Seb’s hands clenched into fists. If the guy had been there at that moment he would have... He took a deep breath. He wasn’t here but Mari was.
He’d taken a virgin bride. What have you done, Seb?
‘We were all consenting adults, there was nothing illegal and I was pretty stupid.’
‘He used his position of authority and trust,’ Seb condemned. ‘It is appalling that the college authorities allowed it to happen.’
‘Well, I don’t expect they knew,’ she observed fairly. ‘And they don’t allow it, not now. There was a massive scandal the next year as the girl he singled out for special attention after me attempted suicide. Luckily she didn’t succeed, but he resigned shortly after that and I think his wife divorced him. Don’t stop...’ she pleaded, lifting herself up on her elbows as he swore his contempt bilingually.
His eyes followed the flow of her hair as it settled over her shoulders, but he couldn’t push back the hard knot of ice-cold anger that her matter-of-fact retelling of the story had created.
‘I’m sorry about the things I said that night. I had just come from a run-in with my mother, who was...well, being herself, and she never brings out the best in me.’
‘It was a long time ago,’ she said, looking at him curiously. ‘And I had my revenge, so maybe we’re even?’
‘It left scars, and I was partly responsible for that.’
She held out her arms. ‘You healed them, too, but there is this little one that I don’t think you quite reached.’
A slow carnal smile curved his lips as he pulled her foot, tucking it over his shoulder. ‘Now, where would that be?’
‘Not sure,’ she admitted thickly.
Seb found it, and he took his time about it; he had taken her to the edge twice before taking her over with him.
She flipped over on her stomach to look at him. ‘I should go back to my room and get dressed.’ She yawned without much enthusiasm. ‘I don’t know what your grandmother will think.’
‘We are married, remember.’
A flicker of a frown disturbed her smooth brow as Mari looked at the ring on her finger, a plain gold band. ‘But that’s not real, is it? Though I suppose she won’t know that.’
‘My grandmother is no longer here. That is why she—’ his lips quirked at the corners ‘—stopped by, to say goodbye. She is staying with her sister for a few days. Apparently my great-aunt has had a fall.’
‘Is she all right, your aunt?’
‘Apparently she was more concerned about the horse.’
‘Your aunt was riding?’
‘In this instance, falling.’ He threw back the quilt that had moments before warmed both their bodies and casually vaulted from the bed, completely at ease with his naked state. Mari was less so, but her glance welded hungrily on his long, lean, muscle-toned frame, and she felt her insides heat.
Their glances connected and she lowered her gaze, clearing her throat. The microsecond of contact sent her nervous system into chaos... My God, I’ve become insatiable.
‘You don’t sound very worried,’ she observed, visualising a scene in her head that involved him crossing the room and slipping back into bed...into her. ‘Should she even be on a horse at her age?’
The reproach in her tone drew a laugh, and a look over his shoulder as he moved in the opposite direction to her imagination to the window, which he pushed wider, letting in the smell of jasmine with a soft breeze.
‘Marguerite fully intends to die on one, as she will tell anyone who dares suggest she should slow down, but not yet, I think, though reading between the lines it sounds as though she was shaken.’
She glimpsed the concern behind the languid humour and touched the smooth skin of his back as he sat down on the bed to slide his jeans on before standing to zip them up.
‘Why don’t you hate me, Mari?’
She blinked, astonished by the question. ‘Who says I don’t?’
She glimpsed a strange look on his face before he turned and stalked across the room, making her think of a panther. ‘Because you don’t have it in you.’ Although what he had to say might severely test that theory.
‘I did crash your wedding and nearly cost you a billion dollars.’
‘I tricked you into marrying me.’
‘There have been some upsides to that,’ she admitted, looking from his face to the tumbled bedclothes. At least in bed naked she had no trouble understanding him. ‘And I’m not eighteen anymore. I knew what I was doing. I admit I never expected to enjoy anything about these eighteen months.’
Even from the several yards that separated them she could see the lines of strain around his mouth as he began to walk back across the room towards her, looking very like her mental image of a dark, dangerous pirate with his bare feet, rippling muscle, his chest gleaming gold and the stubble on his face giving him a dangerously attractive look of dissipation. In a fair world it would be illegal for a man to be this sexy.
So the world is not fair, Mari—deal and stop drooling! She was dragging her eyes clear of the open fastener on his waistband when he spoke, his deep voice just audible above the blood rushing in her ears.
‘Has it occurred to you that the eighteen-month rule might be out of the window?’
Utterly confused, Mari searched his face, looking for a trace of the warm, sensitively passionate lover who had taught her so much about her own body in just one night, and morning...but he wasn’t there. Just a sombre-faced stranger, not the man she had fallen... The blood drained from her face as she swallowed and thought, No, I can’t have... It’s just sex. Very good sex, but just sex. Love is—
‘Unless you are on the pill?’
Too busy arguing with herself, she still didn’t see where he was going with this. ‘Why would I be?’
‘I didn’t use anything. You could be pregnant.’ Her comment about not wanting children had not seemed relevant at the time; now it did.
His words hit her with the force of a lightning bolt. She gasped and hit back, fear making her voice cold. ‘Do you make a habit of having unprotected sex with one-night stands?’
His dark eyes glittering, the sharply defined contours of his high cheekbones were accentuated by a dull flush as he ground out what she was assuming—no major leap—was a swear word and dragged a hand across his set jaw.
‘It was a first. I’m sorry.’
She gave a sniff, feeling guilty now that she had lashed out at him. At the end of the day, she’d become just as caught up in the moment and had behaved just as recklessly as Seb had. ‘So am I. It’s as much my fault as yours,’ she acknowledged.
Seb gave a hard laugh. ‘I seriously doubt that many people would agree with you, and you are not a one-night stand. You are my wife.’
‘For eighteen months...’
‘Maybe.’
‘What do you mean?’ she demanded, gathering the quilt around her.
‘I mean if last night results in a baby, that time limit vanishes. There is no way that my child would be brought up by another man.’
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded weirdly controlled, perhaps to compensate for the total chaos rampaging in her head. ‘I’m not having a baby.’ And I’m not in love.
‘You’re right. It probably won’t happen. Why don’t we deal with it when or if the time arises?’
She shook her head. ‘You really are