The Sins of Sebastian Rey-Defoe Read online

  ‘I know of a job vacancy that might suit you.’

  She opened her eyes and turned her head, still nestled on the leather headrest, to face Sebastian, not bothering to hide her suspicion. ‘You suddenly became Santa Claus?’

  ‘No, I suddenly became in need of a wife.’

  She struggled to match his flippancy. ‘Is that a proposal?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The colour flared hot and then faded pale in her cheeks as she sat bolt-upright and reached for the door handle. ‘I’m assuming this is some sort of joke. Word to the wise—don’t give up your day job. Stand-up is not your thing.’

  ‘What I am suggesting is a business arrangement.’ Only his long fingers silently drumming on the steering wheel suggested he was not as relaxed as he appeared.

  Mari’s fingers tightened on the door handle. ‘Hate is not a good basis for a business arrangement.’

  ‘I’ve factored that in,’ he retorted with unimpaired cool. ‘In public we would act the happy, loved-up couple.’

  A hissing sound left her lips. ‘Marriage. You’re actually talking about marriage—it’s not a sick joke?’

  Seven Sexy Sins

  The true taste of temptation!

  From greed to gluttony, lust to envy, these fabulous stories explore what seven sexy sins mean in the twenty-first century!

  Whether pride goes before a fall, or wrath leads to a passion that consumes entirely, one thing is certain: the road to true love has never been more enticing!

  So you decide:

  How can it be a sin when it feels so good?

  Sloth—Cathy Williams

  Lust—Dani Collins

  Pride—Kim Lawrence

  Gluttony—Maggie Cox

  Greed—Sara Craven

  Wrath—Maya Blake

  Envy—Annie West

  Seven titles by some of Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance’s most treasured and exciting authors!

  The Sins of Sebastian Rey-Defoe

  Kim Lawrence

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in Anglesey with her university lecturer husband, assorted pets who arrived as strays and never left, and sometimes one or both of her boomerang sons. When she’s not writing she loves to be outdoors gardening, or walking on one of the beaches for which the island is famous for along with being the place where Prince William and Catherine made their first home!

  Thanks, Peter

  Contents

  Cover

  Introduction

  Seven Sexy Sins

  Title Page

  About the Author

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  Extract

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Blaisdon Gazette. 17 November 1990

  A hospital spokesman this morning said that two babies, believed to be twins, found yesterday on the steps of St Benedict’s Church, are now in a serious but stable condition. Police are anxious to trace the mother, who might be in need of medical care.

  London Reporter. 17 November 1990

  The foundation stone of the hospital’s new wing was laid by the late Sebastian Rey’s grandson, who was named after his philanthropist grandfather. Stepping in for his father, whose duties captaining the Argentine national polo team kept him away from the ceremony, seven-year-old Sebastian Rey-Defoe is the son of the well-known English socialite Lady Sylvia Defoe. Sebastian is set to inherit the Rey billions and the Mandeville Hall estate in England. He suffered only minor injuries in the crash that killed his grandfather outright.

  14 February 2008

  ‘THERE IS A REASON, I suppose, why I am staying in a place called the Pink Unicorn?’ Not a name you could say and think of minimalist decor, and not a name Seb could even say without a grimace of distaste.

  ‘Sorry.’ His irritatingly cheerful PA pretended she hadn’t heard the sarcasm. ‘But it is Valentine’s Day and there isn’t a decent place within twenty miles of Fleur’s school that isn’t fully booked. The Lake District is considered romantic. Don’t worry, it’s not contagious,’ she soothed. ‘And it is five star, so you won’t be slumming it, and it has great reviews—people on the website rave about the little personal touches. Your room is... What does it say...? That was it: charming and bijou with beams and—’

  ‘Oh, God!’ he groaned. Six-five in his bare feet, he did not do bijou or beams... Was his petite PA punishing him for something?

  ‘Don’t be such a misery. You’re very lucky that the Pink Unicorn had a cancellation.’

  ‘I’ve sacked people for less. I’m ruthless, haven’t you heard?’ The previous month’s article in a particular Sunday supplement, even though it had spawned several rebuttal articles in well-known financial journals, had left a public perception of him that suggested his wealth could not have been made without an utterly ruthless disregard for the rules or his fellow man.

  ‘Where would you find someone else who gets your weird sense of humour?’

  ‘You think I’m joking?’

  ‘Or someone who is as efficient as me who doesn’t weep when you scowl or fall in love with you when you don’t?’

  He fought back a smile and, with resignation in his voice, grumbled, ‘Who the hell calls a place the Pink Unicorn?’

  * * *

  Now Seb knew—the same people who sat a poor guy with a classical guitar out on a lawn on a zero-degree February evening that neither the heat from a glowing brazier nor the open-sided gazebo affair lit by lanterns offered any protection against. To add insult to injury they’d had him wear some ridiculous Spanish get-up that no real Spaniard would have been seen dead in, while he played a cheesy love song in the candlelight as loved-up couples groped one another.

