The Dare Collection November 2018. Christy McKellenЧитать онлайн книгу.
betrayal.
Gideon had admitted he’d gone off the rails after the double betrayal he’d suffered. His refusal to give in with me despite his blatant need turned me on more than I cared to admit.
‘Where are we going exactly?’ he asked in that deep sexy voice I wanted to hear up close and very personal.
I pointed to the street up ahead. ‘The restaurant’s a little more than a hole in the wall, but the food is good and the owner is great.’
‘As long as he has barrels of good wine on tap, I’m sold.’
I glanced at his clenched jaw and wondered if I was doing the right thing by letting him tag along.
Maximo, the Balkan Italian whose restaurant bore his name, greeted me with a smile. ‘Bellissima, it’s good to see you again. Welcome!’
He glanced at Gideon but didn’t address him as he showed us to a secluded table in the small restaurant.
Gideon pulled out my chair, then sat across from me.
‘You’ll have your usual, Leonie, yes?’ Maximo said.
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘And I’ll have a bottle of your best red, unless you have a Macallan stashed away in the back?’ Gideon asked.
Maximo smiled. ‘I’ll rustle up the perfect red for you, signor.’
When Maximo hurried away, Gideon glanced at me. ‘Your usual? How many times have you been here?’
‘I come every time I’m in town, which is about once every couple of months for the last three years.’
He looked around, and to his credit managed to keep his expression neutral.
‘Don’t judge before you try the food.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Food isn’t my number-one priority right now.’
‘What is?’
His gaze lingered on my face, my mouth. ‘Something else.’
‘I hope you don’t expect me to sit here and watch you get blind drunk to forget whatever’s bothering you. Because that wasn’t how I anticipated spending my evening.’
He regarded me for a long spell. ‘I got in touch with Bryce this afternoon.’
My breath caught. ‘Really? And...how was he?’
He shrugged. ‘We reconnected. There’s a strong possibility I’ll see him sooner rather than later.’
There was a throb of emotion in his voice. Fondness remembered.
‘I’m glad.’
‘You should be. It’s your fault,’ he said with a wry, fleeting smile.
I laughed. ‘I accept full responsibility, then.’
His gaze dropped to my mouth, charging the air with relentless lust as time ticked by.
‘What about your cousin? Damian? The one with the TV show—’
‘Him I most definitely do not want to talk about.’
The thick bitterness behind his words robbed me of breath. ‘He’s behind the betrayal you talked about, isn’t he?’
His eyes turned almost black and then his lashes swept down. ‘Yes.’ It was a cold, bleak word.
‘And is he why you’re feeling out of sorts tonight?’
When he raised his gaze again, his expression was chillingly neutral. ‘Enough, Leonora. It’s your turn to balance the soul-baring deficit.’
Tension clenched my belly. ‘I wasn’t aware it would be due so soon.’
He shrugged. ‘You’ll agree that a few things have taken us both by surprise since we met. This just happens to be one of them. So who was he, Leonora? Is he the reason you’re in a hurry to sell the yacht?’ he asked, his voice tight.
‘What makes you think I’m in a hurry?’
‘I’ve done my homework, too, Leonora.’
The arrival of our drinks stopped me from replying. By the time Maximo took our food orders and departed, I had myself under better composure. ‘I thought I was done with the South of France.’
‘Was? Why?’
‘Because this was never meant to be a long-term thing.’
Intelligent eyes rested on my face. ‘You’ve grown a multimillion-euro business, which you were just going to pack in and walk away from?’
I attempted to shrug away the unnerving sensation that I’d nearly made another mistake. Let betrayal get the better of me. ‘Yes.’
‘What was the plan?’
I watched him raise his glass and take a long sip of wine before I answered, ‘I wanted to prove a point to myself.’
‘To yourself or to him?’ His keen intuition threw me. At my gasp, his mouth twisted. ‘It’s written all over your face, Leonora.’
My fingers circled the rim of my glass as I debated my answer. In the end I went with opening up to him because what I’d achieved was nothing to be ashamed of. Adam’s betrayal had cut deep but I’d triumphed over it. I was a financial success, with a business I was damn proud of.
‘It was supposed to be a five-day semibusiness trip before our wedding. We were both into sailing and planned to open a boating company after we got married.’
His nostrils flared but he didn’t speak.
‘We were supposed to attend a three-day course on a superyacht to learn the ropes together but we couldn’t afford it in the end so he went and I stayed at a hostel in town. He called at the end of the first day to say the owner had extended his stay for the full five days at no extra charge. I was a little pissed but Adam was excited and I couldn’t say no. Turned out the owner of the superyacht was a shipping heiress with more money than she knew what to do with. I’m assuming at some point one of them seduced the other or maybe it was a simultaneous seducing. Who the hell cares? Bottom line is I got a call on the last day of the trip from Adam to say he wasn’t coming back. He’d already called his parents to tell them the wedding was off.’
‘Fucking bastard. So you stayed?’
‘No, I flew back home and licked my wounds for two months.’
Something flickered his gaze but he remained silent.
‘Then I took my share of our savings and came back here.’
‘You wanted to succeed where you’d lost before.’ It wasn’t a question. I liked that he got my determination and my ambition.
‘Yes. And I did.’
‘Good for you. Success is the best way to fuck your enemies over.’
His praise warmed me and when he raised his glass to me, I let myself get lost in that hard, edgy hunger in his eyes.
I sipped my wine, watching him over the rim as he returned my stare with an unwavering one of his own.
‘Are you speaking from experience?’ I eventually asked, unable to curb my curiosity.
‘Of course I am,’ he replied. ‘I didn’t get to where I am without knowing a thing or two about being fucked over.’
The arrival of our food didn’t save me from the intensity of his unblinking stare. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be saved any more.
‘Are you going to elaborate or shall we talk about the weather now?’ I asked as he spooned stuffed peppers and cufte onto my plate. Although he served himself, he made no move to eat. I took a bite of the delicious food, chewed and swallowed.