scenes when you dealt in phone calls and e-mails.

He had arrived back to discover that a lot of the press interest seemed to be focussed more on the fiery-haired model than on the product—which was every marketing man’s idea of a nightmare. He had only calmed down when he had seen the sales figures, which had gone through the roof.

Across the boardroom he met Sorcha’s green eyes with soft fire—because even the supremely confident Cesare had been unprepared for the ripple effect of his original idea.

Nobody could have predicted the outrageous success of his revamped advertising campaign. As Rupert had said, products hadn’t just been flying off the shelves—they had been leaving them in whole squadrons!

‘So, are you going to talk to this journalist, Sorcha?’ Cesare questioned, his voice underpinned with silken sarcasm. ‘Or perhaps we should think about hiring a PR person especially for you, who could cope with all the interview requests!’

‘There’s no need to make it sound like something I’ve done, when this whole campaign idea was your suggestion,’ she retorted. ‘If you start rubbishing it now, then it doesn’t really reflect well on your judgement, does it, Cesare?’

They glared at each other across the room. Had he thought that his absence might bring him immunity from desire? He wanted her, he realised. He still wanted her. He had missed her like crazy. Crazy. His scowl deepened. ‘So, are you going to talk to him?’

She looked around the table. ‘I’m happy to take advice on it.’

Rupert shrugged. ‘Well, you know what they say—there’s no such thing as bad publicity.’

‘It’s certainly been good for Maceo!’ piped up one of the secretaries, who had been completely smitten by the Italian photographer.

The campaign had given Maceo’s retrospective exhibition an extra boost of publicity. The photos he had taken of Sorcha were absolutely brilliant, causing one of the broadsheet newspapers to wonder why he had given up taking photos professionally.

‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about,’ said Sorcha, wishing that some of it might die down.

‘Are you being disingenuous?’ Cesare’s voice was withering as his gaze flickered over the giant poster of Sorcha sucking on a digit. ‘It looks like soft porn!’

‘Thanks!’ she snapped. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. You approved the original concept—remember?’

‘I was not expecting it to look like…like…!’ But that was not strictly true. He had known exactly what it would look like. He had underestimated the interest it would provoke, true—and he had also failed to take into account the fact that he would still be feeling this frustrating and pointless jealousy. Because none of this was working out as he had wanted.

He had planned to have cast her aside by now—instead of which, he had flown back hungry for more of her. And—damn it—he didn’t want to want her—not any more! Looking for something to focus his rage on, he looked again at the poster. ‘What was Maceo thinking of?’

‘Sales, presumably,’ she said sarcastically.

Now they faced one another.

‘The journalist is waiting, Sorcha,’ Rupert reminded her quietly.

Part of her wanted to go out and do an interview just to rile Cesare. But she knew that wouldn’t be the act of a mature person, and so she shook her head. ‘Well, I don’t want to talk to anyone. Rupes, would you mind referring them to our PR people? Say that my contribution to the campaign was a one-off and that I shan’t be doing any more photo-shoots?’

Rupert pulled a face. ‘Crikey—are you sure, sis? Don’t you want to capitalise on this?’

‘There’s nothing to capitalise on.’ Sorcha met the mockery in Cesare’s eyes and hesitated. She wanted to say how much she had given up to go to college—but wouldn’t that be a revelation too far, especially now, here, in front of all these people? And especially in front of him. But there were other ways of saying that her education had been both important and necessary to her.

‘I didn’t work hard at university to see my entire career culminating in being the face on the front of a sauce bottle.’

Black eyes burned into her.

‘Yeah,’ said Rupert, nodding. ‘And we kept that other photo for over fifty years—so there’s probably no need!’

‘Rupert!’ said Sorcha indignantly. ‘That wasn’t why I said it! It’s a bit much to have my magnanimous gesture thrown back in my face!’

But to her astonishment everyone started clapping, and even Cesare was giving a grim kind of smile—and, oh, why should that feel like a far greater achievement than quadrupling sales?

Because she had missed him like mad, in spite of all the things he’d said to her in bed that afternoon in the hotel? Because she couldn’t sleep at nights for thinking about him and he was still obsessing her waking hours, no matter how much she tried?

Had she thought that he might come in here this morning and brush her lips with his when there was a quiet moment, murmur that he’d like to see her alone in his office? And what would she have said? Well, yes, obviously.

But she couldn’t have been more wrong.

He hadn’t made a single indication that he still wanted her. Not one. No accidental brushing against her arm. No manoeuvring to get them alone together. Nothing. Had he decided while he’d been away that it was better if the affair ended?

‘Well, I think that’s everything,’ Cesare was saying. ‘Enjoy Berlin, Rupert.’ He looked up as Sorcha stood up. ‘Would you mind staying behind for a moment, Sorcha?’

Her heart slammed against her ribcage and a wave of dizziness swept over her. ‘Of course.’ She waited until everyone had trooped out of the room and looked at him expectantly, wondering if her face hid her terrible fear that it was all over. ‘What is it?’

‘No ideas about what might be on my mind?’

She was about to say, I’m not really in the mood for riddles, when something in his eyes stopped her. ‘This is a…well, it’s a bizarre situation, isn’t it? You coming back after everything that’s—’

He cut across her words with a ruthless statement. ‘You still want me.’

It was not a question.

There was a pause as she looked at him.

‘Yes.’

‘And yet you do not take the initiative?’ He walked over to the window and leaned against it, his legs slightly apart, hands resting on his narrow hips. ‘You do not ring me while I am away, or send me a text. Or even come into work early this morning, knowing that I am back.’ Waiting for you.

