Defying Her Billionaire Protector

He raised his eyebrows. ‘So you don’t want children?’

‘No.’ But that was a lie. A lie she had repeated in her head so often she’d almost believed it. Her stomach knotted.

‘But family is important to you?’

‘So are other things,’ she said, hating the defensive note in her voice. ‘My job—my career as an artist...’

She trailed off. Her words had sounded hollow and they shouldn’t have. She was utterly passionate about her art. Determined to make a full-time living from it eventually. In the meantime she had a job she loved, her apartment, her studio for hire... It was enough. Of course it was enough.

So why had Nico’s questions got her all tied up in knots?

She took the white napkin off her lap, folded it carefully and placed it on the table. ‘Thank you for dinner,’ she said, avoiding his eye. ‘I’m ready to go when you are.’

The Bouchards came out to farewell them, dropping kisses onto Marietta’s cheeks, and she wondered what assumptions they’d made about her and Nico’s relationship.

Not that it mattered. Sooner or later she’d be gone from Île de Lavande and she’d have no reason to return—a thought she found inordinately depressing as Nico drove them home on the winding mountain road. When they arrived, he parked in the courtyard by the house, went to open the front door, then returned and lifted her out of the Jeep. He carried her towards the house.

‘Nico!’ she cried. ‘My chair!’

He kicked the front door closed, barely breaking stride. ‘You won’t be needing it for a while.’

Outrage and something else she didn’t want to acknowledge sent a lick of heat through her veins.

Her voice rose on a high note of fury. ‘I’m not sleeping with you tonight!’

He reached his bedroom and dropped her unceremoniously onto his bed, so that she sprawled inelegantly on the grey silk coverlet.

He shot her a dark, blistering look and started unbuttoning his shirt. ‘I don’t plan on doing much sleeping.’

She pushed onto her elbows, glared up at him. ‘I’m still angry with you!’ she flung at him.

He shrugged off his shirt and threw it to the floor. The moonlight illuminating the room washed over his powerful torso, making him look like a statue of some demigod cast in pewter.

Marietta’s mouth dried.

‘Bien,’ he said in a low, rough voice, simultaneously toeing off his shoes and unbuckling his belt. ‘I like that fiery temper.’

He shoved the rest of his clothes off and when he straightened the full extent of his arousal was plain to see. He curled his hand around himself and the sight of him doing so was deeply erotic. Utterly mesmerising.

‘It turns me on,’ he said, quite unnecessarily, and then he was climbing onto the bed.

She shook herself, shot her arm out and slapped her palm against his chest. ‘Stop!’

‘You don’t mean that,’ he said, and his lips curved into a smile of such utter carnality that her belly flooded with hot, liquid need. Then he pushed up her top, freed her left breast from its lacy confines and sucked her nipple into his mouth.

Marietta gasped, her traitorous body arching in response to the exquisite sensations he inflicted so effortlessly. She lifted her hands, intending to beat them down upon his bare shoulders, but somehow her fingers ended up buried in his thick hair.

His head lifted, his blue eyes glittering with triumph. ‘Do you still want me to stop?’

She gave him a mutinous glare, then dragged his head down and kissed him, sinking her teeth into his lower lip for a second before pushing his head back up.

‘This won’t make me forget that I’m angry with you,’ she warned him.

That wicked smile returned, making her insides quiver.

‘Chérie,’ he said, lowering himself on top of her, his hard body crushing her into the mattress, ‘by the time I’m done with you, you won’t remember your name.’

CHAPTER TEN