Desperate was the right word, but he did not wish to be reminded of his latest failure. “And you?” he said bitterly. “Are you desperate to be back in Arnold's arms? Don't you wish to be far away from me? To be treated like royalty and enjoy his wealth?”She whirled back toward him, her blue-green eyes widening in shock. “You know I am not! How could you accuse me of that? You know very well I had no knowledge of his tricks and I would never sell myself for money."He knew that, but Sylvia believed the best of people. Could she, in time, grow to forgive the baron as well? The thought made him cruel.“You should know,” he said brutally, “that you were not the first woman he took as his lover since his marriage. He has quite the reputation of sleeping around.”She licked her lips. “I wasn’t?”“He’s had five or six.”She set her coffee cup down on the table with a trembling hand. “You must think I’m the biggest idiot in the world,” she whispered, blinking fast. “Believing Arnold would a
Sylvia heard his harsh intake of breath. It was all she could do to not to release his arm. Heat suffused her cheeks at her bold words.But she’d said it. She’d actually said the thought that had been pounding in her heart all night as she lay alone in the large bed. The question that had built inside her all morning as she made breakfast.She’d realized Xavier would never go back on his word not to kiss her. If she wanted him, she would have to beg.He turned to her now, cradling her face in his strong hands as he looked down at her with such hot intensity that she felt lost in it.“If I kiss you,” he ground out, “it won’t stop at a kiss. I will not be able to control myself."Wouldn’t it? She hadn’t thought that far ahead. All she knew was that if he didn’t kiss her soon, she thought she would die.This is madness, Sylvia’s mind was frantically trying to tell her. But her body had long stopped listening to her brain.“It will destroy your relationship with Arnold forever,” he said q
“Is she your cousin? Your niece?” She bit her lip. “Surely she’s not young enough to be your…your daughter?”Clenching his jaw, he looked away.“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”“No,” he bit out.“Because you promised her you wouldn’t?”He gave a single unsteady nod.Familial. So she wasn’t his mistress. She wasn’t his lover. Laila was a member of his family, or at least that was how he felt toward her.Sylvia’s heart suddenly lightened. She took a deep breath. She looked up at him.“You also promised,” she said softly, reaching up to stroke his face, “that you would kiss me if I begged you.”Looking down at her, he sucked in his breath.“I’m begging you.” She let her hand slowly trail down his bare throat, placing her palm against his shirt, over the rapid beat of his heart. “Kiss me. Kiss me now.”She heard him gasp, then he grabbed her hands in his own. “All right,” he rasped. His voice was raw. “All right.”“All right?”“God help me—” He crushed his mouth against hers, hard
Xavier was breathtaking. Beautiful, in the strength of his muscled form and shape, in the stretch of dark hair tracing down his hard-bodied chest to his taut, flat belly and his lean hips. She saw the hard, enormous, jutting evidence of his desire for her and squeezed her eyes shut, suddenly afraid.He covered her with his body, reaching across to gently brush tendrils of hair from her face. “Don’t be afraid.”Sylvia kept her eyes shut. “I know it’s going to hurt,” she whispered. “Please just make it quick.”His low laugh made her eyes fly open. She found him looking down at her with dancing dark eyes.“Oh, my beautiful girl,” he said. “Quick is the last thing I’m going to be.” As he slowly inched his way back down her body, she heard him mutter, “Even if it kills me.”He moved his head back between her legs and breathed against her. Holding her hips firmly, he pressed his mouth against the wet spot between her thighs. The pleasure was too intense, causing her hips to buck as she trie
THE next morning, Sylvia lay cradled against him in the large bed as she stared out the bedroom window, watching the pink streaks of sunrise cross the sky.They’d moved into the bedroom sometime yesterday afternoon. They’d spent the rest of the night there, only leaving the bed to shower and scavenge and devour simple meals in the kitchen.She looked at him now as he slept. His peaceful face looked younger somehow, almost boyish. Sleeping with him all night, in his arms after the many times they’d made love, was utter bliss. It was exquisite.It was torture.Why did she feel this way—so completely infatuated, so enamored, so connected to him in every way possible? Was it because he’d taken her virginity? Was she deluding herself, like she had with Arnold, into imagining Xavier as the fulfillment of some romantic dream?“Don’t think I’m a good person,”he’d told her grimly. She didn’t want to believe him. How could she when every inch of her body down to blood and bone insisted differen
