head back to look him in the eye. ‘Me?’ she spluttered incredulously. ‘Are you nuts?’
His cool, sculpted mouth hardened. ‘You’re the only person who left the suite during my discussions with the team that evening. According to my sources, someone tipped off the press halfway through that evening. The bodyguard accompanying you saw you making several phone calls. You also had contact with a journalist.’
Her soft mouth had fallen open in shock, because she could barely credit what she was hearing. How dared he accuse her of being some sort of business spy when he had shared a bed with her the night before? How dared he?
Her colour rose even higher when she recalled that he had actually slept apart from her, and she replied curtly, ‘I can’t believe you’re serious. Why would you suspect me of stealing confidential information? Why would anyone want to leak it?’
‘The tip that I’m planning to buy Dufort Pharmaceuticals is worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the open market.’
‘But I didn’t leak it. I didn’t discuss it with anyone,’ Lilah remonstrated. ‘Why would I have? Apart from anything else, I’m not interested in that information and I wasn’t really listening to what you and your staff were talking about... I was watching TV.’
‘You were present throughout. You heard everything,’ Bastien reminded her obdurately.
‘At least four members of your staff were present as well! Why are you picking on me?’ Lilah demanded in a furious counter-attack.
‘I have absolute faith in my personal team.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it, but obviously your faith is misplaced in at least one of them,’ Lilah pointed out thinly. ‘Because I can assure you that I didn’t sell any information about your business dealings to anyone.’
‘I don’t trust you,’ Bastien admitted harshly, because he had looked at the evidence from every angle and the conclusion that Delilah had sold the information made the most sense.
Lilah set the tablet back down on the table. ‘Well, I’m not playing the fall guy, here, so you have a problem. I suggest you stop wasting time suspecting me of doing the dirty on you and search out the real mole. Why would you suspect me anyway? I’ve got too much to lose in this situation.’
‘How?’ Bastien gritted, unimpressed, and particularly outraged because he had wakened to the phone call forewarning him of the press release with a powerful craving to enjoy her small slender body again.
‘You gave my father a job, which means a lot to him. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise his continuing employment,’ Lilah argued vehemently. ‘I’m not an idiot, Bastien. If I betrayed your trust you wouldn’t stick to our agreement.’
His hard mouth set into a grim, clenched line, Bastien said nothing. He could not count on her loyalty. She was a woman, not an employee, and she might well want to punish him for the choice he had offered her. That gave her a good motive, and she had certainly had the opportunity that night to pass on news of his acquisition plans for Dufort Pharmaceuticals.
Worst of all, the damage was done now that the facts were out in the public domain. Either he paid through the nose to acquire a company which was no longer the bargain it had been or he decided to back off altogether.
‘You have cost me a great deal of money,’ Bastien told her harshly.
‘You don’t listen. You haven’t listened to a single word I’ve said in my own defence, have you?’ Lilah accused, her eyes flaring an almost other-worldly blue with suppressed rage. ‘But I’ll say it one more time...not guilty. I didn’t gossip about your business plans or pass them on to anyone who could profit from knowing about them. I made two separate phone calls after leaving the hotel suite—one to my father and the other to my stepmother. On neither call did I mention your business discussions. The journalist who approached me was a gossip columnist, not a financial reporter...’ Her voice trailed off as she studied his lean, darkly handsome face, which was shuttered and forbidding. ‘You’re still not listening to me...’
Seething resentment was flaming up through the temper which Lilah was struggling to keep under control. Her hands closed into punitive fists. Even before she had answered his charges she had clearly been judged and found guilty, which was hideously unfair.
‘Tell me, do you distrust all women or just me?’ she slammed.
‘Women are very clever at establishing a man’s weaknesses and playing on them,’ Bastien countered.
‘And your only weakness is protecting your profit margins?’ Lilah folded her arms defensively and breathed in slow and deep. ‘What you really need, Bastien, is a proper challenge.’
The lush black lashes enhancing his gorgeous eyes lifted, to reveal glittering dark gold chips full of stark enquiry. ‘Meaning...?’
‘All bets are off between us until you find out who did betray your trust and you clear my name.’
‘Diavelos...what are you trying to say?’ Bastien demanded curtly.
‘No sex until you sort this out,’ Lilah told him in the baldest possible terms. ‘I refuse to sleep with a man who thinks I’m some sort of thief and fraudster.’
Dark colour accentuated the exotic line of Bastien’s supermodel cheekbones. ‘That is not what our agreement entails and nor is it an accurate version of what I said to you.’
‘Stuff the agreement!’ Lilah flung back at him wildly. ‘You can’t make the kind of accusation you just made and then act like it shouldn’t make a difference to me. You check out every employee who was there that night, and anyone else who knew about your interest in that company, you find out who sold you down the river...and then you apologise to me.’
Bastien sent her an incredulous glance, dark eyes flashing the purest gold, pride and anger etching taut hard lines into his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Apologise?’
‘Yes, you will apologise—even if it kills you!’ Lilah launched at him full volume, all control of her temper abandoned in the face of such wanton provocation. ‘You have deeply insulted me, and I refuse to accept that kind of treatment. And, by the way, you can keep this...’ Digging the diamond pendant out of her pocket, Lilah set it down on the table. ‘I didn’t ask for it, I don’t appreciate it, and I will not wear it again unless you apologise to me!’
‘Are you finished?’ Bastien demanded wrathfully. ‘I don’t do apologies.’
‘Fortunately it’s never too late to learn good manners!’ Lilah stated without hesitation, before turning on her heel with Skippy following close behind like a shadow.
She walked out to the shaded terrace for the breakfast Stefan had promised her.
She was trembling when she collapsed down limply into a seat by the table, but she didn’t regret a word she had said to Bastien. She had to be tough to deal with him or he would roar over her like a fireball and burn her to ashes in his wake. Bastien had questioned her integrity, and Lilah was proud of her integrity. She was no angel, but she didn’t lie, cheat or defraud, or go behind people’s backs to score or make a profit, she thought angrily.
It
