Public Scandal, Private Mistress

by Susan Napier

  ‘Sixteen!’ She sat up, unable to help her burst of fierce outrage. ‘Why, that’s practically cradle-robbing! She’s nearly ten years older than you. What does a twenty-five-year-old woman want with a sixteen-year-old boy?’ She scowled.

  He grinned at her charming naivety. ‘I was a very mature sixteen-year-old,’ he said modestly. ‘But, rest easy, love, I only lusted from afar. She was beautiful, witty, and sophisticated and much preferred men to boys. I didn’t get to actually sleep with her until I was eighteen and fully grown. Even then I was a borderline case as far as she was concerned, which was why we kept it quiet. Which was lucky because she’d fallen in with the political set and decided she wanted to marry Andrew.’ He sounded more cynical than enamoured, she thought in relief.

  ‘And this matters to me—why?’ she said loftily, clasping her arms around her updrawn legs. It didn’t mean anything that he called her ‘love’, she lectured herself sternly. He probably just used it as a generic term.

  ‘Well, since you did come slinking in to ferret out my secrets…’he said, stroking a finger up and down her bare hip.

  ‘Actually, I didn’t,’ she sniffed, trying to ignore the suggestive stirring in his loins. ‘I came looking for you because Melanie said Justin was coming up from Marseilles on the train tomorrow and since you needed to do a few things in Avignon she’d asked you to pick him up from the station. She suggested I go with you and have a look around the old city. I was going to ask if that would be all right—’

  ‘And that’s all you wanted me for?’

  ‘Yes!’ she lied brashly, without batting an eyelash.

  He tilted his head, so that his hair slithered sexily against his cheek, catching on the dark fuzz of his jaw, giving her a bone-melting look of regret. ‘So I guess there’s no point in asking you to make love again?

  She launched herself at him in a laughing flurry of rounded limbs.

  ‘Only if this time I get to use the ice cubes!’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘CIAO.’ Justin acknowledged Veronica’s greeting with an engaging grin as he and Luc walked out of the Avignon Centre train station and across the road to the Porte de la République entrance to the walled city, where she had found a convenient patch of shade in which to shelter from the mid-afternoon sun.

  ‘I’d say it was cool to see you, but I think “Phew, what a scorcher!” would be more appropriate.’ Justin’s teeth flashed white against his tan as he switched his bulging backpack to his other shoulder. He was several inches shorter than Luc, his light brown hair streaked by the sun, his manicured stubble and casually trendy clothes making a definite style statement. ‘It was pretty sweltering in Rome and not much better in Marseilles, but at least the friend who put me up there had air-con, and we could dunk ourselves in the Med with the girls in the string bikinis whenever we began to brown around the edges.’

  He was as mischievous as she remembered from their previous brief encounters. ‘You’re looking very Italian,’ she remarked with a smile.

  He laughed and saluted her with a lift of his sunglasses, revealing bright blue eyes. ‘Grazie, signorina! In an Italian hotel kitchen you either assimilate or die.’ He glanced over her bright sundress, noting the accessorised drink bottle and camera, and give-away comfortable walking sandals. ‘And you’re looking very French Tourist Chic. Especially the hat. Bargain at the market, was it?’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ she admitted, amused by his cheek.

  Passing through the towering, medieval stone walls, they turned into the bustling, tree-lined street running up towards the square where Veronica and Luc had had coffee before he had patiently followed her fascinated meanderings through the nearby Palace of the Popes. They had arrived in Avignon early, so that Luc could show her the highlights of the historic city before the heat and crowds flocking to festival events began to clog the streets, and Veronica’s head was filled with intoxicating sights, sounds and experiences.

  And not only her head, she thought, with a sideways glance at Luc, looking relaxed and sinfully sexy in his jeans and dark red shirt. Her heart fluttered in her breast. You’d never know from his air of crisp vitality and fluid, loose-limbed stride that he’d spent a mostly sleepless night of energetic activity.

