Taken for Revenge, Bedded for Pleasure

‘We’ll talk about it later.’

‘There’s no need—I’ve said I’m going, and that’s that.’

Miles turned back to the Prime Minister and said with forced cheerfulness, ‘My sister hasn’t been…well. She’s still recovering and she needs keeping an eye on.’

It was too humiliating. Bella seemed to spend her whole life these days trying to forget what had happened, but it was impossible when to everyone else it was the single most significant thing about her. Speechless with suppressed rage, she whirled round, the plate clasped in front of her like a weapon, and walked straight into someone stepping towards her.

As if in slow motion she watched caviar blinis sail gracefully through the air and rain down all around her. The plate jolted against her hipbones, coming between her and the body of the man with whom she had collided. In a daze of embarrassment and misery she sank instantly to the floor and started to pick up scattered canapés, desperate to clear up the damage and get out.

The man she had bumped into dropped to his knees beside her.

‘It’s fine,’ she muttered miserably, without looking up. ‘Please don’t bother. I can manage.’

‘Leave it.’

His voice was very low, and very French. And very filled with barely suppressed anger.

She froze. Then, full of foreboding, she dragged her gaze upwards. Her indrawn breath made a little gasping sound. She was looking straight into the dark, gleaming eyes of the man from the auction house.

‘Wh—what? I don’t understand…’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Taking you away.’ Removing the plate from her hands, he put it on a side table and gently pulled her up. She was suddenly aware of Miles behind her, looking at her with obvious dismay that she’d managed to make a fool of herself again. She could hardly blame him. She was standing liberally smeared in first-class beluga caviar just a few feet away from the Prime Minister and some of the most important, most famous and influential people in the country.

And in front of possibly the best-looking man on the planet.

Without warning, hot tears stung her eyes, but before they spilled over she felt the man from the auction take her chin in his fingers and gently tilt her head up.

‘Oh, no you don’t, beauty. You’re not going to cry,’ he murmured as he bent towards her, and in a heartbeat his mouth closed over hers, warm and firm. For a second she felt herself stiffen, but her gasp of shock was lost in his kiss.

The bright, tasteful room full of people dissolved, the loud music of the band faded away, and along with it her shame and humiliation. She was in a dark, secret world of lips and hands, and the only sound was the frantic drumbeat of her heart. Or his heart. Or both together…

After a second, a minute, a lifetime, he lifted his head and with one hand in the small of her back moved his mouth to her ear.

‘OK, cherie, smile nicely and head for the door.’

Bella opened her mouth to protest, but he swept his thumb swiftly across it.

‘Don’t speak,’ he murmured huskily. ‘Don’t say a word. You can thank me later.’

CHAPTER THREE

OLIVIER followed her through the crowded room.

Already, he noticed, she was walking taller, holding her head higher. There was a provocative sway to her hips. In short, a glimmer of the brilliant spark he had noticed yesterday in the auction room had returned.

With just one kiss.

Dieu, what he would do to her with a whole night.

The thought brought the ghost of a smile to his set face. He had decided already that seducing Genevieve Lawrence’s granddaughter, sleeping with her, would be a matter of cold-blooded score-settling, but if the change he’d just witnessed was anything to go by it would almost be too pleasurable to count as vengeance.

How would it feel to touch the flesh that had been so forbidden to his father? How would it feel to possess such a priceless pearl…the daughter of the Delacroix dynasty…and then cast it away as if it were worthless? Would it make up for what they had done?

On the landing outside the sitting room she stopped and turned to him. There was a pink stain in her cheeks and an intense, almost feverish glitter in her eyes.

‘Thank you? I’m supposed to thank you for this?’ She looked down at herself. Beads of caviar gleamed darkly on the pale skin of her arms and the ivory swell of her breast. ‘Of course. Caviar body paint is such a good look…’

Olivier smiled lazily. She might be being sarcastic, but she was actually completely right. She looked good enough to eat. ‘Believe me,’ he drawled, ‘it’s a lot better than being completely humiliated in public by some overbearing bastard treating you like a child.’

