The Highest Price to Pay (3 page)

She had noticed of course. Everyone had a thing that attracted their attention and hers happened to be a well dressed man. But he wasn’t her type; his suit was her type. That was the beginning and end of it.

She didn’t have the time or the inclination to encourage some weird attraction to the man who had just performed a hostile takeover of her life. She didn’t have the time or inclination to indulge in an attraction to anyone, but him most of all.

She could just imagine the look of abject horror on his face if she were to make a move on him. If he were to see the parts of her body that she kept carefully concealed. A man who dated a different, gorgeous woman every week wouldn’t want to handle any damaged merchandise.

And she was that and then some.

“Blue, I think,” she said, turning her focus back to the clothes. Back to her job. “This one.” She pulled out a short blue dress with long ruched sleeves. “With the right boots this will be stunning.”

She looked at him, waited for a flicker of…something. His expression remained neutral. “If you think it will work.”

“Don’t you want to weigh in?” she asked, both perturbed and relieved that he didn’t seem to have an opinion on the matter.

“Why?”

“Because. Aren’t we…isn’t that why you’re here?”

He came over to stand beside her, his eyes on the dress. When he reached out and took the thin fabric between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it idly, it was like he was touching her hand again, running his finger over her scar. No one did that. Ever. Another reason she had no problem showing off the more superficial scars: it kept people from getting too close.

Not Blaise, apparently.

She touched the back of her hand, rubbed at it, trying to make the tingling sensation ease.

“I am not overly concerned with fashion. I leave these sorts of decisions to you.”

“I have decision-making power?”

He turned to face her, the impact of his golden eyes hitting her like a physical force. “If I sat down at one of these sewing machines you would get nothing. I leave you to your expertise, you leave me to mine.”

That was more than she’d expected from him. Far more. And yet, it didn’t exactly inspire warm fuzzy feelings. He was right. If she walked, he had nothing. Nothing but sewing machines he didn’t know how to use. An interesting realization. She’d underestimated her own power in the situation. And she would use it. She had to.

“So you’re not expecting to dress my models for me?” she asked, keeping her voice stilted, cool.

“I never said I was.”

“Your reputation goes before you,” she said archly. “I thought I was dealing with a pirate. Someone who makes his living by preying on the bounty of others.”

He chuckled, a rusty sound, as though he were unaccustomed to it. “All those stories you’ve read about me.”

“They aren’t true?” she asked, hoping, for some reason, that they might be lies. That he wasn’t the callous, unfeeling man the media made him out to be.

“Every last one of them is true,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. “
All
of them. My decisions are made for my own benefit. It is not charity that I allow you this measure of control, it is what’s best for the company, and what’s best for my wallet. That’s the beginning and end of it.”

It wasn’t spoken like a threat. His voice was smooth, even as ever. Controlled. He was simply stating what was. But just like that, the glimmer of hope was replaced with a heavy weight that settled in her stomach, made her feel slightly sick.

“Right, well, I guess I’ll take what I can.” She hated that he made her feel so nervous, so unsure. She usually did better than this. She was accustomed to taking command of whatever room she was in, accustomed to having the control over conversation and interaction.

She didn’t seem to have it in his presence. She couldn’t even control her body’s response to him. She wasn’t even sure what to call the response. He scared her, which made her angry. He was attractive and when he looked at her the appraisal of his compelling gaze made her stomach twist. It was confusing. A mass of jumbled feelings she just didn’t have time to sort through.

She breathed in deep, hoping to find the numbness that helped her get through life. That helped her get through uncomfortable moments. That helped her deal with people who wanted to hurt her.

She couldn’t find it, couldn’t shield herself from the things he was making her feel. He looked at her, looked at her as though he could see right through all the walls she’d spent the past eleven years building to partition herself off from the world. And she felt naked. Like he could see the worst of her scars, into her, past the damage on her skin.

“Do you have pictures of this dress?” he asked, pulling her out of her thoughts, his focus on the business at hand helping rebuild some of her crumbling defenses.

“I take pictures of every piece. I have them in my portfolio.”

“Excellent. Email it to me and I’ll send it to Karen at
Look.
”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

He turned to go then. Without even saying goodbye. It was like his mere move to exit should be sufficient. Standing in her own studio, he managed to make her feel like she was the one who had been dismissed.

