Bound As His Business-Deal Bride (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Kali Anthony

  ‘It’s a lady’s prerogative to change her mind. Let’s just say we owe each other nothing but civility. We’re trying to pretend to have rekindled a great love. People will notice your barely concealed contempt of me. So let’s start over. Gage, I’d like to know where we’re going.’

  Straight to hell was where he was headed. Right now the colour ran high on her cheeks, making her vibrant, captivating. Incomparable in too many ways he refused to think about. He hated that he noticed this, how being round her made him feel more alive than he’d felt in years. As if he’d been in a torpor and all it took was Eve to awaken him. Because all he could think about now was how passionate she looked when she was angry, and how that flush on her cheeks reminded him of the colour that bloomed when she came.

  But there was no room for those thoughts here, no matter how tempting they were, whispering seductively in his ear the things he’d like to do with her. France was all about work. The perfect start to his quest for redemption in the eyes of the world.

  ‘Funny that you should ask, Eve. We’re going to Grasse to stay at your flower farm. Since we’re talking about rationalising the business, I thought it was good place to start.’

  All that beautiful colour drained from her cheeks. He should have felt a spike of triumph, but instead he felt...less. Like a villain of some sort. But he steeled himself. It didn’t matter. He’d been unjustly cast as some type of scoundrel for so many years he may as well wear the title with pride.

  Eve didn’t say anything. She dragged a tablet from the odd little yellow suitcase that she resolutely refused to relinquish even to his driver and which now sat at her feet. It looked like it had seen better days or a great deal of travel. He wondered at her keeping it when she was a woman who could afford a luxury brand. She was quite secretive about what it contained, manoeuvring the latch to make sure he couldn’t see inside. In the brief glimpse he had, it looked like it was filled with old papers.

  She tapped away with a kind of fury on the retrieved device, stabbing at the screen as she worked intently on something until they pulled into the property. As they drove through the gate and down the long gravel drive she looked up, out the window. Something on her face smoothed out. He hadn’t realised that the merest of frowns had been marring her brow most of the time since he’d seen her again, until he looked at Eve now. A gentle smile tilted the corners of her mouth. A look of happiness, a quiet joy.

  She used to look at him like that, once. As if he were her safe place, her...home. Now he’d been replaced by this, a property, not a person. He didn’t know what stung more.

  The car pulled up in front of a quaint, two-storey French farm cottage of rustic stone overlooking fields of flowers. The pink of what he assumed were roses, the purple of lavender. He got out of the car and Eve followed, carrying her handbag and clutching the small suitcase tightly in her right hand. He reached into his pocket for the key handed to them by their driver at the beginning of the journey, but Eve was ahead of him with her own. She opened the front door and walked inside. It was a clear reminder to him that she believed this place to be hers.

  ‘I trust this meets your approval,’ Eve said, her voice clipped and sharp. She was dressed for business and he couldn’t help admire the perfect fit of her deep blue pants as they moulded to her backside with every step. The cut of her jacket’s waist that accentuated rather than detracted from her figure.

  He followed the tap of her heels on the stone floor through a receiving room to the back of the house where French doors opened onto a patio, overlooking a lap pool and more flowers. Sheer curtains billowed in the gentle breeze. The rooms were full of provincial French furniture, all wood and warmth. Paintings of flowers and landscapes adorned the walls.

  The cottage was unlike any of the properties he owned, which were mere places he laid his head. They held about as much attachment to him as a hotel, kitted out by interior designers in cool greys, granite and chrome. This space, as exquisite as the décor was, looked like a home.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. That was nothing less than the truth, when there’d been too little truth between them. ‘You always wanted somewhere like this.’

  Eve turned, put her bags on a table, its warm wood burnished by care and age.

  ‘Don’t forget. So did you.’

