by Lynne Graham
‘You know more about my dreams than I really ever give you credit for,’ she acknowledged humbly.
‘You’d better read this…’ Producing a cutting from a French newspaper, Luc planted it into her hand. ‘That’s where my information concerning your mother came from. I suppose I should have given it to you yesterday, when I first saw it.’
Still horribly conscious of Luc’s distance with her, but feeling she deserved it, Star stared down at the blurry photo of Juno and her male companion. She only then recalled that strange crack Luc had made about the man having her hair and eyes. Bruno Vence was fifty-three years old, described as a Swiss industrialist and a lifelong bachelor. Her mother was described only as an ‘old flame’. Obviously the gossip columnist hadn’t known her name. But Bruno’s friends were supposed to be in severe shock at him racing off to get married to a woman they had never heard of and never met.
‘Yesterday…you had this yesterday?’ Star frowned, wondering why he hadn’t shared it with her sooner.
Luc reached for her hand suddenly, and gripped it very tightly in his, his tension palpable. ‘I just have this very strong feeling that Bruno Vence is your father. I met him last year at a business conference. I noticed his eyes were like yours, a very distinctive and unique colour, but I never thought anything of it. Now I’m thinking…’
‘Luc, what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong,’ he stated almost aggressively.
‘Even if he is my father, and I really do think that’s a very far-fetched idea,’ Star told him gently, ‘I won’t be upset. Is that what you’re worrying about? All I care about is that he should be good to Mum. But, most of all, I don’t want anything to spoil this wonderful day.’
‘So far it’s been a shambles!’ Luc groaned.
‘No…no, I was very stupid, but nothing’s been spoilt for me because I still have you here beside me,’ Star swore soothingly, smoothing his tense fingers with her free hand. ‘And you are very, very special to me, and so is our marriage. I know now that I want to be with you for ever, Luc, and I’m sorry it took me so long to admit that.’
Luc was very still, and then he released his breath in a sudden hiss. Snapping his arms round her tiny waist, he took her into his arms and kissed her half senseless with an almost desperate passion that just blew her away. He was pleased. She got that message. Probably because he now had the assurance that she was never, ever going to take the children he adored away from him, she reflected, just a little sad that that was the main concern in his mind.
On the steps of the church, with a photographer snapping merrily away, Luc tried to tidy her mussed hair and Star wiped the lipstick off his mouth. It would be pretty obvious to their children some day that a major clinch had occurred on the way to the church.
Heartstoppingly cool, dark and handsome in his formal suit, Luc took her hand and walked her into the little Norman church. The simple blessing that followed recalled for Star her feelings on their wedding day, and by the time they turned from the altar she was feeling full of bridal joy. So intent had she been on the proceedings that she hadn’t taken the slightest interest in the fact that the church was packed with guests.
But no sooner did she turn round than her mother appeared in front of her. Comfortably under five feet tall, Juno’s youthfully pretty face was wreathed with excitement beneath her cropped blonde curls. ‘Star…I have someone here who very much wants to meet you.’
It wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place. But then that was Juno, Star acknowledged, feeling Luc’s arm tighten round her like an iron band while wondering what on earth was still making her husband so very tense. Surely a church blessing didn’t fill a male with the same apprehension as a wedding ceremony?
In her heels, Star was looking eye to eye with the older man who had stepped forward to stand by her mother’s side. It was a sharp shock to meet those eyes so like her own, eyes which were unashamedly wet with tears. Bruno Vence shook his greying copper head in mute acknowledgement of his strong emotion before he reached out gratefully to grasp Star’s instinctively extended hands.
‘I believe you already know who I am…’ Her father breathed unevenly.
Five minutes later, in a whirl of confusion, Star found herself sitting in an unfamiliar stretch limousine with Juno and Bruno, not to mention Venus and Mars strapped into conveniently waiting car seats. However, the gathering mysteriously lacked Luc. Star frowned. ‘Where’s Luc?’
