Falling For His Unlikely Cinderella (Escape To Provence Book 2)

by Rebecca Winters

  “They serve the best beef kebabs. Another favorite of mine is chicken stuffed with veal and served with vegetables from their hothouse garden.”

  “Already my mouth is watering.”

  Cami felt like she was in a fantastic dream as he drove them up the mountain road. He took several winding roads that eventually brought them to the auberge hidden in the trees. Such an idyllic setting.

  There weren’t many cars, but of course the hour was early for most people to go to dinner. He parked the car and shut off the motor. “I know you’re going to like this place.”

  “I have no doubt of it.”

  After helping her out, they walked inside. He cupped her elbow. He would never know how much she craved the contact. The need to touch him was growing into an ache that refused to go away.

  This was no bistro. Raoul was greeted like royalty and they were shown a table, the only one with a centerpiece of pink roses. She marveled that he’d gone to all this trouble for her.

  Once seated, a waiter arrived to pour the wine while another waiter brought menus and took their orders.

  Raoul’s eyes roamed over her, sending her heart into thud speed. “You look ravishing tonight. I decided we need to celebrate your new position at Gaillard’s.”

  Heat filled her cheeks. “You’re the most thoughtful person I’ve ever known.”

  He shook his head. “You deserve honoring. I don’t think you have any idea of how phenomenal that is.”

  She sipped the wine. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the CEO is a close friend of my father’s.”

  “You’re kidding—”

  “I happen to know that you had to pass a stringent series of tests to be hired there. They don’t let just anyone work for them.”

  “Naturally I never met the CEO. What’s he like?”

  “In truth, he’s ruthless like my father, and scary to approach. If he agreed to hire you, then he was impressed by your performance more than you know. Otherwise you wouldn’t be working for the company.” He sounded far away just then.

  “I guess it’s nice to hear I was offered a position there.” But what he’d said about his own father and his childhood sent a shiver down Cami’s spine and brought forcefully to mind his troubled relationship with the men in his family. Now that she knew so much more about his unhappy past, she could understand why he was breaking with them.

  “I told you this to pay you a compliment, not to worry you.”

  “At least I’ve been forewarned.”

  Cami was glad the waiter came with their dinner. She’d chosen the chicken and veal. “This food is absolutely delicious. I haven’t tasted anything this good in ages.”

  “Neither have I,” he confessed.

  Her thoughts raced ahead. “Have you found a new housekeeper yet?”

  “No.”

  “Will you ask this one to cook for you?”

  “Only a few meals.”

  “Then you’ll cook the rest of the time?”

  “Yes, especially when I go out on the sailboat. It’s moored in Nice.”

  Of course he had a sailboat. While she was imagining it, he called the waiter over and ordered some takeout for her mother, then turned to her.

  “Would you like dessert?”

  “No, thank you. I couldn’t.”

  Their meal was coming to an end. The drive was coming up. That’s when she planned to tell him about her heart condition, but she was nervous.

  “Before we leave, I have a little gift for you.” He pulled it out of his breast pocket and put it on the table above her plate.

  She shook her head. “No more. You’ve done too much already. I couldn’t accept it.”

  “Not even to commemorate you’re being taken on at Gaillard’s?”

  Cami took a deep breath. She assumed it was chocolate and was so small it couldn’t be too expensive. She didn’t want to appear impolite so she picked it up and unwrapped it. To her surprise it was a weightless, three-by-four-inch black box with a lovely purple violet on the lid and the name Gaillard printed below it. Not understanding, she lifted it.

  Inside the tissue she counted twelve exquisite, individual violet heads of petals that glistened with sugar crystals. She shot him a questioning glance.

  “Today Gaillard’s is famous for its chocolate. What few people know is that five hundred years ago the first Gaillard concocted a recipe for sugared violets that eventually grew to other kinds of sugared flowers. They became the first candy company in Provence enjoyed by kings and queens from all over Europe before the product was discontinued and chocolate took over.”

  Cami was astounded.

  “Since you’re going to be working for them, I thought you might like to taste the first product they ever made. Your coworkers will be impressed that you have knowledge of something that isn’t generally known.

  “In fact, I venture to guess that no one working there today has ever eaten one. Other companies make them, but they came later and never could replicate the original. I had this especially ordered for you because it’s a secret recipe and no longer available except for a select few clients who have an in with the man at the top.”

  Meaning Raoul himself.

  Cami looked down, aware of tears stinging her eyelids. She loved him so terribly, and had already found out Raoul was an amazingly generous man. But for him to do this expressly for her in honor of her new job left her touched...speechless.

  “Thank you. I—I can’t wait to try one,” she stammered. But the whole time that her gaze was fastened on the box of sugared violets, she was thinking about all he’d done for her and knew she’d fallen madly in love with him. But it frightened her.

