Chapter 1
Chapter One
H E WATCHED AS SHE crossed the room, a frown on his face. A frown that was there more often than not these days. A frown that he was barely conscious of. To an outsider, Xavier Salbatore was six and a half feet of muscle and sin.
He was used to inspiring a reaction, if not of admiration, at least of awe.
He was certainly not accustomed to being walked away from.
And yet this distractingly stunning woman did precisely that, her back revealed by the low silk that draped just above the curve of her rear, her shimmering dark hair swept up into a low bun that he felt an almost visceral compulsion to loosen.
She was familiar to him – yet not.
Cursing the vagaries of his mind, the many, many black holes that were formed in the grey matter, he watched her leave without letting her go. She paused half-way across the crowded room, stopping to speak to someone. A woman who looked remarkably similar.
So they were twins?
Was that why she was familiar? Had he, in fact, met the sister instead?
No, it wasn’t that.
No sooner had the idea occurred to him than he dismissed it.
He dragged his gaze over both women, one with hair that was cut in a bob, both with matching, fine-boned profiles and dark red lips, both slim and petite. Both beautiful, to be sure, but it was only one that caused his body to stir, that caused a hardening in the region of his groin that would – that must – be satisfied.
He propped an elbow on the bar and ordered a single malt, neat, without taking his eyes off the woman. She’d said they didn’t know one another and yet he couldn’t shake the certainty that they did.
Had she forgotten him?
His ego said no.
But she hadn’t even blinked when she’d told him they were strangers. So?
Wasn’t that in and of itself unusual? Wouldn’t a more natural response have been to smile and apologise, to say that she wasn’t sure if they knew one another, and then introduce herself?
They had met.
He was sure of it.
There were so many blanks in his mind, and there was no sense obsessing over them. If willpower alone were enough to recall all of the days and weeks he’d lost then he’d see it all clearly now.
But those dark spots of his past were gone forever – swathes of his personal history had been lost to him.
And somewhere in the recesses of his malfunctioning mind, he was certain this woman existed.
His arousal strained hard against his pants; his body apparently remembered her just fine. She turned her head towards him, their eyes locked, and a mocking smile tilted his lips without his consent. She didn’t look away, as he’d expected. He could see the faint tremble of her pulse at the base of her throat, and noted with interest the way her breathing was rushed. Yet she kept looking at him, as though she couldn’t look away.
And a frisson of something like impatience tore through him.
He hadn’t felt anything like it in a long time, but he had felt it before – he just couldn’t remember precisely when.
Irritation with his own damned shortcomings had him throwing the scotch back and straightening.
She finally looked away, but not before he caught the unmistakable expression of wariness on her face.
As though she were trapped; hunted.
Fascinating.
He cut through the room, ignoring the two men who tried to get his attention along the way. Xavier was used to people attempting to ‘network’ with him at events such as this. In command of a billion-pound empire, there were many people who sought to curry favour with him. But in that moment, his focus was singular and unbreakable.
He strode through the room, and she moved away from him, weaving through the crowd in what he now saw as a determined attempt to evade him. A desperation to understand what they’d once been to each other took hold of him on a cellular level, so that he quickened his step.
She was no match for him. Much shorter and on spindly high heels that were the last word in eroticism, she took three steps for every one of his, so that he caught her when she was at the entrance to the grand ballroom.
“Excuse me,” he spoke with easy command. It was a voice that didn’t invite argument.
She stopped, but didn’t turn to face him, so he brought his body around in front of her.
And there it was again. He felt as though he’d been punched in the solar plexus; his whole body responded, every fibre of him pulled taut, every cell in him reverberated.
“Who are you?”
She tilted her beautiful little chin in a gesture of unmistakable defiance, and her eyes practically burned his when they lifted. “Nobody.” She spat the word with obvious contempt. “And I was just leaving.”
“Wait.” The word was imperious and demanding.
“Why?” She crossed her arms over her slender chest, and his eyes dropped to the swell of cleavage displayed by the pale yellow dress she wore.
