Was it anger that held him back? Anger at the reckless way his father had always lived his life? Anger at the way he had left Lucien’s mother to struggle on her own as a single mum with no support? Anger that even now, when his father should be acting responsibly and sensibly, he was doing the opposite?
Audrey winced as if she found the thought of him not saying it to his father painful. ‘Maybe you should...you know, before it’s too late...or something...’
He let out a long sigh. ‘Yeah, maybe I should.’ He drummed his fingers on the table for a moment, then pushed back his chair to stand. ‘Come on, little lady. Time for some fresh air before bed.’
‘Can I use the bathroom first?’
‘Sure. I’ll settle the bill and wait for you at the front.’
* * *
Audrey dashed into the bathroom and checked her phone. The message still hadn’t been read by her mother, which meant Sibella had her phone switched off. Normally her mother never switched her phone off in case her agent wanted to call her. It used to drive Audrey crazy whenever she spent time with her because her mother would always be checking her phone instead of listening to her. Why hadn’t she thought to ask exactly where her mother and Harlan were staying?
She went back out to where Lucien was waiting for her at the front of the restaurant and when he smiled her heart gave a little kick. They had talked like a real couple over dinner, sharing hurts and disappointments about their lives that she—and she suspected he—had never shared with anyone else.
But they weren’t a real couple. Not in the sense that this relationship—this fling—could go any significant distance. Which would have been perfectly fine even a couple of days ago because back then she hadn’t seen herself wanting any relationship to go the distance, especially the distance towards marriage and happy-ever-after.
But after running into her mother and seeing the heartfelt love and distress on her face at the thought of permanently losing the love of her life Audrey had undergone a change—a change that both surprised and terrified her. She had promised not to fall in love with Lucien. She had told him it wasn’t going to happen.
But hadn’t it already happened?
Hadn’t she already opened her heart to him both literally and figuratively? By sharing her body with him, by allowing him to be her first lover, it had made it darn near impossible not to fall in love with him. He’d been so gentle and considerate. He insisted on putting her needs ahead of his. He made her feel special. Damn it, he even told her she was special. He’d sounded pretty damn convincing.
Was it too much of a pipe dream to hope he might love her?
* * *
Lucien led her outside with her arm looped through one of his. The night had cooled down considerably but there were still plenty of people out and about. Audrey hoped none of them would be Harlan or her mother, but who knew what they might want to do, since this might be Harlan’s last few months or even weeks of life? They might risk the threat of exposure by the press to enjoy a romantic dinner out, or a leisurely walk through the quaint village at night, when it was less easy to be recognised.
Within a block they came to the restaurant Harlan and Audrey’s mother had frequented in the past. ‘That’s it,’ Lucien said. ‘It’s had a name change but that’s the building.’ He looked through the window for any sign of his father and Sibella while Audrey’s heart began a bumpy ride to her throat.
After a moment, he sighed and turned away from the window. ‘No sign of them in there.’
‘That’s because they’re in Barcelona.’ Audrey hated lying to him. She felt tainted, soiled by the secret her mother had begged her to keep.
For the first time she saw a tiny flicker of doubt pass across his features. ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He gave her arm a gentle pat. ‘It’s getting late anyway.’
They walked back to their hotel in silence. Audrey felt torn at the way she was keeping her knowledge about his father’s illness from him, especially when he’d told her how gutted he’d felt when his mother died. What if something happened and he never got to say those words to his father? She opened her mouth a couple of times on the way back to the hotel but then closed it again. She had made a promise to her mother. And it was Harlan’s place to deliver the news to Lucien, not hers. Not only that, but she also knew how determined Lucien was to end Harlan and Sibella’s relationship. She had been just as determined a matter of days ago. What would a couple more days do? Her mother had asked—begged—for three days to be left alone with Harlan. One of those days was almost over. Two more to go.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Lucien said when they got back to their room.
Audrey forced a smile to her lips. ‘Just tired, I guess.’
He gathered her close, brushing her hair back from her face with a touch so gentle it made her heart contract. His eyes searched hers for a pulsing moment before they went to her mouth. ‘I told myself I wasn’t going to kiss you when we got back here tonight.’
A tiny ping of hurt bruised her chest. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I can’t seem to stop at a kiss any more.’ His fingertip moved over her lips like the slow sweep of a sable brush. ‘You have done some serious damage to my self-control.’
Audrey leaned closer, her hips pressing against his and her arms going around his waist. ‘Yeah, well, mine’s not in such good shape, either.’
‘That’s why I didn’t kiss you at the wedding three years ago.’
Audrey blinked. ‘You were going to kiss me? Really?’
‘Yes. But I knew if I did I might not be able to stop.’ He smiled and bent down to brush her mouth with his. ‘There. I’ll ration myself. One kiss.’
She lifted herself up on tiptoe and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. ‘That’s one apiece. Dare you to go two apiece.’
His hands moved so they were cupping her bottom and he drew her closer so she could feel the ridge of his arousal. ‘Mmm...not sure that’s wise.’
‘Go on,’ Audrey said. ‘You’re not going to back down from a dare, are you?’
