One Summer Night: An Indecent Proposition / Beholden to the Throne / Hers For One Night Only?

‘Here.’ He cut off a large piece and she thought he would place it on her plate but it was Zander, so of course the fork, his fork, went straight towards her mouth. She opened a jaw that felt rigid, tried to tell herself to relax, to take the offering, but with him it was so loaded. She tasted the butter on her tongue and tried to remember to swallow, tried not to ponder how with Zander everything tasted of sex.

‘Tastes good, yes?’

She nodded. It was all she could manage. She licked a trickle of butter that was on her lip and as she did so the smile he gave her told her their minds were thinking along the same lines. He watched her toying with her food and, rather than summon the waiter, he moved forward a little to pour her more wine, which gave him the excuse to press his knee in. To his satisfaction she leaped as if branded, and then put a hand over her glass too late, for the champagne met slender fingers and bubbled and fizzed.

He took her hand and wanted to suck each finger dry. Perhaps, from the tremble that shot through her body, he could have got away with it, but she thought him a gentleman, and for now he obliged, took a thick white napkin and wrapped it around her hand.

And not a drop more passed her lips, and though somehow she made it through the main course, the conversation was awkward. He knew she was on guard, knew she was wrestling, could feel her nerves as the dessert menu was presented, as the evening neared a close.

‘I’m not sure if I’m hungry.’ She wasn’t hungry, but surely it was better to be here in the restaurant than saying goodnight, trying to resist his kiss. If he did kiss her again, which he would, she knew exactly where it might lead, so she stared at the dessert menu till it blurred out of focus.

‘If you’re having trouble choosing, we can get a couple,’ Zander offered. ‘We can share.’

‘It’s terribly warm,’ Charlotte said. She was babbling a little, Zander realised. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

He did not want to be here, fed by his brother. He wanted Charlotte for himself, on his terms.

He walked and found her easily, tucked away on the balcony, staring out to the Mediterranean, the wind blowing her curls around her face, and he could see from her profile she was troubled.

She knew he was approaching and was scared to turn around in case she fell against him.

So hard she wrestled with her conscience as she stood there.

She did not fall into bed with men. There had been a couple of relationships—one that had ended almost as soon as it had begun when she had told him about her mother’s illness and one that had meant a lot but had faded and died as her mother’s illness had become more and more consuming, but it was Zander consuming her now.

Zander was the first man in ages she had responded to, the first man she had ever reacted to with such force, and tonight, in this hotel, with this beautiful, beautiful man, it was not the champagne that reduced her inhibitions but the vibe of him, the presence that seeped into her pores, into her brain, and made her giddy with lust and with promise. It made twenty-four hours seem an impossible delay.

She had left for some privacy, to gather her thoughts, to convince herself she could hold out till tomorrow, but there was almost relief when she heard the door and his footsteps coming up behind her.

She felt the lips on the back of her neck and it felt like salvation, and she closed her eyes because all she wanted was to feel the tease of his mouth. He kissed her very slowly, and she felt the scratch of his unshaven jaw as lips slid across her flesh. She could stop him at any moment, his kiss so slow, so light, she could brush him off and turn around and pretend perhaps that it had never happened, except she gripped harder to the balcony wall and did not turn around, for she did not want it to end.

He kissed her harder, as if to warn her perhaps, as if to tell her she could end it here, but she wanted him more than she wanted a neat conclusion.

She wanted the hands that snaked around and slid to her stomach, she wanted the bruise she was sure he was leaving because he kissed low on her neck, so deep she felt like crying, felt like turning her head right round to suck on his mouth, but still she stood there. She wanted, how she wanted, the slight pressure on his fingers, the push back into him that gave her a daring feel of what was waiting, his solid length pressing into her bottom.

‘We could take dessert upstairs,’ Zander said, for he wanted her in his room. He wanted every morsel now that went into her mouth, every sip, to come only from him, everything to be untainted by his brother.

‘I shouldn’t.’ Still she could not face him, still she dared not open her eyes, because if she did, she must make decisions, and she struggled so hard to remember. ‘I’m working.’

