“I’ll tell you what I don’t enjoy now. Your jealousy, chérie,” Christophe replied to her with blistering derision. “At least Meghan knows when to shut up and be feminine and warm...”
“Seriously?”
Lara went white, lowering her lashes over shocked and wounded eyes.
“I can’t believe you just said this…”
Christophe had turned on her with biting cruelty unfamiliar to her.
“All I wanted tonight was the sweet oblivion of your body…”
So that’s my mission tonight after you being away for so long… To provide sex,” Lara countered with a shudder of mingled rage and pain.
“Why not? You’re my wife,” he slung back at her harshly.
Dear God
“Yes… I can see it…” she murmured and felt shivers down her spine.“Perfect! And now you can watch me fall asleep... Such incriminating stuff… Oh, get ready! Meghan makes her entrance in about half an hour…”“Meghan…” Lara echoed weakly.“I could’ve had all this material cut and rearranged, but I didn’t want to spare you a single second of the entertainment.” Swallowing hard, Lara dutifully watched Christophe falling asleep, the most awful suspicion beginning to assail her.“You can fast forward if you like,” she mumbled in a small voice.“Are you sure, chérie?”“Quite sure…” With a sinking heart, Lara watched Meghan creep in and stand gazing down at Christophe. A litt
Black as the darkest night hair against a crisp linen pillow, brown skin against a blindingly white sheet, and tiger’s eyes burning with deliberate cruelty and triumph into hers. In horrified rejection of the imagery that had sprung into her mind, Lara Anderson shuddered violently, dimly aware that she was still in the grip of severe shock. Abruptly, she was dredged from her turmoil by the insistent shrill of the telephone in the hall. Reluctantly she answered the summons, carefully shutting the lounge door behind her so that her father was not disturbed.“Lara...?” She froze, her stunningly beautiful face white as snow between the silken wings of her blonde hair. Her breath caught in her throat in a strangled gasp. The r
Liza had been totally useless, absolutely hysterical somewhere in the background. Lara had found herself in a private ambulance, accompanied not by her friend but by Christophe.“She will follow in my car,” he had asserted, getting in the way of the paramedics while simultaneously telling them what to do. Lara just hadn’t had the strength to fight Christophe Moreau off that day. Her head had been aching fit to burst and her stomach churning with nausea. She had shut her eyes to escape, telling herself that this explosive and domineering stranger was simply attempting to make amends for an accident that hadn’t been his fault in the first place. She had been taken to a clinic, subjected to an alarmingly thorough examination against her will, and tucked into a bed in a very expe
With an inner shudder of distaste, Lara stepped out of the elevator, outraged by the direction of her thoughts. She had come here without allowing herself to think of what she had to face at journey’s end but the eerie familiarity of her surroundings was like a razor twisting inside her. Three years ago, Lara had stalked along this corridor in a rage to confront Christophe Moreau. And even this length of time after the event it was quite impossible for her to explain how she had very nearly ended up in his bed. The two of them... like animals… Her clothing half off, his hands on her body, her hands on his… Obscene, she reflected with a stab of revulsion. And had it not been for the noisy entrance of the chambermaid into the lounge next door to the bedroom, that disgusting incident might’ve gone
“Never!” Lara gasped breathlessly, searing his dark, savage visage with all the tortured fury of her discomfiting and powerless position.“The very image of you touching me again makes me feel physically sick!”“One lesson wasn’t enough for you, was it?” Christophe murmured huskily, narrowed eyes raking over her outraged features. “Don’t you remember how it was like when I made love to you?”“That wasn’t love!” Lara vented fiercely. “That was pure, unadulterated lust! Nothing more!”“And you have a problem with that... I don’t,” Christophe confided in a silky-smooth voice. And then, with a sardonic laugh, he released her when she was least expecting the gesture and thrust her carelessly back from him. Lara was trembling in cons
Lara didn’t need another invitation. On unsteady legs, she backed out in haste. Out in the corridor, she closed her eyes and breathed in slowly and deeply. She felt hurt, alone, worthless, and the sensations were intense. Christophe confused her, cast her into turmoil. He still had this power. They were opposites in every way but just for a strange and highly disturbing moment, she had recognized an utterly inexplicably glimpse of empathy. When she saw that, Lara had wanted to put her arms around him. Crazy! Unbelievable! Just one of those mad tricks of the mind when one’s emotions were on a high... ‘After all, would I pet an enraged tiger plotting to put me on his menu?’ Lara thought. 
She kept the car waiting an hour. Lara packed as though she was going away for the weekend. In the back of her mind, a voice kept on talking… scolding her… ‘You can’t be doing this... You can’t have agreed…’“Three months… This is going to be pure hell,” she whispered and lifted a photo of Randall off the nightstand and stared at it tautly. It had been taken the day he opened the photo studio. He was wearing a suit… so unusual. A slim, fair man of medium height with gentle brown eyes.“It doesn’t matter to me... That sort of thing isn’t really important,” Randall had soothed when she sobbed out her shame and despair after that dreadful afternoon when she had almost ended up s
Silence fell. Since Christophe wasn’t a man easily silenced, Lara looked up. He cleared his throat, tension thrumming from his poised stance by the window.“I want you to pretend to be my fiancée.” She couldn’t hide her astonishment.“Why?”“I have my reasons,” he parried, the anger gone and replaced by a set gravity that disturbed her.“If I have to play this role, I don’t see why you can’t tell me…”“I’ll tell you only this,” he breathed shortly, his golden eyes grim and distant as he studied her. “I’ve been estranged from my father for some years and now he’s dying. I wish to spend some time with him and, in order for me to do so, I need a fiancée to accompany me to his home.”&n