“Because I’m sure you were mistaken just now. We’ve met before, haven’t we?”
A sharp intake of breath rocked her but she covered it quickly, concealing her emotions from him with frustrating ease. Her face bore a mask of inscrutable calm. “No.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s your problem.”
He laughed, a sound as foreign to him as it was to her. It thundered from his lips as though a whip were being cracked somewhere in the region of his good humour, and it was startled back to life. “I think it’s both our problems.”
She frowned and a little divot formed between her brows. A slice of memory cut through him, elusive and yet tangible, all at once. His lips pressing to that divot, kissing it away. Her laughing and lifting a hand to his chest. It was so strong but simultaneously impossible to hold onto. Even as he saw the details they were sinking through the layers of his mind, impossible to reach, like searching for a key at the bottom of the ocean.
It might have been this woman, or it may have been another woman with a similar little forehead crease. He could never trust the recollections – he’d learned that time and time again.
“Excuse me, Mr Salbatore, but I was just on my way out.”
He pounced on the slip up. “So, you do know me?”
She gaped at the moment of recognition – the foolish slip of her tongue – but recovered with impressive swiftness. “I know of you,” she muttered. “But then, who doesn’t?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Fine. So come for a drink. Get to know me.”
She took a step back then, as though he’d pushed her.
And he knew that they had a history; but had not a single idea as to what it involved. “A drink,” he repeated. “For old time’s sake.”
Colour flamed her cheeks, pale pink that set off the colour in her eyes and the rose-bud quality of her lips. When she swallowed, the delicate column of her throat shifted and something stirred within him.
“I… can’t,” she murmured, her eyes flicking towards the door.
It was hardly convincing. His smile was an attempt at niceness; it fell flat. “One drink.” And he put a hand in the small of her back, guiding her out the doors and into the foyer. It was an exclusive hotel in the heart of Mayfair – and the décor was everything such a hotel would boast. Shimmering marble tiles, gold features, crystal chandeliers and burgundy runners. There was a bar too, with a grand piano, and a great collection of scotch.
He ignored it, heading for the bay of elevators instead. And she went with him, her body close enough to his side that he could feel her curves. He pressed the ‘up’ button, his eyes seeking hers in the mirrored reflection of the doors without his consent.
Hers were there, haunted, nervous, and his own nervous system went into overdrive. He was awash with feelings he couldn’t understand. Protective instincts mingled with lust, desire, anger. It was all there, grating through him, stirring him to life for the first time in years.
The doors pinged open and he guided her inside. But it was only once the doors closed and they were alone that she seemed to rouse herself.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk privately,” was all he said, swiping his key and pressing the button for the top floor. There was no way he was going to risk having this conversation interrupted or overheard. He couldn’t, for the life of him, have said why he cared so much. But every bone in Xavier Salbatore’s body was telling him this mattered. This was important.
Her eyes flew to his and he met them, before turning resolutely away, staring ahead, trying to marshal his thoughts and wits. He suspected he would need every single one of them to get to grips with this woman – and the place she held in his life.
He was too big. Too overpowering. But then, he always had been. The first time she’d seen him, she’d been spellbound. Utterly and completely. She wouldn’t have described herself as shy around members of the opposite sex, and yet he’d walked into the theatre and she’d been lost – completely. She hadn’t been able to check tickets with any degree of composure. She’d simply gone through the motions, her eyes constantly seeking him out, searching for him, until he’d walked up to her, his ticket held out, his eyes boring into hers, and her knees had felt week and her belly had seemed to twist and knot, and the world had ceased to hum and spin.
All had been silent.
All had been lost.
But foolish deeds had been born in that obsessive moment, and she wouldn’t be a fool again.
Belatedly, her brain revived itself, and she registered the fact she was in an elevator with Xavier Salbatore, cruising towards the top of the hotel.