‘Not now,’ Zander said. ‘You just clocked off.’

‘Your brother—’

‘Forget about him,’ Zander said, for he must be dismissed from this moment. Zander must not for a second reveal the bitterness that was there or she would run.

‘I don’t want to regret this in the morning.’ It was a plea almost, because around him she could not think.

‘Why would you regret something so nice?’

‘Because …’ she attempted, except his fingers were at the back of her bra and nimbly, easily, through her dress he unhooked her, and she was dressed except she felt naked, exposed. Shamelessly it exhilarated her. What did this man do? He turned her round and he gave her his mouth. He wrapped her in the heat of his arms and cooled her with his tongue. He kissed her, but Charlotte could never, she realised, recall it afterwards as just a kiss, for it stroked and it soothed and it beat in her mouth and dragged at her skin and it was faint-making and delicious and did things to her body that no mere kiss ever could. Even wearing her high heels he was the taller, and their bodies meshed. He pulled her right in, he leant on the balcony so his body was a curve for hers to melt into—and readily she did.

He gave all to that kiss and Zander had kissed many, many women. Had kissed through his youth to assure a bed that night, had kissed just to get dinner when his stomach had been hollow with hunger, had kissed just to survive, but never, not once, had a kiss tasted so good.

Her lipstick was gone, her inhibitions fading, her breasts pressed against him, he caressed her. His mouth adored her in a way that made her feel both reckless and safe.

He took her away with his kiss and then he brought her back with its absence. He handed her her bag, which told her he had come out to fetch her; he draped her in her wrap and covered the swell of nipples beneath her dress, looked into her blue eyes and told her, looked right into them and told her, ‘You’ll never regret this.’

And he lied.

CHAPTER FIVE

WHY she trusted him she did not know.

Why she so willingly let him lead her to his room was not something she could readily explain.

In the bathroom of his luxury suite, she attempted to scold herself—to tell herself she knew nothing about this man, that he was a client of her boss, that she had known him for just a couple of days.

Not a single lecture worked.

He was the brother of Nico, whom she trusted, but it came down to something rather more basic than that, for there was no man on earth who made her feel the way Zander had in the time they had spent together.

She had not laughed so freely in years, had not talked so readily to another soul—and as for his kiss …

As she rinsed her mouth and looked up into her glittering eyes in the mirror, lifted the hair and saw the bruise he had left, she was also deeply honest with herself—in their few hours of contact he had offered escape. Tonight she was the dress and the shoes and the woman who looked back in the mirror, a woman who could handle things, she told herself as she removed her unhooked bra through the arms of her dress.

It was not love she sought as she walked from the bathroom to the lounge of his suite, it was escape and Zander offered it in spades.

Dessert had been delivered as loosely promised.

Shot glasses filled with mousses and brûlées, tiny pastries and potent custards, and not for a second was she tempted, at least not by the table, for she walked to him and was pulled down to his lap, to a kiss that did not need now to be tamed.

It was not the real Charlotte that kissed him back, it was the Charlotte she wanted to be, perhaps the Charlotte he thought he had met on the beach, a woman who could handle such things, could take the roaming of his hands on her body, could give her all and remember not to love him tomorrow.

For Zander, unusually, there was much at stake.

Wrongly, he assumed she had been his brother’s lover and it was imperative he win before they met.

How delicious the moan in her throat as she sat on his knee and kissed him.

Did he do this? he wanted to ask as he tore down her dress to the breasts he had undressed and suckled at her nipples.

Or this? he begged in his head and stood with her in his lap and pushed her to the bed with his mouth.

Or this? As he slid down her panties.

There was a rough edge to his kisses, an urgency to him that hadn’t been there before, an anger almost, and she pulled back on the bed, confused at the change in him.

‘Zander?’

And he looked up to blue eye that held his, and saw her eyes were darker when troubled. He wanted them pale, wanted her soothed, wanted their night, not the conquest.

Wanted her.

