‘Deny it all you like, but you’re going to be my woman, Rayne. You are my woman. Understand?’ he breathed against the sensitised hollow of her ear. ‘Otherwise why would you let me do this?’

His fingers found her breast, making her gasp.

‘Or this?’

His other hand slid down her body, caressing, its heat searing through her clothes.

‘Why?’ Kingsley demanded huskily. ‘If you can’t accept that, too?’

She wanted to protest. She knew she should. But how could she, she demanded chaotically of herself, when she knew that she had been made for this? That she was his and always had been, and that even if her mind recognised the treachery of acknowledging it her body wouldn’t listen.

But she had to make it listen …

He’s your enemy. So what does that make you?

About the Author

ELIZABETH POWER wanted to be a writer from a very early age, but it wasn’t until she was nearly thirty that she took to writing seriously. Writing is now her life. Travelling ranks very highly among her pleasures, and so many places she has visited have been recreated in her books. Living in England’s West Country, Elizabeth likes nothing better than taking walks with her husband along the coast or in the adjoining woods, and enjoying all the wonders that nature has to offer.

Recent titles by the same author:

BACK IN THE LION’S DEN

SINS OF THE PAST

FOR REVENGE OR REDEMPTION

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

A Delicious Deception

Elizabeth Power

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Alan—

with love and fond memories of Monaco.

CHAPTER ONE

THE tread of confident footsteps echoed across the sun-warmed tiles of the terrace—the tread of a man whose presence spelled danger.

Even without turning around, Rayne guessed who he was and could sense a desire in him to unnerve her.

No, it was more of a determination, she decided, with every cell alert, tensing from the fear of being recognised—an assurance that whatever this man wanted, this man got.

‘So you’re the little waif my father plucked off the street, who’s showing her gratitude by deigning to drive him around.’

She had been looking, from her vantage point through the balconied archway, out over coral-coloured blocks of high-rise apartments, some with roof gardens, others with pools that seemed to throw back fire from the setting sun. But now she ignored the glittering sea, the palace on The Rock and the sun-streaked cliffs that were a feature of this coast—but particularly of this rich man’s playground that was Monte Carlo—swinging round instead with her blazing hair falling heavily over one shoulder and her body stiffening from the derisory undertones of the deep English voice.

His clothes were tailored to perfection. And expensive, Rayne decided grudgingly. From his pristine white shirt and dark designer suit, to the very tip of his shiny black shoes. A man whose cool, sophisticated image masked a deceptively ruthless nature and a tongue that could cut with the deftness of a scythe.

For a moment she couldn’t speak, stunned by how the years had given him such a powerful presence. Recent newspaper photographs, she realised, had failed to capture the striking quality about him that owed less to his stunning classic features and thick black hair that had a tendency to fall across his forehead than to that breath-catching aura that seemed to surround his tall, muscular frame.

‘For your information, I’m twenty-five.’

Why had she told him that? Because of the condescending way in which he had referred to her? Or to assure him that she was a woman now and not the shrieking eighteen-year-old he had had to deal with that last time they had met.

The cock of a deprecating eyebrow told her he had taken her response in the way that his calculating brain evidently wanted to. That she was more than eligible to bed his father, and that she was probably planning to do so—if she hadn’t already—with purely mercenary motives in mind. But there wasn’t a glimmer of recognition in those steel-blue eyes …

‘And he didn’t pluck me off the street,’ she corrected him, allowing herself to relax a little. ‘We were both victims of a spiteful ploy to relieve me of my possessions. I came to France—and then Monaco—for a break, and I was left with no credit cards, no money and nowhere to stay.’ Why did she feel she had to justify herself to him? she thought with her jaw clenching. Because she hadn’t been sitting in that pavement café just by coincidence? Because as an experienced journalist who had researched her subject thoroughly beforehand, she knew exactly where Mitchell Clayborne would be? ‘Your father very kindly offered me a roof over my head until I could get things sorted out.’

That wide masculine mouth she had always thought of as passionate compressed in a rather judgemental fashion. ‘A bit remiss of you not to have booked ahead.’

Why did every word he uttered sound like an accusation? Or was it just guilt making her imagine things? The dread of being found out?

‘My mother’s been ill for the past year or so. Now her condition’s stabilised she took up her friend’s offer to go away for three weeks, and so I decided to just take off.’ It had seemed like a good idea from the security of the little rented Victorian house she still shared with her mother in London, although she knew that Cynthia Hardwicke would have thrown up her hands in horror if she knew the real reason her daughter was taking this trip. ‘I had somewhere to stay until that morning.’ She shrugged and didn’t think it worth bothering to tell him that her friend, Joanne, who now lived in the South of France with her husband, and whom she’d been planning to spend some time with, had been unexpectedly descended upon by her sister and her three young nieces, so that Rayne had had to politely offer to move on before she was asked. ‘With the holiday season barely started, I didn’t envisage too much problem checking in somewhere.’ Except that she hadn’t reckoned on being robbed before she’d got the chance. ‘I’d hired a car for the day, stopped for a coffee and … well … you obviously know the rest.’

He knew what his father had told him, but Mitch was clearly biased, King thought, and he could see why. Despite referring to her as ‘little’ just now, this woman was—what? Five feet six? Five seven?—with a good figure. And quite striking, too, with that Titian red hair. Or did they call that auburn? Her skin was creamy, complementing big eyes set just wide enough apart for his liking and a particularly full mouth a man could easily get carried away by. And there was certainly nothing waiflike about that air of confidence about her which, being as shrewd a judge of people as he was, did seem rather too assertive for a woman without an agenda. He wondered what that agenda could be, as he recalled how Mitch had said he’d picked her up.

Apparently his father had been leaving his usual lunch venue last Wednesday, alone because, as cantankerous as ever, Mitch had that morning had a barney with the latest chauffeur King had engaged for him and sent the man packing.

Rigid to routine, it was typical of Mitch that he’d refused to change his plans or wait for another member of staff to drive him into town, and had taken the old Bentley—which had been modified for him to use—himself. Not that he thought his father wasn’t capable. But it was inadvisable for a sixty-seven-year-old man of Mitch’s prominence to be out without proper security, even for one who wasn’t so physically challenged. After transferring himself into the car—always a struggle for him—outside the café and folding up his wheelchair, the wheel he’d taken off was snatched from under his nose in broad daylight. It just went to show how susceptible he was. It also proved how easily his stubborn independence could be taken from him, and would have been if this supposedly ministering angel King saw before him hadn’t leapt up and given chase.

He affected an air of effortless charm. ‘It seems I should be thanking you for looking out for my father, Miss …’

‘Carpenter. Rayne Carpenter.’

It wasn’t her real name. Well, not entirely. It was her mother’s maiden name and the name Rayne had used in the small provincial newspaper she used to write for. But then introducing herself as Lorrayne Hardwicke would only have earned her a one-way ticket out of there, she thought with a little shiver, even though she had been planning to tell his father exactly who she was in the beginning. At first … before those thieves had intervened and thrown all her well-laid plans awry.

‘You’re the best reporter I have, but you’ve got to come up with a story!’ her editor had told her six months ago, before he’d been forced to let her go when her mother’s worrying illness and inevitable operation had forced her to take too much time off.

Well, she could come up with a story! she thought now, with her teeth clamped almost painfully together. It was one exposé she wanted, and one everyone would want to read. Except that this one was personal …

She saw a muscle twitch in the man’s hard angular jaw as he came closer—close enough for her to catch the scent of his cologne—as fresh as the pines that clothed the steeply rising hillside.

‘I’m Kingsley Clayborne. But everyone calls me King,’ he told her, holding out a hand.

I know who you are!

Her confidence wavered. She didn’t want to touch him. But fear of his checking up on her if she showed any sign of unease or aversion to him forced her to plaster on a bright smile. Taking the hand he was offering, she found herself responding before she could stop herself, ‘I’ll bet they do!’