‘We can drive straight to the airport and both you and the children will be whisked onto my yacht and out of French territory before anyone can do anything to stop us,’ Bruno Vence informed her with impassive calm. ‘Your mother believes that your husband must’ve blackmailed you into agreeing to return to him and that he has used custody of your children as a threat over you.’
‘Are you trying to kidnap me?’ Star exclaimed in incredulous horror, quite impervious to the fact that Luc had both threatened and blackmailed her at one stage, as he was now entirely forgiven for those sins. ‘Juno, how could you do this to me? I want Luc…I want my husband!’
‘Are you satisfied now, my love?’ Bruno Vence asked her anxious mother with a wry smile. ‘You see, Star loves Luc. I told you that it looked that way in the church. Our grandchildren are very fortunate to have loving parents.’
‘But I wanted to take her and the children away with us,’ Juno confided tearfully.
‘I’d like to take my daughter away too, so that I could get to know her better,’ Bruno murmured with a rueful glance at Star’s frowning face. ‘But she’s an adult now, with a life of her own, and it would be very much simpler if we just made regular visits.’
Star’s tension evaporated. ‘You gave me quite a fright…’
‘Your mother must accept that you are happy in your marriage,’ he pointed out apologetically. ‘In-laws who are troublemakers are rarely welcome.’
Star leant forward and kissed his cheek without hesitation. ‘I think I’ll be very happy to get to know you as a father.’ She then shifted over beside her disappointed mother and hugged her tight in consolation. ‘Now I’d like to hear about your marriage, and don’t you dare skip a single detail!’ she warned.
Twenty-one years earlier, in Gstaad, Juno had been confronted—not by Bruno’s fiancée, as the woman had claimed, but by a possessive ex-girlfriend.
‘I tried very hard to trace Juno in London,’ Bruno shared heavily, holding her mother’s hand in his. ‘But I failed, because within a couple of months of leaving Gstaad she had impulsively married Phillip Roussel and gone abroad with him.’
‘I’ve always known where Bruno was, but I just assumed he was a married man. Then, the day I had to give up the art gallery, I read a piece in a gossip column that mentioned he was single.’ Juno blushed and lowered her lashes. ‘But I really only flew out to ask him for a loan, because I was so upset and ashamed at getting Emilie into such a pickle.’
Star immediately knew that the only thing on Juno’s mind on that flight to Switzerland had been seeing Bruno again, and she hid a smile.
Bruno was surveying his wife with immense pride and pleasure. ‘When your mother walked into my office, I was transfixed. Juno was and is the love of my life. I want you to know that, Star.’
‘Your father proposed over lunch an hour later,’ Juno proffered. ‘It was so romantic, and, you know, twenty years ago he said he wasn’t a romantic man—but he just couldn’t wait to get me to the altar!’
Bruno reddened.
When Star stepped out of the limousine at Chateau Fontaine, Luc was standing on the bridge, seemingly deaf and blind to the greetings of arriving guests.
‘We’ll see to the children…’ Juno called after Star.
For once, the twins were not first in Star’s mind. She threaded her passage through the sea of parked cars and headed like a homing pigeon for Luc. The instant he saw her he strode forward, impervious to all onlookers, and pulled her straight into his arms. ‘Where the hell have you been?�
� he breathed raggedly. ‘And don’t you dare tell me you’ve only come home to pack!’
‘No, I’m staying until I’m a skeleton in the family vault.’
‘Not funny,’ Luc growled, his dark drawl quivering.
‘I got to know my father a little. Nice guy, but tough—perfect for Mum. Knows her inside out, adores her, can’t believe his luck…they’re like a couple of teenagers,’ she shared breathlessly.
Luc possessed himself of her hand. ‘You won’t believe what I was thinking,’ he muttered tautly. ‘When you and the twins suddenly vanished into that bloody big limo, I suddenly thought I was never going to see you again. I know how your mother feels about me—’
‘Luc…’ A female voice interposed uncertainly.
Luc swung round and then lowered his gaze to focus on his tiny mother-in-law. He froze.
