‘Very little scares Bastien,’ Lilah said wryly, thinking of how she and Bastien had started out at daggers drawn, and of how quickly her feelings had changed.
Obviously she had no resistance when it came to Bastien. Love had been softening her up for a serious fall from the beginning, she reckoned ruefully, feeling nausea stirring in her tense tummy because she felt so ridiculously uncomfortable in Marina’s presence.
Lilah was experiencing a volatile cocktail of jealousy and resentment, and telling herself that she was not entitled to those reactions wasn’t helping. She hated knowing that Marina had once shared a bed with Bastien, hated the fact that Bastien had wanted Marina first, and hated even more the reality that Marina could have had him but had instead chosen to throw him away, while at the same time lying about him to poison his relationship with his only sibling.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Grace commented in the limousine.
‘I napped during the flight but I’m still very tired,’ Lilah confided with an apologetic smile.
‘When did you first meet Bastien?’ Marina asked.
‘Over two years ago.’
‘He’s quite a guy,’ Marina remarked, in a tone that Lilah took exception to because it oozed intimacy to her sensitive hearing. ‘A lot of women will envy you.’
Including you? Lilah wondered, thinking that the brunette might well have come to live to regret rejecting Bastien once he had become rich and successful, and as such much more socially acceptable.
It dismayed Lilah that she should feel so angry with Marina and so very protective of Bastien.
Leo and Grace lived in a palatial town house. A nanny brought their daughter, Rosie, to meet them. The toddler was adorable, and Lilah relaxed in little Rosie’s presence—but only until she began wondering how Bastien would react to her not being pregnant. After that disappointment would he still want to stay married to her? Or would that single disappointment be sufficient to knock the gloss off his belief that he wanted to keep her as his wife? Rich, powerful men didn’t deal generously with disappointments because they met with very few.
A chill ran down Lilah’s spine as she sipped her tea and tried to think cheerfully of returning to the life she had left behind.
‘I was hoping that you and Bastien would join us for dinner some evening while you’re in Athens,’ Grace shared. ‘Break the ice a bit.’
‘I think it would take an ice pick,’ Lilah confided ruefully.
‘Bastien’s not the family type. He’s a natural loner,’ Marina remarked.
Lilah stiffened angrily and her bright blue eyes sparked. ‘Bastien might be closer to his brother if you hadn’t soured their relationship by lying about what happened between you and Bastien ten years ago,’ Lilah condemned, the stream of recrimination racing off her tongue before she could even stop to think about what she was saying.
In response to Lilah’s outburst the most appalling silence spread. Marina had turned the colour of ash, and Grace was staring at Lilah in wide-eyed consternation.
‘I... I don’t know what to say,’ Marina responded, and as a deep flush highlighted her cheeks her guiltiness was obvious to Lilah.
‘But I do. Delilah...time for you to leave.’
A deeply unwelcome voice sounded from behind the sofa she was sitting on. Lilah’s head swivelled and she focused on Bastien in shock. The fact that he had heard what she had said to Marina was stamped on his lean darkly handsome face and in the threatening golden blaze of his eyes. She had embarrassed him by prying into his past and he was absolutely furious.
Her cheeks warm, she stood up and encountered a sympathetic glance from Grace.
* * *
‘I’m sorry. I put my foot in it...trod where I shouldn’t...whatever you want to call it,’ Lilah muttered in a rush as soon as she was in the car with him.
‘We’ll discuss it when we get back to the apartment.’
‘How’s your father?’ she asked.
‘They think he’s had a minor heart attack. He’s going to have to change his lifestyle—eat less, exercise more,’ he breathed curtly. ‘Cleta’s staying with him. I’ll go back to see him later.’
Lilah stole a glance at his grim bronzed profile and cursed the misfortune that had led to Bastien overhearing her attack on his former lover. She knew she was in the wrong. She should have minded her own business. Should never have embarrassed Grace like that in her home. And now Bastien was furious with her.
She gritted her teeth, angry that she had spoken on impulse and without sensible forethought, but not sorry that she had told Marina what she thought of her behaviour.
His apartment was a penthouse, furnished in contemporary style and full of airy space, glass, metal and stone.
Lilah slung her bag down in the main reception room and sat down heavily. ‘Say what you have to say,’ she urged apprehensively, her nerves worn to a thread by the enforced wait.
Bastien settled burning golden eyes on her. ‘What the hell got into you? I told you something private and you used it as a weapon to attack Marina. It was none of your business. You embarrassed me and you embarrassed Grace.’
‘Well, if I embarrassed Marina, I’m not sorry,’ Lilah fired back. ‘She deserved what I said. And I didn’t specify what I was talking about in any way, so I doubt if I embarrassed anyone.’
‘Is that all you’ve got to say to me?’ Bastien raked back at her rawly. ‘You dug up something very confidential from my past. I can’t believe that I even told you now. I should’ve known a woman couldn’t be trusted.’
‘Oh, don’t throw any of that prejudiced nonsense at me!’ Lilah warned him, equally rawly. ‘It just got to me when Marina walked in all smiles and charm, acting as if she was a friend of the family.’
‘She is a friend!’
‘Not of yours, she’s not!’ Lilah flung back feelingly. ‘She’s caused a whole lot of trouble between you and your brother and you shouldn’t have let her lies stand unchallenged. Your pride makes you your own worst enemy, Bastien!’
‘I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Nothing that happened between Marina and I or Leo and I is anything to do with you. Where the hell do you get the nerve to interfere?’
‘Maybe...just maybe...I was trying to do something for you.’
‘You had no right to upset Marina like that.’
‘Marina?’ Lilah gasped as if he had punched her, because she was suddenly desperately short of breath, pierced to the heart that he should be more concerned about his former lover’s feelings than about her.
‘Yes—Marina,’ Bastien repeated curtly. ‘Of course she was upset. I saw her face. She knew instantly what you were referring to. You can’t have thought this through, Delilah.’
Lilah was wounded by the angle the conversation had taken and fighting to hide the fact from him. Bastien was standing there, all lean, powerful and poised and devastatingly beautiful, and he was defending another woman to her face. He was her husband but he wasn’t on her side.
Her tummy flipped, leaving her struggling against a sickening light-headed sensation.
‘The termination caused Marina considerable distress,’ Bastien delivered in a grim undertone. ‘She made her choice, but I don’t doubt that the decision cost her. That’s the main reason why I didn’t persist in arguing my case with Leo. Marina doesn’t deserve to have that distressing experience raked up again. So she lied and played victim to look more sympathetic in Leo’s eyes?