‘I’ve been thinking of you for so long,’ he offered by way of explanation for his urgency. ‘For weeks. Forgive me if I got carried away.’ And he watched as she blinked, still wary. ‘When we spoke, when you were in London and I was in Australia, when you were in bed …’ And she blinked again, for she had thought of him too. Unable to picture him then, still her mind had wandered, so much so that she could now understand his haste. ‘We’ll take things slowly.’ He smiled his lethal smile, except this time he meant it—thought not of his brother or hate, only of her. ‘We’ll go back to the beginning. How did you lie?’

She did not understand his question.

‘How did you lie in your bed when you spoke with me?’ And she could not help but smile at the memory of a dream that had come true, and could now forgive his roughness.

‘On my side.’

‘Show me.’ He rose from the bed and she watched the suited man slowly undress as she rolled to her side and pulled up the covers around her shoulders.

‘You?’ Charlotte asked, as he climbed back into bed.

‘On my back,’ Zander said, and something deep in her stomach tightened. ‘So tell me.’

‘What?’

‘How is the weather?’

And she lay on her side and closed her eyes and imagined the rain on her window and the grey of her life and his voice in her ear, only this time it was better, for it was cool but not cold in Xanos, and this time he was beside her.

‘What did you do today?’ This time, as she spoke of her day, she didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to make anything up, for it was all real.

‘I went walking in the hills.’

‘Alone?’ Zander asked.

‘No, not alone.’

‘And did you enjoy it?’ This time, when she retold her day, there was his hand on her waist, this time and for evermore she would lie in her bed in her room and remember the feel of him, gentler hands now exploring her body, the nuzzle of his mouth on her arms along her shoulders, a tender exploration of her breast. ‘Did you enjoy being with him in the hills?’

‘Very much.’

‘What did the two of you do?’

‘We just kissed,’ Charlotte said, as he rolled her onto her back.

‘Just?’ Zander asked, his mouth moving down to her stomach.

‘Better than just.’

‘Better than this?’ he asked, and his head moved lower.

Though determined as his quest was to rise above Nico, as he tasted her with his mouth, he forgot to hate. Charlotte lay there, eyes open to the ceiling, to what should feel strange and wrong and unfamiliar, except as his tongue explored and his lips teased, he knew what she wanted as only a lover could; he knew more than her as he pushed down hips that were resisting and demanded she come to his mouth. He kissed her till she bore no more reluctance, till she gave to his mouth a part of her that had once been subdued.

And then, when her body was quiet, he rose over her and kissed her again, kissed her slowly till she was waking, till she was again alive with greedy want, could attune to different sensations. She wanted to feel him, to hold him, to sheath him, for his fingers were now within her and she wanted the rest.

Her fingers were all thumbs at the feel of him, the hard strength that would soon be within her, but his fingers were far more skilled than hers.

He felt the restraint of the latex, felt her clumsy roll down and wanted, for the first time, to tell her not to bother, wanted to really feel the intimate skin that wet his fingers now. Wanted more for himself than was usual as for Zander touching was merely a means to an end, the part where he said and did the right things, worked a while for a brief reward. Yet here and now this did not feel like work.

He forgot to hate for the first time, for it had no place in this room.

He forgot he was here to prove something, to claim something, as his body pressed towards her. He forgot too that he was performing, because that was all sex ever was, and he meant what he said as his fingers moved from inside her, as his erection moved to that place. What he said he would not recall, what she heard was in Greek and not fully understood, but it was an intimate declaration that did not require translation.

It was the words of a man moving deep into a woman he wanted.

She thought he would glide into her, so wet and ready was she, but Zander in full arousal did not make for soft landings, he slammed into soft tissue and stretched her completely. It was more compulsive than tender, a basic rhythm that was exquisite, and he took her breath away and did not let her catch it. When she wanted more, there was more; when she thought there could not be more, she was again proven wrong. He was in her body, in her head and in her heart as he gave everything and simultaneously demanded everything from her. She had never known hands roam so hungrily, or a tongue and a breath in her ear, or the sheen of his back beneath her fingers. There were too many sensations for Charlotte to focus on, so she did not try, just moved with him and beyond herself, moved to a place that was waiting for them.