‘If Star says you didn’t carry on with that Gabrielle on your wedding night, that’s good enough for me.’
‘We agreed you weren’t going to say that,’ Bruno groaned from behind Juno.
‘But Luc needs to know that I don’t believe that any more, and that I intend to like him from now on!’ Juno argued.
‘Thank you, Juno,’ Luc murmured hurriedly.
Her mother gave him a big hug and almost squashed Venus in the process. Hovering in the background, Bertille offered her assistance.
Cradling Mars in one arm, Bruno smiled and extended his other hand to Luc. ‘I’m sure you appreciate my daughter.’
‘Even more since you brought her home,’ Luc completed levelly.
Minutes later, Luc closed an arm back round Star. ‘You look totally ravishing and gorgeous in that dress, mon ange.’
Her heartbeat quickened as she collided with his eyes and she just smiled and smiled.
While drinks were being served, Luc introduced her to loads of people. Star saw Emilie in the crush, but didn’t get the opportunity to do more than exchange a brief hug and the promise of conversation at some later stage. A wonderful buffet meal awaited them, delightfully informal and unfussy, just as Star preferred things. Luc stayed by her side all the time. In fact he was like superglue, and her mother had to be quite pushy to manage to share a private word with her.
‘I just want to say that I’m sorry that I browbeat Bruno into spiriting you and the twins away from Luc at the church,’ Juno confided then worriedly. ‘When I saw how distraught Luc was when we brought you back, I was really very ashamed. I never thought he had it in him to really love you as he so obviously does.’
Well, he loves the kids certainly, Star conceded inwardly, too used to her mother’s love of exaggeration to credit that viewpoint. As Emilie waved at her, Star passed on from her mother to settle down on a seat beside the older woman.
‘I’m overjoyed to see Luc and you together like this,’ Emilie told her warmly.
‘By the way, that wedding night thingy I thought happened with Gabrielle…’ Star whispered urgently. ‘I misjudged Luc. It never happened.’
‘I’m relieved to hear that, because I always did find it rather difficult to believe,’ the older woman admitted gently. ‘At the same time, I was very much to blame for what happened between you and Luc that winter.’
Star gave Emilie an amazed look. ‘What on earth are you saying?’
Emilie sighed. ‘I tried to be a matchmaker and I encouraged you to love Luc. But you were far too young, and Luc was too upset by Roland’s illness to concentrate on his own feelings. I should have waited at least another year. I’m a terrible old plotter and planner, Star.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Star told her.
‘The main reason I gave Juno all that money was…oh, this is dreadful to have to confess,’ the older woman whispered guiltily. ‘Star, I knew there was a fair chance that the art gallery would fail, and I was praying that if it did it would bring you and Luc and the children together. You have no idea how wretched he was after you left him.’
Star’s ears pricked up. Shaken though she was at what Emilie had revealed, her reference to Luc being wretched superceded all other things. ‘Wretched?’
‘And not being able to tell him where you were seemed so cruel, but I had given you my promise and you had been badly hurt. However, Luc was dreadfully unhappy as well.’
‘Was he? He was worried, of course. I was very childish, not getting back in touch—’
‘Star…’ Luc intervened from several feet away. ‘We get to open the dancing with a waltz.’
‘Dancing too?’ Star gasped, jumping up and then freezing. ‘How do you waltz?’
‘You can pick it up.’
‘In front of three hundred people?’ she yelped. ‘Can you jive?’
‘No—’
‘Fancy picking that up in front of three hundred people?’
‘You do have a way of making a point, ma femme.’ Luc framed her face and kissed her softly, tenderly on her surprised lips. ‘I want everybody to go home so that I can be alone with you.’
‘Party pooper,’ she teased, a shiver of such powerful physical awareness gripping her she blushed. ‘OK…I’ll try to waltz, but we go slow.’
They drifted round the magnificent ballroom, so enveloped in each other that Star never even noticed what her feet were doing. And when they finally came off the floor, a long while later, Rory appeared with an attractive blonde by his side and apologised for his late arrival. Star was really delighted that Luc had thought to invite him.
