Read Online Invitation to Ruin by Ann Vremont - Free Book Online

I to challenge him?
He was, it was widely said, a mercenary in business who had rebuilt
the family’s fortune when his father had left him little more than
a title. “A cut-throat brute,” the other lords called him. Here I
was a mere girl who had been stupid enough to hand him my only
marker—my chastity.
    His head dipped forward, his lips brushing my
hair and temple. “Ah, Gabrielle, I have waited all week for just
the smell of you.”
    He pulled back and looked at me, his gaze hot
and seemingly everywhere at once. Never had I seen his eyes so
animated, the sky blue irises burning with life. Always when I had
encountered him in the past, he had seemed to do no more than throw
a vacant, cold glance my way. What had wrought this change? Did it
start as some dark proposal by Veronique to have fun at my great
expense? Or had he always worn a mask, that I might not see his
true face, his desire for me?
    “What do you see?” he asked and tilted his
head, studying my expression as he waited for my answer.
    I shook my head. I wouldn’t be taken in by
the strong smell of him or the heat in his eyes. He had lied to me,
plotted my downfall. “A liar,” I bit out. “Nothing more.”
    His smile was hard, harder still his erection
as he pressed against me, forcing me to breathe in short gasps.
    “Your choice then, Gabrielle, is this,” he
started and covered my mouth with his, stabbing his tongue past my
protesting lips to draw me into his kiss. He broke the kiss
roughly, leaving me more breathless than before.
    For a moment, he seemed to have forgotten the
ultimatum he was to deliver, but then he went on. “You can marry
me, let me put you on a pedestal and worship you as I have
worshipped you these last few weeks. You will never have to worry
about your security or the safety of your family in these troubled
times.”
    He stopped, with a hesitant arrogance that
hardened when I did not then give him my immediate consent.
    “Or,” he continued, “I will revoke my offer
and reveal the affair. Shall I tell you how much scorn that would
subject you and your family to?”
    I refused to let him see how the prospect
frightened me, or how I struggled against my own body at his very
nearness. Squaring my shoulders, I challenged him again.
    “You came to me knowing I loved your
son!”
    One fine blond brow arched as I said “loved,”
some mixture of hope and scorn pinning it there as he answered.
    “My…my son would not know what to do with a
woman if she was tied naked to his bed,” he answered. “I have
spared you heartache in your pursuit of him.”
    “Only to replace it with an even greater
heartache!” I protested.
    “Why? Do you think me too old?” he asked.
“Too ugly?”
    I stiffened against him, refusing to yield my
opinion of his age or looks. If he had only touched my skin and
felt its heat, he would have known!
    “No answer?” He backed away ever so slightly,
still keeping me trapped between his outstretched arms. “You would
have an old man like me, then, announce you a whore to the
world?”
    The barb sank deep and I started to cry
again. “You think me such?” I whispered. How could I marry a man
who thought me a whore? Why would he wish to marry me if he thought
me such?
    “I think I want you so badly I shall die from
it,” he said. “Now answer me!”
    “Your manners are rough,” I cast my eyes down
so that he could not read the emotions warring within me.
    “That was not the question.” His voice
gentled and he pressed against me again, more softly this time, his
body not as unyielding. “Do you think me old…ugly?”
    “I think you only a brute and a liar,” I
relented.
    “Have I physically hurt you, Gabrielle?” His
head tilted so that he spoke the words against my neck, his warm
breath fanning the skin until the tips of my breasts tightened into
hard pebbles.
    “You have damaged me,” I answered. Oh, I
could not look at him, could not let him see the truth lest he own
me