Janette Kenny - Pirate Tycoon, Forbidden Baby

No! This couldn’t be! She read each damning word, her racing heart nearly stopping as the meaning sank into her soul. How could she have believed her future was safe from his power, from his dominance?

“What trickery is this?” she asked.

“No tricks, ma chérie . I own majority shares in Chateau Mystique.”

Impossible! Edouard’s shares were to pass into her hands after his will was read in two weeks. He’d promised she’d have majority control of the hotel then.

Yet the document proved Edouard’s shares had fallen into this arrogant billionaire’s hands. She doubted its validity, even though her solicitor’s signature was there, a signature she’d seen countless times. This couldn’t have happened, yet it had.

She felt betrayed. Used. Abandoned all over again.

André controlled her hotel. Her home. And he’d control her if she let him.

His hand glided over her shoulders in a mock caress, the fingers playing her skin like a fine instrument. Only the dirge sang her doom. She trembled, her mind reeling, more furious than she’d ever been in her life.

He laughed, no doubt gloating over his conquest and her reaction to him, and her humiliation was absolute. “Get up.”

Kira sprang up so fast the room spun. She clasped the blanket around her heaving chest and shook her head to toss her heavy hair away from her face, too gripped with shock and anger to feel satisfaction when his eyes flared with sensual awareness, with masculine appreciation.

At least they were alone. She’d read that whenever André left his island compound his trusted guard accompanied him. The brute was undoubtedly in the hall, making sure nobody interrupted his decadently wealthy employer.

Her gaze climbed André’s tall, muscular form, clad in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit that shimmered in the artificial light. French, of course, the cut emphasizing his long powerful legs, lean hips and broad shoulders.

His snow-white shirt was a startling contrast against his darkly tanned skin, and his silvery tie complemented his platinum watchband that had probably cost more than what she earned in a year. His thick black hair was combed off his brow, his clothing meticulous, his bearing indomitable.

Her heart did a traitorous flutter as she remembered how much she’d savored having his powerful body molded to hers, those elegant hands bringing her to pleasure again and again. Drowning in the passion in his eyes as they’d made love.

It had been this way from the start. Less than two hours after she’d met him they’d had sex: hot, wild, urgent. There had been no love involved, only an overpowering attraction and an intense demanding need.

She’d never behaved so recklessly in her life. Never thought of the consequences of falling into André’s bed.

Tell him the result of the affair, her mind screamed. Get it out in the open now.

Hands trembling, she dug her cold fingers into the blanket and met his eyes, such an intense dark brown they gleamed black. A dizzying rush of emotions slammed into her, staggering her with their strength. No, now wasn’t the time.

“Get dressed,” he said.

Kira turned her back to him and slipped a blue silk sundress over her flushed body, hating the way her hands shook and how her body pulsed and quivered with awareness of him. Though the garment she donned was modest, she felt exposed under his knowing stare. Vulnerable.

“I assume you expect to buy my shares now?” she said.

“ Oui .”

“They aren’t for sale.”

“You haven’t heard my offer.”

“I don’t need to.” She faced him, head high, her insides tangled in a riot of emotions. My God, he was an extraordinarily gorgeous man—tall, bronzed, strong, like a god come to life. And he was just as arrogant, just as domineering.

“I’m not selling,” she said.

One dark eyebrow lifted, as if challenging her statement. “Everyone has a price.”

“I don’t.”

“We shall see.” André nodded to the door. “After you.”

“I’ll say my goodbye to you here, and see you at the board meeting in two weeks.”

His smile was glacial. “You’re coming with me, ma chérie .”

Her skin pebbled as a cloying sensation settled over her. “In your dreams,” she said, hating the tremor in her voice.

A muscle pulsed madly in his cheek. “I’ll carry you if I must, but we are returning to Petit St. Marc.”

The island? Her heart stuttered, then began racing. “Why?”

“To trump your lover, ma chérie .”

Had he gone mad? “Then you are wasting your time, because I don’t have a lover.”

“I know you’ve been doing Peter Bellamy’s bidding from the start. Now it stops.”

“Peter?” A hysterical laugh bubbled from her. “I assure you that I’m not his lover.”

“Spare me your lies. I know the truth.”

No, he couldn’t be more wrong. But she realized that if he didn’t believe her in this, he’d never believe he was the father of her child.

“I’m not going anywhere with you. Leave now or I’ll—”

He snapped his fingers and she jumped, slamming her back against the wall. “That’s all it would take to have this hotel razed. Your shares would be worthless. Is that what you want?”

This was blackmail. Kidnapping at the very least! But to balk would bring about the destruction of her hotel.

“No,” she said, knowing he wasn’t bluffing. “But I can’t leave the Chateau without making arrangements.”

“You can and you will.” His long fingers curled around her bare arm and he guided her out the door, his touch surprisingly gentle.

Yet she felt the underlying steel and rage in him and knew fighting was futile. And she was so weary already.

