Luc poisoned all that he touched. And if he was prepared to marry her simply to ensure her continuing presence in his bed, why shouldn’t he accept Daniel as well? Luc, she sensed fearfully, would want his son. Five years ago, Daniel would have been a badly timed, unwelcome complication. Luc had not over-valued her precise importance to him. She was convinced that he would have expected her to have an abortion. But times had changed…
Daniel was innocent and vulnerable, a little boy with a lion-sized intellect often too big for him to handle. Once Luc had been a little boy like that… and look how he had turned out. Hard as diamonds. Cold, calculating and callous. Did she want to risk that happening to Daniel? Daniel already had too many of Luc’s traits. They had been doled out to him in his genes at birth.
He was strong-willed, single-minded and, if left to his own devices unchecked, exceedingly self-centred. Catherine had spent four and a half years endeavouring to ensure that Daniel grew up as a well-rounded, normal child rather than a remote, hot-house-educated little statistician, divorced by his mental superiority from childish things.
She hated Luc, oh, God, how she hated him! Enshrouded in lonely isolation, she clung ferociously to the hatred that was her only strength. She squashed the sneaking suspicion that Luc was not as callous and cold as she had once believed he was, tuned out the little voice that weakly dared to hint that Luc might have changed. Anger and self-loathing warred for precedence inside her as she cried.
So what if she had to go through the wedding first? As soon as they landed in London, she would leave him. She had done it before; she would to it again, and this time she wouldn’t be so dumb. She would take her jewellery with her and sell it. With the aid of that money, she could make a new life for herself and Daniel. She would do it for Daniel’s sake.
Misery crept over her with blanket efficiency. It hadn’t been real; none of it had been real. She had been living out a fantasy. The background had been so cruelly perfect. A castle for the little girl who had once dreamt about being a princess. A white wedding for the teenager who had once believed in living happily ever after. But, for the woman she was now, there was nothing, less than nothing. And wasn’t that her own fault? A grown woman ought to have been able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.
A certain je ne sais quoi, he had called it. A certain three-letter word would have been less impressive but more accurate. Sex. Luc’s fatal flaw and probably his only weakness. A certain je ne sais quoi, unsought and on many occasions since unwelcome, he had admitted. And you really couldn’t blame him for feeling like that, could you? It must be galling to acquire that much wealth and power and discover that you still lusted after a very ordinary little blonde with none of the attributes necessary to embellish your image.
‘Catherine? Are you OK?’ Luc demanded, startling her.
‘You b-bloody snob!’ she flared on the back of another sob.
Silence stretched.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he blazed from the other side of the door. ‘If you don’t come out of there, I’ll smash the lock!’
‘Force is your answer to everything, isn’t it?’ Abruptly galvanised into action by the mortifying awareness that he had been listening to her crying, she stood up, stripped off, and walked into the shower, hoping the sound of it would make him go away.
Sex, she thought, loathing him. The lowest possible common denominator. And, after a five-year drought, her value had mushroomed. In fact it had smashed all known stock-market records. In return for unlimited sex, Luc was graciously ready to lower his high standards and marry her. Well, bully for him, and wasn’t she a lucky girl?
Little wonder he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He was sensationally attractive, super-rich and oversexed. Nine out of ten women would contrive to live with his flaws. Unfortunate that she was the tenth. Unfortunate for him, that was!
He might get a bride, but he wasn’t getting a wife. He would live to regret forcing her to go through with the wedding. When she took off within hours of it, the public embarrassment would be colossal. Then she could stamp the long-overdue account ‘paid in full’. Getting mad got her nowhere; getting even would restore her self-respect. Luc might have set her up, but he had set himself up as well.
Pay-back time was here. She would go down in history as the woman of principle who had rejected one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. It was perfect, she decided, the old adrenalin flowing again. Shame she wouldn’t be able to stay around to take advantage of the publicity. She could see the headlines. Why I couldn’t live with Luc Santini.
