ANDREAS LOOKED AT Siena, holding onto her open shirt, looking almost shell-shocked, pale as the moonlight outside. His chest felt tight. This reaction was not something he’d expected. And then he realised: acting was second nature to this woman. It was in her blood—that made his blood boil. To have been duped again, even for a nanosecond...
His voice was harsh. ‘There’s no one here to cry wolf to now, Siena. You have to take responsibility for your actions.’
He started forward and suddenly her head came up. Her blue eyes were once again sparkling like jewels, her chin determined. Andreas stopped, his body still throbbing with heat. But he forced it back. Something hardened inside him. To think that for a second that he’d seen some kind of vulnerability...? Ludicrous.
He forced himself to be civilised when he felt anything but. ‘You still want me, Siena, and you can deny it all you want but it’s a lie. I am not leaving here without you tonight. You’ll pay for what you did: in my bed.’
Siena opened her mouth and shut it again, shock pouring into her body. He sounded so utterly determined. As if he was prepared to carry her bodily from this place. Siena’s mind skittered away from that all too disturbing scenario to think of his other assertion. How could she deny she wanted him after that little display of complete lack of control? His words terrified her, though—his easy assumption that she would just go with him. Just as her father had always expected her to do his bidding.
She’d tasted personal freedom for the first time since their father had disappeared and it terrified her to think of someone dictating her every move again.
Siena dropped her hand from her open top buttons and lifted her chin. ‘You seriously think that I’ll just walk out of here with you? How unbelievably arrogant are you?’
Andreas’s eyes darkened ominously. ‘I paid a high price for your petulant need to save face with your father that night, Siena. I was sacked and blacklisted from every hotel in Europe overnight, and I had the very unsavoury rumour of my having forced myself on a woman dogging my heels. My fledgling career was ruined. I had to go to America to start again.’
Siena couldn’t bear to feel that shame again and she lashed out. ‘So—what? I pay you now by becoming your mistress?’
Andreas smiled and it was feral. ‘That and more, Siena DePiero. You pay me by admitting to yourself and me just how much you want me.’
She looked at this man in the soft light of her grotty flat. He was standing like a maurauding pirate, legs firmly planted wide apart. Chest broad and powerful. Strip away the civilised veneer of the tuxedo and this man was a pure urban animal of the most potent kind.
He’s been looking for you for six months. He’s not just going to walk away... The realisation sent tendrils of panic mixed with something much more humiliatingly exciting through Siena’s blood. The confines of the tiny flat seemed to draw in around them even more.
She emitted a curt laugh to hide her trepidation. ‘So—what? You’d lock me into your penthouse apartment and take me out like a toy of some kind for your pleasure only?’ She’d been aiming to sound scathing but her voice betrayed her, sounding almost as if she was considering this.
Andreas’s eyes gleamed in the dim light and he smiled. ‘I can’t deny that that image does have its appeal, but, no, I’d have no problem being seen with you in public. I don’t have an issue with public opinion—unlike some people.’
Andreas was looking at her coolly, clearly waiting for her to say something.
‘And what then?’ she asked, feeling a little hysterical at being in this situation, discussing this with Andreas Xenakis. ‘You just drop me back here at the side of the road when you’re done?’
Andreas’s mouth firmed. ‘I take care of all my...lovers.’ He shrugged negligently. ‘They’re usually self-sufficient, but with your range of language skills alone I don’t doubt that with a little help you could find a decent job...certainly something better than menial labour.’
Siena laughed. The hysteria was taking over. Controlling herself with an effort, she looked at Andreas. ‘This truly is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it? You offering to help me find a job...’
Siena’s cutting voice was hiding one of her deepest vulnerabilities: the fact that she had no qualification beyond her exclusive education. Yes, she had numerous languages and could speak them fluently. Yes, she knew how to host a dinner party for fifty people and more. Yes, she knew how to arrange flowers and how to behave in front of royalty and diplomats, how to conduct conversation ranging from world politics to the history of art... But when it came to the real world—real life—she knew nothing. Had no skills or qualifications. She’d been destined for a life of social politics. And Andreas knew that.
She prayed he wouldn’t touch her again and moved around him on wobbly legs to open the front door. There were no more disturbing sounds coming from her neighbours. She looked back into the room with relief, to see that Andreas had followed her. But the relief was short-lived when he gently but firmly pushed the door shut again.
Sounding eminently reasonable, Andreas said, ‘I’m offering you an opportunity, Siena, a chance to move upwards and make a life for yourself again.’
