Sweet Revenge

to his lips, he watched her eyes. It pleased him to see shock, pleasure, then control flash in them.
    “Happy New Year, darling.” He toasted her with his champagne glass, then put it down and lifted the bottle to pour the wine into the second glass he had waiting.
    He was all in black, a turtleneck, snug jeans, supple leather boots. While he’d waited for her to return, he’d made himself at home, propped against the heaps of pillows Adrianne grouped on her bed.
    She felt everything at once—need, annoyance, delight, and guilt. Because of it, her voice was as cool as the wine he offered. Slowly, she let her arms fall back to her sides.
    “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
    “You should have. No toast to the new year, Addy?”
    To prove her disinterest to herself, and to him, she walked over to take the glass. Her gown shivered like water. “To beginnings then, and the payment of old debts.” Crystal rang against crystal. “You’ve come a long way for a drink.”
    Her scent clung, to her skin, to the air, to his senses. He could have strangled her for it. “But you stock an excellent vintage.”
    It tasted like sand. “If you like, I’ll apologize for leaving so abruptly.”
    “Don’t bother.” He checked himself. Anger was closer to the surface than he’d intended. “I should have understood you were a coward.”
    “I’m not a coward.” She set her drink, almost untasted, beside his.
    “You are,” he began slowly, “a pitiful, quivering, self-serving coward.”
    She slapped him before she’d realized she intended to, before he’d read the intent on her face. The sound of flesh meeting flesh cracked, then echoed. Philip’s eyes went dark with answering violence before he calmly lifted his glass again. But his knuckles went white on the stem.
    “That doesn’t change anything.”
    “You’ve no right to judge me, no right to insult me. I left because I chose to leave, because I thought it best and because I won’t be an amusement to you.”
    “I can assure you, there’s very little about you that amuses me, Adrianne.” After setting his glass aside again, he steepled his fingers and watched her over them. “Did you think all I was interested in was a few tropical fucks?”
    Her color faded at that, then came back fast and hot enough to sting her cheeks. “It’s more to the point that I’m not interested in an affair.”
    “Use whatever term you like. You’re the one who lowered what happened between us to a cheap one-night stand.”
    “What does it matter?” The fury leapt in her voice chased by the shame of hearing the truth. “One night, two, or a dozen?”
    “Damn you.” He caught her wrist and yanked her to the bed. Even as she fought back, he covered her body with his and pinned her arms. Flames licked. “It was more than that and you know it. It wasn’t just sex, it wasn’t rape, and I’m not your father.” She went still at that. The angry color drained out of her face, leaving it bone-white. “That’s it, isn’t it? Every time a man got close, every time you were tempted, you’d think of him. Not with me, Adrianne. Never with me.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “Don’t I?” His face was only inches from hers. He could almost see the life pump back into it, the color, the anger, the denial. “Hate him if you like, you have the right, but I’ll be damned if you’ll measure me by him or anyone else.”
    His mouth came down on hers not with the tenderness he’d shown her before, not with care or coaxing, but with an angry demand edged with hunger. She didn’t struggle, butthe hands he pinned curled into fists even as her blood began to heat and swim.
    “What happened between us happened because you wanted as much as I did, you needed as much as I did. Look at me,” he demanded when she kept her eyes shut. He waited until she opened them, and the light beside them slanted across her face. “Can you deny it?”
    She wanted to. The lie formed on her lips, then died into the truth. “No. But what happened is over.”
    “A long way from over. Do you think it’s just temper that has your pulse pounding? Do you think two people can come together the way we did, then walk away and forget?” He released her hands, only to drag his own through her hair. “I showed you one way that night. Now, by God, I’ll show you another.”
    His mouth was hot and hard and hungry. When it closed over hers, she lay limp, determined to give