His strong white teeth gritted. His continuing sexual hunger for Delilah had made her important to Bastien in a way he utterly despised. If she realised how much he was still lusting after her she would use it against him—of course she would. He much preferred the immediate boredom that usually settled in for him after a fresh sexual conquest. He needed to move on, he told himself urgently. He needed to move on from Delilah Moore in particular...fast.
The morning flew past while he worked, furiously trying to counteract the damage done by this morning’s news report. He went downstairs for lunch and discovered that he had the terrace all to himself, Delilah having opted to have a simple snack in her room. His teeth gritted again and he studied Skippy, lying in a panting heap in the shadows. She had evidently roved far enough around the estate to totally exhaust the dog, which admittedly had pitifully short, stumpy legs.
After a moment’s contemplation of the miniature dachshund’s lolling pink tongue, Bastien emptied some fruit out of a bowl and poured water into it before putting it down for the animal. Skippy lurched up and drank in noisy gulps. After trotting back indoors, he reappeared with his squeaky toy in his mouth and laid it tenderly at Bastien’s feet...where it was ignored.
Full of restive energy, Lilah paced her room. Was she supposed to be a prisoner at the chateau? She refused to sit around and wait as if she had no existence without Bastien to direct her every move.
Recalling the pretty little village of Lourmarin, which they had passed through shortly before their arrival, she decided that what she really needed was an afternoon of sightseeing. Having washed the dust off her canvas-shod feet, she pulled on a white sun dress and sandals before heading downstairs to find Stefan and ask if it was possible for her to visit the village.
Within minutes a car drew up outside to collect her, and she skipped down the steps, smiling at Ciro as he slid in beside the driver.
Bastien was disconcerted when he discovered that Delilah had left the chateau. He hadn’t expected that. Frustration at the childish avoidance tactics she was using on him coursed through him, and he had Manos check with her driver. He set out for Lourmarin in a short temper.
What was it about Delilah? She was a lot of trouble, demanding so much more effort and attention from him than other women did. Why was he allowing her to wind him up? And why did he still want her, regardless of how much she annoyed him?
It was market day in Lourmarin, and Bastien’s disposition was not improved by a lengthy search for a parking spot.
When he tracked Delilah down he heard her laughter first, and even that contrived to annoy him—because two years had passed since he had last heard her laugh. In addition, although he hated gigglers, there had always been something incredibly infectious about Delilah’s giggles. He saw her seated on a café terrace, her white dress spilling round her, black hair framing her animated face as she laughed and chattered to Ciro, at one point even touching the younger man’s arm with a familiarity that set Bastien’s teeth on edge.
Ciro, not surprisingly, wore a slack-jawed expression of masculine admiration.
‘Delilah...’
The sound of that deep, dark drawl banished the pleasure of Lilah’s sun-drenched surroundings and stiffened her spine as much as if a poker had been attached to it. She lifted her head and fell into the smouldering golden sensuality of Bastien’s intent scrutiny. His dark-fallen-angel face was grim, but nothing could detract from the sheer beauty of it, nor the mesmeric potency of his gaze.
‘Been looking for me?’ she quipped, setting down her glass of wine. ‘I doubt that your presence here is an unlucky coincidence.’
In answer, Bastien reached down to close a hand over hers and used that connection to literally lift her upright out of her chair. ‘Thanks for looking after her for me, Ciro. We’re heading home now.’
‘You’re making me feel like I shouldn’t have gone out,’ she whispered thinly as he walked her away.
‘No, what you shouldn’t have done is flirt with Ciro,’ Bastien told her drily.
‘I wasn’t flirting with him!’ Lilah snapped back in irate protest, practically running to keep up with his long stride as, with one strong hand gripping hers, he cut through the clumps of pedestrians and dragged her in his wake. It didn’t help that almost two glasses of wine had left her head swimming a little...
‘He should know better than to get that close to a woman who’s mine,’ Bastien added grittily, hanging on to his temper by a hair’s breadth and ready to grab her up into his arms and bodily carry her back to the car at the first sign of rebellion.
