by Susan Napier
‘You wanted to thank me for providing a distraction in the pool. I wasn’t ready to be thanked then. I am now,’ he told her silkily. ‘After all, I gained quite a lot of scrapes and bruises acting as your champion.’
‘Quite a few of those were your own account.’ Her hands tightened on his muscled shoulders, her nails digging into his skin to punish him for his taunting delay. ‘You enjoyed making it brutal.’
‘It could have been Ashley who blundered in on you. I did rescue you from that embarrassment,’ he said, taking a little nip of her lower lip.
‘You’re determined to be a hero, aren’t you?’ she said breathlessly.
‘As long as I get a hero’s reward,’ he growled, and took her mouth in a savage kiss, dragging her breasts against his chest, making her utter a muffled cry of pain as one of the buttons on his shirt caught against her turgid nipple.
He wrenched his mouth from hers. ‘What’s the matter?’ He gripped her arms, holding her scantily clad body away to inspect it for evidence of harm. ‘Damn it, if that bastard hurt you…’
She could have screamed with disappointment. ‘It was just your shirt button,’ she said, furious with herself for breaking the mood.
To her frustration Luc seemed reluctant to take her word for it. His jaw clenched as his eyes burned over her. ‘He had you pushed against the wall when I arrived—’
‘Really, I’m OK. He got in a few sly gropes, that’s all. That’s probably all he intended to do so he could laugh it off as accidental, but he lost his temper when I said no—’
‘He’s the type who likes forbidden fruit,’ he brooded.
‘Don’t we all,’ she said shakily, suddenly thinking of some of the other sleazy things that Ross had said. Given his penchant for distorted fact and jealous fiction, should she give any credence at all to his vicious words? Or should she rely on her instincts, and wait for Luc to trust her enough to bring up the subject himself?
She shifted restlessly in his hold, remembering his words about her paying for someone else’s sins. Did she really want to get involved if he was on the rebound from some disastrous entanglement? Or worse?
‘He’s envious of you,’ she said. ‘He wants to be like you, but he knows he can never match up.’
His bitter-chocolate eyes melted to a glossy, dark smile of sultry intent. ‘I’m glad you think so.’ His hands slid to her hips and slowly moved her back against him.
She splayed her hands against his chest and tipped her head back to focus on his face. ‘Because a man who thinks it’s OK to cheat on his commitment to a woman is likely to cheat in other ways, too…’
‘I agree,’ he murmured, pressing his mouth to a teasing freckle at the side of her mouth. ‘With me it’s either all—’he steadily pushed his hard thigh between her bare legs, lifting it to ride tightly against her feminine dampness ‘—or nothing…’ He slowly withdrew it again, and snuggled her against his chest and hips, his hands roaming her long, naked back, moulding her pliant body to the straining contours of rigid muscle.
‘So tell me you want it all, Veronica…’ he invited in a velvety-dark tone, gathering her between his spread thighs, and shifting her so that her back was to the bed. ‘And let me show you that what happened in Paris was only a tiny taste of what we can give each other…’
It was an answer of sorts, she persuaded herself, giving up to the delicious falling sensation and giving a little squeak when it proved to be real and her back landed with a bounce on the mattress.
He laughed as he followed her down, his hand moving to the centre of his body. She heard the metallic slide of a zip, and at the same time a tapping at the front door, and a high, treble voice.
‘Veronica? Are you there? Gran says she’s just about ready to go to the Jarditrain.’
Luc slumped for a brief second on top of her, his full weight pressing her into the covers, his dark head buried between her lush breasts, then with a virulent curse under his breath he rolled off the bed and stood rigidly, his face twisting in a wry grimace as he eased himself uncomfortably back into the clammy denim and, with great difficulty, drew up the zip.
He looked at her, lying dazed on the bed, and leaned over to give her a deep-mouthed, possessive kiss. ‘Hold that thought for tonight, chérie!’ he whispered roughly, and strode out the door.
