The Blackmail Marriage Read online

  Carrie gave a gasp as his fingers suddenly bit into the flesh of her upper arm. He was bending down towards her, and her stomach gave a fierce kick of reciprocal antagonism, mixed with something dark and dangerous and unnamable as she saw the anger glint in his eyes. But before he could say anything to her Jay had appeared at the top of the gangway, calling out warmly to them.

  ‘Great—you’ve made it! Welcome on board.’

  As he took her arm Jay kissed Carrie on the cheek, causing her to turn and look at him and to reflect again how amazingly alike he and Luc were physically.

  ‘Come on, let’s go down to the main salon and I can introduce you to everyone. They’re all dying to meet you, Carrie. Especially the ladies. They’ve all heard the news about your betrothal, and of course about Luc’s rescue of the child. That was very heroic, Luc, and should go a long way to smoothing down the problems you’ve been having with your rabble-rousers.’

  Carrie could already hear the hum of conversation and laughter coming from the enormous elegant salon they were approaching, and she was irritated with herself when she suddenly felt a small frisson of nervousness. What, after all, did she have to feel nervous about?

  Rather a lot, she recognised wryly as she and Luc walked in through the salon’s double doors and a swift silence fell on the room, its occupants’ attention wholly focused on them.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, may I present my guests of honour? My cousin Luc, His Serene Highness, Prince of S’Antander, and his beautiful bride-to-be, Miss Catherine Broadbent.’

  Whilst they were waiting for the applause to die down Jay summoned one of the circulating waiters and handed Carrie a glass of champagne. The waiter offered Luc one.

  Nervously Carrie took a gulp and felt the bubbles burst against her tongue. The champagne was blissfully dry—and she guessed horrendously expensive. The décor of the salon would not have disgraced a mansion and she blinked a little, wondering if the paintings she could see on its walls were the original works of art she suspected them to be and not merely excellent copies.

  Having the comfort of being financially secure was a goal most people naturally and understandably aspired to, Carrie acknowledged, but to be in possession of this kind of wealth….

  Luc was also extremely wealthy, of course, but not in quite the same way as his American cousin, she suspected shrewdly. Luc’s wealth was part and parcel of his heritage, something that Luc would consider to be a sacred trust, whereas Jay’s…

  No wonder Luc had referred to him as a billionaire!

  ‘Luc, darling…I do hope that you aren’t expecting me to curtsy to you! After all, we know one another far too intimately for that, don’t we?’

  Automatically Carrie focused on the woman who was smiling at Luc, immediately recognising her as one of Hollywood’s hottest new talents.

  Carrie was slim, but this woman was minute, her waist the smallest hand’s breadth and her legs, which were clearly discernible beneath the fine silk of her long dress, so incredibly slender that to Carrie they looked as fragile as those of a young colt.

  Only her breasts showed any sign of womanliness, being so unexpectedly voluptuous that Carrie suspected they had been surgically enhanced. Like her pout, which was so full and ripe that Carrie found she could not take her eyes off the gleaming pinky scarlet lips. And if she could not do so, then what effect must they have on a man? Luc certainly seemed to find both them and their owner fascinatingly compelling, Carrie acknowledged.

  The actress had managed to position herself at an angle to Luc that not only allowed her to place one beautifully manicured hand on his arm but also to virtually turn her back on Carrie.

  Had she in reality been Luc’s fiancée, Carrie suspected that right now she would be feeling a little insecure and very annoyed.

  ‘Luc, you are very naughty, you know,’ teased the starlet. ‘You promised me that you would take me to Monte Carlo, to the casino, and you have still not been to see my new villa. You will love it, Luc. I instructed the designer to incorporate all your ideas—especially that one about having a private terrace with its own Jacuzzi. I can’t wait to show it to you! I have told my director that S’Antander will make the most perfect setting for my new film, although no mere actor could ever come anywhere near comparing with you, Luc. You are so much the real thing…’

  She gave a husky soft laugh and rubbed her fingertips intimately against Luc’s arm before lifting herself up on tiptoe and kissing the side of his jaw.

