‘I’m devastated, chérie, but I won’t force you to endure my company. If you really can’t make Jean-Claude and what’s best for him your priority, then you’d better get out now. Say the word and I’ll ask my driver to stop and drop you off.’
Emily glanced out at the barren landscape, which was as dry and unforgiving as a desert. The empty road snaked past jutting boulders and huge, spiteful cacti, and once again fear gripped her. ‘You surely wouldn’t abandon us out here, miles from anywhere?’ she whispered and Luc gave her a chilling smile.
‘Of course not. I’ve told you, from now on Jean-Claude stays with me. But you are free to go wherever and whenever you like, mon amour.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she said sharply, her body clenching in rejection of the careless endearment that even now had the power to make her long for the moon. She had never been his love. ‘Your cruelty is beyond belief,’ she whispered, and he gave a harsh laugh.
‘That you can accuse me of cruelty when you stole my son is also beyond belief but believe this, Emily, I do not forgive easily, and I will never forget.’
The barely concealed bitterness in his voice shook her and she took a deep breath as she concentrated on the scenery flashing past. Slowly her panic faded slightly as she envisaged the bustling airport. Presumably Luc was intending to fly back to England, but he would hardly be able to frogmarch her and Jean-Claude aboard a plane. Hopefully, if she kept her wits, there would be an opportunity to snatch back her son and slip away.
She forced herself to relax and bide her time, but in the tense silence her eyes turned involuntarily towards the man whose presence dominated the car. It wasn’t fair that he was so gorgeous, she thought bleakly, feeling a knife skewer her heart as she studied his stern profile. His incredible bone structure could have been fashioned from marble by one of the Old Masters. His olive-gold skin stretched taut over the hard planes of his face. Despite the fact that he was in his late thirties, there was no hint of silver in his thick black hair, and she closed her eyes on a wave of pain as she remembered the feel of it against her fingers when she had pulled his head down to hers. His mouth was to die for and he had delighted in teasing every inch of her body with it, his tongue a wicked instrument of torturous pleasure during their long hours of loving that had left her utterly satiated.
That had been a long time ago, she hastily reminded herself. In those first heady weeks of their marriage when she’d almost convinced herself she had done the right thing by marrying the enigmatic Frenchman and that he might one day even grow to love her as she loved him.
The illusion had been quickly shattered. They had spent the weekend after their wedding in Paris, too absorbed in their mutual passion for each other to do much sightseeing. On their arrival back in London, Luc had swept her into his arms as the lift carried them up to his penthouse flat, but instead of carrying her straight to the bedroom, he had hesitated in the doorway as the most beautiful woman Emily had ever seen moved forward to greet them.
Robyn Blake, once a world-famous model, was Luc’s sister-in-law as well as his personal assistant. She was exquisite, there was no other word to describe her, and Emily had immediately felt young and gauche, aware that her chain-store dress had been no match for Robyn’s designer outfit.
At first she had been taken in by Robyn’s apparent friendliness. Having spent her childhood in the shadow of her sisters, she was plagued by a crushing lack of self-confidence and had followed Robyn around like a puppy desperate to please its master. She had sought the older woman’s advice on everything from clothes and make-up to the problems that were emerging in her marriage, and it had taken her a long time to realise that Robyn was the cause of many of those problems.
She could not lay all the blame at Robyn’s door, she admitted miserably. Her own insecurity and lack of self-belief hadn’t helped any more than the growing realisation that Jean-Luc Vaillon was incapable of loving anyone. He had treated her suspicions about the true nature of his relationship with his PA with scathing dismissal. It was time she grew up instead of behaving like a silly child, he’d told her, but in her heart she accepted that he had never felt more than a faint affection for her and now she had proof that his reasons for making her his wife had been far more prosaic than love.
