Czytaj książkę: «Ruthless Lover»

CHAPTER ONE

SERENA slid out of her black silk négligé and laid it carelessly on the antique chair. The long black lace nightgown skimmed her slender body with sensual elegance. In the mirrored wardrobe, she saw her long red-gold hair fall seductively over one eye and smiled ruefully. Her looks had always been at odds with her background.

Slipping into bed, she yawned. It had been a long day. Outside, New York was in the grip of a heat wave, and lit up like a cosmopolitan dream. The city that never sleeps, she thought with a faint smile, and switched off the light.

It was midnight, and she drifted into a warm reverie. The duvet was as cosy as a nest. Sleep claimed her and she began to dream, as she so often did, in bright colours, seeing oils on canvas and faces from her past turned into swirls of blue, gold, red…

When the bedroom door opened at three a.m. she did not stir. When the powerful male body got into bed beside her she gave a slight sigh, turning towards him.

But when the long hands slid over her waist and drew her gently against him she began to stir, her dream changing from paints and canvas to flesh, as a figure in stark masculine colour came to life and began making love to her.

Serena’s red-gold head tilted back. A strong mouth closed over hers, hard fingers slid over her throat, invoking shivers, and she moaned involuntarily as the kiss forced her to respond, her slender body sliding against his, feeling the sweet, hot rush of desire as she encountered hard stomach, hair-roughened thighs, felt his strong hands slide forcefully down to her slim hips.

Her breath came faster; she was moaning, drowning in sensation as her hands moved up to his strong neck, fingers pushing into thick hair, her body arching in fierce arousal against his.

A rough sound of masculine desire echoed in the dark bedroom; strong hands swept up over her breast, and she gave a hoarse cry of excitement as she felt that mouth, that real mouth close over hers with insistent desire as his hands stroked her erect nipples.

Suddenly her brain flashed away from dreams and into reality. Her lids flickered open to see the stark silhouette of a man’s face, the glitter of blue eyes terrifying her.

‘No…!’ Serena struggled, eyes stretched wide with alarm, panic sending her into a frenzy as she kicked and fought the aggressor in her bed then leapt away with a hoarse cry, running for the door.

The bedside light was punched on by the intruder.

Serena turned, heart crashing at her breastbone, to see Nick sitting up in bed, watching her with a lazy, sardonic smile, his magnificent chest exposed by the loose dark red robe he wore.

For a second, she just stared at him. His black hair was tousled, his tough face filled with cynical mockery, his mouth a hard ruthless line.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded as rage flooded through her.

‘Trying to sleep,’ he drawled, running a hand through his black hair. ‘What are you doing here?’

Her green eyes flashed at him. ‘You’re not supposed to be in New York! I was told you’d be in Washington this week!’

‘There was a problem with the jet,’ he said flatly. ‘I was diverted to Kennedy. It was the middle of the night. What was I supposed to do—check into the Plaza?’

‘You like the Plaza!’ she said, struggling to get her chaotic emotions under control, horribly aware that she had responded like wildfire to his kiss and that he knew it.

He laughed sardonically. ‘I love the Plaza. But I have a perfectly good apartment here, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t use it.’

‘Because I’m here!’ she said tightly, standing by the door, green eyes blazing at him. ‘And you knew I was here! My schedule specified New York for the whole of this week.’

‘So it did,’ he said with soft mockery, and let his blue eyes slide with insolent sexual appraisal over her slender body. ‘But I haven’t seen you since Christmas, and I fancied a quick visit. Anything wrong with that?’

‘You’re not interested in seeing me,’ she said angrily. ‘You just came here to cause trouble! I don’t know why, and I don’t really care. But I won’t be used to fill a boring night in your life, Nick, so you may as well just get dressed and call the Plaza!’

Turning, she walked out of the bedroom and into the living-room. She was shaking. Appalled, she stared down at her hands, normally so cool and competent, and saw the powerful tremor that was so uncontrollable.

How dared he do that? Imagine getting into bed with her and kissing her like that! He’d never done it before; never…

The door opened and she whirled, heart in her mouth.

