A Past Revenge (2 page)

'It's true,' she told Rhea breathlessly. 'He just looked at me and I—God, it was the weirdest feeling!'

'It's also dangerous,* her friend warned seriously,
'Stay away from him, Ellie, he—'

'Ah here you both are,' Carly cut in with her usual intrusive drawl.

'Yes, here we both are,' Rhea replied with dry sarcasm, not having moved from this spot since they arrived ten minutes earlier. 'Great party, Carly,' she added derisively.

'Isn't it,' the raven-haired beauty gushed. 'Even Uncle Nick managed to put in an appearance,' she glanced across the room, grimacing slightly. 'Although the mood he's in I'm beginning to wish he hadn't bothered; he's hardly the life and soul of the party, is he? You'll have to excuse him, I'm afraid,' her bright smile flashed over her beautiful face. 'He had some rather bad news today.'

'Oh?
'
Rhea asked interestedly.

Carly shrugged dismissively. 'It's nothing important. Enjoy yourselves,' she called gaily before passing on to more guests, the typical 'social butterfly'.

'Mm,'
Rhea murmured thoughtfully. 'She cut that conversation off pretty abruptly.
'
I wonder what's happened that could upset a man like Nick Andracas?'

'Carly said it was nothing important—
'

'Carly can be very close-mouthed when she
wants to be, especially when it comes to protecting her family. None of as knew her brother had been in trouble with the police until we saw it in one of the newspapers,' she reminded Ellie of an incident that had happened earlier in the year.

'I doubt it's anything like that this time,' she shook her head.

'Of course not,
'
Rhea agreed with impatience. 'He's hardly likely to be involved in drugs. But if ever I saw a man drowning his sorrows it's Nick Andracas.' ..

Ellie felt nervous about looking at him again, hadn't got over the last time she had, and yet she felt a drawing curiosity about him. 'Even millionaires have their problems,
'
she teased.

Rhea smiled. 'So they do. Let's forget about Nicholas Andracas and enjoy the party. After all, it's supposed to be for us,' she grinned mischievously.

Forgetting about Nick Andracas wasn't something she found easy to do, although she followed Rhea into the adjoining reception room cheerfully enough, even joining in the dancing when urged to do so. But her thoughts kept drifting back to the gloweringly unhappy man in the other room, wondering if he were still downing whisky as if it were water, even more curious to know what it was that could have affected him that deeply. He didn't appear to be a man that was easily ruffled.

She had an opportunity to see him again when she returned from the bathroom upstairs, saw he was still glowering at people, the glass of whisky still in his hand. As she reached the bottom of the stairs he glanced up, as if sensing her gaze on him, his eyes narrowing, as cold as ice. Ellie repressed another shiver, wondering why this man had such an effect on her, even her legs seeming turned to stone, keeping her rooted to the spot. She watched as Nick Andracas swallowed the last of his whisky with slow deliberation, putting the glass down on a nearby table before walking purposefully towards her. Ellie's eyes widened as he came to stand directly in front of her, so close she could see the black flecks in his eyes, could smell the tang of his aftershave.

'I was thinking of leaving this mad-house, would you like to join me?'

His voice was deep and gravelly, spinning off
her nerve endings like an abrasive caress. 'Er—'

'I'd like to leave,' he added when she seemed speechless. 'I'd like you to come with me.'

She was even more taken aback at his lazy insistence. Where did he intend taking her if she did leave with him?

'Well?' he rasped impatiently.

'Mr Andracas—'

His eyes became hooded. 'It would seem you have me at a disadvantage.'

'Ellie,' she supplied breathlessly. 'Ellie Smith.'

'Well, Ellie Smith,' he drawled mockingly. 'Do you want to leave or don't you?'

'I came with a friend—'

'The invitation was for you and you alone,' he bit out. 'And I'm likely to change my mind about that in a minute. I dislike argumentative women.'

Not a patient man, she could see that. But she wanted to go with him, knew she would regret it if she didn't. 'I meant I would just like to tell my friend that I'm leaving,' she told him huskily.

He nodded tersely, as if he didn't really see the need for it. 'I'll wait for you outside.'

All Rhea's pleas for her not to go with him had
been to no avail, and within five minutes she had joined him in the waiting Ferrari, the powerful black car as smoothly dangerous as its owner. He didn't speak as they drove, his expression grim.

He parked the car outside an exclusive block of flats in town, his hand firm beneath her elbow as they entered the building. For the first time Ellie considered the fact that she had left the party with a man she didn't know, that no matter how compellingly attractive she found him that he was still an enigma to her. But suddenly she knew exactly why and where he was taking her!