Survival instincts came to the fore. She had to put an end to this, before it was too late.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured, pleased that the words sounded forged in ice. “I agreed to a drink. Nothing else.” Though heaven forbid, even the thought of that ‘else’ set a vibration racing through her body, heating her up from the inside out.
“ Si . And there are drinks in my room.”
She snorted – having been fooled by his practiced flirtations once before, she could read all the signals a second time around. No way was she going to let him charm her again!
“Do you really think I’m going to fall into your bed?” She demanded, the question hoarse with indignation.
He turned to face her, one thick, dark brow lifted. She looked at it, and then her gaze dropped to the cheek that had been scared, presumably in the accident four years ago. His face had been bandaged when she’d gone to the hospital. She’d only been able to see his eyes, bruised and closed.
“I think you’re lying to me and I intend to get to the bottom of it,” he retorted with cool detachment.
Ellie’s heart ratcheted up a gear as a mental image of Joshua swam before her eyes. Joshua who was almost the mirror image of a smaller version of this man. Joshua with his dark eyes and thick curling lashes, chestnut hair and passionate Latin nature. Joshua who was a daily reminder of Xavier Salbatore.
How dared he have forgotten her? How dared he still be cheating on his fiancé? No! His wife !
She was his wife now. Nausea rolled through Ellie’s stomach at the predicament this man had landed her in. She’d become the other woman , and without having any damned idea that he was engaged!
He’d acted like a free man. He’d seduced her with determination and skill, and she had been no match for his expert flirtation.
What a na?ve idiot she’d been – falling into his bed, just like that.
And all the while, he was engaged to be married! The doors to the lift pinged open and she stayed resolutely where she was, purse tucked under one arm, body frozen to the spot.
He stepped out, holding a hand to keep the doors open, his eyes watching her with lazy cynicism.
“Well?”
“I’m not coming with you,” she said, shaking her head.
He waited, without speaking.
“You can stand there all night, it won’t change my mind.”
And a muscle ticked in his jaw as he shrugged, and for a brief moment, she thought she’d won. She thought he’d simply accepted her decree and would disappear from her life once more – back to his perfect wife and perfect life, his money and career and doting parents.
Only Xavier Salbatore never gave up, ever. The accident he’d been in should have killed him; it was only through sheer stubborn determination that he’d managed to fight his way back to life.
He stepped back into the lift and without a single hint of what he intended, scooped down and picked her up around the waist, hoisting her over his shoulder with as little ceremony as if she were a sack of potatoes.
“Hey!” She shouted. “Put me down, you… you…”
“All the name calling in the world will not make any difference.” His accent was thicker when he was driven by emotion, and in that moment, it was heavy, coating each word in a Spanish summer. Oranges, jasmine, cloves and spices. She wanted to ignore it, she wanted to resist the tug on her senses, but he was drugging her, just as he had then.
No! Not just as he had then! She’d been younger, ignorant and so stupidly trusting. She’d been a fool then.
Now? She was a mother and a damned good one at that! She was strong and resilient – she’d had to be, and mostly because of this lying, cheating bastard.
“I will scream,” she said, kicking her legs and connecting with his torso. It was hard, like granite. Visions of his abdominal muscles danced in her head.
“Then I will find a way to silence you.” The threat was far less menacing than perhaps he intended, because it set off a reaction of awareness, cascading through her, so she was barely able to breathe when they entered his hotel suite and he slid her down his body and placed her feet on the floor.
Awareness zapped at her senses; to cover how easily he could affect her, she shoved at his chest, rewarded by the feeling of connecting with his body. Of pushing him. Of hurting him. Except she was no match for him physically; her violent action had barely shifted his body an inch.
“What is your name?”
“Of course you don’t remember,” she muttered, no longer pretending that they were strangers. What was the point? He mightn’t remember the specifics of their time together, but he clearly remembered something about her.
“I know you.” And he sounded relieved, but she was simply offended. Offended beyond belief.
“Yes, you could say that.” She pulled away from him, walking deeper into the penthouse suite.
“How?”
