One of their best employees had suffered a fatal heart attack. “I’ll be attending as no doubt will some of the members of the family.”
“Shall I arrange to get flowers sent?”
“I’ve already taken care of it, Félix.”
He nodded. “Was your trip to Switzerland successful?”
“Very.” Raoul was elated that Abby had come to Burgundy with him and was staying in the petit château a short distance away. Tomorrow he’d show her the piece written by Byron and get that out of the way. Then they’d take advantage of the time to love each other. He was living for that.
“Go on home to your wife and take the day off tomorrow. You deserve it.”
Félix blinked, which wasn’t surprising. Raoul had never been in love until now. The feelings he was experiencing now defied description and his secretary sensed it.
Raoul left the domaine headquarters for home. Since the deaths of his wife and child, he’d moved out of the grand château to a small, vacant cottage on the property he’d had renovated to suit him. He liked the distance it gave him from the family. It had allowed him to grieve in private for losing his daughter and for not loving his wife the way he should have.
From the day he’d married her, his emotions had been raw with regret for their marriage, which should never have taken place. It had torn him apart. Yet the guilt he’d always felt because he’d never wanted Angélique, hadn’t stopped him from bringing Abby here now. It seemed a betrayal, but he couldn’t suppress his desire to be with her as he hurried to the cottage to shower and change for dinner.
Of course word had gotten out that he was back. While he was dressing in a silky sport shirt and trousers, he had four phone calls. One from his parents, one from his sister, plus two others from his Aunt Abeline and her son, Gilles. He knew exactly what the latter two wanted. This was one time he decided to have it out with his cousin.
“Bonsoir, Gilles.”
“Sorry to bother you when you just got back, but Maman wants to know what’s happened to the Floraison property.”
Abeline wasn’t the only one interested. Gilles, divorced and low on funds, wanted it for himself. Once he got it, he’d sell it and gamble away the money. “I’m afraid it’s been sold.”
“What? When she hears that, she won’t stand for it.”
Gilles was as transparent as glass. “She’ll have to.”
“Then she’ll get an attorney and fight you.”
“It won’t matter. The attorney of record followed Auguste’s will to the letter. No member of the Decorvet family can be the new buyer. I only went to Switzerland to arrange for a few of Auguste’s things to be shipped back to the estate. Tell her that when you talk to her. Since I’m in a hurry, it will save my having to call her back. Au revoir, Gilles.”
The calls to his parents and Josette could wait. Since he’d become a widower, the one thing on their minds was to force him into a marriage with Solange. With the help of her father, they all assumed it was a fait accompli in the making. How little they knew what went on inside Raoul...
Without hesitation, he rang Abby who answered on the second ring. “Raoul?”
“Sorry I’ve been longer than an hour.”
“It’s all right. I realize you’ve come home to business.”
“I’m through dealing with the emergencies. If you’re ready, I’ll pick you up in front of your accommodations.”
“Not there—I took a walk past some of the vineyards beyond the pond while I was waiting. I’m starting back now and will watch for you on the main drive.”
“I’ll find you. What kind of dinner are you in the mood for?”
“Surprise me with the type of local food you enjoy.”
He’d never met a woman with a nature like hers. Abby was charming, educated, bright, funny and so damn attractive. But she was planning to fly to Italy after she’d seen the notebook.
The thought of her going anywhere was anathema to him. But he needed to be careful. He knew she didn’t trust him completely yet. The sooner she saw what she’d come to see, the sooner he could carry out his plans for them to explore what could be between them.
After hanging up, he left the cottage and walked around the back to get in his ten-year-old black Jaguar. He preferred to take the convertible on trips, but used his older car around the village for business.
When he caught up to her, Abby had walked quite a distance on her long, slender legs. Though the sky had clouded over, she stood out from her surroundings. Raoul’s gaze took in the sheen of her silky blond hair, which the breeze had disheveled. His eyes couldn’t help but follow her womanly shape clothed in a sundress that looked made for her.
He slowed down when he reached her. At first she stared at the car without recognition. “Have you changed your mind about dinner?”
Then her eyes, green and alive, met his. In that moment he knew she was excited to see him.
“Oh—it’s you!” She hurried around and got in the car, bringing the scent of her strawberry shampoo fragrance with her. “I didn’t know you had another car. I love the British pronunciation of this one. Jag-u-ar. You must think I’m crazy. I don’t know why I like the sounds of certain words. It’s a quirk of mine.”
Raoul didn’t think she was crazy. “I like your quirks.” He turned the car around and they drove out of the estate beyond the gate to the road that would take them into the village. It was then he heard a sigh from her that sounded troubled. “What’s wrong?”
“Not wrong, but there’s something I should tell you.”
He knew it. The last twenty-four hours had been too good to be true. “I presume you had a phone call from your friends. They think I’ve preyed on you and now you believe it.”
“That’s not it,” she muttered.
He pulled over to the side of the road. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you never once wondered if I’d been lying to you?”
