“This is amazing,” she said.

It was, but she was speaking for the sake of it. Since he’d pulled his bike to a halt in front of the river-front mansion, he’d said nothing. He’d simply unclipped her helmet and stalked in the front door, leaving her to scramble somewhat inelegantly off the seat and follow in his wake.

Now, standing on the terrace he’d walked on to, looking at his tuxedo-clad frame, she was besieged by nerves.

“Mr. Arnaud?” She murmured, putting a hand on his shoulder to draw his attention.

He turned slowly, his eyes pinpointing hers with ferocious intensity. “We are about to have sex,” he spoke with a cold pragmatism that should have sent warning sparks flying through her. “I think it is time for you to call me Benedetto.”

She nodded awkwardly. “Benedetto.” It was a perfect name for him. Dark, mysterious and complex. As an after thought, a small frown formed on her face. “The sex part …”

“Yes?” He prompted, but his hands were already behind her back, searching for the zip to the dress. She stepped closer to make it more easy for him to reach.

“I just met you,” she finished, sweeping her eyes shut on how lame the demurral sounded. “I mean … I don’t … this isn’t …”

He began to slide the zipper down, and the already scattered thought she was trying to express evaporated.

“It’s sex,” he said simply. “You walked on to stage and I knew I wanted you.”

Her blood was an out-of-control torrent in her body. “And is this how you do things? You buy what you want?”

His eyes clashed with hers; he held the dress so that she could step out of it. She did, placing a hand on his shoulder for support. The heels were ridiculously high, and she moved to release her feet from them but he shook his head.

“Leave them.” It was an order.

A spark of annoyance flooded her and she stared straight at him as she kicked first one shoe off and then the other. She thought she was making a point, and she was, but not the one she’d intended. Benedetto believed Kate to be spoiled, indulged, reckless and amoral, and everything she had done that night had played right into his beliefs.

Even the recalcitrant expression as she freed her feet from the stilettos.

He didn’t care.

He wasn’t looking to get to know her. He wanted to sleep with her and then use the fact to hurt her father.

It was simple. Cruel, yes, but perfectly appropriate as well. After all, Augustine, of all people, had no right to expect Benedetto to respect the bonds of family, did he?

He knelt before her and gripped her ankle. Holding her foot steady, he pushed the shoe back in place.  “I am going to show you pleasure you have never experienced,” he murmured huskily. “But only if you do exactly as I say.”

She was quivering inside; her nerves were so threadbare she found it amazing she could actually speak clearly. “You seem pretty sure of yourself,” she said finally, but she let him slip the second shoe back in place.

He stood slowly, his eyes focused on her body. Without so much as a glint of emotion, he unclipped her bra and freed her breasts. They were small and pale; she was not at all like his usual lovers but then again, he was not making love to her for pleasure.

This was a means to an end; and if the sex itself wasn’t satisfying, the end result would be.

“Shall I show you?” He said, and though it was a question, he didn’t wait for an answer. He brought his lips crashing down to hers; it was a kiss designed to punish and to form submission.

She moaned against his mouth. Her fingers lifted and twisted in the dark hair at his nape. But he reached up and pulled them from him, trapping them instead behind her back. He kissed and she received.

His meaning was obvious. She was not to touch, only to be touched.

He was in complete control.

Benedetto unhooked his bow tie while still holding her hands behind her back, breaking their kiss simply so that he could spin her around. He used the bow-tie to secure her hands behind her back. He moved deftly and before Kate really comprehended what was happening her arms were drawn tight.

A crack of common sense seemed to knife its way into the situation. “I don’t know enough about you,” she said, lifting her head so she could see him over her shoulder.

“No,” he agreed, running a finger slowly down her naked back. She pulled at her hands but they were as firmly bound as if he’d handcuffed them.

She shuddered. “How do I know you’re not some incredibly gorgeous serial killer?”

His laugh was husky. His fingers crept lower, to the waist band of her underpants. “That is a question you perhaps should have asked before coming to my home.”

