LITMIR.BIZ

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us some time to look for our new house together.” He’d told Dominique to look around for a real home to replace his present penthouse pad, something substantial and stylish in one of the Eastern suburbs. He didn’t want to negotiate the harbour bridge on his way to the office every day.

      Dominique beamed at him. “What a wonderful idea! But would you really? Take another week off work, I mean? I know your reputation for being a workaholic.”

      His eyes were rueful as they met Dominique’s in the mirror. “You know I’d do just about anything you asked me to.” Anything except give up any more of his Friday-night poker games.

      His shirt safely buttoned, he turned and braced himself on the mattress on either side of her upside down face. “But you already know that, don’t you?” he murmured, his mouth hovering just above hers. “You’ve bewitched me good and proper.”

      “Have I?” Her voice went all soft and smoky in that way which always turned him on. Charles groaned. It was incredible, really, given he was nearly forty-one years old, not some young buck in his prime. His desire for Dominique sometimes bordered on insatiable. Charles had never known a woman like her. Or a love like the love he felt for her. It was all-consuming. Possessive. Obsessive, even.

      Her hands lifted to touch him, her eyebrows arching. “Mmm. Charles darling, I can’t see you concentrating on cards in such a deplorable condition. Surely your poker buddies wouldn’t mind if you were just a teensie weensie bit late…”

      He ached to give in to her. But feared that once she started on him, he wouldn’t want to stop. If he didn’t show up at poker tonight, Rico would have his hide.

      No. He’d have to be strong and not let Dominique have her wicked way with him this once.

      Which perhaps was just as well. Always getting your own way was never good for anyone, but especially a wife, he imagined. He’d already spoiled Dominique shockingly since she’d become Mrs Charles Brandon. He’d spent a small fortune on designer fashion during their fortnight in Paris. And quite a bit on Italian handmade shoes and other accessories during their stopover in Rome.

      But enough was enough. Now that their honeymoon was technically over, he really had to start the day-to-day routine of his marriage as he meant to go on. And he meant to go on playing poker every Friday night.

      “On the contrary, my sweet,” Charles said with a wry smile as he pulled back out of her reach. “Re-directed sexual energies can be very effective. Frustration gives a man an edge. That’s why boxers abstain the night before they fight. I guarantee I’ll win at the table tonight, and when I finally get home so will you, my love. Now, do stop trying to seduce me, wench. Cover yourself up with a sheet or something till I can get myself out of here. That body of yours should be registered as a lethal weapon.”

      She laughed, and rolled over onto her front again. “Will that do?”

      “Better, I guess.” Though goodness knew her rear view was almost as tantalising as her front. He loved the way her spine curved down her long, slender back, dipping in at her tiny waist before rising to disappear between her peach-shaped behind. Like the rest of her, there was nothing even remotely boyish about Dominique’s bottom. It was lush and pouty and perfect. A temptation of the most devilish kind.

      Charles knew he wasn’t the sort of man most women lusted after on sight. Never had been. As a teenager, girls hadn’t looked at him twice. He hadn’t fared much better as a young man. Of course, once he became seriously rich it was amazing how many gorgeous girls suddenly found him irresistible. But whilst his looks had improved considerably with age, one could still never call him handsome. Not in the way his father had been handsome. Or Rico. They were both movie-star material. So, Charles had often suspected some of his lady-friends had an eye on his money, rather than being genuinely attached or attracted to him.

      Yes, the mirror told Charles the truth when he shaved every morning. He was now a passably attractive man, his main physical assets being his height, his fitness and that inherited gene which meant he’d never lose his full head of thick dark brown hair.

      Baldness did not run in the Brandon family.

      Of course, Charles had to concede that his successes in life had leant a certain air to the way he conducted himself nowadays. Some financial journalists described him as impressive and imposing. Others inclined towards ruthless and arrogant.

      He didn’t care what they wrote and said about him, really. Or even what the mirror told him. All that mattered was what Dominique saw when she looked at him.

      Clearly, she found him attractive enough. Very attractive, actually. She’d confessed to him on their wedding night that her first emotion on meeting him was worry over how incredibly sexy she found him.

      Charles could still remember the intense emotion which consumed him when he had first come face to face with his future wife. Rico had insisted it was just lust, but Charles knew differently. He knew he’d fallen in love at first sight.

      The occasion was the company Christmas party last year, barely five months ago. Dominique had just started work at Brandon Beer that week after moving to Sydney from Melbourne. They hadn’t met prior to the party, though he’d been aware of her appointment to their PR division. He’d seen—and approved—her CV.

      He knew she was twenty-eight years old, a Tasmanian by birth, with no fancy education or degree to her credit, but a string of night-school diplomas which showed the sort of hard work and drive he admired. Her previous position in Melbourne had been with a sports and entertainment management company, her first job as a personal PA. To the boss of the place, no less. She’d been with him over two years and the reference he’d supplied was glowing. Prior to that she’d worked in reception and guest relations at some quality Melbourne hotels, a step up from her first job of being a housemaid.

      Charles had been informed by the man who’d hired her that she was a very good-looking blonde, but seeing Ms Dominique Cooper in the flesh had literally taken his breath away.

      She’d been wearing white, he recalled. A calf-length dress with a deep V-neckline which displayed her fabulous figure. Her hair had been up, tiny tendrils kissing her elegantly long neck. Her full lips had been shiny and pink. Pearl drops had dangled from her ears. When he drew closer, his nostrils had been filled with her perfume, an exotic and provocative scent which he now knew was called Casablanca.

      He’d asked her out within minutes of being introduced, his desire already at fever pitch. Charles was used to getting his own way with women by then, so he’d been shocked by her refusal, especially when she admitted on further questioning that she wasn’t seeing anyone else at the time. She’d told him politely but firmly that she would never date her boss, no matter how attractive she thought he was.

      “So you do think I’m attractive,” he countered, flattered yet frustrated at the same time.

      She gave him an oddly nervous look, whirled on her high heels and fled the party.

      Smitten and intrigued, he pursued her doggedly over the Christmas and New Year break, ringing her at home every evening and sending flowers to her flat every day—her number and address were in the personnel files at work—till she finally agreed to a dinner date. She still insisted he meet her at the restaurant rather than pick her up. She did not want him taking her home afterwards, which intrigued him further. Clearly, she was afraid to be alone with him. Why?

      He didn’t find out why till dessert, when she’d explained with quite touching agitation that she’d been foolish enough to date her last boss, then been even more foolish in becoming his secret mistress. He’d promised her the world, but in the end had dumped her and married some society girl with the right connections. That was why she’d moved to Sydney, to get right away from the awful memories, at the same time deciding that she would never again date her boss. Such men could not be trusted. They used silly girls like her because they were pretty and easily impressed. But they didn’t love them, or marry them. They just screwed them, and screwed up their lives.

      Charles set out to prove her wrong, but she was very difficult to convince.

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