The Revenge Collection 2018. Кейт Хьюит
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to be.’
Her snigger made his eyes narrow, but she didn’t care. ‘Keep telling yourself that. I look forward to your shock when I prove you wrong.’
That deadly smile she’d first seen in her father’s study reappeared, curling fear through her. It reeked with far too much gratification to kill that unshakeable sensation that she was standing on the edge of a precipice, and that, should she fall, there would be no saving her.
She realised the reason for the smile when he lifted her now bare fingers to his eye level. ‘You’ve proved me right already.’
‘Are you completely sure about that?’ The question was a bold but empty taunt.
The lack of fuss with which Harry had taken back his ring a few minutes ago had been a relief.
She might not have an immediate solution to her family’s problems, but Eva was glad she no longer had to pretend she was half of a sham couple.
Zaccheo brought her fingers to his mouth and kissed her ring finger, stunning her back to reality. Flashes erupted as his actions were recorded, no doubt to be streamed across the fastest mediums available.
Recalling the conversation she’d just had with her father, she tried to pull away. ‘This pound-of-flesh taking isn’t going to last very long, so I suggest you enjoy it while it lasts. I intend to return to my life before midnight—’
Her words dried up when his face closed in a mask of icy fury, and his hands sealed her body even closer to his.
‘Your first lesson is to stop speaking to me as if I’m the hired help. Refraining from doing so will put me in a much calmer frame of mind to deal with you than otherwise,’ he said with unmistakeable warning.
Eva doubted that anyone had dared to speak to Zaccheo Giordano in the way he referred, but she wasn’t about to debate that point with him with three hundred pairs of eyes watching. She was struggling enough to keep upright what with all the turbulent sensations firing through her at his touch. ‘Why, Zaccheo, you sound as if you’ve a great many lessons you intend to dole out...’ She tried to sound bored, but her voice emerged a little too breathless for her liking.
‘Patience, cara mia. You’ll be instructed as and when necessary.’ His gaze dropped to her mouth and her breath lodged in her sternum. ‘For now, I wish the talking to cease.’
He closed the final inch between them and slanted his mouth over hers. The world tilted and shook beneath her feet. Expertly sensual and demanding, he kissed her as if he owned her mouth, as if he owned her whole body. In all her adult years, Eva had never imagined the brush of a beard would infuse her with such spine-tingling sensations. Yet she shivered with fiery delight as Zaccheo’s silky facial hair caressed the corners of her mouth.
She groaned at the forceful breach of his tongue. Her arms drifted over his taut biceps as she became lost in the potent magic of his kiss. At the first touch of his tongue against hers, she shuddered. He made a rough sound and his sharp inhalation vibrated against her. His fingers convulsed in her hair and his other hand drifted to her bottom, moulding her as he stepped back against the aircraft and widened his stance to bring her closer.
Eva wasn’t sure how long she stood there, adrift in a swirl of sensation as he ravaged her mouth. It wasn’t until her lungs screamed and her heart jackhammered against her ribs did she recall where she was...what was happening.
And still she wanted to continue.
So much so she almost moaned in protest when firm hands set her back and she found herself staring into molten eyes dark with savage hunger.
‘I think we’ve given our audience enough to feed on. Get in.’
The calm words, spoken in direct counteraction to the frenzied look in his eyes, doused Eva with cold reality. That she’d made even more of a spectacle of herself hit home as wolf whistles ripped through the air.
‘This was all for show?’ she whispered numbly, shivering in the frigid air.
One sleek eyebrow lifted. ‘Of course. Did you think I wanted to kiss you because I was so desperate for you I just couldn’t help myself? You’ll find that I have more self-restraint than that. Get in,’ he repeated, holding the steel and glass door to the aircraft open.
Eva brushed cold hands over her arms, unable to move. She stared at him, perhaps hoping to find some humanity in the suddenly grim-faced block of stone in front of her. Or did she want a hint of the man who’d once framed her face in his hands and called her the most beautiful thing in his life?
Of course, that had been a lie. Everything about Zaccheo had been a lie. Still she probed for some softness beneath that formidable exterior.
His implacable stare told her she was grasping at straws, as she had from the very beginning, when she’d woven stupid dreams around him.
A gust of icy wind blew across the grass, straight into her exposed back. A flash of red caught her eye and she blindly stumbled towards the terrace. She’d barely taken two steps when he seized her arm.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Zaccheo enquired frostily.
‘I’m cold,’ she replied through chattering teeth. ‘My wrap...’ She pointed to where the material had drifted.
‘Leave it. This will keep you warm.’ With one smooth move, he unbuttoned, shrugged off his tuxedo and draped it around her shoulders. The sudden infusion of warmth was overwhelming. Eva didn’t want to drown in the distinctively heady scent of the man who was wrecking her world, didn’t welcome her body’s traitorous urge to burrow into the warm silk lining. And most of all, she didn’t want to be beholden to him in any way, or accept any hint of kindness from him.
Zaccheo Giordano had demonstrated a ruthless thirst to annihilate those he deemed enemies in her father’s study.
But she was no longer the naive and trusting girl she’d been a year and a half ago. Zaccheo’s betrayal and her continued fraught relationship with her father and sister had hardened her heart. The pain was still there—would probably always be there—but so were the new fortifications against further hurt. She had no intention of laying her heart and soul bare to further damage from the people she’d once blithely believed would return the same love and devotion she offered freely.
She started to shrug off the jacket. ‘No, thanks. I’d prefer not to be stamped as your possession.’
He stopped her by placing both hands on her arms.
Dark grey eyes pinned her to the spot, the sharper, icier burst of wind whipping around them casting him in a deadlier, more dangerous light.
‘You’re already my possession. You became mine the moment you made the choice to follow me out here, Eva. You can kid yourself all you want, but this is your reality from here on in.’
@Ladystclare OMG! Bragging rights=mine! Beheld fireworks w/in fireworks @P/Manor last night when LadyP eloped w/convict lover! #amazeballs
@Aristokitten Bet it was all a publicity stunt, but boy that kiss? Sign me up! #Ineedlatinlovelikethat
@Countrypile That wasn’t love. That was an obscene and shameless money-grabbing gambit at its worst! #Donotencouragerancidbehaviour
EVA FLINCHED, her stomach churning at each new message that flooded her social-media stream.
The hours had passed in a haze after Zaccheo flew them from Pennington Manor. In solid command of the helicopter, he’d soared over the City of London and landed on the vertiginous rooftop of The Spire.
The stunning split-level penthouse’s interior had barely registered in the early hours when Zaccheo’s enigmatic aide, Romeo, had directed the butler to show her to her room.
Zaccheo had stalked away