by Dani Collins
Her damp mouth and cool hair had drifted a tickling sweep across his chest all the way down to his stomach and lower, anointing him in a way that had him forgetting why breathing was a thing anyone bothered to do.
When she had risen to straddle him and guided herself onto his hardness, he hadn’t had a condom on yet, but after that much lovemaking, he had known he wouldn’t come right away. He had let her lazily ride him and enjoyed the way she crested with a broken gasp and shivers of ecstasy. Her rippling pleasure on his supremely aroused, sensitized flesh had nearly taken him over the edge, but he’d managed to hold back.
After she calmed, he had slipped out of her, put on a condom and taken control. He’d aroused her with his mouth, making her squirm and writhe. He’d tried to be gentle because they’d been at it for hours, but by the time he was moving inside her, the beast had been gripping him with insatiable talons.
He had known it would be their last time. Each stroke had been bittersweet. Powerful. They had completely abandoned propriety, both moaning and encouraging the other until the people in the next room had banged on the wall and yelled, “Give it a rest!”
He couldn’t. He had wanted to meld them into one being for all time. Parting from her was going to leave a piece of himself behind. When the culmination arrived, he’d nearly blacked out from the force—
“Vijay!”
His sister’s voice snapped him back to his office. He shifted in his chair, arousal dying a quick death as he leaned to see her across the small courtyard they shared. They left their doors open for exactly this, so they could call across whenever they had a question.
Kiran was glaring at him.
“Are you worried about the language around the patent? Me too.” They’d both been studying the offer from TecSec. At least, that’s what he was supposed to be doing.
“Why is Jalil texting from the coffee shop, asking me if I want a chai latte and whether I’ll be sitting in on his meeting with you?” Kiran demanded.
“Is he here? We can do it in your office if you like.”
He rose and walked through the courtyard. It was really just a short hallway with a skylight and a water feature against the back wall to provide some cooling and atmospheric noise.
The rest of their company offices were on this same ground floor of a four-story, glass-fronted commercial building. It looked onto an abstract sculpture and a collection of taller buildings. At the far end was the café where Jalil bought Kiran coffee. Above them was an architecture firm, a publishing agency, and a call center for a company in America.
They hoped to take over all of that once the acquisition went through because this was such a good space for Kiran’s wheelchair, but they would also open a center in Delhi before looking to Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai over the next few years.
“What is this about?” She watched him close the courtyard doors with a glower of suspicion.
“Just a quick hand of poker.”
“Is this why you disappeared for a few days on your way home from Europe?” She narrowed her eyes. “Look, just because I haven’t found proof that Lakshmi visited a clinic while she was away, doesn’t mean anything. A clinic like that would be very discrete about how they handled their records. Twenty-five years ago, they might have still been using paper.”
Vijay didn’t have to respond. There was a knock, and Jalil was shown in. He was a healthy widower of fiftysomething with strands of silver in his otherwise thick black hair. He held a cardboard tray of three disposable cups.
As he and Kiran saw one another, the pair lit up and smiled and shared a look of tangled emotions that was so intimate, Vijay had to look away.
He had thought he had that once, the feeling of someone else’s emotions being his own. It had been a lie, and he was not looking forward to picking up the pieces when Kiran realized Jalil was toying with her.
Actually, he had thought he might have something like it with Oriel, too, but her silence spoke volumes. Sexual connection was simply that, a trick of biology, and he wouldn’t allow Jalil to use it on his sister.
He couldn’t wait to expose the man and kick him out of their lives once and for all.
“Vijay, Kiran said you like black coffee.” Jalil’s warm smile turned stiff. He set the tray on the corner of her desk and pulled out each cup.
Kiran and Vijay provided a well-stocked break room full of coffee, tea and soft drinks for their staff, but Jalil liked to impress Kiran by overpaying for takeaway.
This was what annoyed Vijay about the man. He could have kept his pursuit of his “niece” entirely professional, but he hadn’t.
Did you?
Oh, shut up, Vijay told the irritating voice in his head.
“It was kind of you to think of me,” Vijay said as politely as he could. “And thank you for coming in.” He waved at a chair in invitation, waiting until Jalil had seated himself before saying, “I have good news.” Jalil wouldn’t see it that way, but Vijay certainly did. “While I was in Europe, I was able to intercept Oriel Cuvier and get a DNA sample—”
“You told her?” Kiran cried.
“No. I stole her toothbrush and sent it to the lab we use. I didn’t put her name on the paperwork. It’s Sample X, but Jalil can offer his own sample, and we can put an end to speculation.” Vijay leaned on Kiran’s desk, facing Jalil. He crossed his arms and ankles and conveyed a silent and ruthless checkmate.
“I can’t believe you would jeopardize Jalil’s confidentiality.” Kiran rolled out from behind the desk to move next to Jalil. “I am so sorry I told him what you had asked me to do.”
“Don’t be,” Jalil said, patting Kiran’s arm in a placating way. “Your brother has gone to a lot of trouble on my behalf.”
Vijay had absolutely not done it for Jalil’s benefit, and they all knew it. He was trying to get rid of a man who was playing his sister.
