Mistresses: In His Bed: The Billionaire's Trophy / Strictly Temporary / Whose Bed Is It Anyway?. Robyn Grady
plunged over the edge with a startled cry of pleasure, quivering in the waves of ecstasy while he drove into her one last time. He vented a harsh groan of satisfaction and shuddered over her and she felt him spill inside her.
He shifted and pressed his mouth in a brief salutation to her damp brow. ‘That was an unforgettable experience, moraki mou…’
Unforgettable for her as well, Emmie acknowledged in a daze. Even though their intimacy had begun on a note of pain he had twice brought her to a climax and she was blissfully relaxed and adrift on a fluffy cloud of well-being. She squashed the misgivings already trying to infiltrate her. She wasn’t going to turn all girly and silly in the aftermath, she assured herself with determination. He had surpassed her expectations but all they had shared was their bodies, nothing more. Nobody fancied themselves in love, nobody needed to get hurt, least of all her. She was in full control of her emotions.
Bastian rolled back from her and studied her with frowning golden eyes the colour of burning amber. ‘So, what’s going on here?’ he queried, black brows pleating. ‘I don’t want to misjudge you and assume that this was some bizarre set-up.’
TAKEN ABACK BY Bastian’s provocative statement, Emmie blinked away her drowsiness and lifted her head up off the pillow. ‘A…set-up? Bizarre?’ she repeated blankly in her confusion. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘By all means, tell me if I’m wrong,’ Bastian urged, wide sensual mouth tense. ‘But I believe you were a virgin.’
Emmie sat up, hugging the sheet defensively to her breasts. Suddenly, her face was literally burning with mortification, for she had been hoping that he either hadn’t noticed or hadn’t guessed what had been amiss with her. ‘Yes?’ she gritted in a so-what tone of discouragement.
‘Then why throw yourself away on me?’ Bastian asked flatly. ‘I’m not proud that you succeeded in enticing me into bed but I wasn’t expecting anything more from you than a typical shag.’
Emmie tensed in sheer shock and anger at his accusation. ‘Look, I did not entice you!’ she snapped back.
‘You’re so beautiful that you’ve naturally been enticing me from the moment we met at the airport,’ Bastian extended grudgingly and, recognising his pronounced discomfiture in the aftermath of his sexual satisfaction, he labelled himself a total hypocrite and sprang out of bed to distance himself from her. But he had done what he should not have done and now he had to deal with the fallout. She had proved to be a temptation he could not resist. But what he could not comprehend was that Emmie Marshall had also been a virgin. That did not make sense, nor did it match the characteristics of the adventurous and more experienced woman he had believed she had to be to work as an escort.
‘Believe me, it wasn’t intentional!’ Emmie fired back, thrusting back the bedding and snatching up the towelling robe folded over a nearby chair. She dug her arms into it and tied the sash tight, adjusting the lapels to cover every piece of skin that she could for the last thing she now wanted to be was naked in any way around Bastian Christou. A typical shag? Was that all her body had meant to him? Could he possibly be any more insulting?
‘I wasn’t expecting a hired escort to be a virgin. I don’t pay for sex either, I never have and never will, but I’ll naturally compensate you for your…er, generosity—’ Bastian selected the word with razor-edged care ‘—with diamonds and hope that they meet your expectations.’
Emmie had honestly believed that she could not feel any worse but now and without the smallest warning it was as if the bottom had fallen out of her world, leaving her hovering in sickening limbo. He truly did believe that she would want to be paid in some way for having slept with him! She was shattered and simultaneously cut to the quick by his view of her. Seemingly he saw her as barely one step removed from a hooker. A man didn’t normally offer a woman diamonds in reward after sex, at least not in her world. And this was the male she had chosen to sleep with? She could only despise her blind stupidity.
In the buzzing silence, Bastian noted her pallor and the tightness of her delicate bone structure. ‘Have I got this situation wrong? You did say quite plainly upfront that you weren’t cheap—’
‘But that didn’t mean that I put a price on my body like a whore!’ Emmie shot back at him wrathfully, a shudder of mortified rage writhing through her tall slender figure as she stood there, stiff with disbelief. ‘I meant that I don’t do casual sex, that’s what I meant! I wasn’t talking about money or jewels or anything of that nature!’
‘Since I’ve clearly offended you, I apologise,’ Bastian fielded curtly. ‘But what else was I to think when you made that comment about not being cheap? You’re an escort, whose company I paid for. It didn’t take a fertile imagination to leap to the conclusion that you would expect some further form of remuneration for including sex in our arrangement…’
And that was the exact instant in which Emmie finally recognised what a dreadful, indefensible mistake she had made in going to bed with him, for not for one moment had he forgotten that she was an escort whose time he had purchased. Not for one moment had he truly buried his suspicions about exactly what being an escort might entail. She was the one who had forgotten the barriers between them; she was the one who had somehow crucially forgotten that he was paying for the role she was playing. Humiliation and regret touched her deep.
‘I already told you that I wasn’t an escort!’ she slammed back at him fierily, golden hair tumbling round her flushed cheekbones. ‘But you wouldn’t believe me!’
‘I saw your photo on that website. I phoned up and I booked you. If you weren’t an escort, how would that be possible?’ Bastian demanded drily, unimpressed, a tall commanding figure for all his state of undress.
‘It’s not that simple,’ Emmie parried, her shoulders bowing as a wave of sudden weariness engulfed her. She sank stiffly down on the sofa by the far wall, as far as she could get from him and still be in the same room. Nothing but the unlovely truth would suffice, she registered dully. She did not have a choice: she had to tell him the truth to clear her name.
Emmie breathed in deep and lifted her head high, refusing to be apologetic about what she could not help. ‘My mother owns the escort agency—’
‘Your…mother?’ Bastian said incredulously, striding into the dressing room to tug a pair of jeans and a T-shirt out of the built-in closets that lined the walls. Her mother ran an escort agency? He was astonished and appalled by that startling piece of information.
‘Yes, my mother,’ Emmie confirmed between compressed lips and then went on to explain a little about her background and how her elder sister had raised her and her siblings after Odette had put her younger daughters into foster care. ‘I hadn’t seen Odette since I was twelve and when she rang out of the blue and said I could live with her for free while I worked unpaid for your company, I leapt at the opportunity. It wasn’t just that I needed a low-cost place to live…’ She hesitated and her cheeks warmed, her eyes veiling to conceal her vulnerability. ‘I thought it would be a great way to finally get to know my mother as well.’
Wincing at the troubled note in her voice that she could not hide, Bastian zipped up his jeans. ‘Did you know about the agency before you moved in with her?’
‘Of course not, and the minute I did move in and she told me about it she immediately began nagging at me to work as one of her escorts,’ Emmie admitted ruefully, trying not to stare as he hauled on the tee, dragging it down over his amazingly muscular bronzed abdomen. Embarrassed colour stung her face with unwelcome heat. ‘She was very annoyed when I took a job as a waitress instead—’
‘You work as a waitress as well?’ Bastian prompted with a frown of a surprise, his attention lingering on the soft full curve of her delicious mouth, which was still swollen from his kisses. That fast