An Inconvenient Obsession (10 page)

She stumbled, falling to her bare knees in the rough sand. The threat of tears burned her eyes and she rocked forward, wrapping her arms around her ribs as she relived the past few humiliating moments with Ethan. She should have seen it coming, should have heeded the warning her mind had been screaming since she’d first seen him.

She’d been so eager to feel something besides pain and doubt and guilt that she’d ignored what her heart already knew, what she’d recognized when they danced. So she had no one else to blame but herself. Not really. She’d earned his hatred, understood his need for revenge.

But then, how did he expect to gain it? Did he wish to strip her of her pride? Her virginity? He’d managed to do both within the space of a few hours. What else could he demand before he’d be finished with her? What more could he want, when she had nothing left to give?

The only thing she was good at anymore was surviving. Coping. Hadn’t she learned that lesson time and time again? Hadn’t she rejected the only man she’d ever loved, then sustained injuries so severe that she’d never lead a normal life again? Never be a real woman? A wife? A mother?

She clenched her hands into fists against her quaking rib cage, trying to corral the pain as her throat tightened and burned. Bereft and hurting, she swallowed fiercely, holding
back the tears she refused to shed. As much as she wanted peace, as much as she wanted forgiveness, she’d never receive it no matter how eloquent her request. Not after what she’d done.

Ethan hated her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own scars. Apologizing to him and giving him her virginity didn’t change a thing.

She’d been a fool to think it could.

E
THAN
stood alone in the empty office feeling disoriented, bruised and strangely adrift. Never, not in his wildest imaginings, had he considered this night unfolding the way that it had. He’d envisioned himself in complete control of the situation, his emotions and Cate’s responses.

The years he’d spent away from her had brought sexual experience and expertise he’d grown to rely upon. He knew how to seduce a woman, how to gauge her reactions and arousal. He knew how to orchestrate a woman’s responses down to each shuddering sigh and had exercised the finely honed skill too many times to count. This was the first time he’d lost the distance he always maintained, the first time he’d nearly lost himself in his own practiced art of seduction.

An unwelcome sense of dissatisfaction, of frustrated anger and resentment, rioted within his veins. By failing to meet his expectations, Cate had upended everything. She had turned the tables on him. Made him lose control.

Ethan Hardesty did not lose control.

Nor did he bear the brunt of female rejection. Not anymore.

Furious with his own weakness, he dragged a palm over his mouth. The faint aroma of Cate clung to his fingers, resurrecting memories of her responsive skin and widespread thighs.

His lungs tightened and he felt the stirrings of lust yet
again. He relived the moments when he’d moved deep inside her, the tight flesh surrounding him until he thought he’d go mad with his release. Her low, breathy moans.

He wanted her again.

He wanted to taste her mouth, lick her skin and bury himself so deep inside he forgot where he ended and she began.

God damn it. No, God damn
her.
Why the hell did she have to be a virgin? He understood why she’d been untouched ten years ago, when they were both so young. He’d respected her desire to wait for marriage, had gritted his teeth and taken multiple cold swims in the ocean because of it. But to wait another ten years?

Why had she allowed
him
to claim her virginity, instead of one of the countless others who’d queued up for the opportunity? And why did she
still
arouse the feelings he thought he’d eradicated forever ago? He didn’t want the confusion, the suspicion and the inconvenient desire to please her. And he sure as hell didn’t want to lust after her with an intensity he’d felt only for her. Only her.

And yet his irrational mind, his body and his wretched, cursed soul, didn’t seem to care. He wanted her despite the lies. He wanted her despite the past and the anger he felt toward her. No matter how many years had elapsed, no matter how many other women he’d seduced, he still wanted her.

He lifted the heels of his hands to his eyes and pressed. Hard. Trying to will away his obsession and his lack of control. She was not the Cate he’d once loved. That Cate didn’t exist anywhere outside of his feverish adolescent fantasies. She never had. He knew it.

She’d claimed to want him to be happy and successful, when in reality, she’d never even thought of him as a man capable of taking care of himself. And then she’d claimed to have grieved his absence. That she’d felt guilty for her lies.

