‘Drive on, please,’ she requested in a confident tone that did not match the sick fear in the pit of her stomach. The months she’d spent in Spain meant that she was fairly fluent in the language and she smiled reassuringly at the driver. ‘There’s been a change of plan and Señor Vaillon wishes you to take me to the international airport.’
The chauffer was young and his dark eyes flashed with a boldness he made no effort to hide as he responded to her smile.
‘Sí, señora.’
The car rolled forward and she took a sharp breath. ‘As quickly as you can, por favor.’ But it was too late. Luc must have moved faster than the speed of light and already he was wrenching the door open.
‘You little bitch,’ he swore at her savagely, his face contorted with fury. He yelled at the driver to cut the engine and swiftly released Jean-Claude’s safety harness before lifting him into his arms. ‘I was prepared to be fair, to treat you with a respect that you clearly don’t deserve. But not any more,’ he snarled as his fingers curled around her arm.
‘Is everything all right, Monsieur Vaillon?’ The woman at the bottom of the plane’s steps looked calm and professional in her grey uniform. Presumable she was the nanny Luc had hired, Emily thought desperately as she struggled to break free of his bruising grip.
‘Shall I take the baby?’
‘Merci.’ Luc transferred Jean-Claude into the woman’s arms and immediately turned his attention back to Emily, his eyes dark and dispassionate as he watched a single tear roll down her face.
‘You can’t do this,’ she whispered as he jerked her into his arms.
‘Watch me,’ he taunted, and before she realised his intentions his head obliterated the sunlight. It was not so much a kiss as a public branding, his lips hot and hard, forcing hers apart and uncaring if he evoked a response. Emily was so shocked that she simply leaned against his chest fearing that her legs would buckle beneath her. Her humiliation was complete when she was forced to cling to him for support. It was as quick as it was brutal and he released her with a savage imprecation while she stared up at him, her trembling fingers covering her mouth. For a few brief seconds she had been on fire for him, her body reacting instantaneously to his raw sexuality, and her cheeks burned with shame at the speculative gleam in his eyes. He knew the effect he had on her, knew that for those few seconds he had made her forget everything, even her son, and with that knowledge came power.
‘Take your hands off me,’ she demanded, her voice shaking with outrage, and he threw back his head and laughed.
‘You’re a good actress, I’ll give you that. But you don’t fool me, ma chérie. I know you too well and I have forgotten nothing. I remember vividly what pleases you,’ he breathed in her ear and the warmth of his breath on her skin caused a trembling within her that had nothing to do with fear. ‘Welcome back, my sweet wife,’ he goaded softly as he put his hand in the small of her back and pushed her up the steps into the waiting jet.
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT THE HELL had he done?
Luc stared moodily at the glass on the tray in front of him and with a muttered oath snatched it up and downed its contents in one gulp, although he rarely drank alcohol in the middle of the day. Right now he needed something to anaesthetise the effect that Emily had on him—had always had on him, he admitted begrudgingly, although fortunately she seemed unaware that his emotions were veering dangerously out of control.
She was sitting away from him at the front of the plane, nursing Jean-Claude who had taken an instant dislike to his new surroundings and let his displeasure be known in no uncertain terms. The nanny he had employed, Liz Crawford, had an impressive record in child care, but she had been unable to pacify the baby, whose cries had only subsided once he was in his mother’s arms.
‘He needs me,’ Emily had insisted, and watching them now, mother and son, Luc knew she was right. She was cradling Jean-Claude against her shoulder, rocking gently as she sang to him in her sweet, husky voice, and Luc felt a curious twisting in his gut as he recognised the familiar French lullaby that evoked memories of his own childhood.
He shouldn’t have kissed her, he conceded grimly. He shouldn’t have given in to the basic, almost primal need to hold her in his arms once more. He needed to be in control, to take things slowly and persuade her that coming back to him would be the best thing for all of them, not just the baby.
