Bartered (The Encounter #1)(41)

“Isobel,” I whispered her name as I gazed upon the glimmering sea. I stood in my office, admiring the view before me, thinking about how difficult it was to not fully f*uk her body, when a knock came on the door.

“Oui?” I called out as I spun around to see who it was.

“Mr. Julien Geroux is here to see you.” My secretary raised her perfectly shaped brow, wondering if she should let my best friend in.

I was about to say something when a sound from the door came through. “He’ll see me. Why wouldn’t he? I’m not his mortal enemy, now am I? Come off it, Sophie. I’m your favorite.” Julien’s familiar voice cajoled my newly divorced forty-year-old secretary.

Sophie rolled her eyes as she chastised him for polluting the air inside the building with every breath he took before finally walking away, giving way to let Julien inside my office.

“Ah, how are we today, sir lover boy?” the arrogant fool greeted me with a smirk as he strode across the office and went straight to the bar to pour himself a whiskey.

“What are you doing here, Geroux?” I hadn’t been aware that we were meeting today.

He shrugged, taking ahold of his glass, before spinning around to face me with a look I was familiar with. “You should know better…” he started, shaking his head in disapproval. “The pattern that you’re on right now.” He took a sip of his drink. “Louise…”

Mentioning her name made me feel violent. “Don’t you dare start with me, Julien—”

“I dare because I’m a concerned friend. You don’t want anything like that attached to your name. Most especially that. You’ve done so well for a decade. Don’t f*uk it up now.”

He was overstepping himself. “Careful, Geroux.” I warned him, but he remained nonchalantly casual.

“Careful.” He nodded. “That’s the word. You should learn it because, if your twisted luck strikes again, you’d wish that you’d sought the word itself.”

My jaws locked, hating every single word that he was jabbing at me. “I would never let anything like that happen again. Never!” I threw at him harshly.

“This is out of our hands, Xavier. We know that,” he finished somberly before gulping the rest of his drink, giving me another harsh look. “I like Isobel. She’s very nice and quite stunning to look at. But my only concern here is you, Hugo. Do you want to be picking up the puzzle to figure it out just before it’s too late again? The aftermath—you barely made it out sane.” With that, he left me watching his retreat, racking my brain and wondering if I was in denial or did Julien really have grounds.

I was attracted to Isobel. I wanted her like I had never wanted a woman before, but that was all it was—an animalistic desire to possess a beauty, nothing more.

Julien’s concern didn’t have any merit. There simply wasn’t. It was the bare truth.





Chapter 23


Isobel


“How are the preparations going?” someone asked me the question from behind. I knew without having to see who it was that it was Hugo wanting to charm the life out of me. I could hear it from his voice. It dripped with it, reminding me of how we had been spending our nights together, always finishing locked in an embrace with our naked bodies.

Yes… Naked Hugo. He was beautiful naked. Most especially when he was on top of me, gazing down with such fierce passion it never failed to trap me as his captive.

“It’s… going.” I smiled, still not ready to see him yet because my heart was beating so rapidly I somehow felt faint. He did this to me. I was a hot mess where he was concerned. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be sitting at the helm, barking orders to some chap?”

“Oh, I bark orders…” There was laughter in his voice before his hands touched the sides of my hips and pulled me towards him, whispering into my ear, “Why don’t you come here and kiss me?”

Hell. I couldn’t believe he’d turn on his seductive voice in public. “There are people around.”

We were organizing the decorations and other preparations for Julee’s event in one of the vast ballrooms of his hotel. As a result, one could imagine how many people milled about and ran to get this or that done. Furthermore, with the boss hanging around, flirting with yours truly, I was flattered and at the same time could do without the wide-eyed curiosity.

“Come on, a little PDA can’t harm anyone.”

I was always at risk of harm by becoming one of those idiotic women who saw stars in their eyes.

“I usually don’t do that sort of thing,” I murmured before I spun around to face him. The moment our eyes clashed, my stomach dropped and my heart did a somersault. The intense combination made me lose my breath a little.

His eyes sought mine, as if he too was feeling the connection, before he pulled me closer, crushing my breasts against his chest. “Well, you do now,” he said when his lips were a tad away from kissing me fully. “You definitely do now, Isobel.” The second he captured me for a kiss, I was lost in him. His scent, his touch, and the feeling that we were spiraling out of control, washed over me.

I wasn’t sure how long it lasted, but the second he parted from the kiss, I regretted that it had to even end.

Gazing up at him, I had a shy smile on my face. “Just had to display it out there… couldn’t help yourself, could you?”