'Mr Andracas,' she tried to talk to him as they went up in the lift. 'I think I—' her words were cut off as his mouth suddenly crushed down on hers, forcing her body back against the lift wall, grinding his hips against hers to transmit his desire for her.

How long the lift doors stood open into his penthouse apartment she never knew, only that he carried her in there several minutes later, laying her down on the silky sensuousness of black sheets, quickly removing her clothes. Ellie lay watching as he stripped off his own clothes, unable to fight the inevitable, knowing from the moment she looked across that room at him that he was her destiny, that she had fallen in love with him on sight.

He didn't say a word as he made love to her, merely deriving enjoyment from the pleasure he gave her body, his experience undeniable as he took her to each new plateau of ecstasy, making her ready for him before he possessed her with a fierce thrust of his body. If she cried out at that possession she didn't know it, although the pain ripped through her until the world began to spin.
And then passion soared, a sensation such as she had never dreamt existed, and she knew Nick felt the pleasure too as with a groan he crashed through the realms of ecstasy with her.

He moved away from her immediately, the glittering pleasure she had seen alight in his eyes and face as he made love to her now replaced by cynical boredom, his gaze assessing as it swept over her contemptuously.
'I
gather you were one of Carly's personal guests?' he finally drawled.

She drowned her puzzlement that he should make the statement so contemptuously, the black silk sheet now pulled up to her chin, although Nick felt no such need to cover his nakedness, stretched out on the bed beside her like a sleek cat. 'How did you guess?' She moistened swollen lips, feeling their tenderness with the tip of her tongue, the rest of her body feeling equally as sore now that desire had faded.

His mouth twisted. 'It wasn't difficult,' he dismissed dryly, standing up, the sleekness of a cat instantly intensified by his grace of movement. He picked up his jacket from the floor where he had thrown it earlier, taking out a cigar case and lighter. 'Do you mind?' he quirked dark brows at her.

She despised the habit of smoking, but she had a feeling his request for permission was only perfunctory, that he didn't really care what her answer was. 'Please do,' she nodded distractedly. 'Does it bother you that I know Carly?'

He looked at the tip of his cigar as smoke curled up to the ceiling. 'Not at all. My little niece may have her parents convinced what a sweet little girl she is, but I happen to know better,' he derided.

So did Ellie, although she wasn't about to go
into the other girl's indiscretions just now. 'What does Carly's behaviour have to do with us?' she frowned.

Cold grey eyes raked over her mercilessly. 'Use your imagination, Ellie Smith,' he mocked. 'Your performance just now may have been a little— mechanical, but I'm sure you have one.'

'I don't understand,' she shook her head, pale at the description he gave to her inexperienced lovemaking.

'A complete stranger comes up to you at a party and asks you to leave with him, you agree, and you now ask how I know you know Carly,' he scorned harshly, pulling on the black silk robe that lay over a chair. 'What are you, a consolation gift from my dear little niece?' he made the words an insult.

Ellie was so pale now her eyes looked as dark as emeralds, her long hair tangled down her back. 'Consolation gift?' she repeated dazedly.

His expression was grim. 'It's just the sort of thing that little madam would do,' he rasped. 'And I'm glad she chose someone like you.' He looked at her once again. 'Anyone remotely resembling my wife would have turned me off completely.' He stubbed his cigar out in the ashtray with vicious movements.

'Your—your wife?' She felt as if someone had just dealt her a painful body blow.

'You can cut the cute little act now, Ellie,' he derided. 'I realise Carly asked you to send me those charming little messages across the room with your eyes to help me forget the fact that my wife served me with divorce papers today. And it has helped,' he nodded, his eyes narrowed. 'Now get your beautiful little body out of my bed,' he bent down to slap her bottom hard. 'I don't want you any more tonight, pleasant as the experience may have been.'

Ellie had never felt so mortified in her entire life. She had had no idea until now that he had misunderstood her coy glances at him earlier, but she now knew the reason for the desperate drive behind his possession, realised that the 'bad news' he had received today had been his wife's intention of divorcing him.

She could only stare at him now, not knowing how to defend herself. It was obvious he thought her as promiscuous as she knew Carly to be, that he thought the two of them had planned together that she should share his bed as a way of helping him forget his impending divorce. It was also obvious that he had mistaken her virginity and inexperience as a mechanical response to his lovemaking, so how was she now supposed to tell him she had fallen in love with him on sight, that he had taken her virginity! She couldn't, not when he saw her only as a mild diversion in his bed.

'I'm going to take a shower now,' he told her. 'You can use the other bathroom if you want to, but I want you to have left by the time I get back.' He picked up his jacket for a second time, taking out a leather wallet, pulling several notes from inside it, putting them on the dressing-table. 'Take a cab home,' he ordered. 'I don't feel like going out again tonight, and I don't want you walking alone at this time of night.'

