Wicked Surrender: Ruthless Awakening / The Multi-Millionaire's Virgin Mistress / The Timber Baron's Virgin Bride

And he was here with her now only because of this nameless, inexplicable thing between them that had burst into life that night in the stable yard, subjecting her to the torments of the damned ever since.

Something apparently that he’d not been able to forget either, even as he lived his life, made his money and slept with other women.

An appetite in him that she’d aroused and he wished to satisfy. And when he’d taken all she had to give and he was no longer hungry—what then? What was to prevent him just walking away, leaving her used up and discarded? Like Donna?

And all on the strength of one short-lived and disastrous encounter when she was eighteen years old.

I’m worth, she thought, far more than that.

Aloud she said, ‘Because Donna will be back very soon. So it appears that it’s the cinema or nothing.’ She added coolly, ‘And in your present mood, Diaz, I have to say the second option seems preferable.’

‘I could make you change your mind.’

Yes, but not my heart…

‘Why, Mr Penvarnon,’ she said mockingly, just as if she wasn’t weeping inside, ‘how very uncool.’

The look he sent her was long and totally deliberate, stripping away the concealing robe in order to create her nakedness in his imagination. And knowing what he was doing, and why, made it no easier to bear.

She stood, her body burning, hardly able to breathe, until at last he turned away, and she heard the outside door close behind him.

Then she sat down and covered her face with her hands.

She’d thought at the time that it was the nadir—the depths—the worst that could happen.

But I was wrong about that too, she told herself now.

She got up from the sofa, pushing her hair back from her face. She’d come down here to pack, she thought, not indulge in useless introspection. Therefore pack she would.

Be positive, she adjured herself. After all, there could hardly be more than another twenty-four hours for her to endure in his company. And if there was still a measure of physical attraction between them, then it could not be allowed to count. She didn’t need it, and nor did he. Finis.

She opened the wardrobe and gave the selection of clothes there a jaundiced look.

She’d keep out her coffee linen dress, she decided, pulling a face, and stow the rest in her travel bag. But as she dragged it from the back of the cupboard it toppled over, and a medium-sized brown envelope slid out of the front pocket.

Rhianna picked it up, frowning. It was addressed to her, in handwriting she didn’t recognise, she thought as she weighed it speculatively in her hand. Who on earth? And what on earth?

She wasn’t in the mood for mysteries, but she couldn’t help being curious all the same as she ran a finger under the flap. Inside she found a folder of photographs and a note.

She sat down on the bed, switched on the lamp, and read the note first.

Dear Miss Carlow,

We found this when we had the bedroom unit in the flat taken out. It must have fallen down behind it. We could see it belonged to your late aunt, and thought you might want to have it, so I put it with your things. I hope I did right. M. Henderson.