Enemies at the Altar (8 page)

Andreas’s expression was cynical. ‘Are you sure it was him she loved or the lifestyle he could give her?’ he asked.

Sienna gave him another flinty glare. ‘I don’t expect you to understand what love feels like,’ she said. ‘You’re exactly like your father in that sense. You take what you want from people and give nothing back. Emotion doesn’t come into it. Your life is a series of cold, hard business deals conducted one after the other.’

‘Ah, but is that not just like you?’ Andreas asked with a sardonic slant to his mouth. ‘You married Brian Littlemore for money. You have married me for exactly the same reason. Is that not rather cold and businesslike? You want money in exchange for your body, but you will not give your heart.’

‘Do you
want
my heart, Andreas?’ she asked with a deliberately taunting look.

His gaze ran over her like the scorching stroke of a naked flame. ‘I think you know what I want,’ he said. ‘It’s what we both want. And tonight there is nothing to stop us from having it.’

She lifted her chin at him. ‘I haven’t said I’ll sleep with you.’

He bent his head and pressed a brief but searing kiss to her mouth. ‘Not yet, but you will,’ he said, flashing one of his satirical smiles. ‘You won’t be able to help yourself.’

‘Let’s see about that, shall we?’ she said.

He touched her cheek with a soft brushstroke of one of his fingers, his eyes burning hers with the glinting fire of his. ‘I can hardly wait,’ he said and, with another mocking smile, he left.

S
IENNA
felt in an edgy mood by the time she joined Andreas for pre-dinner drinks downstairs. She had successfully managed to avoid him since their meeting in the garden but she had been aware of him all the same. She had heard him come upstairs to shower and change for dinner. She had imagined him standing under the showerhead as she had done only minutes before, his body lean and tanned, all rippling muscles and toned naked male flesh. Her stomach had triple somersaulted at the thought of standing there with him, of feeling his hard body dividing the softness of hers to claim her as his. Her body seemed to be intent on having what her mind tried so valiantly to resist. Her traitorous body was clamouring for more of his touch, for more of his kisses, for more flesh on flesh contact—for everything.

And Andreas—damn him—knew it.

Sienna entered the large
salon
overlooking the chateau’s formal garden with her nerves jangling in irritation. ‘Where are Jean-Claude and Simone?’ she asked. ‘Aren’t they joining us?’

Andreas gave her a crooked smile that made his eyes glint. ‘It’s our honeymoon,
ma chérie
,’ he said. ‘Four’s a crowd, don’t you think?’

She averted her gaze and reached for the champagne he had poured for her. ‘I can see why you wanted to secure this place,’ she said to change the subject. ‘It’s very beautiful.’

‘My mother loved it here,’ he said. ‘She wanted her grandchildren to grow up like Miette and I did, with both French and Italian cultural experiences.’

Sienna looked at the bubbles in her glass, trying not to think of Andreas’s future children running about the chateau and its gardens. It was unsettling to think of him with some other faceless woman on his arm, a woman he had selected as prime wife material. Or maybe he would take Portia Briscoe back once his brief marriage to Sienna was over. But that thought was even more upsetting. The more she knew of Andreas, the less suited Portia seemed to be for him. Couldn’t
he
see that?

‘Was Miette upset that the chateau was left to you and not to her?’ Sienna asked after a little silence.

‘My sister was more upset it was co-inherited by you,’ he said. ‘She is worried you will do everything in your power to make me default.’

Sienna could see why his sister would feel the way she did about her. Their relationship during the time she had lived with the family had been fraught with tension. Many a petty or bitchy argument had broken out between them, which, to be fair, Sienna knew she was largely responsible for. She had been insanely jealous of Miette as the only daughter of the Ferrante dynasty. To Sienna, Miette was everything she was not. Miette had two parents who adored her, an older brother who was loving and protective towards her, and she had grown up with the sort of wealth that meant she never had to worry about anything other than what designer brand to
choose over another. Like Andreas, Miette had been to the best schools and university. Miette had even spent a year at a Swiss finishing school before she’d moved to London, where she had met her now equally well-heeled husband. Miette’s life was the dream life Sienna had always wanted for herself. ‘What did you say to her?’ she asked before taking a sip of her drink.

‘I told her not to worry,’ he said. ‘I am well aware of the tricks you might feel compelled to play.’

Sienna shrugged off his comment. ‘Well, you can assure her I only want the money,’ she said. ‘The chateau is nice and all that, but what would I do with a place this size? I’d have to sell it. I could never afford to maintain it. The heating bills in winter must be crucifying.’