‘Do you mind?’ she gasped. ‘That was my brother!’

‘And that makes it all right for him to treat you like that?’ Olivier asked coolly.

‘He’s protective. He just—’ Bella broke off, shaking her head in confusion. ‘Look, I don’t know what this has to do with you…’

‘I don’t like bullying. Now, which is your room?’

‘Why?’ she demanded.

He paused, looking at her thoughtfully. Standing there with her eyes sparking with fury she looked oddly sweet, and he couldn’t help but admire her defiance. The prospect of seducing her was like a sudden and unexpected blow to the stomach. ‘Let’s just say I don’t like people who use their natural advantages to repress people who don’t have the same power,’ he said quietly.

She laughed suddenly: a short, joyful peal that broke the tension. ‘I didn’t mean that.’ She looked up at him and their gazes locked. ‘I meant, why do you want to know which is my room?’

‘Because I think you need to get out of that dress.’

The sparkling laughter faded from her eyes, and was replaced by something much more intense.

Gently, not wanting to frighten her, he reached out and cupped her breast in the flat of his hand, feeling the ripeness and heat of her skin through the severe black crêpe. A small shiver ran through her. Slowly, lazily, he ran his thumb over the bare skin above the low-cut neckline of the dress where her cleavage spilled out, scooping up black beads of caviar that glistened against the creamy flesh. Her eyes stayed fixed to his the entire time, and he saw the momentary flicker of her eyelids at his touch.

Removing his hand, he put his thumb to his lips and sucked off the caviar.

She drew in a soft, shuddering breath. ‘Up there,’ she said in a low voice. ‘My room is up there.’

‘Then allow me…’ Olivier almost expected her to protest as he took her hand and led her to the stairs, but passively she allowed him to lead her. Even so, he had the impression that a fierce battle was going on beneath that graceful exterior. This little rich girl had been brought up to be polite and well behaved, but all the etiquette and good breeding couldn’t quite conceal the wildness that heated her blue-tinged blood.

Just like her Grandmother. Just like the original Dame de la Croix.

He followed her across the thickly carpeted upper landing. She opened a door, revealing a pretty room with a window set into its sloping roof. Outside a blue August twilight was gathering over the treetops in the residents’ garden opposite, casting deep, inky shadows in the room. Just inside the door she stopped and turned to him.

‘Wait!’ She looked agitated. ‘I don’t know anything about you. I don’t even know your name…’

‘Olivier Moreau.’ Solemnly he held out his hand and said with a tiny hint of sarcasm, ‘Millionaire city boy.’

He was rewarded with a smile so brief it had disappeared before it was properly there. ‘You said I was only half right about that. Who are you really?’

‘I’m a hedge fund manager.’

‘What does that mean?’

He paused, weighing up how to answer. ‘I buy and sell… things.’

‘What things?’

He shrugged. ‘Anything. But I like dealing in the complex, indefinable things best. Rain, air quality, confidence…’

‘Or other people’s heritage?’ she added bitingly.

He acknowledged the dig with a small smile. ‘Exactly. As long as it gives me a good return on the investment. What else can I tell you? I’m French, but I’ve been based in London for the last four years. I collect art. I’m not married and I have no children. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’

‘Why you came here tonight.’

She walked away from him into the room, but he stayed where he was, lounging easily against the doorframe. He didn’t want to rush her, or pressure her. There was no need.

‘I wanted to see you again,’ he said simply. ‘After yesterday.’

She was standing by the wardrobe with her back to him, her head bent as she fumbled with the buttons on the back of the dress. In the melting blue light her neck was as pale and delicate as the petals of a lily.

‘What for?’

Her directness was unexpected, but Olivier admired her for it. Slowly he moved across the twilit room, desire licking through him in instant, automatic response as he reached out to help her. His libido obviously had little respect for history or family loyalty, he thought dryly, noticing that she stiffened slightly as he slid the button from its tiny satin loop.

His fingers moved down to the second button. ‘I wanted to give you what’s rightfully yours.’

