Читать книгу The Mills & Boon Stars Collection - Мишель Смарт, Cathy Williams - Страница 40
ОглавлениеIT WAS A beautiful dress. Exquisitely simple in shape, it flattered Lilah’s slender figure, with long tight lace sleeves, a boat-shaped neckline and a slimline skirt. Her wedding gown, she acknowledged in lingering astonishment as she studied her reflection. It was her wedding day, and she still couldn’t believe that she was actually about to marry Bastien Zikos.
The whole of the previous week had been taken up with marriage-orientated activity. Accompanied by one of Bastien’s personal assistants, a fluent French-speaker, she had undergone an interview at the local mairie—the mayor’s office, where the ceremony would take place. A whole heap of personal documents had been certified and presented on her behalf to fulfil the legal requirements, and forty-eight hours later, following a meeting with a lawyer at the chateau to protect her interests, she had signed a pre-nuptial agreement. Bastien had made liberal provision for her in the event of a divorce, offering a far more generous settlement than she thought necessary.
‘Look on it as compensation,’ Bastien had advised her on the phone, when she had protested the size of that settlement. ‘You didn’t want to marry me, but you’re doing it.’
It wouldn’t be a real marriage, she told herself soothingly as she clasped the diamond pendant round her throat. And wasn’t that just as well? Bastien had been away for seven days and she had missed him almost from the moment of his departure. How was that possible? How could she miss the male she had believed she hated, who had persuaded her into a morally indefensible sexual relationship?
Lilah walked to the window and breathed in slow and deep, struggling to calm herself. She had not become attached to Bastien, and she had not fallen for him. She was just wildly attracted to him. She had also begun to understand him better as she’d come to appreciate his tough childhood and the experiences which had made him the hard, aggressive character that he was.
She wasn’t excusing anything he had done, was she? No—she remained fully aware of Bastien’s every flaw, and was therefore completely safe from getting attached to him, she assured herself soothingly.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door. It was time for her to leave. Manos smiled at her as she emerged from the room, rich fabric gliding in silken folds round her legs. Bastien had had a whole rack of designer wedding gowns sent to her and she had been taken aback, having assumed that they would be bypassing all such frills.
‘No, this should look like a normal wedding,’ Bastien had decreed.
Yet how could it look or feel normal when neither of them had any family members present?
Lilah felt absurdly guilty that she was about to get married without her father’s knowledge.
Bastien was waiting in the hall. Clad in a superbly tailored pale grey suit, he looked breathtakingly handsome. When she met his long-lashed dark golden eyes her heart thudded and her pulses quickened, and she could feel heat rushing into her cheeks.
‘You look fantastic,’ he husked, closing a hand over hers as she reached the bottom step.
‘When did you get back?’
‘At dawn. I slept during the flight,’ he shared, just as Stefan presented Lilah with a small bunch of flowers and she thanked him warmly.
They came to a halt in the stone front doorway as a photographer stepped forward to capture them on film.
‘I wasn’t expecting him,’ Lilah admitted out of the corner of her mouth.
‘This is not a moment we can easily recapture,’ Bastien declared.
‘But who’s going to be interested?’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Our child will be interested in our wedding day,’ Bastien countered.
‘But...’ Her lips clamped shut on a rush of denial as the photographer asked her to relax and smile.
She was convinced that there wasn’t going to be a pregnancy, or a child, but she could see that Bastien had already decided otherwise.
A limousine whisked them to the mairie, a sleepy creamy stone building sited behind the war memorial in a small village. It was a civil ceremony, conducted by a middle-aged female official. Lilah held her breath as Bastien slid a gold ring on to her finger and she performed the same office for him, albeit more clumsily, all fingers and thumbs in her extreme self-consciousness as she thought about what the gesture actually meant: Bastien was her husband now.
When they emerged back into the sunshine the photographer was waiting, and she laughed and smiled, suddenly grateful that the unsettling ceremony was over and she could forget about it.