He left her breathless. His strength. His power. Most of all, the dark heat in his eyes as he looked up at her.His hands lifted up her hips. As if she weighed nothing at all, he lowered her with exquisite slowness, impaling her, causing them both to gasp as he filled her inch by inch. Sylvia tossed back her head, exposing her neck as her eyes rolled back with the pleasure. He guided her, allowing her to establish her own rhythm, teaching her to ride him. Tension coiled inside her deep and fast, and when she finally exploded, she screamed. He plunged inside her with a final deep thrust, shouting her name with a bestial growl that somehow sounded like a prayer. When she collapsed over his body, utterly spent, it took ten minutes before she stopped shaking.Afterward, as they slept in each other’s arms, Sylvia opened her eyes to stare blankly at the brilliant sunlight on the ocean.She could no longer deny her feelings.Xavier had seen her at her worst. And he’d accepted her, just as sh
He found a woman lying on a small bed, a brunette Laila’s size with bandages on her face. For a moment, he’d believed that after all these months, he’d finally found her.Then he’d heard the language the woman was shouting. German? It turned out she was a wealthy businesswoman from Berlin who’d come to recover from her face-lift in privacy and seclusion. Xavier had only convinced her not to call the police through substantial cash compensation.Cash that would come out of his payment to Montez, Xavier thought, gritting his teeth, for feeding his chief bodyguard such faulty information.But in his heart Xavier did not blame the investigator. He blamed only himself. He was the one who’d failed Laila, again and again over the past year. And she was still out there somewhere. Dying. Alone.They drove back to Cabo San Lucas in silence. Entering the villa, Xavier felt hollowed out. He walked through the heavily embellished oak door with his shoulders hunched. Wearily, he pushed open the doo
He leaned forward in his chair. “Go on.”“Your company seems profitable, and that’s great, but…” “Yes?”She pressed her lips together, then looked up. “But people work at those companies. People who lose their jobs. When you buy those companies and dissect them, these people lose their source of livelihood and they are forced to give up.”“So?” There was a loud burst of mariachi music from the town below, and she looked in the distance at the dark, moonswept Pacific. “I’m biased, I guess. My grandfather had a candy company a long time ago. It did really well, then things fell apart. Ingredients became more expensive, and we didn’t have the nationwide distribution of the larger companies. Ten years ago, after my father took over, a conglomerate offered to buy Linden Candy. It would have made us wealthy, but my dad knew they’d close the factory and move production, leaving half our town out of work. So for the sake of his employees—his neighbors and friends—my father refused.” “Fooli
Sylvia hesitated outside the closed doors of the huge, flower-strewn library, frightened out of her mind.She could hear the rumble on the other side of door, the mutters and whispers. The wedding had been scheduled to start thirty minutes ago, and everyone was obviously starting to assume the worst.But there was no way around it. She had to get through it. With a deep breath, she pushed the doors open.The enormous two-story library had been modeled after an old English abbey with walls of gray stone. It was now festooned with white roses and candles, with hundreds of chairs set up to create an aisle down the middle.At the sight of the bride standing at the end of the aisle, musicians hastily began to play ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’ on guitars and violins. Sylvia stopped the music with a chopping gesture across her neck.Silence fell. She could have heard a pin drop as three hundred pairs of eyes turned to her.She trembled, passing a hand over her eyes. Then she heard her baby
Xavier had to hurry. Every second he wasted with Sylvia was like a grain of sand falling through a fatal hourglass. He had to leave at once.And yet he couldn’t.Leaving her felt like a death. He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘This isn’t over,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’ll be back after I close the deal in Rio.’‘Of course.’ Sylvia’s shoulders straightened, even as her lower lip trembled. ‘I will never stop you from seeing Robby. I hope…I hope you’ll see him often. He needs his father.’Xavier heard the music start to play downstairs and thought of the guests surrounded by white roses and candlelight, waiting for the wedding ceremony to begin. He clenched his hands, feeling that same strange spinning, sinking feeling in the region of his chest.‘Remember,’ he said tersely, looking at her. ‘This was your choice. I wanted to marry you.’She swallowed as tears streamed unchecked down her pale cheeks. ‘I’ll never forget that.’No, he thought suddenly. It couldn’t end like this. Not like this!
