by Julia James
The emotion he felt was in his voice, and he could see that it had registered with Tara as well, for her expression had changed.
‘Gone,’ he elaborated now. ‘As in Hans has flown back to Frankfurt, where he will be consulting a divorce lawyer. As for Celine—I don’t know and don’t care. Presumably to find herself a divorce lawyer as well.’
Tara stared. ‘Divorce?’
‘Yes.’ Marc smiled.
And Tara, to her disbelief, realised that it was a genuine, hundred-carat smile.
It wasn’t just the shock of what he’d said but the dazzling impact of his smile that froze the jug in her hand. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said weakly.
He lifted his coffee cup again, tilted it towards her. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘To both of us! It did the trick—my announcement to Celine yesterday that you were my fiancée and your oh-so-convincing behaviour that went with it!’
He took a mouthful of coffee and continued in that voice that was so different from any she had heard from him before.
‘It rattled Celine into making one last desperate attempt on me. When we got back last night she threw caution to the winds—and herself at me. Full-on. She told me she didn’t want Hans any more, that she only wanted me. What I didn’t realise at the time,’ he went on, ‘when I was disabusing her of her hopes, was that Hans overheard her saying she wanted to divorce him.’ He took a breath. ‘So he is going to oblige her and file for divorce himself.’
Tara’s face lit. ‘That’s wonderful! I couldn’t be happier for him!’
‘Nor me,’ said Marc. His expression changed again. ‘Celine will try and take him to the cleaners, but Bernhardt will make sure she gets as little as possible. He’s been on the phone to me already, thanking me profusely.’
His eyes rested on Tara. They were warm in a way she’d never seen before. So was his voice when he spoke again.
‘And I have to thank you too, Tara.’
His expression was veiled suddenly and his voice suddenly changed again. Now there was something in it that sent flickers of electricity through her, that quickened her pulse, made her eyes fix on his.
‘You don’t need me to tell you how damnably tormenting this whole thing has been! But...’ he gave a heartfelt sigh, rich with the profound relief that was the only emotion in him right now ‘...thank the Lord that is all over now!’
Inside his head Marc heard the very last of his life-long warnings to himself—heard it and dismissed it. He had not come this far, endured this much, to listen to it any more. Hans and Celine were gone—but Tara... Oh, Tara was here—and here was exactly where he wanted her...
And whatever else he wanted of her—well, he was damn well going to yield to it. Resisting it any longer, resisting her, was just beyond him now. Totally beyond him. Yes, she was a woman he would never usually have allowed himself to get this close to physically, but fate had brought them this far and he was not going to deny any longer what was between them.
Up till now it had been playacting—but from this morning onwards, he would make it searingly, blazingly real. It was all he wanted—all that consumed him.
She was gazing at him now, with uncertainty in her face—and something more than that. Something that told him he was not going to be the only one giving in to what had flamed between them right from the very start.
He smiled a smile warm with anticipation. With the relief he felt not just at Celine’s departure but at the thought of his own yielding to what he so wanted.
He poured himself some more coffee, helped himself to a brioche. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘we just have to decide how we’re going to celebrate the routing of the unspeakable Celine.’
Tara looked at him. Part of her was still reeling from the news that Hans was finally going to get rid of his dreadful wife, but that was paling into insignificance because she was reeling from the total change in Marc.
It was as if a different person sat there at the head of the table. Gone was the tight-faced, ill-humoured, short-fused man who could barely hide his constant displeasure and exasperation. Just gone. Now an air of total relaxation radiated from him, with good humour and satisfaction all round...
The difference could not be greater.
Nor the impact it was having on her.
She watched him sit back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other, completely at his ease.
Was this really Marc Derenz of the frowning brows, the steel jaw, the constant darkling expression in his eyes?
‘So,’ he said, buttering his brioche, ‘what would you like to do now that we have the day to ourselves?’
Tara started. ‘What do you mean?’ She tried to gather her thoughts. ‘Um...if Celine and Hans have gone, I ought to go back to London.’
Suddenly the frown was back again on his face. ‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Well, I mean... I’ve done what you brought me out here to do, so there’s no point me being here any longer.’
He cut across her. ‘Oh, for God’s sake—there’s no need to rush off!’ He took a breath, his stance altering subtly, as did the expression in his eyes. ‘Look, let’s just chill, shall we? We damn well deserve it, that’s for sure! So, like I say, what would you like to do today?’ His eyes rested on her. ‘How well do you know the South of France—I mean apart from trailing around the damn shops with Celine and seeing those dire houses she dragged us to? Why don’t I show you the South of France that’s actually worth seeing?’
He seemed to want an answer, but she could not give one. How could she? This was a Marc Derenz she had never known existed. One who could smile—really smile. One who radiated good humour. Who seemed to be wanting her company for herself, not for keeping Celine Neuberger at bay.
She felt something flutter inside her. Something she ought to pay attention to.
‘Um... I don’t know. I mean...’ She looked across at him. His expression was bland and she tried to make it out. ‘Why?’ she said bluntly. ‘As in why do you want me to stay? As what?’