Andreas took a sip of his drink, still watching her with his hazel eyes. ‘Just so you know, Sienna,’ he said. ‘I will not be tricked out of inheriting this property. You can do the time the nice way or the hard way but, either way, I am not leaving until I inherit what rightly belongs to my family.’

‘Fine,’ Sienna said, throwing him a testy look. ‘But the same goes for you. I’m not going to be forced out by your brooding, boorish behaviour or your bad moods.’

Andreas gave an ironic chuckle. ‘You’re a fine one to talk of bad moods,’ he said. ‘You’ve been spoiling for a fight from the moment you stepped in the room. I can see it in your eyes. They’ve been flashing like sheet lightning for the last five minutes.’

Sienna glared at him. ‘Maybe that has something to do with your own chicanery in making sure I have no choice but to sleep in your bed,’ she said.

‘What is the problem with sharing a bed that is large
enough to house a family of five?’ Andreas asked. ‘I bet I won’t even notice you’re there.’

She set her mouth. ‘Just another nameless woman lying beside you, eh? Nice one, Andreas. You have such class.’

‘Are you jealous?’ he asked.

‘Of course not!’ Sienna gave her head a toss. ‘It’s just that I don’t like the thought of you suddenly forgetting who’s lying beside you. You might take liberties that I’m not comfortable with.’

‘Take liberties?’ He gave a little snort of amusement. ‘You sound like someone out of a Regency period drama. What, are you worried I might see one of your naked ankles or wrists, are you? I’ve seen a lot more of you than that, Sienna, and you know it. So, too, did most of the cyber world when your little bedroom peccadillo was aired, so don’t play the outraged virgin card with me. It just won’t wash.’

Sienna turned away so he couldn’t see the way her cheeks coloured up. She concentrated on drinking her champagne, desperately trying to appear cool and collected when inside she was anything but. She hated him for reminding her of that wretched event. How like him to needle her with her past, the past she wanted to forget about, the past she wished had never happened. She pretended it didn’t hurt but it did. Every time she saw a photo or snippet about herself in the press she cringed in shame. How could her life have come to that?

‘Dinner will be waiting for us,’ Andreas said after a moment. ‘I hope you’re hungry?’

Sienna gave him one of her arch looks. ‘It sure beats making small talk, doesn’t it?’ she said and sashayed past him to the dining room.

Dinner was a tense affair. Sienna knew she wasn’t helping things by being prickly but she resented the way Andreas always saw the worst in her. He assumed she would try to wangle him out of his inheritance, but if it weren’t for the money she needed to kick-start her life she would have already defaulted so he could have the chateau. She wanted to be free of him just as much as he wanted to be free of her.

Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true, she thought as she toyed with her glass. The physical fascination she felt for him was something that drew her to him irrespective of the ill feeling between them. She could feel the tension of it brewing in the air. It was an atmospheric change that occurred every time they were on their own.

Knowing he wanted her made her need for him all the harder to ignore. She could feel the traitorous pulse of it in her blood, the way her insides clenched every time his gaze encountered hers. Those tense little eye-locks unfurled something deep inside her until she had to look away or betray herself completely.

‘More wine?’ Andreas offered.

Sienna covered her glass with her hand. ‘I think I’ve had enough, thank you.’

There was a ghost of a smile in his eyes. ‘Always wise to know when to stop,
sì
?’ he said.

She gave him a direct look. ‘Do you know when to stop, Andreas?’ she asked. ‘Or do you keep going just because you can?’

He sat back and surveyed her for a moment before he answered. ‘I don’t believe in losing control in any area of my life.’

She raised a questioning brow at him. ‘Not even during sex?’

He continued to hold her gaze with an intensity she found both thrilling and unsettling. ‘It depends on what you mean by losing control,’ he said. ‘If you mean do I lose myself in the moment of orgasm, then yes, that is exactly what happens.’

Sienna knew her face was hot. She could feel it. So too was her body. Just the thought of him losing control—
having an orgasm
—with her was enough to send her senses spinning all over the place.

‘You’re blushing,
ma belle
,’ he said with a slanting smile.

‘I’m not blushing,’ she retorted. ‘It’s hot in here.’

He rose from the table and opened one of the windows, letting in the fragrant night air. ‘Better?’ he asked, turning back to face her.

Sienna felt the caress of his gaze. It touched her from head to foot, lingering on the upthrust of her breasts just long enough for the fiery combustion of her need to engulf her.

She felt the tingle of her flesh as he came towards her, his eyes still doing that erotic little tussle with hers, as if he was already making love with her in his mind, running through the images of their naked limbs entangled, their bodies joined in the most intimate way possible.

