Page 38 of Worth the Risk

‘Because you left Singapore?’

‘Because he sided with the enemy,’ I replied with more than a little snap in my voice.

‘How?’ she asked softly.

Tension throbbed at my temple. ‘You haven’t earned the details, Leonora.’

She remained silent for several seconds, then her hand slipped beneath the table. Eyes on me, she trailed her fingers over mine before pressing my touch deeper into her warm inner thigh. ‘Haven’t I?’ she breathed.

Bloody hell.

I cleared the lump of arousal in my throat. ‘He went against my express wishes and did business with the person who betrayed me.’

She gasped softly. ‘Did he know he was doing that?’

My teeth ground together as I shrugged. ‘Remember that streak of irrationality that plagues me sometimes?’

‘You didn’t tell him why?’

‘He didn’t need to know why. He needed to be loyal to me.’

Her smile both condemned and absolved me. ‘Okay.’

I nudged her legs wider apart, my fingers seeking further warmth. ‘Enough about Bryce. Graciela, my sister, I see a little too much of in the tabloids, which you’d think would be a problem for my stuck-up family considering she works in PR for TMG, but apparently they’re more forgiving when it comes to her. As for my parents...’ I took a breath. ‘They’re dead—my father from a heart attack brought on by too much drink and my mother from a heroin addiction that caused her to drive off a cliff at high speed.’

Sympathy darkened her eyes. ‘Gideon, I’m so sorry.’

‘At the risk of sounding heartless, I don’t feel their loss that much. They were strangers for most of my life.’

‘But if you’ve wished for a moment that they weren’t then you’ve felt something,’ she said, again in that gentle voice I wanted to wrap myself in.

I pulled myself back from that temptation. Trust had got me nothing but pain and betrayal. Whatever was happening between Leonora and me didn’t need that elusive ingredient to make it work.

I lifted her leg and draped it over mine. ‘We’re done talking about my family now, Leonora. But I feel like I owe you.’

She reached for her glass and took a slow sip of wine before her gaze swept up to meet mine. ‘So?’

My gaze dropped to where my fingers caressed her, and got momentarily lost in the beauty of her skin. Her small hitched breaths weren’t helping me stay coherent either.

I leaned in close, brushed my lips over her earlobe and thrilled in her small shiver. ‘So for helping to push this deal along and for possibly stopping me from tossing Vadim overboard, I’d be honoured if you’d let me watch you come again.’

Heat surged into her face, her jaw slackening as lust filled her eyes. Then she pressed her lips together. ‘Gideon...’

‘You want me to beg, Leonora? I will. I’m going out of my damned mind imagining what it’d feel like to be buried deep inside you. Give me the second-best thing.’

She took another shaky breath. ‘Aren’t...aren’t you risking your deal by pursuing this?’

I grimaced. ‘Well, if I ever get round to pulling it off, it’ll be the biggest in my company’s history. There are a lot of people rubbing their hands in anticipation of me getting the job done.’

Her eyes widened. ‘What exactly are you negotiating?’

The deal had been in the financial papers for months so I wasn’t breaching confidentiality. ‘I’m building a stadium, five sports centres and fifteen hotels. Once completed it’ll be the largest such complex in Europe. Once completed being the operative words.’

‘Wow,’ she murmured.

‘Can I say that impressing you turns me on even more?’

Her sexy smile only heightened her beauty. ‘You can say it, sure.’

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