Dear Reader,

Welcome to a new year, and a compulsive and exciting new series in Presents: FORBIDDEN! These are stories in which romance shouldn’t happen—but, luckily for us, it does!

This month, top Presents author Michelle Reid takes you to the edge with The Morning After, a tale of passion and revenge, and then delights you with the happiest of endings. Michelle is British, living in Manchester, England, and says that she often writes at her best during the early hours of the morning, when everyone else is asleep!

Enjoy our little taste of FORBIDDEN! and look out for another great title in this series next month.

Sincerely,

The Editor

The Morning After
Michelle Reid

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

ANNIE wanted to scream. She tried to scream! But every time she opened her mouth he covered it with his own.

It was horrible. A violation. She felt sick.

And it was dark in the room—very dark. The air hot and stifling, filled with the laboured breathing of their uneven struggle. Hands grappling against intrusive hands—her strangled sobs mingling with his thick, excited groans. Alien sounds, smells and textures swamping her senses to hold her trapped in a terrifyingly black void of wretched helplessness.

Suffocating—she felt as if she was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think beyond that vile, thrusting tongue. She could feel her heart pounding in wild fear. It throbbed in her chest, her head—thundered in her ears.

Her clothes had gone. She didn’t know where or even how they had gone—but they were no longer covering her body.

Louis Alvarez was. Big, strong and repulsively naked. His greedy hands touching everywhere—everywhere.

It didn’t help that she was slightly drunk from the amount of champagne that she had swallowed. She felt weak and dizzy, her head swimming as she tossed it from side to side in an effort to evade his awful mouth.

He dealt with this by reaching out to grasp a fistful of her silken gold hair, using it to clamp her twisting head to the bed. Her whimper of pain brought his smothering mouth back onto hers.

And then the real nightmare began.

His free hand, shifting to cover one madly palpitating breast, moulding, squeezing before moving on, palm sliding over quivering flesh, eager, hungry. Fingers searching, probing, hurting until, on a sudden surge of sexual urgency, he thrust a knee between her thighs and wedged them wide apart.

Then he was there, heavy on her, his mouth dragging sideways away from hers on a rasping sigh of pleasure as his swollen manhood made contact with her warm flesh.

And at last from somewhere—from nowhere—she didn’t know where—she found the ability to scream. Her body arching away from the invading thrust of his body, her slender neck arching away from the sickening threat of his thrusting tongue—

Then a door was opening, a burst of light flooding like acid through her tortured mind. And the scream came, thick and wretched—a cry from hell, filling the air around her…

The flash bulbs began popping even before the limousine drew to a halt outside the hotel. Annie Lacey and Todd Hanson were big news at the moment. And the paparazzi were out in force.

The car stopped, a uniformed attendant stepped forward to open a door and the flash bulbs went wild, catching frame by frame the appearance of a strappy gold shoe and one long, long silk-clad female leg. Then a head appeared, breast-length, die-straight wheat-blonde hair floating around a physically perfect female face, followed by the rest of the exquisite creature, wearing nothing more than a shimmering short scrap of pure white silk that seemed held to her body only by the thin gold belt she had cinched into her narrow waist.

Annie Lacey. Tall, blonde and leggy. A lethal combination. Beautiful, with a pair of cool, cool pure blue eyes which were so disconcertingly at odds with her shockingly sensual siren’s mouth. She was the present-day super-sought-after supermodel. And super-tramp to those who believed slavishly every word printed by the tabloid Press.

They envied her, though. Love or despise her for her morals, they envied her how she looked and what those looks had brought her.

Fame. Fortune.

Gods, to a lot of people. Unreachable dreams to most. To Annie herself?

Well, she used that gorgeous mouth to smile for the cameras while those blue eyes gave nothing away of what was going on behind them. What Annie thought or felt about most things was kept a close secret—which was why the Press had such a field-day where she was concerned. They could say and print what they liked about her, safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t retaliate.

Smile and say nothing, was her motto. Because whatever you did say would be taken down and twisted into something completely different—mainly something more likely to sell papers. And that meant lies, sex and the inevitable scandal—a lesson she had once learned the hard way.

A man—a big, blond-haired, blue-eyed man who was as handsome as she was beautiful—rounded the car to arrive at her side, and instantly the media interest intensified.

‘Mr Hanson—Mr Hanson! It is true that Annie got the Cliché contract as a direct result of her relationship with you?’

Todd’s hand settled about Annie’s waist, drawing her close as the next question hit.

‘Are you lovers, Mr Hanson?’

‘Will Susie Frazer return to the States now she’s lost both you and the Cliché contract, Mr Hanson?’

‘Is there any truth in the rumour that Miss Frazer dumped you because you refused to dump Miss Lacey?’

‘I hate you for setting us both up for this,’ Annie threw at Todd through gritted teeth.

‘Just keep smiling and ignore them,’ was all he replied, pressing her into motion towards the hotel. ‘They’re just fishing. They don’t really know anything.’

‘What, with Susie feeding them their lines?’ she drawled.

‘She’s a bitch,’ he allowed, ‘but not that big a bitch.’

‘Was that a joke?’ Annie mocked him. ‘She’s out for blood. My blood preferably.’

‘I wish you two could have become friends,’ he sighed as they stepped through the hotel doors.

‘And pigs might fly,’ was her only reply to that.

There never had been any love-loss in evidence between the two top models from the moment they’d first met. That had been just over six months ago, when Susie Frazer had come to London from her native Los Angeles to attend the British Advertising Awards.

Annie had been there with Todd that time too, he in his role as head of Hanson Publications and more specifically as representative of Cliché magazine—one of the top British monthly glossies on the present-day market—and Annie because she was featured in that month’s issue of Cliché wearing that season’s latest from the Paris shows.

Susie had taken one look at the dynamically handsome Todd Hanson and fallen like a ton of bricks—had seen that he had none other than the notorious Annie Lacey hanging on his arm and declared outright war on the spot.

‘Who does she think she is, looking at you as if you’re dirt?’ Todd had demanded furiously.

‘My reputation goes before me, darling,’ she’d drawled mockingly in reply. ‘But, you have to admit, she does look rather spectacular glaring at me like that.’

Tall and reed-thin, the brilliant flame of her gorgeous red hair forming the most wonderful halo of fire around her exquisite face, spectacular Susie certainly had looked. And despite his anger Annie had been able to tell by the sudden gleam in his eye that Todd had thought so too. So she hadn’t been that surprised to discover a few weeks later that Susie had moved into Todd’s apartment with him.

LUCKY DEVIL HANSON HAS THE PICK OF THE CROP! the tabloids had read that week, featuring accompanying photos of Todd with Annie and Todd with Susie, both women gazing adoringly into his handsome face. Annie had thought it rather amusing, but Susie hadn’t. She was spoiled, vain, jealous and possessive. And she wanted Annie cut right out of Todd’s life. The fact that she had never managed to achieve this aim made her animosity towards Annie almost palpable. So when Annie had been chosen over Susie to promote Cliché’s launch into Europe earlier this week Susie had retaliated by walking out on Todd.

Which was why Annie was here tonight with Todd, instead of Susie. He was still stinging from the way that Susie had walked out on him, and his self-esteem had hit rock-bottom. He needed a beautiful woman hanging on his arm to bolster his ego and—no vanity intended—Annie was undoubtedly it!

‘Susie will be there,’ he’d said, explaining his reason for wanting her here with him tonight. ‘She’s accused me often enough of having something going with you. So let her think she was right! It will certainly hit her where it will hurt her the most—in her over-suspicious little mind!’

