Manacled in Monaco Read Online Free Page A

room.
    “Whoa! Where’d you get that number? Hello lovey! I’m up for it, and most times I feel like your dad, but this ain’t one of ’em!”
    “You’re exaggerating, Austen. It’s just me.”
    “Lovey, in that dress, there isn’t anything that’s just you. Sarita, what the hell are you proving and to whom?”
    “Just help me serve the first course.”
    “Can I place odds on who’s serving the boss?”
    She scowled at him, mouth tightening.
    Rolan didn’t take his eyes off her, not for a second. And his lips compressed into a fierce thin line. She bent low to serve him and felt the spandex creep up her ass, which was on show to all and sundry, and she didn’t give a damn. Satisfaction warmed her soul.
    Sarita did a little stripper’s sway when she left the dining room, all aglow and thrilled to have thrown him a curveball. She didn’t even make through the kitchen doorway before he railroaded her into a corner, snatched the pewter tray from her hands, and tossed it onto the counter.
    It clanged and thwanged, the noise matching the explosive tension sizzling in the compact kitchen.
    “Rolan,” she said, the murmured protest bedeviled by the fear in her voice. “Stop, you’re scaring me.”
    “Good. If you ever display those tits and that ass again, I will flay your backside until it’s raw.”
    “Mom?”
    They both turned to that whispered voice. Tony’s green gaze, wide and troubled, met theirs. “I don’t care if you are my dad, you can’t hurt my mom.”
    Firm, growled, and oh so like Rolan.
    Something in the back of her throat collapsed.
    “We can’t do this,” she mumbled. “It’s not fair to Tony.”
    “You’re right,” he said and slicked two hands through his unruly wheat hair. “We have a son. He has to come first.”
    “Yes. He comes first.”
    He drew a forefinger around her neckline. “Please change.”
    A question, loaded, but not a command.
    “Yes.” Deflated, the wind sucked out of her sails, she stared at the floor and wondered how she could face everyone again.
    “Where’s your cabin?”
    “Next to the kitchen.”
    “Terry’s famous organization. That man is all about efficiency.”
    They didn’t speak another word.
    She made her way to the cabin with Rolan in tow, shut the door on him, and changed into a somber black dress.
    When she came out, he raked her from head to toe and said, “Doesn’t make one iota of difference, I’m as hard as a rock. That little red number will star in my fantasies for a very long time.”
    “Rolan?” She had no idea what question she asked, but something thundered in the air between them.
    “Sarita,” he said, took her hand in the gentlest of movements, and kissed the center of her palm, his tongue leaving a wet heated circle.
    The caress curled her toes, fluttered her belly, did strange things to her center, making her moist and heated, hot, really, really hot. She squeezed her thighs together. “I don’t want this.”
    “Neither do I.”
    One arm snagged her waist and he pulled her against his overheated body, his erection rigid against her stomach. A finger tipped her chin and she couldn’t avoid his gaze.
    “Something’s happening Sarita, and I’m not sure we have much control over it. But we have a son, a responsibility, and he has to come first.”
    “I’m scared,” she said.
    “Hell, I am too, but Tony has to be our main focus.”
    She stared at the mosaic wall. “I know. Go back to your guests. I have to finish the salad course and the rest of the meal.”
    With a sidelong trace of her cheek, he murmured his agreement and left. She didn’t have to leave the kitchen to finish the luncheon, so she had Austen serve the meal and kept out of sight, retiring to her cabin as soon as the last guest departed. Bankrupt, emotionally and physically, she swallowed a couple of Tylenol PMs and fell into a deep slumber as soon as her head hit the pillow.
    When she lifted heavy-as-cast-iron lids, Rolan came into focus. At