Free The Ultimate Seduction by Dani Collins

information first. “Does your father have any sway over your country’s decision makers?”
    “He has followers. Believers in his vision. Isn’t that how you got elected, by cultivating the same?” The remark was somewhere between haughty and ironic.
    “You don’t seem to be one of them. His followers, I mean. It’s quite obvious you’re not one of mine. Yet.”
    “Ha,” she choked, but she lowered her lashes as if to prevent him reading something different in her eyes. “Never yours and while I’ll always cheer for Dad, I’m tired of living my life by his career,” she said with dour humor and popped a cherry tomato into her mouth, pursing her lips in a pout as she chewed.
    “When is the election?” he asked, trying not to watch her plump lips too closely.
    “Not for a year, but the campaigning is well under way. He was leaving for Washington as we were coming here.”
    “We?” he asked sharply, territorial instincts riled.
    “My brother and I.”
    “Ah. That’s fine then.” He frowned. Whatever relief he felt in knowing there wasn’t another man in her life was buried under the discomfort of revealing he saw himself in the role. What was it about her that not only affected him but also lowered his ability to hide how much?
    She lifted her brows. “Jealous?” Her smile was taunting, but her voice thinned across the word, suggesting a vulnerability that further undermined his resistance to her.
    He shouldn’t want her this badly, but he did. Last night had been exceptional, and she was a practical connection to cultivate. Where was the sense in fighting it?
    “Possessive,” he corrected. “You have a lover, draga. ”
    Her shocked expression masked into something complex. Her lips tightened in dismay while her brow flinched in pain. A stark yearning drew her features taut while her swallow indicated a type of fear. Then it all smoothed away, leaving him unsettled, wondering if an affair with her could become more complicated than it needed to be.
    “Had,” she said in a husky voice. “Past tense.”
    “I’m not talking about your husband,” he growled, stirred to jealousy after all.
    The blank look she sent him disappeared in a raspy laugh. “Neither am I.”
    His sharp brain caught a hidden meaning, but she kept talking, distracting him.
    “Last night was a departure from my real life, not something I’ll ever do again. Why would you even want to—” Dawning comprehension waxed her features before her face gradually tightened in rejection and something more disturbing. Anguish. “Wow. Nice to know some things haven’t changed,” she said bitterly.
    “What do you mean?” Clammy palms seemed an overreaction to being rejected as a one-nighter. He’d done it himself in the past, but he didn’t like it. Not from her.
    “I’m still capable of being used,” she answered. “You think that if you keep me close, you’ll keep my father’s cronies closer.”
    A pinch of compunction gave him pause, but that’s not all that was going on here. And now she’d piqued his curiosity.
    “Who used you in the past? How?” It was a tender point for him. Only a blind fool would fail to see the advantage to him in associating with her, but there were lines, especially with women. When Luiza was taken, it was to use her as leverage against him. She’d ended her life to prevent it. He never took manipulation of the unwilling lightly.
    “Who hasn’t used me?” she demanded. “I thought if there was one silver lining to this—” she drew a circle around her face “—it was that I was no longer a pawn. Thanks for dinner.” She stood up, tossing him a pithy look. “A girl in my position is lucky when a man shows her a bit of attention. You’re a helluva guy, Ryzard.”
    Her contempt burned like acid as it dripped over him. It might not have seared so deeply if he hadn’t grasped at the advantages of an affair to justify exactly how badly he wanted to continue theirs.
    He didn’t want