by Susan Napier
‘Thanks for the tip, kid.’ She grinned as they walked past the stone pavilion that served as a garage and around by the row of young olive trees at the side of the house.
It wasn’t until they had stepped into sight of the group of people sitting in various casual attitudes around a large table on a sun-dappled terrace that Veronica suddenly registered what it was that she had seen out of the corner of her eye, parked in between two family saloons.
A streamlined silver convertible with red upholstery!
CHAPTER FOUR
‘ROSS and Ashley got engaged four months ago,’ Melanie was saying as she set out a dish of black and green olives, amongst the tomatoes, roasted peppers and cluster of wineglasses on the blue and yellow striped tablecloth. ‘Ross’s in the finance department of a big international bank. He’s expecting a posting to New York or London in the next few months, so we’ll probably be seeing even less of Ashley than we do now.’
‘Oh, really,’ murmured Veronica, struggling to maintain the minimum of polite interest when all her attention was focused elsewhere, on the tall, dark-haired man emerging from the dimness of the house, one arm slung around the thin, wiry figure of Zoe Main, the other loosely carrying an opened bottle of red wine.
She was hardly aware of Ross Bentley’s winning smile as he shook her hand, or the wheat-blond hair and golden eyes that added the gilt to his chunky good looks. Nor did she notice that the clasp of his hand lingered slightly too long as she failed to flatter him with her full attention, but his sharp-eyed fiancée did.
‘Veronica—perhaps it’s only an optical illusion, but you seem to have grown taller since we last saw each other,’ Ashley drawled from her comfortable seat at the far end of the table, the large diamond ring on her finger sparking in the sunlight as she deliberately moved her wineglass out of a patch of shade thrown by the vines twining the overhead lattice.
‘The taller the woman, the more there is to appreciate,’ Ross Bentley said in a suave murmur, which would have made Veronica cringe if she had actually been listening.
‘I understand that Melanie is insisting we observe local custom, so this is obligatory at the first meeting,’ he raised his voice to add with a smooth laugh, putting his hands on her upper arms and making a charming production of bussing her on both cheeks. Since he was several inches shorter than Veronica it made for a slightly awkward manoeuvre as she remained stiffly upright, staring past his head, only vaguely aware of the moist smear of his lips against her pale cheeks.
Visions of mortification danced in her head as she watched the pair moving away from the house. If only she could faint!
But she had a constitution that was as strong as her build, and although it felt as if much of the blood had drained out of her brain she could still pull together a few rational thoughts.
One being that if she toppled over now, she might well take the hovering golden boy down with her, which would give Ashley even more reason to pout.
She could pretend to feel faint, and blame it on the heat, but, knowing Melanie, she wouldn’t be able to simply totter her way back to the cottage, a handkerchief discreetly pressed to her face, but would be instantly sat down and very publicly fussed over.
Besides, it was too late to avoid the confrontation looming out of the old stone farmhouse, for Lucien was looking right at her—or, more precisely, looking at her and Ross Bentley, his eyes narrowing as they flicked back and forth, his features cast into a dangerously unreadable stillness.
‘Luc, I wondered where you’d got to…come over and meet Karen’s sister.’ Melanie removed the bottle of wine from his hand, giving it to Miles to pour while she one-handedly shepherded her mother and her companion over to where Veronica was standing, shoulders squared as if she were facing a firing squad.
She had a sinking feeling that she knew who he was, far too late for it to do her any good.
Veronica’s grey eyes latched onto Zoe’s bright, bird-like gaze and she concentrated hard on blocking out all knowledge of her impending humiliation.
‘H-hello, Zoe.’ She stumbled to get her clumsy tongue around the innocuous words, pushing them out in a rush. ‘Karen told me your birthday was coming up, but not that it was such a milestone one—’ Another black mark against her sister.
Zoe waved her words away with an acerbic laugh. ‘Oh, please, let’s forget about that until next week when I have to think about it!’
‘No one would believe it to look at you, anyway,’ managed Veronica, trying not to feel the searing heat of a concentrated brown stare lasering holes in her wafer-thin composure.