It hadn’t been the best incentive that Annie had ever been offered to attend something she did not want to go to. But what the heck? she’d decided ruefully; her own reputation had been shot to death years ago when she’d been named as the other woman in the much publicised Alvarez divorce. And Annie owed Todd—owed him a lot for bringing her through that wretched ordeal a reasonably sane woman.

Like the rock she had always likened him to. Todd had stood by her right through it all, not caring if some of her dirt rubbed off on him. But, most precious of all, he’d believed her—believed her in the sight of so much damning evidence against her, and for that she would always be grateful. Grateful enough to do anything for him—even play the outright vamp if he asked it of her.

Which was exactly what she was here to do. But…

‘Just remember I’m here only as a big favour to you,’ she reminded him as they paused in the open doorway to the huge reception room to take in the glittering array of those already gathered there, who were considered best and most powerful in the advertising fraternity. ‘Once I’m sure Susie has taken note that we are a pair I’m off home. I hate these kinds of do’s.’

But, champagne glass in hand, she moved with Todd from group to group, smiling, chatting, smoothly fielding the light and sometimes not so light banter came their way, and generally giving the impression that she was thoroughly enjoying herself, while her eyes kept a sharp look-out for Susie.

It was then that she felt it—a sharp, tingling sensation in her spine that caught at her breath and made her spin quickly to search out the originator of the red-hot needles at present impaling themselves in her back.

She expected to see Susie. In fact, she had been so sure it would be Susie that it rather disconcerted her to find herself staring across the crowded room at not a red-haired witch with murderous green eyes but a man. A strange man. The most darkly attractive man she had ever encountered in her life before.

Dressed in a conventional black bow-tie and dinner suit, he stood a good head and shoulders taller than anyone else. His hair was black—an uncompromising raven-black, dead straight and shiny, scraped severely back from a lean, darkly tanned face. A riveting face. A face with eyes that seemed to be piercing right into her from beneath the smooth black brows he had lowered over them. Thin nose, straight, chiseled mouth and chin—he had the haughty look of a Spanish conquistador about him. And he possessed the neat, tight body of a dancer, slim but muscled, lithe like a dancer—a Spanish dancer, she found herself extending hectically.

Something like a small explosion of feeling took place deep inside her stomach, and hurriedly she looked away, going to wind herself closer to Todd, as though his reassuring bulk could soothe the disturbing sensation away.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ Todd murmured, turning from the conversation he was having with a couple of business cronies to frown at the way she was suddenly clinging to his arm.

‘Nothing,’ she denied, feeling decidedly agitated. ‘Where’s Susie?’ she snapped with a sudden impatience. ‘I would have thought she’d have shown her face by now.’

Todd smiled—a thin, hard parody of a smile. ‘She’s over there,’ he said, nodding his head in the direction in which Annie had just seen the stranger. ‘Playing vamp to that guy from the Rouez Sands Group.’

‘Who—Josh Tulley?’

‘Mmm,’ he confirmed, hiding his jealousy behind that casual reply.

But Annie wasn’t fooled. She knew how crazy Todd was about Susie. She knew how much this was hurting him, and her eyes clouded in gentle sympathy. ‘You have been living like man and wife for the last six months, darling,’ she reminded softly. ‘Maybe she has a right to feel rejected by you over this Cliché thing.’

If Annie had been hoping that her defence of Susie would help soften his heart towards the woman he loved, it didn’t. If anything it only helped to annoy him. ‘I’m a businessman, not a pimp,’ he clipped. ‘My boardroom is not in my bedroom. She knew that before she decided to try her luck in either.’

But that is not what the papers are saying, is it? Annie contemplated heavily. And once again it would be Annie Lacey who was going to carry the mucky can. Then she was instantly disgusted with herself for worrying about her own bad press when Todd had not worried about the mud thrown at him during her fall from grace four years ago!

‘Love you,’ she murmured softly, and reached up to press a tender kiss to his cheek.

Then she almost fell over when those red-hot needles returned with a vengeance. They prickled her spine, raising the fine, silken hairs on the back of her neck, drying her mouth, tightening tiny muscles around her lungs so that she found breathing at all an effort.

She must have actually stumbled because suddenly Todd exclaimed, ‘What the hell—?’ He made a grab to steady her, his blue eyes narrowing into a puzzled frown as he peered down into her unusually flushed face. ‘Are you tipsy?’ he demanded, sounding almost shocked.

It was a shock she well understood. Todd knew as well as Annie did that she had not consumed more than half a glass of anything alcoholic in any one evening in over four years.

Not since the Alvarez affair, in fact.

She shuddered on the name. ‘No. I just feel a bit flushed, that’s all.’ Hamming it up, she began fanning herself with a hand. ‘It’s so damned hot in here. Oh, look! There’s Lissa!’ she cried, wanting to divert him. Why, she wasn’t sure. ‘I’ll leave you to your boring businessmen and go and have a chat. Is Susie still in evidence?’

Todd glanced over Annie’s shoulder then away again swiftly. ‘Yes,’ he said, and she could tell by the sudden tensing of his jaw that he hadn’t liked what he’d seen.

‘Then I want a kiss,’ Annie commanded, reaching up to wind her arms around his neck.

He grinned, relaxing again, and gave it.

‘Take that, you bitch,’ she murmured to the unseen Susie as they drew apart.

Todd shook his head with a wry smile of appreciation for the act that she was putting on for him. ‘You,’ he murmured, ‘are a dangerous little witch, Annie Lacey.’

‘Because I love you and don’t mind showing it?’ she questioned innocently.

‘No,’ he chuckled. ‘Because you love me one way but enjoy presenting it in another. Now, stop laying it on with a trowel and go and talk to Lissa.’

He gave her a light tap on her rear to send her on her way and she fluttered her lashes at him as she went, his laughter following behind her.

The sound was like manna from heaven to Annie, who hadn’t heard him laugh like that in days. And she decided it was worth all the speculative looks that she was now receiving from those around them who had witnessed their little staged scene just to know that he had got his sense of humour back.

And that included the dark, brooding look that she was receiving from one man in particular, she noted on a sudden return of that hot breathlessness.

He was now standing on the other side of the room—though how he’d got there that quickly through this crush Annie didn’t know.

Her heart skipped a beat.

That look was very proprietorial.

Who did he think he was, looking at her like that?

Her chin came up, her famous, cool blue eyes challenging him outright.

He smiled, his chiselled mouth twisting wryly, and he gave a small shrug of one broad shoulder as if to say, I have no right but—what the hell?

Arrogant devil! With a toss of her beautiful hair she spun away and went to join her agent. But right through the next half-hour she was acutely aware of him, what he was doing and who he was talking to.

And even more acutely aware of every time his glance came her way.

It was weird, oddly threatening yet disturbingly intimate.

Todd joined her, and after a short while they moved off through the crush, eyes with varying expressions following their slow progress as they paused several times to speak to people they knew. Some envied Todd Hanson the delicious woman curved to his side, and some envied her the attractive man she was with. But few could deny that they complemented each other perfectly—she with her long, softly rounded, very feminine body, he with his tightly packed, muscled frame, both with their fair-skinned, blond-haired, aggravatingly spectacular looks.

They ended up in another room where a buffet had been laid out. It was the usual kind of spread expected at these functions—finger food, high on calories and low on appetite satisfaction. Todd loaded up a plate with Annie’s help, then they found a spot against a wall to share their spread, the plate full of food balanced between them on the flat of Todd’s palm.

