At least there was nothing even remotely dreamlike about Miranda. A pretty, down-to-earth woman with a bright-eyed, smiling face, she greeted Georgia with the demand, ‘I hope you like prawns? I’m making bisque de crevettes, with gigot d’agneau to follow.’
The prawn soup was quite delicious, as indeed was the roast lamb, not to mention the crêpes Suzette that provided the grand finale. ‘That has to be one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten,’ Georgia told her once the meal was over.
But, needless to say, it wasn’t the food that turned the evening into one she’d always remember. And nor was it the perfectly magnificent view from the tall, uncurtained window that overlooked the moonlit river. It was the company of the man who was seated across from her at the big oval dining table with its twinkling glass and silver. Every time she looked at him she felt her insides disappear.
There’d been only one slightly discordant moment—as they were helping themselves to Miranda’s aubergine souffté, a delicious accompaniment to the roast lamb.
Laughing, Georgia had remarked, ‘This looks really incredible. I used to think I was a pretty good cook, but this is in a totally different league!’ Then, as Jean-Claude had smiled back at her, she’d added quite spontaneously, ‘You must promise to allow me to repay all this hospitality. Next time you’re in Bath, you must come round to dinner.’
‘Naturally.’
But there’d been a moment of hesitation before he’d said it. His gaze had seemed to shift. He’d seemed to glance away. And in that moment it was as though a cold finger had touched her. He would never come round to dinner. He’d never even be back in Bath. This was it. This weekend was all there was ever going to be.
Something had seemed to shrink inside her. Her heart had missed a beat. You were right, she’d told herself, to have serious doubts about letting this thing go any further. If you were to go ahead and sleep with him, you’d only wind up hurt.
But then he’d smiled and she’d wondered if she’d read his reaction all wrong. Maybe she was just being paranoid? Letting her anxieties take her over? For everything about the relaxed feel of the evening—including the fact that he’d made not a single seductive overture—had increasingly been prompting her to question these doubts of hers.
Surely he wasn’t the type of man who would treat her casually, as though she were just some cheap diversion? It was probably insulting of her even to think it.
Or was she only telling herself that because she wanted him so badly?
These questions went circling round in her head, her growing desire to trust him teaming with her uncertainty and fear.
After dinner, Jean-Claude suggested they go for a walk in the garden.
‘Just a short, leisurely stroll,’ he said, taking her hand in his and leading her down the stone terrace steps. ‘I don’t know about you, but after all that food I definitely need a breath of fresh air.’
As they walked, their arms wrapped round each other’s waist, Jean-Claude told her about the garden. Georgia listened, though she wasn’t hearing everything he said. She was too busy simply basking in the sheer delight of being with him. For there was one thing, at least, that she had no doubts about. She had never, in all her life, been as happy as this.
‘Are you cold?’ He stopped at once as, suddenly, she shivered. ‘Here. Take this.’ Before she had time to answer, he was slipping off his jacket and quickly draping it round her shoulders.
Georgia smiled. That shiver had been quite involuntary. She hadn’t actually been aware of being cold at all. But the warmth of the jacket around her shoulders was quite delicious. It was his warmth, as were the scents that rose from the soft fabric. She closed her eyes for an instant and giddily breathed them in.
When she opened them again, she found Jean-Claude watching her and suddenly there was a dark, intense look in his eyes. For a moment he said nothing. Then he leaned over and kissed her softly.
‘Georgia, I want to make love to you,’ he said.
She felt a rush of warmth inside her. For an instant, she held her breath. But, in that instant, she knew that the battle was over. Her instinct to trust him had finally won.
Looking deep into his eyes, without a word she nodded. Then she could feel her body melting as his fingers laced with hers and he began to lead her back to the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GEORGIA never knew how she got to the big blue and gold bedroom. She supposed she’d sort of floated there on a kind of magic cloud, for she’d no recollection of the journey at all. But suddenly there she was, and Jean-Claude was closing the door behind them, then reaching out towards her and drawing her into his arms.
‘Chérie,’ he told her, ‘I’ve been longing for this.’
‘I’ve been longing for it too.’
She wondered if she ought to have said that—but why on earth not? He was revealing himself to her, so why shouldn’t she reveal herself to him? This was a time for honesty, surely, not a time for playing games? And so, as he embraced her, she slid her arms around his neck, tilted her face to his and offered him her lips. This longing she felt for him was nothing to be ashamed of.
They kissed, hearts hammering as their bodies pressed together, their breath catching in their throats at the urgency of their passion. And Georgia knew that she’d been right. This was to be no ordinary coming together. There was a fire in each of them that struck sparks off the other, an unstoppable momentum carrying them towards union. Their need for one another was as basic as creation and when the moment finally came, the planets would spin in the heavens.
Georgia was trembling as he began to caress her through her dress, his hands shaping the curves of her buttocks and breasts. And she was reaching to caress him too—his shoulders, his hard chest—as his lips continued to consume her without mercy.
Then she shivered as he unfastened the belt at her waist, and gasped with anticipation as he slid down the zip and let the cherry-red dress fall, with a soft sigh, to the floor.