Feeling her slender hand tremble in his, King let his fingers find a subtle path across the blue vein pulsing in her wrist. He noted the way it was throbbing in double-quick tempo. There was something about her eyes too. Deep hazel eyes flecked with green, which were darkly guarded as they fixed on his. But fix on them they did, with a contention that was as challenging as it was wary, and which mirrored the superficial smile on her beautiful bronze-tinted mouth.

He knew his father could take care of himself. He was a man of the world, for heaven’s sake! But Mitch was also vulnerable to a pretty face, and therefore to unscrupulous gold-diggers—and this Rayne Carpenter was one hell of a cagey lady.

Even so, he wasn’t blind to the long, elegant line of her pale, translucent throat, or the way it contracted nervously beneath his blatant regard. Any more than he could fail to notice that her breasts—the cleft of which was just tantalisingly visible above the neckline of her chic but simple black dress—were high and generously proportioned. Quite a handful, in fact.

Hell! He was surprised by how acutely his body responded to the femininity she seemed to flaunt without any conscious effort, especially when his keen mind was telling him that Miss Rayne Carpenter was definitely one to watch. But there was something about her …

Some memory tugged at his subconscious like the fragment of a dream, too elusive to grasp, but still powerful enough to deepen the crease between his thick, winged brows, compelling him to enquire, ‘Have we met before?’

Beads of perspiration broke out over Rayne’s body, as tangible as that strong hand that was clasping hers, prickling above her top lip and along the deep V between her breasts.

She gave a nervous little laugh and said, ‘I hardly think so.’

She wasn’t sure whether he had let her go or whether she had been the one to break the contact, but as her hand slipped out of his she realised that she was desperate to take a breath.

Deep inside her something stirred. Resentment? Dislike?

What else could have produced this overwhelming reaction to him that had her blood surging, not just from his question, but from the unwelcome and disturbing touch of his hand? After all, anything she might have felt for him he had killed off a long time ago, she assured herself caustically. But it had been more than a touch, she reasoned, despising him—as well as herself—for the way he was making her feel.

With one simple handshake she felt as though she’d been assessed, undressed and bedded by him, because behind that probing scrutiny that had trapped the breath in her lungs there had been a fundamental appreciation of a man for a woman. Yet there was still no sign of recognition …

Her breath, marked with trembling relief, shivered shallowly through her when he accepted her denial of having met him before. But then everyone she met nowadays who hadn’t seen her since she was a teenager remarked on how much she had changed. Seven years ago she had had no real curves and her hair had been short and spiky, as well as a different colour. And back then, of course, she would simply have been known as Lorri …

‘Those thieves must have reckoned on your being a definite pushover, don’t you think?’ he remarked smoothly. ‘For the three of them to have targeted you so precisely?’

She took a step back, finding his dominating presence much too stifling, his question baffling her even as it warned her to be on her guard. ‘I’m sorry …?’

‘I mean that they must have noticed you taking more than a passing interest in my father to be so certain you’d rise to their bait when they took that wheel and rush off and help him as you did.’

Could he hear her heart hammering away inside her?

‘I don’t like seeing anyone taken advantage of,’ she said pointedly, and then, with barely concealed venom, ‘for any reason.’ Now, with her head cocked to one side, she demanded, ‘What exactly are you insinuating, Mr—’

‘King.’

Perhaps ‘Your Majesty’ would please you more!

She had to bite her lower lip to stop from crying it aloud. He was rich and powerful now. As well as ruthless, she decided bitterly.

Even then, all those years ago, when she’d crashed in on the ugly scene between him and her father, she had seen a side to him she hadn’t realised he’d possessed. A steel edge to his personality, coupled with a determined lack of scruples for a young man who, while still only twenty-three, had been forced, through his father’s accident, to learn the ropes quickly so that he could pick up the reins of a company about to explode on the world.

‘I couldn’t help but take an interest in him—or in what he was doing, certainly!’ she breathed now, hating him for the part he had played in destroying her father, while warning herself that nothing would escape this man’s notice or bypass the keen circuits of his cold, intellectual mind. ‘I was struck by the way he’d overcome his obvious difficulties to be able to drive himself around like that. I wasn’t aware that admiring someone’s capabilities actually constituted a crime.’

‘It doesn’t.’ His smile seemed to light his face like the evening sun lit the rooftops of Monte Carlo, leaving her struck by its transformation from a dark enigma to one of pure blinding charm.

Rayne’s throat worked nervously. Was he backing off?

‘As you’ve probably been told, my father’s chauffeur left … rather suddenly. Hence the reason he was without a driver, although, I should say, thanks to you, that that breach has been miraculously filled.’

She nodded, ignoring the sarcasm lacing his words.

Her heavy hair moved softly around her shoulders, King noticed, the warmth of the evening light turning it to flame.

His thick black eyelashes came down as he followed the rivers of fire to where they ended just above her contrastingly pale breasts. ‘I gather you didn’t lose everything at the hands of those criminals.’ A toss of his chin indicated the clothes she was wearing, but the way those appraising blue eyes slid down her quivering body invested even that innocuous statement with disturbing sensuality.

‘My clothes were in my car.’

‘And they didn’t take your keys?’

‘No. They were in my jeans pocket.’ With her cellphone, she thought—mercifully!—although she didn’t tell King that. She had taken it out of her bag to text her mother just minutes before Mitchell Clayborne had emerged from the hotel restaurant next to the café the other day, and she had been immensely relieved that she had. It meant that she had been able to cancel her credit and debit cards and report the crime to the police in the privacy of the hired car, while leaving her cellphone number with them in case of any developments—so nobody would be ringing and asking for Lorrayne Hardwicke on her host’s landline.

Tilting her head, she viewed the formidably attractive heir of Clayborne International with her throat dry from a raw sexual awareness and enquired, ‘Do you interrogate all your father’s house guests like this?’

His mouth tugged on one side as he moved over to the granite-topped table on the terrace and poured himself some coffee from the silver pot a manservant had brought out a little while ago. A masculine hand—long-fingered and tanned—queried whether he should pour some for her.

Rayne shook her head, dragging her gaze from the stark contrast of an immaculate white cuff and dark wrist to note that he added no cream or sugar to his cup.

‘But you’re not just a house guest, are you?’ he remarked wryly. ‘You’ve insisted on working while you’re here until you get your affairs straightened out, which makes you an employee of sorts—albeit a rather unconventional one—and my father doesn’t engage anyone these days without consulting me.’

And that just showed who was ruling the Clayborne empire now, she thought, resenting the authority he exuded as well as that brooding magnetism and forcefulness of character that lent his features a strength and quality that went way beyond mere handsomeness. ‘You must excuse me if you think I’m being overly cautious.’ She watched him drink through the steam rising from his cup and then set the fine china down on the table with cool economical movements. ‘But, as I’m sure you’re aware, my father is a very wealthy man.’

So are you, she supplied silently, remembering how amazed she had been to read that article that reported him as being higher up Britain’s Rich List last year even than Mitchell Clayborne. That it was at her father’s expense that the Claybornes were in that enviable position was something she refused to dwell on. She was aware, though, of the numerous enterprises King was involved in outside their technological empire, and reluctantly accepted that a man of his drive and determination would succeed at anything he turned his hand to. She looked at him askance and with a confrontational note in her voice queried, ‘Meaning?’

He made a careless gesture with his hands. ‘A beautiful young woman. An obviously rich but vulnerable older man whose ego needs a bit of boosting. An unlikely prank-turned-robbery in the midst of a crowded café. You must admit it couldn’t be a more finely tuned scheme to play on the older man’s sympathies and to get you into this house if you’d engineered it yourself.’

