Virgin: Undone by the Billionaire: The Innocent's Dark Seduction / Count Maxime's Virgin / Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Roark clenched his hands. She’d only done it because she didn’t know his name. By some miracle he’d managed not to tell her. But if she knew …

Once she knew, he wouldn’t have a shot in hell of getting her to spit on him to save him from burning to death, much less getting her to sell him the New York property.

“Did you know my father?” she asked softly, looking up at him.

“No.” And in a way it was true. He’d never really known the man. He’d just taken his poorly managed company and broken it into parts, destroying the docks and selling the valuable oceanfront property in Long Beach for a brand-new condominium development.

“I wish you had. I think you would have liked each other. Both powerful men, focused on success.”

The difference being that Roark always won, while her father had been a weak failure, a third-generation heir of a company he didn’t know how to properly run.

Roark managed not to point this out to her, however.

He had to convince Lia to sell him the New York property before she found out who he was.

Walking away from her, he took some papers out of the black leather briefcase he’d left beside the garden gate. The gate creaked loudly as he closed it and returned to her. “I want you to do something for me.”

“What is it?”

“A favor.”

“A favor?” she teased, smiling. “A bigger favor than giving you my virginity?”

He gave her his most charming smile in return. “It’s a small thing, really.” He paused. “Build your park somewhere else besides New York.”

Her jaw dropped. “What?”

“Transfer your purchase rights to the property site to me. I will make it worth your while. I’ll pay you ten percent over the asking price. Call it a finder’s fee.” He spread his arms in an expansive gesture. “Build the park in Los Angeles to honor your sister. Let me build skyscrapers in New York.”

She looked up into his face, her skin the color of ash. “That’s what this was all about? That’s why you kissed me in New York? Why you followed me to Italy?”

He ground his jaw. “It wasn’t the only reason….”

She shoved his chest, pushing him away very, very hard as she looked wildly over the rose garden. “That’s why you paid a million dollars to dance with me at the charity ball.” Her eyes glittered as she raised her chin. “That was why you seduced me. Just to get the land from me?”

He was losing the deal. He could feel it slipping through his fingers.

Looking at her, he shook his head. “Of course I want the land. More than you can possibly know. I can build five skyscrapers on that property that will last hundreds of years. The biggest project I’ve ever done. It’ll be my legacy.” He took a deep breath. “But that has nothing to do with making love to you. Taking you like this was … a moment of pure insanity.” He reached for her, trying to bring her back into his arms, back under his control. “If I’d known you were a virgin …”

“You know everything about me now, don’t you?” she said bitterly. “My name. My family. Where I live. And I still know almost nothing about you.” Evading his grasp, she clenched her hands into fists. “I don’t even know your name.”

If she heard his name, all was lost. “What difference does my name make? Think of the deal I’m offering you.”

She raised her chin, and her dark-hazel eyes glittered. “I want to know your name, you cold-hearted bastard.”

“I’m offering you a fortune.” He pushed the land-transfer contract into her hands. “Just look at these numbers …”

“Tell me your name!” she shouted.

And he couldn’t lie to her. His honor was more important than anything—even than the deal of a lifetime. He took a deep breath.

“My name,” he said quietly, “is Roark Navarre.”

CHAPTER SIX

LIA stared at him. “Roark … Navarre?”

She still remembered her father’s cry that lovely June morning, long ago. “He’s done it, Marisa. Roark Navarre has ruined us.” Lia had just graduated from high school and was still reveling in being accepted by Pepperdine, an expensive private university in Malibu she’d attend in the fall. Olivia had just started a promising experimental treatment with a new doctor. And their mother, who always switched so quickly between ecstasy and despair, had been happily painting the distant Santa Monica pier with watercolors on canvas. The California sunshine had been bright and warm against their three-story beach house.

Then her father had come home in the middle of the morning, staggering into her mother’s arms as if he’d just received a heavy blow.

“He’s done it, Marisa. Roark Navarre has ruined us.”

Roark Navarre.

Now Lia whirled on him, trembling and hot with fury. “Your name is Roark Navarre?”

“So you do know me.”

“Of course I know you. You destroyed my family!”

“It wasn’t deliberate, Lia. It was just business.”

“Business,” she spat out, tossing her head with a derisive sneer. “Just like it was for the sake of business that you seduced me?”

“Lia, I didn’t realize who you were until just now.”

“Right.” She shook her head furiously. “Why should I believe a word you say? You caused my father to lose his company—”

“He would have lost it to someone, if not to me. Hawthorne was completely inept. A typical third-generation heir bumbling his way through a business he didn’t understand.”

“How dare you!” She paced, then stopped, covering her mouth with her hands in a horrified gasp. “I let you take my virginity.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you. I enjoyed it very much.”

She sucked in her breath, crumpling the contract he’d given her, twisting and strangling it in her hands.

“Get out.” She threw the contract at him. It bounced off his chest and fell to the grass. “The land is going to be a park, across the street from the hospital where my sister died. I would die before I let you put skyscrapers on Olivia’s park!”

Clenching his jaw, he shook his head. “You’re making this personal. It’s business. If you don’t have any fond feelings for me, fine. Take me for every penny you can. Force me to double my offer—”

“It’s too late.” She suddenly felt the insane urge to laugh. “Before I left New York, I signed the papers that turned the land irrevocably over to the trust. I sent it by messenger. It’s been too late for hours. The property is permanently out of your reach.”

She saw something like grief and fury cross his face. She’d hurt him. She’d prevented him from having something he really, really wanted.

And she was glad. She wished she could do more. She wished she could hurt him a fraction of the way he’d hurt her.

“Because of you, my father lost every penny we had,” she whispered. “My sister had to go for months without treatment. My mother couldn’t take the anguish of losing her husband and her daughter. They all died. And it’s your fault!”