Tying a towelling robe round her. she abandoned the entrancing imagery with regret and padded back to the bedroom, a woman with a mission now, a woman set on revenge and nobody’s victim.
A cork exploded from a bottle like a pistol shot. His dark head thrown back as he let the excess champagne foam down into his mouth, Luc was a blaze of stunning black and gold animal vibrancy in the strong sunlight. He straightened and poured the mellow golden liquid expertly into a pair of glasses, white teeth flashing against brown skin as a brilliant smile curved his mouth. ‘Force is not my answer to everything.’ Magnificent lion-gold eyes skimmed over her. ‘You look like a lobster. You’ve been in there so long, you must have used up all the hot water in the castle.’
She hadn’t expected him to still be waiting for her. The filthy look she gave him ought to have withered him. Naturally it didn’t. It drifted impotently off him like afeather trying to beat up a rock. Crossing the carpet with feline grace, he pressed a glass into her hand. ‘You’re not in love with Huntingdon,’ he drawled. ‘If you were, you would have slept with him.’
Just looking at him drained her. Her nerves were suddenly in shreds again. Her hands weren’t steady. It was an unequal contest. She wasn’t ready for another confrontation and he knew it, conniving and ruthless swine that he was! She marvelled at his arrogance in believing that he could bring her back to heel within the next twenty-four hours. That was, of course, what he was banking on.
‘You wouldn’t understand a man like Drew if you lived to be a thousand.’ Her cheeks had gone all hot, and she tossed back the champagne in the hope of cooling down her temperature.
‘He attracts you because he’s a loser. You feel sorry for him.’
Her teeth gritted. ‘Drew is not a loser.’ ‘He’s run a healthy family firm off its feet with a series of bad business decisions,’ Luc traded succinctly.
‘And any day of the week, he’s still a finer man than you’ll ever be!’ she launched shakily.
The superb bone-structure hardened. ‘You’re in a privileged position, cara. I would allow no one else to say that to me with impunity.’
The chill she had invoked was intimidating. A shiver ran down her backbone. She felt like a reckless child rebuked for embarrassing the adults. But his contempt for Drew deeply angered her. Yet, at heart, she knew he was right. Drew had never been ambitious or hungry enough to become successful. He had allowed his family to live at a level beyond their means, draining the firm of capital that should have been reinvested for the future. However, those facts didn’t lower Drew in her estimation. He was not a born wheeler-dealer and he never would be. When she thought of the dreadful week of worry Drew had had to endure waiting for that contract, she tasted the full threat of Luc’s savagery. No…no, she reflected tautly, she would never have cause to regret concealing Daniel’s existence from Luc.
‘You’ve hurt Drew,’ she whispered, thinking that, once she was gone, Drew would be safe from all interference. She saw no reason to disabuse Luc of his conviction that she had had a relationship with Drew. It infuriated her that Luc should believe he had the right to stare at her with such chilling censure. ‘And you don’t own me.’
Confusingly, his wide mouth curled into a sudden, almost tender smile. ‘I don’t need to own you. You are mine, body and soul. So, you strayed a little, got lost, but you didn’t stray as far as I�
��d feared, and now you are back where you belong.’
Seething temper gripped her. ‘I don’t belong with you!’
‘Why do you fight me?’ he demanded softly. ‘Why do you fight yourself?’
As she collided unwarily with ebony-fringed dark eyes, a squirming helpless sensation kicked at her stomach. It was hard to withstand that burning, blatant self-assurance of his. ‘I’m not fighting myself.’
‘Come here,’ he invited very quietly. ‘And prove it.’
The magnetic force of his will was concentrated on her. Her body shivered, though she was not cold, her heart raced, though she was not exerting herself, in reaction to the sheer physical pull he could exert. It crossed her mind crazily that he ought to be banned like a dangerous substance.
He strolled closer and refilled her glass in the throbbing silence. ‘You’re afraid to,’ he noted. ‘Indeed, you behave as though you are afraid of me. I don’t like that. I don’t want a little white ghost with fear in her eyes in my bed tomorrow night. I want that scatty, loving, happy creature you’ve been all week.’ He was so close now she couldn’t breathe. ‘I don’t love you.’