She spun around, her face stricken. And even though he wished to hurt her father, he had no interest in hurting her unduly. Oh, he hated her for her blood, and he was disgusted by women like her, but he was not, essentially, a cruel man. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised huskily, and such was the strange sense of surreal connection between them that she was instantly mollified.

She watched as he moved towards a stainless steel bench in the corner. There was a fridge beneath and he pulled another bottle of champagne from it. His words came back to her now; his promise that he wanted to drink from her.

She stared, her heart rate increasing, as he poured only one glass. His eyes didn’t leave her face as he walked back to stand in front of her. “For you.”

She looked at the bubbles and nodded. Her nerves were back with a vengeance; maybe it would calm her down? She opened her mouth and closed her eyes. He surprised her by inserting his finger between her lips.

Immediately she blinked open to find him staring at her. The night breathed a cool wind over her and Kate’s skin flecked with tiny goose bumps.

“Suck,” he said, curving his finger around, teasing her tongue. It was too, too sensual. She felt like she was about to climax and he’d barely touched her. Slowly, she began to do as he’d said, applying gentle pressure to the finger, tasting him and rolling her tongue over his nail.

His smile was tight. “Good.” He lifted the champagne and poured some into her mouth while his finger remained. She swallowed and he nodded. “Good,” he repeated.

His other hand pulled her underpants aside, and before she could guess his intention, he brought his finger from her mouth and inserted it into her moist womanhood. She clenched around him and bucked instantly. The unexpected invasion sent fire and lava spiraling through her.

She swore under her breath and tried to free her hands but every time she pulled they seemed to tighten. His eyes bore into hers as he swirled his finger as he had in her mouth; though this time he was teasing her most sensitive, private flesh and he was making her whole body shake with so much pleasure it was almost painful.

“I’m going to take you soon,” he said, driving another finger into her core. She pressed her hips down, wanting more of him than he was offering. “But first I want to know what you like.” He stroked her gently, watching as minute expressions of pleasure danced across her face. She was moaning again and again, almost incoherent with pleasure. He brought his other hand to the sensitive flesh above her opening and began to stroke it in unison with his touch.

“Please, please, please,” she whispered, and he thought how good it would be to tell her father that she’d begged him to take her. That she’d been putty in his arms, naked on his terrace not caring who saw her. Though admittedly, it was a private deck and only someone with a serious zoom lens would be able to make out any detail, but Augustine didn’t know that. Only that his little girl had screamed with desire for a stranger intent on revenge.

“Soon,” he promised. He pulled away from her with regret. “I want to take you from behind,” he said, knowing he didn’t want to see her face when they made love. He couldn’t look into those eyes he hated so much while his body enjoyed her offering. “I want to be so deep inside; I want to bury myself where you’ve never been touched.”

His hands were demanding as they pushed her towards the wall and braced her against it. With her wrists bound behind her back, it was her head that was supporting her. He undid his pants, pausing only to sheath himself in a condom, and then he entered her hard and fast.

She cried out with pleasure; her voice was a bell tolling in the night. He saw her hands gripping as wave after wave of desire flushed her system.

His hands reached up to cup her breasts, pulling her from the wall, he held her against him as he drove into her again and again. Her body was perfect; soft and womanly yet spare and petite. She was perfect.

So much for not enjoying the sex he thought, as his own control began to wane.

But he wouldn’t let it. He wanted this to last all night; he wanted her to wake up with no thought other than him, his body. He wanted her to be his sex slave; to know that she would never be complete without him again.

He wanted her to promise him anything for the chance to be with him just one more time.

He squeezed her nipples as he thrust into her, and when he felt her begin to tighten around his length he kissed her neck, flicking her sensitive flesh with his tongue, biting her gently with his teeth, and all the while he plundered her and tortured her breasts.

She was not quiet.

He felt her climax, but he heard her too, as she cried out into the cool Autumnal night. Her body shook with the force of sensations and he held her tight.

The relief was extreme.

He had done it.

He had made that bastard’s daughter his.