‘Don’t give me orders, Serena,’ Nick drawled, a threat of steel in his voice as he watched her, hands thrust in the pockets of his robe. ‘I’ve always been the one in charge of this marriage, and that’s not going to change now.’

Her mouth shook. ‘You just broke the rules!’ she accused hotly. ‘You shouldn’t have done that!’

‘They’re unwritten rules,’ he said flatly. ‘I can break them any time I like.’

Serena caught her breath at his arrogance. ‘Oh, I see! Just because you’ve been prevented from meeting up with one of your mistresses for the night, you think you can come here and make your demands on me!’ Her body trembled with inexplicable rage. ‘Well, I won’t have it!’

‘It was only a kiss,’ he drawled, steel-blue eyes mocking her.

‘That’s not the point!’

‘A kiss you responded to very excitingly, Serena,’ he said softly, and the hot colour flooded up her neck to her face, leaving her breathless and unable to reply.

There was a brief, tense silence. Her pulses were racing disturbingly, and she felt for the first time that Nick had set their marriage on a different course—a course that terrified her.

After three years, he had suddenly taken the gloves off. She had always known, instinctively, that he might one day do it. But she had never expected it, not really, not in her deepest moments of contemplation.

This situation had all the hallmarks of disaster. She knew Nick was not going to defuse it. Therefore, she would have to be the one to take the necessary steps.

‘Very well.’ Serena lifted her red-gold head. ‘If you refuse to do the decent thing by checking into the Plaza—I’ll go instead.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said flatly. ‘It’s only for one night.’

‘And where do you propose to sleep?’ She arched red-gold brows.

‘In one of the other bedrooms.’ He shrugged broad shoulders, his manner indolent. ‘We have four, after all.’

‘Then why did you come to my room?’ she asked under her breath, hating him. ‘Why did you deliberately get into bed with me?’

He regarded her through heavy eyelids. ‘I told you,’ he said softly, ‘I just fancied a kiss.’

Serena struggled to remain calm in the face of the potent sexual weapons he was turning on her. This situation was getting more dangerous by the second. She couldn’t cope with it, and the look on his ruthless face told her that he knew it, and that he was doing it deliberately.

‘Why are you doing this, Nick?’ she asked under her breath, suddenly sensing the very real threat he had decided to unleash. ‘It’s deliberate, isn’t it?’

He watched her, his face hard. ‘Why should I deliberately jeopardise an arrangement that’s worked so well for so long?’

Her gold lashes flickered. She felt suddenly uncertain. Yet Nick had kept his distance for three years. He had married her for her title, and then just walked away to his work, his mistresses and his busy life without a backward glance.

There had never been any pretence of mutual attraction between them. There had never been any tenderness, or love or hint of affection. For him to come here now and get into bed with her…

‘You’ll be leaving in the morning, then?’ she asked unsteadily.

He inclined his dark head. ‘First thing.’

Serena breathed a little more easily. ‘Right…’ She felt overwhelmingly conscious of her body in the revealing black silk nightdress, especially when Nick was looking at her like that, running his blue gaze with stark sexual appraisal over her. ‘Then, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll move into the spare bedroom and—’

‘There’s no need for that,’ he said coolly. ‘I’ll move.’

She expelled her breath on a sigh of silent relief. ‘Thank you.’

Nick’s hard mouth curved in a mocking little smile. ‘No need to look as though you’re going to faint with relief, darling!’ he murmured, and strolled towards her.

Involuntarily she took a step backwards, staring at him in alarm.

Nick stopped, eyes narrowing. ‘Are you afraid of me, Serena?’

Angrily, she lifted her red-gold head, meeting his cool blue gaze with a challenge. ‘Why on earth should I be afraid of you?’

‘Well, quite,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve been married for three years, and you’ve always treated me with cool indifference. So why the sudden look of alarm in your face?’

‘Anger,’ she corrected, arching her haughty brows. ‘I’m angry with you for doing this.’

His gaze slid to the rise and fall of her breasts beneath the black silk low-cut neckline. Serena felt colour flood her face and her heart start thumping madly. It was so completely out of character for her to react to him like this that she started to shake again, staring at him, acutely aware of his powerful brand of masculinity for the first time.

