The Night That Started It All

by Anna Cleary

  ‘Perhaps you mean with whom.’

  His eyes glinted. ‘Comment?’ He tilted up one thick black brow. ‘Vraiment, it’s coming back to me. How you are.’

  How she was, though, seemed to wholly concentrate his attention, because he devoured her from head to toe, raking her ensemble with a wolflike, smouldering curiosity that eliminated the rest of the world from her awareness. At the same time, the smoothness of his deep voice was having its old hypnotic effect. She might have been walking with him through the shrubbery on a summer’s night.

  ‘You are very pale. Your lips are pale.’ He examined them with an intense interest. ‘And you are thinner.’ His gaze swept over her, lingering a second longer than was necessary below her throat. ‘Though not too thin, fortunately.’

  Scandalously, her overly sensitive breasts swelled to push the boundaries even of this new bra, and she began to feel almost aroused.

  Inappropriate. Thoroughly inappropriate.

  All these conflicting sensations were making her giddy, but somehow she stayed upright and said things. Some things, at least.

  As if in a dream she inclined her head. ‘I’m sure you mean that as a compliment, though I have no idea what you expected. It’s only been a couple of weeks.’

  She realised she’d made a gross tactical blunder when the ghost of a smile touched his mouth and she caught a glimpse of his white, even teeth. ‘Five weeks and three days, to be exact.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said crushingly. ‘I haven’t been counting.’

  She had the disconcerting feeling that the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth signalled satisfaction. But what did he have to be satisfied about? Why did he think she’d come here? For him?

  He gestured then to the fascinated onlookers, in particular to a couple of elderly women who were circling to view her narrowly.

  ‘Maman, Tante Marise, c’est Shari,’ he said. ‘La fiancée de Rémy.’

  ‘Ex-fiancée,’ Shari corrected hurriedly, but her words were lost in the babble as family members closed in around her and subjected her to a gamut of curiosity. Only thing was, their questions, arguments and observations were all for each other, not for her.

  Not that she’d have understood them anyway. Their French was so rapid and idiomatic she could scarcely pick up a word.

  Except for the term fiancée. That was being bandied about quite furiously.

  The next thing she knew someone patted her, though stiffly. Then someone else murmured something to her about Rémy and gave her a kindly nod. More people spoke to her, some with increasing warmth until everyone, including a hearty uncle with a face not unlike a truffle, seemed to be hugging her, kissing her and calling her ma pauvre and ma puce.

  CHAPTER SIX

  SHARI had visualised herself sitting in the rear of the chapel, alone, concealed perhaps by a marble pillar, a remote, mysterious, but essentially inconspicuous ghost. That wasn’t how it went.

  For one thing the ghost space was heavily occupied. Once inside that chapel, the passing of a life cut short was uppermost, whether or not Luc Valentin was present, overwhelmingly attractive and closely scrutinising her every move. As for being inconspicuous, the aunts had hustled Shari into the second front pew, across the aisle from Luc.

  She’d always been far too emotional in stressful situations, and Rémy was all too powerfully present for comfort. And when Luc rose to deliver a brief eulogy, mainly in French, and a couple of people on her side of the aisle snivelled, Shari couldn’t help shedding a couple of polite tears in sympathy.

  The trouble was her tears took on a life of their own. It was so ridiculous. Once started they wouldn’t stop. She cried so much about Rémy’s stupid, selfish conceit, the agony he’d caused her and the humiliating things she’d let him get away with, that she filled up bunches and bunches of tissues. Though she tried to keep it as quiet as possible, her sobs probably sounded pretty heartbroken, when she wasn’t at all. Face it, she wasn’t all that sad.

  But Rémy’s family assumed she was. Those nearby patted and consoled her. Aunts, cousins, even the uncle shuffled seats to get near her and murmur comforting things until she gave in, laid her head on the truffle’s shoulder and cried all down his suit.

  Luc kept halting his speech to glower at her with a brow as dark as thunder. She could hardly blame him. When the worst of the embarrassing paroxysm had passed, he lowered his austere gaze to his text and continued on in English with a rather biting courtesy.

