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quivering mouth.
'What will you do to me, anyway? Turn me into a toad?' And
he laughed huskily at his own joke. Gina wasn't so amused.
'I'm too late, you've been one for years!' she furiously told
him, and saw the laughter leave his eyes.
'You really are asking for it, aren't you?' he bit out, and a
second later his mouth closed over hers. She gasped at the force
of that kiss, driving her head back, his lips hot and urgent. She
was almost suffocating, she couldn't breathe; the feel of his body
pressed against her made her dizzy as if she might be going to
faint. Her eyes closed weakly and she had to lean on him to stay
on her feet.
'Oh, Gina, Gina,' Nick whispered a few moments later, his
face buried in her neck, his lips caressing her cool, pale skin. 'I
want you so badly, and you want me.'
She wordlessly shook her head, shuddering, but how could
she hope to convince him when her own body betrayed her
every time he touched her?
'Yes, you know you do,' he impatiently insisted. 'You
couldn't kiss me like that if you didn't.'
She closed her eyes again. Oh, God, it was true; why
couldn't she hide it from him?
He held her, his cheek against her hair, one hand running
caressingly up and down her spine, stroking her neck. 'Gina,
Gina.. .can't we stop fighting each other? Can't you put the past
behind you, forget the Tyrrells and your husband... ?'
She winced at the reminder of James, knowing she had
never loved him with this agonising intensity. Theirs had been a
first love, young and sweet, with no real depth. They had been
strangers to such pain. Her green eyes opened, dark with a sense
of betrayal, and Nick stared down into them broodingly, his face
jealous as he tried to read her thoughts in them.
'You can't go on forever living in their shadow, it isn't
healthy!' he muttered harshly. 'It's a sin against life. Sooner or
later you've got to face it they're dead, and we aren't! We still
have our lives in front of us. What's the point of fighting old
battles, keeping old grudges alive? I'll admit I haven't behaved
too well in the past, I don't pretend to be perfect, but at least I
learn from my mistakes. Why can't you? We're wasting time
making war when we could be making love '
Angrily Gina gave him a push so violent that it sent him
reeling backwards, almost hitting the wall.
'How many times do I have to tell you? If you want a
woman, find one somewhere else!' she hissed at him. 'I'm not
available! I work for you at the Sentinel. I'm not paid to jump
into your bed whenever you snap your fingers!'
Nick straightened, his face white with rage, looking as if he
was tempted to hit her back, and Gina was so furious that her
green eyes dared him to! She would almost have welcomed the
violence, her feelings were so out of hand.
'I loved my husband, and his grandfather,' she threw at him,
as if the words were hand grenades. 'I don't want to forget them
or abandon everything they believed in!'
'I didn't ask you to '
'Oh, yes, you did! You want me to let you do as you like
with their newspaper, without daring to say a word of protest!
Well, I can't stop you yet, much as I'd love to, but while there's
breath in my body I'll go on protesting! You're destroying a
great newspaper. For the moment you may control the Sentinel
but one day that could change anything is possible! And then I
hope I'll see the paper return to the standards the Tyrrells stood
for.'
There was a long silence, while he stared narrowly at her. 'Is
that what you're plotting, Gina?' he asked at last, his voice
derisive. 'You dream of getting me out of the Sentinel and taking
control yourself, do you? Well, enjoy your daydreams, because
that's all they are. It will never happen. You haven't got a
snowball's chance in hell of dislodging me from my position. I
control that newspaper because I have money behind me, and
when the chips are down the men with the financial backing
always win. You have just as many shares, but you don't have
any other large capital backing, and to get it you would have to
mortgage or sell some of your shares. You can't beat me, Gina.
You only have one option to join me.'
'In your bed?' she sneered, her face bitter. 'That's all you
think a woman is good for, isn't it?'
He laughed, cold mockery in his eyes. 'Oh, I'm just an old-
fashioned boy at heart!'
'Heart?' she repeated contemptuously. 'Don't talk about
hearts, Nick. What would you know about them? You haven't
got one! Or you wouldn't still think you had a chance of talking
me round after the way you humiliated me at Hazel's party!'
His face changed; he grimaced. 'Oh, that,' he said on a sound
like a groan. 'Yes...' Then he gave her a sideways look, his
lashes flickering over his eyes, a coaxing little smile tugging at
his mouth. 'Gina, I'm sorry...I know I behaved badly...'
Did he really expect her to be taken in by that naughty-boy
look? she thought cynically, watching him with cold eyes.
Nick went on softly, 'My only excuse is that I was angry and
upset and I wanted to hit out at you, hurt you the way you hurt
me, when you refused to go home with me for Christmas.'
Unmoved, she retorted, 'At least I didn't insult you in
public!'
'No, that was unforgivable of me,' he said in soulful tones,
still looking at her through his lashes and trying to look
appealing.
'But you expect to be forgiven!'
He gave a long sigh, looked at her with reproach, as if she
was being unreasonable. 'I'm just trying to explain...'
She stared stonily back.
After a little silence he abandoned the little-boy look and
said flatly, 'OK. Look, Gina, I'd told my mother you'd be there,
I'd brought you Christmas presents, I'd planned it all. I can't
remember when 1 last looked forward to a Christmas that much.
Maybe never. I didn't have very good Christmases when I was a
child. Some of them were pretty grim affairs. I would get
expensive presents, huge Christmas trees... we used to spend
some of them in Switzerland, so I'd go skiing and we would
have picnics in the snow. But it was never a real family
Christmas.'
His eyes were bleak as they stared over her head, us if at a
vision she could not see. Gina watched him, so moved she could
have cried. Nick was a very rich man, certainly one of the
wealthiest men in Europe; but all his money could not buy him
the happy childhood he had never known. More and more she
realised how that childhood had marked him, made him the man
he was today.
He frowned, shrugging away his memories, and said
huskily, 'I wanted to make last Christmas a real family
Christmas, my mother, my sister Lilith and her husband and
children, Alessa, and you and me. I knew you had no family, I
thought you'd enjoy it.' His mouth turned down at the corners in
a sulky movement. 'But you turned me down...'
Gina was silent, staring at him. Sometimes he baffled her.
On the surface he was a tough, hardbitten businessman, with no
weak points, no softer feelings, but under that hid a sulky,
moody boy who couldn't bear to be rejected or disappointed.
The way he hit back was not so childish, however. She
frowned at him. 'Is that why you took Colette Tse to
Luxembourg with you?'
Nick gave her a startled look. 'What?'
'Did you think I wouldn't find out?' she asked bitterly, seeing
admission in his face. "The whole of Barbary Wharf knows!
They're all talking about it even your mother asked me about
her, whether she was pretty, what she was like.. .so if you hoped
to keep your affair with Colette a secret you can forget it!'
'Can I?' he said slowly, oddly, his eyes lowered, his mouth
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