He would only have to touch what was hidden beneath those silky curls with the tip of his tongue now, he realised, just one moist caress and she would disintegrate in front of his eyes as he gave her the release she ached for.

For a moment indecision raced through him—the need to give Darci what she wanted set against the fact that he knew she was only using him, that she didn’t even like him.

His face set into harsh lines as he made his decision, surging to his feet to sweep Darci up in his arms.

‘What are you doing?’ she groaned protestingly.

Luc glanced down at her as he strode forcefully across the room. ‘Taking you to bed,’ he rasped. ‘That is what you want, isn’t it?’ Darci looked up at him uncertainly, finding no hint of the tender lover in his harshly set expression and the darkness of his eyes. ‘Luc, what—? Luc…!’ she cried, as he didn’t place her on her bed, but instead dropped her from a three-foot height so that she bounced on the springy mattress.

His mouth twisted derisively as he looked down at her, and she tried to regain her balance enough to straighten her clothing over her exposed body. ‘I said I was taking you to bed, Darci—not that I would be joining you there!’ he informed her evenly.

Darci swallowed hard, not understanding any of this—not understanding Luc. He had been as aroused as she still was a few minutes ago, hadn’t he?

Hadn’t he…?

Luc continued to look coldly down at her in a way that said otherwise. ‘I suggest that the next time you speak to your friend Mellie you ask her why she lied to you when she told you she and I had been lovers,’ he grated hardly.

‘What…?’ Darci couldn’t think straight. Her body was still on fire with the need Luc had lit deep inside her but left unassuaged.

Deliberately?

Had he aroused her on purpose, touched her, caressed her, with the sole intention of humiliating her?

‘Oh, I think you understand me perfectly well, Darci,’ he said, his gaze once again sweeping over her disdainfully. ‘I’ve never even met your friend Mellie, let alone showered her with flowers, compliments and empty promises in order to seduce her into my silk-sheeted bed,’ he stated plainly, so that there should be no lingering misunderstanding.

Darci blinked up at him, trying to make sense of what he was saying. ‘But she said—She—’

‘I don’t give a damn what your friend Mellie said, Darci,’ Luc informed her disgustedly. ‘I have never met the lady—if, indeed, that’s what she really is,’ he added, with a scathingly dismissive curl of his top lip.

Darci couldn’t mistake the utter conviction in his voice for anything other than the truth, and she looked up at him dazedly, could clearly see freezing emotion in the harshness of his expression. She realised fully now what had been behind Luc’s seduction minutes ago—his deliberate seduction.

And if what he claimed was indeed the truth, then Darci knew she deserved the contempt she could see blazing down at her in those compelling brown eyes….

But if Luc was telling the truth then that meant Mellie had lied. And Darci still couldn’t see any reason, any scenario, in which her friend would need to do that.

She gave a shake of her head. ‘There’s absolutely no reason why Mellie would lie to me—’

‘I have no explanation for how or why Melanie Chandler lied to you, Darci,’ Luc cut in coldly. ‘I only know that she did lie! In the same way that you have lied—from the very beginning of our acquaintance to the bitter end,’ he added, his meaning more than clear.

Luc was telling her that after today she would never see him again.

‘If in the next twenty-four hours you feel the need to check with the Gambrelli Hotel, you will find that I intend staying on in London for several more days on family business,’ he continued. ‘I am only telling you this because once you have ascertained what really happened from your so-called friend, you may feel the need to apologise to me,’ he explained, at her wide-eyed expression. ‘I strongly advise you not to give in to the impulse.’ His eyes sparked dangerously. ‘Because there is nothing that you could have to say to me that I would ever wish to hear!’

Tags: Carole Mortimer Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net