Rumours: The Ruthless Ravensdales

His mouth tightened until his lips almost disappeared. ‘This is a bloody nightmare.’

‘Hey, I’m not judging you because of your parents,’ Holly said as she resumed preparing the vegetables. ‘I reckon it would totally suck to have famous parents. You’d never know who your friends were. They might only be hanging out with you because of your connection with celebrity.’ She looked up to find Julius staring at her with a frown between his brows. ‘What’s wrong?’

He gave his head a little shake, walked over to the fridge and opened it to take out a bottle of wine. ‘Do you want one?’ He held up the bottle and a glass.

‘I don’t drink.’

His gaze narrowed a fraction. ‘Why not?’

Holly shrugged. ‘I figure I’ve got enough vices without adding any more.’

He leaned back against the counter at the back of the kitchen as he poured a glass and took a deep draught of his wine. And another. And another.

Holly shifted her lips from side to side. ‘You keep going like that and Sophia won’t be the only one around here needing strong painkillers.’

‘Tell me about your background,’ Julius said suddenly.

Holly washed her hands at the sink. ‘I expect it’s pretty boring compared to yours.’

‘I’d still like to know.’

‘Why?’

‘Humour me,’ he said. ‘I’m feeling sorry for myself for having a triple-D dad.’

‘Aww. All those silver spoons stuffed in your mouth giving you toothache, are they? My heart bleeds. It really does.’

He screwed up his mouth but it wasn’t a smile. More of a musing gesture, as if he were trying to figure her out. ‘I know I come from a privileged background,’ he said. ‘I’m grateful for the opportunities it’s afforded me.’

‘Are you?’ Holly asked with an elevated eyebrow.

His frown carved a V into his forehead. ‘Of course I am.’

‘So that’s why your housekeeper had to twist your arm to do your bit for charity?’ she said. ‘To convince you to help someone a little less fortunate than yourself? Yeah, I can totally see how grateful you are.’

He had the grace to look a little uncomfortable. ‘Okay, so you weren’t my first choice as a charity, but I give to other causes. Generously, too.’

‘Anyone can sign a cheque,’ Holly said. ‘It takes guts to get your hands dirty. To actually physically help someone out of the gutter.’

‘Is that where you were?’

She challenged him with her gaze. ‘What do you think?’

He held her look for another pulsing moment. ‘Look, I’m sorry we got off to a bad start. Maybe we could start over.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Holly said. ‘You’ve already made your mind up about me. It’s what people like you do. You make snap judgements. You judge people on appearances without taking the time to get to know them.’

‘I’m taking the time now,’ Julius said. ‘Tell me about you.’

‘Why should I?’

‘Because I’m interested.’

‘You’re not interested in me as a person,’ Holly said as she checked the oven where she had put the galantine of chicken earlier. ‘You just want me out of here because I make you feel uncomfortable.’

‘That was your intention, wasn’t it?’

Holly closed the oven door and faced him. ‘You want to know about me? I’m twenty-five years old. I had my first kiss at thirteen and my first sex partner at sixteen. I left school at seventeen without finishing my education. I have no qualifications. I speak two languages, English and Spanish—three, if you count sarcasm. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I hate controlling men and I have issues with authority. That’s about it.’

He glanced at the vegetable dish she had prepared. ‘You told me you couldn’t cook.’

‘So I lied.’

‘Why?’

Holly gave a lip-shrug. ‘Felt like it.’

He came over to where she was standing. He stopped within touching distance but kept his hands by his sides. Even so, she could feel the magnetic pull of his body against hers. It was like a force field of energy. Strong. Powerful. Irresistible.

She glanced at his mouth, wondering if he was going to lean in to kiss her. She suddenly realised how much she wanted him to. Not to prove her point; somehow that agenda had taken a back seat, so far back it was now in the boot. No, she wanted him to kiss her because she really wanted to know what his mouth felt like. How it would feel as it moved over hers. How it would taste. How his tongue would feel as it stroked along hers. Mated with hers.