It was true. Melanie had said her mother was a lifelong golfer and gardener, and she looked the part—a spritely, nut-brown, vigorous woman who rarely permitted any concessions to her age. Even her short, no-nonsense white hair seemed to vibrate with energy.
‘I suppose you’re going to tell me I don’t look a day over seventy-four, which is what this silver-tongued rascal had the nerve to say!’ said Zoe, with a fond frown at the man at her side.
Now there was no more avoiding it. Slowly Veronica turned her unwilling gaze to meet that of her erstwhile lover. He was dressed all in white—crumpled pants and a carelessly buttoned short-sleeved shirt—but his aura was pulsing with ominous darkness.
Stay away from me and mine…
‘Veronica, this is my stepson, Lucien Ryder,’ Melanie was saying with an odd mixture of pride and diffidence. ‘Luc lived with us for a few years before Sophie was born—until he went to Oxford University on a scholarship when he was sixteen. He stayed on in Europe after he graduated, doing as brilliantly at business as he did at university—but for all that he still considers himself a Kiwi at heart!’
Oh, God, she had chosen to have her wild, anonymous fling with Melanie’s stepson!
She had speculated that he might be British or Canadian, but never in a million years had Veronica dreamed that her excitingly exotic Frenchman would turn out to be one of her own countrymen—a common-or-garden New Zealander! Veronica felt an absurd sense of betrayal. How he must have been laughing at her in Paris!
Lucien made no pretence of politely shaking her hand. He went straight for the jugular, sliding his arms around her back and drawing her against his chest, kissing her cheeks with leisurely deliberation once, twice, three times, aiming the light brush of his mouth just below her ear lobe in each case, where he knew from experience she was ultra-sensitive to a caressing touch.
As a greeting it might have borne an outward resemblance to a sexless salute between new acquaintances, but the message transmitted to her senses was far from innocent. The lazy, rubbing motion of his jaw was like being scent-marked by a big cat and Veronica gave a little, soundless squeak, emerging flushed and breathless as he dropped his arms, but remained threateningly close.
Zoe coughed as Melanie continued rather uncertainly with her introduction, ‘Luc, this is Karen’s sister, Veronica, who Karen said very kindly leapt into the breach as soon as she heard about my crisis, and insisted on being my substitute right arm while I’m assembling the research for this new book…’
I did? I am? Veronica was too dazed to question this distortion of the facts, while Zoe’s second cough sounded more like a smothered laugh.
‘Bonsoir, M’mselle Veronica.’ The slow and lazy intonation combined with the gleam of malice in the dark brown eyes set alarm signals pinging all over her body, his use of French setting her teeth on edge, particularly the heavily accented version of her name. So what if he made it sound sinfully sexy?
‘Kia ora, Lucien,’ she pointedly responded with the traditional Kiwi salutation, trying to pitch her voice to the level of casual amusement without letting it tip over into sarcasm.
Melanie rushed in to fill the pause before it threatened to become awkward. ‘We weren’t expecting Luc for another couple of days but he arrived a little while before you did, Veronica—and promptly crashed out on his bed! And no wonder he’s exhausted—this is his first real break in years.
He works too hard in my opinion, and, on top of all that high-pressure living, he now has all this added stress—’ She broke off, biting her lip and casting a guilty look at her stepson.
‘Don’t worry, Melanie, I have a tried-and-true method of coping with pressure,’ he interposed smoothly, not taking his eyes off Veronica’s pale face, watching the colour mount her face as he said: ‘You might call it one of man’s most cherished stress-relievers.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve at last taken my advice and started doing yoga—’
‘Don’t be naïve, Mel, he’s a twenty-nine-year-old male in his full-blooded prime—he’s talking about sex,’ cackled Zoe.
‘Oh.’ Melanie looked flustered, and then slightly alarmed. ‘You didn’t—you haven’t been getting yourself any deeper into complications, have you?’ she ventured tentatively.
‘Not the kind you’re worrying about, no,’ he said, to her evident relief. ‘I’ve been out of London for the past few days, remember.’
