by Lucy Ellis
He slid his hand up her impossibly silken inner thigh and found her wet and wanting, and so soft he almost disgraced himself there and then. His damn hand was shaking, and he realised Lulu was trembling too. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.
The musky scent of sex mingled with the aroma of old books, the leather furnishings and the subtle apricot fragrance of Lulu’s hair which he wasn’t supposed to touch. He remembered to grab a condom from his wallet and don it before he positioned himself against her and thrust.
Lulu bit his shoulder, and the next sound to come from her was muffled, but he knew he was finding the spot she loved because she clung to him.
‘You feel like hot silk,’ he told her with a groan as her long legs wrapped around him for greater purchase. ‘Lulu, you’re so beautiful…this is all I’ve been able to think about.’
‘Me too.’
He arched her over the desk and pinned her hands above her head as he thrust inside her. With each movement he gazed deeply into her eyes, looking for the wonder he’d seen in her last night, and there it was, flashing like the Northern Lights.
He knew he wasn’t going to last, and when he felt her contract around him he buried himself deep and followed her to oblivion.
Lulu clung to him weakly as he sat her up, and he realised every ounce of resentment and anger he had felt towards her today had evaporated completely.
He felt nothing but a deep satisfaction.
She was his.
Her gaze remained unfocussed, and he felt a surge of male pride that he could do this to her.
It had to be pride, because if it was anything else he was in trouble.
‘Did I make too much noise this time?’ She was serious.
Alejandro remembered what he’d said to her in anger and his conscience did something unfamiliar. It kicked.
‘I love the sounds you make,’ he said huskily, gently stroking the curve of her cheek.
A little smile trembled at the corners of her mouth. It was the sweetest thing.
He cleared his throat. ‘How about we go on seeing one another?’
‘You mean for this weekend?’
He’d never known a girl so keen to finish something before it even began. In the past she would have been exactly his type of woman. But he didn’t want that this time. He wanted more.
‘Let’s play it by ear.’ He knew her well enough now not to push her. ‘I know I’m not ready to give this up just yet…’ He swiped her lower lip gently with his thumb. ‘That was incredible.’
‘I want to,’ she began, ‘but—’
‘Lulu,’ he interrupted gently, ‘stop making something simple complicated.’
Ouf! Lulu’s heart sank. If only it was simple.
Seen from his point of view, she knew she was behaving absurdly. But the more time she spent with him the higher the likelihood he would work her out. Find out what a little freak she really was.
Still, it was only forty-eight hours…she’d just have to keep him away from her mother.
‘Is that a yes?’
Alejandro watched Lulu’s pensive expression grow softer and felt that unfamiliar kick to his chest. What was it about this girl that undid all his certainties?
‘Oui,’ she said, and Alejandro was astonished at the feeling that seized him—it was like scoring a goal under pressure.
Then she turned her head, as if listening for something, and froze. It took him another moment to recognise that there were voices coming down the hall.
Lulu began pulling up her bodice, covering those plump raspberry-tipped breasts he loved, and she looked so adorably dishevelled he knew he had no intention of letting her spend the night with a gaggle of girls.
She would spend every night of this weekend with him.
Alejandro was about to tell her he’d locked the door when she pressed her hand to his mouth and with a sweet look whispered, ‘I’m so glad you’ll be partnering me at the wedding. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
And with those frustrating words she slipped away.
Partnering her at the wedding?
He briefly shut his eyes. Idiota! This had just got complicated.
He was about to go after her—only when he looked down to deal with the condom time stood still for the second occasion on that day.
Thoughts about negotiating with Lulu over the reality that he already had a date for the wedding—someone who was arriving tomorrow morning—evaporated.
He had a bigger problem.
It had split. The latex had split.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS LULU DRESSED for the big day it hit her that she actually had a date for the wedding.
She hadn’t thought she minded being the only bridesmaid without a partner. Clearly deep down she did.
But it was more than that. She’d taken a big step forward, and the fact that she’d come this far with Alejandro was simply astonishing to her.
Lulu did a pirouette in the middle of her room, with its tester bed and its wall hangings—staying here was definitely like living in a National Trust property.
She had a date. She had a date. Alejandro was her date!
Lulu clapped her hands together, aware that she was behaving as if she were seventeen again, and going to a concert with a boy she liked. Which had, of course, been her last real date—if you didn’t count the circumspect dinners she’d had with the odd man over the years.
That last real romantic experience had fallen in a heap when she’d had a panic attack in the crowd and thought she was going to suffocate. At the time it had been terrifying. But, looking back, she remembered how light-hearted she’d been before the incident, and full of hope. She had her hope back this morning and she was proud of herself for getting this far.
Which got her thinking about how it would be if she was brave enough to take this further.
If she got up the courage to tell Alejandro the truth about herself.
He wasn’t a boy—he was a grown man. Surely he could handle it?
If they went forward he would have to know. She couldn’t hide it for ever.
He must want this with her—to have put up with everything and still be so passionate and determined to track her down last night.
