Bridegrooms Required: One Bridegroom Required / One Wedding Required / One Husband Required. Sharon Kendrick

for it—’

      That did it! ‘You bastard!’ There was a loud crack as her palm connected with his cheek, and they both looked at one another, aware that an unbreachable line had just been crossed.

      Luke felt desire and anger bubbling up in a heady cocktail inside him as he slowly rubbed his reddening cheek. ‘So that’s the way you want it, is it, sweetheart?’

      Holly looked at him, powerless to resist the primitive emotions which were swirling so powerfully in the air around them. ‘Luke...’ she began, but he shook his head, and something in his eyes silenced her words, though he could do nothing to still the shuddering of her breath.

      He moved to within a step away, his mouth a grim, forbidding line, the blue eyes dark as sapphires. ‘Why did you let her think that I’d slept with you, Holly? Why did you let Caroline believe a lie like that?’

      She pushed the feelings of guilt away. He was the one guilty of deceit. ‘Haven’t you stopped to ask just why she believed me? There doesn’t seem much hope for a relationship if your fiancée is so willing to think that you’d be unfaithful at the first opportunity. Or maybe in the past you have been? Maybe she’s judging you on past experience?’

      ‘You think that of me?’

      She heard the outrage and the surprise in his voice and shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she told him tiredly. Her head was spinning so much she didn’t seem to know anything any more.

      ‘Well, I’d hate to disappoint you, sweetheart,’ he drawled. ‘So let me be the bastard of your dreams instead...’

      She should have anticipated what was coming next from the heat which burned in the depths of his eyes, and the husky note which had deepened his voice to rich, dark velvet. But she had thought that he might be restrained by the fact that they were standing in the middle of the shop, for all the world to see, reflected three times over by the vast mirrors which lined the walls, with the chandelier spilling golden nuggets of light onto their heads.

      ‘Luke—’ she whispered again, but he pulled her into his arms and roughly, brutally, almost punishingly began to kiss her. ‘Luke, no!’