He couldn’t stay in the room any longer. Not after that call. Snatching up his coat, Louis hurried out of the door, barely locking it behind him, and then down the stairs rather than wait for the lift.
In less than an hour Alex would be here. And he found he could scarcely wait.
Take it slowly. Don’t make her bolt.
He could work the rest out from there.
* * *
Alex gazed out of the small aircraft window, trying to quell the muffled rat-a-tat of her heart against her chest and feeling more confused than ever.
When she’d embarked in England not ninety minutes ago, she’d been feeling a horrible combination of irritability and fragility, resenting every moment of what was to come even as the plane had climbed into the grey skies and plunged into the thick cloud cover. She’d tried to lose herself in a book, and when that hadn’t worked, the latest medical journal. She’d refused the first two glasses of champagne that a silent but efficient attendant had brought to her. But at some point, right after the cloud cover had broken and warm sunshine had poured through the tiny window, she’d accepted the third attempt, stopped mumbling her speech and allowed herself to breathe for the first time in days.
Now she gazed down on the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean, glinting like jewels in the brilliant sunlight, and felt that little bit more carefree, that little less drowned in responsibility. Her champagne flute stood freshly refilled, her paperback abandoned on her lap, and her head filled with indecent images of Louis from that morning in his penthouse.
Even the memory of him made her feel alive. The anticipation of seeing him again was creating a low hum in her body that only seemed to grow louder the lower the plane descended through the French skies.
But she’d meant what she’d said when she’d told him it could never happen again.
Now, more than ever, she had to stick to her word. The last few days had been hell. Louis had warned her that the press would be unstoppable but she hadn’t believed him. Instead, they’d been worse.
She turned her head to the tabloid that sat rolled up in the bag by her feet. As if Apple Pie Alex from her colleagues hadn’t been bad enough, in the last couple of days, ever since the Louis kiss in that restaurant, the press had chosen to dub her Vanilla Vardy.
Vanilla Vardy too virginal for Lascivious Louis!
It might have been a compliment to her. It wasn’t. It was as though even her kissing technique was plain and uninspiring and the tone all too closely matched a similar tabloid article from the other day that had breathlessly proclaimed:
Vanilla Vardy wins Luscious Louis Sympathy Vote!
As if they knew how he’d touched her that morning. She may not be a virgin per se, but it had been like she’d never been touched before, and certainly not with such an effect.
As if they knew that her response to him had been so visceral, so carnal that she’d barely even recognised herself.
She wondered if he was laughing at her the way the public would be if they’d seen the way she’d come apart so quickly in his arms. Congratulating himself on ruining her for any other man. Because he surely had.
And yet it took a real effort to bring herself to feel even a degree of remorse. To tell herself that she wasn’t frustrated that they had been interrupted, or that the moment had been shattered, and that she hadn’t had the courage to finish what Louis had started.
Because she’d wanted to. Oh, how she’d ached to. In that moment she’d known that she might never get another opportunity like that in her life, since no other man in her past had even come close to making her lose control the way she had in his bedroom. She couldn’t imagine any other man in her future ever would either.
No one else would ever be able to match Louis, the way he’d made her feel, the way he’d made her writhe, the way he’d made her shatter.
There was only one Louis Delaroche.
Which was why that had to be her one and only slide into temptation. She couldn’t afford to lose herself again. Couldn’t afford to let him get under her skin the way he seemed to be so skilled at doing. Couldn’t afford to indulge in all the fantasies she’d had over the last few nights, in which, instead of simply lying back and letting him pleasure her so thoroughly, she’d met him halfway. Doing things to him she knew she would never have the courage to try.
And that was why she had to keep her head on her shoulders from now on.
Only it wasn’t that simple. Because for her, at least, there had been more than just the sex. Louis had awakened a side to her character that morning that had lain dormant for so many years that even she herself had thought it long gone. That daring, mischievous side to herself that she’d thought had died a long time ago. And she’d accepted that it was gone, almost welcomed its demise.
Who would ever have thought that Louis would be the person to resurrect it?
It didn’t help that she’d received a concerned call from her father that morning to tell her that Rainbow House had been visited by a new team of hotshot lawyers who claimed they were working on behalf of the Lefebvre Group. He’d said that they’d managed to get through a temporary injunction to stop the transfer of assets to the Delaroche Foundation. And then her father had asked, in his gruff way, if their new advocates had anything to do with Louis Delaroche and the fact that photos of her and Louis kissing had been plastered all over the papers. He’d gently warned her against doing anything that wasn’t right. That even Rainbow House wasn’t worth certain sacrifices.
And she’d lied and assured him that the two things weren’t related, even as she’d swelled with happiness and something she didn’t care to identify that Louis had begun to fulfil his part of the deal. That he hadn’t grown bored with the venture now that he’d claimed her as his.
