by Julia James
Lunch was going to have to wait...
* * *
‘What’s the plan for this afternoon?’ Tara enquired casually as, quite some time later, they settled down to the delicious al fresco lunch awaiting them on the vine-shaded terrace.
‘What would you like to do?’ Marc asked indulgently.
His mood was good—very good. Their refreshing shower had done a lot more than refresh him...
Have I ever known a woman like her?
The question played in his mind and he let it. So did the answer. But the answer was one that, unlike the question, he suddenly did not care to consider. Did he really want to accept that no other woman in his life had come anywhere close to how Tara made him feel? Accept how she could elicit his desire for her simply by glancing at him with those amazing blue-green eyes?
How long had this idyll here at the villa been so far? A fortnight? Longer still? The days were slipping by like pearls on a necklace...he’d given up counting them. He did not wish to count them. Did not wish to remember time, the days, the month progressing. He liked this timeless drift of day after day after day...
‘You choose,’ Tara said lazily, helping herself to some oozing Camembert, lavishing it on fresh crusty bread.
She must have put on pounds, she thought idly, but the thought did not trouble her. She didn’t care. Didn’t even want to think about going back to London, picking up on the last of her modelling assignments, giving notice on the flat-share, clearing her things and heading west to move into her thatched cottage and start the life she had planned for so long.
It seemed a long, long way away from here. From now.
Her eyes went to Marc, her gaze softening, just drinking him in as he helped himself to salad, poured mineral water for them both...
He caught her looking at him and his expression changed. ‘Don’t look at me like that...’ There was the familiar husk in his voice.
She gave a small laugh. ‘I haven’t the strength for anything else but looking,’ she said. Her voice lowered. ‘And looking at you is all I want to do...just to gaze and gaze upon your manly perfection!’
There was a lazy teasing in her voice and his mouth twitched. He let his own gaze rest on her—on her feminine perfection...
Dimly, he became aware that his phone was ringing. Usually he put it on to silent, but he must have flicked it on when he’d attempted—so uselessly—to knuckle down to some work.
He glanced at it irately. He didn’t want to be disturbed. When he saw the identity of the caller his irritation mounted. He picked up the phone. He might as well answer and get it over and done with...
Nodding his apologies to Tara, he went indoors. Disappeared inside his study. Behind him, at the table, Tara tucked in, unconcerned, turning her mind to how they might amuse themselves that afternoon.
But into her head came threads of thoughts she didn’t want to let in. She might not want the time to pass, but it was passing all the same. How long ago had she flown out here from London? It plucked at her mind that she should check her diary—see when she had to be back there, get in touch with her booker. Show her face again...
I don’t want to!
The protest was in her head, and it was nothing to do with her wanting to quit modelling and escape to her cottage. It was deeper than that—stronger. More disturbing.
I don’t want this time with Marc to end.
That was the blunt truth of it. But end it must—how could it not? How could it possibly not? How could anything come of this beyond what they had here and now—this lotus-eating idyll of lazy days and sensual nights...?
She shifted restlessly in her chair, wanting Marc to come back. Wanting her eyes to light upon him and him to smile, to resume their discussion about how to spend a lazy afternoon together...
But when he did walk out, only a handful of moments later, it was not relief that she felt when her eyes went to him. Not relief at all...
She’d wondered when this idyll would end. Well, she had her answer now, in the grim expression on Marc’s face—an expression she had not seen since before the routing of Celine. It could presage nothing but ill.
She heard him speak, his voice terse.
‘I’m sorry, I’m going to have to leave for New York. Something’s come up that I can’t avoid.’ He took a breath, throwing himself into his chair. ‘One of my clients—one of the bank’s very wealthiest—wants to bring forward the date of his annual review. I always attend in person, and it’s impossible for me to get out of it. Damned nuisance though it is!’
Tara looked at him. She kept her face carefully blank. ‘When...when do you have to leave?’ she asked.
‘Tomorrow. I should really leave today, but...’
‘Oh,’ she said. It seemed, she thought, an inadequate thing to say. But the words she wanted to say, to cry out to him, she could not. Should not.
I don’t want this time to end! Not yet!
Even as she heard the cry inside her head she knew it should not be there. Knew she should not be feeling what she was feeling now—as if she were being hollowed out from the inside. She had no right to feel that way.
Right from the start she had known that whatever it was she was going to indulge herself in with Marc, it was only that—an indulgence. They had come together only by circumstance, nothing more. Nothing had ever been intended to happen between them.
He never meant to have this time with me. Would never have chosen it freely. It was simply because of his need to use me to keep Celine away from him! He’d never have looked twice at me otherwise—not with any intent of making something of it.
Memory, harsh and undeniable, sprang into her head. Of the way Marc had stood there, that first day she’d arrived, telling her that her presence was just a job, that he was out of bounds to her, that she was there only to play-act and she was not to think otherwise. He could not have spelt out more clearly, more brutally, that she wasn’t a woman he would choose for a romance, an affair, any relationship at all...