He had convinced himself that he had every right to hate her but from the moment he’d walked across the courtyard at San Antonia the battle being waged in his head had been lost. She had deprived him of the first year of his son’s life, and when he’d received notice from her solicitor that she wanted a divorce he had been ready to commit murder. If she no longer wanted to be his wife, that was fine, he had assured himself, because he’d had enough of feeling a fool and he didn’t want her back.
Brave words, but unfortunately, as soon as he’d set eyes on her he’d known he could not back them up. He still wanted her, heaven help him. She was in his blood and he’d known instantly that he couldn’t let her go, but the flash of fear in her eyes when she first caught sight of him had shaken him. He had never been an ogre, had he? She had no reason to cower from him and as he stared at her it was confusion rather than anger that filled him. She had ripped his heart out, damn it, when his only crime had been to fear for her safety. He wanted her but he was determined to discover the truth about why she had left him before he could even begin to trust her again. It was nothing more than sexual attraction, he consoled himself. The fierce chemistry that had existed from the moment they’d first met still burned for both of them. He wasn’t blind, he had seen the way she’d looked at him in the car, had known she felt the same primitive tug of awareness, and when he’d kissed her he had felt her response despite her efforts to hide it.
He set his glass back on the tray and resisted the urge to ask for another drink. He might tell himself that he had every right to despise Emily, but the unpalatable truth was that she had stolen his heart long before she had stolen his child. He resented the hold she had over him but seeing her again had forced him to accept that their lives were inextricably linked for ever.
Jean-Claude’s sobs gradually subsided as he fell asleep and Emily reluctantly handed him over to the nanny, who took charge of him with an air of quiet authority. Not knowing what to do, unsure of her role, she glanced round and grimaced as Luc beckoned that she should join him.
‘Why did you sing to him in French?’ he demanded when she slid into the seat beside him, the expression in his eyes unfathomable as he studied her small, delicate face and the way the strap of her top had slid down to leave her shoulder bare.
‘I hoped to bring him up to recognise both English and French,’ Emily explained, her cheeks pink as she hastily readjusted the strap. ‘One of the artists at San Antonia was French and she taught me some lullabies to sing to him.’ She bit her lip at the unforgiving hardness of Luc’s face.
‘I honestly believed you didn’t want him,’ she said huskily, ‘but I still hoped to give you a chance to meet him. I want Jean-Claude to know his father and I was going to tell my solicitor that I was happy for us to share custody.’
‘Then why hide away in Spain?’ he demanded impatiently and she sighed.
‘I was ill after Jean-Claude was born. It was a difficult birth and it took me a while to recover. I was staying at my friend Laura’s flat while she set up her cookery school at San Antonia and she invited me to Spain to recuperate. I was so busy looking after a new baby and helping Laura and the time passed so quickly…’
‘What do you mean by a difficult birth?’ Luc growled. ‘Are you saying there were problems?’
‘It was a long labour, thirty-eight hours and he was a big baby. I lost a lot of blood,’ Emily admitted, and Luc’s face darkened as he fought to control the nausea that swept through him. He should have been there. She should have given him the opportunity to support her during her labour but he had driven her away. S
he was his wife, the woman he had sworn to protect, but once again, it seemed, he had failed in his duty.
‘If you had stayed with me, you would have received the best medical care,’ he muttered savagely, trying to disguise his pain. ‘You needn’t have suffered, yet out of spite, a ridiculous urge to hurt me, you put not just your life at risk but his, too.’
‘Hurt you!’ Emily stared at her husband with blank incomprehension in her eyes. ‘When I mentioned the idea of starting a family you were adamant that you didn’t want children. Jean-Claude’s conception was a mistake—somehow the antibiotics I’d been prescribed interfered with the reliability of the Pill—but you refused to believe me. I remember how angry you were when I told you I was pregnant. It’s not something a new bride is likely to forget,’ she added painfully.
