Red-Hot Seduction: The Sins of Sebastian Rey-Defoe / A Taste of Sin / Driving Her Crazy

But she had taken control and stopped acting like a victim. The turning point had come about two o’clock that morning when she had found herself reaching for the tablet on her bedside table. What else was there to do when you couldn’t sleep but to get up to date with the latest vile names people were calling you and what awful things they were saying about you? The tablet propped on her lap, she had stopped and asked herself, What are you doing, Mari?

She could not control what people wrote but that didn’t mean she had to read it! The light at the end of the tunnel was that presumably there would come a time when people would get bored with talking about her breasts. Until then she was going to walk around with her head held high.

And that morning, when the number of press outside the building where she lived had decreased, it looked as if she had survived the worst, or so she’d thought.

But the hits kept coming!

She lifted her chin. As tempting as it was to just give up and admit defeat, it wasn’t an option. Mark needed her support. She pushed a strand of hair that had escaped the loose plait that hung down her back and glanced down... All dressed up, or in this case down, and nowhere to go.

But that might work to her advantage, she reflected, viewing her typical workday outfit of narrow-legged tailored trousers, teamed with leather pumps and a classic white shirt that she had put on this morning when she’d thought today was going to be a normal workday.

Still the professional look might make the doctors inclined to be more forthcoming with information than when she was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Either way she needed more information than they had so far given her, and Mark, who had been deeply depressed last night, had responded to all her questions with a defeatist shrug. It hadn’t helped that she’d been really late, having changed taxis three times to avoid being followed to the hospital by the press—at least hospital security protected him.

She fingered the knot of the red silk scarf she wore tied around her throat while she dabbed a tissue to the blood seeping through the superficial break in the skin.

Finding herself unexpectedly free, she had hoped to catch the doctors after their morning rounds, but with the congestion in town and the time it had taken her to park that looked less likely. Still, it was worth a try. Throwing her plait over her shoulder, she started to jog.

People stared, but Mari decided that she could cope with a few raised eyebrows after the past few days. She kept up the energetic pace until she was outside the ward, then, consciously smoothing the frown lines from her brow along with the self-pitying thoughts before struggling hard to channel cheerful and optimistic, she advanced, passing the empty nurses’ station en route to the side room where her brother had been since he had been transferred from the high dependency unit.

Her mood improved fractionally when she saw a group of suited figures—the doctors were still in the ward. As she approached, trying to identify her brother’s consultant the men appeared not to notice her, then one turned and she froze, doing what she later suspected had looked like a ‘rabbit in the headlights’ impression.

He tilted his head in an attitude of distant recognition and Mari’s shaky-kneed trepidation evaporated in a flash of white-hot fury. In a heartbeat she reached the group bristling antagonism and hostility, her decision that if she ever met him again she would be cool and disinterested blasted away in the silent explosion of anger.

‘What are you doing here?’ Possibilities zipped through her mind. Had he assumed that Mark was behind her actions and he’d come to confront him?

The small group fell silent, aware of the undercurrents but politely pretending they weren’t.

‘Miss Jones, twice in three days. Aren’t I the lucky one? How delightful.’ He turned to the other men. ‘Does everyone know Miss Jones?’

‘I asked you a question.’

‘I have been visiting your brother.’

Wildly Mari looked past him, just able to make out her brother propped up in bed through the obscured glass panels.

‘You know the hospital administrator, Mr Parkinson, and head of—’

Mari, ignoring the other men, cut him off before he made any further introductions.

‘If you think you can obviate your guilt by bringing him a bunch of grapes, think again.’

‘I do not feel guilty.’

‘And that makes you a prize p—’ She bit back the insult, struggling to get a grip on her temper. Not easy when every time she looked at this man standing there so elegant, projecting an effortless aura of cool command, so infuriatingly complacent and so sure, so damned up himself...! ‘I would be grateful if you’d keep the hell away from my brother.’

The words were coated with ice, but Seb could almost see the flames licking just below the surface. Previously he had always discounted the red-haired temper thing as an example of an urban myth.