‘You show anger very excitingly, Serena,’ he said under his breath, and raised his blue eyes to meet hers. ‘I wonder what would happen if I—’

‘Just go to bed, Nick!’ she said hoarsely, stepping back from him, a quiver of powerful excitement in her full mouth.

He looked at her intently, his mouth a firm line, then nodded. ‘Sure. It’s three a.m. and we’re both tired.’

Relief flooded her again. She gave a stiff nod. ‘I won’t see you for breakfast, I take it? You’ll be leaving on the first flight?’

‘Of course,’ he said coolly, and strode across the room towards the master bedroom, going in and closing the door behind him with a quiet click.

Serena stared at the closed door, her heart thumping. It was almost unbelievable that he had done this. To come here in the middle of the night and get into bed with her, start making love to her…

She felt so shaken that she knew going to sleep was impossible. In an effort to come to terms with what had just happened, she went to the kitchen, got a glass and poured herself a very small measure of brandy.

It stung the back of her throat. She enjoyed that sting, and the flood of warmth that came with it. It would help her relax a little, too, so she took it into her bedroom and got into bed, nursing it as she thought about what Nick had just done.

Three years ago, Serena had left a sheltered existence at an English country finishing school to find the shock of her life awaiting her. Her parents were so heavily in debt that Flaxton Manor and the entire estate would have to be sold.

Her parents, the Earl and Countess of Archallagen, were understandably in despair. The manor was a beautiful sixty-seven-room Tudor masterpiece, built in 1532 for a favourite of Anne Boleyn: Robert Flaxton, the Earl of Archallagen. Robert had been in love with Anne Boleyn, and her presence was everywhere, in the square courtyard with the statue of Anne, the minstrel’s gallery and haunted chapel with her initials carved over the doors, and the Tudor rose laced through every oak-panelled room in the house. Robert Flaxton had managed to escape execution in 1536 by disappearing to France when Anne Boleyn was executed, and not returning until Henry VIII died. With his red hair and flashing green eyes, Robert had always had what was known as the Flaxton Luck.

When, over four hundred years later, the Manor fell to the edge of bankruptcy, Serena’s parents’ first thought was to open it to the public. But that would cost even more money. They would have to employ guides, build car parks, print guide-books, make extensive repairs—and the bank was already foreclosing on them.

‘I know someone who might agree to bankroll you out of this,’ the family accountant told them. ‘An American multi-millionaire. Nick Colterne. He’s rich, powerful and bored.’

‘How can anyone be bored if they’re rich and powerful?’ Lord Archallagen commented drily.

‘Because Nick Colterne is a living piece of dynamite! He reorganises companies for fun. Turns everything he touches to gold. He owns about seventy different corporations, and is always on the look-out for something new.’

‘But would he be interested in saving a country estate in an English backwater?’ her father sighed, running a gnarled hand over his eyes.

‘I’ll send him a fax,’ the accountant promised. ‘Outline the details, the financial angle, and see what he says.’

‘Let’s hope it’s yes,’ her father said grimly, ‘or our home will be turned into a hotel or conference centre.’

Serena winced at the thought, her green eyes resting on her father with love. He was too old for this. At sixty, he was close to retirement age, and it showed in the weary droop of his shoulders, the silver eyebrows and old, gardening hands.

Her parents had had Serena late in life. ‘Our little surprise,’ they had always called her. She had been born when they were both in their forties, and her mother had had a traumatic confinement at the age of forty-two.

With her red-gold hair, slanting green eyes and full sensual mouth, Serena had been a surprise in more ways than one. Her mother was blonde, her father dark. The red hair was a throwback to Robert Flaxton, who had caught the heart and attention of Anne Boleyn for such a brief, golden moment.

Serena’s looks were also distinctly at odds with her pedigree. As Lady Serena Flaxton, she was a ‘surprise’ to everyone who met her, because that flaming hair and the sensual curves of her slender body were completely unexpected in a young aristocrat.

Nick Colterne replied within twenty-four hours. He was interested, and would arrive to view the property in three days.

Flaxton Manor went into an uproar. The handful of old faithful staff still working there out of love for the Flaxton family were in a dither of excitement, dusting and polishing along with the rest of the family, desperate to save the estate from bankruptcy.

