“That’s not the reason, Paul. Since my trip to Switzerland, I’ve been thinking about several changes to relieve me of so much work. Your head for finance makes you the ideal choice to work with the Paris group. You’ll be a great asset.”
“Thanks for the confidence, Raoul.”
They shook hands. After he walked away, Raoul headed back to Abby’s apartment. He phoned her from the car to let her know he was out in front. She didn’t know it yet, but he had plans for the two of them.
She came out the entrance a minute later and hurried to the car. After she got inside she said, “I hope you don’t thin—”
“I don’t think anything,” he cut her off. “Jean-Marc has always had a roving eye.”
“Still, you looked upset when you first walked into the bistro, and I couldn’t explain. The thing is, I didn’t know what to do when Jean-Marc saw me out in the vineyard and told me he would show me the office. I didn’t want to be rude to him.”
“Rudeness isn’t in your nature. What you saw was a man who experienced a temporary fit of jealousy when he saw you having dinner with another man, even if he happened to be his own brother.”
His admission thrilled her. “Thanks to you he’s very happy about his new position.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“Your brother-in-law must be happy too.”
“I believe he is. Before I let Paul out, you should know he said you’re beautiful. In private he said he could understand Jean-Marc’s interest. The whole estate is talking about you.”
“What an exaggeration.”
“You think? Paul and I had to stop by the domaine office. Every male there mentioned he’d gone off with the stunning blonde Americaine. Gilles happened to be there and was upset because he’d planned to ask you out for dinner after work, but Jean-Marc got there first.”
“I’d rather not talk about that. Where are we going?”
“Where we won’t be disturbed.”
Her breath caught as he drove them along several roads that wound deep into the vineyard. Raoul had told her before that there were only two places where they could be together in private. Since he wasn’t taking her to his office at the château, there was only one other spot she could think of.
When they came to a low-lying ridge, she saw a charming cottage straight out of a Grimm’s fairy tale. Raoul hadn’t exaggerated about where he lived. From the massive Decorvet château to this isolated hideaway?
As they drew closer she noticed his Maserati parked around the side. He pulled to a stop in front and turned off the engine.
“I wish you hadn’t brought me here.” Her desire to be alone with him was like a flash fire. She no longer felt she had the strength to keep him at a distance. If she went inside with him, she’d become the wanton who lived only for him.
“I want to discuss something important with you. Surely you’re not afraid of me. Have I ever taken advantage of you?”
“You don’t have to,” she admitted. Abby despised her own weakness.
“Since providence has given us until tomorrow before you have to leave, it seems fate has chosen the moment to be now.”
“What moment?”
“I’m afraid you don’t know what you awakened when you were willing to come to Burgundy with me. You’re familiar with the saying, ‘who rides the tiger’?”
“Of course.”
“Then you understand my meaning.”
He was being cryptic. But before she could ask for an explanation, Raoul helped her out of the car and walked her inside.
After turning on a lamp, he showed her around the modernized, comfortable-looking interior. The small cottage contained a living room and a kitchen off to the side. There were two bedrooms and a bathroom.
But all Abby could see were the small framed pictures on his bedroom dresser. One showed his lovely wife holding the baby. The rest were photos of his little daughter, Nicolette. Jean-Marc’s words pressed in on her.
Not long ago Raoul buried his heart with his wife and daughter.
He handed her one so she could see it up close. “Oh, Raoul—she’s adorable and had your black hair.”
“She had colic and cried a lot in the beginning. I walked the floor with her many a night.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I can only imagine your pain.”
“It never leaves, but the initial, excruciating pain has gone. Now it’s more a case of what happens when I see any young child My mind immediately imagines my little daughter at that age, probably following Maurice around.”
“I’m sure I would do the same thing for the rest of my life.”
She put the picture back and left the bedroom. He followed her into the living and grasped her around the waist from behind, burying his face in her hair.
“I’ve learned to live with it.” But had he? “What I’m waiting to hear is your impression of my private Saint des Saints.”
She turned in his arms. “It’s cozy and warm. You’d never know that the most famous vintner in all Burgundy hides out in here instead of the château you call a relic.”
His white smile turned her heart over in the semidarkness of the room. “Do you like it enough to stay here with me tonight? Now that I have you to myself, I have no cares.”
“I thought you brought me here to talk.”
“Later.”
He pressed a hungry kiss to her mouth, tasting it over and over again. This was what she’d been aching for all day. Too soon they were both breathless. Raoul was the most beautiful, virile man she’d ever seen in her life. In her heart she knew his first wife had to have felt the same way about him.
Had they made love before their marriage? No woman could ever be immune to him, and he would have felt some attraction to Angélique or he couldn’t have married her.
