Magnate's Make-Believe Mistress (9 page)

“Lucky duke,” he murmured, and Isabelle exhaled on a note that was part laughter and part disbelief. The awful thing? She could imagine him handling that situation with his usual sangfroid. As for her own sangfroid…Well, it hummed along with the rest of her over the compliment he was paying her with his confidence.

He'd trusted her to an afternoon with Amanda. He trusted her to play the part of his date. If she kept on remembering that—
this is a job, Isabelle, not Cinderella on her way to the ball
—then she might just get through the night.

“It would help if I knew more about this function,” she said, forcing herself to concentrate on the job.

“What do you need to know? There will be an endless production of dinner courses. Some may even be edible. In keeping with the Russian theme, the entertainment may include ballet, although Cossacks on horseback are not out of the question. There will be an auction to benefit the Remember Rani Foundation, for cancer research. We will be seated at David's table.”

Isabelle frowned. Names had flown at her from all directions these past few days, but that was one she did not recall. “Is David your stepfather's friend?”

“Yes. David Delahunty.”

“Is there a Mrs. Delahunty?”

“The foundation is named for his late wife, Rani. He hasn't remarried.” He paused, a brief beat of time, before adding, “His daughter will be there, and Rani's sister and her husband.”

“What are their names?”

Isabelle prepared herself for taking mental notes, but Cristo lifted their linked hands and kissed her knuckles. “Relax, sweetheart, you are not expected to know any of these people. We have known each other for less than a week. Let's assume we haven't spent that time discussing London society.”

His meaning shimmered a moment in the silence, replete with pillow-talk images. She felt the bloom of heat in her skin, but she held his gaze. For the sake of tonight's role-play, she needed to know what they'd spent the past week doing. “If we're going to pass muster as a couple,” she said steadily, “then we will need a believable story.”

“I suggest we stick as closely as possible to the truth.”

“So, we met last week when you came to Australia on business?”

“You were my housekeeper,” he continued. “The fascination was instant.”

“The fascination, yes,” she agreed, falling into the fiction and into the dark heat of his heavy-lidded gaze. “But I was your employee. I would lose my job if I slept with you.”

“Which is why I convinced you to accompany me back to England.”

“To get me into bed? Would you do that?”

The pad of his thumb traced the delicate skin at her wrist, and heat exploded low in her belly as he answered with one sure word. “Undoubtedly.”

“And now we are lovers?”

“Is that a role you are willing to play?” he asked, his voice as dark and heavy as the heat in her blood.

For a long moment their gazes held, the atmosphere ripe with erotic speculation. Isabelle's heart thundered, too loud to hear her whispery caution.
It's a story, Isabelle. The role
you are playing.
She moistened her lips. “Would anyone believe that we weren't?”

“Not for a second.”

“This is a regular happening, then?” Her chin came up a notch to counter a silly pang of disappointment. Ridiculous, she knew, and yet she couldn't help herself. “You go away on a business trip and bring home a random woman?”

“Never random. I am very selective. Do you need details, statistics, my latest health check?”

“No,” she countered quickly. “I just needed to know how I would be viewed. I have never been in this situation.”

“Take your cues from me. Don't drink too much wine, leave the dukes alone, and you will do fine.” His thumb traced the reverse path across her wrist. Then he nodded toward the window at her back as the car slowed and stopped. They had arrived. “Are you ready?”

There was comforting strength in his easy confidence, and Isabelle nodded. “As long as I don't forget myself and start bussing tables or—” a sudden thought widened her eyes “—I don't run into someone I've worked for!”

“Will they recognise you out of uniform?”

A good point. “You're right. They wouldn't.”

Then the car door swung open to reveal a bevy of doormen in stunning livery and the pinkened glow of lamplight on flagstones and people…so many beautiful couples in dazzling evening dress and jewels—oh Lord, was that woman wearing a tiara?—and all as fashionably late as Isabelle and Cristo.

As she slid from seat to ground, Isabelle's stomach jived with nerves. She tried not to gawp but the beauty alighting from the next car looked awfully like the cover girl on the glossy magazine that graced her bedside table. “Is that Lily whatshername, the model?”

“Probably,” Cristo drawled, all I-see-supermodels-everyday insouciance. His gaze barely shifted from hers as he took her hand and drew her close to his side.

