Still legally wedded...

Xanthe Carmichael has just discovered two things:

1. Her ex-husband could take half of her business.

2. She’s actually still married to him!

When she jets off to New York, divorce papers in hand, Xanthe is prepared for the billionaire bad boy’s slick office...but not for the spear of lust that hits her the moment she sees Dane Redmond again! Has her body no shame, no recollection of the pain he caused? But Dane is stalling... Is he really checking the fine print or planning to stir the smoldering embers of their passion and tempt her back into the marriage bed?

‘So we’re still, technically speaking, man and wife,’ Xanthe clarified.

‘You had better be kidding me!’

‘I’ve come all the way from London this morning to get you to sign the newly issued papers so we can fix this nightmare as fast as is humanly possible. So, no, I’m not kidding.’

She flicked through the document until she got to the signature page, which she had already signed, frustrated when her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. She could smell him—the scent that was uniquely Dane’s—clean and male and far too enticing.

She drew back. Too late. She’d already ingested a lungful, detecting expensive cedarwood soap now, instead of the supermarket brand he had once used.

‘Once you’ve signed here.’ She pointed to the signature line. ‘Our problem will be solved and I can guarantee never to darken your door again.’

She whipped a gold pen out of the briefcase, stabbed the button at the top and thrust it towards him like a dagger.

USA TODAY bestselling author HEIDI RICE lives in London, England. She is married with two teenage sons—which gives her rather too much of an insight into the male psyche—and also works as a film journalist. She adores her job, which involves getting swept up in a world of high emotions, sensual excitement, funny, feisty women, sexy, tortured men and glamorous locations where laundry doesn’t exist. Once she turns off her computer she often does chores—usually involving laundry!

Books by Heidi Rice

Beach Bar Baby

Maid of Dishonour

One Night, So Pregnant!

Unfinished Business with the Duke

Public Affair, Secretly Expecting

Hot-Shot Tycoon, Indecent Proposal

Pleasure, Pregnancy and a Proposition

Visit the Author Profile page at

millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

Vows They Can’t Escape

Heidi Rice

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With thanks to my cousin Susan, who suggested I write a romance with a female CEO as the heroine, my best writing mate Abby Green, who kept telling me to write a classic Modern, my best mate Catri, who plotted this with me on the train back from Kilkenny Shakespeare Festival, and to Sarah Hornby of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, who explained why having my hero and heroine spend a night below decks while sailing a yacht together round the Caribbean probably wasn’t a good idea!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

XANTHE CARMICHAEL STRODE into the gleaming steel-and-glass lobby of the twenty-six-storey office block housing Redmond Design Studios on Manhattan’s West Side, satisfied that the machine-gun taps of her heels against the polished stone flooring said exactly what she wanted them to say.

Watch out, boys, woman scorned on the warpath.

Ten years after Dane Redmond had abandoned her in a seedy motel room on the outskirts of Boston, she was ready to bring the final curtain crashing down on their brief and catastrophic liaison.

So the flush that had leaked into her cheeks despite the building’s overefficient air conditioning and the bottomless pit opening up in her stomach could take a hike.

After a six-hour flight from Heathrow, spent power-napping in the soulless comfort of Business Class, and two days and nights figuring out how she was going to deal with the unexploded bomb the head of her legal team, Bill Spencer, had dropped at her feet on Wednesday afternoon, she was ready for any eventuality.

Whatever Dane Redmond had once meant to her seventeen-year-old self, the potentially disastrous situation Bill had uncovered wasn’t personal any more—it was business. And nothing got in the way of her business.

Carmichael’s, the two-hundred-year-old shipping company which had been in her family for four generations, was the only thing that mattered to her now. And she would do anything to protect it and her new position as the majority shareholder and CEO.

‘Hi, I’m Ms Sanders, from London, England,’ she said to the immaculately dressed woman at reception, giving the false name she’d instructed her PA to use when setting up this meeting. However confident she felt, she was not about to give a bare-knuckle fighter like Dane a heads-up. ‘I have an appointment with Mr Redmond to discuss a commission.’

The woman sent her a smile as immaculate as her appearance. ‘It’s great to meet you, Ms Sanders.’ She tapped the screen in front of her and picked up the phone. ‘If you’d like to take a seat, Mr Redmond’s assistant, Mel Mathews, will be down in a few minutes to escort you to the eighteenth floor.’

Xanthe’s heartbeat thudded against her collarbone as she recrossed the lobby under the life-size model of a huge wing sail catamaran suspended from the ceiling. A polished brass plaque announced that the boat had won Redmond Design a prestigious sailing trophy twice in a row.

She resisted the urge to chew off the lipstick she’d applied in the cab ride from JFK.

Bill’s bombshell would have been less problematic if Dane had still been the boy her father had so easily dismissed as ‘a trailer trash wharf rat with no class and fewer prospects,’ but she refused to be cowed by Dane’s phenomenal success over the last decade.

She was here to show him who he was dealing with.

But, as she took in the ostentatious design of Dane’s new headquarters in New York’s uber-hip Meatpacking District, the awe-inspiring view of the Hudson River from the lobby’s third-floor aspect and that beast of a boat, she had to concede the meteoric rise of his business and his position as one of the world’s premier sailing boat designers didn’t surprise her.

He’d always been smart and ambitious—a natural-born sailor more at home on water than dry land—which was exactly why her father’s estate manager had hired him that summer in Martha’s Vineyard to run routine maintenance on the small fleet of two yachts and a pocket cruiser her father kept at their holiday home.

Running routine maintenance on Charles Carmichael’s impressionable, naive daughter had been done on his own time.

No one had ever been able to fault Dane’s work ethic.

Xanthe’s thigh muscles trembled at the disturbingly vivid memory of blunt fingers trailing across sensitive skin, but she didn’t break stride.

All that energy and purpose had drawn her to him like a heat-seeking missile. That and the superpower they’d discovered together—his unique ability to lick her to a scream-your-lungs-out orgasm in sixty seconds or less.

She propped her briefcase on a coffee table and sank into one of the leather chairs lining the lobby.

Whoa, Xan. Do not think about the superpower.

Crossing her legs, she squeezed her knees together, determined to halt the conflagration currently converging on the hotspot between her thighs. Even Dane’s superpower would never be enough to compensate for the pain he’d caused.

She hid the unsettling thought behind a tight smile as a thirtysomething woman headed in her direction across the ocean of polished stone. Grabbing the briefcase containing the documents she had flown three thousand miles to deliver, Xanthe stood up, glad when her thighs remained virtually quiver-free.

Dane Redmond’s not the only badass in town. Not any more.

* * *

Xanthe was feeling less like a badass and more like a sacrificial lamb five minutes later, as the PA led her through a sea of hip and industrious young marketing people working on art boards and computers on the eighteenth floor. Even her machine-gun heel taps had been muffled by the industrial carpeting.

The adrenaline which had been pumping through her veins for forty-eight hours and keeping her upright slowed to a crawl as they approached the glass-walled corner office and the man within, silhouetted against the New Jersey shoreline. The jolt of recognition turned the bottomless pit in her stomach into a yawning chasm.

