by Lynne Graham
Bastien actually backed away a couple of feet, his lean chiselled features setting into rigid angles of shock while his eyes flared more golden than ever below the thick canopy of his black lashes. ‘Is that a tease?’
Lilah gave him a grim glance. ‘No, it’s not. I just thought I should warn you in case it’s a deal-breaker.’
‘Are you telling me the truth?’ Bastien prompted in a roughened undertone, prowling closer again and circling her like a stalking panther. ‘You’re a virgin?’
Colour ran up below her pale cheeks but she held his fierce gaze. ‘Yes.’
‘If you’re telling me the truth it’s not a deal-breaker—it’s the biggest turn-on I’ve ever had,’ Bastien confessed, thoroughly shocking her with that assurance.
Bastien was disturbingly conscious that for once he was not uttering a mere soundbite for effect. He had never been with a virgin. When he was a teenager his partners had all been older, and when the age range of his lovers had begun to match his own maturity he had never dallied or even wanted to dally with a sexually innocent woman. For a start, he had never been attracted to young, immature girls. In addition he did very much like sex, and he had no time for those who would stick limits on a physical outlet he saw as both natural and free.
Yet something strange was happening to his views while he looked at Delilah, because he was discovering that when those same limits were applied to her and her innocence he was happy with the idea...and even happier at the prospect of becoming her first lover. He didn’t understand why he felt that way, because he had never been a possessive man, and nor had he ever been remotely unsure of his own skills in the bedroom and afraid of comparison.
A frown settled between his brows while he attempted to penetrate the mystery of his own gratification at her announcement—until the obvious answer came to him. What he found appealing had to be the sheer novelty of the experience she offered him...of course she would be something different, something new, something fresh!
‘That’s disgusting,’ Lilah told him furiously. ‘How can you admit something like that?’
Uncomfortably aroused by his thoughts, Bastien wanted to reach for her and demonstrate exactly how he felt, but he knew it wasn’t the right moment. The nervous flicker of her bright blue eyes, her very restiveness, warned him that if he gave her sufficient ammunition she would take off in a panic like a hare bolting for its burrow.
‘I will want you to sign a confidentiality agreement,’ he told her levelly, sticking strictly to practicality. ‘That’s standard. It means that you will never be able to talk about our association in public or in private.’
Her nose wrinkled with distaste. ‘I hardly think I would want to talk about it,’ she said drily, fighting the nerves leaping in her stomach.
‘In return I will purchase a suitable house for your father and his family.’
Lilah squared her slight shoulders. ‘No, you will not. I don’t want my family to be suspicious about my supposed job with you, and if you splash around too much cash they will definitely be suspicious. Give my father employment and he’ll take care of his own family without any further help from you,’ she told him with quiet pride.
‘I’ll want you to fly down to London with me tomorrow.’
Her eyes flew wide. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’ll call your father in to see me today and share the good news. I’ll inform him that you’re joining my personal staff. You can go home early to pack and you can dine with me at my hotel tonight.’
‘I have a prior arrangement to meet friends.’
‘To do what?’ Bastien demanded impatiently.
‘To eat out and see a movie.’
Bastien compressed his wide, sensual mouth. He wanted to tell her that in the near future she would do nothing without his permission. It was astonishing how much pleasure that belief gave him. But he didn’t need to crack the whip right here and now, did he? She would be his soon enough and he would share her with no one—not friends, not family, no one.
Was that what could be described as a ‘possessive’ thought? His skin chilled at the suspicion. No, the thought was born of the reality that he had had to wait so long for Delilah that he wanted and indeed expected to receive one hundred per cent of her attention. He was not and never would be a possessive man, he assured himself with confidence. Even so, now that Delilah was officially set to become part of his life, in a way no other woman had ever been, he would ensure that she was protected by telling one of his security team to keep an eye on her from a discreet distance.
Lilah watched as Bastien unfurled his cell phone, stabbed out a number and spoke at length in Greek—short, staccato phrases that sounded very much like instructions.
‘My driver will take you home now,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘And wait to collect your father and bring him back here to see me.’
Lilah hovered, because he made it all seem so bloodless and impersonal. Nothing she had said had changed his outlook about what he was doing. He neither regretted nor questioned his callous methods. He wanted her and he didn’t care what he had to do to get her. The passion that had to power such an unapologetic desire for her body shook Lilah.
He closed a hand round hers and entrapped her without warning. ‘Evidently I won’t see you now until tomorrow, when we meet on my plane. It’s probably just as well that you’re seeing friends tonight. It takes the focus off us,’ he pointed out with grudging appreciation. ‘It will be more comfortable for all of us that way.’
‘Certainly for you...if it keeps my father in the dark,’ Lilah gibed.
‘Do you honestly think I care about his opinion?’ Bastien countered thickly. ‘We’re single adults. What we do in private is our business.’
Long dark fingers closed round her other hand, tugging her closer, fully entrapping her.
‘Our business alone,’ Bastien repeated thickly, lowering his arrogant dark head to hers and teasing along the tense line of her full lower lip with the blunt edge of his teeth, before soothing it with his tongue in a provocative caress that caught her unprepared and sent liquid heat to pool in her pelvis.