Slowly, he dropped his hands, cupping her rear. He felt her sigh and she leaned forward, propping herself against the side of the house. The view from where he stood was exquisite. He ran his fingers, down her spine, enjoying the goose bumps that sprung in his wake.

He had only ever tied the hands of women he’d known well; women he’d trusted and who had trusted him. This had gone beyond that, though. He liked having her as his prisoner.

It had sparked something carnal and base in him.

He pulled away from her and she made a noise of complaint.

“I’m not finished, cara,” he assured her. “Now I want to watch you.”

It was only when she turned around that she realised he was still fully dressed. But for the lowered zip, he had not bothered to take his clothes off.

He lay himself on the ground, his erection enormous.

“Come to me,” he invited.

She nodded, already desperate to feel him back inside of her. She straddled him, bringing herself over him somewhat awkwardly.

“My hands,” she said, as she took his length back inside and moaned at the feeling of completion.

“Are unnecessary,” he assured her.

Her smile did something strange to his stomach. “I’m sorry to break it to you but I’m a weakling. I don’t think my legs are strong enough to do what I want to do.”

His laugh was hoarse. He liked her honesty.

Only she wasn’t honest, he reminded himself sharply. She was lying about her name. Her career. And he was certain she’d lie about her father too.

He pressed his hands into her hips, digging his fingers into her soft flesh. “Let me help you, then.”

He lifted her easily; she was light. He guided her over his length, smiling as she tilted her head back and began to make those gorgeous little noises of rapturous pleasure once more.

Holding his control was almost impossible. As he felt her muscles clench and squeeze him anew, he had to use every single ounce of his willpower to stop from emptying himself completely.

He watched her, and he thought again of how great it would be to tell her father how he’d used her beautiful body for his own pleasure.

Slowly, her breathing returned to normal and she dropped her head forward to look at him. “Who are you?” Her eyes roamed his face; he understood.

“Benedetto Arnaud,” he answered simply, a smile shaping his lips.

She shook her head. “But who are you? How can you do this to me?”

He reached up and flicked one of her taut nipples. She shuddered at the contact.

“It is just sex,” he said simply.

Her expression clouded. “I know. But it’s not like … I mean …”

Pleasure blew through him like a leaf in the breeze. “It is different for you?”

She nodded slowly. “It’s not like I’m completely inexperienced,” she promised, embarrassment bringing colour to her cheeks. He liked it. This version of Kate was completely at odds with the icy woman he’d first met.

“No?” He prompted.

She shook her head. “But it’s always been so … calm … compared to this.”

He moved his hips, reminding her that his length was still hard inside her.

She bit down on her lip. “This is so animalistic. So raw.”

“As sex should be,” he responded simply. He grabbed her hips and now he rolled her easily, catching her so that she didn’t hit the hard tiled floor with force. His hands cradled her head. She squirmed uncomfortably.

“My hands …”

“Are lifting you up, holding you perfect for me.” He spread her legs with his palm and she saw what he meant. It was impossible to lie flat on the ground with her hands behind her back.

“It’s not comfortable,” she murmured, studying his face. There was a duality there beyond the passion.

“You will soon forget about that,” he assured her, and he thrust into her again. This time, when her world began to crumble and break apart, he chased after her. Their cries mingled to make one guttural sound of release.

The last thing Kate was conscious of before she squeezed her eyes shut was the brightness of the stars overhead. She held darkness around her for several minutes, until reality slowly began to throb through her. She felt him move away and blinked. He was only gone a second before returning with a soft rug.

“Sit up.”

When she didn’t immediately comply he made a clicking noise of impatience and reached behind her shoulders to guide her to sitting. He deftly untied her wrists, and watched as she brought them in front of her and rubbed the pink flesh.

Shock was shooting through her. He was still clothed, for God’s sake. She was completely naked, and he was wearing a tuxedo. Apart from the missing neck tie, he didn’t look at all out of place.

“Well,” she said, her voice coldly detached despite the heat of passion they’d just shared. “That was unexpected.” Her smile was apologetic.

“Not for me,” he responded.