Broad shoulders and slim hips were elegantly attired in steel-grey trousers and a white shirt. But his imposing height, the muscle bulk revealed by the shirt’s rolled-up sleeves, the dark buzz cut hugging the dome of his skull, and the tattoo that covered his left arm down to his elbow did nothing to disguise the wolf in expensively tailored clothing.

Sweat gathered between Xanthe’s breasts and the powder-blue silk suit and peach camisole ensemble she’d chosen twelve hours ago in London, because it covered all the bases from confident to kick-ass, rubbed against her skin like sandpaper.

The internet hadn’t done Dane Redmond justice. Because the memory of the few snatched images she’d found yesterday while preparing for this meeting was comprehensively failing to stop a boulder the size of an asteroid forming in her throat.

She forced one foot in front of the other as the PA tapped on the office door and led her into the wolf’s den.

Brutally blue eyes locked on Xanthe’s face.

A flicker of stunned disbelief softened his rugged features before his jaw went rigid, making the shallow dent in his chin twitch. The searing look had the thundering beat of Xanthe’s heart dropping into that yawning chasm.

Had she actually kidded herself that age and money and success would have refined Dane—tamed him, even—or at the very least made him a lot less intense and intimidating? Because she’d been dead wrong. Either that or she’d just been struck by lightning.

‘This is Ms Sanders from—’

‘Leave us, Mel.’ Dane interrupted the PA’s introduction. ‘And shut the door.’

The husky command had Xanthe’s heartbeat galloping into her throat to party with the asteroid, reminding her of all the commands he’d once issued to her in the same he-who-shall-be-obeyed tone. And the humiliating speed with which she’d obeyed them.

‘Relax, I won’t hurt you. I swear.’

‘Hold on tight. This is gonna be the ride of your life.’

‘I take care of my own, Xan. That’s non-negotiable.’

The door closed behind the dutiful PA with a hushed click.

Xanthe gripped the handle on her briefcase with enough force to crack a nail and lifted her chin, channelling the smouldering remains of her inner badass that had survived the lightning strike.

‘Hello, Dane,’ she said, glad when her voice remained relatively steady.

She would not be derailed by a physical reaction which was ten years out of date and nothing more than an inconvenient throwback to her youth. It would pass. Eventually.

‘Hello, Ms Sanders.’

His thinly veiled contempt at her deception had outrage joining the riot of other emotions she was busy trying to suppress.

‘If you’ve come to buy a boat, you’re all out of luck.’

The searing gaze wandered down to her toes, the insolent appraisal as infuriating as the fuses that flared to life in every pulse point en route.

‘I don’t do business with spoilt little rich chicks.’

His gaze rose back to her face, having laid waste to her composure.

‘Especially ones I was once dumb enough to marry.’

CHAPTER TWO

XANTHE CARMICHAEL.

Dane Redmond had just taken a sucker punch to the gut. And it was taking every ounce of his legendary control not to show it.

The girl who had haunted his dreams a lifetime ago—particularly all his wet dreams—and then become a star player in his nightmares. And now she had the balls to stand in his office—the place he’d built from the ground up after she’d kicked him to the kerb—as if she had a right to invade his life a second time.

She’d changed some from the girl he remembered—all trussed-up now in a snooty suit, looking chic and classy in those ice-pick heels. But there was enough of that girl left to force him to put his libido on lockdown.

She still had those wide, feline eyes. Their sultry slant hinting at the banked fires beneath, the translucent blue-green the vivid colour of the sea over the Barrier Reef. She had the same peaches-and-cream complexion, with the sprinkle of girlish freckles over her nose she hadn’t quite managed to hide under a smooth mask of make-up. And that riot of red-gold hair, ruthlessly styled now in an updo, but for a few strands that had escaped to cling to her neck and draw his gaze to the coy hint of cleavage beneath her suit.

The flush high on her cheekbones and the glitter in her eyes made her look like a fairy queen who had swallowed a cockroach. But he knew she was worse than any siren sent to lure men to their destruction, with that stunning body and that butter-wouldn’t-melt expression—and about as much freaking integrity as a sea serpent.

He curled his twitching fingers into his palms and braced his fists against the desk. Because part of him wanted to throw her over his knee and spank her until her butt was as red as her hair, and another part of him longed to throw her over his shoulder and take her somewhere dark and private, so he could rip off that damn suit and find the responsive girl beneath who had once begged him for release.

And each one of those impulses was as screwed-up as the other. Because she meant nothing to him now. Not a damn thing. And he’d sworn ten years ago, when he’d been lying on the road outside her father’s vacation home in the Vineyard, with three busted ribs, more bruises than even his old man had given him on a bad day, his stomach hollow with grief and tight with anger and humiliation, that no woman would ever make such a jackass of him again.

‘I’m here because we have a problem...’ She hesitated, her lip trembling ever so slightly.

She was nervous. She ought to be.

‘Which I’m here to solve.’

‘How could we possibly have a problem?’ he said, his voice deceptively mild. ‘When we haven’t seen each other in over a decade and I never wanted to see you again?’

She stiffened, the flush spreading down her neck to highlight the lush valley of her breasts.

‘The feeling’s mutual,’ she said. The snotty tone was a surprise.

He buried his fists into his pants pockets. The last thin thread controlling his temper about to snap.

Where the heck did she get off, being pissed with him? He’d been the injured party in their two-second marriage. She’d flaunted herself, come on to him, had him panting after her like a dog that whole summer—hooked him like a prize tuna by promising to love, honour and obey him, no matter what. Then she’d run back to daddy at the first sign of trouble. Not that he’d been dumb enough to really believe those breathless promises. He’d learned when he was still a kid that love was just an empty sentiment. But he had been dumb enough to trust her.

And now she had the gall to turn up at his place, under a false name, expecting him to be polite and pretend what she’d done was okay.

Whatever her problem was, he wanted no part of it. But he’d let her play out this little drama before he slapped her down and kicked her the hell out of his life. For good this time.

* * *

Lifting her briefcase onto the table, Xanthe ignored the hostility radiating from the man in front of her. She flipped the locks, whipped out the divorce papers and slapped them on the desk.

Dane Redmond’s caveman act was nothing new, but she was wise to it now. He’d been exactly the same as a nineteen-year-old. Taciturn and bossy and supremely arrogant. Once upon a time she’d found that wildly attractive—because once upon a time she’d believed that lurking beneath the caveman was a boy who’d needed the love she could lavish on him.

That had been her first mistake. Followed by too many others.

The vulnerable boy had never existed. And the caveman had never wanted what she had to offer.

Good thing, then, that this wasn’t about him any more—it was about her. And what she wanted. Which was exactly what she was going to get.

Because no man bullied her now. Not her father, not the board of directors at Carmichael’s and certainly not some overly ripped boat designer who thought he could boss her around just because she’d once been bewitched by his larger-than-average penis.

‘The problem is...’ She threw the papers onto the desk, cursing the tremor in her fingers at that sudden recollection of Dane fully aroused.

Do not think about him naked.

‘My father’s solicitor, Augustus Greaves, failed to file the paperwork for our divorce ten years ago.’

