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CHAPTER 7
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2021-09-20 02:00:01Silence fell. Since Christophe wasn’t a man easily silenced, Lara looked up. He cleared his throat, tension thrumming from his poised stance by the window.
“I want you to pretend to be my fiancée.”
She couldn’t hide her astonishment.
“Why?”
“I have my reasons,” he parried, the anger gone and replaced by a set gravity that disturbed her.
“If I have to play this role, I don’t see why you can’t tell me…”
“I’ll tell you only this,” he breathed shortly, his golden eyes grim and distant as he studied her. “I’ve been estranged from my father for some years and now he’s dying. I wish to spend some time with him and, in order for me to do so, I need a fiancée to accompany me to his home.”
&n
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Lara woke up from a long, dreamless sleep, wonderfully relaxed. And then she opened her eyes. Christophe was less than six inches away. Dark golden eyes raked mockingly over her startled face. And so, the relaxation vanished and tension took its place.“I don’t think a woman has ever fallen asleep waiting for me before. You could be seriously bad for my ego…” With a falsely bright smile on her lips, she sat up.“Good gracious, is that the time?” she gasped. “Why didn’t you wake me?” Christophe dealt her a genuinely amused smile that quite transformed his powerful dark features. He anchored one hand in the tumbled fall of her blonde hair before she could take evasive action and pulled her head closer to his.“Don’t worry
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She looked at Christophe trying to understand the reason for such evilness on his part. ‘Don’t cry, Lara! Don’t you dare crying!’ she encouraged herself.“Why do you have to be so cruel? Why do you treat me this way?” Her voice was strangely steady, but she was dying inside.“I have a photographic memory of you walking down the aisle in your virginal white dress to marry another man!” Christophe raked back at her.“Well, I still don’t understand why should that have bothered you? You didn’t want to marry me!”“That annoyed you, did it?” he incised.“I hated you, Christophe... How could it? And I certainly had no desire to be your traveling whore!”“Excuse me?” He looked
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Lara sank back to the present and found her fingers shakily touching her lips. She saw more clearly now than she had seen then. Just as Christophe had, ironically, seen more as an outsider looking on. Christophe alone had registered the lack of sexual tension between her and Randall. But Christophe had cynically misread her behavior. He had believed she was using Randall as a weapon against him, using Randall and her fast-approaching wedding to pressure him into offering her more. And in return, Christophe had used her father’s company to balance the equation. Taking the cellphone from the table, Lara called Dr. Elliott to ask about her father and was relieved to hear that her father was still angrily insisting that he had had no thought of harming himself but that he was, nonetheless, greatly pleased
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He was shaking… in the circle of her arms. When had Lara closed her arms around him? It didn’t seem important. Briefly, crazily, she experienced an extraordinary sense of power. A heartbeat later it was torn from her by the burning assault of his hungry mouth. Her body leaped into throbbing life. Any rational thought she might’ve had ended for long, timeless minutes. The scent of him was so achingly familiar it was an aphrodisiac. Christophe’s shirt was open and Lara found the sleek, smooth brown skin of his shoulder with her tongue and he shuddered against her, chest to breast, thigh to thigh in a savage feast of agonizing, uncontrollable excitement. He rolled over and wrenched violently at her dress. She heard something
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“This is a huge opportunity for me, sweetheart,” Kenneth Miller continued with satisfaction. “A challenge is exactly what I need right now, and I’ve always liked Scotland.” Lara gave her excited father a strained smile. Christophe had offered him the management of an ailing engineering company in Glasgow. And her father, seemingly a broken man mere days ago, had been so boosted by Christophe’s apparent faith in his abilities that he was a changed personality. There was a new spring in his step and a look of energy in his tautened features that Lara hadn’t seen in a very long time.“He couldn’t have been more understanding,” Kenneth murmured, not for the first time. “But obviously, I couldn’t let him write off the money I took from the company.”&n
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His palms still framing her face. His brilliant golden eyes, blazing with desire, scanned hers. Simultaneously, her nostrils flared. Lara could sense a woman’s perfume still clung to him. Her stomach twisted painfully. Christophe had been in close bodily contact with another woman. Nausea doused her excitement. She jerked her head free and slid upright on wobbly legs.“No doubt you’re very familiar with those kinds of facilities.” An ebony eyebrow elevated.“Do you want the truth or a polite fiction? Of course, there have been women in my life, but never more than one at a time.” Furiously, Lara turned her head away. All she could smell was that perfume and it was turning her stomach now, reminding her what a fool she was in this man’s presence.&
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Her teeth gritted. Lara wanted to tear his honey-smooth drawl out of her head, no matter how much it hurt! How could he have thought that she might sell the revelation that his father was dying to the highest bidder? Lara shuddered with revulsion. Of course, she had been hurt. Nobody could easily accept such an accusation. So, Christophe didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her... but what had made him like that? She remembered him saying that knowledge was a weapon in a woman’s hands and that had come straight from the gut! Clearly, at some stage, Christophe had got badly burned by a woman and the memory hurt him, kept him on his guard, made him cynical and suspicious... So, who’s playing the therapy game now, Lara?
