The Wealthy Frenchman's Proposition (2 page)

He wasn’t going down the aisle again.

Yet…there was something about Sheri that he found comforting. She was fun to work with, she was pleasing to look at it. Not a world-class beauty, but so unassuming about her looks that it was refreshing to be around her.

But today she looked exquisite. The pale bridesmaid’s dress made her skin glow and the subtle makeup that someone had applied to her face gave her an understated beauty that he couldn’t keep his eyes from. Seeing her move lithely through the stately, beautiful Theakis home and grounds where the wedding was being held had put her into a new light.

“You’re staring at your secretary,” Gui said as he came up behind Tristan.

“Am I?”

Gui arched one eyebrow at Tristan but said nothing more. Count Guillermo de Cuaron y Bautista de la Cruz was one of his two best friends, Christos Theakis, the groom, being the other member of their triad. They’d met at boarding school in Switzerland when they’d all been ten, three young hell-raisers who had nothing in common except being second sons, boys who’d grown up with no pressure or expectations.

In their twenties, they’d started a business called Seconds, a string of nightclubs in posh hot spots all over the world. The exclusive clubs were
the
place to see and be seen the world over, and every night the bouncers turned away more celebrities, wannabes and hangers on than they let in.

He heard the husky sound of Sheri’s laughter and Lucille’s familiar snort and smiled to himself. Lucille, who knew Christos well from working with Tristan for so long, had also flown up for the wedding, and the two women had hit it off in person. He wasn’t really surprised, because Sheri was one of those women that everyone got along with, and she and Lucille had already been friendly via the phone.

He didn’t examine too closely why he’d asked Sheri, and not Lucille, to be his companion for the wedding.

“You’re staring again…are you falling for her?”

“Falling for who?”

“Your secretary.”

“You know how I am. She’s pretty and available.”

“And that’s enough for tonight,” Gui said.

Tristan shrugged. He didn’t like to talk about his attitude toward women. He had two sisters and had been married to the love of his life. If he’d been a different man with a different sex drive, he would have lived the rest of his life as a celibate. A part of him had died with Cecile.

But he had never been able to turn off his attraction to the opposite sex. Six months after her death, he’d found himself starting a string of one-week affairs. Sex was the only thing he’d ever take from the women he became involved with.

He suspected that would not be enough for Sheri. She also worked for him, and that complicated things. He shook his head and signaled the waiter for another glass of wine. The vintage was a very nice one from his family’s vineyards.

“Tris?”

“Hmm?”

“She’s not like your other women—”

“I know that, Gui.”

Gui nodded. “I can’t believe that Christos is married.”

“It’s not the death sentence you think it is.” Though he’d never admit it, Tristan envied Gui his attitude. Gui had never been serious about one woman, and he moved through life with a kind of light charm that Tristan admired.

The music changed and a sweet, slow song came on. Couples filled the dance floor with Ava and Christos in the center. They seemed so…He shook his head, not willing to go there.

“I have to go,” Gui suddenly said.

“Why?”

“Those men are too old for Augustina,” Gui said, acting the protective older brother to his sister, who had been Gui’s companion in the wedding party. Tristan bit back a smile as he watched his friend wedge his way between Augustina and her suitors.

He felt a small hand on his arm and glanced down at Sheri. “Having fun?” he asked.

“Yes. I can’t believe I was reluctant to come,” she said. Her breath smelled faintly of champagne. She held a half-empty glass in her right hand. She tucked her left hand between his arm and body.

She closed her eyes and swayed to the music. Just a little movement and humming under her breath.

“Are you enjoying the reception?” he asked.

“Yes, I am. Ava’s so sweet. Thank you for inviting me to join you this week.”

“You’re welcome. I believe I owe you something.”

“What do you owe me, Tristan?”

There was a dreamy quality to her voice. From the first it had been obvious to him that she was attracted to him. But she was careful to keep that attraction to herself and had put a barrier between them. Put him into a box, so it seemed. But tonight…tonight, with the trio playing romantic music and the wine flowing freely, none of that mattered.

“Dance with me,
ma douce?
”

She smiled up at him. “I’d love to.”

He had never seen that exact look in her eyes before. “You seem different.”

“Maybe that’s because we’re not in the office.”