  Sebastian’s lip curled. If this was romance, they could keep it!

  It was a spectacularly stomach-churning sight, but probably a fitting end, he mused, to a day where the high point had been getting a parking fine from an overzealous attendant.

  It should have been a good day, a celebratory occasion. His thirteen-year-old half-sister had won the under-fifteens prize at the science fair her school was hosting, and against all the odds their mother, Lady Sylvia Defoe, had turned up in a display of rare parental support.

  He should have known better, yet, as she had walked into the room causing conversations to stop, taking the attention as her due, Seb had almost got sucked in by the ‘caring mother’ act.

  Until, that was, she had stepped back from the arm’s-length maternal embrace, looked at her daughter’s face and delivered some very loud advice on skin care, adding complacently that she had never had acne or actually even a spot, and then, presumably because she had not traumatised her thirteen-year-old daughter enough, she had gone on to flirt with every male in the room that caught her eye while her daughter had cringed and wished herself elsewhere. Seb, who had been there, done that, had felt his half-sister’s pain as his own anger had built.

  The breaking point had come when Seb had found their mother in a classroom in a very close embrace with the newly married biology teacher. The doors had been wide open—anyone could have seen—but then maybe that was the idea. His mother loved nothing better than creating a scene.

  Offering the embarrassed man a tissue for the lipstick smeared across his red face, he’d then suggested the teacher might like to rejoin his wife.
Seb had waited until the teacher had gratefully scuttled away before asking his mother, on whom subtlety was wasted, point-blank what the hell she thought she was doing.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re cross, Seb?’ She’d pouted. ‘Why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun? Your father had an affair with that awful...’ She’d given a heartbroken sob and allowed the tears she could produce at will to fall.

  ‘I’ve heard it all before, Mother, so don’t expect any sympathy from me. Get divorced, have affairs, get remarried—I’m bored with the entire never-ending cycle—but if you embarrass Fleur again, we’re finished.’

  The tears had stopped; she’d actually looked almost scared. Even though he’d known it wouldn’t last, it had still made him feel like a bastard.

  ‘You don’t mean that, Seb.’

  On the point of retracting, he’d pulled back. ‘Every word,’ he had lied. No matter what she did, she would always be his mother, but this was about Fleur, and she needed protecting. ‘Do you ever think about the people you hurt when you’re doing exactly what you want?’ He’d searched her beautiful face for a moment before shaking his head. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid question.’

  A scowl glued to a face that caused several female heads to turn his way, Seb strode towards the entrance of the Pink Unicorn that had been geared out for the occasion with, surprise, surprise, garlands of dried red roses. If there was one of those damn things on his pillow he would... He sighed and thought, what was the point? The rest of the world was so caught up with the romance fable one single voice of logic would be lost in the brainless babble.

  Allowing himself a superior smile, he turned his head to brush the snowflakes that had begun to fall off his shoulder. The night might end with a few cases of exposure, he thought as his cynical stare brushed over the heads of the clusters of couples. The mild contempt etched into his lean patrician features gave way to one of stark shock as his sweeping survey came to a shuddering stop.

  As he stared, the scorch of heat that began in his belly spread through his body like flash fire, darkened the intense brown of his deep-set eyes, framed by straight, strongly delineated brows almost as dark as his long, curling lashes, to jet black.

  He didn’t notice what she was wearing beyond the fact the dress she had on was blue and he would very much have liked to see her without it. She had a sensational body, sinuous curves and endless legs, and the lust that had erupted at the sight of her gave a fresh kick in his belly and lower, where it settled as his hot, hungry stare slid over those delectable curves before he dragged it back to her face.

  The sense of recognition was crazy because he had never even imagined a woman who looked like her, let alone met one. Her face was a perfect oval, but it was not the symmetry of her features that held his gaze or caused his stomach muscles to clench viciously, but her expression, as, laughing, she looked up at the falling snow, her head thrown back a little to reveal the long, graceful curve of her throat.

  Her lips were full, her eyes big in the light from an overhead lantern, her hair a wild explosion of tempestuous colour, gold, red, then gold again, curls that fell down her slender back almost to her waist.

  A whoosh of cold air hit his face, breaking the grip of the spell that had held him motionless for countless seconds. Lowering his heavy eyelids long enough to give his nervous system time to recover from the carnal impact of the redhead, Seb dragged a hand across his dark hair and released the breath that had been trapped in his chest in a long, slow, hissing sigh.

  He looked again, already distancing himself from that initial uncontrollable visceral reaction. It had been a long day and he’d been too long without... There are some things, thought Seb, that a man cannot rely on his PA to schedule... Like a life...?

  Just as he was making a mental note to free up his weekend and deciding who he might share it with—that part had never been hard for him—the redhead’s laughter drifted his way. Low and husky, it had a deliciously tactile quality. It felt like a finger running up and down his spine.

  Not accustomed to envy, he experienced a twinge of something close to that emotion as he turned his critical, hostile gaze on the man who had invited this laughter...husband...lover...? As the thought slid through Seb’s head the man in question turned and placed a hand under his partner’s chin, drawing her face up to his.

