A Bride to Redeem Him

by Charlotte Hawkes

  ‘I wouldn’t write me off so quickly. You clearly have no idea how attractive geeky can be.’

  ‘Right.’ Had she really rolled her eyes at him? ‘Because you’re well known for your attraction to geeky women.’

  The laugh rumbled low in his stomach. He loved these flashes of her feistier side, made him hungry to learn more. And that fact alone should bother him more than it did.

  ‘I think the fact that you like puzzle boxes makes you all the more—what shall we say?—interesting.’ His scrutiny deepened. ‘Do you have a collection or something?’

  She smoothed out the frown before it could crease her face, careful to keep her tone level.

  ‘By the way, are you actually planning on drinking any wine? Or do you think by swirling it around the glass every now and then that I’m going to believe I’m not drinking alone?’

  The corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily.

  ‘I’m impressed. Most people wouldn’t have noticed that fact.’

  ‘I’m not most people.’

  ‘No. You aren’t.’ He dipped his head to the side, relishing the stain that spread across her cheeks.

  ‘Is that supposed to be a compliment?’

  She was going for nonchalance but was clearly unpractised. Without her scrappy side, her innocence was even more endearing. Louis grinned.

  ‘You know it is.’

  A silence descended over their table and, while he was content just to watch her and assess, after a few moments Alex shifted awkwardly, glancing around the room. All about them couples were talking in low voices, laughing together, even cuddling in their booth-style seats. If the whole idea was that the press saw them together and began to wonder, surely the only question on their lips would be if they were even there together in the first instance?

  ‘Shouldn’t we be...doing something? Generating interest?’

  Another wicked grin cracked his face. Why was it that she was so deliciously easy to bait?

  ‘Nice to see you’re suddenly so keen. What do you suggest, then? Rampant sex underneath the table? The tabloids would go frantic for the chance to squeal to the world that I indulge my insatiable sexual needs in restaurants the length and breadth of the country.’

  She pulled a face.

  ‘Just the country? Surely you’re ambitious enough to take on the world?’

  Was it perverse that he got such a kick out of the fact she never seemed to let him get away with a thing? He dropped his voice to something approaching intimate, and leaned forward across the table to take her hand.

  ‘Right, now, who says I’m not just interested in you?’

  Far from delighting her, it earned him a withering glare from his companion.

  ‘I bet you say that to all the girls.’

  ‘True.’ The accusation scratched its way under his skin despite his attempt to let it roll off him. Usually, it was a line delivered with considerably more aplomb. A truth in the face of irrefutable physical evidence.

  ‘I also know that as much as you’re pretending to want to pull your hand away, the flare in your eyes and the way your breath has quickened tell me that what bothers you most isn’t that you don’t want me touching you, but that a part of you is enjoying it far more than you think you should.’

  * * *

  Alex really defined the idea that beauty was more than just skin deep. He admired her passion. He admired her drive. He admired the lift of her head as she met his gaze proudly, the cool smile on her lips enough to fool the casual observer.

  ‘You’re mistaken, but then with an ego as big as yours that shouldn’t surprise me. But I’m not pulling away because I know that if we go ahead with this charade then I can’t afford to look like I’m not interested in you.’

  ‘You keep telling yourself that. We can both feel the attraction here.’

  His smile sharpened, tugging low in his stomach like a primal challenge.

  ‘You’re a pitiable Lothario.’

  ‘I freely confess to the latter; however, I’m fairly sure no one’s called me pitiable before.’ He chuckled. ‘At least, not to my face.’

  ‘I’m equally sure you haven’t been called plenty of things to your face,’ Alex bantered quickly, ‘but that doesn’t mean you haven’t been called them.’

  Unperturbed, he lifted his wine glass to his lips and prepared to take a sip, the hint of a smirk deliberately moulding his mouth.

  ‘Oh, no doubt.’

  There was no reason on earth for him to get such a kick out of bringing out a side of her that other people didn’t seem to see.

  ‘You really don’t care at all, do you?’

  There was also no reason for her disdain to needle him the way that it did. For him to go from amused to regretful. For it to suddenly be so hard for his practised smirk to stay in place.

  Since he was seven years old he’d spent his life ensuring he never cared about what people thought. Because the only person whose opinion had ever mattered hadn’t cared enough about him to stick around. People could say and think whatever they liked, it had never bothered him. If anything, it had been mildly entertaining.

  There was no reason on earth why he should experience even a trickle of regret when he wondered how Alex might judge him.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You didn’t have to.’ She was trying to sound scornful but it lacked the necessary bite. ‘It’s etched into every apathetic bone in your body.’

  ‘I’m glad you’ve been paying so much attention.’

  ‘You play up to those cameras, don’t you? Give them the volatile Louis show they all love to see? Play the buffoon? And know you get away with it because half the female population seems to be in lust with you.’

  It should antagonise him more. People simply didn’t defy him. Instead, he found himself relishing her tenacity. Her refusal to be intimidated.

