by Delka Beazer
“Carte …?” Furiously he rifled through dozens of French phrases that had nothing to do with lingerie.
Mina sighed, a sound loaded with superiority and eyed him with pity. “It’s an agreement-”
“Which gives me complete control of all operations on Jacobe Aisle with no input from outside sources,” he finished.
Her gorgeous hazel eyes lit up. She stared at him expectantly.
It was his turn to emit extreme boredom, “No.”
“No?” She jerked out of her chair and came around the table to him. She caught her full bottom lip in consternation, her eyes sparked with anger.
So this was what she’d been concocting at the dinner table. Entice him with her seductive charms first, manipulate him second.
Hermile had warned him to expect this. She was spoiled, selfish.
He hadn’t needed to add that she was also rivetingly beautiful, smart and tough. A magnificent woman.
Now she’d broken precedent and gotten closer to him that she’d ever willingly done before.
He clenched his fists into tight balls at his side to keep his hands down and away from her. But he couldn’t do anything about his senses. She wore a different scent tonight.
Warm, spicy orchids rose from her skin. His mouth watered with urge to taste her. Any and all parts.
Perhaps he should. Forget rules and Hermile Bronswort’s presence somewhere in the house. If Hermile was so concerned about his daughter’s innocence he shouldn’t have gone to bed early, leaving them alone to finish dessert.
Besides she deserved payback for her shameless behavior at the dinner table.
He relaxed his stance and shifted closer. She didn’t move, she was too incensed by his refusal.
She failed to sense the growing danger.
He grasped the chance, and reached out. Trailed one hardened fingertip along the soft curve of her cheek. Her eyes widened in surprise.
Satin. Her skin felt like satin, soft, supple. He almost regretted touching her with his toughened hands. But he had to feel her.
She flinched but didn’t pull back.
She fumed up at him. “You want me to believe that you’re willing to work for free just for the chance to marry me?” She huffed disbelievingly, “I’m giving you complete control of Jacobe Aisle, isn’t that enough? Are you that greedy?” she screeched.
He seized the opportunity and drew her roughly to him, “Yes. I am.”
She glared up at him.
He savored the heat that her anger had brought into her face, making her cheeks glow with color.
Braver, he stroked the sleek line of her jaw, she shuddered at his touch, he moaned. “How ‘bout I throw out my own amendment to our agreement? I’ll accept carte blanche but with one stipulation, I can make love to you right here. Right now.”
She gasped and transformed from an angry beauty into a woman who realized with daunting trepidation where she was.
She stiffened in his hold, her chest rose and fell rapidly, causing the front of her v-necked blouse to gape even wider. The plump top of one breast revealed itself only inches from his mouth and teeth.
Cursing, he bent and skimmed a kiss in the scented hollow of her throat.
Her gasp was quickly muffled. There were no forthcoming shrieks of feminine outrage.
She felt the way he’d always imagined her to be.
Hot, soft, sensitive. His tongue darted out and he trailed tiny swipes along the slender column of her throat.
His shaft hardened to stone when her neck fell back, offering him better access.
He accepted gratefully. Dipped lower, sucking, biting and savoring her creamy skin.
Sweet, creamy, rich. Those were the only words he could formulate amidst the rapidly growing confusion wreaking havoc inside his brain.
He groaned.
Above him she muttered incoherent babble. Her hands clasped the sides of his head, her fingers sunk to his scalp. Pleasure at her touch made him smile against her neck. Then she tensed as if in preparation to shove him from her.
He neatly ducked out of her grasp. She tittered off balance and he seized that moment to swoop back into the opening of her flailing arms and caught her and her surprised, wide open lips.
Quick as an adder she bit down halting his advance.
A moan strangled his throat. He didn’t try to evade the sharp sting of her teeth.
He welcomed the chance and sucked hungrily on her moist lips. The combination of pain and pleasure sent jolts of thick sensation right to his shaft. Greedily he nipped and sucked at the edges of her lips, skimmed his tongue over the velvet hardness of her teeth.
She made strangled, frustrated sounds. They reeked of anger but also … desire.
His heart gloried in the knowledge as he drank her in. It was as he’d suspected. She desired him.
Impatiently he pawed her slender hips through the ugly cut-offs and pulled her closer. He kept his hands on the soft curves, though he desperately wanted to skim them lower to the pert fullness of her buttocks or higher to the hardened tips of her jutting breasts.
He ruthlessly stamped down the powerful urge. If he touched either one he’d make love to her and Mina wasn’t ready for the realities of that.
He nipped her succulent bottom lip in an effort to seek relief, “Let me in Mina,” he rasped against her mouth. The urge to sample her unique taste was gnawing away at his gut, tearing down his hold on sanity.
She mewed, the sound crushed between outrage and desire. She gulped, then twisted her head to the side, “No … stop.”
His hands fell from her hips. Emptiness overcame him and he couldn’t move, just stare down at her stupefied.
Didn’t they both want the same thing? Hadn’t she been melting into his arms?
She was taking her resistance too far.
“Why the hell did you do that?” He barked, anger finally rising to his surface.