She was climbing back into the limo when a sports car shot to a sudden halt at the other side of the road and a woman called, ‘Bastien?’
Bastien stepped back from the limo and swung round as a lithe blonde scrambled out of the sports car and ran to greet him. She wore only a chiffon wrap, which was split to the waist at either side to show off her fabulous legs and brief leopard print bikini pants.
Lilah smoothed her gown over her knees and watched as the blonde kissed Bastien on both cheeks and he returned the greeting. The woman chattered, her slim hands moving expressively in the air. Very French, very chic, Lilah conceded, deliberately looking away from the encounter. Bastien’s dealings with other women were none of her business.
Her tummy flipped, her chin coming up. No, that couldn’t be true or acceptable. She was Bastien’s wife now, and that had to make a difference.
‘Who is she?’ Lilah enquired when Bastien finally joined her and the limo moved off again.
‘Chantal Baudin—one of my neighbours,’ Bastien divulged carelessly.
‘You’ve slept with her...haven’t you?’
The instant those provocative words leapt off Lilah’s tongue she was shocked by them, because she hadn’t even known that that question was in her head.
‘On several occasions over the years since I bought the chateau,’ Bastien revealed, as cool as ice water in tone. ‘She’s a model.’
‘What else would she be?’ Lilah traded drily, while colour flared over her cheekbones like a revealing banner, because she felt as though an evil genie had taken over both her brain and her tongue.
‘We were ships-that-pass-casual,’ Bastien qualified very quietly. ‘Not that that’s any of your business.’
Lilah’s shot a stubborn look at him, sapphire-blue eyes bright and defiant. ‘Oh, it’s my business now,’ she assured him without hesitation. ‘For as long as you remain married to me you have to be a one-woman man.’
A line of colour flared over Bastien’s exotic cheekbones and his dark golden eyes smouldered. ‘That sounds suspiciously like a warning.’
‘It was. Do you expect me to stay away from other men?’ Lilah asked dangerously.
‘Of course,’ Bastien breathed, in a harsh uncompromising undertone.
‘Well, let’s not be sexist about it—the rule cuts both ways. While we’re married, your wings are clipped,’ Lilah pronounced with satisfaction.
‘Presumably you intend to ensure that the sacrifice of my sexual freedom is worth my while?’ Bastien purred, black lashes dropping low over his gaze.
Lilah clashed with expectant dark eyes, brilliant as stars in a black sky, and her tummy performed a somersault while damp heat gathered at her feminine core. She shifted uneasily on the seat, uncomfortable with the potent physical effect Bastien had on her. Even when he annoyed her he could still make her want him. One glance at those high cheekbones and those stunning eyes and she melted into a puddle of longing.
Lunch awaited them on their return to the chateau. The table had been set with white linen, lace and rose petals, and Lilah stiffened in dismay when she saw it because it was very bridal and romantic. But the meal was superb, and Bastien’s businesslike account of how he had dealt with the problems at his Asian manufacturing plant relaxed Lilah again.
Bastien studied Delilah, ultra-feminine and lovely, in a dress that merely enhanced her petite proportions, wondering if she was pregnant. He wanted a child, he acknowledged. Perhaps it was simply that he was ready for a child and for a change in lifestyle. But would he have felt that way with any woman other than Delilah?
‘I should get changed,’ Lilah murmured over coffee.
‘I want to take off that dress.’
Lilah coloured. ‘It’s the middle of the day, Bastien.’
‘My libido is not controlled by the clock. In any case, we’re newly married and anything goes,’ Bastien pointed out smoothly as he rose from his chair.
But Lilah refused to think of them as a married couple, thinking it wiser to regard their current relationship as simply an extension of their original arrangement. In other words, barring the ring on her wedding finger, she was still Bastien’s mistress and his desired entertainment between the sheets. It would be very unwise, she thought, to start thinking of herself as occupying any more important or permanent role in Bastien’s life.