Siena crossed her arms against this threat. He wasn’t moving. She forced herself to look up at him. Her mouth twisted and she spoke her fears. ‘We both know it’s not an offer, Andreas. You haven’t spent six months searching for me to just walk away.’
He smiled again and agreed equably, ‘No, I haven’t. It really wouldn’t be such a chore, Siena... I’d see to it that you enjoyed yourself. You’d want for nothing.’
‘For as long as your interest lasts?’
His face immediately became more stark and Siena knew she’d hit a nerve. She was intrigued despite herself. ‘That’s all I’m offering, Siena. A finite amount of time as my lover until we’re both ready to move on. I have no desire for anything more permanent—certainly not with you.’
Siena barely registered his insult. She was fighting against his dark pull and she opened the door again—only to have Andreas reach out lazily and shut it. She wanted to stamp her feet and glared at him.
‘Look, Xenakis—’
‘No!’
His voice stopped the breath in her throat. He looked fierce and magnificent in the gloom. He came closer and her heart thudded painfully.
‘You look. This is only going to end one way: by you agreeing to come with me now. If you want a further demonstration of how susceptible you are to me then by all means I’m happy to provide it here and now, but—’ He cut himself off and looked around the room with clear disgust, then back to Siena. ‘I personally would prefer to make love to you for the first time in more...luxurious surroundings.’
The thought and, worse, the knowledge that he could take her here if he so wanted made Siena move further away. She felt as if a noose was tightening around her neck.
Andreas watched as Siena distanced herself and curbed the almost animalistic urge he had to put her over his shoulder and carry her bodily out of this pathetic, stinking place. His blood was boiling with lust and determination. As soon as his mouth had touched hers he’d known with a visceral certainty that he would not be leaving her behind in this place. He didn’t like to admit that a part of him couldn’t bear to think of her in these surroundings. It was like dropping a perfect diamond into the filthiest of stagnant ponds.
Trying to curb the impatience he felt, Andreas pointed out, ‘You don’t have anyone to turn to, Siena. If you’re hoping for some blue-blooded knight to ride up on a white horse and forgive you the sins of your father it’s not going to happen. Don’t forget—I know your sins.’
Siena turned to face Andreas again, hugging her arms even tighter around herself, unaware of how huge her eyes looked in her face.
His words had cut her far deeper than she wanted him to see. He was right. She didn’t have anyone to turn to. She and Serena did have an older half-brother, but she had little doubt that after the treatment he’d received at the hands of their father, not to mention the way Siena and her sister had ignored him so blatantly when they’d seen him in the street the day he’d confronted their father, he would not relish her getting in touch out of the blue. He had become a billionaire financier against all the odds and must despise her just as he must despise their father, for humiliating him like a dog in the street.
Her sister was in no position to be of any support and never really had been, despite being the older by two years. And that brought Siena back to the stark realisation that she might have no one to turn to, but Serena was expecting to turn to Siena when she needed her. And she needed her now. Dismay filled her. How could she have forgotten even for a moment about Serena?
The hectic pulse of her blood mocked her. The reason was standing just feet away from her. Siena could feel the fight draining from her weary body. A sense of inevitability washed over her. It had been no coincidence that Andreas had met her tonight. He’d searched for her. And he would not rest now he knew where she was. She had nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide. No resources.
As if he sensed the direction her thoughts were taking, Siena could see Andreas’s eyes flash triumphantly in the gloom.
Suddenly, as if she’d been injected with a dose of adrenalin, her brain became clear. Thinking of her sister focused her thoughts. If she was going to walk out of this apartment with this man she had to make sure that the one person who needed her was going to benefit.
The thought of telling Andreas about her sister, appealing to his humanity, was anathema. If anything, this evening had proved just how far Andreas was willing to go to seek his revenge. If she told him about Serena he might very well use her against Siena in some way, exactly as her father had. Siena shivered at the very thought. No way could she ever let that happen again.
She knew, though, that the very audacious plan forming in her head would ensure Andreas’s hatred of her for ever.
* * *
Andreas’s blood hummed with anticipation as he watched the woman who stood just feet away, her chin still lifted defiantly, even though they both knew she was about to give in. She would be his. Her little act of pride had just been an exercise in proving to Andreas that he was still the last man she’d choose on earth, even if there was enough heat between them to melt an iceberg. And even if she was desperate.
His mouth tightened into a line. If anything it just proved that he was right: Siena wanted out of her challenging circumstances and back into the world she knew so well.
All he cared about was sating this burning desire inside him. Witnessing Siena DePiero swallow her pride and her denial of their mutual attraction would be a delicious revenge, and the very least he deserved after suffering so acutely at her hands.