Nick Colterne arrived in a long black Cadillac limousine.

Serena watched from an upstairs window as he stepped out, dark and dynamic with flashing blue eyes that ran over the Tudor walls with a look of narrowed interest.

Wow! she thought, feeling her heart quickening and her eyes flashing over him, seeing the hard-muscled shoulders, the ruthless mouth and the arrogant stride of his long muscular legs. Nick Colterne looked every inch a man; and fire flashed along her veins as her green eyes moved restlessly over him, wide and admiring.

Suddenly, he looked up and saw her. He stopped dead, staring at her. A powerful crackle of electricity ran through her, making her heart stop, breath cease…

She flushed to her hairline at the penetrating sexual insolence of his gaze as it flashed over her innocent young face, waist-length red hair falling across one eye.

Stepping back with a gasp, she slammed the window shut, trembling.

Downstairs, she heard him striding into the main hall, surrounded by henchmen, biting out instructions, sending them off to investigate while he spoke to her parents in the drawing-room.

He was obviously a whirlwind, Serena thought with a stab of excitement, and waited in her room to hear the outcome of the visit.

‘I’ve never seen him so animated!’ their accountant enthused that night ‘He’s definitely interested.’

‘Do you think he’ll want to buy it from us, though?’ her father said anxiously. ‘We want to try and keep it in the family, you see.’

‘That depends on whether it makes financial sense to him,’ the accountant said with a sigh. ‘He’ll take the biggest money-making option.’

‘Even if it means we lose everything?’ Serena asked passionately. ‘Surely it would be kinder to loan us money and let us repay it over a period of years?’

The accountant laughed. ‘Don’t expect kindness from a man like Nick Colterne. He’s a cynical cutthroat shark, swimming in the most dangerous financial waters of the world. He’ll make you an offer of some sort—but whatever it is, you can be sure he’ll be the one to benefit.’

Serena shuddered. ‘He sounds ruthless…’

‘He’s not a charity, darling.’ The Earl sighed, his face lined with strain. ‘And we’re not in a position to argue. We’ll just have to take whatever he offers us.’

It was an appalling situation to be in, and Serena was frantic over the next twenty-four hours as they waited for Nick Colterne’s decision.

He returned a day later with his Cadillac and his henchmen. In a black business suit he looked the epitome of the cynical business shark, a gold watch-chain glittering across his taut black waistcoat. He moved with all the arrogance of American money, his face tough, cynical and determined.

Serena watched him arrive, keeping herself carefully hidden. He glanced up at her bedroom window, and although she knew he could not possibly see her she felt his eyes narrow on her mouth, and a tremor went through her. Did he have X-ray vision?

The meeting with her parents went on and on. Serena waited in an agony of tension.

At six o’clock, Mottram, the maid, tapped on her bedroom door. ‘His lordship requests that you join him in the drawing-room,’ she said primly, then gave a little cry of worry. ‘Oh, Lady Serena! What’s to become of us…?’

Serena tried to comfort the young girl, patting her shoulder. ‘I don’t know, Mottram. We can only pray…’

When she opened the drawing-room door, the first person she saw was Nick Colterne whirling to face her, his eyes racing over her body with that insolent sexual appraisal, and Serena felt breathless, closing the door shakily behind her.

‘Ah! There you are, my dear!’ Her father got up from one of the worn, patched armchairs and strolled towards her in his English tweeds. ‘Mr Colterne wanted to meet you.’

He introduced Serena to Nick Colterne formally, and she stared at him through her gold lashes, pulses thudding as his powerful tanned hand closed over hers in a formidable grip.

‘So what do I call you?’ Nick drawled softly, blue eyes sliding to burn on her full mouth. ‘Your ladyship?’

‘That’s rather complicated,’ she replied huskily, unable to take her eyes off his powerful face and that hard, ruthless mouth.

‘Oh, I love complications.’ His cool Boston drawl was as dynamic as the rest of him. ‘They make me want to sort them out, pronto.’

‘British peerage is a minefield of protocol,’ her father said with a vague smile. ‘My daughter is an only child, and therefore will inherit my title.’

