Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 36

CHAPTER FIVE

‘COULD I HAVE a quiet word, sir?’

Manos, Bastien’s head of security, approached him as he was still working, close to midnight. The older man seemed uncomfortable.

‘It relates to Miss Moore...’

And within the space of minutes Bastien’s even-tempered mood had been destroyed by the information Manos put in front of him.

Having initially assumed that Delilah was simply another employee, Manos had only belatedly realised that the news that she had been seen consorting with another man might be of interest to Bastien.

Bastien was shocked. And then furious with himself for being shocked. After all, how many times had a woman let him down? Lied to him? Ripped him off? Faked emotions to impress him? Too many times to count, Bastien conceded, tight mouthed with cynicism, his lean, starkly handsome bone structure rigid. But as far as he was aware not a single one of his lovers had ever cheated on him.

Forewarned is forearmed, Bastien told himself forbiddingly. And if Delilah had been with another man as recently as the night before, he no longer wanted her, did he? Damn Security for not following her home to establish exactly how the evening had concluded!

Frustration building at this incomplete picture of events, Bastien clenched his fists, plunged upright and decided to go out. The frustration was fast becoming rage, in a vicious tide that came with a bitter backwash.

A virgin? Of course Delilah was not a virgin! How likely had that claim ever been? Obviously she had made up that story in an effort to make him feel guilty while she played the poor little victim. And he didn’t do victims any more than he did relationships, did he? Delilah Moore was toxic for him. Hadn’t he suspected as much two years earlier? When had he ever wanted one particular woman that much? Any hunger that particular wasn’t healthy.

Bastien headed for an exclusive nightclub to find another woman for the night. He had to prove to his own satisfaction that he was not remotely concerned by what he had learned about Delilah. She was not special in any way, he told himself furiously, downing his third drink in fast succession. She was like every other woman he had ever met: immediately...easily...replaceable.

In the club, Bastien was surrounded by beautiful women eager to attract his attention. He waited for one to give him a buzz, studying a blonde and deciding she was too voluptuous. A brunette who had eyes that were too close together. A redhead who laughed like a hyena. Another wore a hideous floral dress, and yet another had enormous feet.

Delilah’s were the very first female feet Bastien had ever actually noticed, he acknowledged abstractedly. She had very small feet, with teeny-tiny toes and nails like polished pearls.

He settled into his fourth drink and wondered first of all why he was thinking about feet and then why he was still on his own. Why the hell was he suddenly being so fastidious? Any attractive woman would do. Hadn’t he always believed that? He did not, could not, still want a woman who had cheated on him.

So what was he planning to do about Delilah?

Bastien registered that he wanted to confront her, and that strange urge deeply unsettled him. After all, he had always avoided high drama, and he had never, ever argued with the women who’d shared his bed. Why would he argue when women who annoyed him were instantly banished from his life, never to hear from him again?

He would send Delilah back up north, forget about her, cut his losses....

* * *

When the bedroom door opened abruptly Lilah was jolted awake. She sat up. Light was flooding the doorway to silhouette a powerful male figure. Instantly she knew it was Bastien, and instantly she was apprehensive.

The light was snapped on, momentarily blinding her, and Bastien strode in. His lean bronzed features were clenched ferociously hard, and his eyes, dark as eternal night, glittered above high lancing cheekbones. Her tummy performed a nervous dance and she backed up against the pillows with her knees defensively raised.

‘I want a word with you.’

Bastien sent the door behind him thudding shut and her throat closed over convulsively.

A faint whiff of alcohol assailed her nose; he had been drinking. For the first time Lilah was appreciating that she knew very little about Bastien Zikos—basically only what she had read on the internet, none of which was reassuring. Did he drink a lot? Was he drunk now? Was he violent? Was such random temperamental behaviour the norm for him?

‘Stop looking at me like that...’ Bastien growled in frowning reproof, studying her from below the thick canopy of his black lashes.

Clutching the duvet to her with a nervous hand, Lilah breathed out. ‘Like what?’

‘As if you’re scared!’ Bastien grated accusingly. ‘I have never hurt a woman in my life.’

A tentative half smile stole some of the tension from Lilah’s triangular face. ‘You just walked in... You startled me... I was fast asleep,’ she explained, struggling to excuse herself rather than tell him the truth.

And the truth was that Bastien was scary. He was very tall, very muscular, much larger and stronger than she was in every way. Moreover, although he had the hauntingly beautiful face of a fallen angel, his dark eyes currently had a piercing, chilling light that utterly intimidated her.