As if that made any difference at all.

He dropped his hands, firming his jaw and embracing the fresh surge of resolve that thickened his blood. He wasn’t done with her, no matter what she claimed. She could run away, she could say no, but they weren’t finished until he said they were.

He’d barely made it back to his offices in New York when Ethan opened his door to greet the private messenger Cate had already dispatched. Looking at the prim rectangular envelope, embossed with the Carrington crest, he felt a flare of anger so acute, his chest went tight with it.

She thought to complete their business via a messenger?

“Shall I wait for a reply?” the delivery boy asked.

“No,” Ethan barked. He tossed a fifty at the kid and then slammed the door in his smiling face.

A scant two minutes later, with Cate’s papers strewn out upon his desk, the pen he held snapped in two. Rage surged anew as he stared at her tidy little signature at the bottom of the page.

She’d signed before he’d transferred a single cent of the twenty-five million he’d agreed to pay. As if she thought she’d get rid of him so easily, stamped and sealed and dispensed with like so much inconvenient rubbish.

Just like before. Only this time, he wasn’t playing her game.

This time, she would pay.

And he’d be glad.

Forty-eight hours later, he interrupted his broker’s protest. “I don’t care about the cost. Buy them. I want the controlling shares, and I want them yesterday,” he said before slamming his phone down with an audible slap.

He scanned the faxed transaction report another stockbroker had just sent over from his Tokyo office. The realization that everything was falling into place exactly as he wished
coiled deep in his gut, tantalizing him with the promise of justice, of the painful retribution Cate so richly deserved.

Within the hour, he’d own fifty-two percent of Carrington Industries. A majority holding. After two whirlwind days of purchasing the publicly traded shares under a series of different names, utilizing multiple subsidiary businesses beneath the umbrella of his parent company to broker the transactions, the controlling interest in Cate’s company belonged to him. Ethan Hardesty.

He didn’t waste time examining how his emotions seemed to waver unpredictably between triumph and doubt. He didn’t allow himself to entertain any second thoughts.

Cate deserved whatever punishment he meted out.

By eight o’clock that night, he arrived at Studio 9 in downtown Manhattan, ready to implement the next step of his plan. The white penthouse loft was equipped with scores of ghouls, ghosts and glow-in-the-dark skeletons. Discordant music wailed in the background and dry ice smoke billowed from punch fountains set up in the corners. It took him precious minutes just to wend his way through pumpkins, hay bales and stalks of dried corn to reach the crowded rooftop venue.

By the time he located Cate, his frustration had neared its peak. She stood in a knot of slavering men, her costume that of a very elegant, subdued Cinderella. Fit to perfection, the blue-and-silver velvet gown hugged her curves and displayed her long, lean body to advantage.

She’d wrapped her pale gold hair into a twisted knot atop her head, and shiny strands of it had slipped free to caress her pinkened cheek and fragile jaw. With her haunting beauty and long, white gloves, she looked enough like a fabled princess to make any man believe in fairy tales.

Unfortunately, the desire flooding Ethan was very much grounded in reality.

He wanted to cup that heart-shaped face, run his thumb
over those rosy lips, and kiss the tip of her chilled nose before dipping lower to plunder her fully. The urge to steal her away to someplace private and warm brought a heaviness to his groin and drove him toward her with renewed resolve.

As he walked toward her, she lifted an arm and smiled. Soft and genuine, her smile snagged at a part of his soul he’d thought ruthlessly buried. It took three seconds, his heart rising within his chest, before he realized her smile wasn’t for him.

No, it was for the idiotic interloper who now blocked his view, worming his way through the crowd with two steaming mugs in his hands. The man reached her, pressed one mug into her hand, then moved to stand close, as if exerting a proprietary claim before anyone else could snatch her away. From the look on the man’s face, he was besotted.

Ethan was in no mood to tolerate another corps of Cate’s admirers tonight. He’d bitten back the urge to bare his teeth and snap at them like an enraged bear while they circled her at the Carrington auction. But the urge was back twice as strong now. She belonged to
him.
He’d paid for her with his soul, and until he was done with her, he was not disposed to share.

