Daring to Date the Boss / The Tycoon Who Healed Her Heart: Daring to Date the Boss / The Tycoon Who Healed Her Heart

Rachel gulped, and nodded. Somehow his words made it easier to snuggle in. ‘It’s not real,’ she whispered to herself as she wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘It’s not real.’

‘This is the only way she won’t be able to see your face from any angle,’ Armand whispered, holding her against his body, her cheek against his heart.

Despite the tender reassurance, she suddenly rocketed back a few months in time, standing in Pete’s arms, waving to the audience the day after he’d first hit her. ‘Smile, Rachel,’ he’d muttered. ‘They all love us. Smile for them.’ He’d squeezed her waist, right where he’d hit her the night before after seeing that her fan rating was higher than his. He had been reminding her of who was in control, both in the show and in life.

‘Rachel?’

Her vision cleared, and she saw Armand looking down at her, tender and troubled. He wasn’t Pete, and she felt safer with this stranger than she had with anyone in a long time.

That gave her the courage to try. ‘Smile at me,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘She’ll never believe it if you look at me like you’re scared I might break any second.’

He gave a soft chuckle and lowered his face to hers. Rachel jerked back before she could stop herself. ‘Make the leap, Rachel,’ he whispered, moving close again. ‘Trust me.’

She bit her lip, saw that look again, the sadness and the pain beneath the confident hunter—the wounded wolf. She gave permission in a tiny nod. ‘Do it.’

His lips barely touched one side of her mouth, and then the other side, in sweet mimickry of the real thing, leaving her heart banging like a jackhammer right up as high as her throat. Then he drew her closer still but, though it looked loving—seductive even—she was in his arms in a hold more gentle and protective than any she’d ever known. ‘I’m not him,’ Armand whispered into her hair.

Slowly, still trying to take air into lungs that wouldn’t behave and fill, she nodded. Not real? It was all too real, and something buried deep inside her came shimmering back to life. She could hardly remember the last time anyone had held her, unless it was for an audience. Though they had an audience of one now, Armand’s tender hold made her feel as if they were alone, that he was holding her because he wanted to …

He bent down to murmur against her ear. ‘Frau Heffernan has been coming to the resort since its reopening, and is very loyal. She just wants to know what’s going on. So, for now pretend to dance with me. She’ll interpret it as a private romance. She’ll love having the power of knowledge no one else has and, beyond teasing me about it in quiet moments, nothing will be said, certainly not in public.’

With a tender hand he moved her head so her face was buried against his chest as he hummed a song. He moved her in a slow shuffle, always keeping her face from the clear terrasse doors, protecting her with every movement he made.

She felt so safe. She felt his heart beating against her cheek, heard the swishing of his breath in and out as they danced. He wound his fingers through hers, held her waist with a light, reassuring clasp. How he managed to give her personal space when he held her like a lover, she couldn’t understand—but he did. Somehow he knew she couldn’t bear any form of male dominance.

He’d given her the choice in everything since he’d invaded her life.

It was a revelation to her as new and wondrous to her as a bud unfurling. Armand had walked away from the life Pete craved like a drug. Armand allowed her to hold her power without punishing her for it. And, yes, he let her know who was in control—she was.

His arms were so gentle, his hands so tender. She wanted to melt into him, to fall into this safe, beautiful place and never leave …

No. She’d been alone too long, that was all. Even on her wedding day part of her had felt lonely and lost. At nineteen she hadn’t known why; at thirty-two, she understood. Though Pete had always been extravagant with compliments and the words ‘I love you’, his self-love was all-absorbing, and allowed for nothing but the shallowest of affection for anyone else. The day she’d rebelled against his wishes, he’d shown her who was boss in punishing blows.

But now Armand had come into her life with his tender arms and his kindness, and he was a greater threat to her well-being than if he had been holding a sub-machine gun to her head.

And yet she couldn’t move from this hold, more seductive than any practiced caress could be. No wonder they called him the Wolf. He knew how to charm her into a state of hypnotic compliance, trusting him within hours of meeting him.

‘Is she gone?’ she whispered after what seemed like hours, minutes, seconds—she couldn’t work it out but, while it seemed too long, it wasn’t long enough.

He’s a stranger. She needed space now.

‘Not yet,’ he said quietly. ‘She’s got her heavy-weather gear on. She’s there until we notice her.’

Her fingertips were quivering as she fought against running, against holding on with all the strength she had. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s your call, Rachel. I can look at her, embarrass her into leaving.’

About to assent, she thought of what it might cost him as the owner and hesitated. ‘Would you do that if I were a woman you—you …?’

