by Lisa Childs
“I’m not afraid of what you might do,” she said.
“I am so mad at you,” he said. “So mad.”
But still so damn attracted to her.
Why was she so beautiful? So tempting?
She stepped closer to him, her blue eyes glistening as if she was fighting tears. He knew too many women who used tears for manipulation, though, so he steeled himself to not be moved by them.
By her.
She’d already manipulated him more than anyone else—his family included—ever had.
“I don’t even know who you are,” he reminded himself—more than her. She knew that she’d lied. And he...
He’d suspected she hadn’t been entirely honest with him. But that hadn’t stopped him from wanting her. Then. Or now.
He reached out and cupped the curve of her cheek in his palm. Now he realized why her skin wasn’t as silky as it had been when they’d first met. That damn beard.
She must have had to glue it on to her face to keep it from sliding off.
“I don’t understand why you lied, and the disguise...” he murmured. It made no sense to him.
“I’ll explain everything,” she said.
But he shook his head. “Why the hell would I believe anything you tell me? You’ve lied about everything.” Even her attraction to him?
Had her passion been faked like everything else?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BLAIR WAS HURTING for him and for herself. She assured him, “I didn’t lie about everything.”
He shook his head and said, his voice thick with disgust, “You even lied about your name.”
“Savannah is my first name,” she said. “I’ve just always used my middle name instead.”
“What about Bill?” he asked. “Is that another name? What about Tom, Dick and Harry? Do you use them, too?”
Heat flushed her face. “The Bill thing was a mistake. I thought—when Grant told me that you didn’t want a female pilot—I thought you were being sexist. And I wanted to teach you a lesson.”
He moved his hand away from her face to rub over his own now. “I sure as hell learned a lesson. To never trust you again.”
Blair’s temper flared now. “You’re not even going to listen to me, are you?”
He shook his head. “I’m too damn mad.”
“Okay, Grant is right.” But she wouldn’t admit that to him when she saw him next. “This isn’t a good idea. We shouldn’t try to talk about this now.”
“I agree,” he said. “We shouldn’t talk at all.” But instead of walking away, he stepped closer, so his body, which nearly vibrated with fury, rubbed against hers.
Passion flared more fiercely than her temper, and her skin heated and tingled as her pulse began to race. Blair never felt as out of control as she did now, as desperate with desire. Knowing she was losing him, probably forever, spurred an urgency inside her and apparently inside him as well.
They reached for each other at the same time, hands grasping, mouths mating...
In their haste to undress each other, clothing ripped. A button pinged off her shirt and another off his, hitting the concrete floor before bouncing away. She didn’t care. She wanted him so badly.
She clawed at his belt, unclasping it and the button on his jeans. Then she dragged down the zipper and released him. He was doing the same to her, pulling down her pants, pushing aside her panties.
His fingers stroked her to an even greater frenzy. And his mouth...
His mouth nipped and bit at hers with angry, hot kisses. Then he slid his tongue between her lips as he slid his fingers inside her.
She was so on edge that she nearly came then. A cry—of frustration—slipped out of her. She closed her hand around his cock and moved it up and down, pumping him.
He grunted and groaned and pulled back. Fumbling in his wallet, he pulled out a condom. His hand shook as badly as she was shaking, and he was barely able to tear it open.
Blair took it from him and tore it open with her teeth. Then she rolled the condom onto him. She kicked off her pants and shoes, and he lifted her up and guided her down onto his cock.
She wrapped her legs around his lean waist and her arms around his shoulders, holding tightly to him. He staggered a bit—either from her weight or from the alcohol he’d had with her brother.
He stumbled back and settled her onto the edge of the table. Glasses bounced and cards flew as he thrust inside her—over and over again. He was clearly as desperate for a release as she was.
But even as angry as he was, he wasn’t selfish. He pushed her open shirt back and shoved down her bra. Then he cupped her breasts in his hands and stroked her nipples into taut, sensitive points.
The sensation streaked through her, making her core pulsate even more. She throbbed and ached everywhere with that unbearable tension gripping her. She needed the release that only he had ever really been able to give her—the powerful, mind-blowing relief.
He moved one hand from her breast, over her stomach to her clit. And his thumb stroked over it as he continued to thrust deeper and deeper inside her.
The tension wound even more tightly through her until finally it broke, crashing through her body, making her shudder. She screamed his name, the intensity of it all overwhelming her.
He kept thrusting until his body tensed—then he, too, shuddered. A deep guttural sound tore from his throat—along with her name.
“Savannah...”
As soon as it left his lips, his eyes opened wider—with shock. And he shook his head. “No, you’re Blair.”
“I’m the same person,” she assured him. “You know who I am. You know my body, my soul.”
He shook his head again.
