The Mistresses Collection. Оливия Гейтс
Good grief, she hurt! But then what had she expected from what could only be a casual sexual encounter? Well, certainly not the level of humiliation that he had unleashed, she replied inwardly. A knock sounded on the door and she froze, lovely face paling again.
Swallowing hard, she unlocked it. Bastian handed her an armful of her clothes and she grasped them, tilting her chin in defiance, refusing to cringe.
‘One more thing,’ he breathed tightly. ‘Are you using any form of contraception?’
Her eyes widened to their fullest extent.
‘I gather that’s a no?’ Bastian prompted. ‘Unfortunately I didn’t either. I forgot—’
‘You…forgot?’ Emmie exclaimed in disbelief.
‘I’ve been in an exclusive relationship for a long time and precautions were unnecessary,’ he stated curtly. ‘I had a recent health check and can confirm that I’m free of any infection but there’s obviously a risk that you could conceive.’
By the end of that speech, Emmie had lost all her angry colour. She clutched her clothes tightly to her chest. ‘Oh, my word…I hope not.’
‘If there is a problem, be assured that you will have my full support.’ His dark eyes gleamed like polished ebony below his lush lashes and her heart thumped rata-tat-tat in a tattoo below her breastbone. It shamed her that even in that instant of stark fear she could still react like a schoolgirl to his raw dark charisma. ‘I don’t know if it will be any consolation…but I regret what happened between us as much as you do.’
Emmie nodded, face blank, said goodnight and closed the door, not bothering to lock it again, ESP telling her that she had nothing more to fear from Bastian. So, he had regrets…well, bully for Mr Insensitive! A typical shag, not a label she would ever forget, not how she would have wanted to remember her first serious sexual experience. She sped into the en suite shower and washed herself thoroughly. There was a dulled ache between her legs and her full mouth turned down at the corners. Suck it up, she told herself angrily. She was the author of her own misfortune but surely she had been punished enough? An unplanned pregnancy would be a disaster for her. Suppressing that concern on the belief that there was no advantage to foreseeing trouble that might not happen, Emmie got into bed and lay in the darkness, tears trickling down her cheeks.
EMMIE NIBBLED WITHOUT appetite at a piece of toast, no criticism of the truly sumptuous breakfast that had been delivered to her in bed: she simply wasn’t very hungry, and when a knock sounded on the door that led onto the corridor, she froze and paled.
‘Come in!’ she called, stiff as a stick of rock.
Bastian’s sister, clad in a dressing gown with her upswept bridal hairdo gleaming with pearl pins, erupted through the door, her eyes anxious. ‘I can’t believe you’re still in bed, Emmie!’ she exclaimed.
‘Sorry, I slept in. Do you need help with anything?’ Emmie asked guiltily, wondering what had happened to etch that worried look on the other young woman’s face.
‘Lilah arrived first thing this morning and she won’t leave Bastian alone!’ Nessa relayed with unconcealed resentment. ‘You should be down there protecting him!’
‘I think Bastian’s well able to protect himself,’ Emmie replied gently, but she couldn’t prevent her facial muscles from tightening at the prospect of meeting Bastian’s ex, the day after she herself had slept with him.
Nessa frowned and stared back at Emmie. ‘Do you really not care?’
Emmie belatedly recalled the role she was supposed to be playing and registered that she wasn’t acting as a concerned girlfriend might. Or at least the sort of girlfriend who let all her feelings hang out in conversation with his sister. ‘I’ll be downstairs as soon as I’m dressed,’ she promised ruefully. ‘But stop worrying. I honestly don’t think he wants Lilah back.’
‘I’ve known men as clever as my brother trapped by gold-diggers before…not least our father,’ Nessa countered with surprising cynicism. ‘Lilah will do and say anything to get Bastian back. She’s a barracuda and he took her by surprise—she didn’t expect him to just let her go when she broke off the engagement!’
Wide-eyed at that information, Emmie gazed back at Nessa. ‘Is it wrong of me to admit that she sounds a bit much for me to handle?’
Nessa laughed and sighed. ‘Don’t let Lilah intimidate you. You’re the woman Bastian brought to my wedding.’
The bride’s phone buzzed and she pulled it out, muttered something about a make-up session and fled. Emmie pushed away the tray and got out of bed. It was time to do what she had been paid to do…what her mother had been paid for Emmie to do, she adjusted wryly, while recalling Bastian’s attitude to what Odette had done. Maybe she should have stood her ground and ignored Odette’s efforts to guilt her daughter into doing something so much against her own principles. And if it was true that her weakness had brought down the roof on herself, well, she was paying the price, she acknowledged unhappily, for the prospect of acting like Bastian’s girlfriend around the barracuda was not an inviting one. Emmie would have been much happier had she never had to lay eyes on Bastian again but sadly that escape route wasn’t open to her, and if she was uncomfortable now, it was also her fault for having allowed their relationship to become embarrassingly intimate, she reflected unhappily.
Bastian watched Emmie descend the stairs in a flowing blue maxi dress that matched her beautiful eyes. Five seconds later he was imagining a necklace of sapphires round her unadorned throat and five seconds after that he was meeting her eyes and registering that she might look like a goddess but she was a goddess of the iceberg variety, not the warm, chatty type. Frustration growled through Bastian, who was not in a good mood. So, he had got it wrong, so he had hurt her feelings, been less than tactful, but did she have to continue to hold that against him? He had apologised, hadn’t he? As a male who rarely apologised he attached a great deal of significance to that apology. He watched Emmie’s face light up with a sudden warm smile when the parents of the teenager who had knocked her flying into the pool the day before approached her and he noted the effort she was making to put his uncle and aunt at ease. Lilah would still have been complaining and nursing her bruises and making everyone around her feel bad about the accident, but then Emmie, whatever else she was, didn’t revel in being the centre of attention. As Bastian sprang upright to go and greet his supposed partner he saw Lilah’s face tighten. No, even Lilah hadn’t counted on a beauty of Emmie’s calibre coming along to distract him, he conceded with a shot of unexpected amusement. And that was all this weird way he was feeling was, all the irrational thinking he had been doing and dwelling on mistakes, which was so not his style, Bastian thought impatiently, gritting his teeth. Emmie was simply a distraction, a very pleasant, very sexy distraction in the wake of the weeks of media drama that Lilah had enjoyed whipping up.
Emmie saw Bastian first, breathtakingly handsome in his pearl grey morning suit. Her heart skipped a beat and her mouth ran dry and she really didn’t want to meet his eyes and was grateful when his uncle and aunt engaged her in conversation. Over their shoulders, she glimpsed Bastian’s ex, Lilah, staring at her fixedly. Lilah was wearing a black and white frothy bridesmaid dress that made her tiny figure look more than ever like a delicate fairy’s. Her heart-shaped face and almond brown eyes glowed between the wings of her waterfall-straight dark hair. she was quite exquisite in a dainty doll-like way and suddenly Emmie felt like a great hulking giantess, standing as she did comfortably six feet tall in her heels.
‘Emmie…’ Bastian murmured, leaning close so that his breath warmed her cheek and the scent of his cologne brought back a shattering memory of how it had felt to be in his arms the night before when such a recollection was least welcome. He rested a light hand against her spine, a contact that made her bristle like a Rottweiler ready to attack. ‘I’m relieved you’re here. I’m having a trying