by Lynne Graham
Star froze. The pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place. Juno had borrowed from Emilie, not from a bank!
‘And now Juno’s vanished. Are you going to tell me where she is?’
‘I don’t know where she is…’ Horrified by what she was now finding out, Star spun away in an uncoordinated movement.
As she reconsidered the message which Juno had left on the answering machine, her temples tightened with tension. Now she knew why her parent had fled the country at such speed. And no wonder Juno hadn’t explained the nature of the ‘hot water’ she was in! Her mother would have known just how shocked and disgusted her daughter would be at her behaviour.
Juno had lied by omission, deliberately concealing the fact that her loan had come from Emilie. Had Star had the smallest suspicion that Emilie was considering backing the art gallery venture, she would have stepped in and stopped it happening. But how could Emilie have been so naive? Emilie was neither rich nor foolish. So why on earth had she risked her own security to loan money to a woman she hardly knew?
‘You’re not prepared to rat on Juno, are you?’ Luc condemned harshly.
‘I’m not in a position to!’ Star protested.
Luc studied her with hard, dark eyes. ‘Emilie has been left without a sou.’
‘Oh…no!’ Distress and shame filled Star to overflowing. She loved Emilie Auber very much. That her own mother should have accepted Emilie’s money and then run away sooner than deal with the fall-out when things went wrong truly appalled Star.
But she had one minor comfort. Luc would not allow Emilie to suffer. He would replace her lost funds without question or hesitation. His reputation for ruthless financial dealing would not get in the way of his soft spot for the kindly older woman. Juno would have known that too, Star reflected bitterly. Was that how her mother had justified herself when she had borrowed money which Emilie could ill afford to offer?
‘If you tell me where Juno has gone, I might begin to believe that you have nothing to do with this disgraceful business,’ Luc murmured very softly.
‘I told you…I don’t know!’ Star flung him a shimmering glance of feverish anxiety. ‘How could I have anything to do with this? How could you even think that I would have encouraged Emilie to loan money to my mother?’
‘Why not?’ Luc dealt her a grim appraisal. ‘Aside of that one visit you made with your mother in the spring, Emilie has neither seen nor heard anything from you since you left France. That doesn’t suggest any great affection on your side of the fence, does it, mon ange?’
Star braced slender hands on the scrubbed pine table and stiffened with instant resentment at that accusation. But she could not admit that she had maintained regular contact with Emilie without christening Emilie a liar for pretending otherwise to Luc.
‘I can’t believe that you think I could’ve been involved in this in any way,’ Star reasserted with determined spirit.
‘You’re not that innocent. How could you be? You’re Juno’s daughter. And living like this…’ Luc cast a speaking glance round the bare kitchen. ‘It must’ve been very tempting to think up a way of hitting back at me.’
‘I don’t think like that—’
‘Your mother does. She hates my family. Emilie may only be a cousin of my late father’s, but she is still a member of my family.’
‘Luc…I wouldn’t let anyone harm Emilie in any way!’ Star argued frantically.
‘So why did you introduce her to Juno?’
‘Why wouldn’t I have? Emilie had always wanted to meet her. I could never have dreamt Juno would ask her for a loan, or that Emilie would even consider giving her money!’
Star raised unsteady hands and pressed them against her taut face in a gesture of frustration. Why would Emilie have loaned money to Juno when she knew that Juno was hopeless with money? It didn’t make sense.
‘Do you want to know why Emilie gave your mother that money?’
Star nodded slowly.
‘Emilie thought that if the gallery got off the ground, you would move up to London and live with Juno. Emilie was hoping to see more of you.’
Every scrap of remaining colour drained from beneath Star’s skin. She twisted away on driven feet, her face stricken. She wanted to cover her ears from Luc’s derisive tone of condemnation. She also wanted to get her hands on her irresponsible, flighty parent and shake her until her teeth rattled in her pretty blonde head.
‘I hold you responsible for all of this,’ Luc delivered in cold completion.
