Page 40 of In Bed with Her Billionaire Bodyguard

She turned to him to prise a kiss from his lips, trying to remove that anxious, uncomfortable feeling when she remembered things like that. Luca indulged her, but she realised it was precisely that. An indulgence that lacked the punch of heat she felt when he wanted her.

‘He was grooming Nate even then?’ Luca asked eventually when she came up for air.

Hope shrugged, not enjoying the questions now.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied.

‘Yes, you do,’ Luca pushed, not unkindly. ‘But he was a man with values imparted from an older man. And you were children with fully formed personalities and half-formed dreams.’

She wanted to push back at him, at his perceptiveness.

‘You should forgive him,’ he urged gently.

‘For what?’ she replied, despite knowing full well where Luca was leading her.

‘He couldn’t have known.’

‘Known what?’

‘How much you would love Harcourts. How much it’s in your blood,’ he said, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to the pulse at her wrist.

‘Of course I do. It’s—’

‘Nate has three other companies,’ Luca observed.

‘And?’

‘You don’t,’ he stated. ‘Your brother lovesbusiness. You love Harcourts. And you have every right, if not more, to that CEO position. Even if you don’t believe it yet.’

The unearthing of her vulnerability was painful and raw. She hated that she was jealous of her twin, hated that she had been angry with her father as a child, angry before she’d even really been able to put a word to the swirling emotion that had heated her cheeks and made her heart ache. And she hated that she wanted Harcourts so much that she’d do almost anything to get it.

Luca was right. She loved it with every ounce of her being.

He reached for her and Hope went to him willingly, to kneel in the space he made for her between his legs. Yes, there was arousal there, attraction that seemed almost constantly to simmer beneath the surface, but comfort was what she sought, and what Luca gave her when she most needed it.

CHAPTER TEN

THECALLFROMSofia Obeid had come in early the next morning and the air around Hope had been electrified ever since. Luca drove them to where Hope had arranged to meet Sofia, unnervingly happy that it wasn’t another club and didn’t involve another man to disguise the meeting. He peered through the wide window of the restaurant that was nearly half full of diners. This far from the slopes in Hallstatt, it was a classy establishment for those who wanted something away from the crowds of tourists.

The winding drive into the picturesque valley, down to the lake nestled in the basin of mountains, had failed to distract Hope from typing notes furiously into her phone. He’d asked her if she knew what she was going to say. She’d nodded, her fingers halting on the screen for just a moment, and then she’d nodded again and gone back to typing.

‘Are you sure about meeting here? It’s very public. I can’t control photographers here,’ he warned.

‘I’m done with hiding, Luca. I’m done with pretending to be less than I am,’ she said, her tone determined in a way that made him proud and pleased at the same time.

‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said with a smile as she opened the door before he could even think of doing it for her.

He watched her cross the road and, even though he was parked in a no parking zone, he refused to move the car away from where he could see her. She entered the restaurant and a waiter took her to a table that was thankfully still in the view of the window.

He recognised the woman who stood up from the table, greeting Hope warmly, as the same woman who had left the club the night before last, tall, striking and slightly older than Hope. He wondered if the people in the restaurant had any idea of the power that these two women had at their fingertips.

He’d cast an eye over Hope’s plan while she’d been preparing and while he didn’t understand the specifics, he knew enough about numbers to know that the board and the shareholders would be absolutely out of their minds to ignore a deal that could net them nearly half a billion pounds in profit by the second year of the branded hotels’ opening. It was clever. It was daring. It was global, and Luca had absolutely no doubt in his mind that it would work.

He just couldn’t work out how she didn’t know it. How she didn’t know how brilliant she was. He wanted to throttle her brother and shake her grandfather. These were the people who were supposed to protect her and raise her with a confidence and self-assurance that she deserved.

Watching her sit down opposite Sofia Obeid, Luca realised that he didn’t want this to end here, in Austria. Yes, there was a huge amount on the line if they even tried to continue a relationship moving forward—his business deal, avoiding the press, Anna...

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