She lifted the blanket higher, to cover her breasts. “I really don’t do this kind of thing.”

He brushed aside the demurral. In his experience, everyone had one night stands.

“I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t care if you’ve done this once, twice or a hundred times. Tonight you did it with me, and I enjoyed it.”

She studied his face thoughtfully. “You’re actually kind of a bastard, aren’t you?”

He laughed, completely surprised by her assessment. “Cara, that’s not the worst I’ve been called.”

“I believe it.” She stood up awkwardly. The dress was across the terrace. “I … I think I should go.”

He followed, standing and catching her around the waist. “We should go,” he corrected, lowering his mouth and pulling her bottom lip between his teeth.

She swallowed. Butterflies were hammering her insides again, making her feel hot and cold and thick with desire.

“Two days, remember?”

Her eyes flared wide and she squashed the small ray of hope that seemed to be gleaning into her heart. “Two days? Surely you don’t mean … I mean …”

His laugh was deep. “Do you realise how many sentences you start and don’t finish?” He ran his hands down her sides.

She expelled a breath and furrowed her brow. The insult was one her father had thrown at her often. “I know,” she apologised. “I do. I’ve tried hard not to but my mouth isn’t always in synch with my mind.”

Something in the way she spoke flared a warning in him. He chose to disregard it. “Come with me tonight. Give me the two days I bought.”

“That isn’t why I’m here,” she said thickly, staring up at his eyes. “I’m here with you … I slept with you … because I wanted to.”

“Yes.” He lowered his mouth and kissed her gently. “And you’ll come with me because you want to as well.”

She swallowed, wanting to challenge him but knowing he was right. “This is completely crazy.”

Her eyes were enormous and terrified. He stared into them but he was seeing the past; he was seeing the eyes of her father, as they’d looked at him with blatant cruelty. The memory was as acute as if it were happening in that moment. It played out before him like a film; he was helpless to resist its tug.

“You know he did not do this.” Benedetto weighed his words with care. He was not used to asking for favours. Nor was he used to being refused.

The older man stared across the bar, his expression belligerent. “If I thought he were innocent, I would not have found him guilty.” His eyes were a vivid shade of blue. They made Benedetto long to throw him into an equally blue ocean.

Benedetto lifted his scotch, cradling it thoughtfully in his hands. When he spoke it was with the kind of quiet determination that struck fear into his boardroom rivals’ hearts. “I think you were paid to find him guilty.”

Augustine Beauchamp’s distinguished head jerked upwards. Those enormous eyes shuttered swiftly. “Careful, son. Accusations like that will get you in a lot of trouble.”

Benedetto laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, Beauchamp.”

“A mistake, surely, on your part.”

“The mistake is all yours.” He leaned forward, his expression unknowingly menacing. “How much did it take? I imagine a man like you doesn’t come cheap.”

Augustine sipped his red wine; a dribble escaped the corner of his mouth and rolled down his pale, fleshy chin like blood running across a snow field. “What you imagine isn’t my concern.”

“Do you think not?” Benedetto’s calm tone belied the surge of panic that was spiraling through him. “I don’t care what it takes. I will prove to the world that you’re the epitome of unethical.”

“I doubt that.”

Benedetto narrowed his eyes. “I am trying to decide if you speak with the confidence of a man who has covered his tracks so neatly he need never fear exposure; or if it’s that you’ve paid off so many others that no one will dare reveal the truth.”

“You may try to decide that all night, for all I care. Nothing you or I say here is going to get your father’s verdict vacated.” His smile was smug. “Your dad’s a murderer. Plain and simple. So far as everyone else knows, he killed that girl, and I’ve seen to it he’ll spend the rest of his life in the worst prison we’ve got.” The smugness became unbearable. Beneath the bar, Benedetto’s hands formed fists of iron. “Make any trouble for me, and he’ll be the one that pays the price.”

“You’d actually threaten to make his life worse - an innocent man serving a life sentence - because of this conversation?”

“You think your family’s untouchable because you’re as rich as a prince?”

