by Heidi Rice
‘Okay.’ She wanted to be pleased with his thoughtfulness, but instead she felt overwhelmed again. And a little frustrated. Where was the man who had made such passionate and provocative love to her last night? And where was the woman who had made that commanding, confident man moan?
She didn’t feel powerful any more, she felt inadequate and out of place—the way she had so many times before when she’d arrived at a new foster home, desperate to fit in, to find a place for herself. Only to discover there wasn’t one.
‘It is good you are here,’ he said, surprising her, but, just as her heart lifted at the encouraging statement, he added, ‘I am about to head to the winery for the day.’
‘But it’s Sunday!’ she heard herself say. And it’s our honeymoon, she almost added, but managed to stop herself—after all, this wasn’t a real marriage.
But, even so, his imminent departure made her feel strangely bereft. She’d hoped to have a chance to talk to him this morning, to get to know him better and maybe discuss her role at the château. Was there anything he needed her to do as his wife? She wanted to be useful.
He smiled indulgently. ‘Yes, but unfortunately the vines do not respect weekends.’
‘When will you be back?’
‘This evening. Do not wait up for me, I may be late.’
‘Okay,’ Cara replied, trying hard not to feel abandoned.
Why was she being so ridiculous? This marriage wasn’t real, however real it had seemed last night.
‘By the way,’ Maxim continued, wiping his mouth with his napkin, ‘I will be travelling to Tuscany for a week in March. I will need you to join me at the end of the trip to attend a ball being held in honour of the man who, I hope, will be selling his vineyards to me.’
A spike of anxiety at the thought that he was going to leave her for a whole week sent her thoughts into a tailspin. ‘A ball?’
‘Yes. Jean-Claude will make all the arrangements and the couturière has been asked to supply suitable clothing,’ he murmured.
His hand covered hers on the table. The warmth of his rough palm sent the familiar desire sprinting up her arm to tighten her nipples. ‘Do not panic, Cara, you have a few weeks to prepare.’ He squeezed her fingers and lifted them to his mouth. The press of his lips and his teasing smile had her heart doing a jitterbug in her chest.
‘I enjoyed last night immensely,’ he said, the rough intimacy in his voice stroking her senses. ‘Would you like me to come to your rooms tonight, if it is not too late when I return from the winery?’
‘I... Yes, that would be...’ She swallowed. What? Fun? Wonderful? Exciting? All of those things and more? ‘I would like that very much,’ she managed, disturbed not just by her instant, instinctive response to him—and her complete inability to say no—but also by how much she was already looking forward to his visit.
When he released her hand, she clasped her fingers in her lap.
How did he do that? How did he disturb her and excite her at one and the same time? Was this need inside her normal? She’d tried to persuade herself it was last night, but if her response to him was just about endorphins, why did she feel so empty inside at the thought of not seeing him all day?
‘Is there anything you’d like me to do today?’ she asked.
His frown reappeared. ‘Do?’ he asked, clearly confused.
‘I mean, as your wife?’ she said. If she kept busy, surely it would help to alleviate the hollow feeling of inadequacy. ‘I’d love to be useful.’
She certainly didn’t want to sit around all day doing nothing, or she was likely to spend too much time dwelling on this marriage that wasn’t a real marriage, and how much she was going to miss her husband who wasn’t a real husband.
Maxim huffed out an incredulous laugh. ‘There is nothing for you to do, Cara. You are my wife. The staff are here to wait on you. Not the other way around.’
As if on cue, a parade of footmen arrived to deliver the breakfast Maxim had ordered for her. An array of food, enough to feed several people, was laid out on the breakfast table. Plates filled with buttery pastries, fresh fruit, a selection of bread and cheese and even a fluffy omelette were revealed with a flourish before the staff bowed and left. Fragrant scents filled the room and made her stomach growl.
‘Bon appétit.’ Maxim smiled then stood as he glanced at his watch. ‘I must go. Hopefully I will see you tonight,’ he said, leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek. ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘You need food.’ Her heart squeezed and her stomach knotted at the casual reference to her welfare. Was he thinking of the child too, as well as her? ‘And do not concern yourself with unnecessary chores.’ His lips skimmed down to her earlobe. The nip of his teeth had a shuddering sigh issuing from her lips. He laughed, the husky sound reverberating in her sex. ‘You will need your rest—I intend to keep you very busy when I return.’
Before she had a chance to gather her thoughts again, he was gone.
She forced herself to tuck into the delicious omelette, knowing he was right about her nutrition, and tried to control a pang of melancholy. But as she devoured the delicious food, much hungrier than she’d realised, a plan formed.
Maxim hadn’t said she couldn’t find a role for herself here. He’d simply said she didn’t need to.
Keeping busy, having a role, had been her way to cope with the constant feelings of isolation she’d experienced as a child.
After finishing the omelette and most of the fresh fruit, she headed off to find Antoinette.
She hated confrontations, but she didn’t need to get Maxim’s permission to figure out her role here for the next few months. Ultimately, it was up to her to decide what being Maxim Durand’s wife meant, because she was the new temporary mistress of Château Durand, not him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘YOUR WIFE IS exquisite, Durand.’
