A Delicious Deception. Elizabeth Power

his success depended on his keen ability to sense any subtle changes in mood or behaviour—both in his business rivals and in his own workforce—his experience had served him well, and it didn’t let him down now.

      Rayne Carpenter portrayed all the characteristics of a woman who wasn’t being entirely honest, he decided, pulling away. And yet what could she be hiding if it wasn’t a very determined plan of action to ensnare Mitch? He had seen his father preyed upon before—several times—but once in particular, and with disastrous consequences, and he’d be hanged if he’d stand by and let Mitch bring such devastation down on himself again.

      No, he decided, with sudden inexorable purpose. The thing he had to do was to keep her away from his father—at least until he could check her out. And the best way to do that was to claim all this dubious young woman’s time for himself.

      He had some time on his hands as his second-in-command had taken over his commitments in the States, and he had already promised himself a short break when it was over. He had never had any difficulty seducing any woman he put his mind to seducing, and with this one, he decided grimly, conscience didn’t even come into it. If she was the sort of woman who was out just to prey on Mitch, then the prospect of even richer pickings with him should get her opportunistic juices flowing nicely.

      It was an unfortunate choice of words, and one which was making his mind work overtime as he imagined her hot and compliant, moist with the honeyed heat of desire. He felt his body’s hard response as he imagined freeing those beautiful breasts from their restricting cups and moulding them to his hands, feeling each sensitive tip blossom as he took it into his mouth.

      He shook away his errant fantasies, trying to pull himself together. It was probably because he hadn’t had a woman in his bed for some months, he decided, that his body was behaving like a rampant adolescent’s now. Still, he couldn’t deny that the prospect of stripping this unsuspecting little gold-digger bare—and in more ways than one—excited him immensely.

      The café to which he took her was situated in a pedestrian thoroughfare, paved in the same peach and cream tones as the buildings which flanked it. Baskets of flowers—red and purple and pink—decorated ornamental street lamps, while luxuriant foliage grew in abundance outside the shops and cafés. There were orange trees, Rayne recognised, growing beneath the artistically wrought balconies of the buildings, whose pastel-coloured shutters and breath-catching architecture were a testament to human creativity, in contrast to the awesome cliffs that formed a mighty backdrop behind the buildings that stood at the head of the elegant avenue.

      ‘Here we are,’ King invited, pulling out a chair for her, the smile he gave her appreciative of her wonderment in spite of what he had been thinking about her earlier.

      A little later, drinking coffee with home-baked rolls spread thickly with locally made jam, Rayne was relieved when King’s conversation touched only on things like the area and the recent airways strike. Safe, casual topics, she decided gratefully, until he suddenly enquired, ‘Do you usually take your holidays alone?’

      Instantly she tensed up. That almost criticising note was back in his voice and now that he’d brought the conversation back to a personal level, she had to remind herself to be on her guard.

      She thought of Matt Cotton, whom she’d been seeing on a purely platonic level for a year or so before they had parted six months ago. He’d been the only man she had ever considered getting serious with—serious enough to go on holiday with, at any rate. But after their relationship had moved up a notch, the first weekend she had slept with him when they had gone away together, she’d been so disillusioned by his suggestion that they move in together ‘to see how it goes’ that it had come as quite a shock to her to realise that she wanted more than Matt was offering. What she wanted was the sort of relationship that her parents had enjoyed. A lifelong commitment inspired by love and trust and respect for each other—and she intended to settle for nothing less.

      Considering King’s question now about taking her holidays alone, and feeling that she was still on the end of a subtle line of interrogation, she enquired pointedly, ‘Would you have asked me that if I were a man?’

      The arching of an eyebrow as those compellingly blue eyes tugged over her assured her that she was anything but.

      ‘If you were my woman, I wouldn’t be happy with you roaming around a strange country on your own.’

      ‘But I’m not your woman, am I?’ Bright emeralds fastened on steel as she met his gaze, reminded by the raw sensuality with which he was looking at her of how much she had once longed to be just that. The woman he drove home, undressed and adored in long, exotic nights of pleasure, while she writhed on his bed, allowing his lips and hands licence to every hidden treasure of her body.

      Shockingly her breasts burgeoned into life without any warning, their weight heavy and aching, their tips excruciatingly tender against the full cups of her bra.

      Surely she didn’t still want him in that way? Not now. Not after the way he had supported Mitch in treating her father as he had, when all he had been trying to do was claim what was rightfully his.

      ‘That’s right—you’re not,’ he stated, causing her to flinch from the way he managed to make it sound as though she was the last person he’d ever consider taking to bed. Which was ludicrous! When she would have rejected any overtures from him with every fighting cell in her body! ‘And you haven’t answered my question—which wasn’t intended with any lack of political correctness or offence to your femininity. Do you usually take your holidays alone?’

      Fighting off a barrage of conflicting emotions, she shrugged and answered, ‘No, not usually. But as I told you last night, my mother’s been ill.’ Very ill, she appended silently, thinking of the operation and the treatment that Cynthia Hardwicke had had to go through during the past year. ‘There hasn’t been much time for holidays. But when her old school-friend invited her over to her villa, I realised I was on my knees from all the months of worry and that I was desperate for a holiday too. I’m ashamed to say it, but I think it hit me even harder than it hit Mum,’ she found herself admitting to him. ‘You can’t possibly imagine the unbelievable strain it can put you under when something like that happens to someone you love.’

      A dark shadow seemed to cross his features. ‘Oh, believe me, I can,’ he assured her grimly.

      She frowned, and then almost immediately realised. Of course. He was talking about his father.

      ‘What happened to Mitch?’ she enquired unnecessarily, because she remembered her parents telling her in the past. But a stranger wouldn’t know, would she? Rayne reminded herself. And that was what she was as far as King Clayborne was concerned. A stranger.

      ‘A road accident,’ he said, and his words were hard and clipped. ‘It deprived him of his mobility—and of his wife.’ Your stepmother, she nearly said, but didn’t. She wasn’t supposed to know, was she?

      ‘That’s dreadful,’ she empathised, because hearing it again—and so many years on—didn’t make it any less tragic. She couldn’t understand though why he sounded quite so … what? Bitter, she decided.

      ‘What about you?’ Putting down his cup, the inscrutable mask was firmly back in place again. ‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’

      Rayne shook her head.

      ‘And your father?’

      ‘What about him?’ she enquired, sounding unintentionally defensive.

      ‘You haven’t mentioned him.’ The glance he shot her was a little too keen.

      Rayne felt tension creep into her jaw. ‘He died—just over a year ago.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’

      No, you’re not, she thought acridly. But you will be! You and your father! I can promise you that!

      Because she was certain that it was her parents’ financial difficulties following her father’s bankruptcy, and then the shock of his unexpected death from a heart attack