Lean brown fingers closed over hers and she walked upstairs with him, her slender body taut with anticipation. She listened to the faint buzz of his mobile receiving messages and suppressed a sigh. Bastien never, ever switched his phone off, and it set her teeth on edge.
Bastien glanced at his phone and frowned when he saw the text. Chantal was making a nuisance of herself. He had told her that he was not alone at the chateau and she should have taken the hint that he wasn’t available. Perhaps he should have mentioned that he had just got married, but why telegraph that news when there might be no need to do so? After all, if Delilah hadn’t conceived he would soon be alone and free as a bird again, he reminded himself. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? What he had always wanted: freedom without rules or ties.
Obviously he still had to get Delilah out of his system. Surely one more week would do that? Although he grudgingly admitted to himself that he did not like the prospect of parting with her. Why did the thought feel like a threat?
And then the sure knowledge hit him like a bombshell, blowing apart everything he had believed he knew about himself. He didn’t want to let Delilah go. He wanted to keep her.
Struggling to rationalise that aberrant urge, he ran down the zip on her dress very slowly and eased her smoothly out of its concealing folds. Her porcelain-pale skin showed to advantage against the defiantly unconventional scarlet bra and panties she sported. For some reason he had expected to find her wearing blue underpinnings, in line with that old bridal rhyme about something old, something new. He scanned her slender legs, but there was no garter to be seen either.
‘Something blue?’ he queried.
‘It wasn’t a real wedding, so I didn’t see the point of bothering with tradition,’ Delilah explained cheerfully.
Exasperation and annoyance shot through Bastien, who had assumed that she would be more sentimental. ‘It felt real enough to me.’
‘It’s not real when you’ve already planned the divorce before you get married,’ Delilah told him with vehement conviction.
‘No man of my wealth marries without a pre-nup. And I won’t be divorcing you if you’re carrying my child,’ Bastien pointed out, lifting her up to seat her at the foot of the bed, while wishing she would stop talking about divorce.
‘I just don’t think that it’s very likely...that I’ll be pregnant,’ she extended, feeling insanely bare in her flimsy underwear while he remained fully dressed.
‘Time will tell,’ Bastien traded, easing off her silk sandals. ‘And I do have an entire week to concentrate on getting you pregnant.’
Her bright blue eyes flew wide. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Now that we’re married it would be silly to start taking precautions again,’ Bastien pronounced.
‘Not to my way of thinking. If there is a decision still to be made on that score I don’t think I want to plan to have a baby with a womaniser,’ Lilah told him tartly.
Bastien shrugged free of his jacket and pitched it on to a chair before tugging at his tie. Whatever it took, he was determined to keep her. ‘If you give me a baby I can promise that you’ll be the only woman in my life.’
Lilah was hugely disconcerted by that offer, coming at her out of nowhere. ‘You want a baby that much?’
But only with her, Bastien completed inwardly. She had first-rate qualities which he had noticed from the first. She wasn’t greedy, dishonest or manipulative, like so many of the women he had known. In addition she was loyal, and kind to those she cared about, and she was a curiously attractive combination of downright old-fashioned sensible and mulishly spirited. Add in her looks and sex appeal and Delilah Moore-Zikos inhabited a class all of her own...
Not that he was planning to share that high opinion with her, though. Particularly not when she talked as though she was indifferent to both him and the prospect of a baby. But he didn’t believe that. Like him, Delilah tended to hold back, judging a situation before she bared her soul or committed to a path of action.
Having reached his decision at a speed which slightly stunned him, Bastien curved long fingers to her slim shoulders. ‘I want a baby with you.’
‘But that pre-nup—’
‘Thee mou...think outside the box,’ he urged. ‘I will settle down with you if you give me a child.’
Lilah went pink. ‘And why would you think that I would be interested in that outcome?’
Bastien elevated an ebony brow. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Are we bargaining again, Bastien?’