‘I want you to tell me where you were and who you were with last night,’ Bastien bit out harshly, taking up a brooding stance at the very foot of the bed. ‘Don’t leave anything out.’

‘I was out with a group of friends,’ Lilah almost whispered, wondering why on earth he could be demanding such an explanation. ‘We went for a meal and then to the cinema.’

‘Do you normally kiss your male friends and then climb into a car to go home with them at the end of the night?’ Bastien asked grimly.

Her eyes widened and flickered in dismay, colour warming her pale face. ‘How do you know there was a kiss?’

Bastien was watching her face, recognising the embarrassment and the sudden flash of resentment there but seeing not a shred of guilt. ‘I had one of my security team watching you last night. He lost track of you after you got into the guy’s car.’

‘Oh...’ It was the only thing Lilah could initially think to say, because she was hugely disconcerted by the idea that someone Bastien employed had been following her round before she’d even left her home town. How dared he invade her privacy like that? ‘You had no right to have anyone watching me.’

‘From the moment I let you into my life I had that right. Did you spend the night with him?’

Battling to keep her temper over that far-reaching declaration of his rights over her, Lilah swallowed hard. ‘No, I didn’t. Josh dropped me straight home. There was one kiss, Bastien, nothing more.’ She frowned at him, dismayed by the depth of his distrust. ‘He’s never kissed me before, and I wasn’t expecting it. He was just trying it on.’

‘You didn’t try to stop him.’

‘He’s a friend and we had an audience.’ Lilah grimaced. ‘I didn’t want to make a big scene of rejecting him in front of everyone. It would have made us all feel horribly uncomfortable.’

Bastien studied her, torn between belief and disbelief. His lean, strong features remained hard and set, his tawny eyes veiled by his lashes. The silence lay there, thick as a swamp between them.

‘You were too generous. You’re mine now,’ Bastien told her in a raw, gritty undertone. ‘I will not tolerate any other man touching you.’

‘Bastien...I don’t want anyone following me around, spying on me.’

‘It goes with the territory. It’s for my peace of mind and your protection.’

‘I don’t need protection.’

‘That’s my decision,’ Bastien decreed, snapping off the light in a sudden movement that made her flinch.

‘Bastien...?’ Lilah whispered.

A powerful silhouette, he hovered. ‘What?’

‘Sometimes you really, really annoy me.’

‘That cuts both ways.’

Bastien studied her slight figure in the bed and then strode into the room to flip back the duvet and scoop her up into his arms.

‘What are you doing?’ she gasped in consternation as he strode into the room next door to hers.

Bastien thrust back the sheet on his bed and settled her on the mattress. ‘I want you where I can see you,’ he told her curtly.

‘You told me that I was getting my own room,’ she reminded him breathlessly.

‘For what remains of tonight, I’ve changed my mind.’ Removing his jacket, he cast it on a chair, a lean, strong band of muscle flexing below his shirt. ‘I’m going for a shower,’ he extended, without any expression at all.

Lilah curled up in a ball on one side of the bed, too tired and wrung out to agonise or argue. So that was that? There was to be no further discussion?

Bastien had assumed that she had slept with Josh last night. Did he believe that she hadn’t? Did she care whether he believed her or not?

He was so...so...volatile. She hadn’t been prepared for that—had assumed that deep down inside he was cold as ice and detached. She had been wrong. In addition, only a few hours ago she would have been overcome with embarrassment at the prospect of facing Bastien again. At least she would’ve been until Bastien himself had dismissed what they had shared as ‘innocent’, which had certainly clarified matters as far as she was concerned.

Years of standing back and protecting herself while other people dabbled in sex had, she had decided ruefully, made her prudish and naive. As far as Bastien was concerned nothing worthy of note had yet happened between them. Why else would he have called an episode that had shocked her ‘innocent’? And if he wasn’t disturbed or embarrassed by it why should she be?

* * *

The arrival of a lavish breakfast tray awakened Lilah the next day. She glanced at the dent in the pillow next to her own and marvelled at the reality that she had fallen asleep with Bastien beside her and, in spite of his presence, slept like a log.

She was tucking into a chocolate croissant and covered in crumbs when Berdina, one of Bastien’s personal assistants, arrived to tell her that Bastien was in a meeting and that after a brief appointment with Bastien’s lawyer she would be flying to Paris with Bastien in a couple of hours.

