Kerry studied him nervously, her colour high. “Now what?”
He held out an assured brown hand. “Come here…” he urged softly.
She stayed where she was, glued to the carpet. A treacherous, relentless awareness of him was quivering through her in response to the burning brush of his lion-gold eyes. Desire and satisfaction mingled there in heady combination. Trembling, she tilted her chin. “You can force me to come here and you can force me to marry you, but that’s all you can force.”
“Is it?” Alex strolled forward fluidly. Long fingers began smoothly to unbutton her coat, then he pushed it down slowly from her shoulders and let the garment drop to the floor.
“Stop it…for God’s sake, stop it!” she pleaded, for the tension in the air sizzled over her raw nerves.
“Don’t challenge me, then.” His hand touched her hair and brushed against her cheek. “And stop behaving as if you are afraid of me. I don’t like it. I’ve never hurt you.”
Sometimes a physical blow could almost be kinder. She nearly told him that. As he had stripped that coat from her she had had the ridiculous suspicion that he planned to continue with the dress underneath. Now he drew her inexorably closer into the shelter and heat of his tall, powerful body.
“Alex…don’t,” she implored.
Her slight figure was alternately rigid and shrinking from the torment of his proximity. Something raw and blazing illuminated his narrowed gaze. His dark head bent and he brought his mouth down fiercely upon hers, forcing her soft lips to part for the thrusting invasion of his tongue. It was no gentle or patient reintroduction to his lovemaking. It was shockingly, shatteringly sexual.
His hand settled at the base of her spine, pressing her against his hard, muscled thighs. Heat coursed through her in a debilitating wave. The potency of his masculine arousal was no less overwhelming than the angry hunger of his kiss. A muffled whimper escaped low in her throat. An unbearable, completely unexpected tide of need was wreaking havoc with her sensation starved body. Excitement tore through her in a stormy passage, her mouth opening instinctively for his, her head falling back as his fingers wound into the tangle of her hair. His other hand was wandering at will over her tautening curves, cupping her breast, roaming over the firm swell of her hips in confident reacquaintance. The onslaught seduced her utterly. It had been too long since she had known Alex’s touch—indeed, any man’s touch. All the heat of desire which had once made her writhe against him in helpless need was controlling her now.
He suddenly loosed her swollen mouth and lifted his dark head. “I could take you now…here, if I wanted.” His fingers slid in derisive retreat from her. “You have the soul of a wanton, cara. It betrays you when you least desire it to. Even with me, whom you profess to hate, you are eager.”
Kerry fell back from him, shaking like a leaf. Her nipples were tight, aching buds beneath her clothes. An ache was spreading within her, an ache she wretchedly acknowledged as a bodily cry for fulfilment. She had never hated herself as she did at that moment for surrendering to Alex when his sole intent had been to demonstrate his contempt. But she’d been woefully unprepared to discover that Alex’s lovemaking still drove her crazy, regardless of all common sense. Once Alex had treated her as if she was a precious, fragile creature who might break if roughly handled. What she had lost, what she had destroyed returned to haunt her.
“I have made arrangements.” Thickly lashed golden eyes rested inscrutably on her hot cheeks and evasive gaze. “We will be married within the week. When you appear in my company tonight we will be announcing to the curious that we are together again. I ordered a selection of clothes to be delivered to the apartment. You will wear the blue evening gown tonight. I won’t be back for dinner, so you’ll be dining alone.”
She should have guessed that he would take care of the clothing problem. Her wardrobe no longer contained couture garments. Bitterness assailed her that she should be as helpless in his hands as a child’s toy.
“Sit down.” He indicated the chair and lounged back against his tidy desk. “I have taken a precaution against any future desire you might have to conclude this marriage, too. You will sign a legal, binding contract, agreeing that you give Nicky into my custody if we should part again in the future.”
“You can’t ask that of me!” she exclaimed in horror.
“I am not asking, I am demanding,” Alex contradicted with sibilant softness. “If you conduct yourself as a normal married woman and mother you will have nothing to fear from that contract.”