The colour already touching her cheeks intensified on a surge of guilt because, of course, she had been waiting at that table specifically for his father’s appearance, but not for the reasons his sceptical guard dog of a son was suggesting!

Still trying to deny the heat coursing through her veins from his remark about her being beautiful, she retorted, ‘That’s preposterous!’

‘Is it?’ He slipped a hand into his trouser pocket, bringing her attention unwillingly to the hard lean line of his pelvis until, shocked at where she was looking, she dropped her gaze down over his intimidating stance and long, long legs. ‘It isn’t unheard of.’

‘Except for one thing, King.’ They both glanced in the direction of the shaky, gravelly voice, accompanied now by the unmistakable squeak of the wheelchair approaching. ‘She didn’t want to come.’

It was true. She hadn’t at first. When those thieves had left her with nothing but a car with a virtually empty fuel tank, no money or credit and no place to stay, she had been uncomfortable enough with Mitchell Clayborne’s gratitude for returning his property without his offer of assistance when he realised the loss and inconvenience that helping him had caused her. After all, she’d been lying in wait for him solely for one reason: to confront him with who she was and to threaten him if necessary with exposure in the papers if he didn’t come clean and admit the wrong that both he and King had done to her father. To try and prick his conscience—if he had one!—where Grant Hardwicke had failed, because Mitch Clayborne and his son had taken something more precious from her family than a simple wheel! But he’d seemed so shaken up by those morons running off with it that it hadn’t been the time or the place. Besides, she’d only been waiting at that café because she knew she would never have got past this villa’s impregnable security if she had tried to see him here, so, after her initial hesitation, she’d decided to grab the opportunity she was being offered with both hands.

After all, the Claybornes owed her family big time, she’d decided, and all she had to do was bide her time until she had got her credit cards sorted out, enjoy a bit of luxury for a night or two and then, when her host was feeling better, she’d come clean and tell him who she really was. But it hadn’t worked out like that.

‘Hear that, King?’ Mitchell Clayborne brought his chair out into the scented dusky air, warm still even though the light was fading. His iron-grey hair, combed straight back, was still thick like his son’s, but his face was more harshly etched as his lined blue eyes clashed with the brooding intensity of the younger man’s. ‘I said she didn’t want to come.’

Despite the gathering shadows around the pale stonework of the house, Rayne saw a fragment of a smile pull at King’s sensual mouth.

‘Your discretion becomes you,’ he remarked quietly. His eyes said something quite different, though, she was sure, as they swept over her tight, tense features—as did the scarcely concealed scepticism with which he spoke.

Did he know? she wondered with her heart banging against her ribs. Had he guessed who she was and was just playing with her? Or did his only beef about her stem from the fact that she hadn’t come through his stringent security system? Been passed to him first for his cold and calculating assessment?

‘Leave her alone, King.’ Mitchell was pushing himself over to the table as King reached for the cut glass decanter beside the coffee pot and poured some of its golden contents into a matching tumbler. ‘Can’t I enjoy a bit of female company without you vetting her like she was some filly with a dubious pedigree?’ Mitch took the glass from the man who was more than thirty-five years his junior, and yet whose influence and power in the corporate world was more respected and deferred to even than the older man’s these days.

King’s shoulder lifted and a sudden last shaft of sunlight, piercing through the trees that decked the hillsides, splintered colour from the crystal decanter in his hand. ‘Of course.’ Replacing its stopper, he put the decanter back on the table with a dull thud. ‘But be it on your own head, Mitch. I’m not going to be riding this one.’

Rayne’s back stiffened from the double entendre as she watched him walk away, looking every bit as proud as the man in the wheelchair, but exuding an air of such uncompromising autonomy that lesser men, including his own father, could only hope to aspire to.

‘He doesn’t like me,’ Rayne observed dryly, her confident manner concealing how uncomfortably sticky he’d made her feel beneath her light clothes. Had he picked up on the fact that she was hiding something from them? Or was her guilty secret letting her imagination run away with her?

‘You’ll have to excuse my son. He suspects every woman who happens to give me the time of day,’ Mitch told her. ‘Especially if she’s young and pretty. Usually he manages to frighten them off before the dust has time to settle under their feet.’

‘That’s pretty selfish of him.’ Rayne’s eyes lingered in the direction the other man had gone, her jaw tightening in rebellion.

‘He has no reason to be. With a physical and intellectual package like that, they all wind up wanting King anyway.’ He gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Well, who would want an old fossil like me?’ He started to cough, the contents of his glass threatening to slop over the side. As Rayne moved forward to take it from him, he waved her impatiently aside. ‘But what’s a man to do?’ The terrace lights had come on, taking over from the sun that had dipped behind the mountains and glinting on the crystal he lifted to his mouth, draining it in one swift gulp. ‘He calls it protecting my interests. Here—’ he thrust the empty glass in her direction ‘—pour me another one, will you?’

Rayne looked at him dubiously. He was already looking rather florid. She’d also learned from his late-middle-aged and amiable Swiss housekeeper while she’d been there that Mitchell Clayborne had high blood pressure as well as a heart condition, which was why Rayne had been hesitant to tell him who she was and why she was there. ‘Do you think you should?’

‘For heaven’s sake, girl! You have the audacity to question my actions while you’re a guest in my house?’

‘I didn’t mean to.’ Nor did she want to find herself worrying over someone who had treated her father so abominably. It felt like a betrayal, somehow. But her father’s ex-colleague and business partner seemed world-weary and surprisingly bitter, she had decided over the past few days, guessing that it was probably because of his disability, although having an heir as forceful and dynamic as King couldn’t help. But she was getting used to her host’s outbursts, startling though they were, and so she took the glass he was handing her and poured him another drink.

‘You’re behaving just like King,’ he persisted. ‘And while he’s excused through blood, I won’t take it from anyone who isn’t. D’you understand?’

‘Perfectly,’ she breathed with mock deference as she handed him his refill, and caught a surprising glint of warmth in his watery blue eyes. ‘If you don’t need anything else,’ she tagged on, uncomfortable even with fraternizing with him because of what he had done in the past, ‘I think I’ll get an early night.’

He smiled, gesturing her away with his glass, his angry mood dispelled. ‘Good idea. Oh, Rayne …’ Stopping before the open door that separated the luxurious living quarters from the terrace, she turned round with the scent of a potted gardenia trespassing on her senses. ‘About King … Did you do something to antagonise him before I came out?’

Her heart skipped a nervous little beat. ‘No. Why?’

‘I haven’t seen him quite so … intense before.’

She shrugged, trying to shake off the feeling of exposure she had sensed under those steely-blue eyes, trying not to remember how she had felt in the past. ‘Perhaps he had a hard day.’

‘Nonsense. He thrives on hard work and pressure where lesser mortals crack up and fall by the wayside.’

‘He sounds like a dynamo.’

‘He is.’

‘Even dynamos can break down.’

‘If you think that, then you don’t know King.’

Don’t I? she thought bitterly, but said, ‘Obviously not.’

‘But you will,’ he said, seemingly with some relish. ‘He’s going to be around for a while.’

‘That’s nice.’ She was finding it difficult keeping her voice light, making out that she didn’t care one way or the other, while her insides were screaming with guilt and resentment and a whole heap of worrying doubts over what she was getting herself into.

‘And Rayne …’ About to step inside, keen to escape to her room, Rayne glanced reluctantly over her shoulder as Mitch called to her again. ‘Be nice to him,’ he advised with just a hint of caution. ‘For both our sakes.’

I’ll fall at his feet, shall I? she suggested silently. Like I’m sure every nubile woman he meets probably does!