While wondering why she was to meet with a lawyer, Lilah packed her new wardrobe and picked out a stylish electric blue coat and fine dress to wear. These designer clothes were props, to support the role that she was being well paid to play, Lilah told herself firmly. Bastien was reopening Moore Components and re-employing the workforce—including her father. That was her payoff. That was why she was with Bastien in the first place.

She needed to remind herself of that reality on a regular basis. There was nothing complicated about their agreement. Bastien had made it all completely straightforward, hadn’t he? He wanted her and he had worked out exactly what it would take to persuade her to surrender to his demands. He had proved that she had a price, and she doubted she would ever be able to forgive him for being right about that.

When she emerged from the bedroom the lawyer was waiting to present her with the confidentiality contract that she had agreed to sign.

The older man settled the slim document on the table and Lilah sat down to read it. He drew her attention to various clauses and handed her a pen. It was fairly standard stuff, and after adding her signature she passed the document back.

Porters had arrived to pick up her luggage, and she vacated the hotel in Berdina’s company.

‘We’re lunching with François and Marielle Durand in Paris,’ Bastien informed Lilah the instant she sat down opposite him on board his sleek, opulent jet. He wore a charcoal-grey suit, superbly tailored to his lean, powerful frame, and his white shirt framed his strong bronzed jaw.

‘Who are they?’ Lilah asked curiously.

‘Marielle is an ex, now married to François. Including you in the arrangement will make it a more relaxed meeting,’ Bastien opined with smooth assurance as coffee was served.

His admission that Marielle Durand was a former lover sent Lilah’s interest hurtling into the stratosphere.

‘This is for you...’ Bastien tossed down a credit card on the table between them. ‘While I’m taking care of business this morning you will go shopping, and I’ll pick you up when it’s time for lunch—’

Lilah studied the credit card with a sinking heart and pushed it away several inches. ‘I don’t want to spend your money,’ she told him tightly.

‘I didn’t give you a choice. Spending my money goes with the territory and I expect you to do it,’ Bastien decreed, flicking the card back towards her with the tip of a forceful finger.

Lilah reminded herself that she didn’t have to buy anything and put the card in her clutch bag for the sake of peace. It had not escaped her notice that Bastien’s staff watched her every move, visibly curious about her connection with their employer. That interest implied that, from the outside at least, her relationship with Bastien appeared unusual in some way.

She lifted her chin and collided unexpectedly with Bastien’s smouldering dark golden eyes. Her temperature rose and her heartbeat thundered, the tip of her tongue sliding out to moisten the dryness of her full lower lip. She was helplessly recalling the expert stroke of Bastien’s fingers over the most intimate part of her body and reddening to the roots of her hair.

‘Se thelo... I want you...’ Bastien breathed thickly.

Lilah couldn’t have found her voice to save herself. Hot colour inflamed her pale complexion, her eyes widening she gazed back at him, taken aback by his candour.

A long, tanned forefinger skimmed down the back of her hand where it rested on the tabletop. ‘I’ve never waited as long for any woman as I’ve waited for you. Of course I’m hot for you. Last night only whetted my appetite, koukla mou.’

As he touched her Lilah tore her gaze from his and yanked her hand back out of reach. ‘You weren’t waiting,’ she told him with tart emphasis, before she could think better of it. ‘Over the past two years you’ve been with one woman after another.’

A winged ebony brow climbed. ‘Keeping count, were you?’ Bastien quipped.

‘Why would I care what you do?’ Lilah traded, hot cheeked.

‘I don’t want you to care about me in any way,’ Bastien countered without hesitation, his stunning dark eyes welded to her expressive face. ‘This is sex, nothing more.’

Lilah lifted a delicate brow. ‘What else could it be?’

* * *

Walking through the airport in Paris with Bastien, she was disconcerted to move beyond the barrier and suddenly find a phalanx of cameras aimed at them. Dismay gripped her, because the last thing she wanted was to be publically outed as Bastien Zikos’s latest ‘hottie’.

In an effort to lessen that risk she stepped away from Bastien and endeavoured to act more like an employee than a lover. The cameras continued to flash regardless. Questions were shouted, asking who she was in both French and English. They, like the photographers, were ignored.

Her colour fluctuating, Lilah climbed into the limo outside the airport accompanied by Berdina, who was to act as her guide on the shopping trip, and Ciro, who was with her for security. By that time Lilah was worrying that her family or her friends would see photos of her with Bastien in the papers and become suspicious that she was doing more than simply working for him.

But once the affair was over would that really matter? she asked herself ruefully.

The car whisked them to the Avenue Montaigne, where a whole range of designer shops were located.