“I don’t think any such thing,” Benedetto denied, straightening to a standing position. At full height, he towered over the diminutive figure of Lord Beauchamp.

“Because he isn’t untouchable. And he isn’t innocent.”

Benedetto shook his head. Frustration was a flood in his system. “He stole a car thirty years ago. He robbed a store. He ran with the wrong crowd. These were stupid crimes of a mis-spent youth. He is not a murderer.”

“I am not interested in debating the case with you. I heard the facts. I heard the arguments. And I found him guilty.”

“You found him guilty before you even arrived at court.”

It was the sneering smile that answered the question. “It’s done.”

Her eyes blinked up at him, her expression confused.  He’d been very quiet for several moments, his expression impossible to comprehend. “I really think I should …”

He shook his head; the memories gradually began to clear. Beauchamp had ruined his father’s life. And now? He was simply repaying the favour. “I have a villa in Tuscany. You will love it.”

 

* * *

 

She slept the whole way there, with her legs curled up beneath her and her head pressed against his balled up tuxedo jacket. In sleep, she was silent, but for the gentle sound of her rhythmic breathing.

As they crested over one of the many hills that served to guide his way to the villa, he blinked his eyes down to her hands. They were resting on her lap, pale, with long fingers, and matching pink bands around her wrists.

It was symbolic.

He hadn’t thought of it, at the time. He’d wanted simply to enjoy her body. But now he looked at the visible marks of her imprisonment and felt an answering rush of emotion. Shame? Pleasure? He couldn’t have said. He knew only that he’d imprisoned Beauchamp’s daughter and taken what he’d wanted in the same way Beauchamp had imprisoned Carlo Arnaud. Only he’d taken Carlo’s life.

Not personally, but that wrongful judgement had been the beginning of the end for Carlo.

He turned his gaze back to the road and saw Beauchamp’s eyes staring back at him. Bloodshot, angry, dismissive, as they’d been the final time they’d met.

“You killed him.”

“Another of your accusations?” The older man had grunted, flicking his pen clear across the desk in a visible sign of anger.

“A statement of fact. You knew he was innocent of that crime. You know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he did not murder that child. And yet you had him locked in a prison where other inmates made his every day a living hell. You did this to him. You drove him to it.” And his voice cracked with emotion. “He was a good man.”

“He was a murderer.”

“Bullshit.” Benedetto’s voice rang through the empty offices. At midnight, his tone took on a menace that perhaps it mightn’t have held in the daylight hours. “He was a good man.”

“He was …”

“A good man,” Benedetto slammed his hands down on the desk. When Beauchamp flinched, Benedetto felt a rush of power. He could punch this man. He could punch him again and again. But Benedetto had never had a violent streak. He had lived with his father’s teachings and he exercised a strong control on his impulses at all times. “He was a better man than you will ever be.”

“He was gutter-trash and he is dead.” The smile was an exultation.

Benedetto stared at those eyes, bloodshot from too much alcohol, face pale and pudgy, and he stood up. He paced away from the desk and wrenched the door open. “You will pay for this. I will make your life as unbearable as you did his.”

“Good luck!” Beauchamp cackled to Benedetto’s retreating back.

Benedetto turned the sleek car off the road into the driveway of the villa. He hadn’t been back in years. Not since his father had been put in prison. The memories then had become too painful.

There was a sort of neatness to bringing her with him now. The woman who was his instrument of paining that bastard Augustine.

His eyes flicked to her again and as if she sensed his interest, she shifted a little, a smile curving her lips. Her eyes blinked open and settled on his face. “Am I dreaming?” Her throat was husky from sleep.

He smothered the emotions that were coursing through him; unpleasant emotions filled with sadness and regret. “Hard to say from where I’m sitting.”

Her smile was nothing like His. In fact, it was only their eyes that were similar. “I dreamed I met this tall, dark, handsome stranger and he was seriously kinky but also seriously amazing and that he insisted on whisking me away to his Tuscan love-nest for two days of … well …”

His smile felt heavy on his face. “Two days of?” He prompted, turning the car a final time and pointing it through the gates. The vines on either side had grown rampant and it scratched the driver side as he steered through.