To disguise her shiver of response, Isabelle turned into his body and inclined her head at the latest arrivals. “The man she's with, is that…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes widened in disbelief. “Oh my God, it is!”

“If that is Lily Whatshername, then I dare say it is.” A smile kicked at his lips. “Would you like to meet them?”

“You know them? Really? No, you're winding me up!”

He laughed, a low, smoky sound that dappled her senses with shadowy heat. “I sold him a G5 last month. We're on speaking terms, although…” Taking her other hand, he pulled her closer still. Suddenly all her senses were attuned to him, this man, the slightly roughened texture of his fingers wrapped around hers, the brush of his jacket against her hip, the enveloping heat of his body. The double-shot potency of espresso eyes and voice. “I would rather you kept that sloe-eyed wonder focussed on me.”

“I would,” she said, “if I knew what that meant.”

“It means we're playing besotted lovers, remember?”

“I haven't forgotten.”

“Good.” Although a smile still lurked around the corners of his mouth, the mood had turned oddly serious. Supermodels, pop stars, royalty in tiaras, the drift of orchestral music, all faded to dusk. And when he ran his hands up her arms to cup her shoulders, Isabelle couldn't do a thing to blunt her response. A tremor coursed through her, a powerful mix of hot and cold intensity that tightened her breasts and softened her belly.

For the barest of moments his gaze lifted from hers, long enough to break the hot spell of connection, enough to let in the muted chords of Russian music and German engines and
posh English voices. When his eyes returned to hers, she saw the flare of intent and her heart tripped wildly as his mouth started its smooth descent. Stretching on tiptoes, she met his kiss with softened lips, breathing the citrus and bergamot on his skin, absorbing his dark male heat and spinning with the intensity of desire that swelled to fill her senses.

This is not a game,
she thought.
This is absolutely real.

But just as she ached to deepen the connection, his mouth was gone, hers left wanting more. In the time it took to regain her breath and gather her equilibrium, Isabelle felt the chill night air encroaching into her sensual cocoon. A second later she realised they were no longer alone. And as Cristo drew her around to perform the introductions to David Delahunty and his family, she realised that the chill dancing up her spine had nothing to do with the cool May night.

It had everything to do with the resentment radiating from the daughter's glacial blue eyes as they took in Isabelle's well-kissed lips.

“D
id you enjoy yourself, Isabelle?”

As the limo pulled away from the kerb and commenced the return drive to Wentworth Square, Isabelle slipped out of her ill-conceived choice of shoes and pretended interest in massaging the ache from her feet. That gave her time to consider Cristo's tricky question and an excuse not to consider him. She knew he'd settled on the opposite side of the big car, that he'd loosened his bow tie, that he lounged at apparent ease as he waited on her response.

She
had
enjoyed the interesting menu and the superb champagne, the music and dancing and surreptitious celebrity-spotting. Although wide-eyed and quietly appalled at the extravagance, she'd enjoyed perusing the jewellery and art, the five-star travel and out-of-this-world experiences offered for auction. She would have enjoyed everything a whole lot more if she'd not been stewing over that kiss.

Why hadn't she realised that it was part of a carefully orchestrated show? A setup staged for Madeleine Delahunty's benefit.

On the heels of that stunner had come a second awful realisation. Despite all the self-talk about doing her job and playing a role, somewhere deep inside she had still harboured a kernel of Cinderella-going-to-the-ball hope. She'd believed in the crackling sexual energy when Cristo looked at her a certain way, when he held her hand, when he laughed low and smoky at something she said.

She'd believed in the possibility of a fairy tale, and she'd set herself up for the most crushing of letdowns.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

And the dumbest thing of all? Her reaction. Standing there on the pavement with hot and cold chills of disappointment and mortification churning through her, she'd decided that the only suitable recourse was to play him at his own game. She'd cozied in even closer, she'd possibly even simpered and batted her eyelashes, and she'd thrown herself with uncharacteristic vengeance into the role of besotted can't-keep-my-hands-off-him lover.

Had she gone too far? Possibly. Probably. But, dammit, she wasn't going to apologise or back down now they were alone. He'd started it with that kiss. He'd invited her to follow his lead. If he didn't like how she'd followed—if
that
was the undercurrent she detected beneath the measured delivery of his question—then tough.

Setting her expression with her best attempt at cool, calm confidence, she turned to face him. “I enjoyed myself well enough, thank you.”

“Perhaps a little too much.”