‘Give her a few minutes, Soph. You know what women are like about their hair,’ she heard him say coolly as he stepped outside. Moving away down the path, he added in a raised voice, clearly intended for her ears: ‘If she’s not down by the car in fifteen minutes we’ll both come back and fetch her.’
In the event, Miles came with them too, confessing an interest in model railways that had been sadly thwarted by Luc and Justin both exhibiting boyhood preferences for building with Lego or constructing model cars rather than messing about with trains. Luc, Veronica learned, had built working miniature robots from scratch when he was twelve and sold them to his friends, starting a rage for robot battles that had spread through the neighbourhood and then the school like wildfire.
‘The more robots that were destroyed by the fighting, the better for my profits. I was a stark-raving little capitalist even then,’ he admitted as they bought their tickets at the gate.
‘He sold his idea to a toy company and put the money away for his education,’ revealed Zoe. ‘By the time he got to Oxford he had more than enough to pay all the expenses that weren’t covered by his scholarship and have seed money for his investments.’
‘I also had Dad’s life insurance money, which you were supposed to put towards my keep,’ he said to Miles, his respect and affection for the man who had a hand in bringing him up very obvious.
Miles clapped him on the shoulder. ‘If we’d charged all our kids for their upbringing we’d be richer than you right now.’ He laughed. ‘You were the least expensive of the lot! He was always too busy studying to bother about anything but books and his computer, which he mostly built himself,’ he told Veronica. ‘The lad had very spartan tastes.’
She flicked a startled glance at Luc, trying to visualise the ardent sensualist she knew as an ascetic.
‘I would have become a monk,’ he said blandly, ‘but I do require a modicum of luxury in my life. I found I couldn’t hack the rules about celibacy.’
‘What’s sella-bussy?’ asked Sophie, who was following the adult conversation with her usual alertness.
Luc opened his mouth, but Zoe was too quick for him.
‘Never getting married,’ she said. ‘Or engaged,’ she tacked on, thinking she had covered the field
‘Luc’s not married or engaged,’ Sophie instantly responded.
‘Or ever having any girlfriends,’ added Zoe firmly.
Sophie looked at Luc and covered her mouth, a giggle escaping between her fingers. He grinned back and waved an admonishing finger at her knowing face.
Along with their tickets they were given a list of objects to spot amongst the miniature landscape of villages, farms, mountains, bridges and rivers and an hilarious competition ensued, with Sophie proclaimed the final victor when she realised that the eagle no one could find was part of a carved Indian totem pole.
‘How come you didn’t win?’ she demanded suspiciously of Luc, who had come in a narrow second.
‘I would have, but Veronica kept distracting me,’ he claimed. ‘I think you two were secretly working together.’
Sophie pursed her lip, eyeing Veronica’s flushed face. ‘Are you sure I won fair and square?’
Luc ticked off his fingers. ‘Your dad was too busy watching the “making of” film to find anything but the obvious, your gran skived off on the bench under the tree, Veronica kept being entranced by the trains and sneaking around trying to figure out what I was looking at and I was having too much fun misleading her to pay proper attention to what I was doing. Dedication and application, Sophie, that’s what made you the winner.’
‘All right!’ Assured that she had justly earned her triumph, Sop
hie did her little dance of victory.
To celebrate her success, on the way home they stopped off at the café opposite the lavoir in St Romain and Miles bought them all lavish ice-cream concoctions, which they ate at one of the outside tables, under the spreading shade of a massive plane tree.
The conversation turned from the scale models they had seen to computer modelling and animation, specifically an animation feature film that had recently won an award, and Veronica discovered that Luc not only provided investment finance for businesses, he had also acted as Angel for a string of successful stage plays, musicals and independent films, anonymously backing the productions for a share of the profits.
‘He knows heaps of famous film stars,’ said Sophie, licking chocolate sauce off her spoon.
‘I know of them,’ he said drily. ‘I make my money off the back-end of the production. I deal with accountants and producers, and sometimes directors. Apart from the occasional handshake introduction, I generally try to steer clear of all the publicity hoopla.’
