Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 38

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘DELILAH!’ BASTIEN GRATED from the doorway. ‘Get up—I need to talk to you...’

Wondering what she had done to deserve such a rude awakening, Lilah opened her eyes only wide enough to peer at the pretty miniature alarm clock adorning the bedside cabinet. It was barely seven in the morning.

Blinking rapidly, in an effort to get her brain functioning again, she swallowed back a yawn and struggled to focus on Bastien’s tall, powerful figure by the door that appeared to communicate between her room and his. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked sleepily.

‘We’ll discuss it when you get up,’ Bastien framed darkly, glittering dark eyes settling on her with chilling distaste. ‘I’ll see you downstairs in five minutes.’

Exasperated, Lilah rolled her eyes. In mega-bossy mode, Bastien infuriated her—and she refused to be ordered round like an unruly schoolgirl. On the other hand, something bad had clearly happened, and he evidently thought she was involved in it in some way—because why else would he have looked at her as if she had just crawled out from under a stone? Even so...he expected her downstairs within five minutes? In his dreams!

Scrambling out of bed, she went into the dressing room and searched through innumerable drawers to find her own humble clothing, from which she selected denim shorts and a simple white tank top to deal with the early-morning heat she could feel in the air. Following a quick shower and the application of a little light make-up, Lilah stalked downstairs in flat canvas shoes, ready for whatever Bastien might choose to throw at her.

With a noisy scrabbling of his claws on the hallway tiles, Skippy hurled himself at Lilah’s knees. Stefan informed her that Bastien was waiting for her in his study and directed her down a corridor. Breakfast, he added helpfully, would be served out on the terrace.

Bastien was lodged by the window of a large, imposing book-lined room with his broad back turned towards her. Muscles flexed beneath the taut, expensive fabric of his jacket. He swung round, and she was irritated that she immediately noted that his dark designer suit acted as a superb tailored frame for his wide shoulders, narrow hips and long, powerful thighs.

Hard, dark golden eyes zeroed in on her, and involuntarily, Lilah paled at the intensity of that tough, questioning scrutiny.

Mouth curling, Bastien scanned her appearance in the worn shorts and casual top, neither of which had featured in her officially sanctioned new wardrobe. The adolescent outfit combined with her long, tumbled hair and only a touch of make-up made her look very much like a teenager. Admittedly, though, an incredibly pretty teenager.

Pretty...an old-fashioned word which didn’t belong in his vocabulary, Bastien reflected in exasperation at his lack of concentration. Hot would be a more appropriate word, and from the top of her curly dark head down to her pert breasts, tiny waist and slim sexy legs and the very soles of her tiny canvas-shod feet, Delilah looked amazingly hot.

He tensed, reluctant to embrace that thought, but his body was already doing that for him, reacting with libidinous enthusiasm to her presence.

‘What’s this all about?’ she asked in apparent innocence.

In answer, Bastien crossed the room and lifted his tablet from the desk top. ‘This!’ he bit out wrathfully.

Lilah moved closer to stare at the British newspaper headline depicted on the screen.

Dufort Pharmaceuticals to join Zikos stable?

‘I still don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lilah pointed out, although she had the vaguest recollection that she had heard that company’s name mentioned during Bastien’s deliberations with his staff that first evening in the hotel in London. Unfortunately, since she had not really been listening, she had not the foggiest idea why Bastien was so annoyed.

‘Someone leaked confidential information to the press that night in London...and I believe it was you!’ Bastien breathed with raw emphasis.

Lilah’s spine snapped straight as an arrow, her blue eyes rounding with disbelief as she tipped her head back to look him in the eye. ‘Me?’ she spluttered incredulously. ‘Are you nuts?’

His cool, sculpted mouth hardened. ‘You’re the only person who left the suite during my discussions with the team that evening. According to my sources, someone tipped off the press halfway through that evening. The bodyguard accompanying you saw you making several phone calls. You also had contact with a journalist.’