“Did I overdo it?” she asked disingenuously. “This was my first appearance as a make-believe mistress. I wasn't sure of the boundaries, so I did as you asked and followed your lead.
I'm pretty sure that we established ourselves as a couple. That is what you wanted…?”

“I didn't know you were such an accomplished actress,” he murmured darkly.

“Why, thank you. My mother would be pleased that all those drama lessons paid off.”

His corner of the car rode in shadowed darkness, and she couldn't see his face clearly enough to judge his mood, but she sensed she'd surprised him. She wished that didn't please her quite so much. “So it was all an act?” His voice, too, was a tricky mix of shadow and dark. Hard to judge, hard to pick. “The way you never left my side, the little touches, your hand on my thigh.”

“An act…and payback.”

“For?”

“For putting me in that situation. For not telling me the whole story. For kissing me in front of your friends.”

The car slowed at an intersection, and the fractured streetlight caught his face, revealing his expression for the first time. The slant of his prominent cheekbones, the shadowed planes beneath, the darkening of beard along his jawline. The softened fullness of his mouth hovering close to a smile as he drawled, “Here I was thinking,
She's taken me at my word. She's trying harder to get under my skin.
”

He was enjoying this. Isabelle couldn't believe it. Her own jaw tightened with indignation. “I was trying to irritate you!”

He laughed, a rich rumble of sound that coiled around her in sexy loops and pulled tight. “Why does that not surprise me?”

“Does anything surprise you?” she snapped.

Although they had moved on and his expression was again hidden in shadow, Isabelle sensed a shift in mood. She knew the smile was gone. Her heart beat a little harder, a lot quicker.

“You do, Isabelle,” he said, soft, serious. One arm stretched across the backseat, his knuckles grazed the bare skin at her shoulder and suddenly the vast space shrunk, all the air sucked up in that one slice of a second. “Constantly.”

She frowned hard, fighting his insidious charm and the expectant leap of her hormones. With a handful of words and one featherlight touch, he'd managed to turn her outrage inside out. She would not have that. She would not let him get away with such a cheap and obvious distraction. “Is that because I've shown such remarkable restraint, going along with every one of your manipulative plans when—”

“Manipulative?” he cut in, still sounding far too unrattled for Isabelle's liking. “How so?”

Turning in her seat, she fastened him with an incredulous glare. “
Everything
in the past week fits under that umbrella. The way you employed me with the sole aim of working the truth about Hugh from me, without any hint of what you were about. The way you used my concern for Chessie and my need of paid employment to coerce me into coming to England and then into playing this role of your lover. I should have known you had an ulterior motive.”

“And if I had told you that my ulterior motive was getting to know you, would you have agreed to continue as my employee? Would you be here with me now?”

Getting to know her?
Isabelle's heartbeat stuttered.
No.
She'd enjoyed the very fine champagne but not enough to succumb to his smooth talk. Her frown deepened to a borderline scowl. “I was talking about how you used me and our ‘relationship'—” she drew the word out, each syllable served with a heavy dash of sarcasm and a side of fully justified pique “—to deliver a we're-through message to your last girlfriend.”

“Are you referring to Madeleine?” He sounded sur
prised, unsure. As if he didn't know. As if he needed to think it over. As if!

“Unless there were other exes that I missed the pleasure of meeting tonight, then, yes, Madeleine.”

“Is that what she told you? That she is my ex-girlfriend?”

“Not in so many words, but that is the message she delivered.” With every barbed word, with every murderous look. “I felt the daggers in my back. Would you care to check for wounds?”

His breath checked, as if that answer had amused him again. “Later,” he promised. Then, when Isabelle's glare darkened, “Do not believe everything Madeleine tells you.”

“Are you telling me she's not an ex?”

“Neither girlfriend nor lover.”

He'd leaned forward to capture her gaze, and despite the deception of the shadows she could not ignore the sincerity in his voice or eyes.
Damn him.
“Then her possessiveness is…?”

“A misunderstanding.”

Isabelle puffed out a breath full of scepticism. “She misunderstood your interest in her? You're really ‘just good friends'?”

“Exactly. I've known her from the weekend I arrived in England. David and Rani and Madeleine were the first to welcome me. Our parents were the closest of friends. We spent a lot of time together growing up. Our parents jested about us as a couple.” He paused, raked a hand through his hair, and despite the matter-of-fact delivery Isabelle realised that he was uncomfortable with the subject. “My mother has, unfortunately, not given up on the joke.”

