The Contaxis Baby Read Online Free Page B

‘Twenty-two…’
    ‘Taken?’ Sebasten prompted, a primal possessiveness scything up through him at the sudden thought that she might well be involved with some other man and that that was the most likely explanation for her total lack of flirtatiousness.
    He was holding her close on a floor packed with people all dancing apart but as Lizzie looked up into his burnished lion-gold eyes she was only aware of the mad racing of her own heartbeat and the quite unfamiliar curl of heat surging up inside her.
    ‘Taken?’ she queried, forced to curve her hands round his wide shoulders to rise on tiptoe so that he could hear her above the music.
    Indifferent to the watchers around them, Sebasten linked his other arm round her slender, trembling length as well, fierce satisfaction firming his expressive mouth as he felt the tiny little responsive quivers of her body against his. ‘It doesn’t matter. You’re going to be mine…’
    And with that far-reaching assurance, retaining an arm at the base of her spine, Sebasten turned her round and headed her up the wrought-iron staircase.
    You’re going to be mine. Men didn’t as a rule address such comments to Lizzie and normally such an arrogant assumption would simply have made her giggle. She got on well with men but few seemed to see her as a likely object of desire and her male friends often treated her like a big sister. Perhaps it was because she towered over most of them, was usually more blunt than subtle and never coy and was invariably the first to offer a shoulder to cry on. Until Connor, her relationships had been low-key, more friendly than anything else, drifting to a halt without any great grief on either side. Until Connor, she had not known what it was to feel ripped apart with inadequacy, pain and humiliation. Sebasten—and she had already forgotten his surname—was just what her squashed ego needed most, Lizzie told herself fiercely.
    He took her up to the VIP room, the privilege of only a chosen few, and her conviction that he owned the club increased as she spread a bemused glance over the opulence of the luxurious leather sofas, the soft, expensive carpet and the private bar in the corner.
    ‘We can hear ourselves think up here,’ Sebasten pointed out with perfect truth.
    Lizzie stared at him, for the first time appreciating that his more formal mode of dress had picked him out as much as his looks and height. His superb grey suit had the subtle sheen of silk and the tailored perfection of designer-cut elegance.
    ‘Do you own this place?’ she asked.
    ‘No.’ Sebasten glanced at her in surprise.
    ‘Then who are you that you get so much attention here?’ Lizzie enquired helplessly.
    ‘You don’t know?’ Amusement slashed Sebasten’s lean, bronzed features, for not being recognised and known for who and what he was was a novel experience for him. ‘I’m a businessman.’
    ‘I don’t read the business sections of the newspapers,’ Lizzie confided with palpable discomfiture.
    ‘Why should you?’
    Lizzie coloured. ‘I don’t want you thinking I’m an air-head.’
    A tough, self-made man, her father had refused to let her take any interest in the family construction firm. As a teenager she had told him that she wanted to study for a business degree so that she could come and work for him and Maurice Denton had hurt her by laughing out loud at the idea. But then, that he had done well enough in the world to maintain his daughter as a lady of leisure had once been a source of considerable pride to him.
    ‘I think you’re beautiful…especially when you blush and all your freckles merge,’ Sebasten mocked.
    ‘Stop it…’ Lizzie groaned, covering her hot face with spread hands in reproach.
    He lifted a glass from the bar counter and she lowered one hand to grasp it, green eyes wide with fascination on his lean, strong face. Did he really think she was beautiful? She so much wanted to believe he was sincere, for she was more used to being