WHEN she agreed, it confirmed to Gino what he’d suspected all week: the sweet, sensual, sincere girl he’d once known and loved had turned into a cold-blooded, gold-digging bitch.
She didn’t love Chad Stedley. How could she when she’d gone to bed with him last Friday night?
But she was wearing Stedley’s engagement ring.
Gino had been furious when he found out she was engaged.
No, furious didn’t do his emotions justice; he’d been absolutely livid.
He’d come here tonight without any definite plan in mind. He’d just wanted to look her in the eye and let her know that he knew what kind of woman she was. But the moment he’d set eyes on her, standing there with her back to him, looking sexy in that prim little black dress, desire had consumed every pore in his body. By the time she turned round, he’d hated her for the way she could make him crave her, despite everything.
Blackmailing her into bed had not been on his agenda, however, till she’d added insult to injury by arrogantly pretending she didn’t know him.
That had been the moment when he’d resolved to bring her down a peg or two. To use her own ruthless ambition against her, at the same time satisfying his own rapidly escalating desire.
Even so, he’d still been shocked when she’d agreed to his proposal. Shocked and stirred. Right now, he was so turned on it would have been embarrassing if he hadn’t been sitting at a table.
‘I hope you’re happy now,’ she muttered.
Happy? No, he wasn’t happy. How could be happy when the only reason she was going to go to bed with him was so that she could marry someone else?
Or was that really the case?
A sidewards glance showed him that her face was flushed. Was that anger, or the same kind of excitement currently heating his own blood?
The sexual chemistry between them had once been electric. That chemistry had still been there last Friday night. There was no reason to believe that had changed just because she’d found out he wasn’t who she thought he was.
Jordan might hate him, but underneath her hatred lay a desire as insidious and as irresistible as his own for her.
Gino could not wait to have her to himself—to have her stand naked for him the way she’d said she never would again—to have her do all the things he’d taught her ten years ago.
The main course arriving only slightly soothed the primitive passions which had begun boiling up within him.
The waiter announced that it was grilled Barramundi, served with a tomato and cucumber salsa, along with baked sweet potato and a fresh garden salad.
Gino fell to eating the meal with gusto. His appetite was always good when his testosterone was up and running.
Jordan, he noticed, just picked at her food. But she drank plenty of wine.
Good, he thought. She was even sexier when she was tipsy, and beautifully co-operative. Or she’d used to be.
‘When?’ she suddenly whispered.
He did not turn his head to speak.
‘When, what?’ he muttered, then forked some more of the mouthwatering fish between his lips.
‘When does all this begin? And where?’
He let her wait for his answer till he’d savoured the fish, then swallowed.
‘As soon as we can get away from here. I’ve booked a suite at the Regency. One of their themed honeymoon suites.’
He could feel her eyes burning into him.
‘How could you?’ she breathed.
‘How could I what?’
‘Book a honeymoon suite.’
In actual fact he hadn’t booked the honeymoon suite with any ulterior motive. He certainly hadn’t imagined Jordan would be sharing it with him when he had. But the Regency was having a huge convention there this weekend. The only rooms available had been a couple of the honeymoon suites. Gino hadn’t thought to book in advance, and couldn’t be bothered going to another hotel.
But he wasn’t going to tell her that. Clearly his booking a suite had struck a nerve with her.
Good.
‘It’s called the French Bordello suite,’ he told her with a devilish smile. ‘I thought it rather appropriate.’
Jordan shook her head at him.
‘You really are wicked.’
‘And what are you, Jordan?’ he countered coldly. ‘An innocent?’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘If I was, I wouldn’t have anything to do with you.’
I should have told him to go to hell, Jordan groaned silently as she dropped her eyes back to her plate.
Gino’s blackmailing her into bed was bad enough. His booking a honeymoon suite was so insensitive that it bordered on sadism. Surely he must know she’d once have given anything to share a honeymoon suite with him? Becoming Mrs Gino Bortelli had been her ultimate dream.
Becoming Gino Bortelli’s mistress for one night was more like a nightmare.
Yet the prospect excited her unbearably.
Her hands shook when she picked up her knife and fork, her stomach churning so much that she simply could not eat.
Gino could, she noticed bitterly. And so could everyone else. But it was no use. Her appetite was gone. Putting her cutlery down, she picked up her wine glass and sipped it slowly.
‘No wonder you’re thin,’ Gino said. ‘You don’t eat.’
Jordan ignored him and continued sipping her wine. But it wasn’t long before she began to feel light-headed, so she put the glass down, picked up her fork and forced a few mouthfuls of the meal down past the lump in her throat.
‘That’s better,’ Gino said, and she threw him a sour glare.
‘It’s a wonder I can eat at all, with what’s ahead of me tonight.’
‘Really? When I’m excited I eat all the more.’
‘How can you possibly enjoy going to bed with a woman who hates you?’
‘That’s one thing you should learn about men, Jordan. They do not have to love or even like their sexual partner to enjoy themselves in bed.’
‘You do realise that what you’re going to do tonight is tantamount to coercion?’
‘Oh, come now, Jordan. Coercion?’ A dry laugh broke from his lips. ‘I’ll remind you that you said that when you beg me for more.’
Jordan sucked in sharply, both at his arrogance and at the hot wave of desire which suddenly flooded her body.
Still, after what he’d just said Jordan finally accepted that Gino had never loved her at all. She’d just been a sex object to him, a plaything.
What he’d loved about her was being able to take her virgin body and turn her into his ultimate fantasy female. Their affair had had nothing to do with love, it had just been sex.
Last Friday night had been more of the same. And so would tonight.
Jordan’s thoughts hardened her heart to him, but it didn’t dampen her desire. She still wanted to be with him, and the disgusting realisation was making her hate herself almost as much as him.
‘You have no soul,’ she muttered.
‘Then we’re well matched,’ he countered.
‘Why don’t you stop talking and just let me eat?’
‘Be