Her face ached from her forced smile as she got out, ‘Of course,’ aware that she was suddenly in danger of finding herself in way over her head, even as she told herself that she refused to be intimidated by King’s arrival. He might look like the stuff of every woman’s dreams, she accepted grudgingly, as the spacious interior of his father’s summer retreat, which had astounded her with its elegance and luxury ever since she’d been there, now felt as though it was swallowing her up. And if just a compliment from him or the most casual of physical contact—like shaking hands with him, for goodness’ sake!—made her pulse quicken a bit … well … it was only her hormones working, wasn’t it? She was only human, after all! But she’d come to Monaco to try to right the wrong that had been done to her father and she had no intention of letting a man like King—or her uncontrollable hormones—stand in her way!

CHAPTER TWO

THE shapes and tones and hues of Monte Carlo took her breath away, as they had been doing every time she’d looked down on them from her bedroom balcony over the past few days. But this morning, with the sun still low enough to have turned the sea to gold and wrapped the distant mountains in a haze of heat, this wakening resort seemed, like her, to be holding its breath, before offering up its vibrant heart to another day of wealth and glamour and total luxury.

Rayne grimaced at the comparison because she hadn’t come to Monaco to indulge herself. But while she was here, she thought, noticing how the trees on the steep ascent of the hillside above the house were touched with the same flame gold as the water in the harbour, then at least she could appreciate the scenery.

The only blot on her immediate horizon, she decided, was King.

She’d been careful before she’d embarked on this trip to do a little research into where he would be, and right now he should have been attending some week-long charity function in New York. After all, King didn’t live here. He had some luxurious pad in London, and she’d heard that he and his father didn’t always see eye to eye.

What he was doing here, she didn’t know, only that it was going to be difficult enough confronting Mitch with who she was and why she was there, but with that six-foot-something of potent manhood thrown into the mix, the prospect was no less than unnerving.

He was hard, ruthless and clever. He was also suspicious, which left her feeling as though every secret she harboured was under threat of being exposed to him, while every feminine cell in her body reacted to his raw sexuality with a strength that left her shocked and ashamed.

She’d thought such wild reactions were the predilection of teenage girls. Because he had affected her then—seven years ago—although he’d scarcely spared more than a passing glance her way. A wheat-blonde, spiky-haired teenager with purple-shadowed eyes and lipstick. An experimental and pathetic Lorri Hardwicke, whose nevertheless deeply buried secret had been an excruciating crush on the firm’s youngest and most dynamic recruit who, not long out of university, was already being primed for directorship.

She had wanted him from the first instant she had nearly collided with him as he was coming out of the office one day when she had been meeting her father for lunch, and from that moment she had woven all sorts of wild fantasies around him.

Young and guileless and between jobs, introduced to him only briefly, she’d jumped at the chance to help out in the office for a couple of weeks when one of the typists was on leave. It had offered her a chance to be near King, after all. But he’d scarcely spoken to her and, like Mitch, he had spent a lot of time out of the office. And when he was there she’d watched him from a painful distance behind her frosted glass partition, imagining a golden future when he would suddenly realise she was there, waiting in the wings for him to notice her, ask her out and initiate her into the sophisticated art of making love. Because with a man like him, she had decided, without any doubt in her fixated young mind, lovemaking would be no less than an art.

Even after she’d left, she still kept hoping. That was until the evening he had come round to the house and shattered all her dreams. Made her hate him with an emotion all the more intense because of what it had replaced.

Bitterly her thoughts drifted back to that night seven years ago. It was just a few weeks after her father had had a row with Mitchell Clayborne and walked away from their partnership—with devastating repercussions.

She had been to the gym and had cycled home in the rain, coming in to hear raised voices, her father’s thin and defensive, King’s deep and inexorable.

‘You’re the thief, Grant Hardwicke! Not my father! Stay away from him. Do I make myself clear? Leave him alone or you’ll have me to deal with!’ It still made her shudder to remember his cruel, icy threat. ‘Believe me, after this you won’t know what hit you if you ever dare show your face at our house or at the office again!’

Towering over Grant Hardwicke, King had been standing in the hallway of the modern detached home her mother had so prized, while her father had seemed to visibly diminish before Rayne’s eyes. His features blanched and strained, she had seen Grant grab the doorframe as though it was too much of an effort to support himself under the weight of the younger man’s hostile and verbal attack.

Soaked to the skin, hair flattened by the rain, she’d flown at King like a drenched sparrow as he’d come striding back across the hall.

‘Don’t you dare hurt my father!’ she’d sobbed, lashing out at him, her flailing fists ineffectual against the impenetrable wall of his body. ‘I’ll kill you first! I will! I’ll kill you!’

‘Calm down, Lorri …’ He had referred to her by name. It was the first time she could remember him using it, much less showing her any attention, but then it had been only to catch her flying wrists and thrust her aside as if she were an unwanted toy. ‘Don’t waste your hysterics and your childish little threats on me,’ he’d warned with particular brutality to her teenage pride. ‘Save them for someone who deserves them,’ he’d snarled savagely. ‘Like your father!’ He had slammed out of the door with his hurtful and puzzling words burning in her ears.

‘It’s about that software, love,’ Grant Hardwicke had breathed brokenly when she had rushed over to him. He’d looked drained and exhausted as she’d helped him onto an easy chair. ‘Mitchell’s saying it’s company property and King’s backing him up. I’m afraid they’re determined to keep it. I’ve lost everything, Lorri. Everything.’ She had never forgotten the desperation in her father’s voice.

‘But it’s yours, Dad. You wrote it!’ Rayne remembered stressing, as though that had counted for anything where the Clayborne men were concerned. It was software he had written especially for the medical profession. One he had said would benefit a lot of people—because her father was like that—caring and generous. It was something he had produced for the common good. It was his baby. His brainchild, which he’d conceived and worked on and slaved over in his own time before he had ever joined forces with Mitchell Clayborne. But Mitchell Clayborne had stolen the credit for it, launching it under his own company flag with the full knowledge and support of his equally unscrupulous and ambitious son and heir.

Her mother had been out at a line-dancing class that night and Rayne was glad she had because it was the first and only time in her life she had seen her father cry. Her strong and devoted father, who had always been her rock and the backbone of his family, reduced to tears in losing all he’d worked for. But he had no proof of his copyright for that software he had written, and the Claybornes had gone on to prosper unbelievably because of it, while Grant Hardwicke’s troubles had only increased.

Because of his age, he had found it impossible to get another position. He’d started drinking, which made him ill, and then he was made bankrupt, which in turn meant her mother having to lose her lovely home.

Rayne was certain that all her father’s problems had started that night she had walked in on King’s unmitigated venom. A venom that had had a poisoning effect on her family, virtually destroying everything that had been good about it, everything she’d loved.

What she had felt for him had been unreal, Rayne thought bitterly, mocking herself now. A teenage fancy, as insubstantial as mist, killed off by his pulsing anger and his verbal brutality towards her father, even before she’d realised how unscrupulous he was. As well as defending Grant, she knew now that in striking King that night she had been giving vent to the loss of all her young dreams. But long after the anguish of that night had receded, it was the physical power of him and those firm hands on her body as he’d put her from him that had lingered in her memory …

She came downstairs now with half a hope that, in spite of what Mitch had said, perhaps his son’s visit might have been a flying one and that he might have been called away on some vital company business during the night.

That was until she saw him striding in through the front door in a short-sleeved white shirt that exposed his tanned, muscular arms and dark suit trousers hugging his powerful hips and her heart seemed to stand still before vaulting into a double-quick rhythm.

‘Good morning, Rayne.’ He was tie-less, she realised, with her gaze instantly drawn to the bronze skin beneath his corded throat. The white T-shirt she had teamed with her jeans suddenly felt too snug for her breasts as that steely gaze burned over her. ‘I trust you slept well.’

She hadn’t, but she said in a tight little voice, ‘Very, thank you.’ In fact she had been waking up all night, going over that scenario with him on the terrace, aware that it was absolutely imperative that she confront his father about that software before King had a chance to work out who she was.

