Page 72 of Exotic Affairs: The Mistress Bride\The Spanish Husband\The Bellini Bride

At which point the shock waves of what they had been so close to actually doing, began ricocheting horribly through her system. Seven years with no contact, she was thinking dizzily, and they’d fallen on each other like a pair of hungry animals at the first opportunity they had been handed.

It was all so utterly, shamefully vulgar that she buried her burning face in Luiz’s throat and hoped to God that the person knocking on the door was not her father.

A man’s voice she had never heard before, but which had the same American drawl as Luiz, said, ‘It’s all arranged. You have half an hour.’

‘Okay,’ Luiz acknowledged gruffly, quickly shut the door again, then with a firmness that utterly shook her, he put her from him.

It took her a few moments to realise what was happening, but one glance at his coldly closed face and she knew that the passionately out-of-control man she had been kissing had suddenly turned back into her enemy.

‘What’s arranged?’ she asked tautly.

‘What do you think?’ he replied.

He meant his game with her father, she realised. Even after what had just erupted between them he was still going to play him.

‘Here…’ Bending down, he picked up her dress where it had fallen to the floor at some unknown point. ‘Put this on; you’re dry enough. We have things to do and you can’t leave here looking like this.’

Looking like this… Through glazed eyes Caroline stared down at herself, saw the pulsing tightness of her distended nipples, her flushed skin, her long white thighs still trembling from the way he had made her feel. Even Luiz’s jacket was no longer where she’d thought it was.

He was shrugging it back onto his own broad shoulders with what was a callous disregard for her raw sensibilities as she stood there almost naked in front of him, feeling completely humiliated and cheap.

Instead of burning up with undiluted passion she was now icy cold with dismay. The nausea arrived, attacking her throat and forcing her to swallow thickly a couple of times before she dared let herself speak.

‘I hate you,’ she whispered.

‘Not as much as you would like to, I think,’ was his reply.

She was completely demolished by it, because it was such a dreadful truth. Slipping back into her dress took the concentrated effort of just about every brain cell that hadn’t been atomised. As she shimmied the black crêpe up her body, she noticed her bra lying on the tiled floor and wanted to crawl away in shame.

Luiz bent to scoop it up, stuffing the flimsy piece of silk into one of his pockets before turning her around to do up her zip. She moved like a rag doll, unable to think, unable to speak, and just stood there while he bent to feed her feet into her strappy black shoes.

He straightened again, then waited while her shaky fingers attempted to smooth some of the creases out of her dress. And the tension sizzling between them was dreadful. Not once did either attempt full eye contact. Not once did either of them attempt to speak again after that last telling comment of his.

When she eventually went still, in an indication that she had made the best of herself she could under the circumstances, Luiz opened the door, then stood back in a grim gesture for her to precede him back into the basement foyer.

The stranger she had encountered in the lift was standing talking to one of the dinner-suited bouncers. He glanced up as they appeared and was suddenly riveted. Caroline didn’t even notice him; she was too busy being repulsed by the feel of Luiz’s hand resting on her back as he escorted her to the stairwell.

She didn’t want him to touch her now. She didn’t want Luiz anywhere near her. Her chin was up, her head held high and her body erect—but her eyes were blind and inside she felt as if she were dying.

The moment they reached the upper main foyer, she stepped right away from him.

‘Where are you going?’

Already two blissful steps away, Caroline paused but didn’t turn. ‘If you want to ruin my father a second time then go ahead,’ she invited coldly. ‘I certainly can’t stop you—but I don’t have to watch you.’

After that, she began walking again.

‘But we haven’t finished.’ His hand came out to capture one of hers. And without another word he began trailing her across the foyer towards a door marked ‘Private’ that seemed to open magically as they approached it.

Frowning, because she just didn’t understand what was happening here, she found herself inside yet another foyer that had her high heels tapping on black and cream marble. Luiz led her across to another door, which he opened by hand this time, gestured her to precede himself inside, then quietly closed the door behind them.

It was an office, Caroline saw. A very elegant black and cream office.

‘What is this place?’ she asked warily.

Stepping past her, Luiz walked across the room towards the desk, then placed himself behind it. ‘My office,’ he answered, bending down to unlock and open a drawer.

‘You mean…’ Her eyes flickered around the room. ‘You mean, you actually work here?’

---