With a sigh she turned to find Luc watching Jean-Claude. He seemed utterly absorbed, as though he could not drag his gaze from his son, but he must have felt her scrutiny and she blushed as he lifted his head and subjected her to a hard stare. Pride dictated that she should turn away but she was trapped by the brooding sensuality that emanated from him, her eyes focused on his mouth, remembering the taste of him, the feel of his lips on hers. Suddenly she was too hot. The air inside the car seemed stifling despite the air-conditioning, and tiny beads of sweat formed above her top lip. She wanted to wipe them away but her hands were trembling and she shoved them into her lap, her tongue darting out to capture the salty pearls on its tip.
Luc’s eyes narrowed as he watched the nervous foray of her tongue and she knew with humiliating certainty that he was aware of her thoughts. What was the matter with her? she asked herself impatiently. He despised her, his contempt clearly visible in the cool grey gaze that speared her. He only tolerated her presence for the sake of his son so why was she consumed with this wild longing to feel his mouth on hers? She hated him, her mind totally rejected his ruthless power, but it seemed that her body had a will of its own and it recognised its master.
With a barely suppressed gasp she tore her gaze from his, biting down hard on her lip until she tasted blood. Luc was a cheat and a liar and he had broken her heart. For the sake of her self-preservation it was crucial that she remembered that fact.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she demanded, seeking refuge in her anger. ‘You lost the right to look at me like you own me when you increased your personal assistant’s duties.’
‘You’re still blinded by your ridiculous insecurities, I see,’ Luc murmured coolly, and her cheeks flooded with colour as his jibe hit home. She had always been so unsure of herself, especially where he was concerned, and she hated the fact that he had been aware of her vulnerability.
With her head turned determinedly away from him, Luc was left with the view of Emily’s taut shoulders and his eyes rested on the curve of her cheek and one small, pink ear, her long, dangly earring emphasising the slender column of her neck. She looked heartbreakingly young with her glorious chestnut hair caught up on top of her head. A few tendrils had escaped to curl around her cheek and he fought the urge to reach across and brush them back behind her ear, to cup her chin in his hand and turn her face to his.
What was he thinking? he berated himself furiously. This woman, his wife, had walked out on him without a backward glance. Not only that, but she had disappeared so conclusively that gossip and speculation among London’s society had been rife. He had been terrified for her safety, not knowing if she was alive or dead, but for all those long months she had been living quite comfortable in her Spanish hide-away.
Her accusation that he hadn’t wanted their child was ridiculous. His longing for their baby had shaken him with its intensity, but alongside hope had been fear. His secret terror that history would repeat itself had made him appear distant and his perceived disinterest had cost him dear.
He inhaled sharply and forced himself to drop his gaze to the baby who was sitting quietly in his child seat. Jean-Claude, his son. It still seemed incredible that this beautiful, wide-eyed baby was his own flesh and blood, yet there was no mistaking the likeness between them and his heart clenched in primitive recognition. Wonderingly he touched the baby’s satiny curls, which were as black as his own hair, and when Jean-Claude lifted his long lashes to survey him solemnly with huge, grey eyes, it was like looking into a mirror. His son, the child he’d feared he would never see. He loved him instantly, a huge wave of adoration sweeping through him, and he vowed that nothing would ever separate him from his child again.
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�He looks like you,’ Emily said grudgingly as she watched Jean-Claude smile at his father. From the moment her son had first opened his eyes and focused on her, she’d been taken aback by his likeness to Luc. It was as if fate itself was on Luc’s side, determined that he would not be forgotten, but seeing them together brought home to her that her baby was all Vaillon, truly his father’s son.
Jean-Claude regarded the stranger solemnly. At almost a year old, he knew his own mind, knew whom he liked and whom he didn’t, and Emily felt a sharp stab of jealousy when he stretched out his chubby arms to Luc. Would all Vaillon men betray her? she wondered bitterly. And then dismissed the shabby thought. She wanted Jean-Claude to have a good relationship with his father and incredibly it now seemed that Luc shared that desire. Perhaps, once he had calmed down, she could broach the idea of divorce once more. She was certain he did not really want her as his wife and if she assured him of her willingness to share custody of Jean-Claude, their parting could at least be amicable.
