The Sultan's Virgin Bride: A story of lust, loyalty and passionate resentment. (17 page)

PROLOGUE

It’s not like she actually had to sleep with the guy.

No amount of money would lower Maggie’s standards to that degree.

A lingering look would do. A hand on her back. Perhaps a kiss.

Anything that would show her ‘mark’, in this case the gloriously handsome and rich Spanish wine mogul, for the cheating bastard he was.  All she needed was a shared moment of intimacy that was damning enough for the agency’s photographer to catch. Proof for the poor wife, who’d suffered silently through affair after affair.

Getting the sleaze to hit on her should be easy enough.

Only, Maggie hadn’t taken on an assignment in years, and she knew she was out of practice. A flutter of nerves assailed her as she eyed herself in the washroom mirror. Nervous or not, she had still managed to look the part. Tall and slender, with auburn hair and a creamy complexion, Maggie had always been one of the agency’s best employees. Her years studying ballet gave her a litheness and grace that she took for granted.

She frowned, as she ran a hand over the black silk neckline of the dress. To describe it as plunging would be the understatement of the century. It was slit almost to her belly button at the front, and at the back, it draped to just above her bottom. The dress was made of silk, and it clung to her curves like a second skin, to mid-thigh length. She put her hands on her hips and pulled a face when she saw the way the dress hitched up a little higher, to reveal even more of her smooth, creamy skin. She might as well have walked into the five star lobby stark naked, for all the dress did to cover her up.

The slinky black number was a far cry from her usual clothes, she thought with a shake of her head. This life was so far in her past that she needed a magnifying glass to spot it in her rear vision mirror. If it hadn’t been for her cousin Miranda’s desperate pleas, she would never have agreed to this assignment.

But Miranda had been desperate; her agency’s reputation was at stake, she’d declared dramatically. Maggie had still resisted. She was no longer interested in helping wives make their cheating husbands pay. But Miranda had pushed and pushed, reminding Maggie of the effort and work that had been involved in making the sleuthing business such a success.

Finally, Maggie had relented, if only to get Miranda off the phone. And it was just one more night of her life, nothing more. And her curiosity had been piqued by the target’s description. Dante Velasco was, undoubtedly, a Big Fish. The money would be nice, too. The commission being offered to catch the Spanish wine mogul in the act would be enough to pay off Maggie’s overdraft altogether. Maybe even to service the coffee machine, she thought with a twist of her lips. With the exception of Miranda, no one knew she was undertaking the assignment.  Though she’d hated lying to her best friend Rosie, it had been easier to say she had stomach flu and leave work early than to face Rosie’s big green eyes when they clouded with disappointment. Rosie had never understood Maggie’s agency work, and she would certainly not do so now. No. Lying was easier. So she’d left work and hopped onto a flight to Paris.

Which left only the seduction bit.

She’d done her research. Before his marriage to the glamorous Veronika (first name only, in true supermodel style) he had been a confirmed bachelor. The more obviously attractive his lover the better, and Maggie’s dress that night was nothing if not flagrantly obvious. Maggie had deduced that he was not one for subtlety, and not one for long-term relationships. He swapped lovers almost as often as he moved countries.

There was one crucial way in which this assignment differed to the targets she’d dealt with in the past. Infidelity was not the issue. That had already been established, and the clever wife didn’t require evidence to justify a divorce. She wanted to make him pay through the teeth for having broken her heart though, and photographs of him with another woman would help attain that. Maggie had felt a short jab of compunction, initially, but then she’d thought of the poor wife, and any sympathy had evaporated. It was his own fault for playing around, after all.

She lifted her hands and gave her hair a little tease, pushing the auburn curls at the roots so that they looked like she had just rolled out of bed. “Okay, Maggie. It’s now or never.” Her heels moved with a clickety clack across the highly sheened tiles of the foyer. As she approached the glass door entrance to the bar, a doorman swung them inwards, so that she could go in. That was the moment. The small moment she had to rethink her actions and walk away.

She did not.

The hotel bar was not busy, but even if it had been, she would have been able to pick Dante Velasco in the midst of a crowd. Had she not scoured the internet for photographs of him, she still would have just
known
. Men born to impossible wealth had a certain bearing about them. It was expressed in the way they held their shoulders square, their heads high, and the slight curl of disdain on their lips as though they knew they belonged to an elite echelon of society.  She took a moment to steel herself for what lay ahead, and to inure herself to his obvious physical charms.

Without heels, Maggie stood almost six feet tall. She’d donned a pair of stilettos that night, knowing they made her legs look as though they stretched forever. The moment she began to weave through the bar, she felt his eyes arrest on her. Dark eyes, she knew from photos, followed her as she walked with an exaggerated swagger to the front of the room. She stood far from him. Far enough that he wouldn’t think she was interested; far enough that he would have to pursue her.

Though it was all a game of pretend, Maggie knew the way men worked. Getting a man like Dante to hit on her required him to truly be attracted to her. While she was playing a part, he was not. She leaned slightly forward, pretending fascination with the wine list. It draped her dress lower, and she knew he would be catching a good glimpse of cleavage if he were still looking.

She just hoped he wouldn’t see the way her heart was banging against her ribcage.

The one thing she’d overlooked was her manicure. When she’d worked for the agency full time, several years earlier, she’d always had a perfect set of false nails in place. Red and long, the kind of nails that men seemed to fantasise about. The kind of nails that were completely unsuitable for her new life, as the owner of her own café in Chelsea. The best she’d been able to do was to paint them herself with a black polish she’d grabbed at the airport. She ran a finger down the menu now, looking for a wine that would send the right message.

