The Mills & Boon Stars Collection. Cathy Williams

them too, aren’t you?’

      Lilah was furious that he should have access to such facts about her personal life, and the label of ‘do-gooder’ offended her. ‘I’m not a do-gooder.’

      ‘By my estimation you are,’ Bastien countered drily. ‘You’ve saved your wicked stepmother from living in emergency accommodation and you also raise funds for abandoned dogs and starving children.’

      Lilah stood up again in a sudden motion. ‘How on earth do you know so much about me?’

      ‘Obviously I’ve kept an eye on developments here.’

      ‘My stepmother is not wicked,’ Lilah added uncomfortably. ‘How do you know my family are staying with me? How do you know about the volunteer work I’ve done for the dog sanctuary?’

      ‘I had to check you out before I came up here,’ Bastien pointed out impatiently. ‘If you’d got married or picked up a boyfriend since we last met there would have been little point in my approaching you. I don’t like to have my time wasted.’

      Lilah’s chin lifted. ‘I did have a boyfriend!’ she bit out resentfully.

      ‘Not for very long. He dropped you the minute your father’s business went down.’

      Angry words brimmed on Lilah’s tongue, but she swallowed them whole because she wasn’t going to sink to the level of arguing with Bastien over someone as unworthy of her defence as Steve, her ex-boyfriend.

      Ironically, Bastien’s reading of Steve’s behaviour exactly matched her own. Steve had turned out to be very ambitious. He had started dating Lilah when Moore Components was thriving and had tried to persuade her father to take him on as a junior partner. It mortified her that Bastien should know about the revealing speed and timing of Steve’s defection.

      Rigid with self-control, Lilah lifted her head high. ‘I can’t believe that you really mean those options you outlined. They’re immoral.’

      ‘I’m not a very moral man,’ Bastien told her without hesitation. ‘I don’t apologise for what I want and I always get what I want...and I want you. You should be flattered.’

      ‘I’m not flattered. I’m shocked and disgusted at your lack of scruple!’ Lilah told him angrily, her blue eyes bright with condemnation. ‘You’re trying to take advantage of this situation and play on my affection for my family.’

      ‘I will use any advantage I have and do whatever I have to do to win you. Of course whether or not you choose to accept one of my two preferred options is entirely your decision,’ Bastien pointed out, his wide, beautifully shaped mouth firming as he stalked fluidly closer to tower over her. ‘You’re the glittering prize here, Delilah. Doesn’t that thrill you?’

      Lilah stiffened even more. ‘No, of course it doesn’t.’

      ‘It would thrill most women,’ Bastien told her drily, staring down at her with burnished dark golden eyes that sent an intoxicating fizz of awareness and frightening tension shooting through her every limb. ‘Most women like to be wanted above all others.’

      ‘I very much doubt that you’re capable of wanting one woman above all others,’ Lilah retorted with sharp emphasis. ‘Women seem to be very much interchangeable commodities to you, so I really can’t understand why you should have a fixation about me.’

      ‘It’s not a fixation,’ Bastien growled, dark eyes hard, strong jawline squared.

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake—call a spade a spade, Bastien!’ Lilah countered in exasperation. ‘At least look at the lengths you’re willing to go to to make me do what you want...does that strike you as normal?’

      ‘Sexual satisfaction is extremely important to me,’ Bastien parried, studying her with cool gravity. ‘I don’t feel any need to explain that or to apologise for it.’

      Lilah felt like someone beating her head up against a brick wall. Bastien didn’t listen to what he didn’t want to hear. He went full steam ahead, like an express train racing down a track. He saw what he wanted and he went for it, regardless of reason and the damage he might do.

      ‘Delilah... I would treat you well...’ Bastien murmured huskily.

      ‘What you’ve suggested...it’s out of the question—impossible!’ she exclaimed in a furious outburst of frustration. ‘Not to mention downright sleazy!’

      Bastien lifted a lean tanned hand and scored a reproving fingertip along the strained line of her lush lower lip. ‘I am never, ever sleazy...’ He positively purred. ‘You have a lot to learn about me.’

      Subjected to even that minor physical contact, she felt her whole skin surface break out in enervated goose bumps and jerked back a hasty step.

      ‘What I’ve learnt today, just listening to you, is more than enough,’ she stressed in biting rejection. ‘You talk as if you’re playing some amusing game with me, but what you’re proposing is offensive and unthinkable. And nothing you could hope to offer would persuade my father to accept a job that would literally sell me to the highest bidder as part of the deal!’

      Bastien scanned her flushed and furious face and the sapphire-blue eyes shooting defiant sparks at him. ‘Only an idiot would suggest that you tell your father the truth and nothing but the truth,’ he derided. ‘All you would need to tell your family is that I have offered you your dream job, which will entail a lot of foreign travel and an enviable lifestyle.’

      With a reflexive little shudder at that Machiavellian suggestion, Lilah snapped, ‘My goodness, you have absolutely everything worked out!’

      ‘But will you take the bait?’ Bastien breathed in a roughened undertone. ‘You have until ten tomorrow morning to make your decision and choose an option.’

      ‘You haven’t given me even one reasonable or fair option,’ Lilah condemned bitterly.

      ‘If you don’t give me your answer tomorrow I will sell,’ Bastien warned her with chilling bite.

      Her narrow spine went poker-straight with the force of her resentment and her slender hands knotted into fists. It was far from being the first time she had been in Bastien’s company and had longed to knock his teeth down his throat.

      In the smouldering silence, Bastien released his breath in a hiss of impatience. ‘It doesn’t have to be like this between us, Delilah. We could discuss this over dinner tonight.’

      Lilah flung him a shaken and furious look over her shoulder as her perspiring hand worked frantically at the doorknob. ‘Dinner? You’ve got to be joking! Anyway, I’m already booked,’ she fibbed, refusing to give him the idea that she sat in every night.

      ‘To see who?’ Bastien demanded, pressing a hand against the door to prevent her from opening it.

      ‘That’s none of your business.’ Refusing to fight for control of the door, Lilah stood back and folded her arms defensively. ‘Nothing I do is any of your business. You may own Moore Components, but that’s the only thing you own around here.’

      Dark eyes glittering brilliant as stars, Bastien flung the door wide for her exit. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that, koukla mou.’

      Lilah hurried downstairs and straight into the cloakroom, needing a moment before she returned to work and faced Julie and her curiosity. She was shaking and sweating, and she held her trembling hands below the cold tap while snatching in a deep sustaining breath, praying for self-control.

      Unfortunately Bastien had struck her on her weakest flank. The very idea that she could rescue her family from their current predicament had turned her heart inside out with hope and desperation. And what about all the other people whose lives would be transformed by the opportunity to regain the jobs they had lost? Jobs in a revitalised business which would be much more secure with Bastien’s backing? All their former workers