“We’ll see,” she finished, winking over at him. She sat up straighter and peered through the front window.  It was a dark night, and the headlights only showed what was directly in front of the car. So she didn’t see the peach grove to one side and the old lake to the other; nor did she see the rose garden that had, at one time, been manicured in the style of the Boboli Giardiniera but now grew wild and untamed, groaning under the weight of the sweetly full blossoms that Summer had gifted them. Those delights would await her when morning came.

It was only the farm house that Kate could make out, slightly dilapidated but with an eerie charm that instantly captivated her. It sat at the crest of a hill; square in shape but three stories high with arched windows and several chimneys. The roof looked to be a dark tile — she guessed red, going from the style of the house. The door was timber, with iron detail, and there were pots at the front of the house that might have, at one time, been neat little entry markers. Now, the citrus trees planted in them had grown far too large for the pots, and looked to be in danger of toppling out. There were geraniums chasing hungrily over the ground and when she pushed the door of the car open in rapt wonder, she was assailed by the scent of night-flowering jasmine and honey suckles. A bird made a high pitched evening-whistle and she let out a low, soft laugh at the beauty of it all.

“I must be dreaming,” she said, spinning around to look at him. Her smile was dazzling. Bright and enormous, it erased any hint of coldness from her face. The moon emerged from behind a cloud for a moment and she saw that the far wall of the house was covered completely in bougainvillea.

“This is like something from a fairy tale,” she said, walking across the crunchy gravel to stand beside him.

Or a nightmare, he thought with a frown. This place had been like that for him once; a joyous destination that, as a boy, he’d loved to visit. He’d spent more summers than he could count running through these gardens and swimming in the stream. But it was Carlo’s home. And Carlo was dead.

“Come.” He stalked to the house, as though he might be able to outrun the ghosts of his past.

The key was an old-fashioned brass style; he inserted it into the lock and turned it. The door didn't budge. He kicked it with his foot and then nudged it with his shoulder and it finally gave, making a creaking noise of complaint at the intrusion as it shuddered inwards.

He reached across and flicked the lights; they too blinked to life reluctantly. Two of the four bulbs in the entrance were broken.

“It looks like no one’s been here in forever,” she marvelled, stepping into the home with no idea that he was looking at the house in a state of heartbroken contemplation.

“No,” he said quietly, taking in the spider webs along the ceiling and the cracks that had formed in the plaster work. “Not for years.”

“Lights still work though,” she pointed out, flicking another switch further down and illuminating the farm kitchen. She made a sound of pleasure as her eyes took in the perfectly rustic and original space. It had the original stonework exposed and instead of modern appliances there was an old brick fireplace with a stone grill across the top.

“I had the bills paid,” he said, following behind her.

Where had he last seen Carlo? When had been the last time they’d been here together?

Kate though had always been good at reading other people’s emotions; it was a trait that had been essential with her father. She’d been able to tell, eventually, what kind of mood he was in by the way he closed the door to his car.

“You don’t like it here,” she said quietly, putting a hand on his arm as a gesture of comfort.

It surprised him. He shook his head and pulled his hand away on instinct. Though they had made love, it was hard for him to forget who she was; it was hard for him to look at her with anything other than white-hot hatred and contempt for the family she came from.

“I have mixed feelings about it,” he said stiffly.

“Why?” She walked into the kitchen and turned the tap on. The water spluttered several times, splashing the front of her dress, then gave way to a full stream. She switched it off and began to open the cupboard doors.

“I used to come here often as a child.”

“But not recently?” She pushed, taking a tea towel from a drawer and dampening it at the edge.

“No. Not for about four years.”

She nodded, though she knew there was far more to it than she understood. “I haven’t been home in a long time either,” she said, her head bent away from his assessing gaze as she wiped the bench top clean. Plumes of dust lifted into the room. He studied her, but her face — what he could see of it, anyway — gave little away.

