by Julia James
I’ve been set free!
That was what it felt like. As if she had been set free from all the complications that had been tearing into her like claws and teeth ever since she’d surfaced that morning, realizing what she’d done. What she—Sarah, not Sabine—had done. And now... Oh, now, it didn’t matter—didn’t matter who she was.
Max understood—understood the entire impossibility of what had been tying her in knots for days now, ever since Bastiaan Karavalas had walked into her life.
Right man—wrong time.
But no more—not for a precious handful of glorious, wonderful, liberating days.
I can do what I’ve been longing to do—what I succumbed to doing last night. This man alone is different from any I’ve ever known. What happened last night was a revelation, a transformation.
She quivered with the memory of their passion as he started the car, gunning the engine. She turned to look at him, her eyes as bright as stars.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
She had asked that last night and he had taken her to a new, glittering realm of enchantment and desire, passion and fulfilment.
‘My villa,’ he answered, his eyes warm upon her before he glanced back to steer the car out of the little town, along the road that curved towards the Cap.
Gladness filled her. The apartment in Monte Carlo was glitzy and glamorous, but it did nothing for her. It was his villa that charmed her.
‘Wonderful...’ she breathed. She felt as light as air, floating way, way up into the sky—the carefree, bright blue sky, where there were no complications to tether her down.
I’m free from everything except seizing with both hands this time now! Right man—right time. Right now!
Her spirits soared, and it seemed they were at the villa in minutes. For a brief interlude Sarah felt self-conscious about encountering Paulette again. If the woman had considered her a threat to Philip, what might she think of her cavorting with her employer? But Paulette, she discovered, had a day off.
‘So we’ll have to make our own lunch,’ Bastiaan told her.
He didn’t want to make lunch—he wanted to make love. But his stomach was growling. He was hungry. Hungry for food, hungry for her. He would sate both appetites and life would be good. Very good.
He had Sabine back with him, and right now that was all he wanted.
As he headed towards the kitchen he glanced out of the French windows to the terrace beyond. Only a few days ago they had lunched there, all three of them—he and Sabine and Philip.
It seemed a long time ago.
* * *
‘So...’ Bastiaan set down his empty coffee cup on the ironwork table on the villa’s shady terrace and leant back in his chair, his eyes resting on Sabine. ‘What shall we do now?’
The expression in his eyes made it totally clear what he would like to do—he’d sated his hunger for food, and now he wanted to sate a quite different hunger.
Across from him, Sarah felt her pulse give a kick—when Bastiaan looked at her like that it was hard to respond in any other way. Lunch had been idyllic. Simple charcuterie and fromage, with huge scarlet tomatoes and more of the luscious peaches they’d had the other day. It had felt a little odd to be here again, receiving such intimacy from Bastiaan.
Has it really happened? Am I really here with Bastiaan, and are we lovers?
But it was true—it really was—and for the rest of this glorious week it could go on being true.
A rich, sensuous languor swept through her as his gaze twined with hers. A wicked sparkle glinted in her own.
‘The pool looks irresistible...’ she murmured provocatively.
She almost heard him growl with frustration, but gallantly he nodded. ‘It does indeed—especially with you in it.’ His eyes glinted too. ‘Do you want me to guide you back to the room you changed in last time? Or—’ and now there was even more of a wickedly intimate glint in his eyes ‘—shall we dispense with swimsuits altogether?’
She laughed in answer, and disappeared off to change. Maybe they could go skinny-dipping at night, under the stars...?
The water was wonderfully refreshing, and so was Bastiaan’s company. There was a lot of playful frolicking, and from her more covert—and not so covert—appreciation of his strong, muscled physique. A thrill went through her. For now—for this brief, precious time—he was hers. How wonderful was that?
Very wonderful—and more than wonderful: incredible.
It was incredible when, on retiring to the bedroom in the villa to shower in the en-suite bathroom, she discovered Bastiaan could wait no longer.
He stepped inside the shower, hands slicking down her wet, tingling body. She gasped in shock and then in arousal as skilfully, urgently and devastatingly he took possession of her. As her legs wrapped around him and he lifted her up her head fell back in ecstasy, and it seemed to her that she had been transformed into a different person. A person who was neither the sultry Sabine nor the soprano Sarah, but someone whose only existence was to meld herself with this incredible, sensual male, to fuse her body with his, to burn with him in an explosion of physical pleasure and delight.
Afterwards, as they stood exhausted, with the cooling water streaming over them, her breath coming in hectic pants, he cut the shower, reached for huge fleecy towels and wrapped her up as if she were a precious parcel.
He let his hands rest over her damp shoulders, his eyes pouring down into hers. ‘What do you do to me?’ he asked. There was a strange quality in his voice, a strange expression in his dark eyes.
She let her forehead rest on his chest, the huge lassitude of the aftermath of passion consuming her now. She could not answer him for it was a question that was in her own being too.
He swung her up into his arms, carried her through into the bedroom, lowering her down upon the cool cotton coverlet, coming down beside her. He drew her into his sheltering embrace, kissed her nape with soft, velvet kisses. And then exhausted, sated, complete, they slept.
