“That’s true. And since you seem to need a reminder, you’re the one who seduced me, Alice,” he said with a stern, pointed glance meant to quash her suspicion immediately. It didn’t work. He damned her defensive posture and closed the space between them. Satisfaction went through him when he took her into his arms, and the tension melted from her muscles. She pressed against him.
“If that’s what you want to call the first three seconds of what happened in those stables. It was all you after that, baby,” she grumbled under her breath.
“I didn’t hear you complaining.”
Her eyes flashed up at him.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Dylan said succinctly. “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 in that way when you came to the Durand Estate.”
“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 the CEO of Durand Enterprises’ bedroom if you didn’t expect us to become lovers?” 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 do it 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 hip 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 cow some of the most tried and hard-boiled executives in the world. Of course it didn’t faze Alice. He closed his eyes briefly. Damn it, 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 dazed. “Because this was Alan Durand’s house? Because of your history with him?”
He held her stare. “Because it was no longer my room, Alice. No longer my home, really. 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 the CEO. I wouldn’t have been able to afford it at that time in my life if he didn’t offer me certain concessions.” He exhaled at the memory of their negotiations for his taking over Durand Enterprises. 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 over the helm of the company. He missed Alan Durand, more than he liked to admit.
“Once, a lord’s title was tied to the land. That’s what Alan explained to me. Alan loved his European history and traveling,” he recalled with fond, wry amusement. “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 and the estate,” Alice said, a small smile flickering across her lips. She sobered. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard what he died of. Alan Durand.”
“Testicular cancer.”
He saw a shadow cross her face. He tensed. But she’d asked, hadn’t she? She’d been prepared for that truth? He was wary of her asking more questions. Instead, she inhaled and looked away.
She’s not ready to discuss their deaths any further yet. He didn’t know if he should be worried or relieved about that. He did know one thing. If he ever made the bizarre discovery that he’d once had a loving mother and father, he wouldn’t be too eager to plunge into the topic of losing them before he’d ever even known them. Her denial was the only way she was coping right now, and he had to try to respect that while she slowly assimilated to a new reality. It’d only been a few days since he’d told her about Addie Durand, after all.
He felt as if he navigated a minefield with no map.
“You are the master of this house, Dylan,” she said, sounding subdued.
“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 a cautious, wild thing.
“It’s just so impossible to believe,” she said in a rush. “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 w
hat you told me. Please understand.”
“I do,” he assured quietly, his fingers delving into her silky short hair. He cupped her skull. 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 to make it real?”