“I know it must seem as though I’m grasping at straws,” he said to Vijay. “You have every right to be skeptical of my motives, but this is something I’ve wondered every day since Lakshmi returned from Europe. When I saw those photos of Ms. Cuvier and read up on her details, I couldn’t stop thinking about this possibility, but I didn’t know how to ask her without tipping my hand. I would be devastated if Lakshmi’s reputation was tarnished by false rumors. This is perfect. Thank you. How do I proceed?”
“You want to give a sample?” Vijay tried not to let his jaw hit the floor.
“Of course.”
Vijay had just had his own bluff called.
CHAPTER FOUR
WORST. IDEA. EVER.
Duke Rhodes hadn’t booked her into a hotel. He’d added Oriel to the roster of guests on a yacht. Granted, it was a billionaire’s superyacht and was full to the gunwales with entertainment industry movers and shakers as well as artists and designers. Oriel even knew a handful of them and she’d been given her own stateroom—not that she was in it.
Payton had instructed her to use this to her advantage. See and be seen. Easier said than done when Duke wanted her by his side like a security blanket.
At least he wasn’t being a creep about it. He had looped his arm around her as they walked the red carpet, keeping it colleague-friendly, not pervy, but she had still hated it.
She was so burnt out, she felt like charred bacon. She had been working nonstop for weeks, putting in long days and getting most of her sleep on airplanes crisscrossing the Atlantic. She was beyond ready for vacation, but she had to paste a smile on her face and pretend to be thrilled with Duke’s latest film—which struck her as a paint-by-numbers rehash of every action flick ever made. The audience’s tepid response seemed to agree.
By the time they arrived back on the yacht, the after-party was in full swing.
Oriel wished she had confessed to the headache that was intensifying behind her brow. It was growing bad enough to make her
nauseous.
Duke was holding court, though, drinking and smoking and making off-color jokes. He wasn’t a terrible person so much as a man in denial of his age. He wanted to be twenty, so that’s how he was acting. He loved his cigarettes, which he lit with a shaking hand, making her suspect he had social anxiety, but the smell was turning her stomach.
Either way, all her years of practicing aloof, unbothered looks were being severely tested as Duke blathered on about his glory days.
“I need the powder room,” she murmured and excused herself.
She needed to find a tender to run her to shore. She was flying home to her parents’ in the morning and had overheard someone say the yacht was hauling anchor at first light. Why had she agreed to this wretched stunt?
She texted Payton as she moved into the crush of the saloon, telling him she was done with this pageantry, and asked if he knew of any rooms she could book at this late hour.
What happened? I told his people this was only for publicity. If he’s crossed a line, tell me. I don’t put my clients in harm’s way.
Oriel didn’t feel like explaining that pretending to be with Duke made her feel cheap. It made her think about everything he wasn’t. About who he wasn’t and who she really wanted to spend her time with.
Not that the man she did want had reached out in the nearly two months since they’d spent their rapturous night in Milan. Granted, she’d been on the move, but she wasn’t hard to reach. She could be contacted online fairly easily.
Maybe he’d given her the wrong number on purpose. That’s what she kept thinking. He could have given her his number again with that second note, but he hadn’t. She was the ultimate feminine stooge who had fallen for a player’s game, and it made her feel like an absolute neophyte.
She caught up to a steward, who told her she only needed to go down to the lower deck in the stern where she had come aboard. A tender was making regular trips to shore all night.
She moved down a staircase to the passageway that led to her room and halted. A man in a dark suit stood outside the door to her room.
Mon Dieu, he looked just like Vijay.
Her heart screeched to a stop in her chest while such a rush of joy exploded in her, she had to reach back and grasp the rail to stay upright. At the same time, her mind blared an alarm at how not normal it was that he would be here.
It had been nearly two months to the day since she’d met him. Slept with him. He’d been on her mind every day, but when the number he’d given her turned out to be wrong, she’d decided they weren’t meant to be.
Or that he had never really wanted them to be. How had he known where to find her? Bumping into him in a restaurant a few blocks from her hotel had been unexpected, but a reasonable happenstance. Of all the yachts in the south of France right now, however, he was on this one? Standing outside her door?
No, he must have come to find her, but how had he gotten on board? Given all the celebrities in attendance, security was very tight. He had some sort of security company, she recalled vaguely, but it still seemed very odd.
As she stood there trying to assimilate his presence, he turned his head.
“Oriel.” His voice pierced as sharply as his flaring gaze.
His innate energy leaped down the long passageway to catch at her, threatening to overwhelm her the way he had the first time. It was so visceral, it alarmed her. She hadn’t properly gotten over him, and here he was about to make it worse.
Acting purely on instinct, she whirled around and fled up the stairs like Cinderella from the ball. She didn’t know why she needed to get away. She just did.
She tried to, anyway.
“Sweetheart. Where you going?” Duke lurched in front of her, swaying, eyes barely open.
Oriel tugged Duke out a door so they stood at the rail and dredged up a lame smile.
“This has been so much fun.” Lie. “But I have an early flight tomorrow. I’m going to get a room on shore.”
