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‘Is your mother still alive?’ she asked abruptly as the first course was served.
Bastien studied her in silence, black brows drawing together in a frown. ‘You’re very curious about my life.’
Lilah shrugged her lightly clad shoulder. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Bastien set down his glass. ‘My mother died in a car accident when I was a child and I had to go and live with my father.’
Lilah toyed with the artfully presented courgette flowers topping the tiny onion tart on her plate. ‘And how was that?’
‘Hideous,’ Bastien admitted grimly. ‘Anatole’s wife, Cleta, hated me on sight. I was the living proof of her husband’s infidelity. As for my half-brother... Leo was an adored only child and suddenly I turned up. Naturally he resented me. But there were some advantages to my new home,’ he conceded, his dark eyes veiled with mystery, his beautiful mouth compressing.
‘Such as...?’ The sliver of onion tart Lilah had selected was melting in her mouth.
Bastien frowned at her continuing interest. ‘It was a fresh start for me in many ways. I was able to see Anatole regularly and I went to a much better school.’
‘Obviously you’re close to your father,’ Lilah commented, relieved to hear that hint of indulgent warmth in his dark drawl when he referred to his parent, because really it was brutally obvious to her that Bastien had been cursed by the most utterly miserable childhood.
‘Yes. I’m very fond of Anatole. He may have been a push-over for the wrong women, but as a father, when I needed him, he was the very best,’ Bastien stated with quiet pride.
Relief filled Lilah that there had been someone loving in Bastien’s life, and she wondered why the idea of nobody having cared for him as a child should disturb her so much. His answers to her questions, however, had given her a certain insight into what had made him so tough and unyielding.
‘But that’s enough about my life, glikia mou,’ Bastien continued, smooth as glass. ‘Tell me about Josh Burrowes.’
Thrown off balance in her turn, Lilah stiffened, her spine straightening. ‘There’s nothing to tell. We were on the same course at uni. He’s one of my friends.’
Bastien lounged back in his seat as their plates were cleared and the main course served. ‘But obviously Josh wants to be something more. You should’ve told him the truth.’
Lilah’s delicate bone structure tightened. ‘I gave my friends the same story you suggested I use with my family. I said you’d offered me a job.’
Bastien rested his shimmering dark gaze on the voluptuous promise of her pink lips as she savoured the tender lamb on her plate. ‘But you should have come clean for Josh’s benefit and told him that you are mine.’
Her small white teeth gritted as if she had trodden barefoot on a stone. ‘I am not yours, Bastien.’
‘You are,’ Bastien purred in immediate contradiction, his accented drawl vibrating through her slender taut frame. ‘I know it every time I look at you. No hunger this powerful is one-sided.’
Lilah concentrated on her meal, deeming silence the most diplomatic response. She was very, very attracted to him, she admitted inwardly, but no way did she owe him that amount of truth.
As she studied him a snaking curl of warmth stirred low in her pelvis and something tightened even deeper inside her, making her shift uneasily in her seat. The hard, masculine lines of his compellingly beautiful face and the suppressed ferocity of his stunningly intense eyes welded her attention to him.
The first time she had seen Bastien she had known that she had never seen a more beautiful male specimen, and in the two years that had since passed that fact remained the absolute truth. Bastien was gorgeous. She knew it and he had to know it too.
Perspiration beaded her short upper lip, and as a member of staff stepped up to the table to refresh their wine glasses she finally dragged her attention from Bastien and breathed in deep.
‘Stefan’s wife is a fantastic chef,’ she remarked, after savouring the first mouthful of a roasted pear dessert served with chocolate sauce and then pushing the plate away in defeat. ‘But I can’t find room for another bite...’