Breathlessly, she fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, slipping her hand inside to feel the warm, hairroughened flesh at precisely the same moment as he pushed aside her bra and cupped in his palm one eager, thrusting breast.
With the nub of his thumb, he began to tease the hard nipple, and the sensation was so exquisite, like an electric shock going through her, that Georgia was convinced she was about to die there and then. What he was doing to her was unbearable, though she really would die if he stopped.
His shirt fell to the floor to lie beside her dress and suddenly he was bending to sweep her up into his arms, kissing her, his lips searing her as she slid her arms around his neck. She knew where he was taking her and she longed to feel at last the cool, silky softness of the coverlet against her naked back.
He laid her on the bed and looked down at her, blue eyes cloudy. ‘Comme tu es belle. How beautiful you are,’ he breathed.
His eyes and his hands swept unhurriedly over her, then he was peeling away her bra and her lacy black briefs and bending to kiss each upturned breast in turn.
‘Georgia, ma belle.’
As he whispered her name, his hands caressed her breasts, fingers grazing the gorged peaks, sending littie darting shafts of lightning through her. Then, as she reached for him, feeling her desire spiral inside her, he was stripping away his own clothes and stretching out naked alongside her. Lean and taut and as hard as a rock.
Georgia could feel the throbbing urgency in him as he pressed against her. The sheer virile strength of it made her shiver. ‘Jean-Claude!’ she gasped, feeling an earthquake inside her, for the power of her own need was an easy match for his. And somewhere on the dark, blurred edges of her consciousness she realised that this was finally what she’d dreamed of for so long.
He’d done what no other man had even come close to doing. He’d released from deep within her the bubbling well of secret passion that she’d always known lay hidden inside her. And now it was exploding with all the force of a volcano and sh
e and the world were changed for ever.
‘I can’t wait, chérie.’ Jean-Claude was kissing her face, looking at her with eyes that smouldered like hot cinders. ‘I can’t wait. I’ve got to have you now.’
‘And I you.’ She took his face in her hands and kissed him. ‘I don’t want you to wait Please love me now.’
She lay back as he came to her, her hands drawing him against her, kissing his face, her fingers in his hair, a cry of joy in her throat as his body entered hers.
Then she was soaring, spiralling higher and higher, the sweet tension in her growing into a vast, tight bubble, then bursting at last, releasing its grip on her, sending her spinning and cascading through a flood of sweet sensation, tears in her eyes, a sense of joy in her heart.
At last, Jean-Claude lay still at her side, his face buried in her hair, his hand laid lightly against her breast. And though she knew that at that moment nowhere in the world was there a woman more fulfilled, more contented than she was, Georgia also knew the reason why she’d feared this moment so. For, all at once, through her joy, a new terror gripped her soul.
Heaven help me, she thought. I’m in love with this man.
Jean-Claude took the tray from Miranda and stepped back into the bedroom, then paused for a moment to glance through the open French windows to the slender, dark-haired figure who stood out on the balcony dressed in one of his favourite silk dressing gowns.
Last night had surprised him. It had been such a powerful experience. And not only sexually—that much he’d expected—but spiritually and emotionally it had been powerful too.
After they’d made love that first time, they’d lain quietly for a long time, saying nothing, not needing to, wrapped in each other’s arms, lazily kissing and caressing one another. And it had seemed to him that never before in his entire life had he felt so close to another human being. The depth of satisfaction he’d felt had completely overwhelmed him.
She was leaning against the balcony now, quite unaware that he was watching her, face raised to the April sun, dark hair falling across her shoulders, her slim figure both vulnerable-looking and vibrant at the same time. And he felt rise up inside him that warm, intense sensation that she almost invariably seemed to arouse in him. That fierce thrust of desire spiked with something more tender that he could recognise now as a very simple need to take her in his arms and protect her from the world.
Some people might have accused him of chauvinism for that and—who knew?—maybe they had a point, for she was a brave and immensely able young woman, perfectly capable, for the most part, of taking care of herself. But he felt it all the same. It was an instinct deep within him. That basic human instinct to protect those he cared for.
At that thought, Jean-Claude frowned. It was true; he did care for her. Unfortunately, he cared for her rather a lot. Gradually, but surely, he’d come to realise that. And it was precisely because he cared for her that he knew this was all wrong.
He should never have slept with her. Things should never have gone so far. He’d known that from the beginning, but he’d ignored the voice inside him, driven by his consuming need to make love to her. And now he’d got into something he was going to have to get out of.
At that moment, she turned and, seeing him, smiled. ‘So, you’re back,’ she called. ‘I see you got breakfast.’ She stuck her head round the French doors. ‘Shall we eat out here?’
‘Good idea.’
Returning her smile, Jean-Claude headed towards her. And as he struggled to douse the shaft of yearning that drove through him he reflected to himself with a wry inner smile that no other woman had ever af fected him like this. Making love to her had simply made him want her even more.
He suppressed a wrench inside him. What he had to do would be far from easy. It would be one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But that was just his misfortune. He should never have got in so deep in the first place.
