A Very French Affair: Bought for the Frenchman's Pleasure / Breaking the Boss's Rules / Her Secret Husband

The door shut behind her, and Romain called softly from across the room. ‘Come here.’

Feeling more and more like Alice in Wonderland, slipping down a hole, Sorcha haltingly moved forward. If she could just get into the bathroom -

‘You don’t need to look like you’re about to go to your own funeral,’ he drawled, ‘It’ll be nice, I promise…’

Sorcha looked at him then, and stopped by the bed. He’d cut through the turmoil in her brain even as her insides clawed with guilt. Nice? She shook her head as if that might try and clear it. ‘I’m sorry…look…what do you want?’

He pushed himself off the door and strolled towards her with dangerous intent in his eye. Too late, Sorcha realised what his intention was only when he came so close that she couldn’t breathe.

‘I told you that next time we wouldn’t be interrupted…’

He couldn’t mean…

‘I want you.’

He did. Within a cataclysmic split second Sorcha’s world was reduced to Romain pulling her into his arms, chest to chest, and before she could say stop, or go, or even take a breath, his mouth was stealing every bit of sanity from her.

The rush of sensation and reaction made her forget everything. With shocking ease, her whole being melted into his.

The matter of fact way he’d just come in…the intent in his eyes that reached out to wrap her in a haze of desire…it scrambled her brain so much that all she was aware of was the need to have him kiss her again, to feel his arms around her. That last kiss was seared onto her memory, and now she was coming back to life in his arms.

His mouth moved over hers with insistent mastery. A flame of white-hot desire was racing along every one of Sorcha’s veins, and when her mouth opened on a little sigh, and his tongue made contact with hers, her hands reached out and tightened on his shoulders to stop herself from falling at his feet.

Sorcha’s two arms twined up around his neck. She stood on tiptoe, couldn’t stop the hitched indrawn breath against his mouth when she felt his hand on her back, reaching under her T-shirt to stroke up over the silky skin, moulding the outline of the curve of her waist. An aching wanting grew at the apex of her thighs, and when Sorcha innocently moved her hips, felt his arousal press insistently against her, her heart beat so fast she thought it would burst from her chest.

His arms around her felt so good, so strong, and when one hand moved down to cup her bottom through her shorts, moving her even closer, she couldn’t help a little mewl of acquiescence. His hand on her bottom sought to get even closer. She felt him slide it into her pocket—

Sorcha’s whole body went rigid in a second. As if ice had just been poured through every artery. His hand was right there.

She pulled back and looked up into his face. She couldn’t help the look of shock she knew must be there. At another time his reaction might have been almost comical.

He looked surprised at first. Then a small frown appeared and, with deadly, awful inevitability, his fingers closed around the small paper packet and she felt him pull it free from her back pocket. His arms slackened, and all the heat and insanity disappeared as he let her go.

Romain stepped back and a chasm opened up, like an arctic wind blowing between them. Sorcha’s eyes closed, her hands were dead weights by her side. She didn’t think she was even breathing. The situation was so horrifically awful and unfair she couldn’t take in the magnitude of what it meant.

His voice was so cold when it came that it made her flinch.

‘Open your eyes.’

She opened them, and could feel the colour drain from her face again. She was freezing.

He held the folded-up paper which had opened slightly, revealing the white powder between his forefinger and thumb, a look of complete and utter disgust on his face—much the same as hers had been only short moments before. Moments which now felt like years.

‘I…’ Her voice felt scratchy and her lips and mouth still tingled.

‘There is not one thing you can say. Not. One. Thing.’

Sorcha’s mouth shut. The total and utter immediate condemnation on his face shocked her. He hadn’t even a shred of doubt in his mind…and why would he? But it hurt. She bit the inside of her lip so hard she could feel blood. She wrapped her arms around her waist and felt shock set in, felt the shaking starting up, that awful dropping of her stomach—even though she hadn’t even done anything wrong!