She scooted away, her face carefully averted from him. She stopped at the door which was amazingly still open, anybody could’ve walked in on them. He wondered bitterly how much of their interlude had been witnessed.
“Get out of my home,” she ordered in a quaking voice, her nostrils flared, her teeth clenched. She spun and walked stiffly from the room, her sandals made insistent thumping sounds as she marched down the hall.
He watched her go without moving, though the crazy urge to follow her rolled inside him. He shook it loose.
There was no need to terrify her. He wanted her to come to him willingly. Whether she did so for herself or her company didn’t matter, so as long as she did. He adjusted the aching bulge in his pants and made his way out.
Mina scrambled into the bed, shaking. Her eyes fixed on the locked door behind her.
How could she have let him touch her? His tongue had been in her mouth. She jammed her head beneath the pile of fluffy pillows.
She needed to block out what had just happened and what could’ve happened.
She groaned in frustration. Sucked in several shaky breaths, and listened. She wouldn’t put it past him to follow her.
He was such an arrogant ass. There was nothing he wouldn’t do to get what he wanted.
No trailing sounds greeted her. Relieved, she closed her eyes in the already thick darkness of her room courtesy of the drawn curtains.
But there was no escaping what she’d done. Why had she allowed him to touch her, to kiss her? The ass had had the nerve to ask to make love to her, right there, in her own office. He had no decency.
He was supposed to have accepted the carte blanche agreement. None of this was making sense.
She lay still for a long time until the familiar feelings of safety and comfort began to seep back into her limbs.
Her eyelids began to droop.
And it came back. The first day they’d met.
Her father turned to her, “Mina, this is our new architect, Hunter Roades.”
She followed her father’s gaze to the tall, silent man who’
d managed to melt into the farthest corner of the office.
He stepped forward.
She was taken aback. Attired in close fitting blue jeans, a casual white dress shirt, it wasn’t just that he was tall and rangy. The lines of his body showed relaxation, but yet looked about as soft as cold metal.
There was an unflinching quality to his swarthy face, with its shock of black, spiky hair which felt forward onto his square forehead. His uncompromising will had stared back at her from his penetrating gaze. His eyes, she sucked in a dry breath as they examined each other closely and she attempted unsuccessfully to see beneath the dark blue gaze. A distinct awareness had cannonballed into her.
She bolstered her spine and walked elegantly forward. Stretched out a hand. “Mina Bronswort.”
He grasped it and she wasn’t surprised that her entire hand disappeared in his. The hardness of his palm reassured her of his suitability for the backbreaking labor which was a requirement of both architects and their workers on construction sites.
But she wasn’t one to avoid the elephant in the room. She released his hand, pulling her fingers back with a little added force when they seem to catch in the rough valley of his palm. She ignored the light sting of static which coursed through her fingertips. Snatched a glance at him, but nothing showed in his face, his eyes though had gone darker.
Unnerved she turned to Hermile. “How are we going to afford Mr. Roades when we can barely hire the minimum number of skilled workers we need for this project?”
Hermile shifted, and his usually direct gaze landed on some spot behind her. “We can’t afford it,” his looked back and his eyes pleaded with her, “but if we don’t start building again we’ll lose the rights to the land and we need this fresh source of revenue.”
Mina nodded impatiently, this was old news. “I’m working on this father, but I need more time to go over our accounts, see where we can cut and save.”
Hermile made a dismissive sound. “There’s no more time,” he said flatly, “I’ve made up my mind. Mr. Roades is willing to work for free.”
Mina threw a surprised glance at Mr. Roades who remained unmoving, then swiveled back to her father, “You can’t be serious. This project will last two years.”
“I’m well aware of the time frame,” snapped Hermile irritably.
Something else was amiss. She studied her father’s drawn face carefully. “Just how do you plan to compensate Mr. Roades?”
Hermile let go of a labored breath and he looked straight into her eyes, “with you,” he said quietly.
She cried out, her hand covering her mouth with dawning horror. Her father was many things, cold-hearted bastard being the least of them, but even he wouldn’t try to sell his only child to a stranger.
Shock paralyzed her and she stared speechlessly at him.
He returned her blazing scrutiny with one of his own, “I know arranged marriages is outdated and looked down upon in our sexually lax culture but I’ve checked him out. He’s healthy … honest …” Hermile’s face quivered before his innate stubbornness replaced his disquiet, “he’ll be a good husband to you and he has the skill and talent to get this hotel finished and restore Bronswort’s prosperity all around the world.”
She turned like a maniac on the man who would dare think he could buy her! He’d been waiting and instead of remaining in the corner he had somehow come up behind her.
She almost collided against his chest which was so damn broad it took up two of her.
He reached for he and she skittered back, almost falling backwards onto Hermile’s desk.
He dropped his hand but those blue eyes had stayed pinned on her. “This will sound crude but I … I want you. I’ve never been married before and I’ve no children. If you give me a chance, I’d like to have both of those with you,” he finished quietly.
She gagged, bile burning her throat. He wanted to have kids with her? She hadn’t even thought of having children much less doing the act to conceive them. With a supreme effort she pushed herself away from her father’s desk, noting with bitterness that Hermile had gone completely silent.