  ‘Oh, dear—look. Now you are covered in my lipstick,’ she murmured, lifting her finger to rub it away and somehow managing to brush it against his mouth.

  Unable to drag her eyes away, Carrie wondered if Luc would give in to the deliberate incitement to take her finger into his mouth. If he did…

  Carrie’s eyes widened as Luc’s fingers curled round the actress’s wrist, holding it as he stepped a pace back from her.

  ‘Carrie, allow me to present to you Ms Gina Pallow.’

  Carrie could see the hostility in the other woman’s eyes as she glared at her.

  ‘Oh, Luc, I feel so sorry for you,’ she cooed. ‘Everyone has been saying how much they would hate to be in your position, and feel forced into a diplomatic marriage.’

  She gave him the full benefit of her crimsoned mouth in a theatrical pout before deliberately throwing Carrie a dismissive look.

  ‘I should have thought that since you are the ruler of S’Antander you could do what you like. After all, I already know how much you enjoy doing what you like, Luc…when you like…’

  There was no mistaking the deliberately provocative declaration the other woman was making! Carrie knew that Gina was putting on this show for her benefit, and was suddenly furiously angry that Luc should allow her to be humiliated in such a fashion.

  Burying her nose in her glass of champagne, Carrie took a deep gulp, and then another. This actress obviously intended to make a no holds barred claim on Luc. Well, Gina was welcome to him! Carrie decided. However, she was not going to stand insipidly by and be insulted—as she fully intended to make very clear!

  Still ignoring Carrie, Gina was asking Luc huskily, ‘Do you like this new perfume I’m wearing, Luc? It’s been especially blended for me.’

  Personally Carrie was finding the heavy musky scent extremely overpowering. Instinctively she wanted to wrinkle her nose and put some space between them, but Luc seemed to have no complaint at all about the actress moving even closer to him!

  Carrie’s arm was still formally linked through Luc’s, and irritably she started to tug it away.

  ‘Please excuse me.’ Carrie gave them both an openly false smile. ‘But I really do need some fresh air.’

  She released herself from Luc’s grip and walked calmly towards the exit, only allowing herself to give in to the fury trembling through her once she was safely outside the double doors.

  How dared Luc parade his…his mistress in front of her like that and expect her to stand meekly at his side ignoring what was going on? He might be a prince, theirs might be going to be a marriage made out of necessity and not love, but she was damned if she would allow herself to be humiliated in public like that. How many of the other guests on the yacht had either guessed or suspected that Luc and the actress were lovers? And how many, if they hadn’t been before, had now been alerted to what was going on by Gina’s very public display of possessive sensuality towards Luc?

  Sexually, Carrie didn’t care one jot how many liaisons and lovers Luc had had, but she had her pride, and to stand there whilst Gina flaunted their relationship in front of her, whilst she flirted with him and fondled him…and whilst Luc said and did nothing to deter her…

  She was, Carrie discovered, actually grinding her teeth!

  ‘Carrie?’ A little warily Carrie watched as Jay approached her.

  ‘I was just going to go up on deck to get some fresh air,’ she explained.

  ‘Good idea. I think I’ll come with you.’

  He said i
t so warmly that Carrie couldn’t object.

  ‘I see that Luc’s been landed with Gina. She’s a bit of a man-eater, I’m afraid…’

  As he spoke Jay was leading her up to the open deck.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think Luc is objecting very hard,’ Carrie responded lightly.

  As they reached the deck Carrie could see the brief speculative look that Jay was giving her.

  ‘Ouch…a rose with thorns! You are going to be so good for Luc.’ He grinned, adding when Carrie looked surprised, ‘Luc’s a great guy, and I think the world of him, but his life means that sometimes he lives in a bit of a rarefied atmosphere. He needs someone strong enough to ground him and inject a healthy dose of reality into things for him! Something tells me that you are just the woman to do that. Don’t get me wrong. I like Maria. She’s a great kid—a sweet girl, in fact. But too sweet for Luc. He needs a woman, not a girl—a woman with a bit of salt about her. A woman strong enough to treat him as a man and her equal, a woman to understand and support him, to be there for him!