She searched his harshly set features suspiciously. “You’re planning to do this to take Nicky from me altogether,” she accused. “You want to make my life so miserable that I’ll want to leave.”
His jawline hardened. “I would not do that to my son. It is natural that there should be storms between us now. But in time those will disappear. If you behave yourself, I have not the smallest intention of making your life a misery,” he parried with a curled lip, as if the very suggestion of such behaviour upon his part was an insult.
“I’ll be wretched anyway,” she mumbled, on the brink of angry, cornered tears.
“Why should you be?” Alex demanded in a tone reminiscent of a whiplash. “You will have a beautiful home, your son, plenty of money, and all for what price? It is I who sacrifice pride in taking you back!”
“How the mighty have fallen…”
“Dio, don’t taunt me!” Alex slashed back savagely but quietly. “You will sign that contract. You will sell out of your partnership with Glenn. We will make a fresh beginning.”
Had she not had the memory of his loathing for her yesterday, she might have been taken in by this more civilised picture of a reconciliation for Nicky’s sake. “I can’t sell out and I won’t.”
“We’ll talk about that some other time,” he dismissed impatiently.
She took a deep breath. “Where are you planning for us to live?”
“I have not yet decided.”
“I’m not living with Athene again!” she snapped in dismay.
An expression of icy derision tautened his strong, dark face. “Why would I take you there to live? You are no longer a teenager.”
Her head bent in comprehension. “You told her,” she muttered sickly.
“I told no one. But your sister…she was not so quiet. There were rumours,” he admitted tautly. “Unsubstantiated, but damaging.”
She refused to believe that Vickie had talked. But evidently word had somehow got out. Dear God, how humiliating that must have been for Alex! Lion of industry, betrayed by teenage wife.
“Naturally we will have our own home again,” he stressed drily. “When we first married, I rather innocently believed that you would be happier living with my family and free of the responsibilities of entertaining. I didn’t realise that my mother disliked you. It’s not always easy to see fault in someone close.”
“I did tell you.”
“Yes, I know you did, but until I witnessed her barely restrained pleasure at the failure of our marriage, I didn’t appreciate that you hadn’t been exaggerating.”
It was an admission of blame Alex would not have made four years ago, and it mollified her jangling emotions to some degree. She swallowed. “She…your family will be shocked by our remarriage.”
“I am head of my family,” he said with hauteur. “I will expect you and them to behave with civility and breeding when you meet again. I am answerable to nobody in my private life.”
He bent down, swept up the coat he had stripped from her and extended it to her. “It’s almost five. You will need time to dress for the party.”
She dug her arms stiffly into the sleeves, and was extraordinarily tempted to lean back into the strong, protective heat of him and weep for what she had done in the past and Alex’s inability to accept it. “You know…that night…” her tongue slid out to moisten her lips “…Vickie’s…”
His hands suddenly rested heavily on her tense shoulders.
“That man…we didn’t make love,” she whispered jerkily. “I know that. I don’t remember much, but I know that.”
Alex was intimidatingly silent, and then his breath escaped in a hiss. “It would be wiser if you didn’t mention that night again.”
She whirled round. But his embittered eyes made her bite back words of heated disagreement. Either he did not believe her, or she had surmised his feelings correctly. That she had got into the situation at all was sufficient for Alex.
“The car will be waiting for you,” he prompted her departure shortly. “I will see you later.”
The apartment had barely changed. It was all as she remembered, but for a couple of new paintings and a change of décor in the drawing-room. Umberto, Alex’s manservant, might have seen her only the day before. He betrayed neither welcome nor surprise as he politely showed her through to one of the guest-rooms. He opened the wardrobe to display the selection of clothes hanging there. Matching accessories sat on the shelves, and several lingerie boxes reposed untouched on the bed. Alex’s efficiency surprised her not at all. For Alex, such gestures were easy. He simply had to lift a phone.