She delivered the news in a rush, to disguise any hint of culpability. It was not her fault Greaves had been an alcoholic.

‘So we’re still, technically speaking, man and wife.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU HAD BETTER be freaking kidding me!’

Dane looked so shocked Xanthe would have smiled if she hadn’t been shaking quite so hard. That had certainly wiped the self-righteous glare off his face.

‘I’ve come all the way from London to get you to sign these newly issued papers, so we can fix this nightmare as fast as is humanly possible. So, no, I’m not kidding.’

She flicked through the document until she got to the signature page, which she had already signed, frustrated because her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling. She could smell him—that scent that was uniquely his, clean and male, and far too enticing.

She drew back. Too late. She’d already ingested a lungful, detecting expensive cedarwood soap instead of the supermarket brand he had once used.

‘Once you’ve signed here—’ she pointed to the signature line ‘—our problem will be solved and I can guarantee never to darken your door again.’

She whipped a gold pen out of the briefcase, stabbed the button at the top and thrust it towards him like a dagger.

He lifted his hands out of his pockets but didn’t pick up the gauntlet.

‘Like I’d be dumb enough to sign anything you put in front of me without checking it first...’

She ruthlessly controlled the snap of temper at his statement. And the wave of panic.

Stay calm. Be persuasive. Don’t freak out.

She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, employing the technique she’d perfected during the last five years of handling Carmichael’s board. As long as Dane never found out about the original terms of her father’s will, nothing in the paperwork she’d handed him would clue him in to the real reason she’d come all this way. And why would he, when her father’s will hadn’t come into force until five years after Dane had abandoned her?

Unfortunately the memory of that day in her father’s office, with her stomach cramping in shock and loss and disbelief as the executor recited the terms of the will, was not helping with her anxiety attack.

‘Your father had hoped you would marry one of the candidates he suggested. His first preference was to leave forty-five per cent of Carmichael’s stock to you and the controlling share to your spouse as the new CEO. As no such marriage was contracted at the time of his death, he has put the controlling share in trust, to be administered by the board until you complete a five-year probationary period as Carmichael’s executive owner. If, after that period, they deem you a credible CEO, they can vote to allocate a further six per cent of the shares to you. If not, they can elect another CEO and leave the shares in trust.’

That deadline had passed a week ago. The board—no doubt against all her father’s expectations—had voted in her favour. And then Bill had discovered his bombshell—that she had still technically been married to Dane at the time of her father’s death and he could, therefore, sue for the controlling share in the company.

It might almost have been funny—that her father’s lack of trust in her abilities might end up gifting 55 per cent of his company to a man he had despised—if it hadn’t been more evidence that her father had never trusted her with Carmichael’s.

She pushed the dispiriting thought to one side, and the echo of grief that came with it, as Dane punched a number into his smartphone.

Her father might have been old-fashioned and hopelessly traditional—an aristocratic Englishman who believed that no man who hadn’t gone to Eton and Oxford could ever be a suitable husband for her—but he had loved her and had wanted the best for her. Once she got Dane to sign on the dotted line, thus eliminating any possible threat this paperwork error could present to her father’s company—her company—she would finally have proved her commitment to Carmichael’s was absolute.

‘Jack? I’ve got something I want you to check out.’ Dane beckoned to someone behind Xanthe as he spoke into the phone. The superefficient PA popped back into the office as if by magic. ‘Mel is gonna send it over by messenger.’

He handed the document to his PA, then scribbled something on a pad and passed that to her, too. The PA trotted out.

‘Make sure you check every line,’ he continued, still talking to whomever was on the other end of the phone. He gave a strained chuckle. ‘Not exactly—it’s supposed to be divorce papers.’

The judgmental once-over he gave Xanthe had her temper rising up her torso.

‘I’ll explain the why and the how another time,’ he said. ‘Just make sure there are no surprises—like a hidden claim for ten years’ back-alimony.’

He clicked off the phone and shoved it into his pocket.

She was actually speechless. For about two seconds.

‘Are you finished?’ Indignation burned, the breathing technique history.

She’d come all this way, spent several sleepless nights preparing for this meeting while being constantly tormented by painful memories from that summer, not to mention having to deal with his scent and the inappropriate heat that would not die. And through it all she’d remained determined to keep this process dignified, despite the appalling way he had treated her. And he’d shot it all to hell in less than five minutes.

The arrogant ass.

‘Don’t play the innocent with me,’ he continued, the self-righteous glare returning. ‘Because I know just what you’re capable—’

‘You son of a...’ She gasped for breath, outrage consuming her. ‘I’m not allowed to play the innocent? When you took my virginity, carried on seducing me all summer, got me pregnant, insisted I marry you and then dumped me three months later?’

He’d never told her he loved her—never even tried to see her point of view during their one and only argument. But, worse than that, he hadn’t been there when she had needed him the most. Her stomach churned, the in-flight meal she’d picked at on the plane threatening to gag her as misery warred with fury, bringing the memories flooding back—memories which were too painful to forget even though she’d tried.

The pungent smell of mould and cheap disinfectant in the motel bathroom, the hazy sight of the cracked linoleum through the blur of tears, the pain hacking her in two as she prayed for him to pick up his phone.

Dane’s face went completely blank, before a red stain of fury lanced across the tanned cheekbones. ‘I dumped you? Are you nuts?’ he yelled at top volume.

‘You walked out and left me in that motel room and you didn’t answer my calls.’ She matched him decibel for decibel. She wasn’t that besotted girl any more, too timid and delusional to stand up and fight her corner. ‘What else would you call it?’

‘I was two hundred miles out at sea, crewing on a bluefin tuna boat—that’s what I’d call it. I didn’t get your calls because there isn’t a heck of a lot of network coverage in the middle of the North Atlantic. And when I got back a week later I found out you’d hightailed it back to daddy because of one damn disagreement.’

The revelation of where he’d been while she’d been losing their baby gave her pause—but only for a moment. He could have rung her to tell her about the job before he’d boarded the boat, but in his typical don’t-ask-don’t-tell fashion he hadn’t. And what about the frantic message she’d left him while she’d waited for her father to arrive and take her to the emergency room? And later, when she’d come round from the fever dreams back in her bedroom on her father’s estate?

She’d asked the staff to contact Dane, to tell him about the baby, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces, but he’d never even responded to the news. Except to send through the signed divorce papers weeks later.

She could have forgiven him for not caring about her. Their marriage had been the definition of a shotgun wedding, the midnight elopement a crazy adventure hyped up on teenage hormones, testosterone-fuelled bravado and the mad panic caused by an unplanned pregnancy. But it was his failure to care about the three-month-old life which had died inside her, his failure to even be willing to mourn its passing, that she couldn’t forgive.

It had tortured her for months. How many lies he’d told about being there for her, respecting her decision to have the baby. How he’d even gone through with their farce of a marriage, while all the time planning to dump her at the first opportunity.

It had made no sense to her for so long—until she’d finally figured it out. Why he’d always deflected conversations about the future, about the baby. Why he’d never once returned her declarations of love even while stoking the sexual heat between them to fever pitch. Why he’d stormed out that morning after her innocent suggestion that she look for a job, too, because she knew he was struggling to pay their motel bill.

