Sweet Seduction Sacrifice (15 page)

She had on strappy sandals that matched the skirt and added a few inches to her already impressive height, and gold bangles and earrings adding a little bling to the whole shebang. She was stunning, there were no two ways about it, and I reluctantly admitted that it was my heart plummeting that I felt inside my chest.

This woman belonged here, she seemed comfortable and at home. With Dominic, with the obvious expensively designed interior and no doubt with the car museum downstairs. I fidgeted slightly at that realisation and Dominic's head swung immediately in my direction at the small movement.

"Here she is," he announced on a smile. It was
that
smile, it didn't elicit the same response as usual, it simply cut through my heart as it lay lifelessly at my feet on the floor.

The movie star turned the most amazing smile at me, it seemed momentarily familiar, then she jumped up and down and clapped her hands with obvious delight. Well, that was unexpected and not as sophisticated as I would have thought.

"Oh, wonderful!" she practically shouted, instantly sashaying towards me, a friendly and genuine looking smile on her face. I cocked my head in shock.

This was not how it was meant to play out. She was meant to take one look at my battered and ridiculously dressed self and sneer, make some snide comment under the pretence of niceties and then bat her eyelashes and well clad arse at Dominic. I flicked a glance towards him, his eyes weren't on her, they were on me. And they looked... uncertain.

I swallowed and returned my attention to the rapidly approaching threat. Albeit a threat that was beaming happy vibes at me.

"Dominic has told me
so
much about you," she gushed in a happy voice.

"No I haven't," he denied instantly.

"Well, it's not so much what you say, Dom, as what you don't say, that says it all." Um...

"What didn't he say?" I asked, widening my eyes at the slip of tongue. Shutupshutupshutup.

"Well, he didn't say 'no one'," she replied, bizarrely.

I frowned at her. She beamed that megawatt genuinely friendly smile back at me.

She leaned in as if to confide something, I saw Dominic crossing his arms over his chest and frowning at her out of the corner of my eye. "Well whenever I ask who some woman in his life is, he
always
says 'she's no one.' When I asked about you, he didn't say that." She seemed supremely amused at this little bit of news. I was lost.

"Um..."

"He said..." she went to divulge the answer to the universe, but Dominic beat her to it.

"She doesn't need to hear your waffling, Katie. That's quite enough."

"Waffling," movie star Katie scoffed. "As if."

I flicked my gaze between them, my head swivelling back and forth. This was unusual, to say the least. They bickered like an old married couple. I was starting to feel ill.

"You waffle and always have," Dominic shot back.

"And you're a stick in the mud," she smiled sweetly up at him. I rubbed my stomach in an effort to calm my nerves and not swallow back bile.

He smiled indulgently back at her. "You love me this way."

"Of course I do, darling, but you're still a stick in the mud."

I think I groaned, or growled, it was hard to say, but I was backing away and getting ready to bolt again.

"Ah, oh. She's going to bolt," Katie announced unnecessarily. "I thought you were joking when you said that."

"Genevieve," Dominic said my name in
that
voice again. I halted in my tracks transfixed.

"Wow," Katie whispered. "That truly is most impressive. Can you get her to do other tricks?"

"Katie," Dominic growled, most definitely not in
that
voice.  I came unstuck and took a step back.

"Stop!" Dominic chided, softly, but it was still a command, so my body halted in its retreat. Katie tittered, but tried to cover it with her hand. "Don't run. Please."

I blinked at the please. He said please. My eyes were on him, but I saw Katie's smile. It was stunning. I couldn't help flicking my eyes to her face, it was like I was the moth being drawn to the her naked flame. She noticed my attention and shrugged, smile still in place.

"He's
never
said please to his women before."

"I'm not his woman," I said, finding my voice again, thank God.

"Oh, sweetie, you are
so
his woman."

I stared at her, Dominic cleared his throat. "I don't think you're helping, Katie."

"Well, she needs to know." She seemed a little put out at his chastisement. "Besides, if she's your woman then we're practically related." It looked like that pleased her no end.

Dominic sighed. "Always trying to plan my life out for me. I am a grown man, you know."

"I had noticed, darling, but you still need a little direction in your life."

"And you're the right person to give it to me?"

"Well, Nick won't say it. That leaves only me."

"Nick understands boundaries," Dominic shot back, my head flicking back and forth between them like a Wimbledon match.

"Nick has his head up his arse, he's not going to help you find eternal happiness."

"And you are?"

"Well, I am the queen of matchmaking."

"I don't need a matchmaker," he growled, clearly losing patience with the conversation.

Katie flicked her glance back to me. "No, you're right. You seem to finally be doing OK on your own." Both sets of eyes fell on me, I felt like I was standing naked under a spotlight. I shifted uncomfortably.

Dominic grinned. "Yes, I am."

I blew a breath out thinking it was time to figure this mess out, I was getting the impression I had misread the situation. What girlfriend tries to set her boyfriend up with a clearly beaten and dishevelled woman in his own house?

"Who are you?" I asked, it sounded a little blunt, but I softened it with a smile. It was amazingly genuine, she'd been entertaining in an ohmigod kind of way. I saw Dominic still as soon as I asked the question. OK, maybe my re-evaluation of the situation hadn't been warranted at all.

"Catherine Anscombe, but please call me Katie," she said stepping forward with her hand raised to shake mine.

