Summer Sins

by Julia James

  A name distilled in her mind.

  Xavier.

  Do I dare? Do I really dare?

  Her lips parted as she slowly exhaled.

  Why should she not dare? She had three precious weeks to herself, and even a day, a single night, would be treasure more than she had ever thought to have.

  A shadow fell across her face. But what if he no longer wanted her?

  She’d probably been just a passing fancy—an impulse of the moment. Why should she have been anything else?

  She told herself that in all probability Xavier Lauran, after accepting she would not spend the night with him, had simply returned to Paris and never given her another thought. For a man like him, with looks like his, there would be a queue around the block of women—all those beautiful, elegant, chic Parisiennes he was surrounded by—lining up to try and tempt him.

  Yet a temptation of her own circled endlessly in her mind. What if he did still want her? And if he did, then now—now she had a golden opportunity. So, did she dare—did she really dare—get in touch with him?

  Her stomach churned. It was not just a question of whether Xavier Lauran wanted her still. It was also a question of whether she really should go ahead and do this. Have an affair—a fling— call it what she would—with Xavier Lauran. But even as the doubt voiced itself, a protesting cry seemed to come from deep within her. There would never, she knew, be another man like Xavier Lauran in her life! A man who could stop the breath in her body. Who turned her knees to jelly and set the blood racing in her veins. No, there would never be another man like him. Nor would an opportunity like this ever come again. This chance to have, even for a brief time, something she would remember all her life would never come twice. It was now or never.

  She couldn’t bear it to be never. She could tell herself all she liked that all she could have was a brief affair—a passing fling. Maybe only a single night. If that. But to let it go just for want of being brave enough to dare—she could not do that. Would not.

  For another sleepless night she tossed and turned on it, wanting it so much, yet not daring to dare. All morning, as she did her work at the insurance company, she brooded on the number for the London branch of XeL she’d looked up. But did she dare, did she really dare, to phone him?

  By the time she took her lunchbreak she was a bag of nerves. She took her mobile phone and went to the Ladies, forcing herself to key in the number.

  How can I do this—phone him up and tell him … Tell him I’m available …?

  She almost cut the call—and then it was answered.

  ‘XeL International, may I help you?’

  For a moment Lissa’s voice froze, then she made herself speak.

  ‘Er—I’m trying to get in touch with Xavier Lauran.’ Her heart was thumping like a hammer.

  ‘Putting you through.’ There was a pause, then another ring tone, sounding foreign. A woman answered, speaking French. Lissa completely failed to catch what she said. So she simply repeated what she’d said to the UK switchboard, sticking to English. There was a pause. An audible one. Then the woman spoke again, in English.

  ‘What name, please?’

  ‘Er—Lissa Stephens.’ Lissa’s voice was breathless with nerves.

  There was another pause. Then the woman spoke again. Smoothly and fluently.

  ‘Monsieur Lauran is in conference. I’m so sorry.’

  Lissa swallowed. ‘Um—can I leave a message for him?’

  ‘Of course.’ The French-accented voice was as smooth as cream, but Lissa suddenly realised that she was simply being treated as someone to get off the line as soon as possible. Was Xavier really ‘in conference’ or just not available to women who phoned him out of the blue? But she wasn’t going to hang up without at least doing what she’d been nerving herself to do all night and all morning.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice sounded strangulated, but she made herself go on. Because it was, after all, now or never, and she would never be able to summon the nerve to do this again. ‘Could you just tell him, please, that Lissa says …’ she took another breath ‘… things have changed … completely … at my end. Something very unexpected…. my former commitments are, um, finished … I’m no longer. So, if he wanted….’ Her voice trailed off into nervestruck incoherence.

  She rang off, unable to complete the call in any rational manner. She screwed her eyes shut in mortification. Oh, God, she’d sounded like a demented halfwit. She’d wanted to come across as cool—sophisticated, even—the kind of woman who could phone up a man like Xavier Lauran and suggest an affair.

  Her cheeks burned. There was no one to witness her embarrassment, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  Perhaps the secretary in Paris won’t pass the message on—perhaps she’ll just think it so stupid she’ll bin it, or not even have written it down.

  She hoped it were so—the very thought of Xavier being solemnly handed her incoherent stutterings was too humiliating to contemplate.

  Her expression tightened. Well, it was probably for the best. It had been self-indulgence, stupid and fantastical self-indulgence, to think that she could turn the clock back. She’d had her chance with Xavier Lauran, that solitary, magical evening, and she’d had to turn it down—turn him down. Men like him didn’t give second chances—and now that she’d gone and displayed herself as some kind of gibbering moron with that demented message, if he was given it by his secretary, the only thing he’d feel would be relief that he hadn’t taken her to bed that night after all.

  Forcibly, she made herself turn away and walk back to her desk. As she sat down at her PC again, a wave of flattening despair crushed down on her. Xavier Lauran would not be walking back into her life again. He had gone, and he would stay gone.

  Once more the world seemed drained of colour.

  After Armand’s whirlwind descent, the flat seemed even more dreary than usual. And so very quiet. Even though Lissa could only rejoice at the reason, her spirits that evening were made even lower by the quiet. At least, blessedly, the evenings were her own now. That nightmare job at the casino had been the first to go after Armand’s miraculous reappearance.