“And I know you,” she persisted. “I know what you like—what drives you wild.” She wanted him as crazy as he’d just been—wanted him to want her so much that he didn’t care about anything else.
That he didn’t care about everything she’d kept from him. So she touched him, sliding her palms down his muscular back to his butt. And she moved her fingers between his ass cheeks, stroking him where he was most sensitive.
His cock hardened inside her again, pulsating with renewed passion. “You make me crazy,” he said, his voice gruff with desire and frustration. “You make me lose control.”
And he obviously didn’t like it.
But he didn’t stop. He didn’t pull away from her. Instead he began to move again, slower, deeper before the frenzy gripped him again.
And her...
She thrust up with such force that the table bounced beneath her. Cards dropped onto the floor and the liquor bottle tipped over and rolled. She didn’t care if it hit the floor. She didn’t care about anything but Teo.
He focused on her again, bending over so that his mouth reached her breasts. He kissed and nipped, driving her insane with his lips—with his tongue.
The pressure returned to her core, gripping her, driving her mad again with the need for release. She moved her legs, lifting them higher, so that he drove even deeper.
Again and again...
And his thumb found her most sensitive area, rubbing her clit until the sensation alone drove her over the edge. She found madness and pleasure—both of them claiming her mind, gripping her body, making her scream his name again.
He drove deep and came. But he said nothing this time, his jaw taut as if he was gritting his teeth to hold in her name. To hold in his feelings...even as he released his desire inside her.
And she knew she hadn’t reached him, not the way she’d wanted to. Even as he stayed buried deep inside her, she felt him slipping away from her.
Forever.
* * *
Panting for breath, Teo leaned his face against hers. And he felt the wetness of tears on her skin. He jerked back, horrified at himself—at hi
s loss of control. He could only hope that her tears were fake now.
Because if they were real...
He was a monster for how he’d taken her—so fiercely. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice cracking with concern. He jerked out of her and away from her. Shocked, he stared at what they’d done. Her hair was tangled around her shoulders, her shirt torn. He couldn’t remember ever losing control that much. Horrified at himself, he asked, “Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m the one who hurt you. And I’m so very sorry.”
He couldn’t deny that she had hurt him, so deeply that his heart was aching from her betrayal. She’d lied to him—tricked him. Humiliated him...
Knowing that she was all right, he needed a moment to pull himself together. Noticing the door for the restroom, he headed there to clean up—to run cold water on his face. He could only hope that like every other time he’d separated from her after sex, she would be gone when he went back into the office. But when he returned, she was there.
Fortunately she had dressed. And she must have had another uniform somewhere because the shirt was crisply ironed with no missing buttons.
Unlike his.
A hole gapped open over his chest—which was probably appropriate because he felt like he’d been stabbed in the heart. Or maybe the back.
Both.
“Will you let me explain now?” she asked. “Will you listen to me?”
Despite what had happened between them or maybe because of it, he wasn’t ready. He was too raw. Too wounded.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“That’s not fair,” she said.
He snorted at her audacity in calling him that. “What’s not fair is you never giving us a chance,” he said. “You lied to me from the beginning. So many times you could have told me the truth. Now I wonder if you ever would have...if I hadn’t still been here when you came back.”
“I was going to tell you,” she insisted. “I intended to tell you everything the second time I met you in Milan. Then there was the fashion show. So I decided to do it in Paris. I really did. But...”
He shrugged. “I don’t remember you wanting to talk at all. Why didn’t you tell me the truth then?” he asked as anger surged through him again. What had she been after—money? Or just sex? “Why?”
“Because I didn’t think you would understand.”
“You were right,” he confirmed for her. Even if she’d told him then, he would have been angry. Hurt. Deceived...
“And I didn’t want this to end,” she continued. “That why I couldn’t bring myself to confess.”
He expelled a ragged breath. “But because you weren’t honest with me, it never really started. Whatever we had—it was never real. It was all just a lie.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true and you know it. What we have—this passion...”
“Is just attraction,” he said. “We don’t have true intimacy—because you only have true intimacy with true honesty. I don’t think you even know what that is.”
She expelled a sharp breath of her own, as if he’d struck her. “You can’t say that. You don’t know me.”
“And whose fault is that?” he asked. He forced himself to look away from her—to break the connection between them—because no matter what he’d said, he knew they had one. A powerful one...
Maybe too powerful.
So he made himself walk away. He had to. For his protection.
He couldn’t listen to her explanation. Not now, maybe not ever.
Because he would never trust that she was telling him the truth. He would never trust her, and without trust, they had no future together.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
BLAIR COULDN’T EVEN tell Teo that she loved him—because he wouldn’t believe her. He wouldn’t believe anything she said, so Blair didn’t say anything at all. She just let him walk away...without a fight.
