by Jennie Lucas
“How can you be so sure?” he demanded.
Her dark eyelashes fluttered against her pale cheeks as she looked down at the ground. She said, in a voice almost too quiet to hear, “Because you’re the only man I’ve ever…been with.”
He looked at her in shock. The only man? Ever?
Blinking, she lifted her gaze. “But someday I will find another,” she whispered. “I’ll find a man who will never abandon me or break my heart.”
Théo’s body stiffened. There it was again, her mention of a dream man, a perfect masculine paragon that Théo was already beginning to despise.
“Don’t bother thinking of him,” he said sharply. “If you’re telling me the truth, and Henry is my son, you will soon be my wife.”
Carrie stared at him, her eyes wide. For several seconds she struggled to speak. Then she choked out, “No!”
“You would put your hatred of me, and your selfish longings for romance, over the best interests of our son?”
Her lips turned down at the edges, and if possible she looked still more unhappy. “I’m not marrying you. Not when I know you will lose interest in being a father within a week—”
“You don’t know that,” he interrupted fiercely.
“Yes, I do. I know exactly the kind of man you are,” she said steadily. “A playboy who doesn’t want to ever be tied down, who lives entirely for his own selfish needs, who will never be faithful to any woman for longer than a week.”
“Don’t you dare presume to—”
“Marriage is a lifelong commitment—until death. It can only be based on love.” Her voice hardened. “And I despise you.”
Her words burned inside him, echoing and reverberating inside his soul. Once Carrie had looked at him with eyes full of adoration. Now she seemed to hate the sight of him.
Théo looked down at the small baby cuddling against his chest. The thought of some other, no doubt more deserving man raising his baby son felt like a knife in his throat.
“Henry will live with me in Seattle,” she said in a calmer tone. “He’ll be surrounded by people who love him. If you truly care about him, you will let him have a home.” She hesitated. “I’ll let you visit him whenever you wish.”
“Merci beaucoup,” he ground out.
Reaching over to the baby still in Théo’s arms, Carrie stroked her son’s back through his soft fleece pajamas. Lifting her gaze, she met Théo’s eyes. “You held me to the promise that our affair would be no more than a no-strings affair. If I had held you to the same standard I never would have given you this chance.”
He set his jaw. “What? The chance to know of his existence before you try to take him from me forever?”
“In Seattle I can give Henry a family who loves him. I can give him a real home.”
“In your parents’ rickety little house? While you support him as a waitress?”
Her cheeks went pink. “My family might not be rich but at least we don’t try to buy or sell people.” She shook her head fiercely. “I know what matters in life in a way you never will. And I’m telling you I’ll die before I’ll become your wife—paternity test or no.”
Théo saw the determined set of her expression and knew that his earlier threat to keep her prisoner was indeed empty. He might be ruthless, but he was no monster. Even if Henry proved to be his son, he couldn’t force Carrie to marry him against her will. He couldn’t hold her in the dungeon until she came to her senses, no matter what his Provençal ancestors might have done.
He would have to use less brutal means of persuasion.
“You must stay,” he said abruptly. “Surely you can see that.”
She bit her lip. “What’s the longest you think the test could take?”
“A month?” he hedged.
“A month? Forget it! There are labs in the States. We’ll go back to Seattle and—”
“Or less. Certainly less. No more than a week, perhaps.”
She pressed her lips together, looking from Théo to the baby, who was starting to whine. Was the child hungry? he wondered. Thirsty? Tired? Who knew?
With a sigh, Carrie took the baby from his arms. “And if I do stay,” she said hesitantly, sounding as if the words were being ripped out of her by force, “you will leave my family in peace?”
He nodded. “You have my word.” He looked at her. “So you agree?”
She set her jaw, considering, then tossed her head. “I would spend a week with the devil himself to get you out of our lives!”
A wave of triumph washed over him. “Parfait.”
He extended his hand to shake on the deal. When she reluctantly placed her smaller hand in his, he pulled her close. He kissed both her cheeks. He breathed in the sweet fragrance of her soft, warm skin, felt the tremble of her fingers intertwined with his.
And he wanted her. More than he’d ever wanted any woman.
Perhaps he couldn’t be her knight in shining armor. But if Henry was his child Théo would show Carrie how wrongly she’d judged his character. He would be the most devoted father on earth. And he would marry his baby’s mother—by any means necessary.
He placed his hand on the small of her back to lead her back inside. Her cheeks were pink as she jerked away, glaring at him accusingly.
“I was just going to take you to your room,” he said innocently.
“I know my way upstairs,” she snapped.
He stared after her as she walked ahead with the baby. He knew why she’d reacted so violently to his touch. He’d known it from the moment he kissed her.
Hatred or no hatred, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He could barely wait to have her in his bed again, to caress her body until her skin was pink as her cheeks, to feel her soft, sweet naked body writhe beneath him as she moaned his name.
She pushed open the door to go back inside, and as he followed her he watched the unconsciously sensual sway of her hips.
He had one week to show Carrie how good a loveless marriage could be.
And if he got his wish the first place he’d show her was bed.
