Lynne Graham's Brides of L'Amour Bundle

Roel let the tip of his tongue flick the delicate hollow at the base of her collar-bone where a tiny pulse was going crazy and she moaned and pushed forward. She wanted him to kiss her so badly that she could taste it. He lifted his dark head and she looked up at him. Framed by impenetrable black lashes, the hard sexual glitter of his brilliant gaze was the equivalent of an electrical charge.

‘Do it…’ she was finally reduced to pleading.

‘No. I’m not into sex in the back of limos.’ Roel withdrew from her with a pronounced air of derision.

Her cheeks burned like beetroot on the boil. Her hands balled into fierce fists. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to say very rude things to him. But just in time she restrained herself from a revealing outburst. She was mortified by her own vulnerability. How could she have been so weak? Show me how much you hate what I do to you! If she continued to offer herself up on the equivalent of a plate to Roel, he would soon guess that she was head over heels in love with him. And, in Hilary’s opinion, nothing would be worse than that development and nothing would be more humiliating. Given a choice, she decided that she much preferred to be thought of as a cunning gold-digger.

The limo pulled up outside the hairdressing salon and Hilary fled. While Sally grabbed a much-needed break, Hilary worked. Just before closing time, the older woman agreed to manage the salon as long as there was enough cash in the kitty to hire another full-time stylist to work alongside her. Relieved that she would be leaving her business in reliable hands, Hilary locked up, went over the account books with Sally and then went up to her flat to finish her packing.

At seven o’clock the doorbell sounded. Although she had assumed it was Roel, it wasn’t. Her visitor was Gareth, an engineer, whom she had dated a couple of times the previous year and who had become a friend.

‘Love the hair!’ Gareth laughed and ruffled the glossy black tips that provided such a contrast to her silvery fair hair. ‘Very gothic.’

‘You like it?’ Hilary grinned for Roel had not even seemed to notice and in truth it hardly mattered as the black highlights would wash straight back out of her hair again the next time she was under the shower.

‘Fancy going out tonight?’

Lean, dark features grim, Roel strode across the landing. ‘Hilary has other plans.’

‘Are you her social secretary…or something?’ Gareth sniped.

‘Her husband,’ Roel drawled with cold finality.

As Gareth clattered red-faced downstairs Hilary knew he would never darken her doorstep again and she slung Roel a furious look of reproach for his interference. ‘That was quite unnecessary—’

From the benefit of his commanding height, Roel dealt her a strong glance of disagreement. ‘You were flirting—’

‘I wasn’t flirting…and even if I was, what’s it got to do with you?’ With difficulty Hilary controlled her temper because Roel’s chauffeur had appeared round the bend in the stairs. Her cases were removed from the hall and she locked up with a flourish.

‘You were expecting that guy tonight. That was why you didn’t want to leave until tomorrow,’ Roel condemned in a harsh undertone.

Hilary tossed her head on her passage down the first flight of stairs. But he was making her feel as irresistible as Helen of Troy and she glowed. ‘I’m a real hot chick. You’ll have to watch me night and day in Switzerland. Are you sure I’m worth the effort?’

Without the smallest warning, Roel closed his hands to her slight shoulders and backed her up against the wall of the landing. It happened so fast and so disconcerted her that she gasped. Volcanic golden eyes obdurate as bronze raked over her startled face in stormy warning. ‘Have you noticed something? I’m not laughing,’ Roel derided with raw-edged softness. ‘Be careful. If I catch you flirting with other men, I won’t be amused.’

Her mouth had run dry and, taken aback though she was by his vehemence, a dark and dangerous excitement was licking through her slight figure. ‘I was just joking—’

‘That wasn’t funny,’ Roel delivered darkly.

Her lively sense of humour sparked. ‘At least Gareth noticed I’d put black tips into my hair—’

‘Only he was too much of an oil slick to tell you that you look like a hedgehog.’ Releasing her, Roel took a fluid step back to let her go on down the stairs.

Hilary drew in a shattered breath. ‘A…?’

A hedgehog? She was mortified. Passing through the airport, she could not help stealing glances at her reflection in shop windows. At the same time she could not help noticing how shor

t and dumpy she looked alongside his tall, lean physique. While they waited to board Roel’s private jet, Hilary’s mobile phone buzzed. When she heard her friend Pippa’s voice, she moved away from Roel to keep the conversation private.

Pippa and her husband, Andreo D’Alessio, lived in Italy and, as luck would have it, Pippa was calling to tell Hilary that she would be over in London for the weekend and was looking forward to meeting up with her.

‘As we speak, I’m waiting to board a flight to Switzerland,’ Hilary admitted ruefully. ‘You’re also going to have every excuse to get annoyed with me. I’ve been keeping a secret from you. I’m married—’

‘Married? I don’t believe you!’ Pippa exclaimed in shock.

‘He’s standing right by me listening in on my phone call so I don’t find it quite so hard to disbelieve,’ Hilary confided tartly, slinging Roel a challenging glance. ‘But the story of our marriage is—’

Roel filched the phone from her in a move so fast it left her with a dropped jaw. ‘A total fairy tale,’ Roel dropped in faster than the speed of light as he took over the dialogue without skipping a beat. ‘I’m Hilary’s husband…and you are—?’