‘We’re at work, for goodness’ sake!’ Lilah protested in a rattled undertone.
‘It’s just a kiss,’ Bastien husked, delving between her parted lips with his tongue and plunging deep with an unashamed hunger that roared through her like a bush fire.
Her knees locked and her legs swayed and she grabbed his forearms to steady herself, fingers clenching into the fabric of his suit jacket in consternation.
Just a kiss.
A little voice reminded her that in the near future she would have to give him a great deal more than a kiss. His mouth hardened on hers, hot and demanding, and a sensation like an electric shock tingled through her, awakening her body as nothing else had ever done. Her nipples pinched into tight buds of sensitivity; the secret flesh between her legs pulsed with sudden dampness. It was a wanting—a fierce wanting unlike anything she had ever felt before—and she was appalled by the response he was wringing from her treacherous body.
A lean hand clamped her spine to force her closer, and against her stomach she felt the hard swell of his erection even through the barrier of their clothing. A surge of burning heat that was very far from revulsion engulfed her and her face burned even hotter as he set her back from him with controlled force.
‘I shouldn’t start something I can’t finish,’ Bastien quipped.
Desperately flailing for something...anything...to distract her from the attack of self-loathing waiting to pounce on her, Lilah paused on her way to the door. ‘Is it all right if I bring my dog with me tomorrow?’
‘No pets. Leave the dog with your family.’
‘I can’t. My stepmother isn’t comfortable with dogs. He’s very small and quiet,’ Lilah assured Bastien, lying through her teeth becau
se Skippy wasn’t remotely quiet once he got to know people.
Bastien frowned. ‘Write down its details. I’ll arrange for a specialist transport firm to handle the travel arrangements,’ he pronounced after a considered pause. ‘But once the animal arrives in France keep it away from me.’
‘France?’ she repeated in consternation.
‘We’re going to France the day after tomorrow.’
Lilah tottered back downstairs, shattered by the way she had succumbed to that single kiss. How could Bastien still have that effect on her? She hadn’t been prepared for that. Perhaps naively she had assumed that her disgust at the unholy agreement he had offered her would protect her. But it hadn’t.
Bastien had bought her acquiescence with a job for her father and the promised long-term prosperity of the reopened factory. Didn’t he see how wrong that deal was? That reducing her body to the level of something to be traded like a product made her hate him? Didn’t that matter to him?
But why should it matter to him? she questioned heavily as she informed Julie that she was leaving early. Bastien only wanted sex. He wasn’t interested in what went on inside her head or how she felt about him. He didn’t care... And neither should she care, she told herself defiantly. Being oversensitive in Bastien’s radius was only going to get her hurt and humiliated. He wouldn’t give her the kind of polite or gracious pretences that would allow her to save face. There would be no frills in the way of romance or compliments. He wasn’t about to dress up their connection by making it about anything more than sex.
Later that same evening, in the wake of a whirlwind of embarrassingly untruthful explanations on the home front and a great deal of packing, Lilah emerged from the cinema with Josh—a tall, attractive man in his twenties, with brown hair and green eyes—and two other couples, Ann and Jack and Dana and George. There was nothing like a good fright or two to dispel tension, Lilah acknowledged wryly as she laughed at something Ann said about the horror movie they had watched.
‘You’re making a wise move on the career front,’ Josh told her. ‘Doing HR at Moore wasn’t stretching you. Working for an international businessman will offer you much more experience.’
A shamefaced flush lit Lilah’s face, because her friends had swallowed her lies about going to work for Bastien hook, line and sinker—just as her family had. ‘I suppose so...’
‘Very bad timing for me, though.’ Without warning Josh reached for both her hands. ‘You’re leaving just when I was about to ask you out on a real date.’
‘What?’ Lilah’s voice was shrill with surprise.
Josh grinned down at her, ignoring Jack’s mocking wolf whistle. ‘I mean, you must have wondered at least once what it would be like if we got together.’
Lilah grimaced, not knowing what to say to him. Because she never had wondered.
Josh edged her back against the wall behind her. ‘Just one kiss,’ he muttered.
Lilah stiffened, wondering why she felt like a stick of rock with ‘Property of Bastien Zikos’ stamped all the way through her. ‘No, Josh,’ she said, her hands braced against his chest.
But because she couldn’t bring herself to actively push him away he kissed her, and she felt much as a shop window mannequin might have felt...absolutely nothing. Because while she liked Josh, and enjoyed his company, she had never fancied him.
‘While you’re away think about the possibility of us,’ Josh urged, stretching an arm round her to guide her towards his parked car.
‘I don’t think so,’ Lilah responded, wondering if there was a kind way of telling a man that you didn’t fancy him in the slightest and knowing that there wasn’t, and that the best response was probably for her just to pretend that absolutely nothing had happened.
‘Awkward...’ Ann mouthed, her eyes rolling with sympathy.
When Lilah walked back into her living room she was surprised by the expression of sincere happiness on her father’s face. But she knew that even before she had reached home that afternoon Bastien had phoned her father, and the older man had already put on a suit by the time the car bringing his daughter home had arrived. When Lilah had gone out to meet her friends her father had still been out, presumably still with Bastien, which had worried Lilah.