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A groan of remembered embarrassment escaped Lara while she was waking up.“Oh, God… Why did I let it happen… I must be out of my mind…” she whispered and sat up. Lara had felt half-dead when Christophe had all but carried her on to the helicopter. She had been wishing she were dead by the time she was hauled off it again, sick and in a state of collapse. Her impressions had been fleeting. Lara recalled the cluster of security men converging on the helipad, blurred glimpses of an incredibly large white villa, and heat that only increased the nonstop pounding behind her temples. Jet lag had finally caught up with her. A rueful grimace slanted her face as she gingerly slid out of bed to gratefully appreciate that the ground beneat
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“Yes… I can see it…” she murmured and felt shivers down her spine.“Perfect! And now you can watch me fall asleep... Such incriminating stuff… Oh, get ready! Meghan makes her entrance in about half an hour…”“Meghan…” Lara echoed weakly.“I could’ve had all this material cut and rearranged, but I didn’t want to spare you a single second of the entertainment.” Swallowing hard, Lara dutifully watched Christophe falling asleep, the most awful suspicion beginning to assail her.“You can fast forward if you like,” she mumbled in a small voice.“Are you sure, chérie?”“Quite sure…” With a sinking heart, Lara watched Meghan creep in and stand gazing down at Christophe. A litt
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“I’ll tell you what I don’t enjoy now. Your jealousy, chérie,” Christophe replied to her with blistering derision. “At least Meghan knows when to shut up and be feminine and warm...”“Seriously?” Lara went white, lowering her lashes over shocked and wounded eyes.“I can’t believe you just said this…” Christophe had turned on her with biting cruelty unfamiliar to her.“All I wanted tonight was the sweet oblivion of your body…”So that’s my mission tonight after you being away for so long… To provide sex,” Lara countered with a shudder of mingled rage and pain.“Why not? You’re my wife,” he slung back at her harshly. Dear God
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Lara shivered in spite of the heat. Demis had left careful instructions for his burial and he had chosen to come back to Greece to the sunbaked hillside where his own parents had been laid to rest. The funeral was small, strictly family but the press was just beyond the graveyard, a sea of hungry wolves, restrained only by the strong police presence.“It’s time to go.” Francine briefly leaned on Lara’s extended arm for support and then straightened again. Lara felt deserted and superfluous to requirements. For days she had told herself not to be childish, not to be selfish, not to expect Christophe to find time for her when his every waking moment was filled with ceaseless demands for his attention. Lara had innocently expected to make
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There was just one detail she needed to ask him about… something she had always wondered about…“Chris… What did you do with that shoe I left behind three years ago?” He looked at her and smiled.“Well, dear Cinderella… It’s somewhere safe.”“Oh…”“Did you think I might have had it dipped in pure gold and placed in a glass case?” Christophe teased her.“Until that day it was one of my favorite pairs of shoes.”“What did you do with the one you had left?”“Dumped it.”“There you are, then,” Christophe mocked. “I was more sentimental than you were.” Lara became serious once again.“I thought you’d laugh about
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Christophe stilled. His fiercely narrowed gaze slewed at speed back to Lara and simply stayed there.“Gay? Anderson was gay?” he practically whispered in disbelief. Lara unfroze and whirled out of the room. She was outraged and devastated at one and the same time. Demis Agelastos must have had her investigated. Where else could Meghan have obtained such information? All along Christophe’s father had known all about her background. She felt invaded and violated, horrified that such information should have fallen into Meghan’s grasping hands, cheap fodder for her spite. Christophe caught her back on the landing before she could head for the sanctuary of their bedroom. A far from gentle hand closed around her forearm.“Pull yo
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Her strained smile glazed over. Oh, God, Christophe had laid on the ‘I-love- your-daughter’ routine with a trowel. Very impressive indeed.“Christophe’s a rather more complex character than I ever appreciated,” Kenneth admitted. “I always thought of him as very cool and controlled. He is in business. But in love... he’s all emotion and reaction. So, now you tell me how you feel.” Lara took a deep breath.“I’m… Uh… I’m crazy about him, of course.”“Oh… You’re much more reserved than he is... Hmm… Did your mother and I do that to you?” he sighed regretfully. “I’m sorry, Lara… Both Linda and I ruined everything for you. And Randall…”“Daddy, stop,” she begged him and put her loving arms around hi
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Christophe scanned the wildness in her sapphire eyes for a fulminating ten seconds, a muscle jerking tight at his hard jawline.“Listen, I don’t know what the hell you think you’re playing at but the wedding goes ahead tomorrow... Even if I have to drag you through it by the hair!”“I don’t think so! I refuse to be a part of this disgusting masquerade. You hear me?” Lara slung rawly. “No. Meghan told me why you had to get married! So go and find yourself another woman willing to play this game!”“Ah… Meghan… Alright, let’s hear why do I have to get married?” Christophe invited very softly. “I’m extremely curious about my real reasons behind this wedding.”“Stop it, Christophe! You know why… You lied to me,” Lara condemned fiercely. “Every single thing you told me was a lie..
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His words came back in her mind, harsher and harder to digest than before. ‘Someday you will come to me on your knees and beg me to take you... and I will break you.’ Lara shivered, suddenly cold and scared. Just a few short days ago, Christophe had still been talking in the same vein. And though he had yet to discover it, he had already won. She was over the moon in love with him… the man she learned to hate for three long, excruciating years. Whatever happened, Lara knew she was going to be very badly hurt. But the heart wants what the heart wants and cancel her love for Christophe wasn’t an option anymore. Another knock sou
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His hands wrenched down the straps of her sleeveless dress and Lara glanced down, shocked to see her own bared breasts, helplessly shy of him and yet unbearably aroused by his impatience. With a groan, Christophe lifted her and suckled at an erect pink nipple and her hands clenched fiercely into his shoulders, an involuntary moan of excitement torn from her. Her head fell back as his tormenting mouth bit at her sensitive flesh with a knowing eroticism that drove her out of her mind with excitement. Lara was boneless in his grasp, a wanton creature drunk on sensation. A lean hand skimmed beneath the flimsy silken fabric of her gown, following the upward curve of a slender thigh and lingering there with devastating effect.“You drive me crazy, chérie…” Christophe groaned, sinking to his knees t