‘Well, Siena? What’s it to be?’
Siena hated the smug tone of arrogance in Andreas’s voice. She couldn’t believe she was even contemplating what she was about to do, but assured herself she could do this. She had to.
In a way it should be easy—she’d merely be reverting to the type she’d played well for as long as she could remember: that of a privileged heiress with nothing more on her mind than the dress she’d wear to the next charity function. No one except for Serena had ever known of her deep hatred of that vacuous world where people routinely stabbed one another in the back to get ahead. Where emotions were so calcified that no reaction was genuine.
Before she could lose her nerve altogether, Siena blurted out, ‘I will come with you—right now if you wish.’ She saw Andreas’s slow smile of triumph curling his mouth and said quickly, before he thought he was about to have everything his way, ‘But I have terms for this...if we’re to embark on...’ Words failed her. She simply could not articulate what he wanted and expected. What she’d agreed to in her head.
He arched a dark brow. ‘This affair? Becoming lovers? Companions?’
Siena flushed. The word companions, even though he’d meant it sarcastically, struck her somewhere very deep and secret. They would never be companions.
Feeling agitated, she moved behind her one rickety chair, putting her hands on its back as if it could provide support. She nodded once, jerkily. ‘Yes. I have terms.’
Andreas folded his arms across his chest. He looked almost amused, and Siena welcomed this as it made the fire grow in her belly. He only wanted her for one thing, and she was only exploiting him for his desire.
Baldly she declared, ‘I want money.’ And then she winced inwardly. She’d been brought up to be the ultimate society diplomat, yet here with this man she regressed to someone barely able to string a sentence together. She was too raw around him. She couldn’t call up that fake polite veneer if her life depended on it.
As Andreas registered Siena’s words something dark solidified in his gut. He should have expected this. A woman like Siena DePiero would never come for free. She would expect him to pay handsomely for the privilege of bedding her. As much as he’d paid for touching her in the first place.
Disgust evident in his voice, he said coolly, ‘I’ve never paid for a woman in my life and I’m not about to start now.’
Siena went as pale as parchment and Andreas had to curb the urge to sneer. How could she look so vulnerable when she was effectively standing there asking for payment to be his mistress?
Two spots of colour bloomed then in her cheeks and bizarrely he felt comforted. He could see her struggling with whatever she wanted to say. Finally she got out, ‘Those are my terms. I want a sum of money or else I’m not going anywhere—and if you come near me I’ll scream the place down.’
His lip curled. ‘Just like your neighbours? I didn’t see anyone rush to their aid.’
Siena flushed more. It made Andreas bite out, ‘Just how much money are we talking about?’
He saw Siena swallow and she licked her lips for a second, effortlessly drawing Andreas’s eye to those lush pink swells and making that heat in his body intensify. Damn her, but he wanted her—possibly even at a price.
Siena felt sick. But she was too far gone to stop now. She saw the disgust etched in the lines of his starkly handsome face. He would despise her for this, but if he could despise her and still want her that was fine with her.
She named her price. The exact amount of money she would need to ensure Serena’s care for a year. If she was going to do this then she had to make it worthwhile. Six months wouldn’t be enough to ensure Serena’s long-term recovery. A year in therapy and rehabilitation would.
Andreas whistled softly at the amount and Siena saw how his eyes became even icier. He came close again and she fought not to back away, her eyes glued to his. In a bizarre way, now that she’d said it, she found a weight lifting off her shoulders.
‘You value yourself very highly.’
Siena burned. Shame came rushing back. Nevertheless, she tossed her head and said defiantly, ‘What if I do?’
Andreas looked her up and down and walked around her. Siena could feel his eyes roving over her body.
He said from behind her, ‘For that kind of money I think it would be within my rights to sample the goods again before making a decision, don’t you? After all, that’s just good business sense.’
Siena whirled around indignantly even as heat suffused every particle of her skin, but words got lodged in her throat. She would be the worst kind of hypocrite if she were to lambast him.
She could see that Andreas was livid, with dark colour slashing his cheeks. Before she could stop him he was snaking a hand around her neck and pulling her towards him. She had to go with it or fall off balance completely.
He ground out with disgust, ‘I don’t pay women for sex. I never have and I never will. It’s heinous and disgusting and demoralising. Especially when you want it as much as I do...’
And with that his mouth was on hers and he was obliterating any sense of reality—again. Siena’s thoughts were lost in a blaze of heat. Her hands were on Andreas’s chest and he’d gathered her closer by curling his arm around her back, arching her into him, where she could feel the burgeoning evidence of his arousal against her belly.