But that still didn’t mean he was finally ready to do the right thing and take up the mantle of the Lefebvre Group, as his mother had always wanted him to do. Until he accepted that, surely it was yet another reason why she needed to separate the two, the business agreement from the sexual attraction.
It was only as the plane bumped down that Alex realised they’d landed, and the Morse code tapping of her heart became more urgent. More panicked.
Relax. He won’t even be here.
Why would the great Louis come to meet her in person when he had people to send for that?
So was it any wonder that her stomach flipped and twisted when she descended the steps to see him waiting on the runway for her? Perched as he was on the bonnet of a sleek, black car, his impossibly long, muscular legs stretched out in front of him, a crisp suit shirt, sleeves rolled up and open at the neck.
‘What are you doing here?’
He grinned, and her stomach knotted some more.
‘I trust you had a pleasant flight? Didn’t find my private plane too much of an ordeal after all?’
‘It was wonderful,’ she conceded.
‘Bon.’
Before she had time to think, he thrust to his feet, pulling her into his arms and snagging her mouth with his.
It was happening too fast. She wasn’t ready.
Her body was on fire with fresh need.
Startled, she pulled away, but his iron grip on her only tightened, his head bending so that only she could hear the mild reprimand. It should have felt threatening, instead it felt thrilling.
‘I might remind you that the aim is to show the world that we have fallen madly, desperately in love. We’ve caught the public interest and we are being observed. All the time.’
‘There’s no one around,’ she choked out, trying to look around.
Louis caught her hair, anchoring her head in place but looking for all the world like a passionate lover.
‘Do not look, there is always someone around. The trick is to pretend you don’t know they’re there.’
‘I don’t know
they’re there,’ she reasoned, wishing her heart would drop back into her chest instead of lodging itself somewhere around her throat.
‘There’s at least one guy with a long-lens camera on the outer perimeter, on the other side of the runway. The giveaway is the odd glint of sunlight reflected by the glass,’ he informed her. ‘So kiss me, please. As if you really mean it.’
It may as well have been the excuse her body had been looking for to override any last shred of common sense. Leaning slowly backwards, her eyes meeting Louis’s and never leaving them, she dropped her shoulder bag with exaggerated care and then looped her hands around his neck.
‘As if I really mean it, you say?’ she challenged, proud of the way her voice didn’t shake, even once.
His gaze darkened.
‘For the camera.’
‘Oh, of course.’ She quirked her lips, delighting in the flare of desire in his face.
Either he wanted her just like he had the other night, or he was a really, really good actor.
And then she kissed him. Met him. Matched him. Their mouths moved against each other, their tongues dancing a slow, sensual rhumba. This time it was she who eventually broke the contact, seeking out that impossibly square jawline until she reached his ear, grazing the lobe with semi-gentle teeth as she moved to the sensitive spot behind it.
His reaction was instant. And evident. Heat pooled between her legs at the unmistakeable feel of him. What she had managed to elicit. As though she had some kind of power over him. It was a heady sensation. She lost track of where they were, what was around them and she rocked against him, her body splayed against his.
‘Dieu,’ he growled in her ear, barely catching her hand from sliding down his chest to his trousers. ‘Is this where you choose to come to me? Out here, on the tarmac?’
She blinked, crashing back to earth. Remembering where they were.
‘I... The photographer,’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Has more than enough, believe me.’ His voice was harsh, tight. ‘Now, get into the car.’
It took everything she had to stay calm and not scramble to get inside, wondering if she’d ever felt so mortified. When Louis joined her on the butter-soft leather she couldn’t help her yelp of discomfort. Though she noticed he did nothing to close the gap between them.
‘Quite a show,’ he accused her.
She had no idea how she managed to raise one eyebrow at him, her voice shockingly level.
‘I thought that was the whole point.’
‘I asked for a kiss, not an open invitation to take you right there on the runway. That part of it is something I’d rather do with you in private.’
‘Really? This, from the king of sex spectacles?’
‘With other women, Alex,’ he bellowed. ‘Not with you.’
It sliced her deeper than she’d thought possible. An unambiguous slap in the face of just how gauche, how sexually unsophisticated she was.
So much for keeping her head around him. One minute in his company and she was losing her mind and her morals. It was more confusing than ever. Like being a human pendulum, swinging wildly from one extreme to the other.
Now, like a wounded animal, she retreated to her corner of the car to lick her wounds. Louis, on the other hand, stewed silently in his.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS LIKE some kind of illogical torture. Sitting here, at the restaurant, both equally frustrated yet having to flirt, to play the loving couple, just to conceal their row from the other curious diners so that they could forge ahead with the main goal of tonight. To stage their very public engagement.
The timing couldn’t have been worse. After this afternoon he was still smarting. Smarting. As though their contretemps had actually got to him.
And yet it had. Even now, when he thought back over what had happened on the runway, he couldn’t work out where it had all sprung from.
A row.
As if they were a proper couple.
