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

  When Gage’s lips descended on hers, she captured them, the kiss soft and coaxing. He groaned and the sound punched right through her. He was hard against her, aroused again with that one kiss and the tangle of their tongues, and she threaded her hands through his hair, widening her legs and rolling her hips against him. He was in the perfect position to slide easily inside her and carry them away to bliss again, but he didn’t, just let her grind against him till they were both panting and desperate. Then he adjusted his position and she sighed at the feel of him easing inside her. He whispered words in her ear that had her melting. ‘The feel of you against me. So perfect. Never wanted this so much.’

  And she wanted it too. She wanted it all.

  The impossible. Everything.

  Tears pricked her eyes. Maybe she could lie about why she’d ended what they’d had, but then this would be like a house of cards, bound to blow over in a rough breeze. With their families loathing each other, there would be plenty of those. Better they remain here in a physical relationship and that was all. The sensation built inside her, that glorious burn, a wave of pleasure that she’d soon ride to oblivion so she could forget everything but his touch.

  Except Gage pulled back, threaded his fingers in hers and raised her hands above her head, trapped her. His thrusts were gentle and shallow and avoided the contact she craved. His eyes were intent on her, so blue it hurt to look at them.

  ‘Look at you. So beautiful underneath me.’

  She arched her back but he wouldn’t let her finish, watching her writhe against him. ‘Gage. Please.’

  ‘I love seeing you want me so badly.’

  A sheen of sweat misted his skin. The room was warm from the morning sunshine hitting the glass as he kept up the slow, relentless rhythm that wouldn’t let her finish.

  ‘Memories taunted me for years and now I have you.’

  She arched back, groaned. ‘I need.’

  ‘I know.’ And yet he didn’t relieve the ache, it only intensified. She chased the pressure, him grinding against her. His hand. Anything other than this torture. But he didn’t relent. ‘I’ll make you scream if you answer.’

  Her body was wound so tight she thought she would tear apart. She trembled underneath him. ‘Anything,’ she panted. Closed her eyes because if she concentrated hard enough she might get there, with or without him. But he eased off even more and that delicious fall over the edge remained just out of reach.

  ‘How long?’ he murmured. She tried to ignore the question but she couldn’t as the sharp bite of pleasure went on and on. Gage leaned down and grazed his teeth on the shell of her ear. ‘How long has it been since someone’s touched you like this?’

  Only him.

  She shook now. Their bodies coming together but never enough for her. He knew what it took to get her over the edge, that hadn’t changed. Her body hadn’t learned anything different because he’d been her only lover. In her own guilty explorations after they’d parted, all she’d been able to think of had been him. She’d tried to imagine sex with anyone else, but no one other than Gage entered her fantasies. Now he was denying her and she didn’t care about secrets. All she wanted was him.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, cher.’

  Tears burned her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Tears of frustration and need, sure, but more at the loss of this. All the years they’d missed.

  She opened her eyes and he looked down at her, his gaze searching her face. His golden hair had fallen over his forehead and his eyes were intent, as if he could see everything like he’d used to—her hopes, dreams, fears. So many fears. And for a few moments she wanted to give him a truth so it could set her free. She’d stitch herself up with lies later.

  ‘Seven years.’

  Seven long, lonely, devastating years. A look scudded across his face, a thousand thoughts hidden there, all of which were unreadable. Then he pulled away. She was left empty and aching.

  ‘No. That’s not—’

  ‘You promised,’ she sobbed.

  He hesitated then kissed the middle of her chest, lingering over where her heart pounded. ‘And I keep my promises.’ He kissed her navel, trailed his tongue down lower, and lower. ‘I’ll look after you.’ His breath was a warm caress between her legs. He lingered for a few moments then dropped his head. ‘I always will.’

  Gage stroked his tongue over the centre of her. That’s all it took to make her scream and lose herself in the promise she could never allow him to keep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE MORE THINGS appeared to have changed, the more Gage realised they’d stayed the same. Except life wasn’t imbued with the innocence of seven years ago. It had been tainted by something unknown, lurking in the shadows. A brooding monster he’d try to get to the bottom of, if Eve would let him.

  She lay sleeping in his arms, where she’d been for a few hours now after turning his world on its head with one truth. Now he was frozen at the information she’d disclosed. Like a sliver of glass in the sole of his foot, the thought stabbed at him. Seven years. As if time hadn’t moved on for her at all. He’d thought she didn’t want him, that her trust fund or marriage to a society prince was all she’d sought, with him a toy along the way to play with. He’d been convinced that he wasn’t good enough, and yet in all that time there’d been no one else for her.

  She could be lying, but he knew deep down that she wasn’t. The question was, why? He would get to the bottom of it, but telling him seemed to cost her a great deal so he allowed her a break, letting her sleep while his thoughts whirred. He couldn’t escape the realisation that the choice to reject him might not have been hers. What threats had been made against her? What had been done to turn their love into this twisted charade?

  The burning heat of rage threatened to ignite in his gut. All this time. The wasted years. For what? And whoever was responsible, they’d pay. He’d get to the bottom of what happened, and then burn it all down.