Consequently, the bruised-eyed-looking creature who had stared back at her from the mirror this morning as she’d swept her hair up into a loose knot left her feeling quite bedraggled in contrast to King, who looked as fresh and energized as the morning and ready to take the world on those wide, powerful shoulders.

‘You’ll be pleased to know you won’t have to drive my father into town as you were planning to do this morning,’ he said smoothly, those keen eyes seeming to assess her every reaction. ‘He decided to leave early and, as I was up, I drove him in myself.’

The front door was open and she could see the huge bulk of the Bentley parked there on the drive. A short distance away, the sleeker, more powerful beast of a black Lamborghini stood gleaming in the bright morning sun.

‘You didn’t need to do that. I mean …’ her eyes strayed towards the carved wooden door concealing the lift that would have borne Mitch down in his wheelchair. ‘… he should have called me.’

‘Oh, I think I did.’

Meaning what? Rayne’s throat contracted nervously from the way he was looking at her. That he was protecting his father from her supposedly mercenary clutches? Or was his sole intention to get her alone? And, if so, why? To interrogate her further?

Mentally, she pulled back her shoulders, telling herself that he was just trying to unsettle her. That he’d hardly be likely to discover the truth about her just so long as she kept her head.

‘In that case …’ she flashed him what she considered would look like a grateful smile ‘… I’ll go and get some breakfast.’

‘I think you might be disappointed there.’

Stopping in her tracks, she glanced up at him with her brow furrowing. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I instructed Hélène not to bother. I’ve given her the morning off.’

A cloud of wariness darkened the green flecks in her eyes. Why had he done that? Had he realised who she was and was planning on giving her marching orders while his father was out of the way?

A smile illuminated his strong features like the sun burning through the haze of the mountains she’d been admiring earlier, making her pulse quicken in infuriating response. ‘As it was such a lovely morning I thought I’d have breakfast out. I also thought you might care to join me.’

Oh, did he?

‘No, really. That’s very nice of you,’ she blurted out, even though ‘nice’ was definitely not a word she would have applied to Kingsley Clayborne, ‘but …’

But what, exactly? She couldn’t claim she never ate breakfast after what she had just told him. Nor could she inform him that she didn’t like him, and that if she had to choose between sharing breakfast with him or with a pride of lions, she’d take the pride of lions.

‘I … I need to stay here for when your father needs to be picked up,’ she hedged, wishing she didn’t sound so defensive.

‘He won’t. Not until later. If you haven’t discovered it yet, you’ll soon learn that my father is a creature of unwavering habit. Always reliable, but sometimes tiresomely predictable.’ Which was how she had managed to meet him that day outside that café. ‘He’s doing some business and then playing chess with a friend and won’t be ready to come home until mid-afternoon. Any change in those plans and he’ll ring me. That’s settled then,’ he declared when she procrastinated too long, having run out of reasonable excuses. ‘And I can assure you …’ his tone had changed in a way that sent a cautioning little shiver through her ‘… I’m not trying to be nice.’

‘I’m glad you told me.’ She sent another forced smile over her shoulder as she obeyed his gesture for her to precede him through the front door.

‘No,’ he called out as she moved towards the Bentley, ‘we’ll take mine.’

A skein of unease uncoiled in Rayne’s stomach after she’d crossed the tarmac and pulled the door of the Lamborghini closed behind her.

This sleek and powerful machine with its cream leather-scented interior represented major success. Arrival. It was also Kingsley Clayborne’s territory. With its smooth engineering wrapped around her and the cushioning curves of the passenger seat seeming to suck her in, she felt uncomfortably under his influence, as though her own power and control had suddenly been considerably reduced.

‘Relax,’ he advised, sensing her tension, obviously thinking it stemmed from something else altogether, she realised, when he tagged on, ‘I might be renowned for my love of power, but I’m not altogether insensitive to those riding alongside me.’

Was that what he thought? That she was afraid of how fast he might drive this thing? Or was he talking about a different kind of power altogether? Because she didn’t doubt that he enjoyed being in command. Of himself. Of others. And of his multi-billion, multi-national company. Because, where the Clayborne empire was concerned, it was common knowledge that he had been the one taking all the major decisions for some years now.

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she said, her voice overly bright, and kept her eyes trained on the panoramic views from the window on her side so that they wouldn’t stray to the movement of muscle beneath the dark cloth spanning his thigh, or be pulled by the flash of gold from the slim watch on his wrist as he changed gear with that masculine hand.

‘It’s stunning, isn’t it?’ he remarked, aware, as her eyes drank in the scenery from the awe-inspiring sweep of the road. A road that ran all the way along the French Riviera to the Italian coast, she remembered reading from a travel brochure before she’d left England. Someone had called it the most romantic road in the world.

Feeling as though the Lamborghini were a bird and that they were travelling on its wings, they soared above terracotta-roofed houses dotted amongst tree-smothered cliffs, above church spires and tumbling hillsides that plunged down to the rugged coastline and the sea.

Above them the Alps presided, white-capped and as ageless as time. And just a little bit unnerving, Rayne decided, although not as unnerving as when King suddenly pulled into a surprisingly deserted lay-by. Her mind raced with the instinctive knowledge that Kingsley Clayborne would never do anything without a reason, and that that reason wasn’t just to enjoy the view.

‘What are you imagining?’ he enquired mockingly, wise to the half-wary, half-questioning look she shot him. ‘That I brought you up here to seduce you?’

She gave a tight little laugh. ‘No. Why? Did you?’

Dear heaven! Had she actually said that? Obviously her nerves were getting the better of her, she thought, in letting her tongue run away with her.

He laughed. ‘No.’ The engine died under the portentous turn of the ignition key. ‘Of course, if you were hoping I was …’

Every nerve in her body seemed to pull like overstretched rubber bands. There was a time, she thought, when she was young and blinded by his looks and his devastating persona, that her heart would have leapt in wild anticipation of what he might be planning, not thumping in screaming rejection as it was doing now. Or was it? she startled herself by wondering suddenly, deciding not to go there.

Turning to him with her cheeks scorched scarlet, she said pointedly, ‘Are you always so sure of yourself?’

He laughed again, under his breath this time. ‘Are you?’

Her own question, lobbed back at her, left her speechless for a moment.

With his bent elbow on the steering wheel, a thumb and forefinger supporting his chin, his thick lashes were drawn down as he studied her reflectively, giving her every ounce of his attention. Dear heaven! What she wouldn’t have given for this much attention from him seven years ago!

Berating herself for even thinking along those lines, unable to meet his eyes, she still couldn’t stop herself appreciating his classic and magnificent bone structure, the chiselled sweep of his forehead and cheekbones, that proud flaring nose, that tantalising dent in his chin …

‘I’m just finding it hard,’ he expressed, shocking her back to her senses, ‘determining why any woman would accept a strange man’s hospitality—even if he is driving a Bentley—unless she’s either very foolish or hoping to gain something out of it.’

Of course. Rayne bit the inside of her cheek.

‘I suppose in normal circumstances I wouldn’t even have considered it,’ she told him, finding her tongue. ‘But in view of his age and the fact that he said he had a house full of staff to look after me, I thought I’d be perfectly safe.’

‘And were you aware of who he was?’ he enquired. ‘Before he brought you home with him?’

Rayne’s heartbeat increased. Be careful, she warned herself. He doesn’t know who you are. Just breathe normally. Keep your cool.

‘I knew the name, certainly … as soon as he said it.’ She gave a nonchalant little shrug. ‘Who wouldn’t? Who doesn’t know the name of the man who gave MiracleMed to a grateful medical profession?’ It was an effort to smile. To pretend to believe what everyone else believed about Mitchell Clayborne. ‘He’s a very clever man.’

