AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She laughed playfully, looking around the Ottoman mansion and the incredible view of the Bosphorus. “To get away from all this?”
He frowned, trying to think. He had a hard time thinking straight when she was smiling like that. He remembered suddenly an offer made by an acquaintance selling him real estate in Paris. Xerxes Novros was a coldhearted bastard but the man had offered the use of his island. “Greece?” he suggested.
She saw he was serious and blinked. Then she shook her head. “Your dinner party is in two days.”
“Knowing you, the arrangements are already completed.”
She took a deep breath. “But still…”
“I am done with Istanbul,” he said harshly. “After the party, I intend to put this house up for sale. I am done here.” His dark eyes looked down into hers. “But not done with you.”
“I should go.” Her voice was small. Unhappy.
“Go?”
“Work for someone else.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. Then his eyebrows lowered. “You can’t,” he said in a low voice. “I need you.”
“What yo
u mean to say is that you like having me work for you. That you find it convenient.”
“Yes,” he said gruffly. “I do. And it is. I see no reason why that should stop.”
She gave a low, bitter laugh. “No. Why would you?”
He placed his hands persuasively on her shoulders. “Mira! So we’ve fallen into bed. I’ve been through this many times. A few days together, and we’ll come back and no longer feel this way. Our lives can return to normal. I promise you.”
She looked at him, her brown eyes so deep and tender, and for a moment he thought he convinced her. Then she shook her head. “Sure, that is how it works. For you. Your mistresses have nervous breakdowns.”
“Not you. You would never be like that, Louisa,” he said. “You have far too much dignity. Too much sense. That’s what I love most about you.” He gave her a sudden wicked grin. “Along with your luscious body.”
She stared at him for a moment. Then she turned her head, staring off at the Bosphorus, flooded with the brilliant pink light of sunrise.
He took her hands in his own, looking down at her.
“Forget I’m your boss. Forget that you work for me. Take two days and go away with me. Let me pamper you in luxury where no one else knows you. Let someone else serve you for a change. Let me give you pleasure,” he whispered, stroking the bare skin of her inner wrist, “such as you’ve never known.”
He kissed her lips before she could answer. When he finally pulled away, he whispered into her ear, “Give in. You know I’m going to take you, Louisa. You know you won’t be able to resist me. You will be mine.”
You will be mine.
Louisa couldn’t breathe, she wanted him so much.
She looked into his handsome, ruthless dark gaze and knew she should tell him off—tell him in her devastatingly formal way that she was his housekeeper, nothing more, and she existed to keep his homes organized and well-staffed. To tell him that she had no feelings for him whatsoever as anything more than her boss. But when she looked into the darkness of his eyes, she could not lie.
His touch felt like fire to her.
“All right,” she said in a soft voice she almost couldn’t recognize as her own.
He pulled back, his fierce eyes searching hers. “Yes?”
“I’ll come away with you,” she whispered.
He kissed her fervently on the palm, then the back of her hand. A shiver of longing went through her, a shiver that shook her to the core.
She couldn’t deny them what they both wanted.
