A Passionate Affair: The Passionate Husband / The Italian's Passion / A Latin Passion

She stared at him, her expression altering as she absorbed his words. ‘You had no right to do that.’ Her voice rose with her indignation. ‘Not without asking me first.’

‘You were asleep,’ he pointed out mildly, ‘and I thought you’d just thanked me for taking care of things?’

‘This is different.’ She wished he would stand up and move away. It was more disconcerting than she could express having him sitting inches away from her, fully dressed, when she was stark naked under the questionable protection of the bedcover.

‘You would rather have let them think you just hadn’t bothered to call in?’ he asked with a puzzled frown.

She counted silently to ten. ‘What exactly did you say?’

‘Exactly?’ He shut his eyes for an infinitesimal moment, as though he was trying to recall the conversation, but Marsha was not fooled. That computer brain forgot nothing—ever. ‘Merely that you were taken ill last night and would not be fit to work today. I said I would phone before five this evening with an update,’ he added helpfully.

Great. Just great. Now Jeff would be thinking all sorts of things—mainly about whose bed she had spent the night in—and she really couldn’t blame him. Would he be discreet? She was not sure.

‘Stop frowning.’ His deep husky voice had laughter somewhere at the back of it, although the chiselled face was perfectly serious. ‘You’ll have wrinkles before you’re thirty at this rate.’

‘I have some already,’ she snapped back curtly. And the odd grey hair, although she was not about to point that out.

‘Not that I can see.’ He bent forward on the pretence of looking more closely, invading her air space with the warmth and scent of his body.

The muscled strength that padded his chest and shoulders was very apparent under the thin silk of the shirt he was wearing, and Marsha had to force herself not to wriggle back against the pillows.

She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he bothered her, she told herself furiously. But she wished she had had time to at least brush her teeth and wash her face before he had decided to come in. She tried to stop looking at his mouth. It was a very sexy, cynical mouth, and had always had the power to make her bones melt.

‘If you would like to tell Hannah I’m ready for my clothes, I can at least make an appearance before lunch and work on the report for this afternoon,’ she said stiffly.

‘I wouldn’t—like to tell Hannah, that is,’ he said without moving an inch.

‘Taylor, I’m going into the office today.’

‘Marsha, you are not.’

His use of her Christian name warned her that, however calm and laid-back he appeared, he meant business, as did the glint in his eyes.

‘This is quite ridiculous. You can’t keep me here against my will and—’

Anything else she might have said was swallowed up as his mouth came down quickly on hers, a deft turn of his body bringing his hands either side of her slim shape as he pinned her beneath him. She wriggled and tried to fight him, only to realise that any movement brought the duvet dangerously close to slipping right down her body. She stopped squirming and immediately the kiss became subtly deeper, his mouth and tongue doing incredible things to her.

Heat was racing through her bloodstream and she felt the length and power of his arousal, her nerve-endings becoming sensitised as he moved his hips over her shape in a way which forced her to recognise his dominance. But his mouth was all persuasion. He probed, he sipped, he nipped, moving down from her lips when he felt her trembling submission and heard the little moans she couldn’t hide, to rain burning kisses on her throat, her neck and the smooth silky skin beneath.

Her breath caught in her throat as he peeled the cover back enough to expose the twin peaks of her breasts, his hands cupping and shaping the engorged flesh and his thumbs teasing her nipples into hard life even as his mouth took her gasps.

‘I want to eat you alive.’ His voice was a husky growl. ‘Do you know that? Devour you…’

She had missed him so much. Even as the thought took shape a polite knock sounded on the bedroom door. ‘Hannah.’ With a sound deep in his throat, which could have been a groan or a sigh, Taylor straightened up, moving the cover up to her neck as she just stared at him dazedly. ‘You were supposed to be drinking that—’ he indicated a now cold cup of tea on the table at the side of the bed ‘—while she prepared your breakfast.’

As the knock came again, he said, ‘Okay if she comes in?’ brushing back a lock of her hair which had tumbled across her face as he spoke.

‘Of course.’ She jerked her head away from him, humiliation and self-contempt making her voice sharp. He clicked his fingers and she came to heel like an obedient puppy—was that what he was thinking? Why on earth had she allowed him to kiss her like that, caress and touch her? Why hadn’t she resisted more forcefully?

His eyes narrowed slightly at the tone of her voice, but other than that he gave no sign that he was aware of her discomfiture, merely rising from the bed before he called for Hannah to enter.

Hannah fussed and babied her as she plumped the pillows for her patient and settled the tray on the invalid’s lap, but Marsha didn’t mind the other woman’s attention. Hannah had been widowed in her native Jamaica after only fifteen months of marriage, the shock of her husband’s death through drowning, when his fishing boat had been sunk in a storm, bringing on the birth of their first child over two months early. The baby, a little girl, had lived for an hour, and had been buried in her father’s arms.