He’d gotten bored with the marriage, with the responsibility. And sex had been the only thing binding them together. He’d never wanted her or the baby. His offer of marriage had been a knee-jerk reaction he’d soon regretted. And once she’d lost the baby he’d had the perfect excuse he’d been looking for to discard her.

That truth had devastated her at the time. Brought her to her knees. How could she have been so wrong about him? About them? But it had been a turning point, too. Because she’d survived the loss, repaired her shattered heart, and made herself into the woman she was now—someone who didn’t rely on others to make herself whole.

Thanks to Dane’s carelessness, his neglect, she’d shut off her stupid, fragile, easily duped heart and found a new purpose—devoting herself to the company that was her legacy. She’d begged her father for a lowly internship position that autumn, when they’d returned to London, and begun working her backside off to learn everything she needed to know about Europe’s top maritime logistics brand.

At first it had been a distraction, a means of avoiding the great big empty space inside her. But eventually she’d stopped simply going through the motions and actually found something to care about again. She’d aced her MBA, learnt French and Spanish while working in Carmichael’s subsidiary offices in Calais and Cadiz, and even managed to persuade her father to give her a job at the company’s head office in Whitehall before he’d died—all the while fending off his attempts to find her a ‘suitable’ husband.

She’d earned the position she had now through hard work and dedication and toughened up enough to take charge of her life. So there was no way on earth she was going to back down from this fight and let Dane Redmond lay some ludicrous guilt trip on her when he was the one who had crushed her and every one of her hopes and dreams. Maybe they had been foolish hopes and stupid pipe dreams, but the callous way he’d done it had been unnecessarily cruel.

‘You promised to be there for me,’ she shot back, her fury going some way to mask the hollow pain in her stomach. The same pain she’d sworn never to feel again. ‘You swore you would protect me and support me. But when I needed you the most you weren’t there.’

‘What the hell did you need me there for?’ he spat the words out, the brittle light in the icy blue eyes shocking her into silence.

The fight slammed out of her lungs on a gasp of breath.

Because in that moment all she could see was his rage.

The hollow pain became sharp and jagged, tearing through the last of her resistance until all that was left was the horrifying uncertainty that had crippled her as a teenager.

Why was he so angry with her? When all she’d ever done was try to love him?

‘I wanted you to be there for me when I lost our baby,’ she whispered, her voice sounding as if it were coming from another dimension.

‘You wanted me to hold your hand while you aborted my kid?’

‘What?’ His sarcasm, the sneered disbelief sliced through her, and the jagged pain exploded into something huge.

‘You think I don’t know you got rid of it?’

The accusation in his voice, the contempt, suddenly made a terrible kind of sense.

‘But I—’ She tried to squeeze the words past the asteroid in her throat.

He cut her off. ‘I hitched a ride straight to the Vineyard once I got back on shore. We’d had that fight and you’d left some garbled message on my cell. When I got to your old man’s place he told me there was no baby any more, showed me the divorce papers you’d signed and then had me kicked out. And that’s when I figured out the truth. Daddy’s little princess had decided that my kid was an inconvenience she didn’t need.’

She didn’t see hatred any more, just a seething resentment, but she couldn’t process any of it. His words buzzed round in her brain like mutant bees which refused to land. Had she signed the divorce papers first? She couldn’t remember doing that. All she could remember was begging to see Dane, and her father showing her Dane’s signature on the documents. And how the sight of his name scrawled in black ink had killed the last tiny remnant of hope still lurking inside her.

‘I know the pregnancy was a mistake. Hell, the whole damn marriage was insane,’ Dane continued, his tone caustic with disgust. ‘And if you’d told me that’s what you’d decided to do I would have tried to understand. But you didn’t have the guts to own it, did you? You didn’t even have the guts to tell me that’s what you’d done? So don’t turn up here and pretend you were some innocent kid, seduced by the big bad wolf. Because we both know that’s garbage. There was only one innocent party in the whole screwed-up mess of our marriage and it wasn’t either one of us.’

She could barely hear him, those mutant killer bees had become a swarm. Her legs began to shake, and the jagged pain in her stomach joined the thudding cacophony in her skull. She locked her knees, wrapped her arms around her midriff and swallowed convulsively, trying to prevent the silent screams from vomiting out of her mouth.

How could you not know how much our baby meant to me?

‘What’s wrong?’ Dane demanded, the contempt turning to reluctant concern.

She tried to force her shattered thoughts into some semblance of order. But the machete embedded in her head was about to split her skull in two. And she couldn’t form the words.

‘Damn it, Red, you look as if you’re about to pass out.’

Firm hands clamped on her upper arms and became the only thing keeping her upright as her knees buckled.

The old nickname and the shock of his touch had a blast of memory assaulting her senses—hurtling her back in time to those stolen days on the water in Buzzards Bay: the hot sea air, the shrieks of the cormorants, the scent of salt mixed with the funky aroma of sweat and sex, the devastating joy as his calloused fingers brought her body to vibrant life.

I didn’t have an abortion.

She tried to force the denial free from the stranglehold in her throat, but nothing came out.

I had a miscarriage.

She heard him curse, felt firm fingers digging into her biceps as the cacophony in her head became deafening. And she stepped over the edge to let herself fall.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT THE—?

Dane leapt forward as Xanthe’s eyes rolled back, scooping her dead weight into his arms before she could crash to earth.

‘Is Ms Sanders sick?’ Mel appeared, her face blank with shock.

‘Her name’s Carmichael.’

Or, technically speaking, Redmond.

He barged past his PA, cradling Xanthe against his chest. ‘Call Dr Epstein and tell him to meet me in the penthouse.’

‘What—what shall I say happened?’ Mel stammered, nowhere near as steady as usual.

He knew how she felt. His palms were sweating, his pulse racing fast enough to win the Kentucky Derby.

Xanthe let out a low moan. He tightened his grip, something hot and fluid hitting him as his fingertips brushed her breast.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ he replied. ‘Just tell Epstein to get up there.’

He threw the words over his shoulder as he strode through the office, past his sponsorship and marketing team, every one of whom was staring at him as if he’d just told them the company had declared bankruptcy.

Had they heard him shouting at Red like a madman? Letting the fury he’d buried years ago spew out of his mouth?

Where had that come from?

He’d lost it—and he never lost it. Not since the day on her father’s estate when he’d gone berserk, determined to see Xanthe no matter what her father said.

Of course he hadn’t told her that part of the story. The part where he’d made an ass of himself.

The pulse already pounding in his temple began to throb like a wound. He’d been dog-tired and frantic with worry when he’d arrived at Carmichael’s vacation home, his pride in tatters, his gut clenching at the thought Xanthe had run out on him.

All that had made him easy prey for the man who hadn’t considered him fit to kiss the hem of his precious daughter’s bathrobe, let alone marry her. He could still see Charles Carmichael’s smug expression, hear that superior I’m-better-than-you tone as the guy told him their baby was gone and that his daughter had made the sensible decision to cut all ties with the piece of trailer trash she should never have married.