Then he did touch her. It was a fleeting stroke of two of his fingers down the slope of her cheek in a movement as soft as an artist’s sable brush. It sent a shockwave through her senses. Every nerve in her face began tingling, spiralling in dizzy delight. She moistened her lips, barely aware she was doing it until she saw the way his sexily hooded gaze followed the pathway of her tongue.

Holly slowly brought her gaze back up to the midnight-sky-dark intensity of his. His expression was unfathomable. She didn’t know what he was thinking. What he was feeling. She was scarcely able to think clearly herself. And as to her feelings... She didn’t allow her feelings to get involved when she got physical with a man. Never.

‘Who are you, Holly Perez, and what do you want?’

‘I really should’ve made you lay down some money,’ she said.

‘You think I’m going to kiss you?’

‘You’re thinking about it—that much I do know.’ Why am I speaking in such a husky whisper? Holly thought. Anyone would think she was falling under some sort of crazy spell. Sure, he was handsome and he smelled good. Way too good, compared to some of the men she’d been up close and personal with. But he was a man who wanted to tame her and that she could never allow. Not in a million years.

His mouth tilted in a half smile. ‘You think you can read my mind?’

‘I don’t know about your mind but your body’s giving off one heck of a signal,’ she said.

‘So is yours.’

Tell me something I don’t already know, Holly thought, sneaking in a hitching breath. Somehow the power base between them had shifted. She was no longer in charge of her body. It was reacting according to its own schedule, a schedule she had no control over. Her senses were scrambled. Caught up in a maelstrom of feelings she had never encountered before. Desire was running like a hot fever in her blood. She could feel her own wetness between her legs. She wondered if he could smell the musk of her arousal. She could feel the tingling of her breasts in anticipation of him reaching for them. As it was, his chest was barely half an inch away from hers.

In the past her breasts had felt nothing when a man stood close to her. They were just there—part of her anatomy. Now they were deeply sensitive erogenous zones that craved contact. They pushed against the fabric of her bra, swelling in need, her nipples peaking in response to his presence.

She could even sense the swell of his erection close to where her pelvis pulsed with need. The hot, hard, swollen heat of him was sending out a signal like sonar to her body, making her ache and throb with want.

‘I would only sleep with you to prove a point,’ Holly said in a way she hoped sounded offhand. ‘Sorry if that offends your ego.’

He picked up one of her curls and wound it around his index finger. The gentle tug on her scalp sent a shot of lust between her legs, turning her core to molten fire. His eyes were so dark they reminded her of deep outer space. Limitless. Fathomless. ‘It doesn’t, because we’re not going to sleep together.’ His voice was only slightly less husky than hers.

‘Could’ve fooled me.’

He pressed the pad of his thumb against her lower lip, holding it there for a moment before lifting it away. But still he didn’t move away from her. His body was toe to toe with hers. If she leaned forward a fraction, their thighs would touch. The temptation to do so was like an invisible hand pushing her from behind. She brushed against the unmistakable hardness of him. Felt the shock through her flesh like a powerful current. It shot through her body in an arc of erotic energy that left no part of her unaffected. She saw the way his pupils flared, his eyes darkening, pulsing and glinting with want.

‘You want me so bad I bet all it would take is one little kitten-lick of my tongue to send you over the edge,’ Holly said, shocking herself at her wanton goading of him. Why was she being so utterly brazen? He had the edge on her here. He had already told her he would evict her from the programme. That had been his intention when he’d come down to speak to her. She would be sent to prison. She had no second chances. If she pushed him too far, he would get rid of her. Wasn’t that what everyone did to her? She knew what was at risk but even so she couldn’t stop herself. She was driven by the urges of her body—her traitorous body—which seemed to have developed an agenda of its own.

Julius sent a fingertip from the top of her cleavage, down the length of her sternum, over her quivering belly and then down to the zip of her jeans. He outlined the seam of her body through the denim and metal teeth of her zip, all the while holding her gaze with the smouldering blaze of his own. ‘I bet I could make you come first,’ he said in a two-parts gravel, one-part honey tone.

Holly almost came on the spot. She felt the flickering of her nerve endings, the swelling of her body as it ached and throbbed for more stimulation. She had to get away from him before he won this. He had far more self-control than she had bargained for and certainly far more than she had. What was he...made of steel?

