‘Make love with me tonight.’

      Her heart was thumping, her breathing choppy, her lips felt plumped and tender. ‘It’s crazy,’ she said. Because she couldn’t say no, even though she knew she should. She shook her head, the pain of that night thirteen years ago refusing to be ignored. ‘You had your chance. You threw me out.’

      ‘A long time ago.’

      ‘You hate me.’

      ‘I want you.’

      ‘And I hate you!’

      ‘Do you? You didn’t kiss me like you hated me.’

      Her teeth found one kiss-swollen lip and she raked them over its unfamiliar plumpness. ‘One night?’

      ‘Just one night. And then we go our separate ways.’

      Trish Morey is an Australian who’s also spent time living and working in New Zealand and England. Now she’s settled with her husband and four young daughters in a special part of South Australia, surrounded by orchards and bushland, and visited by the occasional koala and kangaroo. With a lifelong love of reading, she penned her first book at age eleven, after which life, career and a growing family kept her busy, until once again she could indulge her desire to create characters and stories—this time in romance. Having her work published is a dream come true. Visit Trish at her website, www.trishmorey.com

       Recent titles by the same author:

      FORCED WIFE, ROYAL LOVE-CHILD

       THE ITALIAN BOSS’S MISTRESS OF REVENGE THE SHEIKH’S CONVENIENT VIRGIN

      THE RUTHLESS

       GREEK’S VIRGIN PRINCESS

      BY

      TRISH MOREY

      For darling Kate, whose strength of spirit

       and sense of humour knows no bounds and who is an inspiration to us all (and who demanded from her sickbed to know why it took me so long to dedicate a book to her, so I just had to do it again

      for Eleni, to whom I am eternally grateful, efharisto,

      and for the fabulous Maytoners, whose friendship,

       laughter and wisdom are like a lifeline. Thank you for keeping me sane.

      Love you all heaps.

      Trish

      x

      PROLOGUE

       Paris

      THERE was thunder in his head, a foul taste in his mouth and a naked woman in his bed, the latter almost enough to make him forget everything else. She was smooth, her bare skin like silk and satin under hands that felt too clumsy and unresponsive for his wants. Her small, nimble hands soothed his frustration, firing his anticipation with clever fingers that seemed to track the need under his skin while her mouth set fire to other places—the angle of his jaw, the jut of his collarbone, and below.

      He reached for her with leaden arms still heavy with alcohol and sleep, but she just laughed, wicked and low, and slipped out of his grasp, and it was too dark to see, so he collapsed back into the pillows, the blur in his head turning jagged and sharp as he tried to make sense of things. But there was no thinking, not with her attacking from a different direction, her mouth a circle of fire on the inside of one knee, her tongue the brand of a torch on the bare skin of his thigh.

      The sensations split cracks in the pain in his head, tiny fissures that memories squeezed through, blowing into life. Memories of arriving in Paris at his father’s command, of his father shouting, of him arguing back, and of the gut-wrenching blow when he’d realised that he had no choice…

      His tongue felt thick, his mouth dry, and the unfamiliar taste of stale whisky clung thick on his breath. How much had he drunk?

      Blood thundered in his ears, drumming in a skull that seemed to ache more with every beat, a beat that pushed his blood south until another part of him throbbed and kicked. Then her two small hands were around him, and the breath was punched from his lungs. Cool hands. Smooth hands. Bewitching hands.

      And then, just when he thought he could take no more, she flicked his very tip with her tongue. Just a graze, and yet still he bucked underneath her as if he’d been hit with a bolt of electricity, swelling even more and forcing her hands to loosen their grip.

      He reached a hand to his pounding head, sure his skull must be swelling with each hammer blow. Was this their fathers’ idea? To seal the deal? So that there was no going back?

      From the putrid depths of a drink-addled brain, anything seemed possible. They’d both been vehement that the engagement would go ahead. So they’d sent Elena here, naked to his bed, to seduce him and maybe create the child that would mean there was no chance of escape, no chance of avoiding the fate his father had carved out for him.

      He rubbed his aching, slick brow with one hand, wishing he could think clearly, wishing away the fog that filled his brain, but sick with the knowledge that it could indeed be true. After tonight he knew their fathers were capable of anything. His fate was sealed. There was no going back.

      And then she straddled him, one hand still on him, and he pulled away his arm and opened his eyes again, battling the pain that shot through his brow as his eyes struggled to focus in the dark.

      She moved over him, guiding him past the brush of curls to her entrance, and heat flared again as she brought him to that slick sweet spot, only to have rebellion course through his brain in a vivid flash of pain. Even if there was nothing he could do about this marriage, he would not be taken like some prize of war! If anyone did the pillaging around here, it would be him. And she would know it!

      With a roar that thundered in his head like cannon fire, he surged up, catching her in his arms and rolling her beneath him before her cry of surprise had faded away. His head was thumping with the sudden movement, his gut rebelling, but he had more important things on his mind. Still, just for a moment he allowed his hands to sweep up her sweet body. This time, trapped beneath him, she would not get away. He caught her breasts, smaller than he’d expected, but it wouldn’t be the first time the reality had failed to match up with the promotion. Besides, they were firm and peaked, and in the fog of his brain, he wasn’t about to complain. Not when they were the best things he’d felt all night. And if he could feel anything through the war zone that was his head, he’d take it.

      Even so, he would make her pay for playing this part in their fathers’ sordid business deal. He dipped his head and took her tightly budded breast into his mouth. Her body arched beneath him, and she shuddered as his hand grasped the other breast and squeezed it tight, his teeth grazing her nipple, nipping at her flesh, each nip feeding his anger.

      How dared she try to trap him? He’d agreed to marry her, hadn’t he? A fire burned inside him, flames fuelled by whisky and want and need and a firm-fleshed woman who had strayed where she shouldn’t. He had given their fathers his word. Damn her, he would make her pay!

      Through a fog-thick brain and the thump of blood, he heard her cry out, worked out the reason why, and finally released the breast clamped so tightly between his clenched teeth that it was a wonder he hadn’t drawn blood. Instantly she relaxed under him, and he laved the rest of her tension away, nuzzling, sucking, until once again she curled like a kitten around him, her silken legs wound around his in an age-old