  ‘I must say I don’t envy him his responsibilities,’ Jay continued more seriously. ‘He’s stuck right in the middle of one hell of a tricky situation, and it’s going to take one hell of a lot of nerve and guts to get safely through it. On the one hand he’s got a bunch of hotheads yelling “off with his head”, so to speak, and for self-rule if he doesn’t give them what they want, and on the other he’s got a whole bunch of stiff-necked, stubborn old diehards who refuse to acknowledge that times have changed. I just hope that between them they don’t force on Luc a Judgement of Solomon.’

  Carrie frowned enquiringly.

  ‘What I mean is…’ Jay explained. ‘Well—you know how when the two women both claimed the same baby Solomon said that the child should be cut in half and divided equally between them the real mother was prepared to abandon her child rather than see it harmed?’

  Carrie nodded her head.

  ‘I would hate to see Luc abdicate because he felt it was in S’Antander’s interests for him to do so. Anyone can see that it most certainly isn’t! He is a very gifted and caring leader, and in my opinion this country would be in a hopeless mess without him. I guess the best thing he can do right now is to give both sides something else to think about—and that, of course, is where you come in,’ Jay told her, giving her a disarming smile. ‘A royal wedding followed by a royal birth ought to do the trick!’ he chuckled.

  A sudden spurt of wind caught at Carrie’s wrap, tugging it free of her body. Immediately Jay reached out to grab it, tucking it protectively back round her.

  Automatically Carrie turned towards him to thank him, and then froze as she saw Luc standing several feet away, watching them.

  There was no mistaking the look he was giving her, Carrie recognised, and Jay too turned, looked at him, and immediately excused himself, telling Luc cheerfully, ‘I’d better get back to the salon…’

  ‘I see that you haven’t changed,’ Luc told her, tight-lipped, as soon as they were alone. ‘You and I are to be married, Carrie, and if you think—’

  Carrie stopped him with a sharp burst of bitter laughter.

  ‘Oh, that’s rich,’ she told him fiercely. ‘You allow your lover to practically eat you alive in front of me, never mind the fact that she couldn’t wait to let me know that you and she are intimate, and then—’

  ‘That’s just Gina. She doesn’t mean any harm.’

  ‘Are you blind, Luc? Of course she means harm. She—’

  ‘Be careful Carrie,’ he taunted her. ‘Otherwise I might think that you’re jealous, that the sight of Gina touching me and the thought of me touching her, kissing her…’

  ‘No! Never!’

  Carrie’s chest rose in fierce agitation as she battled with her fury. In the half-light she could see Luc’s head turn, but it was several seconds before she realised that what had caught his attention was her body, that he was looking speculatively at her breasts and the tight crowns of her nipples, clearly visible against the smooth fabric of her gown.

  That anger could be so dangerously erotic was a piece of self-discovery she could very well have done without, Carrie acknowledged grimly as heat flooded her body in a drowning, drenching surge of physical arousal that left her shocked and shaken, confused and savagely in denial of what she was feeling.

  ‘I’ve already shared your bed, Luc,’ she reminded him wildly, ‘and what I experienced there taught me that you don’t have anything to offer I could ever be jealous about. If you were to…to touch me or…or kiss me now it wouldn’t mean a thing to me. In fact, I’d probably be physically sick,’ she told him furiously.

  ‘Is that a fact? Well, let’s just see, shall we?’ Luc’s voice was tight and low, savage with bruised male pride.

  Carrie turned to escape, but it was too late. Luc had goaded her and she had goaded him in return. She ought to have remembered that Luc hated being the loser in anything or in any way!

  Luc had somehow managed to enclose her so that she had her back to the rail of the yacht. His hands gripped it on either side of her.

  They were standing body to body, and she could feel the slow, heavy, measured thud of his heart as well as the quick, frantic, panicky race of her own.