Her body shivered involuntarily. She could almost feel his hard male presence inside her. It started as a tiny flicker and then it became a pulse that was like a distant drumbeat inside her, growing in intensity as each sensually charged second passed.

Sienna swallowed as he came towards her with slow but purposeful strides. Her heart gave a stumble as he stood right beside her chair, the tip of his index finger
lifting her chin to face him. ‘What are we going to do about this tricky little situation between us, hmm?’ he asked.

She rose to her feet as if he had drawn her up by tugging on invisible puppet strings. Her body was within a hair’s breadth of his, her insides coiling tightly with lust. ‘I don’t know,’ she said a little too huskily. ‘Ignore it?’

His mouth tilted in that sexy smile again as his thumb brushed over her bottom lip. ‘Sounds like a good idea in theory,’ he said. ‘How do you propose we do that in practice?’

Sienna swept her tongue over her lip where his thumb had just been and tasted the salt of him. A shockwave of longing rippled through her. She felt the rush of her blood and the hot tingle of feminine want darted like an expertly aimed arrow deep inside her. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, trying to keep her tone light and unaffected. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’

His hazel eyes pulsed as they held hers. ‘Just the one,’ he said in a deep gravel-rough voice.

Her gaze drifted to his mouth and her heart gave another little tripping movement. ‘I sure hope it’s a good one,’ she said so softly it was barely audible.

‘It is,’ he said and, taking her by the upper arms and pulling her against him, chest pressed to chest, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.

His lips were neither soft nor hard but somewhere right in between. They moved with mesmerising magic on the surface of hers before he took things to another blistering level with the bold and commanding thrust of his tongue.

It was like a flame let loose amongst bone-dry tinder. The kiss was suddenly hot and hard and urgent,
just as hot and hard and as feverishly urgent as his body pressed against hers.

His hands went from their grip on her upper arms to slide down to her waist, one hand slipping behind her to press in the small of her back to hold her against the heated trajectory of his body. She moved against him, an instinctive and utterly primal movement that signalled her rapidly escalating need for him.

His mouth explored hers with spine-tingling expertise. His tongue played with hers, teasing and flirting at first, but then with increasing demand as his desire to mate took hold. She felt it in his body, the way he hardened and throbbed against her. Her body responded automatically. It softened and melted against him, her desperate need to get closer taking over whatever objections her scrambled mind tried to put up.

One of his hands skimmed over her breast in a teasing motion that set every nerve beneath her skin on fire. She whimpered against his mouth, pushing closer, desperate to have him hold her, to caress her, to touch her, to brand her with his lips and tongue.

He continued to kiss her deeply as his hand came back, firmer this time, cupping her, caressing her through the thin barrier of her dress and lacy bra. It was like torture not to have him as close as she wanted him. But then, as if he read her mind, or her body, or indeed both, he slid the shoulder of her dress aside. His warm dry hand on the skin of her neck and shoulder made her flesh sing with delight. He pushed the strap of her bra aside and then lowered his mouth to her skin. She shuddered in response when his tongue grazed the soft skin stretched tightly over her collarbone.

She snatched in a breath when he pushed the lace cup
of her bra away. Her belly clenched with a hard fist of desire as his warm breath skated over her naked breast before his mouth closed over her achingly tight nipple. Thousands of fiery explosions went off beneath her skin at that toe-curling caress. His teeth and tongue teased her into a frenzy of want she had never imagined possible. The sensation of having his mouth suck on her made the hair on her head tingle at the roots.

Sienna slid her hands up his chest to work on his buttons; one by one she released them, kissing each section of his hot salty skin as she exposed it.

He made a deep sound at the back of his throat as she went lower, his hands fisting in her hair as she got to his waistband. The jut of his erection tented his trousers and she boldly touched him, caressing the length of him, delighting in the feel of him as he shuddered in response.

He made another deep guttural sound and pulled her down with him to the floor, his mouth slamming back down on hers as he pinned her with his weight. It was a bruising kiss but she was with him all the way, nipping at his lower lip, her teeth tugging and pulling at him in a desperate urge for satiation. His tongue thrust and stroked, cajoled and teased and finally tamed hers. In between hot searing kisses he got her dress off and her bra and knickers in a wild tangle of fabric and limbs that made Sienna’s heart race with excitement. She only got his shirt off and his belt. There was barely time for the application of a condom before her head snapped back on the carpeted floor as he drove into her with a thick, hard thrust that made her cry out in sharp and sudden discomfort.