She knew it. Accepted it. Had no choice but to accept it. But even as she told herself she could hear other words crying out in her head.
He might ask me to go with him! He might—he could! He could say to me just casually, easily, Come to New York with me—let me show you the sights. Be with me there.
She looked at him now. His expression was remote. He was thinking about things other than her. Not asking her to go with him.
Then, abruptly, his eyes met hers. Veiled. He picked up his discarded napkin, resumed his meal. ‘So,’ he said, and his voice was nothing different from what it always was, ‘if this is to be our last day, how would you like to spend it?’
She felt that hollow widening inside her. But she knew that all she could do was echo his light tone, though she could feel her fingers clenching on her knife and fork as she, too, resumed eating.
‘Can we just stay here, at the villa?’ she asked.
One last day. And one last night.
There was a pain inside her that she should not be feeling. Must not let herself feel.
But she felt it all the same.
* * *
Marc executed a fast, hard tack and brought the yacht about. His eyes went to Tara, ducking under the boom and then straightening. Her windblown hair was a halo around her face as she pushed it back with long fingers, refastening the loosened tendrils into a knot.
How beautiful she looked! Her face was alight, her fabulous body gracefully leaning back, and her eyes were the colour of the green-blue sea.
One thought and one thought alone burned in his head. I don’t want this time with her to end.
How could he? How could he want it to end when it had been so good? All the promise that she had held for him, all that instant powerful allure she’d held for him from the very first moment he’d set eyes on her, had been fulfilled
.
He knew, with the rational part of him, that had he never had to resort to employing her to keep Hans’s wife at bay he would never have chosen to follow through on that initial rush of desire. He’d have quenched it, turned aside from it, walked away. Hell, he wouldn’t even have known she existed, would he? He’d never have gone to that fashion show had it not been for Celine...
But he had gone, he had seen her, and he had used her to thwart Hans’s wife...
He had brought her into his life.
Had rewarded himself with her.
His grip on the tiller tightened. It’s been good. Better than good. Like nothing else in my life has ever been.
From the first he’d known he wanted her—but these days together had been so much more than he’d thought they could be! He watched as she leant back, elbows on the gunwale, lifting her face to the sun, eyes closed, face in repose as they skimmed over the water, her hair billowing in the wind, surrounding her face again.
He felt something move within him.
I don’t want this to end.
Those words came again—stronger now. And bringing more with them.
So don’t end it. Take her with you to New York.
His thoughts flickered. Why shouldn’t he? She could be with him in New York as easily as she was here. It could be just as good as it was here.
So take her with you.
The thought stayed in his head, haunting him, for the rest of the day. As he moored the yacht at the villa’s jetty, phoned for it to be taken back to harbour. As they washed off the salt spray in the pool, then showered and dressed for dinner. As they met on the terrace for their customary cocktails.
It was with him all the time, hovering like a background thought, always present. Always tempting.
It was there all through dinner—ordered by him to be the absolute best his chef could conjure up—and all through the night they spent together...the long, long night in each other’s arms. It was there as he brought her time and time again to the ecstasy that burned within her like a living flame, and it seemed to him that it burned more fiercely than it ever had, that his own possession of her was more urgent than it ever had been, their passion more searing than he could bear...
Yet afterwards, as she lay trembling in his arms, as he soothed her, stroked her dampened hair, held her silk-soft body to his, his unseeing gaze was troubled. And later still, when in the chill before the dawn he rose from their bed, winding a towel around his hips and walking out onto the balcony, closing his hands over the cold metal rail, and looking out over the dark sea beyond, his thoughts were uncertain.
If he took her with him to New York, what then? Would he take her back to France? To Paris? To stay with him at his hotel? Make her part of his life? His normal, working life?
And then what? What more would he want? And what more would she want...?
Again that same disturbing thought came to him—that she, too, might be remembering his impulsive declaration that afternoon, casting her as his intended wife, his fiancée, the future Madame Derenz.
Foreboding filled him. Unease. He did not know what she might want—could not know. All he knew was how he lived his life—and why. Just to have this time with her he’d already broken all the rules he lived by—rules that he’d had every reason to keep and none to break.
It had been good, this time he’d had with Tara—oh, so much more than good! But would it stay good? Or would danger start to lap at him...? Destroying what had been good?
Was it better simply to have this time—the memory of this time—and be content with that? Lest he live to regret a choice he should not have made...? Their time here had been idyllic—but could idylls last? Should they last?
He moved restlessly, unquiet in his mind.
He heard a sound behind him—bare feet—and turned. She was naked, her wanton hair half covering her breasts, half revealing them.
‘Come back to bed,’ she said, her voice low, full with desire.