  A furious torrent of jaggedly painful emotions which she was in no way ready to deal with poured through her, totally confounding and infuriating her. That sharp, aching, intense sensation that was so shamingly familiar! Did she really not remember just what it was? Of course she did! But that had been then and this was now, and just because she was feeling it now that didn’t mean what it had meant then! She didn’t want him. How could she? That white-hot surge of feeling…of need of…of reaction had been nothing more than a momentary lapse—a trick played on her senses by the pressure she was under, she tried to comfort herself.

  But all the time her body was reacting to him. And the mix of physical desire with emotional hostility and fear, and the toxic brew that resulted, made her head throb with pressure.

  His head bent towards her and she could see the movement of his eyelashes, thick and ridiculously long for a man, as he lifted lazy lids to look silently at her.

  ‘Do you remember the first time I kissed you?’

  The unexpectedness of the abrupt question shocked her, but she couldn’t reply to it. Instead her body shook violently.

  ‘You were just eighteen,’ Luc continued, ‘and you’d been looking at me…at my mouth…with big hungry eyes for weeks, saying without words just how much you wanted the feel of it against yours. Everywhere I went, everywhere I looked I saw you—watching me with those yearning, pleading eyes, begging me…’

  Carrie could feel her fingers curling into hurt, angry fists. He was stripping her pride bare, revealing her youthful vulnerability with the skill and clinical expertise of a surgeon wielding a scalpel, peeling back layers of protective flesh to expose the soft, tender, fragile thing that had been her most secret essence. Her heart, her love, her self.

  Carrie could feel the raw ache of pain burning her throat. She wanted to cry so badly her chest felt tight with the intensity of it, but there was no way she was going to do so.

  Instead she willed herself to dredge up her defences and lift her chin as she shrugged and told him, ‘So I had a crush on you?’ She tried desperately to sound nonchalant.

  ‘That was a crush? You begged me to take you to bed. You told me—’

  Carrie knew she could not endure much more.

  ‘I was eighteen, Luc.’ She stopped him forcefully. ‘More of a child than a woman. I thought you were Mr Perfect—the sun, moon and stars and then some all rolled into one. For heaven’s sake, I practically had an orgasm every time you looked at me,’ she told him flippantly, praying that her directness would slice through the very dangerous effect he was having on her.

  But to her dismay, instead of reacting to her remark with cool disdain, as she had hoped, he looked at her for a very long time—so long, in fact, that she was struggling to en
dure that look.

  ‘I know you did!’ he said softly. ‘I used to look at you and see that little telltale quiver beginning in your body. Your eyes would give it away first—darkening, the pupils dilated—and then your throat would tense and you’d be struggling to swallow. Next your breasts would swell, and your nipples harden so much that their reaction to me would make you blush. But by that time it would be too late for you to control what was happening to you, and you’d give a little shiver, and I’d look at you, and…’

  Carrie couldn’t stand any more, and even though she knew she was playing into his hands by doing it she still could not prevent herself from trying frantically to push past him.

  It was the wrong thing to do! She knew that immediately, even before he took hold of her with a look in his eyes that told her how triumphant he was that she had given him the excuse to do so.

  Love might transmute lust into something finer and more life enhancing, but anger had the opposite effect, Carrie acknowledged sickly as Luc’s mouth came crushing down on hers. Anger corroded desire into a dark, stygian force. It burned, branded and destroyed it…

  Carrie moaned deep in her throat as she felt her body overwhelm her self-control, overtaken by a vortex of hunger of such ferocity that it made her quake, spilling through her like lava, overwhelming everything in its path.

  She was no longer Carrie, the calm, cool, logical woman she knew; she had become another Carrie—a Carrie who wanted nothing more than to feast on the hot pressure of Luc’s mouth, to feel nothing but the touch of his hands on her body, doing what they were doing right now, shaping her curves, skimming her breasts with rough urgency and then returning to caress them with the knowing, urgent touch of an impatient lover.

  There was no finesse between them, no delicate, hesitant or exploratory touching, just a white-hot explosion of searing need that had been dammed up for far too long.

  Carrie sobbed with longing as Luc thrust one leg between her own, leaning heavily into her so that she could feel every taut inch of him pulsing hard against her body.