“No, we are not. What difference does that make to you, Sheri?”

“It makes all the difference in the world, Tristan.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned up on tiptoe, brushing her lips against his neck. “This is so nice.”

Tristan knew he should pull away and let her go but instead he leaned down, put his hand under her chin and tipped her head up toward his. His lips found hers easily and she sighed into his mouth as their lips met.

The music was chic and sexy and, as Sheri leaned closer to Tristan, she realized that he was, too. His cologne was one of a kind and smelled delicious. She’d never get enough of it. Even at work the scent lingered in his office when he was away.

She knew it was partly the alcohol she’d drunk that gave the evening the magical quality that it was taking on as she danced with Tristan, but just this once she felt as if she was woman enough for him.

The right kind of woman for Tristan Sabina, international playboy, her boss and the sexiest man she’d ever danced with.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, his French accent nearly as appealing as the strong line of his jaw.

“About you.”

“Really?”

“Um…yes. What are you thinking?”

“That maybe I should pull you closer,” he said, suiting action to words.

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She knew this was another part of the wonderful dreamland she’d been in for the last week. Being on Mykonos was like being in a fantasy world.

Tristan and his friends were wealthy in every sense of the word and, when she was with them, she was living a life that was far removed from everything she’d ever known.

“Okay?”

“Yes,” she said, her words a sigh. “Though I thought we’d decided that…um, we’d just have a professional relationship.”

“Did we? I think we can both be forgiven for making the most of this moment, on a night like tonight.”

She looked up at him, trying to judge if he was sincere, and she saw something in his eyes. Something she’d never seen in them before.

Lust.

Everything feminine in her clenched at that expression. Here was what she’d dreamed of. And how sad was it that she wanted to accept whatever he had to offer?

“For just this night?” she asked, to make sure she understood what he was offering.

“That’s all I have in me,” he said, but in his eyes she saw the hint of something more.

Some kind of emotion that intimated that he did feel more, but why did she care? Being in Tristan’s arms was enough for her. This moment dancing together was better than she’d ever imagined it could be. She kept breathing deeply, trying to imprint the scent of him in her soul. She ran her hands down his shoulders and back, feeling the strength of his body under her touch.

If she were braver she’d press her body closer to his so she’d have the imprint of him against her to recall when she was back in the office and they were simply employer and employee again.

His finger under her chin startled her into opening her eyes and when he tipped her head back and their eyes met, she realized that there was more happening here than just a dance. She saw something else in Tristan’s gaze. There was such sadness there, she thought. A kind of pain that she recognized all the way to her lonely soul.

Tristan Sabina, lonely?

The thought was ludicrous.

She shook her head. What the hell was she doing? This was her boss. She pulled back, put a respectable few inches between them, and he let her.

She got the message loud and clear. There
wasn’t
more to this than Tristan feeling lonely at the reception and wanting…what exactly?

She tipped her head to the side as he brushed his finger along the line of her jaw. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I never realized how beautiful your eyes are.”

She caught her breath. She wasn’t beautiful and she knew it. Her eyes were brown. Not the kind of luscious chocolaty color that poets wrote about, just plain brown. She shook her head.

“Yes, gorgeous. I could get lost in them.”

“Tristan—”

He rubbed his thumb over her lower lip and her thoughts dissolved. She felt a tingling from that contact that spread down her neck and shoulders. And she realized that the safe little way in which she’d been obsessed with Tristan had turned into a dangerous and exciting attraction.

She knew that he wasn’t himself tonight. That Monday morning, when they were back at work, they would return to the relationship they’d always had.

A sane person would turn around, walk off the dance floor and go back to her room.

But she’d been alone in her room for much of her life. In a box of her own making where she was safely insulated from pain. From the men who always left her.

She looked up at Tristan. He stared at her lips. His own parted as he stroked hers. And she wondered if knowing he was leaving, figuratively speaking, after one night would somehow lessen the pain of being left once again.

And she didn’t kid herself that it wasn’t going to be painful when he left. It was always painful, but being with Tristan…being in his arms and experiencing the things she’d dreamed of since the first time he’d walked into her office…well, that might be worth it.

Wouldn’t it?

