Glimmer (Glimmer and Glow 1) - Page 117

Her eyes flashed up at him defiantly.

“I’m telling you the truth, Alice. I didn’t plan for us to be together in the stables that morning. How could I have? I didn’t know you’d show up there. I didn’t plan for us to get involved that way when you came here.”

“Then why would you worry about me being here … in this room? Why did you pack up most of your things and decorate a whole new suite if you didn’t plan on us sleeping together from the first? Why else would I be in Dylan Fall’s bedroom if not for sex?” she demanded.

Dylan suppressed a sigh. Despite the fact that she grasped his waist and lightly pressed her breasts and belly against him in a tempting gesture, her trademark wary expression remained as she stared up at him.

“I didn’t move out because I had plans to seduce you,” he told her with an air of finality, mapping her elegant, supple spine and the tight curve of her hips with his hands. He felt his need for her mount. How would all of this have played out if this powerful attraction hadn’t been there? It was so hard to say, but he would have contrived something to bring her closer to him.

“Why, then?” she insisted, undaunted by a tone that Dylan used regularly to subdue some of the most tried and hard-boiled executives in the world. Of course it didn’t faze Alice. He closed his eyes briefly. Dammit, she could be impossible.

“Dylan?”

“I felt like an interloper, being in here … knowing you were about to come to the Durand Estate.”

“You felt like an interloper?” she asked slowly, looking slightly dazed by his reluctant confession. “Because this was Alan Durand’s house? Because of your history with him?”

“Because it was no longer my room. No longer my home. Not since you came. Period.” Regret sliced through him at his harsh tone when he saw her lush lower lip quiver.

“I’m sorry,” he said, frustrated. “It’s just that sometimes you keep pressing. And it’s hard to know when you want the truth and when you don’t.”

“I know,” she said quickly. She, too, looked regretful. “And it’s not true, what you said. Of course Castle Durand is your home. You own it, don’t you? You bought it?”

“Yes, but only because Alan Durand offered the house to me as part of the special contract he created to make it possible for me to purchase Durand shares when he made me CEO. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it at that time in my life if he hadn’t offered me certain concessions.” He exhaled as the memory of their negotiations for his taking over Durand entered his brain. Alan had been so stubborn. So insistent. So generous in contriving a way to set terms that would allow Dylan to smoothly and completely take the helm of Durand Enterprises. “In the olden days, a lord’s title was tied to the land. That’s what Alan explained to me once,” he recalled with fond, wry amusement. “Alan loved his European history. He insisted that I’d be taken more seriously as the head of Durand Enterprises if I was master of the company’s symbolic domain.”

“The castle,” Alice said, a small smile flickering across her lips. She sobered. “And you are the master, Dylan.”

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nbsp; “No. Not entirely.”

He cupped her jaw, trying to ease her sudden troubled expression … her abrupt fragility. She looked up at him through her spiky bangs, her glance reminding him again of that of a cautious, wild thing.

“It’s just so impossible to believe, Dylan,” she said in a rush, and he knew instinctively she meant his revelation that she was the true daughter of Alan and Lynn Durand. “I mean, it’s not that I think you’re lying. Why would you? It’s just …” Her expression grew a little desperate as she seemingly searched for words to explain. “You can’t just start thinking of the world as round in a second when you’ve thought it was flat for your whole life.” She gave a sharp bark of laughter, as if she’d just absorbed the meaning of her words only upon hearing them. “It’s not a bad analogy, really,” she mumbled to herself. “I sort of feel like I might fall straight off the earth into nothingness every time I think about what you told me.” She looked up at him entreatingly. “Please understand.”

“I do,” he assured quietly, his fingers delving into her thick, short hair. He cupped her head. It was hard to be the rational executive when it came to Alice. It was hard to be clearheaded in this situation, period. But he had to try. So much was at stake.

“What do you think would help you most to make it real, Alice?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. Just time, I guess.”

He nodded, lowering his head until her upturned face was just inches from his. “Do you think it might help to see tangible proof?”

She blinked. “Like what? More photos?”

He pulled her tighter against him. Her T-shirt felt cool and slightly damp against the naked skin of his torso. Despite the chill of the fabric, it was the sensation of her full breasts pressing against his ribs that made his skin roughen. Her erect nipples were a fierce distraction. He forced his mind to focus.

“Not just photos. You’ve said yourself you don’t experience any connection to photos of Adelaide Durand.”

“What, then?” she asked in a hushed tone.

“Alan and Lynn Durand’s physician still practices at Morgantown Memorial. He still possesses some of their genetic material. They will be able to tell you without a doubt who your parents were.”

She stared up at him blankly. “You want me to go for genetic testing?”

“Only if you’re up for it. It doesn’t have to be now,” he said, caressing her neck. He’d learned from experience in the past week that his touch helped to ground her. Soothe her. Distract her from her phantoms. He wasn’t above using that fact proactively to help her through this process.

He wasn’t above using anything, in that cause.

Tags: Beth Kery Glimmer and Glow Erotic
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