  Suddenly Cami couldn’t handle this any longer. “Raoul—why have you done all this for me? I don’t mean just the violets. I’m talking about everything since the day I came to clean for you—the flowers, the dinners out, your kindness to my mother. You must know I’m overwhelmed by all you’ve done.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “THEN LET ME EXPLAIN,” he said in a thick-toned voice. “I’d been in hell for a long time before I found out I had a son. I’ve wanted to make everything perfect for him. When I saw an attractive woman up on the ladder cleaning my son’s room with such care, I didn’t realize I’d startled you. It would have been my fault if you’d had a bad accident.

  “After you fell in my arms, I found myself staring into a pair of incredible eyes. Blame their color. You had me mesmerized. The truth is, I found myself wanting to get to know you better.”

  “I still don’t understand why.”

  “I guess you’d have to be a man to understand.”

  “Please tell me the real truth.” She refused to be put off.

  One black brow lifted. “That is the real truth,” he came back with force.

  Cami sat back in the chair, appearing haunted by his remark. “How often does this kind of thing happen to you? Everything that’s happening seems too good to be true.”

  He finished the rest of his coffee. “That’s a fair question. You have every right to ask it. The answer is, it has only happened to me one other time in my life. In truth it was on the night I met Alain’s mother at a bistro near the vineyard three years ago.

  “She taught elementary school and had come in with friends one night. I had been checking the wine inventory and was so drawn to her from that first moment, I approached her to have a drink with me. We fell in love that night.”

  “But then you stopped seeing her and got married. Do I have that right?”

  Raoul nodded. “Before I ever met Antoinette, my parents gave a lavish party where I was introduced to Sabine Murat. I soon discovered that her parents and mine had been plotting to arrange a marriage between us for a long time. I admit I found her attractive and intelligent, but the more I spent time wi
th her, the more I realized the essential ingredient I needed to feel was missing.”

  Cami nodded. “As I told you, after a month of marriage I felt the same way, Raoul. Only I’d already taken vows.”

  “Understood,” Raoul murmured. “Like a fool, I slept with her once. It was wrong, but I thought maybe that would change the way I felt about her. But it didn’t. I wasn’t in love and I broke it off with her because it wasn’t fair to either of us. I’d had relationships with several women over the years, but I’d never been in love. I began to believe love was out of my reach.

  “Then I met Antoinette. We spent every possible moment together and I knew I wanted to marry her as soon as we could. Before we could let her parents know, I received a call from Sabine whom I hadn’t seen for over a month.” He grimaced. “To my horror she told me she was expecting our baby. I couldn’t believe it, knowing I’d taken precautions. But the doctor confirmed it.”

  “You had a baby with her?” A groan escaped her lips. He knew he’d shocked her. “I had no idea and can’t imagine what a nightmare that must have been.”

  “You’ll never know. I had to give up the only love of my life and marry Sabine who moved in my apartment at the château. I never saw Antoinette again, though I tried calling her to talk. She refused, knowing we couldn’t have a future. It was agony.

  “From that point on I concentrated on the pregnancy and birth of our little girl, Celine. She brought me my only happiness, but she was born early and died of a bad heart within the month.”

  * * *

  “What?” The shock of hearing Raoul had a baby with Sabine was one thing, but the revelation that it had died of heart problems was almost too much for Cami to bear.

  Raoul eyed her soulfully with those black eyes. “I was in despair over losing her. When I asked the doctor if the baby’s heart condition was the reason for her being premature, he shook his head and said Celine had been full-term.”

  “I don’t understand. You didn’t know that?”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m afraid not. Those words meant the baby wasn’t mine.”

  “No—” Cami blurted as the truth of it sank in. “She lied to you?” He nodded. “I can’t imagine it.” Tears filled her eyes. “The pain you must have suffered.”

  “Celine was someone else’s,” his voice grated, “though at the time it never occurred to me she wasn’t mine. Worse, I suffered horribly to realize no surgical procedure could save the baby. Her heart was too damaged.”

  A shudder ran through Cami. Her greatest fear was that the surgeon would find that her own heart was too damaged to fix. Throughout their dinner she’d been on the verge of telling Raoul the truth about the operation coming up, but she couldn’t do that now. He’d been through too much. It would be better to go through the surgery without him knowing anything in order to spare him.

  “I’m so desperately sorry for you, Raoul. I don’t know how you’ve lived through all this.”

  “It wasn’t the best of times. Sabine pretended the baby was mine so I’d marry her. She didn’t love the man who’d made her pregnant.”

  “I don’t know how she could have done that to you.”

  “She’d been determined to marry me from the beginning and hold on to me. I wanted to divorce her, but the psychiatrist Sabine’s family had brought in told me to put it off. He explained she was so grief-stricken over the loss and burial, he advised me to wait until she’d recovered enough to deal with the breakup of our marriage.

  “I waited as long as I could stand before filing. We’d lived apart for over two months. During that time I visited Celine’s grave several times, but I only became a free man the day before my grandfather died.”

  While he’d been telling his tragic story, Cami’s mind reeled. Not only had the baby been born with a heart problem like hers, Raoul wasn’t the man she’d believed went through women like water whenever he needed a diversion. He hadn’t had an affair on Sabine. Cami had judged him without knowing the truth.