‘Sacré bleu! It was our honeymoon,’ Luc said explosively, ‘and you did not tell me, chérie, you waited until we were on a remote island in the Indian Ocean before you collapsed. It was the emergency medic airlifted from the mainland who informed me of your condition.’
He could not repress a shudder as he relived the moment he had lifted her limp, lifeless body into his arms and had run up the beach, calling frantically for help. It was happening all over again his mind had drummed over and over, dismissing any semblance of calm in a tidal wave of terror. He had truly believed he had been about to lose her and it had been as devastating as the realisation of how deeply he cared. He had been unable to bear the thought of carrying on without her. He wasn’t strong enough to survive such pain again, and even after it was made clear that she was in no danger, he had withdrawn into himself as a form of self-protection. He didn’t want to love her. Love hurt.
‘I hadn’t known I was pregnant. It was as much of a shock to me as it was to you,’ Emily muttered miserably, but with a savage oath, Luc swung away from her, flipped open his laptop and was instantly immersed in his work.
He obviously did not want to discuss the past, she thought darkly. Perhaps he felt guilty about the way he had treated her. She didn’t know and she told herself that she didn’t care. She knew from experience that he would resent any disturbance while he was working and she stared bleakly out of the window, wishing she found it as easy to dismiss him from her thoughts.
She must have been the only member of the Dyer household who had forgotten the dinner party planned to honour the potential saviour of Heston Grange, Emily recalled as memories of her first meeting with Luc filled her mind. Rushing in from the stables in her muddy jodhpurs, she had stumbled to a halt, her embarrassment excruciating when she’d viewed her elegant sisters and silently seething mother, but everything had faded to insignificance when she’d caught sight of Jean-Luc Vaillon for the first time.
The world really could tilt on its axis, she thought with a rueful smile, remembering the way she had literally grabbed hold of the back of a chair for support when he’d surveyed her with his cool grey stare. With his amazing facial bone structure and lean, hard body, he had been the sexiest man she had ever met and she had been unable to repress a shiver when he’d trapped her startled gaze with his, the gleam of amusement in those silvery depths warning her that he was aware of the effect he’d had on her.
Conscious of her mother’s impatience, she fled upstairs to change into her serviceable navy-blue dress and spent the evening peeping at Luc from beneath her lashes, leaving her sisters to impress him with their sparkling conversation. The head of Vaillon Developments was irresistible with his suave good looks and seductive charm, but despite her sisters’ frantic efforts to capture his attention, Emily glanced up several times during dinner to find him watching her. Embarrassment saw her quickly drop her gaze, but throughout the evening he continued to regard her with a mixture of amusement and another, indefinable emotion in his dark grey eyes.
‘I have a feeling you are happier in the company of horses than humans,’ he remarked a few days later, when he suddenly appeared in the stables. He had accepted her parents’ suggestion to stay at Heston and discuss plans for its possible acquisition, but Emily was too shy to respond to his friendly charm and went out of her way to avoid him.
His husky French accent caused a delicious shiver to run all the way down to her toes, and she blushed and half hid her face against the mane of her darling Arab stallion, Kasim.
‘I find horses are generally less complicated,’ she agreed huskily, and his slow smile took her breath away. He remained chatting for several minutes, displaying an impressive knowledge of horsemanship, although she had been too tongue-tied to respond and afterwards had been furious with herself. She must have appeared a halfwit, but surprisingly he came again the next day, and the next, requesting that she ride out with him, and it was during those blissful excursions through the New Forest that she found herself falling in love with him.
What a fool she’d been, she now thought bitterly, to believe that the charismatic multimillionaire Frenchman would really be interested in a plain little nobody like her. Common sense should have warned her that he must have a hidden agenda, especially when he’d proposed to her so soon after they’d first met. She had ignored her doubts, swept away by his passionate kisses when he’d followed her into the stables and pulled her down into the hay. He’d overwhelmed her senses. She’d loved the way he’d made her feel, loved him and amazingly he’d seemed to want her, too.