She held out a hand to him—a hand he took—and he went with her.
To possess her one last time...
* * *
Their bodies lay entwined, enmeshed. He stroked back the tumbled mass of her hair, eased his body from hers. Tara reached out her hand, her fingertips grazing the contours of his face. The ecstasy he’d given her was ebbing, and in its place another emotion was flowing.
She felt her heart squeeze and longing fill her. A silent cry breaking from her. Don’t let this be the last time! Oh, let it not be the last time for ever!
A longing not to lose him, to lose this, flooded through her. Her eyes searched his in the dim light. When she spoke her throat was tight, her words hesitant, infused with longing. ‘I could come to New York with you...’ she said.
The hand stroking her hair stilled. In the dim light she saw his expression change. Close. Felt a coldness go through her.
‘That wouldn’t work,’ he answered her.
She heard the change in his voice. The note of withdrawal. She dropped her eyes, unable to bear seeing him now. Seeing his face close against her, shutting her out.
She took a narrowed breath and closed her eyes, saying no more. And as he drew her back against him, cradling her body, and she felt his breath warm on her bare shoulder, he knew that what they’d had, they had no longer. And never could again.
Behind her, with her long, slender back drawn against his chest, his arm thrown around her hips, Marc looked out over the darkened room. He had answered as he’d had to. With the only safe answer to give her. The answer that he had known must be his only answer from the very first.
CHAPTER NINE
TARA WOKE, STIRRING slowly to a consciousness she did not want. And as she roused herself from sleep and the world took shape around her she knew that it was already too late.
Marc was gone.
Cold filled her, like iced water flooding through her veins. A cry almost broke from her, but she suppressed it. What use to cry out? What use to cry at all?
This had always been going to happen—always!
But it was one thing to know that and another to feel it. To feel the empty place where he had been. To know that he would never come back to her. Never hold her in his arms again...
She felt her throat constrict, her face convulse. Slowly, with limbs like lead, she sat up, pushing her tangled hair from her face, shivering slightly, though the mid-morning sunlight poured into the room.
She looked around her blankly, as if Marc might suddenly materialise. But he never would again—and she knew that from the heaviness that was weighing her down. Knew it in the echo of his voice, telling her he did not want to take her with him. Knew it with even greater certainty as her eyes went to an envelope propped against the bedside lamp...and worse—oh, far worse—to the slim box propping it up.
She read the card first, the words blurring, then coming into focus.
You were asleep so I did not wake you. All is arranged for your flight to London. I wish you well—our time together has been good.
It was simply signed Marc. Nothing more.
Nothing except the cheque for ten thousand pounds at which she could only stare blankly, before replacing numbly into the envelope with the brief note.
Nothing except the ribbon of glittering emeralds in the jewellery case, catching the sunlight in a dazzle of gems. She let it slide through her fingers, knowing she should replace it in its velvet bed, leave it there on the bedside table. It was a gift far too valuable to accept. Impossible to accept.
But it was also impossible not to clutch it to her breast, to feel the precious gems indent her skin. To treasure it all her life.
How can I spurn his only gift to me? It’s all that I will have to remember him by.
For a while she sat alone in the wide bed, as if making her farewells to it and all that had been t
here for her, with him. Then, at length, she knew she must move—must get up, must go back to her own bedroom, shower and dress, pack and leave. Go back to her own life. To her own reality.
The reality that did not have Marc in it. That could not have him in it.
I knew this moment would come. And now it has.
But what she had not known was how unbearable it would be... She had not been prepared for that. For the tearing ache in her throat. For the sense of loss. Of parting for ever.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this! To feel like this!
The cry came from deep within her. From a place that should not exist, but did.
No, it was not supposed to be like this. It was supposed to have been nothing more than an indulgence of the senses...a yielding to her overpowering attraction to him...a time to be enjoyed, relished and revelled in, no more than that.
She should be leaving now, heading back to her own life, with a smile of fond remembrance on her face, with a friendly farewell and a little glow inside her after having had such a wonderful break from her reality!
That was what she was supposed to be feeling now. Not this crushing weight on her lungs...this constricted throat that choked her breath...this desperate sense of loss...
With a heavy heart she slipped through the connecting door. She had to go—leave. However hard, it had to be done.
Two maids were already in her room, carefully packing the expensive clothes Marc had provided for her—an eternity ago, it seemed to her. She frowned at the sight. She must not take them with her. They were couture numbers, worth a fortune, and they were not hers to take.
She said as much to the maids, who looked confused.
‘Monsieur Derenz has instructed for them to go with you, mademoiselle,’ one said.
Tara shook her head. She had the emerald necklace—that was the only memory of Marc she would take, and only because it was his gift to her. That was its value—nothing else.
On sudden impulse, she said to the two young girls, ‘You have the clothes! Share them between you! They can be altered to fit you... Or maybe you could sell them?’
