‘Janelle, my cleaning lady. For the day. Just give her a few minutes.’
‘You can’t be expecting to just pick up where you left off,’ she accused, guilt lending her voice a harsher quality.
‘You want to pretend you don’t want that?’ He raised an eyebrow, faintly mocking her.
‘I’m not pretending anything.’
‘So you admit you want me.’
She swallowed.
‘I don’t want you.’
‘Is this the game we’re back to playing?’ he asked quietly, dangerously, enough to make her skin prickle in warning. ‘Because I can tell you now, Alex, that I’m bored with it.’
‘We agreed this was a business arrangement. A marriage in name only. We agreed there would be no sex.’
If only her body wasn’t protesting every word she was saying.
‘We didn’t agree anything of the sort,’ Louis stated calmly. ‘It was never discussed.’
‘Because it went without saying.’
‘No, because I always assumed somewhere down the line you’d give up your ridiculous notion of pretending this intense attraction between us didn’t exist.’
‘So you always planned to seduce me.’ She crossed her arms disdainfully.
‘I was always expecting this moment to arise. I was always waiting for you to tell me you wanted me. And exactly where you wanted me,’ he countered, the deliberate emphasis causing another blush to colour her cheeks.
‘That’s why you made me say it.’
‘I just wanted to hear it,’ he said softly. ‘And I intend to hear it again and again in the weeks and months to come.’
‘You won’t,’ she bit out. ‘Because this will never happen again. Nothing like this can ever happen between us again.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, amour.’ His calm tone was almost worse than if he’d been angry. ‘Because now that I know just how much you want me, now that I have irrefutable proof of how incredible we would be together, I have no intention of this marriage being merely a charade.’
‘You can’t make me...’
‘Of course not,’ he scorned. ‘Neither would I ever dream of it. But I would never have to. You will come to me.’
‘No, I most certainly won’t.’ Was her thudding heart because of her conviction, or because she was terribly afraid that he was right?
‘You will,’ he assured her, his wicked smile going right to her core, where she was still soft, still wet from his masterful play. ‘Just like you did this morning.’
She couldn’t seem to stop her teeth from worrying at her lip. As long as they were in such close proximity there was a good chance she would once again give in to the baser needs that Louis seemed to have unearthed in her.
She tipped her head back, barely stopping herself from rising up onto her toes.
‘Then it’s lucky you’re working away in France for the next month or so.’
As victories went, it didn’t feel like much of one. Rather, she felt empty at the prospect.
‘Luckier still that you’re coming with me.’
She told herself that her heart didn’t leap. His unwavering gaze didn’t help matters.
‘I can’t. I have work.’