That firm mouth twisted contemplatively. Such a cruel yet sensual mouth, she decided, in spite of her dislike of its owner. Crazily, she wondered how many women had felt the pressure of it, known the power of this man’s unrestrained passion.

‘Yes,’ he breathed, ‘but I meant before those delinquents sidetracked you into chasing after them.’

Rayne gave herself a mental shake. What the hell was she thinking about? she berated herself.

Unconsciously now, she brought her tongue across her top lip. She hated lying, even on her father’s account. ‘Are you still suggesting I planned for someone to rob me so I could play on your father’s sympathies and wheedle my way into his house for some financial benefit?’ she queried, her voice cracking slightly because she wasn’t being straight with him, even if it was for reasons other than he was implying. ‘If you think I’m interested in your father’s money, then all I can say is you’ve got a very overstretched imagination!’

He laughed softly, unperturbed by the rising note in her voice.

‘And I could suggest that the reason you don’t like women taking an interest in your father,’ she went on heatedly, with a sudden surge of pity for Mitchell Clayborne that surprised her, ‘is because you might lose all you stand to gain if he reciprocates!’

‘Hardly,’ he said with a tug of that sensuous mouth.

Because he was involved in so many other enterprises besides the company his father had founded and in which her own father had played such a major part, a man of King’s calibre, determination and unwavering command, she accepted rather grudgingly, didn’t need to rely on anyone or anything, least of all the prospect of inherited wealth.

‘Let’s eat,’ he said, restarting the engine, the cutting edge of his gaze picking up on the way her lovely breasts rose and fell.

But with what? he wondered. Relief?

As his success depended on his keen ability to sense any subtle changes in mood or behaviour—both in his business rivals and in his own workforce—his experience had served him well, and it didn’t let him down now.

Rayne Carpenter portrayed all the characteristics of a woman who wasn’t being entirely honest, he decided, pulling away. And yet what could she be hiding if it wasn’t a very determined plan of action to ensnare Mitch? He had seen his father preyed upon before—several times—but once in particular, and with disastrous consequences, and he’d be hanged if he’d stand by and let Mitch bring such devastation down on himself again.

No, he decided, with sudden inexorable purpose. The thing he had to do was to keep her away from his father—at least until he could check her out. And the best way to do that was to claim all this dubious young woman’s time for himself.

He had some time on his hands as his second-in-command had taken over his commitments in the States, and he had already promised himself a short break when it was over. He had never had any difficulty seducing any woman he put his mind to seducing, and with this one, he decided grimly, conscience didn’t even come into it. If she was the sort of woman who was out just to prey on Mitch, then the prospect of even richer pickings with him should get her opportunistic juices flowing nicely.

It was an unfortunate choice of words, and one which was making his mind work overtime as he imagined her hot and compliant, moist with the honeyed heat of desire. He felt his body’s hard response as he imagined freeing those beautiful breasts from their restricting cups and moulding them to his hands, feeling each sensitive tip blossom as he took it into his mouth.

He shook away his errant fantasies, trying to pull himself together. It was probably because he hadn’t had a woman in his bed for some months, he decided, that his body was behaving like a rampant adolescent’s now. Still, he couldn’t deny that the prospect of stripping this unsuspecting little gold-digger bare—and in more ways than one—excited him immensely.

The café to which he took her was situated in a pedestrian thoroughfare, paved in the same peach and cream tones as the buildings which flanked it. Baskets of flowers—red and purple and pink—decorated ornamental street lamps, while luxuriant foliage grew in abundance outside the shops and cafés. There were orange trees, Rayne recognised, growing beneath the artistically wrought balconies of the buildings, whose pastel-coloured shutters and breath-catching architecture were a testament to human creativity, in contrast to the awesome cliffs that formed a mighty backdrop behind the buildings that stood at the head of the elegant avenue.

‘Here we are,’ King invited, pulling out a chair for her, the smile he gave her appreciative of her wonderment in spite of what he had been thinking about her earlier.

A little later, drinking coffee with home-baked rolls spread thickly with locally made jam, Rayne was relieved when King’s conversation touched only on things like the area and the recent airways strike. Safe, casual topics, she decided gratefully, until he suddenly enquired, ‘Do you usually take your holidays alone?’

Instantly she tensed up. That almost criticising note was back in his voice and now that he’d brought the conversation back to a personal level, she had to remind herself to be on her guard.

She thought of Matt Cotton, whom she’d been seeing on a purely platonic level for a year or so before they had parted six months ago. He’d been the only man she had ever considered getting serious with—serious enough to go on holiday with, at any rate. But after their relationship had moved up a notch, the first weekend she had slept with him when they had gone away together, she’d been so disillusioned by his suggestion that they move in together ‘to see how it goes’ that it had come as quite a shock to her to realise that she wanted more than Matt was offering. What she wanted was the sort of relationship that her parents had enjoyed. A lifelong commitment inspired by love and trust and respect for each other—and she intended to settle for nothing less.

Considering King’s question now about taking her holidays alone, and feeling that she was still on the end of a subtle line of interrogation, she enquired pointedly, ‘Would you have asked me that if I were a man?’

The arching of an eyebrow as those compellingly blue eyes tugged over her assured her that she was anything but.

‘If you were my woman, I wouldn’t be happy with you roaming around a strange country on your own.’

‘But I’m not your woman, am I?’ Bright emeralds fastened on steel as she met his gaze, reminded by the raw sensuality with which he was looking at her of how much she had once longed to be just that. The woman he drove home, undressed and adored in long, exotic nights of pleasure, while she writhed on his bed, allowing his lips and hands licence to every hidden treasure of her body.

Shockingly her breasts burgeoned into life without any warning, their weight heavy and aching, their tips excruciatingly tender against the full cups of her bra.

Surely she didn’t still want him in that way? Not now. Not after the way he had supported Mitch in treating her father as he had, when all he had been trying to do was claim what was rightfully his.

‘That’s right—you’re not,’ he stated, causing her to flinch from the way he managed to make it sound as though she was the last person he’d ever consider taking to bed. Which was ludicrous! When she would have rejected any overtures from him with every fighting cell in her body! ‘And you haven’t answered my question—which wasn’t intended with any lack of political correctness or offence to your femininity. Do you usually take your holidays alone?’

Fighting off a barrage of conflicting emotions, she shrugged and answered, ‘No, not usually. But as I told you last night, my mother’s been ill.’ Very ill, she appended silently, thinking of the operation and the treatment that Cynthia Hardwicke had had to go through during the past year. ‘There hasn’t been much time for holidays. But when her old school-friend invited her over to her villa, I realised I was on my knees from all the months of worry and that I was desperate for a holiday too. I’m ashamed to say it, but I think it hit me even harder than it hit Mum,’ she found herself admitting to him. ‘You can’t possibly imagine the unbelievable strain it can put you under when something like that happens to someone you love.’

A dark shadow seemed to cross his features. ‘Oh, believe me, I can,’ he assured her grimly.

She frowned, and then almost immediately realised. Of course. He was talking about his father.

‘What happened to Mitch?’ she enquired unnecessarily, because she remembered her parents telling her in the past. But a stranger wouldn’t know, would she? Rayne reminded herself. And that was what she was as far as King Clayborne was concerned. A stranger.

‘A road accident,’ he said, and his words were hard and clipped. ‘It deprived him of his mobility—and of his wife.’ Your stepmother, she nearly said, but didn’t. She wasn’t supposed to know, was she?

‘That’s dreadful,’ she empathised, because hearing it again—and so many years on—didn’t make it any less tragic. She couldn’t understand though why he sounded quite so … what? Bitter, she decided.

‘What about you?’ Putting down his cup, the inscrutable mask was firmly back in place again. ‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’

Rayne shook her head.

‘And your father?’

‘What about him?’ she enquired, sounding unintentionally defensive.

