Eternally Seduced (78 page)

Rathe Wellesley had been mistaken frequently as a movie star, a supermodel, and a prince. But never had he been mistaken as a---

“…I heard she called him a serial killer,” one of the movers whispered as he looked at Rathe.

That.

Lip curling at the way everyone was now thinking of him as a serial killer, Rathe walked out of Saffi’s bedroom. If he heard someone describe him once more as a fucking murderer then he would really be one, and his first victim would be the girl next door.

“Hey, boss? What do you want me to do about this?”

Rathe turned to face Carter, the head of the moving team he had hired to transfer all of Saffi’s stuff to Staffan’s place. Carter was looking at him with a confused expression as he lifted up a full-colored chart of a fish’s reproductive cycle.

Doing his best not to wince, Rathe said in a remarkably level voice, “Err, yes. It was the owner’s explicit instructions that everything in this room be carted off.”

Carter scratched his bald head. “You sure, boss?”

The things he did for losing a bet,
Rathe thought as he inclined his head in response. He was the 5
^th
Duke of Flanders, with Wellington no less as an ancestor, and yet today he was being forced to treasure posters that were better described as rubbish.

Rathe nodded. “Yes,
everything
must be properly packed and moved.” He stayed for a few more moments, merely observing to ensure that the move would be completed within a day. Satisfied
with
what he had seen, Rathe left Saffi’s room and came to stand in front
of
the room he had once entered a week ago.

There were so many reasons not to do this.

He was a duke. She was nobody. He was thirty-four years old. She was eighteen. He would never love her. She might already be infatuated with him.

But when he closed his eyes now, all Rathe could imagine was Mary Ashton’s barely covered body and the way she felt in his arms.

****

“Come in.” Mary failed to keep her voice from squeaking out as she heard the knock on the door. She was hoping it would not be
him,
but when the door opened and closed quietly at her visitor’s entry, Mary knew it was a doomed wish. Guys in college would have slammed that door open and close.

“Are you all right now?” The voice was super polite, polished, and…British.

Yes,
she thought glumly. That was definitely him,
Mr. Serial Kisser
. Her cheeks burned at the memory she was still finding impossible to forget. Even to this day, she couldn’t figure out how it was that she had let him kiss her like that. If not for her phone suddenly ringing, she probably would have…

No, don’t think that
, Mary scolded herself mentally. The important thing here was that she had escaped Mr. Serial Kisser. She had run away from her room and only went back late at night, a few minutes past the dorm’s no-guests-allowed curfew.

Rathe was patient as he waited for the girl to answer, content with using the time to simply look his f
il
l of her. It was unfortunate she was not dressed so sexily today, Rathe thought with a quiet sigh. Instead, she was covered
from
head to toe in a white buttoned-up blouse and jeans, with one leg propped up on the pillow to accommodate her injured ankle.

She was wringing her hands on her lap, something Rathe found strangely…fascinating.

The seconds ticked by.

Mary stole a look at her visitor, making sure her glance did not stray above his neck. He was arranging his cuff links like he had all the time in the world to do so.

He was not saying anything, but for every second that he kept quiet, she felt guiltier and guiltier. Unable to bear it any longer, she blurted out, “I didn’t really mean for anyone to think you were a
serial killer
.”

Her mumbled voice had a tone of torture to it. Rathe was not a sadistic man, but for some reason he enjoyed a sense of satisfaction at the way she was almost writhing on the bed with her lovely cheeks on fire. The way she looked now, it was very much easy to imagine her face flushed and her body writhing for a very different reason.

She still had her head bowed down, with dark tendrils of hair escaping her rather messy twist. Once in a while, she would lift her hand to push her glasses back up on her nose.

Nothing special about her and yet this girl had kept his cock aching for nights, and it was the kind of ache that not even being in the company of more beautiful women could assuage. They had all worked hard to tempt him, using ingenuous tricks and dirty words, but they all left him cold.

Rathe had hoped the time away would prove that his desire
for
Mary Ashton was a novelty, but instead the time spent apart from Saffi’s friend had proved the opposite. She was an obsession – the kind that could ruin him.

He should leave now, leave this bloody minute before it was too late and he wouldn’t be able to control the dangerous urge inside him to possess her.
Why was he so damnably attracted to this girl
, Rathe wondered moodily. As he tried to grapple with the reality of his near-bulging erection, not one of his thoughts showed on Rathe’s face, which was almost classical in its hard-jawed beauty. His aloof exterior had led many people to think he was cold and ruthless, someone who looked gorgeous on the outside but had nothing to offer
on
the inside.

