Besotted (The Billionaire Banker Series)

by Le Carre, Georgia

  She takes a step towards me and my internal organs lurch as if I am in a fast-moving lift that suddenly stops. My mind instantly starts making plans to protect Sorab. A voice in my brain says, ‘She wouldn’t dare,’ but I stand ready.

  She begins to walk towards me, her head held straight, but her eyes unblinking and deadly are trained on me, the eyeballs moving to the sides of her eyes as she passes by me. So close to me, almost her shoulder brushing mine. The malice and madness I see in her eyes chill me to the bone. And yet, she has done nothing. I turn around and watch her walk away without once turning back.

  I clamp my hand over my mouth, as if to cover the horror of the knowledge that she has fooled Blake. She will be trouble. But how will I convince him otherwise? She has done nothing to me.

  That night Blake’s lips crash against mine, and afterwards he tells me we are going to Dubai—a romantic weekend. I lose myself in the moment and forget the maniacal hatred in Victoria’s eyes…momentarily.

  Seventeen

  When we arrive at the airport I am surprised to note that we are not getting into Blake’s Gulfstream jet, but a Boeing 767. We walk through the doors and I gawp in awed silence. It looks like no plane I’ve ever been in. Brand new and customized to look like the interior of an apartment it is luxurious and stunningly elegant.

  I turn to Blake. ‘Do you own this?’

  ‘It’s registered to the Bank of Utah.’

  ‘But really it’s yours?’

  He shrugs. ‘Own nothing, control everything.’

  Smiling staff come forth with smiles and hot towels.

  After take-off I turn to Blake. ‘Can I explore?’

  ‘Want me to show you?’

  ‘Nope. Want to take it all in on my own.’

  He smiles and reaches for his briefcase. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  I touch my lips to his. ‘I will.’

  I take Sorab from Jerry and we start exploring the three floors. It is truly amazing. All the spaces have no hard edges, everything curves and swirls around to meet the next environment. There is a dining table that seats twenty, three guest bedroom suites, lifts, a kitchen, an office, a boardroom, two sumptuous lounges with cream couches, a concert hall, a TV room, a gym and a sauna.

  We end up in the master bedroom, which is on two levels. I playfully throw Sorab on the massive white bed and he bounces and squeals with startled laughter. He lifts his hands up to me. I pick him up and throw him back down on the bed. He laughs happily and lifts his hands again.

  ‘One last time,’ I say, and fling him on the bed again. He bounces, sits up and crawls towards me. I lay on the bed.

  He arrives beside me and climbs on my body. I hold him up in the air, his body horizontal to mine.

  ‘Mummy and Daddy will be christening this bed soon,’ I tell him.

  He cackles loudly.

  ‘I know. Wouldn’t that be nice, huh?’

  My mobile rings.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the master bedroom.’

  ‘Don’t move.’

  We spend an hour together, playing, just as an ordinary family would. When Sorab nods off, we lay for a while with him between us, just looking into each other’s eyes.

  ‘We are so lucky, aren’t we?’ I whisper.

  ‘I can hardly believe I have both of you.’

  I grin. ‘Wanna have sex?’

  His answering grin is wolfish. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘What about His Highness?’ I jerk my head in the direction of the sleeping child.

  ‘He can have the bed,’ he says, and grabbing my hand he slides me off the round bed. And there on the soft white carpet we have quiet sex. It is unfamiliar and in a funny way taboo, and so incredibly exciting.

  When we finish I am giggling breathlessly. ‘My knees,’ I complain.

  ‘We’ll use the bed on the return trip,’ Blake promises.

  I stare at him in wonder. His hair is falling down his forehead, his eyes are sparkling and he looks so young and carefree.

  We are flown by helicopter to the roof of the iconic and awesomely beautiful Burj Al Arab, considered the best of the three seven star hotels in the world. As soon as we step out on to the green felt landing pad, waiters in tails and white gloves stand in a line to greet us with champagne and flowers.