  As she had herself. Veronica adjusted the brim of her hat to screen her glowing cheeks from her companions. Every now and then she found herself bathed in honey-coated memories of their secret tryst. The afternoon in Luc’s bed had drifted on into evening and then later that night, after she had refused to join him at the Reeds’ dinner table—afraid that she would be unable to hide her tumultuous feelings—he had come to her at the cottage, appearing like a seductive wraith out of the darkness, a bottle of champagne tucked under his arm.

  ‘I didn’t want to spend the night without you,’ he said simply as he offered her the champagne. ‘To celebrate our second first night together—’

  This time he had made her cry, as well as laugh, with the fierce intensity of his passion, extorting the maximum pleasure from her trembling fulfilment, drinking in her sobs of need even as he sweetly satisfied them, kissing away her tears of exquisite release, not leaving her wide, single bed until dawn crept through the shutters and the village bells tolled to the fading stars.

  ‘How’s Ash?’ she heard Justin say to Luc in the process of catching up on family news.

  ‘Well, she and Ross had a tiff yesterday and aren’t talking—’

  ‘From what she tells me in her emails, they spend half of their lives not talking,’ interrupted Justin. ‘God, I hope she changes her mind about marrying him. Mum’s warned me we all have to be polite, but he’s so incredibly up himself!’

  They stopped at the corner of the short road to the hotel where Luc had parked the car, and where he and Veronica had returned for a superb lunch at the Michelin-starred restaurant.

  ‘Justin says he’s famished, and would like to drop in on an Italian friend who’s working here before we leave, so since we’ve already eaten I’ve suggested that we meet him back here in a couple of hours,’ explained Luc, and Veronica agreed, remembering that he had yet to attend to his own reasons for wanting to come to Avignon. ‘We also still have to get a photograph of you dancing “sur le pont d’Avignon,”’ he teased, ignoring her protests that she could do that when she returned for her overnight stay, before she caught the TGV back to London for her flight home.

  Justin handed over his backpack for Luc to lock in the boot of his car and strode jauntily off while Veronica idled up the main street, window-shopping as she waited for Luc to return from stowing the bag. When he rejoined her, Veronica was staring in shock at a very familiar face on a huge poster at a kiosk outside the city’s main Tourist Office.

  ‘Did you know he was here?’ she blurted when she realised Luc was staring broodingly over her shoulder at Max Foster’s dramatic image advertising his appearance in an avant-garde adaptation of Shakespeare.

  He shrugged. ‘I’ve heard he comes down every year for the Avignon Festival—I believe he has a holiday place in Saint Rémy…’

  ‘You don’t know? I thought you two were friends—’ she said, faltering as she recalled the dubious source of her information.

  His face tightened. ‘More of an acquaintance. He stayed at my country place a couple of times when he was filming in Derbyshire on one of the films I backed, but not while I was there. He’s talented, but he’s also arrogant and self-indulgent—which makes for a dangerous drunk.’ He was absently rubbing his hawkish nose as he spoke, making Veronica wonder if the tiny kink that marred its perfection had always been there, or was a recent souvenir of a certain famous fist.

  His mouth had thinned, and, sensing his darkening mood, Veronica rummaged in her bag and produced her pen. ‘Would you like to improve him with a mangy moustache and a few suppurating boils?’

  He sucked in a sharp breath of startled laughter. ‘I think a set of horns might be more appropriate! Or maybe he’s not the one who should be wearing the
horns,’ he muttered cryptically, turning to look at her as she dropped the pen back in her bag. ‘Most women find him wildly attractive?’ he challenged.

  She kept her eyes flatteringly intent on his face as she wrinkled her brow as if trying to remember the insignificant subject under discussion.

  ‘Who?’

  He laughed again, a full-throated, exuberant sound that attracted the smiling attention of passers-by. ‘You’re so good for my ego!’ Still chuckling, he scooped up her hand in his and tugged her along at his side. ‘Come on, we have better things to do than hang around here like a pair of damned groupies!’

  A little further up the street he stopped her outside a very stylish jewellery store, the kind that had a security guard manning the heavy glass door. ‘I shan’t be a moment,’ he promised as he slipped inside.