  “It was during that waiting period Sabine’s family wanted us to go in for marriage counseling. She demanded more money from me if I refused, but I couldn’t do it. Nothing could fix what was wrong between us when I wasn’t in love with her.”

  “I hear what you’re saying,” Cami murmured. “When love dies, that’s it.”

  “Amen,” he said in a gravelly tone.

  “Raoul? How did you and Alain find each other?”

  He finished his coffee. “During that desolate time, Nathalie came to the vineyard looking for the stranger who had impregnated her deceased stepsister Antoinette. She posed as a grape picker and met my cousin Dominic. They fell in love, which is an amazing story in itself.”

  “You mean she actually helped with the harvest?”

  “Yes, for several weeks. They became enamored right away. In time he found out her real reason for coming to the vineyard. It turned out she thought Dominic or his brother Etienne might be Alain’s father because they all look so much alike. But neither one claimed to know Antoinette.

  “Then she met me and wondered if I could be the one because of the strong family resemblance.”

  “You and Alain are clones of each other,” she cried.

  “Don’t I know it. We looked so much alike I was in shock. When she showed me Antoinette’s picture, the puzzle was solved and I was united with the son I’d had no knowledge of. The whole thing was miraculous.”

  “I’ll say it was,” Cami murmured in amazement. “Antoinette never told her family your name?”

  “No. We’d wanted to keep everything quiet until our announcement. When I had to tell her about Sabine’s pregnancy, she didn’t want her parents to know anything.”

  A groan escaped Cami’s lips. “How impossible and heartbreaking for both of you.”

  “I’m still suffering from guilt over hurting her the way I did.”

  Cami’s heart was pained for him. “You should let it go. Alain’s grandmother seems to love you very much.”

  “I’m still in awe over her kindness to me.”

  “She has to be thrilled you’re her grandson’s father.”

  “I’m thrilled too. One look at him and I saw Antoinette in his features. It was like getting part of her back. The joy of knowing I had a son brought me alive again and I determined to be the best father possible.”

  “I can tell you already are,” she said softly.

  “Time will tell. Dominic married Nathalie and we both bought villas near each other. My life took on new meaning to plan a future around my son. Getting the villa ready, finding housecleaners so I could furnish everything meant the world to me. Now you’ve come into my life, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.”

  She felt the same way, but couldn’t say it back. Not now. He didn’t need to hear about the state of her health. In a few more days she’d be away from his world, dealing with the crisis she’d been dreading.

  He wouldn’t be there with her...

  By now the waiter brought a bag with the food, which Raoul took. It was time to go. Cami got up and the two of them walked outside to his car. He put the bag of food in back before helping her. Again she felt his hand on her elbow. Before they got in his car, he pulled her against him and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her possessively.

  Cami moaned, relishing the taste and feel of him. She couldn’t get close enough. Every touch of his hands and lips electrified her. The sensual tension between them was so strong, she knew he felt the same way.

  “I was dying to kiss you like this the whole time we were inside,” he admitted, then let her go because people were arriving, but there was a marked change in their relationship because she was totally in love with him.

  They drove into town and looked at the illuminated buildings. At one point, he parked the car. “Shall we have our dessert now?” Raoul lifted the lid on the viol
ets and put the box in front of her. “Are you ready to enjoy the favorite treat of royalty that kept the dentists of the time busy?”

  Cami broke into laughter. She couldn’t help it. “Have you ever tried one?”

  “No. This will be my first time too.”

  He reached for one and put it in his mouth.

  She followed suit and sucked on it before chewing it. “Um. It tastes like a violet smells.”

  “Agreed. I think I prefer chocolate.” His grin delighted her.

  “I can’t wait to show these to Maman. I have to admit I’m curious to see if she’ll try eating one. It’s so odd to think of eating flowers.”

  “Many violets are edible and can be sautéed or steamed. Some cooks stir them into soups as a thickener.”

  “I had no idea.” His knowledge astounded her.

  “Do you know our company makes a yellow-green liqueur called Fontesquieu Chartreuse? The secret ingredient includes carnation petals among the other herbs and plants distilled.”

  “You’re kidding—”

  “Not at all. Jerome originated the recipe. It’s in one of the journals and I have to get them back. One day I’ll take you to the winery again and you can test it out for yourself.”

  “That would really be something. Imagine drinking carnations and eating violet soup. I feel like I’ve entered a world full of magic.”

  “It was Olivarri who said, ‘Wine is the only artwork you can drink.’”

  More laughter escaped as she studied him. “It’s so much fun spending time with you, I’ve lost all sense of my surroundings.”

  “You’re not the only one,” he whispered and kissed her. They both tasted of violets. This evening had been heavenly, but there wouldn’t be many more of them. Though she was dying inside of love for him and wanted to pour out her love, she couldn’t do it. Until the operation was over, he was better off not knowing anything.

  After they reached the apartment and he’d parked, she turned to him. “Thank you for tonight. I’ll remember it forever.”

  “So will I, but it’s only the beginning for us, Cami.” His eyes burned like dark fires as they studied her features. Then he reached for the food and came around to her side of the car to open her door.