  That was what she should focus on. Everything was wonderful now—thanks to Armand. And she had no business wanting even more.

  She should never have tried to get in touch with Xavier Lauran. It had been greed, nothing more—and self-indulgence, wanting yet more good fortune on top of all that had been showered down on her.

  It was not to be. She must accept that and let it go. She’d forget him soon—he was just a fantasy. A daydream. Nothing more than that.

  It was easy to say, however—far less easy to heed her own advice.

  She must think of Armand instead—of the miracle he had wrought, and all that was happening now in America. She longed to phone him—but she had promised to wait for news.

  Please let it be good news.

  He would phone her, he had promised, when there was something to tell—but until then she must be patient. He would take care of everything and take care especially of—

  The piercing shrill of the doorbell shattered her thoughts in that direction.

  Who on earth?

  Anxiety bit at her suddenly. Surely it was not Armand? It couldn’t be—it mustn’t be.

  The doorbell rang again. Urgent and imperative. On suddenly trembling legs she hurried to the door and unhooked the entryphone. There was no way she was opening the front door to the street without checking first to find out who was there.

  ‘Hello?’ She made her voice sound brisk and businesslike. Not like a home alone female.

  The voice at the other end was distorted, but as it penetrated her ear, faintness drummed through her.

  It was Xavier Lauran.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THERE WAS SILENCE, complete silence, through the rusting grille of the entryphone system. Xavier stood, every muscle tensed.

  Emotion tore at him.

  Had that garbled message his PA
had relayed to him with a deadpan face really been what the few incoherent words implied? The fractured phrases were burned in his mind.

  Things have changed … completely … at my end. Something very unexpected … My former commitments are … finished. I’m no longer … So, if he wanted …

  If the words were true it could mean only one thing.

  She and Armand were finished.

  It was blunt, it was brutal—but if, if it really were true, then—

  One thought and one alone burned in his mind. I can have her.

  Triumph surged in him. If his brother no longer had a claim on her, then those damning words of hers—I can’t—no longer mattered. Were no longer true.

  If.

  So small a word, so much hanging on it.

  It must be true. Why else would she have phoned?

  He needed to know. Right now. Frustration stabbed at him again, poisonously mixing with hope.

  Why wouldn’t she open the damn door?

  As if he’d spoken the words aloud, there was a sudden ping from the door and the lock yielded. He pushed it open instantly and strode inside. There was a narrow corridor, lit only by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stairs led away up from the central area. Everything looked bleak and bare. But he had eyes for none of it—only for the woman standing in the doorway of the ground-floor flat, clinging on to the doorjamb.

  He went to her. He caught her to him. Dropped his mouth to hers.

  His kiss was urgent, possessive, putting his brand on her. She collapsed against him, boneless. Triumph surged in him. He let her go, slipping his hands either side of her face, tilting it up to him. Her eyes were huge.

  ‘Why did you phone me?’

  His voice sounded fierce, and he saw her pupils distend even more.

  ‘I … I …’ Her voice was faint, her body still weakly collapsed against his, held upright only because of the strength in the palms of his hands, holding her face as he looked down at her, towering over her.

  ‘I need to know,’ he said, and his voice was still fierce. ‘I need to know if you are free to come to me.’

  There was a soft rasp in her throat. And then, as if a dam had broken inside her, she suddenly flung her arms around him and crushed her face against his shoulder. His hands slid around her back automatically, cradling her.

  ‘Is that a yes, cherie?’ The edge was still there, but something else, as well. His hands began to stroke up and down the length of her spine. She lifted her face away from him. Her eyes were shining like a rainbow. Something leapt in him.

  Then she breathed a word—a single word.

  ‘Xavier.’ It was a sigh, it was an exhalation, it was all he needed to hear.

  Very slowly, he brought his mouth down on hers again.

  Exultation flowed like a rich, deep tide.

  Lissa Stephens was his.

  He did not mention Armand. He did not need to. There was no point. Whatever had happened between Lissa and his brother, it was over. All he knew was that he, Xavier, had done the honourable thing—he had walked away from a woman who was forbidden to him, no matter what it had cost him to do so.

  And it had cost him—no doubt of that. Now, as he held her tight against him, feeling the warmth of her body in his arms, it slammed home to him just how much it had cost him, thinking that he was forever barred from her.

  Relief poured through him. He could make Lissa his, and that was all he cared about. Whatever had happened between her and his brother was immaterial—it was over, and that was all that mattered. He would not think about it, would shut it out of his mind, would only tighten his arms around the woman he wanted and now had. There was only one centre of focus in his whole being—and she was in his arms. He would ask no questions, either of her or his brother. He would just accept, with relief and gratitude, that there was nothing standing between them. The tide that had started to flow so powerfully, so overwhelmingly, that moment when he had walked into the cocktail bar and seen Lissa as she truly was, could flow now unchecked until it reached the satiation it craved.

  But not right here, or right now.