“She wants to arrange your marriage?”

“Exactly,” he said darkly. “In spite of her track record, Vivi believes everyone should be married.”

Obviously
he
didn't. Isabelle remembered their conversa
tion about Amanda's engagement and his cynical comments on true love. She also remembered Madeleine's cutting verbal skills—the woman's blood might run cold with venom, but her mind was as sharp as her tongue. “Surely Madeleine couldn't believe that possible, not without some encouragement from you.”

“After her mother died…” He shook his head, expelled a harsh breath. “David took it hard. Madeleine needed a friend.”

And Cristo was that friend, the old family connection. He'd already spoken and demonstrated his desire to do whatever was needed for his extended family. “She got the wrong idea,” Isabelle said slowly, “about your interest.”

“Madeleine has always been headstrong and overindulged.”

Isabelle thought of a few more pertinent adjectives, but she didn't voice them. Already she had pieced together a picture she understood. Cristo at his kindest would be devastatingly hard to resist. How could she fault Madeleine for wanting him? “She is used to having whatever she wants, and now she wants you.”

“Something like that.”

In the lee of this exchange, Isabelle felt deflated and incredibly vulnerable. She hadn't needed this extra insight into Cristo's compassionate side—she was struggling enough with the powerful physical attraction—and now she felt unexpected sympathy for Madeleine and a degree of shame for her actions. This event was named in Rani Delahunty's honour. The charity raised funds for the cancer that had claimed her life. It would have been a difficult night for Madeleine without having Cristo's supposed new girlfriend flaunted in her face.

“So you took me along tonight,” she stated tightly, “to show Madeleine what she couldn't have. Don't you think it would have been kinder to tell her straight out that you're just not that into her?”

“I have done so, many times, in many ways, but not tonight. I took you,” he said with the same quiet intensity, “because I wanted to.”

“Not to keep Madeleine at bay?”

“I've been keeping her at bay, as you put it, for half of my life. I do not need you for that, Isabelle.”

“But you kissed me because of her,” she persisted, because she had to maintain the fight. She could not start thinking about what he did need from her.

“I kissed you because I'd been wanting to ever since we met.”

“Even though you thought I was pregnant with Hugh Harrington's baby?”

“I never wanted to believe that.
This
is what I wanted to believe.” Again he brushed the bare skin at her shoulder, this time as a deliberate demonstration of the man-woman awareness, the lightning streak of sunfire that burned in her nerve endings. “This chemistry, Isabelle, and the honesty I believed in your eyes.”

“Honesty?” She wanted to laugh, to scoff, but her bravado was going up in flames. “How can you believe that anything between us is genuine?”

This time he turned his hand, cupping her shoulder, clouding her resolve with the textured heat of his skin and his voice. “Would you be more inclined to believe if I demonstrated?”

“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She drew in a calming breath. “There is nothing to prove.”

“I disagree. You are sceptical of my intent.” He took her hand, twined their fingers, used that leverage to pull her closer. “What if I kissed you again, with no audience and no ulterior motive?”

“Except to prove your point. Madeleine might be—”

“Forget Madeleine.”

“—used to having whatever she wants,” she continued
strongly over his interjection, “but you are no better. I think you two have a lot in common. You should reconsider.”

“You are right on one score. I have grown used to having what I want, and I am honest enough to admit that I want you.” He stroked his thumb over the corner of her mouth. “How about you, Isabelle?”

She knew a challenge when it looked her in the eye, and this challenge held her gaze with unflinching boldness. Then he slid his hand from her shoulder to the bare skin of her back. A caress, an encouragement, a gentle pressure that brought her forward to meet his lowering mouth. “One little kiss,” he whispered against her lips, “as proof this chemistry is real.”

One. Little. Kiss.

Oh, no, this was so much more. It started where the last kiss had ended, a sweet, sensual seduction of her lips and her senses, but as soon as she surrendered—as soon as the hands that had come up to ward him off yielded to the temptation to touch—it plunged into so much more. It was a bold and thorough exploration of lips and tongues and skin, a yielding and a taking and a hunger that ripped through Isabelle the instant her mouth opened beneath his. She felt the tremor deep in her body, heard his throaty sound of satisfaction, tasted the satisfaction in a big dizzying gulp of acknowledgement.

This
was
real, this chemistry, this mutual wanting.