My hottest Billionaire a Boss

Eight

She could hear the words inside her head now, and the hateful, scornful

tone in which they had been spoken.‘Don’t delude yourself, child. I have

no interest in you…I don’t play with little girls.’ And in the background

the condescending giggle of lily, the girl hedid have an interest in. The

girl he had flaunted in front of her, letting her entwine her limbs with his

as she pressed a long, lingering kiss on his lips. The girl he had taken up

to his flat at night.

‘I know what I said, Liza, but it does not mean that I am either blind

or a fool. You always had the looks, and you were just waiting to grow into

them. Which you have done—very nicely.’

‘Spare me the flattery!’

Once she might have…Might have—who was she kidding? Once she had

openly dreamed of this. She had longed for him even to turn his handsome head in her direction, to notice her. If he had spoken, she’d

replayed the words over and over again in her head. If he had smiled at

her, she’d held it close to her heart. But it had all meant nothing.

Less than nothing. He had just been being polite. Making sure that he

never put a foot wrong around his employer’s daughter. He had had no

interest at all in her as a woman.

So why should he suddenly start being any different now?

‘No flattery,’ Edward stated flatly, placing the pot of coffee on the big

central kitchen table with a large china mug beside it.

Reaching across, he took hold of the mug that Liza still held as she

stared at him in confusion. The tiny brush of his hand against hers, warm

skin against skin, made her shiver as an electric shock fizzed along her

nerves in response. And the small movement towards her brought a waft

of the intensely personal scent of his body to tantalise her nostrils. It

was a blend of some soap or the shampoo in his hair, like the sun on

lemons, and the clean, fresh scent of his skin that made her senses

quiver in sudden reaction.

‘Why should I flatter?’ he continued, easing the mug from her suddenly

nerveless fingers as she struggled with the force of her response to him.

‘You’ve grown up nicely, Liza—you’ve flowered. You were a lovely girl

but now you’re a stunning woman.’

Liza floundered over finding a way to respond to the compliment, one

that wouldn’t put her into any more danger than she already felt

surrounded her, fencing her in. She wouldn’t be human if she hadn’t felt a

rush of delight at the complimentary words, particularly when they came from a man of such incandescent s****l appeal himself. But she strongly

suspected that she was meant to feel just that way and the thought

made her worry that she was being deliberately manipulated. That she

was being driven to go exactly the way he wanted, think the things he

wanted her to think.

She had the uncomfortable, disconcerting image of herself as a mindless

little puppet dancing in the way that Edward directed while all the while

he held her strings in his strong, purposeful grip. After all, wasn’t that

the way that he had moved in on Jety, manipulating the older man until

he had got exactly what he wanted from him?

‘How did you know that Jety needed bailing out financially—that he was

gambling so much?

She flung the question at him as much to defend herself from the

worrying path down which her thoughts were going as for the need to say

anything. And the worst part of the uncomfortable feeling was the

suspicion that Edward knew that too. The steady regard of those deep-

set dark eyes had a gleam that made her suspect that he was laughing at

her inside. Something that was confirmed by the faint curl to the

corners of his beautifully shaped mouth, a curve that made her move

impetuously to snatch her hand back, away from him, only just controlling

the impulse to cradle it against her as if she had been burned or stung.

‘It was easy to find out what I wanted to know. I’ve observed what’s been

happening at field ever since I went away.’

‘You have? ‘

It gave her a cold, creeping sensation, like the feel of a thousand tiny footsteps moving over her skin.

‘You’ve been watching us? Or sent someone to spy…’

‘I didn’t need to spy.’

To her relief, Edward had turned his attention to pouring the coffee,

that penetrating black gaze concentrated on the action instead of

burning into her face. She couldn’t stop herself from watching his hands,

strong, bronzed fingers gripping the handle, the others resting so lightly

on the cafetière lid. Just the memory of the one brief contact with

those fingers made her mouth go dry in sudden response.

Edward finished pouring, added milk, reached for a spoon to stir…

‘I never lost contact with Jety from the moment I left.’

‘You were in touch with him?’ She frowned her disbelief.

‘Not in touch.’

There was a strange, disturbing undertone to Edward’s response. One

that Liza couldn’t begin to interpret or understand but it snagged on

something raw in her mind and tugged, adding a new unease to the

uncomfortable tangle of emotions she was already struggling with.