‘Hmm...’ Maxim barely registered his business rival Giovanni Romano’s observation, thanks to the blood pumping through his body at breakneck speed ever since Cara had arrived at the Donati Ball half an hour ago.
He’d made a point of not leaving Donati’s palazzo to collect her from their nearby hotel when he had been informed she had arrived in Italy, knowing if he saw her before the event, in a bedroom, after seven days—and nights—of separation, they would probably end up missing the ball altogether.
She looked stunning in a shimmering blue satin gown, her figure even more lush and gorgeous than when he had left Burgundy a week ago for this business trip; her blonde curls were artfully arranged with diamond pins which sparkled in the overhead light of the chandelier. He had not been able to take his gaze off her since he’d greeted her.
They had been married now for nearly a month. She had settled into life at the château with surprising ease. While he had not been pleased with her decision to befriend his staff, and take on the domestic duties of the mistress of the château, he had been forced to accept she needed something to keep her busy or she would be bored. His wife, he had discovered, had a prodigious work ethic and was incapable of being idle.
So he had indulged her, on the understanding that she would not take on any tasks that required physical labour. He had also had Jean-Claude send a confidential email to the château’s staff without Cara’s knowledge, telling them they would be fired if they allowed her to do anything more strenuous than lift a teapot.
Over the weeks he had begun to notice her presence in ways he had not expected—little touches, small changes that made the house more charming, more welcoming, more liveable—the bunches of fresh flowers that had begun to appear as spring bloomed over the estate, the smiles of the staff, who all seemed to adore her, and the smooth running of the household which allowed him to concentrate on his business instead of having to waste time making domestic decisions that didn’t interest him.
And the sex each night, when he returned from work, co
ntinued to be addictive.
In fact, he had become so eager to see her each night, and so reluctant to leave every morning, it had begun to make him feel extremely uneasy. He’d promised himself after their wedding night that he would not spend the whole night with her, but each time he went to her bed he found it harder and harder to leave.
He’d planned this trip precisely so he could break the habit of keeping her in his arms until daybreak—and begin to re-establish the distance between them that a month of marriage had eroded.
He stared at Cara, standing a few feet away at the elaborate buffet, talking to Donati’s elegantly dressed seventy-five-year-old wife, and was forced to admit that his plan had failed miserably. She looked so luminous to him, she was practically glowing.
Anticipation thrummed through his system like an electrical charge. Tonight was important to his business. Tomorrow he was supposed to be sealing the deal with Eduardo Donati and beating out Romano to the best vineyards in Tuscany—and completing Durand’s expansion into the Italian market—but he couldn’t concentrate on anything, because all he could think about was taking his wife into his arms and making her sigh and moan and beg.
She was like a drug he was finding it increasingly hard to live without. He’d torn himself away from her for seven days to control his obsession with her and it had done exactly the opposite. All he’d been able to think about in the past week was her.
All he’d dreamt about was her. And not just sexual dreams, but more disturbing ones—dominated by the vision of her eyes filled with compassion the day they’d first met, the feel of her exhausted in his arms when he had carried her away from the Valentine’s Ball in London, the joy on her face when they had sat together in the Harley Street clinic and seen their son for the first time, the open smile that spread across her features each night when he arrived in her bedroom.
How had he become so attuned to even the most subtle of her reactions? He always tried to be considerate with the women he dated, but with Cara it was more than that. Every one of his senses was more focused, more alert, more desperate if he was near her, and now, he’d discovered, also when he was not.
No woman had ever distracted him from his business before now. But it was taking every ounce of his control not to stalk towards her, scoop her up and march out of this godforsaken event so he could take her somewhere private and relieve the insistent craving to have her again.
Apparently seven days of denial—during which he’d forced himself not to contact her—had only increased his addiction.
‘Pregnancy suits her—when is the child due?’
Maxim turned at Romano’s wry observation, his temper spiking at the man’s mocking smile. He’d had to force himself to leave Cara’s side five minutes ago—to calm his racing heartbeat—and had been waylaid on the way back from the restroom by Romano. The last damn person he wanted to speak to.
‘In the summer,’ he said. The twist of anxiety that thoughts of the child usually brought with it sharpened.
He had married Cara to keep her safe, and give his son a name, but every time he thought about the baby now, the guilty weight in his stomach seemed to become heavier. The fierce protective instinct he could not contain had begun to torture him every time he thought of the child growing inside her, and then his mother’s face—the last time he had seen it—would swim into his mind’s eye.
‘Ne me quitte pas, Maxim.’
He cut off the debilitating memory. Again.
The same memory that had first assailed him in the ultrasound suite, and then returned when he had left Cara’s bed on their wedding night—sated, exhausted and yet still aroused.
He had understood, as he’d cleared away the evidence of their night together in the bathroom, desperate to return to her bed and hold her throughout the night, that he couldn’t allow such a foolish indulgence. So why hadn’t he been able to stick to his promise?
