LITMIR.BIZ

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      He climbed the steps with apparent ease and continued down a hall swathed in shadows. Her blood heated and her heart quickened, for she knew there were only bedrooms on this level.

      And she knew exactly which room was his.

      Tingles of awareness streaked through her, sending her heart into a crazy rhythm. Was that where he was taking her? Would she be a prisoner in his bed?

      Surely not? Even André couldn’t be that barbarous. Yet he’d taken her from the Chateau and brought her here. She was on his island. In his house. At his mercy.

      Mercy? She gave in to a shiver. He had none.

      He was a ruthless corporate pirate and a master of seduction. She might not be a match for him in business, but she’d proved she was his carnal equal. In that they were well suited.

      That admission terrified her more than anything, for she was fatally attracted to him—like a moth to a flame. She’d been burned once by tumbling into his bed. The next time the flames of desire would consume her—if his quest for vengeance didn’t destroy her first.

      He passed the door to his chamber without pause—the room where they’d made love, the room where the world had intruded on their ideal, the room she’d fled in anger and shame.

      She shook off those memories as he shouldered open a louvered door midway down the hall, and pushed into a cool, dark room. A gorgeous canopied bed dominated the space, its mosquito netting rippling in the refreshing breeze that filtered through the room.

      André headed straight toward the bed, his features so hard and unyielding they looked carved from stone. Yet he laid her on the bed gently, his touch lingering a telling moment.

      Instead of pouncing on her, as she’d half expected he’d do, he stood back and stared at her with cold derision. She sensed he waged a war within himself, and a part of her commiserated, for she was fighting her own private battle to remain unmoved by him. It had been so good between them that one glorious night.

      Though her heart pounded louder than the drums that had greeted them on their arrival, she sat up and faced him. And waited for him to break the tense silence.

      “I’m a private man,” he said, pacing before the foot of the bed. “I guarded my business and my private life. But in one night you stripped me bare and invited the world as witness.”

      “I had nothing to do with that swarm of paparazzi.”

      He sliced a hand through the air. “Of course you would deny your part in that.”

      “What about you?” she asked, having learned after Edouard’s death that André wasn’t a man to be crossed—or trusted. “You’re as much to blame for the dissolution of your engagement.”

      He released a cold, hard laugh. “As much as I value privacy, my former fiancée cherished it more. You destroyed that and humiliated her.”

      “I didn’t do it alone,” she said, in a burst of irritation.

      He slammed both hands on the footboard, making the bed shake. “Don’t remind me.”

      His eyes burned into hers, a mixture of anger and desire that made her light-headed. She looked away, breaking the spell.

      At least André was no longer in the limelight. Just two weeks ago, a new celebrity upheaval had dimmed the spotlight on André Gauthier and his equally rich ex-fiancée. And the hunt to find his mystery lover—Kira—had finally lost its appeal.

      But Kira would always regret being “the other woman”—a role she’d vowed never to assume. “I’m sorry your fiancée was hurt.”

      “Are you?” he asked.

      “Yes! I’m not a homewrecker. If I’d known you were engaged I never would have let you touch me.”

      “But of course you have manipulated this in your mind, so I am to blame for not telling you.”

      “Why didn’t you speak up?”

      An awful quiet hummed between them. The muscles and tendons in his face were stretched so tight she feared they’d snap. He looked angry enough to kill her with his bare hands, and at that moment she wouldn’t have blamed him.

      She was furious at herself for listening to her solicitor and coming here for the meeting that André had always denied requesting. Though they’d tumbled into bed soon after, he surely had to admit he was as much at fault as her—maybe more so.

      For he’d been affianced. He should have sent Kira away instead of seducing her.

      “Do you have any idea what you did to me?” he asked, his voice lethally soft.

      She bit back the desire to ask him the same, for that would lead to questions she wasn’t prepared to answer yet. “I exposed you for what you are. It was you alone who broke her heart.”

      “Are you really that naïve?”

      Anger sparked in her—again directed as much at herself as at him. “I know what I saw. When your fiancée found us together she was devastated that you’d broken your pledge to her. If she hadn’t loved you, your infidelity wouldn’t have bothered her.”

      He shook his head and his mouth pulled into a grim smile. “Oui, she was furious that my affair was made public. So furious she rescinded the offer that would have merged our companies. You, Miss Montgomery, cost me a fortune.”

      Kira blanched, certain he was exaggerating. “You make it sound as if your impending marriage was just a business merger.”

      “It was.”

      “You can’t be serious.”

      “But I am. You did more than create a scandal,” he said. “You interfered in a lucrative deal. But then Peter must have made you aware of that. That’s why you must suffer the consequences of your actions.”

      That was why he’d struck now to acquire the Chateau—why he’d blackmailed her into leaving with him. The corporate raider with meticulous timing. The father of her child.

      A man who broke his vows—just like her father. A man who took pleasure exacting revenge.

      Without another word he turned and stormed from the room, closing the door behind him with a demoralizing click.

      Kira leapt from the bed and raced to the door, not done with this argument yet. She spied his shadow through the louvers and grabbed the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. Locked.

      She pounded the doorframe so hard the louvers rattled. “Unlock this door! We need to talk.”

      “I’ve said all I intend to say for now.”

      “Wait! You can’t keep me in here.”

      “Oui, I can.”

      It was a fact she detested. She was marooned on an island with a man who burned with revenge—and she was pregnant with his child. He likely believed he’d rendered her helpless.

      But then, André really didn’t know her.

      “If you don’t unlock this door, I’ll—I’ll—”

      “Do what?” he asked, his voice smug. “Throw a tantrum?”

      Kira seethed and scanned the room. Her gaze fell on a pair of rococo vases adorning a shelf. Old Paris Mantle vases, she was sure. Lovely. Delicate.

      “No, something far more valuable,” she said, and heaved both vases at the door. The porcelain shattered in a million rose-hued shards—just like her dreams.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      ANDRÉ stood in the hall, chest heaving and fists shaking at his sides. He’d not intended to lock her in her room, but the moment

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