Hannah had told her the story one afternoon, shortly after Marsha had got engaged to Taylor, adding that for a long time afterwards she had—in her own words—gone a little crazy. Then, due to her youngest sister marrying a rich American, Hannah had been given the chance to move to the United States and take up residence in her brother-in-law’s home when his housekeeper had walked out after a row with the new wife.

It had been a way of escape from the downward spiral of depression and increasingly strong medication, and Hannah had taken it, only to find she could fully sympathise with the previous housekeeper when she had worked for her sister for a little while. But she had stuck with the only chance she’d had of making a new life, and in due course, when the husband had entertained Taylor for a few days—the two men having met through a business deal years earlier and consequently become friends—had got to know the young Englishman.

When Taylor had offered her employment in England—with the blessing of her brother-in-law, who was getting increasingly irritated by the two sisters’ altercations—Hannah had accepted on the spot, and the rest, as Hannah had said, was history. And whilst Taylor strongly objected to any attempts of Hannah to mother him, Marsha had instantly recognised the need the other woman hid beneath her bustling exterior. The housekeeper was the sort of woman who should have had a houseful of children to keep her busy, and as the affection between the older and younger woman had grown Hannah had made no bones about the fact that she was longing for the day when the patter of tiny feet would occur.

Once they were alone again, Taylor raised wry eyebrows at Marsha. ‘She’s as pleased as punch you’re here.’

Marsha said nothing. She was half sitting up in bed, with the tray balanced on her lap and the duvet wrapped round her. She needed the loo, and she wanted to put something on before she ate, neither of which could be sorted until Taylor left.

If nothing else, Taylor was intuitive. ‘You would prefer me to leave you in peace?’ he said easily, apparently not in the least put out.

‘Yes, please.’ She was not about to mince words.

‘Pity.’ The tawny eyes touched her lips for a second, causing her flesh to tingle. ‘You used to enjoy breakfast in bed with me.’

Memories of those times, when the coffee had invariably got cold along with the food whilst they’d indulged in a different sort of nourishment, brought the heat to her cheeks, but she managed a brittle smile. ‘You’ve already eaten,’ she pointed out evenly, ‘and those times are in the past.’

‘True.’ He let his gaze sweep over her again. ‘But only for the moment.’

‘I don’t think so, Taylor.’

‘I know so.’ His smile was confident and infuriating. ‘We are man and wife, and I’m damned if I’ll let some sick bozo smash everything. I was hoping you’d come to see the truth for yourself, but that was asking too much. No matter.’ He moved closer to the bed, leaning over her with one hand on the headboard. ‘You’ve proved you are more than capable of surviving without me, Fuzz. Okay? Now you can choose to be with me because you want to be. And you do want me, like I want you.’

He bent down, and she gave herself over to his kiss even as she berated herself for flirting with the danger of becoming vulnerable.

It only lasted for a few moments before he straightened, his voice cool as he said, ‘Now, eat your breakfast, like a good wife, and put any thought of going into work out of your head. We are spending the day together, all right? I’ve put a very lucrative business deal on ice because of you, not to mention a couple of meetings and a discussion with my accountant.’

‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’ She eyed him hotly.

He smiled again and reached for her left hand, raising it to his lips as he kissed her ringless third finger. ‘You might have discarded the visible evidence of our union, but you can’t discard what is in here—’ he touched the area over his heart ‘—so easily, my love. I know you. You’re in every nerve and sinew, every breath.’

She snatched her hand back, her cheeks fiery. ‘Then you should know I’m not the type of woman to accept adultery as part of the marriage contract,’ she bit out furiously.

‘I would never have married you if you were.’

Marsha stared at him. There was no mockery and no hesitation in his voice, and the questions which had risen to the surface after Nicki had expressed her doubts over the validity of what Susan had told her flooded in again.

Her fingers tightened briefly on the tray before she told herself not to be so silly. Susan had no reason to lie, not one. And Tanya was beautiful. Beautiful and clever and— And married? But that didn’t mean anything. Taylor’s secretary had not been married at the time she had been told of their affair; that was the point she had to concentrate on here.

‘I’ll make you eat every word of accusation, Fuzz. I promise you that.’ There was darkness in his face now, and for a moment she felt a dart of fear. ‘But that’s nothing to what I’ll do to the person who fed you such garbage. The mind games stop today, do you hear me?’

‘Mind games?’ She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

He held her gaze for ever, until finally his square jaw released its tight clench. ‘Eat your breakfast,’ he said silkily. ‘We’ll talk later.’