  This time, the sense of recognition Seb experienced was not to be wondered at: the lucky man was the husband of the local GP. Alice Drummond was a woman Seb had time for. She juggled a demanding career with two children and a husband who, at twenty, had written one book someone had called insightful, which was the sum total of his achievements to date, and he was still living off the kudos.

  When he wasn’t having romantic weekends with redheads with endless legs.

  It was none of his business if a casual acquaintance cheated on his wife with some little... His jaw clenched, Seb turned away. Then she laughed again, the sound so light, so carefree, so damn sexy that something snapped inside him. First his mother, now this woman... Another selfish, beautiful woman who didn’t give a damn about the collateral damage they caused as they went about pleasing themselves, leaving a trail of broken hearts and broken marriages in their destructive wake.

  There was a corner of his mind where enough sanity lingered for him to know this was not a good idea, but it was a mere whisper compared to the din of the outrage hammering inside his skull as he strode across the grass, embracing the rage that was colder than the snowflakes that were falling in earnest now.

  * * *

  ‘So Alice couldn’t make it tonight, Adrian...’

  Mari struggled to keep her balance as Adrian let her go. No, had he pushed her away?

  Adrian didn’t see her hurt, questioning look; his attention was on the owner of the deep, harsh voice. Mari had to turn her head to bring the man into her line of vision.

  Before she absorbed the details of the stranger’s tall, impressively athletic frame, expensively tailored suit and face that was combined arrogance and beauty, Mari felt the raw power he exuded.

  She felt it like a dark prickle under her skin as he turned his obsidian stare on her.

  The tightness in her chest loosened when she managed to break contact with those incredibly penetrating pitch-black eyes—eyes that belonged to the most incredibly beautiful man she had ever seen.

  Beside him, dark, brooding Adrian, whom she had fallen for as he read poetry in his beautiful voice looked less of both, almost...soft... She pushed away the disloyal thought and waited for Adrian to introduce her. Would he say girlfriend? It would be the first time; at college they had to be discreet. Students and lecturers dating was frowned on, though, as Adrian said, it happened all the time.

  For some reason the fact she was even more beautiful up close increased the level of Seb’s anger by several icy notches. Her eyes, kitten wide, were the deepest shade of violet blue he had ever seen, her mouth was lush and full and her satiny skin was almost translucent...and it turned out husband stealers could have freckles. The detail softened the sultry siren look into a deeply deceptive wholesome innocence.

  ‘Mr... Seb... Well, this is...is...is...’

  He let the stuttering loser, for once at a loss for words, suffer for a moment before suggesting ironically, ‘Nice?’

  ‘This isn’t what it looks like.’ The cheating husband took another step to distance himself from the girl who was standing there, quite beautiful, quite still; she could have passed for a statue.

  The music had stopped and everyone around them, sensing the drama, busily pretended not to be listening while hanging on every word. The girl moved towards her lover, who held out a hand as though to fend her off. She froze in response to the rejection, her big eyes radiating hurt and confusion. Seb thought of hard-working Alice, all the Alices out there, and cast out the seed of pity before it took root in his head.

  ‘Is Alice... You know, your wife... Is she working, or is she looking after the kids? How does that woman cope?�
� He shook his head in wondering admiration and drawled, ‘A busy medical practice, a mother of two and a husband who cheats on her?’

  Mari waited for Adrian to say something, willed him to say something, to tell this terrible man who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere like some sort of sleek and dark avenging angel—in a world where angels wore very expensive tailoring—that this was all a mistake.

  They’d laugh about it later in bed when they were sharing the bottle of champagne that he had ordered.

  But the only sound was the shocked mutters from the other guests. Mari didn’t turn her head, but she could feel the hostility and disapproval of their stares like daggers in her slender back.

  ‘I couldn’t help myself. She... I love my wife but... Well, just look at her!’

  Her last hope vanished.

  Every word that man had said was true.

  She was the other woman. She hadn’t known, but that didn’t lessen Mari’s sense of crushing guilt and shame. Her sense of total isolation was complete; she had never felt more alone in her life. Pressing a hand to her stomach, she breathed her way through a wave of intense nausea. When was Adrian going to tell her? After, stupid.

  Seb, tuning out the rest of the other man’s words, followed the line of his accusing finger. The woman standing there represented everything he despised in a female, yet he had no control over the hot hunger that slammed afresh through his body.

  While his mind rejected and despised her, his body wanted her. You had to recognise a weakness to control it, and Seb valued control.

  Control or not, it was still salt in a raw wound to acknowledge that she stood there looking like a piece of porcelain about to shatter, and there was a part of him that wanted to comfort her.

  She could have had any man she wanted, and she had decided she wanted a married loser? When she could have... Who, Seb? You?

  He ignored the mocking words in his head and launched a fresh invective, this time directed at the woman. ‘Do you care that he’s got a wife and children waiting for him at home?’