“What’s the problem, sugar? Feeling neglected?” Duke splayed a hand on her waist. “I can’t help it if I’m popular. C’mon. We’ll go to my room.”
“What? Ew. No.” She tried to brush his hand off her, but he caught hers and wouldn’t let her shake him off. “Duke.”
People further along the rail turned their heads.
He crowded into her, cajoling, “Don’t make me look bad, sweetheart.”
Good heavens, was he begging? What a poor, desperate man.
She looked him straight in the eye and said, “You need rehab. Do you want me to ask my agent to arrange it if yours won’t?”
He dismissed that with a tired curse, hissing, “I need good press, darling. Come to my room. Let people think what they think. That’s all I want. Swear.”
“No.” She pressed his chest, but he kept her trapped against the rail. “Seriously, Duke. Back off. Let me go.”
“Come on. I got you a room so you’d at least pretend we’re having sex.”
“I’ll see that you’re given a full refund,” she muttered and pushed harder. “Let me go.”
Duke was suddenly yanked back a few steps.
“I will cut you up and throw you to the sharks,” Vijay said in the most frightening tone Oriel had ever heard.
“Vijay!” She shot out a protesting hand.
Before she could react further, security guards emerged from the shadows and closed in on all of them. They clapped their hands on Vijay, forcing him to release Duke.
“I know him,” she blurted, still holding up her hand as if she had some kind of magical powers to stop men from acting like barbarians. “Tout va bien.” Was it fine? Maybe Vijay was some sort of stalker who had followed her here. She didn’t know.
“I’m Vijay Sahir. I work for TecSec. Let me go.” Vijay tried to shrug off the men holding him. “I’ll show you my card. You can call in for my credentials.”
Confusion ensued. Duke spat venom in her direction about bitches being crazy, and staggered off. Oriel and Vijay were invited to quit ruining the party and wait in her stateroom until Vijay’s identity was confirmed.
Oriel could have balked at being left alone with him. His presence here was growing more bizarre by the second. Her parents used TecSec. Were they okay?
He was the only one with answers, so she led him into her stateroom. It was a midrange one with built-in shelves, recessed lighting, and a double bed. The shades were pulled over the windows, and she hadn’t bothered to unpack, so her suitcase was open on the rack.
Somehow, she had wound up with one of Vijay’s cards in her hand.
“This says Vice President of TecSec Asia Division.” At least one mystery was explained. She had mistaken a five for an eight when she had texted him her bikini photo. “You made it sound as though you were barely scraping by.” Why else would he have been working in maintenance at the hotel?
“I told you we had a deal in the works that I couldn’t talk about. Are you all right? Did he hurt you?” He noted she was massaging her wrist and carefully took her forearm in his two hands.
His touch. It was as beguiling as ever, sending little tingles of awareness all through her.
She made herself pull away and step back. It took everything in her not to let him see how thrown she was by his turning up this way. How defenseless he made her feel. Her whole body felt electrified. Awake. Which undermined her confidence, because she didn’t want to be this sensitive and reliant on anyone, least of all a man who had stripped her down to her most elemental self and seemed like he could effortlessly do it again.
“I’m fine.” She might bruise later, but only because when Duke had released her, she had snapped her hand back so hard she’d bumped her wrist on the rail. “Why are you here?”
“They wouldn’t let me near you at the premiere, but fans of Rhodes tipped me off to the fact you were staying on board
with him here. I swear, the best security system in the world is no match for autograph seekers,” he said ironically. “This yacht is leaving for Italy in the morning, though. I didn’t want to miss you.”
He was different than she recollected. His hair was a little shorter, his tailored suit on par with those of the movie stars and producers continuing their gaiety beyond these walls. His expression was forbidding, though. Nothing like the easygoing man she’d taken him for.
Or the humble maintenance man he had pretended to be.
“How did you know I was in Cannes? Are you some kind of super fan?” Worse? “Have you been spying on me? Tracking my phone?” She glanced around for it as if it would be glowing with a beacon.
“Nothing that high-tech.” He was still using that dry tone. “I overheard your conversation in Milan. You said this trip would cut into your vacation. I thought it would be a good idea for you to have personal time after we talk.”
“That’s very arrogant.”
“Which part? Assuming how you’ll react to what I have to say?” His voice hardened. “Or that you would speak to me at all?”
That took her aback until she recalled that she had run the minute she’d seen him.
All this time, she had been telling herself she was fine with not hearing from him. It was what they had agreed on, but deep down, she’d taken it as a rejection, one that stuck like a thorn in her heart.
As sophisticated as she’d tried to be about their night together, she’d also been more uninhibited with him than she’d ever been in her life. That knowledge kept hitting her in ever stronger waves as she remained in his presence, like a tide coming in. Her self-consciousness was deepening by the minute, and her feet were stuck in the sand. She wanted to get away, but couldn’t.
Meanwhile, he stood there with his Just The Facts Ma’am attitude, suggesting he barely remembered they’d clung to each other while moaning with abject passion.
“I was surprised to see you,” she said with as much dignity as she could scrape together. “Why didn’t you reach out through my website or my social profiles?”