‘Everything all right, Dad?’ she questioned anxiously.
‘Better than that,’ the older man assured her with vigour, and informed her that Bastien had hired him to act as manager at Moore Components—a role which he was very happy to take on.
‘I’m beginning to understand how Bastien has become so very rich so fast,’ the older man remarked in wry addition. ‘He’s very astute, and he spotted a break that would benefit Moore when no one else did.’
‘What? What did he spot?’ Lilah prompted with a frown.
‘Bastien recognised that the council has recently rezoned the town’s plans to open the door for further development. He’s selling the current site for a huge amount of money and relocating the factory to the Moat Road, where he’ll qualify for all sorts of lucrative government grants when he reopens for business. It’s an incredibly smart move.’
‘Good grief!’ Lilah gasped, shock and temper bubbling up inside her at the belated awareness that Bastien had cut a very good deal with her in every way. Not only was he getting her, parcelled up like a gift, but he was also evidently on course to make a big profit too! And that realisation absolutely enraged Lilah.
CHAPTER FOUR
LILAH BOARDED BASTIEN’S private jet with her head held high. No, she wasn’t about to show the shame she felt, and she wasn’t anyone’s victim—least of all Bastien’s. This was her choice, she reminded herself doggedly. Bastien might have laid out those hateful options but she had made the choice, and she was still happy with what her sacrifice had achieved for her family.
Her father was managing the business he loved. For the moment he and Vickie would stay on in Lilah’s little house, because it was affordable and within easy reach of Ben’s school. Lilah thought her father and stepmother probably couldn’t quite credit that life had changed for the better again. Having so recently lost everything, they were afraid of another disaster.
Lilah had had tears in her eyes when she’d parted from her little brother and sister that morning, for she had no idea when she would see them again. Did a mistress get time off from her role? Would she have any rights at all?
* * *
Bastien rested his arrogant dark head back to survey Delilah as she walked into the cabin. His mouth took on a sardonic curve when he saw her. She wore a drab, dated black trouser suit and had braided her hair again, concealing her every attraction to the best of her ability. But Bastien was hard to fool. She couldn’t conceal the supple elegance of her delicate build or the healthy youthful glow of her fair skin and bright blue eyes, and when the jacket of her suit flapped back, revealing a sheer white shirt that hugged her small pouting breasts like a second skin, the fit of his trousers became uncomfortably tight.
Tonight, he thought impatiently, would finally rid him of the almost adolescent state of arousal she inflicted on him. A virgin, though... Was that really the truth? Didn’t that deserve a certain amount of considerate staging?
Since when had he been considerate? Bastien asked himself irritably as Delilah attempted to walk past him towards the back of the cabin, where his staff were seated. His hand snapped out to close round her wrist and bring her to a halt.
‘You sit with me,’ he told her flatly.
Her full pink mouth tightened.
‘Take off that ugly jacket. Let down your hair,’ Bastien instructed.
Lilah froze. ‘What will you do if I say no?’
‘Rip off the jacket and yank out the hair tie for you,’ Bastien traded without hesitation.
Warm colour flooded Lilah’s cheeks and feathery lashes lowered over her eyes, bec
ause she was insanely conscious of his staff watching from the other end of the cabin. They were clearly wondering what she was doing on board and were now about to have their curiosity satisfied. She shrugged out of the jacket stiffly and reached up to tug at the tie anchoring her braid. Her hand was shaking as she loosened her hair.
Rage and mortification gusted through her as she dropped down into the seat beside Bastien, glossy black curls fanning in tousled disarray across her shoulders and brushing her flushed cheekbones.
‘And just like that you look gorgeous again, koukla mou.’
‘Is it going to be like this with everything? Your way or the highway?’ Lilah pressed in a strangled hiss.
‘What do you think?’
‘That I once thought you were enough of a man not to need to control a woman’s every move!’
His lean, darkly handsome features slashed into a sudden, entirely unexpected grin, his pride untouched by that crack. ‘The trouble is...I enjoy controlling you.’
Lilah snatched in a much-needed gulp of oxygen. He sent her temper zooming from zero to sixty in the space of seconds. She had never considered herself quick-tempered until she met Bastien, but he literally set her teeth on edge almost every time he spoke.
‘Why would you even want a woman who doesn’t want you? Or is that what it takes to turn you on?’
That was a suggestion that deeply affronted Bastien, for the merest hint of aversion to him from a lover would have repulsed him.
He turned round to face her more directly, his dark eyes flaming gold as ingots, and closed a hand into the fall of her hair to hold her still. ‘No, you’re what it takes to turn me on...but, believe me, you can make very angry.’
‘Is that a fact?’ Lilah whispered tauntingly, tilting her chin, blue eyes gleaming.
In a searing movement of sensual intimidation Bastien crushed her soft mouth under his, driving her lips apart for the stabbing penetration of his tongue. She wasn’t able to breathe, but then at that moment she didn’t want to breathe. Her head was swimming, her body stinging with wild awareness, and a roaring hunger was awakening like a hurricane deep down inside her.