She was feeling more certain and her heart was light as she laughed with the other girls on the steps of the chapel and then floated up the aisle, her eyes seeking out Alejandro, resplendent in a morning suit beside the groom.
Gregory Peck, eat your heart out.
All the attention in the chapel had turned to the bride, behind her, but he was still looking at her and Lulu knew she’d made the right decision to tell him.
But this was Gigi’s day. She would wait until tomorrow.
There was no chance for conversation anyway. The wedding party was swept up in the taking of photographs, but Lulu was aware of him all the time. His expression was resolute. She beamed at him as they stood together beside the bride and groom.
Then, as they were released from their duties by the photographer, Lulu kissed Gigi and bravely began to make her way over to join Alejandro. She knew her actions wouldn’t go unnoticed.
But he was already moving off through the crowd of guests waiting for them on the lawn, and as she watched a bright blonde girl in a beautiful yellow dress broke through and made her way over to him.
She held out her hand and he took it. The young woman was chattering to him and he had his head bent, clearly intent on everything she had to say.
‘Who’s that woman with Alejandro?’ she asked Adele, in a voice that sounded remarkably normal, considering.
‘His date,’ said Adele, and then turned back to her escort.
And with that Lulu’s tremulous, sweet world of possibility shattered into pieces around her.
*
For the first time in her life Lulu pictured herself making a scene. She would jump to her feet and upend the table, sending crystal and dishes and all the good wine and champagne flying.
Sh
e could actually feel the adrenalin pouring into her limbs in preparation. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t make a scene on Gigi’s wedding day. She would sit here, with her stepfather to her right and her mother leaning across him to ask if she was all right, and pretend nothing was the matter.
She was an expert in pretending nothing was the matter.
So what if she’d had sex with someone else’s boyfriend? It happened. She wasn’t to blame. Was she to blame?
Lulu could feel herself withdrawing back into her shell. She’d heard the other girls talking about men they’d slept with who’d never called, or who had wives and girlfriends they’d conveniently forgotten about in the heat of the moment. She’d heard their painful stories and, yes, she’d felt a tiny bit superior, thinking that would never happen to her. But the first time she stepped out of her comfort zone—bang. Alejandro had taken her down like a big game hunter.
A normal woman would have known. Somehow. There must have been signs. But her social life was absurdly confined. She didn’t have the experience to be able to tell. She’d believed everything he’d said to her. What kind of moron did that make her?
All her self-doubt was filling her up again. Making her feel useless. Pathetic.
But she caught herself on that downward slope to self-hatred.
No, not pathetic. Stop beating up on yourself. You’ve done really well this weekend. You’ve flown in on your own, you’ve been an indispensable bridesmaid, and come Monday you’ll be back in Paris to start your new course at college and life will open up for you.
Only life was currently staring her in the face in the person of his date—one of those blindingly white-toothed, shiny-haired American girls—a girl who clearly hadn’t worked out how two-faced her boyfriend was.
It was a relief when the speeches started. As much as she tried to drown him out, Alejandro acquitted himself spectacularly. He had the one hundred and fifty guests in the palm of his hand. His legendary charm was on display. Gigi was laughing so much she had tears running down her cheeks, and despite everything going on in her own life Lulu felt glad it was all working out so beautifully for her best friend.
Not so much for her, though. Because as Alejandro took his seat, with a significant glance her way she chose to ignore, she remembered what she had forgotten in all the inner turmoil. The wedding waltz.
As Khaled and Gigi took to the floor horror settled like stone in her belly.
Was Alejandro going to dance with that other woman?
Who would she dance with?
Lulu bent her head. The only wallflower maid of honour in the history of wedding receptions.
She’d possibly hit a new nadir.
But perhaps it was for the best. Lulu wasn’t even sure she was going to be able to stand up.
‘Lulu.’
Alejandro was beside her, extending his hand. The same hand he’d slipped between her inner thighs.
She wanted to slap it. She also wanted to grab hold of it like a lifeline.
She gripped him. Dug her nails in a little.
The moment his arm came around her his hand settled at her waist. With his other hand in hers she felt all the fury and hurt and confusion rise up inside her, making it impossible for her to speak.
Alejandro had none of those problems. ‘I know you’re angry with me, Lulu, but we need to talk in private. In the library.’
Oh, yes, she could just imagine. He’d probably try to ruck her skirts up again… No—nothing doing!
She suddenly wanted to cry. Very much.
‘Anything you have to say to me you can say here.’ Thank God her voice only shook slightly. ‘We won’t be in private together ever again.’
His hand tightened at her waist and Lulu wondered, crazily, if he might pick her up and throw her over his shoulder and haul her out of there. But why would he do that? She wasn’t Gigi. She wasn’t intrinsically loveable. Her limitations meant she wasn’t going to have a normal life.
‘The condom broke.’
For a moment Lulu was too busy swimming in her self-pity to pay much attention, and when she did she didn’t have a clue why he was saying this to her. Why had he said ‘condom’ in the middle of the wedding waltz?
