Mistaken Identity by Alyssa J. Montgomery Page B

and a tiny muscle worked in his cheek as he gritted his teeth. ‘The blonde with Spiros is your friend, Leah.’
    Blood whooshed past her eardrums, the effect like the sound of a klaxon blasting through her skull. Had she heard him properly?
    ‘W-what?’ she stammered.
    ‘Your friend, Leah Bristow. She’s the blonde girl with Spiros.’
    ‘No!’ The word exploded from her lips in relief. She began to breathe again.
    His dark eyes were intense. ‘She’s the first person you went to after you’d been to my office.’
    ‘It’s not Leah.’
    ‘It has to be Leah. It adds up. Nobody’s been to your friend’s house since I’ve had my people watching it.’
    ‘That’s not surprising. It’s school holidays. Leah’s a teacher and she’s away.’
    ‘In Paris with Spiros,’ he stated, quite incorrectly.
    ‘No.’
    He paced toward the window. ‘I don’t believe you.’
    ‘I’m telling you the truth. Your spies haven’t done their work very well if that’s what you think. The person in that photo looks nothing like Leah.’
    He turned to consider her. ‘Have I underestimated you? Have you been a decoy all this time? Is my brother’s real interest in your friend — not in you?’
    Squaring her shoulders, she raised her chin in defiance, glad to finally be telling the truth. ‘Spiros hardly knows Leah.’
    ‘It’s clear in the photos that he’s smitten with the blonde.’
    ‘That just proves that it’s not Leah.’ She ran one shaky hand through her hair. ‘There’s no way Spiros could love her. They’ve only met a couple of times, and she’s definitely not his type.’
    ‘If it’s not Leah, who is it?’ he demanded. ‘I’m certain you know.’
    She turned away from him. ‘I’ve had enough. It’s late, and I want to go to bed.’
    ‘Not until you tell me what you’re up to.’
    In an instant he was at her side, arresting her movement with hands so strong they closed around her wrists like iron manacles.
    Breathing in the fresh male scent of his aftershave, feeling the heat from his hands on her wrists spreading through her body and fusing her joints together, she felt incapable of moving away or putting up the least bit of resistance.
    When she bit down nervously on her lower lip, his eyes focussed on her mouth. His loosening of his grip on her wrists — so he could rub his thumbs over her pulse — caused her heart to hammer an erratic beat against her ribs. It was an unmistakable tattoo of need.
    Some of the tension of his jaw eased, signalling that his anger was abating.
    The magnetic attraction between them operated at full power. It drew them together, into each other’s force fields, and both of them were powerless to resist.
    The rise and fall of his chest was shallower as each breath became more strained. It was the same for her. Neither of them could stop it.
    The metallic taste of her blood registered as she bit her lip. Following her action, he raised his hand and applied a small pressure to her chin, forcing her jaw to relax and her teeth to release the damaged lip. He smoothed the worried flesh back and forth with his thumb, wiping away the blood. His touch was erotic. Electric. Then he kissed her. Her heart swelled. Her breasts tingled. His lips were like a salve, healing her and making her ache with unfulfilled desire.
    His lips worked their way along her jaw line; his tongue caressed her ear lobe. She shivered with longing. Like Susie, she was addicted, and he was her drug of choice. His mere touch intoxicated her, sending her spiralling into a sweet state of oblivion where she drowned in her craving for him. She was desperate for that fulfilment.
    ‘What do you really want from me?’ he murmured against her ear.
    ‘I want to go to bed.’ The forbidden words were spoken through a daze. It was an honest answer. Despite everything, she wanted him to hold her in his arms without a barrier of clothing between them. She needed to feel his nakedness again, to have him fill