Star’s slight shoulders bowed. ‘I honestly didn’t know about the loan—’
‘I don’t believe you. When you first saw me this evening, your guilty conscience betrayed you.’ Luc strolled fluidly towards the door. ‘Since I’m not getting any satisfaction here, I’ll go to the police.’
Star whirled round, aquamarine eyes aghast. ‘Luc…no…please don’t do that!’
Luc shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘“Please” doesn’t work with me any more. I want blood. I want Juno. If you can’t deliver her, I’m just wasting my time, and I don’t like people who waste my time.’
‘If I knew where she was, I’d tell you…I swear I would!’ Star gasped, hurrying across the expanse of worn slate floor that separated them.
‘No, you wouldn’t. You’d protect her. You’d hide her from me—’
‘No…If she got in touch…’ Star snatched in a shuddering breath, her eyes overbright with unshed tears. ‘I’d tell you. I swear I would. I wouldn’t like doing it, but what Juno’s done to Emilie hurts and angers me very much. My mother was in the wrong—’
‘The police can deal with her. I’ve got enough to hang her with.’
‘No…you can’t do that!’ Involuntarily, she stretched out her hand and pulled at his arm in an attempt to hold him back as he opened the door that led into the passageway.
Luc gazed down at her, eyes glittering black and cold as ice in warning. ‘Don’t touch me…’
Her throat closed over. Her fingers dropped jerkily from his sleeve. She trembled in shock, a mortified wave of hot colour sweeping up her throat. For an instant, she sank like a stone into a bottomless pit of remembered rejection. Their wedding night, which Luc had spent with his beautiful mistress. The unbelievable anguish of loving without return. In a split second she relived it all, aquamarine eyes darkening with pain and veiling.
‘I’ll crucify Juno in court and I’ll divorce you,’ Luc murmured with velvet-soft sibilance.
‘Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg?’ Star flung at him wildly.
Luc raised a withering aristocratic dark brow.
‘I’ll do anything—’
‘Begging doesn’t excite me.’
Startled by that husky assurance, Star lifted her head and looked up at him again. Luc gave her a dark smile, brilliant eyes shimmering beneath his lush black lashes. Heat curled low in the pit of her stomach, jolting her. She quivered, drawn like a moth to a flame.
‘But then I like my women tall and blonde and rather more sophisticated,’ Luc completed with dulcet cool.
Star flinched, stomach turning over at that lethal retaliation.
In the simmering silence the door at the foot of the dim passageway was suddenly thrust noisily wide. Rory strode in, carrying several bulging supermarket carrier bags. He came to a halt with a startled frown. ‘Sorry. When you didn’t hear me knock, I tried the door. I didn’t realise you had company.’
Disconcerted by Rory’s appearance, Star breathed in deep. ‘Rory, this is Luc…Luc Sarrazin. He’s just leaving—’
‘Like hell I will,’ Luc incised, half under his breath, still as a statue now by her side.
Not believing her ears at that intervention, Star glanced at her estranged husband in astonishment.
‘Luc…?’ The bags of groceries in Rory’s hands slid down onto the stone floor as he released his grip on them. ‘You’re…you’re Star’s husband?’
Luc ignored him. His attention was on Star.
‘Does he live here?’
‘No, I don’t,’ Rory stated curtly.
Luc turned his arrogant head back to study Rory. ‘Fiches le camp…get out of here!’
‘I’m not leaving unless Star asks me to…’ The younger man stood his ground.
‘If you stay, I’ll rearrange your face,’ Luc asserted with cool, unapologetic provocation.
‘Stop it, Luc!’ Star was aghast at Luc’s unashamed aggression.
Luc angled back his proud dark head and lounged back against the doorframe like a big powerful jungle cat ready to spring. ‘Stop what?’
‘What’s got into you?’ Star demanded in hot embarrassment.
‘This little punk got my wife pregnant and you dare to ask me that?’ Luc launched back at her, his husky accent scissoring over every syllable with raw incredulity.
‘Rory is not the father of my children!’ Star slammed back at him shakily.
Rory shot a thoroughly bemused look at both of them.