‘You haven’t mentioned him.’ The glance he shot her was a little too keen.

Rayne felt tension creep into her jaw. ‘He died—just over a year ago.’

‘I’m sorry.’

No, you’re not, she thought acridly. But you will be! You and your father! I can promise you that!

Because she was certain that it was her parents’ financial difficulties following her father’s bankruptcy, and then the shock of his unexpected death from a heart attack that had made her mother ill. That was when she had vowed to right the wrong that the Claybornes had done to her family. After all Cynthia Hardwicke had been through, though, Rayne didn’t want to do anything to worry her. But with her mother having been persuaded to go off to Majorca, Rayne had been able to come away without too many awkward questions being asked.

‘So what do you do when you aren’t running around this country picking up strange men?’

She ignored the deliberate snipe. ‘I type a little.’

‘You type?’

‘Well, a lot, actually.’ Well, she did, didn’t she?

‘Are you saying you’re a PA?’

She chewed on the inside of her mouth, trying not to compound the lies. ‘No. I’m freelance.’

‘You work for an agency?’

She shook her head. ‘For myself.’

‘Typing.’

She didn’t know why he sounded so disparaging. ‘That takes up a fair proportion of my work.’ Which was true, she thought. It did. ‘What’s so strange about that?’

‘Only that you strike me as a woman who would have carved out a more determined career path for herself.’

Rayne was glad he couldn’t detect how her deception made her heart skip a beat. ‘I have.’ She saw the question in the heart-stopping clarity of his steel-blue eyes and letting her own slide away, told him trenchantly, ‘Seducing rich elderly men!’

His mouth twitched at the corners as though he were trying to assess the authenticity of her remark.

‘I think it’s time we left,’ he stated blandly.

The journey back was an uncomfortable one, not because of King’s driving, because he handled the Lamborghini like a dream. But since leaving the café he had barely said two words to her and now, motivated by the view from the ribbon of road that displayed the whole sweep of Monaco below them, Rayne tried to lighten the mood a little by remarking, ‘This scenery’s unbelievable. So is this weather! Was it as lovely as this in New York?’

‘Who said I was in New York?’

Mistake! Rayne admonished herself, feeling those perspicacious eyes roving over her like a hawk’s, waiting for her to show any weakness; waiting to pounce.

She shrugged and said as nonchalantly as she could, ‘Mitch.’ She could hardly tell King that she’d run a check on him before she’d been stupid enough to come here. Because that was how she was beginning to feel, she realised, despairing at herself. Utterly, utterly stupid!

Consoling herself with the thought that she was worrying unnecessarily and that it was only her jumpiness and her overreacting that was creating suspicion in his mind, she ventured to say carelessly, even though it was a lie, ‘He led me to believe you were over there on some business or other.’

‘Did he now?’

She saw his hands tighten on the wheel, the knuckles whitening above those long dark fingers. But surely Mitch would have known where he was, wouldn’t he? She swallowed, her throat suddenly feeling dry.

‘Do you come and see him often?’

‘Not as often as I should. And I wouldn’t be here now if Hélène hadn’t contacted me to tell me Mitch wasn’t feeling his best, and also happened to mention the attractive young chauffeuse who had very surprisingly stepped in and taken Talbot’s place. I got here as soon as I could, and I’m glad I did.’

‘Why? Because you don’t trust me?’

‘Men in our position can’t afford to trust anyone.’

‘That’s pretty cynical. Is that what money does for you?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘So why flaunt it? I mean this car. The Bentley. All those houses you probably own. If you don’t want to attract the wrong sort of people you could always drive a Mini.’

‘But then I wouldn’t be enjoying the benefits of all I worked for.’

All my father worked for! she wanted to scream, and had to bite her tongue to stop the words from tumbling out.

‘And is that all you work for?’ She couldn’t keep the disdain out of her voice as she added pointedly, ‘Lamborghinis? Homes in England, Switzerland and who knows where else? Relaxation aboard exclusive yachts?’

‘You’ve really done your homework, haven’t you?’ He was frowning as he directed a sidelong glance her way, making her realise she had said too much.

‘I only know what I read. What everyone reads,’ she tagged on quickly, not wanting him to guess how avidly she soaked up any information about him—and always had.

‘It isn’t just my money that’s bothering you, is it, Rayne—if Rayne’s even your real name,’ he speculated, causing a little shiver to run through her as he operated the remote control switch and opened the gates because they had reached the house. ‘It’s something much more fundamental than that.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I don’t even know you,’ she prevaricated with colour suffusing her cheeks as the car growled through the gates towards the exclusive villa standing in its prominent position, high in the hills.

‘Maybe not,’ he agreed, pulling up outside and cutting the engine, then making every nerve in her body zing as he threw his door open and added with nerve-racking purpose, ‘But I think the time has come to change all that.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’VE got it all wrong!’ Rayne threw over her shoulder, flying ahead of him into the villa. Her blood was pounding in her ears, her racing heart making her sound as though she’d just run five miles.

‘Have I?’ King demanded grimly, the strength of his own hormones putting a flush across his high cheekbones. ‘I’m not a callow youth, Rayne, and if your story holds any water—as I’d like to believe it does—I can’t think of any other reason why you constantly feel the need to antagonise me.’

Oh, dear heaven …! She stopped dead, breathing hard, her lashes coming down over her eyes, because he could see it, even though she was refusing to. But how could it be this strong, she wondered hopelessly, when she despised him as much as she despised Mitchell Clayborne? It was as if all of her pent-up teenage frustrations about him had rushed back and were screaming to be dealt with. But how could he be so astute? How could he tell?

Dry-mouthed, she touched her tongue to her top lip as he turned her round to face him.

‘You terrify me,’ she said, startling herself, because surely that was Lorri speaking. The hapless kid who had adored him from a distance, and who would have died for him, given half the chance. Not the mature twenty-five-year-old who knew him for what he was and hated him with every trembling bone in her body.

‘I know,’ he acknowledged sagaciously. ‘But it’s yourself you’re afraid of, Rayne. The fear of an involvement that wasn’t in your plans. Well, believe me, my beautiful girl, the thought of what you’ve been doing to me since I got here—and what you can still do to me—terrifies me, too.’

She laughed, but her throat felt clogged. ‘You? Terrified?’

‘Does that seem so strange?’

‘No, just inconceivable,’ she responded, wishing her credit cards were sorted so she could tell him where to go and just get the hell out of there. As it was, she felt like a butterfly caught in a fly-trap whose promise of the sweetest pleasure only hid danger beneath. Her head was spinning and her legs felt weak, while every organ in between was throbbing with the almost uncontrollable need to reach for him, pull him down to her and drown beneath the pleasure of his ravaging mouth, breathe in his heady, far too tantalizing cologne.

‘Why? Because I’m a man? And obviously a very experienced one at that?’

‘Something like that.’ She didn’t know what she was saying any more. Couldn’t seem to tell him where to go, or drag herself away from him—even if she’d wanted to. Because that was just it, she realised suddenly. She didn’t.

‘I might be a man of the world, but I’m willing to bet you could give me a run for my money.’

Was that what he thought? Rayne swallowed, guessing that he would probably laugh if she told him how few sexual encounters she had had in her lifetime.

‘And that’s your experience speaking, of course.’

‘Of course.’

Well, that’s where you’re wrong! she wanted to fling at him, wishing she had the nerve to play along with him and do what some other women in her position might do. Flatter his ego and enjoy a brief spell of the pleasure he could give her, then watch his anger explode when he found out who she really was and realised she’d made a fool of him. Oh, to hurt him as he’d hurt her! Hurt her father when he’d joined Mitch in taking what had never been theirs to take! But common sense warned her that men of King Clayborne’s character couldn’t be hurt, and that even to entertain such a tempting idea was no less than crazy.