She gritted her teeth against rising annoyance. Annoyance and something else that made her feel hot all over, made her face prickle.

She opened her laptop again and got ready to send the email to Blaise, using the address he’d so helpfully provided on the loan paperwork, those documents that gave him so much power.

So much power over her. She hated that. Hated him a little bit, too. This was meant to be her success, not his. The evidence of how far she’d come. Of all that she was capable of.

She attached the picture and left the body of the email blank. She didn’t have anything to say to the man. She would work with him, do what she had to do to hold on to her business. And as soon as she could, she was paying him back and getting things back on track. Back on her terms.

She looked at the clock on her computer’s task bar and swore mildly. She’d been invited to a Parisian socialite’s birthday party and she needed to make an appearance. Blaise might not think it was effective marketing, but she thought differently.

He might own her business, but despite what she’d thought in her most dramatic moments, he didn’t own her.

And she had a party to go to.

S
HE
was a pro at working a room, that was certain. Blaise tipped his drink to his lips but didn’t take in any of the bubbly liquid. Alcohol and the buzz that came with it held little appeal to him. Losing control wasn’t his idea of fun.

He watched as Ella talked to the small group of women that stood around her. She laughed, lifting up her foot slightly so they could get a better look at the electric-pink stilettos she was wearing.

The dress was sleeveless, showing off rough discolored patches of skin, the flesh on the upper portion of her left arm obscured completely by the marks. She seemed unconcerned, making grand, sweeping gestures as she talked.

He noticed that while no one looked at her with disdain, they did stand at a distance. He wondered if the scars were to blame. Ella didn’t seem to care either way.

She was bubbly, confident. She was smiling, something he didn’t know if he’d ever seen her do, not in a genuine way. But then, she didn’t like him very much. Something he should be used to by now.

He set his drink on the bar and wove through the crowded club. Ella looked up from her friends and he saw her blue eyes widen, watched as her smile became forced.

“Mr. Chevalier, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” she said, her manner smooth, but he could feel the strain it was taking for her to remain composed.

“I was invited, but wasn’t sure if I could make it.” This wasn’t his usual scene. If he wanted to find quick and easy female company then he might bother with party attendance, otherwise, he had no reason to go to events like this.

Lately he hadn’t even felt compelled to find a temporary lover. He found the games tiresome. Sex had been a catharsis after Marie had left, a way to try to wash away the memory, but now the endless stream of one-night stands had become boring. More than that, it filled him with a vague sense of disgust. Not anything new, but he found no reason to add to his sins.

Even now, one of the women in Ella’s group was giving him a look that let him know all he had to do was ask and she would be his for the night. Knowing that a few months ago he wouldn’t have hesitated to take her up on it made him feel a tinge of discomfort.

It shocked him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cared whether or not his actions were moral. That ship had sailed a long time ago. Every last shred of honor he’d possessed had been stripped from him and he had simply embraced the man the world thought him to be. Because it was easier to be that man, easier to simply follow the path he’d started down than to retrace his steps back to the point where he’d gone wrong.

“But you did make it. Yay.” She said it with about as much enthusiasm as a woman who’d just discovered she needed a root canal.

“Somehow, I knew you’d be happy to see me.”

Her lip curled slightly, her smile morphing into a near sneer. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, thrusting them into greater prominence, and a stab of lust assaulted him. It was unexpected in its intensity, especially after the clear invitation of the other woman had failed to arouse anything in him other than distaste.

“Well, I thought you felt these sorts of events were beneath you?”

“Not at all.” The small group of women was quiet now, watching their interplay with avid curiosity. “Come with me.”

“I’m fine here, thanks,” she said archly.

“We need to talk.”

The women looked from him to her, their eyes round with interest. One of them actually pulled out her cell phone and fired off a quick text, either to spread information or to try to garner some.

“Talk then,” Ella said.

“Privately.” He leaned in and took her hand in his. The action drew the attention of several more people in the crowded room, including guests that he guessed to be reporters.

He had noticed the last time he’d touched her hand, how shockingly smooth it had been, and the scar was even smoother, robbed of its texture by flames.

Her full pink lips parted slightly, her eyes round. She looked frozen, shocked by the touch. Didn’t her lovers touch her like that? Or did they avoid the parts of her body that were less than perfect?

