Since her family had moved in Skippy had been a little neglected, she conceded guiltily. When had she last taken him for anything other than the shortest of walks?
Thoroughly unsettled, however, by her stepmother’s sanguine reference to Bastien Zikos as a possible saviour, Lilah abandoned Skippy to pull on her raincoat, knotting the belt at her narrow waist.
She was a small, slender woman, with long black hair and bright blue eyes. She was also one of the very few workers still actively employed at Moore Components now it had gone bust. The Official Receivers had come in, taken over and laid off most of the staff. Only the services of the human resources team had been retained, to deal with all the admin involved in closing down the business. Engaged to work just two more days there, Lilah knew that she too would soon be unemployed.
Vickie was already zipping Ben into his jacket, because Lilah left the little boy at nursery school on her way into work.
It was a brisk spring day, with a breeze, and constantly forced to claw her hair out of her eyes, Lilah regretted not having taken the time to put her hair up long before she dropped her little brother off at the school. Unfortunately she had been suffering sleepless nights and scrambling out of bed every morning heavy-eyed, running late.
Ever since she had learned that Bastien Zikos had bought her father’s failed business she had been struggling to hide her apprehension. In that less-than-welcoming attitude to the new owner, however, Lilah stood very much alone. The Receivers had been ecstatic to find a buyer, while her father and various resident worthies had expressed the hope that the new owner would re-employ some of the people who had lost their jobs when Moore Components closed.
Only Lilah, who had once received a disturbing glimpse of the cold diamond-cutting strength of Bastien’s ruthlessness, was full of pessimism and thought the prospect of Bastien arriving to break good news to the local community unlikely.
In fact, if ever a man could have been said to have scared Lilah, it was Bastien Zikos. Everything about the tall, amazingly handsome Greek had unnerved her. The way he looked, the way he talked, the domineering way he behaved. His whole attitude had been anathema to her and she had backed off fast—only to discover, to her dismay, that that kind of treatment only put Bastien into pursuit mode.
Although Lilah was only twenty-three she had distrusted self-assured, slick and handsome men all her life, fully convinced that most of them were lying, cheating players. After all, even her own father had once been like that—a serial adulterer whose affairs had caused her late mother great unhappiness.
Lilah didn’t like to dwell on those traumatic years, when she had begun to hate her father, because it had seemed then that he could not be trusted with any woman—not her mother’s friends, not even his office staff. Mercifully all that behaviour had stopped once her father met Vickie, and since then Lilah had contrived to forge a new and much closer relationship with her surviving parent. Only now Robert Moore had settled down was his daughter able to respect him again and forgive him for the past.
Bastien, on the other hand, was not the family-man type, and he had always enjoyed his bad reputation as a womaniser. He was an unashamed sexual predator, accustomed to reaching out and just taking any woman who took his fancy. He was rich, astute and incredibly good-looking. Women fell like ninepins around him, running to him the instant he crooked an inviting finger. But Lilah had run in the opposite direction, determined not to have her heart broken and her pride trampled by a man who only wanted her for her body.
She was worth more than that, she reminded herself staunchly, as she had done two years earlier—much more. She wanted a man who loved and cared about her and who would stick by her no matter what came their way.
Being powerfully attracted to a man like Bastien Zikos had been a living nightmare for Lilah, and she had refused to acknowledge her reaction to him or surrender to the temptation he provided. Yet even now, two years on, Lilah could still remember her first sight of him across a crowded auction room. Bastien...tall, dark and devastating, with his glorious black-lashed tawny eyes.
She had been there to view a pendant that had once belonged to her mother and which Vickie, unaware of Lilah’s attachment to the piece, had put up for sale. Lilah had planned to buy it back quietly at auction, preferring that option to the challenge of telling Vickie that she had actually been pretty upset when her father had so thoughtlessly given all her late mother’s jewellery to his then live-in girlfriend.
And the first person Lilah had seen that day had been Bastien, black hair falling over his brow, his bold bronzed profile taut as he examined something in his hand while an auction assistant in overalls stood by an open display cabinet. When she had been directed to that same cabinet she had been hugely taken aback to see that Bastien had had her mother’s very ordinary silver sea horse pendant clasped in his lean brown hand.
‘What are you doing with that?’ she’d asked possessively.
‘What’s it to you?’ Bastien had asked bluntly, glancing up and transfixing her with breathtaking dark brown eyes enhanced by lush, curling black lashes.
In that split second he had travelled in her estimation from merely handsome to utterly gorgeous, and her breath had tripped in her throat and her heart had started hammering—as if she stood on the edge of a dangerous precipice.
‘It belonged to my mother.’
‘Where did she get it from?’ Bastien had shot at her, thoroughly disconcerting her.
‘I was with her when she bought it at a car boot sale almost twenty years ago,’ Lilah had confided. although she’d been startled by his question, not to mention the intensity of his appraisal.
‘My mother lost it in London some time around then,’ Bastien had mused in a dark, deep accented drawl that had sent odd little quivers travelling down her spine. He had turned over the pendant to display the engraving on the back, composed of two letter As enclosed in a heart shape. ‘My father Anatole gave it to my mother Athene. What an extraordinary coincidence that it should have belonged to both our mothers.’