  Eve stirred. An elegant stretch of her body as she gently woke in his arms. Parts of him stirred with her. He could tell the moment she realised where she was. Her body, previously languid and soft, now stiffened and moved away from him. She looked at him, the barest of creases between her brows, her eyes watchful. He hated that, the uncertainty in them.

  Once they’d been certain of each other. He craved that certainty again. He brushed a soft kiss over her lips and gloried in the pink flush that bloomed over her skin. He didn’t want to break the moment, but he needed answers. And he needed to ask the questions carefully. But Eve continued to distance herself from him.

  ‘When are we leaving for the US?’ she asked, her voice husky from sleep.

  ‘Keen to get home?’ Home. That word held a tantalising hint of what might have been between them. Building a haven against the world. What still could be, if he allowed himself to be honest...

  ‘America hasn’t been home for a long time.’ Eve’s fingers tortured the sheets. ‘No. I can’t get any information about my father. Mom and Veronique aren’t making any sense about what’s going on.’

  It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of iced water over him. Gage resented mention of Hugo Chevalier entering the hallowed space of this shared bed. He breathed through the ever-present burn of anger that the man still had some malevolent power over Eve.

  ‘I’ll check flight arrangements. I’ve got some things to tie up in Mississippi first, before we head back to Seattle.’ Except every part of him railed against leaving here, a sickening knot in his gut only getting tighter. As if reality would intrude and nothing would be the same again.

  She nodded, looking far away. ‘I should get up and—’

  ‘There’s no hurry.’ He didn’t want her getting out of the bed and leaving, not yet, when so many questions needed answering. ‘Why, Eve?’

  Her mouth firmed to a tight line. ‘I don’t know what—’

 
‘Yes, you do. Why has there been no one else? Seven years is a long time.’

  Her closing down to him began right then, the shuttering behind her eyes clear, like she’d pulled down a blind and excluded him from the room.

  ‘I was studying and then thrown into managing the business here.’

  The lie was written all over her face. The way her eyes avoided his. The way her throat convulsed as she swallowed. Her words sounded genuine but the look of her screamed volumes. If he’d been able to see her face to face in their final conversation, would he have seen the truth? Because all he’d heard had been the words, and he suspected now that those words had been blatant lies too.

  ‘You’re a beautiful, passionate woman. Men would have flocked to you.’ They would have wanted her. He’d taunted himself for enough years with thoughts of her and any man other than him, till he’d hardened his heart to granite. Nothing and no one had been let in since.

  She shrugged. Wriggled away. She still wouldn’t look at him and all he saw was embarrassment and a spark of something else, hot and angry, in the flare of her pale blue eyes.

  ‘Men did, but I had focus. Something to achieve. I’d been given a job to do here, and I excelled at it. I didn’t need the attentions of a random man to make me feel good about myself.’

  She rolled over and almost threw herself from the bed in her haste to escape. Glorious. Naked. He wanted to drag her back like some caveman, spend hours buried in her till they had to leave for their flight. Although it was tempting to skip it altogether and stay, continue the fantasy that they could remain cocooned from the outside world.

  ‘Come back to bed. I won’t ask any more questions. Let me make love to you instead.’

  Her eyes softened for a moment. He drew back the sheet and patted the mattress beside him. There’d be no mistaking how badly he wanted her, and if Eve didn’t want questions asked for now, he could do that.

  Eve’s gaze raked his body like her nails had scored his skin. Flares of heat ignited where it lingered. His face, chest, lower and then her pupils flared wide and dark. He smiled because he had her, and she knew it. They could resist many things, but not each other. He held out his hand to her. ‘C’mon. You’re not scared, are you?’

  ‘Nothing scares me anymore,’ she said in a husky whisper.

  He reached out and she placed her hand in his. He tugged and she tumbled onto the bed and into his arms. Their truth screamed loudly in every touch and caress when they were in bed, tangled together. Here there were no lies between them, only raw honesty. If this was all Eve had to give for now, that would be enough.

  Eve slept through most of the flight. The long, passionate night when they’d made love over and over, taking its delectable toll. It was as though they were trying to exorcise the demons of the past, as though when buried in each other they could regain something they’d lost.

  She allowed it, the fantasy that this could last, because she’d come to the blinding realisation that she’d never stopped loving Gage. She now knew it was why she rarely returned to the US, to the place where they’d begun. She’d stayed in France and video-called the family. Had attended obligatory holidays when her presence had been unavoidable—Christmas, Thanksgiving—and only when internet alerts had told her that Gage was somewhere else so there’d been no chance of ever bumping into one another.

  Now, in a car on the soil of the place she’d once believed was home, her anxiety ratcheted higher. Eve took some slow, steady breaths. Checked her phone. Still no real word about her father, just some bland-sounding messages from her mom and sister about him improving and coming out of ICU.

  ‘I thought you’d have an apartment here,’ she said as they pulled up outside an anonymous boutique hotel where a doorman waited for them.

  Gage shook his head, gazing out the window, his mouth narrowed to a tight, hard line. ‘I’m not here often enough for somewhere permanent. On the rare occasions I stay, it’s at the guesthouse at Mom and Dad’s. I didn’t think you’d want to go there.’