His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘What’s the matter, Sorcha? For all your professed love of equality and independence are you really one of those little-girl lovers who have to be seduced? Perhaps to absolve them from any guilt that they might feel?’ His black eyes glittered. ‘So that if a man starts to kiss them and touch them they feign a little resistance—and when they can resist no more and give in…Well.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Then they have no one to blame but the man.’

‘Who’s talking about blame?’ Sorcha shifted uncomfortably. ‘Not me.’

‘So how long are we going to keep up this ridiculous charade of pretending that we don’t want something when we’re dying to give in to it? You want me, Sorcha. So why the hell don’t you come over here and have me, before time runs out?’

‘Before time runs out?’ she echoed. ‘What do you mean?’

He laughed. ‘Are you crazy? Do you think that I’m going to carry on staying at that…hotel, keeping an eye on your little company, when I have plenty of my own to run? Do you think I’m here for keeps—to be your lover whenever the whim takes you?’

Sorcha winced. It was funny the games that your mind could play on you. She had always known he would go, and yet some part of her had imagined him staying here, frozen in some kind of time warp, until some kind of resolution had been made. Except that there wasn’t going to be a resolution. They were just two very different people who happened to be overwhelmingly attracted to each other.

The best sex he’d never had.

For Sorcha it was different, because she had grown to realise that Cesare meant more to her than that. He always had done. The love she had felt at eighteen had been real enough, but as fragile and as tender as her age. He had frightened her then, with his lack of emotion, and that was why she had hit out blindly and rejected him. Deep-down she had known that it had been the right thing to do—but hadn’t she always regretted that it had ended the way it had?

She knew that she had wounded his pride, and maybe he would never forgive her for that, and yet she wanted to get closer to him and didn’t know if that was possible. No one was saying they could go back—but couldn’t they build on the huge and obvious attraction between them? Didn’t men relax their guard when they had sex with a woman? Even a man as formidable as Cesare?

And now he had told her that his time here was limited—it was down to that old thing of choice again. Should she live for the moment and remain his lover? Or should she opt for her own kind of pride and withdraw gracefully while she still had the opportunity to do so?

She turned her back on him and Cesare felt the sharp tang of disappointment. But he would get over it. There was no way he was going to beg. Until he saw her walk over to the door and lock it, and then come back towards him, unbuttoning her blouse as she did so.

His eyes narrowed in question. ‘Sorcha?’ He swallowed with difficulty.

‘What?’ The final button freed, she took the blouse off and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. ‘Can’t have it creased for my meeting this afternoon, now, can I?’ she questioned innocently.

‘Sorcha—’

He made to move, but she stayed him exactly where he was with an imperious gesture. Her hand reached round to unclip her skirt and then to slide the zip down. She stepped out of it, folded it, and hung it next to the blouse.

She turned to face him wearing nothing but a lacy bra, panties, silk stockings and a suspender belt. And high heels. Cesare swallowed. Oh, those heels! Briefly, he closed his eyes.

‘Have you missed me?’ she questioned.

‘Yes.’

‘Then come away from the window,’ she told him, ‘and show me how much.’

For a moment he honestly wasn’t sure whether he could move, but somehow he managed it. Loosening his tie, he began walking towards her, and something in his eyes made hers widen.

‘Cesare?’ she questioned uncertainly.

He gave a low laugh. ‘What’s the matter, Sorcha?’ he murmured as he stood in front of her. ‘Bitten off more than you can chew?’ And he took her unprotesting hand and ran it along the hard ridge of his erection, shuddering as he did so.

‘Feel in my back pocket,’ he suggested silkily.

She did, kneading his buttock as she extracted a condom. ‘Do you always come prepared?’ she questioned unsteadily.

‘I don’t always come,’ he murmured, wryly remembering their first rather one-sided encounter on the boardroom table.

‘Then I’d better make sure you do today,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, Sorcha.’

The way he said her name made her want to dissolve. She wanted to kiss him—tiny, tender kisses on every centimetre of his silky olive skin—but she suspected that kissing wasn’t part of this erotic scene they seemed to be making up as they went along. And kissing made her weak—whereas seduction was giving her power.

She undid his belt and unzipped him, carefully freed him—easing him out into the palm of her hand—and he moaned.

‘Shhh. I don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing.’

He found the fact that she had told him to be quiet unbearably erotic—almost as erotic as her kicking off her own tiny panties, pushing him down to the floor and then straddling him.

‘How’s that?’ she questioned disingenuously as she lowered herself down to sheath his silken steel column.

He shook his head, unable to speak, unable to do anything except helplessly lie there while she rode him. Oh, sweet heaven…

He began to cry out as sweet release seized him, and she lowered her head to capture his mouth, her lacecovered breasts covering him with their warm curves as she kissed him. And still she thrust her hips towards him, so that as his pleasure began to fade out her own orgasm swept her away, and she arched her body like a bow.

He caught her bottom and anchored himself to it, watching as she threw her head back and moaned—silky hair tumbling all the way down her back.

When it was over, they stayed exactly where they were—controlling their unsteady breathing, staring at one another in quiet disbelief.

‘What’s Italian for “wow!”?’ mumbled Sorcha.

‘It’s the same.’ He stroked his hand over her waist reflectively, and then lifted his arm to glance at his watch. ‘Better move, baby,’ he murmured, with the lightest of smacks on her bottom. ‘I have a phone call to make.’

‘Sure.’ Somehow Sorcha kept her face composed, even if his words made her feel like a discarded hooker.

But you shouldn’t start a no-strings office affair unless you could accept it for what it was.

Sex.