Sale or Return Bride

Decision made, he grabbed Alesia’s wrist and virtually hauled her off the dance floor towards the exit without uttering a word.

And just to be sure that the staring guests were left in no doubt as to how he felt about his new bride, he swept her up into his arms and planted another swift kiss on her shocked mouth.

With a smile at his mother, who was shedding tears of undisguised delight on the arm of his father, he strode out of the garden towards the waiting limousine.

Alesia didn’t wriggle in his arms, didn’t move. It was almost as if she wanted him to take her away from there. Which couldn’t possibly be the case, he reflected grimly, because another thing he knew about women was that the whole point of spend, spend, spend was to allow them to party, party, party.

Her head lay against his shoulder in almost weary resignation and he felt something pull inside him. A feeling which he instantly dismissed with a sharp frown.

She was good, he had to hand it to her. She was already trying to tie him in knots. A less experienced man might have thought that she was glad he was holding her.

Fortunately he knew better—

One night, he promised himself as he dropped her in the seat of the limo as if she was infectious.

He’d make her pregnant that first night and that would be it.

He wouldn’t have to touch her again.

He could get on with his life and she could get on with spending his money.

CHAPTER FOUR

ALESIA huddled into the leather seat, trying to control the tiny tremors that still attacked her body. Sebastien’s skilled assault on her senses had left her shattered by the discovery that she didn’t know herself at all.

Stunned by her own reaction, she struggled to rationalize what had happened.

Nothing had prepared her for that kiss.

It had been dark, terrifying, exciting and he’d unveiled a part of herself that she hadn’t known existed.

Everything about her felt different.

She wanted to lift her fingers to her lips and see what had changed but she didn’t dare with him seated beside her.

She didn’t want him to know what he’d done to her—

What he’d made her feel—

She closed her eyes and gave a whimper of self-disgust. What an irony. She’d kissed men before and felt nothing. Why was it that the first man to show her what a kiss could mean had to be a man she despised?

‘You can open your eyes now.’ Sebastien sounded bored, as if he’d rather be anywhere than sitting next to her. ‘We’ve left the crowds behind. It’s just you and me. No more pretending.’

Still struggling with the humiliating knowledge that she hadn’t even tried to push him away, Alesia opened her eyes and swallowed hard.

‘Where exactly are we going?’ Her voice was a nervous croak and he gave a grim smile.

‘Somewhere more private. The time has come to take our “business deal” to another level, pethi mou, and for that I do not need an audience.’

How could he speak like that when he clearly wished he were with anyone but her? How could he even be contemplating spending the night with her?

Suddenly she understood the true meaning of the phrase ‘out of the frying-pan into the fire’ and wished they were back at the reception. She’d thought that being in crowds of people was bad but it was nothing compared to being alone with Sebastien Fiorukis. ‘Is it far? I’m very tired—’

‘We’re going to my Athens home,’ he returned, shrugging off his jacket and removing his tie. ‘And it isn’t far. But you won’t be sleeping, pethi mou, no matter how exhausted you are. You still have the rest of your bargain to keep. And after that kiss I think we’re both going to have a very interesting evening.’

His blunt reminder of what they’d shared sent tingles through her already sensitized body and a slow, insidious warmth uncurled low in her pelvis. Desire, hot, restless and totally unfamiliar, tangled and pumped inside her.

She saw the sardonic gleam in his black eyes and swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what you mean—’

‘No?’ Sebastien was hard, tough and uncompromising but his voice was silky smooth as he undid the top few buttons of his shirt. ‘Need a reminder?’

Dark hairs nestled in the dip of his bronzed throat, a tantalizing hint of what he kept concealed.

Alesia flattened herself in the furthest corner of the car, enveloped by a sudden rush of panic and something altogether more complicated that she couldn’t begin to name.

Up until this moment she hadn’t even considered Sebastien as a man. She’d seen him as the enemy and as the answer to her mother’s problems. Never as a man.

Until that kiss.

The kiss had wakened something in her. Taken her by storm. Changed her.