He moaned and it made her feel dizzy; he moved faster and she did too, and there was a hush then, a moment of stillness, no work needed now, just a wait for arrival, and it was now that he glided, and flew her away. She felt every beat and responded with her own; she heard every breath and tasted his moan, and as their bodies quieted she went back in her head, closed her eyes and attempted to reel in her heart.

It was too soon to love him.

They did not sleep for ages; they tried not to sleep. Zander could see the red numbers on the clock that ticked beside them, their hours left too few, not that she knew it. And here in his bed, with a woman beside him, for once he did not want to roll over, did not want to escape to sleep, or order from the bar, or envision tomorrow. For the first time he was comfortable in a place.

‘What is it like?’ She lay there and tried to fathom it, to comprehend how it must have been for him, and though she had said not to discuss things, it was way too late for that now. ‘What is it like knowing that you have a twin and never having seen him?’

‘I have seen him,’ Zander said, for he was not sure if it was a memory or if it was the one photo he had found, but he had seen his brother, they had once been together. ‘When we were babies …’ He did not want to talk about it, did not need to explain it. He turned to his side and closed his eyes, but she turned too, her hand loose on his waist, her breath on his back. He held his breath for if he did not he would speak, would ask her to leave, for suddenly she felt too close.

‘I mean …’ Still she would not leave it, did not heed the silent warning to halt. ‘What was it like, growing up without him? What has it been like, knowing you have an identical twin?’

And maybe there was weakness, for already it was tomorrow, already the day was here. Maybe it was sex that made him soften, or maybe it was her voice that sounded more tender than probing, or her hand that still stayed on his waist, because he did not tell her to be silent, did not respond in the way that he usually would have; instead, he lay in the silence as she patiently awaited his response and he thought about it.

He actually thought about it and how best to describe it.

‘You look in the mirror each morning?’ He was grateful that she did not answer with the obvious ‘Yes’, that she let him be for another moment with his thoughts. ‘Imagine looking and there is no reflection, knowing there is a you that you cannot see.’

And he could explain it no better, and he did not try to.

There was no point anyway.

Tomorrow, when she knew him, she might not want him in her life.

CHAPTER SIX

WAKING up in a strange bed, a strange country, should have had Charlotte in a complete panic, but she did not feel as if it was a stranger who lay beside her.

She watched him sleep and admired his beauty, her body lazy but still in arousal from the feel of his solid weight beside her through the night. Now, with the sun slowly waking Xanos, she got to watch him in colour. His skin, pale in the predawn light, glowed a smooth olive in the sun, and she gazed at the full, sensuous mouth that had explored her so intimately, had to resist moving over to kiss those lips; instead, she lay on her side and admired, saw the shadows to his stomach lift and reveal an ebony snake of hair. How she wanted to move that sheet, to see all of him.

He must have felt her eyes on him because he woke to find her watching, woke to the day he had long been awaiting, but he did not want to get out of bed. He looked at Charlotte and he wanted to stay, he wanted to pull her towards him, to bury his head in her hair, to make love in the morning, except that would be too cruel, even by his standards, for he knew what was about to come.

He did not move so she did, slid over the bed and kissed him because she still trusted in last night, in all they had found. Even as his mouth resisted, she did not question why. Still she kissed him. And he let her. She kissed him and he found himself kissing her back till there was a reluctant return, a recall to last night, to remember the intimacy they had shared that had gone way beyond sex, and Zander recoiled from her as he remembered just how close he had come to confiding in her. He did what he always did in the morning—instead of lingering, he climbed out of bed.

‘I have to get ready.’

She heard and felt his dismissal, despite his appropriate words, for the clock was already nearing seven.

‘So do I.’ She pulled on her dress, readied herself for the shameful lift ride in last night’s clothes. She could face it if he said farewell with a smile or a kiss that told her there was still tonight.

Neither was forthcoming.

‘Good luck for today.’