The injustice of it all, the sense of loss, the futile anger had opened up a great big black hole inside him that had been waiting to drag him under ever since he was a little boy. So he’d exploded with rage—and got his butt thoroughly kicked by Carmichael’s goons for his trouble.

Obviously some of that rage was still lurking in his subconscious. Or he wouldn’t have freaked out again. Over something that meant nothing now.

He’d been captivated by Xanthe that summer. By her cute accent, the sexy, subtle curves rocking the bikini-shorts-and-T-shirt combos she’d lived in, her quick, curious mind and most of all the artless flirting that had grown hotter and hotter until they’d made short work of those bikini shorts.

The obvious crush she’d had on him had flattered him, had made him feel like somebody when everyone else treated him like a nobody. But their connection had never been about anything other than hot sex—souped up to fever pitch by teenage lust. He knew he’d been nuts to think it could ever be more, especially once she’d run back to Daddy when she’d discovered what it was really like to live on a waterman’s pay.

Xanthe stirred, her fragrant hair brushing his chin.

‘Settle down. I’ve got you.’ A wave of protectiveness washed over him. He didn’t plan to examine it too closely. She’d been his responsibility once. She wasn’t his responsibility any more. Whatever the paperwork said.

This was old news. It didn’t make a damn bit of difference now. Obviously the shock of seeing her again had worked stuff loose which had been hanging about without his knowledge.

‘Where are you taking me?’

The groggy question brought him back to the problem nestled in his arms.

He elbowed the call button on the elevator, grateful when the doors zipped open and they could get out of range of their audience. Stepping inside, he nudged the button marked Penthouse Only.

‘My place. Top floor.’

‘What happened?’

He glanced down to find her eyes glazed, her face still pale as a ghost. She looked sweet and innocent and scared—the way she had once before.

‘It’s positive. I’m going to have a baby. What are we going to do?’

He concentrated on the panel above his head, shoving the flashback where it belonged—in the file marked Ancient History.

‘You tell me.’ He kept his voice casual. ‘One minute we were yelling at each other and the next you were hitting the deck.’

‘I must have fainted,’ she said, as if she wasn’t sure. She shifted, colour flooding back into her cheeks. ‘You can put me down now. I’m fine.’

He should do what she asked, because having her soft curves snug against his chest and that sultry scent filling his nostrils wasn’t doing much for his equilibrium, but his heartbeat was still going for gold in Kentucky.

His grip tightened.

‘Uh-huh?’ He raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘You make a habit of swooning like a heroine in a trashy novel?’

Her chin took on a mutinous tilt, but she didn’t reply.

Finally, score one to Redmond.

The elevator arrived at his penthouse and the doors opened onto the panoramic view of the downtown skyline.

At any other time the sight would have brought with it a satisfying ego-boost. The designer furniture, the modern steel and glass structure and the expertly planted roof terrace, its lap pool sparkling in the fading sunlight, was a million miles away from the squalid dump he’d grown up in. He’d worked himself raw in the last couple of years, and spent a huge chunk of investment capital, to complete the journey.

But he wasn’t feeling too proud of himself at the moment. He’d lost his temper downstairs, but worse than that, he’d let his emotions get the upper hand.

‘Stop crying like a girl and get me another beer, or you’ll be even sorrier than you are already, you little pissant.’

His old man had been a mean drunk, whom he’d grown to despise, but one thing the hard bastard had taught him was that letting your emotions show only made you weak.

Xanthe had completed his education by teaching him another valuable lesson—that mixing sex with sentiment was never a good idea.

Somehow both those lessons had deserted him downstairs.

He deposited her on the leather couch in the centre of the living space and stepped back, aware of the persistent ache in his crotch.

She got busy fussing with her hair, not meeting his eyes. Her staggered breathing made her breasts swell against the lacy top. The persistent ache spiked.

Terrific.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But you didn’t have to carry me all the way up here.’

She looked around the space, still not meeting his eyes.

He stifled the disappointment when she didn’t comment on the apartment. He wasn’t looking for her approval. Certainly didn’t need it.

‘The company doc’s coming up to check you out,’ he said.

That got her attention. Her gaze flashed to his—equal parts aggravation and embarrassment.

‘That’s not necessary. It’s just a bit of jet lag.’

Jet lag didn’t make all the colour drain out of your face, or give your eyes that haunted, hunted look. And it sure as hell didn’t make you drop like a stone in the middle of an argument.

‘Tell that to Dr Epstein.’

She was getting checked out by a professional whether she liked it or not. She might not be his responsibility any more, but this was his place and his rules.

The elevator bell dinged on cue.

He crossed the apartment to greet the doctor, his racing heartbeat finally reaching the finish line and heading into a victory lap when he heard Xanthe’s annoyed huff of breath behind him.

Better to deal with a pissed Xanthe than one who fainted dead away right before his eyes.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘WHAT I’M PRESCRIBING is a balanced meal and a solid ten hours’ sleep, in that order.’

The good Dr Epstein sent Xanthe a grave look which made her feel as if she were four years old again, being chastised by Nanny Foster for refusing to go down for her nap.

‘Your blood pressure is elevated and the fact you haven’t eaten or slept well in several days is no doubt the cause of this episode. Stress is a great leveller, Ms Carmichael,’ he added.

As if she didn’t know that, with the source of her stress standing two feet away, eavesdropping.

This was so not what she needed right now. For Dane to know that she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep or managed to eat a full meal since Wednesday morning. Thanks to the good doctor’s interrogation she might as well be wearing a sign with Weak and Feeble Woman emblazoned across it.

She’d never fainted before in her life. Well, not since—

She cut off the thought.

Do not go back there. Not again.

Rehashing those dark days had already cost her far too much ground. Swooning ‘like a heroine in a trashy novel,’ as Dane had so eloquently put it, had done the rest. The only good thing to come out of her dying swan act was the fact that it had happened before she’d had the chance to blurt out the truth about her miscarriage.

After coming round in Dane’s arms, her cheek nestled against his rock-solid shoulder and her heart thundering in her chest, the inevitable blast of heat had been followed by a much needed blast of rational thought.

She was here to finish things with Dane—not kick-start loads of angst from the past. Absolutely nothing would be achieved by correcting Dane’s assumption now, other than to cast her yet again in the role of the sad, insecure little girl who needed a man to protect her.

Maybe that had been true then. Her father’s high-handed decision to prevent her from seeing Dane had robbed them both of the chance to end their relationship amicably. And then her father had mucked things up completely by hiring his useless old school chum Augustus Greaves to handle the admin on the divorce.

But her father was dead now. And with hindsight she could see that in his own misguided, paternalistic way he had probably believed he was acting in her best interests. And the truth was the end result, however agonising it had been to go through at the time, had been in her best interests.

Who was to say she wouldn’t have gone back to Dane? Been delusional enough to carry on trying to make a go of a marriage that had been a mistake from the start?

Nothing would be gained by telling Dane the truth now, ten years too late. Except to give him another golden opportunity to demonstrate his me-Tarzan-you-Jane routine.