André was a man who took what he wanted, when he wanted. He’d proved that when he’d seduced her on Petit St. Marc. Proved it again when he’d swum in from the Caribbean like a great white shark and gobbled up control of the Chateau.

Yet she’d glimpsed another side of him on the island—a tenderness that had called to her heart, and a vulnerability she hadn’t understood.

Yes, for now she’d return to the island with him. Perhaps there she’d find the right time to tell him about their child. Perhaps there she’d be able to reason with him about the Chateau—convince him she’d been robbed of her birthright. Perhaps in time they’d be able to start over.

André Gauthier stared at the deceptive woman walking down the corridor before him, her rounded hips rocking in an invitation that any red-blooded man would accept. No wonder Bellamy had given her forty-nine percent of Chateau Mystique.

Kira Montgomery was sex personified. She had certainly beguiled him with the oldest trick in the book.

He’d prided himself on his cool control under duress, nurtured it until it was second nature. It had never let him down—until Kira had invaded his island three months ago.

André hadn’t been surprised when Bellamy had sent a female employee to Petit St. Marc to charm him after his last offer to buy the Chateau had been turned down. The excuse that she’d come for a prearranged meeting had been a lie.

The old man had banked on Kira’s charms and André’s moment of grief to alter his ultimate goal. Or so André had believed.

It had worked. For that one night. Kira had pleaded her case with passion, and André had found himself caught up in the most stimulating debate of his life.

He hadn’t realized the extend of her deceit until much later. The elder Bellamy hadn’t sent her—his son had. Peter. His most fierce rival. Peter—the man he now suspected had set in motion events that had brought about the accident that had killed Edouard’s mistress and landed Edouard in a hospital.

Kira was not only Peter’s mistress, she was his accomplice as well. Oui , she was the brains of the maneuver that had ultimately eliminated the old man—that had earned her control of Chateau Mystique.

But her treachery had robbed André of something far more valuable than property. She’d had a hand in destroying the last of his family.

Kira had deceived him in the worst possible way.

She deserved no less in return.

Retribution coursed through his blood like a molten river.

Peter Bellamy would chaff, knowing that André held Kira on Petit St. Marc. She in turn wouldn’t be able to contact her accomplice—her lover.

She’d be at his mercy when he launched the final takeover of Bellamy Enterprises.

His revenge wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d bested Bellamy’s conniving son at his own game—until he’d made Kira regret that she’d set out to destroy him.

André joined her in the lift and they rode up in silence to the fifth floor. He wondered if she’d entertained Peter Bellamy there while the old man had dominated his mistress in the penthouse.

The dark thought stayed with him as he followed Kira to a fifth-floor door. She slid a card key in the slot and stepped into a small but cozy suite. He noted the room bore quaint personal touches, typical of an English parlor, and carried her light floral fragrance. It seemed too benign. Too cozy.

“Pack light,” he said, annoyed by the thought of her entertaining Peter Bellamy here.

Her shoulders stiffened—proof the order had grated. Good. He wanted to keep her off balance, keep her wondering what he planned to do to her.

“Do you plan to keep me locked in a room?” she asked.

“If I must.”

The color leached from her face, only to return in a rosy flush that hinted of righteous anger. He ground his teeth, annoyed she could project such a quality.

“This is wrong of you to force me to leave here,” she said.

How dared she accuse him of wrongdoing? “You should have thought of that before you agreed to do Bellamy’s bidding.”

She stared at him, her expression guarded. “As I’ve said all along, I was told you’d agreed to meet me on your island to discuss the Chateau.”

“Save your lies,” he said. “I have proof of your part in his scheme.”

Her lovely mouth fell open, as if she was shocked by his claim. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re referring to.”

His smile was as tight as the tension bouncing off the jade brocade walls. “It amazes me that people shred the paper trail but forget the electronic one.”

“There is none,” she said.

“Don’t be too sure.”

“But I am certain.”

“Then you’re a fool.”

She flushed, but instead of continuing her defense she looked away from him. Guilt? It must be.

André smiled. He’d caught her. Her game was over, and his was just beginning.

“Enough wasting time,” he said, eager to leave this place that pulsed with bad memories.

She moved into her bedroom like someone walking to the guillotine. Soundlessly she rolled a case from the closet. The damned thing was half as tall as she.

When he realized her intent, he took it from her and hefted it onto the bed. “Take only the essentials.”

“I’ll pack what I wish to,” she said, her amber eyes too bright with moisture.

Her tears had no effect on him. He’d learned long ago from his mother and sister that women cried over everything and nothing just to get their way. He certainly wouldn’t allow Bellamy’s mistress to beguile him again.

His mobile phone chirped and he immediately answered it. The tone signaled it came from his guard. “What?”

“Peter Bellamy just arrived.”

André cut a sharp glance to Kira, who seemed preoccupied packing her bag. She’d not been out of his sight, so either Bellamy was making a surprise visit to the Chateau to see his lover, or someone on Kira’s staff had phoned him.