Claiming His Secret Son. Оливия Гейтс

first, then Rose. His every muscle tensing, he strained to decipher the merriness that carried on the summer night air through his open window. Then they kissed and hugged and Isabella descended the stairs. At the bottom she turned to wave to Rose, urging her to go in, before she turned and crossed the street, heading to her car.

      The moment Rose closed her door he got down from his car.

      In the dim streetlights, Isabella’s figure seemed to glow in a light-colored summer coat unbuttoned over a lighter dress beneath, its supple material undulating with her brisk walk. Her hair was a swathe of dark silk swinging over her face, her eyes downcast as she rummaged through her purse.

      Then feet before he intercepted her, he stopped.

      “Well, well, if it isn’t Isabella Burton.”

      Her momentum came to a startled halt, her alarm a sharp gasp that echoed in the night’s still, humid silence. Then her face jerked up and her eyes slammed into his.

      A bolt struck him through the heart.

      His sudden appearance seemed to have hit her even harder. If a ghost had stopped her to ask her the time, she wouldn’t have looked more shocked...or horrified.

      “What...where the hell did you...?”

      She stopped. As if she found no words. Or breath with which to say them. He was almost as shocked as she was...at his reaction. He’d thought he’d feel nothing at the sight of her. He didn’t know what he did feel now. But it was...enormous.

      And it wasn’t an overwhelming sense of familiarity. It was her impact as she was now.

      She’d changed. Almost beyond recognition. It made it that much stranger he’d recognized her in that video so instantaneously. For this woman had very little in common with the younger one he’d known in total, tempestuous intimacy.

      Her face had lost all the plumpness of youth, had been chiseled into a masterpiece of refinement and uncompromising character. If she’d been irresistible before, even with shock still seizing her every feature, the influence she’d exuded had matured into something far more formidable.

      But her eyes had changed the most. Those eyes that had haunted him, eyes he’d once thought had opened up into a magical realm, that of her being. They looked the same, glowing that unique emerald-topaz chameleon color. But apart from the familiar shape and hue, and beneath the shock, they were bottomless. Whatever lay inside her now was dark and fathomless. And far more hard-hitting for it.

      Her lids swept down, severing the two-way hypnosis.

      Gritting his teeth at losing the contact, his own gaze lowered to sweep her body. Even through the loose clothes, it still had his every sense revving. Just being near her had always made him ache.

      Then a puff of breeze had her scent inundating him and his body flooded with molten steel. That was the one thing about her that hadn’t changed. This distillation of her essence and femininity that had constantly hovered at the edge of his memory, tormenting him with craving the real thing.

      And here it was at last. What he’d once thought an aphrodisiac nature had tailored to his senses. That belief was renewed in full force.

      Hard all over, he returned his gaze to hers, eager to read her own response. She poured every bit of height and poise into her statuesque figure, made him feel she was looking him in at eye level when even in three-inch heels, she stood seven inches below his six-foot-six frame.

      “Richard.” She gave a formal nod as if greeting a virtual stranger. Then she just circumvented him and continued walking to her car.

      He let her pass him, one eyebrow rising.

      So. His opening strike hadn’t been as effective as he’d planned. She’d gotten over her shock at seeing him faster than he had and had decided to dismiss him.

      Surely she considered anyone who knew her real identity a threat to her carefully constructed new persona. But if there were levels of danger to blasts from the past, she must think his potential damage equivalent to a ballistic missile. She couldn’t end this “chance” meeting fast enough.

      Which proved she hadn’t tied him to Rose, wasn’t here because of anything concerning him. But that changed nothing.

      Whatever she was here for, she wasn’t getting it.

      He stared ahead, listening to the steady staccato of her receding heels, a grim smile twisting his lips.

      In the past he’d been the one who’d walked away. But it had been her who’d made the decision. It now entertained him to let her think the choice remained hers. He’d let her strike his presence up to coincidence, think it would cause no repercussions for her. Then he’d disabuse her of the notion.

      Last time, he hadn’t been able to override her will. This time, he’d make her do what he wanted. And right now, all he wanted was to taste her once more. He’d postpone his real purpose until he satisfied the hunger that had roared to life inside him again at the sight of her.

      He’d much prefer it if she struggled, though.

      The moment he heard her opening her car, he turned and sauntered toward her.

      She lurched as he passed behind her and murmured, “I’ll drive ahead. Follow me.”

      He felt her gaze boring into his back as he reached his car two spaces ahead. Opening his door, he turned around smoothly, just in time to witness her reaction.

      “What the hell...?” She stopped, as if it hurt to talk.

      He sighed. “My patience has already been expended for the night. Follow me. Now.”

      Her eyes blazed at him as she found her voice again. Not the velvety caress that had echoed in his head for eight endless years but a sharp blade. “I’ll do no such thing.”

      “My demand was actually a courtesy. I was trying to give you a chance to preserve your dignity.”

      Her mouth dropped open. His own lips tingled.

      Then his tongue stung when hers lashed him. “Gee, thanks. I can preserve it very well on my own. I’ll drive away now, and if you follow me, I’ll call the police.”

      Hostility was the last thing he’d predicted her reaction would be, considering the last time he’d seen her she’d wept as he’d walked away as if her heart were being dragged out of her body. But it only made his blood hurtle with vicious exhilaration. She was giving him the struggle he’d hoped for, the opportunity to force her to succumb to him this time. And he would make her satisfy his every whim.

      He gave her the patented smile that made monsters quiver. “If you drive away, I won’t follow you. I’ll knock on your friends’ door and tell them whom they’re really getting into business with. I don’t think the Andersons would relish knowing you were—and maybe still are—the wife of a drug lord, slave trader and international terrorist.”

       Two

      Isabella stared up at the juggernaut that blocked out the world, every synapse in her brain short-circuiting.

      When he’d materialized in front of her, like a huge chunk of night taking the form of her most hated entity, her heart had almost ruptured.

      But she’d survived so many horrors, had always had so much to protect, her survival mechanisms were perpetually on red alert. After the initial brutal blow, they’d kicked in as she’d made an instinctive escape. That didn’t mean she hadn’t felt about to crumple to the ground with every breath.

      Richard. Here. Out of the depths of the dark, sordid past. The man who’d seduced and used...and almost destroyed her.

      That he hadn’t succeeded hadn’t been because he hadn’t given it his best shot. Ever since, she’d been trying to mend the rifts he’d created in the very foundations of her being. She’d only succeeded in painting over