That strange feeling inside her was fluttering again, more strongly now.
‘What do you mean, “As what?”,’ he countered.
‘Am I still in your employ, or what? Am I supposed to have some sort of role? Am I—?’
He cut across her questions. ‘Tara, don’t make this complicated. Stay because you’re here...because Celine and Hans have gone...because I want to celebrate their impending divorce. Stay for any damn reason you like!’
He was getting irritated, she could see. For some reason, it made her laugh. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she said dulcetly. ‘I thought the new, improved Marc Derenz was too good to be true!’
For a second he seemed to glower at her. Then his face relaxed. ‘You wind me up like no other woman,’ he told her.
‘You’re so easy to wind up,’ she said limpidly.
She could feel that flutter inside her getting stronger. Changing her mood. Filling her, suddenly, with a sense of freedom. Of adventure.
He shook his head, that rueful laugh coming again. ‘I’m not used to being disagreed with,’ he admitted.
Tara’s eyes widened. ‘No? I’d never have guessed.’
He threw her a look, then lifted both his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘Truce time,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘You know, I’m not really a bear with a sore head most of the time. You’ve seen me at my worst because of Celine. And,’ he admitted, ‘you’ve caught the sharp edge of my ill-humour because of that. But I can be nice, you know. Why don’t you stick around and find out just how nice, hmm...?’
She felt a hollow inside her, into which a million of the little flutters that had been butterflying inside her suddenly swooped.
Oh, Lord, this was a bad, bad idea! To ‘stick around’, as he’d put it! Yet she wanted to—oh, she wanted to! But on what terms? With what assumptions
? That was what she had to get clear. Because otherwise...
She took a breath. ‘Marc, these past days have been...’ She tried to find a word to describe them and failed. ‘Well, you know—the role-playing. It was...’ she swallowed ‘...confusing.’
She didn’t want to recount all the incidents, the memories she couldn’t cope with, the times when all self-control had been ripped from her.
He nodded slowly. His dark eyes rested on her with something behind them she did not need a code-breaker to decipher.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And it’s time—way beyond time—to end that confusion.’
He did not spell it out—he did not have to. She knew that as he went on.
‘So let’s put the confusion behind us, shall we? And the acting and the role-playing? We’ll just take it from here. See what happens.’ He paused, those dark eyes unreadable—and yet oh-so-readable. ‘What do you say?’
He was waiting for her answer.
She could feel those butterflies swooping around in that hollow space inside her, knew that she’d stopped breathing. Knew why. Knew, as she very slowly exhaled, that whatever she’d said to herself while being so ‘confused’—dear God, that word was an understatement!—about the way this man could make her feel, that now, with just the two of them here, like this, finally free to make their own choices, that she was making a decision that was going to take her to a place with Marc Derenz that she did not know. Had never yet been.
But she wanted to go there with a part of her that she could not resist. She heard words frame themselves in her mind. Knew them to be true.
It’s too late to say no to this—way too late.
As he’d said—no more role-play, no more acting. No more ‘confusion’. Just her and Marc...seeing what happened...
And if ‘what happened’ was her yielding to that oh-so-powerful, never before experienced desire for him, would that really be so bad?
She glanced about her at this beautiful place, at the devastating man sitting there, drawing her so ineluctably. Would it be so bad to experience all that she might with this man? Whatever it brought her?
I’ve never known a man like this—a man who makes me feel this way. So why should I say no to it? Why not say yes instead...?
She could feel the answer forming in her head, knowing it was the answer she would give him now. A tremor seemed to go through her as slowly she nodded her head.
She saw him smile a smile of satisfaction. Pleased...
His smile widened and he pushed a bowl of pastries towards her. ‘Have a croissant,’ he invited. ‘While we plan our day.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘SO, WHAT DO you think?’
Marc slewed the car to a juddering halt at the viewpoint and killed the engine. This was the car he liked to drive when he was at the villa—a low-slung, high-powered beast that snaked up the corniches, ate up the road as they gained elevation way up here in the foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes.
He turned to look at the woman sitting beside him in the deep bucket passenger seat as the engine died. Satisfaction filled him. Yes, he had made the right decision. He knew he had—he was definite about it.
The discovery from a clearly upset Hans that morning that he had accepted his marriage was over, and that Celine was not happy with him, had been like a release from prison for Marc. He’d said what needed to be said, organised Hans’s flight, then seen him off with a warm handshake.
Celine’s departure he had left to his staff while he himself had gone off to phone a jubilant Bernhardt.
And after that there’d only been himself to think about. Basking in heartfelt relief, he’d gone to breakfast in peace, his glance automatically going to the upper balcony. To Tara’s bedroom.
Tara.
He had known a decision had to be made.
What am I going to do? Pack her off back to London or...?
Even as he’d framed the question he’d felt the answer blazing in his head. For days now she’d haunted him...that amazing beauty of hers taunting him. His but only in illusion. His only reality, punching through every moment of his time with her, was that he wanted to say to hell with the role he’d hired her to play. He wanted more.
