Sebastian brought his hands to Aneesa’s jaw, his thumbs brushing her cheeks back and forth.
She was barely breathing now, hypnotised by the blue glitter of his eyes, by the heady sense of expectation in the air, by his intensely masculine scent.
He reached for her and captured her easily, spanning two hands around her slim waist, bare under the drape of the sari, her skin satin soft. Never before had he been so achingly aware of the delicious anticipation of kissing a woman for the first time.
His mouth was so close now … Aneesa could feel her eyes flutter closed, the intensity of feelings within her almost unbearable. And then their breaths mingled, his firm mouth touched hers and she was lost in a heady world of sensation that obliterated all the pain and turmoil as effectively as if she’d just lost her memory.
In a heartbeat the kiss became something much more primal and urgent. Sebastian struggled to hold back and soon they were hurtling towards the brink, faster than anything he’d experienced before.
As he stood on the precipice of making a momentous decision—for there was no way he was letting Aneesa leave him now—he felt acutely vulnerable. For the first time someone stood before him and didn’t see the infamous Sebastian Wolfe of the scandalous Wolfe family. Nor the multimillionaire. She didn’t know his history, she had no expectation of him.
BAD BLOOD
A powerful dynasty, where secrets and scandal never sleep!
THE DYNASTY
Eight siblings, blessed with wealth, but denied the
one thing they wanted—a father’s love.
A family destroyed by one man’s thirst for power.
THE SECRETS
Haunted by their past and driven to succeed, the
Wolfes scattered to the far corners of the globe.
But secrets never sleep and scandal
is starting to stir …
THE POWER
Now the Wolfe brothers are back, stronger than
ever, but hiding hearts as hard as granite.
It’s said that even the blackest of souls can
be healed by the purest of love…
But can the dynasty rise again?
About the Author
ABBY GREEN got hooked on Mills & Boon® romances while still in her teens, when she stumbled across one belonging to her grandmother, in the west of Ireland. After many years of reading them voraciously, she sat down one day and gave it a go herself. Happily, after a few failed attempts, Mills & Boon bought her first manuscript.
Abby works freelance in the film and TV industry, but thankfully the 4am starts and the stresses of dealing with recalcitrant actors are becoming more and more infrequent, leaving her more time to write!
She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her through her website at www.abby-green.com. She lives and works in Dublin.
ABBY GREEN
BAD BLOOD
RESTLESS BILLIONAIRE
This is for my fellow ‘Bad Blood’ contributors—
Sarah, Janette, Caitlin, Lynn, Robyn, Jennie and
Kate—thanks for all your help and
encouragement along the way!
CHAPTER ONE
ANEESA ADANI was stuck in a waking nightmare. She battled a surge of panic as her younger sister and aunts led her forward towards the place where her fiancé waited to make her his wife.
The elaborate wedding sari she wore constricted her movements, adding to the sense of cloying claustrophobia. Heavy jewels literally dripped from her head, ears, throat, arms and hands, weighing her down.
Fighting an overwhelming urge to break free and escape she told herself once again that she only had herself to blame for her predicament. If she hadn’t been so blinkered, so unforgivably naïve … so impossibly complacent, then she might not be here right now.
She was propelled forward again and suddenly her fiancé and her parents saw her arrival. A hush descended over the crowd in the huge and beautiful inner courtyard, lit with the seductive glow of hundreds of lanterns. This courtyard was the centrepiece in one of the most exclusive hotels in Mumbai—the jewel in the hotel’s crown. The sheer opulence of it all terrified her now, the reality of what she was doing hitting her anew.
With an awful sick feeling of impending doom and fatality Aneesa reluctantly moved forward, but just then a small movement caught her eye from the side. She glanced around and, for a moment, was blinded by the icy blue gaze of a man. He was slightly obscured, in the shadows, but even that couldn’t hide the fact that he was so tall and good-looking he momentarily distracted her from her surroundings.
As she registered the darkly handsome foreigner who had no doubt snuck in to ogle the most prestigious wedding of the year, reality slammed back into her again, heightened now by seeing him—as if he represented some kind of escape or freedom to her. And she knew in that moment that she hadn’t been able to disguise the fear or turmoil in her eyes. He’d seen it all and she could only be thankful that he was a complete stranger. Tearing her eyes away, she mentally steeled herself and walked forward to meet her fate ….
Sebastian Wolfe still reeled slightly from the searing glance he’d shared with the bride as she’d arrived. She’d looked around only briefly and yet had honed in on his gaze as if she’d felt the weight of it.
He shrugged off the prickling sensation. He had to admit that he didn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful bride. He smiled cynically—not that he ever had any intention of watching one walk down an aisle towards him. Coming from a large family of mainly half-siblings, having been born to a man who’d married three times, had numerous affairs and begat eight children, to say that Sebastian had a jaundiced view of the holy sanctity of marriage was a huge understatement.
With an iron will, he concentrated once more on his surroundings and not the potential minefield of his family, who had dispersed from their ancestral home, Wolfe Manor, as soon as they’d been able to escape.
In the huge and ornately decorated inner courtyard a stunning marquee covered in silken swathes of material took up the centre space under a dusky evening sky. The bride, while being of average height, stood with a regal and graceful bearing that made her appear taller.
Her face was a smooth mask of intent concentration, and given the elaborate ritual of the traditional Indian wedding, he couldn’t blame her. It seemed to him to consist of a dizzying array of minutely observed events, each as important as the last and all following a strict code. It had been going on for days now, culminating in this ceremony here tonight. Incense was burning, ladening the warm air around him with a rich and luxuriant smell.
A short while before, Sebastian had watched the arrival of the groom carried aloft on a gold chair, where, bedecked in a long tunic of spun silken gold and close-fitting matching trousers, he’d been greeted by his in-laws, his face obscured by a curtain of fresh marigold flowers.
And then the bride had been brought in, her slender arms encased