  ‘You exaggerate your court-jester routine, your insouciance, and your sexual prowess.’

  ‘Trust me, there’s nothing remotely exaggerated about my sexual prowess.’

  He savoured the way she flushed, the increased rise and fall of her chest, the darkening of her pupils, the faint flare of her nostrils. He told himself that he only cared because it would make it easier to deceive the paparazzi if there was at least a degree of genuine chemistry between the two of them.

  He knew it was a lie.

  ‘So,’ she continued after a moment, ‘this afternoon I told you why Rainbow House mattered to me when I told you about my brother Jack. Now you’re going to tell me why Rainbow House is so important to you.’

  It was his chance to redefine the parameters. To remind her, and himself, that this was a business deal, nothing more; that she didn’t have the right to demand anything of him. Louis opened his mouth to tell her, one of his well-honed put-downs ready on his lips.

  His gaze swept over Alex’s face. Sincere, open, ingenuous. Like no one he’d ever known before.

  And for the second time in as many days he found himself opening up and letting the dark ghosts of his past emerge into the light for the very first time.

  * * *

  She hadn’t expected him to answer. She’d thought he might brush it off, the way he always did when any of his work colleagues politely made personal enquiries. Or else make a scathing remark, as he did when the media prodded him considerably less politely.

  Perhaps what startled her most was the way Louis shifted to face her square on in his seat, or maybe how he lowered his voice so that she had to edge in closer to hear, as though their conversation wasn’t for the rest of the world to know. It might even have been the way he toyed with the pepper shaker in the middle of the table as though he was feeling suddenly, uncharacteristically, unsure of himself.

  It was several long moments before she realised she’d stopped breathing.
/>
  ‘My mother didn’t die in an accident at Rainbow House, the way everyone seems to think. She committed suicide.’

  ‘That’s ludicrous. My brother was in and out of the place around the time your mother died. He would have been around six, which means I was probably three. My father would have known.’

  Her breath came out in a single whoosh. He ignored it, continuing with even less emotion than he had shown when choosing their expensive bottle of wine this evening.

  ‘Have you ever thought about why, if she was such a hero in rescuing a place like Rainbow House from the brink, she isn’t more celebrated by the centre? Why her connection to the charity has been all but erased? Why you only knew about her because your brother was a resident all those years ago, and because you still care enough to volunteer there now?’

  ‘Well...yes. But...’

  ‘No one talks about her. Certainly no one who was around at the time. I’d lay a bet your father never mentions her.’

  That was true. In fact, when she’d mentioned Celine and the Delaroche connection to her father, he’d ignored her. It was only when she’d mentioned her idea of attending the gala to speak to Jean-Baptiste that he’d snapped at her and told her not to be foolish. He, who wanted to save Rainbow House as much as she did.

  ‘Nevertheless...’

  ‘It happened, Alex.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘My father told me at the time. Told me he’d managed to cover up the details surrounding her death and that as far as the press were concerned, there had been an accident.’

  She heard the scornful snort; realised it was her.

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘I didn’t want to believe it. I spent the best part of a decade telling myself it was a lie, and that one day I’d uncover the truth. I was seventeen by the time I was in a position to do that. I discovered that there had been no official police investigation, although an internal investigation had taken place with as few personnel as possible. A couple of them had since died, but no one left was talking. At least, they only confirmed the story that the press knew, none of which matched my father’s all-too-vivid account.’

  ‘Louis...’ she began. She wanted to ask so many questions, wanted to comfort him. It was impossible to tell whether he would have accepted her sympathy or shut down again. She couldn’t risk the latter. Gripping the table, she hardly even dared to blink.

  ‘Most of the evidence had long since been destroyed. I barely managed to get hold of a few photos, which was all that remained. There was one of a ripped-up bedsheet, and my mother’s favourite handbag, and the broken pearls from her necklace on the floor next to the beam they had cut to get her down. It all matched the story my father had told me. He hadn’t been lying.’

  ‘I can hardly believe it,’ Alex offered tentatively. ‘The woman I’ve always heard about from my father was so happy, so generous, so full of love.’

  ‘She was. And, I suppose, for all his flaws I have to be grateful to my father for at least preserving her good reputation. Hushing up the details and ensuring the press reported nothing more than a tragic accident was the kindest thing he could ever have done for my mother.’

  ‘So...is that...’ She paused, thinking of all the best memories of her brother she’d clung to over the years. ‘Do you still remember the good times with her? How close you were?’

  He shrugged and she couldn’t explain it, couldn’t justify it, but somehow she sensed that—far from the negligent attitude Louis had used to fool the press for so long—a maelstrom of feelings actually raged beneath the surface. Undetected by others, stuffed down by Louis.

  ‘I remember her leaving the chateau the previous night. She’d promised to take me with her because I loved the plane so much, but I was sick that day and she had to leave me behind. She told me she loved me, and that she would fly home as soon as she could. I waved to her out of the window as her car went down the drive. She even got out just before the moat and waved back. I never saw her again. Twenty-four hours later she’d taken her own life.’

