Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 34
ОглавлениеIN THE MIDDLE of the night, tossing and turning without sleep, Lilah crept out of bed and went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea.
Vickie was already there, seated at the kitchen table. ‘Great minds, eh?’ she framed round a huge yawn.
‘You couldn’t sleep either?’ Lilah stated the obvious.
‘It’s the constant worrying that keeps me awake,’ her father’s wife opined ruefully while Lilah boiled the kettle. ‘Some of the parents I was talking to at Ben’s school said Bastien Zikos was at Moore Components today... I was surprised you hadn’t mentioned it.’
Lilah stiffened defensively. ‘I didn’t see the point.’
‘I hate asking you this...but I was thinking...maybe if you get the chance you could ask Bastien if he has an opening for your father anywhere?’ Vickie said hopefully.
Lilah reddened. ‘If I get the chance,’ she echoed, feeling incredibly guilty for not telling the truth.
Bastien had been right on that score. No one would thank her for telling a truth that no one wanted to hear. And the truth was that she could wave a magic wand and fix everything for everybody. How could she live with that knowledge and stand by doing nothing? How could she live with seeing her father slumped in a chair, staring into space? It was all very well to be furious with Bastien, to take offence and walk out. but at the end of the day she had to be practical. He had, after all, offered her a miracle.
Everything back the way it was.
Hanging on to her virginity at all costs seemed a little pathetic in such dire circumstances, didn’t it? And, whether she liked it or not, she had always been attracted to Bastien. How could she hold out and justify herself when so many positive outcomes would result from her agreement? Bastien’s interest in her would be short-lived as well: his past history spoke for him. He never stayed long with a woman. She would get her life back again quickly and probably never come back home, she acknowledged unhappily. When Bastien got bored with her she would look for a job in London and make a fresh start.
* * *
Lilah dressed for work with more care than usual, braiding her black mane of hair into submission and choosing a black pencil skirt and a silky cream blouse to wear.
The mere thought of finding herself in bed with Bastien brought her out in a cold sweat and turned her tummy over, so she refused to think about it. Sex was a rite of passage, she told herself impatiently. She was no different from any other woman and would soon become accustomed to it. No doubt practise had made Bastien most proficient in that department, and it was probably safe to assume that she wouldn’t find sharing a bed with him too unpleasant. Of course she wasn’t going to enjoy any of it either. Sex shorn of any finer feelings was a physical rather than mental exercise and she would detach herself from the whole experience, she told herself soothingly.
Detachment, after all, would hardly be a challenge when she hated Bastien with every fibre of her being. His options had taught her to hate him. Before yesterday he had simply been the womaniser who had once bruised her tender heart and whom she couldn’t ever have. Now he was the ruthless lowlife forcing her to seal a bargain with her body as if she was a whore.
A little shudder racked her at that view and she breathed in slow and deep, strengthening herself for what lay ahead. She was about to make a devil’s bargain, but she was darned if she would show an ounce of weakness in front of Bastien.
When she walked into the office, Julie gave her a curious appraisal. ‘Mr Zikos has phoned down to ask for you already. I explained that you’re never in before nine because you leave your kid brother at nursery on the way.’
‘Thanks,’ Lilah breathed, hanging up her coat with a nervous hand.
Bastien had said ten o’clock, but he was clearly jumping the gun. Of course he had no patience whatsoever, she reflected ruefully. He tapped his feet and drummed his fingers when forced to be inactive for any length of time. He was edgy, bursting with frenetic energy, always in need of occupation.
She smoothed her skirt down over her hips as she mounted the stairs. Her hands weren’t quite steady and she studied them in dismay. Why was she getting herself into a state? Hadn’t she already decided that sex would be no big deal and not worth making a silly fuss over? It wasn’t as though Bastien was going to spread her across the office desk and have his wicked way with her this very day...was it?
Her face burned, her stomach performing a somersault at that X-rated image. She wanted Bastien to do the deed in pitch-darkness and complete silence. She didn’t want to have to look at him or speak to him. She wished there was some way of having sex remotely, without any need for physical contact, and it was on that crazy thought that she entered what had once been her father’s office.
With a single gesture Bastien dismissed the team hovering attentively round him and set down the tablet he had been studying.
‘You’ve asked for me but it’s not ten yet,’ Lilah pointed out thinly. ‘It’s only ten minutes past nine.’
Bastien straightened, brilliant dark golden eyes lancing into hers in direct challenge. ‘My internal clock says it’s ten,’ he contradicted without hesitation.
‘Your clock’s wrong.’
‘I’m never wrong, Delilah,’ Bastien traded thickly, his long-lashed gaze roaming over her as intently as a physical caress. ‘Lesson one on how to be a mistress: I keep you around to stroke my ego, not dent it.’