Her soft mouth had fallen open in shock, because she could barely credit what she was hearing. How dared he accuse her of being some sort of business spy when he had shared a bed with her the night before? How dared he?

Her colour rose even higher when she recalled that he had actually slept apart from her, and she replied curtly, ‘I can’t believe you’re serious. Why would you suspect me of stealing confidential information? Why would anyone want to leak it?’

‘The tip that I’m planning to buy Dufort Pharmaceuticals is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the open market.’

‘But I didn’t leak it. I didn’t discuss it with anyone,’ Lilah remonstrated. ‘Why would I have? Apart from anything else, I’m not interested in that information and I wasn’t really listening to what you and your staff were talking about... I was watching TV.’

‘You were present throughout. You heard everything,’ Bastien reminded her obdurately.

‘At least four members of your staff were present as well! Why are you picking on me?’ Lilah demanded in a furious counter-attack.

‘I have absolute faith in my personal team.’

‘I’m delighted to hear it, but obviously your faith is misplaced in at least one of them,’ Lilah pointed out thinly. ‘Because I can assure you that I didn’t sell any information about your business dealings to anyone.’

‘I don’t trust you,’ Bastien admitted harshly, because he had looked at the evidence from every angle and the conclusion that Delilah had sold the information made the most sense.

Lilah set the tablet back down on the table. ‘Well, I’m not playing the fall guy, here, so you have a problem. I suggest you stop wasting time suspecting me of doing the dirty on you and search out the real mole. Why would you suspect me anyway? I’ve got too much to lose in this situation.’

‘How?’ Bastien gritted, unimpressed, and particularly outraged because he had wakened to the phone call forewarning him of the press release with a powerful craving to enjoy her small slender body again.

‘You gave my father a job, which means a lot to him. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise his continuing employment,’ Lilah argued vehemently. ‘I’m not an idiot, Bastien. If I betrayed your trust you wouldn’t stick to our agreement.’

His hard mouth set into a grim, clenched line, Bastien said nothing. He could not count on her loyalty. She was a woman, not an employee, and she might well want to punish him for the choice he had offered her. That gave her a good motive, and she had certainly had the opportunity that night to pass on news of his acquisition plans for Dufort Pharmaceuticals.

Worst of all, the damage was done now that the facts were out in the public domain. Either he paid through the nose to acquire a company which was no longer the bargain it had been or he decided to back off altogether.

‘You have cost me a great deal of money,’ Bastien told her harshly.

‘You don’t listen. You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said in my own defence, have you?’ Lilah accused, her eyes flaring an almost other-worldly blue with suppressed rage. ‘But I’ll say it one more time...not guilty. I didn’t gossip about your business plans or pass them on to anyone who could profit from knowing about them. I made two separate phone calls after leaving the hotel suite—one to my father and the other to my stepmother. On neither call did I mention your business discussions. The journalist who approached me was a gossip columnist, not a financial reporter...’ Her voice trailed off as she studied his lean, darkly handsome face, which was shuttered and forbidding. ‘You’re still not listening to me...’

Seething resentment was flaming up through the temper which Lilah was struggling to keep under control. Her hands closed into punitive fists. Even before she had answered his charges she had clearly been judged and found guilty, which was hideously unfair.

‘Tell me, do you distrust all women or just me?’ she slammed.

‘Women are very clever at establishing a man’s weaknesses and playing on them,’ Bastien countered.

‘And your only weakness is protecting your profit margins?’ Lilah folded her arms defensively and breathed in slow and deep. ‘What you really need, Bastien, is a proper challenge.’

The lush black lashes enhancing his gorgeous eyes lifted, to reveal glittering dark gold chips full of stark enquiry. ‘Meaning...?’

‘All bets are off between us until you find out who did betray your trust and you clear my name.’

‘Diavelos...what are you trying to say?’ Bastien demanded curtly.

‘No sex until you sort this out,’ Lilah told him in the baldest possible terms. ‘I refuse to sleep with a man who thinks I’m some sort of thief and fraudster.’