She’d found his dominance and overprotectiveness romantic that summer. Believing it proved how much he loved her. When all it had really proved was that Dane, like her father, had never seen her as an equal.

The fact that she’d felt safe and cherished and turned on by the ease with which he’d held her a moment ago was just her girly hormones talking. And those little snitches didn’t need any more excuses to join the party.

Much better that Dane respected her based on a misconception, even if it made him hate her, than that she encourage his pity with the truth. Because his pity had left her confidence and her self-esteem in the toilet ten years ago—and led to a series of stupid decisions that had nearly destroyed her.

She was a pragmatist now—a shrewd, focused career woman. One melodramatic swoon brought on by starvation and exhaustion and stress didn’t change that. Thank goodness she wasn’t enough of a ninny to be looking for love to complete her life any more. Because it was complete enough already.

Maybe there was a tiny tug of regret at the thought of that young man who had come to her father’s estate looking for her, only to be turned away. But the fact that he’d come to the worst possible conclusion proved he’d never truly understood her. How could he ever have believed she would abort their child?

‘I appreciate your advice, Doctor,’ she replied, as the man packed the last of his paraphernalia into his bag. ‘I’ll make sure I grab something to eat at the airport and get some sleep on the plane.’

No doubt she’d sleep like the dead, given the emotional upheaval she’d just endured.

She glanced at her watch and stood up, steadying herself against the sofa when a feeling of weightlessness made her head spin.

‘You’re flying back tonight?’ The doctor frowned at her again, as if she’d just thrown a tantrum.

‘Yes, at seven,’ she replied. She only had an hour before boarding closed on her flight to Heathrow. ‘So I should get going.’

The elderly man’s grave expression became decidedly condescending. ‘I wouldn’t advise catching a transatlantic flight tonight. You need to give yourself some time to recover. You’ve just had a full-blown anxiety attack.’

‘A...what?’ she yelped, far too aware of Dane’s overbearing presence in her peripheral vision as he listened to every word. ‘It wasn’t an anxiety attack. It was just a bit of light-headedness.’

‘Mr Redmond said you became very emotional, then collapsed, and that you were out for over a minute. That’s more than light-headedness.’

‘Right...well, thanks for your opinion, Doctor.’ As if she cared what ‘Mr Redmond’ had to say on the subject.

‘You’re welcome, Ms Carmichael.’

She hung back as Dane showed Dr Epstein out, silently fuming at the subtle put-down. And the fact Dane had witnessed it. And the even bigger problem that she was going to have to wait now until the doctor had taken the lift down before she could leave herself. Which would mean spending torturous minutes alone with Dane while trying to avoid the parade of circus elephants crammed into his palatial penthouse apartment with them.

She didn’t want to talk about their past, her so-called anxiety attack, or any of the other ten-ton pachyderms that might be up for discussion.

However nonchalant she’d tried to be with Dr Epstein, she didn’t feel 100 per cent. She was shattered. The last few days had been stressful—more stressful than she’d wanted to admit. And the revelations that had come during their argument downstairs hadn’t exactly reduced her stress levels.

And, while she was playing Truth or Dare with herself, she might as well also admit that being in Dane’s office had been unsettling enough.

Being alone with him in his apartment was worse.

She shrugged into the jacket she’d taken off while Dr Epstein took her blood pressure. Time to make a dignified and speedy exit.

‘Where’s my briefcase?’ she asked, her voice more high-pitched than she would have liked, as Dane walked back towards her.

‘My office.’

He leaned against the steel banister of a staircase leading to a mezzanine level and crossed his arms over that wide chest. His stance looked relaxed. She wasn’t fooled.

‘I couldn’t scoop it up,’ he continued, his silent censure doing nothing for the pulse punching her throat, ‘because I had my hands full scooping up you.’

‘I’ll get it on my way out,’ she said, deliberately ignoring the sarcasm while marching towards the elevator.

He unfolded his arms and stepped into her path. ‘That’s not what the doctor ordered.’

‘He’s not my doctor,’ she announced, distracted by the pectoral muscles outlined by creased white cotton. ‘And I don’t take orders.’

His sensual lips flattened into a stubborn line and his jaw hardened, drawing her attention back to the dent in his chin.

She bit into her tongue, assaulted by the sudden urge to lick that masculine dip.

What the heck?

She tried to sidestep him. He stepped with her, forcing her to butt into the wall o’ pecs. Awareness shot up her spine as she took a hasty step back.

‘Get out of my way.’

‘Red, chill out.’

She caught a glimpse of concern, her pulse spiking uncomfortably at his casual use of the old nickname.

‘I will not chill out. I have a flight to catch.’ She sounded shrill, but she was starting to feel light-headed again. If she did another smackdown in front of him the last of her dignity would be in shreds.

‘You’re shaking.’

‘I’m not shaking.’

Of course she was shaking. He was standing too close, crowding her, engulfing her in that subtly sexy scent. Even though he wasn’t touching her she could feel him everywhere—in her tender breasts, her ragged breathing and in the hotspot between her thighs which was about to spontaneously combust. Basically, her body had reverted to its default position whenever Dane Redmond was within a ten-mile radius.

‘Unless you’ve got a chopper handy, you’ve already missed your flight,’ he observed, doing that sounding reasonable thing again, which made her sound hysterical. ‘Midtown traffic is a bitch at this time of day. No way are you going to make it to JFK in under an hour.’

‘Then I’ll wait at the airport for another flight.’

‘Why not hang out here and catch a flight out tomorrow like Epstein suggested?’

With him? In his apartment? Alone? Was he bonkers?

‘No, thank you.’

She tried to shift round him again. A restraining hand cupped her elbow and electricity zapped up her arm.

She yanked free, the banked heat in his cool blue gaze almost as disturbing as what he said next.

‘How about I apologise?’

‘What for?’

Was he serious? Dane had been the original never-give-in-never-surrender guy back in the day. She’d never seen him back down or apologise for anything.

‘For yelling at you in my office. About stuff that doesn’t matter any more.’

It was the last thing she had expected. But as she searched his expression she could see he meant it.

It was an olive branch. She wanted to snatch it and run straight for the moral high ground. But the tug of regret in the pit of her stomach chose that precise moment to give a sharp yank.

‘You don’t have to apologise for speaking your mind. But, if you insist, I should apologise, too,’ she continued. ‘You’re right. I should have consulted you about...about the abortion.’

The lie tasted sour—a betrayal of the tiny life she’d once yearned to hold in her arms. But this was the only way to finally release them both from all those foolish dreams.

‘Hell, Red. You don’t have to apologise for that.’

He scrubbed his hands over his scalp, the frustrated gesture bringing an old memory to the surface of running her hands over the soft bristles while they lay together on the deck of the pocket cruiser, her body pleasantly numb with afterglow from the first time they’d made love.

She pressed tingling palms against the fabric of her skirt, trying to erase the picture in her head, but the unguarded memory continued to play out—one agonising sensation at a time. Goosebumps pebbling her arms from the warm breeze off the ocean...the base of her thumb stinging from the affectionate nip as he bit into the tender flesh.

‘You sure you’re okay? I didn’t hurt you? You’re so small and delicate...’