‘Oh, of course—you decided to forget your flights and come down via Paris instead. So you and Veronica must have been staying there at the same time, Luc—it’s a wonder you didn’t run across each other. It’s because Luc owns an apartment in the building that he heard the short-term rental was coming up for sale and persuaded us to buy it as a good investment,’ she told Veronica, who hadn’t realised that the Reeds owned the Paris apartment themselves. ‘He got it at a marvellous price for us. He’s such a cut-throat negotiator…’
‘And yet he looks so harmless.’ She couldn’t help the sarcastic comment. He was still looking at her with that bone-melting intensity, like a predator contemplating a tasty morsel.
‘I’m just a big pussy-cat,’ he purred at her, as if he could read her mind. ‘Actually, Veronica and I did have a brief encounter in the rue de Birague yesterday,’ he said, with what she briefly mistook for appalling candour. ‘She wanted to know the best place to watch the fireworks…’
‘Oh, what a pity you didn’t tell us about your change of plans, Luc. I could have suggested you take Veronica under your wing,’ said Melanie innocently. ‘It was her first time in Paris, you know.’
‘I rather gathered that from her schoolgirl attempts to communicate.’
Veronica’s lips tightened at the deliberate goad. ‘I thought your stepson was French, and at the time he didn’t see fit to enlighten me.’
While Melanie looked disconcerted at the revelation, Zoe’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘So that’s why you pokered up when he said hello? Don’t take it personally, girl, he was probably just trying to keep an extra-low profile, and that’s not so easy in this day and age. You’d be shocked at the ridiculous lengths some people will go to for money, or their fifteen minutes of fame…’
Oh, no, I wouldn’t, thought Veronica with a little shudder. She could only hope that Neil had lost his bid to drag her into the spotlight to relive the embarrassing lowlights of their relationship by the time she flew home.
‘Come and try this wine that Luc brought with him, Melanie,’ Miles broke in, drawing them over to the table where he sat with Ashley and Ross, sipping at a pale rosé. ‘It’s a local one. I think it might be worth a mention in your book.’
As Ross contributed his opinion as a self-proclaimed expert Luc linked arms with Zoe to escort her to her chair and Veronica jumped as his other hand hooked under her elbow, his sun-warmed arm sliding against hers as he anchored her to his side.
‘Relax,’ he murmured, inclining his head until a loose strand of jet-black hair drifted to cling against the mahogany tresses falling in smooth layers around her face. ‘Don’t be so jumpy, or you’ll make them suspicious.’
She was the one who was suddenly suspicious. ‘I thought you wanted me to rue the day,’ she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
‘Ah, but that’s when I thought you were some ratbag freelance journalist out to get me.’
‘I’d already got you,’ she couldn’t help retorting.
‘But you weren’t scheming to sell me down the river over it…you really hadn’t looked at that newspaper. You had no idea who I was until just now.’ Even in an undertone his voice was rich with a gloating satisfaction. He took such pleasure in her ignorance that she was perversely annoyed.
‘Didn’t I?’ she murmured unwisely, savouring the way his head snapped sideways as she pulled her arm free and quickly slipped onto the empty chair between Sophie and Melanie. Serve him right for suspecting her in the first place.
To her frustration he waited until she was seated before dragging an empty chair around and squeezing it in between her and Sophie, hitching it forward with little bunny-hops of his legs that had the little girl in giggles as she was shunted into making room for him. Perforce, Veronica had to ease aside also, but not far enough to avoid the constant, casual brush of his shoulder and the not-so-casual shift of his hard calf against hers beneath the hanging tablecloth.
Although Veronica guessed she must not have seen him very often in her young life, Sophie obviously thought the world of Luc, for after a shy start she was soon peppering him with questions, to which he patiently responded.
‘Luc has been sending her regular emails at school,’ Melanie confided to Veronica, ‘ever since she wrote to him a few years ago. I didn’t know if he’d find the time to reply, let alone bother to keep it up, but he’s been absolutely marvellous, even helping her with some of her school assignments…which is more than her sister ever did for her,’ she added, with a pointed look across the table.
‘Luc’s the genius, it’s easy for him,’ said Ashley carelessly. ‘I was never any good at ordinary schoolwork. I’m the artistic type—I work on the visual plane.’