‘If I weren’t so certain that you loved me, I wouldn’t be marrying you.’
She backed off hastily from his proximity. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it would have mattered a damn to you either way!’
‘If you take refuge in the bathroom again, I’ll break the door down,’ he delivered conversationally. ‘You started this and I’ll finish it. I want to know why you’re putting up barriers again.’
‘Why?’ she echoed breathlessly. ‘Why? After what you’ve done?’
A brown hand inscribed a graceful arc. ‘What have I done? I spend all these years looking for you and, the moment I find you again, I ask you to marry me. Isn’t that a compliment?’ ‘A c-compliment?’
‘It is certainly not an insult, bella mia.’ ‘But I don’t want to marry you!’ ‘I’m becoming fascinated by what must go on in your subconscious mind,’ he confessed huskily.
God, he was incredibly attractive. He could talk his way round a lynch mob, she conceded in panic. What she was experiencing right now came down to hormones. That was all. Luc was turning up the heat, stalking her like the pure-bred predator he was. If she lost her head for a second, she would be flat on her back on that bed. Somehow he contrived to say the most outrageous things charmingly. Or maybe it was just that her brain had packed up in disgust at her own frailty.
‘You can’t persuade me differently with sex either!’ she asserted, her spine meeting unexpectedly with a wall that concluded her retreat.
Dancing golden eyes, alight with mockery, arrowed over her. He took her glass from her hand and set it aside. ‘We don’t have sex, we have intensely erotic experiences,’ he countered, his wine-dark voice savouring the syllables.
‘Sex!’ She hurled the reiteration like a force field behind which she might hide. ‘And I’m not some tramp… Are you listening to me?’
‘I might listen if you say something I want to hear, but you’ve been rather remiss in that department this afternoon.’ Instead of moving closer, he stayed where he was, confusing her. ‘And I’m not about to make it easy for you by persuading you into bed.’
She straightened from the wall jerkily, no longer under threat, pink flying into her cheeks. ‘You couldn’t persuade me.’
‘I wouldn’t try. I’m saving you up for an intensely erotic experience tomorrow night,’ he murmured softly, before closing the door behind him.
She darted after him and turned the key. Then she slumped. Heavens, he was so modest, such a shrinking violet. Wiping her damp forehead, she lay down on the bed, acknowledging, now that he was gone, just how much the past hours of stormy emotion had taken out of her. She had time for a nap before dinner.
She was terribly hot and sticky and thirsty when she woke up. Filling a glass to the brim with flat champagne, she drank it down much as she would have treated lemonade. Had someone been banging on the door a while ago, or was that her imagination?
Nobody’s victim, eh? Her earlier fighting thoughts came back to haunt her. Luc had walked the last round. He had switched back to the intimate playful mood of the last few days and she hadn’t expected that; she hadn’t been prepared. He was in for a heck of a shock when she took her leave at the airport. He hadn’t given serious consideration to a single thing she said. Her temper sparked again. It maddened her to have to admit it, but hating Luc did not make her immune to his physical attraction. It was a hangover from the bad old days—what else could it be? Once she had believed he was a bit like the measles. If you caught him once, you couldn’t catch him again.
Evidently the chemistry didn’t work like that. Here she was, in full possession of her senses, no longer the doormat doppelganger of recent days, and still she was vulnerable. It enraged her. When he had taken that glass from her and she had thought… she had been in the act of melting down the wall in anticipation.
Pacing about the room in a temper, she helped herself to more champagne. When she had loved Luc, she had just about been able to live with the effect he had on her. When she didn’t even like him, never mind love him, it was inexcusable. And as for him—what he deserved was a cheap little tramp, the sort of female prepared to barter sexual favours for his bank balance, the sort of female he ought to understand. That was exactly what he deserved…
She was rifling the dressing-room when the banging on the door interrupted her. Opening it a crack, she found Guilia, for some reason backed by Bernardo, who was holding a large bunch of keys. Her maid looked all hot and flushed and anxious.
