Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

‘Every place you go you’re surrounded by people you can order around. Servants, employees. I should think you’d get tired of being incredibly bossy but instead you seem to thrive on handing out orders—’

‘Expressing a preference is not handing out an order,’ Roel delivered icily.

‘When you express a preference, it’s the same thing as a command. But I’m not going to bin all my make-up just because you don’t approve of it. You’re wearing a pretty boring suit…are you about to throw it away because I think it’s deeply untrendy?’

‘I don’t do trendy at the bank,’ Roel told her drily.

‘But you’re not at the bank now,’ she heard herself say, her voice husky from lack of oxygen and the disturbing little bubble of excitement flaring up inside her.

Without warning Roel snaked out his hands and caught her to him. ‘You’re very…feisty—’

With every sense leaping with wicked anticipation, Hilary sparkled up at him. He dragged her even closer. Adoring his hard, muscular strength, she melted into his overwhelmingly masculine frame. ‘You mean cheeky?’ she whispered.

Roel raised lean brown hands to her face and framed her cheekbones. Her grey eyes were mirrored pools of encouragement. His scorching golden gaze locked to her triangular features with hungry force. ‘All I know is that you make me hot for you. If the maids weren’t next door packing for you, I would take you up against the wall. I’d like to do it hard and fast and I think you’d like it too, bella mia.’

A wave of burning heat rose up under Hilary’s skin in the mother of all blushes. She could barely credit that he had said such a thing to her but the sensual intensity of his appraisal underscored how serious he was. Her legs trembled. She felt wildly out of her depth but feverishly excited by his boldness. Her nipples had swollen into stiff peaks below her tee shirt and the forbidden tingle in her pelvis made her feel unbearably weak.

‘And I believe I could do it without messing your make-up,’ Roel continued in the same considering tone.

‘Probably…’ Her voice emerged a little squeakily.

Looked down at her passion-glazed face, Roel laughed with very male satisfaction. ‘But I think I’ll resist the urge until you take it off again!’

‘You’ll be waiting a very long time!’ Mortified by his mockery, Hilary yanked herself back from him and then hesitated. Whether she wanted to or not, she knew that she really ought to ask him who his female visitor the night before had been. ‘I saw the woman who called here to see you last night and I wondered who she was…’

As Roel stilled his stunning eyes veiled. ‘What woman?’

Hilary reddened. ‘She had long dark hair…she was very attractive…’

‘Oh, that one…’ Roel shrugged with magnificent cool, not a muscle moving on his lean, intelligent face. ‘She works for me.’

The current of relief that passed through Hilary left her feeling a little light-headed. It had been silly of her to take fright at the sight of the beautiful brunette. She heard someone in the bedroom next door ask Roel a question.

‘Hilary?’ Roel requested her attention. ‘The maids say they can only find a handful of garments. Where is the rest of your wardrobe?’

Wrenched from abstraction with a vengeance, Hilary froze in strong dismay. Naturally Roel would expect her to have an extensive collection of clothes. Weren’t all rich men’s wives supposed to be mad about fashion? That dressing room ought to be lined with wall-to-wall designer stuff.

How on earth was she to explain all those empty cupboards and drawers?

Frantically striving to come up with a good reason for her lack of clothing, Hilary drew level with Roel and shrugged. ‘I decided to have a good old clean out,’ she announced.

His ebony brows pleated. ‘But according to our staff you have only two outfits here, cara.’

Hilary worried at her lower lip with her teeth and dropped her eyes. Her mind was a total blank. ‘I got a bit carried away…?’

The silence stretched and she threw a nervous glance in his direction.

His lean, darkly handsome features were unreadable. He looked levelly back at her.

‘I really must go shopping,’ she mumbled.

‘If I didn’t know better, I would think you had been living somewhere else,’ Roel commented.

‘For goodness’ sake…’ Hilary exclaimed tautly.

‘So explain the empty closets in a way I can believe.’

Taut as a bowstring, Hilary breathed in deep and, mercifully, inspiration grabbed her. ‘We had a stupid row because you don’t like my taste in clothes…and I was so annoyed with you, I dumped them all!’