Ruthless Lover. Sarah Holland
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she marries?’ Nick asked coolly.
‘Well,’ her father shrugged, ‘he won’t get a title, but any children my daughter has would certainly inherit it.’
Nick’s blue eyes flicked back to Serena. He stepped a little closer. ‘In the meantime—what do I call you?’
‘Just Lady Serena,’ she said softly, pulses leaping.
‘That’s very formal.’ He flicked his insolent gaze to the full breasts which strained against the delicate silk dress she wore, and she felt her colour rise in fierce excitement at the way he dared look at her so boldly. ‘What happens when we reach an informal footing?’
Serena blushed, lowering her lashes. ‘That depends on how well you know me.’
‘How well do I have to know you before I can call you Serena?’
‘Very well indeed,’ she said huskily.
He smiled, then reached out a strong hand and touched her hair. ‘So, you’re going to be a countess one day…’ He trailed his long fingers through her hair, towering over her, eyes dark with blatant sexual desire. ‘I’ve never met a red-headed countess before.’
Her parents stiffened, staring at him, and Serena took an involuntary step back, green eyes stricken, sensing their disapproval of the way he touched her, and feeling guilty for having enjoyed it.
Nick’s eyes narrowed, shooting quickly to her parents’, and there was a brief, tense silence in the drawing-room as the legal papers remained unsigned on the Elizabethan carved table.
‘Well,’ Nick Colterne drawled, a hard smile curving his cynical mouth, ‘it’s been a long day, hasn’t it? And I feel in need of a little recreation.’ He glanced at the Rolex on his dark-haired wrist. ‘I think I’d like to take your beautiful daughter out to dinner. Any objections?’
Her parents were very still, their faces grim as they looked at Serena, standing before him like a sacrifice.
Serena went to dinner with him, deeply aware of him as she sat stiffly in the back of the luxurious Cadillac, staring accusingly at him through her lashes as he stared back with narrowed eyes.
‘Any good ideas where we can eat?’ he asked, brows lifted.
‘The Flaxton Table does a very nice supper,’ she said shakily, not understanding his interest in her, yet at the same time understanding it at a deep level that terrified her.
They ate at the small family restaurant in the main street of the village. All the villagers, of course, knew what was happening at the manor, and gave her excited looks as she arrived with the American shark with the dark good looks and air of power.
Serena felt so gauche and unsophisticated in his presence. Twice she dropped her fork, and once she spilt the glass of orange juice he brought her.
‘I hear you’ve only just left finishing school.’ Nick Colterne watched her with narrowed speculative eyes. ‘That makes you twenty—right?’
‘Yes.’ Serena found herself tongue-tied in his presence, her pulses racing as she stared again and again at his ruthless mouth and wondered how it would feel if he kissed her with it, very forcefully…very forcefully indeed.
‘You’re very beautiful,’ he said softly, making her hand shake as his blue eyes burned into her. ‘Any boyfriends?’
Serena laughed and shook her head. ‘I haven’t even met any boys yet. Except Derry, the gardener’s son, and he’s just silly.’
Nick’s mouth hardened into a cynical smile, his eyes slipping to her breasts. ‘Well,’ he said under his breath, ‘that’s nice and clear.’
It was as though she had told him something important without realising it, and Serena just stared at him, her eyes wide as she tried to understand it.
When they drove home to Flaxton Manor, he held her wrist in the back of the car as she tried to open the door, and his blue eyes watched her with a look of dark sexual power that made her shake.
‘Did you enjoy our evening?’ he asked softly.
‘Yes…’ Serena said, mouth quivering as she stared at the tough face. ‘Very much.’
His black lashes flickered on razor-sharp cheekbones. ‘Do me a favour,’ he said. ‘When I come to close this deal tomorrow, put on that creamy lace dress you were wearing yesterday.’
Serena was surprised. She had bought the lace dress from a second-hand shop last year for next to nothing. It fell in soft drapery over her slender curves, as elegant as it was clinging. ‘The lace dress…? But why?’
‘Just put it on,’ he said with a hard twist to his mouth, his eyes rueful. ‘As a little favour for me. I didn’t get to see it properly. You were standing at the window—remember?’
‘OK,’ Serena said, her voice husky, not understanding but feeling very excited by the way he looked at her, spoke to her.
He smiled slowly, released her wrist. ‘Tell your parents I’ll arrive at eight tomorrow morning. I have to fly back to New York in the afternoon. Either we sign tomorrow or forget it.’ His eyes watched her oddly. ‘Will you tell them that, Lady Serena?’
She nodded, and left the car, trembling as she walked in and found her anxious parents hovering in the hall, waiting for her.
Serena told them what Nick Colterne had said.
‘Sign tomorrow?’ Her father frowned. ‘That’s rushing things a little, isn’t it?’
‘What does it matter, dear?’ Her mother sighed, fingering her fake pearls. ‘We’re not in a position to be proud and he knows it. We need his money and his help. The faster we get it, the better. We’ll just catch the tail end of the summer tourist trade if we open quickly.’
So the next morning Nick Colterne came back with his henchmen, his Cadillac and his air of power. Heart thudding, Serena watched him arrive, hidden from view behind the Elizabethan window-frames.
She put on her cream lace dress, combed out her waist-length red hair and wondered why he wanted to see her in this. It was a very English design, the lace fragile, the cream silk below it skimming her womanly curves with elegance, ending in soft folds just below the knee.
Studying herself in the mirror, she thought of Nick Colterne and her green eyes darkened, her lips parting as she turned this way and that, suddenly feeling sensual, as though her skin was made of silk and her lips of velvet.
It was nine o’clock when she was called to the drawing-room.
Going in, she was surprised to find Nick Colterne alone. The sight of him made her heart thud with excitement, and she looked around for her parents with a frown.
Nick watched her intently, his ruthless eyes moving swiftly, restlessly over her body, stark sexual desire stamped on his tough face as he inspected her from head to foot.
He expelled his breath in an odd, hoarse, shaking way as he looked at her, and it made her quiver, staring through her lashes at his hard mouth.
‘Come in, Lady Serena,’ Nick said softly, a strange expression on his hard face. ‘And close the door. I want to talk to you.’
Obediently, she did as she was told, her hands damp suddenly as she fidgeted with the folds of the dress, looking up at Nick hotly through her lashes.
He walked towards her, and said deeply, ‘I don’t have much time. I want to sign this deal and get the wheels moving on it. But there’s an essential ingredient in the package that I don’t yet have.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said huskily.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said thickly, watching her.
Her eyes darted up to his and a slow flush crept over her face.
Nick suddenly lifted