Did she dare dream that Raoul would ask Abby to marry him? She didn’t have to hear Jean-Marc’s warning again that Raoul had buried his heart at the funeral. If he’d been letting her know marriage to Raoul wasn’t in Abby’s destiny, he’d done a good job. She tore her lips from his.
“Raoul—we shouldn’t be doing this. I’ll be leaving in a few days.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let you go. Let me love you, mon amour. While we were in Switzerland, my soul was struck by what we French call the coup de foudre. Love at first sight. It makes no sense, but there’s no other explanation to account for my feelings since I met you. Don’t be nervous.”
“But I am,” she confessed in a tremulous voice.
“Why? I know you want this too.”
“I do. More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, but we’re not thinking clearly. There are too many reasons why we mustn’t.”
He crushed her against him. “Name one that matters.”
“How do we know this coup de foudre won’t happen to you again?”
“You mean to us! No, mon amour, you and I have experienced something that only happens once in a lifetime.”
“But your family needs more time.”
Raoul released her enough to look at her with a puzzled expression. “What’s going on with you? My family has nothing to do with my personal life.”
“Oh, yes, it does.”
Lines marred his striking features. “Be honest with me, Abby. What are you really saying?”
She couldn’t avoid this. “I don’t want an affair with you!”
Raoul’s black eyes pierced hers like lasers. His hands gripped her shoulders. “That’s what you think I want?”
She averted her eyes. “I don’t know anymore. I could never be intimate with you and then just fly away as if it never happened. That’s why I’d like you to take me back to the apartment now.”
“Are you saying this because Nigel is still in your heart and that’s what you can’t get over?”
“No—” she cried softly. “All feeling for him was burned out of me the second I saw pictures of his children and realized his wife was telling the truth. I honestly haven’t thought about him since.”
“Even so, being intimate takes time to get over and it hasn’t been that long since you broke it off with him.”
She eased away from Raoul. “You don’t understand. I never went to bed with him. We were going to go away over Christmas to be together for the first time. Thank providence his wife came to the office that day and opened my eyes.”
“Are you saying you’ve never made love?” Raoul sounded incredulous.
“That’s right.”
“Not even with the other man?”
“I couldn’t until I knew my heart. That moment never came.” She folded her arms to her waist. “Does that shock you?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t because I was afraid of intimacy. But I didn’t think it fair to sleep with him before telling him I couldn’t marry him. I did love him, but not enough. However, the same can’t be said about you and Angélique.”
His black brows knit together. “What are you talking about? I told you my marriage lacked the passion of a real marriage. We slept together in order to have a baby. But after Nicolette was born, I didn’t touch my wife again.”
She moaned. “But Jean-Marc said—”
“I can just imagine what my brother said,” he cut her off. “But he didn’t live with me and Angélique behind closed doors. I’d like you to tell me what Jean-Marc said.”
“He said several things, among them that Solange was waiting until your pain lifted.”
His head reared. “You and I have already had this conversation. She’ll have to wait forever. As for Nicolette, she definitely took a part of my heart with her. And I was grief stricken, but it was because I could never love Angélique the way a husband should love his wife. I’ll pay a price for that to the end of my days. I’m not an honorable man, Abby.”
A bleak expression had broken out on his handsome face, filling her with turmoil.
“Raoul—surely you don’t mean that! You can’t mean it. When you gave in to your mother and father’s wishes to marry her, Angélique knew you weren’t in love with her. But she married you anyway.”
He shook his head. “But it was wrong.”
“How can you say that? You gave her a beautiful life, and you had a baby who turned out to be a great blessing. Nicolette brought both of you joy. For you to go on punishing yourself makes no sense. You were forced into that marriage because of a lie. Now you’re free to marry the woman you love.”
His pain-filled eyes searched hers. “Are you telling me you could marry me, knowing my history at this point?”
“But we’re not talking about me.”
“Now you’re deliberately misunderstanding me.” He grasped her upper arms. His black gaze burned with an inner fire she could feel. “I want to marry you, Abby Grant. Tonight if we could. I want it more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my whole life.”
She gasped.
“What else could all this be about?” He shook her gently. “Losing my family within seconds of the crash has taught me one important lesson. We don’t know how much time we have before life strikes a blow. The idea of meeting you and not being able to love you forever is anathema to me. Are you listening to me?”
It was a good thing he was holding on to her, or she would have fainted on the spot. “You couldn’t want me for your wife, Raoul. I’m afraid I’d be an embarrassment to you.”
“Embarrassment—don’t you have that turned around? Be honest. In your wildest dreams you couldn’t have imagined a man like me coming into your life.”
“That’s because you had a special destiny decreed generations ago. All that you are, your identity, everything is tied up here in Burgundy.”
“But my curse is that I have good and bad baggage. The question is, why would a brilliant American college professor who has lived by the Pacific Ocean all her life want to leave family and country for an entrenched French vintner?”
