Lynne Graham - Dark Angel

‘It wasn’t like that!’ Kerry exclaimed in dismay.

‘Wasn’t it?’ Luciano sent her a flaring golden look of disagreement that was like the lick of a whip scoring tender skin. ‘I was in prison and too busy fighting for my freedom to spare the time to instigate court action over that loan. Nice one, Kerry. I get banged up for a theft I didn’t commit while you virtually steal from me!’

At that condemnation, the last remnants of colour drained from Kerry’s shaken face. ‘That’s not how it was…for a start, you agreed that loan with my grandfather, not with me,’ she reminded him angrily, rising to her feet again in a driven movement. ‘I’ve never had access to Grandpa’s financial affairs either. Although I offered to help, he insisted on dealing with the accounts and the bills himself. In fact, it’s only four days since I found out that he’d fallen behind with the loan and only then because he couldn’t keep his difficulties a secret any longer!’

Luciano elevated a doubting winged ebony brow. ‘You want to go back outside and come up with a more convincing story?’

‘Whether you want to accept it or not, that’s the truth!’ Kerry squared her shoulders but she did not look directly at him, for every time she looked her concentration fell apart again.

‘But why would I believe anything you said? Why would I trust you?’ Luciano derided harshly.

Kerry shot him a helpless look of reproach and then hurriedly veiled her confused eyes in self-protection. For if she did not trust him, how could she expect him to trust her? When he had been convicted of stealing from the family firm, hadn’t she started to believe that she owned the moral high ground and that her every worst suspicion of him had been proven true? In fact, hadn’t it suited her to believe that? But where was it written that infidelity and financial dishonesty went hand in hand? With a mighty effort of will, Kerry closed her mind down on the torrent of dangerous thoughts rushing in on her one after another.

‘Let’s recap,’ Luciano continued levelly. ‘The loan repayments stopped dead after the first six months. That’s over four years ago. Yet you’re trying to convince me that you had no suspicion whatsoever of that reality? Sorry, I’m not impressed!’

Faced with that intimidating derision, Kerry stiffened with annoyance. With every word that Luciano spoke she was receiving a daunting insight into his attitude. It was obvious that he was in no mood to give her a fair hearing. ‘You’re not really listening, though, are you?’

‘Are you getting that déjà vu feeling?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘This is how you treated me the day you told me that you’d changed your mind about marrying me. I didn’t get an explanation either and you didn’t listen to a word I said.’

At that unwelcome reminder of that nightmare day, Kerry’s breath snarled up in her throat, her strained eyes darkening. She marvelled that he had the gall to refer to that occasion. ‘I thought I was here to discuss Grandpa’s loan—’

‘Which he only got in the first place because I couldn’t stand you worrying your little head off about how your grandparents were managing in their draughty castle. There’s a personal dimension here that you seem determined to ignore.’

‘What else can I do?’ Kerry demanded, her temper flaring.

Did he think she was a caged animal to be prodded through the bars to provide him with better entertainment? First he tossed one spoiler, then another, and every angle he took caught her by surprise. After the way he had treated her, only the cruellest of males would even have referred to their short-lived engagement. Smarting pride and pain over that reference to a personal dimension only increased her resentment.

‘Admit the truth. It’s possible that that might win you five more minutes of my time,’ Luciano delivered with crushing contempt.

‘What truth? Are you actually asking me why I broke off our engagement? You still haven’t worked that out for yourself?’ Kerry could feel her heart thumping inside her chest too fast, her outrage rising out of her control. ‘That amazes me but I’m still not going to lower myself to the level of telling you why now!’

‘Is that your last word on the subject?’

Kerry pinned her soft lips together and jerked her chin in defiant affirmation.

‘Then I don’t have any more time to give you.’ Striding past her, Luciano crossed the room, threw the door wide and dealt her a cold, hard look of expectancy.

Her eyes flew wide in disbelief and her stomach clenched. ‘That’s not fair…you can’t do that!’

Chilling golden eyes assailed hers and his jawline squared. ‘I can do anything I want to do in my own office.’

Kerry stared fixedly into space, willing back the shaken surge of tears stinging behind her eyes. So he got his kicks out of intimidation now, she told herself, hating him with every fibre of her being for forcing her into a humiliating position where she had no choice but to climb back down off her high horse. Had she really once admired that sheer ruthless force of will of his?

Luciano was still as a statue, untouched by the shock that was emanating from her slender figure in waves. He had waited what felt like half a lifetime for what he was determined to hear from her own pink lips and he would let nothing get in the way of the best opportunity he would ever have.

Kerry forced her attention back to him and clashed with challenging dark golden eyes that carried not a shade of remorse or discomfiture. Her slight shoulders rigid, she screened her gaze and with a wooden lack of expression said, ‘All right…but first you let me explain about the loan and you listen this time.’

With a fluid shift of a lean brown hand, Luciano sent the door thudding shut again. The silence that fell throbbed. Her very muscles hurt with the strength of her tension. She sank back down in her chair, stiff as a coat hanger.

‘I’m waiting…’ Luciano lounged back against the edge of his fancy glass desk with infuriating self-assurance and cool.

For an instant Kerry searched those lean, darkly handsome features, saw the strength written in the hard angles of his fantastic bone structure and, before she even knew what was happening to her, hunger leapt inside her. It was a wanton physical craving that had a life all of its own and it shook her up even more. Her concentration destroyed and furious with herself, she battled to regain it. But she was remembering the many nights she had woken up hot and ashamed of her feverish dreams of what it might have been like if he had ever made love to her…only to always be forced to recall, both during their engagement and after his imprisonment, that Rochelle had already had that pleasure ahead of her and that nothing would ever change that demeaning reality.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, reacting by male instinct to the flash of awareness he had seen in her eyes, his own male hormones already on red alert, Luciano was picturing her stripped on his office carpet, dominated by him, begging him for it. Only something in him recoiled from that crude image even as raw arousal flared through his powerful frame with a white-hot, burning ferocity that reminded him just how long it had been since he had had any woman in his bed. Five years and four months. Four months wasted on her, four months putting her needs way ahead of his own, four months waiting on a wedding night that had never happened. His lean, bronzed face paled with anger. He had to be sex-starved to still be excited by her and certifiably insane to be wondering if she could still be a virgin.

Kerry was sick at heart from what she had relived, unable to look at him and agonised that she could still be that vulnerable to his potent sexual aura. That was all it was, she told herself feverishly. He was just a very good-looking, very masculine guy and lots of women reacted the same way around him. It certainly didn’t mean that she was carrying some stupid torch for him. It just meant that she was behaving like a total idiot and that it was time she got her act together.