‘Not until the last couple of years. But I always knew what Jety was

doing—and you. He was holding the mug of coffee out to her as he spoke and the abrupt

addition of those last two words froze her movement to take it, her hand

still outstretched, partly between them.

‘Your spying included me?’

Something nasty crawled over her skin at the thought but Edward

appeared totally unconcerned by her anger and disgust.

‘How do you think I knew you were engaged?’

It had been the last straw, Edward admitted to himself. The thought

that she would marry and that someone else, as her husband, would be in

possession of field was what had pushed him into action. That was

when he had first contacted Jety direct again, trying to arrange a

meeting with the old man. But Jety, of course, had proved unyielding,

refusing any suggestion of contact. Stubborn to the last, the old man had

returned every letter, refused any phone call…

‘I—I thought you saw my ring.’

‘Oh, no. I knew long before that.’

It had been the thought that had been uppermost in his mind. Along with

wanting to see for himself what the mature Liza of twenty-

five looked like in comparison with the barely out of school, young girl of

eighteen. He had also wanted to come face to face with her fiancé and

see what sort of a man this Ricky was. ‘There’s a word for what you’ve been doing…’

Liza’s voice had changed again, sharpening, tightening. It was that oh-

so English voice that he had always detested because it expressed so

much of the way she thought—especially the way she thought about him.

She had stepped back into the role of lady of the manor, addressing the

peasant who dared question her orders. And, hearing it, he felt the hot

bite of anger in his veins, hazing his thoughts.

‘We call it stalking. And, in Australia, stalking is a crime! One that could

earn you a prison sentence.’

‘Stalking from several thousand miles away ?’ he scorned icily.

‘When you were not even aware of the fact? I think not. I cannot see any

lawyer trying to make that accusation stick—or any police force letting

him try.’

The wordless glare she turned on him almost made him laugh. Almost. But

just the momentary flash of amusement eased some of the clouding rage

and brought his mood back under his control.

Ragu was not the way to handle this. Not if he was to bring his plan to

the completion he had intended for it. Ragu would only drive Lady

Liza further and further away when the truth was that he wanted her

closer than ever to him. Physically, at least.

Because that was the second version of the plan that had formed in his mind. The one that he had changed, adapted slightly on his arrival here.

At first his aim had been solely to stake his claim to field and all

the estate that she had thought would be hers. To stake his claim and

enjoy his revenge as he watched her face the loss of the wealth, the

position she had thought was her inheritance. But in the space between

one heartbeat and the next that plan had changed, widened.

Because, in the moment that he had first set eyes on Liza

after 4 long years and had seen the woman she had become since he

had last seen her, he had known at once that field would not be

enough. He wanted the woman too.

He’d always wanted her, even in the untried, undeveloped beauty of her

youth. But then she had been forbidden fruit, too hot to touch even for

him. But he had never forgotten the one moment he had held her, felt

her mouth on his, her slender form pressed up against his body. He had

wanted to take it further then—and he wanted it more so now.

The ice maiden who had greeted him with cool disdain had stirred his

libido in a way that no more wanton, willing woman had ever done in all

those intervening years. And now, when she stood before him in a patch

of weak spring sunlight that made the coppery strands in her hair gleam

bright, blue eyes flashing in indignation, looking down her smooth,

straight nose at him, he knew a raging need to wipe that cold, distant

look from her face and replace it with another, very different one.

Her cheeks were pink with indignation, the same indignation that made

her breasts rise and fall so rapidly under the pale silk of her shirt, the

rapid uneven movement arousing a hot desire that clutched at his lower

body, hardening him in an instant. It was almost enough to make him

reach for her, grab her arms, haul her up against him and kiss her until they were both so drunk with desire they didn’t care who or what they

were. Only that one was male and one was female and that was all they

needed.

But that would not be enough. He wanted more. He wanted to see those

blazing eyes turn smoky with need, hear her catch her breath in desire.

And if he was to achieve that then he had to wait. To act in cool blood,

not grab and snatch in hot-blooded anger. field was his, and that was one hunger satisfied.

But he would not be satisfied until Liza was his as well.

‘So do you want this coffee or not?’

The words seemed to come to Liza from far away, making her blink

hard in shock as she realised that for the last—what?—second?—longer?

—she’d been lost in her thoughts. Just for an instant the world seemed

to have shifted, then stopped, time hanging frozen.