  He was right, but for reasons Gage would never know. That place carried too many memories of the night they’d been foolish and had lacked caution just before they’d run. The night she’d fallen pregnant.

  She shoved that thought down into the recesses of her memory where it silently taunted her, and exited into the cool, rarefied air. She held her breath as their bags were taken from the car. Even though the bellhop was careful with their luggage, her small, battered yellow suitcase wasn’t treated with as much reverence as it deserved.

  Usually she didn’t allow anyone else to touch it. It didn’t feel right. That one small case held all the wounds of her past. She flexed her fingers. Itched to go retrieve it. Ignored the sensation. Gage had looked at her oddly when she’d demanded she carry it onto the plane herself. There had been too many questions on his face. She didn’t want them asked of her.

  In the lift to their room Gage grabbed her. Pressed her up against the cool, mirrored wall. Dropped his lips to hers hard, in a kiss that took and conquered. Desperate, as if being here would tear them apart again if they didn’t reconnect immediately. She gave in to it, wiping away the memories of being back here. The place that had seen the beginning and the end of them.

  They entered the suite, all warm neutrals that said nothing. Their bags would be up soon. She walked through, put down her tote on the plump couch and stared out the window at a city that now seemed foreign to her.

  ‘I should see my family.’ She hadn’t wanted to mention it because she knew the hatred that ran deep, but she couldn’t avoid the inevitable. Her father would know by now, if he was well enough, about Gage. About Knight. But if the man was conscious, she needed to see him, to reset the boundaries of their agreement. Ensure that the secrets he’d promised would be kept dead for ever.

  ‘I know. Has there been any more news on your father?’

  She turned away from the view she had no real interest in to look at Gage. His face gave away little. Not anger, or hatred. Nothing but acceptance.

  ‘Not as much as I’d like...’ She’d asked to speak to Hugo and the only message she’d received back had been from her mom: ‘Reap what you sow...’ ‘I suppose you’ll want to see your mom and dad too?’

  ‘They’re away right now.’ He hesitated for a moment, enough for her to notice. ‘We can visit when they get back.’

  A cold prickle of dread ran down her spine. It was as if everything was slowly escaping her control. Already Gage seemed to be incorporating her into his life. Even though this was fake, meeting his family as his fiancée meant something, she knew it. And how could she face them, knowing what she did? She thought about calling his parents. Demanding they speak with Gage, tell him the truth. But weren’t some things their secrets to keep? Did Gus Caron even know himself? It was too much. What she needed wasn’t a confrontation but time...

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Why?’ That question. One word. So innocuous, when her answer could leave her exposed.

  ‘I’m wondering how you’re going to explain things when it all ends.’

  ‘Thinking of me, cher?’

  Always. ‘I don’t want to make things more difficult for you than they have to be.’

  ‘I’m an adult, I can take responsibility for my own decisions.’

  ‘What if I disappoint them?’

  ‘You told me you weren’t scared.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Gage cocked his head as if he was about to say something but a knock at the door interrupted his response. He let the porter into the room with their bags. The man dealt with the larger cases and left the small ones for them. Gage thanked him. Gave him a generous tip. She moved to grab her yellow suitcase, to place it somewhere safe. Maybe the back of a wardrobe where it could be hidden from Gage’s questioning gaze. Gage snagged it at the same time as she did. She
jumped at the shock of his warm hand touching hers as they held the little case between them.

  ‘I can take it,’ he said.

  She shook her head. He was so close to the truth about everything with his fingers on the handle. He let go as she pulled a little too hard and the latch gave. Her heart jolted to her throat as her life for the past seven years spilled onto the carpet in sheaves of paper and scrapbooks. She let go of the handle and the case tumbled with a thud to the floor.

  ‘No.’ She bent down, scrambling to snatch everything up, her frantic fingers ineffective at sweeping the scattered papers into a pile and away. Gage bent down to help and her mind blanked as he picked up a scrapbook that had fallen open. The articles she’d collected over the years. Most were on her computer but those she’d found in hard copy she’d carefully cut out and glued onto now yellowed pages. She’d followed Gage’s every success and failure with an obsession, to make sure her sacrifice had been worth it. And it had, or so she’d thought.

  He flicked through, hesitating on some pages. Picked up another. Seven years of news about him, all collected and curated. His gaze met hers. A frown on his face. His mouth opened, closed. Confusion. She snatched the book from his fingers.

  ‘That’s not yours to look at.’

  ‘If not me, then who? Because it’s all about me. You collected...’ His voice choked as he waved his hand over the remaining pages, lying about the carpeted floor like autumn leaves. She spied the corner of an official document, stowed in a plastic sleeve. One that had the power to tear the lies of the past seven years apart.

  ‘So what if I did?’

  ‘So what? You told me... You said... And yet you’ve been collecting articles about me. You didn’t forget. You didn’t put us behind you. Why?’

  She gritted her teeth. Steeled herself for untruths to hide even greater secrets. This had to end now. ‘We were too young. It would never have worked long term. Better the recriminations then than divorce lawyers now.’