*
Late evening, with only family members remaining, Star and Luc went upstairs. She snuggled up against him and whispered happily and without even thinking about it, ‘I still love you so much…’
Luc stopped dead outside their bedroom door. ‘No, you don’t,’ he countered. ‘I’m still working on that.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she demanded.
A faint furrow drew his ebony brows together. ‘You said still…are you saying you never stopped loving me?’
‘Didn’t I tell you I was going to love you all my life?’
‘But then you ran away,’ Luc pointed out flatly. ‘Stayed away. I had to make threats to get you back, and you didn’t exactly grab at the chance to stay married to me—not that I can blame you for that, but—’
‘Oh, Luc, I have done a number on you…’ Star said guiltily as she opened the bedroom door, thinking that the corridor wasn’t the best place to be staging such a personal dialogue. ‘I was just trying to be cautious for both our sakes, and I was scared of being hurt again.’
‘I don’t need to hear you saying you love me again until you can really mean it…’
‘I mean it now.’
‘But how can you?’ His dark eyes were very strained. ‘I messed up everything eighteen months ago. I didn’t even know what was going on in my own mind, never mind yours! I drove you away. If I had set out to make a hash of our marriage I couldn’t have done better than I have done so far.’
‘But you’re doing just great…’ Star protested.
‘I have been trying,’ Luc acknowledged—rather touchingly, she felt. ‘I took your love for granted when I had it. I liked having you loving me. You were spot-on when you said that. But even when you had gone, and I was bloody miserable, I still didn’t grasp why! I just thought I was worried about you.’
‘I’m here now, and I still love you very, very much,’ Star repeated soothingly.
‘I had this nightmare last night…and that’s how I realised…finally…that I love you,’ Luc delivered jerkily, a dark rise of colour highlighting his cheekbones.
Star was a little confused. ‘A nightmare?’
Luc shrugged, studied his feet. ‘It was stupid. I dreamt that Bruno and Juno would take you away. Juno never took to me, so there was no reason why he should—and, believe me, if your father wanted you to vanish, he’s got the power to do it. It made me feel…sick, knowing that—’
‘Oh, Luc.’ Star sighed painfully, decided never, ever to tell him that there had been the smallest
risk or chance of her vanishing in case he hated her mother for ever.
‘So when you got into their car outside the church…and then I saw that the twins were gone too…that’s the moment I registered that I loved you…when I thought I had lost the lot of you—my whole family!’ he grated, lifting his arrogant dark head and studying her with such powerful emotion that her heart tipped over inside her. ‘And I hadn’t even told you how I felt.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t just panic?’
Luc loosed a reluctant laugh at that question. Casting off his jacket, he closed his arms slowly round her. ‘I’ve been in love with you for a very long time—’
‘You can tell me anything,’ Star encouraged.
He swept her onto the bed and pulled her close. ‘First, I lost interest in Gabrielle. Then I just liked you…you fascinated me, and I suppose that’s where I should have grasped that I was feeling something I’d never felt before. But I didn’t grasp it. You have no idea how devastated I was when you left me. It was like the light went out of my life. So I just blamed you for making me feel that bad.’
‘Typical…’ she said, softly kissing the corner of his beautiful mouth, cherishing that phrase about her being a ‘light’.
‘And everything with you was always devastating.’
‘The enemy tank syndrome?’
‘Thinking the kids were some other man’s, thinking I’d lost your love, not even knowing why I wanted you to still love me and then feeling really bitter—’
‘I told you love was messy.’
‘Then I seized on the twins as an excuse to hang onto you, so I didn’t have to work out how I really felt.’ Star removed his tie and began unbuttoning his shirt.
‘I’m never going to say all this again,’ Luc warned her very seriously, and she smiled against his warm, muscular chest, knowing she would plague the life out of him for any tiny detail he overlooked.
‘I planned to make you fall in love with me again,’ he explained.