It was almost enough to make him laugh. And somehow the thought chipped the first sharp corner off the block of granite that seemed to have taken up residency in his chest.
‘I apologise,’ he murmured. ‘For what I said to you this afternoon.’
She looked up at him in surprise, then belatedly smiled. To him, it was too brittle to be a real smile, but he knew that, even to fool the hawk-eyed photographers, it would appear to be the sweetest, shyest smile.
‘You mean for reminding me how I don’t match up to any of the other women you’ve...dated?’
The smile didn’t even waver. If anything, he felt it become that much sharper, like a scalpel blade pressed against his chest. But it was her words that had him taken aback. He fought to keep a frown from his face.
‘That certainly isn’t what I said.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She nodded vigorously before remembering herself. She leaned forward across the table so no one could possibly overhear them, although they both knew it would simply look as though she was captivated by him.
Incredible how much he suddenly wished that was true.
‘You’ll have to refresh my memory.’
Her pretty blush would certainly make it into tonight’s papers. As would the way she steeled herself, like a woman boosted by love. Like a woman in love.
He should be pleased she could play the part so well.
‘Fine. You told me you were more than happy to have sex with other women. Just not me.’
He laughed then. To his ears the sound was hollow and full of disbelief, yet the restaurant diners seemed oblivious to the undercurrent at his table. The not-so-covert stares only became all the more indulgent. As if they truly believed they were watching a couple happy to be together.
But what are they watching?
He hastily muffled the voice in his head. But it was too late.
‘Is that why you were angry? Upset?’ He caught her chin in his hands, not too roughly but enough to force her to look at him, to read the truth in his gaze. ‘I said I didn’t care if the world saw me with any of those other women, or read those ridiculous kiss and tells. But I never wanted the media to gossip about you in that way. You deserve better. However, I did not say I didn’t want to have sex with you. We both know nothing could be further from the truth.’
She didn’t want to believe him so easily. He could read her like the latest medical journal. But she was wavering, and that could only be a good sign. Abruptly, he was filled with the urge to convince her, to reassure her. As though what was between them was real and not just a charade.
‘I want you, Alex. Fervently. I want you any way you can imagine, and probably a fair few you can’t. You have no idea how close I was to losing myself right out there on that runway. I don’t lose myself, Alex. I never lose myself. That’s why I was so mad.’
‘I lost myself, too,’ she whispered after a moment, a hot flush blooming on her cheeks.
It was adorable. She was adorable.
Before he could stop himself, he leaned across the table and kissed her. Her response was as perfect as it was instantaneous. She made him feel like a king.
‘I promised myself I wouldn’t go there again.’ She smiled ruefully, her eyes sliding to the flashbulbs that were going crazy outside the windows. ‘Especially in front of them out there.
It was a jolt to realise that he’d almost forgotten about the press, too caught up in Alex herself. He should take a step, regroup. Only he couldn’t, he was enjoying this far too much. He couldn’t help it. He toyed with the stem of his glass.
‘So what happened?’
‘You happened.’ She managed to make it sound exciting and irritating at the same time. ‘I was all set, I had my speech all prepared...’
He frowned. ‘Your speech?’
‘About how that morning could only be a one-night stand.’
<
br /> This time his laugh was genuine, if a little regretful.
‘I’d hardly call it that. We got interrupted.’
‘Which was a good thing,’ she assured him, but the way she refused to meet his eyes told him she didn’t even believe her own words.
‘Liar.’ He slid his hand across the table and took hers. It could have been part of the act, but it wasn’t. You wanted that morning as much as I did.’
Her teeth worried at her lip before she offered a sheepish smile.
‘Perhaps.’
Sweet. Perfect. Alex.
Before he knew what he was doing, Louis slid out of his seat, his hand drawing the ring box from his inside suit pocket. As though his body knew what he was doing even before his brain did. As though he was acting on instinct and desire, rather than their carefully laid plans.
As though he was only partly playing the part.
And he knew Alex felt it too. The expression on her face certainly wasn’t as composed or cool as it would have been if she hadn’t been as caught up as he was.
He told himself that it was a good thing that it made their charade all the more convincing.
But that wasn’t even the half of it.
‘Alexandra Vardy...’ The words certainly weren’t any he had composed in his head beforehand. They would be relayed from the diners, to the press and around the world within minutes. He told himself that was the point of saying them, but he knew that wasn’t entirely true.
‘You make me want to be a better man. A better human being.’ His voice dipped then, huskier than he might have intended. ‘Marry me.’
Her fingers had shot to her mouth, her wide-eyed expression relaxing into one of tentative hope. An unexpected fierceness shot through him; the sense that such open innocence should be cherished. Protected. She gave a halting nod and then she dropped her hands to cup his face. Something shot through him that he couldn’t put a name to.
Didn’t want to.
And still he couldn’t break the moment.
A Bride to Redeem Him Page 12