скачать книгу бесплатно
Maybe Selina had bumped into Bratchet on her travels? This morning Rion had searched Selina’s name on the internet—something he had never done before. She’d taken some finding, but he’d been surprised at what he’d discovered. She was listed as a translator for a top international agency noted for its discretion and hired by governments and the like. There was a shot of her looking stunning but businesslike, standing at the side of an Arab sheikh at an international trade fair in China. Other delegates included a few heads of state. Selina was obviously at the top of her career ladder and had to be making a very comfortable living. Maybe he was wrong about her and she wasn’t a typical gold-digging female …
Reaching his cabin, he opened the door and saw at a glance she wasn’t there. Kicking off his shoes, he removed his jacket and tie and dropped them on the bed, flicking open the buttons of his shirt. He walked next door, contemplating removing that incredible gown with a smile on his face which broadened when he saw the view of Selina’s slender back. She had removed her shoes and was minus her stockings—lace-trimmed, he noted. Pity. He had wanted to peel them off.
His sensual smile vanished when he realised she was talking on her phone and that was the reason for her hasty retreat.
The click of the door opening alerted Selina, and abruptly she ended the conversation and rang off. She turned around. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said inanely.
Rion gazed straight back at her from below thick, curling lashes, his expression bland. ‘Obviously. Who did you want it to be? The man on the phone?’ he queried, and in two lithe strides he was towering over her.
‘It wasn’t a man—it was Aunt Peggy,’ Selina said, but could not look him in the eyes.
‘You called her at twelve at night?’ he prompted, and tipped up her chin with one long finger so she had no choice but to look at him.
‘Yes,’ she said thinking fast. ‘It is a little earlier in England.’
Rion raised a brow, dark eyes gleaming with suspicion. ‘I’ll believe you—but what else might I have got wrong, I wonder? I had the distinct feeling you had met Justin Bratchet before tonight. Have you?’
Shaking her head, she dislodged his finger and taking a step back, gave an emphatic ‘No!’ relieved she could tell the truth.
‘Yet you seemed to recognise him. Maybe from your travels? I looked you up on Google today and discovered you really are a high-flyer in your profession.’
‘You did what?’
‘You are listed on the website of the international agency you work for.’
‘Oh.’ She was glad she’d had the foresight to tell Beth not to list her on the charity’s website. She valued her career, and at least one of her previous employers would not be happy discovering what she did in her spare time. ‘Anyway, I don’t know and have never met Mr Bratchet before, and with luck I will never meet him again,’ she said adamantly.
‘You could have fooled me. I have met the man a few times in New York and I know he has a reputation of being a bit of a womaniser. You seemed to be encouraging him.’
She had, because she’d wanted to find out where he was going, and had succeeded. But she couldn’t tell Rion that.
‘When he asked you what you did you responded flightily—”As little as possible.” Which I know is a lie. Why?’
‘Because it is easier to tell that type of rich man who thinks he is God what he wants to hear—satisfied?’ she snapped. She had said more than she ought. Plus Rion, barefoot and with his shirt undone, was an endearing sight.
‘You really have it in for the poor man,’ Rion returned, studying her flushed face. ‘So he likes women and flirts? Hardly an offence.’
‘Yes, well, you would say that—given he is your friend. It is his wife I feel sorry for, poor woman.’
‘Your sympathy is wasted on Alice. She was a widow when she married Justin three years ago. He takes care of her and her daughter, and now her grandson. She has hit the jackpot; trust me, she will never leave him. I recognised the type the minute I met her.’
‘Okay—if you say so,’ she agreed. It was late and this conversation was going nowhere.
‘Is that another example of telling a man what he wants to hear?’ Rion asked sardonically and reached for her shoulders to draw her close. ‘Not that I mind in this instance,’ he mocked, and kissed her with a hungry thoroughness that left her breathless.
He pulled the shoulder straps of her dress down her arms and she helped, wanting to block the horrible evening from her mind and craving what she knew only Rion could give her. She gazed up into his lustrous dark eyes, shaded with passion, and her heart raced.
‘I knew you were braless,’ Rion groaned. ‘You have perfect breasts,’ he murmured, his dark gaze lingering on the creamy mounds for a moment before he lifted his eyes to hers. ‘You have no idea what you do to me, Selina. I have been aching to remove this dress from the second I saw you wearing it.’