Lilah was so tense she could hardly breathe. The unthinkable was happening: Bastien Zikos, the legendary womaniser, was offering her fidelity and a real marriage.
‘Negotiating?’ he countered.
‘I may not even be able to get pregnant,’ Lilah countered with quiet practicality.
‘If and when that happens we’ll deal with it, glikia mou,’ Bastien told her levelly. ‘I don’t expect an easy ride. Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.’
Her heart swelled like a balloon inside her chest at that forthright opinion, which perfectly matched her own. Tears lashed the back of her eyes and she blinked them back furiously to focus on the beautiful burnished golden shimmer of his gaze.
‘In that case, I’ll... I’ll give it a go,’ she responded jerkily, afraid of the way she was laying herself open to getting hurt again, but desperately wanting to give him another chance.
Another chance to smash her heart to smithereens? Another chance to walk away from her without a backward glance and console himself with other women? How likely was it that Bastien could settle down into marriage? Did she dare risk bringing a child into so potentially volatile a relationship? And why was she even considering doing so?
Stealing a glance at his lean, darkly handsome face, she felt her breath hitch in her throat. The freedom of choice was suddenly cruelly wrenched from her, along with much of her pride. The reason she so badly wanted to give Bastien another chance was that she had fallen hard for him two years earlier and had struggled to fight feelings almost stronger than she was. Sadly, now that she was actually in Bastien’s life and wearing his ring on her finger, she was weaker, more open to hope and dream fulfilment and love.
And that was the most basic truth, which she could no longer ignore or deny. She loved Bastien Zikos—had fallen like a giant stone the very first time he had settled those gorgeous dark eyes on her and smiled.
‘You look so serious,’ Bastien censured as he trailed off his shirt to reveal the torso that starred in her every fantasy. He was so wonderfully well-built, and he worked at staying fit—a reality etched in the lean hard sheet of roped muscle framing his pectoral muscles and abdomen.
Lilah’s mouth ran dry. He brought his mouth down on hers, nibbling sexily at her full lower lip, swiping the upper with the tip of his tongue to gain entry to the intimate space beyond. A ball of heat mushroomed inside her when his tongue flicked against her own. Her hands spread on his chest, fingertips grazing hair-roughened skin and smoothing down to feel him jerk with sensitivity when she found the hard thrusting length of him.
With a hungry groan he lifted her up and brought her down again on the bed, arranging her over him with careful hands.
‘I want you,’ Bastien growled, dark eyes shooting golden sparks over her warmly flushed face.
‘You sound so aggressive,’ Lilah scolded as she obediently bent forward for him to unclasp her bra.
‘It’s been a week.’ He swore bitterly. ‘An endless, frustrating week.’
Strong hands pulled her down to him, to enable him to close his lips round a pouting pink nipple. He hauled her close to him and rolled her over.
‘Didn’t think I was going to get to stay on top,’ Lilah muttered with helpless bite.
His broad chest rumbled with amusement. ‘Some day very soon...but not today,’ he agreed in a roughened undertone.
Employing every sensual skill he had acquired, Bastien worked his way down over Delilah’s slim squirming body, revelling in each sound that revealed her enjoyment. As her hips bucked in climax and she cried his name he smiled and flipped her over, lifting her up on to her knees.
He slid against her damp flesh to tease her, and then when she complained in frustration he sank into her, hard and deep.
Lilah moaned, her head still swimming and her body still sensitised, floating on the aftermath of extreme pleasure. Extraordinarily conscious of Bastien’s every slight movement, Lilah felt her heart race and her pulse quicken with exhilaration. Intense excitement controlled her as he ground his hips into hers, quickening his pace until all she was conscious of was the wild, feverish climb of pleasure. As the ascent to satisfaction consumed her spasms of potent sensation coursed through her quivering body and then rose to an irresistible peak, leaving her thrashing in explosive convulsions of delight.
‘I’ll never move again,’ she whispered limply in the aftermath.
