Summer Sins: Bedded, or Wedded? / Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded / The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain

Work, earn, save. No let up, no reprieve. For as long as it took.

As she opened the door to the flat, she froze. There were voices inside, and they were not coming from the television. One was familiar, but the tone was not familiar, at all. It was excited, happy, with no trace of either the thread of pain or the drug-induced slurring. The other voice was also familiar but hearing it made her surge disbelievingly into the living room and stop dead. A figure unfolded from the battered sofa. Lissa’s face lit.

‘Armand,’ she cried.

She went into his outstretched arms.

‘Xavier, have you been listening to anything I’ve said?’

The voice beside him was light, with a teasing note, but Xavier had to force himself to pay attention. He’d had to force himself to pay attention to everything that Madeline de Cerasse had said to him all evening. He’d taken her out to dinner. It had been a deliberate gesture on his part. Completely rational. He needed, he knew, to pick up his normal life. He needed, he knew even better, to have sex as soon as possible. With another woman. And since he was, he realised, technically still regarded as her lover, at least by her, he knew it would have to be Madeline.

There was only one problem. He had absolutely no desire whatsoever to take Madeline to bed.

His eyes rested on her a moment. Her beautifully styled brunette crop set off a face of piquant allure, matched by a chicly elegant body that she was well skilled in using to sensual advantage in bed. He had every reason to desire her.

Yet he did not. He did not want her.

He only wanted one woman.

And he couldn’t have her.

Abruptly, knowing he was breaking his own first rule of affaires with his selected partners, he set down his fork. He was always considerate and tactful when the time came to end a relationship, letting his partner have sufficient time not just to accustom herself to the dissolution of their affair, but also to arrange an alternative partner for herself, to make the parting easier. This time he was neither.

‘I have something to say to you,’ he announced brusquely.

Five minutes later he was sitting at the table on his own. Madeline had gone. He was not surprised. He had tried to soften the blow, but it had been difficult to do so at such short notice. She had reacted by assuming the role of offended woman. He had allowed her to do so, letting himself appear the brute it comforted her to cast him as.

Well, perhaps he was a brute. There was certainly anger burning in him. Anger at himself. He should not have interfered in his brother’s life. He should have left his marriage plans well alone. He should have—

He tossed down his napkin and got to his feet abruptly. It was irrelevant what he should or should not have done. It was too late.

Too late for regrets. Too late for everything.

Lissa Stephens was not for him and never could be, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could do about it.

How could the world change so much, so swiftly? The question swirled in Lissa’s head like a carousel, making her giddy with happiness. It had all happened so quickly—dizzyingly quickly. Armand had flown in from Dubai and done what Lissa had prayed that he would—and feared so much that he would not. He had waved his wonderful, miraculous magic wand and transformed everything. He had made all the necessary arrangements—that was what he’d been doing when he’d gone so quiet, so it would be a wonderful surprise, he’d said, his face lit from within with a glow that had made Lissa curl with happiness.

Now, a mere twenty-four hours later, it was done. America next stop.

She didn’t mind being left behind—understood the reason for it and rejoiced in it. As she made her way back from the airport even the damp and derelict street she lived in suddenly seemed bathed in glorious sunshine. Everything was radiant.

It took her another twenty-four hours, so suffused in happiness was she, for the realisation to come to her. When it did, her breath caught with the impact of it. She had three weeks to herself—the time the trip to America would take.

Three whole weeks.

Her breath stilled in her lungs.

A name distilled in her mind.

Xavier.

Do I dare? Do I really dare?

Her lips parted as she slowly exhaled.

Why should she not dare? She had three precious weeks to herself, and even a day, a single night, would be treasure more than she had ever thought to have.

A shadow fell across her face. But what if he no longer wanted her?

She’d probably been just a passing fancy—an impulse of the moment. Why should she have been anything else?

She told herself that in all probability Xavier Lauran, after accepting she would not spend the night with him, had simply returned to Paris and never given her another thought. For a man like him, with looks like his, there would be a queue around the block of women—all those beautiful, elegant, chic Parisiennes he was surrounded by—lining up to try and tempt him.

Yet a temptation of her own circled endlessly in her mind. What if he did still want her? And if he did, then now—now she had a golden opportunity. So, did she dare—did she really dare—get in touch with him?

Her stomach churned. It was not just a question of whether Xavier Lauran wanted her still. It was also a question of whether she really should go ahead and do this. Have an affair—a fling— call it what she would—with Xavier Lauran. But even as the doubt voiced itself, a protesting cry seemed to come from deep within her. There would never, she knew, be another man like Xavier Lauran in her life! A man who could stop the breath in her body. Who turned her knees to jelly and set the blood racing in her veins. No, there would never be another man like him. Nor would an opportunity like this ever come again. This chance to have, even for a brief time, something she would remember all her life would never come twice. It was now or never.

She couldn’t bear it to be never. She could tell herself all she liked that all she could have was a brief affair—a passing fling. Maybe only a single night. If that. But to let it go just for want of being brave enough to dare—she could not do that. Would not.

For another sleepless night she tossed and turned on it, wanting it so much, yet not daring to dare. All morning, as she did her work at the insurance company, she brooded on the number for the London branch of XeL she’d looked up. But did she dare, did she really dare, to phone him?

By the time she took her lunchbreak she was a bag of nerves. She took her mobile phone and went to the Ladies, forcing herself to key in the number.

How can I do this—phone him up and tell him … Tell him I’m available …?

She almost cut the call—and then it was answered.

‘XeL International, may I help you?’

For a moment Lissa’s voice froze, then she made herself speak.

‘Er—I’m trying to get in touch with Xavier Lauran.’ Her heart was thumping like a hammer.

‘Putting you through.’ There was a pause, then another ring tone, sounding foreign. A woman answered, speaking French. Lissa completely failed to catch what she said. So she simply repeated what she’d said to the UK switchboard, sticking to English. There was a pause. An audible one. Then the woman spoke again, in English.

‘What name, please?’

‘Er—Lissa Stephens.’ Lissa’s voice was breathless with nerves.

There was another pause. Then the woman spoke again. Smoothly and fluently.

‘Monsieur Lauran is in conference. I’m so sorry.’

Lissa swallowed. ‘Um—can I leave a message for him?’

‘Of course.’ The French-accented voice was as smooth as cream, but Lissa suddenly realised that she was simply being treated as someone to get off the line as soon as possible. Was Xavier really ‘in conference’ or just not available to women who phoned him out of the blue? But she wasn’t going to hang up without at least doing what she’d been nerving herself to do all night and all morning.

‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded strangulated, but she made herself go on. Because it was, after all, now or never, and she would never be able to summon the nerve to do this again. ‘Could you just tell him, please, that Lissa says …’ she took another breath ‘… things have changed … completely … at my end. Something very unexpected…. my former commitments are, um, finished … I’m no longer. So, if he wanted….’ Her voice trailed off into nervestruck incoherence.