  Reluctantly, he drew away from her glancing past her, into the interior of the wretched flat she lived in. Then his eyes came back to hers. The blast of radiance in them shook him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he said. He kissed her lightly, possessively. ‘And bring your passport.’

  Lissa was floating. Floating on a bubble of bliss that lifted her feet right off the ground. He had come for her. Xavier Lauran had come for her—wanted her so much that he had flown here from Paris the moment he’d got her stuttering message.

  A glow filled her, sweet and intense and radiant. As she dashed around the flat—throwing things into a small valise, hastily changing into something less frumpy than a tracksuit, turning off the hot water, unplugging electrical appliances, leaving a brief voice mail for the agency to say she was taking time off at short notice—one of the few perks of temping—gathering her purse and passport, mobile phone and anything else she knew she must take with her—she could hardly think straight.

  She had gone from dejection and resignation—from forcing herself to face up to accepting that Xavier Lauran was not for her, that her chance had gone, that he was not going to come back into her life, that all she would have of him was a brief memory, a jewel kept in a secret place whose colour would slowly dim and drain away—gone from that to its complete opposite. From dejection to elation. From resignation to radiance. From monochrome to glorious colour, like a rainbow just for her.

  She could feel her heart leap as she glanced up from throwing underwear helter-skelter into her valise. He filled her vision. Dear God, he just looked so breathtakingly handsome standing there, his eyes fixed on her as he leaned, with effortless elegance, against the doorjamb of the bedroom, watching her pack, watching her with that half smile of his dancing in his eyes, playing about his beautifully shaped mouth. Recalling for her the memory of the night he’d taken her to that magical dinner at his hotel.

  Were they going there now? Or, if not, then where? He had said passport, so did that mean he was taking her to France—but when? For how long? She didn’t care. Didn’t care about anything—only that she would go with him wherever he took her.

  I’m going to take this moment. Take it and relish it. I know he’s only a fantasy made flesh, but for the time he wants me I will be with him and have him.

  She wouldn’t think about the reality of what she was doing—that was for later, not now. All she would do now was allow herself the thrill and bliss of the moment, with her feet floating off the ground, all courtesy of Xavier Lauran—here, live, freshly flown in from Paris just to claim her, waiting to take her with him.

  She zipped up the valise and picked it up, along with her handbag.

  ‘Ready?’ he asked, and strolled towards her, taking her valise from her. She nodded, heart racing. It was all she could do.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  He held out his hand to her, and she went to him.

  Lissa stood in Xavier Lauran’s bedroom in his apartment in Paris. It was gone midnight, and she had to pinch herself to believe that only a few hours ago she had been cleaning her drear and dingy flat in South London. Now she was in a high-ceilinged grand appartement, its décor a stunning mix of ancient and modern, occupying the first floor of an old courtyarded hotel which, a century ago, had been the town house of a wealthy Second Empire financier to Napoleon III—or so Xavier had informed her when they’d arrived. She’d been stunned to realise that Xavier intended to fly straight back to Paris that very night, whisking her right to Heathrow in the waiting car outside.

  And now she was here, in Paris—with the man she had thought could never be hers.

  Who was standing here, now, in front of her, a glass of champagne in his long fingers, just as she held one in hers. It was probably an exquisite vintage, she knew, but she was incapable of doing it justice. Every atom of her being was focussed on one thing, and on
e thing only—being here with him.

  ‘To us, together at last,’ said Xavier, and took a sip from his glass.

  She made herself do likewise, though she was hardly aware of doing so. She was only aware of the man who, this very night, was going to take her to his bed.

  And she would go. Willingly, ardently. Xavier Lauran wanted her—had come for her—had swept her off to Paris—and she wanted him with every cell in her body, every fibre of her being. Her breath caught for the thousandth time as she gazed up at him, at the lean, elegant body, the incredible planes of his face, and into those dark, long-lashed eyes gazing down into hers with a message in them that turned her knees to jelly, that sent her pulse soaring into the stratosphere. All thought was gone. Only the wonder and thrill of the moment possessed her.

  She watched him set aside his glass on an antique tallboy, and then reach to take hers from nerveless fingers. He smiled down at her. She felt her legs dissolve. The smile was warm and intimate and for her alone. His hand lifted, and with the backs of his fingers he stroked gently down her cheek.

  She could not breathe, could not speak—could only stand there while his touch caressed her. So lightly—so devastatingly. She felt her skin come alive beneath his touch, her breathing quicken suddenly as his hand turned, and now his fingertips were brushing with tantalising sensuousness over the contours of her lips.

  He had stepped closer. She wasn’t sure when—wasn’t sure of anything except the sweet, honeying sensation that was dissolving through her.

  ‘You are so beautiful,’ he said, and his voice was soft. It sent a tremor of arousal through her, and her eyelids fluttered of their own accord as he held her eyes with his long-lashed dark gaze. She wanted to touch him. To lift her fingers to that sable hair, to feather it and run her fingertip along the high line of his cheekbone. She felt her hand lift.

  He caught it. Swiftly, with a soft, encircling grip around her wrist. His hold was not hard, but she could not escape.

  ‘No,’ he told her, and his voice had the very slightest husk to it. ‘First I want to touch you.’