CHAPTER THREE
THE next morning, Carrie pushed open the blue shutters of her bedroom.
Soft sunlight glowed golden across the patchwork of fields of sunflowers and lavender and vines stretching back to the distant cragged mountains. She took a deep breath of fresh cool air, closing her eyes as she felt the sun against her face.
She’d made it through the night. She’d started to fear morning would never come. She’d woken constantly, restless with fear that Théo might come to seduce her. When she’d finally slept, he’d invaded her dreams. I love you, Carrie, he’d whispered huskily against her skin. His naked body had been hard and hot against her own. I’ve always loved you.
She’d woken up with a start in the middle of the night to find herself alone in the large bed, her body flushed with heat, her sheets tangled at her feet and her heart pounding with desire. Sitting up, she’d slowly looked around the room, with its wrought-iron bed and antique lady’s desk with a vase of roses he’d had brought from the garden. Carrie had wrapped her arms around herself as she’d listened to her baby’s deep, even breathing in the nearby crib. The dream had felt so real. If Théo could only love her…
She’d choked out a bitter laugh. Love her? The idea that Théo St. Raphaël would ever love her was a ridiculous joke—too preposterous even for a dream!
And I don’t care, Carrie told herself fiercely as she looked out the window across the beautiful view. She took another deep breath of the fresh morning air, scented with flowers and sunshine. The colors looked so vivid and brilliant, she thought in wonder. It was as if she’d just woken from a year of sleepwalking through a haze of rain and gray.
Why? Because of this beautiful country? Or because Théo was sleeping in the room down the hall?
She turned away from the window. Going to the en suite bathroom, she showered and got dressed in a simple blue sundress. Impatiently combing the tangles from her long brow
n hair, she stared at herself in the mirror.
“If you’re telling me the truth, and Henry is my son, you will soon be my wife.”
A year ago she would have wept with joy at such an unromantic proposal. But not anymore. Carrie squared her shoulders. She wasn’t going to waste another second wishing for a dream that could never happen. The man she would love someday would be perfect—kind, strong and steadfast.
Nothing like the Count of Castelnau.
And yet as she walked with Théo out of the private medical office in Aix-en-Provence later that day, her heartbeat quickened every time he brushed against her. She couldn’t stop looking at him out of the corner of her eye—at the shape of his body in the black T-shirt, snug over his shoulders and biceps, and the dark jeans that fit him far too well. As Théo bent to lift their recently purchased stroller down the stone steps to the crowded street, her gaze traveled over the hard, muscular curve of his backside and her mouth went dry.
Straightening, he looked at her with heavily lidded dark eyes, then gave her a slow-rising smile. “See something you like?”
With a horrified gasp, Carrie looked away sharply. Her cheeks burned as she pretended to be entranced by a nearby jeweler’s shop window. “I did, actually. There’s a…” She saw a huge diamond ring and her eyes briefly lost focus. “Holy cow, is that thing for real?”
He came closer, pushing the baby stroller, and paused to look down at the diamond ring. “Yes, I believe it is.”
Théo was so close she could feel the warmth of his body, and heat flashed through her that had nothing to do with the noontime sun. Their eyes met, and Carrie suddenly lost awareness of the throngs of people crowding past them, shopping in the charming outdoor market in the nearby square. His dark eyes burned through her, black as burning coals. Embers of heat caused memories to rush through her.
“I need you,” he’d whispered against her skin as his mouth worshipped every inch of her body in the Seattle hotel. “I never want to let you go.” But he had let her go. The instant she’d been foolish enough to love him, he’d ruthlessly dropped her.
She couldn’t be tempted by his charm again. She couldn’t.
Tilting his head toward the enormous diamond ring, he gave her a wicked grin. “Care for a souvenir?”
“No, thanks,” she said stiffly. She glanced down at the baby in the stroller. “One souvenir from you is enough.”
A torturous silence fell between them—a silence filled with memories and regrets. Finally Carrie could bear it no longer.
“So that’s it?” she said to break the silence. “That’s all we need to do?”
“Just the swab of saliva—yes. The lab computers will compare DNA and we’ll soon have the proof if I’m Henry’s father. Or not.”
His voice was easy, casual, not at all tortured. She looked at him incredulously. Didn’t he feel the same agony she felt, being so close? Hadn’t he been kept awake last night, as she had? She looked at his face. He looked fresh, rested, impossibly handsome.
Of course he did. Why should having her in his house have any effect on him whatsoever? To him, she was just one woman out of a hundred.
“I never stopped wanting you, Carrie…I have never forgotten how it felt to have you in my bed.”
He frowned at her. “Chérie, is something wrong?”
“A week here with you just feels so long,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I don’t know how I’ll bear it.” Turning away, she started to push the baby stroller forward through the square. “Carrie. Wait.”
She paused, looking back at him. He looked so handsome, taller and more broad-shouldered than any other man in the square. Any man in the world. Time stopped when she looked at him, as if all the people around them were blurs of a Mistral wind and he were the only solid rock, the earth itself.
“What?” she choked out.