Luc had stilled again. His nostrils flared. His breath escaped in an audible hiss of reaction at that news. ‘So how many experiments did it take?’ he derided in disgust.
Star was ashen pale. She said nothing. Turning away, she closed a taut hand over Rory’s arm and walked him back outside. ‘I’m sorry about this, but it’s better if you go for now. Luc and I need to talk, sort some things,’ she explained tightly.
‘Obviously you haven’t told him about the twins yet.’
‘No…but he wants a divorce,’ she heard herself advance, because she was too ashamed to tell Rory what her mother had done to Emilie.
Rory sighed. ‘Probably the best thing in the circumstances. He seems a pretty aggressive character. I couldn’t see you ever being happy with someone like that.’
Happy? She almost laughed. What was happy? Being separated in every way from Luc had been like living in a void. It hadn’t cured her. Forcing a brittle smile, Star said, ‘Tomorrow, I’m going to have a row with you about buying food for us.’
Closing the back door again, she leant against the solid wood, mustering all her strength. She had assumed that Luc had gone back into the kitchen. So as she moved back in that direction she was surprised to see that the twins’ bedroom door had been pressed more fully open.
Luc was poised several feet from the foot of the cots. Venus was curled on her side, an adorable thatch of copper curls screening her tiny face. Mars was flat on his back, silky dark hair fringing his sleep-flushed features, one anxious hand gripping the little bunny rattle which he never liked to get too far from him.
‘They’re what? Five…six months old?’ Luc queried without an ounce of emotion.
After the number of setbacks the twins had weathered, they were still quite small for their age. Star studied her children with her heart in her eyes, thanking God as she did every time she came into this room that they had both finally been able to come home to her, whole and healthy. She glanced from under her lashes at Luc. His bold dark profile was grim.
‘Would you have liked them to be yours?’ she heard herself whisper foolishly.
‘Tu plaisantes!’
You must be joking! Star reddened fiercely at that retort. What a stupid question to ask! Instead of asking it, she should just have told him the truth. Whether Luc liked it or not, Venus and Mars, fancifully christened by Juno, were his son and daughter.
Luc strode out past her. Leaving the door carefully ajar, Star followed him back into the kitchen.
‘In fact, I’m extremely grateful that they are not my children,’ Luc drawled in level continuation as he took up a commanding stance by the hearth, his lean, dark, devastating features cool as ice. ‘It would have complicated the divorce and made a clean break impossible. Considering that we have about as much in common as oil and water, joint custody would have been a serious challenge.’
Star was pale as death now. His reaction shook her to her very depths. All right, so he had never thought of her as his wife. Yet when Rory had walked in Luc had been angry, aggressive, powered, it had seemed, by some atavistic all-male territorial instinct. She had never seen that side of him before, but now she had to accept that his reaction to Rory had simply stemmed from his savage pride.
Didn’t he have any normal feelings at all? How could Luc just stand there telling her that he was relieved and grateful that her babies were supposedly nothing to do with him? In pained fascination, she searched his face, absently noting the very faint sheen of moisture on his dark golden skin, the unyielding blank darkness of his hooded gaze.
‘Luc…I—’
‘I was leaving…’ Luc studied his diminutive wife, struggling to distance himself, black fury like a thick, suffocating smoke fogging his usually ordered thoughts. Suddenly he understood why so many unfaithful wives had ended up losing their heads to Madame Guillotine during the French Revolution. Feeling the slight tremor in his hands, he dug them rawly into the pockets of his well-cut pants. Nobody will ever love you as much as I do. Such soft words, such empty promises. He was not a violent man. But he wanted to remind her who she belonged to. No, she did not belong to him, he adjusted at grim speed. He did not want her to belong to him. He had meant every word he had said.
Star moved anxious hands. ‘Could we just talk?’
‘Talk?’ Luc growled, not quite levelly, watching the way the flickering candlelight played over her porcelain-fine skin, accentuating the distinctive colour of her eyes and the full, inviting softness of her ripe mouth.