It all looked very cosy, very intimate, with Todd feeding Annie her favourite devilled prawns while she held a chicken drumstick up for him to bite into. But the conversation between them was far from cosy.

‘Well, did you get to speak to her?’ Annie asked him bluntly.

‘She collared me.’ Todd shrugged offhandedly. ‘It wasn’t the other way around.’

‘After waiting until I was safely out of the way, of course. Bite—you’ve missed a tasty bit there…’ He bit, sharp white teeth slicing easily into succulent chicken. ‘So, what did she have to say?’

Another shrug. ‘Nothing worth repeating,’ he dismissed.

Which meant, Annie surmised, that Susie had spent the time she’d had alone with him slaying Annie’s character. He fed her a mushroom-filled canapé and she chewed on it thoughtfully for a while, then said firmly, ‘All right, tell me what you said to her, then.’

For a moment his eyes twinkled, wry amusement putting life into the pure blue irises. ‘Just like that,’ he murmured ruefully. ‘She could just have been enquiring about your health, you know.’

‘And we both know she was not,’ Annie drawled.

He huffed out a short laugh. ‘Do you have any false illusions about yourself at all, Annie?’ he asked curiously.

‘None that I know of.’ She pouted, then, like him, shrugged a slender shoulder. ‘They wouldn’t be much use to me if I did have them, would they?’ She was referring to the fact that people believed what they were conditioned to believe, and the Alvarez affair had done the conditioning on her character four years ago.

His blue eyes clouded at her candid honesty about herself, a grim kind of sympathy replacing the moment’s amusement. ‘I wish…’ he began, but she stopped him by placing sticky fingers over his lips.

‘No,’ she said, her eyes suddenly dark and sombre. ‘No wishes. No heart-searching or self-recriminations. They serve no useful purpose. And we know what we are to each other, no matter what everyone else wants to believe.’

‘I love you,’ he murmured, and kissed the tips of her fingers where they lay lightly against his mouth.

‘Now that,’ she decided, ‘has just earned you the right to use me whenever you want to. Business or pleasure, my love. I am at your service!’

A sudden movement on the very periphery of her vision had her bead twisting in that direction just in time to catch sight of her stranger turning away from them, and that odd feeling went chasing down her spine again.

‘Have you any idea who that man is?’ she asked Todd.

‘Which one?’ he prompted, glancing in the direction that she was looking, but already the stranger had disappeared through the door which led into the main function room.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ She turned back to face Todd. ‘He’s gone.’ And she made a play of cleaning her sticky fingers on the damp towels provided, aware that Todd was frowning at her, wondering why she’d felt driven to remark on the person at all. He knew that it wasn’t like her; she usually showed a distinct lack of interest in the male sex in general. So her sudden interest in one man in particular intrigued him. But just when he was going to quiz her further a colleague of his joined them, and the moment was lost.

A fact for which Annie was thankful, because she didn’t think that she could give Todd a reason why the stranger was bothering her as much as he was. He was impertinent, certainly. The way he had been watching her all evening made him that. And arrogant too, because he didn’t even bother to look away when she caught him doing it!

But…

She had no answer to her ‘but’. And on a sudden burst of restlessness she excused herself from Todd and his companion with the excuse that she was going to the bathroom.

She began threading her way through the crowd towards the main foyer, a tall, graceful mover with the kind of figure that was now back in fashion—slender but curvy, with high, firm breasts, a narrow waist and sensually rounded hips.

Being so blonde meant that the white and gold combination of her outfit suited her, the silk clinging sensually as she walked, advertising the distinct lack of underwear beneath it. But although she was well aware of the admiring glances that she was receiving she acknowledged few of them, smiling only at people she knew but giving them no chance to waylay her.

The foyer was almost as busy as the function rooms, with people milling about or just standing in small groups chatting, and Annie paused by the doorway, her blue gaze searching for the direction of the ladies’ room. She spied it way across on the other side of the thickly carpeted foyer, but had barely taken a small step in that direction when she caught a flashing glimpse of flamered hair and sighed when she realised that Susie was going in the same direction.

In no mood for a cat-fight in the Ladies, she watched Susie disappear from view, then turned, feeling a bit at a loss as to what to do next and wondering if she dared just walk out of here without telling Todd.

She’d had enough now and wanted to go home. The tall dark stranger had unsettled her. And the fact that Todd had already had his confrontation with Susie, and that Susie was completely aware of whom Todd was here with, made her reasons for being here at all redundant.

And, to be honest, her bed beckoned. In her line of business early nights were a fact of life, and her body clock was telling her that she was usually tucked up and fast asleep by now.

Quite how it happened she didn’t know, but all of a sudden a noisy group came bursting out of the room she’d just left, forcing her to take a quick step back out of their way—which brought her hard up against the person standing behind her.

She turned quickly to apologise—only to stiffen on a fiercely indrawn breath as something icy cold and very wet landed against her chest…!

CHAPTER TWO

‘OH…!’ she gasped out shrilly.

‘Damn,’ a deep voice muttered. ‘My apologies.’

But Annie was too busy trying to catch her breath to listen to any apology as she watched what looked like the full contents of a tall, fluted glass of champagne drip down the honeyed slopes of her breasts. Ice-cold bubbles were fizzing against her heated skin, the chilled liquid soaking into the thin white silk of her bodice.

The fabric darkened, then turned transparent before her very eyes, plastering itself so tightly to her breasts that anyone within a vicinity of ten feet would now know that she was definitely not wearing a bra! And to top that humiliating exposure her nipples, always so annoyingly sensitive to quick changes in temperature, burst into tight, prominent buds, pushing against the wet fabric in sheer, affronted surprise!

‘Hell,’ the culprit muttered, making her wretchedly aware that he was seeing exactly what she was seeing—and from a better vantage point than anyone else, including herself. In a delayed act of modesty she snapped her arms across her breasts at the same time as her head came up to receive the second stunning shock in as many seconds.

It was the man who had been watching her all evening—the same man who had filled her with such strange, unsettling feelings—and she just stared at him blankly, her lovely mouth parted while her body quivered badly enough for anyone to see that she was suffering from a severe state of shock.

Then flash bulbs began to pop, and the next thing she knew a male chest of a rock-like substance was blocking her off from view as a strong arm whipped around her waist to pull her hard up against his muscle-packed frame.

‘Pretend you know me!’ he muttered urgently. And before she could begin to think what he meant his mouth took fierce possession of her own.

Annie froze, this shock invasion, coming on top of all the other shocks she had just received, holding her so stiff and still that she simply let him get away with it!

But the shock did not stop her from being intensely aware of the way his mouth seemed to burn against her own, or the way he was holding her so tightly that her wet breasts were being crushed against the silky fabric of his dinner jacket. And she could feel his breath warm against her cheek, smell the slightly spicy scent of him that teased her stammering senses.

She was panting for breath by the time he drew away, giving only enough space between their lips so he could speak to her softly and swiftly. ‘At the moment only you and I know about the champagne.’ His voice held the finest hint of an accent—American tinged with something else…‘Keep up the pretence of knowing me and those greedy cameras will merely believe that Annie Lacey has just been greeted by one of her many lovers. You understand?’

Many lovers? She blinked, still too shocked, too bewildered by a mad set of events to begin to think clearly.