She stared out at London, unseeing. She’d wondered about him often since she’d walked away from him. She’d wondered if he thought of her. If he wished things had been different. She wondered if he felt guilty for sleeping with her when he was engaged to another woman.
“We met at the theatre,” she said, indignation showing in her voice, that he’d forgotten their weekend together.
“When?” He was across the room. She heard the telltale clinking of glasses followed by the spilling of liquor.
The sense of insult grew. “A long time ago.”
“When?” He was closer now. She braced for the moment when he would come to stand beside her, but it was of little use. The second he was there, she felt him like a tidal wave. There was no bracing for his nearness. He handed her a drink and she took it, arranging her fingers to avoid any accidental contact with his.
“Years.”
He nodded, as though that made sense. “How many years? You can’t be more than twenty two. It can’t have been that long ago…” Was that unease in his voice?
“I’m twenty four,” she corrected.
He looked relieved.
“And did we …date?”
She snorted again, and took a sip of the drink. It burned her like the fires of hell. She spluttered then coughed, handing him the glass with a mutinous expression before crossing to the kitchen and pulling a bottle of water from the fridge. She cracked it open and drained half of it before she felt like she could respond.
“No, Xavier. We didn’t date.”
His eyes widened and she knew why. Fool! He had always loved the sound of his name on her lips.
You say it as though it is sex. You make my name sound like a seduction.
And it had been. She’d called it over and over and over, an incantation and an invitation; a plea.
“So what happened between us then?”
She put the water bottle down heavily on the table, her eyes full of barbed accusation. She thought of Joshua and it was the only thing that saved her from raining all her anger down on this man. She had to be careful. She had to be smart.
She looked away, focusing her mind on their son, focusing her thoughts on what mattered most.
“It was a long time ago. Nothing good can come from dredging up the past.”
“Damn it, I don’t even know your name, and yet I have the strangest sense that you were… important to me at one time.”
It was too much for her heart to bear. “Important? I was never anything to you. I was nothing, except a quick lay.”
His eyes narrowed but he didn’t otherwise react.
“Sex,” she continued, wanting to shock him, wanting to shock herself back to common sense. “A distraction. That’s all.”
“I see,” he nodded, apparently accepting her version of events.
But fire was spreading through her now; a fire that he had lit, and flamed with the gasoline of his enquiry. “God knows how many women like me there were, if you can’t even remember my name.”
He prowled towards her, and she instinctively stepped backwards, but her expression was defiant, her body stiff, poised, ready to fight.
“I have no idea,” he said, apparently uncaring for how callous the words were.
“Well, why don’t you ask your wife?” She hissed, and now he reacted, his expression shifting, his skin paling.
“My wife? Why do you say that?”
“Because you were engaged to her when we slept together,” Ellie threw at him. “And you didn’t even have the decency to tell me.”
And they’d married. Six months after the accident, when Ellie’s stomach was rounded with his child, he’d married someone else. She’d allowed herself the macabre indulgence of googling him only for so long as the internet confirmed he’d taken that step, and then? No more. He was married and despite the fact she was pregnant with his baby, he ceased to exist for her.
How could it be otherwise? Xavier’s own mother had made Ellie see what she needed to do – forget about Xavier and move on with her life. He sure as hell had.
She didn’t see the look of utter confusion that moved over his face. She was too angry, and too relieved – relieved to finally be able to throw the charges, that had been festering for four long years, at his feet.
“You didn’t stop to think about whether I would want to do that to another woman? Well, let me tell you, Xavier. The answer is no . If I’d known you were engaged, about to be married, I would never have slept with you. I would never have even looked at you. God, what an idiot I was! You were so charming, so skilled. Far too good at seduction to have not done it an awful lot. But I didn’t see that at the time. I just saw… you. And I was so captivated. How could I not be?”
The question hung between them.
“I was a stupid kid,” she said after a heavy beat of silence had throbbed between them. “And now, I’m anything but.” She squared her shoulders and turned towards the door. “You’ve got the answers you were after. I’m going home.”