He had to admit to himself, everything he’d discovered about Sienna in the last few months were at odds with the calculating gold digger Clinton had presented her as. It confused him. He didn’t like being confused. What he liked being was in control, and he needed to stay in control of this situation.
Which he would, of course. He refused to let it be any other way.
She’d accepted Mason Xavier’s commission, just as he wanted her to do, which meant he was in control. Everything was going to plan.
Well, maybe not completely to plan. He hadn’t planned the uncontrollable sexual desire coursing through his blood every time he thought of her. Nor the weakness in his resolve it provoked, a reaction as unsettling as his lust.
He swung in his chair, studying the view beyond the floor-to-ceiling window of his main office in the DMC building, gazing at the brilliant-blue summer sky stretching over Sydney Harbor.
Six months ago all Sienna had been was a forbidden itch he would never allow himself to scratch. And then, Clinton had turned up at his house, angry and hurt and already drunk, looking like he’d just had his heart ripped out and flambéed right in front of him. He’d stumbled into James’s home, flinging a framed drawing onto the sofa before helping himself to a Scotch. James hadn’t needed to study the drawing to know who was the subject. The woman in it had been the star of all his wildest dreams since he’d met her at Clinton’s exhibition. Dreams he woke from slick with sweat and hard with lust. He didn’t look at the drawing, but he knew it was there where Clinton had thrown it.
“God, I wanted her,” Clinton had growled. “The very first time I saw her, I wanted her. Just being with her made me feel like a man. Not a little boy. I wanted her so much, but she wouldn’t let me touch. Ever. Not even when I proposed.” He’d sculled another Scotch, his face twisted with wretched bitterness. “She turned me down, brother. I guess this Dyson wasn’t good enough.”
James found Clinton spread on the guest bedroom floor the following morning, an empty pill bottle near his open hand, and a letter addressed to Sienna on the coffee table.
By the time the Dyson’s private physician had arrived, his anger and pain had been firmly under control. Sienna Roberts had made a mistake fooling with the Dysons, but she would learn. He’d see to that. Justice would be served.
He pulled in a deep breath and stared at the view beyond his office window. Dark thoughts swirled through his head, thoughts he’d harbored for almost half a year. So why did they unnerve him so much now?
His plans for Sienna Roberts had been formed that night, six months ago. The following day, he’d put those plans into action without hesitation.
The last words Clinton said to him came back to haunt him again, just as they did every day.
“She turned me down, brother. I guess this Dyson wasn’t good enough.”
He ground his teeth. He needed to remember why he was doing this. He couldn’t lose sight of that. Six months of learning everything he could about Sienna Roberts may have somewhat confused the impression he’d first had of her, six months of wondering why she hadn’t moved on to another target with money, but he had to remember Clinton’s words about her. He had to remember what she’d done, no matter how beguiling and innocent and…and…nice, damn it, she seemed. No matter how much she affected him.
After spending a grueling three hours in the office gym last night, he’d headed back to his house at Point Piper. Two hours of pacing the floorboards, an untouched Scotch in his hand, and a tight heat in his body had ended when he’d given in to the urge throbbing through him and entered his bedroom.
A drawing hung on the wall, expensively mounted and framed, the sole artwork in the room. He’d stood in front of it for a long, still moment, the tight heat he despised building in his body with each second that passed.
The drawing…
A woman. Captured in soft pastels. Naked. Gorgeous. Intoxicating.
Sienna Roberts.
Clinton had drawn her on her back, her ankles resting on the head of the four-poster bed on which she lay. The burnished copper of her hair fanned the rumpled sheets, a shining halo of fire that made him burn. Her hands were tucked between her thighs, concealing that most very intimate part of her body but leaving the maddening curve of her breasts completely exposed. The contradiction sent him crazy. It always did.