Dark Nights by Kitti Bernetti

snoring like a pig. She knelt down, examined the back of his head, no blood. He’d survive even though he’d have a helluva headache when he came round. So, that’s how they were going to do it, she thought as she quickly dressed and cleared out of the hotel room - insider trading. Richard was going to become the illegal eyes and ears of Mr Vanhoffer to bring Sebastian down. She felt a momentary sense of elation. After all, didn’t she want to see the man who had trapped her, who had virtually prostituted her for his own ends brought crashing to his knees? But the elation was short lived and born of the sense of injustice she had felt on being found out. She had been stealing tiny amounts from mighty companies for so long and getting away with it that it had hardly felt wrong. Until Sebastian caught up with her.
    Her steps were slow, uncertain as she returned to the office, to Sebastian’s huge building, the crystal tower to his wealth and power. She looked at the large framed portrait of him which greeted the workers each morning. On first entering that building she had been awestruck by his staggering good looks. The determination in his jawline, the firm lines as he looked seriously out on his great business but she had been left cold by the distance of the man at the top. Then when he had trapped her, she had hated him with a fury. Since then, though, she had seen a different side to him. A vulnerability behind those black beaded eyes and a startling aloneness, the isolation all fabulously wealthy and successful men must feel but rarely show. 
    For the first time ever, Breeze was in a quandary. One word in Sebastian’s ear and she could save him. If she remained silent however, he would go to the wall and all his power over her would disappear. The decision should have been simple. And yet, as she sat down at the computer to perform her proper job, that of earning Sebastian Dark yet more money, she suddenly had no idea which way to turn. Ever since that night when he’d challenged her, all the certainty had disappeared out of Breeze’s life. Damn him. Damn Seb Dark. Let Richard and Mr Vanhoffer take him down, what did she care? He could slap her in jail. He should rot in hell for jeopardising the family she had worked so hard to stick together. He had to go. That was it. Decision made. She only had to think up two more evenings filled with the sex - for it was sex and nothing else surely - he craved, to keep Seb ticking over and then he’d have other far more important things to occupy him than her. He’d be fighting for his business life like a drowning man fights to cling on to a piece of wreckage. She couldn’t wait.

Chapter Seven
    ‘SO, WHERE IS IT this time?’ Breeze felt a twinge of guilt as she settled down next to Seb in his Aston Martin DB9. He looked happy tonight, happy to be with her. ‘Or rather where am I taking you as I’m the one who’s driving?’
    ‘To the Sharlton Club, St James’s Street, off Piccadilly please driver.’
    He had picked her up outside the office and was snaking the purring car through the city. ‘You look fabulous tonight, Breeze. Your hair’s changed, darker isn’t it? It suits you. I’d take bets that’s nearer to your natural colour. And that outfit’s knockout, you make it look timeless.’
    Heat jolted through her, right down to her belly as she sat beside him. She smiled; he was nothing if not perceptive. ‘In a way it is, it’s my mother’s she wore it to a society wedding back in the 50s, it’s an original Chanel.’
    ‘Hmm a woman of taste. And it looks as fabulous on you today as I’m sure it did then.’
    She smoothed down the little flared skirt which sat demurely over her stockinged thighs and undid the buttons on the jacket which made her feel like Lauren Bacall and Audrey Hepburn rolled into one. A white gauze blouse, almost see through challenged the formal lines of the suit, making it instantly sexy. Pearls glistening at her neck nestled