Dark colour accentuated the exotic line of Bastien’s supermodel cheekbones. ‘That is not what our agreement entails and nor is it an accurate version of what I said to you.’

‘Stuff the agreement!’ Lilah flung back at him wildly. ‘You can’t make the kind of accusation you just made and then act like it shouldn’t make a difference to me. You check out every employee who was there that night, and anyone else who knew about your interest in that company, you find out who sold you down the river...and then you apologise to me.’

Bastien sent her an incredulous glance, dark eyes flashing the purest gold, pride and anger etching taut hard lines into his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Apologise?’

‘Yes, you will apologise—even if it kills you!’ Lilah launched at him full volume, all control of her temper abandoned in the face of such wanton provocation. ‘You have deeply insulted me, and I refuse to accept that kind of treatment. And, by the way, you can keep this...’ Digging the diamond pendant out of her pocket, Lilah set it down on the table. ‘I didn’t ask for it, I don’t appreciate it, and I will not wear it again unless you apologise to me!’

‘Are you finished?’ Bastien demanded wrathfully. ‘I don’t do apologies.’

‘Fortunately it’s never too late to learn good manners!’ Lilah stated without hesitation, before turning on her heel with Skippy following close behind like a shadow.

She walked out to the shaded terrace for the breakfast Stefan had promised her.

She was trembling when she collapsed down limply into a seat by the table, but she didn’t regret a word she had said to Bastien. She had to be tough to deal with him or he would roar over her like a fireball and burn her to ashes in his wake. Bastien had questioned her integrity, and Lilah was proud of her integrity. She was no angel, but she didn’t lie, cheat or defraud, or go behind people’s backs to score or make a profit, she thought angrily.

It shook her that he could misjudge her to such an extent even after they had become lovers. And that she should even have that thought warned her that she was still being very naïve about the nature of their relationship. Their bodies had connected—not their minds. Bastien did not know her in the way she had always assumed her first lover would know her. But did that excuse him for assuming on the flimsiest of evidence that she would sneakily sell confidential information about his business plans?

She was already convinced that Bastien did not hold a very high opinion of women—at least not those who shared his bed. She shuddered as she remembered the cold, heavy feel of that brilliant glittering diamond at her throat the night before. Did he believe that expensive gifts of diamonds would excuse bad behaviour? Had other women taught him that?

Nibbling little bites of a chocolate croissant and sipping fresh tea, Lilah tried to be realistic about Bastien. He was incredibly good-looking and incredibly rich...and incredibly good in bed, she affixed, hot-cheeked. For many women his wealth alone would be sufficient to excuse almost all character flaws. Not that it would bother Bastien that she was unwilling to overlook those flaws, Lilah reflected ruefully, because Bastien was only interested in sex.

And every time she came back to that salient fact it was like crashing into a solid brick wall, which concluded all further speculation.

Having eaten, she asked Stefan for a bottle of water and went off to explore, with Skippy bouncing in excitement round her feet. She could not contemplate sitting around in the chateau submissively, as if she was waiting for Bastien to vindicate her or justify her very existence.

The gardens surrounding the chateau were typically French and formal, lined with precise low box hedges and sculpted topiary set off with immaculate paths, weathered urns and gravel. She balanced like a dancer to walk the edge of an old stone fountain, sending shimmering water drops down into the basin below.

From above, Bastien watched her from a window in the huge first-floor salon. Delilah was larking about like a leggy child, while repeatedly throwing that damned stupid squeaky toy for her even sillier yappy little dog. Delilah outraged his sense of order—because he did not like the unexpected, and in every way she kept on tossing him the unexpected.

He was willing to admit that she was not behaving like a guilty woman. At the same time he knew women who could act the most legendary Hollywood stars off the screen. His own mother had always put on an impressively deceptive show for his father, who had adored Athene to the bitter end.

