Claimed by the Millionaire: The Wealthy Frenchman's Proposition

“I know. I like it. I’ll make sure that Maurice knows you came up with it.”

She smiled. “I don’t care about that.”

Tristan leaned one hip against the side of her desk. “What do you care about?”

“World peace,” she said, completely deadpan. She didn’t want to have a serious discussion at work, but this was the only time when Tristan really opened up to her. It was almost as if he knew she’d only let things go so far in the office.

“Ma petite, are you going to leave me for a beauty pageant?”

“Not my scene.”

“I know. This is your scene, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Working with you suits me to a tee.”

“Just working?”

“Well, we don’t live together.”

“And whose fault is that?” He sounded almost huffy.

“Yours.”

“Mine? I asked you to move in with me.”

“More like ordered.” She smiled. Take that.

“It didn’t do me a lot of good.”

“You wouldn’t want a woman who just said yes to your every whim.” That she knew.

“Try me.”

“Try you? How?”

“Move in with me. Stop making me take you back to Brooklyn every night.”

“What would change if I did that?” She was so tempted to say yes. Had been since the first time he’d told her to move in with him.

He leaned in close. “We’d be together all the time.”

“But just temporarily.”

“Is that what’s stopping you from saying yes?”

She wasn’t going to answer that question. She’d have to reveal too much of herself, too many things she’d long kept hidden. She glanced down at her computer screen and clicked on the instant messenger button to summon Maurice. The sooner they had someone else in the office, the better it would be for her.

“Sheri?”

“Hmm…”

“Look at me.”

She glanced up.

“I want to know why you haven’t moved in with me. The truth this time.”

She folded her hands together on her desk blotter and then pulled them apart. “It is the temporary thing.”

“I don’t understand how it’s any different if you move in with me,” he said.

Sheri pushed her chair back from the desk and got up, walking around so that he wasn’t leaning over her. “The difference is I’ve never lived anywhere but that brownstone.”

Tristan stood up from where he’d been leaning against the desk. “The brownstone is your home.”

“Yes. It’s my home. It’s the one constant I’ve had in my life since I was eight, when my mother died and my father dumped me at my aunt’s, and, as you pointed out, what we’ve got going is only temporary.”

Tristan didn’t say anything else and Sheri wanted to curse at herself for letting the conversation get so personal. She really tried to be cool and breezy whenever she talked to him. Always tried so hard to keep her emotions bottled up and a secret from him.

“Is that it?”

“No…I’m also afraid that, if I move in with you, I’ll start to buy in to the fantasy you’ve written for us. I might start to really believe that I’m your fiancée, and that would be devastating for me when you leave.”

“All relationships end.”

“How do you figure?”

“Even the strongest and most loving relationships end with death. So no matter what, everything is temporary.”

“Tristan, that’s sad.”

“What is?”

“That you view life that way.”

“It’s realistic, Sheri. Hell, if you were to admit it, you see things the same way.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

“Even though you won’t leave your little brownstone?” he asked.

“That’s different. I don’t see relationships as temporary. I see them as unbalanced.”

“I’m not following.”

Sheri crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Tristan. His eyes were misty gray today because of the shirt he had on. He was so handsome, sometimes she worried that he’d wake up to the fact that there were a million gorgeous women in the world who’d gladly be his pretend fiancée and do whatever he asked of them.

“My reality and that brownstone are tied together. I see relationships as unbalanced because I’ve always been the one to care more than everyone else. And in the end, they’ve all left me behind.”

Tristan didn’t say anything and she felt like an idiot for revealing what she had.

“I’m going to run down and get Maurice.”

She walked out of the office and down the hall, trying to pretend that nothing had changed, but knowing that everything had.

At the end of the day Tristan was tired. Sheri had made excuses to be away from her desk for most of the afternoon and he’d let her. There was work to do and he didn’t need the distraction that she presented.

But in the back of his mind all he thought about was what she’d said about people leaving.

He thought in terms of temporary because his life had always been in constant change. The only thing he really counted on was his friendship with Gui and Christos.

And even that was changing, with Christos’s marriage. He was happy for his friend, but at the same time concerned for him. Christos had never allowed himself to love a woman before, not the way he was in love with Ava. Tristan hoped they had a lifetime together, but his experience had taught him that they probably wouldn’t.

There was a knock on his door.

“Enter.”

The door opened to reveal Sheri. “I need your signature on these papers before I leave for the night.”

She was all business. Until this afternoon, he hadn’t realized how much of her personality she hid when she was in the office. It was only because of the last three weeks, when he’d seen so much more of her, that he now knew that.

She handed him a folder and he opened it up. He glanced at the papers and realized he wasn’t reading them, so he closed the folder and pushed it aside.

