Harlequin Presents October 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: The Greek's Marriage Bargain\The Playboy of Puerto Banus\An Enticing Debt to Pay\The Divorce Party by Sharon Kendrick

Author:Sharon Kendrick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

RAVENNA STARED AT the mellow wood of the floor, wishing the old boards would part in a yawning void and suck her away into nothingness. Anything to escape the sarcastic lash of Jonas Deveson’s contempt.

As if she should be so fortunate! This past year there’d been no good luck in her life. Except the unexpected gift of the rest cure in Switzerland. But now it turned out that had an awful catch. An enormous debt to be paid.

And a big, ruthless debt collector to make sure she paid in blood.

She shivered, cold to the bone, yet her skin crawled with a clammy heat that matched the nausea twisting her insides. She fought it, refusing to be ill in front of him.

Could anything be more humiliating than this?

She felt sullied by him. It was far worse than facing a dressing-down by the head chef at work, whose explosive tirades were legend. As for the torments of her school years—they’d been nothing to this excruciating shame.

For this time every word was deserved. She’d behaved like some slut, eager for the touch of a man who despised her. For the first time she hadn’t behaved like the sensible, careful, self-contained woman she was.

She’d acted like a hormone-riddled stranger with no scruples or self-respect.

The doorbell rang again and she dragged herself into the foyer, propping herself against the wall with a shaking hand as she pressed the intercom.

‘Monsieur Giscard?’ The words were so faint she cleared her throat to try again. The response from below was garbled in ears that still thrummed with the pulse of arousal.

Nevertheless, she pressed the button to let the visitor in downstairs. Whoever it was, he couldn’t be more devastating than Jonas Deveson.

She felt his eyes on her. Her skin prickled and heat drilled her spine. She could pinpoint the exact place between her shoulder blades where that penetrating gaze scored her. If she found later that his laser-sharp gaze had scorched a hole in her jacket she wouldn’t be surprised.

Ravenna struggled to swallow the hard knot of emotion blocking her throat.

What had got into her to behave so utterly out of character?

Taking a deep breath, she tried to centre herself but instead inhaled the remnants of his tangy, hot citrus scent. It had impregnated her very pores.

Never in her life had attraction been like that—instantaneous and absolute. Consciously, to her thinking mind, there’d been no attraction—just fear and shock at his revelations, and a determination to divert his thunderous anger from her mother.

But something had happened when he’d touched her. Something unheralded.

She’d heard of animal attraction. She had some experience of desire.

But this... This had been a tsunami obliterating reason and doubt and anything like resistance. She’d stood like a rabbit spotlighted by a hunter, watching his eyes cloud with desire as he touched her. Excitement had stormed through her.

Part of her brain had screamed for her to move, to slap his hand away, but she’d stood, rooted to the spot, eager for more. When he’d bitten her neck in that delicate tasting, she’d gone up in flames.

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