She straightened her shoulders which trembled with the effort at holding her upright, then turned to Hunter.
Somehow she managed to hold his eyes, there was compassion in his gaze, but he wasn’t the one being traded! “I … I don’t know what my father and you have decided and I don’t care. We don’t know each other-”
“We can,” he interrupted, his words firm.
She shook her head, wanting to run away but knowing she had to see this through. “Mr. Roades-”
“Hunter,” he interrupted.
“Hunter … I won’t marry you.”
“Yes, you will!” Hermile shouted from behind her. She clutched the chance to turn her back on the frightening resolution in Hunter’s eyes.
Hermile was waiting and there was a shred of remorse on his weathered face. “Please Mina, you can get to know Hunter and when the time is right marry him. This business, our business will go under and everything your forefathers and I have worked for will be lost, if you don’t try.”
And now after several months of keeping Hunter at bay, she’d been so stupid to let him get close enough to kiss her, or attempt to. She squeezed her eyes tight until they throbbed in their sockets.
The worst part was that she didn’t feel repulsed, as she’d been telling herself she would. Instead an image of his harsh face and dark eyes shining with rising lust made her squirm as if needles were on her bed. She groaned in defeat.
Then got angry. She couldn’t, wouldn’t marry a stranger. So why then did she feel as if she was no longer the only sane person in this frightening threesome? Why had she wanted, for just a split second, for him to pick her up and take her on her desk?
She needed help. Someone to talk too. But there was no one.
Chapter four
Two weeks passed and she’d barely caught sight of Hunter, even when she visited the work site.
He was avoiding her. Good.
But her smile was fleeting and slipped into grimness. She continued to stare through the floor to ceiling glass walls of the gigantic greenhouse which attached to the back of her home.
The people bustling beyond its transparent walls rivaled the riot of flowers and plants which crowded around her body.
Her company’s annual picnic was in full swing, though they couldn’t afford it.
She shrugged carelessly and took another hearty sip of zinfandel.
Please God, keep Hunter away.
She’d had to invite him. Hermile had given her no choice.
He railed at her. “Just think of the tongues wagging if it got out that you’ve barred our architect from the company picnic.”
She clutched the stem of the delicate crystal glass. The last thing she wanted was a run-in with her callous would-be-husband.
She needed some release. Wine would do. She took another swallow. Closed her eyes and savored the pungent aromas of cherries and peaches mingling on her tongue.
A shoulder brushed past, her eyes flew open. A waiter bearing a tray of empty plates disappeared through the adjoining door back into the main house.
Reluctantly, she drained her glass and set it on the wrought iron table.
Time to make an appearance.
Her sandals sunk into the softened grass, moist from last night’s rain.
Her gaze raked the gathering. Light sun dresses much like her own, and designer shorts provided a dazzling contrast to the green lawn and trees which fragranced the air around them.
She sought Hermile and found him conversing with the Vincents’, an older couple.
Politely she exchanged greetings with the couple. Mindless chit chat followed. At the right moment, she excused herself and worked her way deeper into the throng. Minutes of chatter passed, she smiled through it all.
Finally she reached the tail-end of the crowd, looked around. Only a few stragglers, seeking privacy rather than conversation,
were this far back.
She snickered. Hors d’oeuvres and abundant liquor wasn’t the only thing on the menu. Her lawn which broadened and grew into towering trees and a huge vegetable garden at the back went on for nearly a mile.
More than enough room for privacy.
At least some people were enjoying themselves. Disappearing might not be a bad idea. She shot a look over her shoulder. Hermile was lost among the crowd. He’d never know she’d slipped off for a little while.
Minutes later, she was safely enclosed behind a wall of plants. Pausing she breathed deeply of the rich earth.
A troupe of ants marched at her feet, she wished she’d carried a piece of food for them.
She stopped after a few yards. She really should get back. Hermile would notice her missing by now.
Doing a 360 she contemplated the several routes which led back to Bronswort mansion. Choosing the closest one she lengthened her strides.
A huge mahogany tree loomed up ahead. The flutter of a yellow hem caught her eye.
She stopped short. A couple was tucked behind the tree and the narrow, grass rimmed path went past them.
She searched for an alternate route back. Tangles of impenetrable shrub stared menacingly back at her.
Perhaps if she tiptoed past they wouldn’t notice. With light steps she drew alongside, face carefully averted.
Something strange, a sharp contraction in the pit of her stomach drew a startled breath from her.
She turned, resenting herself, but unable to fight the urge.
Mina froze. Hunter stared back at her. His dark eyes impenetrable.
He didn’t move from his position beside the tree.
On the ground in front of him was a delicately beautiful blond. The hem of her short yellow dress tucked demurely around shapely legs.
Her tiny rosebud mouth formed an o as she caught sight of Mina suspended on the path.
She giggled like a naughty little girl, and swung gracefully to her feet.
A sharp stab of hurt sliced Mina from nowhere, she blinked. Fought against the overwhelming instinct to turn away from the approaching, smiling girl … and Hunter.