High Stakes (7 page)

“I did.” She never thought she would get
over the pain of knowing he’d betrayed her, but each passing month made it a
little easier to accept. “I believed we were going to be together forever.” She
looked up to find him scrutinizing her and she drew a deep breath before she
admitted, “He wants me back.”

“Don’t go back to him.”

She tried to laugh off his quiet command,
expecting him to join in her amusement, but when she read the sincerity in his
eyes, she realized he wasn’t kidding. “Why should it matter to you whether I
take him back?”

He stared at his wine glass a long time
before he said, “I don’t know. It just does.”

Liam could barely control his temper when
he thought about the man who’d captured her heart. He could see it in her eyes
when she talked about him; she still had feelings for him, and that should have
served as a red flag. “You deserve a man who’ll appreciate you. Your ex
obviously didn’t or you would never have left him.”

“He cheated on me,” she said quietly,
before downing the rest of her wine. “With his ex-girlfriend. He broke my
heart.”

He wanted to comfort her, but he wouldn’t
allow her to cry on his shoulder over a man who didn’t deserve her tears. “That
says it all, doesn’t it?” He refilled her wine glass and watched her take
another deep swallow. He knew he should dissuade her from drowning her sorrows
in alcohol, but he wasn’t her keeper or her moral compass. He was just a man
who was falling deeper in lust with her with every passing moment.

“I guess it does.”

“Have you let him back into your bed since
he cheated on you?”

She raised her head, a scowl marring her
beautiful face. “Of course not, but—”

“But you’ve been tempted?” He should just
walk away now, before he got in too deep. He could see she still had a long way
to go before she was over her feelings for her ex, and he had never been, nor
did he ever want to be the rebound man.

“I’d built my life around this man for two
years before he… betrayed me.”

“You were too damn inexperienced to be
thinking about forever. I’m sure it was for the best.”

Alisa remained quiet while the waiter placed
their appetizers in front of them and left the room. “Who are you to tell me
what’s best for me? You don’t even know me.”

He was getting a sense of who she was and
what she needed, and it definitely wasn’t a philandering country singer with a
wandering eye. “We both know I’m right. When you meet the right man, you’ll
realize it wasn’t him.”

Their eyes locked across the table and she
asked, “How do you know?”

“You’ll feel it when he touches you,” he
whispered. “You’ll see it when he looks at you…” He tried to stop the words
from spilling out, but his restraint was nowhere to be found when he needed it
most. “You’ll know that he could never do to you what that bastard did because
you’re the only one he wants, the only one he’ll ever need.”

A tear slipped down her cheek as she closed
her eyes. “How do I know I’ll ever find someone who feels that way about me?”

You already have.
“Trust me, you will.”

They ate in silence for a few moments
before he realized his opinion came at a price. “You’re angry with me?”

“No, why would I be?” She reached for her
wine glass and he noted the slight tremble as she brought the glass to her
lips. “You were simply stating your opinion… even though I didn’t ask for it.”

“Do you want me to tell you everyone makes
mistakes? That you should give him another chance? Because I won’t.” He was
past the point of caring whether he offended her, so long as he prevented her
from making a mistake she would live to regret. As far as he was concerned, a
man stupid enough to cheat on a woman like Alisa didn’t deserve the benefit of
the doubt.

“You’ve never made a mistake?”

The telltale sign of her whitening knuckles
on the cut crystal glass told him he’d be wise to tread lightly, but he never
backed down in the face of a challenge. “Of course, I’ve made mistakes, but I’m
not a cheater or a liar.”

She covered her mouth with one hand as she
set her glass down with the other. “How can you say that? You tried to deceive
me about who you are.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said carefully. “You
didn’t ask my last name, so I didn’t volunteer it, nor did I ask yours. I told
you I was in the hospitality industry, which is true.” He took a moment to
spear a piece of calamari. “And I don’t appreciate being lumped in the same
category with a man who would slip a ring on your finger with the promise of
making you his wife, only to cheat on you before you’d even taken your vows.”

“Did I say you were anything like Nick?”

Just the sound of his name got under Liam’s
skin. “Given the fact your father’s so protective, I can’t imagine he was too
happy with your lover’s little
mistake.
”

“He wasn’t.”

When he saw her take another sip of wine,
he gestured to her plate. “You really should eat something. Drinking on an empty
stomach is probably not the best idea.” Especially when he was so desperate to
finish what they’d started in the limousine.

Instead of taking his advice, she sat back
and watched him as she took another sip of the expensive merlot. “You’re used
to being in control, aren’t you? You ask someone to do something and you expect
them to do it, no questions asked, am I right?”

“Alisa, my company employs thousands of
people worldwide. If I didn’t give people direction, what kind of CEO would I
be?”

“That extends to your personal
relationships, as well?” Her tongue darted out to lick the wine residue from
her lips. “You like women who follow your lead?”

Against his better judgement, he refilled
her wine glass and gestured to one of the two waiters hovering outside the
door, waiting for him to beckon. “Another bottle, please.”

“Right away, sir.”

“Do I like women who follow my lead?”

He watched her carefully, trying to read
her expression. He could tell she was intrigued, perhaps aroused, but he knew
he couldn’t act on it while she was under the influence, which frustrated him
to no end. For once, he wished he were one of those men who seemed willing to
take sex any way he could get it. Perhaps, if he wasn’t the father of a teen
daughter who could very well be taken advantage of by an over-sexed boy while
under the influence.

“I haven’t given it much thought. I seem to
be attracted to a certain type of woman, if that’s what you mean.”

She propped her chin in her hand and looked
at him. “Describe her, your ideal woman.”