But while Anatole had been easily fooled Bastien had always had a low opinion of human beings in general, and he preferred hard truths to polite lies and social pretences. He had also learned that the richer he became, the more people tried to take advantage of him, and he was always on the watch for false flattery and sexual or financial inducements.

In fact, when anyone injured Bastien he hit back twice as hard to punish them and teach them respect. He was not weak. He was not foolish. He was not forgiving. That had been his mantra growing up, when he had had to prove to his own satisfaction that he was stronger than the feeble but kindly father he loved. No woman would ever make a fool out of Bastien Zikos as his mother had made a fool out of his father.

His mother, Athene, had ridiculed his father, calling him ‘Mr Sorry’, because every time Anatole had visited his mistress and his son he had invariably been grovelling and apologising for something, in a futile effort to keep the peace in the double life of infidelity he led. That was why Bastien was unaccustomed to making apologies of any kind. To his way of thinking, apologies stank to high heaven—of weakness, deceit and cowardly placation.

But at that precise moment Bastien was shocked to acknowledge that he had not thought through the likely consequences of choosing to confront Delilah immediately about the newspaper leak. Shouldn’t he have kept his suspicions to himself until he had established definitive proof? Why the hell had he lost his temper with her like that? Loss of temper meant loss of focus and control, and invariably delivered a poor result. That was why he never allowed himself to lose his temper. Yet on two separate occasions now he had gone off like a rocket with Delilah. Naturally she was playing the innocent and offended card—what else could she do?

* * *

‘I’ll check out every member of your team,’ declared Manos, his chief of security, in receipt of his employer’s instructions. ‘I’m aware that Miss Moore had the opportunity, but somehow she doesn’t seem the type.’

‘Is there a type?’ Bastien asked drily, his attention locked to the sway of Delilah’s shapely derrière in those tight, faded shorts and the slender perfection of her thighs below the ragged hems.

His fingertips tingled at the idea of trailing those shorts off her slender body and settling her under him again. He cut off that incendiary image and hoped she wasn’t planning to leave the grounds dressed in so provocative an outfit.

His strong white teeth gritted. His continuing sexual hunger for Delilah had made her important to Bastien in a way he utterly despised. If she realised how much he was still lusting after her she would use it against him—of course she would. He much preferred the immediate boredom that usually settled in for him after a fresh sexual conquest. He needed to move on, he told himself urgently. He needed to move on from Delilah Moore in particular...fast.

The morning flew past while he worked, furiously trying to counteract the damage done by this morning’s news report. He went downstairs for lunch and discovered that he had the terrace all to himself, Delilah having opted to have a simple snack in her room. His teeth gritted again and he studied Skippy, lying in a panting heap in the shadows. She had evidently roved far enough around the estate to totally exhaust the dog, which admittedly had pitifully short, stumpy legs.

After a moment’s contemplation of the miniature dachshund’s lolling pink tongue, Bastien emptied some fruit out of a bowl and poured water into it before putting it down for the animal. Skippy lurched up and drank in noisy gulps. After trotting back indoors, he reappeared with his squeaky toy in his mouth and laid it tenderly at Bastien’s feet...where it was ignored.

* * *

Full of restive energy, Lilah paced her room. Was she supposed to be a prisoner at the chateau? She refused to sit around and wait as if she had no existence without Bastien to direct her every move.

Recalling the pretty little village of Lourmarin, which they had passed through shortly before their arrival, she decided that what she really needed was an afternoon of sightseeing. Having washed the dust off her canvas-shod feet, she pulled on a white sun dress and sandals before heading downstairs to find Stefan and ask if it was possible for her to visit the village.

Within minutes a car drew up outside to collect her, and she skipped down the steps, smiling at Ciro as he slid in beside the driver.

Bastien was disconcerted when he discovered that Delilah had left the chateau. He hadn’t expected that. Frustration at the childish avoidance tactics she was using on him coursed through him, and he had Manos check with her driver. He set out for Lourmarin in a short temper.