Then more flash bulbs popped, and she closed her eyes as tomorrow’s headlines played their acid taunt across the inside of her lids: ANNIE LACEY BARES ALL IN CHAMPAGNE CLASH!

‘Oh, God,’ she whispered shakily.

He shifted slightly, accepting her response as acknowledgement of his advice, a large band splaying across the base of her spine to ease her more closely to him. ‘Smile,’ he instructed brusquely.

Obediently she fixed a tight, bright smile to her throbbing lips.

‘Now reach up and kiss me in return.’

Her eyes widened, then darkened in dumb refusal. He read it, and his own eyes flashed a warning. Green, she realised quite out of context. His eyes were green.

‘Do it!’ he commanded harshly. ‘Do it, you fool, if you want this to look natural!’

More flash bulbs popped, congealing the horror in her shock-paralysed throat when she realised that her choices were few. She either complied with this frightening man’s instructions or she faced the humiliation that she would receive at the hands of the gutter Press.

It was no contest really, she decided bleakly. The Press would be cruel—too cruel. This man—this frightening stranger—could never hurt her as deeply as a ruthless Press could do.

So with a dizzy sense of unreality washing numbly through her, her eyes clinging like confused prisoners to the glinting urgency in his, her tense fingers began sliding up his chest and over his broad shoulders, and her slender body stretched up along the ungiving length of his as she went slowly up on tiptoe to bring her reluctant mouth into contact with his.

Only, her mouth never made it as she received yet another shock—a shock which made her wet breasts heave against his hard chest in surprise, and sent her blue eyes wider, her quivering mouth too—when her fingers made accidental contact with something at his nape.

His hair was so long that he had it tied back with a thin velvet ribbon!

He gave a soft laugh deep in his throat, white teeth flashing between beautifully moulded lips, sardonically smiling in amusement at her shock.

Then he wasn’t smiling, his green eyes darkening into something that stung her with a hot, dark sense of her own femininity and had her body stiffening in rejection even as he arched her up against him and closed the gap between their mouths.

She stopped breathing. Her fingers coiled tensely around that long, sleek tail of dark, silken hair as fine, pulsing jets of stinging, hot awareness sprayed heat across her trembling flesh.

For all her carefully nurtured reputation, for all the juicy rumours about her personal life, Annie rarely allowed herself to be properly kissed, rarely let any man close enough to try—though those who wished to would rather have died than admit such a thing to anyone, which was why her image as a man-killer stayed so perfectly intact.

So to have this man kiss her—not superficially but with enough sensual drive to have her own lips part to welcome him—seemed to throw her into a deeper state of shock, holding her completely still in his arms as she felt her response like a lick of fire burning from mouth to breasts then, worse, to the very core of her sex. Her muscles contracted fiercely in reaction, her lips quivering on yet another helpless gasp.

Then, thankfully, she was free—thankfully because in all her life she had never experienced a response like that! And the fact that she had done so with this perfect stranger both frightened and bewildered her.

‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

Crazily she found herself leaning weakly against him, sponge-kneed and dizzy with the strange cacophony of reactions taking place inside her. Her mouth was throbbing, her heart trembling and her damp breasts quivering where they were being pressed tightly against his chest.

Inside she was fainting—it was the only way her muzzy head could think of describing that odd, dragging feeling that seemed to be trying to sink her like liquid to the ground. Even the roots of her hair reacted stingingly as his chin brushed across the top of her head when he moved to glance around them.

He shifted her beneath the crook of his powerful arm, and he was big—big enough to fit her easily beneath his shoulder, even though she was no small thing herself. Her hand slid from the long lock of his hair to flutter delicately down his back to his lean, tight waist, her other pressing against the front of his white dress shirt where she was made forcefully aware of the accelerated pounding of his heart beneath the sticky dampness where her wetness had transferred itself to him.

The whole scene must have looked powerfully emotional to anyone watching all of this take place—the notorious Annie Lacey meeting, throwing herself upon and leaving hurriedly with a man who could only be an old and very intimate friend by the way he held her clasped so possessively to him. But, huddled against him as she was, at that moment she could only be glad of his powerful bulk because it helped to hide what had happened to her from all those curious eyes.

But when she felt the cooling freshness of the summer night air hit her body she at last made an effort to pull her befuddled brain together.

‘Wait a minute!’ she gasped, pulling to a dead stop in front of the row of waiting black cabs. ‘I—’

‘Just get in,’ he instructed, transferring his grip to her elbow and quite forcefully propelling her inside the nearest cab.

Annie landed with less than her usual grace on the cheap, cracked leather seat.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she exclaimed with shrill indignity as he climbed right in behind her.

He didn’t bother to answer, but instead, and to her horror, began stripping off his black silk evening jacket!

Annie made an ungainly scramble into the furthest corner of the seat, blue eyes revealing the real alarm she was now beginning to feel.

‘Where to, mate?’

‘Tell the guy,’ the man beside her commanded. ‘Then put that on—’ the jacket landed on her trembling lap ‘—before his eyes pop out of his head.’

Annie glanced sharply at the cabby to find his eyes fixed on her breasts so shockingly outlined against the sodden fabric of her dress. Dark heat stung along her cheeks as hurriedly she dragged the jacket around her slender shoulders and clutched possessively at its black satin lapels.

‘Your address,’ her accoster prompted, after having watched sardonically her rush to cover herself up.

Annie flashed him a fulminating look, frustratedly aware that she had no choice but to comply. Well, she did have a choice, she acknowledged bitterly. She could toss this alarming man back his jacket, climb out of the cab and walk back into the hotel to face all those eagerly speculative eyes while she went in search of Todd.

But the very idea of doing that made her feel slightly sick. All those eyes with their amused, knowing looks, and sly sniggers from people who would see the whole thing as yet another Annie Lacey sensation.

Reluctantly she muttered her address, then subsided stiffly into her corner of the cab while he leaned forward to repeat it to the cabby.

Annie followed the lithe movement of his long body with her eyes.

Who is he? she wondered tensely. Though he sounded American there was an added hint of a foreign accent in his deep, gravelly voice that she couldn’t quite place. And his skin wore a rich, smooth olive tint that suggested foreign climes—like the colour of his raven-black hair with its outrageous pony-tail lying smoothly along the pure silk of his bright white dress shirt between well-muscled shoulderblades.

What is he? Even in profile his face showed a hard-boned toughness of character that somehow did not go with the flamboyant style of his hair.

He gave a conflict of impressions, she realised, and wondered if it was a deliberately erected facade aimed to put people off the track where his true personality was concerned.

And why did she think that? Because she did it herself and therefore could recognise the same trait in others.

Instruction to the cabby completed, he slid the partitioning window shut then sat back to look at her.

Instantly those strange sparks of awareness prickled along the surface of her skin—an awareness of his firm, sculptured mouth that had so shockingly claimed her own, of lips that made hers tingle in memory, made her throat go dry as they stretched into a smooth, mocking smile.

‘A novel way of meeting, don’t you think?’ he drawled.

Not gravel but velvet. She found herself correcting her description of the liquid tones of his voice. And laced with a hint of—what? Contempt? Sarcasm? Or just simple, wry amusement at the whole situation? Annie flicked her wary glance up to his eyes. Strange eyes. Green. Green eyes that again did not go with the dark Latin rest of him, and were certainly alight with something that kept her senses alert to the threat of danger.

Danger?

‘You were watching me earlier,’ she said half-accusingly. ‘And you know my name.’