‘I thought it would appeal to you,’ she replied.
Rion smiled and began removing his clothes. Breathless, she simply stared as he revealed his magnificent bronzed body to her avid gaze, and she reached for the dress at her waist, eager to wriggle out of it.
‘No, let me,’ Rion commanded. He picked her up and laid her down on the bed and stretched out beside her. ‘I want to take it off.’
He folded an arm around her and she was suddenly on her stomach. He trailed a string of kisses down her spine and slowly peeled her dress over her hips. Her whole body trembled as his clever fingers stroked and caressed while his lips continued their devastating path down her thighs, the backs of her knees. With the dress finally removed he turned her over and kissed and caressed his way back up her body. Finally his mouth took hers in a deeply passionate kiss as he settled between her thighs.
Selina wrapped her arms around him as if he was the only solid matter in the universe, her hands caressing his satin-smooth skin, tracing the length of his spine as she planted frantic kisses on the broad chest, the dark male nipples. She heard his guttural growl as, lifting her hips, he surged into her willing body, and she cried out with the exquisite pleasure of his possession, the feeling intensifying with every powerful thrust, growing into a mindless, mutually ecstatic climax.
But later—much later—listening to the steady sound of Rion’s breathing, she realised that tonight even the oblivion of orgasmic sex was not going to help her sleep.
Luckily she had never told Rion about the rescue centre Beth and her husband ran in Cambodia for a children’s charity. Selina had helped to set it up and finance it.
She and Beth had spent their last summer vacation before finishing university travelling through Thailand and Cambodia. Beth had met Trevor, an American, and it had been love at first sight. It was Trevor who had shown them the horrific child sex trade in Cambodia and explained how unscrupulous dealers travelled the countryside, telling poor families who lived off the land that they had a job for their son or daughter in a big city hotel, as a maid or boot boy, and offering them money. Of course there was no hotel work—though the children were kept in a hotel of sorts, where they were abused and forced into the sex trade. The really tragic part for Selina was that the children, after having to suffer such vile abuse from adults every day of their young lives, were too ashamed to tell their parents what was really happening to them.
Planeloads of men flew into the capital regularly from Europe, Japan and the USA, on specially organised sex trips. A lot of them wanted children—the younger the better.
Trevor had explained that the reason he knew so much about the trade was because his father worked for the American government, and the USA was one of the few countries to have passed a law enabling them to extradite any American citizen arrested for paedophilia in Cambodia and take them back to the USA to stand trial. The sentences there were a lot harsher. It had been listening to his father talk about his work and seeing the damage done for himself that had made Trevor determined to set up a rescue centre.
Beth, always passionate about injustice, was his perfect partner, and during that holiday the idea for a rescue charity was born. Selina had never touched her divorce settlement because she’d still had her father’s trust fund. She’d left university the following summer and donated the money to help set up the charity. With the help of Beth’s father the legal technicalities had been dealt with, and property bought. It had been converted into a fifteen-bedroomed centre with schoolrooms, craft rooms—everything necessary to help the children to regain their self worth and equip them with the skills to earn a legitimate living.
Beth and Trevor had got married at Christmas. Selina had been a bridesmaid. The following year, the rescue centre had opened, and with the help of a Cambodian politician, a police inspector and a local lawyer, they’d taken in ten children. Selina had stayed for three months to help, then spent the next three months in Australia, working as a translator for a tourist firm on the Gold Coast that specialised in Chinese tourists, and taking her diving certificate in her spare time. Then she had signed on with the international agency she still worked with now.
To date the centre had rescued over forty children—some of them as young as six. All had been counselled and some had returned to their families. Some had learnt new skills and found legitimate work, others were still at the centre, and sadly a couple of the older girls—if you could call fourteen old—had gone back to the sex trade. They were already HIV-positive and sure that in their culture no man was ever going to marry them …
Accepting a glass of fresh orange juice from Louis, Selina refused any food. Cradling the glass in her hand, she crossed to the huge glass doors that opened out onto the deck and paused for a moment. The sun was hot in a cloudless sky, as it had been for the whole trip—which was now almost over. She felt her heart contract with the knowledge.
Rion was seated at the table, wearing the familiar khaki shorts. His tanned shoulders were slightly hunched as he forked scrambled egg into his mouth with one hand, his other tapping something into a laptop.