  There is no check-in and we are immediately charmed into the royal suite. Inside the opulence is shocking. Its luxury and excess are such that it is almost intimidating. There is a butler outside the door who knows us all by name which I frankly find unnerving! I feel as if I am an impostor. Surely only kings and emperors live with gold and gilt on every surface and leopard skin-covered empire chairs.

  The royal suite has red silk walls. The entrance hall leads to a grand staircase that has elaborately patterned and carved gold and black banisters. It has a faux leopard skin runner carpet. Even Jerry raises her eyebrows and goes silent on me. When she disappears into her bedroom with Sorab I turn to Blake.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s all rather…heroic.’

  He grins. ‘I’m glad it was you who said it and not me.’

  We laugh. At that moment I am the happiest person on earth.

  ‘Shall we check out the bedroom?’

  ‘Shall we wait until it’s dark?’

  ‘Chicken,’ he teases and taking my hand pulls me towards the bedroom.

  We stand at the doorway.

  The room is huge with a brightly patterned carpet, gilded furniture, patterned wallpaper and gilded mirrors. The four-poster bed is massive and set on a purple pedestal, with curtains around it. Over it is a domed canopy with a pleated silk interior. There is the impression of a tent, but also the wild excess of Versace.

  We turn to look at each other.

  ‘Heroic,’ we blurt out at precisely the same time and laugh.

  ‘How much does it cost?’

  ‘More than a hero’s ransom.’

  I chuckle. ‘Come on, let’s check out the bathroom.

  There: gold marble walls, cream marble columns, and blue-veined chocolate marble floors, gilded mirrors, polished bronze tiles, gold taps and fittings, and Hermes toiletries.

  ‘Looks like fun times ahead for you and me,’ Blake says looking meaningfully at the round Jacuzzi bath.

  I grin. ‘A midnight bath?’

  ‘Who am I to turn down such a beautiful woman?’

  ‘I’ve never been in a Jacuzzi.’

  ‘Eyes tell a story. Yours tell me to open your legs and devour you.’ His voice is low and throbbing with passion.

  I watch the heat come into his eyes, the dark hunger, and my stomach twists with excitement. ‘I like the word excess. It has sex inside it,’ I whisper.

  We use the hotel’s Ferrari. It is scarlet and roars like some great beast when Blake guns it. Dubai, it turns out, is littered with speed cameras and Blake makes everyone of them flash.

  We eat at At.mosphere, the highest restaurant in the world, one hundred and twenty-three floors away from the ground. The views are breathtaking.

  ‘I fancy getting legless,’ I announce.

  Blake raises his eyebrows, but does not say anything while I knock the cocktails back.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ I ask, already tipsy.

  ‘No, not at all. I’m actually rather curious. I’ve never seen you drunk.’

  I giggle like a schoolgirl and look at him from beneath my eyelashes.

  ‘What?’ he asks.

  ‘It feels as if I’ve always known you, perhaps even in other lifetimes.’

  ‘You know what you’re like?’ His voice is but a whisper.

  I lean forward. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You’re like a force that swept into my life, cast me into the winds, and set me ablaze. Afterwards you made me rise from the ashes, like a phoenix reborn.’

  ‘Wow! That’s deep.’ I wave a finger towards the glass walls at the sky. ‘And there you are flying in the skies.’

&n
bsp; ‘I like drunk Lana.’

  ‘Ooo… Is it already time for dessert?’

  What looks like a chocolate ball arrives. I lift my eyes towards Blake.

  ‘Want to taste?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Enjoy yourself.’

  I tuck in. Delicious.

  At the ‘floating’ staircase, going down, I become suddenly nervous. Blake kneels at my feet and takes my shoes off for me. Holding me tight we go down it. In the high-speed lift I start to feel a bit sick, but outside with cool breezes blowing on the fountain terrace, I recover very quickly and start to look forward to the Jacuzzi.

  Blake looks at his watch, ‘Come on,’ he says and takes me closer to the water’s edge. Suddenly music fills the air. I look around surprised. It is Pink and Nat Ruess.

