Alle Kapitel von The Billionaire Bargain : Kapitel 91 – Kapitel 100

Do we have to do this now?" He paused his hands on the keyboard and then lowered his face, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms. "I'm sorry, yes. Right. Okay. What is it, Elizabeth?"She widened her eyes at his condescending tone. The fact that he would always put Gagnon Enterprises and his business before her caused such a tightness in her stomach that she thought she might be sick. Perhaps Marie was correct; maybe she was just his plaything all the time. If she brought in revenue, he might give her five minutes of his time.What we were going to do was talk... about us. Your voice shook with urgency as you said at dinner that you wanted to say something.He leaned back and his face showed neither the slightest emotion nor any indication of what was going on inside his mind. "Sure we can wait a day? Hmm?"​"No, Henri, it can't."He sat up straighter, tied his fingers together, and remained quiet for what seemed like forever. She was alarmed by his calm; he was too still and t

The elevator doors closed with a quiet and heavy thud, leaving the loud noise of Henri’s study behind as if it had been shut out by a sheet of polished steel. Elizabeth pressed the forehead against the cold mirror of the cabin, the vibration from the descent pulsing through her skull as though she had a low fever. The only thing keeping her firmly on the ground was her hand, which was white-knuckled around the handle of her suitcase.Regret settled in her chest like lead, heavy and unyielding.How could she have allowed herself to fall for a man who saw vulnerability as a tactical weakness? She closed her eyes and the faint sound of his voice resounded in the small room—amour, uttered in that deadly French accent which had used to make her heart leap, only for it to be immediately reduced to an insult that pierced her to the core. Every night they had sex; he had turned each quiet midnight, each gentle look that she had thought she had managed to catch behind his walls, into a mere tr

Ten minutes, Miss Stone? Can't you at least give me that?"The voice he emitted appeared to hit the smooth oak of the desk and rebound, carrying with it a sense of impatience that he was unable to hold back. Elizabeth did not raise her head at once. She was sitting close to the edge of the leather armchair, with a stiff posture and her small hands tightly folded over the leather strap of her handbag."You were acting—" She stopped herself, seeming offended by how quickly her thoughts were coming. She sat up suddenly, her spine straightening so much that it looked as though it had hurt. "Like a real jerk."Henri took a sharp, incredulous breath and said, "You rude little brat! Is that the way you, a little know-it-all that I've brought up, put it?"He uttered the words before he had a chance to stop or filter them, saying them in a sharp, dismissive tone with that casual arrogance which had got him through boardrooms for more than ten years. But as soon as they were in the quiet atmos

It was only when her dark lashes lifted and she looked directly at him that the complete devastation in her eyes drove all the remaining air out of his lungs. Although he had anticipated anger or perhaps passion or defiance, he never expected the sharp, piercing pain that shot through him at her next words."I don't want to be your mistress," she said, her voice falling to a quiet, deadly calm that was more damaging than any scream. "The only thing I ever wanted was something genuine—true love and sincere intentions—not this fake sexual arrangement you keep asking for since you're too frightened to risk your heart."She broke free from him, doing so in a deliberate and smooth manner, and opened the heavy doors.Henri muttered a curse and, as he stepped out into the hallway behind her, ran both hands through his hair. The outer office was completely silent. The three administrative assistants were frozen over their keyboards, their eyes wide and their fingers remaining in mid-air.Disr

Henri was alone in his office and, standing in his executive leather chair, stared out through the floor-to-ceiling glass window.The 19th floor was completely unoccupied and was filled with a thick, unnatural silence. It was 3:00 a.m., yet nothing on this earth, nor any power in hell or in high water, could make him go back by himself to his empty apartment tonight. Never had his penthouse seemed so immense or so bitterly cold since Elizabeth Stone had left.His entire house was filled with the memory of her being gone. The clean silk sheets still bore the faint, clear smell of her lavender perfume. More terrible still, earlier that same hour he had knelt on the cold floor of his bathroom and discovered a tube of her usual nude lipstick lying underneath the sink. Never, throughout all the years of his coldly calculated behaviour, had he experienced such intense sorrow. The deep and continuous loneliness that followed from that simple and unexpected discovery was incredible and create