One more night with him and it would be over. They would reach Greece tomorrow, conclude their business deal and cut the last slender link that bound them. Never to meet again. She would have her inheritance—or to be precise, Anna and the Taylor Foundation would. A satisfactory outcome, she told herself. Rion would move on to another woman, and she … well, she would what?
‘Don’t just stand there—come and join me.’
Selina didn’t answer her own question. She looked at Rion’s smiling face and walked across to take the seat opposite. ‘You looked occupied,’ she said, glancing at his laptop and then up at him. ‘Do you ever stop working?’ she asked, and took a sip of her orange juice.
He reached across and took her free hand in his. Raising it to his mouth, he kissed her palm, sending an electric sensation up her arm. A knowing, intimate smile curved his lips as she eased her hand from his.
‘I am going to in about half an hour. I have a few things to check out on the Bratchet deal—it is looking good, if a little expensive.’
‘You are going into business with that man?’ she asked, carefully placing her glass on the table.
‘No—not into business with him.’ The relief she felt was quickly destroyed as Rion continued, ‘He wants to sell up and has offered me first refusal on buying him out. It is a good deal—not so much for the motor trade he runs but for the prime location of the property he owns in New York. Even in a recession you can never lose on owning land in one of the greatest cities in the world. Bratchet knows that, and I am surprised he wants to sell simply because he has finally married and wants to play happy families with Alice and his stepchildren. He is asking more than I want to pay, but everything in life is negotiable and I’ll get it for the right price in the end.’ He grinned.
‘Yes,’ Selina agreed numbly. The irony did not escape her that the only time Rion had ever discussed his work with her was now. She had a good idea why Bratchet was selling up. And she could not bear to think why he doted on his step-grandson …
‘Give me five minutes, and you will have my undivided attention for the rest of the day.’
‘Okay.’ She watched Rion turn back to his laptop and, deep in thought, sipped at her orange juice, oblivious to the beauty of the day.
The day before the opening of the rescue centre in Cambodia she had been sitting talking with Trevor’s father, Clint, in the foyer of his hotel. He had pointed Justin Bratchet out to her as the man walked across to the reception desk to check out. Bratchet was a regular visitor to Cambodia to indulge his preference for young boys, he’d told her. A police contact had told Clint just that morning that Bratchet had finally been arrested the day before, because an eight-year-old boy he had abused had ended up in hospital. But Bratchet was a very wealthy man and had obviously bribed the right people. The charges had been dropped.
Selina had been horrified, and asked why the Americans didn’t arrest him. Dryly Clint had told her they could not. They could only extradite the man to stand trial at home if the Cambodian authorities arrested him first, but they would get him eventually, Clint had said. Bratchet might have got a fright and would stay away for a while, but he would be back. His sort couldn’t help themselves.
At dinner last night Selina had managed to discover that Bratchet was going to the Far East on business the next day, while his wife was going back to America.
‘Right, Selina, no more work. How would you like to go scuba-diving off Gozo today?’
She swallowed the yes that rose in her throat and let her eyes rest on Rion. ‘I thought we were sailing for Greece this morning?’
‘I’m not in any rush. We can take a day or two longer if you like.’
If he had said that yesterday she might have agreed, but not now … Last night her call had not been to her Aunt Peggy but to Trevor. A quick call, to tell him she had seen Bratchet dining in Malta with his wife and learned that Bratchet was leaving tomorrow for the Far East without his wife. Maybe he was tired of matrimony. She’d told him to look out for the man and rung off with the excuse that her new friend was waiting for her—which, in a way, had been true …
‘What about your business deal with Bratchet? You said it was expensive—are you still going to pursue it?’ She wanted Rion to say no.
‘Of course I am. What have you got against the man? The fact he flirted with you?’
‘No, I am far too mature for him anyway,’ Selina said, with a dry irony that was lost on Rion. ‘I just think there is something a bit sleazy about him.’ She wanted to tell Rion the truth, but she wasn’t sure she could trust him.
Rion got to his feet and came round to her. Taking her hand in his, he drew her up. He looked down into her lovely but serious face.
‘When a good deal is to be made the man offering it could be a serial killer for all I care. As long as it is legitimate, business is business.’ He should have known better than to try and talk business with a woman. ‘Now, do you want to go to Gozo or not?’
