by Susan Napier
In the lobby, a bell-boy had inserted a security key to enable access to the top floor so she assumed that the front desk had called ahead, and was disconcerted when the lift door opened directly into the suite and there was no one to greet her.
She walked tentatively into the large room, elegantly furnished in creams and golds, the heels of her smart grey shoes, bought in a sale on the rue de Rivoli, clicking across the marble tiles in the open lobby before they sank into the deep pile of the luxurious carpet. The several doors that opened onto the room were all closed and she hesitated, clearing her throat.
When that tentative approach brought no response she walked over to the long cream couches that faced each other across a veined marble coffee-table, to put down her briefcase and handbag. Her eyes fell on the stack of newspapers on the coffee table she assumed were supplied by the hotel and her knees almost buckled.
The top one was an English broadsheet dated the previous day, and there on the front page was a photograph of a radiant Elise Malcolm laughing up at Max Foster at the Los Angeles première of his latest film, his big hand splayed over the distinct baby-bump revealed by her figure-hugging dress. An inset picture of a grim-looking older man whom the caption identified as Andrew Malcolm, who had released a statement the morning after the première that he had filed for a divorce from his wife on the grounds of adultery. No co-respondent was named in the divorce petition, but Malcolm had revealed that his wife was now living in Foster’s Los Angeles home.
‘I thought you’d like to see it hot off the presses—given your habit of relying on everyone’s word but mine.’ The dark, cynical words sliced through her heart, cutting off the oxygen supply to her brain.
With a virulent curse, Luc leapt forward as Veronica folded like a pack of cards, just managing to catch her up in his arms before her head hit the sharp corner of the table. Still cursing, he picked her up and laid her on the cream brocade couch, kneeling down to unbutton her jacket and comb her hair back from her milk-white face, tucking a cushion under her head and patting her cheeks.
‘Veronica? Damn it, don’t do this to me!’
Her eyes fluttered open and she stared up at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Where’s Mr Atkinson?’ she murmured, wildly disorientated.
Luc sat beside her, his hip hard against hers, his arm braced on the back of the couch above her prone body, his other hand smoothing her pleated brow.
‘I don’t know. Down in Wellington, I suppose, where he belongs,’ he said gruffly. ‘I own a big chunk of Sarron through a loan I made to Atkinson. Hence his lending me his name…’
Her brain was still processing information very slowly. ‘But…we were going to talk business—’
His mouth compressed with impatience. ‘I’ll set up another meeting for you. Meantime, you and I are going to talk some long-overdue business!’ The hand that had been tending her brow moved to plant itself flat on the cushion beside her face as he leaned close enough to snap her back into full awareness.
Her eyes flared with alarm and she licked her peach-glossed lips. ‘I—could I have a drink of water?’ she asked huskily.
But he had seen her eyes dart towards the lift. His jaw clenched. ‘No.’
She noticed her open jacket, revealing her smooth camisole, and reached for her buttons, but he brushed her hands away.
‘No distractions, or evasions. You’re not budging from here until you start giving me some answers…about why you wouldn’t take my calls, for a start! And why you didn’t wait for me to come back from Avignon—I didn’t expect to spend the night, let alone the next day as well, but I had a situation on my hands. I told you I’d explain everything as soon as I could.’
His eyes narrowed into fierce slits, his hand fisting on the back of the couch. ‘But then, it seems you’d rather give everyone but me the benefit of the doubt. I thought that we’d established some rapport, that if you didn’t trust me as a man, at least you respected who I was and you certainly seemed to like being with me, but then—’ His jaw clamped down as he visibly fought the desire to roar, and she could practically see his tail lashing back and forth. ‘God, Veronica—you really thought that I was sleeping with you while trying to hide from the consequences of having knocked up my adulterous lover! And on what evidence—’
‘The evidence of my own eyes and ears!’ she protested defensively. She knew it was weak. She had loved him, but she had lacked the courage, or the self-confidence, to fight for him. In her darkest moments, she had even wondered if the reason he hadn’t rushed to return the engagement ring was because he had been keeping it for that woman…his first love, mother of his child—only, of course, she wasn’t…
‘But from whom? Not me. You didn’t happen to notice that it was Elise who was doing all the talking and not making a lot of sense?’ he echoed her thoughts acidly. ‘I didn’t have a chance to get a word in edgeways. She was hysterical, and working herself up into even more of a state. I thought the stress might hurt the baby if she kept it up—and by that I mean, Foster’s baby, by the way,’ he stressed with an incendiary glare, ‘and she wasn’t in any condition to drive back to Avignon by herself, let alone confront that arrogant son-of-a-bitch who was already roaring drunk when we finally ran him to ground—’
She was stricken with shame, with no excuse but blind, stupid jealousy. ‘I didn’t know—’
‘No, of course you didn’t! Melanie finally managed to get through to me to say you’d left to take up your original TGV booking, but I went to the station but by that time the train had left—’
He had gone to the station! And she had let him down—again—by not being there!