But one thing she did know, and it was very clear. She could not subject Lucy to this man’s wrath. She was just a young girl, starting out in her career. And Sorcha knew she’d look even worse in Romain’s eyes if she tried to blame someone else younger, more inexperienced.

Having made the decision to take the blame, or at least protect Lucy, Sorcha felt a kind of calmness wash over her. After all, what did she really have to lose? Wasn’t this what he had expected all along?

The shaking subsided.

Romain saw her chin tilt up minutely, her shoulders straighten. A light of defiance come into her eyes. And as the awful, betraying disappointment rushed through him he felt himself get cold and hard inside. Fool, fool, fool. And yet even now, in the midst of this, he was taking in her huge blue eyes, the delicate pale column of her throat, the way her breasts pushing at the thin fabric of her T-shirt made him think of the way they had just pushed against his chest. And, much to his abject horror, his body reacted to that image, that thought.

He moved towards her, and all Sorcha’s paltry bravado disappeared. He took her arm in a harsh grip and half-dragged, half-walked her over to the bathroom.

He was curt and harsh. ‘You know what to do.’

He thrust the folded-up parcel at her as if it was contaminating him, and Sorcha felt like crying, laughing and screaming all at the same time. What would he say if she told him that this was exactly what she had been about to do before being interrupted?

With shaking hands she emptied it into the toilet, flushing the offending drug away. The sound was magnified unbearably in the tense atmosphere. With legs shaking so much that she’d fall if she didn’t sit, she sank back onto the side of the bath. She looked at the ground. She had to try something.

‘Romain—’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

She looked up, her eyes huge, beseeching, and quailed at the coldness she saw in his face. It was nothing like she’d ever experienced.

She tried again. ‘It’s not what you—’

He laughed harshly, arms crossed against his chest. Arms that had just now held her so tight she’d never wanted him to let her go. She ached inside.

‘Think? That’s original. No wonder you were in such a hurry after lunch. Tell me…’ he said, and he relaxed back against the sink, one hip propped up. But the lines of his body screamed anything but relaxed. ‘Was the whole purpose of your little walk just now to get drugs? Is that why you were so eager to get away? Because you needed a fix? Did you have someone lined up before we even got here? I’m interested to know how this would work. Do you call ahead. Or is it—’

‘Stop it!’ Her hands gripped the edge of the bath as she tried to make sense of what he was saying, the barrage of questions. ‘I…How do you…?’

‘How do I know you took a walk?’ he asked. ‘Because I was taking a walk myself, and saw you go into the temple.’

His mouth twisted as he remembered following her. Being captivated by her.

He looked unbearably harsh. ‘Charming picture. Playing with the kids…taking photos…lighting incense.’ He shook his head. ‘Dieu…what a fool I am. You were on your way to pick up your stash. I actually thought—’

He cut himself off. His eyes were so glacial that Sorcha felt as if a layer of her skin was being peeled off slowly. But she couldn’t take her eyes from his.

‘I lost you, though…after the market where you bought that salwaar kameez. That’s obviously when you went off to find your little…contact.’

She shook her head miserably and stood, legs still shaking.

‘I promise you…it’s not what you think.’

‘Promise me? That’s rich.’ He stood upright and towered over her in the small space. ‘To think that in Dublin when you asked if I would believe you’d never touched drugs I actually thought about it…considered it…I would have believed it if I’d heard nothing but your chain of lies today. But only a mere hour after telling me breathlessly about the outreach centre, how important it is, you’re—’

A look flashed across his face, and as if he’d said too much he cursed in French and strode back out into the bedroom.

Sorcha followed him, stood at the door of the bathroom. He had his back to her, looking out of the patio doors. She didn’t know where to start, what to say. She could see exactly how he would construe events…words…and could only watch his taut, unrelenting back helplessly. And even in the midst of this the memory of how it had felt…He turned and fixed her with those cold eyes, and immediately her skin flushed guiltily. As if he could see her shameful thoughts.