The women he’d been with had always been examples of universal beauty, the occasional botched plastic surgery aside. It was impossible to know what he would do if presented with her naked body. His liaisons didn’t require that much thought. That was the plus side to one-night stands.

Of course, at the moment, the thought of Ella naked ruined his thought process anyway. It erased logic, left only that strong, elemental desire, desire that roared through his body with the force of a fire.

He tightened his hold on her and led her away from the group. Ella made sure he knew she was allowing it grudgingly, her body stiff as she walked behind him.

He drew her into an alcove away from the dance floor, the bass still throbbed, loud enough to make the walls vibrate. He leaned in, bracing his arm on the wall and Ella took a step away from him, her eyes widening a bit when her back came into contact with the wall.

She made him feel like an evil villain about to lure her onto the tracks. But then her mask came back down, her face serene, bight blue eyes glittering in challenge.

“So, what was it you needed?”

“A chance to talk. And we were drawing attention so I thought we might make the most of it.”

“Okay, talk then.”

“I must admit, I did not give you enough credit when we first met,” he said.

Her expression registered surprise that she wasn’t able to conceal. “What?”

“I didn’t realize how much money there was to be made in fashion if everything is executed properly.”

“Not an industry insider, huh?” she asked, dryly.

“Only if dating models counts.”

She huffed out a laugh. “Unless your pillow talk consists of discussing the going rate for hand spun wool, no, it doesn’t count.”

“Then no, I’m not an industry insider.”

She pressed her shoulders back against the wall, as if she were trying to melt into the surface, her eyes focused somewhere past his shoulder. She tilted her head slightly and he could see that the pink scarring extended to the curve of her neck. It looked painful. Unhealed. And yet, from what he knew, it had to be.

It wasn’t beautiful. It drew attention away from the creamy beauty of the skin around it. Uneven and discolored, it drew him, drew his focus. All of her did. He raised his hand and brushed his index finger lightly over the damaged skin. Surprisingly soft. Like the rest of her.

She pulled away from him, stepping back from the wall, mouth tight, the confidence she had displayed earlier, gone.

“Don’t,” she said, her voice sharp. She started to walk away.

“Don’t?” He caught her hand and drew her back to him. She complied, but he imagined she only did so because every eye in the room was trained on them. His sex life was a constant fascination to the public, and any woman he was seen with was assumed to be a lover. He couldn’t remember the last time it hadn’t been true.

His muscles tightened at the thought of a night with Ella, his blood flowing hotter, faster. He responded to her on an elemental level, one that didn’t seem concerned with the scars that marred her otherwise perfect flesh.

She leaned in so that he could hear her over the pulse of the music. “Don’t touch me like you have the right to. You bought my business loan, you didn’t buy me,” she said finally, her voice low, trembling.

“I had not forgotten.”

“So what was it then, morbid curiosity? It’s called a burn scar, I got in a house fire. I would have thought you’d have read that somewhere by now. The
Courier
did a particularly nice article on the subject, if you’re interested.”

Ella’s heart thundered heavily, her stomach churning. She hated that. Hated that the simple touch had done that to her. Every insecurity, every shortcoming felt like it had been thrown in her face, had been brought to glaring light.

She hated that the scars still made her feel that way. No matter how much she pretended to be fine with them, she still hated what she saw when she looked in the mirror. Hated the feel of them beneath her fingertips when she scrubbed herself in the shower.

No one ever…no one had ever touched them like that. The way he moved his thumb over the marks on her hand, the way he’d stroked her neck.

Only one man had ever put his hands on her scars, and that had only been with the intent of humiliating her, which he very thoroughly had.

Her mother and father had stopped touching her altogether after the fire. No loving embraces, no casual brushes of their hands. Nothing but cold distance as they wrapped themselves in their guilt. Even her pain became about them.

The soft, hot graze of Blaise’s fingers had hit her with the force of an electric shock, shaken her out of her thoughts, tiny sparks of sensation continuing along her veins well after the initial contact. And then she had looked at him. At the smooth, mahogany perfection of his skin. She had been reminded then, of why she shouldn’t let him touch her.

The stark realization had made her feel like she was drowning in shame and she didn’t want him to see it. She didn’t even want to acknowledge it to herself. Even now she wanted to break free of his arms and run out of the club. But she felt paralyzed, trapped. They were the focus of every guest in attendance and she knew there were reporters. She didn’t want a reputation as the woman who ran out of a party like Cinderella fleeing the ball.