When they awoke they made love again, slowly and softly, taking their time—all the time in the world—in the shuttered late-afternoon light of the cool room. And this time Bastiaan brought her to a different kind of ecstasy—a slow, blissful release that flowed through her body like sweet water after drought.
Afterwards they lay a little while in each other’s loose embrace, and then Bastiaan lifted his head from the pillow.
‘I know,’ he told her, ‘a great way to watch the sunset.’
It was indeed, Sarah discovered, a wonderful way to watch the sunset.
He took her out to sea in a fast, sleek motor launch that they boarded from the little quay at the rocky shore below the villa. Exhilaration filled her as Bastiaan carved a foaming wake in the darkening cobalt water, the sun low on the surface, turning the Mediterranean to gold as it kissed the swell.
He cut the engine, letting the silence settle around them, and she sat next to him, his arm casually around her shoulder, his body warm against hers. She could feel the gentle bob of the waves beneath the hull, feel the warmth of the sun on her face as she lifted it to its lingering rays. It was as if they were the only people in the world. Here out on the water, with Bastiaan’s arm around her, she felt as if all that lay beyond had ceased to be.
Here there were no complications.
Here there was only Bastiaan.
What is happening to me?
The question wound in her mind between the circuits of her thoughts, seeking an answer she was not ready to find. It was far easier simply to go on sitting there, with the warm air like an embrace, the hugeness of the sea all around them, the rich gold of the setting sun illuminating them. This—now—was good. This was all she wanted. This was her contentment.
They headed back to shore in the gathering dusk.
‘Would you like to eat out or at the villa?’ Bastiaan asked.
‘Oh, don’t go out,’ she said immediately. Then frowned. ‘But I’m not very good at cooking, and
I don’t want you to have to...’ she said uncertainly. Could a man like Bastiaan Karavalas really cook a meal?
He gave a laugh. ‘We’ll have something delivered,’ he told her. ‘What would you like?’
‘Pizza?’ she suggested.
He laughed again. ‘Oh, I think we can do better than that,’ he said.
And indeed they could.
On the Côte d’Azur, when money was no object, it seemed that gourmet meals could be conjured out of thin air.
As she took her place at the table on the terrace, in the warm evening air, it was to discover that a team of servers had arrived from a nearby Michelin-starred restaurant and were setting out their exquisite wares.
She and Bastiaan had already shared a glass of champagne before the meal arrived, and she felt its effervescence in her veins. Now, as the team from the restaurant departed, Bastiaan lifted a glass of rich, ruby Burgundy.
‘To our time together,’ he said. It was the same toast he’d given the night before, at Le Tombleur.
Sarah raised her own glass.
Our time together...these few precious days...
She felt emotion pluck at her.
From his seat, Bastiaan rested his eyes on her. She looked nothing like she had the night before when they had dined. And he was glad of it. She was wearing a pale blue kimono that he had found in a closet. In sheerest silk, it was knotted at the waist and had wide sleeves, a plunging neckline that gave the merest hint of the sweet swell of her breasts. Her glorious hair was loose, cascading down her back. She wore no make-up. Needed not a scrap of it.
How beautiful she is. How much I desire her!
He tried to remember why it was he had seduced her. Tried to remember his fears for Philip. Tried to remember how he had determined to foil her machinations. But his memory seemed dim. Flawed.
As he gazed on her they seemed unreal, those fears. Absurd...
Did I misjudge her?
That was the question that uncoiled itself in his mind. The question that pressed itself against his consciousness. The question which, with every passing moment he spent with her, seemed more and more...unnecessary.
Thoughts flitted through his mind. What evidence, after all, was there against her? Oh, Philip was lovestruck—that was undeniable. His every yearning gaze told Bastiaan that. But what of her? What of her behaviour towards Philip?
I thought her nothing more than a blatant gold-digger—trying to exploit Philip’s youth and vulnerability. But is she—was she?
I thought that she had blatantly switched her attentions to me—had manoeuvred me to get rid of Philip from the scene.
But why, then, had she been so reluctant to go with him when he’d sought her out on his return from Paris? And why had she fled from him in his apartment that first morning? If she’d been no better than he’d thought her, wanting him for his wealth, she should have clung to him like glue. Not wept by the quayside while he’d searched so urgently for her.
Was that the behaviour of the woman he’d thought her to be? It couldn’t be—it just couldn’t.
There is no evidence against her. From the very start she has confounded my suspicions of her—time after time. All I have to go on, other than my fears for Philip, is that payment that he made.
That was the truth of it. Had he been conjecturing everything else about her? Feeding his suspicions simply because he’d wanted to protect his young cousin? He took a breath, fixed his eyes on her as she lifted her wine glass to answer his toast, looked across at him and smiled—her eyes like incandescent jewels, rich and glowing.
Emotion leapt in him, and in his head he heard his own voice, searing across his thoughts.
There could be an explanation for why Philip paid out that money. All I have to do is ask him. There is no reason—none—to fear that it was to Sabine. She could be completely innocent of the suspicions I’ve had of her.
As innocent as he wanted her to be. Wanted so much for her to be...