‘The painting?’ There was a pause as the dress slid from her shoulders, revealing the flawless expanse of her bare back. It glimmered milk-white in the moonlight for a moment, and then she turned round so she was facing him.

‘Of course.’

In her ‘take-me’ heels, with the caviar-smeared black dress clutched against her breasts, she looked dishevelled and wanton, but when she spoke the icy hauteur in her voice shattered the enchantment.

‘No, thanks.’

He felt an uncomfortable jolt of surprise but instantly concealed it, looking at her steadily. ‘Why not? You said it was your grandmother’s house. If that’s the case then she should have it.’

‘It’s too expensive.’

He moved slowly towards her, genuine interest gleaming in his eyes. Having a woman turn down a gift on the grounds that it was ‘too expensive’ was a bit like having a goldfish decide against a bowl of water on the basis that it was too wet. He was intrigued.

‘I thought you said yesterday that you didn’t care how much it was worth?’

‘I did,’ she said with cold disdain. ‘But that’s irrelevant now. You’re a businessman, Mr Moreau, and I assume that part of your success rests on knowing your market. You no doubt think that all this—’ she made a sweeping gesture with one arm, causing a corner of the dress to fall down, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of voluptuous flesh ‘—means I’m some wealthy, profligate trus-tafarian, and you can sell the painting to me at a profit because you know how much I wanted it.’ She shook her head emphatically. ‘Well, I just hope that your projections in the boardroom are a lot more accurate than the ones you’ve made about me, because that’s a huge miscalculation. It makes no difference how much I want the painting because I can’t afford it.’

She stopped, her chin raised in awkward defiance, her dark hair framing a face that burned with fury and bitterness and passion. For a moment neither of them spoke, and above the distant thud of the band Olivier could hear Bella’s laboured breathing. In the half-light her shoulders looked fragile and translucent as they rose and fell rapidly.

‘Great speech,’ he said dryly after a long pause. ‘However, completely unnecessary. I said I came to give it to you.’

‘Why? Why would you do that?’

The space between them seemed to pulse with possibility. Watching her closely, Olivier could see that the hostility that crackled around her like static was due in part to a deep-seated uncertainty. Insecurity, perhaps. Having seen her arrogant, overbearing brother at work, it wasn’t hard to work out where that had come from.

He gently lifted the fallen edge of her dress, tucking it back in place and hiding the ivory swell of her breast, careful not to let his fingers brush her skin.

She shivered.

‘You want it,’ he said simply, looking at her thoughtfully. He saw the heat flare in her eyes and knew she had all but forgotten, as he had intended her to, that he was referring to the painting.

He turned, hiding his slight smile of triumph, and walked casually across the room. ‘I left it downstairs. I hope your grandmother likes it,’ he said, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Going down the wide stairs, he counted each step. Would she come after him before he reached the first floor, or would she manage to hold out for longer and leave it until he’d reached the hallway?

There was, of course, no question that she would come after him.

He reached the front door and, ignoring the imperious manservant who had welcomed him on the way in, stepped out into the warm evening. He had to hand it to her. She was pushing it to the limit. Unhurriedly he crossed the empty street to where his car was waiting, and was just reaching out a hand to the open the door when he heard the clatter of her heels on the marble floor behind him. At the sound of her voice he found he was smiling.

‘Wait—please wait!’

He arranged his face into an expression of bland enquiry before he turned round.

She had put on a short dress of vivid scarlet silk, loose and flowing like a smock, and as she ran down the steps towards him the silk rippled against the curves of her body like water cascading over a statue in a fountain. The transformation from the bland, dutiful girl he had watched up there in the drawing room to this vibrant beauty was breathtaking. It was as if she had been brought back to life.

She came to an abrupt halt by the pillared entrance portico.

‘I’m sorry for being so suspicious and cynical,’ she said, and her voice vibrated with suppressed emotion. She was trembling. ‘I’ve learned the hard way, I’m afraid. It made me forget that there are good people out there too. I’m sorry, please—forgive me.’

Olivier found himself taking a couple of steps towards her, so he was standing in the middle of the carless road.