‘Isn’t that his choice, not yours?’ Was she equally passionate in bed...? A nerve beside his mouth clenched as he struggled to tear his eyes from the plump curve of her lips.

The sort of woman you avoid, Seb, remember.

Mari, who was stabbing a shaky, accusing finger towards his broad chest, didn’t notice the darkening of his eyes. She was too busy coping with the tingling aftershocks following the initial electrical charge that had taken away her breath in that first moment of recognition. She looked anywhere, everywhere but his mouth.

On top of everything else she could not deal with that kiss; the fact he’d kissed her or, most disturbing, that she’d liked it!

‘If you have upset him so help me...’ You’ll what, Mari? Frustration gnawed at her as an overwhelming tidal wave of helplessness washed over her. Control in every part of her life seemed to be slipping through her fingers like sand.

‘He seemed in a pretty positive frame of mind when I left him.’

She willed herself not to react to the provocation she saw in his silky smile as he continued to meet her spitting hostility and suspicion with a pleasant civility that probably made her look totally demented to the watching group—maybe she was! It was hard to call her behaviour over the past few days balanced and rational.

He wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t taken a certain amount of malicious satisfaction from the knowledge he wasn’t the only one having his life turned into a circus. At least he had the means, the expertise and experience to cushion himself and his family to a great extent from press intrusion, a luxury Mari Jones did not have.

Seb knew how fickle and unpredictable public opinion could be, so it was no major surprise that, by and large, coverage had mostly been pretty negative towards Mari Jones, but the toxic level of vitriol aimed her way had surprised him. He by comparison had for once escaped relatively lightly, partly due to the fact that Elise, who had wasted little time selling her ‘jilted bride’ sob story to the highest bidder, had chosen to play the victim and given a very inventive account of the woman who had stolen him from her.

His critical narrowed glance stilled on the smudges under her eyes that stood out darkly against her pallor before he looked away, reminding himself that any sleepless night she had she had more than earned—in making him the monster she had made herself the victim.

‘How about you, Mari? Are you having a good day?’

Mari lifted her chin. She could hear the malicious mockery in his voice, even if no one else could.

She gazed up at him, feeling a loathing that she had not known she was capable of. ‘I told myself it couldn’t get worse but here you are...’

Mari hadn’t been spared his presence. Even on the rare occasions she had managed to drift off into a light troubled sleep he’d been there every night. She was grateful that the details of those feverish dreams had slipped away but the snatches that lingered left a heavy visceral sensation of discomfort in the pit of her stomach.

‘Well, this has been delightful catching up, Miss Jones,’ he said with false sincerity designed to aggravate and annoy. The regret he expressed as he glanced towards the suits who had tactfully moved out of hearing distance was equally false and teeth clenching. ‘I’d love to stay and chat but I’m afraid...’

Mari watched, a hundred insults unsaid as he calmly strolled away without a backward glance, the message clear in the set of his broad shoulders: she was dismissed. She was unimportant; she didn’t even register on his radar.

Do you want to?

Ignoring this unhelpful intrusion from her mind, she stood there fighting a self-destructive impulse to chase after him. As much as she really wanted the last word, she knew it would come at a price.

Even thinking about the price last time sent her pulse racing. She had precious little dignity left, so she didn’t want to throw away what she had for the satisfaction of telling him what she thought of him.

Gathering her wits, she stood for a few moments after the group, with Seb’s dark head clearly visible above the heads of the shorter men, had vanished through a swinging door.

Hiding her trepidation under a cheery smile, she stepped into her brother’s room. ‘Hello, how are you feeling?’

The previous day Mark’s mood had see-sawed between apathy and anger, so it was an intense relief to see the animation in his face.

‘So you look better.’ If her voice sounded too bright Mark didn’t notice.

‘I am feeling quite good... Take a look at this, Mari.’

Mari took a seat and began to flick through the glossy brochure that he handed her.

‘Do you see what it says about this place? Just look at the statistics, Mari.’ Eagerly he watched her face. ‘Impressive or what?’