One Night Of Consequences Collection. Annie West

her trembling legs would support her.

      “Sit down.” His command cracked like a whip.

      She hesitated a moment, staring into his dark eyes and silently challenging him. A crazy thing to do, for she knew André could pounce on her with the stealth and power of a jaguar.

      He could crush her with a condemning look, rip her heart out with a word—for he’d done both with ease. Was doing so now. And the pain of his hatred was tearing her apart inside.

      She grabbed the edge of the table, her fingernails biting into the polished surface. “If you’ll listen to me, I’ll stay.”

      He leaned forward in his chair, his gaze never leaving hers, his anger so strong she felt it pulsing in the room, in her veins. “You’ll stay whether I choose to listen or not.”

      “Fine. Rant and pound your chest if you like.” She dropped onto the chair, so defeated, so weary. “How did you find out?”

      He pushed his own food away without sampling it and lounged back in his chair with an insolent air. “Through a private detective. He tracked down your mother.”

      Kira stared at him, unblinking, an incredulous laugh escaping her. How ironic that the one person she hadn’t seen in over twenty years should return to ruin her life.

      “She’s still alive, then?” she said, hearing the bitterness ring in her voice and not caring.

      She’d given up being concerned about the woman who’d given birth to her long ago.

      “You don’t like her?” he said.

      She shrugged. “I told you before, I barely remember her.”

      He looked away, frowning, and she wondered what went through his mind. He’d had a mother and father who’d loved him. A family that cared.

      “I hope you didn’t pay her for the information,” she said, angry. Hurt. “She made far too much off me years ago.”

      “Did she?”

      “Yes. She sold me to my father—which was odd, since he didn’t want me either.”

      Something shifted in his eyes, a flicker of something warm. Or was it just a reflection from the candles?

      Kira didn’t know anymore. Her head pounded and her back ached. She hurt inside. Felt drained, battered. Everything was an effort. Sitting here, talking, breathing, thinking about what had happened. Worrying about what was to come.

      “Tell me,” he said.

      She shook her head, believing there was no point in divulging so much now. All her life she’d held her secrets close, hid them and hid the pain.

      “Tell me, ma chérie,” he said, his voice softer, lower, intimate.

      How devastating that the hushed timbre of his voicing the endearment melted the starch holding her up. She dashed away a tear that slipped free, but another quickly formed, then too many to stop.

      Silly, really, for she couldn’t remember crying for her mother. Not once.

      “I was an accident. She never wanted me, but for some reason she kept me for a few years. Until I was hurt in a boating mishap.” She frowned, remembering that horrid event so clearly, yet she had trouble remembering her mother’s face. “Edouard told me that she offered me to him then. He paid her price and I never saw her again.”

      “How old were you?”

      “Nearly five.”

      “That’s when he placed you in an elite boarding school in England?”

      “Yes. I spent the rest of my formative years being shuffled from nannies to boarding school. Not once did my father welcome me to his home for a holiday or a brief visit. Not once.”

      She looked away, for there was really nothing more to tell. She had studied, read, and had seen Edouard once or twice a year when the mood had struck him.

      And all the while she’d dreamed of one day having a family. Of having someone in her life who cared about her. Who would love her and who she could love in return.

      Her hand stole to her belly to cradle her baby. She would have that dream become a reality soon.

      “What was your reward for seducing me?” André asked.

      She shook her head, scowling, angry that he thought she’d seduce him for money, that he equated her with her mother. “There was no reward, because there was no conspiracy.”

      “The truth, s’il vous plaît.”

      She slapped both palms on the table, her patience and energy spent. “I am telling you the truth.”

      He swore and jumped to his feet, chest heaving, fists clenched tight. His gaze raked over her, furious, insulting in its curt, deliberate movement.

      Then he stalked from the room.

      Kira put her head down and sighed, giving in to the tremors that whispered over her. But that only made her dizziness worse and set her stomach churning. If she could just find the strength to return to her room…

      She heard heavy footsteps approaching. She’d tarried too long. Her respite was gone.

      André stopped beside her chair, currents of anger radiating from his body in hot, scalding waves. He dropped a stack of paper before her.

      “Try to deny these.”

      She stared at the heading, recognizing her corporate email address. Above it was an address she was unfamiliar with.

      She skimmed the first note and paled. Then read another. And another.

      This couldn’t be…

      But it was.

      This was the electronic proof he’d told her about. The evidence that she and Peter Bellamy had conspired to launch a smear campaign against André. Sickening details of every calculated move, right down to her agreeing to come here on the pretext of a meeting when her intent was to seduce André while Peter alerted the paparazzi.

      Except she hadn’t carried on this dialogue with Peter. She hadn’t set out to seduce André and humiliate him publicly, so the large corporation he’d been trying to solidify a deal with would pull out because he lacked family values. And she certainly hadn’t tried to become pregnant.

      She hadn’t been aware of Peter’s calculating plans until now. Hadn’t written one word of this correspondence. But it had been sent from her email address, using her electronic signature. How could she prove she’d had no part in this? She couldn’t.

      Still, she lifted her chin and said simply, “I didn’t write any of these.”

       CHAPTER TEN

      ANDRÉ had expected her denial. But when the lie spilled from her sweet mouth the cynical curl to his lips eased a fraction. His blood slowed, his chest growing warm, his heart hesitating. For he almost believed her. Almost.

      His weakness for her disgusted him.

      Kira stood up and took a step toward him, stopped, her throat working, her face as white and delicate as the lace tablecloth. Her gaze lifted to his, her expression open, vulnerable.

      He fisted his hands at his sides, fighting the impulse to reach for her, pull her close. Kiss her. Caress her. Sweep the servings from the table and take her here. Now.

      Tell her all would be fine. Tell her that he forgave her.

      That he loved her.

      He’d vowed never to say those words. He’d thought it a simple promise to keep, for he believed himself incapable of such a crippling, all-consuming emotion.

      “Someone else wrote these