‘Apology accepted.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Yes.’ Keeping her chin held high, she came down the steps to where he stood. Her eyes flashed with feeling. ‘I never said thank you.’

The height of her heels meant that she didn’t have to stretch upwards very far to press a kiss on his cheek, but they also made her unsteady. As she leaned over she wobbled slightly, and Olivier found himself grasping her arms as the warmth and softness of her lips met his skin.

He didn’t let go of her straight away. ‘There’s no need to thank me,’ he said with a trace of mockery. ‘According to you the painting was morally yours all along.’

She gave a breathy laugh and looked down as he let her go. ‘All right, then…not just for the painting. For extracting me from an extremely embarrassing situation, and making my brother see I’m not a child any more.’

Olivier glanced up at the row of tall windows behind their elegant wrought-iron balconies on the first floor. Miles was still there, and as Olivier watched he glanced down. Olivier felt a small dart of triumph as he saw the expression of anger and disapproval on Miles Lawrence’s handsome face.

‘It was my pleasure,’ he said dryly.

‘He only does it because he cares, but unfortunately it’s a very thin line between being caring and being controlling—especially where my love-life is concerned. No one is ever going to be good enough for his little sister, of course…’

Loathing rose up in Olivier’s throat as she said that. Not good enough. Times had changed, the world had moved on, but it seemed that Miles Lawrence still held fast the same outdated, elitist principles of his forebears. The principles that had ruined Julien Moreau’s life.

‘Charming,’ he murmured sardonically. Bella jumped slightly as he trailed a caressing finger down her cheek, adding lightly, ‘Don’t look now, but he’s watching.’

Her eyes widened a little as understanding dawned. It was like dipping a brush of black ink into clear water, Olivier thought idly as the darkness of her pupils spread and deepened. Her head tilted back a little and her lips parted as slowly, deliberately, he bent his head and their lips met in the lightest butterfly touch.

He had her.

Lifting his hand to cup her face, he dipped his head again and closed his mouth over hers. His fingers slipped into the silk of her hair, and he felt her tongue dart between his open lips. He had her, and tasting Delacroix flesh was every bit as easy and as sweet as he’d anticipated.

Bella slid her hands inside his dinner jacket, placing her palms flat against his ribs where she could feel the steady rhythm of his heart. His body was warm, reassuringly solid, and the expensive, dry, masculine scent of him filled her head and blotted out the city smells of dust and diesel and night-scented stock from the square’s garden. She felt as if she was melting, and the violent trembling that had gripped her since she had run down the stairs after him eased, replaced by a delicious languor like honey in her veins.

The summer evening enfolded them as they stood alone in a halo of light from the windows, and the music of the band eddied around them. They were playing a mellow, dreamy song, and Bella felt her hips undulating lazily beneath Olivier’s warm hand.

Desire beat an indolent tattoo in her blood. She felt heavy with it, drenched and pulsing, as if there was an unhurried inevitability about it. The panic that she had felt before had completely disappeared. Suddenly she didn’t care what her family thought of her. What must Miles be saying now? That she was irresponsible…?

Olivier’s mouth moved to her cheek, the hollow beneath her ear, the curve of her neck.

Mmm…yes. Irresponsible, definitely…

She slid her hands over his shoulders, arching her back as his lips raised goosebumps up her arms.

Impulsive?

Oh, yes. There were impulses that she had barely dared to imagine raging through her like forked lightning, and she wanted nothing more than to give into each and every one of them.

Easily led…

‘Oh…’

She felt a sharp stab of dismay as Olivier lifted his head and pulled back from her a little. Her skin tingled and sang with the need to feel his lips against it again.

The expression on his face was impossible to read as he looked down at her, but his voice was wry and slightly mocking. ‘Do you think that showed him?’

For a moment Bella didn’t understand what he meant, and then disappointment and shame hit her as she remembered that this was just an act to annoy Miles. She gave a shaky laugh, desperate to make light of the terrifying and utterly genuine lust that rampaged through her.

‘Not sure…’ she said lightly. ‘Maybe sex on the back seat of your car…just to be completely certain he got the message that I’m a big girl now…?’