‘Extraordinary...’ Lilah had agreed jerkily. as disturbed by his proximity as by his explanation. He’d been close enough that she’d been able to see the dark stubble shadowing his strong jawline and smell the citrus-sharp tenor of his cologne. Her nostrils had flared as she’d taken a hasty step backwards and cannoned into someone behind her.
Bastien had shot out a hand to steady her before she could stumble, long brown fingers closing round her narrow shoulder like a metal vice to keep her upright.
Lilah had jerked back again, breathless and flushed, heat flickering in places she had never felt warm before as her gaze had collided with the tall Greek’s stunning eyes.
‘May I see the pendant before it goes back in the cabinet?’ she had asked curtly, putting out her hand.
‘There’s not much point in you looking at it. I’m planning to buy it,’ Bastien had imparted drily.
Lilah’s teeth had snapped together as though he had slapped her. ‘So am I,’ she had admitted grudgingly.
With reluctance Bastien had settled the pendant into her hand. Her eyes had prickled as she looked at it, because her mother had loved the fanciful piece and had often worn it in summer. The pendant reawakened a few of the happier memories of Lilah’s childhood.
‘Join me for coffee,’ Bastien had urged, flipping the pendant back out of her hand to return it to the hovering assistant.
Lilah had dealt him a bemused look of surprise. ‘It would hardly be a-appropriate,’ she’d stammered. ‘Not when we’re both going to bid on the same lot.’
‘Maybe I’m sentimental. Maybe I would like to hear about where the necklace has been all these years.’
Bastien had dangled that unlikely assurance in front of her like a prize carrot and she had caved in to coffee, feeling that to do otherwise would be rude and unreasonab
le.
And so her brief acquaintance with Bastien Zikos had begun, Lilah recalled unhappily. Hurriedly she blanked out the memories of that short week she never, ever allowed herself to think about, far too well aware of how mortifyingly long it was taking for her to forget meeting Bastien Zikos. Yet she had never had any regrets about turning him down—not then and not since, even when the most cursory internet search of Bastien’s name always revealed the never-ending parade of different beauties that it took to keep Bastien happy. Quantity rather than quality was what Bastien went for in women, she had often thought, while telling herself that she had made the only decision she could...even if he still hated her for it.
As Lilah walked through the factory gates, saddened by the lack of vehicles and bustle that had used to characterise the once busy site, her mobile phone rang. Digging it out, she answered it. It was Josh, whom she had gone to university with, and he was suggesting she join him and a few friends for a night out. Every six weeks or so they met up as a group, went for a meal and out to see a film. One or two of the group were couples, the others simply friends. Josh, for example, was recovering from a broken engagement, and Lilah’s last boyfriend had dumped her as soon as her father’s business had hit the skids.
‘Tomorrow night?’ Lilah queried, thinking about it and liking the idea, because evenings in her crowded little house were currently far from relaxing and the idea of getting out was attractive. ‘What time?’
Her friends would take her mind off things, she reflected gratefully, and stop her constantly fretting about a situation she had no control over. Unfortunately for Lilah an instinctive need to fix broken things and rescue people and animals ran deep and strong in her veins.
* * *
From the main office on the top floor, Bastien watched Delilah Moore cross the Moore Components car park with laser-sharp attention. She was still the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, he acknowledged, angry that that should still strike him as being the case. There had been a lot of women in his bed since he had met Robert Moore’s daughter, but none of them had held his interest for very long.
Bastien still saw Delilah in the same light as he had first seen her, with her silky black curling cloud of hair falling almost to her waist and her sapphire-blue eyes electrifyingly noticeable against her creamy, perfect skin. Even wearing worn jeans and scuffed biker boots she’d had that casual effortlessly elegant look which some women had no matter what they wore.
Then, as now, he had told himself impatiently that she wasn’t his type. With a single exception he had always gone for tall curvy blondes. Delilah was tiny, and very slender—the complete opposite of voluptuous. He just couldn’t explain what made her so appealing to him, and that annoyed Bastien because anything he couldn’t control or understand annoyed him.
This time around, he would get close enough to see all her flaws, he promised himself grimly.
* * *
‘The new boss is in the building!’ carolled Lilah’s colleague Julie as soon as she walked into the small office the two women shared.
Halfway out of her coat, Lilah froze. ‘When did he arrive?’
‘The security guard said it was barely seven...talk about an early start!’ Julie gushed admiringly. ‘Mr Zikos has brought a whole team with him—I think that’s hopeful, don’t you? He is seriously good-looking too.’
Lilah’s coat finally made it on to the hook. Her slender spine was rigid. ‘Really?’
‘Absolutely beautiful...like a male supermodel. Maggie made coffee for him and even she agreed,’ Julie said, referring to the office cleaner and tea lady, a known man-hater, who was hard to impress. ‘But Maggie said it isn’t his first visit. Apparently he was here a couple of years back?’
‘Yes, he was. He was interested in buying this place then.’
‘You knew that? You’ve seen him before?’ Julie exclaimed in consternation. ‘Why didn’t you mention it?’