  It was the type of home that they’d talked about owning together when their hopes and dreams had seemed to coalesce. But she hadn’t wanted that future with him, and he’d been too blissfully ignorant being yanked around by the chain of his misplaced adoration to see it. It was a reminder. They didn’t need each other. Once he’d thought that inconceivable but now he realised everything he’d done had been done in spite of her. He’d reached the pinnacle on his own.

  She walked outside and leaned on the balustrade overlooking the sparkling water of the pool below and the beauty of the view beyond. In every direction were flowers, the scent of them lingering sublimely in the air. It all smelled like her—of gardens, of the life he’d expected to have. He stood back a little, not wanting to get too close. The warmth of the French afternoon sank into his skin and bones, unknotting him in ways he didn’t want to contemplate. Everything here spoke of opportunities lost and fresh ones waiting to be plucked. He shrugged out of his jacket. Began unravelling in a way all too pleasurable to be safe, especially with her.

  ‘You should have told me we were coming to Grasse,’ she said, looking down at the azure water below her. ‘I didn’t bring anything to swim in.’

  ‘I’m sure that doesn’t matter here. It looks secluded enough.’

  The words were out of his mouth before he could think. He imagined her in the glorious pool, naked, sliding through the water. Him right there with her, their bodies slipping against each other... Eve shot him a look over her shoulder, her cheeks tinged pink. She pushed herself off the railing and walked towards him, her lips slightly parted. Her pupils were big and dark in the pale blue of her eyes. It wouldn’t take much to drop his head. Put his lips against hers. Kiss her like he had all those years ago. The need for it gripped him hard. This was a test as to whether he could finally overcome this craving for her. He hesitated then took a step back, rather than plunging his hands into the thick curls of her hair and dragging her against him.

  ‘As tempting as all that sounds,’ she said, stepping close and invading his personal space with a wicked tilt of her lips, ‘I might just take a car to Nice and buy myself a bikini.’

  She strolled through the doors into the house with her hips swaying in a kind of hypnotic rhythm and the thought of her in any of the boutiques, trying on their skimpy swimwear, filled his head with visions he was sure even a hundred laps in a cold pool wouldn’t extinguish.

  Eve adjusted the ties at the hips of the yellow and blue-two piece she’d found in Nice. She hadn’t meant to purchase something so daring with its vibrant patches of fabric and alluring bows at the side, but she’d spent most of her life trying to stay safe and she was sick of it.

  There was a fire in her blood that wouldn’t be extinguished, not with Gage in her house, invading the space she’d once called her own. Fear gnawed at her stomach and she pressed her hand over the ache there. He’d brought her here for a reason and if revenge was that reason, he couldn’t have designed a much better punishment than to take this place away from her. The one thing in her life she’d claimed for herself. She might not own it all, but she’d be damned if she would lose it without a pitched battle.

  Eve checked herself in the mirror to make sure her stretch marks were mostly hidden. They’d never worried her before, the pale silvery lines being a reminder of what she could survive. She especially needed that reminder right now because a fight was coming. She couldn’t hear Gage around so he was probably working on the press release for the announcement of their engagement, or planning some other kind of ordeal for her. One or the other, they were both the same right now, so to hell
with it and with him.

  She grabbed a floaty wrap that matched the sun and sea tones of her swimwear and made her way to the pool. As she stepped out onto the patio she heard a splash. Eve looked over the balcony to see Gage’s powerful form striking out in freestyle. Wearing tight black swimming trunks and gleaming bronze in the afternoon, the shimmering water sluiced from his back, his muscles rippling as he powered down the length of the pool, executed a perfect turn and powered back to the other end. Again and again. It was mesmerising, seeing him slice through the water, each stroke as hard and driven as the man himself.

  It was all she could do not to sashay down there in her provocative bikini and slip into the pool with him. If this had been a grand affair, she would have. Would have stripped the little scraps of fabric from her body with a deft pull of a few ties and pressed herself into him. He’d probably reject her if she tried that now his level of disdain so strong it almost caused her physical pain to experience it.

