Virgin for the Billionaire's Taking

If he had any sense he would terminate her contract immediately and send her back to England with a compensation payment. He would negotiate with her to buy her designs and put a new team in place to put them into practice. That way if, by some impossible to imagine chance, he had somehow become vulnerable to some kind of hitherto never experienced male folly, then it would be brought to a swift end.

Yes, that was what he must do. Just as soon as he got back from Mumbai.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HER head on one side, Keira carefully studied the newly painted walls of the show house. She had chosen the paint from over a dozen different samples, all of which had been applied in square patches to the wall so that she could assess the effect on the room’s light and size.

‘Yes,’ she told the waiting painter with a pleased smile. ‘That’s perfect.’

Someone else might not consider it worthwhile on such a tight schedule to spend time finding exactly the right shade of off-white, but to Keira such niceties were an essential part of the way she worked. The right paint would provide the foundations of her scheme, and thus in her opinion was vitally important. Combining both Jay’s wishes and Alex’s advice, she had sourced her paint locally, and the supplier had been marvellously patient about fine-tuning the pigment to get the shade she wanted.

The painter was smiling broadly himself now, a huge watermelon grin stretching across his face as he promised her that he would have the paint mixed and delivered to her ready for the decorators to start work in the morning.

It was a month since the evening she had fled—not just from Jay, but more tellingly from her own response to him—to spend virtually the whole night curled up on her bed, agonising over what she should do.

The discovery in the morning that Jay had returned to Mumbai had given her a breathing space that had enabled her to think logically and practically about her situation and her options. She had reasoned that financially she could not afford to break her contract, whilst emotionally and sexually she could not afford to mirror her mother’s folly in falling in love with the wrong man and going to bed with him.

Jay inhabited a world in which the super-rich called nowhere home. It was unlikely that their paths would ever cross again once she had finished her work here. Reasonably, therefore, all she had to do was keep her distance from him until life put an even greater distance between them. Once it had she could ache all she wanted for him, in the secure knowledge that all she could do was ache. Better to burn with unappeased longing than to be destroyed be the acid corrosion of shame and self-disgust.

And anyway, now she was alert to her own danger she had herself properly under control, Keira assured herself firmly.

Really? So why, then, was her stomach now twisting itself in knots just because she could see Jay walking towards her?

He was here, and her world had tilted on its axis. But she could act naturally and keep things on a professional footing, Keira decided, and she told him briskly, ‘Jamil has been very patient with me, and we’ve finally got the right paint colour. The decorators should be able to start work tomorrow, and by the time they’ve finished the furniture and soft furnishings should be starting to arrive.’

Jay nodded his head.

‘You haven’t given me a decision yet on the toile fabric I discussed with you,’ Keira reminded him. ‘So if you’ve got time…’

‘You mean your fellow countryman’s designs?’ Jay stopped her.

‘Yes,’ Keira agreed, telling him enthusiastically, ‘I thought his contemporary designs were fun and quirky and would appeal to buyers—especially if we move away from the traditional French colours into something more dramatic and modern. Black on hot pink or bright yellow would make a real statement if we used it on cushions, for instance.’

‘And of course if I agree to buy your countryman’s designs then naturally he’s going to want to show his gratitude—probably in a private suite at that hotel he was discussing with you.’ The sardonic tone of Jay’s voice coupled with the innuendo of his words made Keira’s heart plummet downwards.

‘That is grossly unfair and insulting,’ she told him furiously. ‘There is only one reason I would ever recommend anyone to a client, and that is because, in my professional opinion, they or their product are right for the job. That is the way I do business. You, of course, may have other methods.’