Coming close to her, he gave her a smile that lit up his whole face, all the way to his seductive dark eyes. “You must be starving after only toast and jam for breakfast. It was the best I could manage with my housekeeper gone.”
“No, it was fine,” she stammered. “I loved your toast.”
Hearing herself, she bit her lip in chagrin. I loved your toast? She sounded like an idiot!
His smile widened. “Let me make it up to you with lunch at a good restaurant, cooked by a proper chef. The place I have in mind has three Michelin stars.”
Michelin? she thought blankly. Didn’t they make tires? “Fine. Good. Great.”
She sounded like a blithering idiot, even to her own ears. But what did she care what Théo thought about her? she asked herself fiercely. His opinion meant absolutely nothing to her!
But it was getting harder and harder to believe that. It was one thing to hate him at a distance of five thousand miles, something else entirely to maintain her hatred—or even indifference—when he was right in front of her. After a year of dreaming about him, every time she looked up into his cruelly handsome face she felt a shock. Every time she caught his speculative dark eyes on hers, every time she felt the warmth of his body brush against her own, it caused her to shake and melt somewhere deep inside.
“First we need to get some food,” he said, nodding down toward the bustling outdoor market in the square. “I’m going to make you dinner tonight, and the cupboard is completely bare.”
“What were you planning to do for dinner before?”
“I was going to fly you to Paris and seduce you on the plane, making love to you constantly.” Théo looked at her and held her gaze. Awareness sizzled through her before he said with a shrug, “But now that our plans have changed we will stay alone at the castle tonight. Lilley is home in Minnesota, visiting her family.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I will tell her to return at once.”
Carrie thought of Lilley, Théo’s distant cousin who worked as his housekeeper, being forced to return early. She put her hand over his on the phone. “No, don’t!”
He looked down at her hand, then tilted his head up with an inscrutable dark gaze. “No?”
Stiffening, Carrie pulled back her hand and tried to laugh. “Any employee of yours deserves all the vacation they can get,” she muttered.
Théo barked a laugh. Coming very close, he looked down at her. “Without my cousin we’ll be alone at the castle. Doesn’t that make you nervous?”
Her heart stopped in her chest.
“No,” she stammered. “Why would I be?”
He leaned forward to whisper, “Because, whether you admit it or not, you know you’ll soon be in my bed.”
Their eyes met, then their fingertips brushed as they both reached for the handle of the stroller at the same time. Carrie sucked in her breath, ripping her hands away as if he’d burned her.
He took the handle in both his large hands and turned toward the square. “The market is crowded, so stay close,” he said casually. “I would hate to lose you.”
An hour or so later, after sampling cheeses and fruits and bread across the outdoor market—even once having Théo feed her a piece of chocolate truffle— Carrie was congratulating herself as they left the crowded street with their bags packed beneath the baby stroller. She’d made it through this outing with Théo without making a total fool of herself. Well…mostly.
He turned to her abruptly as they left the market.
“I have something I need to do,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the Auberge in an hour.” He handed her a platinum credit card. “Buy toys for the baby. Clothes for yourself. Gifts for your family. Anything you want.”
He was leaving her here—and paying her off with a credit card. She stared down at the card in dismay. “I don’t want that.”
“Take it.” He pushed it into her hand. When she didn’t move, he lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you are so enamored of my company you don’t want me to leave you—not even for a moment.”
Carrie lifted her chin. “Are you kidding? Being without you for sixty whole minutes? It’ll be paradise!�
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His lips twisted with amusement. “I thought you might feel that way.”
She bit her lip. “But where are you going?”
He just gave her an inscrutable smile. “See you in an hour.”
Without another word, he turned and left.
Against her will, Carrie watched him go, her eyes lingering on the shape of his body as he disappeared back into the crowd of shoppers. He was so aggravating. How dare he make her laugh? How dare he make her enjoy herself? How dare he make her want to like him again, when hatred was her only defense?
She came back to herself with a start when she heard her baby whine, squirming in his stroller seat. “Sorry about that,” she told Henry brightly. “We can go.” Straightening, she looked at the credit card in her hand. She tapped the card thoughtfully against her cheek.
So…Théo wanted her to shop, did he?
Théo took the bags out of the back of the SUV and brought them into the main hall at the château. He had to make a second trip. He’d never seen so many bags.
“Is that it?” he said finally.
“Yes, I believe so.” From the rocking chair by the window, where she was nursing the baby, Carrie gave him a serene smile. “I had the rest of my packages sent directly to the States.”
Théo tried not to look toward her full, bare breast, covered only by a blanket. He licked his lips, his eyes looking everywhere but at her breasts, though he could think of nothing else. “What else did you buy?”
She waved her arms expansively. “Gifts for friends and family.”
“Gifts?”
She looked at him innocently. “For Christmas.”
He stared at her. “It’s June.”
Her smile was full of mischief. “I bought some bottles of wine to send to my second cousins in Texas, and perfume for friends in Bellevue, and of course my nieces and nephews all needed toys…”
“I hope you didn’t leave anyone out,” he said pointedly.
Her smile spread to a wicked grin as she pointed toward the small address book peeking out of her purse. “Nope, I didn’t. I double-checked.”