I stared at it in shock. She was his wife. Holy fucking shit. His wife was trying to set him up with another woman. Maybe family law lawyers are a little more free and easy with relationship parameters. Maybe they were separated, but both unable to let the other go, so interfered in each other's lives to keep the connection going. The divorce or separation had been an obvious mistake, because although they bickered, they clearly still loved each other. I'd walked into the twilight zone and I wanted desperately to get out.

I took a step back from her and watched as her face fell. Dominic began to scowl.

"I... I..." I stuttered. "I have to go." And then I spun on my heels and ran.

"Oh dear," I heard Katie muttered at my back.

I made it to the front door again, I was faster this time, having committed the lay of the land to memory, I didn't stumble down unnecessary halls. But my speed hadn't been enough. Dominic slammed into me and pinned me to the door, I hadn't even got my fingers to the door handle and he was there. His hard body moulding to the length of mine, his hot breath already in my ear.

"You know, that was quite rude," he bit out and then abruptly pulled back, spun me round to face him and slammed back into me again.

His hands grasped my wrists and lifted them above my head, holding them securely in one large palm of his own, then his body pressed full frontal back down the length of mine. His free hand came up and cupped my jaw, tilting my head back so he could look me in the eyes. His were looking scary, killer lawyer had been let out.

"She didn't deserve that," he said in an extremely low voice. A shiver shot down my spine and not in a good way.

"You're scaring me," I whispered.

"Then you shouldn't be rude to guests in my house," he shot back.

"I don't understand you," I accused, because really, I didn't. This was so wrong, no one did this sort of thing in real life. These people were nuts.

"Then let me make myself perfectly clear," Dominic replied evenly, voice still threateningly low. "Katie has a very special place in my life and I will not tolerate her being treated in such a fashion, even by you, sweetheart."

I glared at him. "Then that's easy to remedy, isn't it? Let me go home and I won't have a single thing to do with your life ever again."

He pulled back shocked and I didn't think it was from my request to go home. I'd said that enough times not to receive that kind of reaction. It was something else, something I was missing.

"How can you say that?" he asked, voice vibrating with anger now. "What has Katie ever done to you? She is the sweetest, most generous person I know. She is genuinely happy to meet you and you act like a bitch in return."

I flinched at the bitch remark, but I'd had quite enough of hearing him sing Katie's praises for the day.

"Then you'll be most happy together without me getting in the way, I'm sure," I said,
my
voice vibrating with threatening tears.

"You are really something else," he said through gritted teeth, his jaw clenched in what looked like tremendous effort not to yell.

"I told you I wasn't what you'd bargained for." I was just saying things to hit back now, anything to direct the hurt away from my own pain.

"Clearly I did make a mistake."

The more I said, the more pain he seemed able to inflict. I kept telling myself I barely knew this man, walking away should be easy, but for some reason I'd already lost my heart, and it was being trampled on as we stood there glaring at each other. Quite clearly both wanting this moment to end, but neither being able to be the one to walk away. I told myself that I didn't need to be involved in a man's life where he let his ex - or not so ex - wife matchmake his relationships for him. I repeated it like a mantra in my head. For a moment it was all I could hear, but then his voice broke through my haze again, tearing it with sharp edged claws.

"If you could see your way to being ladylike, please say good-bye to my sister before you close the door at your back. I'll call a taxi for you. I'll even carry your luggage, the luggage she packed for you from your loft, out to the car. Because that's how civilised people behave, something you clearly are not familiar with."

I stared up at him blankly for a moment, my heart no longer on the floor at my feet, but crashing into my throat instead. His words finally making it through the fog of pain and slamming into my face like a smarting slap. I blinked, swallowed and then thinking I might be sick, kind of gagged a little. I was sure it wasn't very attractive. Dominic pulled back and frowned down at me, not that he hadn't already been frowning, but this one was mixed with concern, not anger.

"Your sister?" I whispered in a hoarse, high pitched voice.

He stilled. His body hadn't moved away, only his face had, so he was still pressed along the length of mine - which was weird, considering he had just told me to pack my bags and get out the door - so I could feel the tension evaporating from his frame. He wasn't relaxing as such, but something was happening.

"She's your sister," I announced, something he obviously already knew. Ah, crap, had I so got it wrong.

I dared to flick my gaze back up at him. He was smiling.

"It's not funny," I said, deadly serious. He started shaking with suppressed laughter. "No, really, this is not funny," I declared firmly, feeling mortified at my mistake and pushing back against his frame in an effort to escape the fallout.

He only pressed himself firmer into mine, his body shaking harder with silent laughs.

"Stop laughing!" I demanded.

He made one of those coughs-which-could-have-been-a-laugh noises and then when I glared up at him, he really let loose. His whole body shaking with unbridled laughter, his eyes glittering with mirth, he threw his head back and laughed out loud.

I let a soft sound of defeat out on a groan and his eyes came back to mine.

"You are adorable," he murmured, then lowered his head and crushed his lips against mine.

I fought it at first, mortification still forefront in my mind, but he was skilful and determined and having spent the past few minutes crushed up against me in a rage, quite clearly needing an outlet for all that pent up emotion. His hand still holding my jaw shifted, so his finger and thumb on either side forced my mouth open. It was firm, but still carried out in a gentle manner, obviously not wanting to bruise me, but hell-bent on making me let him in. His tongue slipped inside as soon as my lips parted. And that's all it took.

The moment his tongue found mine I was gone. My leg wrapped around one hip, my body arching against his. As he still held my hands in a firm grasp above my head, I had no way of touching him back. But his hand at my jaw had wrapped around my neck and his fingers now entangled in my hair. He tipped his head sideways, brushed his chest against my protruding breasts and groaned.