“Please have a seat, Sheri.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes. I have decided that I can’t allow you to continue living in Brooklyn. I have arranged for you to move into my place immediately.”

She shook her head. “We’ve had this discussion.”

“Exactly the problem. You need to be living with me.” The engagement was working exactly as he’d hoped it would. The tabloid press was being very kind to Sheri and everyone he knew was excited for him. For the first time since Cecile had died, he felt as if his life was on the right path. He wasn’t just running and trying to keep distance between himself and his life. And Sheri had given that to him.

And their conversation earlier had made him realize that he hadn’t done the same for her. And that was not acceptable to him. Though he would never admit it, he liked the feelings she evoked in him. He knew they couldn’t be love, because they felt nothing like the emotions he’d had for Cecile. But he did care for Sheri, and her happiness was important to him.

She nibbled on her lower lip. “What did I say that made you think that I’d agree to this?”

“It was what you did not say. Our engagement has given you a chance to change things about yourself. And I realized today that they were all surface changes. You need to move out of that brownstone if you are ever going to see yourself in a different light.”

“Tristan—”

“No, listen to me. I know what it is like to be stuck in one place.”

“That’s a complete lie. You never stand still. How could you possibly know what I’m like?”

“That’s precisely why I know. I have been always focused on the future to keep from dwelling on the past. Whereas you just stay there, stuck in time.”

“I’m not sure you’re qualified to be talking to me like this.”

“Qualified?”

“Yes, qualified. You don’t really know me all that well.”

“I know you intimately, ma petite.”

“So did two other men and they didn’t have a clue about what made me tick.”

He hated the thought of anyone else having been with her. She was his. He didn’t know exactly when he’d started thinking of her in those terms. But he did now. He wanted to tell her that he’d be the last man to know her intimately.

Where the hell had that thought come from?

“Those men weren’t me. And I’m not taking no for an answer on this.”

She stood up and walked over to him. She pushed her finger into his chest. “You’re being a bully.”

“No, I’m not. I’m being a man and taking charge.”

“This is the twenty-first century, in case you’d forgotten. A time of compromise and ‘working things out.’ Women don’t need a man to take charge,” she said. The flash of temper in those big brown eyes of hers made him hard.

He was so tempted to lean down and kiss her. But she lifted her hand and put two fingers over his lips. “No, Tristan.”

“No?”

“Don’t kiss me, because then we’ll be making love and I’ll find myself living with you.”

“I do not see the problem. You like making love with me, and you are going to be living with me either way.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to live you.”

“Give me one good reason why.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist and took two steps back from him. “I…well, let me just say that I have a really good reason and leave it at that.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and arched one eyebrow at her. “That might work if you had plied me with sex, but since you declined…I’m feeling stubborn.”

She just stood there, and he wondered if he was pushing too hard. Why was this so important to him? He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he guessed he wanted everything that Sheri had to give. She gave so willingly of her body, but she kept a tight rein on her soul. On the secrets that she guarded for herself. And he hated that there was a part of her that he didn’t know. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to possess her completely.

“Tell me.”

This had been the longest day of her life. And the most stressful. She had no idea what was going on with Tristan, not that she ever really had. She only knew that if he wanted to know what was inside her head, then they were both in trouble.

Tell me.

He wasn’t asking nicely, he was demanding. And when it came to Tristan, she had absolutely no willpower. She wanted him to know her secrets because she loved him. Because no matter what her mind tried to tell her heart…her heart still believed that if he knew all her secrets, he’d fall for her, too.

Which was so stupid. He was the man who’d told her that all relationships were temporary. That all relationships ended. And heck, she knew that. Everyone she’d ever cared about was gone. Even Aunt Millie, through death, just as Tristan said. Though that’s where she and Tristan differed. She knew the difference of having lived a life with someone you loved in it and having that person taken from you in death, versus having someone leave you because they couldn’t love you.

“Why is it important to you? Why do you care?”

“Because I’m not the type of man who would let my fiancée live in another house. I would want her in my bed every night.”

“You’d want her in your bed every night?” she asked.

“I want you in my bed every night. I want to wake up in the morning and see your face.”

Suddenly Sheri wasn’t sure what she knew anymore. Was Tristan simply afraid to admit his feelings for her? She knew he wanted her. No man had made love to her as often as he had. No man had ever said the things he did to her, whispering in her ear about how sexy she was and how much he wanted her.

But a part of her was afraid to believe it. She simply wasn’t the kind of girl who inspired that feeling in a man like Tristan. Yet now, here he was, saying he wanted to wake up with her every morning and… “Tristan, I want that, too.”

“Then why won’t you move in?”