  No matter how strong the desire that flooded her with need, she wouldn’t put herself in harm’s way because of misplaced memories of a youthful love that they’d have outgrown had they stayed together. It was only because they’d parted that it had achieved such a mythic status in her own mind.

  Anyhow, what did she know about seduction? Gage was her first and her only. She’d tried dating in the years after they’d broken up. Had tried to kiss another man but it had made her skin crawl. She’d resigned herself long ago to there being only one man her body wanted. Unlucky for her he was the wrong man. A man who hated her.

  She turned her back on the tantalising view and instead found a spot in the shade on a sun lounge. Throwing on her sunglasses, she breathed in the warm, scented air and stared up at the flawless blue sky. The rhythmic splashing from the pool below lulled her. Whenever the world became too much, this was where she came. She’d never wanted to take over the family business. It had been her father’s demand, drilled into her when the reality that he’d never have the son he wanted had hit home.

  This, growing things, had always been her dream. To one day own the farm outright, move here and immerse her life in the soil and the scents of what she grew. Now it was possible that Gage had other ideas. That man did everything for a reason, and she wasn’t sure of the reason why he’d elected to stay here in her home rather than in Nice proper.

  As she ran through the possibilities, Gage appeared, towel lashed around his waist. His hair was rough dried and unruly. Drops of water sprinkled across his torso, sparkling in the sunlight like dew on petals in the morning. Dripping down his pectorals. Sliding over the ridges of his abdomen. Balmy heat bled over her, settling low and intoxicating. A delicious ache was building between her thighs. Her nipples tightened and she hoped evidence of her arousal was hidden by her wrap. He stopped when he saw her.

  He made such an imposing picture, framed by the blue sky. His eyes a darker colour, boring into her. After the exercise his breathing was heavy, the muscles of his biceps and pectorals firm and defined. Would he look like that if he loomed over her now in bed? Naked, breathing heavily with passion and not exercise. A shiver of pleasure tripped through her and she tightened her wrap a little further, feeling weirdly exposed lying there, as if spread out for his pleasure alone.

  And she had to say something, not just sit and stare like the fool she was, brain turned to mush by his hard, perfect body.

  ‘Enjoy your swim?’

  He ran his hands through his hair and droplets of water sprinkled the ground. ‘Did some laps. I see you bought a bikini.’

  His gaze drifted down her body to her bare legs, paused for a moment before coming back to her face. The heat of it was as sure as the caress of his fingers. A drop of water slid from the side of his nose to his lips. He licked it off. That, and the incendiary burn in his eyes, fired up the devil in her.

  ‘I thought it was better than skinny dipping, since that wouldn’t have been very businesslike of me, which is why we’re here after all.’

  ‘And yet neither of us is dressed for work right now.’ Gage’s voice was the rough burr of a sun-dried towel over her skin.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re not hard at it, drafting a press release on our engagement. I see the tasty morsel of gossip that you’re off the marriage market hasn’t hit the press yet.’

  He cocked his head. ‘Still keeping tabs on me?’

  That wasn’t far from the truth. For years she’d taunted herself with every alert about him. His success, failures—though there had been very few of those—the women...not as many as she thought she might see, but even one woman on his arm who wasn’t her was too many. A constant reminder of what she’d lost, even though she’d convinced herself they wouldn’t have lasted the distance.

  No. Not lost. Given away because there had been no alternatives. She needed to remember there was a price she’d paid for loving him back then, and that was letting him go.

  ‘It pays to know your enemies. And keep them close.’ She crossed her legs and Gage watched the movement, his eyes darkening.

  ‘So, now I’m your enemy, cher?’ His voice was quiet, a mere whisper in the breeze. Their eyes locked. There was a heat in his, like a flash of sunshine on water.

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re not keeping me close enough.’

  ‘Are we talking business or pleasure here?’

  Silence between them stretched for a heartbeat. A moment in which hers fluttered in anticipation of his answer.