Her mother smiled. ‘Not in a manner of speaking, darling. She’ll inherit mine.’

‘Of course, of course!’ The earl rubbed his forehead. ‘Serena will eventually become Countess of Archal-lagen.’

‘Countess?’ Nick’s eyes widened.

‘In her own right,’ her father said with a vague smile.

‘What about the man she marries?’ Nick asked coolly.

‘Well,’ her father shrugged, ‘he won’t get a title, but any children my daughter has would certainly inherit it.’

Nick’s blue eyes flicked back to Serena. He stepped a little closer. ‘In the meantime—what do I call you?’

‘Just Lady Serena,’ she said softly, pulses leaping.

‘That’s very formal.’ He flicked his insolent gaze to the full breasts which strained against the delicate silk dress she wore, and she felt her colour rise in fierce excitement at the way he dared look at her so boldly. ‘What happens when we reach an informal footing?’

Serena blushed, lowering her lashes. ‘That depends on how well you know me.’

‘How well do I have to know you before I can call you Serena?’

‘Very well indeed,’ she said huskily.

He smiled, then reached out a strong hand and touched her hair. ‘So, you’re going to be a countess one day…’ He trailed his long fingers through her hair, towering over her, eyes dark with blatant sexual desire. ‘I’ve never met a red-headed countess before.’

Her parents stiffened, staring at him, and Serena took an involuntary step back, green eyes stricken, sensing their disapproval of the way he touched her, and feeling guilty for having enjoyed it.

Nick’s eyes narrowed, shooting quickly to her parents’, and there was a brief, tense silence in the drawing-room as the legal papers remained unsigned on the Elizabethan carved table.

‘Well,’ Nick Colterne drawled, a hard smile curving his cynical mouth, ‘it’s been a long day, hasn’t it? And I feel in need of a little recreation.’ He glanced at the Rolex on his dark-haired wrist. ‘I think I’d like to take your beautiful daughter out to dinner. Any objections?’

Her parents were very still, their faces grim as they looked at Serena, standing before him like a sacrifice.

Serena went to dinner with him, deeply aware of him as she sat stiffly in the back of the luxurious Cadillac, staring accusingly at him through her lashes as he stared back with narrowed eyes.

‘Any good ideas where we can eat?’ he asked, brows lifted.

‘The Flaxton Table does a very nice supper,’ she said shakily, not understanding his interest in her, yet at the same time understanding it at a deep level that terrified her.

They ate at the small family restaurant in the main street of the village. All the villagers, of course, knew what was happening at the manor, and gave her excited looks as she arrived with the American shark with the dark good looks and air of power.

Serena felt so gauche and unsophisticated in his presence. Twice she dropped her fork, and once she spilt the glass of orange juice he brought her.

‘I hear you’ve only just left finishing school.’ Nick Colterne watched her with narrowed speculative eyes. ‘That makes you twenty—right?’

‘Yes.’ Serena found herself tongue-tied in his presence, her pulses racing as she stared again and again at his ruthless mouth and wondered how it would feel if he kissed her with it, very forcefully…very forcefully indeed.

‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said softly, making her hand shake as his blue eyes burned into her. ‘Any boyfriends?’

Serena laughed and shook her head. ‘I haven’t even met any boys yet. Except Derry, the gardener’s son, and he’s just silly.’

Nick’s mouth hardened into a cynical smile, his eyes slipping to her breasts. ‘Well,’ he said under his breath, ‘that’s nice and clear.’

It was as though she had told him something important without realising it, and Serena just stared at him, her eyes wide as she tried to understand it.

When they drove home to Flaxton Manor, he held her wrist in the back of the car as she tried to open the door, and his blue eyes watched her with a look of dark sexual power that made her shake.

‘Did you enjoy our evening?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes…’ Serena said, mouth quivering as she stared at the tough face. ‘Very much.’

His black lashes flickered on razor-sharp cheekbones. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘When I come to close this deal tomorrow, put on that creamy lace dress you were wearing yesterday.’

Serena was surprised. She had bought the lace dress from a second-hand shop last year for next to nothing. It fell in soft drapery over her slender curves, as elegant as it was clinging. ‘The lace dress…? But why?’