There was a part of her—a distant, dutiful part—that was completely horrified by what she’d just said but was helpless to intervene. The expensive therapist would have a fit, but Bella felt as if she had torn off a mask and was finally revealing herself. It felt good. She was tired of being invisible; she wanted to be noticed.

His mouth curved into a lazy, wicked smile that simultaneously dazzled her and made her squirm with painful, pulsing longing.

‘I’m sure my driver would enjoy that,’ he murmured.

She met his gaze and smiled challengingly. ‘I didn’t mean with him.’

For a moment neither of them moved. The laughter that had been bubbling inside her was obliterated by a tide of drenching urgency. From behind them, in the house, there was a ripple of applause as the band finished the song, and then silence.

His eyes were so dark it was impossible to see where the pupil ended and the iris began. The band started up again, in a persuasive flourish of strings. As if in a dream she stroked the flat of her hand down the silk lapel of his jacket, swaying slightly against him.

Unsmiling, Olivier held out his hand.

With slow deliberation Bella touched her palm to his. For a moment they stood there like that, while the music curled around them, and then Bella let her fingers close around his. His hand felt big in hers, strong and unbending, and as she moved towards him his other hand came up to her waist, bunching up the thin silk as it slid across her back. She held his shoulder, but despite the formality of their position she couldn’t help tilting her pelvis towards him, arching her back so her hipbones bumped against his.

And then they were dancing. His hooded eyes glittered down at her, but his face remained completely still.

He was guiding her steps gently, expertly, and the click of her heels echoed dully off the high buildings around them as they swayed against each other in the empty street. Above them the sky had darkened to a rich sapphire-blue, and the sounds of the city seemed very far away. There was just the music and the presence of this man, this stranger with his dark, hypnotic eyes and his aura of quiet, persuasive strength.

He had the stillest face she had ever seen, she thought hazily. His exceptional beauty concealed everything, like armour. She had a sudden fierce, searing need to get past it to the man beneath.

‘I have to go.’

His words cut crudely through her thoughts. He was pulling away from her, distancing himself, and she felt instantly desolate.

‘Why? Where are you going?’

‘I’m due at a reception at the Tate. I’ve donated a picture to their forthcoming exhibition, and it’s the private view tonight. I have to be there.’ He hesitated, looking at her measuringly. ‘But you could come with me, if you’d like to?’

‘I can’t. My grandmother—it’s her party and—’

She broke off. Miles had appeared in the doorway, his face a scowling mixture of irritation and concern. ‘Bella, come back inside at once,’ he said with barely concealed impatience, then gave a nervous half laugh. ‘That dress is completely inadequate for hanging about outside. You’ll catch your death of cold.’

Olivier’s eyes were on her. She could feel their dark, silent challenge. She looked from him to Miles, and was suddenly aware that her big brother, who had always seemed so omnipotent, so completely in control, was afraid. And then she looked back to where Olivier stood, strong and certain, and Genevieve’s words from that morning came back to her.

Don’t throw away your happiness to appease your family.

She would understand.

Hesitantly she walked forward towards Olivier, and took his hand, feeling his power give her strength. ‘I’d like to come with you—if I may?’ At his brief nod of assent she turned back to Miles, and so missed the dark gleam of triumph in Olivier Moreau’s eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I’M GLAD you changed your mind.’

Olivier kept his gaze fixed casually ahead. Bella seemed to have pressed herself into the furthest corner of the car seat and was sitting stiffly, her hands tucked between her thighs and the soft leather upholstery.

‘I don’t think Miles would say the same thing. I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do later.’

The easy sensuality of a few minutes ago had melted away, and replacing it was that dull listlessness which he’d noticed yesterday in the street and earlier at the party. It exasperated him beyond belief.

‘Why?’

‘He’ll be worried about me.’

Olivier’s jaw tensed. ‘Of course,’ he said sourly. ‘I’m not good enough to take his little sister out.’

She shook her head and gave a sort of rueful laugh. ‘Not really. Not just that. It’s because I…’ She stopped, and in the orange glow of the street light he saw her bite her lip.