He was looking at her, but he couldn’t tell
her that. “My ideal woman or the type of woman I usually date? There’s a
difference.”

One waiter returned to clear the plates
while another opened a second bottle of wine and refilled their glasses.

“Your
fantasy
woman.” She brought
the glass to her lips again, and he was sorely tempted to take it away from
her.

“I don’t have time to waste fantasizing,
Alisa.”

She ran her fingers through her long blond
hair as her tongue outlined her full lips. “Not even when you’re lying in your
big bed all alone at night and you’re on the verge of falling asleep? Doesn’t
an image of
her
ever enter your mind when you’re…” Her cheeks colored as
she dipped her head. “You know…”

Liam chuckled, caught off-guard by her
candor. “I know who I’ll be imagining now.” He wasn’t trying to feed her ego;
he was serious. The sight of her with all that long blond hair tumbling around
her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes heavy… that’s the image he
would take to bed with him tonight, and he suspected every night for a long
time to come.

She eased the pointed toe of her designer
shoe up the inside of his thigh as he shifted in his seat. “You know exactly
what to say, when to say it, don’t you? You’re always so composed, but I’d love
to see you lose control.”

He closed his eyes as he tried to curb his
body’s reaction to her merciless teasing. “Sweetheart, this is a bad idea.” He
slid his chair back, trying to put some distance between them, but she slid her
shoe off and zeroed in on her intended target.

“Oh, excuse me, sir,” Robert said, backing
out of the room when he saw them.

“You are a very naughty girl,” Liam said,
pointing at her. He was more aroused than he could ever remember being, and the
fact that she seemed totally unaffected by being caught in the act of trying to
seduce him only turned him on more. Before he could consider the implications,
he got up, crossed the room, and locked the double doors. “My staff doesn’t need
to be in on this.”

Alisa stood up and moved in behind his
chair. “I agree.” She patted the gilded chair. “Take your jacket off and have a
seat, Liam.”

He didn’t hesitate to comply. Whatever she
had in store for him, he was more than ready. Anything she wanted or needed… he
was her man.

Alisa had never felt so free or uninhibited
in her life. Knowing that they only had one night together made her want to
make the most of it. Everything about this man turned her on, from the glint in
his eyes when she toyed with him, to the tense set of his jaw when she angered
him. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on him, to see him snap… lose control.

She’d never engaged in a reckless one-night
stand before and perhaps it was the fine wine helping to lower her inhibitions,
or the promise of uninhibited sex with a wealthy, powerful stranger… She didn’t
know or care. She just wanted this feeling to last forever.

When she had him seated in the chair, she
reached over to loosen his tie, blanketing his chest with her long hair. “I
just want you to relax,” she whispered. “You helped to ease my tension in the
car; I’d like to return the favor.”

“Sweetheart, it would take a team of
massage therapists at least a week to work the tension out of my body right
now,” he said through gritted teeth.

“No,” she murmured, licking a path from his
neck to his ear. “It’ll only take one woman and a few mind-blowing orgasms to
help you unwind.” She’d never been so brazen with a lover, and knowing the
power this man usually wielded over people made her want to tame him even more.
She worked the buttons running the length of his custom-made, monogrammed shirt
and slid a hand inside the opening.

He set his head back on the chair and
closed his eyes. “God, Alisa, I want you…”

“All in due time,” she whispered, pressing
her lips to his ear as her hands began to caress his broad shoulders. It seemed
a shame to hide a body like his under tailored business suits. “It’s never been
like this for me…”

He grabbed her wrist and swung her around,
pulling her into his lap to straddle him. He slid her snug black dress up and
began to slide his hands up and down her outer thighs. “And it never will be
again. What we have is different. It’s…”—he buried his head in her neck and
placed moist kisses along her collarbone—“bizarre.”

That was the only word to describe the perplexing
change in her, prompting her to do and say things she wouldn’t normally,
especially with a man she hadn’t even known twenty-four hours ago. She plunged
her hands into his hair and tilted his head back before kissing him with the
passion of a woman who’d been waiting a lifetime to find the right lover.

“Let’s take this upstairs, sweetheart,” he
whispered between kisses. “I need you, now.”

“Letting the anticipation build is half the
fun. We only have one night; let’s make the most of it.” She saw a dark flash
of some raw emotion she couldn’t decipher in his eyes: anger, frustration… hurt?
“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked, smiling. “You’re not having second thoughts,
are you?”

He smirked as he drew her in closer,
enveloping her in his spicy scent and muscular arms. “I think that’s supposed
to be my line.”

She wiggled in his lap as she giggled at the
tortured expression on his handsome face.

“You think this is funny?” He smacked her
behind before lifting her off of him. “Two can play at this game, my love.” The
endearment clearly slipped past his lips before he’d had time to censor it
because when he realized what he said, he glided a finger down her cheek and
looked into her eyes. “You would be an easy woman to love, Alisa.”

The last man who’d told her he loved her
clearly didn’t, and she knew it would be a long time before she could trust
someone else with her heart. “Tonight isn’t about sweet words or false
promises. It’s about escaping the stress of our day-to-day lives for a while.
Can we just leave it at that? Please?”

His harsh expression gave her a glimpse
into the merciless mogul who’d dominated boardrooms to build his fortune. “It
can be anything you want it to be. I told you, this is your night.” He held her
chair out for her before he crossed the room to unlock the door.

She heard him utter a few soft words to one
of the wait staff before he reclaimed the seat across from her. She saw the
look of disapproval as he watched her refill her wine glass, but she hadn’t had
a drop to drink in months, and since this night was about letting loose, she
intended to do just that. “Is there a problem?”