‘I get why you did it,’ Dane continued, as the erotic memory played havoc with her senses. ‘You weren’t ready to be a mom, and I would have been a disaster as a dad.’

He was telling her he agreed with her. Case comprehensively closed. But what should have been a victory only made the sour taste in her mouth turn to mud.

She had been ready to be a mother. How could he have doubted that? Didn’t he know how much she had wanted their baby? And why would he think he’d make a terrible father? Was this something to do with all his scars, the childhood and the family he had never been willing to talk about?

Good grief, get real. You are not still invested in that fairytale.

The idiotic notion that she could rescue him by helping him to overcome stuff he refused to talk about had been the domain of that romantic teenage girl. That fairytale was part of her past. A past she’d just lied through her teeth to put behind her. This had to be the jet lag talking again, because it was not like her to lose her grip on reality twice in one day.

‘I’d really like to settle this amicably,’ she said at last, determined to accept his olive branch.

‘We can do that—but you need to stay put tonight. You took a couple of years off my life downstairs, and you still look as if a strong breeze could blow you over.’

That searing gaze drifted to the top of her hair, which probably looked as if a chinchilla had been nesting in it. Awareness shimmered, the sharp tug in her abdomen ever more insistent.

‘I feel responsible for that,’ he said, the gentle tone at odds with the bunched muscle jumping in his jaw.

‘I told you. I’m okay.’ She couldn’t stay. Couldn’t risk becoming that poor, pathetic girl again, who needed his strength because she had none of her own. ‘And, more importantly, I’m not your responsibility.’

‘Think again,’ he said, trampling over her resistance, the muscle in his jaw now dancing a jig. ‘Because until I sign those papers you’re still my lawfully wedded wife.’

It was an insane thing to say. But much more insane was the stutter in her pulse, the fluttering sensation deep in her abdomen at the conviction in his voice.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Dane. We are not actually married and we haven’t been for over ten years. What we’re talking about is an admin error that you wouldn’t even know about if I hadn’t come to see you today.’

‘About that...’ He hooked a tendril of hair behind her ear. ‘Why did you come all the way to Manhattan when you could have gotten your attorney to handle it?’

It was a pertinent question—and one she didn’t have a coherent answer for.

The rough pad of his fingertip trailed down her neck and into the hollow of her throat, sending sensation rioting across her collarbone and plunging into her breasts.

She should tell him to back off. She needed to leave. But something deeper and much more primal kept her immobile.

‘You know what I think?’ he said, his voice hoarse.

She shook her head. But she did know, and she really didn’t want to.

‘I think you missed me.’

‘Don’t be silly. I haven’t thought of you in years,’ she said, but the denial came out on a breathless whisper, convincing no one.

His lips lifted on one side, the don’t-give-a-damn half-smile was an invitation to sin she’d never been able to resist.

‘You don’t remember how good it used to be between us?’ he mocked, finding the punching pulse at the base of her throat. ‘Because I do.’

His thumb rubbed back and forth across her collarbone, the nonchalant caress incinerating the lacy fabric of her camisole.

‘No,’ she said, but they both knew that was the biggest lie of all.

A wad of something hard and immovable jammed her throat as his thumb drifted down to circle her nipple, the possessive, unapologetic touch electrifying even through the layers of silk and lace.

The peak engorged in a rush, poking against the fabric and announcing how big a whopper she’d told.

She needed to tell him to stop. He had no right to touch her like this any more. But the words refused to form as her back stretched, thrusting the rigid tip into his palm.

He dipped his head as his thumb traced the edge of her bra cup, rough calluses rasping sensitive skin as it slid beneath the lace. His lips nudged the corner of her mouth, so close she could smell coffee and peppermint.

‘You were always a terrible liar, Red.’

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Certainly couldn’t speak.

So objecting was an impossibility when he eased the cup down to expose one tight nipple and blew on the sensitive flesh.

‘Oh, God.’

Her lungs seized and her thigh muscles dissolved as he licked the tender peak, then nipped at the tip. She bucked, the shock of sensation bringing her hip into contact with the impressive ridge in his trousers. She rubbed against it like a cat, desperate to find relief from the exquisite agony.

He swore under his breath, then clasped her head and slanted his lips across hers. She opened for him instinctively and let his tongue plunder her mouth, driving the kiss into dark, torturous territory.

Her fingers curled into his shirt to drag him closer, absorbing his tantalising strength as the slab of muscle crushed her naked breast.

Her sex became heavy and painfully tender. Slick with longing. The melting sensation a throwback to her youth—when all he’d had to do was look at her to make her ready for him.

How can I still need him this much?

Her mind blurred, sinking into the glorious sex-fogged oblivion she’d denied herself for so long. Too long. Her tongue tangled with his, giving him the answer they both craved.

He kissed the way she remembered. With masterful thrusts and parries joined by teasing nips and licks as he devoured her mouth, no quarter given.

The day-old beard abraded her chin. Large hands brushed her thighs, bunching the skirt around her waist until he had a good firm grip on her backside.

Excitement pumped through her veins like a powerful narcotic, burning away everything but the sight, the sound, the scent of him.

He boosted her up—taking charge, taking control, the way she had always adored.

‘Put your legs round my waist.’

She obeyed the husky command without question, clinging to his strong shoulders. Her heartbeat kicked her ribs and pummelled her sex as their tongues duelled, hot and wet and frantic.

Her back hit the wall with a thud and the thick ridge in his trousers ground against her panties, the friction exquisite against her yearning clitoris.

Holding her up with one arm, he tore at her underwear. The sound of ripping satin echoed off the room’s hard surfaces, stunning her until he found her with his thumb. She moaned into his mouth, the perfect touch charging through her system like lightning.

His answering groan rumbled against her ear, harsh with need. ‘Still so wet for me, Red?’

Blunt fingers brushed expertly over the heart of her, then circled the swollen nub, teasing, coaxing, demanding a response. Everything inside her drove down to that one tight spot, desperate to feel the touch which would drive her over. The coil tightened like a vice and propelled her mindlessly towards the peak.

‘Please...’ The single word came out on a tortured sob.

Dane was the only man who knew exactly what she needed and always had.

Suddenly he withdrew his fingers, sliding them through the wet folds to rest on her hip. Leaving her teetering on the edge of ecstasy.

She panted. Squirmed. Denied the touch she needed. The touch she had to have.

‘Don’t stop.’

He buried his face against her neck, the harsh pants of his breathing as tortured as her own. ‘Have to,’ he grunted.

‘Why?’

Her dazed mind reeled, her flesh clenching painfully on emptiness. Desire clawed at her insides like a ravenous beast as he left her balanced brutally on the sharp edge between pleasure and pain.

‘No way am I taking you without a condom.’

As the sex fog finally released its stranglehold on her brain the comment registered and horrifying reality smacked into her with the force and fury of an eighteen-wheeler. The nuclear blush mushroomed up to her hairline.

Did you actually just beg him to make love to you? Without protection?

If only there was such a thing as death by mortification.

This was now officially the most humiliating moment of her life. The trashy novel swoon had merely been a dress rehearsal.