  ‘Business, of course.’

  Her shoulders slumped a fraction. No, she wasn’t disappointed. Not at all. It was relief she felt. Blissful relief.

  ‘No rest for the wicked, then,’ she said. Except he didn’t look wicked, he looked angelic, standing there half-naked, his hair drying in the warm breeze to the glorious blond gossip magazines raved about. Only soaring wings and a blazing halo could complete the picture.

  Gage Caron. Golden Boy. Voted USA’s most eligible bachelor three years running.

  He smirked and she wanted to wipe that look of disdain from his beautiful face.

  ‘No rest for you, at least.’

  His words made her feel reckless when faced with all this potent masculinity. And she didn’t care that they were enemies or that he loathed her. All she cared about was showing Gage that he might be a little affected by her, too. So she eased out of her reclined position, stood and took a few steps towards him.

  ‘All work and no play makes Gage a dull boy.’

  Another step and the pupils in his fathomless eyes blew wide as she let the front of her wrap fall open. His gaze dropped to the slice of body it showed.

  ‘You wanna play, cher?’

  His voice was like midnight and sin and she desperately wanted to ignore caution and sell her soul to him, if only for the afternoon. Instead, she slid her wrap from her body. Tossed it behind her onto the chair she’d just left. She was close to him now and his eyes burned on her, his nostrils flaring, jaw clenched hard. Part of her was gratified she could still do this to him, that despite everything there wasn’t indifference but an incendiary desire that threatened to consume them both.

  It was her turn now to look him up and down. Long and slow. The bulge behind his towel was unmistakable. The power of that roared through her, making her feel as wicked as he accused her of being. If that’s what he thought, that’s what he’d get. She could almost feel herself sprouting horns and a tail.

  Eve invaded his space, smiling as his fists clenched hard at his sides. She dropped her voice to as low and sexy as she could make it. For a moment she held his gaze. His lips parted, like he needed extra air too.

  ‘Oh, sugar,’ she said, her voice dripping sweetness as she pointedly stared at the impressive evidence of the arousal there was no way he could hide, and drifted her fingers over the knot on his towel. ‘I’m going for a swim. Looks like you’ll
have to play on your own.’

  She revelled in the hitch of his breath as she brushed past and sauntered to the pool.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GAGE FOUGHT TO overcome his desire for Eve, but he hadn’t figured that being around her in person was very different from his distant memories. This morning he’d woken gripping himself hard after a night when his sleep had been plagued with images of her, his dreams and feverish desire bursting to life in full colour.

  The feel of her as she’d brushed past him near the pool and his skin had become electric. The trace of her fingers over the knot of his towel that had caused his blood pressure to spike to near coronary levels. Now he was back to seven years ago when his need was fresh and the pain of unrequited adoration unbearable.

  She was toying with him and he wouldn’t let her get away with it. He’d recognized something when his mind had finally clicked back into gear yesterday. When he’d stopped salivating over her smooth skin on display in that magnificent bikini that had exposed much yet covered more. An item specifically designed to tease and tempt. Yes, once he’d stopped lusting after all that pale skin, elegant curves and her perfect breasts he’d noticed a few things as she’d stood so very close to him. The delicate flush of her cheeks, the way her nipples had pressed like hard knots against the fabric of her bikini top. Irrefutable signs she’d wanted him too.

  What if he’d wrapped his arms round her waist, drawn her close? Plundered that pink, pouting mouth of hers. Laid her out on one of the sun lounges and buried himself inside her till she’d screamed his name.

  She’d screamed his name long ago. He could get her to do it again.

  Gage raked his hands through his hair. Took a long mouthful of hot coffee to try and jolt some sense into himself. Now was not the time or the place. He had to get his head on straight. Today they were talking Knight Enterprises and he’d been picking that company apart piece by rotten piece. There were aspects which were useful to him. As for the rest, it could go. Eve would soon learn that this was no game, and he wasn’t to be played.