tightened on his glass. She couldn’t be more wrong, but he’d let her hold her confidence for now. He took no pleasure in beating someone who was so near the edge.
The dark smudges beneath her eyes attested that she was close to exhaustion. Yet her narrow shoulders remained squared and her chin high, as if she was refusing to accept that she stood on thin ice regarding the Chateau—regarding him.
Her quiet strength intrigued him. He’d expected her to use her delectable body to court his favor, to deceive him more. But though she’d responded instantly to his touch, his kiss, she hadn’t attempted to take the initiative with him. Yet.
He tossed back his daiquiri as his anger burned anew. What was her game?
It didn’t matter. He’d have his revenge in the end. He had proof Peter had sent her to Petit St. Marc to seduce him, and alerted the paparazzi, and he now held documents proving her part in the deadly plot she and Peter had instigated.
The latter was enough to make him despise her. He hated that she’d acquired the Chateau with her deceit. Hated that she was Bellamy’s mistress. Hated that her solemn amber eyes had the power to make him question his plans.
He set his glass on the bar with a thunk and strode to her, his annoyance sparking like lightning when she lifted her chin and stared up at him, wide-eyed but unflinching. She was driving him mad, for he’d never wanted to intimidate a woman until now.
In one fluid movement he rested a knee on the cushions before her curled legs, braced one hand on the sofa’s arm and the other on its back. “I own Chateau Mystique and I own you. Never doubt you are both in my control.”
Her full lips thinned. “That is barbarous.”
“Perhaps you were unaware the blood of pirates courses through my veins?” He yanked away the pillow shielding her and splayed his fingers on her stomach, his thumb resting on her mons and his fingers grazing the swell of her breasts.
She gasped, eyes huge and dark, with awakening desire. The pulse in the ivory column of her neck throbbed to a savage tempo that mirrored his own erratic heartbeat.
Oui. She didn’t fear him. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. In this they were equal. But not for long.
André affected a rapacious grin. “What? You have nothing to say?”
A tremor vibrated through her into him as she shoved his hand from her, but her eyes were still smoky with passion. “Nothing that you’d believe.”
“Save your professions of innocence.” He lurched from her and stared at her expressive eyes that challenged him. “Relax, ma chérie. I have no intention of ravishing you. At least not yet.”
She looked away, satisfying him that she understood his dismissal as well as his promise. The inevitability.
“Not ever,” she said, the words whispered, yet fierce.
The challenge hung between them—a cold, invisible wall that he longed to tear down.
André stalked across the salon and bounded up the stairs to the sundeck, knowing he was a hair’s breadth from toppling Kira back on the sumptuous sofa and showing her just how much she hungered for his touch. How easily she’d capitulate.
Now wasn’t the time. They were spent from the journey. In thirty minutes they’d land at Petit St. Marc. That wasn’t nearly enough time to enjoy her charms, and he fully intended to savor every inch of Kira at his leisure, for bedding her would enrage Peter Bellamy. Never mind that it would satisfy the savage beast within him as well.
For a moment he paused at the starboard side and simply soaked in the breathtaking view of the silvery disk of the sun as it slipped into the rippling mocha waters.
The horizon gleamed like buttered rum. Golden glimmers tinged with red skipped over the waves as if they were ablaze, glimmers of light that matched the highlights in Kira’s long luxurious hair.
Kira. Why did she bring out such poetic yearnings in him?
Out here was nothing but the sea, mistress to many of his ancestors. Mistress to him in many ways.
He shook his head at his own fanciful musings and took the stairs to the fly bridge. A stocky old sailor, wearing cutoff jeans and a tattered T-shirt, manned the helm.
“How’s she sail, Captain?”
The old salt flashed him a cunning grin. “I’d ask the same of you if I thought you’d tell me who that tempting gal is that you stowed on board.”
André scowled. “It’s a long story.”
The Captain chuckled. “Most interesting ones are.”
He shrugged. Though their friendship spanned a decade, he was loath to explain his association with Kira.
“Just keep it steady,” André said. “The lady isn’t accustomed to the sea.”
“Aye, aye, boss.”
André gave the horizon one last look, then hit the stairs. Annoyance bobbed within him like a storm-tossed buoy. Thanks to the scandal, every moment away from his desk cost him a fortune.
He hadn’t intended to make any changes at the Chateau as yet, for he wanted Kira to squirm, to wonder what he planned to do, to get comfortable in her role as his lover. Then he’d swoop in and exert his will over the hotel—and her.
Oui, he’d not soften toward Kira. He would not make the same mistakes his father had made. No woman would rule him.
André slammed into the master stateroom and dropped onto a tufted leather chair at his desk, even though he ached to pace the confines like a caged tiger scenting fresh meat. He grabbed the phone and put in a call to his private detective. The man answered on the second ring.
“Is Bellamy still at the Chateau?” André asked, dispensing with pleasantries.
“No. He left an hour after you did.”
“Back to Florida?”
“To California, to inaugurate a new hotel,” he said. “Do you want me to continue surveillance?”
“Oui. I want to know every damned thing he does. Who he talks to, who he does business with.”
“You got it,” the detective said.
André ended the connection and rocked back in his chair, his mind sifting through this startling news. Why was Bellamy carrying on as if nothing had happened instead of rushing back to his compound in Florida? It didn’t make sense, for Bellamy had seen André leave with Kira. The deception was over.
Had she simply been Bellamy’s pawn, used to publicly humiliate André? Used as needed and then discarded? Paid off with shares in the Chateau? It was a possibility he’d considered.
His fight with Edouard had been personal, rife with emotions André deemed crippling. Simple revenge. He was David going up against Goliath.
His feud with Peter was strictly business. One corporate raider