The. Condom. Broke.
The words shot across her mind as if they’d been lit up in fireworks against a night sky.
Understanding scalded her and she stared up into his beautiful, still face. His jaw was like granite.
Now she knew why his expression had been like the Pyrenees all morning.
‘How?’ she breathed.
‘The usual reasons…latex isn’t foolproof. There’s only a ninety-eight per cent success rate. We’re the two per cent.’
Lulu didn’t know when she’d stopped dancing. Only knew that they were standing together in the middle of the dance floor while the other couples glided around them and everything she’d taken to be fixed in her life was falling down around her.
The floor seemed to come rushing up to meet her.
‘Where are you in your cycle?’ He spoke calmly, but his eyes were like flint looking into hers.
‘What? I—I don’t know.’
‘Think.’
Somewhere off to the side, where the old version of her was still standing, she didn’t like his tone. But the stripped-down Lulu, grappling to understand what all this meant, was trying to figure out dates.
‘Lulu?’ he growled.
‘I’m a dancer—my periods are all over the place.’
‘Great.’
She really didn’t like his tone—nor the way he was telling her this in the middle of the wedding waltz. Although she guessed he had given her the option to do it in private.
‘One week in,’ she came up with.
‘That’s probably the best news we can hope for. You’re less likely to be fertile immediately following your period.’
‘How did you become an expert on this?’ Her voice had grown slightly shrill.
‘An internet search and not much sleep last night,’ he growled back.
Good, thought Lulu unhappily, let him suffer.
‘What will happen now?’
‘You’ll need to contact me if you’re pregnant.’
When she thought about last night—lying awake in the champagne-lulled heap she and Gigi had formed on one of the beds, imagining seeing him again, feeling the happiness that had been bubbling up inside her—the realisation now that the only reason he’d wanted to see her again was to check her fertility was almost too cruel for her to accept.
‘What a prince you turned out to be,’ she whispered, and whirled around and made her way across the hall.
People were staring. Well, let them stare. Gigi was the only one who mattered, and she was so caught up in Khaled she’d never know at this late stage in the day.
Lulu began to run when she was outside the grand hall. She knew where she was going because she had already set down her routine here. The same corridors, the same rooms. But she found herself pressing close to the walls—a sure sign that things were closing in on her.
It had been such a beautiful ceremony, and Gigi was so happy. Everything had gone off splendidly—only for this news to drop like a bombshell…
But surely she wouldn’t be that unlucky?
Lulu found herself pushing open the tall, heavy doors in front of her and entering the hushed, carpeted surrounds of the library.
Explicit memories from last night washed over her.
‘Lulu, you can’t run away from this.’
She jumped, plastering a hand over her chest, until she realised she was playing the role of a gothic heroine and snatched it away. ‘You followed me!’ she accused.
‘Of course I bloody followed you.’ He strode towards her, so powerfully masculine she couldn’t help shrinking back. ‘This is important, Lulu. You can’t just push this away and pretend it hasn’t happened.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’
Was he making a crack abou
t what had happened at the bed and breakfast?
She backed up against a table, gripped its edge. It only reminded her more of what had happened in here last night. She didn’t want to think about last night.
‘What sort of a man are you anyway?’ She didn’t give him a chance to respond. ‘Well, I know now, don’t I? You just go from one woman to the next, like a bee to a flower, only you don’t extract anything—’ except for her heart ‘—you just leave deposits.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Her heart? Really?
Lulu stared at him, horrified. Her heart wasn’t involved. It was her feelings he’d trashed. The bastard did not have her heart!
‘You’re just like your father. You’re a…a philanderer.’
Like his father? Where had that come from? What had she heard? Read?
Alejandro’s first reaction as a young man had been to punch in the face any journalist who had come at him with prurient accusations about like father, like son. The intervening years had seasoned his reaction down to a cool, half-amused ‘no comment’ response.
Hearing the accusation come out of Lulu’s sweet mouth made it raw all over again.
‘You know nothing about me, Lulu, and even less about my father.’
‘I know that—and now you’re telling me I could be pregnant by a man I’m not married to. How am I expected to react?’
‘Try not screeching out the news to all the inhabitants of the castle.’
‘I do not screech! she shouted, then looked around as if people might come pouring in to see what the fuss was about. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ she hissed.
Later, when he analysed the situation, Alejandro would recognise that this was the line he should never have uttered. ‘I think I’ve done my bit.’
Lulu looked ready to haul off and punch him, but for some reason he relaxed. Alejandro discovered that with Lulu the hostility was starting to feel like foreplay.
He made the mistake of smiling at the idea.
‘You think this is funny?’
She was almost dancing on her toes with fury—a little French tornado of outraged sensibilities.
And he felt…surprisingly calm. For the first time all day he felt good—because now they were talking everything felt a lot less fraught. He was beginning to think that if he’d forced her to talk yesterday they wouldn’t be facing this problem now. Sex between them was incendiary, and it just burned the reason out of both of them.