‘To us,’ he said, and let his eyes mingle and meld with hers—the eyes of this woman who could be everything he wanted her to be. And nothing he did not.
From this moment on he would not let his fears, his suspicions, poison him. Would not let anything spoil his enjoyment of this moment, this time with her.
* * *
And nothing did—that was the bliss of it. Cocooned with her at the villa, he made love to her by day and by night—and every time it took him by storm. A storm not only of the senses but of something more.
What is it you do to me?
That was the question that came every time she lay cradled in his arms, her head on his chest, her arm like a silken bond around his waist, her body warm and flushed with passion spent.
The question had no answer—and soon he did not seek an answer. Soon he was content simply to let the hours pass with her. Time came and went, the sun rose and set, the stars wheeled in the clear sky each night as they lay out on the pool loungers, gazing upwards, hand in hand, the cool midnight breeze whispering over their bodies, the moon rising to cast its silver light upon them.
Who was this woman? Bastiaan asked of himself, thinking of all that he knew of her. It no longer seemed to matter. Not any more.
Sometimes he caught fragments of her life—a passing mention of the garden at a house in Normandy where, so he surmised, she must have grown up. The climate and the terrain so different from this sun-baked southern shore. Once he tried to draw her out about her singing, but she only shook her head and changed the subject with a smile, a kiss.
Nor did she talk to him about his life—only asked him about Greece. How it was to live there, with so much history, the history of millennia, pressing all around him. Of how he made his money, his wealth, she never spoke. She seemed quite oblivious to it. She did not ask to leave the villa—was content to spend each day within its confining beauty.
Meals were delivered, or concocted by them both—simple, hearty food, from salads and charcuterie to pasta and barbecues, prepared with much laughter and consumed with appetite. An appetite that afterwards turned to passion for each other.
I didn’t know it would be like this—having Sabine with me. I didn’t think it would be this...this good.
He tried to think back to a time when it had not been like this—when Sabine had not been with him, when all he’d had were his fears for Philip, his suspicions of her. But it seemed very far away—blurring in his head. Fading more and more with each hour. All that mattered to him now was being as they were now, lying side by side beneath the stars, hand in hand.
He felt her thumb move sensuously, lightly over his as their clasped hands hung loosely between them. He turned his head towards her, away from the moon above. She was gazing across at him, her face dim in the moonlight, her eyes resting on him. There was a softness in her face, in her eyes...
‘Bastiaan...’ Her voice was low, a sweet caress.
His eyes found hers. Desire reached into his veins. He drew her to her feet and wound his fingers into hers. Speared his hand into her hair, let his mouth find hers.
Passion, strong and sweet and true, flared at his touch. Drove them indoors to find each other, again, and yet again, in this perfect, blissful time they had together.
CHAPTER NINE
‘MY PENSION IS just there,’ Sarah said, pointing to the corner of the street. ‘I won’t be five minutes.’
Bastiaan pulled the car over to the kerb and she dashed inside. She wanted to change into something pretty for the day. They were finally emerging from the villa, and Bastiaan was set on taking her to a place he was amazed she hadn’t seen yet.
The picturesque little town of St Paul de Vence, up in the hills behind the coastline, was famous as a place frequented by artists. She was happy enough to go there—happy enough to be anywhere in the world right now, providing Bastiaan was with her and she with him.
Bastiaan. Oh, the name soared in her head, echoed deep inside her. She was seizing all that he was holding out t
o her so that there was nothing else except being with him, day after precious day, night after searing night.
It’s as if I were asleep and he has woken me. Woken my senses, set them alight.
In her head, in her heart, emotion hovered like a fragile bubble, iridescent and glistening with light and colour. A bubble she longed to seize but dared not—not now, not yet. But it filled her being, made her breathless with delight, with joy. Joy that brought a smile to her face now, as she ran into the pension, eager to be as quick as possible so she could re-join Bastiaan without delay.
Five minutes later she was running down the stairs again, pausing only to snatch at the mail in her room’s pigeonhole, dropping the envelopes into her handbag before emerging out onto the roadway. She jumped into the car and off they set.
Bastiaan’s gaze was warm upon her before he focussed on the way ahead.
She’s changed her image yet again, he found himself thinking. This one he liked particularly, he decided. Her hair was in a long plait, her make-up no more than a touch of mascara and lip gloss, and her skin had been warmed by the sun of the past few days to a golden honey. Her outfit was a pretty floral calf-length sundress in pale blue and yellow. She looked fresh and summery and beautiful.
And his. Oh, most definitely, definitely his!
Emotion surged within him. What it was, he didn’t know—and didn’t care. Knew only that it felt good—so good...
The route out of the ville took them past the nightclub where she sang. As they drove by he saw her throw it a sideways glance, almost looking at it askance, before turning swiftly away. He was glad to have passed it too—did not want to think about it. It jarred with everything that was filling him now.
He shook his head, as if to clear it of unwelcome thoughts. At the villa, safe in its cocoon, the outside world had seemed far, far away. All that belonged in it far, far away.
Well, he would not think of it. He would think only of the day ahead of them. A day to be spent in togetherness, on an excursion, with lunch in a beautiful place, a scenic drive through the hinterland behind the coast.