Billionaire's Secret. Chantelle Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ without the gleam through the curtains of car headlamps or street lights that polluted the night sky in towns and cities. The luminous dial on her watch showed that it was 3:00 a.m. From far away she heard a low rumble of thunder. Maybe that was what had disturbed her?

      She settled back down on the pillows, but now that she was awake she was conscious of strange noises in an unfamiliar house. The tick of the grandfather clock on the landing seemed overly loud, and she prayed that the scrabbling sound from the wardrobe wasn’t a mouse. Her heart missed a beat as she became aware of another noise.

       Someone was in her room!

      She could hear heavy, panting breaths coming closer to the bed.

      Tense with fear, she put out a hand and groped for the lamp on the bedside table. Her fingers came into contact with something hairy and she stifled a scream as she felt hot breath on her face.

      Frantically she managed to locate the lamp switch and turned it on.

      ‘Oh, heavens! Dorcha!’ she gasped when she saw the dog. Relief flooded through her as the huge hound nuzzled her arm. ‘You terrified me. I thought …’

      She had thought all sorts of stupid things. Only children were worried about ghosts and things that went bump in the night, Sophie acknowledged ruefully. ‘Go back to your basket,’ she instructed the wolfhound. ‘I’m going to try and get to sleep.’

      But as she reached to turn off the lamp she heard loud shouts, followed by a dreadful groaning that chilled her blood.

      It sounded as though someone, or something, was in terrible pain. The groaning came again and Sophie knew she had not imagined it. Apart from Dorcha, only she and Nicolo were in the house. Silence fell, and she held her breath. But then it came again, this time a cry of such raw agony that she could not bear it. Jumping out of bed, she did not waste time pulling on her dressing gown as she hurried out of her bedroom and along the landing.

      She did not know where Nicolo’s room was, but the groans were coming from the far end of the corridor. Sophie hesitated outside the bedroom door as another desperate cry came from within, and it occurred to her that maybe a burglar had broken into the house and was attacking Nicolo.

      Swallowing, she picked up a heavy pewter vase from the bureau and, gripping it tightly, she turned the door handle.

      The moon was on this side of the house and it cast faint grey light through the chink in the curtains. Sophie could make out a shadowy figure lying on the bed, but there was no one else in the room. Nicolo gave a low cry that sounded as though it had been torn from his soul. What hellish place was his mind trapped in? she wondered as she stepped farther into the room.

      ‘Nicolo …’ she said softly.

      ‘Get out!’ He shouted harshly. ‘For God’s sake, go!’

      ‘All right, I’m going. I’m sorry.’ Sophie shot out of the door, hot-faced with embarrassment. Clearly she had been wrong and he hadn’t been asleep and dreaming. Heaven knew why he had been making those blood-curdling groans, but she wasn’t going to go back in and ask him.

      She scuttled back along the landing, but his shouts followed her.

       ‘Get out! If we don’t get out, we’ll die.’

      Nicolo was asleep, and having a nightmare, Sophie realised. She was reluctant to return to his room but his harrowing cries made her turn back.

      This time she entered his room and walked across to the bed. As she drew closer she saw that he was lying on his back, one arm thrown across his face. In the moon shadow she could make out his long dark hair on the pillow.

      ‘Nicolo, wake up.’

      He groaned again.

      Desperate to rouse him, Sophie touched his shoulder. ‘Nicolo …’

      She let out a startled cry when he suddenly gripped her wrist and gave a forceful tug. Caught off balance, she fell on top of him.

      ‘What’s going on?’

      ‘Nicolo—it’s me, Sophie.’

      ‘Sophie?’ His deep voice was slurred.

      ‘Sophie Ashdown—remember me? You’ve been dreaming….’

      There was silence for a few moments. ‘I grew out of wet dreams a long time ago,’ he drawled finally. ‘This is no dream. You feel very real to me, Sophie.’

      To Sophie’s shock he tightened his hold on her wrist and moved his other hand to the small of her back, pressing her down so that she was acutely conscious of his muscular body beneath her. Only the sheet and her nightdress separated them. Sophie could feel the hard sinews of his thighs. She caught her breath as she felt something else hard jab into her stomach. Nicolo was no longer caught up in a nightmare; he was awake, alert—and aroused.

      She hurriedly reminded herself that it was a common phenomenon for males to wake up with an erection and it did not mean that Nicolo was responding to her in a sexual way. The same could not be said for her body, however.

      ‘For goodness’ sake, let me up,’ she said sharply, frantically trying to ignore the throb of desire that centred between her legs. To Sophie’s horror she felt a tingling sensation in her nipples and prayed that Nicolo could not feel their betraying hard points through the sheet.

      The pale gleam from the moon highlighted the hard angles of his face and the cynical curve of his mouth. Trapped against him, Sophie breathed in the spicy tang of his aftershave. It was a bold, intensely masculine fragrance that evoked an ache of longing in the pit of her stomach. Nicolo was the sexiest man she had ever met and she was shocked by her reaction to his potent masculinity. ‘You were having a nightmare,’ she insisted. ‘I was trying to wake you. What other possible reason would I have for coming to your room in the middle of the night?’

      She flung out a hand and by lucky chance found the switch on the bedside lamp. Nicolo blinked in the sudden brightness and his brows lifted in surprise when he saw the pewter vase in her other hand.

      ‘Were you were planning to do some flower arranging, or knock me out with that thing?’

      Sophie flushed, wondering how she had forgotten she was holding the vase. ‘I thought you were being attacked by a burglar,’ she muttered.

      ‘And you came to defend me? I’m touched.’

      The mockery in his voice was the last straw. Using all her strength, she jerked out of his grasp and slid off him.

      Nicolo sat up, and the sheet slipped down his body. His sardonic smile faded when he heard her swiftly indrawn breath, and following her gaze he glanced down at his chest covered in mottled red scars that ran from his hip up to his neck.

      His eyes narrowed as he saw Sophie recoil from him. ‘I apologise if my appearance revolts you,’ he said harshly. ‘Perhaps you’ll think twice in future about stealing into a stranger’s bedroom without invitation.’

      She swallowed, desperately trying to disguise her shocked reaction to the sight of the terrible scarring that covered the left side of his torso and the whole of his arm.

      ‘I СКАЧАТЬ