‘Wanted to make love with?’ His voice sounded smoky now, and a hot shudder touched her skin with slow, sensuous fingertips. ‘No, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her at all. By now I’d have carried you to the bedroom.’

Gulp, gulp … The lump in her throat just wouldn’t go away. ‘I … Herr Bollinger …’

‘It’s Armand—and if I carry you to the bedroom tonight it will only be for show. I don’t abuse women, or persuade them against their will, Rachel Chase. Remember that.’

At that, she stilled so totally she felt her pulse in her throat—and then from somewhere inside her, the fighter came back. ‘Then don’t speak to me so intimately. We’re strangers sharing a cabin, no more than that—and, please remember, I’m still a paying guest.’

‘Touché, Ms Chase. That’s very good.’ A rumbling laugh rippled through his body and, though she fought against his power, he still infected her with his mirth. ‘And I will not point out that the fact that we’re in this situation is totally your own fault because you moved in on my private domain. My mother raised me to be a gentleman.’

She grinned against the windcheater he wore, which was as warm as his teasing comment. ‘And my mama raised me to be a southern lady. So don’t touch me without permission, Armand Bollinger. You might be a wolf, but I can become a she-bear without warning.’

‘Consider me appropriately chastened.’

The laughing tone made her feel absurdly happy. ‘How weird is this conversation, given our current circumstances?’ she whispered, feeling his skin touching hers. They were only hand to hand, cheek to cheek, but it moved with invisible fingertips into her soul.

‘That’s just what I was thinking.’ He relaxed his arms and looked down at her, smiling.

Oh, those silly hot shivers! ‘So, is she still there?’

He checked briefly without seeming to. ‘She is, in a covered corner of the terrasse, and watching us avidly. Time to implement plan B—the wolf must dare the she-bear and we’ll see who wins.’ He lifted her in his arms, his eyes twinkling as he smiled down at her. Slowly, he rubbed his cheek against hers with absolute gentleness. ‘You’re a very little bear. I can bearly feel you.’

Warm, safe and beautiful all at once—oh, this man was too seductive for his own good in making her feel this way, even when he was trying to reassure her with his teasing. ‘Ha ha. That’s because I’m fading away from hunger,’ she complained, trying to joke her way into a normal breathing pattern and heartbeat.

He sniffed and his face darkened. ‘The cheese is burning.’ He put her back down in her chair, turned back and strode over to the terrasse doors. After flashing a dark look at the elderly lady, he wound the built-in blinds down. He kept going even after the startled Frau Heffernan had scuttled away. ‘Good, now we can eat. I’ll clean the pans and be right back.’

Rachel was glad she was sitting down. Her knees really didn’t want to be straight at this point.

Armand’s knees seemed just fine. After he picked up the collection of little trays, he headed for the kitchen with a clean, confident stride. ‘Can you turn the heat down on the grill and take the food off the top while I clean these, please, Rachel? I’ll be back in a few minutes. Hopefully everything won’t get too cold.’

He spoke in his ordinary voice, as though nothing had happened.

Perhaps to him it hadn’t.

‘Okay, consider it done.’ After speaking as calmly as possible, Rachel drew a deep, slow breath, wondering how the world could turn upside down in a few hours. From feeling safely hidden away, she was out of her depth in waters as sweet as they were turbulent, and all because of one tycoon in shining armour …

Feeling a fervent kinship with the elderly woman—she wanted to scuttle away from Armand too, never come back and definitely never see him again—she made a noncommittal noise of assent and began moving the food from the grill.

‘Don’t think about it, just don’t think about it,’ she chanted beneath her breath. She shoved a crispy piece of bacon on her tongue and chewed on it despite the fact that it tasted like ashes in her mouth.

What just happened in there?

Armand leaned against the sink for a moment, just breathing. He tossed the raclette trays in the sink and ran warm, soapy water over them. Even as he cleaned out the hard cheese and washed them he was conscious of the crazy feeling that had sent him running in here. It hadn’t lessened, despite the space between them.

So stupid, to lose his temper over something as simple as burning cheese! He supposed he’d had to do something—and it was either take out his sudden anger on the raclette grill and Frau Heffernan, a rich widow without a life of her own, or give in to the consuming need to touch Rachel again.

How idiotic was it to touch a woman in his own home? And yet it felt so right.

He’d never brought a woman here, apart from Maman, Johanna and Carla. It was their home as much as his, since Papa had left it to them all equally. It had been almost all he’d had left to give after the fire destroyed the first resort, and he’d gambled away everything else. To Armand, this cabin was his home, a sacred place of refuge. He’d never brought a woman here until now.