‘But you did say you’d take me to watch a film being made when I come to visit you in England,’ Sophie reminded him. ‘And maybe even to a première.’
He grinned at her awed tone. Veronica noticed that he never got annoyed with the girl’s interruptions or innocently awkward questions or comments on subjects he might well prefer to avoid.
‘Only if it’s got a PG rating. We can’t have you walking the red carpet only to have the door shut in your face and me dragged off in handcuffs for trying to corrupt a minor.’
‘Then we’d appear on the Entertainment News Channel!’ she said brightly, as if that would be the pinnacle of his achievements.
‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent child?’ he implored the heavens, thumping his fist on his heart.
Even Sophie, who didn’t understand the historical allusion, burst out laughing at his dramatic declamation.
‘Perhaps you should act in films yourself,’ said Veronica. ‘Though your florid style seems more suited to the silent era.’
He twirled an imaginary moustache over the top of a wicked leer. ‘As a hero or villain?’
She hesitated, swallowing a mouthful of heavenly honey-and-almond ice cream, and he propped his chin on his hand, studying her across the tabletop. ‘Still undecided, Veronica?’ he challenged with a lazy amusement, his voice dropping to a provocative drawl. ‘Maybe you’d like me to do another personal audition for you?’
Conscious of their audience, Veronica squinted at him in silent condemnation.
‘Perhaps she realises you’re clever enough to play either role effectively, if you set your mind to it,’ said Zoe, picking up on the undertones that had Miles looking faintly baffled. ‘You know what Napoleon said: put a rogue in the limelight and he’ll act like an honest man. Well, I say put an honest man in the limelight and sometimes he’ll act like a rogue.’
‘Are you calling me a rogue, Zoe?’ Luc appeared entertained rather than offended.
‘I’m saying no man is completely one thing or the other, and a woman would be a fool to forget it,’ she said stoutly. ‘Fred was a wonderful person, but he drove like a maniac and was stubborn as a mule. He’d be alive today if he’d done what the doctor told him. Now sit up straight and let the girl finish her ice cream before it melts.’
‘Yes, ma’am!’
When they got back to Mas de Bonnard, Melanie was pecking one-handedly at her laptop on the dining-room table, but she waved away Veronica’s tentative offer of help, saying that she was just answering a few private emails.
‘Thanks to you I’ve got plenty of reading and sorting to be getting on with, and Luc has downloaded some voice-recognition software for me so I’ll be able to dictate my notes and ideas directly onto the computer so—panic over.’ She smiled, after she had listened to Sophie’s excited report and sent her off to wash her sticky face and hands.
‘Which is fortunate as things are turning out—’ She broke off, hitting the key that would send off her emails. ‘Did Karen finally get through to you, by the way?’ she said, swivelling in her seat. ‘She rang here saying she’d been calling your phone for hours.’
Knowing Karen that probably meant she’d tried once or twice. ‘I must have left it in the cottage,’ Veronica said, refusing to feel guilty after all the times she had tried to get hold of her sister. ‘It’s acting a bit erratically at the moment.’ She might have been talking about herself, she thought ruefully.
‘Probably because she over-cooked her SIM card when she left the phone on the dashboard of the car while we were having lunch yesterday,’ said Luc.
Veronica wasn’t going to play the blame game. After all, who was responsible for her forgetting it in the first place? Luc had no right to be so distracting.
‘Did she give you any message for me?’
’ Well, the signal was breaking up a lot by the time I got on the line—Ashley took the call initially, but I’m not sure what they said to each other because she and Ross have gone off to dinner and an arts festival performance in Avignon. From what I could make out, Karen said they’re having a tropical storm, which has apparently meant a few changes of scene. They’re on some remote island where they were going to do a photographic shoot on a boat, but that’s put off for a few days…’
Karen had been highly excited that they were going to spend part of the time aboard a luxury super-yacht owned by some local gazillionaire, Veronica remembered. It seemed that even gazillionaires couldn’t control the weather.