‘Not,’ Selina said, resignation filling her, and, pulling her hands from his, she took a step back. There was no future for them anyway—why prolong the agony by another day?
After what Rion had said she knew she could not tell him about Bratchet. She had trusted Rion once with her heart and he had broken it. Much as she still loved him she did not dare trust him again—not when other people, children, were involved.
If her hunch was right and Bratchet was on his way to Cambodia she knew Rion well enough to know he would tell the man. Maybe not in the pursuit of business, but out of genuine disgust at what the man was. But either way Bratchet would be warned.
‘We had a deal, you and I. Two weeks—and it ends tomorrow back in Greece. I sign the shares over to you, you pay me, and that’s the end.’
She glanced up. His tanned perfectly carved features were set in a cold mask. The flicker of pain she thought she’d seen in his dark eyes must have been a figment of her imagination, she dismissed a second later.
‘You are right, Selina. A deal is a deal. But it is not quite that simple,’ he said in a cold, flat tone. ‘I’ll tell Ted to prepare to leave immediately, and arrange with Kadiekis to meet us when we dock with the relevant documents. I spoke to him the day after we left Letos and he agreed to inform Anna by letter according to the terms you and I worked out for her. She has probably received the notification by now so there should be no problem.’ And, turning, he walked away.
‘Wait.’ She looked around, feeling guilty she had not thought to ask Rion about the lawyer. ‘You have left your laptop,’ she said weakly. He turned, his gaze flicking over her scathingly. ‘The heat will damage it …’ She trailed off as in a few lithe strides he picked up the laptop from the table and stopped in front of her.
‘Such concern for my property is admirable, Selina, and as you also belong to me for another day,’ he reminded her, with a predatory smile that left her in no doubt what he meant, ‘I’ll see you later.’
A deep, brooding frown creased Rion’s brow as he stood on the bridge as the yacht left the harbour. He knew women, and knew Selina had enjoyed the trip as much as he had, but she had turned down his offer to extend the cruise flat. She could not wait a minute longer than she had to to get away, and it bothered him.
He should be content. He had done what he had planned to do—have a relaxing break made all the more satisfying by Selina. He had got his revenge for her betrayal and enjoyed every minute. He was ready to get back to work full-time—especially with the Bratchet deal.
So why wasn’t he satisfied? And why did Selina and revenge in the same sentence make him feel thoroughly ashamed of himself?
CHAPTER TEN (#ulink_0e2e94a3-56dc-57c7-943a-4d77fd6a42a0)
‘SIT.’ Rion indicated a chair in front of his desk and walked around to take the seat behind it. He let his eyes rest coolly on Selina.
She was wearing the black dress she had worn for her grandfather’s funeral. Her hair was pulled back into a single thick plait to hang down her back, her face was carefully made up, and high-heeled shoes were on her dainty feet. He watched her smooth the skirt of the dress over her hips and thighs as she sat down, placing the black satchel she carried on her lap. She looked elegant and businesslike, but in his mind’s eye he was picturing her gorgeous body naked—her soft skin, the perfect breasts he had tasted so many times. Only last night she had been like a living flame in his arms. They had made love well into the early hours of the morning. Yet now she sat there, seemingly cool and composed, wanting the money …
Selina glanced around the huge office—all glass and steel, hard like the man. They’d met the lawyer over breakfast and pretended they were good friends while Kadiekis explained the handing over of her grandfather’s shares to her so she could sell them to Rion before the estate was finally wound up. That way the provision they had agreed for Anna was guaranteed and all debts would be covered. There would still be a healthy amount of money left over for Selina. She had signed the paper he’d given her, confirming the fact, and another notified document to cancel the guardianship. That had been fraught enough. Especially when he’d given the share certificates straight to Rion for safekeeping, as though she was some silly woman who would lose them before she got ashore.
But the trip from the marina in a chauffeured car to Rion’s office in Athens had taken almost an hour, and been a whole lot worse.
Rion had worked on his laptop or made calls the whole time, never saying a word to her. Not that she had wanted him to, but sitting beside him in the close confines of the car with the slight scent of his cologne tantalising her nostrils, she had been intensely aware of him. Wearing an immaculate grey suit, with his black hair swept back from his brow, he’d looked broodingly attractive, and she hadn’t been able to help noting every tiny movement he made—his arm touching hers when he raised the phone to his ear, the deep velvet tone of his voice, the accidental brush of his thigh against hers with the movement of the vehicle.
