Sara Craven - His Inexperienced Mistress - Girl Behind the Scandalous Reputation / The End of her Innocence / Ruthless Russian, Lost Innocence

They swapped stories for a few minutes, and when Lily couldn’t stall in the bathroom any more without drawing attention to the fact that she was doing so, she reluctantly preceded Summer into the dimly lit corridor—and almost straight into Tristan, leaning indolently against the opposite wall, arms folded, legs crossed at the ankles.

‘Oh, hello ,’ Summer breathed behind her, and Lily mentally rolled her eyes. ‘Are you waiting for us?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Tristan smiled at the redheaded Summer with bemused interest.

Lily decided there was no way she was standing around to watch Tristan hit on another woman, but when she moved to sidestep him he deliberately snagged his hand around her waist to waylay her.

Lily stiffened, and couldn’t miss Summer’s disappointed pout before she strutted suggestively past Tristan, who looked designer casual with the top buttons of his shirt undone and a five o’clock shadow darkening his chiselled jaw.

‘I’m sorry, Lord Garrett. Did I take more than my allotted thirty seconds?’ Lily murmured, stepping away from his touch.

Tristan let her go and held up his mobile phone. ‘I had to take a call. But, yes, as a matter of fact, you did. And deliberately, I have no doubt.’

‘Now, why would I do that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ His smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Because you like bugging me?’

‘Hardly,’ Lily denied, looking down her nose at him. ‘Do you mind?’ She looked pointedly towards the restaurant’s dining room.

‘Why don’t you want me to know who your current lover is?’ he asked.

Lily stared at the stubble on his chin and wondered absurdly if it was hard or soft. ‘If I ignore you will you go away?’ she queried hopefully.

‘Nope.’

She sighed. ‘How about because it’s none of your business, then?’

‘Is he famous?’

‘No.’

She had to step closer to Tristan to allow two women to walk past, but quickly stepped back again.

‘Married?’

‘No!’

‘Do I know him?’

Lily let out a breath. She couldn’t understand why he was pushing this. He was starting to sound like a jealous beau. But that was ridiculous. He didn’t even like her, did he?

‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business,’ she said again with icy politeness, folding her hands across her chest.

‘Unfortunately for you everything about you right now is very much my business.’

Lily shook her head. ‘I don’t see how. You’re not my lawyer, and the question is irrele—’

She broke off with a squeak as Tristan grabbed her elbow again, to avoid more diners heading to the bathroom and marched her around a short corner, stopping in front of a closed door.

They were close enough now that Lily could feel heat—and anger—emanating from his muscular frame.

‘If you brought those drugs into the country for someone else,’ he began scathingly, ‘and you get approached by the moron while you’re in my custody I could be implicated. Not only could my reputation and legal practice go down the drain but, depending on how it played out, I could be charged along with you.’ His voice never lost its tenor, and the message was clear. ‘So, whether you think my questions are relevant or not is completely irrelevant to me.’

Lily’s heart beat heavily in her chest. So that was what was behind his earlier probing. She had been right. He wasn’t interested in her as a person. She hated the fact that for a brief moment she had toyed with the idea that he might actually like her. Talk about living in a dream world.

She swallowed, not wanting to dwell on the way that made her feel—because she couldn’t—wouldn’t—continue to be disappointed by his low opinion of her.

She looked furtively around the small space and realised she was trapped between some sort of cupboard and Tristan and would need to push past him to return to the dining room.

For a minute she considered ignoring him, but she knew how well that would go down. And nobody had ever benefited from pulling a tiger’s tail that she knew of…

‘I wasn’t anyone’s drug mule and I don’t know who the drugs belong to or how they ended up in my bag. And, contrary to popular belief, I don’t have a lover right now. Sorry to disappoint you on that score.’

His brooding gaze held hers, and Lily resisted the urge to slick her tongue across her lips. He looked annoyed and intimidating, and a lot like he had when he’d thrown her out of his family home six years ago.

‘What happened in my father’s study six years ago?’ he asked suddenly, and Lily wondered if maybe he really was a mind reader!

‘You threw me out of your home and told me not to contact Jo again,’ she said immediately.

‘Which you ignored.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Did you really expect me to cut myself off from her?’

His lips curved up slightly, as if he found the question amusing, but his eyes remained hard. ‘Of course I expected it. But there’s nothing I can do about that now. And that’s not what I was asking about and you know it.’

If he was asking about the private party he had interrupted at Jo’s eighteenth that was his problem. If Jordana hadn’t already told him that she had instigated the party then Lily wouldn’t do it either. It wouldn’t serve any purpose but to make him think poorly of Jo, and Lily had no intention of ruining relations between them so close to the wedding by being some sort of tattle-tale after the event.

‘I see no point in rehashing the past,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s too bad, because I do.’

Lily unconsciously squared her shoulders. ‘Actually, it’s too bad for you, because I don’t.’

Tristan’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘You were keen enough to talk earlier.’

‘And you pointed out what a terrible idea that was, and now I’m agreeing with you.’

‘Careful, Lily. That’s twice you’ve agreed with me…Don’t want to make a habit of it.’

Lily leaned forward and balled her hands on her hips. ‘Well, here’s something else I agree with you about—we need to set some ground rules before we go any further, and your macho “I’m in charge” routine just isn’t going to cut it. Especially in public.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’ Lily angled her chin up, ignoring the mocking glint in his eyes. ‘And the first rule is that what happened back in your office is never to be repeated.’

‘Now, how did I know you were going to say that?’ he murmured silkily.

‘I don’t know. Putting that off-the-scale IQ of yours to good use for once?’ she quipped, a sense of her own control making her reckless.

‘Don’t pretend you didn’t want it,’ he grated. ‘You’ve been eating me up with your eyes ever since I picked you up today.’

‘Oh!’ Lily forgot about the fact that they were in a public space. ‘You are something else!’

‘So I’ve been told.’

‘I just bet you have. You have quite the reputation as a ladies’ man, but if you think I want to join their lowly ranks you can think again.’

‘That’s not how you played it six years ago,’ he sneered.

‘Six years ago I was too young to know any better—and don’t forget I was high as a kite,’ she lied. Why not really play up to his nasty opinion of her? Answering honestly before hadn’t done much to change his opinion of her.

‘Well, that might be.’ His eyes flashed in response to her taunt. ‘But you weren’t high back in my office, and the way you tried to crawl up my body you wouldn’t have stopped until I was deep inside you and you were completely sated.’

Lily gasped. His words conjured up a sensual image that caused her pelvis to clench alarmingly. ‘You’re delusional if you think that,’ Lily spat breathlessly.