She looked at him. Just stared at the face that had graced the cover of more magazines than she’d ever dreamed of. And realized that at some point in time, he’d become so real to her. The Photoshopped perfection of those magazine photos wasn’t the man she loved. This was the man she loved.

The man with a small scar under his left eye. And five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. The man who looked at her with exasperation at times, but always with honest emotion. Even if she couldn’t always identify that emotion.

The man she loved.

“I haven’t wanted to move in with you, because I love you, Tristan.”

He took a step back. His arms fell from his chest and he looked at her as if she’d surprised him.

What had he expected?

“Should I not have said that?”

He shook his head. Then rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I was not expecting that.”

“You weren’t? Everyone knows how I feel about you.”

Sheri felt so incredibly vulnerable right now. She wrapped both arms around herself, holding herself as tightly as she could.

“Everyone?”

“Well, Ava noticed, and she hardly knows me at all. I’m pretty sure Lucille knows. She picked up on it the first time we spoke on the phone. Even your friend Gui knows. And I didn’t have to tell him, either, he just guessed.”

She didn’t expect Tristan to love her back. Oh, man, what if that was what he was afraid of? “I don’t expect you to love me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe in more than one love in a lifetime.”

“I know that. I think that’s part of the reason I love you so much. I want to fill up that emptiness you have.”

Tristan walked over to her then. He took her shoulders in his hands and drew her toward him. His mouth came down on hers, heavy. He kissed her so deeply and with so much passion she couldn’t help but respond.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and simply held on to him. He was in complete control and he made her forget everything. But she felt so much more now. It was as if, in admitting her love for him, she was finally free to let go of all the barriers she’d been keeping between them.

His tongue brushed hers and she moaned deep in her throat as shivers of awareness spread down her body. She moved closer to him. Needed to feel his body pressed up against hers.

Tristan lifted his head. “Thank you for loving me.”

She couldn’t help but smile at the polite way he said that. “You’re welcome.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her face and stared down at her with such seriousness that she felt a pang deep inside.

“There isn’t a lack of love in my life, ma petite. There is a burned-out hole where my heart used to be, and I’m afraid no amount of love will ever bring it back.”

Eleven

“I’m home,” Tristan said as he walked into his apartment a little after ten o’clock one week later. He’d had a late dinner meeting and, for the first time since Cecile’s death, he was coming home late not to servants and an empty house but to someone.

Sheri came down the hallway with a book in one hand and a pair of reading glasses on. She smiled at him. “How was it?”

“Not too bad. I think we will be launching a cooking magazine in the early fall next year.”

“Good. I think that’s great. Do you have any meetings you’re going to need me to set up?”

“Yes, but I do not want to talk about that tonight.”

Her smile turned suggestive. “What do you want to talk about then?”

“My woman.”

“Your woman?”

She was sassing him and he had to admit he enjoyed it. He’d been unsure what living with Sheri would be like, but after the first night he’d realized that he made a good decision. He’d made love to Sheri twice last night, and then again in the morning before they’d left for work.

Having breakfast and then heading into the office together underscored to him what a great companion Sheri was. She suited his life perfectly. And the fact that she loved him made it all the sweeter.

“Were you waiting up?”

“Sort of.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and he was starting to realize that’s what she did when she didn’t want to answer. It was her way of not lying about anything, of hiding when she felt that answering would leave her vulnerable.

“Will you come into the kitchen with me?” he asked, shrugging out of his jacket. He hung it in the hall closet and then loosened his tie.

“Yes,” she said. “Are you hungry? Mrs. Ranney made a pie.”

His New York housekeeper was a whiz in the kitchen.

“Did you have any?” he asked, following her down the short hallway into the kitchen.

“No. I wasn’t hungry earlier.”

“Will you have a piece with me?”

“Maybe a small slice. I try not to eat after seven.”

“Why?”

“Because unlike you, I don’t work out every day.”

“You could,” he said, settling at the breakfast bar while Sheri moved around the kitchen. She found plates and cut them both a piece of pie. She was more at ease in his house than he was.

“You don’t need to work out, ma petite. You look lovely as you are.”

She arched one eyebrow at him. “Really?”

“Honestly. You have a sexy little body that I can’t get enough of.”

She blushed and smiled at him. “Then I should keep doing what I’ve been doing, and that’s not eating late at night.”

“Milk, coffee or some kind of after-dinner drink?”

She leaned over the breakfast bar to slide his plate in front of him. He took her chin in his hand and kissed her long and slow. Now he felt as if he was home. The home he found in her eyes and in her arms.

She pulled back, looking bemused, and he smiled inside. He loved that she was so guileless about how attractive she was and about the effect she had on him.

She turned away, grabbing a napkin and fork for him. “Did you want a drink?”

“Yes. Milk, please.”