She was strong. She wasn’t running.

“I suppose since you’re in the habit of taking what doesn’t belong to you, it didn’t occur to you I might not be willing,” she said, compelled to make him feel as exposed as she was. “Businesses. Women.”

The change in his face wasn’t drastic, but his eyes turned to golden ice, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “I only take what is not well guarded. Your business for example—if you weren’t in so much debt, my power would be minimal.”

“I see. So you’re blaming me for this. Does that mean your brother is to blame for you stealing his fiancée? It was right before the wedding, right? You slept with her in their bed and then went public with her, touching and kissing her at every hot spot in town.” The ice in his eyes melted, leaving a blazing fire, and every part of her body burned. She tilted her chin up. “You said every story written about you in the tabloids was true. Unarguably, that is what you’re best known for.”

He didn’t flinch, the barb glancing off his granite defenses.

“Clearly you’ve done your research, but none of this is new information to me.”

She had. She’d looked him up on the internet. And she’d allowed all manner of righteous indignation flood over her as she’d read about the betrayal of his brother because it allowed her to be angry at him. And being angry at him was so much safer than feeling anything else.

“I know my part in that incident very well,” he said, his voice toneless. “I was very much involved, after all.”

“A pirate in all manner of things,” she said.

“I had never thought of it that way. But it’s a nice way to romanticize it,” he said, his voice a near whisper, his face so near hers now that it made her lips tingle.

“I’m not romanticizing. I find nothing appealing about a man with no honor.”

He released his hold on her, strong, square hands curling into fists, the tendons becoming more prominent, showing the weight of the gesture and the intensity of the emotion behind it, even though his face remained smooth, unreadable.

“Honor. An interesting concept, one I’ve yet to bear witness to.”

Join the club. She wasn’t sure how much honor she’d ever seen in her life. As a teenager, stuck in a hospital room, it had made a nice fantasy. A knight in shining armor riding in on his steed. But she’d given up on that by the time she’d reached the end of high school.

And instead of a knight on his steed she got a buccaneer on his galleon intent on plundering twenty-five percent of her gold. Brilliant.

She looked up and his eyes locked with hers, she felt the heat again, inside this time, making her blood feel like warm honey in her veins, the ensuing languor making her reserve, her anger, begin to evaporate.

How did he do that? How did he make her melt inside with just a look?

Her lips suddenly felt dry and she darted her tongue out quickly, dampening them. She watched as his eyes followed the motion and she felt a yawning, aching sensation open up inside of her. She knew what it was. It was arousal, and she wasn’t a stranger to it. She’d just never been in a man’s arms while experiencing it. Had never had the object of her desire so close that she could place her hand on the hard wall of his chest if she chose to.

This wasn’t a safe fantasy in the privacy of her bedroom. Not a dim, gauzy dream that sent vague sensations of pleasure rolling through her. This was a real, live, man. And he was looking at her lips with much more than just a passing interest.

No wonder his brother’s fiancée hadn’t said no. No wonder she had broken her commitment to be with him. He was temptation incarnate. His eyes, his chiseled physique, promised a woman pleasure beyond fantasy.

Oh, yes, what a fantasy. She flashed back to his finger skimming her scar. It wouldn’t be a fantasy for him; it would be a waking nightmare. And she couldn’t even fathom the thought of him seeing her, all of her. The idea was too horrifying to even contemplate.

And why was she thinking of it at all? It was like there was a war going on in her. Common sense versus basic instincts. It was a good thing she’d gained control over that basic part of herself a long time ago.

It suddenly felt unbearably hot, even though she was certain the temperature couldn’t have actually changed. Or maybe it had. Maybe more people had filed into the small club and that was it. It couldn’t really be him, his gaze, making her feel dizzy with heat.

He leaned in slightly and she didn’t move, she stayed, rooted to the spot, keeping her eyes on his as he drew nearer to her. Her eyes tried to flutter closed and she caught them, wouldn’t allow it.

She still didn’t move away.

He stopped suddenly, his lips so near hers she could feel the heat of them. “Don’t worry. I don’t need to possess honor to help make you a very rich woman. In fact, it helps that I don’t.”