While Berdina’s attention was elsewhere Lilah looked up Marielle Durand on her phone. Photos of a slender exquisite blonde cascaded across the screen and Lilah swallowed hard. Marielle had been a famous model before her marriage.

Her thoughts abstracted, Lilah prowled through Louis Vuitton, Dior and Chanel and browsed, before obeying the letter of the law in Ralph Lauren and flourishing Bastien’s credit card to buy Bastien a new tie. He couldn’t complain now, could he? She had bought something.

Bastien joined her at noon. ‘Where are your shopping bags?’ he demanded.

Lilah extracted the small package from her clutch and handed it to him. ‘For you.’

Bastien frowned at her. ‘For...me?’

‘You said I had to spend your money, so I did.’

Bastien unwrapped the gold silk tie and studied it in astonishment. ‘You bought me a tie?’

‘I won’t need anything new to wear this century, after the amount of stuff you bought in London,’ Lilah pointed out.

‘That wasn’t the point of the exercise,’ Bastien traded harshly. ‘The point is that, for once, I wanted you to do exactly as you were told.’

‘Sorry, sir, I’ll have to try harder,’ Lilah quipped.

‘Have you always found it this hard to follow instructions?’

‘When you’re issuing them...yes,’ she admitted ruefully.

‘You should want to please me,’ Bastien told her as blue eyes bright as sapphires met his critical gaze.

With her dark hair framing her triangular face and her eyes sparkling above her neat little nose and her full rosy mouth, she looked amazingly fragile and feminine—as well as fizzingly alive.

‘Why?’

‘It puts me in a better mood.’

While Lilah tried to imagine Bastien’s moods influencing her in any way, the limo nosed back into the traffic.

The Durands lived in an imposing eighteenth-century townhouse on Ile Saint-Louis. A maid ushered them into an airy salon, where introductions were performed and drinks were served.

Keenly aware of Marielle Durand’s scrutiny, Lilah struggled to relax. Marielle was even more beautiful in the flesh than she had looked in her photographs, and Lilah was surprised to realise that the other woman was English.

Bastien surprised Lilah by closing his hand over hers to keep her close while he chatted to François. The conversation was solely in French, until Marielle addressed Lilah in English and asked her about her home town. Relieved not to be forced to stumble out any more stock phrases in her schoolgirl French, Lilah relaxed a little over the light lunch that was being served.

Over a glass of wine, the beautiful blonde invited Lilah to walk round the garden with her.

‘How long have you been with Bastien?’ Marielle asked with unconcealed curiosity, as soon as the men were out of earshot.

‘Only a few days,’ Lilah admitted wryly. ‘Am I allowed to ask when you...?’

‘Years and years ago—soon after I first made my name in the modelling world. He was probably my most exciting affair,’ the other woman confided with an abstracted laugh. ‘I adore my husband, but I’ve never felt anything like the excitement I once felt around Bastien. He’s a heartbreaker, though, too damaged to ever trust his heart to one woman and settle down.’

‘Damaged?’ Lilah queried with a frown.

‘Oh, I don’t know any details, but I’ve always been certain he must come from a challenging background. No man’s that hard to hold, and no man finds it that impossible to trust a woman without good reason,’ Marielle opined. ‘He was too complicated for me.’

And then Lilah made a discovery that disconcerted her: she liked complicated—actually enjoyed the challenge of wondering what made Bastien tick. He was like no other man she had ever met. Incalculably clever, impatient, volatile and unpredictable. He was an unashamed workaholic, evidently unfulfilled by the huge achievements he had already made. What had made him like that... Who had made him like that? What drove him? And why did she care?

* * *

‘You charmed the Durands very effectively,’ Bastien pronounced on their journey back to the airport. ‘You don’t have a jealous bone in your body where I’m concerned, do you?’

‘Why would I?’ Lilah parried, quickly overcoming her surprise at that unexpected stab. ‘I can’t think you’d welcome a possessive woman.’

That was certainly true, Bastien acknowledged grudgingly, and yet when he had glanced out through the patio doors standing open to the sunlight to see Delilah smiling and laughing, seemingly on the very best of terms with Marielle, he had been surprisingly riled by Delilah’s complete indifference to his past history with the beautiful blonde.

The faintest colour warmed Lilah’s cheeks, because although she had not been jealous or possessive she had felt uncomfortable in Marielle’s company—and positively nauseous at the knowledge that Bastien had been sexually intimate with her hostess.

‘Where are we going now?’ she asked, purely to change the subject.

‘I have a chateau in Provence...’