She’d told him that he didn’t know her. Right now she didn’t know herself. But then she hadn’t been herself since she’d met him. The attraction she’d felt so instantly for him had scared her so much that she’d wanted to protect herself. At all costs.
She’d had no idea how much she would lose. Even herself...
Her greatest fear was realized; she had become her mother. A hollow shell of the person she’d once been.
While he’d been in the bathroom, she’d dressed. But now she focused on cleaning up the office area, so it wouldn’t be so obvious what had happened there. As she righted the bottle of whiskey, she considered uncapping and drinking what was left. But there wasn’t enough to drown her sorrows.
Hell, an ocean of alcohol wouldn’t be enough to even dull the pain she was feeling. Hinges creaked as a door opened. Her pulse quickened.
Heavy footsteps pounded against the concrete floor as someone walked down the hall toward her. Had Teo come back to her? Had he calmed down enough to let her explain why she’d done what she had?
But it wasn’t Teo who walked into the room. It was Grant. Disappointment overwhelmed her, and she broke down in tears again.
Grant cursed and stepped closer. “What did he do? If he hurt you, I will kill him.”
“He didn’t hurt me,” she assured her brother. “I hurt him.”
Grant sighed. “Yeah, I think you did. I’ve never seen anyone look as devastated as he did when he saw you in the doorway and put it all together.” He sighed again. “Until now. You look even more devastated than he did.”
“I can’t fix this,” she said, her voice vibrating with frustration. “He’s not going to let me fix this.”
And that was why she’d been so scared to tell him the truth. Because she’d known that she would lose him when she did. Forever...
“Do you want to fix this?” Grant asked.
“Yes,” she replied quickly.
“But I know how honest you always are, so you had a reason for lying to him, a damn good one,” he prodded. “You didn’t want to get serious, or you were worried that he would get too serious. You must have kept him at arm’s length for a reason.”
“I tried to keep him at arm’s length,” she said. But he got too close to her anyway, so close that he had become part of her. “But I fell for him anyway.”
“I blame your damn friend who has never been a friend to you at all,” he said.
“She told me to be honest with him,” Blair defended Miranda.
“She shouldn’t have set you up with anyone in the first place,” Grant said. “The last thing either one of us needs right now, with getting the business off the ground, is a relationship.” He reached out and awkwardly patted her shoulder. “You’ll see that this is for the best.”
She shook her head. Losing Teo was the worst thing that could have happened to her—even worse than falling for him.
“I know the guy is a billionaire and all, but seriously, the way he plays cards, he’ll be broke in no time,” Grant assured her.
“I didn’t care about his money,” she said. She cared about his integrity, his loyalty, his passion...
She suspected she would never experience passion like that again—from him or from anyone else. And she doubted she would ever feel as much passion as she had for him.
“Man, you really did it,” Grant said. “You really fell for him.”
“I know.”
“That’s too damn bad,” Grant said with more pity than sympathy. “Too damn bad.”
It wouldn’t have been, had she been honest with Teo from the beginning. Now she didn’t know how to fix it—if she even could.
“You’ll be okay, though,” Grant assured her. “You’re tough.”
She’d always taken pride in her strength, but now she realized she wasn’t as brave as she’d always thought she was. Because if she was brave, she would have been honest with
him from the beginning.
She drew in a deep, steadying breath and nodded. “I will be okay,” she agreed. Despite not being quite as strong as she’d thought she was, she was strong enough to pull herself together again.
Even though she’d lost herself for a little while, like her mother had, she wasn’t her mother. She had her work—her business—and in focusing on that, she would find herself again.
Her passion had always been flying.
Until Teo.
But she would find her passion—in flying—again. And that would have to be enough.
* * *
Teo was hurting so damn badly that he wanted to hurt someone else. Not Blair...
He didn’t want to hurt Blair. Hell, he never wanted to see Blair again. Or her brother.
Because Grant reminded him too much of Blair. So with wanting nothing to do with Private Flights, he’d been forced to fly commercial again. Hell, he needed to find a pilot. One who didn’t drink or wear disguises.
He had to admit Blair was a damn good pilot—just as her brother had bragged. If only she’d been honest with him.
She hadn’t promised that she would tell him the truth, but Liaisons International had promised that she would. That members didn’t lie or play games or have ulterior motives.
So he’d redirected his anger toward the dating service. And he’d demanded a meeting with Miranda Fox. But he’d had to fly to their main office in Monaco to meet with her, thus the bumpy, overcrowded commercial flight followed by a helicopter ride.
He couldn’t blame his foul mood entirely on it, though. He was furious yet, furious with himself for being duped, furious with himself for falling for a liar, no matter how beautiful she was.
But most of all, he was furious with Liaisons International. His hand shook as he reached for the doorknob of their office suite. He gripped it so hard, he was surprised he didn’t dent the metal. Then he pushed open the door with such force that it swung back and struck the wall behind it.