Lilah froze where she stood, wide sapphire eyes travelling over him with a hunger she couldn’t control. She scanned the exquisitely tailored designer suit that delineated every muscular line of Bastien’s broad-shouldered, lean-hipped frame as he stood there facing her, with his long, powerful legs braced. Something clenched low in her body when she clashed with his gaze and her legs felt strangely hollow.
Her attention welded to his darkly handsome face, she stopped breathing, reacting with dismay to the treacherous stirrings of her own body. Her breasts swelled, constrained by the confines of her bra, while the sensation at her feminine core made her press her thighs together hard.
‘I’m no good at stroking egos, Bastien,’ she warned him.
Bastien dealt her an unholy grin. ‘I’ve got enough ego to survive a few dents,’ he asserted. ‘Where do you think your true talents will lie?’
‘You’ve taken my answer for granted, haven’t you?’ Lilah exclaimed. ‘I haven’t said yes yet, but you’re convinced I will.’
‘And am I wrong?’ Bastien traded.
Her teeth gritted together. ‘No, you’re not.’
‘So, are you going for option two or option three?’ Bastien enquired lazily, leaning back against his desk in an attitude of relaxation that infuriated her.
* * *
Option three, option three, Bastien willed Delilah to tell him. That would be the most profitable option for him. He would sell the current site, relocate the factory to the outskirts of town and in doing so take advantage of several lucrative government grants aimed at persuading companies to open up in areas of high unemployment. For him it would be a win-win situation, because he would gain Lilah, an immediate profit to cover all outlay and a cost-efficient business.
‘You have no shame, have you?’ Lilah hissed, like oil bubbling on too high a heat.
‘Not when it comes to you,’ Bastien agreed. ‘It’s the only way I’m ever going to get you, because you’re stubborn and contrary and you have a very closed little mind.’
‘I am none of those things,’ Lilah rebutted angrily.
‘Stubborn because the minute we saw each other we were destined to be together but you immediately fought it. Contrary because you feel the same way about me as I do about you—instantaneous lust—but you deny it. And a closed mind because you believe a life of self-denial is innately superior to mine.’ A wolfish smile slashed Bastien’s lean strong face. ‘I can’t wait for the moment when you realise that you can’t keep your hands off me.’
Lilah gave him a look of withering scorn. ‘You’ll get old waiting for that.’
Straightening up to his full commanding height, Bastien strolled forward, fluid as a predator tracking prey. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. Option two? Or option three?’
‘Three... Although I should warn you, you’ve picked the wrong woman.’
‘Three...’ Bastien’s accent made a three-course meal of the word as he savoured it with immense satisfaction. ‘In what way are you the wrong woman?’
Lilah shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. ‘I haven’t got the experience you’ll probably expect,’ she told him stiffly, deeply disturbed by his increasing closeness and fighting the revealing urge to step back out of reach.
‘I’ve got enough experience for both of us,’ Bastien purred, dark eyes flashing gold as he stared down at her. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you haven’t indulged that side of your nature very often?’
‘Haven’t indulged it at all,’ she countered curtly, lifting her chin, standing her ground, refusing to feel embarrassed. ‘I’m a virgin.’
Bastien actually backed away a couple of feet, his lean chiselled features setting into rigid angles of shock while his eyes flared more golden than ever below the thick canopy of his black lashes. ‘Is that a tease?’
Lilah gave him a grim glance. ‘No, it’s not. I just thought I should warn you in case it’s a deal-breaker.’
‘Are you telling me the truth?’ Bastien prompted in a roughened undertone, prowling closer again and circling her like a stalking panther. ‘You’re a virgin?’
Colour ran up below her pale cheeks but she held his fierce gaze. ‘Yes.’
‘If you’re telling me the truth it’s not a deal-breaker—it’s the biggest turn-on I’ve ever had,’ Bastien confessed, thoroughly shocking her with that assurance.
Bastien was disturbingly conscious that for once he was not uttering a mere soundbite for effect. He had never been with a virgin. When he was a teenager his partners had all been older, and when the age range of his lovers had begun to match his own maturity he had never dallied or even wanted to dally with a sexually innocent woman. For a start, he had never been attracted to young, immature girls. In addition he did very much like sex, and he had no time for those who would stick limits on a physical outlet he saw as both natural and free.
Yet something strange was happening to his views while he looked at Delilah, because he was discovering that when those same limits were applied to her and her innocence he was happy with the idea...and even happier at the prospect of becoming her first lover. He didn’t understand why he felt that way, because he had never been a possessive man, and nor had he ever been remotely unsure of his own skills in the bedroom and afraid of comparison.
A frown settled between his brows while he attempted to penetrate the mystery of his own gratification at her announcement—until the obvious answer came to him. What he found appealing had to be the sheer novelty of the experience she offered him...of course she would be something different, something new, something fresh!