‘Jean-Claude and I are booked on an evening flight to London,’ she murmured. ‘It seems silly to waste the tickets but I’ll meet you as soon as possible, tomorrow if you insist,’ she added when Luc made no reply and simply surveyed her with his cool grey stare.
‘I’m not taking him to London,’ he replied at last, and she stared at him in confusion.
‘Then where are you going?’ She had hated Luc’s Chelsea penthouse, which had all the appeal of a dentist’s waiting room and had never felt like her home, but Luc had seemed perfectly at ease there and she assumed it was still his London base.
‘To France, of course. Jean-Claude is a Vaillon, my son and heir. Naturally he will be brought up in my homeland,’ he informed her, his brows raised in surprise that there could be any doubt.
‘Naturally,’ Emily snapped sarcastically, ‘but what about my homeland? Hasn’t it occurred to you that I’d like to bring him up in England?
‘But you weren’t, were you?’ he pointed out silkily. ‘For some peculiar reason you decided that an artists’ commune in the middle of the Spanish wilderness was the best place for our son to live. But no longer. From now on Jean-Claude will enjoy all the benefits of his heritage at my château in the Loire Valley. The Vaillons are an old French family. Surely you would not want to deprive him of his birthright?’
‘I didn’t even know you owned a château. Something else you failed to mention. But what of Jean-Claude’s British heritage?’ Emily argued, panic assailing her once more at Luc’s resolute expression. ‘The Dyers are an old family, too. Heston Grange was their ancestral seat for over four hundred years, until you bought it,’ she finished bleakly. ‘Tell me,’ she demanded with a hollow laugh, ‘did you know from the beginning that my parents hoped you would marry one of their daughters so that the Dyers would retain some link with the family’s heritage? Did they offer you Heston at a fraction of its value as long as you agreed to marry one of us? And if that’s true, Luc, why on earth did you pick me? I was the plain one, the drab Dyer, more at home with horses than people. My sisters are beautiful, clever and sophisticated, any one of them would have made you a far more suitable wife, but I suppose you thought I would be the easiest to manipulate, the one least likely to make a fuss when you resumed your relationship with your mistress.’
At twenty she had been shy and severely lacking in confidence, unable to disguise her massive crush on the handsome, enigmatic Frenchman who had turned all their lives upside down, but to him she must have seemed a pushover. She had been a pawn in a far more serious game.
‘You always did seriously undervalue yourself,’ Luc murmured dryly, as his eyes skimmed her flushed face and huge navy blue eyes. ‘I admit there were a number of reasons why you were suitable…’
‘All to do with money and prestige, and none to do with love,’ Emily finished for him. She didn’t want to hear every cold, calculated detail of why he had decided to marry her. She already knew it was because her parents had offered him Heston Grange at a massively reduced price if he married one of the Dyer daughters, thereby retaining the family’s link with their heritage. It was archaic, she thought bitterly. She felt like a brood mare, sold off with a suitable dowry, but Luc hadn’t even wanted her for her childbearing ability. He hadn’t wanted children at all, which made his sudden determination to gain custody of their son all the more shocking.
‘Jean-Claude is a Vaillon,’ Luc repeated stubbornly, ‘and from now on the Château Montiard will be his home, not some filthy dump in the middle of nowhere.’
‘San Antonia is not filthy. The farmhouse is beautiful and Jean-Claude loved it there.’
‘Really.’ Luc’s brows rose as he murmured sardonically. ‘He must be a child prodigy to express his opinion when he’s not even a year old. Tell me, chérie, what would you have done if he’d been taken ill? The nearest hospital is miles away. For someone who expresses such maternal devotion, you seem to have little regard for his well-being.’
‘While you, of course, are an expert on child care,’ Emily snapped furiously. ‘Jean-Claude was perfectly well cared for, but it’s not easy being a single mother and I was grateful for the help of the other members of the commune.’
‘You were a single mother by choice,’ he pointed out hardily, ‘but you never gave Jean-Claude a choice. You forced him to live his life with only one parent and you denied me a relationship with my own son. Now it’s your turn to suffer,’ he told her darkly, and she shivered at the contempt in his gaze.
