A Bride to Redeem Him

How had she slipped under his skin?

What he felt when he was around her was lust, pure and simple. Surely he should know that better than most?

It was merely the circumstances of their meeting, Alex’s fierce drive to save Rainbow House coupled with the fact they were both struggling with the loss of a parent who had loved them, only to be left with a parent who had never wanted them, was confusing the issue. The bond they seemed to share was an illusion, nothing more. That was all there was to it. The sooner he recovered his infamous, flirtatious side, the better.

‘I think maybe we should go to bed,’ she cut into his thoughts, offering him the perfect recovery.

* * *

Alex realised too late the suggestive nature of her comment.

‘Is that so?’

His lazy drawl might have been the most sensual sound she’d ever heard in her life. It certainly shot through her to her very core.

‘Alone, I mean. Not to the same bed.’ She sounded ridiculously flustered. ‘That is... Oh, it sounded far less suggestive in my head.’

But instead of teasing her a little more, as she’d expected, Louis simply placed a hand on her arm, apparently oblivious to the jolt of electricity that zipped from her shoulder to her fingertips.

‘Relax, Alexandra, I know what you meant. Come on, I’ll show you to your suite.’

‘My...suite?’

‘You would prefer to sleep in my suite?’

She shook her head even though, leading the way back down the incredible staircase, he couldn’t see her.

‘Of course not. I just assumed...well, I thought...the couch.’

She was sounding more and more like a stumbling, naïve fool as the moments wore on, she realised in dismay.

‘I suppose you could sleep on the couch if you prefer, but I can assure you that the bedroom is decidedly more comfortable.’

‘You know that isn’t what I meant.’

He didn’t acknowledge that. But, then again, he didn’t refute it either. Alex wrinkled her nose as she hastily snatched up her discarded footwear, which to her eye painted an intimate, if inaccurate, scene, and followed him back into the rather grand hallway, where he was collecting her small case, and through a double archway she hadn’t spotted upon her arrival.

‘Your suite is this way.’ Louis headed up the corridor, stopping, in a rather gentlemanly way, at the double doors and putting her bag down, as if whatever lay beyond was to be, at least for the time being, her private sanctum in which she could feel secure. ‘Through there you have a bedroom, bathroom and sitting area. Should you want me for anything, I’ll be in the master suite down that way.’

Alex turned obligingly as he indicated the opposite end of a corridor, which was probably the same length as her entire back garden. Possibly longer. It was difficult not to feel intimidated and only reminded her that, if this hadn’t been a charade, such a coupling could never have worked.

‘See you in the morning.’

The words seemed to pulse in the air. As Louis turned and walked away, a thousand different responses flew around Alex’s head until, in the end, she plumped for one.

‘Yes. See you in the morning.’

But he had already turned back into the main living area and out of sight. And even when she closed the door to her suite, she stayed against the door for a long time, remembering his touch and his taste and craving more.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A LOW, UNFAMILIAR sound jarred Alex out of slumber the following morning. Not that she had any idea how she’d managed to fall asleep, plagued as she had been by visions of Louis, and by erotic memories of his mouth claiming hers over and over again.

Even now her body burned with all the things she’d wanted him to do. Although the ridiculous winceyette nightgown she’d chosen to wear—the one she’d been sent as a Christmas gift years ago and had never once even considered wearing—wasn’t helping. She almost hadn’t packed it, hadn’t lifted it out of the dusty package from the top corner of her wardrobe when she’d been racing around her home the previous night. But then she’d thought of Louis, and how weak her resolve seemed around him, and she’d decided to make a point to herself by bringing it along.

Was she really being foolish, denying herself the night with Louis that she so obviously wanted, simply because of fear? Or was her refusal to indulge such a base urge a logical, well-considered matter of self-preservation?

Alex couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she’d wrestled with the dilemma until the small hours, and now she was exhausted with her brain apparently unable to process what had woken her. She squeezed her eyes shut, her ears straining that little bit harder.