‘I got there early and changed my ticket,’ she admitted. She’d paid the premium gratefully, and then spent the whole six-and-a-half-hour journey in an agony of misery and uncertainty. As her searing hurt had faded she had begun to realise that she should have listened to Melanie’s insistence that they had all got the wrong end of the stick, but then she had convinced herself that it was too late, he would never forgive her for her betrayal, not after all he’d been through.
‘You really were desperate to get away from me, weren’t you?’ he said, his eyes branding her with his burning accusation. ‘You left things in an uproar. Melanie and Miles thought I must have really hurt you to make you run away from me. I could have throttled you for making them think that of me—’
Her hand crept to her throat, though not out of fear. ‘I’m sorry—’ she whispered.
‘About what?’ he pounced.
She drank in the sight of him. In dark trousers and white shirt he looked lean and fit, but there were signs of strain around his eyes and mouth.
‘You look tired—’
‘So I should,’ he said bitingly. ‘I’ve been working like a slave for the past few weeks and spent the last twenty-four hours in the air without a wink of sleep.’
Veronica’s searching eyes paused, and widened.
He tensed. ‘What is it?’
She bit her lip. ‘N-nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing. Start talking to me. It’s the only way you’re ever going to get out of here.’
But what if she didn’t want to ever leave?
Luc was here, in New Zealand. He had gone to all this trouble to set her up for an ambush. Not the actions of a man who was intent on totally wiping her out of his life. Luc, too, needed closure.
‘You have a couple of grey hairs…I never noticed them before,’ she said, daring to touch the spot on his temple.
He recoiled, combing his fingers over the top of his head, almost dislodging the black band at the nape of his neck. ‘That’s because I never had any before. Not until I met you,’ he added savagely. ‘I’ll probably be totally white by the time we’re through.’
She propped herself up on her elbows as she realised what else was different. ‘You’re wearing a tie!’
He loosened the dark red silk self-consciously and unbuttoned his collar. ‘I had a me
eting with a couple of bankers this morning. I do know the principle of dressing to intimidate—’
‘You mean, you haven’t come all this way just to intimidate me.’ She was beginning to recover her shattered composure, and more…she was beginning to see things from a perspective she had never before considered, put a different interpretation on his behaviour.
Now it was his turn to sound slightly defensive. ‘I had to fill the time until you were due to arrive somehow.’ He stood up. ‘You’re still looking a little pale—maybe you should have a glass of water.’
She had put him into retreat. She quickly scrambled off the couch in a panic. ‘No, don’t go—I’m fine. See!’
Her shoe brushed her handbag and it toppled over, the little terracotta shepherd-boy bounced out of the side pocket onto the carpet. They both bent to pick it up simultaneously, but Luc got there first.
He fingered it with startling tenderness as he straightened and looked at her, his eyes for the first time totally unguarded.
‘You damned little fool!’ he said roughly, the words encompassing everything that she had done…and not done.
She was shaken by the painful intensity in his voice and put her hand over his, needing the contact to get the words out: ‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t realise I could—’
‘How could you not know? God, even Gran could see I was crazy about you.’ He raised their joined hands to his mouth. ‘I thought I showed you how I felt—’
‘A girl likes to be told,’ she chided him, her smoky eyes shimmering with hope that her mistrust hadn’t shattered his fundamental belief in her.
‘So does a boy,’ he said thickly. His fingers entwined with hers. ‘I thought that when I put that ring on your finger in Avignon, that you might want to keep it there.’
For the second time that day her legs turned to jelly and this time he was ready. The tension lines on his face dissolved in a soft laugh as he sat with her on the couch and stood the shepherd-boy facing them on the coffee-table.
‘A girl likes to be asked,’ she said shyly.
‘I thought it might frighten you off,’ he said simply. ‘For all the way we met, you’re a cautious woman. I wanted to put my mark on you, but I didn’t think you trusted me enough at that stage to say yes.’
And subsequent events had proved him right. She had never thought he lacked confidence, but in this one area he seemed as vulnerable as she had been—no wonder their tangle of emotions had become a snarl.
‘I did wonder if you might want to keep it for Elise,’ she confessed, and when his eyes flickered his distaste, she continued bravely, ‘Well, you must admit, it was a very suspicious situation, and you never made any secret of the fact there was a lot more to the tale than you were telling.’
‘Because it wasn’t my tale to tell. I’d promised Elise absolute discretion, and I make a point of honouring my promises, even it they aren’t easy to keep…all my promises,’ he said quietly, with a look that made her warm all over. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk—not about other people, anyway.
‘Luc, I—’
‘No, let’s get this out of the way. Elise and Foster have got what they want, at the expense of a lot of pain to other people, so they at least owe you the truth.’
His gaze remained steady as he made no attempt to paint his actions in a heroic light, merely as a series of escalating complications—an honourable man trapped in a less than honourable situation.
‘I wasn’t having a meal with Elise the night of the fight, I was actually out at a formal dinner. She called me from Foster’s hotel room in a panic. She said there was a photographer outside and Foster was drunk as well as high on something and threatening to make a scene, and she needed someone she could trust to help calm him down. Elise and I were better platonic friends than we were ever lovers, and I think she saw me as the only person whose discretion she could totally rely on—most of her other male friends were Andrew’s political buddies or dependants. And I was already involved, although I didn’t know it. Elise told me that night that the times Foster had stayed at my place in Derbyshire, she’d gone down there to be with him—they’d used me as a cover for their affair without having the courtesy to tell me about it.’
