‘Do I make you nervous?’
The laugh forced from her throat sounded false. ‘Of course not. What gave you that idea?’
‘You’re skittish around me. I wonder why,’ he said, almost conversationally.
‘I’m not skittish—just annoyed that I’m tied to you for the next three weeks.’
‘We all have a cross to bear, I suppose.’
She raised her chin. ‘You’re obviously as displeased about this as I am, so why did you vouch for me with the judge? Why not just elect one of your subordinates?’
‘And make them liable should you decide to flee?’
‘You have a very low opinion of me.’ She didn’t know why that hurt so much. ‘Why is that, Bastien? What have I ever done to make you think so little of me?’
‘I think we both know the answer to that.’
Her face flamed. ‘What happened on the yacht—’
‘You mean when you tried to use your body to change my mind about firing you?’
‘That wasn’t what I was doing...’ She floundered and stopped as the memory tripped to life.
The moment she’d turned on the boat and seen Bastien standing on the deck, watching her, every nerve in her body had sprung to life.
The boy she’d known had grown into a breathtaking specimen of a man, with a commanding presence that had reached across the distance and held her captive. The smile she hadn’t even been aware she’d given had slowly died as a deep, decadent awareness had arced between them. There’d been nothing boyish about the look in his eyes when he’d reached her.
‘What are you doing here?’ Fierce, flaying words—whispered through incredibly sensual lips.
It had taken her a minute to gather her senses. ‘Hello to you too, Bastien.’
His mouth had compressed. ‘Answer me.’
‘I’m working—or at least I will be when you allow the crew to return. You’ve sent them away because...?’ She turned away, because she couldn’t look into those grey eyes without her midriff fluttering madly as if she was in the midst of a fever.
‘You shouldn’t have been given this commission.’
A lance of unsettling anger made her whirl about. He stood right behind her, so close her hair slid across his jaw. ‘Why not? Because you still have a chip on your shoulder about our past?’
His nostrils flared. ‘No. Because the brief called for someone conservative—not someone who...’
His deliberate pause, the drift of his eyes over her scantily clad body had sent flares of awareness and dark arousal all over her.
Her body’s reaction shamed her, but she didn’t give him the benefit of knowing he unsettled her.
Using her best catwalk pose, she planted her hands on her hips and cocked one hip. ‘Someone who makes men want to drown their women in your diamonds? You don’t want someone who makes wives, girlfriends and women who know what they want hit the speed dial for their nearest jeweller the moment the ads are aired? I’m sorry—I thought you were in this business to make money?’
Her smirk and her taunts were purely for self-preservation. The combination of magnetism, mild derision and lust she could see in his eyes deeply unsettled her.
As did his arctic smile.
‘My vision for the product you’re promoting isn’t quite what you have in mind.’
‘Really?’ The tilt of her head had been well-practised for the camera. ‘I read a survey recently. Next to pure silk, women voted diamonds as the sexiest thing to wear against their skin. So perhaps your vision needs to be a little less...Victorian and more sexy.’
He raised an eyebrow and slowly stalked her, not stopping until she was backed against the railing that overlooked the lower deck. Silence cloaked the upper deck, the rest of the crew having been dispatched somewhere below deck. Above them, stars glittered in the sultry evening. All around her Bastien’s scent and imposing presence sent her heart-rate soaring.
‘Are you telling me how to do my job, Miss Duval?’ He caged her in, hands on either side of her, and treated her to narrow-eyed scrutiny.
‘Just a little friendly advice. Sex sells—or haven’t you heard.’
‘And you’re an expert in that field?’
She gasped, then tried to rein in her temper. ‘I’m an expert at what I do. If you weren’t sure who your target audience were perhaps you should’ve stuck to heading banks and building hotels.’
His icy imprecation rumbled along her nerves. ‘You haven’t stopped needing to play with fire, ma petite.’
‘And you haven’t stopped staring down your nose at me like I’m some inconvenience you can’t wait to be rid of. Would it hurt you to be nice for once in your life?’
He froze. ‘Nice? Believe me, cherie, when I look at you, “nice” is the last thing I feel.’ The words were whisper-soft but filled with a mixture of censure, need and puzzlement.
Her next question was inevitable—as was her need to draw even closer to that electrifying orbit. Before she could stop herself, she’d lifted her hand to his taut cheek, traced that stern jaw to the corner of his mouth. His sharp exhale made her shudder.
‘What do you feel?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ he muttered thickly.
‘Maybe I do. Maybe for once I want to hear you vocalise what you actually feel, Bastien.’
He closed his eyes for a split second. ‘Mon Dieu...’
She rose on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, the need a wild clamour that wouldn’t be stopped. His hands clamped on her immediately. One at her waist, the other in her hair. He held her prisoner and deepened the kiss, his groan a rough, hungry sound. He branded her with his mouth and his hands and she willingly gave him complete access.
It might have been seconds or minutes later that she found herself on her back on a lounger, his head between her bared breasts, her swimsuit bunched somewhere around her waist. Her hoarse cry when his fingers slid beneath her suit to tease her wet heat made him raise his head. His eyes were molten with intense need.
‘You want to know how I feel? Right now I want to take you, possess you, make you forget every other man who has come before me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ve been under my skin since the first time I saw you. A precocious kid who wouldn’t take no for an answer. You watched me with those soulful eyes and dogged my every step until I couldn’t move without you tripping me up. You’re still under my skin. Everywhere I look you’re on a billboard or on the side of a bus. Except now you make me ache—make me crave things I do not want to crave.’
‘And you hate me for that?’
His smile made her breath catch.
‘I hate that you have a certain...power over me. I cannot allow that.’ His fingers moved and his mouth closed over her nipple.
She shuddered as his imposing erection pressed deeper into her belly. ‘So...what? You’re going to use your position to bring me to heel? Or are you going to use sex?’
A part of her couldn’t deny the thought excited her, but another part recoiled from the idea.
He froze and locked eyes with her. A frown slowly creased his brow,