  Shari supposed she should appreciate the consideration, although she doubted Rémy was the finest flower of the French nation, cut down in his prime by a heartless fate. She knew damned well what Luc meant to imply by that. A heartless whore.

  And when he said a man was known by the quality of those who’d loved him, and went on to describe Rémy as a man who’d been possessed of earthly treasure and looked directly at her, she glared incredulously back through her tears. Oh, come on.

  The man was a hypocrite. If she hadn’t been so weepy and trembly from stress and the lack of a breakfast, she might have jumped up and said a few very gracious, dignified though at the same time rather terse things.

  But the emotional toll of the past few weeks chose that critical moment to suspend her freedom of choice. Once again, just when she wanted to be at her sophisticated best, she was overcome by a wave of nausea.

  Without time even to fumble for a dry tissue, she sprang up and rushed for the entrance, stumbled outside into the chill air and retched into a flower pot.

  Nothing much came up. How could it? Nothing had gone down.

  Sweating and gasping, as the last wrenching spasm subsided, she noticed a pair of masculine, highly polished leather shoes standing nearby. It occurred to her, even in her woeful state, they looked as if they’d been handmade by some Italian master.

  ‘Are you better?’ Luc’s concerned voice broke through her humiliation and distress. ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘Of course,’ she gasped. ‘I’m fine.’ She straightened up, grateful to feel his strong hand under her tottery elbow, and blotted her upper lip and forehead with a tissue. Foraging in her bag for another, she came across the bottle of cola. God bless the Hôtel du Louvre. Unscrewing the cap, she took a swig and turned aside to discreetly rinse her mouth. ‘Excellent,’ she panted, applying a tissue to her lips. ‘I’m just a little empty. I haven’t had any breakfast.’

  ‘Elle n’a pas pris de petit déjeuner!’ an excited voice relayed from close at hand.

  ‘Comment! Pas de petit déjeuner?’

  Until that ripple of concern about her non-breakfast electrified the crowd, Shari hadn’t really noticed people streaming from the chapel and regrouping. Some had positioned themselves quite near to her and Luc, and were scrutinising her every move.

  From under her chic chapeau, Tante Laraine in particular was watching her with an expression Shari couldn’t quite interpret. Well, how would she? It was a very French expression. Though encountering the woman’s disconcertingly shrewd gaze a second time, Shari corrected that analysis. A very womanly expression.

  She wished she could melt through the stonework. Didn’t these people understand a woman’s need to retch in private? Several of them seemed anxious to remedy her plight, talking rapidly about taking her somewhere and plying her with food and blankets. Judging by the offers and counter-offers one relative tossed to another, and all with cool determined smiles, she gathered there was some sort of a polite contest under way.

  Tante Marise for one was warmly insistent that Shari should go home with her and try a little bouillon and an egg.

  Luc frowned at that and shook his head, instantly quashing the idea. The uncle bounded forward with an offer, but at a cool steel glance from Luc the words died on the old boy’s lips and he retreated.

  Then Tante Laraine intervened. Shari thought she could detect her resemblance to her son. While austerely gracious, this Laraine exuded a certain authority. Shari gathered the matriarch was strongly in fav
our of whisking her chez Laraine and feeding her some energising chocolat.

  Luc, however, seemed even less keen on his mother having first shot at Shari. ‘Non,’ he said ruthlessly. ‘Pas du chocolat.’ He murmured something to hold them all at bay, then put his arm around Shari and held her close against his lean, powerful body.

  ‘Come. You are shivering. We need to get you out of here.’

  ‘Oh, but …’ she quavered, regretting the chocolat. Even the bouillon. Now that her nausea had passed she really was quite cavernously empty. The egg would have been heaven. And if it had come with some hot buttered toast … ‘I—I—I haven’t properly expressed my condolences.’

  He gave her a sardonic glance. ‘I believe you have made your feelings perfectly clear. Parfaitement.’

  It was glaringly apparent from his tone that the French despised a show of excess emotion. Shari cursed herself for her weakness. On top of everything else he thought was wrong with her, she had to keep giving into this crass emotionalism. It just had to stop.