  She watched through the glass, and when he drew a small object out of his wallet to show the assistant she put a hand to her throat, suddenly realising what he was asking. She was a trifle embarrassed, knowing that although the sterling silver chain and jade pendant had been difficult for her parents to afford at the time, it couldn’t possibly compete with the kind of expensive jewellery discreetly displayed in the light-boxes dotted around the store.

  However the elegant assistant didn’t reel back in disdain at Luc’s request, probably because he was leaning casually on the glass counter, totally at ease in the luxurious surroundings, a picture of dark, masculine charm.

  As the assistant disappeared into the back room, Luc glanced up and Veronica ducked across to pretend to be admiring the window display, a dazzling array of diamond rings.

  Luc grinned at her through the glass shelves, then he straightened, a faint frown drifting across his face. He stiffened, and strode towards the door and out onto the street.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Veronica as he slid his arm around her, keeping their backs to the street and looking furtively over his shoulder. She tried to follow his gaze but he blocked her movement with his body.

  ‘Keep looking in the window. I don’t think he’s quite sure, yet, but…if that’s who I think it is—’ He swore virulently as he did another quick sweep of the pavement across the street.

  ‘Which ring do you like? I like that one?’ he said, pointing haphazardly into the window. His arm tightened around her waist, pinning her to his side and he nuzzled her neck, using the shade of her brim to disguise the fact he was keeping a wary eye behind them.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Unnerved by his behaviour, Veronica twisted in his grasp in time to see a plump little man in a backwards baseball cap and beige cotton waistcoat and trousers festooned with bulging zip pockets start to dodge his way across the busy street, a long-lens camera bumping against his chest, sweat running in rivulets down the sides of his face.

  ‘Hey—yo! Ryder!’

  With another curse, Luc hustled Veronica inside the store, directing a burst of French at the security guard who hastily locked the door behind them.

  ‘Who is that?’ said Veronica as the man vainly gesticulated to the guard to let him in, then mashed himself against the glass to peer in at them, wiping at the haze of perspiration that was fogging up his view.

  ‘No one you want to know. Bloody paparazzi! I should have realised they’d be buzzing round here with the festival on…it’s always a drawcard for celebrities and see-me wannabes…’

  ‘I’m not going away until you give me a money-shot, you know, Ryder!’ the photographer was yelling through the toughened glass in a cockney accent. ‘So you may as well give it up now, and I’ll go away and leave you in peace. Remember me from London? I know where you live—!’

  ‘Blackmailing bastard!’ ground out Luc as the man banged on the door with the flat of his hand.

  ‘Come on, Ryder—just one exclusive and I’m outta here! Have you seen Foster since he came out of rehab? Are you down here to see his show? Seen Mrs Malcolm lately? She’s supposed to be at a health spa but no one can find her—’ The man had swapped his heavy, long-lens camera for a smaller, digital SLR, snapping off pictures as fast as his questions. ‘You looking at buying your lady some jewellery? Is she anyone we know? Yo! Darlin’—how about taking off the hat, and giving me a nice, big smile—’

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ spluttered Veronica as Luc pushed her over towards the counter, out of sight of the door, but the photographer just moved over to the display window and began shooting between the shelves.

  ‘Damn! He’s not going to go away. They’re like bloody pit-bulls when they lock onto a target,’ said Luc furiously. ‘They staked out my flat in London, but thank God they didn’t know about the one in Paris—’

  ‘Perhaps the guard can do something?’ suggested Veronica, realising the intrusive attention she had suffered in New Zealand was mild in comparison.

  ‘And make even more of a scene? He’d love that! It’s part of the pap technique—goading people into doing something that makes a more dramatic picture. And we don’t want to risk bringing down the rest of the pack—where there’s one, there’s bound to be others…’

  ‘Hey—these are some pretty fancy rings you two were looking at here in the window, Ryder!’ The baying hound’s words were greatly muffled by the layers of glass, but still audible in the quiet atmosphere of the shop. ‘You gonna to buy her one? What’s the big occasion?’

  ‘Honestly! He’s not very good at goading, if that’s the best he can do,’ scorned Veronica, firmly suppressing a leap of forbidden yearning.

