Page 3 of Bound By Her Shocking Secret

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir. She’s in here.’

The man opened the door into a large room with its walls covered in screens showing every inch of thesalonand all the other rooms.

It took a second for Daniel’s eyes to adjust to the dim bluish light so he didn’t see her at first, standing in the centre of the room.

But then he did. And for a heart-stopping moment he thought he might be hallucinating. But then he forced oxygen to his lungs and brain.She wasn’t a ghost. He hadn’t imagined seeing her earlier.

Mia Forde. The last woman he’d ever expected to see again. The last woman he’d wanted to see ever again.

And yet even as he told himself that he couldn’t stop or deny the helpless physical reaction heating his blood and making his body tight. Forcing him to exert control.

She looked as beautiful as he remembered. More so. After two years. She’d been twenty-one when they’d met. Now it was as if a layer had been removed to reveal the woman underneath. Her face seemed more...angular. Cheekbones more defined. That lush, wide mouth was as provocative as ever, even when pursed in a line of tension.

It was only then that Daniel noted the black satin gown. Strapless. Hugging her curves. The top of the dress couldn’t hide the swells of her breasts. He could still see them in his mind’s eye, full and high. Her tempting nipples—

Daniel slammed down on that incendiary memory. The knowledge that this woman still had the ability to short-circuit his rational brain was like pouring acid onto an old wound.

It made his voice curt. ‘What the hell are you doing here, Mia?’

Mia had to lock her legs to stay upright, when every instinct was telling her to curl up, hide.Run.

The expressions crossing Daniel’s face might have been comical if Mia had felt remotely like laughing. There had been recognition, shock, disbelief, and now blistering anger.

Fatally, she couldn’t take her eyes off his lean face, even as she said faintly to the security guard who had hauled her in here, ‘See? I told you I knew him.’

Daniel folded his arms, which made his biceps bulge against the fabric of his tuxedo. ‘What are you doing here? Is this some kind of sick joke?’

Mia recovered some of her wits. ‘A joke? Do you really think I set out to be here this evening just for a few lols because I’ve nothing better to do on a Saturday night?’

The fact that her usual Saturday night routine was dinner, maybe a TV movie and then faceplanting into bed before ten p.m. was not something she was about to divulge in this hostile atmosphere.

His eye dropped to where the necklace and earrings she’d been wearing were laid out on the table beside where she stood. ‘Were you really trying to steal the jewels?’

‘Of course not. I just... I got a call. I panicked. I forgot I was wearing them. I’m not a thief.’

Daniel frowned. ‘How did you even get in here?’

Hurt lanced Mia. ‘I was hired to work here this evening. I know we share a...a complicated history, but I wasn’t aware that I was on some persona non grata list.’

Now Daniel looked frustrated. He unfolded his arms and slashed a hand through the air. ‘I don’t mean like that. I just mean...’ He stopped. And then, ‘Why would you come here?’

‘I needed to talk to you. When my agent arranged for me to be one of your models I figured it would be an easier way to...to get to you.’

A man as famous and wealthy as Daniel Devilliers was nigh on impossible to contact unless he wanted you to contact him. As Mia had found out to her cost when she’d discovered that the number she had for him was no longer in use.

But the panic that had galvanised her to leave in the first place, before she’d even spoken to him, surged up again. She said, ‘Look, I really do have to go. It’s an emergency. Can I leave, please?’

Much to Daniel’s chagrin, his first reaction to Mia saying she wanted to leave wasn’t abject relief. It was a tangled mess of many things, including a resurgence of desire that was as powerful as it was unwelcome.

‘You said you needed to talk to me. What about?’

He noticed now that Mia looked pale beneath her natural all-American tan. ‘I can’t explain now. I just have to go.’

‘You were caught in the act of leaving while wearing hundreds of thousands of euros worth of jewels. You owe me an explanation.’

Mia was wringing her hands in front of her. ‘I know. Look, I wasn’t thinking. I forgot I had them on. Youknowme. You know I’d never steal anything!’

A memory assailed Daniel before he could stop it. He’d opened a velvet box and Mia had looked down, her eyes widening with predictable awe, as she’d taken in the stunning pearl bracelet with a diamond-studded flower in the centre. She’d even touched it reverently, saying, ‘It’s beautiful.’

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