Playing the Billionaire's Game - Pippa Roscoe Page 0,17

heat still simmering across her skin from her suspension.

‘No...husbands or lovers to get insanely jealous and come after me with a pitchfork?’ There was a teasing tone in his voice but his eyes held no spark of humour, only dangerous curiosity.

‘No, but it’s worth noting that I have my own pitchfork.’

‘Good for you.’

His apparent support only infuriated her more. ‘You don’t want your lawyers to draw up any legally binding documents?’ she asked, slightly surprised that he hadn’t demanded she sign a million non-disclosure agreements.

‘I’m happy with a gentleman’s agreement.’

‘You are hardly a gentleman.’

‘Then perhaps your lawyers would be so obliging?’

Her silence said enough.

‘Thought as much.’ From his pocket he removed a sleek white embossed card and offered it to her. In a glance she took in the address and contact information for Sebastian Rohan de Luen.

‘Then I will see you at nine tomorrow morning.’

She felt his retreat from the room the way that warmth dissipated as the sun set and her fingers closed around the stiff card in her palm.

Game on, Sebastian. Game on.

CHAPTER FOUR

INTERVIEWER ONE: So, let me get this straight. The Duque de Gaeten, invited you to...what? Live with him for two weeks and you said yes?

MS KEATING: Yes.

INTERVIEWER ONE: After you told him you believed he’d stolen the painting?

MS KEATING: Yes.

INTERVIEWER ONE: Knowing that you were looking for proof of the stolen painting?

MS KEATING: Yes.

INTERVIEWER TWO: [sotto] What was his house like?

INTERVIEWER ONE: [clears throat]

INTERVIEWER TWO: [louder] I mean, in which of his houses?

SIA LOOKED UP at the mansion in front of her with a strange sense of déjà vu from the night before. Once again, she was looking at a shiny black door with a bronze door knocker, only this wasn’t a lion’s head, it was that of a stag.

She could still back out. She didn’t have to do this. Only...he had taken everything from her. She’d put her past behind her and stepped towards a new future. If she didn’t prove to Bonnaire’s that he had stolen the painting, that she had been right, she would never work in the industry again.

She’d lost so much. She refused to lose this too.

Which was why she found herself being led down a black and white checked marble floor towards a lower level of the Knightsbridge townhouse by the uniformed butler who had answered the door. Whilst still trying to hide her natural disapproval towards Sebastian for having an honest-to-God butler, she frowned a little as the air began to turn warm and she could have sworn she caught a faint trace of chlorine. She followed the butler into the room beyond the door and the scent dramatically increased as she inhaled a gasp of shock.

The butler retreated with little acknowledgement of her surprise, apparently used to such a reaction, leaving her standing beside a pool the colour of a cloudless summer’s sky. The entire basement seemed to have been covered in sandstone, up-lit in a way that made it feel both warm and secretive. Along the length of the pool, the stone curved into arches with lush green vegetation that veiled the faint traces of chlorine somehow.

The sound of lapping against the edges of the pool drew her attention back to the water to where she could see a powerful shape gliding towards her. She was speechless as Sebastian broke the water of the deeper end of the pool, thrusting wet hair away from his face, his eyes—almost the same colour as the water—locked on her without shame or embarrassment or even any intent that Sia could discern, making her even more uncomfortable. He placed his hands on the side and drew himself out of the pool with the kind of grace that she was envious of. And then she had no thought for grace.

The last time she had seen a man in a swimming costume it had been on Brighton beach, their shorts had been baggy, their legs were like twigs and definitely turning that particularly British shade of burnt.

In tight-fitting thigh-level shorts Sebastian was none of those things. Well used to assessing pieces of art, her eyes went to work over every single inch of his body. She couldn’t help but watch as water dripped from the hair he had swept back, onto his shoulders, running over muscles that spoke of more exercise than just swimming. She followed its progress over the dips and turns as it fell over pecs and abdominals that made her ache to touch. His hips were tapered just slightly,