Carole Mortimer - Secret Heirs - His One Night Consequence

She’d made it through the day in a state of numb shock, working like an automaton, except when the sight of a tall darkhaired man, or an unexpected call, froze the blood in her veins.

She’d expected him to come after her. If not last night when she’d left him high and dry, then today.

He knew where she worked. He knew far too much. Why had he left her alone?

Foreboding crept through her. He was biding his time.

It could only be Leo he wanted. Her precious boy. What else would drag Alessandro here from Italy?

The realisation was like a knife at her neck. A man with Alessandro’s resources could get anything he wanted.

If he wanted Leo…

Carys had no illusions that he was here for anything else. For Alessandro, last night had simply been about the chance for hot sex.

Absence from his wife must be wearing on him.

Bile rose in Carys’ throat, a savage, scouring bitterness. Shame flooded her and she ducked her head.

She hadn’t even remembered he was tied to another woman! The overwhelming reality of his presence had blasted Carys back to a time when she’d been his, body and soul. When she’d believed he was hers. Before he had married his blue-blooded heiress.

Carys tasted salt on her tongue as she bit her lip.

Distress filled her at how close she’d come to compounding her stupidity in an act that would shatter her principles.

She hadn’t been able to meet her eyes in the mirror this morning, recalling her uninhibited response to him.

Fury, disbelief and disappointment filled her. At him for using her as a convenience to assuage his physical needs. For not being the honourable man she’d once thought him. At herself for abandoning her pride and principles in letting him sweep her into his tempestuous embrace.

Carys squared her shoulders. She’d played the fool for the last time. Besides, he’d relinquished all rights when he—

A pair of massive mirror-polished black shoes blocked the pavement before her. Carys side-stepped to skirt the man, but with one long stride he moved too, forcing her to stop.

Her gaze climbed a pair of bulky legs in pin-striped trousers so beautifully tailored they almost tamed the rampantly muscled solidity of the man. Neat shirt, dark tie, perfectly fitting jacket and a swarthy face topped by pepper and salt hair. Gold winked in the man’s earlobe as he turned his head and Carys stared, sure she’d seen him before.

‘ Scusa, signorina. This way, please.’

He extended one arm, gesturing towards the kerb.

Carys turned to see a limousine with tinted windows drawn up beside her, its back door open.

Her pulse sped up to thunder in her ears. A sprawl of long masculine limbs filled her vision of the interior and her heart rate spiked. The last thing she wanted was to share such an intimate space with Alessandro Mattani.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she muttered, automatically stepping back from the road.

The large Italian moved closer, shepherding her towards the vehicle. Resolutely she planted her feet on the pavement, refusing to budge.

She looked around, hoping to find the street filled with people, but the few she saw were racing for cover as big fat drops of rain spattered the pavement. There was no one to interfere if Alessandro’s goon tried to manhandle her into the car.

‘Why don’t you get in before you both get soaked?’ asked a cool voice from the back of the limo.

Outraged dignity came to her rescue. ‘And if I’d prefer to get drenched than share a car with you?’

‘I’d say it was very selfish of you to force Bruno to suffer the same fate just for the sake of your pride.’

Her eyes rounded. Pride? Alessandro thought this was simply about pride?

The man beside her moved, closing in beside her, and Carys darted a glance at him, wondering if she had any hope of getting away. He was built like a rugby player, all dense-packed muscle. Right now he had that grim, blank-eyed set to his face that she’d seen on the super-tough minders of the rich and famous.

‘Per favore, signorina.’

Drops splattered his jacket as the rain fell faster. He didn’t bat an eyelid, just watched her with the stony countenance of a man ready to deal with anything.

She’d bet five feet six of female, hampered by heels and a skirt, would be the work of a moment to overpower.

‘Don’t let his looks fool you, Carys,’ came a laconic voice from the limo’s interior. ‘Bruno has a weak chest. He’s just got over a bout of bronchitis. I wouldn’t like him to have a relapse. And you wouldn’t want that on your conscience.’

Carys blinked, catching the merest flicker of expression on the security man’s face. A smile? Surely not.

Movement to one side caught her eye, and she turned to find Alessandro had slid to the edge of the seat and was regarding her with a peculiarly unreadable expression.

‘His wife would flay me alive if I brought him home with pneumonia.’

Despite her anger, Carys felt her lips twitch. Once, long ago, Alessandro’s dry wit had been one of the things that had drawn her to him. She’d almost forgotten that, her memories skewed by those final, unhappy days when banter and teasing had been absent between them.

‘I would have thought blackmail was more your style,’ she jeered. ‘Or threats, rather than an appeal to my conscience.’

Rain trickled into her collar, but she stood ramrod straight. This man was dangerous.

A shrug of those lean shoulders and he said something in Italian that made Bruno move away to give them space. Carys barely had time to register the chance for escape when Alessandro’s voice curled around her, silkily smooth. ‘I regret last night, Carys. It wasn’t planned.’

He paused, awaiting a response that she steadfastly refused to give. If that was his idea of an apology he had a lot to learn.

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed as she stood rigid under his scrutiny. Something glittered in that forest-dark gaze that sent shivers of trepidation running through her. Despite his earlier light-hearted words, his stare sizzled. She guessed his deadpan expression disguised an anger almost as great as her own. Now she looked more closely, she read tension in his shoulders and grim mouth.

Too bad. She tilted her chin up, wishing she had a long aristocratic nose like his so she could look down it.

‘But if that’s the way you’d prefer to do this,’ he purred, ‘then I can oblige.’

She’d opened her mouth to say she preferred to have nothing to do with him, when his next words forestalled her.

‘I’m sure the hotel management would be interested in the security camera footage of the lobby outside the presidential suite last night, and in the lift. If they cared to check the recording they’d find it…illuminating.’

‘You wouldn’t!’ Shock hammered her like a physical blow, sucking out her breath. That tape would show her emerging from his suite in the early hours looking like…like…

‘Wouldn’t I?’ His stare was unnervingly blank. ‘I’m sure they frown on staff providing personal services to guests.’ His tongue dripped with hateful innuendo and Carys burned with frustration and fury. Her hands clenched around the shoulder strap of her bag.

‘I wasn’t providing a service, you—’

‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing, Carys. All that matters is how the evidence appears.’ He leaned back with a smug glimmer in his eyes.

Evidence. It sounded so formal.

It would be formal if anyone decided to check the recording. Formal enough to get her the sack.

Her heart dived and she shivered, but not from the rain’s chill. She needed this job. How else could she support Leo? Good positions were hard to find for someone with limited qualifications.