A Bride to Redeem Him

It didn’t help that she’d received a concerned call from her father that morning to tell her that Rainbow House had been visited by a new team of hotshot lawyers who claimed they were working on behalf of the Lefebvre Group. He’d said that they’d managed to get through a temporary injunction to stop the transfer of assets to the Delaroche Foundation. And then her father had asked, in his gruff way, if their new advocates had anything to do with Louis Delaroche and the fact that photos of her and Louis kissing had been plastered all over the papers. He’d gently warned her against doing anything that wasn’t right. That even Rainbow House wasn’t worth certain sacrifices.

And she’d lied and assured him that the two things weren’t related, even as she’d swelled with happiness and something she didn’t care to identify that Louis had begun to fulfil his part of the deal. That he hadn’t grown bored with the venture now that he’d claimed her as his.

But that still didn’t mean he was finally ready to do the right thing and take up the mantle of the Lefebvre Group, as his mother had always wanted him to do. Until he accepted that, surely it was yet another reason why she needed to separate the two, the business agreement from the sexual attraction.

It was only as the plane bumped down that Alex realised they’d landed, and the Morse code tapping of her heart became more urgent. More panicked.

Relax. He won’t even be here.

Why would the great Louis come to meet her in person when he had people to send for that?

So was it any wonder that her stomach flipped and twisted when she descended the steps to see him waiting on the runway for her? Perched as he was on the bonnet of a sleek, black car, his impossibly long, muscular legs stretched out in front of him, a crisp suit shirt, sleeves rolled up and open at the neck.

‘What are you doing here?’

He grinned, and her stomach knotted some more.

‘I trust you had a pleasant flight? Didn’t find my private plane too much of an ordeal after all?’

‘It was wonderful,’ she conceded.

‘Bon.’

Before she had time to think, he thrust to his feet, pulling her into his arms and snagging her mouth with his.

It was happening too fast. She wasn’t ready.

Her body was on fire with fresh need.

Startled, she pulled away, but his iron grip on her only tightened, his head bending so that only she could hear the mild reprimand. It should have felt threatening, instead it felt thrilling.

‘I might remind you that the aim is to show the world that we have fallen madly, desperately in love. We’ve caught the public interest and we are being observed. All the time.’

‘There’s no one around,’ she choked out, trying to look around.

Louis caught her hair, anchoring her head in place but looking for all the world like a passionate lover.

‘Do not look, there is always someone around. The trick is to pretend you don’t know they’re there.’

‘I don’t know

they’re there,’ she reasoned, wishing her heart would drop back into her chest instead of lodging itself somewhere around her throat.

‘There’s at least one guy with a long-lens camera on the outer perimeter, on the other side of the runway. The giveaway is the odd glint of sunlight reflected by the glass,’ he informed her. ‘So kiss me, please. As if you really mean it.’

It may as well have been the excuse her body had been looking for to override any last shred of common sense. Leaning slowly backwards, her eyes meeting Louis’s and never leaving them, she dropped her shoulder bag with exaggerated care and then looped her hands around his neck.

‘As if I really mean it, you say?’ she challenged, proud of the way her voice didn’t shake, even once.

His gaze darkened.

‘For the camera.’

‘Oh, of course.’ She quirked her lips, delighting in the flare of desire in his face.

Either he wanted her just like he had the other night, or he was a really, really good actor.

And then she kissed him. Met him. Matched him. Their mouths moved against each other, their tongues dancing a slow, sensual rhumba. This time it was she who eventually broke the contact, seeking out that impossibly square jawline until she reached his ear, grazing the lobe with semi-gentle teeth as she moved to the sensitive spot behind it.