Their wedding, in the magnificent grounds of Heston Grange, had been like a fairy-tale, a dream come true, and the dream had lasted for the whole of that first weekend when he had whisked her off to Paris. She had been a virgin on her wedding night, due only to his iron self-control. The memory of the way he had made love to her for the first time still brought tears to her eyes. He had been so tender, so gentle, treating her reverently as if she were made of the finest porcelain. Her untutored body had been eager to learn and his tenderness had given way to a fierce passion that should have shocked her but had only made her love him more.
Unfortunately their arrival back in London had signalled the end of the fantasy. Luc was always busy and always with Robyn, and Emily had resented the elegant American’s close relationship with her husband as she’d struggled to fit in to her new life. As her insecurity grew so did the rows, but six months after the wedding Luc suddenly announced he had a break in his busy work schedule and was taking her on a belated honeymoon. It should have been an ideal time to repair the holes in their marriage, but instead the queasiness she had been suffering from for the past few weeks increased and on arrival at their remote island destination, she fainted. A result of dehydration and hormones, the doctor cheerfully informed her before he dropped the bombshell that she was expecting a baby and one glance at Luc’s shocked face warned her that the fairy-tale was over. The moment he discovered she was pregnant their marriage died.
‘We’ll be landing in an hour,’ Luc suddenly informed her, his cold, clipped tone interrupting her thoughts, although he barely bothered to lift his eyes from his computer screen as he addressed her. ‘I’m sure you remember the way to the bathroom.’
‘I don’t need it, thank you,’ she replied, stung by his indifference. This time he did look up, his brows raised fractionally in disdain.
‘You need to tidy yourself up,’ he told her bluntly, unmoved by the stain of colour that flooded her cheeks. ‘You’ll find your luggage in the bedroom. Hopefully you have something to wear in that vast suitcase that is a little less loud.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Emily said sweetly, her chin coming up. ‘The larger suitcase contains Jean-Claude’s clothes, and this is one of my more discreet outfits.’
‘Then we need to go shopping as a matter of urgency. You look like a tramp,’ he told her, calmly ignoring her gasp of outrage. ‘Your gaudy clothes might be suitable wear for an artists’ commune but you are not a hippy—you are my wife and I expect you to dress accordingly.’
‘You can go to hell. I’d rather run around naked than allow you to buy my clothes,’ Emily snapped furiou
sly, and his mouth curved into an insolent smile that still did strange things to her insides.
‘An interesting idea for when we are alone perhaps, but I don’t think the villagers of sleepy Montiard are ready for such avant-garde behaviour.’
The temptation to wipe the mockery from his face was so strong that Emily folded her arms across her chest. How dared he say she looked gaudy in a tone that patently meant cheap? Her self-confidence took a nosedive and she quailed beneath his contemptuous gaze. She had been so busy helping Laura at the farmhouse that she had regained her prepregnancy figure without even noticing. She looked good, she reassured herself, and the attention she’d received from a couple of the artists at San Antonia had been a welcome boost, but Luc was usually surrounded by beautiful women who were effortless chic and she felt as gauche as when she had first met him.
Furiously she blinked back the sudden rush of tears, aware that meeting Luc again was nothing like her daydreams. She had often fantasised about bumping into him at some glamorous function and had pictured herself looking stunningly sexy, escorted by her equally gorgeous lover, while Luc looked on and cursed the fact that he had let her go. The dream was stupidly unrealistic, of course, especially the part about the lover. The only man she had ever wanted was as indifferent to her as he had been when she’d left him, and it was ridiculous to feel so hurt.
‘I’m not planning on staying at your château for a day longer than I have to,’ she told him icily, ‘and I certainly won’t be spending any time alone with you, so you can forget the idea about me sharing your bed. You can’t force me to stay,’ she added, aware that for some reason she wanted to antagonise him, perhaps because a row would guarantee his attention.
‘You think not?’ he drawled, patently unmoved by her anger, and the hint of amusement in his voice caused her temper to ignite.
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