‘I could be faking it and how would you know?’ she said.

His mouth slanted again in a cynical smile. ‘I would know.’

Holly let out a breath that caught at her throat like a tiny fishhook. ‘In my book, sexual confidence in men is arrogance in disguise.’

He outlined her mouth with that same lazy, tantalising glide of his finger. Tracing, touching, teasing her lips until she wanted to suck his fingertip into her mouth and draw on it as if she was drawing on him intimately. Not that she ever did that. Not for anyone. She hated it. It was gross and so were the men who insisted on it. But something about Julius made her want to step outside her boundaries. He triggered all sorts of forbidden urges in her. Was it because he was so conservative? Or was it because he was the first man she had ever felt this raging, red-hot passion for?

‘You think I’m arrogant because I can pleasure you like you’ve never been pleasured before?’ he asked.

‘Promises, promises,’ Holly said in a singsong voice.

He upped her chin between his finger and thumb so her gaze had nowhere to go but to mesh with his. The burn of his touch moved through her body like a trail of fire. The scorching circle of his thumb beneath her chin sent her pulse into overload.

His eyes moved between hers, back and forth, like the beam of a searchlight. She felt the magnetism of him, the sheer power he had over her with his laserlike touch. The touch she craved in every pore of her body. Her flesh ached to feel his hands move all over her. To shape and caress her breasts, her thighs and what pulsed and fizzed with longing between them. The need was thrumming inside her like the twang of a cello string plucked too hard. It reverberated through her racing blood, tripled her heartbeat and sent her already scudding pulse haywire.

‘You’re beautiful, but you know that, don’t you?’ Julius said in a deep, rough baritone that sent another tremor of want through her core. ‘You know the power you have over men and you use it every chance you get.’

‘A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,’ Holly said, trying to keep her gaze from skittering away from his probing one, trying to keep the fragile hold on her equilibrium disguised. Never had she felt such a compulsion to indulge her senses, to lose herself in a feast of the flesh, to allow herself to be consumed by the power and force of attraction and lust.

He threaded his fingers through her hair, lifting it away from her scalp, only to let it fall in a bouncing cascade against her neck and shoulders. ‘That’s why you were cavorting out in the pool,’ he said. ‘You wanted my attention. How better to get it than to strip off and parade that beautiful, tempting body beneath my office window?’

‘You didn’t have to look,’ Holly said. ‘You could have drawn the curtains or pulled the blind.’

He gave a little sound of sardonic amusement. ‘You’re not going to pull my strings like I’m some spineless puppet. I’m made of much sterner stuff.’

That goading little devil was back on Holly’s shoulder, urging her to push Julius as far as she could. ‘So that’s why you came stomping out to the pool and manhandled me out of the water, was it? Just to show how stern and disciplined you are? Don’t make me laugh.’

His eyes flashed with a flicker of anger. The same beat of anger she could see in a muscle beside his mouth, flicking on and off like a faulty switch.

The tug of war between his gaze and hers went on for endless seconds.

The air bristled with static.

But then he suddenly stepped back from her with a muttered expletive. Holly hadn’t realised she’d been holding her breath until he walked out of the kitchen without a backward glance.

She expelled the banked-up air in a long, jagged stream.

Round one a draw, she thought. You’ll win the next.

But a nagging doubt tapped her lightly on the shoulder... Maybe you won’t.

CHAPTER FIVE

JULIUS STRODE OUT of the villa in search of fresh air. Of common sense. Control. Where the hell was his control? He was furious with himself for allowing that toffee-eyed little temptress to trigger his hormones. Why hadn’t he kept to his plan? He owed her nothing. What did he care if she went to prison? It was where she belonged. Why had he allowed her to manipulate his conscience?

Or maybe it wasn’t his conscience she’d manipulated...

He was disgusted with himself for wanting her like he had wanted no other woman. He was annoyed he had allowed her to needle him to the point where he was as close to breaking as never before. How could he have allowed that to happen? He wasn’t the sort of man who put sex before sense. This was nothing but a game to her.

She could tease and taunt him all she liked. She could walk around his villa scantily clad. She could flash her delectable cleavage at him. She could wiggle her hips and pert bottom. She could pout her sexy little mouth at him all day long. She could swim in his pool stark naked for all he cared.