She poured him a glass and then brought her plate around to his side of the counter and sat down next to him.

He realized he wasn’t interested in food. He’d forgotten what it was like to have a woman in his home. To have a woman take care of him.

“Mrs. Ranney said that strawberry-rhubarb was your favorite.”

“It used to be.”

“Do you want me to get you something else?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She started to hop off her stool, and he lifted her up and settled her on his lap. “What are you doing?”

“Having something sweet.”

“I didn’t realize I was sweet.”

“You’re tongue is sharp, but your kisses, ma petite, they are very sweet.”

“So are yours,” she said. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close. “I missed you tonight. Your apartment is so big. I felt very lonely without you.”

Lonely. That was a word he’d learned to ignore for a long time.

He thought about the future, and for the first time he realized he was looking at the future. One that he wanted with Sheri. Not as his wife, because he’d already given his name to the one woman who’d owned his heart.

But he did want her to stay with him. Wanted Sheri to be in his life, and not just at work.

“You’re staring at me,” she said. “Why?”

“Because I like the way you look at me.”

“Ah, ego. I should have known.”

He just shook his head. Then kissed her one more time, because he couldn’t resist her mouth when it was this close.

He lifted her in his arms and carried her down the hall to his bedroom. Laying her in the center of his bed, he came down over her, bracing his weight on his forearms so that there was a small gap between their bodies.

“I want you to live with me.”

“I am living with you,” she said.

“I mean, even after the engagement party and my family goes home.”

“Am I here for them?” she asked.

“No, ma petite. You are here for me, and I’m asking you to stay.”

Sheri held her breath as Tristan lowered himself over her. She would never say it out loud, but she loved the feel of him on top of her. It made their relationship real when, after they made love, she’d wrap her arms and legs around him and just hold him, pretending she never had to let go.

But now, she thought, she might not have to let go. She didn’t know what he meant by asking her to stay, but it sounded positive. She couldn’t believe she’d waited so long to move in with him. Granted it had only been for a little over a week. But their lives had meshed together.

She liked living with him. For the first time in her entire life, she felt like she was in the place where she was meant to be with the man to whom she belonged.

“What do you mean?”

“That I want you to stay with me, and not just as my temporary fiancée. I want this to be permanent.”

She felt a rush of joy and she tipped her head back, blinking so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She took a deep breath and felt the gentle stroking of his finger against the side of her cheek.

“So what do you think?”

Her gaze met his and she tried to read the emotions there, but as always she had no idea what he was feeling. But she knew what she felt. She loved this man. She wanted nothing more than to say she was his and live the rest of her life with him.

“I think yes. I’d love to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He gave her a tight smile and kissed her. “Great.”

“Great? That’s all you can say?”

“It seemed more appropriate than ‘get naked.’”

She laughed and hugged him tightly to her. “Get naked would work.”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

He laughed then, and she felt a sense of rightness deep down in her soul. In that empty part that had been hollow since her father had left all those long years ago.

He started to unbutton her blouse and she put her hands in his thick hair, rubbing the back of his scalp as he undressed her. She thought of the wedding plans she’d put off making, because planning a wedding she wasn’t going to follow through with had seemed like torture. But now she could stop putting off Blanche and really start thinking about the kind of bride she’d be.

“When do you want to get married? I know we’d been putting off picking a date because of the pretense, but now that we’re going through with it things are different.”

Tristan stopped unbuttoning her blouse and lifted himself off of her body. “Married?”

“Isn’t that what you meant, Tristan? If we’re going to live together permanently…”

He pushed completely off her and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her. And she realized he hadn’t meant marriage. “What were you thinking?”

“That we’d live together,” he answered.

“What’s the difference in living together and being married?” she asked. “Everyone already thinks we’re engaged.”

“I don’t give a damn what everyone thinks. We both know that we aren’t really engaged,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at her.

She shook her head, fiddling with the ring he’d given her, and realized that her shirt was unbuttoned and she was still laying in the middle of his bed. She sat up and quickly refastened her shirt.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” she said, climbing off the king-size bed. “I never know what to expect from you, Tristan.”

“I do not understand,” he said.

And for the first time, she realized that he really didn’t understand what she was talking about. Because Tristan was always looking out for himself. For his own desires, his own safety. She had been thinking that because he showered her with attention and gifts, he was caring for her.

“I love you. Do you remember that?”

He stood up and walked over to her. He touched her so softly, tracing the lines of her face with his fingertip. “I do remember it. Hearing you say you love me is something that I think about a lot.”

“And…?”

“And that’s why I want us to continue living together.”

She staggered back away from him. “Did you ask me because you feel sorry for me?”

He shook his head. “I asked because I’m tired of being alone. And you bring something to my life that I never thought to find again.”