She moistened her lips nervously. “No. I believed you.”
“Then let’s start again. Something’s bothering you. Have you decided you don’t want to stay here after all?”
Her head turned in his direction. “Anyone who didn’t want to stay here would have to be comatose.”
“But?”
“While I was walking by the pond, I met your brother.”
A grimace marred his features. That was all he had to hear to understand.
“He said he thought I’d come to the estate with a buyer and offered to show me around while I waited. I thanked him, but told him I was waiting for you. His shocked reaction surprised me.”
Abby’s instincts were right on. His brother wouldn’t have believed Raoul had invited a woman to come to the estate for personal reasons. He knew Raoul had been in mourning since the funeral.
Jean-Marc would be inordinately curious over what was going on. It was only natural that his brother would have taken one look at Abby and decided to make her his next conquest.
“What did you tell him?”
“I gave him my name and told him I was a tourist from California. He wanted to know how we met. I told him it was in Switzerland, but of course I didn’t say anything else.”
“I hope he didn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“No.” She was searching for the right words. “He just seemed...caught off guard and curious.”
“That’s his nature.” But the knowledge that Raoul had invited Abby here was one bombshell his brother wouldn’t have seen coming in a million years. Like the rest of the family, Jean-Marc always wanted to know Raoul’s personal business and tried to anticipate his next move. His grandparents were the exception.
“Is he older or younger than you?”
Raoul wanted to get off the subject. “He’s twenty-nine, younger than me by a year.”
“Almost like twins.”
“Not quite.�
�� Jean-Marc and Gilles were the ones who resembled each other in certain behaviors. “Let’s just say we have a difficult history and let it go at that.” He gripped the wheel tighter and drove back on to the road.
“Where are you taking us?”
Raoul gave her another sideward glance. “Any place to get away from the claustrophobic world I live in.”
“I guess you can get claustrophobic in a château the size of yours, or a one room dwelling, depending on the company.”
Abby was incredibly easy to talk to.
The Petite Auberge Blanche served a good meal he thought she’d like. He pulled into the parking and escorted her inside the busy establishment, cupping her elbow. The owner knew him from boyhood.
His eyes rounded in surprise because Raoul hadn’t brought in a woman since long before his wife’s death. The older man, all smiles, showed them to a table outside on the terrace where a group was playing the kind of soft rock music that catered to tourists. Some were dancing. He sent a waiter over to take their orders and serve them the house wine.
Since touching her, Raoul needed more physical contact. “Would you like to dance?”
“I’m not very good at it.”
He was getting used to her refusing him, but it wasn’t going to work. “At least in this case you don’t need a life preserver. Just hold on to me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SOMEHOW RAOUL GOT his way with Abby because she’d fallen headlong in love with him. There was no way to avoid what was right in front of her. When she felt his arms go around her, all coherent thought ceased.
Though she needed to fight her attraction to him, when he pulled her against him, she enjoyed it too much. She stood five-seven in her low wedges and felt made for him as he moved her around the floor with his face resting in her hair.
No man could equal Raoul in looks or demeanor. Though his expensive charcoal silk shirt and black trousers distinguished him from the other males in the restaurant, it was the very essence of him that caused every female to follow him with their eyes.
His solid, powerful legs brushed against hers, sending curls of desire through her body. That’s when the alarm bells went off. She didn’t dare let this go on for fear everyone in the room could see they needed more privacy.
“The waiter has brought out our food, Raoul,” she whispered. “We’d better go back to the table before it gets cold.”
His hands tightened on her upper arms before he relinquished his hold on her, as if he didn’t want to let her go. She hadn’t wanted this to stop either.
He walked her back to the table laden with their meal: escargot, baked duck in honey, skewered pork tenderloin marinated in red pesto with sweet chorizo, creamy risotto and apple tart for dessert.
“Are you trying to fatten me up?” she teased later to keep things on a lighter note. The band had taken a break that stopped any dancing for a little while.
His gaze narrowed on her features. “If it keeps you happy.”
She paused before taking another sip of wine. “You think I’m not?”
“I know you’re waiting to see that notebook. We’ll visit my grandparents tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d like to show you a part of the château that might interest you.”
That probably meant they’d be together alone. Abby put the goblet down with a trembling hand. “I’d like that.”
His touch was electric as he walked her back to the car.
Raoul didn’t speak while they drove to the estate and passed through the gate. Instead of parking in front of the petit château, he took another route that circled around the grand château. They wound up at a back entrance.
“I’ve brought you to my office, one of two places on the estate where I have completely privacy. The other is the cottage where I live.” He helped her out of the car.
“You don’t stay in the château?”
“Not anymore. After the funeral, I needed to live strictly alone.”
“I can understand that,” she whispered. He and his wife must have had a great love. At times the memories had to torture him.