‘That’s disgusting,’ Lilah told him furiously. ‘How can you admit something like that?’
Uncomfortably aroused by his thoughts, Bastien wanted to reach for her and demonstrate exactly how he felt, but he knew it wasn’t the right moment. The nervous flicker of her bright blue eyes, her very restiveness, warned him that if he gave her sufficient ammunition she would take off in a panic like a hare bolting for its burrow.
‘I will want you to sign a confidentiality agreement,’ he told her levelly, sticking strictly to practicality. ‘That’s standard. It means that you will never be able to talk about our association in public or in private.’
Her nose wrinkled with distaste. ‘I hardly think I would want to talk about it,’ she said drily, fighting the nerves leaping in her stomach.
‘In return I will purchase a suitable house for your father and his family.’
Lilah squared her slight shoulders. ‘No, you will not. I don’t want my family to be suspicious about my supposed job with you, and if you splash around too much cash they will definitely be suspicious. Give my father employment and he’ll take care of his own family without any further help from you,’ she told him with quiet pride.
‘I’ll want you to fly down to London with me tomorrow.’
Her eyes flew wide. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll call your father in to see me today and share the good news. I’ll inform him that you’re joining my personal staff. You can go home early to pack and you can dine with me at my hotel tonight.’
‘I have a prior arrangement to meet friends.’
‘To do what?’ Bastien demanded impatiently.
‘To eat out and see a movie.’
Bastien compressed his wide, sensual mouth. He wanted to tell her that in the near future she would do nothing without his permission. It was astonishing how much pleasure that belief gave him. But he didn’t need to crack the whip right here and now, did he? She would be his soon enough and he would share her with no one—not friends, not family, no one.
Was that what could be described as a ‘possessive’ thought? His skin chilled at the suspicion. No, the thought was born of the reality that he had had to wait so long for Delilah that he wanted and indeed expected to receive one hundred per cent of her attention. He was not and never would be a possessive man, he assured himself with confidence. Even so, now that Delilah was officially set to become part of his life, in a way no other woman had ever been, he would ensure that she was protected by telling one of his security team to keep an eye on her from a discreet distance.
Lilah watched as Bastien unfurled his cell phone, stabbed out a number and spoke at length in Greek—short, staccato phrases that sounded very much like instructions.
‘My driver will take you home now,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘And wait to collect your father and bring him back here to see me.’
Lilah hovered, because he made it all seem so bloodless and impersonal. Nothing she had said had changed his outlook about what he was doing. He neither regretted nor questioned his callous methods. He wanted her and he didn’t care what he had to do to get her. The passion that had to power such an unapologetic desire for her body shook Lilah.
He closed a hand round hers and entrapped her without warning. ‘Evidently I won’t see you now until tomorrow, when we meet on my plane. It’s probably just as well that you’re seeing friends tonight. It takes the focus off us,’ he pointed out with grudging appreciation. ‘It will be more comfortable for all of us that way.’
‘Certainly for you...if it keeps my father in the dark,’ Lilah gibed.
‘Do you honestly think I care about his opinion?’ Bastien countered thickly. ‘We’re single adults. What we do in private is our business.’
Long dark fingers closed round her other hand, tugging her closer, fully entrapping her.
‘Our business alone,’ Bastien repeated thickly, lowering his arrogant dark head to hers and teasing along the tense line of her full lower lip with the blunt edge of his teeth, before soothing it with his tongue in a provocative caress that caught her unprepared and sent liquid heat to pool in her pelvis.
‘We’re at work, for goodness’ sake!’ Lilah protested in a rattled undertone.
‘It’s just a kiss,’ Bastien husked, delving between her parted lips with his tongue and plunging deep with an unashamed hunger that roared through her like a bush fire.
Her knees locked and her legs swayed and she grabbed his forearms to steady herself, fingers clenching into the fabric of his suit jacket in consternation.
Just a kiss.
A little voice reminded her that in the near future she would have to give him a great deal more than a kiss. His mouth hardened on hers, hot and demanding, and a sensation like an electric shock tingled through her, awakening her body as nothing else had ever done. Her nipples pinched into tight buds of sensitivity; the secret flesh between her legs pulsed with sudden dampness. It was a wanting—a fierce wanting unlike anything she had ever felt before—and she was appalled by the response he was wringing from her treacherous body.
A lean hand clamped her spine to force her closer, and against her stomach she felt the hard swell of his erection even through the barrier of their clothing. A surge of burning heat that was very far from revulsion engulfed her and her face burned even hotter as he set her back from him with controlled force.
‘I shouldn’t start something I can’t finish,’ Bastien quipped.
Desperately flailing for something...anything...to distract her from the attack of self-loathing waiting to pounce on her, Lilah paused on her way to the door. ‘Is it all right if I bring my dog with me tomorrow?’
‘No pets. Leave the dog with your family.’
