Sandra Marton - Mistresses - Bound with Gold / Bought with Emeralds

With a vengeance!

Her eyes flashed. ‘Long enough.’

Eight months. Long enough for her to have found out why Michael had insisted on handling all their joint finances. He had spent their savings, run up credit card debts, mortgaged the house and taken out loans for which, as his next of kin and inheritor of his estate, she was liable. The absence of a will had compounded the legal problems, and only after months of trying to straighten out the chaotic financial tangle her lawyer had informed her that there was little left to inherit.

And two weeks ago she had finally discovered why.

Two weeks ago she had received a tearful visit from Michael’s long-term—mistress, the earthy, voluptuous Cindy…and his three-and-a-half-year-old son.

Her last remaining shred of respect for Michael had vanished as she had been forced to face the degrading truth that for the entire duration of their marriage her husband had been living an expensive double life. One that she, all unknowingly, had helped finance!

Well, tonight she would have her revenge.

Tonight she wasn’t going to be the sweet, understanding little woman, bravely swallowing her pride and doing what was expected of her.

Tonight she was going to be the ruthless user, the unrepentant sinner…

‘SO YOU don’t miss having a husband?’

Like a hole in the head, Regan wanted to snap. Instead, she channelled her anger into another emotion.

‘I miss… certain things about being married…’ She tossed Adam a suggestive smile and swung back over to the bar. Conscious of his eyes levelled on her back, she relaxed her shoulders and moved with an exaggerated sway of her hips, the way she had seen Lisa move on the catwalk.

Drink in hand, she strolled back with that same, slinky roll and crossed her legs as she sat down, letting her skirt ride up above her knees as far as it liked.

‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ she offered, as he eased a hand across the back of his neck, digging his fingers into the tense muscle.

‘You do massage?’

‘I’m not a qualified masseur or anything,’ she said innocently, ‘but I’m sure I could give you a rub that would ease some of your tension.’

‘I think having your hands on my body is more likely to increase rather than decrease my tension,’ he said, with the faint smile that turned her insides to marshmallow.

She cleared her throat of a tiny obstruction. In the background she was vaguely aware of Pierre, moving to and fro from the kitchen to the table. ‘So…what sort of things do you normally do to unwind after a hard day at the office?’ she asked.

From his bland expression she knew he was going to tease her again. ‘Well…I find flirting with a warmly receptive woman very relaxing.’

‘Then you should soon be a positive puddle of contentment,’ she responded, equally bland.

His quick grin was white and wolfish. ‘I already feel myself melting. And what do you like to do to relax, Eve?’

‘Oh, read, sew, cook…’ she said demurely. She lowered her lashes and slowly lifted them again. ‘Make love…’

‘Interesting. I usually find that the act of sex has the opposite effect,’ he murmured, topping her with stunning ease. ‘I don’t feel in the least relaxed when I’m inside a woman’s body. I’m all edgy and agitated, and every muscle feels explosively hot and tight with urgency…’ He paused to take a swallow of whisky, enjoying the way her violet eyes widened and the pulse at the base of her bare throat kicked up a storm. ‘But perhaps the feelings are very different for a woman…’

Regan hoped not! She mastered the impulse to throw herself on top of him and demand that he demonstrate right there and then.

She gave a blasé shrug of her slender shoulders instead. ‘Men and women aren’t so very different—’

‘Honey, if you think that, then you must have skipped human biology in high school,’ he interrupted drolly.

In fact her mother had removed her from class whenever there had been a danger she might be contaminated by sex education disguised as legitimate learning.

‘I took Classics rather than Sciences,’ she retaliated. ‘But I meant in terms of having equal sexual needs and desires.’

‘Equal but different,’ he agreed. ‘I don’t suppose my sexual fantasies are the same as yours.’

He sounded so smugly certain she immediately wanted to take him down a peg or two. ‘Which is not to say yours are any better than mine!’

He almost choked on the dregs of his whisky as a chuckle rumbled up from his chest. ‘If I show you mine will you show me yours?’

Her blank response prompted him to continue. ‘Didn’t you ever play doctors and nurses as a kid?’

‘I was an only child.’

‘And? Surely there was some chubby little charmer in the neighbourhood who suggested disappearing into the nearest wardrobe with his play-stethoscope and handy torch?’

‘If he had, he’d have found himself without a head.’

‘So you were an aggressive, assertive little girl?’ he speculated, looking deeply intrigued.

‘I was very biddable and angelic,’ she said primly, using a straight face to imply that her truth was actually an outrageous lie. ‘But my mother was extremely vigilant where the seven deadly sins were concerned.’

‘Thereby not giving you much of a chance to be anything else,’ he guessed with uncomfortably swift perception.

‘I’m sure I still have my trusty halo here somewhere,’ she said, delicately patting her fingertips down the side of her dress.

‘Somewhat tarnished by now, I suppose?’ he drawled, his gaze following the taunting trail.

‘Oh, I take it out every now and then and give it a good polish,’ she said, exhilarated by her newfound ability to hold her own against his quick wit.

‘And groom your golden wings?’

‘No wings,’ she dimpled, ‘but I do have a pitchfork in my other dress.’

‘Ahh…a woman of dangerous contradictions. I see my first act should not have been to kiss your hand but to pat you down for concealed weapons.’

She spread her arms in graceful offering. ‘Feel free to do so now; I won’t hold it against you.’

‘Not even if I beg?’ As a laugh gurgled in her throat his eyes flicked across to the elevated dining area, where Pierre was placing a bottle of Krug champagne into a silver ic-ebucketon the table, next to a covered chafing dish. He drained his glass and set it down. ‘It looks as if Pierre has served up. Shall we?’

Two elegant place-settings were angled next to each other at the head of the oval table; the overhead down-lights were dimmed, and the dancing flame of a slender candle was dully reflected in the burnished surface of the wood. A sheaf of the palest pink roses in a fan-shaped hand-blown vase complemented the oval white place-mats gleaming with silver and crystal.

Adam politely said something about washing his hands, and followed Pierre briefly into the kitchen. When he returned Regan was still standing behind the chair at the head of the oval table, her hands balled by her sides, her face mantled with a light flush that made him eye her thoughtfully. As he approached she drew back the chair and invited him to be seated with a tilt of her head.

‘Usurping my gentlemanly duties?’ he murmured, accepting the courtesy with a lazy smile, and Regan picked up the white damask napkin from beside his plate and snapped out the starched folds to drape it across his lap. ‘When I told Pierre that we wouldn’t need him for the rest of the evening, I envisaged that I would be waiting on you, ’ he added.

‘I thought you might feel in the mood to be pampered,’ said Regan, unfolding her fist and casually laying another item on top of his napkin.