Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,12

I do that very often.’

‘Do what?’ she asked, genuinely confused.

‘Self-restraint.’

The arrogance with which he said it, the sheer ego of the statement itself made it near impossible for Sia to keep her mouth closed against the shock. But she couldn’t help the question that fell from her lips.

‘You don’t have self-restraint?’

‘It’s not that I don’t have it. It’s just that I don’t need it.’

It was as if she had been drenched in ice-cold water. Any thread of attraction she thought she might have felt had been effectively doused by his...she internally growled...infuriating arrogance. Was this why he thought he could take the painting? Because he could? Because there was no reason that he could see not to? Given all the things that it had cost her, she was fuming.

She took a sip of champagne from the glass on the table between them to buy herself some time. She was so mad she could have walked away. And quite possibly would have, had it not been for the suspicion that it was exactly what he’d intended her to do.

Sebastian could see that it was working. He might have intensely disliked pretending to be the pampered, pompous playboy but it was better than what had passed between them moments before. When he’d touched her cheek with the pad of his thumb and felt a shower of fireworks across his skin.

It had been enough. Enough to know that whatever it was between them, it needed to stop. Especially if he was to find out what it was that she wanted from him. Because for a moment there he’d wanted to kiss her almost as much as he’d ever wanted the Durrántez. And that was inconceivable.

He took a sip from the champagne flute and looked around the Orangery. Anything to momentarily dull the impact of Sia Keating’s stunning beauty. Was it only a few months ago in Paris that his best friend, Theo Tersi, had accused him of being jaded? Sebastian nearly choked on a laugh at the memory of it. He’d imagined it would take a few more years of indulging in a debauchery he’d welcomed with open arms a scant three years ago.

Though Sebastian wasn’t sure what the Greek billionaire vintner would make of his current situation. Especially since Theo had developed something horrifyingly close to a moral code since he’d married and now had a child on the way. And not just a child, but a royal child. Who would have thought it? Theo Tersi, husband to a queen, soon-to-be father to a princess.

Still, although Sebastian had not exactly been lying when he’d told Sia he didn’t need self-restraint, it didn’t mean he was unfamiliar with the concept. In fact, he’d been overly familiar with it from the age of eighteen when his world had broken apart and his father had refused, or been incapable, of doing a single thing about it. Having spent his late teens and early twenties pulling his family from the ashes of financial ruin that had crashed down upon him and his sister Maria with such suddenness it felt as if nothing would ever be real and lasting in his life ever again, he had spent the following few years amassing an empire that rivalled anything the Dukes du Luen had ever before seen in the history of their nobility. During that time the fact that he’d also provided a roof over his father and stepmother’s heads and a quite intentionally separate roof for him and his little sister, for whom he’d all but become a guardian, had left him feeling that he deserved to let off a little steam.

So he had. In whatever way he’d wanted, with whomever he’d wanted.

Although admittedly in the last few months, ever since the masked ball in Paris he’d accompanied Theo to, he’d not indulged. Perhaps that was why Sia Keating was having such a dramatic impact on him. Not because there was anything significant about her specifically—other than her beauty, of course—but simply because it had been quite some time since he’d lived up to his debauched reputation.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up like Theo. Married and with a child on the way.

Just like his little sister.

But he was careful. He’d shouldered enough responsibility to last a lifetime. There were just three people left on his list until this whole Bonnaire’s thing was completely resolved, and then it would be just him. Free to do as he wished, completely. And he chose to ignore the image that flashed