Instead she said, ‘Well, dream on, King. I didn’t come here to have a fling with you or anybody else, and you’re very much mistaken if you think I did!’

‘Not intentionally, no.’

Pulling herself out of his disturbing sphere, she viewed him warily from under her lashes. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’ she challenged shakily.

‘I’m sure you didn’t intend to charm your way in here only to find yourself fighting an attraction that is bigger than you are. Bigger than both of us, if I’m honest. But you’re giving off pheromones, Rayne, that no man this side of ninety could possibly ignore. And quite simply, darling, I wouldn’t dream of insulting you by pretending to ignore them. And if you refuse to accept the effect you’re having on me, I’m sure you’re way too experienced not to acknowledge this.’

It was inevitable what was going to happen. But even that acknowledgement couldn’t have prepared her for the onslaught on her senses when his head dipped and his hard masculine mouth finally covered hers.

It was like two universes colliding. A barrage of riotous emotions and sensations that rocked her to the very core of her femininity, driving everything from her mind but the need to be kissed and stroked and caressed by this man and this man alone—because she still wanted him, much, much more than she had ever wanted him before, and with a hunger that excited and thrilled her even as it appalled.

And he wanted her too …

She didn’t have to be experienced to recognise the rock-hard evidence of just how much as his arm tightened around her, locking her to him, and shamelessly she realised that that was what he had been referring to a moment ago, rather than just the inevitable joining of their hungry, ravenous mouths.

With a small murmur, which was half-need, half-despair, she wound her arms around his neck, glorying in the sensations that his six-feet-plus of power-packed masculinity sent coursing through her as she moved convulsively against his hard warmth.

‘Can you deny it now, Rayne?’ His voice was hoarse, a ragged whisper against the softness of her cheek. ‘What is there to lose in admitting that you want me every bit as much as you’ve made me want you?’

And just how much he hadn’t even realised until now. He’d had women in his time who’d given him pleasure and to whom he’d given pleasure in return. But that was all it had been. Pleasure. This girl, however, had a way about her that excited him and made his anatomy harden to such an extent that it hurt.

But why? Why, when to seduce her had been a cold, calculated plan? When he’d intended to remain detached and—if he was honest with himself—to have her begging, virtually down on her knees, for him to take her?

Well, that just showed him, he thought, mocking himself for his lack of immunity, his inability to stay unaffected, when all he wanted to do right now was rip off her clothes and carry her up to the nearest bed and feel her warm softness closing in around him, her body bucking beneath his as he drove into her.

Steady on, King …

He was breathing raggedly as he lifted his head.

‘So what’s it to be, Rayne? Your bed or mine?’ He was amazed at how cool—how indifferent—he managed to sound.

There was nothing cool, though, or indifferent, about the hand that was suddenly making contact with his left cheek, taking him so unawares he nearly overbalanced.

‘How dare you!’ Rayne found she was trembling so much she could hardly get her words out, realising that it wasn’t just his effrontery that was responsible for her impulsive action. It was also aggravated by the knowledge that she had invited what had happened between them every inch of the way, so that her anger was directed more at herself and her abandoned response to his kiss rather than at him.

‘I’m sorry. I could hardly help jumping to what I believed was a very natural conclusion,’ King expressed, holding his smarting cheek, deciding that he had rather overstepped the mark. Nevertheless that still didn’t stop him from enquiring mockingly, ‘Are you usually prone to bursts of violence?’

‘You drove me to it!’ It was a small wild cry, born of her despair over responding to him in the way she had, and for striking him, which she was thoroughly ashamed of now.

‘You drove yourself to it,’ he said quietly. ‘Firstly by refusing to acknowledge that there’s definitely something between us, and then in not doing so, suddenly finding yourself way out of your depth.’ His mouth moved in a kind of contemplative half-smile. ‘I’ll just put it down to frustration, shall I?’ he remarked, his eyes skimming over her in a shaming reminder of what had just transpired.

‘Put it down to whatever you like!’ she breathed, shocked by the passions he could arouse in her and, pivoting away from him, she fled up the stairs, wanting only to crawl into a hole and pretend that none of her shameless behaviour had ever happened.

In the privacy of her room she sank down on the sumptuous bed, dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

Whatever had come over her? Not only to throw herself at him as she had when he had had the audacity to kiss her, but then to slap him like that afterwards as though it had all been his fault. Being quite honest with herself, she was forced to admit that he was right. She had wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it like she had never wanted anything. A man who had hurt her father and, with Mitch, had as good as destroyed her family. Was that why she had hit him? Was it all part of the need for retribution? Or was King Clayborne simply always destined to bring out the worst in her?

Angry tears burned her eyes, but they were tears of remorse and scorching shame too. How could she have responded to him so easily, and without so much as a conscience? Without any thought for what the Claybornes had cost her parents. Was she really that weak? She padded over to the en suite bathroom to try and scrub the taste of King Clayborne off her mouth, promising herself, as well as both of her parents, that she would never let it happen again.

And if he did find out that she had been lying to him?

She shuddered, closing her mind against that intimidating scenario. That was something she definitely refused to think about on top of everything else.

The florist at the other end of the line seemed to be taking forever to deal with the order Rayne was trying to telephone through.

‘And the name on the card?’ she asked mechanically, in heavily accented English.

‘I explained to the lady I spoke to first that I haven’t got a card, but she said it would be all right if I brought the cash down before you close this afternoon. My name’s Lorrayne Hardwicke,’ Rayne told her, sending anxious glances towards the closed door.

She had come in here to the study to make a couple of calls and to try and sort out a birthday bouquet to be sent to her mother. She’d wanted to do it from the privacy of her own suite, but the maids were changing the bed and giving the rooms an extra fine clean today, and time was getting scarce if she wanted her mother to receive her flowers in the morning.

‘I’m afraid I cannot process the order unless we receive the credit or the money … what is it you say? Upfront,’ the woman emphasised, remembering. ‘I’m sorry, mademoiselle, but those are the conditions.’

‘But your manageress distinctly assured me it would be all right,’ Rayne despaired. She hadn’t missed sending her mother flowers on her birthday since she was eighteen, when things had started really going downhill for her parents. And OK, she couldn’t pay with a card, but she had a small amount of cash that she had earned from chauffeuring Mitch around, and the florist had said it would be all right.

‘My manageress has just left for the afternoon. I will try and get hold of her and ring you back if you will give me your number. What did you say your name was?’

‘Lorrayne Hardwicke.’

‘Can you spell that, please?’

Rayne darted another glance towards the door as she heard voices on the other side of it.

‘I’ll call you back,’ she said quickly, snapping her cellphone shut a fraction of a second before the door opened and King walked in.

‘What the …?’ His smile for whomever he had been talking to outside was wiped away by surprise at seeing her sitting there behind his father’s desk.

‘My room’s being cleaned and I needed to make a couple of calls,’ she told him croakily, not sure what was disturbing her most. Nearly being caught red-handed blurting out who she really was, or the visual images of what had happened between them earlier in the day. ‘Of course, if I’m intruding …’ She was already swivelling back on the studded leather chair.

‘I wouldn’t say that.’

In fact he was looking at her over what seemed like an acre of polished mahogany as though he was imagining her naked and spreadeagled across it. Or was that just what her own wild imaginings were conjuring up? She slammed the lid down on her errant thoughts before they could manifest themselves on her face. ‘I … I didn’t hear you come in.’

‘Evidently not.’ He’d been to pick up Mitch at his own insistence, and had come in here to find his pen to sign some letters his secretary had faxed through while he was gone. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be acting as though I’d just caught you rifling through the silver cabinets.’ A distracted smile twisted the sensuous line of his lower lip. ‘Perhaps that’s it,’ he declared airily, pocketing his pen. ‘Are you looking for something, Rayne?’

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