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But Bastien Zikos had put an incredibly high price on what that miracle would cost Lilah in personal terms. It was too much to think about, she thought weakly, anger still hurtling through her, tensing her every muscle. How could he do that? How could he stand there in front of her and outline such demeaning options? A one-night stand...or a one-night stand which ran and ran until he got bored? Some choice! What had she ever done to him to deserve such treatment?
Her temples thumped dully—a stress headache was forming. She was stressed, out of her depth and barely able to think straight, she acknowledged heavily. Hadn’t she felt very much like that when she was first exposed to Bastien’s soul-destroying charm?
Of course that charm had not been much in evidence just now, during their office meeting, she conceded bitterly. It had, however, been very much in evidence when Bastien had taken her for coffee at the auction house two years earlier.
After a casual exchange of names and information Bastien had taken out his business card to show her that his company logo was, in fact, a seahorse. The awareness that he also had a strong family connection to the pendant had made Lilah relax more in his company. Noting his sleek gold Rolex watch, and the sharp tailoring of his stylish suit, she had recognised the hallmarks of wealth and suspected that it was highly unlikely that she could hope to outbid him at auction.
She had teased him about the amount of sugar he put in his coffee and a wickedly sensual smile had curved his lips, sending her heartbeat into overdrive. Oh, yes. At first sight she had been hugely, hopelessly attracted to Bastien and had hung on his every word.
‘You still haven’t explained one thing,’ Bastien had mused. ‘If you value it so much, why is the pendant being sold at auction?’
She had explained about the jewellery her father had given her stepmother. ‘Now Vickie’s having a big clean-out, and I didn’t want to risk upsetting her by admitting how I felt.’
‘If you don’t ask, you don’t get,’ Bastien had censured drily. ‘Not that I’m complaining. Your delicate sense of diplomacy has worked in my favour. If the necklace hadn’t gone on sale I wouldn’t have known where it was. I’ve been trying to track it down for years.’
‘I suppose you remember your mother wearing it?’ she remarked.
‘No, but I remember my father giving it to her,’ Bastien had countered rather bleakly, his dramatic dark eyes veiled while his beautiful mouth had tightened unexpectedly. ‘I was about four years old and I honestly believed we were the perfect family.’
‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she had quipped with a big smile, trying to picture him as a little kid, thinking that he had probably been very cute, with a shock of black hair and brown eyes deep enough to drown in.
‘Irrespective of what happens at the auction tomorrow, promise that you will have dinner with me tomorrow evening,’ he’d urged, and had invited her to his hotel.
‘I’m still planning to bid,’ she warned him.
‘I can afford to outbid most people. Dinner?’ he’d pressed again.
And she had crumbled, like sand smoothed over and reshaped by a powerful wave.
Bastien hadn’t made the connection between her and Moore Components, and it had been a big surprise for both of them when her auction disappointment had been followed by an unexpected meeting with Bastien in her father’s office the next day. Dinner at Bastien’s hotel had been replaced by dinner at her father’s home, to which she had been invited as well.
When a phone call had claimed Robert Moore’s attention he had asked his daughter to see Bastien out to his car.
‘If you’re expecting me to congratulate you on your win, you’re destined for disappointment,’ Lilah had warned Bastien on their way down the stairs. ‘You paid a ludicrous amount for that pendant.’
Bastien laughed out loud. ‘Says the woman who bidded me up to that ludicrous amount!’
Lilah reddened. ‘Well, I had to at least try to get it. Why are you seeing my father?’ she had asked abruptly as they came to a halt in the car park.
‘I’m interested in acquiring his business and he wants some time to think my offer over. You work here. You could be my acquisition too,’ Bastien had said huskily, sexily in her ear, making the tiny hairs at her nape stand up while an arrow of heat shot straight down into her pelvis.
