Pride After Her Fall

Nash had removed his jacket when the heat had hit them on landing on the African coast, and he had looked more relaxed over the last half hour, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, than he had on the plane when he’d worked, taking calls, scrolling through documents, preoccupied.

Now he sat forward, tension in every line of his body.

‘Is that what you think this is?’

‘What else could it be?’

Her entire body was quivering.

‘How about me ensuring this isn’t a one-night stand...which I assumed was upsetting you. Something, I might add, that was never my intention to begin with.’

‘Bonne chance with that, as I have no intention of sharing your bed.’ She stuck her nose in the air. She knew she was being ridiculous as she did it, but everything about this situation was making her feel diminished.

He regarded her as if she was speaking nonsense. ‘I’m beginning to suspect this is not about me, Lorelei, but you. Am I to take it those guys you’ve dated in the past haven’t treated you all that well?’

Lorelei froze, feeling hunted and cornered.

‘My affairs are not your business,’ she said shortly. ‘I do not ask you about other women...of whom I’m sure there have been far too many.’

‘Possibly,’ he responded, unruffled.

She snorted. She didn’t want to think about his track record.

Hers was pretty tame, although he didn’t have to know that. Her handful of boyfriends consisted of a visual artist, a poet, a writer and a classical musician...the last breaking up with her over two years ago, just as the perfect storm of Grandy’s death and Raymond’s arrest had broken over her. Truth told, she was rather grateful he had, as she couldn’t possibly have supported him emotionally through the crisis. That was her role in all her relationships. She provided material support and emotional strength. She was, in effect, what she had always been with her father...the grown-up. And in the end every last one of them had foundered on the rocks because deep down what she craved...a man who could match her in strength of purpose...was the very thing she avoided like the plague.

She had seen enough unequal relationships paraded before her. It was a trap for a woman. She would always call the shots, hold the purse strings. She would keep herself independent—and strong.

Which was making all of this so very scary.

Because this man beside her, looking at her as if she were a puzzle he was determined to solve, was everything she should be running from. Dominant, wealthy, definitely calling the shots, and right now he had hold of those purse strings. None of that would really matter, except he filled her thoughts and took over her body and made her feel in a way she never had before.

She was vulnerable to him.

She had been from the moment she’d set eyes on him.

Why else had she slid into his car last night and abandoned her inhibitions in his bed? She wasn’t being free with her favours. She was being optimistic with her heart.

Not that he would understand. She doubted Nash had ever been vulnerable to anything.

‘I have some rules,’ she said, smoothing back her curls. ‘I expect you to abide by them.’

‘This should be good,’ he drawled.

‘Don’t patronise me, Nash. I want separate rooms.’

He regarded her as if she’d sprouted wings.

‘I just feel there’s too much inequality at play here.’

Oui, Lorelei, that’s putting it mildly.

She didn’t want to be one of his shiny toys, like the Veyron or the penthouse apartment in La Condamine. She had seen too much of it growing up...a price tag attached to love. It was why she kept her charity work for the Aviary Foundation separate from the rest of her life. She had never dated any of the men whose parties and functions she attended on a regular basis, and it hadn’t been through lack of being pursued. She just didn’t want to blur those lines between spruiking for the charity and spruiking herself. The idea terrified her.

‘I’m not a toy for you to play with, Nash.’

Her whole body quivered as she spoke.

‘In what way have I treated you like a toy?’

‘I don’t need luggage. I don’t need clothes. I won’t be getting out of bed,’ she imitated sourly.