Once Ethan reached the periphery of her group, he caught Cate’s eye. Her hands jerked, sloshing scalding liquid over the rim of her mug and onto the weasel simpering at her side. She blushed furiously and then blurted a distressed apology, leaning to brush at the man’s dampened forearm. Her lackey had dressed as a prisoner, complete with striped pajamas and a length of chain with its requisite ball.

Ethan moved closer, then reached for her mug. He handed it off to the man plucking at his wet sleeve and then wrapped a hand around Cate’s elbow. “Sorry, but Cate and I have some business to attend to.” He looked down at the blustering peacock
at her side and offered a challenging smile. “You don’t mind, do you?”

The man’s nostrils flared while his face turned a satisfying shade of beet. “Actually, I—”

“It really can’t wait,” he interrupted. “Ethan,” she began, twisting within his arm, “you can’t just—”

“What’s that, Catydid?”

His eyes trapped hers, and this time she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away, even when her prolonged silence made the moment grow awkward. He wanted to lick the dot of whipped cream from her upper lip, taste her chilled skin and lower that enticing layer of blue velvet that clung to her breasts until he felt her smooth, pliable flesh beneath his palms.

The man at her side cleared his throat twice, breaking the spell, then blew into his curled fist. Cate stepped back with a flustered frown, rubbing her elbow with her free hand. “Ethan, I don’t think—”

“Then stop thinking,” he said before dragging her bodily toward the studio’s interior.

C
ATE
pulled hard against his hand while her heart rose to clamor against her throat. She wasn’t ready to be alone with Ethan again. Not yet. Though her skin sang beneath his touch, she wasn’t ready to relinquish her control, her judgment and her ability to think clearly. And she wasn’t foolish enough to believe she could avoid any of the three.

Their night together had taught her that where Ethan was concerned, her resolve vanished as readily as the morning mist before the sun. She wasn’t strong enough to resist him. “Ethan, stop it,” she said, prying fruitlessly at his curled fingers. “We’re being rude.”

Rudeness was apparently no deterrent, as his pace didn’t slow until he’d ushered her into a quiet interior corner partially concealed by a cloud of white mist and panels of orange and black crepe paper.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she told him, her heart filling her throat as she finally yanked free of his hold. “You weren’t even invited.”

He stopped and squared off in front of her, blocking her escape. “How do you know?”

She flushed, her hands clammy within her white gloves. “I checked the guest list.”

His smile told her he misinterpreted the statement to his
advantage. “How gratifying to know you were hoping for my attendance.”

“I wasn’t!” she blurted. “I only checked to confirm that you
weren’t
going to be here.”

“Ah,” he said with a slow nod. His glance traced her eyes, her cheeks and her mouth, warm and close and terrifying. “Then why haven’t you raised an alarm or told me to leave?”

Somehow, she managed to retain a calm, social tone as she shot him an imperious glare. “Maybe I should. You have a disconcerting habit of showing up where you aren’t wanted, thinking you can just monopolize my time and drag me off to various corners of your choosing.”

“Would you have preferred that I come to your home and drag you off to your bed?”

“Of course not!” she gasped.

He shrugged. “Then you should be grateful that by coming here, yet another worthy cause will benefit.” He tipped his chin toward the knot of New York’s Who’s Who clustered behind them. “That is what you’re all about, isn’t it? Worthy causes?”

How is it that he managed to make it sound like an insult? “I have no problem with you making a donation in support of the arts,” she huffed. “It’s your manhandling of
me
that is the problem.”

“Really.” His blue eyes glinted with a feral gleam as he performed a blatant perusal of her body. “Because I seem to remember it was
you
who manhandled
me
the last time we were together.”

An incendiary blush climbed toward her hairline. “Only you would be ungentlemanly enough to bring that up.”

His mouth curved into a wicked, enticing grin she’d never seen before. “Since when have I claimed to be a gentleman?”