His Ultimate Demand. Dani Collins
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recalled the circumstances of their meeting. Of all the tables she could’ve been hostessing, she’d been at Giacomo’s table.
This time he didn’t ignore the churning in his gut. Giacomo had played that game before...
He turned and found her two steps behind him but any satisfaction was marred by the new set of questions clamouring for answers.
‘Why are you really here, Ruby? Did the old man send you?’
Fresh trepidation flared in her eyes at his harsh tone. ‘Who... Oh, that guy you were playing with? No, I have no idea who he is and I’d never met him before tonight.’
He tried to read her. Surely, even seasoned liars couldn’t look him straight in the eye as she was without flinching?
‘Be warned, if I find that to be untrue, there’ll be hell to pay.’
‘I’m telling you, I don’t know him.’ Her fingers meshed together and she began to fidget. But not once did her stare waver from his.
Narciso decided to be satisfied. For now. He entered the bedroom and crossed to the en suite.
‘So I’m here. Now what?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to take a shower. You do whatever you want. As long as you don’t leave this room.’
‘God, this is nuts,’ he heard her mutter as he entered the bathroom. Despite the volatile emotions churning through him, he smiled. From the corner of his eye, he watched her head once more to the stunning view of Macau City.
Silhouetted against the view, her body was so perfectly stunning, his mouth dried. Disappointment welled in his chest but he suppressed it as he undressed.
The cold shower was bracing enough to calm his arousal but not enough to wash away the bitterness as he replayed his evening.
Giacomo was bent on trying to take Narciso down.
Well, that suited Narciso fine. Although Narciso could’ve destroyed him with that last move, the notion of leaving him dangling a little bit longer had been irresistible.
The opportunity would present itself again soon enough. Giacomo was predictable in his hatred for him, if for nothing else.
And at thirty, exactly ten years after his father’s most cutting betrayal, the need for vengeance burned just as brightly in Narciso’s veins.
For as long as he’d been old enough to retain his memories, Narciso had known that Giacomo bore him a deep, abiding hatred. As a child he’d been bewildered as to why nothing he did pleased or satisfied the man he once called Papa.
On his eleventh birthday, a whisky-soaked Giacomo had finally revealed to him the reason he detested the sight of his son. At first, even reeling from the shock of the discovery, Narciso had stupidly believed he could turn things around, make his father, if not love him, at least learn to cohabit peacefully with him. He’d made sure his grades were perfect, that he was quiet and obedient and exemplary in all things.
Narciso’s mouth twisted. That had lasted all of a year before he’d accepted he was flogging a dead horse. When his thirteenth birthday had come and gone without so much as a single lit candle on a store-bought birthday cake, he’d finally admitted that war was the only way forward.
He’d suppressed whatever heartache had threatened to catch him unawares in the dead of night and used animosity to feed his ambitions to succeed. He’d won scholarships to the best colleges in the world. His head for figures had seen him attain his first million by eighteen. By twenty he’d been a multimillionaire.
Twenty...also the age he’d met Maria, the unexpected tool his father had used against him. The wound gaped another inch.
With a sharp curse, he shut off the shower. Snapping up a towel, he tied it around his waist.
Maria was dead to him, but, in a way, he was pleased for her transient presence in his life ten years ago. She’d reinforced his belief that lowering his guard, even for a moment, was foolhardy. That even fake love came at a steep price.
Money and sex were the two things he thrived on now. Emotions...connections, hell, love, were a complete waste of his time.
He entered the bedroom and found Ruby reclining on the bed, legs crossed, one bare foot tapping in agitation. She shot upright at his entry. After that one quick look, Narciso barely glanced in her direction as he walked to the connecting dressing room.
The whole evening was screwed up. His thwarted efforts to bed her, and now his unexplained trip down memory lane had left him in an edgy mood. Snatching at his fast-dwindling control, he reached for the rarely used silk pajama bottoms and dropped his towel.
The choking sound made him glance over his shoulder through the open door. She sat frozen on the bed, her eyes wide with astonishment.
‘Something wrong?’ he asked as he stabbed one leg into the garment. At her silence, he started to turn.
She shut her eyes and jerked away from him. He pulled the bottoms on and entered the bedroom. ‘Open your eyes. It’s safe to look now.’
She opened her eyes but kept her gaze averted.
‘Come on, now, the way you’re acting you’d think I was the first naked male you’d ever seen.’
That gurgling sound came again and Narciso shook his head. ‘I have very little interest in virgins, amante. If you hope to snag my attention, I suggest you drop that particular act.’
She inhaled sharply. ‘It’s not an—’ She bit off the rest of her answer as he drew back the sheets.
Four of the six pillows he threw to the floor before he got in. The sight of her sitting so stiffly made his jaw tighten. Reaching across, he pulled her into the middle and pulled the sheet over them.
‘You were saying?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Are you really going to sleep?’
‘Yes. I suggest you get some sleep too even though I fear for your circulation in that dress you’re wearing.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘If you say so.’ He relaxed against the pillows. Sleep would be elusive with her so close. For a moment he wondered why he was torturing himself like this.
Keep your friends close and your stalkers closer?
He suppressed a grim smile, grabbed the remote and doused the light in the bedroom. But with one sensory factor taken away, her erratic breathing became amplified.
Good. If he was to be tortured with images of what sex between them would be like, it was only fair she experienced the same fate.
‘What happens tomorrow?’ she asked quietly.
‘Tomorrow we talk. And by talk I mean you come clean, completely, as to why you’re here. Because if you hold anything back from me, I won’t hesitate to throw you to the wolves.’
RUBY WOKE WITH the distinct feeling that something had changed. It took a millisecond to realise what that something was.
‘You took my clothes off?’ she screeched, her fingers flying to the hem of the black T-shirt that had miraculously appeared on her body.
The man who lay so languidly beside her, his head propped up on his hand, nodded.
‘I feared you’d suffocate in your sleep in that dress. Despite your dubious reasons for being here, even I would find it difficult to explain death by designer gown to the authorities. You were quite co-operative. I think it was the only time you’ve been co-operative since we reached my suite, which tells me you were as uncomfortable as I suspected.’
She licked her lips and struggled