He would not let her win this.

He had been tricked by her chameleon-like behaviour. The way she’d fooled him by her charitable act of taking over the cooking while Sophia had rested, after she’d been so adamant she wasn’t going to take orders from him or anyone.

What was true about her and what were lies?

She was a smart-mouthed, streetwise siren. Flirting with him, teasing him, daring him, goading him until his blood ran so hot and fast through his veins it scorched him. He was burning for her. Throbbing with the ache to have her. He had never felt desire like it. It was like a storm in his body. A powerful combustion of energy that built each time he was near her. It was brooding inside him even now. The pressure of high arousal. The ache of unreleased desire was a burning ache he couldn’t tame or dismiss. It consumed his thoughts as well as his flesh. Wicked, damning thoughts of what he would like to do to her—craved to do to her.

His brain was racing with a constant loop of hot images of them having sex like jungle animals. No ‘finesse’ sex. Hard and fast sex. ‘Any position’ sex.

Holly Perez was the most dangerous woman he had ever met. With her bedroom eyes and wily ways, she threatened everything he stood for. She made him feel things he had trained himself not to feel. Emotions were things he controlled. Desires were something he properly channelled. He did not rush into mad flings and one-nighters with strangers, especially ones with a criminal past.

He had standards. Principles. He was a good citizen who paid his taxes on time. He never coloured outside the lines. Damn it, he didn’t even park outside of them. Call him conservative, or even obsessive, but rules were things he respected because for most of his life his parents had disregarded them. Rules provided structure in a disordered world. He liked order. He liked predictability. Planning was his forte. He didn’t do things on the fly. He wasn’t spontaneous. He wasn’t a risk taker. He left that sort of thing to his brother, Jake, who loved to live life in the fast lane. Julius was only happy in the fast lane if he knew exactly how fast it was, how long, how wide and how long he would have to be in it.

He did the calculations and then he acted.

And right now his calculations told him in big neon flashing letters: Holly Perez was danger personified.

But for all that something about her got to him...not just physically, but on an entirely different level. He felt something for her. Something he hadn’t expected to feel. He was drawn to her. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. He couldn’t forget her touch. The way she moved. Even the sound of her laughter—the tinkling-bell sound that made his spine shiver. She was blatant, brazen and in-your-face, yet beguiling. He’d seen a glimpse of vulnerability down at the lake. And when he’d asked her about the scar on her arm. For just a moment he had seen a flicker of something behind the mask she wore. He couldn’t help feeling there was more to her than met the eye. Yes, she made him uncomfortable. Yes, she was a flirt. But he had some sort of responsibility towards her, didn’t he?

It was only for a month. He would be away for part of that with work. He would hardly have to have contact with her if he chose not to.

And right now the less contact he had with her the better.

Julius was back in his office trying to work when his phone rang. He was in two minds to ignore it when he saw it was his brother calling. ‘Jake,’ he said heavily.

‘Whoa, bro, you sound a little tense there, man,’ Jake said. ‘So I take it you’ve already heard the news?’

Julius sat upright in his chair. ‘Heard what news?’

A list of possibilities went through his head in the nanosecond that followed. His father had had another heart scare. His parents were splitting up. Again. His sister was finally going on a date after losing her childhood sweetheart to cancer when she was sixteen. No, he thought; Miranda was too intent on martyrdom. Jake was getting married... No. That would never happen.

‘A skeleton has come out of Dad’s closet,’ Jake said.

‘Another one?’ Julius asked, thinking of the veritable cast of mistresses and hook-ups his father had dallied with over the years in spite of ‘working at his marriage’. Not that his mother, Elisabetta, could stand in judgement. She’d had a fling or two herself. ‘How old is she this time?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘God, the same age as Miranda,’ Julius said.

‘It gets worse,’ Jake said.

‘Go on, ruin my day,’ Julius said.

‘She’s not his mistress.’

Julius’s heart stopped as if a horse had kicked him in the chest. ‘He’s not a bigamist? Tell me he’s not got a secret wife?’ Please, God, spare us all that shame.

‘She’s his daughter.’

