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Prologue
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Gabriella raised long, sooty lashes to reveal eyes of so deep a blue they appeared violet, to look across the terrace at Rufus, the o when her hteen-year-old heart desperately hoped would fall in love with her, too!
She had heard his hire-car arrive on the gravelled drive at the front of the Gresham family villa in Majorca She forced down her nervousness and re up the sun, rather than running to greet him as she wanted to do Rufus, she had quickly learnt, was not a man that you ran after, but instead waited for him to come to you—even if he was the love of your life and just looking at hi!
He stood in the doorway that led out onto the terrace, having reht business suit in the intense heat of the early afternoon His overlong hair was the colour ofpale green, Gabriella kneere hidden behind the black sunglasses he wore
But his question, and that disapproving slant to his chiselled lips, were enough to tell her that he wasn’t at all pleased at finding her sunbathing alone on the terrace, in a bikini coe material
Deliberately so Rufus had a habit of either treating her as an irritating child, or of totally ignoring her altogether But she so nize her as a desirable woman
‘I’?’ She s the slenderness of her back, theforward the fullness of her breasts, her nipples visibly aroused in her nervousness through the bikini’s orange fabric
‘I can see that, daoodness’ sake put some clothes on, will you?’ he snapped as he stepped outside onto the terrace
‘I’ly ‘And why should I bother putting clothes on when there’s no one around to see me but you?’ she added with tentative provocation
It was one thing wanting Rufus to see her as a desirable wo this provocative pose!
The Greshaainvillea’, was perched alone on the side of the e beloith a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the Mediterranean
Why bother, indeed? Rufus acknowledged ilasses that hid his eaze swept slowly over Gabriella’s lithely perfect body, already tanned to a golden brown and glistening invitingly fro, long legs
It was a beautifully slender body, without ble possessed, and that would be hard for any man to resist
And Rufus had had plenty of practice at doing exactly that since Gabriella had burst into his life a year ago,no effort to hide her infatuated interest in him
An interest, at thirty years of age, he’d had no intention of satisfying!
Or, at least, he hadn’t had any intention of satisfying until he’d walked out onto the terrace a fewthere…
‘Anyone could have walked out here and—’
‘“Anyone” didn’t, you did,’ she reasoned cajolingly ‘Besides, the wo any more than this’ She frowned
The village beach, Rufus knew from past experience, would be full of fa bikinis, some even topless, yes—but they weren’t alone with the man they had been shamelessly infatuated with for the last year!
‘Where are your parents?’ he demanded harshly
A little desperately, he acknowledged with inward self-impatience At least the presence of his father and Gabriella’s mother, his stepmother, would alleviate this situation Even if he still found Heather’s role as his steploriously beautiful creature as his stepsister