  ‘They’re playing our song, Lana.’

  I gaze up at him. ‘You remembered.’

  ‘How could I forget? The night is branded in my mind forever. You were so, so innocent and so very beautiful.’ He puts his hands on either side of my cheeks and turns my face towards the fountains. ‘Watch the fountains dance,’ he says, and stands so close behind me.

  I lean back and stare with amazement. All around me people are taking their phones out to record the stupendous spectacle. Indeed, they are dancing fountains. Soaring, leaning, bending, running like fire upon the surface of the water, all in tempo with the music. It is very beautiful and I am so overcome with joy that tears gather in my eyes and streak down my face.

  When the last fountain dies down, he turns me around to face him.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  I sniff loudly. ‘These are happy tears. Just ignore me.’

  ‘Until I met you I never wanted a woman’s tears, but I want yours. I want your sighs, I want your laughter, I want your joy, your smell, your smile. I want it all.’

  Behind me I hear fireworks. I turn my face up to the skies and watch the beautiful display. They are still exploding around us when Blake takes a ring out of his jacket and slips it on my finger.

  I gaze down at it. It is the biggest pink diamond I have ever seen. It would have been gaudy if not for the plain setting and the astonishing intensity of its color. The light from the fireworks makes it glitter like a pink fire. It is also a perfect fit. It is too big and beautiful to not be… Is it? Could it really be? I look up at him with shocked eyes. The flare from the fireworks streak across his face.

  ‘Are you asking me to marry you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh.’ The wind changes. A fine mist of water from the fountain reaches us, lands on my skin. It is deliciously cool on my flushed skin.

  ‘If you ask you might get a no and I’m not taking no for an answer. I’m telling you: we’re getting married.’

  For a moment I take in the beautiful, beautiful eyes, that tough, unyielding jaw, the straight mouth, the aristocratic nose, then I fling my arms around his neck and our lips meet in the most beautiful kiss. It is deep and lusty and romantic and just perfect. I forget the fireworks, the people, the fountain.

  All I know is when he first kissed me a lifetime ago, he didn’t kiss my lips, he kissed my soul.

  Hey Beautiful,

  Thank you! You’ve kept me this company this far into Blake and Lana’s journey, and it will be my greatest pleasure to have you around until the series is complete.

  The next part, Seduce Me, is told through the point of view of Lana’s bridesmaid, Julie Sugar. It will be the conclusion of the Lana and Blake saga, but it is also the story of Julie’s search for true love.

  See you between the sheets of Seduce Me…

  xx Georgia

  https://www.facebook.com/georgia.lecarre

  https://twitter.com/georgiaLeCarre

  http://www.goodreads.com/GeorgiaLeCarre

  Bonus Material

  POV

  Forty 2 Days

  When Blake Met Lana At the Bank

  Chapter 1

  For a whole fucking year I hear nothing.

  She flies out of Heathrow with her mother, lands in Tehran and then… The trail goes stone cold. That still shocks me. The ease with which a woman can enter Iran, don a drab, loose-fitting garment, and simply disappear, become totally invisible. Without the powerful tentacles of a central bank in that country I have no way of tracking her financially either. The only connection left was the Swiss bank account, but that registered no activity, until recently, when the account was emptied and closed on the same day.

  Then there was nothing left of her, but memories and hurt. Hurt like I had never imagined possible.

  Sometimes, especially in the beginning when I didn’t yet hate her, I used to imagine her veiled and in the desert. She always wanted to go there. My dreams were romantic then. Telescoped without reality or reason we traveled in slow motion upon shifting sands, untroubled by the blazing sun, sharing a camel, only one goatskin water bag between us. In my dreams everything was perfect: the rocking of the camel, perfect. Her, perfect. Us, perfect.

  And then I would wake up and feel like shit.

  In the day I throw myself into work. At night I trawl the city’s night scene looking for the same thing anyone who crawls into the underbelly of cities finds—moments of forgetfulness between the legs of strangers. But nothing would fill the void or the terrible longing for her.