What was it about Delilah? She was a lot of trouble, demanding so much more effort and attention from him than other women did. Why was he allowing her to wind him up? And why did he still want her, regardless of how much she annoyed him?

It was market day in Lourmarin, and Bastien’s disposition was not improved by a lengthy search for a parking spot.

When he tracked Delilah down he heard her laughter first, and even that contrived to annoy him—because two years had passed since he had last heard her laugh. In addition, although he hated gigglers, there had always been something incredibly infectious about Delilah’s giggles. He saw her seated on a café terrace, her white dress spilling round her, black hair framing her animated face as she laughed and chattered to Ciro, at one point even touching the younger man’s arm with a familiarity that set Bastien’s teeth on edge.

Ciro, not surprisingly, wore a slack-jawed expression of masculine admiration.

‘Delilah...’

The sound of that deep, dark drawl banished the pleasure of Lilah’s sun-drenched surroundings and stiffened her spine as much as if a poker had been attached to it. She lifted her head and fell into the smouldering golden sensuality of Bastien’s intent scrutiny. His dark-fallen-angel face was grim, but nothing could detract from the sheer beauty of it, nor the mesmeric potency of his gaze.

‘Been looking for me?’ she quipped, setting down her glass of wine. ‘I doubt that your presence here is an unlucky coincidence.’

In answer, Bastien reached down to close a hand over hers and used that connection to literally lift her upright out of her chair. ‘Thanks for looking after her for me, Ciro. We’re heading home now.’

‘You’re making me feel like I shouldn’t have gone out,’ she whispered thinly as he walked her away.

‘No, what you shouldn’t have done is flirt with Ciro,’ Bastien told her drily.

‘I wasn’t flirting with him!’ Lilah snapped back in irate protest, practically running to keep up with his long stride as, with one strong hand gripping hers, he cut through the clumps of pedestrians and dragged her in his wake. It didn’t help that almost two glasses of wine had left her head swimming a little...

‘He should know better than to get that close to a woman who’s mine,’ Bastien added grittily, hanging on to his temper by a hair’s breadth and ready to grab her up into his arms and bodily carry her back to the car at the first sign of rebellion.

‘I’m not yours!’ Lilah fired back at him with ringing vehemence. ‘I simply agreed to sleep with you until you got bored...that’s all!’

As that startling statement rang out, Bastien watched curious heads swivel in their direction and compressed his sensual mouth. ‘You’re shouting. Would you like a megaphone to share that confession further afield?’ he demanded in a tone of incredulous reproof.

‘I wasn’t shouting,’ Lilah hissed with a furious little shrug of her slight shoulders, her bright blue eyes remaining defiant. ‘I was merely pointing out the basic terms of our agreement. It was a devil’s bargain but I’ve stuck to my side of it. The least I deserve from you in return is respect and consideration.’

‘When do I qualify for some respect?’ Bastien enquired with honeyed scorn.

‘When you do something worthy of respect,’ Lilah slammed back without hesitation.

Unlocking the Ferrari, Bastien scooped Delilah up and stowed her in the passenger seat, impervious to her vocal complaints. He wanted to shout at her. For the first time since his childhood, anger and frustration had reached a peak inside him and he actually wanted to shout. Evidently Delilah really was toxic for him, challenging his self-discipline and making him react in unnervingly abnormal ways.

‘And why are you dragging me back to the chateau anyway?’ Lilah queried truculently as he swung in bedside her. ‘You should be avoiding me like the plague right now.’

In slow motion, Bastien twined his fingers slowly into her long black hair to turn her face up while his other hand framed a delicate cheekbone to hold her steady. The crash of his mouth down on hers felt as inevitable to him as the drowning heat of the summer sun in the sky.

Lilah jerked, as if he had stamped her with a burning brand. Her hand rose of its own volition and delved into his luxuriant black hair, fingertips roaming blissfully over his well-shaped skull. Hunger coursed through her like a hot river of lava, scorching and setting her alight wherever it touched.