Concealing her smile, she fixed the barman with a steady gaze, and said in her huskiest voice, “One of the
Vin Ros
2012’s, thanks.” She cursed the civility afterwards. Women like she was pretending to be did not say ‘thanks’ to wait staff. She assembled a shroud of unapproachable formality around herself and stared straight ahead.

“Would you like to start a tab, madam?” The barman spoke English with an obvious French accent.

“Put it on mine,” Dante’s voice was low and gravelly, his accent like a Spanish summer on her skin. Maggie felt her heart stutter. As always, she experienced a sinking feeling of depression to realise that she’d hooked her target. Oh, it was the purpose of her evening, so she should have been relieved. Only Maggie always hoped against hope that these poor wives were wrong. That their husbands weren’t out trying to shag anything that moved.

Her faith remained shaken; her hope unwarranted. In the two years she’d played her part in these undercover operations, not once had a single target turned her down.

She concealed her disappointment and instead, angled her head to fix Dante with a slow, steady appraisal. She had to convince him that she was interested. That she was available. She needed him to do something that showed his despicable morals for the sake of the camera.

It was always the same tactic. Get the man to make a move, be sure the photographer had snapped the image, then whisper something sexy about freshening up, and affect a silent escape before any real seduction could take place. She was happy to get the proof these women required, but not to be complicit in the marriage breakdown by actually doing anything with the sleazy husbands.

“That’s not necessary,” she demurred, all the while making a show of eating him up with her eyes. It was not hard. He was sinfully good looking. Not in that movie star way that some girls seemed to go wild for. He was darkly tanned, with jet-black hair and dark eyes that were flecked with caramel. He had a scar that ran from his ear to his nose; it wasn’t dark nor deep, but it was still visible – a silver highway on the roadmap of his face. She would have guessed it had happened many years ago. She banked down on her curiosity. This was an act. Nothing more.

“A beautiful woman on her own in a bar, buying one of my wines. Of course I will add it to my bill.”

“One of your wines?” She blinked her huge blue eyes, feigning ignorance.

His lips curled into a sardonic smile. “
Si.
Something I suspect you are well aware of.”

Maggie’s heart was pounding against her chest now. She propped an elbow on the bar, and lifted the glass to her mouth. It was a beautiful red wine, light in body but robust and spiced. “It’s lovely,” she complimented, replacing the glass on the bar top. She lifted an index finger to her lips and wiped an imaginary droplet of wine from the corner of her mouth along her lower lip. His eyes followed the gesture, and when he looked at her again, the desire was unmistakable.

“Shall we find somewhere more private to enjoy this?” He asked, leaning across her to pick up the bottle. In doing so, he brushed his arm across her breasts, and effectively trapped her where she was with his legs.

She gulped. If she sought photographic proof, then surely that gesture alone would suffice.

“Sure,” she nodded, leaning her head forward so that she could whisper in his ear. That would be the clincher for the snapper, she thought, inhaling his scent deeply. “Why don’t you find a table and I’ll go and freshen up?”

“You are fresh enough,” he murmured with a shake of his head. “And I am not a man to be kept waiting.”

Maggie’s pulse was going haywire; her nerve endings were reverberating with a strange energy brought on by this man.

“Oh,” she said quietly, lowering her eyes. Though she was certain she had proven his intentions sufficiently for the photographer’s purpose, what would the harm be in getting a few more shots? An extra snap or two wouldn’t hurt. Telling herself it was the only reason she acquiesced, she found herself nodding, slowly, her eyes holding his steadily.

“Excellent,” he said with a decisive nod of his raven-dark hair.

Maggie followed behind him, uncertainty flowing through her veins. It was impossible to separate the assignment she’d been given with the very real desire that was beating its own pulse in her body. But it was unmistakable, the desire. Like a force pounding through her, she felt a bone-deep attraction to Dante Velasco.

He was someone else’s husband! And a husband known to be unfaithful. She lowered her gaze to his long, tanned fingers and saw that he did not wear a ring. Well, why would he? If he intended to leave his wife at home and flirt with other women?

“This looks good,” Maggie stopped walking and pointed to a table near the piano.

“No.” He did not pause, but continued weaving through the bar, until finally he reached one tucked around a corner. It was too secluded to be an accident, and he was too quick to find it for it to be his first time.

Just once, she would like to be proven wrong. Just once, she would like one of these guys to say to her, “Oh, I’m married. Have a great night though.”

It was just not the way of men, though, she thought with a sigh. She had come here tonight, dressed in such a way that practically laid her out on a platter for him. And he was grabbing a fork and preparing to dig in.

When she sat down, he didn’t even bother with pretending to keep his distance. He placed one arm along the edge of the chair, and he lifted the other hand, pressing a finger against her lower lip. “Your mouth is very sexy,” he said seriously, running his fingertip along the same path she had traced only minutes earlier.

“Thank you,” she said, dipping her head forward. She felt shy around him. It was unusual for her, but such was his overpowering charisma that she felt her own natural ebullience weaken in response.

“Here.” He held her wine glass to her. “Tell me what you taste.”

Maggie took a large gulp. She was grateful for the feeling of it burning down her throat. “I’m not much of a wine connoisseur,” she lied, replacing the glass on the table.

“Just try.”

Maggie took another sip, and this time, she described the flavours. “Cinnamon and blackcurrant.”

“Very good,” he said. “The flavour of wine is very personal. Everyone tastes something different. But I taste what you taste, and I think that bodes well. Do you agree?”

Beneath the table, he put a hand on her leg, and slowly, lifted the flimsy material of her skirt, so that he was touching her bare thigh. Her mind was screaming objections but her body was shaking in response. All thought of the photographer immediately flew from her mind. It was only Dante, and her, and a darkened corner of the bar. Between her legs, she felt a slick moistness that demanded satisfaction. “Bodes well how?” She asked unsteadily, as his hand went higher still, to the lace of her underwear.