  I wanted us on one camel.

  In my recurring fantasy, she comes to my office, talks her away around Laura, and opens my door. I am too shocked to stand. She comes towards me hips swaying, a slut. Dressed as I had found her that first night we met, she comes around the desk, swipes all my papers to the floor and sits on the table facing me. With one shoe she pushes my chair a little away. Then she lifts her legs, knees together, the way a girl who has been to finishing school is supposed to get out of a car, and pushes her butt deeper into the desk. I look at her. Her gaze is greedy, the way I know her eyes can be. She leans back so that both the palms of her hands are on the desk behind her, and spreads her legs wide open. My eyes slip down. There it is. Open: running with sweet juices.

  ‘Get your mouth on it,’ her red lips command. ‘I’ve been dying for a good suck.’

  But it is absolutely true what the philosophers say: love and hate are just two ends of the same string. You love someone, they lie to you, and you love them less; then they cheat on you, and you love them even less, and you keep going down that string until you hate them. So I traveled down that string.

  I hate that woman, that is as obvious as hell to me, but it is also as clear as day that I cannot let her go. She cheated me. Kicked me when I was down. Brought me to my knees. No one has ever done that. Ever. If I do not punish her… Betrayal then, forever. I will know myself to be a weak man pretending to be strong. I must have my pound of flesh.

  Then three days ago a little light on my computer screen flashed. For a moment my mind went blank. Then hot blood began to pulse again in my veins and my cheek muscles moved, my lips curved. I was smiling again.

  ‘Gotcha.’

  I hear footsteps approaching in the corridor and my heart begins to race. The excitement of seeing her again is so uncontrollably strong that it startles me. But I hate her guts. Immensely. This is purely about revenge. This is about me getting what I am owed. I lay my palms flat on the desk. I want to be cold and controlled. I don’t want the bitch to have the satisfaction of knowing that she has affected me at all. The footsteps pause outside the door. I take a deep breath. She is nothing, I tell myself. She just wanted to count my money.

  My face becomes an unfeeling mask.

  I cease my wild thoughts.

  A brief knock, and the door opens.

  And… All the ugly words that had kept me sane—whore, slut, gold-digger, bitch—become empty balloons that are floating away. I cannot keep a single one. She may be a whore, a slut and a gold-digger, but she is mine. My slut, my bitch, my gold-digger.

  Fuck, already I am itching to see her naked. I want to strip off that ugly suit she’s w
earing, pop her on the table and fuck her until she screams. That’s the second part of the fantasy.

  She walked in with a smile—big, false, irritating. That hurt. Obviously, she has not suffered as I have. Fortunately for her, the smile doesn’t last long. Dies on contact with my person. Her face drains of color and her mouth hangs open. That’s more like it, darling. Papa’s here to get back what he is owed. You forgot—nobody cheats Papa. While she is doing a better than average impression of a goldfish, I study her. How thin she has become. Starving-African-children thin. Nobody should be that thin.

  The employee who showed her in closes the door. Time to take control.

  ‘Hello, Lana,’ I say, remaining seated behind the desk. My voice comes out… Good. Encouraged, I add more words. ‘Have a seat,’ I invite. That, too, I am pleased to note, comes out smooth.

  But she does not move. She keeps doing the goldfish thing, but doesn’t find her voice. I see her swallow and try again.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ It is barely a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Processing your loan application.’

  She frowns. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m here to process your loan application,’ I repeat with deliberate patience. I am enjoying this head fuck. The element of surprise has completely worked in my favor.

  She shakes her head. ‘You don’t work here. You don’t process tiny little loans.’

  ‘I’m here to process yours.’

  ‘Why?’ Some thought crosses her mind and she is suddenly galvanized into action. ‘So you can turn me down? Don’t bother. I’ll show myself out,’ she cries hotly and begins to turn.

  I am on my feet instantly, the chair wheeling away behind me. ‘Lana, wait.’

  She hesitates, looks up at me blankly.

  ‘I am the one in the entire banking industry most likely to extend you this loan.’