by Lynne Graham
And then the thinking kicked in hard. What the hell was he doing? What the hell was he playing at? He didn’t do touchy-feely—never had and never would. True, she had just given him a pleasure he was finding hard to match in his memory, and he already knew he wanted her again. But it was in the way an alcoholic knew he wanted a drink.
The comparison jarred, but it worked its magic, and Bastien pulled away from the strangely tempting pleasure of having her small, slender body lying against his. He sprang out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
‘I’m a restive sleeper and I prefer my own space,’ he told her carelessly. ‘I’ll be sleeping in the room next door.’
Lilah could feel herself freeze with regret and discomfiture. Yet such separation was what sex without caring was like, she scolded herself. It was a bodily thing—not a mental thing. Bastien didn’t feel any deep connection with her. He had satisfied his lust for the moment and that was that: he had leapt out of bed and straight into the shower. She could already hear it running.
Had she expected a warmer conclusion to their intimacy?
Well, if she had expected that she was an idiot. After all, wasn’t this exactly why she had lost her temper with Bastien two years back? He had only offered sex when she had wanted more, and that had hurt—hurt her pride, hurt her heart too. Wasn’t it time she was honest about that? She had started falling for Bastien Zikos the first moment she’d laid eyes on his fallen angel face and stunning eyes.
Of course she hadn’t known him in any way, so it had been infatuation rather than love, but his magnetic attraction had called to her on every level. And resisting it, recognising that he could only make her unhappy, had cut deep and filled her with disappointment. But it was the truth and it remained the truth, Lilah conceded ruefully. Bastien skated along happily on the shallow side of life, taking pleasure where he chose, discarding women whenever he got bored...and now she was one of those passing fancies—a sexual whim.
She shifted in the bed, and the ache between her thighs made her wince and grimace. Once she had said no to Bastien, and evidently that had put a price beyond rubies on her head because he wasn’t used to the word no and evidently couldn’t live with it.
Stop thinking these negative thoughts—stop it, she screamed inside her head, shifting on the pillow as if to clear it. It would be better to concentrate on the positive—think of the factory up and running again, her father back in his office and her little half-siblings secure because their parents were no longer worried sick about how to pay their bills. That was a good picture, she told herself soothingly.
And what about all Moore’s former employees? Her father had mentioned that he’d be calling a meeting on site today, to discuss the relocation of the factory and the planned reopening. That news would make a lot of people very happy.
Indeed, only a very sad, total loser would sit feeling sorry for herself when she was surrounded by so many positive reminders of what sacrificing her pride had achieved. And she wasn’t a loser, she told herself angrily, and she wasn’t going to make a big dramatic deal out of what couldn’t be changed. So she had had sex with Bastien—that was all it had been and she could live with that reality.
Sliding out of bed, she walked naked into the dressing room and extracted a robe, knotting the sash at her waist with impatient hands.
As she walked back towards the bathroom, Bastien emerged from it, lean bronzed hips swathed in a towel. Crystalline drops of water sprinkled his hair-roughened chest and his thick black hair curled back damply from his brow.
Seeing her out of bed, he frowned. ‘I thought you’d be sleeping.’
‘No. I need to shower.’ To wash his touch and the memory of it away, Lilah thought frantically, colliding with smouldering golden eyes framed by velvet dark lashes and feeling her heart skipping an entire beat. A shadow of faint black stubble accentuated his hard masculine jawline and his beautifully modelled sensual mouth.
As Delilah attempted to sidestep him, Bastien shot out a hand to enclose her wrist and force her to a halt again. ‘You were amazing, glikia mou,’ he husked.
Mortification drummed up hot below Lilah’s skin, but she lifted her tousled head high. ‘It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,’ she admitted prosaically, tugging her wrist free to continue on past into the bathroom.
Taken aback, Bastien blinked. How to damn with faint praise, he reflected grimly, thrusting open the communicating door between the bedrooms to stride into his own. And how very typical of Delilah to sting him like a wasp.
Well, what else had Bastien expected from her? Lilah asked herself as she washed. Compliments?
She had told him the truth, even though she knew that she hadn’t been strictly fair. He could have been more selfish and less careful with her in bed. To give credit where it was due, he had made an effort not to hurt her. Unfortunately his consideration in that respect could not eradicate the ugly fact that Bastien Zikos had blackmailed her into his bed. Yes, she had made the choice to accept his unscrupulous deal, but he could not expect her to start treating him like a much-appreciated and personally chosen lover, could he?
Lilah fell into an exhausted sleep, but Bastien was awakened by a phone call at an ungodly early hour of the following morning and given the kind of news that wrecked both his day and his mood.
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 turn
ing 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.