‘For heaven’s sake, can’t we be adult about this?’ she cried despairingly and he gave a harsh laugh.
‘It would be a first for you, chérie, that’s for sure, but I’m afraid you’ve pushed me way beyond the boundaries of wanting to be reasonable. Now that I have my son I have no intention of ever letting him go, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.’
The car was slowing and Emily glanced out of the window, frantically searching for the signs to the airport, but there were none. Instead they drove through the gates of what appeared to be a private airfield and sick fear gripped her. How could she have forgotten that Luc owned his own private jet? There was no bustling airport, no queues at the check-in desk where there might have been an opportunity to grab Jean-Claude and run. Luc’s plane was ready and waiting on the runway. He had stated that he was prepared to take her to his château for their son’s sake but he couldn’t force her to resume the role of his wife, could he?
Suddenly her pride was an expendable commodity she would gladly sacrifice in return for her baby and she stared beseechingly at Luc as the car drew to a halt. ‘Please, don’t do this,’ she begged huskily. ‘I can’t live without Jean-Claude but neither can I live with you. You must see that.’
‘Surely, if you have any sense of fairness you must see that it is my turn to have him now,’ Luc replied coldly. ‘Jean-Claude is coming home with me, with or without you.’
‘But you didn’t want him!’ she cried, her voice rising with frustration. ‘From the moment you knew I was pregnant you made it clear that you had no interest in either of us. You slept in another room,’ she reminded him huskily, ‘when you bothered to come back to the flat at all. And you were completely uninvolved in my pregnancy. You didn’t even show up at the hospital for my ultrasound scan.
‘Do you have any idea how I felt that morning?’ she demanded bitterly as a wave of memories hit her. ‘The fact that you’d spent the night with Robyn was unforgivable but I still thought…hoped you cared enough about our child to want to see the first pictures of him. I sat in that waiting room alone surrounded by excited, happy couples, and I prayed you would come,’ she whispered brokenly. Every time they called my name I allowed someone else to go in my place until there was no one left, just me on my own with a very sympathetic nurse who tried to make a joke about men being useless timekeepers.’ She scrubbed her eyes furiously with the back of her hand, desperate that he didn’t see her cry. ‘But you hadn’t mistaken the time, had you, Luc? You
just didn’t care about the baby or me, and that’s why I left. I knew I’d outstayed my welcome.’
‘That’s not true,’ he began, his face twisting with emotions she refused to try and decipher any more.
‘It is true,’ she cried angrily. ‘I didn’t need any more proof of your indifference. How can you blame me for questioning your motives now?’ she finished brokenly.
Luc paused as he opened the door. She looked as young and innocent as on that first day when she had stared up at him and an arrow had pierced his heart. He wanted to hate her—indeed, there had been many times during the past year when he’d convinced himself that he despised her—but she was watching him with those expressive blue eyes. He glimpsed her vulnerability and something tugged at his heart.
He had never been any good at saying how he felt, he conceded, and his conscience prickled as he remembered how his unspoken fears had caused him to appear tense and uncommunicative. His childhood had left scars, a wariness of revealing his emotions. He hadn’t forgotten her scan. Dieu, he would have given anything to be with her but Robyn had been distraught, he had been torn and by the time he had managed to phone and explain the situation, Emily had already left for the hospital. He had been too late but at that point he hadn’t realised the extent of the damage his decision had cost him, and he had never been given the chance to make amends.
‘Wait there while I see if they’re ready for us,’ he growled as he climbed out of the car. ‘I have employed a nanny to take care of Jean-Claude. It might be better if he meets her before we get on the plane.’
‘He doesn’t need a nanny,’ Emily pointed out sharply. ‘I can look after him perfectly well on my own.’
‘Mon Dieu! Do you have to argue about everything?’ He was already striding across the tarmac and she watched him go, adrenalin coursing through her as she tapped on the car’s glass partition to gain the attention of the chauffer. This was probably a hired car, she reasoned feverishly, and it was likely that the driver was Spanish.
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