Read Online The Hostage Bride by Kate Walker - Free Book Online

a kidnapper, a liar—but she had come to accept that. She had almost let him charm her, come close to putting a sort of trust in him. But she hadn’t known the real truth about his lies. She hadn’t known the full extent of his deceit. Now she did and she felt as if her world had shattered into cruel, jagged shards of glass that threatened to savage her soul if she so much as thought about it.
    â€˜I said, take your hands off me.’
    â€˜Take…? Felicity— querida …’
    Rico had never seen anyone change so fast or so completely. One moment he had been holding a hotly willing, sensually responsive woman in his arms. The next moment it was as if her blood had frozen in her veins, turning her into an immobile ice woman from head to toe. The transition took only seconds, bringing him up hard against thisnew reality so fast that he actually felt bruised by it, his body jarred by the force with which hers repelled him even though she hadn’t moved or even touched him.
    â€˜And don’t you dare “ querida ” me! I’m not your darling—I’m not anything to you! And that’s exactly the way I want it.’
    â€˜What the…? Por Dios, señorita —what is going on here?’
    â€˜Not what you thought was going on—that’s for sure!’ Felicity flung at him, turning on him a glare of such loathing that he actually took half a step backwards, stiffening sharply, his hands loosening so that the freed silk skirts slithered back into place around her legs. ‘And nothing else is going to happen— nothing ! I’d rather die!’
    â€˜Is that die in the same way that you vowed to kill me if I so much as touched you again?’
    Shock combined with blank confusion and the slow beginnings of the cruel ache of frustration to blacken his mood. Already his fiercely aroused senses were beginning to realise that the sexual release, the consummate fulfilment they had been expecting was now to be denied them. And the nagging complaint blended with his already off-balance state to create a cold fury that was impossible to suppress.
    â€˜Well, look at me, darling —look at me!’
    His hands flew out in a wild, expressive gesture, drawing her attention to his obviously uninjured state.
    â€˜I touched, all right—did more than touch! I kissed you, caressed you. I all but stripped the dress from your body and you didn’t even protest—not so much as a single letter of the word “no” passed your lips.’
    â€˜That…’ Felicity began huskily, but he ignored her, swept aside her weak attempt at an interjection as the words flowed out like the rush of a flood swollen river, impossible to contain.
    â€˜I could have had you right here—against the wall andyou would have been urging me on. But now you freeze like an ice maiden or a nun who’s taken a vow of chastity.’
    â€˜That was before I knew who you were!’
    She flung the words in his face, desperate to have them said, as much for her own sake as out of any need to explain to him.
    Ricardo Valeron. She had let Ricardo Valeron touch her, kiss her…more. Her skin crawled just to think of it.
    Far, far too late, Edward’s warning sounded in her ears.
    â€˜The one man you really must beware of—the one who could do your father some real damage—is Ricardo Valeron. He’s a cut-throat—vicious, ruthless, and totally without morals. He won’t just see the money Joe owes him as a financial debt but as a personal insult and, if he found out that your Papa has been fiddling the books, he’ll want blood in reparation. He’s Argentinian, you see. Latin blood and all that.’
    Argentinian. Not Spanish as she had first thought. Miserably Felicity cursed herself for not realising sooner. For not even suspecting.
    â€˜Before you knew who I was?’ Rico pounced on her words. ‘So you know of me, then?