He smiled at that, the wry—yes, it was wry—amusement deepening in his eyes. ‘But you are a very beautiful woman, Miss Lacey,’ he pointed out. ‘Your face and your body can be seen plastered on billboards all over the world. Of course I know your name.’ He gave a small shrug of those wide, white-clad shoulders. ‘I would expect every red-blooded man alive to recognise you on sight.’

‘Except that all those other men do not make a point of stalking me all evening,’ she pointed out.

His attention sharpened. ‘Are you by any chance trying to imply something specific?’ he enquired carefully.

Was she? She was by nature very suspicious of men in general. This one seemed to have gone out of his way to be where he was right now.

‘Perhaps you suspect me of spilling the champagne deliberately?’ he suggested, when Annie did not say anything.

‘Did you?’ Cool blue eyes threw back a challenge.

He smiled—the kind of noncommittal smile that tried to mock her for even thinking such a thing about him. But she was not convinced by it, or put off.

‘Things like it have happened before,’ she told him. ‘In my business you collect nut cases like other people collect postage stamps.’

‘And you see me as the ideal candidate for that kind of weird behaviour?’ He looked so amused by the idea that it made her angry.

‘You can’t tell by just looking at them, you know,’ she snapped. ‘They don’t have “crazy man” stamped on their foreheads to give me a clue.’

‘But in your business, Miss Lacey, you must surely accept that kind of thing as merely par for the course.’

‘And therefore relinquish the right to care?’

He offered no answer to that, but his eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her as though he was making a quick reassessment of something he had already set in his mind about her, and a small silence fell.

Annie turned her head away to stare out the cab window so that she did not have to try and read what that reassessment was about. Why, she wasn’t sure, except…

She sighed inwardly. She knew why. She’d looked away because he disturbed her oddly. His dark good looks disturbed her. The way he had been staring at her earlier disturbed her. His shocking kisses had disturbed her, awakening feelings inside her that she had honestly believed she did not possess.

The black cab rumbled on, stopping and starting in London’s busy night traffic. People were out in force, the warm summer night and the fact that it was tourist season in the city filling the streets with life. Pub doors stood wedged open to help ease the heated air inside rooms packed with casually dressed, enviably relaxed people. Cafes with their pavements blocked continental-style by white plastic tables had busy waiters running to and fro, and the sights and smells and sounds were those of a busy international metropolis, all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds mingling in a mad, warm bustle of easy harmony.

She sighed softly to herself, wishing that she could be like them, wishing that she could walk out and mingle inconspicuously with the crowd and just soak up some of that carefree atmosphere. But she couldn’t. Her looks were her fortune, and therefore were too well-known—as the man sitting beside her had just pointed out. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a scarf covering her head, she would still be recognised. She knew because she’d tried it.

The trouble was, she decided heavily, she was becoming weary of the life she led, the restrictions that life placed on her. Tired of an image that she had created for herself which meant her always having to be on her guard with people—people like the man sitting beside her.

‘The champagne caught your hair.’ The sudden touch of light fingers on a sticky tendril of hair just by her left ear had Annie reacting instinctively.

She jerked violently away from his touch. He went very still, his strange eyes narrowing on her face with an expression that she found difficult to define as he slowly lowered his hand again, long, blunt-ended fingers settling lightly on his own lap.

A new silence began to fizz between them, and Annie did not know what to say to break it. There was something about this man that frightened her—no matter how much she tried to tell herself that she was being paranoid about him. Even that touch—that light, innocent brush of his fingers against her hair—had filled her with the most incredible alarm. Her heart was hammering too, rattling against her ribs with enough force to restrict her breathing.

She bit down on her lower lip, even white teeth pressing into lush, ruby-coloured flesh, and her dusky lashes lowered to hide her discomfort as warm colour began to seep into her cheeks.

Then the cab made a sharp turn, and she saw with relief that they were turning into a narrow cobbled street of pretty, whitewashed cottages, one of which was her own.

Almost eagerly she shifted towards the edge of the seat so that she could jump out just as soon as they stopped. The sound of soft laughter beside her made her throw a wary glance at her companion.

He was smiling, ruefully shaking his sleek dark head. ‘I am not intending to jump on you, you know,’ he drawled. ‘I assure you I do possess a little more finesse than to seduce my women in the back seats of black cabs. And,’ he went on, before Annie could think of a thing to say in reply, ‘I did think my behaviour exemplary enough to give me gallant-knight status if nothing else.’

He thought those kisses in the hotel foyer exemplary behaviour? She didn’t. And he could sit there smiling that innocently mocking smile as long as he wanted to, but she would not lower her guard to him. Her senses were just too alert to the hidden danger in him to do that.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said coolly. ‘But gallant knights are so few and far between that a girl does not expect to meet one these days.’

The taxi came to a stop outside her tiny mews cottage then—thankfully. Because she was suddenly very desperate to get away from this strange, disturbing man.

But as she went to slip off his jacket and opened her mouth to utter some polite little word of thanks for his trouble he stopped her.

‘No.’ His hand descended onto her shoulder to hold his jacket in place. ‘Keep it until we arrive at your door,’ he quietly advised, sending a pointed glance at the cab driver. ‘One can only imagine what the champagne has done to the fabric of your dress by now.’

She went pale, remembering that awful moment when she’d caught the cab driver’s gaze fixed on her breasts, so transparently etched against her sodden dress.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, clutching the jacket back around her.

He said nothing, opening the taxi door and stepping out, then turning to help her join him before he bent to pass some money through the driver’s open window. Annie supposed that she should offer to pay the fare, but somehow this man gave the impression that he would not appreciate such egalitarian gestures. There was an air of the old-fashioned autocrat about him—an indomitable pride in the set of those wide shoulders flexing beneath the white dress shirt as he straightened and turned back to face her.

She shuddered, feeling oddly as though something or someone had just walked over her grave.

‘Y-you should have held the taxi,’ she murmured stiffly as the black cab rumbled off down the street, belching out pungent diesel fumes as it went.

If he picked up on her unspoken warning—that if he was standing in the belief that she was going to invite him into her home then he was mistaken—he did not show it, merely shrugging those big shoulders dismissively as he turned towards her black-painted front door.

‘Your key?’ he prompted.

Disconcerted by his calm indifference to any hint she had given him, she decided grimly not to argue, lowering her pale head to watch her fingers fumble nervously with the tiny catch on her soft gold leather evening bag to get at the key. The quicker she got the door open, the sooner she could get rid of him, she decided, wondering crossly what the heck was the matter with her. She didn’t usually feel like this.

She didn’t usually get herself into crazy situations like this one either. She was very careful not to do so normally.

Normal. What was normal about any of this?

Refusing to allow her fingers to tremble, she fitted the key into the lock, pushed open the door, then forced herself back around to face him. ‘Thank you,’ she said firmly, ‘for bringing me home. And—’ she allowed him a small, dry smile ‘—for saving my embarrassment.’

‘Think nothing of it.’ He sent her a little bow that was pure, old-fashioned gallantry and befitted somehow this tall dark man who reminded her so much of a throwback from another age. South American, maybe? she wondered curiously, then shuddered, not wanting him to be. She had a strange, unexplainable suspicion that it would actually hurt her to find that he might be the same nationality as Alvarez.

If he was aware of her curiosity he did not offer to relieve it. Instead, and with another one of those bows, he held his hand out towards her as though he were going to grab hold and push her into the house.

Defensively she took a big step back, bringing herself hard up against the white-painted stone wall behind her, and almost choking on an uplift of clamouring fear.

