The Dominant Male. Sarah Holland

darkened with memories as she added, ‘And never again fall helplessly in love with a man who can make me lose my head…’

      The cards were ready. She sensed it, began to spread them in the Celtic cross, and as each card turned she felt more and more afraid of the reading.

      The Ace of Cups signifying marriage, blocked by The King of Swords, signifying a ruthless and powerful man. In the immediate future, the Seven of Wands, signifying a fight between two men.

      ‘Rubbish!’ she muttered, refusing to believe it as she finished the spread. ‘Hocus-pocus! Mumbo-jumbo! Jiggery-pokery!’

      The last card was The Lovers.

      She went into shock.

      For a long time she stared at it, her heart thudding violently. It was five years since she’d got that card. Five years of recovery. Five years of loving Bobby. Five years of safety since Jack…

      Jack…

      Just the memory of him made something in her heart resist. It was like looking back on another life, a previous incarnation, as though the woman she had been when she loved Jack was someone else entirely, not her, not Rhiannon Windmorr.

      She had been slavishly devoted to him, following him around like a puppy, gazing at him adoringly with besotted green eyes and doing anything he’d asked her, as though he were her master and she his slave—a situation that had continued until she’d lost her self-respect.

      But that was all over now. She had recovered, moved on, picked herself up and found a way to rebuild her shattered self-esteem, had met Bobby, loved him as a friend, and now she was—oh, yes, she was—going to marry him and live happily ever after. Most of all, she was never again going to be in danger from her own fierce, slavish desire.

      The warm breeze softly rang the bellchimes.

      Her green eyes flashed up to the entrance of the tent.

      Gabriel Stone filled the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the sunlight outside, his height and power dominating both the silken little marquee and Rhiannon’s mind.

      In silence, they looked at one another.

      Excitement blazed in Rhiannon’s green eyes. He saw it and smiled, as though he already knew she was his to control, as though he had known it, just as she had, the moment their eyes first met.

      ‘What do you want?’ Rhiannon’s taut voice demanded.

      ‘You,’ he murmured with a ruthless glint in his blue eyes.

      Breathless, she just stared at him, speechless because he had been so incredibly direct.

      ‘You,’ he said again softly, and moved further inside. ‘I want you…to tell my future.’

      She watched him, eyes as green as a witch’s cat’s.

      ‘You can do that, can’t you?’ he drawled smokily. ‘Tell my future? Shuffle the cards and let me know what exquisite surprises fate has in store for me?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, trying to pretend this was a normal client, a normal reading. ‘Won’t you sit down, Mr…?’

      ‘Stone,’ he said softly, and smiled as he sank down in the chair opposite her, his powerful body making her nerves quiver as he put his hands behind his strong dark head, leaning back, watching her from below hooded eyelids. ‘Gabriel Stone.’

      ‘An unusual name,’ she said conversationally, shuffling the cards. ‘Although deeply classical.’

      ‘One of the four archangels. Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and Hod. A divine quartet. Untouched by sin.’ His blue eyes glittered. ‘Unlike me.’

      ‘Ah, yes. “Angel by name, sinner by nature”. Where did I read that?’

      ‘Life magazine. Last year.’

      Her pulses raced as she studied him in the dusky gold lamplight. He wasn’t remotely unrepentant. And he did have the face of a sinner. Hard and cynical, with every wicked thought etched at the corners of those steel-blue eyes, forever recorded, all his misdeeds and wrongdoings there for all to see.

      He was so desirable…

      ‘Here.’ She warily handed him the cards. ‘Shuffle them and think of your question.’

      He smiled as he took them, let his long, strong fingers brush hers and seemed aware of the leap of her pulses at his touch. But he said nothing and shuffled the cards deftly.

      ‘You’re supposed to close your eyes,’ Rhiannon informed him. ‘To better focus on your question.’

      ‘I am focusing on my question. It’s sitting right in front of me.’

      Breathless for a second, she stared, then said, ‘You can’t ask a question about me!’

      ‘Why not?’ He put the cards down, caressed them with one long, lazy finger in a manner that made her breathless.

      ‘Because I said so! I’m not here to indulge the passing fancies of men like you! I’m here to raise money for charity, and if you can’t think of a more appropriate question—’

      ‘Money for charity?’ His strong hand lifted to the inside pocket of his expensive black jacket, and the light fell on the silk lining gleaming richly, on the Savile Row label embroidered in silver. ‘I think I can make it worth your while to do as I ask.’

      ‘I very much doubt it! I can’t be bought! By you or anybody else! And I’ve had just about enough of your—’

      ‘Shall we say…’ he withdrew his chequebook and a silver pen ‘…One thousand pounds?’

      Her jaw dropped. ‘What…?’

      ‘For charity, of course,’ he murmured, and began to write with bold, black self-assured style, a personal cheque from Gabriel Stone for one thousand pounds sterling. ‘I’ll make it payable to the charity shall I?’

      She stared in speechless amazement as he continued to write, but her only thought was, I knew his handwriting would look like that. So confident, leaning to the right, big bold strokes, and a signature that spoke of a powerful personality and a healthy ego.

      ‘Such good work,’ he drawled softly, tearing the cheque out and handing it to her with a cynical, lazy smile. ‘One must contribute as much as one can.’

      Rhiannon took the cheque, warring with herself briefly but humbly aware that she must think of all the lost, hungry, homeless, helpless children it would benefit—and not of how it grated on her to be bought by this man.

      ‘Thank you,’ she said eventually, putting the cheque in her cash-box. ‘That’s a very generous contribution. Very kind of you…’

      ‘Think nothing of it.’ He arched arrogant black brows at her, his face tough. ‘Now read the cards for me.’

      It was a command, an order, and the formidable look on his face as he gave it made her tense with excitement, hating herself for being unable to resist responding completely to his will, his authority, his dark desire to control.

      Rhiannon picked up the cards. ‘What is your question?’

      ‘What lies in the future for us?’ he said insolently.

      ‘There is no us!’

      ‘Let’s see whether the cards agree with you.’

      With a mutinous expression she began turning over the cards, using the Celtic cross again—so much simpler than other readings, so much more direct.

      ‘The King of Swords,’ she heard her shocked, husky voice say as she stared down at it, then looked warily up at Gabriel Stone’s formidable face.

      ‘That’s me, is it?’ he drawled coolly. ‘Where are you?’

      Rhiannon turned the next card over and caught her breath audibly.