She lifted the blanket higher, to cover her breasts. “I really don’t do this kind ofthing.”
He brushed aside the demurral. In his experience, everyone had one night stands.
“I don’t care,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t care if you’ve done this once, twice or a hundred times. Tonight you did it with me, and I enjoyed it.”
She studied his face thoughtfully. “You’re actually kind of a bastard, aren’t you?”
He laughed, completely surprised by her assessment. “Cara, that’s not the worst I’ve been called.”
“I believe it.” She stood up awkwardly. The dress was across the terrace. “I … I think I should go.”
He followed, standing and catching her around the waist. “Weshould go,” he corrected, lowering his mouth and pulling her bottom lip between his teeth.
She swallowed. Butterflies were hammering her insides again, making her feel hot and cold and thick with desire.
“Two days, remember?”
Her eyes flared wide and she squashed the small ray of hope that seemed to be gleaning into her heart. “Two days? Surely you don’t mean … I mean …”
His laugh was deep. “Do you realise how many sentences you start and don’t finish?” He ran his hands down her sides.
She expelled a breath and furrowed her brow. The insult was one her father had thrown at her often. “I know,” she apologised. “I do. I’ve tried hard not to but my mouth isn’t always in synch with my mind.”
Something in the way she spoke flared a warning in him. He chose to disregard it. “Come with me tonight. Give me the two days I bought.”
“That isn’t why I’m here,” she said thickly, staring up at his eyes. “I’m here with you … I slept with you … because I wanted to.”
“Yes.” He lowered his mouth and kissed her gently. “And you’ll come with me because you want to as well.”
She swallowed, wanting to challenge him but knowing he was right. “This is completely crazy.”
Her eyes were enormous and terrified. He stared into them but he was seeing the past; he was seeing the eyes of her father, as they’d looked at him with blatant cruelty.The memory was as acute as if it were happening in that moment. It played out before him like a film; he was helpless to resist its tug.
“You know he did not do this.” Benedetto weighed his words with care. He was not used to asking for favours. Nor was he used to being refused.
The older man stared across the bar, his expression belligerent. “If I thought he were innocent, I would not have found him guilty.” His eyes were a vivid shade of blue. They made Benedetto long to throw him into an equally blue ocean.
Benedetto lifted his scotch, cradling it thoughtfully in his hands. When he spoke it was with the kind of quiet determination that struck fear into his boardroom rivals’ hearts. “I think you werepaidto find him guilty.”
Augustine Beauchamp’s distinguished head jerked upwards. Those enormous eyes shuttered swiftly. “Careful, son. Accusations like that will get you in a lot of trouble.”
Benedetto laughed. “I’m not afraid of you, Beauchamp.”
“A mistake, surely, on your part.”
“The mistake is all yours.” He leaned forward, his expression unknowingly menacing. “How much did it take? I imagine a man like you doesn’t come cheap.”
Augustine sipped his red wine; a dribble escaped the corner of his mouth and rolled down his pale, fleshy chin like blood running across a snow field. “What you imagine isn’t my concern.”
“Do you think not?” Benedetto’s calm tone belied the surge of panic that was spiraling through him. “I don’t care what it takes. I will prove to the world that you’re the epitome of unethical.”
“I doubt that.”
Benedetto narrowed his eyes. “I am trying to decide if you speak with the confidence of a man who has covered his tracks so neatly he need never fear exposure; or if it’s that you’ve paid off so many others that no one will dare reveal the truth.”
“You may try to decide that all night, for all I care. Nothing you or I say here is going to get your father’s verdict vacated.” His smile was smug. “Your dad’s a murderer. Plain and simple. So far as everyone elseknows, he killed that girl, and I’ve seen to it he’ll spend the rest of his life in the worst prison we’ve got.” The smugness became unbearable. Beneath the bar, Benedetto’s hands formed fists of iron. “Make any trouble for me, and he’ll be the one that pays the price.”
“You’d actually threaten to make his life worse - an innocent man serving a life sentence - because of this conversation?”