‘His daughter?’

‘Yep,’ Jake said in a grim tone. ‘He’s sired himself a love child. Katherine Winwood.’

‘Dear God, what does Elisabetta think of this?’ Julius said. ‘How’s she taking it?’

‘How do you think?’ Jake said wryly. ‘Hysterically.’

Julius groaned at the thought of the temper tantrums, door slamming and object throwing that would be going on in his parents’ hotel suite in New York. He couldn’t face another divorce. The last one had been bad enough. The press. The publicity. All of their private lives exposed. ‘Is it in the papers?’

‘Papers, internet, every social media platform you can poke a finger at,’ Jake said. ‘It’s gone viral. And that’s not all.’

Julius’s stomach pitched. ‘It gets worse?’

‘Way worse,’ Jake said. ‘Kat Winwood was born two months after Miranda.’

Julius did the maths. ‘So that means Dad was still seeing this woman’s mother when he reconciled with Mum?’

‘Got it in one.’

Julius let out a colourful curse. ‘What’s Dad got to say for himself? Or is he denying it?’

‘You can’t deny the results of a paternity test.’

‘How did this Kat girl get one done?’ Julius said. ‘Who is she? Where did she come from? Why’s she revealed herself now? Why didn’t her mother tell Dad she was pregnant, or has he always known?’

‘He knew all right,’ Jake said. ‘He paid the woman to have an abortion. Handsomely, too.’

Julius swallowed a mouthful of bile. Just when he thought his father couldn’t shock him any more, he raised it to a whole new level of indecency. ‘But she didn’t go through with it,’ he said unnecessarily.

‘Nope,’ Jake said. ‘She had the kid and kept the father’s identity a secret. Even the birth certificate says “father unknown”.’

‘So why come forward now?’ Julius asked.

‘She died recently of a terminal illness,’ Jake said. ‘She told Kat on her death bed who her father was.’

‘So this girl Kat is after money.’

‘What else?’

Julius scored a hand through his hair. ‘How many more like her could there be out there? Why can’t Dad keep it in his trousers? He’s nudging seventy, for God’s sake.’

‘I just thought I’d give you the heads up on it in case the press come sniffing around you for an exclusive,’ Jake said. ‘They’ve been parked outside my place since the first Tweet went out.’

His brother’s words sent an army of invisible ants across Julius’s scalp. A drumbeat of panic started up in his chest. His blood ran hot and cold. He felt beads of sweat break out across his brow. If the press came here they would find Holly—living with him. A girl not much older than his father’s love child. In fact, Holly looked younger than twenty-five. What would the press make of her holed up here with him? Especially if they caught a glimpse of her flaunting her flesh at every available opportunity. They wouldn’t wait for the truth. They would jump to sensational conclusions to razz up a storm of scandal.

He had to keep her away from the press. God knew what she would say to them to stir up trouble for him. One look at her and they would assume he was indulging in a lust fest and was no different from his Lothario father. With her sexy little body and her cheeky personality, why wouldn’t they assume he was making the most of the situation? Why, oh, why, had he agreed to have her here? It was a disaster of monumental proportions.

‘You okay, bro?’ Jake cut through Julius’s racing thoughts. ‘I know it’s a shock but think how Miranda’s taking it.’

That was enough to snap Julius back into protective big-brother mode. ‘How is she taking it?’

‘I haven’t spoken to her yet,’ Jake said. ‘She wasn’t answering her phone. Probably switched it off to keep the press off her back. But think about it. She’s always been the baby of the family. How’s it going to feel to know there’s a new half-sister who’s now the youngest?’

‘I’ll call her as soon as I finish with you,’ Julius said, expelling a long ragged breath. ‘Poor kid. You know how embarrassed she gets by Mum and Dad’s behaviour. This will be hardest on her. We’ve already been through one divorce with them so we know what we’re in for. She has no idea of how ugly this could get.’

‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ Jake said. ‘But it might not come to that.’

‘You seriously think Mum won’t want a divorce after Dad produces a secret love child out of the woodwork?’ Julius said. ‘Come on, Jake. This is our mother we’re talking about. Any chance for a scene and she’s right there in full costume and make-up.’