‘I can’t. My stepmother isn’t comfortable with dogs. He’s very small and quiet,’ Lilah assured Bastien, lying through her teeth because Skippy wasn’t remotely quiet once he got to know people.
Bastien frowned. ‘Write down its details. I’ll arrange for a specialist transport firm to handle the travel arrangements,’ he pronounced after a considered pause. ‘But once the animal arrives in France keep it away from me.’
‘France?’ she repeated in consternation.
‘We’re going to France the day after tomorrow.’
Lilah tottered back downstairs, shattered by the way she had succumbed to that single kiss. How could Bastien still have that effect on her? She hadn’t been prepared for that. Perhaps naively she had assumed that her disgust at the unholy agreement he had offered her would protect her. But it hadn’t.
Bastien had bought her acquiescence with a job for her father and the promised long-term prosperity of the reopened factory. Didn’t he see how wrong that deal was? That reducing her body to the level of something to be traded like a product made her hate him? Didn’t that matter to him?
But why should it matter to him? she questioned heavily as she informed Julie that she was leaving early. Bastien only wanted sex. He wasn’t interested in what went on inside her head or how she felt about him. He didn’t care... And neither should she care, she told herself defiantly. Being oversensitive in Bastien’s radius was only going to get her hurt and humiliated. He wouldn’t give her the kind of polite or gracious pretences that would allow her to save face. There would be no frills in the way of romance or compliments. He wasn’t about to dress up their connection by making it about anything more than sex.
Later that same evening, in the wake of a whirlwind of embarrassingly untruthful explanations on the home front and a great deal of packing, Lilah emerged from the cinema with Josh—a tall, attractive man in his twenties, with brown hair and green eyes—and two other couples, Ann and Jack and Dana and George. There was nothing like a good fright or two to dispel tension, Lilah acknowledged wryly as she laughed at something Ann said about the horror movie they had watched.
‘You’re making a wise move on the career front,’ Josh told her. ‘Doing HR at Moore wasn’t stretching you. Working for an international businessman will offer you much more experience.’
A shamefaced flush lit Lilah’s face, because her friends had swallowed her lies about going to work for Bastien hook, line and sinker—just as her family had. ‘I suppose so...’
‘Very bad timing for me, though.’ Without warning Josh reached for both her hands. ‘You’re leaving just when I was about to ask you out on a real date.’
‘What?’ Lilah’s voice was shrill with surprise.
Josh grinned down at her, ignoring Jack’s mocking wolf whistle. ‘I mean, you must have wondered at least once what it would be like if we got together.’
Lilah grimaced, not knowing what to say to him. Because she never had wondered.
Josh edged her back against the wall behind her. ‘Just one kiss,’ he muttered.
Lilah stiffened, wondering why she felt like a stick of rock with ‘Property of Bastien Zikos’ stamped all the way through her. ‘No, Josh,’ she said, her hands braced against his chest.
But because she couldn’t bring herself to actively push him away he kissed her, and she felt much as a shop window mannequin might have felt...absolutely nothing. Because while she liked Josh, and enjoyed his company, she had never fancied him.
‘While you’re away think about the possibility of us,’ Josh urged, stretching an arm round her to guide her towards his parked car.
‘I don’t think so,’ Lilah responded, wondering if there was a kind way of telling a man that you didn’t fancy him in the slightest and knowing that there wasn’t, and that the best response was probably for her just to pretend that absolutely nothing had happened.
‘Awkward...’ Ann mouthed, her eyes rolling with sympathy.
When Lilah walked back into her living room she was surprised by the expression of sincere happiness on her father’s face. But she knew that even before she had reached home that afternoon Bastien had phoned her father, and the older man had already put on a suit by the time the car bringing his daughter home had arrived. When Lilah had gone out to meet her friends her father had still been out, presumably still with Bastien, which had worried Lilah.
‘Everything all right, Dad?’ she questioned anxiously.
‘Better than that,’ the older man assured her with vigour, and informed her that Bastien had hired him to act as manager at Moore Components—a role which he was very happy to take on.
‘I’m beginning to understand how Bastien has become so very rich so fast,’ the older man remarked in wry addition. ‘He’s very astute, and he spotted a break that would benefit Moore when no one else did.’
‘What? What did he spot?’ Lilah prompted with a frown.
‘Bastien recognised that the council has recently rezoned the town’s plans to open the door for further development. He’s selling the current site for a huge amount of money and relocating the factory to the Moat Road, where he’ll qualify for all sorts of lucrative government grants when he reopens for business. It’s an incredibly smart move.’
‘Good grief!’ Lilah gasped, shock and temper bubbling up inside her at the belated awareness that Bastien had cut a very good deal with her in every way. Not only was he getting her, parcelled up like a gift, but he was also evidently on course to make a big profit too! And that realisation absolutely enraged Lilah.