‘My jacket,’ he reminded her softly.

Oh, God. Annie closed her eyes, angry with herself because she knew that she was behaving like an idiot and really had no reason for it. He had, as he had pointed out, shown her exemplary behaviour over the whole messy incident!

Except for those kisses, she reminded herself tensely. Those kisses had not been exemplary at all.

Lips pressed tightly together over her clenched teeth, she slipped off the jacket and handed it to him. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured without looking at him.

‘My pleasure,’ he drawled, his long fingers sliding delicately over hers as he took the jacket from her. Her own began to tingle, fine, sharp showers of sensation skittering across the surface of her skin to make her tremble as she whipped her arm across her body in an effort to hide herself from those terribly disturbing eyes.

Casually he hooked a finger through the loop and draped the jacket over his shoulder, his lazy stance showing no signs that he was going to go away.

Annie waited, praying fiercely that he was not standing here expecting her to invite him in. No man other than Todd had ever stepped a single foot inside her home. And only Todd had done so because he had proved time and time again that she could trust him with her very life.

She thought of this house as her sanctuary—the only place where she felt she could relax and truly be herself. She didn’t want to give way to the compelling urge he seemed to be silently pressing on her to break that rule and invite him to enter.

Panic began to bubble up from the anxious pit of her stomach—panic at the man’s indomitable refusal to be brushed off by her, and panic at the knowledge that if he kept this small, silent battle up she was going to be the one to give in.

Then he touched her.

And, good grief, everything vital inside her went haywire—muscles, nerves, senses, heart, all clamouring out of control as his hand cupped gently at her chin, lifted it, forcing her wary blue gaze to meet the probing expression in his.

He didn’t say anything, but a frown marred that high, satin-smooth brow as though he was reassessing—again—and was still not sure what he was seeing when he looked at the infamous Annie Lacey.

‘Beautiful,’ he murmured almost to himself, then bent suddenly, blocking out the dim lamplight as his mouth swooped down to press a soft, light kiss to her trembling mouth. ‘More than beautiful,’ he extended as he straightened again. ‘Dangerous.’ Then he said, ‘Goodnight, Miss Lacey,’ and simply turned and walked away, leaving her standing there staring at his long, loose, easy stride with his jacket thrown over one broad shoulder while that shocking pelt of raven hair rested comfortably along his straight spine.

And she felt strangely at odds with herself—as though she had just let go of something potentially very important to her and had no way of snatching it back.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS crazy, she told herself later as she pulled a smooth satin robe over her freshly showered body.

It had been a crazy night with a crazy end that had left her with this crazy sense of deep disappointment that she couldn’t seem to shake off.

What’s the matter with you? she asked herself impatiently. You should be feeling relieved, not disappointed that he didn’t take advantage of a situation most men would have leapt at if they’d found Annie Lacey beholden to them for something!

Or maybe, she then found herself thinking, it was because she was the notorious Annie Lacey that he had not taken advantage. Perhaps he was the kind of man who did not involve himself with the Annie Laceys of this world.

Perhaps, for once, your reputation has worked against you.

What?

No.

‘That’s sick thinking, Annie,’ she muttered to herself.

And anyway, you cannot be feeling annoyed about a lost opportunity you had no intention of taking up yourself!

Remember Luis Alvarez, she told herself grimly. Remembering him was enough to put any woman off all those dark Latin types for good!

With that levelling reminder, she tightened her robe’s belt around her waist and flounced out of the bedroom, aware that there was more than a little defiance in the way she slammed the door shut on the thoughts she had left on the other side.

Her house was not big, really nothing more than an old-fashioned terraced cottage renovated to modern-day standards. The upper floor housed her one bedroom, which had been carefully fitted to utilise minimum space for maximum storage, and a rather decadent bathroom, with its spa bath and pulse-action shower that could massage the aches out of the worst day’s modelling. The stairway dropped directly into her small sitting room-cum-dining room, where the clever use of lighting and pastel shades made it a pleasure to her eye each time she entered.

The kitchen was a super-efficient blend of modern appliances and limed oak. Annie padded across the cool ceramic floor to fill the kettle for a cup of good, strong tea.

The best panacea to cure all ills, she told herself bracingly. Even the ills of a silly woman in conflict with no one but herself!

Crazy. Crazy, crazy, she sighed to herself as she leant against a unit to gaze out on the dark night while she waited for the kettle to boil.

Most of her life had been lived in busy high profile. Her ability to act and her photogenic looks had been picked up on and used from a very early age. While Aunt Claire had been alive she had been buffered from most of the flak that went with a well-known face by a woman who had been fiercely protective of Annie’s privacy. But after her aunt had died and with what came afterwards Annie had suddenly found herself the constant cynosure of all eyes.

Which was why she loved her little house so much. She loved the sense of well-being and security that it always filled her with to be shut alone inside it. It was here and only here that she felt able to relax enough to drop her guard and be herself—though, she then thought, she was not really sure she knew who or what that person was, having never really been given the time or chance to find out.

Was it that sombre-faced person she could see staring back at her in the darkened reflection of the kitchen window? she wondered. She hoped not. Those eyes looked just a little too lost and lonely for her peace of mind, and her mouth had a vulnerable tilt to it that unsettled her slightly because she did not consider herself vulnerable to anything much—except contempt, she conceded. Others’ contempt of her could still cut and cut deeply.

As could rejection, she added. Or—to be more precise—cold rejection, usually administered by women who felt threatened by her, but sometimes by men. Men of that stranger’s calibre. Cool, self-possessed, autocratic men who—

She pulled herself up short, a frown marring the smooth brow she could see in the window. Now why had her mind skipped back to him again? He had not held her in contempt—or if he had he had not shown it. Nor had he rejected her—not in the ice-cold way she’d been musing about just then.

He was a stranger—just a mere, passing stranger who had helped her out of an embarrassing spot then quietly gone on his way, that was all.

The trouble with you, Annie Lacey, she told herself grimly, is that you’ve become so damned cynical about the opposite sex that you actually expect every one of them to take advantage of you whenever they possibly can!

And could it be that you’re feeling just a teeny bit miffed because he did not take advantage of the situation?

I wish…

And just what do you wish? that more sensible side of her brain derided. For a nice, ordinary man to come along to sweep you off your dainty feet and take you away from all of this? Two things wrong with that wish, Annie. One—you made this particular bed you are now lying so uncomfortably on. And two—that man was no ordinary man. He was strong, dark and excitingly mysterious.

And you fancied him like hell, she finally admitted. But he obviously did not fancy you!

And that’s what you’re feeling so miffed about!

She grimaced at that, and was glad that the kettle decided to boil at that moment so that she could switch her thoughts to other things.

She was just pouring tea into her cup when the telephone began to ring.

Todd, she decided. It had to be. He would be ringing up to find out just what had happened to her, and a rueful smile was curving her mouth as she took her cup of tea with her into her sitting room and dropped into the corner of a soft-cushioned sofa before lifting the receiver to her ear.

‘What the hell happened to you?’ It was Todd, sounding angry and anxious all at the same time, God bless him. ‘One minute you were off to the loo, the next I’m being informed that you were seen in a mad, passionate clinch with some guy, then disappearing out of the door with him! Who the hell is he? And what the hell were you doing just walking out on me like that?’