  Luc looked at her with an arrested expression, his eyes travelling down to the cabinet in front of them, holding a small arrangement of very expensive rings, and then back up to Veronica’s flushed face, innocent of make-up, her soft eyes bright with indignation and dark with embarrassed empathy.

  She could almost see his brain working like lightning behind his suddenly abstracted gaze; dangerous, forked lightning—the kind that raised the hair on the back of your neck, then sizzled you on the spot before you even had time to run, or even recognise you were in peril. Unfortunately, she seemed to have fallen in love with this particular natural hazard, and flight was no longer a desirable option.

  ‘Well, we could try giving him what he wants…’ he said slowly, his eyes coming back into focus and filling with a strange, liquid warmth that made something inside her quiver. He reached up and pulled off her hat, dropping it beside them on the counter as she automatically winnowed her fingers through her flattened hair. ‘And save both you and I a load of hassles in the process…’

  ‘But—there’s no reason for him to be interested in me—’ Glancing out the window, she could see the photographer’s camera had drooped with disappointment as he registered that her hat hadn’t been hiding a recognisable face or glamorous beauty.

  ‘Nor me, per se. I’m only a target right now because of Elise and now he’s seen you with me that makes you a potential target, too,’ he told her, turning her to face him and running his finger under the strap of her sundress, gently aligning it more precisely over the faint tan-line on her smooth shoulder. ‘If you become tabloid fodder here, because of me, it could follow you home, because you can be sure the Kiwi papers would probably pick it up, and what they don’t know about us, they’ll make up. It might even get your loony ex a fresh batch of publicity for his crass stunts.’ As she opened her mouth to protest he gently sealed her lips with the press of his forefinger. ‘I know. It’s not fair—that’s just the way it is. But we could get him off our backs and kill two birds with one stone…’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said warily, her spine tingling at the silky smile that was stealing over his face.

  To her shock he cupped her chin and kissed her square on her puzzled mouth, in full view of the snapping camera. ‘I mean, that if we can convince him we’re engaged, then our scandal value plummets…we’re a humdrum social paragraph rather than a titillating piece of spice. We can make our relationship appear to be so cosily domesticated and respectable that no tablo
id worth its salt would bother to give us houseroom,’ he said, punctuating his words with kisses.

  With his mouth on hers, Veronica had never felt less respectable in her life! She was sure there was something fundamentally wrong with his argument, but right now her mind was too clouded to pinpoint the fault.

  The assistant, who had came back to show off the new silver clasp that the jeweller had expertly substituted for the broken catch, was taken aback at the activity outside the window, but as Luc fastened the repaired pendant around Veronica’s neck he said something that made her light up like a Christmas tree.

  ‘Anneaux d’enclenchement? Ah, oui!’ She beamed at them both.

  As Luc continued to talk Veronica found her right hand grasped and her ring finger meticulously measured.

  ‘What on earth are you telling her?’ Veronica whispered, as the young woman began pulling out selected ring boxes and lining them up along the counter.

  A translation was no longer required.

  ‘I told you—I’m saving us from the clutches of notoriety,’ said Luc. ‘How about this one, chérie?’ he purred, holding up an obscenely large solitaire.

  ‘You must be crazy,’ she squeaked, pushing away the garish offering.

  ‘You’re right, far too ostentatious,’ he drawled, selecting another box. ‘We’re aiming for boring respectability, not outrageous bling. We better stay away from the pink diamonds, then. How about this heart-shaped one, then—conservative, conventional even…’

  He took wicked delight at her confusion as he rapidly plied her with alternatives. Catching sight of the price on one of the boxes, Veronica thought it would serve him right if she took him seriously—she could trade it in for a small car when she got home!

  ‘Ah, yes, now this one looks much more like your style…’

  She was certain that he was still mocking, and Veronica’s coruscating reply stuck in her throat as she stared at the ring he had removed from its box. It was utterly gorgeous in its severe simplicity—three flawless, round stones set in yellow gold, their brilliance and purity burning with a winter-white fire that flared through the entire spectrum as he tilted the polished facets to the overhead light.