LITMIR.BIZ

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car, he’d all but said he wanted to continue their affair. So what could this be about? What was he going to say to her now, in this paradise?

      “So what did you come up with?”

      “I want you to be my fiancée,” he said.

      Sheri was sure she’d misunderstood him, because she knew he wasn’t the marrying kind, but she thought he’d said be his fiancée.

      “What?”

      “I want you to be my fiancée for the time being. Just until the furor of the press dies down.”

      She felt the blood rush from her face and closed her eyes. Of course, it was temporary. She had forgotten the one truth of her life—she was meant to be alone.

      Sheri pulled away from him and got to her feet. Moving a few yards away, she wrapped one arm around her waist and then a few seconds later turned back to him, putting both hands on her hips.

      “Why would I agree to that? That’s a crazy solution. Who’s going to care that we’re engaged?”

      “The Sabina Group board, for one. They wanted to transfer you to the London office where you could hide out until this blows over.”

      “Why wouldn’t that work?”

      “Because I need you in the New York office,” he said. He wasn’t giving her up. She was one of the only two assistants he’d ever had that didn’t annoy him and actually made him want to go into the office, Lucille being the other.

      “I’m still not following why you came up with this solution,” she said. She wasn’t belligerent or demanding, which he would have brushed aside.

      “The only thing that will get the press off your back is if we take control of what they are covering. A wedding is the kind of thing they eat up.”

      She tipped her head to the side and gave him a long, level stare. “So, we’re getting married?”

      “No, just planning a wedding.”

      She shook her head. “Do I seem that desperate to you?”

      “No, you don’t seem desperate.”

      “Well, then why do you think I’d settle for being your pretend fiancée?”

      “Because you aren’t going to be able to stay here at my parents’ house the way I’d hoped. And your home in Brooklyn isn’t going to offer you any protection from the paparazzi. They’ll follow you from the second you leave until the moment you return. Are you ready to deal with that on your own?”

      She shook her head and then turned away from him. He let her have a moment of privacy, but he could sense her weakening and he’d already decided this was best for both of them.

      And he wasn’t backing down. Sheri was going to be standing in his parents’ den really soon, toasting their engagement with a smile that would convince the world that they were the real deal.

      He went over to her, touching her shoulders. How he’d never noticed her before last night still amazed him. She had an incredible body. He lowered his head, dropping a soft nibbling kiss against the back of her neck. He ran his hands down her arms and drew her back against his body.

      “I want what’s best for you, ma petite,” he said, unable to resist kissing her collarbone.

      Her skin tasted faintly sweet, something he’d never noticed in a woman before. But she tasted good to him. And he brushed his tongue against her smooth skin to take a little more of that taste into his mouth.

      She shivered in his arms, arching against him, tipping her head back against his shoulder. Her eyes were wide as she looked up at him. So very wide and vulnerable.

      Her mouth trembled and he knew she was on the cusp of giving in to him. He leaned down and kissed her. Not softly, but with all the passion inside of him. He kissed her like a man who was hungry for his woman and wanted everything that she had to give.

      He broke the kiss only when he needed to breathe and immediately came back to her again, sucking her lower lip into his mouth and drawing on it. She moaned and turned in his arms until he felt the curve of her breast brush his upper arm. Her nipple was hard; he felt it through the fabric of her maillot.

      He felt a twinge of conscience at pushing her now. But in the end, he knew what he had to do to take care of her. This was all that was in his control.

      “Tristan?”

      “Hmm?”

      “I… Why don’t you want to really marry me?” she asked, her voice so soft it was hardly a whisper.

      He closed his own eyes. “I told you I had my once-in-a-lifetime love, remember?”

      “Yes, of course I do. But what has that got to do with marriage?”

      Tristan turned her in his arms and tucked her up close to his body, trying not to remember how perfectly they’d fit together when making love despite the differences in their heights. Once he’d been buried hilt-deep in her body, he’d felt the perfection of it.

      He drew her back into his arms, lowering his head once more, wanting to take her mouth and stop her questions.

      But she pulled away. “No more. I want you, but I want answers, too. I don’t understand why you won’t really marry me.”

      “It is not you,” he said, the words spilling out. “I will never marry again.”

      “Then why pretend to be engaged?”

      He pushed his hands through his hair and turned his back on her. He couldn’t look at her and lie. When she’d said she couldn’t lie to him, in the office a few short weeks ago, he’d had no idea what she felt like. Now he did.

      And he wasn’t giving her up. He hadn’t gotten Sheri Donnelly out of his system yet and he wasn’t going to let her go until he did.

      “It’s the only way I can protect you the way I want to, ma petite.”

      “Why do I need protecting?”

      “Because this is my world and I seduced you without thinking of the consequences.”

      “You didn’t force me to sleep with you,” she said, cheeky tone in place.

      “I know that, Sheri. But you weren’t aware of what it is like to be hounded by the press and I should have taken steps to protect you and your identity from them.”

      Even if she’d known how things would turn out this morning, Sheri doubted that she would have not gone with Tristan last night. Even now, sitting in a well-appointed formal living room surrounded by the entire Sabina family, she didn’t regret her decision.

      Tristan sat next to her, his arm resting casually over her shoulders. He toyed with her hair, something he did a lot. Sitting there she felt a sense of rightness all the way to her soul and she knew she’d said yes to his outrageous proposal for one reason and one reason alone. She was going to find a way to make Tristan Sabina fall in love with her.

      She was going to do everything in her power to keep this man who’d stayed. And she was coming to realize that Tristan gave her clues all the time about what it was that he enjoyed about her.

      If she paid attention, she could be what he needed her to be for him to fall in love with her. It didn’t have to be the all-encompassing love that he’d had with his late wife. She’d be satisfied with just some kind of deep caring from him.

      She settled into the curve of his body as Rene lifted his champagne flute and said something in French that she couldn’t understand. Tristan squeezed her shoulder and lifted his own flute. So she did the same, taking a delicate sip of the delicious French sparkling wine.

      Tristan leaned closer to Sheri and whispered directly in her ear. “Rene said that he wishes us happiness and laughter all the days of our lives.”

      She

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