‘Croissants and coffee again. Still no English breakfast, I’m afraid.’ Almost forgetting himself, he very nearly added, as he laid the tray down on the table out on the balcony, We’ll treat ourselves to an English breakfast next time I’m over in England, but, with a sense of real regret, he bit the words back. There’d be no more breakfasts together, not in England nor anywhere else.
As he straightened, she was stepping towards him to lay a light kiss on his lips, and automatically he caught hold of her and drew her against him. And it was heartbreaking how wonderful it was to hold her like this, her sweet scent in his nostrils, her soft, warm flesh against his. If only he could have stayed like this with her for ever.
Still holding her, he kissed her. ‘My sweet Georgia,’ he said.
Wasn’t it strange, he thought, how life had a habit of tripping you up? For a while, you went along thinking you had everything all worked out and then, when you least expected it, fate pulled the rug right out from under you.
After his divorce four years ago, he’d made a couple of solemn vows: never again to get deeply involved with a woman and never to remarry if he lived to be a thousand. Instead, he’d stick to what he was good at, namely his work. He just wasn’t cut out for serious relationships.
It had never been his plan to live without women. That was not in his nature. He knew himself too well. So, in order to avoid hurting anyone, something he’d no wish to do, he’d simply taken care to choose only women who were no more looking for commitment than he was. Women who were quite happy to be ships passing in the night That was what he’d decided and that was what he’d done.
But then, out of the blue, along had come Georgia, who was not that type of woman at all, and now his entire personal philosophy seemed to have unravelled at his feet He’d started to get involved almost without realising what was happening.
He held her face in his hands and looked down into her eyes, those beautiful hazel eyes, the like of which he’d never known before. She was a deeply passionate woman, as he’d sensed right from the beginning. And she was special, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her. And he would hurt her in the end if he let this thing go on.
There was another reason, too, why he had to let her go. There had been far too much deception between them.
The deception had been his, of course. Alas, he’d had no choice. The situation with Duval being what it was, it was out of the question that he tell her the truth about himself. At first, that hadn’t bothered him, but now it bothered him a lot. He loathed having to deceive her; his conscience gnawed at him constantly and the whole thing, quite frankly, was starting to drive him mad.
No, he had to get out before he ended up destroying both of them. Like it or not, this thing between them had to stop.
‘Shall we eat?’ He kissed her again, feeling a coldness touch his heart as she smiled and hugged him before stepping away. Walking away from her was going to tear him in two.
He watched her as she lowered herself into one of the blue chairs and began to pour two cups of café au lait. Then, as he seated himself next to her, he reached out on an impulse and took from its silver bud vase the single pink rose that Miranda had placed next to the sugar bowl on the breakfast tray.
He handed it to Georgia. ‘For the most beautiful girl in Paris,’ he told her.
She glanced up with a pleased start. ‘Thank you,’ she answered. And at the smile in her eyes and the revealing blush that touched her cheeks suddenly Jean-Claude’s heart was weeping. He felt like reaching for her and holding her, but instead he dropped his gaze away, wishing he’d never made that foolish, romantic gesture.
Inwardly, he steeled himself. The road he must take was very clear, and the longer he put it off, the harder it would be. He must end this thing without delay.
‘Bad news. I’m afraid I’m going to have to go back into town. There’s some business I have to see to. An unexpected crisis.’
Jean-Claude made this announcement as he rejoined Georgia in the drawing room, a few minutes after disappearing off to his study to take a ph
one call.
‘I’d hoped we could spend the weekend here together, but I’m afraid that’s just not going to be possible.’
Georgia felt something plummet inside her. ‘Won’t we even be able to have lunch together?’ They’d been planning to go to a little restaurant nearby that Jean-Claude had told her about last night, then, afterwards, to take a trip in the car down to Versailles.
‘Not that it matters,’ she added quickly, seeing the pained look on his face. ‘If business calls, there’s nothing to be done.’ She was bitterly disappointed, but she genuinely understood.
He was shaking his head. ‘I may not be able to make dinner either. Georgia, I’m really sorry about this.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I know these things happen.’ She reached up and kissed him. ‘I run a business too, remember?’
He kissed her back, though it was not a real kiss. Little more, really, than a quick brush of his lips. But as he did so he took her hand and held it tightly, almost as though he would never let it go. And she could sense the fierce emotion in his soul.
She leaned her head against his shoulder. It had been an earth-shattering twelve hours. For, though it felt like an eternity, that was all the time that had actually passed since he’d taken her upstairs to the blue and gold bedroom. In that brief period it was as though she’d lived a dozen intense lifetimes and she sensed that it had been exactly the same for him.
He’d surprised her, however, this morning after breakfast, for she’d gone to him while they’d been sitting out on the balcony and had as good as asked him to make love to her again. She’d sat down on his knee and put her arms around his neck, allowing the silk robe she was wearing to fall open to reveal her breasts, and she’d kissed him and made no secret of how badly she desired him.
Waiting for Mr. Wonderful! Page 11