‘You could still find time to write occasionally, and not only to Sophie…’
‘What with having to work in the gallery and studying and constantly working towards my next exhibition—not to mention all Ross’s social obligations—I don’t have any spare time,’ was the plaintive reply.
‘What kind of painting do you do?’ asked Veronica politely.
Ashley gave her a patronising look. ‘I’m not a painter. I don’t restrict myself to revisiting dead conventions; I’m an environmental constructionist—I conceptualise space and remodel it with mixed-media and sculptural forms.’
‘Ashley is an installation artist,’ translated Luc, taking pity on Veronica’s look of confusion. ‘You know the kind of thing—covering objects in bubble-wrap, running hours of looped video in a room with the furniture glued to the ceiling…’
‘Oh, sorry, Ashley, I really don’t know much about modern art,’ Veronica said humbly, thinking it sounded quite ghastly. ‘I did enjoy the Picasso Museum in Paris, though.’
Her attempt to find common ground went down like a lead balloon. ‘Oh, Picasso—he’s accessible to pretty well everyone these days.’ Ashley shrugged.
‘Ashley prides herself on her inaccessibility,’ said Luc, his voice so exquisitely deadpan that Veronica glanced sideways at him, and almost made the mistake of laughing.
Ashley’s pretty face tensed, her blue eyes narrowing in fleeting doubt under the funky fringe of her bleached blonde hair before she decided to take the comment at its face value. ‘The struggle to be understood is part of the challenge of being on the cutting edge of art,’ she declared loftily.
‘Installation art is a hot-button for sponsorship in the Melbourne cultural scene at the moment,’ contributed Ross, pouring himself another glass of wine and reaching for the olives. ‘If you can get yourself noticed you can virtually write your own cheques. If I get posted to London, Ryder, perhaps you might be able to use some of your financial connections to help get sponsorship for an exhibition of Ash’s work,’ he said to Lucien, with an ingratiating smile that suggested he was well aware of the potential value of such contacts to himself.
‘Perhaps.’ Lucien’s voice was pleasant but noncommittal and Veronica, acutely attuned to every nuance of his tone, sensed his instinctive disli
ke of the other man.
Ashley flushed.
‘Luc’s got billions, he could afford to sponsor me himself, if he wasn’t such a philistine,’ she said, with a careless toss of her head.
‘No, he hasn’t, he’s only a millionaire,’ piped up Sophie. ‘I looked it up on the web. A billion is a thousand million and Luc only has—’
‘Sophie!’ her mother said sharply. ‘It’s rude to talk how much money people have right in front of them.’
‘That’s right, you should be like everyone else and do it sneakily, behind my back,’ grinned Lucien, giving Sophie a wink and making Melanie pinken.
‘Ashley said it first,’ the little girl was emboldened to say, ‘and she made a mistake, so I had to say something. Anyway, that’s what Luc does…he talks to people all the time about how much money they have and how much of his money they need to make their things work. That’s not rude, that’s just business.’
‘She means I’m a venture capitalist,’ said Lucien, catching the flicker of Veronica’s dark lashes. ‘I invest in other people’s ideas.’
He made it sound as simple as putting money in the bank, but Veronica knew that if he was making millions he was either incredibly astute or fantastically lucky…or a combination of both.
‘That’s a very high-risk field, isn’t it?’ she felt compelled to ask, wondering if a controversial investment gone wrong was the reason he was ducking the press.
He shrugged. ‘No risk, no gain—surely you subscribe to that philosophy yourself…’It was a statement, not a question, the sensuality sheathed in his slow smile hinting of things that had nothing to do with finance.
Veronica chose to ignore the sly suggestions. ‘What kind of ideas do you invest in?’
‘Whatever happens to interest me at the time. I’m a maverick.’ His shoulder brushed her arm as he stretched across the table to snag the bottle that Ross had left at his elbow and offer to top up her almost-empty glass.
‘Oh, I don’t know that I should—’ she said weakly, denying the temptation offered by the deliciously chilled nectar. She hadn’t been drunk last night, but she had certainly been uninhibited. She didn’t dare risk the reappearance of the wild, wanton woman she thought that she had left in Paris.