‘I won’t be needing any help tonight. Grazie, Guilia.’
‘But signorina––’
‘Dinner will be served in one half-hour,’ Bernardo said with a look of appeal.
‘I’m sorry, but dinner will have to wait.’ Catherine shut the door again. Didn’t they all speak great English? When she recalled the sign language she had been reduced to using several times during the week, she cursed Luc. Why had Bernardo looked so shattered at the idea of dinner’s having to be held back? Luc would probably create. Well, so what? It would do him no harm to cool his heels for once. He would appreciate her appearance all the more when she did wander in. Dinner, she decided fiercely, would be fun… fun… fun! However, lest the staff receive the blame for her tardiness, she would be as quick as she possibly could be.
The shimmering tunic top of a black evening suit was extracted from the wardrobe first. It would just cover her hips and, if she wore it back to front, the neckline would be equally abbreviated. Sheer black stockings, no problem. She had every colour of the rainbow. A very high pair of black court shoes were withdrawn next and finally a pair of long black gloves.
Dressed, she walked a slightly unsteady line into the bathroom to go to town on her face. Sapphire and violet outlined her eyes dramatically. Putting on loads of blue mascara, she dabbed gold glitter on her cleavage and traced her lips with strawberry pink. She was starting to enjoy herself. Having moussed her hair into a wild, messy tangle, she went through her jewellery.
She had three diamond bracelets. One went on an ankle, the other two on her wrists over the gloves. A necklace and earrings completed the look. Sort of Christmassy. It was astonishing how cheap diamonds could look when worn to excess. And her wardrobe, shorn of Guilia, had far more adventurous possibilities than Luc could ever have dreamt. The reflection that greeted her in the mirror was satisfyingly startling.
She picked a careful passage down the staircase, aware that she had been a little free with the champagne. Bernardo literally couldn’t take his eyes from her as she crossed the hall. He froze, stared, tugged at his tie.
‘Evening, Bernardo,’ she carolled on her way past. ‘It’s a hot night, isn’t it?’ And it’s about to get hotter, she forecast with inner certainty. Abruptly, Bernardo flashed in front of her, spreading wide both doors of the salon. ‘Signorina Parrish.’
Why
on earth was he announcing her? Did he think Luc wouldn’t recognise her under all this gloop? Have her thrown out as a gatecrasher? Taking a deep breath, she launched herself over the threshold. A whole cluster of faces looked back at her, some standing, some sitting. Horror-stricken, she blinked, stage fright taking over. The outfit had been for private viewing only. Behind her, Bernardo was subduing a fit of coughing.
Now that she came to think of it—and thinking was exceedingly difficult at that moment—Luc had mentioned something casual about some close friends coming to stay the night before the wedding. The minute she had shown her nerves at the prospect, he had dropped the subject. Right now, he was undoubtedly wishing he hadn’t. Right now, he was remembering that she had a head like a sieve. Right now, as his long lean stride carried him towards her, his eyes were telling her that he wanted to kill her, inch by painful inch, preferably over a lengthy period. And that he intended to enjoy every minute of it when he got the chance.
‘Say, I thought it was fancy dress,’ she muttered and attempted to sidle out again, but Luc snaked out a hand and cut off her escape.
‘She’s so avant-garde,’ a youthful female voice gasped. ‘Mummy, why can’t I wear stuff like that?’
‘Designer punk,’ someone else commented. ‘Very arresting.’
‘And I wouldn’t mind being arrested with her.’ A tall, very good-looking blond man sent her a sizzling smile. ‘Luc, 1 begin to understand why you kept this charming lady under wraps until the very last moment. I’m Christian … Christian Denning.’ Catherine shook his hand with a smile. He had bridged an awkward silence. A whirl of introductions took place. There were about thirty people present, an even mix of nationalities, fairly split between the business elite and the upper crust. It was a relief when she finally made it into a seat to catch her breath.
Lynne Graham-Tempestuous Reunion Page 12