She had never felt hunger like it. In fact, it was as if Bastien’s lovemaking the night before had released some dam of response inside her that could no longer be suppressed. The resulting ache between her legs and the sheer longing to be intimately touched physically hurt.

Long fingers eased below the hem of her dress and roamed boldly higher.

In a sudden movement Lilah pulled back and slapped her hand down on top of Bastien’s to prevent him from conducting a more intimate exploration. ‘No,’ she told him shakily.

Bastien swore long and low in Greek, the pulsing at his groin downright painful. He wanted to yank her out of the car, splay her across the bonnet and sink into her hard and fast. He gritted his teeth, rammed home his seat belt and drove out onto the narrow twisting road that snaked down the mountain.

The screaming tension inside the car made Lilah’s mouth run dry. It was his own fault. He should never have touched her, she thought piously, pride making her ignore the hollow dissatisfaction of her own body. But then every time Bastien touched her he shocked her, she conceded grudgingly, because somehow he always made her desperate to rip his clothes off.

Mortified, she dragged her attention from him and stared out of the car, mouth swollen and tingling.

Manos was waiting for Bastien when he returned. Delilah took the opportunity to race upstairs.

Bastien did not want an audience as he learned that preliminary enquiries had revealed damning facts about one of his personal staff. Andreas Theodakis had taken a smoke break that evening in London, and had been seen using his phone out on the balcony. Furthermore, a colleague had volunteered the news that Theodakis was a gambler. Bastien knew then in his gut that in all likelihood Andreas had tipped off the business press about the Dufort Pharmaceuticals deal.

‘I should have confirmation for you one way or another by the end of tomorrow,’ Manos concluded.

Bastien had a stiff drink and brooded over the information. No way was he saying sorry when Delilah had made such a big deal of him humbling himself. Indeed, he cringed at the prospect.

He dined alone at his desk, burying himself in work—as was his habit when anything bothered him.

A scrabbling noise made him glance up from the screen, and he frowned at Skippy, who must have sneaked in when Stefan had delivered Bastien’s meal. The miniature dachshund was engaged in using a briefcase on the floor as a springboard to the chair on the other side of Bastien’s desk. Skippy made it up on to the chair and then with a sudden tremendous leap reached the desk top, whereupon he trotted towards Bastien, his long ears flapping, and dropped his squeaky toy beside Bastien’s laptop.

With a sigh, Bastien scooped up the dog before it skidded off the desk and broke its legs, and settled it on the floor. Then, lifting the toy with distaste, he flung it—sending Skippy into a race of panting pleasure.

‘I will only throw it once,’ he warned the animal.

Unable to get back to work, he walked out onto the balcony and groaned out loud as he paced in the warm evening air. His muscles were stiff.

Banishing Skippy, who was showing annoying signs of wanting to follow him, Bastien went down to the basement gym in an effort to work off some of his tension. A marathon swim, followed by a long, violently cathartic session with the punch bag, sent Bastien into the shower.

All he needed was a good night’s sleep and a clear head, he told himself urgently when he was tempted to approach Delilah. He did not need or want her...

* * *

Lilah sat up late in bed, reading, and fell asleep with the light on, wakening disorientated at around three in the morning. On her way back from the bathroom she thought she heard someone cry out, and she went to the window and brushed back the curtain to look down at the moonlit garden below. Nothing stirred...not even the shadows.

When the sound came again she realised that it had come from Bastien’s room, and she crossed the polished wooden floor to listen behind the communicating door with a frown etched between her brows.

The sound of a shout galvanised her into opening the door. Bastien was a dark shape, thrashing about wildly in the bed, and choked cries interspersed with Greek words were breaking from him.

There was no way on earth that Lilah could walk away and leave him suffering like that. He was having a nightmare, that was all, but it was clearly a terrifying one.

She hovered uncertainly by the side of the bed, and then closed her hand firmly round a sleek tanned muscular shoulder to shake it.

‘Wake up, Bastien...it’s just a dream,’ she told him gently.