And when she’d walked out onto the terrace he’d taken one look at her and made his decision.
No, she wasn’t from his world. And, had it not been for the insufferable Celine and his need to keep her away from him, he’d never have let Tara get anywhere near him. Yes, he was breaking all his rules never to get involved with someone like her.
And he just did not care.
Not any more.
I want her—and for whatever time we have together it will be good. I know that for absolute sure—
It was good already. Good to have had that relaxed, leisurely breakfast, deciding how to spend their day—a day to themselves, a day to enjoy. Good to have her sitting beside him now, her sandaled feet stretched out in the capacious footwell, wearing a casual top and skinny cotton leggings that hugged those fantastic legs of hers. Her hair was caught back with a barrette and her make-up was minimal. But her beauty didn’t need make-up.
His eyes rested on her now, drinking her in.
‘The view is fabulous,’ she was exclaiming. Then she frowned. ‘It’s just a pity it’s so built up all along the coastline.’
Marc nodded. ‘Yes, it’s a victim of overdevelopment. Which is why I like being out on the Cap—it’s more like the Riviera was before the war, when the villa was built.’
He gunned the engine again, to start their descent, telling her how the villa had been party central in the days of his great-grandfather.
It was a subject he continued over lunch, stopping off at a little auberge that he liked to go to when he wanted to get away from his usual plush lifestyle.
‘He invited everyone who was anyone—painters, ex-pat Americans, film-makers, novelists.’
‘It sounds very glamorous.’ Tara smiled as he regaled her with stories.
‘My grandfather was much quieter in temperament—and my father too. When I was a boy we spent the summers here. Hans and his first wife and their children were often visitors, before my parents were killed—’
He broke off, aware that he was touching on something he did not usually talk about to the women in his life. But Tara was looking at him, the light of sympathy in her eyes.
‘Killed?’ she echoed.
‘They both died in a helicopter crash when I was twenty-three,’ he said starkly.
Her expression of sympathy deepened. ‘That must have been so hard for you.’
His mouth tightened. ‘Yes,’ was all he said. All he could say.
He watched her take a slow forkful of food, then she looked at him again. ‘It can’t compare, I know, but I have some idea of what you went through.’ She paused. ‘My parents are both in the army, and part of me is always waiting to hear that...well, that they aren’t going to come home again. That kind of fear is always there, at some level.’
It came to him that he knew very little about this woman. He only knew the surface, that fabulous beauty of hers that so took his breath away.
‘Did you—what is that old-fashioned phrase in English?—“follow the drum”?’ he heard himself asking.
She shook her head. ‘No, I was sent to boarding school at eight, and spent most of my holidays with my grandparents. Oh, I flew out to see my parents from time to time, and they came home on leave sometimes, but I didn’t see a great deal of them when I was growing up. I still don’t, really. We get on perfectly well, but I guess we’re quite remote from one another in a way.’
He took a mouthful of wine. It was only a vin de table, made from the landlord’s own grapes, but it went well with the simple fare they were eating. He found himself wondering whether Tara would have preferred a more expensive restaurant, but she seemed
content enough.
She was relaxing more all the time, he could tell. It was strange to be with her on her own, without Celine and Hans to distort things. Strange and...
Good. It’s good to be here with her. Getting to know her.
And why not? She came from a different world, and that was refreshing in itself. But it was about himself that he heard himself speaking next.
‘I was very close to my parents,’ he said. ‘Which made it so hard when—’ He broke off. Took another mouthful of wine. ‘Hans was very kind—he stepped in, got me through it. He stood by me and his wife did too. I was...shell-shocked.’ He frowned, not looking at her, but back into that nightmare time all those years ago. ‘Hans helped me with the bank too. Not everyone on the board thought I could cope at so young an age. He guided me, advised me—made sure I took control of everything.’
‘No wonder,’ she said carefully, ‘you’re so loyal to him now.’
His eyes went to hers. ‘Yes,’ he said simply.
She smiled. ‘Well, I hope his life will soon be a lot happier.’ Her expression changed, softened. ‘He’s such a lovely man—it’s so sad that he was widowed. Do you think he’ll marry again eventually? I mean, someone not like Celine!’
‘It would be good for him, I think,’ Marc agreed. ‘But, as I said to you, the trouble is he can be too kind-hearted for his own good—easy for him to be taken advantage of by an ambitious female.’
‘Yes...’ She nodded. ‘He needs someone much nicer than Celine! Someone,’ she mused, ‘who really values him. And...’ she gave a wry smile ‘...who enjoys German romantic poetry!’
Marc pushed his empty plate aside, wanting to change the subject. Of course he was glad for Hans that he’d freed himself from Celine’s talons, but right now the only person he wanted to think about was Tara.
She had already finished her plat du jour, and she smiled at him as she reached for a crusty slice of baguette from the woven basket sitting on the chequered tablecloth.
‘You’ve no idea how good it is to simply eat French bread!’ she told him feelingly. ‘Or that croissant I had at breakfast! So many models are on starvation diets—it’s horrendous!’