His eyes glinted. ‘You’re playing with a fire that is already burning out of control.’
She moved against him and shuddered with the same longing she could feel in his body. ‘I don’t want you to be in control. I want you to make love to me.’
Regret tightened his expression. ‘It’s too soon. You need time to—’
‘I need you, Lucien,’ Audrey said, holding his face in her hands. ‘I need you now.’
He lowered his mouth to hers in a long, sensual kiss that made every cell in her body ache for his possession. His tongue entered her mouth in a sexy glide that mimicked the intimate entry of his body, tangling with hers in an erotic combat that made her inner core clench with need. He groaned against her mouth and his hands on her bottom gripped her even tighter against the swollen heat of his erection. ‘I want you so damn much it hurts,’ he said.
‘I want you too,’ Audrey said, planting kisses on his mouth one after the other. ‘Want, want, want you.’
He led her to the bedroom, stopping every couple of steps to place another kiss on her lips. Once they were in the bedroom, Audrey kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her clothes, her gaze feasting on him as he did the same. They came back together naked, skin-on-skin, and she sighed with delight. ‘If anyone had told me a couple of days ago I’d be stripping off my clothes in front of you without flinching in embarrassment I would have said they were certifiably crazy.’
Lucien gave her a teasing smile. ‘Does that mean you’re not going to blush any more?’
‘Urgh. I hate how I blush.’
He stroked a lazy finger down the slope of her cheek. ‘I think it’s cute. I only have to look at you a certain way and off you go. There. You’re doing it now.’
Audrey grimaced. ‘That’s because you’re looking at me like you’re going to eat
me.’
His eyes glittered and he guided her towards the bed, drawing her down beside him. ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do.’
Audrey shivered when his hand came down on her belly, her legs trembling at the thought of the pleasure and raw intimacy to come. He parted her first with his fingers as gently as if she were a precious hothouse orchid that needed careful handling. Then he brought his mouth to her, using his tongue to trace her, sending her senses haywire like a sudden power surge. Electric sensations flickered through her pelvis and down her thighs in little pulses and currents. He continued the sensual torture until she was tipped over the edge of a precipice, falling, falling, falling into an abyss of sublime pleasure that ricocheted through her body, making even the arches of her feet contract. ‘Oh. My. God...’
Lucien moved back up her body, planting kisses on her flesh along the way: her hips, her belly, her ribcage and then her breasts, finally making it to her mouth. Tasting her essence on his mouth was so intensely erotic and it made another barrier around her heart come down like paint peeling off a wall. ‘You’re so sexy when you come,’ he said.
Sexy. Now, that was a word she had never used to describe herself. But she felt it when she was with Lucien. She felt sexy and beautiful and...and special. She smiled and traced his mouth with her finger. ‘Sexy, huh?’
He captured her finger and sucked on it deeply, releasing it to say, ‘Extremely sexy.’
Audrey slipped her hand down to caress him. ‘I think you’re pretty sexy too.’
He drew in a deep, shuddery breath as her hand moved up and down his shaft. ‘You can keep touching me like that if you like.’
‘What? And not have you inside me where I want you?’
He placed a gentle hand on her belly once more, his gaze full of concern. ‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you again.’
Audrey brought his head down so his mouth was within a breath of hers. ‘You worry too much. You won’t hurt me.’
For a moment she thought he was going to pull away but then he gave her a lopsided smile. ‘See how dangerous you are? You’re making me shift all my boundaries.’
Not quite all of them.
It would be foolish to hope he would unlock his heart for her, but who said she wasn’t foolish? She’d been foolish from the first moment she’d met him. But that schoolgirl crush had morphed into something far more dangerous. Dangerous because she was never going to be happy with a simple, no-strings fling. How could she have thought she would be? She wasn’t built that way. She was more like her mother than she realised. She wanted marriage. She needed the security of a formal commitment.
She needed to be loved, not just lusted over.
Lucien kissed the side of her neck, his evening stubble tickling her skin and making her forget all about her reservations over their current relationship. This was what they had now—this mad lust for each other that made everything else fade into the background.
His mouth came back to hers in a deep kiss that rocked her senses like an earthquake in a glass factory. She shivered as his tongue played with hers, calling it into a seductive dance that made her toes curl with pleasure. He moved down her body, kissing and caressing her breasts, teasing the nipples into hard peaks.
He left her momentarily to reach for a condom, coming back to position himself above her, his legs in a sexy tangle with hers. ‘Tell me if I’m going too fast for you.’
‘You’re not going fast enough,’ Audrey said, lifting her hips to receive him, sighing with sheer delight when he entered her with a smooth, slick but gentle thrust. She could feel her body wrap around him, triggering pleasurable sensations in her intimate muscles.
He moved within her body, slowly at first, making sure she was comfortable until increasing his pace. If she hadn’t been in love with him before, his lovemaking would have surely tipped her over. She could feel his restraint, the way he was gauging every gasp and whimper of hers, treating her with the utmost care and respect while tantalising her senses into a frenzy of delight. He stroked her intimately to give her that extra bit of friction she needed to finally fly. The orgasm swept her up in a whirlpool that made her thoughts fade to the background until she was only aware of the ripples and waves of ecstasy that were consuming her entire body. His release came soon after hers and she felt it shudder through him. He pressed against her, totally spent, his breathing heavy and uneven against her neck.
