said that money talked, they didn’t realise that it also swore. It sounded ridiculous to consider yourself as being too highly paid, but he’d long ago realised that wealth had drawbacks all of its own. And when you were deemed rich—in a world where money was worshipped more than any of the more traditional gods—then lots of people wanted to know you for all the wrong reasons.
Not that he would have put Sabrina into that category. But he liked the sweet, unaffected way she was with him. He hadn’t been treated as an equal for a very long time. And if he started hinting at just how much he was really worth, might she not be slightly overawed?
‘Oh, I’m just a wheeler-dealer,’ he shrugged.
‘And what does a wheeler-dealer do?’
He smiled. ‘A bit of everything. I buy and sell. Property. Art. Sometimes even cars. Houses occasionally.’ But there was no disguising the dismissiveness in his voice as he topped her wine up. ‘All pretty boring stuff. Finish your soup.’
‘I have finished.’
She’d barely touched it, he noticed as the waiter removed their plates—but, then, neither had he. And he was still aroused. So aroused that…
Sabrina saw the dark colour which had flared over his cheekbones and suddenly she felt weak. Across the table they stared at one another, and the sounds of the other diners retreated so that they might have been alone in the crowded room.
‘G-Guy,’ she stumbled, through the ragged movement of her breathing.
‘What is it?’ he murmured.
‘The waiter is w-waiting to give us our main course.’
Guy looked up to find the waiter standing beside the table, holding two plates containing crayfish and barely able to contain his smile.
‘Grazie,’ said Guy tightly.
‘Prego.’ The waiter grinned.
Sabrina smoothed her fingers over her flushed cheeks. She didn’t speak until the waiter was out of earshot. ‘Did you see his face?’ she whispered.
‘We’re in Italy,’ he remarked, with a shrug. ‘They’re used to couples displaying…’ he lingered over a wholly inappropriate word ‘…affection. Now eat your crayfish,’ he urged softly.
Like two condemned prisoners eating a last meal, they both silently spooned the crayfish into their mouths. It was fine food, meant to be savoured and enjoyed, but they both ate it quickly, without tasting it. In fact, Guy only just refrained from shovelling it down as if he were on a ten-minute lunch-break.
Sabrina wondered why she didn’t feel shy. Or embarrassed. Why being with Guy in an atmosphere so tense with expectation seemed to feel so right. Something she needed more than anything in the world. She put her knife and fork down with a shaky hand and saw that Guy had mirrored her movements.
‘Shall I call for the bill?’ he queried.
She forced herself to try and respond normally, even though she knew what he meant by his question. ‘Don’t you want dessert? Or coffee?’
His mouth curved. He heard the delicious thunder of the inevitable. ‘I thought we could try somewhere else for coffee.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed with nervous excitement, because she knew exactly what he meant—and wouldn’t a well-brought up girl be frightened by that? Or outraged? ‘I guess we could.’
In a daze she allowed him to drape the wrap around her shoulders, feeling the negligent brush of his fingertips against her bare flesh as he did so, and she felt the breath catch in her throat like dust.
He took her by the hand and led her outside into the starry night, looking down at her with soft, silver light gleaming from his eyes.
‘You’re shivering,’ he observed quietly, tracing a thoughtful fingertip down the slim, pale column of her neck and seeing her tremble even more. ‘Again.’
‘Y-yes.’
He took his jacket off and draped it around her shoulders; the broad cut of it almost swamped her slender frame. ‘Here, take this…’
‘You’ll get cold yourself,’ she objected.
‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that,’ he said softly, and, sliding his arms around her waist, he bent his head to kiss her.
Her heart was blazing as her mouth parted to meet the first sweet touch of his lips. She ignored the half-hearted voice of her conscience telling her to stop this, because who could have stopped this?
He was breathing life into her, bringing warmth flooding back into her veins. As though she had been some cold, bloodless statue and now…now…
‘Oh, Guy,’ she whispered, in a distracted plea. ‘Guy.’ But the words were lost against the honeyed softness of his mouth.
Desire shafted through him like an arrow. ‘Oh, God, yes, Sabrina,’ he ground out, on a sultry note of hunger. ‘Yes, and yes, and yes.’ He brought her closer into his body, up to the cradle of his hips, where the hard, lean power of him was unmistakable. And now it was Guy’s turn to make a harsh little sound. He broke the kiss off with a supreme effort, tearing his mouth away to look down with frustrated perplexity into her disappointed eyes.
‘This is all threatening to get out of hand,’ he groaned, sucking in a shuddering breath which scorched the lining of his lungs. ‘I haven’t engaged in such a public display of passion for a long time.’ He had always liked beds—clean sheets and clinical comfort—so why was he having to swallow down the primitive urge to lead her to the nearest narrow, dark alleyway, pin her up against some ancient wall and do it to her right there…?
She felt no fear, and no shame. Only an overwhelming need to be near him. She trickled a questing fingertip down the proud, hard lines of his face. ‘M-me neither.’
He forced himself to bite out the question, even though it was the most difficult thing he had ever had to say. ‘Do you want me to take you back to your hotel, or would you like to…?’ The word trailed off temptingly.
‘To what?’ she asked softly.
‘To come back with me? We could have that dessert. Coffee. What do you think? Would you like that, princess?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered, knowing that he didn’t want coffee any more than she did.
He took her hand and led her through the darkened streets. She felt dizzy with the sense of his proximity but she was so disorientated that he could have been leading her to the ends of the earth for all she knew. Or cared.
It wasn’t until they found themselves back in the grand elegance of his suite, with the hazy gleam of the lamps falling like moonlight on her flushed cheeks, that something of the enormity of what she was about to embark on began to seep into Sabrina’s consciousness. She ought to stop this, she told herself, and stop it right now.
Yet the longer she stared into the mesmerising glitter of those dark-lashed eyes, the harder it was to listen to reason. Because reason was a weak component in the presence of raw need.
And Michael had taught her that nothing was certain. His death had brought the frailty of life crashing home in a way that nothing else could have done. Why, she could walk out of this room right now and something could happen to ensure that she would never see Guy Masters again. And never know the warmth of his embrace, or taste the luxury of his kiss.
She turned her face up to his, but her half-felt protest became a moan of surrender as he drove his mouth down on hers with a hungry kiss which splintered her senses.
He reached out to remove the clip from her hair, murmured his warm pleasure as it fell in a red-blonde gleam around her shoulders. ‘See how your hair glows like fire against your skin. And how your eyes sparkle like pure, clear aquamarines.’
She had never been seduced by words before, had never known their sweet,