‘So what does that mean, exactly?’ She frowned, not liking what she was hearing.
Melanie’s blue eyes took on a look of rueful sympathy that was warning enough for her next words: ‘She seemed to think it unlikely she’ll get here before you’re due to fly home. And now she’s in a dilemma because it appears that one of the models knows some fashion maven who has a holiday home in Nassau, and has asked if Karen would like to stay on there for a few extra days after the shoot…’
‘Surprise, surprise,’ muttered Luc cynically.
Veronica affected not to hear him, although she feared she shared his jaundiced view.
‘I see,’ she said, her face going hot with embarrassment on behalf of her sister. By the sound of it Karen was dying to snap up the invitation. Given her consistent evasiveness, the possibility of staying on in Nassau had probably been on the cards all along.
From the commiserative expression in Melanie’s eyes it was obvious that she suspected the same thing. Knowing what she knew now, Veronica guessed one of the reasons that Karen kept turning up excuses to stay away was probably to avoid being daily confronted with the object of her abortive crush. Her sister might appear to be cheerfully immune to rejection, but only because she had always deleted her mortifying failures from her consciousness and thus had never had to face the consequences of her behaviour—or learn from her mistakes. Until now. Setting her sights on a relative of her employer had been stupid, even for Karen.
However, Veronica was in no position to cast stones. She couldn’t really blame Karen for seizing the chance to escape a potentially awkward predicament, given her own panicked reaction to facing Luc again and vain attempts to ignore him!
‘For my part, I told her that we’re actually managing very well without her now that things have settled down. But of course I said I couldn’t speak for you,’ Melanie added hurriedly.
‘You don’t have to tiptoe around, Mel. I’ve told Veronica about Karen’s brief career as my stalker,’ interrupted Luc.
Melanie looked pained. ‘Hardly a stalker, Luc, she just went through a little phase. We’ve all made idiots of ourselves at some stage—I remember you had a crush on that dreadful young woman who was your Maths tutor when you were sitting your scholarship exams.’
She looked slightly aghast as soon as the words were out, but Luc merely grinned. ‘Anne had an IQ of one hundred and forty.’
Melanie’s tension dissolved into a laugh. ‘Oh, well—that explains why
you kept dropping things for her to pick up whenever she wore those tiny miniskirts and tube tops—it was her IQ you were really drooling over!’
She turned her attention apologetically back to Veronica.
‘When we originally made our plans, Luc didn’t think he was going to be able to make it for more than a day or two. It was only when he freed up a block of his time that poor Karen began to get a wee bit less enthusiastic about having the cottage while we were here. But, maybe this is fate—I mean, if you did manage to change the date of your flight home, you could either stay on here until Karen does turn up, or do as I suggested and go back up to take another bite at Paris. What do you think? Either way we’d adore to have you…’
‘I couldn’t have worded it better myself,’ murmured Luc for Veronica’s ears alone.
Her colour deepened, and, mistaking the reason, Melanie added kindly: ‘Of course, you might have other ideas. I know you’ve set an October deadline to get Out Of The Box fully functional, and you’ve already got someone contracted to deliver the application for your website, so you may be keen to rush back. Just remember, it won’t cost you anything extra in terms of accommodation if you do stay. Let me know after you’ve had a little think about it.
‘Anyway, I told Karen you’d call her back…even though you might not have much luck until the storm passes over. You can use the phone here if yours isn’t working. And don’t worry about the charges—thanks to my book it’s all a write-off to my taxes!’
Needless to say, in spite of her best efforts Veronica was unable to raise her elusive sister, and hanging up the receiver after her final attempt she was about to slip back to the cottage to obsess over all the tantalising possibilities encapsulated in ‘hold that thought’ when she ran across Sophie, who wanted to show off her room.
‘It’s upstairs on the corner. I can see the pool from my window. That’s how I knew you were down there today,’ she confided. ‘I was going to come and swim with you, because I’m not allowed in the pool by myself, but then stupid Ross was there,’ she said glumly.