‘About Juno?’ Star moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and watched Luc tense, his stunning dark eyes welding to her with sudden force.
‘No.’
‘No?’ Colour mantled Star’s cheekbones as the raw tension in the atmosphere increased. Her heart skipped a beat and then began to thump against her ribcage. Her mouth running dry, she tensed in dismay as she felt her breasts lift and swell, the rosy peaks tightening into mortifying prominence.
Luc’s brilliant eyes flamed over her. ‘If you spend the night with me, I’ll let you both off the hook…’
‘I b-beg your pardon?’ Star stammered dizzily.
‘I won’t put the police on Juno’s trail.’ He gazed back at her steadily, not a muscle moving in his lean, strong face. ‘One night. Tonight. That’s the price.’
Her soft full mouth fell open. She closed it again, and tried and failed to swallow. She felt as if the ground had suddenly fallen away beneath her feet. ‘You’re not serious…you can’t be!’
The silence shimmered like a heatwave between them.
Star trembled.
‘Why shouldn’t I be serious?’ Luc angled his well-shaped dark head back, a hard smile slanting his wide, sensual mouth. ‘One night only. Then tomorrow you travel down to London with me to see Emilie. Together we reassure her that she has nothing further to worry about. After that, we never see each other again in this lifetime.’
Her stomach twisted at that clarified picture. ‘But you don’t want me—’
‘Don’t I?’ Luc moved a slow, fluid step closer, dark eyes mesmerically intense as they scanned her bemused face. ‘Just one more time…’
‘You don’t want me. You never did! I’m not your type,’ Star argued, as if she was repeating a personal mantra, a fevered, disbelieving edge to her voice.
‘Except in bed,’ Luc extended without hesitation.
Star stilled in astonishment. Then she jerked in reaction to that revelation. He was finally acknowledging a fact he had refused to concede eighteen months earlier. Luc could find her desirable. The night the twins had been conceived, Luc had genuinely responded to her, not just to the anonymous invitation of a female body in his bed. The following morning, his cold silence on that point had shattered what little had remained of her pride.
Anger and regret now foamed up inside her in a bewildering surge. ‘Couldn’t you just have admitted that to me eighteen months ago?’
‘No,’ Luc drawled smoothly. ‘It would have encouraged you to
believe that our marriage had a future.’
The heat still singing through Star’s blood suddenly slowed and chilled. Such cool calculation stabbed her to the heart and unnerved her.
‘But that was then and this is now,’ Luc stressed with syllabic sibilance.
Now, she repeated to herself in reminder. Now, when Luc had knocked her sideways by suggesting that they spend one last night together. Why not? With his customary cool he had already boxed her in with cruel, unfeeling boundaries to ensure that she didn’t misunderstand the exact tenor of his proposition.
He had told her he wanted a divorce. He had told her that after tomorrow they would never meet again.
Star’s throat constricted. Her wretched body might quicken at one glance from those stunning dark eyes of his, but did he really think she held herself that cheap?
‘You don’t want me enough…’ Even as that impulsive contention escaped her Star tried to bite the words back, for they revealed all too much of her own feelings.
Luc surveyed her steadily, devastating dark eyes fiercely intent. ‘How much is enough?’
She wanted him on his knees. She wanted him desperate, telling her that never in his life had he experienced such hunger for any woman. If she couldn’t get into his mind, it would be the next best thing. Hot colour warmed her cheekbones.
‘How much?’ Luc repeated huskily.
‘M-more…’ The current of excitement he generated in her as he moved closer literally strangled her vocal cords.
More? What did that mean? Familiar frustration raked through Luc. He felt like a man trying to capture a dancing shard of sunlight. He felt out of his depth, which infuriated him. He had expected her to grab that offer with both hands. She never looked before she leapt. She was as hot for him as he was for her. He saw it in her, he could feel it in her, only this time she was holding back. Star, exercising restraint? Why? What more could he offer?
‘Cash inducement?’ Luc enquired with lethal cynicism.
Her eyes widened, and then she couldn’t help it. A nervous laugh bubbled from her dry throat.