A Vow to Secure His Legacy

‘It was more than surprise. You were quiet. You weren’t...’ For a split second he’d have sworn he read vulnerability in her expression but then she shoved her finger into his chest again, as if he were at fault.

He, who’d done nothing but look after her from the start!

‘Weren’t what?’ he growled.

She shook her head and a slick ribbon of dark hair slid over her shoulder. ‘You’re saying you weren’t regretting this marriage? You weren’t regretting me?’

‘You think I’d rather the doctor had confirmed you were dying? That’s what you think of me?’

Deliberately, he lashed his anger higher, ignoring the fact there was a grain of truth in her words—he’d never expected to have a real marriage, only a short-term solution to the problem of caring for Imogen and her child.

Her eyes held his. ‘Why are you so angry, Thierry?’ Her breath came in short bursts that pushed her breasts against his torso and sent need quaking through him. Being close to her spun him out till he teetered on the brink of control. ‘I don’t understand. I was trying to do the right thing, making it clear I didn’t expect more from you.’

He stared down at the mutinous line of her mouth. The mix of anger and hurt in her eyes.

Why was he angry?

What she said made sense. Yet he didn’t want that sort of favour. At some deep, primitive level her action carved at his honour, his masculine pride.

Was it the careless way she spurned the fortune he’d worked like a slave to secure that needled? Or that he couldn’t conquer the unfamiliar mix of emotions she’d stirred?

Or was it that the gesture felt like a rejection of him?

He hadn’t known rejection since he was twenty and Sandrine had chosen another man. Since then he’d ensured his liaisons were short and easy, ones he could walk away from without a backward glance. Always he was in control—the hunter, the seducer, the one to leave.

The thought of Imogen spurning him made him wild. The fire spread from his belly, coursing out in molten waves.

‘Why have you got your passport out?’

She blinked. ‘I wondered if I should book a flight to Australia. Clearly, you’re not going to want me here long term.’

‘Clearly?’

Her eyes skated away from his, and he felt something loosen inside.

‘I don’t belong here, Thierry. That’s obvious.’

He ignored the strange, queasy sensation her words provoked. ‘You were going to run away?’

Her gaze met his again in a clash that should have struck sparks. ‘Of course not. I was waiting till you came home to talk about it.’ For the first time he read hesitation in her expression. ‘Now you’re here we can discuss it. Just give me time to get dressed.’ She gripped the towel tighter and made to take a step back. But he didn’t let her go. Instead, his arms closed hard around her.

Imogen’s head jerked up, consternation battling something he couldn’t identify in her expression.

Why was she worried? She wasn’t afraid of him. She’d made that clear. She was ready to walk out on him.

‘No.’ The word emerged from his tight throat. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

She scowled and shoved her hands against his chest as if to push him away. The movement shifted the towel, revealing a tempting sliver of peachy, pale skin. ‘What’s wrong with you, Thierry? I don’t understand.’

Nor did he. That made his anger burn brighter. The fact that it was instinctive, uncontrollable, totally inexplicable.

He just knew that none of this was right.

He’d be damned if he’d let her leave before he worked it out.

‘Then understand this.’ Hauling her to him, he took her mouth in a swooping kiss that started as punishing but morphed in a heartbeat to urgent, hungry, demanding. Desperate.

A moment’s hesitation, a stillness that made something like fear rise in him, then her lips opened beneath his like a fragile blossom responding to sunlight.

This was what he wanted. What he’d craved. Imogen’s fragrance, her taste, invaded his senses, a sweet, addictive flavour that blasted the back off his head as she tentatively moved her mouth against his.

One arm lashed about her waist and his other roved up to cup the back of her neck, supporting her as he bowed her back. She clung to his shirt and he knew a surge of triumph.

A shudder racked her, and he felt it from his mouth, down all the places where their bodies melded, right to the soles of his feet, braced wide to support them both. His brain told him to pull back; he was being too rough. Then he heard her little throaty moan, tasted it in his mouth.