She shifted uncomfortably, taking her time curling her bare toes beneath her while she tried to decide how to answer all of that. There was no way she was going to admit the truth, that was for sure, it was bad enough knowing what a fool she’d been, getting into a taxi with a complete stranger, but telling Todd of all people that not only had she done exactly that but she’d also let the stranger kiss her in front of half of London’s best would make him think that she’d gone temporarily insane!

Crazy. The whole thing was crazy.

‘Oh, just an old friend from way back,’ she heard herself say lightly. ‘And we weren’t kissing,’ she lied. ‘We were plotting because some stupid fool had spilled a full glass of champagne down my front, and you don’t need much imagination to know what that must have done to my dress.’

‘God, yes!’ he gasped, obviously not lacking the imagination needed to guess what the skimpy silk would have looked like wet. ‘Are you all right? Why didn’t you come and get me? Is he still there with you now?’

Annie had to smile at the quick-fired set of questions. ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘I didn’t come and get you because quite frankly, darling, I was not in a fit state to go anywhere but straight home. And no, he is not still here.’

‘You said an old friend,’ he murmured thoughtfully. ‘I didn’t know you had any male friends but me.’

‘Well, there’s conceit for you,’ she drawled, thinking, He’s right, I don’t. And she felt suddenly very empty inside.

‘Who?’ Todd demanded. ‘What’s his name?’

‘No one you know,’ she dismissed, realising with a start that she hadn’t even bothered to ask his name!

Crazy. You really are going crazy, Annie!

‘A male model,’ she said, forcing her mind back to Todd’s question. ‘I met him on that promo I did for Cable last year. Who told you I was kissing him?’ she demanded with commendable affront, to throw him off the track.

There was a short pause before his deriding, ‘Guess,’ came down the line at her.

‘Susie,’ she sighed. She should have known.

‘She took great delight in telling me how she’d seen you lost in a heated clinch with another man before you walked off and left me,’ he related grimly. ‘Then had the bloody gall to suggest I see her home instead!’

‘To which you replied?’ she prompted.

‘Guess again, darling,’ he drawled. ‘I’m still here at this wretched melee if that gives you a clue.’

Yes, it gave her a big clue, and Annie’s heart ached for him.

‘If she thought she could walk up to me and start slandering you in one breath then expect me to fall back into her arms in the next then she soon learned otherwise,’ he went on tightly. ‘She eventually left with that guy from the Rouez Sands Group.’

‘And made sure you saw her leave with him, of course.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he sighed.

‘You OK?’ she asked him gently.

‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’ll live.’

Annie smothered a sigh, wishing that she could ease the pain she knew he was suffering right now. But only Susie could do that, and the foolish woman was too jealous of Annie to see that by blackening Annie to Todd she was only making things worse for herself.

In all fairness Annie didn’t completely blame Susie for being suspicious about their relationship. It did look suspicious to anyone looking in on it. But even though she’d urged Todd often enough to tell Susie the truth he’d refused, going all stiff and adamant in a way that told her that Susie’s suspicions offended his pride. ‘It cuts both ways,’ was all he ever said. ‘If she can’t trust my word that there is nothing intimate between you and me, then why should I trust her with the full truth about us?’

Stalemate, and likely to stay that way while both of them remained so pig-headed about it all.

‘Give me a call soon,’ he murmured as a conclusion to the conversation, then added as an afterthought, ‘But not during the rest of this week, because I’ll be in Madrid trying to whip up that extra injection of cash I need to secure Cliché Europe’s safe launch.’

Annie frowned, having forgotten all about that. Todd had told her about it only this evening—the surprising and worrying fact that he was taking a big risk publishing a new glossy in the present economic climate. ‘The trouble is,’ he’d explained ruefully, ‘I stagnate if I don’t and stand to lose everything if I do.’

‘What I need,’ he murmured thoughtfully now, ‘is something really exclusive to front the first issue—something that will guarantee sales and therefore appeal to my backers. I just haven’t come up with what that exclusive something is yet.’

‘You will,’ she stated, with soft confidence in his ability. ‘And if all else fails I could always pose nude,’ she suggested. ‘That’ll be a world first and guarantee you a complete sell-out.’

‘You’d do it too, wouldn’t you?’ he murmured curiously, hearing the note of seriousness threading through her lighter tone.

‘For you?’ she said. ‘I would sell my very soul for you, my darling, and that’s the truth. But I would much rather not,’ she then added. ‘So try to come up with something less—sensational for me, will you?’ she pleaded.

‘I promise,’ he laughed. ‘Not that the idea of you posing nude does not appeal,’ he teased. ‘But I think I should be able to come up with something more—subtle. So take care, and be good while I’m away.’

When am I ever anything else? Annie thought as she replaced the receiver and grimaced at the dark sense of dissatisfaction that began niggling at her nerves.

And all because a stranger managed to get beneath that protective skin you wear? she mocked herself.

‘Goodness me, Annie,’ she muttered aloud, and then thought, You must be feeling starved of affection to have one small incident affect you as much as you’re allowing this to do.

Bed, she decided. Bed before you become even more maudlin than you already are!

But she didn’t sleep well, her dreams seeming haunted by a tall dark figure who kept insisting on kissing her, his warm mouth constantly closing over her own every time she tried to speak! But, worse than that, she didn’t try to fight him but always, always welcomed him—helplessly, eagerly! Then she ended up waking in a breathless state of shock at her own wanton imagination.

It was terrible. She was ashamed of herself! ‘Sex-starved, that’s what you are,’ she muttered, and gave her pillow an angry thump before settling down to experience the self-same dream all over again!

Consequently she was not in a very good frame of mind when her phone began ringing at what felt like the break of dawn that morning.

Grumbling incoherently to herself, she tried to ignore it at first, stuffing her head beneath her pillow and pretending the noise was not there. But it didn’t stop, and after a while she sighed, sat up, rubbed at her gritty eyes then reached out with a lazy hand to lift the receiver.

‘Annie!’ Lissa’s excited voice hit her eardrums like the clash from a hundred cymbals. ‘Get our neat botty out of that bed! Cliché’s got its launch. And we have one hell of a panic on!’

A panic. She would call it more than a panic, Annie decided grumpily as she dragged herself to the transit lounge at Barbados’s Grantley Adams airport over twelve hours later.

‘But I’m due in Paris on Tuesday!’ she’d exclaimed in protest when Lissa had finished giving her the hurried details of Todd’s great coup.

‘All changed, darling,’ her agent had said. ‘Everything cancelled for the next two weeks in favour of this.’

‘This’ being Todd’s brainwave—which had apparently hit him after he had been talking to her on the phone last night.

Or—to be more precise—someone else had hit him with it.

The great and glorious Adamas, no less.

And, even despite not wanting to be, Annie was impressed.

Adamas jewellery was the most expensive anyone could buy. The man who worked under that trade name was a legend because he designed and produced every single breathtakingly exquisite piece himself, using only the finest stones and setting them in precious metal. All the world’s richest women clamoured to possess them.

He was a genius in his field. His last collection had taken five years to put together, and had sold out in five minutes. That must have been—Annie frowned, trying to remember—four years ago at least.

And late last night, it seemed, Todd had found himself talking to none other than Adamas himself! He hadn’t known, of course, whom he was sharing a nightcap with. Hardly anyone alive on this earth knew who the real Adamas actually was, because the man was some kind of eccentric recluse!

But, according to Lissa, during this chat over a drink Todd’s journalistic mind must have been alerted by something Adamas had said, and he’d begun to suspect just whom he was drinking with. So he had gone for it—asked the man outright—and, lo and behold, found out that he was right!

