Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby

“Then you’re a fool.”

She flushed, but instead of continuing her defense she looked away from him. Guilt? It must be.

Andrе smiled. He’d caught her. Her game was over, and his was just beginning.

“Enough wasting time,” he said, eager to leave this place that pulsed with bad memories.

She moved into her bedroom like someone walking to the guillotine. Soundlessly she rolled a case from the closet. The damned thing was half as tall as she.

When he realized her intent, he took it from her and hefted it onto the bed. “Take only the essentials.”

“I’ll pack what I wish to,” she said, her amber eyes too bright with moisture.

Her tears had no effect on him. He’d learned long ago from his mother and sister that women cried over everything and nothing just to get their way. He certainly wouldn’t allow Bellamy’s mistress to beguile him again.

His mobile phone chirped and he immediately answered it. The tone signaled it came from his guard. “What?”

“Peter Bellamy just arrived.”

Andrе cut a sharp glance to Kira, who seemed preoccupied packing her bag. She’d not been out of his sight, so either Bellamy was making a surprise visit to the Chateau to see his lover, or someone on Kira’s staff had phoned him.

“Watch him.” Andrе slipped his mobile in his pocket. “How much longer are you going to dawdle over what to take?”

“I only need a few more things, and my files.” She moved to a desk and secured a laptop. “Everything is here so I can keep abreast of the hotel.”

“You cannot mean to continue working?”

“I’m not one to sit around and while away my time.” She flicked him a defiant glare and slipped the laptop in a carryon. “And I don’t require your permission.”

“Do not be too sure of that.”

Andrе had the satisfaction of watching her face drain of color before his mobile chirped again. He answered it curtly.

“Paparazzi just arrived,” his guard said. “They’re swarming around Peter Bellamy.”

Damn. The last thing Andrе wanted to do was engage in another public confrontation with Kira and the media at the start of his takeover.

He met her questioning gaze. “We need to leave without the gossipmongers seeing us. Unless you prefer a repeat of our last encounter?”

She flushed crimson and shook her head. He feared she’d balk—that she’d court the media’s attention again. “The service entrance is our best choice.”

He repeated that to his guard. “Meet us in five minutes.”

“But I’m not ready yet,” she said.

He swore and checked his watch. “You have three minutes. Then we leave, no matter your state of dress.” He gaze slid over her body, openly appreciating her curves. “Or undress.”

She stiffened, as if ready to argue.

He fed on his annoyance and tapped a finger on his watch. “You’re down to two minutes and forty-five seconds.”

Mumbling an oath, she grabbed lacy undergarments from a drawer and ran to the walk-in closet. He made to follow.

“Don’t you dare come closer,” she said, making him wonder if she could read minds.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He strode to her suitcase, zipped it shut and heaved it from the bed.

With five seconds to spare, she stepped from the dressing room wearing a floral skirt that hugged her firm bottom and thighs and stopped above her knees to accentuate the curve of her calves and dainty ankles. A fashionable summer sweater in a clear turquoise molded the full bosom he knew filled his hands. She stepped into sling heels that were sexy as hell, and tossed a smaller bag into her carryon.

She zipped it shut with impatient finality. Her small hand closed around the reinforced handles, her intent clear.

“I’ll take that.” Andrе slung the strap over his shoulder.

She grabbed her purse and slipped a mobile inside it. He took the bag from her and removed the phone, setting it high on a shelf. “So you managed to ring Peter after all?”

“I left a message for my solicitor.”

“I trust you bade him au revoir, for we leave now, Kira.” Andrе held the door for her.

She glanced once at the shelf, then swept past him, her head high. He smiled and followed. She moved with a staccato click of heels and a beguiling sway of her hips down the corridor to the lifts.

Oui, enjoying her luscious body would assuage his rage.

She stepped inside the lift and he joined her, wrestling the baggage behind them and forcing her closer to him.

The doors started to shut. The ones on the car directly across from theirs opened in perfect synchronization.

In that split second, when each had a full view of the opposite lift, Andrе locked gazes with Peter Bellamy. His rival fixed a black scowl on him, then looked sharply to Andrе’s side, where Kira stood.

Bellamy stared, then his mouth dropped open as he realized his lover, his deceitful accomplice, was at his enemy’s side. His furious gaze snapped back to Andrе.

Andrе smiled, draped an arm around Kira’s slender shoulder, and gave his arch rival a smart salute.

CHAPTER TWO

KIRA wondered if this day would ever end as she exchanged Andrе’s private jet for the limousine waiting for them at Aimе Cеsaire International Airport. And what had her solicitor made of the harried message she’d left him?

She had no way of knowing. At least the flight from Las Vegas to Martinique had gone smoothly, but nearly fourteen hours of travel had exhausted her.

Andrе’s stony silence had drained the last of her energy. She’d hoped to talk with him rationally on the flight, but he’d closed himself off from her. Now she was in no mood to engage in heartfelt conversation with him.

Her summer-weight sweater smothered her, and the skirt she’d thought would be refined and comfortable hung like a limp rag. The island humidity, vastly different from the dry Nevada air, urged her heavy hair into the natural curl that she’d struggled to straighten all of her life. She was sure the make-up she’d applied before Andrе dragged her from the Chateau was gone.

But she had the satisfaction of not being the only one wearied by the trip. Though Andrе’s perfectly tailored suit retained the crisp lines that complemented the brooding intensity of his dark eyes and matched his arrogance, dark stubble delineated his arrogantly handsome face.

That rogue’s shadow emphasized the grim set of his mouth and gave him a dangerously sexy look. She caught herself remembering how those firm lips had felt moving against hers, tearing down her defenses and arresting her fears. How his hands and mouth and powerful body had brought her to her first shattering climax, and then continued to do so more times than she could recall, until she’d been deliciously sated and more happy than she’d ever been.

That had been the calm before the storm. What she couldn’t fathom was what tempest now brewed in Andrе, as the limo raced past fields of sugar cane toward Fort-de-France.