Mediterranean Men Unleashed: The Billionaire's Blackmailed Bride. JACQUELINE BAIRD
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returned it to the safe, and when he turned back Emily had fastened something around her neck, and was slipping a bracelet on her wrist.
Anton moved towards her and stopped. Her long blonde hair was swept back in a smooth knot on top of her head, the severity of the style emphasizing the perfect symmetry of her delicate features. The shimmering blue dress caressed her superb body like a lover’s hand. The simple tie at the back of her neck left the shoulders bare and revealed the silken-smooth skin of her straight back almost to her waist. But it was the platinum chain with a heart-shaped diamond and sapphire-encrusted locket suspended between the creamy soft curves of her breasts that captured all his attention.
‘Nice pendant.’ He reached out and fingered the locket and wondered who had bought it for her. Maybe her ex-fiancé? Not that it mattered, he wasn’t jealous … he was never jealous … he was just curious, he told himself.
‘Yes, I like it,’ she said and, stepping back, she added, ‘and I have the bracelet to match.’
She held out her wrist for his approval. The heart motif was followed in a string of diamonds with smaller sapphire centres around her slender wrist.
‘I have never seen you wear them before.’ He wasn’t going to ask her … But he did. ‘Who gave them to you?’
Emily glanced up at him. So far Anton had got all his own way in this farce of a marriage, but not any more, and she took great delight in telling him.
‘The locket was a present from my parents for my eighteenth birthday. And the bracelet was a present from my father on my twenty-first birthday. Beautiful, aren’t they? And surprisingly they match the ring you bought me. Isn’t that fortuitous?’
Anton frowned at the mention of her father, though, if he was honest, in a way he was relieved. ‘Yes, very,’ he agreed. Better a father than the ex-fiancé he had imagined.
She turned to leave, and he caught her wrist. ‘Wait.’
‘Was there something else?’ Her eyes flicked over him.
‘No, not really.’ It was not like him to be so indecisive. But there was something … She was as exquisite as ever, as polite, but the blue eyes that met his no longer revealed her every thought. Instead, he realized, they looked cold, almost cynical …
He let go of her hand and she left.
Was he responsible for the change in Emily, her cynicism? he wondered for a moment. He shrugged his shoulders. No … In his experience all women were notoriously volatile; wrong time of the month, wrong clothes—anything could upset them. Problem resolved, he headed for the shower.
Emily looked around her. Not only did it make it easier for her to ignore Anton’s hand resting lightly on her waist, it enabled her to study the glittering throng, or, if she was honest, the women.
Anton was at home in this crowd. He had introduced her to the winning owner of the team, and a host of other people whose names she didn’t even try to remember. But all the time in the back of her mind was the nagging question if he could invite two of his ex-girlfriends to stay with them for the weekend, how many more of the women here had he slept with?
By Anton’s own admission he had been attending the Monaco Grand Prix for years, and she had not forgotten what Max had told her about the ‘Pit Ponies’. What a degrading nickname for female groupies, and what did it say about the men who used them? Her husband probably one.
‘So, Emily, have you had enough?’ Anton said softly. ‘Want to go back to the yacht?’ She felt the warmth of his breath against her ear and tensed.
His hand tightened on her waist and the warmth of his long body against hers was a temptation, a temptation she was determined to resist.
‘No.’ She looked up at his brutally handsome face. His dark eyes held a wealth of sensual knowledge that excited and shamed her.
‘Actually, I would like to go to the casino,’ she said sweetly. ‘Carlo told me you usually all go after the party—it is another tradition of yours, apparently.’ Along with bedding any beautiful female he fancied, she almost added …
Anton cursed Carlo under his breath, and, much as he ached to get Emily back in bed, he could not deny her the trip. He had already taken all the eye-rolling and ribbing he could stand from his motor-sport acquaintances when he had introduced her as his wife, when Emily had quite blithely told them this was his idea of a honeymoon. ‘Yes, okay.’
Anton gritted his teeth as the roulette wheel spun again.
‘Oh, my God!’ Emily exclaimed as the white ball landed on her age, number twenty-four, on the roulette wheel. ‘I’ve won again.’
The croupier gave her a broad smile and shoved a huge stack of chips towards her, and Anton wanted to shove him in the face.
‘Yes, Emily,’ he said, stopping her hand as she went to place another bet. ‘But we have been here over three hours. The others left ages ago. You have won at least ten thousand, so don’t push your luck.’
The euphoria of his team’s win, his earlier good mood had totally evaporated and slowly he had begun to realize that Emily was delaying going back to the yacht. Trying to avoid going to bed with him. Well, not any more; she enjoyed sex with an appetite that matched his own, and he had waited long enough.
She cast him a look. ‘Have I really? That rather proves the maxim—lucky at cards, unlucky in love.’ And she gave him a brittle smile.
‘Cut out the sarcasm. Collect your chips—we are leaving.’
He was angry. She had with very little persuasion been a willing bed partner after their original argument. She had agreed to continue their marriage in a civilized manner. He could not fault her—she had been perfectly polite to their guests, if a bit sarcastic to him at times, which he could understand given her upset over her father and the honeymoon, he silently conceded. But he wasn’t a fool. Now there was definitely something else bugging her …
He was sure of it when they finally got back to their cabin and he drew her into his arms.
She tried to pull away from him, but he merely tightened his hold on her and looked down at her with smouldering eyes.
‘I have waited all night for this,’ he said, and bent his head to take her mouth. But she averted her face and his lips brushed her cheek.
‘Do you mind, Anton, but it is four in the morning and after the last few hectic days I am exhausted.’ Her eyes avoided his, and her body stiffened in his arms. ‘Plus I need to be up in a few hours—a couple of your guests are leaving early.’
‘One kiss.’ He grasped the nape of her neck and tipped back her head; she closed her eyes, and parted her lips, and he kissed her.
He kept on kissing her until she was melting in his arms. Then he lifted his head, and stared down into her flushed face. No woman manipulated him with sex, never had, never would.
‘Are you sure you are too tired?’ he drawled mockingly.
She looked at him for a long moment, and he could actually see her withdrawal, the sensuality fading from her eyes, freezing him out.
‘Yes, sorry,’ she apologized, and slipped out of his arms. ‘But don’t let me stop you. I have it on good authority there are at least two other women you have slept with on board. I’m sure one will oblige. If not you could always nip ashore and pick up a motor-racing groupie with no trouble at all.’
Anton stiffened in outrage, and for a moment he said nothing as he fought to control the fury that surged through him at her insult to his moral integrity, his dark eyes narrowing to slits as he took in her cool face.
‘That is some opinion you have of me, Emily, and in the future I might take up your generous offer,’ he drawled. ‘But first I’d like to know who fed you such lies?’
‘Well, I knew about Eloise, of course, but while you were doing your man thing with