'Please—'

'Not enough?' he raised dark brows mockingly, misunderstanding the reason for her protest. 'Maybe not,' he acknowledged with a humourless smile. 'But you aren't very experienced at this sort of thing yet. Complacence may have been what I wanted tonight, but I can assure you most men will want more than that. Maybe you could give me a call when you've learnt to show a little more fire and enthusiasm,' he dismissed derisively, pausing at the door. 'And don't try and rip me off once I've gone to shower,' he warned in a pleasantly threatening voice. 'I'll have you arrested so fast you won't know what's hit you.' He closed and locked the bathroom door behind him, the shower running seconds later.

Ellie had listened to him with increasing wide-eyed incredulity, the reality of what he thought her to be becoming apparent by the second. He certainly didn't believe her to be a
friend
of Carly's! She moved slowly from the bed to pick up the money he had thrown down so casually, counting it as if in a dream. Two hundred pounds!

Danielle came back to shuddering reality, the humiliation she had suffered at Nicholas Andracas's hands that night something she had never forgotten. It had been the first time in her nineteen years that someone had treated her with such contempt, and although he may have forgotten her existence in the last seven years— may have forgotten her the moment he entered that bathroom for all she knew!—she had never forgotten him, not even for a day.

The news of Nick's divorce had hit the newspapers a couple of days after she met him, his wife accusing him of adultery several times over. After her own experience with him she could quite well believe that Beverley Andracas probably deserved the millions of dollars she received in settlement from him. Any woman who could stay married to such a man for four years deserved everything she could get out of him.

But her main worry now was whether or not he would recognise Danielle Smith, successful portrait painter, as Ellie Smith, the girl he had once paid for going to bed with him? God, that must have been a novel experience for him, he had probably never paid a woman for sex in his life before! He would never need to.

But she was still worrying about whether he would recognise her as she waited for him and Audra McDonald to arrive at her apartment the next afternoon. If he didn't remember her she could carry out this meeting with some degree of dignity, but if he should remember her. . .! The consequences of that didn't bear thinking about, and she tried not to.

When the doorbell rang promptly at two o'clock she took her time about answering it, checking her appearance in the mirror one last time. The denims and loose green top weren't an act of defiance on her part, more a need to be wearing something so completely different than the sophisticated black evening gown she had been wearing the last time she met Nick Andracas. Her outward appearance had changed the last seven years, her hair was styled shorter now, her once slightly rounded face smoothed out to high cheekbones and angled features, her whole bearing one of maturity now rather than a raw adolescence.

She deliberately trained her attention on Audra McDonald as she opened the door, ignoring the man who stood arrogantly at her side, although she was instantly aware of him, sensing that same charged electricity she had known in him seven years ago. Audra McDonald was as beautiful as her photographs proclaimed her to be, although the sharp brown eyes were narrowed assessingly on Danielle, as if gauging her attractiveness, the brief contempt registered there dismissing her as unimportant. That suited Danielle perfectly, she wanted as little tension and unpleasantness from this commission as possible.

Although she wasn't sure she could count on that to continue as she took the other couple through to the lounge, turning to find the brown eyes were no longer scornfully dismissing, snapping with anger now as Audra McDonald saw and recognised her lover's open interest in Danielle. Danielle was forced to recognise it too as she also met the warmth in narrowed grey eyes.

Nick had changed little in the last seven years, the black hair showing flecks of grey, the cynicism in his expression deepened, but otherwise he was the same devastatingly attractive man she had once fallen instantly in love with. She felt a similar leap of her senses to the one she had felt that night, although she remained outwardly cool and uninterested, maturity showing her how best to handle this meeting.

'Do you have any idea what sort of portrait you would like?' she addressed her question to Audra McDonald, although she wasn't altogether surprised when Nick Andracas answered.

'We know exactly what sort of portrait we want, Miss Smith,' he told her smoothly. 'It's a requirement of the play Miss McDonald is in, and will be presented to her at the end of the play's run.'

'Oh,' she nodded understanding, giving no indication that his gravelly sensuous voice meant anything to her, her interest wholly professional as she listened to him explain the details of the portrait needed.

'You have precisely one month to complete the portrait to our requirements, Miss Smith,' he finally concluded. 'We need it for the opening night.'

'Of course,' she acknowledged stiltedly. 'I'll do my best.'

'And I'm sure that will be good enough,' he returned huskily, his eyes darkly caressing.

She refused to meet that gaze, deliberately turning to the actress who had sat quietly at his side on the sofa as he talked. 'When would you like to begin your sittings, Miss McDonald?'

Anger still burned deep in the brown eyes. 'Is that really necessary?' she drawled in a bored voice. 'Wouldn't a photograph do?'