Modern Romance July 2019 Books 1-4. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ she’d never seen before. Or maybe she just hadn’t hung around long enough to see it.

      ‘Spare me the rags-to-riches story which has been told a million times,’ he ordered roughly. ‘I’m talking about modern day. Real time. Now.’

      Emily screwed up her eyes. If she admitted to knowing stuff about his current lifestyle, mightn’t that seem as if she was somehow trolling him, like some sad ex-lover who couldn’t bear to let go? But Alejandro Sabato wasn’t just anyone, she reminded herself. Everything he touched made headlines—both work and play. Who hadn’t heard of him?

      ‘I know you suddenly retired from polo,’ she said. ‘And that your decision took everyone by surprise.’

      He nodded but provided no explanation. His verdant gaze just continued to cut through her, like a knife slicing through a ripe melon. ‘What else?’

      She hesitated. After all the drama and fallout she’d experienced while growing up, she tried not to place too much importance on wealth—but in this case that would be like trying to ignore a whole herd of elephants who were trying to trample their way into a small cupboard. Especially with that top-of-the-range black helicopter, which was shining like a giant beetle in the field not far from where they were sitting, and the fact that Alejandro had recently come in at number thirty-four on a list of the world’s richest men.

      ‘That you invested in an energy drink which is pretty much drunk everywhere and used some of the money you made to help a friend set up a social media app. And then you bought into a motor-racing team, which has reaped its own rewards,’ she offered. ‘So you’ve exchanged one kind of high-intensity sport for another.’

      ‘Very neatly summarised,’ he said, raising his dark eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I should be flattered that you’ve taken such an interest in my progress, Emily.’

      ‘Please don’t be,’ she said sharply. ‘I work in PR and it’s my job to read the papers. And since you take up a lot of column space in the international press, it’s hardly surprising that I should have picked up some facts about you over the years.’

      From the thick lashes which framed the startling green eyes, he continued to survey her. ‘Then you will know about Colette?’

      There was the briefest of pauses before Emily nodded, surprised by how much it hurt to hear him say another woman’s name. ‘Doesn’t everyone? Supermodels of her stature are few and far between. I gather you broke up,’ she added blandly. ‘And she wrote an unauthorised biography about you.’

      ‘Did you read it?’

      Emily shook her head. Was he mad? Of course she hadn’t read it! She’d seen the title and hadn’t even been able to face giving it a quick skim-through. Because what woman would want to absorb details of her ex-lover’s wild sex life with one of the world’s hottest supermodels? ‘No,’ she said, and then—because he seemed to be waiting for more—she forced herself to continue. ‘But I gather it wasn’t favourable towards you.’

      Alej almost smiled. He’d forgotten the English penchant for understatement, just as he’d forgotten how Emily’s cool beauty had the ability to ignite something deep inside him. It always had. He hadn’t seen her in eight years, yet the lust which was pulsing through his body was as powerful as it had been when he’d met her way back when. Back then, she had been forbidden fruit for all kinds of reasons. Too young, for a start—even before you factored in that she was the stepdaughter of his mother’s employer and that nobody in their right mind would dare mess around with the boss’s family.

      But desire was a powerful driver. It had eaten him up from the inside out. Plagued and tormented him like a fever, so that he’d had to work extra hard to concentrate on the polo which had always consumed him and had promised a route out of the poverty into which he’d been born. And wasn’t the truth that Emily hadn’t been like the other girls who hung around the polo field with their breasts practically falling out of their shirts? An out-and-out tomboy, she’d somehow made him feel stuff. Stuff he wasn’t used to feeling, which had made him want to buy her flowers and brush her hair in the moonlight and tell her that her skin was paler than the stars. He’d thought it had been the same for her—that she had reciprocated his see-sawing emotions during those long months of stolen kisses and furtive embraces before he had finally made love to her.

      His groin hardened. Because of her innocence and relative youth he had employed an uncharacteristic restraint around Emily Green. It had almost killed him to hold off until her eighteenth birthday, though in the end they had missed it by a day because they just couldn’t wait any longer. Never had a sexual build-up been so exquisitely slow or sweetly torturous, so that when he had finally slipped inside her, he’d come almost as quickly as she had done. He’d been having safe sex with willing partners since the age of sixteen—but nothing could have prepared Alej for his first time with Emily, when he plunged deep into her tight and molten heat. The only time, he reminded himself bitterly, before forcing his attention back to the present and the sapphire-blue eyes which were regarding him with a curiosity which was somehow adding to his frustration and long-suppressed anger.

      ‘It was, as you say—an unfavourable piece,’ he conceded, his temperate tone at odds with his turbulent thoughts. ‘But, unfortunately, mud sticks and she told a lot of lies about me.’

      She tilted her head to one side, so that her thick blonde plait fell forward and lay enticingly against the firm thrust of her breasts. ‘What kind of lies?’

      ‘What man would wish to list their supposed transgressions to another woman? Why don’t you just read the book for yourself?’ There was a pause. ‘And in the meantime, I could make sure that Joya is taken care of.’

      Her attention was momentarily distracted as she watched a lizard slithering its way across the decking before looking up at him.

      ‘That’s a very generous offer,’ she said uncertainly.

      ‘Which obviously isn’t motivated simply by my love of horses.’

      ‘No?’

      He shook his head and gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘Of course not. I expect to extract a reward for my benevolence.’

      Behind the smile an undeniable threat was underpinning his words and as Emily stared into his eyes she felt a sudden chill whisper its way over her skin. If she hadn’t been so worried and in such a helpless position about helping Joya, she wouldn’t have needed to ask the question, but the reality was that she did. ‘What kind of “reward” did you have in mind?’

      The slow smile he flicked her was tinged with sensual promise, but the words which followed were the last thing Emily was expecting to hear.

      ‘You work in public relations, don’t you?’

      She blinked. ‘How did you know that?’

      ‘It wasn’t difficult. I did a little research, before you arrived. Your reputation is modest, but it’s growing. I read nothing but good things about you.’ There was a brief pause. ‘So how about you come and work for me, as my PR representative?’

      ‘You don’t have one at the moment?’

      ‘Never saw the need.’ He shrugged. ‘But if you can polish my tarnished image for me, then we’ll call it quits.’

      ‘But why?’ Her brow creased into a frown. ‘I mean, why do you suddenly care what people СКАЧАТЬ