‘I never rely on luck’ came his curt response.

‘When I see you, when I speak with Nico—’

‘We never met,’ Zander said, and Charlotte nodded, for it did make things easier with her boss.

He was nervous about meeting Nico, about seeing his twin after all these years, Charlotte told herself as she headed to her room, and she was nervous too as she dressed in a smart navy suit and because of the bruise wore her hair down. Then she headed to the meeting rooms she had booked. She did a slight double-take when Nico walked in, a crisper, more clean-cut version of the man she had been in bed with last night, and, yes, she felt guilt, not for the act but towards her boss.

‘I’m sorry to hear about your father,’ she offered. ‘How is he?’

‘Extremely unwell,’ Nico responded. ‘After this meeting, I must go directly to the hospital—I trust that has been arranged?’

‘Of course,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’ve cancelled the rest of your week. Do you need me to clear things further?’

‘Not at this stage.’ There was a pause, a long one, and she knew she must fill it, must do the right thing by Nico, for after all he was her boss. Unable to look him in the face properly, she wished this morning was over, that the surprise was revealed and that Nico knew, and then she could see where that left her and Zander. ‘Nico …’ God, how much to tell him? ‘About this meeting. I know how important getting this land is to you. The thing is—’

‘In the scheme of things it is not that important,’ Nico interrupted. ‘I have not come away from my dying father about a piece of land. There’s something I need to tell you.’ Nico, as always, was direct. ‘I was going to explain things to you, except my father got ill. Still, I should have warned you, for had you bumped into him you would have got a shock …’ She froze as Nico spoke on. ‘This meeting today could get very personal. I just want to prepare you. You see, when I found out I had been adopted, I also found out that I had a twin. Zander. The businessman you have been dealing with is actually Alexandros Kargas …’

Her face flew to Nico’s, her mind torn in two as if it were paper as she tried not to reveal that she knew already, tried to fathom how Nico did.

‘When did you find out?’

‘Just recently. I had no idea that the landowner was him, of course, but now that I do, it makes sense.’ Nico was grim. ‘I think he is hoping to shock me.’

‘To surprise you?’ Charlotte forced a smile, but it died when Nico shook his head.

‘Yes, though I don’t think he’s planning a pleasant one. Fortunately I am one step ahead of him. There is a lot of history, Charlotte, none of it relevant to you. Suffice it to say the difficulties in reaching him these past weeks, well, it has nothing to do with a piece of land—he has been baiting me.’

‘Baiting you?’

But, of course, Nico did not have to explain things to her. ‘I just want you to be prepared that there may be a confrontation this morning, that there will be raised voices. On no account are you to come in or panic and call for assistance. I am expecting trouble and I am prepared for it.’ He headed into the meeting room and she was left with racing thoughts. Taking a seat at the desk outside, she placed her head in her hands, tried to work out from the last couple of days if what Nico was saying was true. She went over and over the conversations between Zander and her and wondered if he had been quizzing her, but all she had witnessed had been kindness. Surely Nico had got things wrong?

Paulo too?

They were wrong, she was sure of it. And when Zander walked towards the meeting room, Charlotte turned worried eyes to him, for had she not been in bed with him last night, had she not been held by him, had she not witnessed his tenderness first hand? But, then, every presumption Nico had uttered rang true, for the only word that could describe Zander’s appearance this morning was savage. Charlotte saw him in a suit for the first time, exquisitely tailored in the darkest of greys. He might have been dressed for a funeral, his tie a slate grey and that jet hair slicked back; he still had not shaved and somehow it spelt insolence. Her eyes begged for reassurance when they met his, and she willed from him a brief smile, a wink, some private reference to last night, to the knowledge that it would all be okay, but instead her eyes met those of a stranger.

‘Is he in?’

It was all he asked, all he wanted from her, and when she nodded he swept past her desk, gave one sharp knock on the door, and did not wait for Nico to respond. He opened the door and walked straight in, and all Charlotte glimpsed before the door closed was Nico standing straight to meet his twin for the first time.