Claimed by the Millionaire: The Wealthy Frenchman's Proposition

She just stood there, and he wondered if he was pushing too hard. Why was this so important to him? He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he guessed he wanted everything that Sheri had to give. She gave so willingly of her body, but she kept a tight rein on her soul. On the secrets that she guarded for herself. And he hated that there was a part of her that he didn’t know. He wanted to know everything about her. He wanted to possess her completely.

“Tell me.”

This had been the longest day of her life. And the most stressful. She had no idea what was going on with Tristan, not that she ever really had. She only knew that if he wanted to know what was inside her head, then they were both in trouble.

Tell me.

He wasn’t asking nicely, he was demanding. And when it came to Tristan, she had absolutely no willpower. She wanted him to know her secrets because she loved him. Because no matter what her mind tried to tell her heart…her heart still believed that if he knew all her secrets, he’d fall for her, too.

Which was so stupid. He was the man who’d told her that all relationships were temporary. That all relationships ended. And heck, she knew that. Everyone she’d ever cared about was gone. Even Aunt Millie, through death, just as Tristan said. Though that’s where she and Tristan differed. She knew the difference of having lived a life with someone you loved in it and having that person taken from you in death, versus having someone leave you because they couldn’t love you.

“Why is it important to you? Why do you care?”

“Because I’m not the type of man who would let my fiancée live in another house. I would want her in my bed every night.”

“You’d want her in your bed every night?” she asked.

“I want you in my bed every night. I want to wake up in the morning and see your face.”

Suddenly Sheri wasn’t sure what she knew anymore. Was Tristan simply afraid to admit his feelings for her? She knew he wanted her. No man had made love to her as often as he had. No man had ever said the things he did to her, whispering in her ear about how sexy she was and how much he wanted her.

But a part of her was afraid to believe it. She simply wasn’t the kind of girl who inspired that feeling in a man like Tristan. Yet now, here he was, saying he wanted to wake up with her every morning and… “Tristan, I want that, too.”

“Then why won’t you move in?”

She looked at him. Just stared at the face that had graced the cover of more magazines than she’d ever dreamed of. And realized that at some point in time, he’d become so real to her. The Photoshopped perfection of those magazine photos wasn’t the man she loved. This was the man she loved.

The man with a small scar under his left eye. And five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. The man who looked at her with exasperation at times, but always with honest emotion. Even if she couldn’t always identify that emotion.

The man she loved.

“I haven’t wanted to move in with you, because I love you, Tristan.”

He took a step back. His arms fell from his chest and he looked at her as if she’d surprised him.

What had he expected?

“Should I not have said that?”

He shook his head. Then rubbed a hand over his forehead. “I was not expecting that.”

“You weren’t? Everyone knows how I feel about you.”

Sheri felt so incredibly vulnerable right now. She wrapped both arms around herself, holding herself as tightly as she could.

“Everyone?”

“Well, Ava noticed, and she hardly knows me at all. I’m pretty sure Lucille knows. She picked up on it the first time we spoke on the phone. Even your friend Gui knows. And I didn’t have to tell him, either, he just guessed.”

She didn’t expect Tristan to love her back. Oh, man, what if that was what he was afraid of? “I don’t expect you to love me.”

He shook his head. “I don’t believe in more than one love in a lifetime.”

“I know that. I think that’s part of the reason I love you so much. I want to fill up that emptiness you have.”

Tristan walked over to her then. He took her shoulders in his hands and drew her toward him. His mouth came down on hers, heavy. He kissed her so deeply and with so much passion she couldn’t help but respond.

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and simply held on to him. He was in complete control and he made her forget everything. But she felt so much more now. It was as if, in admitting her love for him, she was finally free to let go of all the barriers she’d been keeping between them.

His tongue brushed hers and she moaned deep in her throat as shivers of awareness spread down her body. She moved closer to him. Needed to feel his body pressed up against hers.

Tristan lifted his head. “Thank you for loving me.”

She couldn’t help but smile at the polite way he said that. “You’re welcome.”

He brushed a strand of hair from her face and stared down at her with such seriousness that she felt a pang deep inside.

“There isn’t a lack of love in my life, ma petite. There is a burned-out hole where my heart used to be, and I’m afraid no amount of love will ever bring it back.”

Eleven (#ulink_eb437a3f-882b-5590-8cdc-5a2b5bac55f5)

“I’m home,” Tristan said as he walked into his apartment a little after ten o’clock one week later. He’d had a late dinner meeting and, for the first time since Cecile’s death, he was coming home late not to servants and an empty house but to someone.

Sheri came down the hallway with a book in one hand and a pair of reading glasses on. She smiled at him. “How was it?”

“Not too bad. I think we will be launching a cooking magazine in the early fall next year.”

“Good. I think that’s great. Do you have any meetings you’re going to need me to set up?”

“Yes, but I do not want to talk about that tonight.”

Her smile turned suggestive. “What do you want to talk about then?”

“My woman.”

“Your woman?”

She was sassing him and he had to admit he enjoyed it. He’d been unsure what living with Sheri would be like, but after the first night he’d realized that he made a good decision. He’d made love to Sheri twice last night, and then again in the morning before they’d left for work.

Having breakfast and then heading into the office together underscored to him what a great companion Sheri was. She suited his life perfectly. And the fact that she loved him made it all the sweeter.

“Were you waiting up?”

“Sort of.”

“Why?”

She shrugged and he was starting to realize that’s what she did when she didn’t want to answer. It was her way of not lying about anything, of hiding when she felt that answering would leave her vulnerable.