While half of Europe’s media called him England’s #1 Heartthrob, the other half referred to him as a cold fish, the true modern-day reincarnation of the Iron Duke – and they did not mean it as a compliment.

Did Mary know that about him? Did she think the same and was that why she had run like hell after their first kiss?

It shouldn’t matter.
She
should not matter. And right now, the only thing
that
should matter was telling her whatever needed to be said so he could get the fuck out of her life and they could forget each other after this.

Rathe opened his mouth to speak the same moment he caught Mary sneaking a look at him. Realizing she had been seen, Mary instantly looked away and began whistling a Carpenters song out of tune.

A bloody Carpenters song.

And its title was…

We’ve Only Just Begun.

Her whistling stopped midway, as if she had just realized at the same time what that song meant.

Rathe heard himself saying, “You do know that the news about me being a serial killer could be making its rounds now?”

Mary gulped, completely forgetting her embarrassment as his words penetrated her mind. Was he threatening to have her jailed? What would happen to her piranha if
s
he was behind bars? She said lamely, “I really didn’t say you were that kind of serial…kil…kis…guy.” She pursed her lips in desperation because she had this terrible urge to whistle again. It was something she had used to do whenever Bartholomew locked her in the darkness of the attic, a device her innocent child’s mind had come up with to keep herself from panicking.

Rathe struggled to keep his tone impassive. “I’m sure you didn’t
,
but I may have to speak with my legal team about it.”

She choked. “I t-truly didn’t mean to---”

He said smoothly, “I might believe you if only you don’t seem too afraid to look at me right now.”

Mary immediately lifted her gaze to him. “
I am
looking at you.”

Rathe’s lips tightened in an effort to control his amusement. Her eyeballs were rolling around like crazy, never focusing more than a fraction of a second at one place. So, yes, she was looking at him – but never just long enough for her to really see him.

For a supposedly intelligent being, Mary Ashton could sure be childish.

“Mary?” he said in a very gentle tone.

“Yes?” Roll, roll, roll.

“I’ll give you one last chance.”

“One last chance for…what?” Roll, roll, roll.

“To look at me.” He didn’t wait for her to lie again. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to prove to both of us that I’m not a serial killer---”

“But you’re really not a---”

“---but a serial
kisser
instead.”

Her eyes shot up to him.

Rathe smiled in satisfaction, and with that one smile, Mary’s worst fears were immediately realized.

Oh, draaaaaaaat.

Camille was right.

He
was
the most beautiful man on earth.

She had honestly thought it was her mind exaggerating reality, but if anything her memories had failed to replicate just how
hot
he was.

He towered over her, his powerful presence lending him a godly aura that made her feel ridiculously weak
–
the kind of weak that her stepfather would most assuredly beat her for if he ever found out how Mary was feeling now.

His pinstriped suit, combined with the platinum Rolex gleaming on his wrist, only added to his air of sophistication – something that seemed to be an innate part of him. There was something about Rathe Wellesley that no matter what he wore – no matter if he did not have a stitch of clothing on him – he would still be the epitome of elegance.

Was he going to be just as elegant even while making love?

An involuntary gasp escaped her, the direction of her thought
s
stunning Mary even as her gaze returned to his face, drawn to it
.
T
here was a magnetic pull coming from him that no woman could resist.

Being around Staffan and Saffi had exposed Mary to a lot of good-looking guys, but they had never caused her to think anything so carnal. But this…this
man.
Just a few words, and Mary had let him kiss her. And now, he was looking at her in a way that made Mary want to fan herself and drink gallons of iced-cold anything. It was just so…hot. Like, so, so, so hot he made Mary forget ninety percent of her vocabulary and forced her to resort to teenage crush lingo.

So. Hot. Like. Wow.

A smirk played on his lips. Those beautiful sexy lips.

“You’re staring at me,” he purred.

That. Voice. Gah.         

She mumbled, “You told me to look at you.”

Her words were unexpected, and her accus
ing
tone made Rathe laugh out loud – something he rarely did. “You remind me of how adorably crazy Staffan’s wife can be,” he told her.

“Oh, no,” Mary said right away even as she still couldn’t help gazing at him in utter fascination. Ohmygawd. So. Hot.

Rathe raised a brow. “Oh, no…what?”

“She’s crazier than I could ever be,” Mary explained.

He considered her words seriously, thought about how she called him a “serial kisser” in public, and remembered how she promised to look at him while turning her eyes into spinning flying saucers.

Sternly repressing the un-aristocratic grin that wanted to curve on his lips, Rathe said politely, “No comment.”

Fighting off the grin became even more of a challenge when she protested almost indignantly, “I’m very ordinary.”