Audrey stroked his back and shoulders, content to hold him close in the blissful aftermath. But her thoughts kept drifting to the future...the future he wasn’t promising to share with her. Who else would she love other than him? Who else would she want to make love with and lie like this with her body still tingling from his touch? She couldn’t imagine a future without him and yet there was no future with him. Not unless he changed his mind. Not unless he fell in love with her as deeply as she had fallen in love with him.
Lucien lifted his head and gave a long, deep sigh, not quite meeting her gaze. ‘I guess this was always going to feel a little different with you.’ He picked up a strand of her hair and tucked it behind her ear. His eyes meshed with hers for a beat before he looked back at her mouth. ‘A nice different, of course.’
‘Because we already had a relationship of sorts?’ Audrey screwed up her mouth and added, ‘Well, hardly a relationship. An acquaintance maybe?’
He gave a wry smile and found another stray hair to tuck away. ‘I guess I hadn’t realised how much in common we had with our parents, acting like out-of-control teenagers all the time. Plus, I’ve been fighting this attraction for longer than I care to admit.’
‘You’re good at hiding what you’re feeling. I thought you hated me.’
His crooked smile returned. ‘Hate is a strong word. I guess what I hated was the way you made me feel.’
‘What did I make you feel?’ The question was begging to be asked, so she asked it, even though she was worried she might be disappointed with his answer. But before he could answer there was the sound of her phone ringing from inside her bag in the other room.
‘Do you want to get that?’ he said.
‘Whoever it is can leave a message.’
He frowned. ‘What if it’s your mother?’
Audrey sighed. ‘You’re right.’ He moved aside so she could get off the bed but before she could get to the bedroom door the phone had stopped. She slipped on a bathrobe, tied the ends loosely and padded out to where her bag was. She took the phone out and saw the missed call was from her mother. She was about to press ‘redial’ when it started to ring again. There was no way of hiding the call from Lucien because he had followed her out of the bedroom and was standing near by. She took a breath and answered the phone. ‘Hello?’
Her mother was a television star but right then her voice sounded as if it were theatre-trained. It projected out of the phone as if she were trying to reach the back row of a five-thousand-seat auditorium. ‘Oh, thank God you answered. Harlan’s collapsed. He had a seizure and I can’t bring him round. Help me. Please help me. I don’t know what to do!’
Audrey glanced at Lucien’s shocked face and before she could answer he took the phone from her. ‘Sibella, it’s me, Lucien. Have you called an ambulance?’ His brow was so tightly furrowed it looked as if it would split the bones of his skull. ‘Where are you?’
Audrey swallowed a triple knot of panic. Panic for Harlan. Panic for her mother. Panic for Lucien. She listened as her mother said they were in St Remy in a farmhouse a short drive away.
‘Okay, listen to me,’ Lucien’s voice was calm and authoritative. ‘Give me the address. I’ll call an ambulance. You stay with him and check his breathing and pulse. Do you know how to do CPR? Good. Try and stay calm and we’ll be there as quickly as we can.’
He ended the call and used Audrey’s phone to call an ambulance. She listened to him give the information in that enviably ca
lm voice and wondered how he was ever going to forgive her if his father didn’t regain consciousness.
‘Get dressed,’ he said as soon as he ended the call with the emergency services.
Audrey got dressed and later wondered how she’d managed to do it without putting something on back to front or inside out. Her heart was beating in her throat like a pigeon stuck in a pipe and her palms were sweaty and her legs trembling so much she could barely get them to transport her to Lucien’s car.
He drove like a rally driver, only managing to remain within the designated speed limits because he wasn’t the sort of man to put others’ lives at risk. ‘Damn it. I knew they were here,’ he said, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly she could see the whitened bulge of his knuckles.
Should she tell him she’d known it too? She was ashamed for thinking he might not have to find out. Her mother hadn’t said anything to betray her part in the secrecy. There hadn’t been time with all the panic that was going on. Maybe nothing would be said. Maybe her part in the cover-up wouldn’t be exposed. ‘Lucien...’ She moistened her bone-dry lips and tried to get her voice to cooperate past that scratchy whisper of sound.
‘I knew she would do this to him.’ He banged one of his hands on the steering wheel with such force she thought it would snap off the steering column. ‘I knew she would kill him in the end. They’ve probably been drinking for days and God knows what else.’
She wanted to express her hurt at his misjudgement of her mother but knew it would be pointless. She sat in a miserable silence, not even able to access the words of comfort she knew she should be giving him at such a harrowing time.
He flicked her a quick glance. ‘Sorry. I know she’s your mother but if I find out she’s played any role in making him unwell...’ He didn’t finish the sentence but his jaw locked so tightly she could see a muscle working overtime.
‘It’s okay...’
The ambulance had already arrived by the time they found the farmhouse. Lucien rushed inside with Audrey just as they were loading his still unconscious father onto the stretcher. He went to his father’s side and grasped one of his limp hands. ‘Dad?’
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