The novelty value of sex with Cara, sex with his wife, had made their physical relationship more intense than any he had ever experienced. But he must not let that blind him to the limitations of this marriage, for Cara’s sake as well as his own.
He could not let her become dependent on him. The way his mother had been. Or he would fail her too.
‘You don’t sound too pleased about the prospect of fatherhood,’ Romano said, still with that wry mocking grin on his face. ‘Although I take it the pregnancy was planned?’
‘And this would be your business, how exactly?’ Maxim planted his fists firmly in his pockets, resisting the urge to knock the smug smile off Romano’s face.
Flattening the bastard at Donati’s eightieth birthday ball would defeat the purpose of the whole trip—namely to earn the old vintner’s trust so he would sell him the legendary Donati vines.
‘So you don’t deny it?’ Romano laughed, the sound rough with contempt. ‘I have to admire your dedication to the vines, Durand.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Maxim snapped, the control he had always been so proud of fraying dangerously at the edges. He wasn’t a thug, a gangster, an ill-bred upstart, as so many people had claimed when he had first had the audacity to enter the wine trade—he had ignored all those insults, determined not to live up to people’s low expectations, or his own father’s scorn, but Romano’s attitude was starting to irritate him. Big time.
‘Oh, I think you know,’ Romano said, the smug twist of his lips enough to send Maxim’s temper into a tailspin.
‘Really?’ Maxim’s hands shot out to grab the lapels of Romano’s dinner jacket and haul him forward until they were nose to nose. ‘I think you should spell it out.’
He ground the words out, not caring about the gasps of the nearby guests, who had shuffled back to give them room for their altercation.
‘All I’m saying is impregnating old man de la Mare’s hot little widow before the guy was even cold in his grave was a smart, and I’m sure very enjoyable, way to get his land.’
Romano’s accusation sliced through the last frayed threads of Maxim’s control like a rusty blade. His fist shot out and connected with Romano’s jaw, the shudder of pain in his knuckles worth it as the man flew backwards and landed on his backside with a thud.
‘Don’t ever talk about my wife again,’ Maxim growled as he flexed his fingers, ignoring the shocked gasps of their audience and the sight of one woman fainting into the arms of her partner.
The red mist of rage refused to clear as he watched Romano jiggle his jaw. ‘Good right hook, Durand,’ the man said as he laughed.
‘Durand? What is going on?’ Donati’s horrified shout did nothing to calm Maxim’s raging heartbeat or the fury pounding through his veins at Romano’s insult. The man had insinuated that Maxim was a whore but, worse than that, he had implied that Cara was a whore too. A woman who had been innocent until he had touched her.
‘Maxim, is everything okay?’ Cara’s concerned voice seemed to tether him to reality as she gripped the sleeve of his jacket.
He turned to see her face, sweet, worried, compassionate. The red mist cleared, to be replaced by something even more disturbing. Grasping her cheeks, he kissed her, the meeting of their lips making her soften instinctively. The heady rush of blood to his groin drowned out the indignant whispers of the crowd, and Donati’s threats to cancel the sale.
Lifting his head, he grasped her hand. They needed to get out of here so he could feed the hunger that would not stop.
He turned to Donati. ‘We’re leaving. If you want to sell to Romano instead, that is your decision, Eduardo. But no one insults my wife.’
He marched out of the ballroom towards his waiting car, with Cara’s hand gripped in his. She stumbled and he stopped, to scoop her into his arms. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses, the whispers of outrage only feeding the adrenaline rush.
Damn them.
He didn’t car
e. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t stop—he needed her. The desperation intensified as her body softened against his and her scent filled his senses. The way he had dreamed of for seven long nights and every day he had spent away from her.
‘Maxim, what did Mr Romano say?’ Cara asked as she clung to her husband’s neck and tried to ignore the people gaping at them as Maxim carried her out of the ballroom and down the wide sweeping staircase to the palazzo’s entrance.
The truth was she’d known something was wrong as soon as she’d arrived at the ball. Maxim had been on edge, curt and annoyed, the intensity in him even more pronounced than usual.
She’d tried to swallow her unease. She’d been disappointed that he hadn’t been waiting for her when she’d arrived at the lavish hilltop hotel in Tuscany three hours ago. Instead there had been the familiar battalion of beauty therapists and a stylist waiting to dress her for the ball, and a lonely drive in a limousine—while she chewed on her newly manicured nails—before Maxim had greeted her at the palazzo’s entrance then whisked her inside to introduce her as his wife.
While the usual rush of endorphins had assailed her as soon as his hand had settled on the small of her back, and his fierce gaze had darkened as it roamed over her, she’d felt like a decoration, an accessory, as he’d introduced her to an array of people she didn’t know.
If only he’d contacted her during the last seven days, told her something about the event, she might have been able to get involved in the conversation, and control her nerves.
It had been a struggle not to feel inadequate, or invisible. Or confused again about her place in his life. She’d worked so hard in the last three weeks to be useful at the château—and she’d managed it, despite Maxim’s initial objections.
She’d come to love her ‘work’ as the mistress of Château Durand. Here, at last, was something she could do to help Maxim. Something she was good at.