‘I’m not yours!’ Lilah fired back at him with ringing vehemence. ‘I simply agreed to sleep with you until you got bored...that’s all!’
As that startling statement rang out, Bastien watched curious heads swivel in their direction and compressed his sensual mouth. ‘You’re shouting. Would you like a megaphone to share that confession further afield?’ he demanded in a tone of incredulous reproof.
‘I wasn’t shouting,’ Lilah hissed with a furious little shrug of her slight shoulders, her bright blue eyes remaining defiant. ‘I was merely pointing out the basic terms of our agreement. It was a devil’s bargain but I’ve stuck to my side of it. The least I deserve from you in return is respect and consideration.’
‘When do I qualify for some respect?’ Bastien enquired with honeyed scorn.
‘When you do something worthy of respect,’ Lilah slammed back without hesitation.
Unlocking the Ferrari, Bastien scooped Delilah up and stowed her in the passenger seat, impervious to her vocal complaints. He wanted to shout at her. For the first time since his childhood, anger and frustration had reached a peak inside him and he actually wanted to shout. Evidently Delilah really was toxic for him, challenging his self-discipline and making him react in unnervingly abnormal ways.
‘And why are you dragging me back to the chateau anyway?’ Lilah queried truculently as he swung in bedside her. ‘You should be avoiding me like the plague right now.’
In slow motion, Bastien twined his fingers slowly into her long black hair to turn her face up while his other hand framed a delicate cheekbone to hold her steady. The crash of his mouth down on hers felt as inevitable to him as the drowning heat of the summer sun in the sky.
Lilah jerked, as if he had stamped her with a burning brand. Her hand rose of its own volition and delved into his luxuriant black hair, fingertips roaming blissfully over his well-shaped skull. Hunger coursed through her like a hot river of lava, scorching and setting her alight wherever it touched.
She had never felt hunger like it. In fact, it was as if Bastien’s lovemaking the night before had released some dam of response inside her that could no longer be suppressed. The resulting ache between her legs and the sheer longing to be intimately touched physically hurt.
Long fingers eased below the hem of her dress and roamed boldly higher.
In a sudden movement Lilah pulled back and slapped her hand down on top of Bastien’s to prevent him from conducting a more intimate exploration. ‘No,’ she told him shakily.
Bastien swore long and low in Greek, the pulsing at his groin downright painful. He wanted to yank her out of the car, splay her across the bonnet and sink into her hard and fast. He gritted his teeth, rammed home his seat belt and drove out onto the narrow twisting road that snaked down the mountain.
The screaming tension inside the car made Lilah’s mouth run dry. It was his own fault. He should never have touched her, she thought piously, pride making her ignore the hollow dissatisfaction of her own body. But then every time Bastien touched her he shocked her, she conceded grudgingly, because somehow he always made her desperate to rip his clothes off.
Mortified, she dragged her attention from him and stared out of the car, mouth swollen and tingling.
Manos was waiting for Bastien when he returned. Delilah took the opportunity to race upstairs.
Bastien did not want an audience as he learned that preliminary enquiries had revealed damning facts about one of his personal staff. Andreas Theodakis had taken a smoke break that evening in London, and had been seen using his phone out on the balcony. Furthermore, a colleague had volunteered the news that Theodakis was a gambler. Bastien knew then in his gut that in all likelihood Andreas had tipped off the business press about the Dufort Pharmaceuticals deal.
‘I should have confirmation for you one way or another by the end of tomorrow,’ Manos concluded.
Bastien had a stiff drink and brooded over the information. No way was he saying sorry when Delilah had made such a big deal of him humbling himself. Indeed, he cringed at the prospect.
He dined alone at his desk, burying himself in work—as was his habit when anything bothered him.
A scrabbling noise made him glance up from the screen, and he frowned at Skippy, who must have sneaked in when Stefan had delivered Bastien’s meal. The miniature dachshund was engaged in using a briefcase on the floor as a springboard to the chair on the other side of Bastien’s desk. Skippy made it up on to the chair and then with a sudden tremendous leap reached the desk top, whereupon he trotted towards Bastien, his long ears flapping, and dropped his squeaky toy beside Bastien’s laptop.