Two weeks later, Sylvia stared at herself blankly in the mirror.An elegantly dressed bride in a long, white lace veil and satin sheath gown stared back at her. It still didn’t feel right. She picked up her neatly bundled bouquet of white roses and looked back in the mirror.It was the morning of her wedding. In less than an hour she would have everything she’d barely dared to dream of—she’d be Mrs. Xavier Regulus. Robby would have his father.So where was the joy? She should have been ecstatic with bliss and hope. So why, looking at herself in this beautiful dress, standing in a suite of this beautiful rented mansion outside her village, did she feel so…empty?Xavier had wanted to marry her immediately, in Rio, but he’d quickly given in to Sylvia’s begging when she’d asked to have their wedding in New Hampshire, so her family could attend.‘We can get married in New Hampshire, of course we can, if that’s your wish,’ he’d told her. ‘But after the ceremony, we must live in Rio. Do you
Sylvia woke up with a start to see the soft curl of a pink sunrise through the windows. She sat up in bed abruptly, the blanket falling from her naked chest. Had she heard her baby next door?She listened, and heard nothing except Xavier’s even, steady breathing beside her in the shadowy bedroom. Then she heard Robby’s voice again.‘Ma…ma…ma!’Quietly Sylvia rose from the bed and pulled a robe off the bathroom door hook. Leaving Xavier’s room, she went down the hall to her own, where she found her baby son sitting up in his crib. Whispering soft words of love, Sylvia took him in her arms. Holding him tenderly, she fed him, rocking him in the rocking chair. The baby, now yawning with a full belly, swiftly fell back to sleep.But Sylvia knew she would not.Putting him back in his crib, she went to the en-suite bathroom, closing the door silently behind her. She turned on the shower and dropped the robe to the floor. As the steam enveloped her body, she climbed into the marble shower. Sh
By the time they arrived back in Rio two hours later, one thought kept repeating in Xavier’s mind. One thought over and over.‘Here,’ he said to her, covering her shoulders with his tuxedo jacket as they entered the lobby of his building. She threw him a grateful glance. Her red designer gown now hung askew on her body, the zipper broken from when he’d ripped the dress off her earlier.As they passed the security guards, Xavier glanced at them out of the corner of his eye. His white shirt was rumpled, the cuffs hanging open, his tie crumpled in the pocket of his trousers. Sylvia was looking at him breathlessly, her eyes luminescent, her makeup hopelessly smudged and her lips full and bruised.He saw the security guards nudge each other with a smirk, and he knew he and Sylvia had fooled no one. There could be no doubt what they had been doing.Normally he wouldn’t care if people knew he’d taken a woman as his lover. But this was different. This was Sylvia. And one thought kept going th
Trembling, Sylvia folded her arms.‘Ah,’ Felipe Oliveira said, stroking his chin with satisfaction as he looked from her to Xavier with canny eyes. ‘Now I understand.’‘No!’ Adriana gasped. ‘It can’t be true!’Sylvia’s gaze rested anxiously on Xavier. His dark eyes were deep as the night sky. She saw him take a deep breath. Then slowly, very slowly, he came toward her. Never looking away from her face, he took her in his arms. Biting her lip in apprehension, Sylvia waited for his jaw to clench with fury and resentment. Waited for him to say something biting and cruel.Instead, he gently kissed her cheek, then turned to face Oliveira and Adriana.‘We weren’t going to tell anyone yet. But yes, Robby is my son. I wanted to wait until after our wedding to make it public. It seemed more proper.’‘Proper?’ Adriana sneered. ‘When have you ever cared about proper?’Xavier stiffened, glaring at her. ‘I have always cared about doing what is right,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I would never leave m
The Fantasia gala ball was the single most sought-after invitation of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval. Sylvia had read about it in celebrity gossip magazines in the United States. The glamorous event, held in a colonial palace on the Costa Verde south of Rio, attracted beautiful, rich and notorious guests from all around the world. And tonight, Sylvia would be one of them. Tonight, she would be Xavier Regulus’s beloved mistress. His pretend mistress, she corrected herself fiercely.The door of the black Rolls-Royce sedan opened, and she and Xavier stepped out onto the red carpet that led inside the palace, which had once been owned by the Brazilian royal family.Xavier looked brutally dashing in his black tuxedo. Sylvia felt his hungry gaze on her as he took her arm. She tried to ignore it, tried to smile for the benefit of the paparazzi flashing cameras around them, but her body shook beneath the palpable force of his desire.I want you, Sylvia. And I will have you.Liveried doormen in wig
With a gasp, Sylvia pulled back her hand and slapped his face.‘How dare you!’ she cried.The sound of the slap echoed in the bedroom. He stared at her incredulously, his hand on his cheek. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you pretending it’s not exactly what you want?’Sylvia sucked in her breath, feeling overwhelmed by need for what she could not—could not—allow herself to have. ‘Even if I want you, Xavier, I know you’re no good for me. It nearly killed me last year after our night together when you kicked me out of your life—’‘Kicked you out of my life?’ he demanded. ‘You’re the one who left!’‘You didn’t try to talk me out of it. You didn’t even ask me to stay!’‘I was trying to do what was best for you,’ he said. ‘I knew you wanted a husband, children. You needed a boss who didn’t demand your life and soul. You needed a man who could love you as I cannot. So I gave you up, when it was the last thing I wanted! And what did you do?’ He glowered. ‘You let yourself get pregnant by s
It's only an act. Only an act!But in spite of the constant repetition of those words, Sylvia’s heart still didn’t believe it as she looked up into Xavier’s dark eyes.‘Really,’ the other man drawled in accented English. His eyes traced over Sylvia. ‘She’s certainly beautiful. But this is all too convenient.’ He folded his arms over his belly. ‘You’ve fabricated this affair, so I’ll still sell you Açoazul.’Sylvia’s pulse hammered in her chest. Convinced that their plan had failed before it had half started, she pulled away from Xavier. But he held her tight in his powerful arms, even as he never looked away from the other man.‘Why would I do that?’ Xavier said coolly.The man looked at Adriana’s tall beauty, then back at Xavier with a scowl. ‘You know why.’‘You’d be a fool not to sell me Açoazul,’ Xavier said sharply. ‘No other competitor has offered you a fraction of the price. Théo St. Raphaël certainly won’t. Don’t lose a fortune based on some unfounded fear!’The older man stif