  Unexpectedly, a ray of watery sun pierced the grey world and lit the amber depths of his dark eyes, their glow sizzling through her bloodstream.

  Luc steered her across to the first of several long, sleek limos that had silently drawn up in the last few minutes, and she went without resistance. Waving the driver back to the wheel, he opened the rear door for her himself and urged her inside. Shari sank into the warmth, grateful for the comfort.

  She waited until he’d given his instructions to the driver and was settled at the other end of the wide seat before impressing him with her serene dignity.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘I don’t usually make such a spectacle of myself. I don’t know what got into me. I feel—mortified to have embarrassed everyone.’

  ‘No need to apologise.’ A tinge of amusement momentarily relieved the saturnine severity of his expression. ‘They loved it. They’ll talk about it for months.’

  She flushed. Though she kept her voice low, it still sounded fraught and emotional. She couldn’t seem to control that. ‘Heaven only knows what they think of me. I’m surprised they were so kind.’

  His voice, on the contrary, was silky smooth. ‘Why wouldn’t they be kind? It is clear you are the very model of a grieving fiancée.’

  She drew in a breath. Her voice grew all throaty and she was dangerously close to another bout of the waterworks. ‘You know very well—I told you—I’m not a fiancée. Rémy and I broke up. I didn’t even like him in the end. I despised him. Why must you taunt me? Are you always so cold and judgemental towards women?’

  He flushed darkly. A muscle moved in his lean cheek. ‘I don’t believe so. That is not how I feel when I think of you. Far from it. But I’m naturally—surprised. You despised him, yet you have made this very long journey to say goodbye to him. And now to show such—emotion.’

  ‘Well, but it was all so overwhelming, I just … Wouldn’t you feel sad to say goodbye to someone you once loved?’ She turned to look at him.

  Through the smudged mascara her aquamarine gaze pierced Luc. An unpleasant knowledge solidified in his brain and skewered him straight through his gut. It hadn’t mattered whether or not she’d liked the bastard. She’d loved him.

  He said tightly, ‘I can’t imagine being sad about someone who—violated the rules of civility. But I believe there are women who love certain men—whatever they do.’

  A flicker of pain disturbed the cool green sea of her irises. She made a small, defensive gesture that sent a pang through Luc. The moment they’d shared at her front door flooded back to him with sharp immediacy. What an insensitive fool he was to bring that up now. He was handling this so badly. Dieu, was he jealous of a dead man?

  ‘I doubt they do,’ she said quietly. ‘I think that’s a myth.’ The pride and earnestness in her voice touched him in some susceptible spot. ‘Women fall in love then out of it, but some remain trapped by circumstances. That has never applied to me. It could never.’ He watched her slim hands twist. The hat brim prevented him from seeing more than a section of cheek, an exquisite curve of chin.

  His blood stirred with a sharp and bittersweet desire. He closed his eyes. She was here now, overwhelmingly present. Not a dream, not a fantasy. Whether he wanted it or not, yearning had him in its grip.

  He sought for something to say to soften his former harshness. ‘Très bon. Men too can find themselves trapped. Passion is a dangerous thing. It can—drag you in.’ She lanced him with her clear green gaze and he caught his breath. ‘Not recommended for ones’ health.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed, lowering her lashes. ‘If only it were possible to consider your health at the time, no one would ever take the risk.’ She hesitated. ‘I—I … I’m sorry about the night you phoned. I know you meant to be kind.’

  ‘I woke you from your sleep?’ She nodded. He studied her face. ‘You were angry.’

  ‘Yes, well … It was a difficult time. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t apologise. I phoned because I longed to hear your voice.’

  Shari looked sharply at him, her heart revving up. His eyes were scorching hot and were having quite a dizzying effect. Could he really talk as if nothing had happened?

  This was no time for desire an hour after she’d farewelled Rémy. And hadn’t Luc made it clear what he thought of her? Did he assume she was ready to ride that thorny road with him again? Had he forgotten what had happened after their boathouse tryst?

  She started unsteadily, ‘I don’t know why you think I came all this way, Luc …’

  ‘Then tell me. Why did you?’ His dark eyes were compelling, alert, and at the same time so searingly sensual.