One thing had led to another, and a few drinks later Todd had discovered that the guy had just completed his latest collection. And that had been when his brain-storm had hit. A blind shot, he’d called it. He’d suggested what a coup it would be if Cliché launched with Annie Lacey wearing the latest Adamas collection. And to his surprise the great man had agreed!

And that, neatly put, was why Annie had just spent the last twelve hours travelling.

Adamas had agreed, but only on his own strict terms—one being that the whole thing had to take place immediately or not at all, another that he chose the location and—something insisted on because of the priceless value of the subject matter in hand—that the whole thing must be carried out in the utmost secrecy!

Which was also why she was now stuck in transit, waiting to find out what the rest of her travel arrangements were. Lissa had only been privy to Annie’s travel plan this far. The rest was to be revealed.

But that would not be before she’d had a chance to change out of the faded jeans and baggy old sweatshirt that had been part of her disguise along with a sixties floppy velvet hat into which she’d had her hair stuffed for the last twelve hours to comply with his demand for secrecy, she decided grimly.

She was hot, she was tired, and she felt grubby. And, grabbing her flight bag, she made her way to the ladies’ room, deciding that any further travelling could wait until she felt more comfortable.

Half an hour later, and dressed more appropriately for the Caribbean in a soft white Indian cotton skirt and matching blouse, with her hair scooped into a high topknot, she was being ushered out into the burning sun and across the tarmac towards a twin engined, eight-seater aeroplane which was to take her to Union Island, the gateway to the Grenadines, or so she’d been informed by the attendant who’d come to collect her.

An hour after that she found herself standing in the shimmering heat of her third airport of the day, where a beautiful young woman with perfect brown skin and a gentle smile was trying to usher her towards a waiting helicopter!

‘But where am I supposed to be going to?’ she demanded irritably, growing tired of all this cloak-and-dagger stuff.

‘To one of our beautiful smaller islands, privately leased from our government by your host,’ the young woman informed her smoothly, and strode off in the wake of Annie’s luggage, which was being carried by an airport lackey.

‘Host,’ she muttered tetchily. Did anyone know the actual name of the great Adamas? Or did his desire for privacy mean that even his name was a carefully guarded secret?

Her luggage had been stowed by the time she reached the helicopter, its lethal blades already rotating impatiently. She was instructed to duck her head a little as she ran beneath them, then was helped to clamber in beside the pilot.

With a smile and a gesture of farewell the young woman closed the door, and the sudden change from deafening noise to near silence was a shock. Annie straightened in her seat, smoothed down the soft folds of her skirt, blinked a couple of times in an effort to clear her bewildered head, then turned to look at the pilot.

And almost fainted in surprise.

Long black hair, tied back at the tanned nape by a thin black strip of ribbon, lean dark face with green eyes smiling sardonically at her.

It was her rescuer from the night before.

And the man she had let seduce her all night long in her dreams.

‘You!’ she gasped, feeling an upsurge of guilty heat burn her insides when her eyes automatically dropped to his shockingly familiar mouth.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Lacey,’ he drawled, enjoying the reaction he was having on her.

‘But—what are you doing here?’

‘Why, I live here,’ he smoothly replied, and touched something that sent a burst of power into the engines. ‘Please fasten yourself in; we are about to take off.’

‘But…’ She couldn’t move for the shock of it. ‘You’re a helicopter pilot?’ she choked out eventually.

‘Among other things.’ He smiled, humour leaping to that magnetically attractive mouth at what, Annie realised almost as soon as she’d said it, was about the most stupid thing she had ever said. ‘Your belt,’ he prompted. ‘We will talk later.’

Then he was flicking the headset he had resting around his neck up over his ears and dismissing her as he turned his attention to the task in hand, leaving her to fumble numbly with her belt while he spoke smoothly to air-traffic control. Then, without warning, they were up in the air.

Annie gasped at the unexpectedness of it, staring with wide eyes as the ground simply dropped away beneath them. Her heart leapt into her mouth, her lungs refused to function, and, of course, the slight numbing effect of jet lag was not helping her discern what the heck was going on here.

They paused, hovering like a hawk about to swoop, then shot forwards in a way that threw her back into her seat. He glanced at her sharply, then away again, a small smile playing about his lips which seemed to err more towards satisfaction than anything else.

Then suddenly she was covering her eyes as they seemed to shoot directly towards the bright orange ball of sun hanging low in the sky.

Something dropped on her lap. Peering down, she saw a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses and gratefully pushed them on. Able to see again without suffering for it, she turned to look curiously at him.

He too had donned a pair of sunglasses; gold-rimmed like her own pair, they sat neatly across the bridge of his long, thin nose, seeming to add a certain pizzazz to an already rivetingly attractive face.

Last time she’d seen him he had been standing at her front door wearing a severely conventional black dinner suit and bow-tie. He had seemed alarmingly daunting to her fanciful mind then.

Now those same sparks of alarm came back to worry her, darting across her skin, because here in this contraption, with the full blast of the Caribbean sun shining on his face, he had taken on a far more dangerously appealing appearance. His skin looked richer, his features more keenly etched. The thin cream shirt he was wearing was tucked into the pleated waist of a pair of wheat-coloured linen slacks, offering a more casual view of him that made her want to back off even while she was drawn towards it.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked as her nerves began to steady. ‘Or—’ she then clarified that ‘—why am I here with you?’

‘You do not know?’ He flicked her a glance before returning his attention to what he was doing, but the look had been enough to make her stupid mind click into action, and she sat there staring at him in utter disbelief.

‘You—are Adamas?’ she gasped.

He didn’t answer—didn’t need to. It was written in that small smile that touched briefly at the corner of his mouth. ‘We are going to my island,’ he informed her smoothly instead. ‘It sits just beyond the main string of islands, lapped by the Caribbean on one side and the Atlantic on the other…’

Annie was barely listening; she was still staring un-blinkingly at him, trying to fit her impression of what the Adamas man should look like to the one he actually was!

An eccentric recluse? This—Adonis of a man with more muscle than fat and an air about him that still made her think more of the Spanish Inquisition than an artistic genius. Blinking, she found herself staring at his hands—long hands, strong hands with the signs of manual labour scored into the supple palms, long fingers, blunt-ended, with neatly shorn nails. The hands of a man who worked fine metal into those intricate designs that she had been privileged to glimpse once around the neck of a very wealthy woman?

‘I don’t believe it,’ she muttered, more to herself than to him.

But he shrugged carelessly, as if her opinion did not bother him. ‘I am what I am, Miss Lacey,’ he drawled indifferently. Then almost too casually he went on, ‘As you are what you undoubtedly are.’

An insult—Annie didn’t even try to mistake it for anything but what it was. But before she could challenge him about it again they veered sharply to one side, sending her heart leaping into her mouth again when she found herself staring sideways out of the helicopter onto a half-moon stretch of glistening silver sand.

‘My home,’ he announced. ‘Or one of them,’ he then added coolly. ‘The island is a quarter of a mile wide and half a mile long. It has a shape like a hooked nose which is where it gets its name—Hook-nose Island. My villa sits in the hook—see?’

Dipping the helicopter, he swooped down towards the island, bringing the two-storey white plantation-style house swinging dizzyingly up towards them. Then, before she had time to catch her breath at that little bit of showmanship, he levelled the helicopter off and hovered so that she could focus on the palm-tree-lined lawns that swept down from the house to the silver beach she had seen first.

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