PROLOGUE

      Henry Saxton Brae was admiring his business partner’s considerable assets.

      ‘Harder!’ she commanded. ‘I’m almost there!’

      Her eyes were closed and her breathing ragged. Her pretty, elfin face was twisted into an expression of intense concentration as she willed herself to orgasm.

      Henry felt a moment’s deep loathing, first for George and then for himself. Then he closed his own eyes and erupted inside her, his fingers digging painfully into the small of her back as they both came.

      ‘Naughty,’ Georgina chided him, turning to rub the bruises already forming above her buttocks as she dismounted, with an insufferably smug look on her face. Every time they did this, George had ‘won’ and Henry had ‘lost’. She delighted in the power she had over him; her ability to goad him into sex, even though she knew deep down he despised her.

      ‘Robert’s bound to notice. What am I going to tell him?’

      ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Henry muttered bitterly, pulling up his jeans. ‘Lying’s never exactly been a problem for you.’

      ‘Or you, darling,’ George shot back.

      They were lying on the floor of Gigtix.com’s London offices, the internet box-office company that Henry Saxton Brae and Georgina Savile had founded together three years ago. It had made both of them fabulously wealthy, but it had also bound them together in what was becoming an increasingly toxic relationship. George’s recently acquired husband Robert, a barrister of quite earth-shattering banality, was far too unimaginative ever to suspect anything might be going on behind his back. But Eva, Henry’s girlfriend, was beginning to get suspicious.

      Not girlfriend, Henry reminded himself guiltily. Fiancée.

      Why had he given in to George again? Why? What compulsion kept driving him to cheat on the woman he loved, and who was a thousand times more beautiful than malicious, manipulative, spiteful George Savile, or any of his other meaningless flings?

      ‘I’m serious,’ George pouted, examining her bruises more closely. ‘How would you like it if I sent you back to Ikea with scratches all over your back?’

      ‘Don’t call her that,’ Henry snapped. ‘Ikea’ was Georgina’s nickname for Eva, because she was Swedish and, in George’s mind, disposable. Looking at his Patek Philippe watch, Henry felt his anxiety levels rise still further. ‘I have to go. I’m going to be late.’

      ‘For what? Your curfew?’ Georgina taunted, slipping a ridiculously tight pink T-shirt over her nude push-up bra.

      ‘For the village fete,’ said Henry, grabbing his car keys from the desk. ‘I’m supposed to be giving out prizes.’

      George threw her slender neck back and laughed loudly.

      ‘I’d forgotten you’re playing the country gentleman now. How priceless!’

      ‘I’m not playing,’ said Henry.

      Henry had bought Hanborough Castle, the Swell Valley’s most idyllically romantic estate, six months ago, and now lived there full time with his bride-to-be. The whole thing was ridiculous. Taking Henry Saxton Brae out of London was like taking a killer whale out of the ocean. Henry was a predator, not a pet.

      ‘Run along then,’ George taunted. ‘The lord of the manor mustn’t be late for the fete.’

      Henry stormed out, slamming the office door behind him.

      Only once she was alone did George’s triumphant smile fade and the familiar melancholy, deflated feeling take hold. Henry would come to his senses one day. George felt sure of it. But it was hard waiting sometimes.

      She’d hoped her wedding to Robert would be the wake-up call Henry needed. But he’d seemed not to care at all. George was pretty sure he was faking his indifference. But it was still hard. Henry’s engagement to the awful, vacuous, goody two-shoes Eva Gunnarson had been even harder. George had grown used to him screwing around. He was one of England’s most eligible bachelors, after all. Rampant promiscuity went with the territory, and George knew that the one-night stands meant nothing to him. But Henry’s new-found devotion to that Swedish bitch was different. That had changed everything.

      Eva wouldn’t win, though. Not in the long run. Henry would soon tire of country life, and of her. And when he did, Georgina Savile would be there to claim her prize.

      He still needs me, George thought, caressing the bruises on her back again, but lovingly this time. I’m his drug. We’re each other’s drug.