He opened the door and let them inside. “This room was once known as le Salon de Dionysos, the Greek god of wine. For a hundred years it was used during the yearly vendange, what you would call the grape harvest. But last year I claimed it for my Saint des Saints.”
“What does that mean?”
“I believe you refer to it as your inner sanctum.”
Abby liked the sound of it in French. After he turned on a few lights, she started to walk around the huge vaulted room. She was speechless. It had been modernized to create a state-of-the-art office with comfortable furniture.
But everywhere she looked on the walls and ceilings were colorful scenes of the famous god riding on the back of a panther or walking through a pine forest with an ivy wreath on his curly head. In another section Dionysus was being pulled in a chariot by a pair of beasts.
She rolled her eyes at him. “This room is so spectacular I don’t see how you get any work done. When you were a little boy, you must have been in heaven running around in here. I don’t have to see the rest of the château to know it has to be one of Burgundy’s treasures.”
He’d been checking information on his computer. “A costly one. Last year France’s grape harvest was among the smallest in thirty years, down ten percent from the year before.”
She frowned. “That has to be troubling news to every vintner.”
“Especially for those who haven’t modernized. For the last ten years I’ve been navigating through the high-tech investments necessary to keep this place going. When I lift my eyes, the decor in here keeps me grounded to my roots and reminds me of what is important.”
“Taking care of your family means you carry a heavy weight on your shoulders.” Plus the terrible personal tragedy that had to have been so devastating for him.
“I’m not complaining. I simply want us to understand each other better.”
So did Abby who didn’t know nearly enough about him. She walked over to one of the upholstered chairs near the massive fireplace and sat down.
Raoul’s black eyes gleamed in the soft light as he moved toward her and perched on the end of the couch next to her. “I realize you don’t trust me yet.”
“We hardly know each other.”
“I’m afraid I’ve expected too much from you.”
For him to admit to any vulnerability came as a complete surprise. “Now I’m going to ask you what’s wrong.”
He made a strange sound in his throat. “I shouldn’t have brought you to the estate.”
Her breath caught. “Because there’s no notebook after all?”
In the next instant Raoul’s hand shot out to cover hers. “You know there is,” his voice grated. “And you know that’s not what I meant!” A tiny nerve throbbed at the corner of his compelling mouth.
“I’m sorry I said that.”
“You had every right. Would it shock you if I told you I wanted to bring you back with me from the moment I saw you sitting on the bench at the train station? But life on the estate is like living in a fish bowl. I would spare you that if I could.”
“Well, that can be easily remedied,” she said to hide the sudden stab of pain she knew he hadn’t inflicted on purpose. “I’ll stay at a hotel in the village tonight and leave for Venice tomorrow as planned.”
“Without seeing the poem you came to look at?”
“Raoul—you’re confusing me. Do I seem that emotionally fragile to you?”
He removed his hand and shook his dark, handsome head. “Of course not. But there’s an untouched purity about you I can’t put into words.”
“Pure—that’s the way you see me?”
“You’re the most real woman I’ve ever met. No pretense or affectation. I don’t want that unique quality of yours
to be blighted because of your relationship with me.”
“Spoken like a vintner,” she said to lighten his mood, but it didn’t work. “We don’t have a relationship, Raoul.”
“But we could have one,” he fired back. “I’ve told you about Angélique and the baby, but you haven’t shared a word about yourself. Is that because there’s someone else waiting for you when you return to the States? A man who wouldn’t like it to know you were here with me?”
She lifted her eyes. “No. No one.”
He raked a hand through his black hair. “Even if there isn’t, there have to have been many men who wanted a relationship with you.”
“Many?” She shook her head. “I’ve known two men whom I thought I could marry.”
“Why didn’t either of them work out?”
“When I was twenty and an undergraduate, I met a guy called Jim while on vacation in Carmel. He was a fun and easy-going cowboy from Nevada who lived on a cattle ranch. I eventually met his family and spent some time with him there. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t see myself adapting to the life he adored. It was obvious I didn’t love him enough.”
Raoul cocked his dark head. “You were young.”
“True. Four years later I met Nigel, a visiting professor from Cambridge, England. We worked together for two semesters. I fell in love with his accent first.”
Raoul smiled. “One of your quirks.”
“Yes, then I fell for him. He was brilliant and fascinating and wanted to marry me. Right before Christmas break we were planning a spring wedding. While he was teaching a class, a woman came in to his office. She claimed to be his wife and showed me pictures of the two of them with their children.
“Needless to say, I told him I never wanted to see him again. You don’t need to know how ugly it was. But after that experience, I don’t want to be hurt again like that. Not ever.”
“I’m sorry you’ve been through that kind of pain,” he murmured in a voice filled with a compassion she felt through to her insides. “Is that how you ended up in Switzerland?”
She looked up and searched Raoul’s eyes. “When I went to the head of the department and asked for a leave of absence, he told me I could do some research for Magda until the summer, and that brought me to Switzerland.”
Captivated by the Brooding Billionaire Page 6