His mouth was forcing hers open, and once that happened she didn’t have a chance. His tongue found and tangled with hers, stroking along it, demanding a response. Siena mewled deep in her throat, almost pitifully. Andreas was possessing her with sensual mastery and, far from being disgusted, she found that her arms itched to climb higher, to curl around Andreas’s neck, and her tongue was dancing just as hotly as his.
His hand left her waist and travelled up along her ribs. Siena was aware of an intense spiking of anticipation in her blood as her breasts seemed to swell in response, nipples peaking painfully, waiting for his touch.
But Andreas didn’t cup her breast as she was suddenly longing for him to do. He stopped just short and pulled his head back. She opened her eyes with an effort, to see his, hot and molten, searing her alive, damning her for her audacity and stubborn denial of their attraction. Her breath was coming in rapid bursts and a million and one things were vying for supremacy in her brain, all of them urging her to pull away—fast. But she couldn’t move.
Roughly he said, with disgust lacing his voice again, ‘Much as I hate to admit it, I think that perhaps you might just be worth paying an astronomical amount of money to bed.’
He was the one to pull away, leaving Siena feeling adrift and wobbly.
He ran a hand through his hair and looked at her, his mouth taut with condemnation. ‘You’ve learnt your lessons well, DePiero...in the beds of however many countless lovers you’ve entertained. Were they the ones to teach you that intoxicating mix of innocence and artless sensuality designed to inflame a man?’
Siena looked at Andreas, stunned at his words. He had no idea. He couldn’t tell her gauche responses were all too real. And she vowed then that he never would know—however she had to do it.
She fought to find some veneer of composure and said, as cynically as she could, considering she was shaking inwardly like a leaf, ‘What else did you expect? A disgraced virgin heiress? This is the twenty-first century—surely you know better than most that virgins are as mythical as the knight on a white horse you just spoke of?’
Andreas stalked away from her, tension emanating from his body in waves. In that moment he hated her, and he hated himself, because he knew he didn’t have the strength to just walk away and leave her here. To show her nothing but disdain. If he did he knew she would torment him in dreams for ever. He’d spent five years haunted by her. He had to have her—had to have this closure once and for all. And he despised himself for his weakness.
He looked at Siena and to his chagrin all of his previous thoughts were blasted to smithereens and rendered to dust. Her hair was tousled from his hands, her cheeks were rosy and her lips full and pouting, pink from his kisses. Her chest still rose and fell with uneven breaths and those glorious blue eyes flashed defiantly.
Andreas had the very strong urge to take her right here in this scummy flat—to turn that expression of defiance into something much more acquiescent. And he would if he thought that once would be enough. But he knew with a preternatural prickling of awareness that it wouldn’t be enough. He hardened his resolve. She would not reduce him to such baseness.
Siena was slowly regaining control of herself. His words rang in her head: ‘I don’t pay women for sex. I never have and I never will. It’s heinous and disgusting and demoralizing.’ The pity of it was she agreed with every word he’d said, and had to admit to respecting him for it.
She finally dragged her almost stupefied gaze from his and walked on very shaky legs back to the door, about to open it—because surely he would be leaving now, for good? Once again Siena didn’t like the hollow feeling that thought brought with it.
Before she could open the door, Andreas said ominously, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Siena looked at him, the breath catching in her throat for a moment. ‘But you just said you wouldn’t pay...’
Andreas’s face was like stone, his eyes so dark they looked navy. ‘Yes, I did, and I meant it.’
Siena struggled to understand. ‘So, what...?’
Andreas crossed his arms. ‘There are other means of payment that aren’t so...’ his lip curled ‘...obvious.’
Something very betraying kicked in Siena’s gut at the thought that he wasn’t leaving her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Gifts...’ He smiled cynically. ‘After all, how many women and men have benefited from the largesse of their lovers for aeons? You can do what you like with them when our relationship is over, and if that means converting them into the money you want so badly then you’re welcome to do it.’
Suspicious now, and feeling supremely naive because she’d never been in this situation before, she said, ‘Gifts...what kind of gifts?’
Andreas’s jaw tightened. ‘The expensive kind. Jewels. Like the ones you were wearing that night.’
Siena flushed to recall the priceless diamond earrings and necklace her father had presented her with on the evening of that exclusive debutante ball in Paris. They’d belonged to her mother, but had been seized by the authorities along with everything else she had owned.
Siena found herself feeling almost a sense of sick relief that he wouldn’t just be handing her a sum of money. The thought of receiving jewellery made what she’d just asked for a little more palatable, despite the fresh shame heaped on top of old shame. Siena comforted herself with the thought that Andreas must have presented plenty of his lovers with tokens of his affection.
