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

She rang off, unable to complete the call in any rational manner. She screwed her eyes shut in mortification. Oh, God, she’d sounded like a demented halfwit. She’d wanted to come across as cool—sophisticated, even—the kind of woman who could phone up a man like Xavier Lauran and suggest an affair.

Her cheeks burned. There was no one to witness her embarrassment, but that didn’t make it any easier.

Perhaps the secretary in Paris won’t pass the message on—perhaps she’ll just think it so stupid she’ll bin it, or not even have written it down.

She hoped it were so—the very thought of Xavier being solemnly handed her incoherent stutterings was too humiliating to contemplate.

Her expression tightened. Well, it was probably for the best. It had been self-indulgence, stupid and fantastical self-indulgence, to think that she could turn the clock back. She’d had her chance with Xavier Lauran, that solitary, magical evening, and she’d had to turn it down—turn him down. Men like him didn’t give second chances—and now that she’d gone and displayed herself as some kind of gibbering moron with that demented message, if he was given it by his secretary, the only thing he’d feel would be relief that he hadn’t taken her to bed that night after all.

Forcibly, she made herself turn away and walk back to her desk. As she sat down at her PC again, a wave of flattening despair crushed down on her. Xavier Lauran would not be walking back into her life again. He had gone, and he would stay gone.

Once more the world seemed drained of colour.

After Armand’s whirlwind descent, the flat seemed even more dreary than usual. And so very quiet. Even though Lissa could only rejoice at the reason, her spirits that evening were made even lower by the quiet. At least, blessedly, the evenings were her own now. That nightmare job at the casino had been the first to go after Armand’s miraculous reappearance.

That was what she should focus on. Everything was wonderful now—thanks to Armand. And she had no business wanting even more.

She should never have tried to get in touch with Xavier Lauran. It had been greed, nothing more—and self-indulgence, wanting yet more good fortune on top of all that had been showered down on her.

It was not to be. She must accept that and let it go. She’d forget him soon—he was just a fantasy. A daydream. Nothing more than that.

It was easy to say, however—far less easy to heed her own advice.

She must think of Armand instead—of the miracle he had wrought, and all that was happening now in America. She longed to phone him—but she had promised to wait for news.

Please let it be good news.

He would phone her, he had promised, when there was something to tell—but until then she must be patient. He would take care of everything and take care especially of—

The piercing shrill of the doorbell shattered her thoughts in that direction.

Who on earth?

Anxiety bit at her suddenly. Surely it was not Armand? It couldn’t be—it mustn’t be.

The doorbell rang again. Urgent and imperative. On suddenly trembling legs she hurried to the door and unhooked the entryphone. There was no way she was opening the front door to the street without checking first to find out who was there.

‘Hello?’ She made her voice sound brisk and businesslike. Not like a home alone female.

The voice at the other end was distorted, but as it penetrated her ear, faintness drummed through her.

It was Xavier Lauran.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THERE WAS SILENCE, complete silence, through the rusting grille of the entryphone system. Xavier stood, every muscle tensed.

Emotion tore at him.

Had that garbled message his PA had relayed to him with a deadpan face really been what the few incoherent words implied? The fractured phrases were burned in his mind.

Things have changed … completely … at my end. Something very unexpected … My former commitments are … finished. I’m no longer … So, if he wanted …

If the words were true it could mean only one thing.

She and Armand were finished.

It was blunt, it was brutal—but if, if it really were true, then—

One thought and one alone burned in his mind. I can have her.

Triumph surged in him. If his brother no longer had a claim on her, then those damning words of hers—I can’t—no longer mattered. Were no longer true.

If.

So small a word, so much hanging on it.

It must be true. Why else would she have phoned?

He needed to know. Right now. Frustration stabbed at him again, poisonously mixing with hope.

Why wouldn’t she open the damn door?

As if he’d spoken the words aloud, there was a sudden ping from the door and the lock yielded. He pushed it open instantly and strode inside. There was a narrow corridor, lit only by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stairs led away up from the central area. Everything looked bleak and bare. But he had eyes for none of it—only for the woman standing in the doorway of the ground-floor flat, clinging on to the doorjamb.

He went to her. He caught her to him. Dropped his mouth to hers.

His kiss was urgent, possessive, putting his brand on her. She collapsed against him, boneless. Triumph surged in him. He let her go, slipping his hands either side of her face, tilting it up to him. Her eyes were huge.

‘Why did you phone me?’

His voice sounded fierce, and he saw her pupils distend even more.

‘I … I …’ Her voice was faint, her body still weakly collapsed against his, held upright only because of the strength in the palms of his hands, holding her face as he looked down at her, towering over her.

‘I need to know,’ he said, and his voice was still fierce. ‘I need to know if you are free to come to me.’

There was a soft rasp in her throat. And then, as if a dam had broken inside her, she suddenly flung her arms around him and crushed her face against his shoulder. His hands slid around her back automatically, cradling her.

‘Is that a yes, cherie?’ The edge was still there, but something else, as well. His hands began to stroke up and down the length of her spine. She lifted her face away from him. Her eyes were shining like a rainbow. Something leapt in him.

Then she breathed a word—a single word.

‘Xavier.’ It was a sigh, it was an exhalation, it was all he needed to hear.

Very slowly, he brought his mouth down on hers again.

Exultation flowed like a rich, deep tide.