“This isn’t my home.” He reached across the bench and put his hand on hers. Big blue eyes startled up to him. “Why haven’t you been home?”

She swallowed and her gaze darted past him. Curiosity flared inside him. “Oh. I … because I…” She shrugged. “Lots of reasons.” Her smile was cool. She was pulling that shield about herself again; the one that she’d evidently perfected that transformed her into some kind of untouchable ice-maiden.

“Yes?”

She nodded. “We should open all the windows. This place is really dusty.”

He stroked a finger across her wrist. “I want to know about you. Everything about you.”

Her laugh was shaky. “That’s not possible. Not in two days.” She flushed. That had sounded as though she were begging him for time. She covered it with a laugh. “And that’s definitely all you’re getting, buster. That’s all you’ve paid for.”

He wasn’t fooled by the attempt at lightness. “Where is your home?” Though he knew, of course. He had photos of the mansion in Buckinghamshire she’d grown up in as well as the Knightsbridge townhouse Augustine called home, and the Chelsea flat Katherine Beauchamp had lived in when she’d moved to London.

“England.” She wiped her hands on the dry edges of the tea towel. “If you haven’t been here in four years, the bed linen is going to need changing. Are there any sheets?”

He compressed his lips, frustration gnawing at his gut. “In the laundry.” He moved across the kitchen and pushed a timber door inwards. He turned the light on and crouched down, pulling a set of crisp white sheets from a drawer.

She was standing behind him when he stood up. When her hands extended to take the sheets, he gave them to her but didn’t relinquish his own hold. “What are you hiding from?”

She made a gasping sound and he knew he was onto something. Did she have information? Having lived with Augustine, perhaps she’d witnessed her father’s crimes and could cast light on the details. “Nothing,” she promised. Her smile was a valiant effort. “Where’s the bedroom?”

He let it go; in that moment, at least. “This way.” He pulled the sheets back and moved ahead of her through the house. The stairs creaked as he moved up them, though they were as sturdy as the day they’d been built.

“How old is this place?” She asked as if reading his thoughts, her hand on the intricately carved oak bannister.

“It was built in the seventeenth century,” he said factually, though pride was rich in his tone.

“Woah.”

“It has been in my mother’s side of the family since then.”

“Amazing. She doesn’t come here either?”

“No. She’s dead. Both of my parents are dead.”

Kate stopped walking and Benedetto, at the top of the stairs, turned to look back at her. Tears glistened on her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have no need to be sorry,” he lied, thinking that her father had been the reason his had died.

“My mum is dead too,” she said, moving up the stairs once more. She caught up to him at the top. He studied her carefully.

“Yes?”

“Mmm.” Kate took the sheets once more and nodded down the hallway. “This way?”

“Yes. When did she die?” Though he knew that too.

“When I was a baby,” she said stiffly. “A car accident.”

A drunk on a motorbike, he added mentally. He reached around a corner and flicked a final switch on. It didn’t have any effect so he pulled his cell-phone from his pocket and used it as a torch to cross the bedroom. He reached for the lamp and it bathed the room in a warm glow.

“Oh, shoot,” she murmured. “I left my phone at the auction. It’s in one of the rooms near the ballroom. Do you mind if I use yours to text Saphire, my colleague? I just need to let her know to grab it for me.”

“Of course,” he nodded, handing it over. He stripped the bed while she messaged her friend, and by the time he’d replaced the pillows, she had finished tapping out her message. The bed lay between them, enormous and smelling like lemons and lavender.

Nerves jostled inside Kate, suddenly.

Despite their earlier intimacy, everything was different here. “I think the champagne’s worn off,” she joked awkwardly, fidgeting her fingers in front of her. She caught herself after a minute and straightened. “Sorry. Bad habit.”

He narrowed his eyes. “What is a bad habit?”

She turned away from him on the guise of pushing the windows open. The stars sparkled in the blanket of the black sky. “Fidgeting,” she said simply, spinning back to him. He was right behind her, his broad frame illuminated by the stars and the moon.

“Who says?”