‘Just put it on,’ he said with a hard twist to his mouth, his eyes rueful. ‘As a little favour for me. I didn’t get to see it properly. You were standing at the window—remember?’

‘OK,’ Serena said, her voice husky, not understanding but feeling very excited by the way he looked at her, spoke to her.

He smiled slowly, released her wrist. ‘Tell your parents I’ll arrive at eight tomorrow morning. I have to fly back to New York in the afternoon. Either we sign tomorrow or forget it.’ His eyes watched her oddly. ‘Will you tell them that, Lady Serena?’

She nodded, and left the car, trembling as she walked in and found her anxious parents hovering in the hall, waiting for her.

Serena told them what Nick Colterne had said.

‘Sign tomorrow?’ Her father frowned. ‘That’s rushing things a little, isn’t it?’

‘What does it matter, dear?’ Her mother sighed, fingering her fake pearls. ‘We’re not in a position to be proud and he knows it. We need his money and his help. The faster we get it, the better. We’ll just catch the tail end of the summer tourist trade if we open quickly.’

So the next morning Nick Colterne came back with his henchmen, his Cadillac and his air of power. Heart thudding, Serena watched him arrive, hidden from view behind the Elizabethan window-frames.

She put on her cream lace dress, combed out her waist-length red hair and wondered why he wanted to see her in this. It was a very English design, the lace fragile, the cream silk below it skimming her womanly curves with elegance, ending in soft folds just below the knee.

Studying herself in the mirror, she thought of Nick Colterne and her green eyes darkened, her lips parting as she turned this way and that, suddenly feeling sensual, as though her skin was made of silk and her lips of velvet.

It was nine o’clock when she was called to the drawing-room.

Going in, she was surprised to find Nick Colterne alone. The sight of him made her heart thud with excitement, and she looked around for her parents with a frown.

Nick watched her intently, his ruthless eyes moving swiftly, restlessly over her body, stark sexual desire stamped on his tough face as he inspected her from head to foot.

He expelled his breath in an odd, hoarse, shaking way as he looked at her, and it made her quiver, staring through her lashes at his hard mouth.

‘Come in, Lady Serena,’ Nick said softly, a strange expression on his hard face. ‘And close the door. I want to talk to you.’

Obediently, she did as she was told, her hands damp suddenly as she fidgeted with the folds of the dress, looking up at Nick hotly through her lashes.

He walked towards her, and said deeply, ‘I don’t have much time. I want to sign this deal and get the wheels moving on it. But there’s an essential ingredient in the package that I don’t yet have.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said huskily.

‘Yes, you do,’ he said thickly, watching her.

Her eyes darted up to his and a slow flush crept over her face.

Nick suddenly lifted his strong hands to her face, making her gasp, staring up at him as he said under his breath, ‘You’re the essential ingredient, Lady Serena. You. That’s why I’ve asked you here now. I’m prepared to invest millions in Flaxton Manor—but only on one condition.’ His blue eyes slipped to her mouth as he said, ‘That you agree to be my wife.’

Serena whitened with shock, saying, ‘You can’t be serious—’

‘Deadly serious,’ he said with a brief, cynical smile. ‘Now, what’s your answer? Will you marry me, yes or no?’

‘No!’ she burst out at once, taking a step back, shaking with disbelief. ‘You must be mad! Of course I won’t marry you! You’re much older than me and—’

‘I’m ten years older than you,’ he drawled, his face hardening with ruthless amusement ‘I’m thirty.’

‘Well, I couldn’t marry you even if you were younger!’ she said hoarsely, incredulous that he could even ask. ‘It’s just ridiculous!’

His mouth hardened, a stain of dark red colouring his face. ‘I don’t see that it’s ridiculous,’ he said harshly, stepping away from her, running a hand through his dark hair. ‘It makes good business sense to me.’

‘How can it?’

‘I want a wife who will give me an heir,’ he said flatly, lifting his dark head, every inch the ruthless financial shark as he studied her with hard, narrowed blue eyes. ‘But I’ve always wanted the best, and you’re it You’re young, beautiful, titled…you’re an heiress, an aristocrat and you’re a virgin.’