Margaret Way - It Happened in Sydney - In the Australian Billionaire's Arms / Three Times A Bridesmaid... / Expecting Miracle Twins

A couple from the first floor was waiting for the lift. Good evenings were exchanged. The young woman could scarcely drag her eyes off Holt. Her partner was so busy staring at Sonya when the lift stopped at their floor he forgot to get out. His girlfriend gave him a sharp reminder.

“I don’t think I’ll lose my way if I walk myself to my door,” Sonya said with heavy sarcasm. The lift had stopped at her floor. The door opened.

He held the diamond ring in his hand. He was staring down at it. “I can’t keep this. It was given to you.”

“Okay, I have to give it back!” Sonya’s voice was a blend of anguish and anger. “I’m not making excuses for myself, David, but really Marcus presumed a great deal.”

“Oh, wake up!” he exhorted her. “You knew what you were getting into.” He took hold of her arm, walking her down the quiet corridor. “Give me the key.”

“I won’t let you in if it’s the last thing I do,” she said with vehemence.

“What are you frightened of?” His reply held a taunt.

“What are you frightened of?” She stared up into his fathomless dark eyes.

“Ruining everything for everybody, maybe,” he said bleakly.

It shocked her. She stood back as he opened the door.

He pulled her in, shutting them into the quiet of the apartment. The fragrance she was wearing was swirling about in the air between them. It might have had the power of a drug. “Then there’s this ! “ He was caught up by an unstoppable surge. It had him pressing her slender body back against the closed door.

“Oh, yes, there’s this!” Colour lit her flawless white skin. The tension between them was palpable, electric. Once again they were in a dangerous place, the shadowy turbulence growing greater.

“I’m waiting for you to stop me,” he challenged. Adrenalin was flooding his veins. He manoeuvred his body ever closer to hers, the softness of a woman, the hard musculature of a man.

She turned her head from side to side, straining to keep some measure of control over the situation. “Even if I screamed it wouldn’t stop you.”

“Not that you’re about to scream,” he taunted, lifting his arms to position them on both sides of her blonde head. “You’re pinned in, Sonya.” She was staring up at him with her beautiful mesmeric eyes. “How long have I known you?” he asked, astonished by how little time had passed.

“Maybe you knew me in another life?” Her voice dropped low.

Another trick? Her voice was magic, the little foreign accent, the wide range of intonations, the pitch. That was the trouble with powerful attraction. The alarming way it took control.

“Strangely enough, I believe it.” He cupped the globe of her small breast in his hand. Then with a muffled exclamation he bent his head and crushed her captive silken mouth….

Sparks lit into a conflagration. Sensation was boundless; a wild clamouring in the blood that beat up waves of heat. It was as if every single light, every appliance in the apartment were turned on and burning, sucking in all the air. She gave a little moan, thinking nothing could ever be the same again. Her breasts were throbbing under his urgent caressing hands, the nipples gone cherry-hard when she felt her flesh were actually dissolving …

If the ringing phone had not penetrated the thickly meshed web they were caught into, he didn’t know what would have happened. One minute they were mindlessly devouring each other, the next they were forced to break apart, breathless and trembling, trying to make the adjustment to the real world.

“That’s the phone,” she said, now humiliated by her headlong response to him.

He laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it. “Don’t answer it.”

“I should.” She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her legs were so weak it was an effort to reach the kitchen. When she picked up the receiver, she heard a woman’s familiar voice, speaking with urgency.

“Sonya, it’s Rowena. Would David be with you? I’ve had a call from the hospital. Marcus has been admitted.”

“Then you know he had a sick turn, Lady Palmerston,” Sonya said. “He gave us such a fright. I’ll put David on. He brought me home.”

“Thank you, dear.”

She held out the phone to David. He took it, catching her around the waist and locking her into his grip. She freed herself none the less, moving away to allow him to speak in private. For years she had known the desperation of flight. Of always being on the run from those who would do her harm. She had never known the desperation of passion. He had felt it as much as she.

It was quiet on the balcony. She had filled it with a luxuriant array of plants in large pots; flowering baskets she had attached to the brick wall. She stood in the night air, tears gathering in her eyes. She had long regarded crying as an intolerable indulgence. It had never helped her. Now she found herself on the verge of tears. For years she had told herself she wasn’t scared of anything. But she was scared. She was scared of the depth of feeling she had for David Wainwright. She knew nothing would come of the violent attraction they felt for each other. It could only end badly. She was very worried about Marcus as well. Worried about what she would have to tell him. But when? For ghastly moments earlier that night she’d thought Marcus was about to suffer a heart attack. As it was, they wouldn’t know the results of his tests for days.

You’re in over your head, girl.

She had to give Marcus his ring back. There was faint conciliation in the thought Marcus should not have taken her acceptance as a given. But then the rich were different from everyone else. She put up a hand to pull the pins from her coiled hair. That done, she pressed her hands to her face. Sometimes life was merciless. She didn’t love Marcus. Not in any romantic way. She did love David. In every way possible. Only it was Marcus who had given her the ring. Marcus who wanted to marry her. David didn’t. He wanted nothing from her. But sex.

She still had her eyes closed when David came behind her, pulling her hands from her face. “You’re crying.” He flicked a salty tear off her cheek with his finger, placing it on his tongue. The cloud of erotica surrounding them was dense.

“It isn’t with happiness,” she said, turning to confront him. “What are we doing, David? I can see no way out of this short of disappearing.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve done before?”

His glittering eyes and his tone made her nerves jangle. “God, I hate you,” she muttered.

“Just like I hate you,” he returned in an openly self-mocking voice. “Isn’t it better to hate me than love me if you’re going to marry Marcus?”

“That will be my decision.” Let him believe what he wanted to believe. It was a certain protection. “What is love really?” she asked.

He laughed briefly. “I have to let that one go at the moment, Sonya. But I can tell you a hell of a lot about wanting a woman.”

“Marcus wants me but his kind of love I can’t return,” she said, torn by pity and sadness.

“Then you have to tell him.”

His voice cut like a lash. “You want I should do it in the morning?” she challenged with a return of spirit. “Then you could all breathe a great sigh of relief. You don’t fool me, David. It’s not the time to upset Marcus. You know that as well as I do.”

The truth of it made him angry. Yet desire for her was becoming something ungovernable. How could he be so uncaring of his uncle? “I have to go, Sonya,” he rasped. “In another minute I’ll pick you up and take you to bed.”

“What, and betray Marcus?”

She threw up her head in a way now familiar to him. “That’s why I’m going,” he bit off. “I’m not proof against your witchcraft.”