XXX - 145 Enslave: The Taming of the Beast by Cathy Yardley

younger then, and while she’d felt flattered, she’d also felt insulted. “He is my husband,” she’d informed Phillipe, in frosty tones.
“Of course he is.” Phillipe’s smile had been like cream in rich coffee, rich and seductive. “Come upstairs for a moment. Have sex with me.”
She’d goggled, purely shocked.
“Aren’t you sweet,” he’d said, when she spluttered out a refusal, and she hadn’t thought he’d meant it as a compliment. Then he’d handed her a card with his address written on the back. “If you get tired of your keeper, call me. When you’re not feeling quite so sweet.”
He’d walked away from her. She’d never told Henry.
She’d never thrown away the card, either.
She sat in one of the leather seats opposite Phillipe, her purse in her lap. “I need your help,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. She had not figured out a more graceful way to couch the request, so she simply plunged forward. “My sister has been taken hostage.”
His eyes widened. “I’m sorry?”
“She’s been taken by a man named Dominic Luder,” she said, and noticed the way his face went from shocked to carefully blank. “I think you know him. You know everyone,” she pressed. “I know that you can help me. Please, please help me!”
He still stared at her, the slight cast in his otherwise placid face suggesting distaste. “That’s why you called, set up an appointment to see me? You want my help? ”
“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking. Tears filled her eyes.
He sighed deeply. Then he got up, walked around the desk, and leaned on the surface of it as he looked at her.
“Do I look like a white knight to you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she breathed. “I just…I didn’t know who else to turn to.”
“I’m powerful, I know everything, so you decided to ask me for a favor,” he said, and his expression looked bored.
Jelena looked into her lap to see her hands mangling the strap of her purse. She bit her lip and looked back at him.
“What were you planning to offer, in exchange for this favor?”
“Anything,” she said. “Anything you wanted.”
He quirked one aristocratic eyebrow.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. This, she had on some level expected.
She lowered her eyes to the floor, then her hands went to the buttons on her blouse. She unbuttoned them slowly, starting at her neckline and moving lower.
She felt his broad hands closing over hers, stopping her.
“I see,” he said, with a hint of a chuckle. Obviously, he could—the lace of her bra and still-bountiful breasts were clearly evident. Her heart raced, and she looked up.
There was a hint of a smile. No, the hint of a smirk , etched in his handsome, weathered face.
“So brave,” he murmured. “So willing.”
She tensed. His words did not sound complimentary.
“I’ve done some research on you, Jelena,” he said, releasing her hands as his knuckles barely brushed over the slopes of her breasts. Involuntarily, her nipples tightened. “Your marriage was an arrangement, wasn’t it? Your family is from Russia?”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “Yes, to both.”
“You’re absolutely stunning. He’s lucky to have gotten you for such a low price,” Phillipe said, his voice briskly businesslike, and she jolted slightly. “But you lack a certain…spirit, shall we say.”
Despair warred with anger. “Are you going to help me,” she said, in a quiet voice, “or just insult me?”
He cupped her cheek with his hand, his thumb framing her jaw and chin. “You have the face of an angel,” he whispered.
She had never slept with anyone but her husband, her vir ginity being yet another bargaining chip in her marriage. But she felt inexorably drawn to this man…his strength, his aura of incredible power.
He leaned close, whispering in her ear like a lover.
“Unfortunately,” he murmured, “I’m not interested in angels.”
She pulled away from the warmth of his touch, getting to her feet. “What is