Forgiven but Not Forgotten? by Abby Green

Why didn’t you just tell me?’
    He could see Siena’s throat work, saw that flush climb higher, and felt curiously unsteady on his feet.
    Eventually she bit out, avoiding his eye, ‘I thought you’d find it funny.’
    Andreas didn’t find it funny in the least. He said, ‘You could have told me, Siena. I’m not an ogre.’
    Siena was trembling by the time they got to the drawing room, where Andreas had directed her. Two small men were waiting for them, with lots of cases and boxes around them and an array of jewels laid out on a table before them. Siena noticed a security guard in the corner of the room. She felt sick.
    * * *
    Later that evening Siena was waiting for Andreas. He’d gone to his office that morning after the jewellery show-and-tell, and she’d been left with a small ransom’s worth of jewellery. A special safe had been installed in Andreas’s office just for her use.
    She still felt jittery. Andreas had insisted that to fully appreciate whether or not the jewellery was suitable Siena should get changed into an evening gown. He’d led her, protesting, into her dressing room and picked out a long black strapless dress.
    ‘Put this on.’
    Siena had hissed, ‘I will not. Don’t be so ridiculous. I’ll know perfectly well what will suit me and what won’t.’
    ‘Well, seeing as I’m paying for the privilege of your company this week, I’d like to see you try out the jewellery in more suitable garb than jeans and a T-shirt—which, by the way, I expect to be in the bin by the end of today.’
    ‘You’re just doing this to humiliate me.’ Siena had crossed her arms mulishly and glared at Andreas, who had looked back, supremely relaxed.
    ‘Put the dress on, Siena, and put your hair up. Or I’ll do it for you. I’ll give you five minutes.’
    With that chilling command he’d turned and walked out of the room. Siena had fumed and resolved to do no such thing. But then an image of Andreas, striding back into her room and bodily divesting her of her jeans and T-shirt, had made her go hot. He wouldn’t, she’d assured herself. But a small voice had sniggered in her head. Of course he would.
    Gritting her teeth and repeating her mantra— one week, one week —Siena folded her jeans and T-shirt into her small suitcase, with no intention of following his autocratic command to throw them away, and slipped on the dress. It was simple in the way that only the best designer dresses could be, and beautifully made. Gathered under her bust in an Empire line, it flowed in soft silken and chiffon folds to the floor.
    The bodice part of it clung to her breasts, making them seem fuller, and was cut in such a way as to enhance her cleavage. Siena had felt naked. Her father would never have allowed her to wear something so revealing...so sensual.
    She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail and returned to the salon barefoot. When the two jewellers had stood up on her return Siena had barely noticed, only aware of the dark blue, heavy-lidded gaze that had travelled down her body with a look so incendiary she’d almost stumbled.
    Andreas had taken her hand and pulled her in beside him on a small two-seater couch, his muscular thigh far too close to hers through the flimsy covering of her dress. His arm had moved around her, his fingers grazing the bare skin of her shoulder, drawing small circles, making her breath quicken and awareness pierce her deep inside.
    She’d cursed him and tried to move away—only to have him clamp his hand to her waist, pulling her even more firmly against him, so that her breasts had been crushed to his side and she’d been acutely aware of how hard his chest felt. The way his big hand curled possessively around her, fingers grazing her belly.
    The jewellery itself had been a blur of glittering golds and diamonds, pearls, sapphires and emeralds. Andreas had picked things out and taken Siena’s wrist to slip jewelled bracelets on, before adding them to a growing pile. When