‘I’ll move you,’ Bastien husked, turning her round in the circle of his arms, his breath fanning her cheek, his body hot and damp against hers.
The scent of his skin enveloped her and she smiled up at him.
‘I do hope you appreciate that you’re not getting out of this bed for the rest of the day?’ Bastien purred. ‘But I’ll make up for it tomorrow. I’m taking the rest of the week off. You will have my full attention, kardoula mou.’
Lilah rubbed her face against a broad brown shoulder, gloriously relaxed and feeling amazingly happy. She loved him, and he was with her, and his entire attention was on her. For the moment that was enough. And for the first time she didn’t feel like Bastien’s mistress—she felt like his wife, and it felt good.
* * *
A week after their wedding day Lilah woke suddenly during the night to register that Bastien had got out of bed and was pacing naked while he spoke Greek into his phone, his lean strong features stressed and taut. He waved a hand to silence her when she mouthed a query and she had to be patient, even though she didn’t feel patient, lying back against the pillows and wondering what had happened to put that look of concern on his beautiful face.
So much had changed between them in the course of a week. Bastien had let down some of his barriers and was sharing a bed with her every night. Only once had he had another bad dream, and wakening to find her leaning over him had put more exciting pursuits into his mind, she recalled, her body heating at that wickedly erotic memory.
By day they had explored the chateau grounds before ranging further afield. They had gone to a jazz concert in the vineyards near Vaison-Ventoux-en-Provence. They had strolled round vibrant markets, walked through narrow cobbled streets to enjoy coffee in shaded squares with softly flowing fountains. The hilltop villages were wonderfully picturesque, and the views spectacular.
He had bought her a gorgeous leather handbag in a workshop, and laughed heartily at the colourful pottery hen she had bought for Vickie, questioning that she could really like her stepmother and still buy her such a thing.
On several evenings they had dined out in local restaurants, although truthfully they had yet to eat anywhere that could compete with the superb food Marie served at the chateau. Some nights they made love until dawn...some afternoons they didn’t get out of bed until the need to eat drove them out. His insatiable hunger for her was mercifully matched by hers for him, and with his encouragement Lilah had become more adventurous.
The only little niggle at the back of her mind, that had prevented her from totally relaxing, was the question of how Bastien was likely to react if she didn’t prove to be pregnant. After all, was it really her he wanted, or was he merely giving way to a long-suppressed desire to become a father?
He could become a father with almost any woman, couldn’t he? Lilah didn’t like to think that her being in the right place at the right time was all that had prompted Bastien to seek a more lasting relationship with her. In any case, in another few days she would know whether or not she had conceived. And even if she had it was perfectly possible that she would still never tell Bastien that she loved him for fear of making him feel trapped, she thought ruefully.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked as Bastien cast aside his phone and paced restively back across the room.
‘That was my brother, Leo,’ he explained grimly. ‘My father’s in hospital in Athens with a suspected heart attack. Leo says there’s no need for me to go, because he’ll keep me posted, but...’
‘Naturally you want to be there,’ Lilah slotted in.
‘But equally naturally Leo and his mother don’t want me there.’
‘How is that natural?’ Lilah pressed, immediately defensive on Bastien’s behalf. ‘Anatole is as much your father as your brother’s.’
‘I may have lived with my father’s family for years, but I was never part of that family,’ Bastien pointed out drily. ‘I’m never a welcome visitor. Leo’s mother Cleta—my father’s wife—hates me.’
Lilah compressed her lips. ‘After the number of years that have passed since your mother’s death, and the years you lived in her home with Anatole, that’s very definitely her problem—not yours,’ she pronounced with conviction. ‘Don’t let anyone make you feel as though you don’t have the right to see your own father. You’re his son too.’
The fiery gleam that illuminated Bastien’s dark eyes only accentuated the worried frown stamped on his lean bronzed face. ‘I do want to see him. We’ll fly out as soon as I can get it organised.’