By the time she’d got out of the car she’d been hot, tense, her nerves wound tight as a drum. And her nervous tension had not improved when he’d taken her arm and led her into what was obviously a new building—nothing like the old office she had visited once when they were married. Then he’d urged her into the elevator, and now had ordered her to ‘Sit.’
‘I am not a dog,’ she said tartly, to break the growing silence.
‘No,’ he said, and lifted a black brow.
The insult, not spoken but implied, enraged her. This was the man she had stupidly, eagerly given her body to last night—and her heart and soul, if she was honest, because she’d known it would be the final time.
‘Trading insults is your thing, Rion. Why am I not surprised?’ she sneered. ‘You traded me once for a company, and again for sex. You’d trade with the devil himself—Bratchet for one. Now, give me the form to sign. Why we could not have done this on the yacht I will never understand. Then let me get out of here.’
‘You are overreacting to an imagined insult. And let’s get one thing straight,’ he said curtly. ‘I would never have married you to acquire the Stakis shipping line. I married you because I’d had unprotected sex with you. With the possibility you might be pregnant it seemed the right thing to do at the time.’
Appalled, Selina stared at him, the air between them crackling with tension. ‘My God—and that is supposed to make me feel better? Just give me the damn paper to sign.’
Not a muscle moved in Rion’s face as he pushed the relevant documents across the desk. He was within a hair’s breadth of losing his temper with her, but with a terrific effort of will he controlled the urge to shake some sense into her. She wanted him. He wanted her. But she blew hot and cold for no apparent reason and arguing with her would get him nowhere. The day wasn’t over yet, and with business out of the way he had plans to end it with Selina in his bed.
‘This is a copy of the official notification from Kadiekis agreeing to the sale of your grandfather’s shares to me before the estate is wound up. You’d better keep that. And these are the share certificates, which you might like to check to make sure they add up to what I told you. Finally, a transferral form, which you should read and sign where indicated.’
‘I don’t need to read it. Just give me a pen.’
‘Is that wise? How do you know you can trust me?’ he asked with a cynical arch of an ebony brow. ‘From what you just said, you don’t have much of an opinion of me.’
Mr Cool, Selina thought—while she was getting madder by the minute. ‘No, I don’t. At least not on a normal human level. But when it comes to a deal I know you are meticulous to the nth degree,’ she mocked. And, picking up the pen he had pushed across the desk, she signed the document. Standing up, she handed it to him. Then, placing the copy of the agreement he had suggested she keep in her satchel, she took out a notepad and wrote down her bank account number. Tearing it off, she held the page out to Rion.
‘You will need this. When you and Kadiekis have settled everything I would like any money that is left transferred to this account. That way we need never communicate again.’ The quicker she got out of here the better. She was perilously close to losing her temper altogether and telling Rion exactly what she thought of him. She might love him, but as a man he was a waste of space …
Rion’s eyes narrowed sardonically on her beautiful face. ‘I do have to sign as well, Selina.’ He knew she was hiding something. Her mention of Bratchet and the devil in the same sentence had set him thinking, and he was determined to find out what it was. Taking the document, he signed it. ‘Did you notice how much money you will receive?’ he asked, hoping to delay her. Taking the note from her hand, he felt her flinch as their fingers touched.
‘What you said a fortnight ago, I presume.’
‘Yes, that is correct.’ Glancing at the number on the note he wrote something else on it and turned to the computer on his desk. ‘I’ll enter your account number in the relevant file, and I might as well arrange the transfer of the shares now with my broker.’
In a matter of minutes it was done. Then, rising to his feet he walked around the desk and handed the note back to her.
‘In the unlikely event that anything goes wrong and you need to contact me, my personal cell phone number is on there.’ She took it, avoiding touching him this time, he noted. ‘Have you thought what you are going to do with the money that is left?’ he asked, wanting to delay her departure. He saw relief mingled with the anger in her expressive eyes.
‘Give it to a children’s charity,’ she said, pushing the note into her handbag and slinging it over her shoulder. ‘Now I’ll be on my way.’
‘The same children’s charity as before, I presume?’ he prompted, not convinced by her glib reply any more than he had been the first time.
‘Yes.’ She turned to go.