Veronica winced. No wonder he was touchy about personal loyalty. ‘You still helped her, though—’
‘Call me an old romantic,’ he said wryly, ‘but she was my first lover. She was also a politically helpful friend for many years. And I felt sorry for her—she’d got herself into a hell of a mess with someone whom I personally think is a walking disaster.
‘Elise came downstairs at the hotel to meet me, but Foster followed her down and accused me of trying to break them up and that’s when he attacked me. As soon as Elise realised someone had taken a photo of the fight, she knew they were in even worse trouble. If Foster’s name was linked with hers, the press would be instantly all over them like a rash, whereas if it was my name it wouldn’t attract so much attention and she still had true deniability: anyone digging for dirt about my relationship with her since her marriage was going to come up with zilch, because there was nothing to find. So we went to the restaurant to make it look like we were all having a sociable night out, and to try to talk some sense into Macho Man, and eventually we managed to convince him to go into rehab the next day, after which I was able to pour him back into his room. We were actually lucky the photos weren’t used in the right order—it put a different spin on the story: a fight between two blokes over a social insult. Elise was in tears because Foster was accusing her of using him as a baby-factory. I advised her to tell Andrew straight away, before it hit the papers, and either ask for a divorce or ask him to accept the child as their own.’
‘She could have pretended it was his baby…’
He gave her a dour look. ‘Andrew’s sterile.’
‘Oh—’
‘At that stage she still wasn’t sure if she wanted to take the risk with Foster—she knows he’s not a very stable personality, but I guess she must have decided he loves her enough to give up all his carousing for her and the baby. I let her stay in one of my company apartments after she moved out on Andrew, to lay low the press, but that was when she started thinking that she might be making a huge mistake. My mistake was letting her know I was going to be at St Romain with the family. I guess she just took it for granted that I would play the role of counsellor again when she burnt her boats and asked for the divorce. She nearly went back to London when she found old Max drunk as a skunk in Avignon, but he bounced back like an old pro the next day and claimed it was only because he’d been missing her and worrying she was having second thoughts. He can act, I’ll give him that!’
‘You certainly have some interesting friends,’ murmured Veronica. She could almost feel sorry for Elise Malcolm.
‘Who can go to the devil! At the moment I’m only interested in one, very particular friend,’ he said, curving his hand under her chin and tilting up her face to slant his mouth over hers.
Quicksilver delight darted through her body as she put her hands against his crisp shirt-front. ‘At the moment? That doesn’t give us very long, does it?’
‘A lifetime of moments,’ he corrected himself, deepening the kiss to one of ravishing intimacy, his warm arms sliding under her jacket. ‘I’ve worked day and night to free up enough time to come down here and convince you that you can trust me every moment of the rest of your life,’ he said, nibbling along her jaw. ‘I knew damned well you were never going to make the first approach…I sent you those santons as an advance guard, but I never heard a peep from you.’
‘I was too ashamed,’ she admitted, resting her forehead against his hard cheek. ‘I thought being without you was my punishment for doubting your integrity. Deep down I don’t think I did believe those things, but being in love was so overwhelming and all in only two weeks…I just got scared that I didn’t know myself any more, let alone you…’
‘Well, it’s been a lot more
than two weeks now, and if we’re going to work out a deal I warn you I’m going to be a ruthless…’ one hand slid up to cup her soft breast ‘…negotiator.’
She ached at his remembered touch. ‘It’s been so long…’
She felt his smile against her skin, warming her from the inside out. ‘Have you forgotten how?’ he teased.
She pulled her mouth away from his, for the sheer pleasure of pouting at him. ‘To negotiate? I’m a businesswoman—it’s what I do.’
To her disappointment he didn’t immediately pull her back into his kiss.
‘Then perhaps this will sweeten the deal.’ He took the diamond ring she had worn so briefly from his pocket, holding it between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Will you marry me, Veronica?’ he said, with a formal sincerity that made the words sing in her heart.
She touched the rim of white fire. ‘You want us to be boring and respectable, then?’ she said, reminding him of his words in Avignon.
‘Respectable, at least. Melanie would never forgive me if her grandchildren weren’t legitimate, and Sophie said she won’t let me come to her birthday party unless I bring you. Of course, Karen’s not so hot on the idea of being my sister-in-law, but since she’s going off on her modelling kick and I know a few people in the fashion industry she’s decided there may be some advantages.’
She melted. ‘You told them all…about us?’
He slid the ring on her slender finger with an expression of fierce satisfaction as he watched it settle home.
‘I don’t want any more secrets between us.’
‘But I still have one,’ she confessed gravely, looking at her hand in his, and the blaze of diamonds symbolising their new pact. She raised her eyes to his and his sudden tension eased as he saw they were laughing. ‘You were right to be suspicious of me. I think I started falling in love with you the very first time I looked out of my window in Paris and saw you in that little café across the street. I spied on you for days, weaving dreams and plotting how to meet you, before I got up enough courage to actually do it.’