She didn’t know and didn’t want to analyze it. For once she wanted to forget that she was a plain-Jane kind of woman. That she was the kind of girl who usually went back to her room alone. For tonight, she was the woman that Tristan Sabina was looking at with lust in his eyes.

He drew her back out onto the dance floor, moving their bodies together. Feeling the rightness of the way she fit in his arms and against his body.

If she pulled back, of course he’d let her walk away. He had never had to coax a woman into his bed. But with Sheri, he was tempted. He was tempted to ply her with champagne and kisses.

Kisses.

He’d tasted her lips once, and now that was all he wanted to do. Stroke his tongue over the seam between her lips until she sighed and opened her mouth. Let his tongue sweep into the softness of her mouth. She would taste sweet…of champagne and something else that was uniquely Sheri.

He could not resist. He lowered his head, and she rose to meet him. She moaned into his mouth, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning up on her tiptoes to keep their mouths together. He held her waist, lifting her against him. He felt the impact of her breasts against his chest and wanted to groan out loud. How could he ever have missed the fact that Sheri was a damned attractive woman?

He pulled back and looked down into those deep chocolate eyes of hers. They were wide and dreamy-looking. She brought one hand from his shoulder to her mouth and traced her lips with her forefinger.

“Sheri?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you like me to kiss you again?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said, licking her lower lip and leaning her weight on him as she stretched up toward him.

He bent lower and as soon as his lips brushed hers she opened her mouth and her tongue met his. Just a soft, tentative touch, and then she made that little moaning sound and he felt the gentle edge of her teeth against his lower lip as she sucked him into her mouth.

He opened his eyes and saw that hers were closed and she was absorbed totally in the moment. He realized things were going too far for a public dance floor. Sheri’s burgeoning passion was for him, and him alone.

Damn, he’d never felt this possessive about a woman before.

He lifted his mouth from hers, tucked her head into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Rubbed his hands down her back until he thought he could walk without each step being painful.

The crowd at the reception had thinned. The photographer from the Sabina Group was still there, but otherwise the event was paparazzi free. The guards that Christos had hired had provided an environment where his bride and his guests could relax and not have to worry about being pursued.

“Sheri?”

“Yes, Tristan?”

He couldn’t ask her to stay with him tonight, he thought. This was his assistant. The woman he counted on to be cheeky and funny and to keep his New York office running efficiently. Yet he wanted her, and he wasn’t in the habit of denying himself anything he wanted.

“Did you like that?”

“Kissing you?”

“Mmm, hmm.”

“Oh, yes. Very much. And dancing with you,” she said, her eyes sparkling as she shimmied against him in time to the slow jazz number playing. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Kissing you or dancing with you?” he asked, just to tease her.

“Both.”

“Yes.”

She arched both eyebrows at him. “Really? I know you’re used to more sophisticated women.”

“How do you know that?” he asked. He never discussed his private life at the office.

“I searched you on Google. I read the
Post.
And Lucille sends me the French tabloids with pictures of you.”

“Why?” he asked, realizing that Sheri was a lot more talkative when she drank. Normally, she’d try to play off her interest in him, but not tonight.

“You’re my obsession,” she said, her tone airy and breathless.

“Obsession?” he asked.

She flushed and pushed out of his arms. Her hands came up to cover her face. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I said that.”

Tristan cupped her elbow and led her from the dance floor. Sheri grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter. Taking a delicate sip, she drew to a stop.

“Will you please forget I said that?”

Not in a million years, he thought. She was totally unique in a world of women who fawned over him. There was a freshness to her. An innocence that he’d never experienced. Not even with Cecile, who’d been ten years his senior.

“Tristan? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And?”

“No, Sheri, I will not forget you said that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I like being your obsession. What have you obsessed about doing with me?”

She shook her head and he wondered if she’d back down now. Instead she took a sip of her champagne and smiled up at him. “I’m not sure you’re ready to know about that.”

“When do you think I will be?”

She shrugged. Her delicate shoulders moved underneath the pretty silk straps of the bridesmaid’s dress. “I’m not sure you’ll ever be ready.”

“Why not?”

“Because of what I said earlier.”

“And that was?”

“You’re not used to a woman like me.”

“
Ma petite,
that I may not be, but I’m definitely ready for a woman like you.”