She scooped her breast back into her bra, its reddened nipple mocking her.

She had to get away from here. Sod the divorce papers. She’d deal with them later. Right now saving herself and her sanity was more important than saving Carmichael’s.

CHAPTER SIX

DANE BREATHED IN the sultry scent of Xanthe’s arousal, still holding on to her butt as if she were the only solid object in the middle of a tornado.

How could it be exactly the same between them? The heat, the hunger, the insanity?

He felt as if he’d just been in a war. And he was fairly sure it was a war he hadn’t won.

What were you thinking, hitting on her like that?

He’d been mad. Mad that he’d shouted at her, mad that she’d collapsed in front of him, and madder still that he cared enough about her to be sorry. But most of all he’d been mad that he could still want her so much, despite everything.

The come-on had been a ploy to intimidate her, to make her fold and do as she was told. But she hadn’t. She’d met his demands with demands of her own. And suddenly they’d been racing to the point of no return like a couple of sex-mad teenagers—as if the last ten years had never happened.

‘Dane, put me down. You’re crushing me.’

The furious whisper brought him crashing the rest of the way back to reality.

He drew in an agonising breath of her scent. Light floral perfume and subtle sin. And lifted his head to survey the full extent of the damage.

Her hair had tumbled down, sticking in damp strands to the line of her throat. A smudge of mascara added to the bluish tinge under her eyes, the reddened skin on her chin and cheek suggesting she was going to have some serious beard-burn in the morning.

He should have shaved. Then again, he should have done a lot of things.

She looked shell-shocked.

He had the weird urge to laugh. At least he wasn’t the only one.

She pushed against his chest, struggling to get out of his arms in earnest.

‘Stop staring at me like that. I have to leave.’

He let her go and watched her scramble away, trying to be grateful that he’d at least managed to stop himself from leaping off the deep end this time. The painful erection made sure he didn’t feel nearly as great about that last-minute bout of sanity as he should.

She swept her hair back and bent to slip on the heels which must have fallen off at some point during their sex apocalypse, making it impossible for him not to notice how the slim skirt highlighted the generous contours of her butt. He tore his gaze away.

Haven’t you tortured yourself enough already?

She pressed a hand to her forehead, glancing round—still struggling to calm down, to take stock and figure out what the heck had just happened was his guess.

Good luck with that.

‘I should go.’ She smoothed her clothing with unsteady hands and brushed a wayward curl behind her ear. It sprang straight back.

He planted his hands in his pants pockets and resisted the urge to hook it back round her ear a second time. Because look how that had ended the first time.

She was right. She should go. Before the urge to follow through on what they’d just started got the better of them.

Hitting on her had been a dumb move. What exactly had he been trying to prove? That she still wanted him? That he was the one in charge? Or just that he was the biggest dumbass on the planet?

Because, whatever way you looked at it, that dumb move had stirred up stuff neither one of them was ready to deal with. Yet.

‘You think?’ he sneered, because their sex apocalypse wasn’t just on him.

She’d made the decision to sneak back into his life and poke at something that had died a long time ago. And when he’d made that first dumb move, instead of telling him no she’d gone off like a rocket—giving him a taste of the girl he remembered which he wasn’t going to be able to forget any time soon.

She glared at him, picking up on his pissy tone.

Yeah, that’s right, sweetheart. I’m the guy you decided wasn’t good enough for you. The guy you still can’t get enough of.

‘Don’t you dare try to put this insanity on me,’ she said. ‘I didn’t start it. And, anyway, we finished it before things got totally out of hand. So it’s not important.’

Hell, yeah, it is. If I say it is.

‘We didn’t finish it,’ he pointed out, because scoring a direct hit seemed vitally important. ‘I did.’

The flush scorched her skin and she blew out a staggered breath. ‘So what? I got a little carried away in the heat of the moment. That’s all.’

‘A little?’ Talk about an understatement.

Her lips set in a mulish line, the blush still beaming on those beard-scorched cheeks.

‘It was a mistake, okay? Brought on by stress and fatigue and...’ She paused, her gaze darting pretty much everywhere but his face. ‘And sexual deprivation.’

‘Sexual deprivation?’ He scoffed. ‘How do you figure that?’

She was going to have to spell that one out for him.

‘I’ve been extremely busy for the past five years. Obviously I needed to blow off some steam.’

He should have been insulted. And a part of him was. But a much larger part of him wanted to know if she’d really just told him she’d been celibate for five years.

‘Exactly how long has it been since you got to “blow off some steam”?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘That long, huh?’ he mocked, enjoying the spark of temper—and the news that he’d been her first in a while—probably way too much.

He’d never sparred with her when she was a girl. Because she’d always been too cute and too fragile. It would have been like kicking a puppy. He’d always had to be so careful, mindful of how delicate she was. Back then he’d been terrified he’d break her, that his rough, low-class hands would be too demanding for all that delicate, petal-soft skin. So he’d strived hard to be gentle even when it had cost him.

But she’d given as good as she’d gotten a minute ago. And damn if that didn’t turn him on even more.

The flush now mottled the skin of her cleavage, and suddenly he was remembering gliding his tongue across her nipple, her soft sob of encouragement as he captured the hard bud between his teeth.

His blood surged south. And he got mad all over again.

She’d been so far out of his reach that summer. But somehow she’d hooked him into her drama, her reality, made him want to stand up to her daddy, to fight her demons, to brand her as his and follow some cock-eyed dream. When she’d told him she was pregnant he’d been horrified at first, but much worse had been the driving need that had opened up inside him—the fierce desire to claim her and their child.

She’d convinced him she wanted to keep his baby. And that was all it had taken to finally tip him over into an alternative reality where he’d kidded himself they could make it work. That she really wanted to make it work. With him. A British heiress and a nobody from Roxbury. As if.

He’d spent years afterwards dealing with her betrayal, determined that no one would ever have the power to screw him over like that again—even after he’d finally figured out that she’d probably just been playing him all along so she could stick it to her overbearing daddy.

The thought that he could still want her so much infuriated the hell out of him. But he’d just behaved like a wild man, making it tough to deny.

He’d ripped off her panties, damn it. When was the last time he’d done something like that? Been so desperate to get to a woman he’d torn off her underwear? Hadn’t even taken the time or trouble to undress her properly, to kiss her and caress her?

He might not be a master of small talk, but he had some moves. Moves women generally appreciated and which he’d worked at acquiring over the last ten years.

Until Xanthe had strolled back into his life and managed to rip away all those layers of class and sophistication and bring back that rough, raw, reckless, screwed-up kid. The kid he’d always hated.

She made a dash for the elevators.

‘Hey, wait up!’ He chased her down, grabbed her wrist.

She swung round, her eyes bright with fury and panic. ‘Don’t touch me. I’m not staying.’

He lifted his hand away. ‘I get that. But I want to know where you’re going.’ He scrambled for a plausible reason. ‘So I can get the papers delivered tomorrow.’

In person.

‘You’ll sign them?’

She sounded so surprised and so relieved he wondered if there was more to those papers than she was letting on. Because she had to know there was no way on earth he would want to contest their divorce—no matter how hot they still were for each other.

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