“Raoul. Listen to me, please. I’m afraid I couldn’t measure up to you.”
“That argument doesn’t hold water and you know it,” he bit out. “It’s because you’re afraid to take a chance on me. Admit it—” His voice throbbed.
“Don’t you ever say that!” she cried. “You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. You wouldn’t have had to tell me about the poem for me to come with you. Aren’t you convinced yet that I’d give anything to lie in your arms and never have to leave? From the beginning, I wasn’t able to hide my feelings from you. Only love could have made me drive to France with you in the first place.”
“Then will you marry me right away? We’ll say our vows at the deputy mayor’s office in Dijon. He was a judge and is a good friend of mine with the power to waive the banns requirement.” He leaned closer and pressed a kiss to her lips to stifle any other words. “A civil marriage is mandatory before we could be married in church.”
Abby couldn’t keep up with him. “Stop! You’re going too fast. I have to think about it before I can say yes.”
She felt his hard body shudder in response. “While you do that, you’re in too much danger from me here, so I’m going to take you back to the apartment.”
“But where will you be?”
“In my office doing a ton of work that has backed up. When I pick you up in the morning, I’ll expect an answer from you.”
Before she knew it, he’d driven her back to the petit château. After an intense kiss at the entrance to her apartment, he eased away. “Dors bien, ma belle.”
She watched him drive away in the night. Abby held on to the door handle, shaking because his words had taken hold inside her.
He wanted to marry her. He’d already talked about a date...
With her mind reeling, Abby went inside her apartment and curled up on the bed, throwing a duvet over her.
Raoul’s first marriage had been forced on him. It wasn’t because of a great love. He’d admitted how painful it had been. But the fact that he felt so undeserving of a woman’s love was much more painful to her.
Once again she could imagine what her friends would say. You can’t marry a man this soon. You’ve been swept away on a riptide.
But Abby was so desperately in love with him, she couldn’t imagine life without him. Yet she’d never felt so conflicted in her life.
Turning to the two people whose advice she treasured most in life, she phoned home. To her relief her mother answered. It had to be late afternoon.
“Abby, darling—I’m so glad you called. We haven’t heard from you since your vacation started.”
“I know. I’m sorry, but so much has happened, I hardly to know where to begin. Is Dad home yet?”
“No. He has a meeting and will be late.”
“Tell him I love him. Mom? I need to talk to you. Is this a good time?”
“What do you think.”
“Will you play King Solomon for a few minutes?”
There was a long pause. “That’s the most serious question you ever asked me.”
“That’s because it is.” In a shaky voice Abby said, “I’ve met the great love of my life. He has asked me to marry him right away. There’s no way to describe him.”
“Try.”
For the next half hour Abby poured out her soul to her. When she’d finished talking, she wiped her eyes and waited for her mother to say something. “Mom?”
“King Solomon would tell you to wait and give it time. But I’m your mother and I’m convinced you’re too in love to take anyone’s advice. You said you have to be married in a civil ceremony first. So why don’t you do it without telling anyone?
“I’m sure your father would tell you the same thing. While you go through the waiting peri
od so you can be married in the church, you’ll know if you’ve made a mistake. Then you can tell the whole world, or not.”
Abby let out the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you, Mom. That’s what I was praying to hear. It won’t be a mistake! I’m sending you some pictures of him and the estate on my phone right now.”
Again, Abby waited to hear her mother’s response. Finally, she said, “He’s the most gorgeous man I ever laid eyes on.”
“Mom—”
“I may be your mother, but I’m not blind. Please don’t tell your father what I said.”
Abby chuckled. “It’ll be our secret. Have you scrolled to the picture of the château yet?”
“Oh, my heavens!”
“That’s what I said.”
“Your father’s not going to believe it.”
“I’m afraid Dad’s not going to approve of doing anything too soon.”
“You’re right. He won’t be happy.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t say anything to Steve or Nadine yet.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep this under wraps until we hear from you again. All we want is your happiness, darling.”
“I love you, Mom. More than you know. I promise to call soon.”
Abby got ready for bed, but she barely slept waiting for morning to come.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN MORNING CAME, Raoul texted Abby that he was driving over to the apartment. By the time he arrived in front, his nerves were so shot he was trembling and felt ill. If she told him she couldn’t marry him...
Abby opened her door to him, wearing a creamy linen blouse with a wrap-around khaki skirt. He walked her inside and reached for her, kissing her so soundly they were both weaving by the time he allowed her to breathe. “Did you get any sleep?”
She avoided his eyes, terrifying him. “No. I talked to my mother last night. Dad wasn’t home. I told her everything.”
His insides froze. “Abby?”
“She said if it’s going to be a mistake, it would be better we have a civil ceremony first. Then no one will have to know.”
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