Something flashed in her eyes. “Everyone.” She lifted her fingers to his shirt; they were shaking. Slowly, she undid his top button. Her eyes were huge in her pretty face. “I want to see you,” she said simply, moving to the next button.

He watched as she painstakingly undid each and every button. By the time she had reached the final one he wanted to rip his shirt off. Talk about agonising foreplay! He was desperate now to feel her touch on his bare chest. His breathing was ragged as she tentatively lifted her fingers and brushed them across his hair-roughened flesh.

She made a noise of surprise as her fingers grazed his abdominal muscles, tapering down to the waistband of his pants.

“I want …” She toyed with the buckle and pulled at it, sliding it slowly from his pants. To his surprise, she held it out to him. He took it in his hands, and before he could cast it aside, she lay her wrists across it. Her eyes glowed with something like confusion as she bit down on her lower lip and waited for him to say or do something.

He nodded wordlessly, but his arousal was straining painfully against the fabric of his pants. “You want more?” He murmured, smiling at her small nod of agreement. He looked around the room. It had been years since he’d slept here. The bed was only a double, not the King size he preferred. But it had an ornate, wrought iron headboard that looked strong enough.

“Lie on the bed,” he said gruffly, watching as she moved towards it. Slowly, she slid her zip down and removed the dress, her eyes on his face the whole time. Then her underwear, until she stood before him naked and bathed in the milky glow of the night beyond them.

She lay down, her pert breasts drawing his admiring gaze. He strolled towards her, and removed his pants, so that he too was naked.

She turned her head to stare at him. Her chest moved rapidly as her breathing strained to catch up.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said simply, straddling her and staring down at her beautiful face.

“I’m not,” she responded with a smile that made her eyes light up. “I should be, but I’m not.”

He looped the belt through the bedhead before capturing her wrists and restraining them. “Does that hurt?”

She shook her head, and lifted her hips, so that he understood her urgency. He lowered his mouth and kissed hers, wondering what it would be like to have sex with Kate Jones for the pleasure of it. Not because of some vendetta; not because he hated her whole family. But purely because he wanted her.

“I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never felt like this,” she said wrapping her legs around his waist.

He cupped her cheek and pressed his forehead to hers. Nor had he. Perhaps it was the knowledge that he was about to begin wreaking havoc in that smug bastard’s life in the most poignant of ways — Benedetto couldn’t have said. But their night was taking on a surrealism that was breathtaking for its beauty and uniqueness.

He moved inside of her, but this time, as he made love to her, he watched her face and he studied every single detail. The way her lips pursed as pleasure became almost too much. The way she squeezed her eyes as she climaxed. The way she rolled her head from side to side, sending her fair hair flying.

Afterwards, her body glistening with perspiration despite the coolness of the night, he took in the picture she made. With her hair tussled, her cheeks pink, her hands bound — there was no doubt what she’d been doing. With a sinking feeling that was at odds with the triumph he was about to effect, he reached for his phone.

“What are you doing?” She asked, but she was smiling as he held the phone over her face.

“I want to remember you like this,” he said simply, taking a photograph that framed her hands and face only in shot.

“That had better not wind up on the internet,” she said with a look of doubt.

He laughed. “For my private pleasure, I assure you.” He kissed the tip of her nose and then loosened the belt.

“Show me.”

He held the phone out. She propped up on one elbow and examined the picture. From her hair to her eyes to her lips. A smile spread across her face. “I look thoroughly ravaged,” she murmured, falling back against the pillows.

“Not as thoroughly as you will be in two days,” he promised, running a finger between the valley formed by her breasts.

“Is that a promise?” She asked, but her eyes were heavy.

He watched as she fought — and lost — a battle against sleep.

“It’s a promise to more than just you,” he murmured.

He lifted his phone to look at the picture. It was the perfect shot. He loaded it into a text message and typed Augustine’s number in. But Kate made a noise at that moment. Worried the brightness of his phone was disturbing her, he placed it on the bedside table. There would be time to send it in the morning. Plenty of time.

He had his revenge now; he could take his time making Augustine aware of it.