‘Fine,’ she said shakily, barely believing she was agreeing to this. ‘I’ll accept gifts in lieu of payment.’
Andreas smiled. ‘Of course you will.’
Siena had a vision of walking out of here with him and fresh panic galvanised her to ask, a little belatedly, ‘What..what will you expect of me?’ She held her breath.
Andreas’s smile faded. He suddenly looked harsh, forbidding. Not like a man who wanted her in his bed so badly that he’d sought her out and was prepared to pay her in kind for it.
‘Considering the price you’ve put on yourself...I will expect you to be a very willing, affectionate and inventive lover. I’m a very sexual man, Siena, and I pride myself on satisfying my lovers, so I expect the same in return. Especially from you.’
Siena struggled to hold down a hysterical giggle. Inventive lover? He’d be lucky if she managed not to betray her innocence, and she could imagine now with a lancing feeling of pain just how unwelcome that knowledge would be. It might even be enough to turn him off altogether. As tempted as Siena was to suddenly blurt out that intimate truth, she thought of her sister and clamped her mouth shut. No going back. Only forward to accept the consequences of her actions, which she’d set in motion five years before.
Not wanting to think of how his assertion that he was ‘a very sexual man’ had impacted her deep inside, Siena asked rather shakily, ‘How long will you want me for?’
Andreas came close to Siena, where she stood near the door, and touched her jaw with his finger, making her shiver with helpless sensation. His eyes travelled up and down her body with dark intent and then rose back to hers.
With almost insulting insouciance he said, ‘I think about a week should satisfy my desire for retribution and for you.’
Siena flinched minutely. There was a wealth of insult in his assumption that a week would be enough, and Siena hated that it felt like an insult when it should feel like a reprieve. Anyone could handle anything for a week. Even this.
‘A week, then.’ Siena assured herself that seven days was a blip in the ocean of her life. She could do it.
Andreas smiled, but it didn’t reach those dark eyes. ‘I’m already looking forward to this time next week, when the past truly will be in the past. For ever.’
Siena’s sense of vulnerability increased. ‘The feeling is mutual, believe me.’
After a tense moment Andreas dropped his hand, stepped back and said, ‘Get your stuff packed, Siena, and don’t leave anything behind.’
‘But I’ll be coming back here...’
Andreas’s mouth thinned as he took in the meagre furnishings with a disdainful glance. ‘You won’t be returning here. Ever.’
Siena opened her mouth to protest and then stopped. Of course he thought she wouldn’t be coming back here if she was going to turn his gifts into cash. Andreas didn’t know that in a week’s time she’d be as broke as she currently was, and she didn’t want his razor-sharp brain to pick that up.
Faintly she assured herself that she’d worry about it when the time came and went into the tiny bedroom and pulled out her case. Only a few hours ago she’d had nothing more on her mind than how to get through the evening without keeling over from exhaustion and the constant niggling worry about how she would be able to look after Serena, because they didn’t have enough money to continue paying for her psychiatric care.
But now her life had been turned upside down and she had a very unexpected and unwitting benefactor for Serena.
The next week stretched ahead like a term of penal servitude. But, treacherously, Siena felt a shiver of anticipation run through her. Would Andreas expect her to sleep with him tonight? The thought made her heart leap into her throat and her mouth went dry. She wasn’t ready—not in a million years.
The thought of all that intense masculinity focused on her was overwhelming when she was so inexperienced. Siena felt numb as she started to pull the paltry collection of clothes from the rail. She didn’t even have a wardrobe. She could almost laugh when she thought of the palatial bedroom she’d had all her life, with its medieval four-poster bed. It would have encompassed this entire flat about twice over...
A huge shadow darkened her bedroom door and Andreas rapped out with clear impatience, ‘Actually, you can leave everything here. Unless there’s something of sentimental value. I’ll be supplying you with a new wardrobe.’
Siena just looked at Andreas. She saw an austerely handsome man, eager to get out of this hole of a place and take her with him so that he could mould her into what he wanted. He was so sure of himself now—a Titan of industry, used to having what he wanted when he wanted.
Siena didn’t doubt that most of the women in Andreas’s life were only too happy to comply with his demands, and she had to quash the dart of something dark at the thought of those women. Dismay gripped her. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be jealousy. She hated this man for what he was doing and what he’d become—he was welcome to his hordes of satisfied lovers.
Self-derision that she could allow this to happen to her and the knowledge that she had no choice because this was her only hope to help Serena made Siena’s spine straighten. Tersely she bit out, ‘Give me five minutes.’