Penny Jordan - The Blackmail Marriage

‘At the end of the month. We shall be getting married on the same day as we celebrate our country’s National Day. As you know, it is five hundred years this year since my family were given the country by the Pope. It seems fitting to celebrate my marriage at the same time.’

‘As a symbol of your intention to see that the family continues to rule for another five hundred years?’ Jay suggested.

Carrie was too shocked to speak. When Luc had told her that she must marry him she had had no idea he intended that marriage to take place so speedily! Maria had implied that her marriage to Luc was something that was to take place at some unspecified date well into the future.

Luc’s cousin was leaving. Shaking herself free of the disbelief immobilising her, Carrie waited until the door had closed behind him before pulling away from Luc and telling him fiercely, ‘This has gone far enough. We can’t do this, Luc. It’s crazy. No one is going to believe this marriage is anything other than a pathetic sham! We don’t have the slightest thing in common!’

‘No? What about this?’

Before she could say a word, Luc’s hands had clamped on her upper arms and she was being jerked towards him. His head bent over hers, his body language predatory and dangerous.

It had been eight years since she had last felt his mouth against hers, since she had last tasted the sweet savagery of his kiss, since she had last felt the shocking pleasure of the hardness of his body, all lean muscle and bone, against her own, and in those eight years she had, she had believed, taught herself to forget the pleasure her foolish, immature self had felt at his touch, and to remember instead the corrosive pain of her disillusionment and humiliation.

And yet…and yet…

Some instincts…some senses…some memories were perhaps so deeply etched on a person’s consciousness that nothing could ever erase them.

Her lips softened and parted, her brain clouded by a dizzying swarm of disempowering pleasure. A feeling like an electric shock jolted through her, heightening every one of her senses.

Desire, pain, anger—she could feel them all, and could have wept tears of aching anguish for the girl she had been and the memories Luc was forcing on her. It wasn’t fair that he should do this to her—but then, when had Luc ever been fair? When had he ever done anything that wasn’t motivated entirely by self-interest? He had taken her to his bed because he had desired her and then he had rejected her, dismissed her from his life like a toy he had grown bored with.

‘No!’

Frantically, Carrie tried to pull away, but Luc was too powerful for her. His mouth possessed hers with an easy strength, his tongue reinforcing his control of the situation, snaking between her lips, thrusting powerfully into the tender, vulnerable warmth she was trying to withhold from him.

The fog clouding her brain became a white-out of sheeting panic. She should not be feeling like this. She lifted her hands and pushed against Luc’s chest, at the same time wrenching her mouth from beneath his. Abruptly he released her, freeing her to drag air into her aching lungs.

‘Odd. You still kiss like an innocent.’

The way he was looking at her made Carrie’s stomach lurch with anxiety. That steely grey gaze was far too sharp and penetrating.

Defensively she snapped back at him, ‘Actually, I wasn’t doing any kissing. But of course it’s typical of you, Luc, that you were too intent on doing what you wanted to notice. You are the last man I would ever want to kiss. In fact, you are the last man I would ever want in any way at all.’

‘Really?’ His tone was even more sardonic than the look he was giving her. ‘That’s not what this says,’ he told her mercilessly, and he reached out and very deliberately ran his finger down the curve of her breast, to where her nipple jutted tightly against the fabric of her tee shirt.

Carrie’s face flamed in angry humiliation.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ she told him fiercely, pushing his hand away. ‘I—’

‘You what?’ Luc challenged her ‘You react to every man who touches you in that way? Well, let me warn you, Carrie, that from now on, for as long as our marriage lasts, there will be no other men in either your life or your bed.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do—’ Carrie began, but Luc stopped her immediately,

‘You have no option other than to do as I say, Carrie,’ he said gently, but there was no gentleness in his eyes, just a hard, implacable determination that warned her he meant every word he was saying. ‘Because if you don’t, both you and your brother…’

She couldn’t allow him to carry out his threats against Harry, Carrie acknowledged, no matter how strong her feelings of outrage and disgust towards him were.

‘Very well,’ she told him through gritted teeth. ‘As you say, it seems that I have no option, Luc. But I promise you that I shall hate every single day, every single minute, every single second I spend shackled to you, and I shall do my utmost to make sure that you hate them too.’

‘My charming wife-to-be…so loving, so tender, so complaisant.’ Luc taunted her. ‘I am sure that ours shall be a match made in—’

‘Hell,’ Carrie supplied savagely for him.

‘So much passion! But then, you always were…passionate.’

The look he was giving her was an open insult, but somehow Carrie managed to bite back the words she was longing to throw at him.

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