  ‘Louis, I...’

  Before she could finish, almost out of nowhere, the atmosphere changed and the razor-sharp, dominant veneer for which Louis was so famous slipped back into place.

  ‘Ah, your chocolate soufflé. Savour it, I’m assured it’s the best in Europe.’

  The conversation was over and Louis was sampling his dessert and throwing compliments to the chef as if every mouthful wasn’t sticking in his throat the way she knew it would have done for her.

  But she wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t unmindful or unaffected. He simply didn’t trust her. Alex wondered if he had ever trusted anyone.

  How long had he isolated himself in this way?

  As long as she had?

  It shouldn’t matter and it certainly shouldn’t make a difference. But it did. She understood him better now, and what she’d learned had thrown her somewhat. He wasn’t at all what she’d imagined, even with the twist of the surgeon she’d seen in action the previous month. Every time she saw him, spoke to him, it felt as though she was discovering a man no one else even knew existed. And even though she knew she should know better, she craved to learn more.

  It was thrilling, and nerve-racking, and utterly bewildering. How was she supposed to react to everything he’d told her? She could barely even digest it all. She needed time, in particular to ensure that she wasn’t at risk of losing all perspective and actually doing something as foolhardy and foolish as falling for the man.

  But her biggest fear was that time wasn’t a luxury she had right now.

  * * *

  The decadent dessert felt like wet concrete in his mouth. Worse, Alex was looking at him as though she could see straight through every bluff he cared to conjure. The way she had almost from that first encounter.

  Still, he shouldn’t have told her that. He shouldn’t have told her any of it. If he could have shovelled back his words and rammed them all back inside then he would have.

  Except that he wasn’t sure that was even true.

  No one had ever been able to read him the way she seemed to, a fact that ought to concern him far more than it did.

  They finished their so-called date in strained silence. The only consolation was that, from all the covert glances and barely concealed smirks they were receiving, people were only too happy to draw their own, rather different conclusions.

  For all her mental reservations about the two of them, Alex’s body language right now betrayed the fact that on a purely physical level she was far less hesitant. Without the benefit of hearing their conversation, any casual observer would no doubt mistake her awkward fidgeting for eagerness to conclude the meal and get back to more private surroundings so they could continue the date on more intimate terms. Whether Alex liked it or not, she wasn’t schooled enough in the art of seduction to mute the sexual attraction that crackled between them, blazing as brightly as a beacon warning of impending invasion.

  The irony wasn’t lost on Louis.

  Neither was the fact that fooling the press into thinking they couldn’t get enough of each other was only the first part of the plan. But the idea of sex and Louis was practically a given. What they really had to convince people of was that there was more to it than simply sex. They had to make the world believe the two of them shared a connection, an area of common ground. A foundation on which they were about to build a real relationship.

  It should ring more alarm bells that he knew just how to snag Alex’s focus.

  ‘Did you enjoy your morning with our team? In the end?’

  A man could quickly grow to love that wide, uninhibited smile. The one that told him she’d already forgotten herself. And their surroundings.

  ‘I loved it,’ she breathed. ‘You get some incredible cases. Well, of course you do. But, I mean, you’re one of most fascinating s
urgeons to observe. Your entire team is so well knit.’

  ‘It’s taken years to build the perfect unit, people with not only the skills I need but also the attitude I like. And the ability to leave all egos at the door.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that.’ Alex nodded, then blushed. ‘Even you. I hadn’t really expected that.’

  ‘I’ll take it as a compliment,’ he commented wryly. ‘I was impressed at just how easily you slotted into the team.’

  ‘I did?’ She looked inordinately pleased and something tugged inside him.

  It felt good to compliment her. Especially as it was so well deserved.

  ‘You were everything that Gordon said you were, and more.’

  ‘I wondered if...?’

  She leaned in eagerly, but whatever she was about to say died on her lips as several camera flashes went off.

  Louis barely remembered standing up, much less moving around the table. But one minute he was in his seat and the next he was pulling Alex to her feet, holding her close and ignoring the way she stiffened against him, while the staff ushered the photographers outside. It would only be later, on the drive home, that he would wonder at his instinctive reaction to protect her, shield her, when the entire point of the so-called date had been to flaunt their relationship to the world.

  But for now, all that consumed him was the way Alex felt in his arms, her initial reticence already melting away as her body softened, curving into his, moulding herself to him. As if they had been designed to fit together.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he muttered, waving the apologetic maître d’ out of their way and tapping his watch and making a call to ensure his driver would be out front in a matter of minutes. Telling himself his body wasn’t celebrating the way she pressed herself tightly against him.

  ‘I can walk by myself,’ she muttered, though she made no move to push away from him.

  ‘But it would look better if you didn’t want to,’ countered Louis, refusing to acknowledge the voice suggesting he was motivated by more than just the way it looked to others. ‘Better if you preferred to be in my arms.’