  ‘For Emilie, of course. To—honour her loss. Pay our family’s respects. And to—to acknowledge the love I once had for Rémy. Naturally.’

  His gaze flickered over her, searching, intent. Then he lifted his shoulders in a gentle gesture. ‘I always wonder when someone gives many reasons for doing something grande if they only really have the one. The one they wish to conceal from themselves.’

  Her heart made a maniacal skitter. What? Did he think it had to do with him? Did the guy think one little encounter had affected her that deeply?

  ‘And what do you suppose it to be?’ She smiled in mocking disbelief. ‘The one I need to conceal?’

  His dark gaze was mercilessly direct. ‘Bien sûr, you came to see me.’

  She gasped. Before she could deny it he curled his fingers under her chin and took her mouth in a fierce, highly sexual kiss. After the initial paralysed instant, her body sprang into tingling life. An erotic charge electrified her blood, her nerve fibres, her tender intimate tissues, as if this and this alone were her raison d’être.

  Who said she couldn’t communicate adequately in French? It was clear now all she’d ever needed was the inspiration. Luc Valentin’s hand merely had to caress her kneecap and slide up under her skirt and she burst into flame.

  All right, she was bad. Bad in every way, but he felt so good. The delicious sinful pleasure of him thrilled through her and inflamed her every wanton molecule.

  Sadly, just when she was ready to crawl onto his lap and express her appreciation more fulsomely for them both, he broke away. Drawing back, he studied her, his dark eyes beneath their thick black brows smouldering and amused.

  ‘Good. Some colour in your cheeks.’

  She felt herself flush. She supposed those cool, insolent words were intended to convey his macho self-possession. But to the sensitive ears of the guilt-ridden woman, the slightly thickened texture of his voice was a welcome giveaway. Luc Valentin was affected by her. Strongly affected.

  ‘That was hardly appropriate,’ she said breathlessly, patting down her suit and adjusting her hat. ‘Now. Of all times. Aren’t you ashamed?’

  ‘No. I would say—triumphant.’

  Too shocked for words, she stared speechlessly at him, and he laughed and kissed her again. She was struggling for more words to express her di
scomfort at this bold exploitation of her weakened state, when the limo noticeably slowed.

  Paris in all its glory had been flowing by—cafés, bridges, palaces, La Seine—and she’d barely had a chance to take in a thing. Now here they were at the city’s throbbing heart. Even as she looked they drew up before a palace with ivory awnings over its several entrances.

  ‘Where is this? Where are you taking me?’ Straining, she narrowed her eyes to read the inscription on the nearest.

  ‘To breakfast.’

  A single word, emblazoned in a flowing script, adorned the graceful awning.

  Ritz.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE Ritz was the perfect antidote to an ordeal. The beauty, the food, the luscious notes of a string ensemble wafting on the air … Even the silk-festooned windows in their own lavish way declared the hotel’s sincere desire to swaddle the emotionally gouged woman in loving and soul-restoring luxury.

  There was a placard in the reception area announcing that the hotel was soon to close its doors for a major renovation and refurbishment. Shari prayed fervently they wouldn’t change a thing.

  The bathroom alone was an oasis of tranquillity, though she nearly freaked when she saw herself in the mirrors. Her face was blotchy, the tip of her nose red from all the bawling, and her mascara reminiscent of a bad Hallowe’en hangover. She looked a fright. How could Luc have wanted to kiss her?

  She repaired the damage with the emergency kit at the bottom of her bag. Then, refreshed and reconstituted, she floated to join him in the restaurant. After all the emotion, she’d arrived on a tremulous smiley plateau where everything looked hazily beautiful. Especially the dark-eyed man drinking coffee and texting someone on his mobile.

  Kill that thought. After all she’d gone through over him, was she to just fall into his arms? Was it always to be the same old thing? Shari Lacey, unable to resist a handsome Frenchman? Another one she knew little about and would be insane to trust?

  He glanced up as she approached and his eyes shimmered, inciting an excited clench in her insides. Then, just to mess with her defences, he rose and pulled out a chair for her.