‘With all that’s been going on, it didn’t seem important,’ Lilah muttered, sitting down at her desk and closing her ears while Julie lamented her lack of interest in the new owner of Moore Components.
A young man with a neatly clipped beard entered their office an hour later. ‘Miss Moore?’ he asked, stopping in front of Lilah’s desk. ‘I’m one of Mr Zikos’ team—Andreas Theodakis. Mr Zikos would like to see you in his office.’
Lilah lost colour and tried and failed to swallow, scolding herself for the instantaneous fear that washed through her. Of course Bastien wasn’t going to harm her in any way. Why did even the thought of him charge her with near panic?
As she mounted the stairs she breathed slow and deep to compose herself. Bastien would want to crow, wouldn’t he? He had got the business at a knockdown price and the Moore family had lost it, exactly as he had predicted. Rich, powerful men probably liked to boast whenever they got the opportunity, she reasoned uncertainly. For, really, her brain cried, what did she know about rich, powerful men? After all, Bastien was the only rich and powerful man she had ever met.
He was using her father’s office, and it felt exceedingly strange to Lilah to be entering such a familiar space and find her father absent. Her eyes flickered super-fast over Bastien without pausing, as she registered that no other person was to be present for their meeting. Was that a good sign or a bad one?
‘Mr Zikos,’ she framed tightly.
‘Oh. I think you can still call me Bastien,’ he derided, studying her while wondering how on earth she could look so good in a plain black skirt of indeterminate length and a shapeless camel sweater.
Curly black hair lay in tumbled skeins across her shoulders. It was still the same length. He would have been vexed had she had it cut shorter. But, no, it was unchanged, and there was still something strangely fascinating about that long, long black hair that had ensnared his attention the instant he first saw it. And something equally memorable about the striking contrast between her bright blue eyes and her pale porcelain-fine skin.
Forced to look at him properly for the first time, Lilah froze, willing her rigid facial muscles to relax, ensuring that she betrayed no reaction to him. It was an exercise she had become adept at using in self-defence two years earlier. Her breath rattled in her throat, as if she had been dropped unexpectedly into a dark and haunted house where she was surrounded by unseen threats.
Bastien stood about six foot four inches tall, a clear twelve inches bigger than she was, which meant she could easily get away with focusing on his blue silk tie. But the glance she had got at him as she’d entered the office was still etched on her brain—as if it had been burned there in lines of fire with a red-hot poker.
Whether she liked it or not, Julie had hit it right on the nail: Bastien did have a supermodel look, from his sculpted high cheekbones, classically arrogant nose and strong jawline to his full, incredibly kissable lips. Uncomfortable warmth washed up over her skin and she reddened, gritting her teeth, because she knew that she was blushing and that he would notice. Why would he notice? Because Bastien never missed a trick.
‘Take a seat, Delilah...’ Bastien indicated one of the armchairs beside the coffee table in one corner of the spacious panelled room.
‘It’s Lilah,’ she corrected, and not for the first time.
He had always insisted on calling her by her full name—that name with its biblical connotations, which had caused her so much embarrassment from primary right up through to secondary school.
‘I prefer De-lilah,’ Bastien purred, with all the satisfaction of a jungle cat who had been lapping cream.
Lilah sank down in the chair, her slender spine too rigid to curve into the support of the seat. Her entire attention was locked on to Bastien and she clashed unwarily with his truly spectacular eyes. Tawny brown, golden in sunshine, literally mesmerising and surrounded by the most fabulous velvety black lashes, she reflected dizzily
, plunged into one of the terrifying time-out-of-time lapses of concentration and discipline which Bastien had frequently inflicted on her two years earlier.
‘I can’t think why you would want to see me,’ Lilah told him quietly, just as the door opened and Maggie bustled in with a tray of coffee and biscuits.
Lilah jumped up and immediately removed the tray from the older woman’s grasp. Maggie had chosen to work well beyond retirement and, although she would never have admitted the fact, Maggie now found it difficult to carry heavy trays.
‘I would’ve been fine,’ Maggie scolded.
Lilah settled the tray of fancy silverware and fine china which her father’s secretary had kept for VIPs down on the table. Maggie departed. Lilah poured the coffee and sugared Bastien’s before she had even thought about what she was doing.
‘You can’t think why I would want to see you?’ Bastien queried, unimpressed by the claim. ‘How very modest you are...’
Suspecting him of mockery, Lilah flushed and extended his coffee to him. He reached for the cup and took a sip of the black, heavily sweetened coffee, smiling when he discovered that she had got it right.
Striving to play it cool and composed, Lilah lifted her own cup and saucer—but that smile...oh, that smile...was flipping up the corners of his beautiful mouth, transforming his lean, dark forbidding features with an almost boyish grin. Helplessly she stared, sapphire-blue eyes widening.
‘Today,’ Bastien drawled lazily, ‘you are a very influential young woman, because it is in your power to decide what happens next to Moore Components.’
Lilah kept on staring at him, literally locked into immobility by that astonishing assurance. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
Copyright © 2015 by Lynne Graham
ISBN-13: 9781460386408
From One Night to Wife
From One Night to Wife Page 18
