You're Still The One

by Janet Dailey

  “And you were smitten?” Sebastian guessed.

  “Instantly.” She almost purred the word as that deliciously exciting feeling welled up inside her again.

  “Love at first bite, you might say.”

  “Very funny, Sebastian,” she replied without humor.

  “I thought it was. Obviously you’re in love, since you seem to have lost your sense of humor.”

  “I’m very much in love,” she declared with feeling.

  “And how serious is Mr. Chocolate?”

  “Very. He’s asked me to marry him.”

  “And you said yes, of course.”

  “Naturally.”

  “A man who makes chocolate—how could any woman refuse?” Sebastian murmured.

  But Kitty was too wrapped up in her memory of Marcel’s proposal to pay any attention to Sebastian’s sardonic rejoinders. Besides, she was too used to them.

  “It was such a romantic setting. Dinner in the courtyard, just the two of us, crystal gleaming in the candlelight, the air scented with gardenias in bloom. There at my chair was a single red rose and a small gift. I opened it, and—do you know what I found inside?”

  “An engagement ring. Not really very original.”

  “Oh, but it was,” Kitty insisted smugly. “Maybe the ring part of it wasn’t original, but the box it came in definitely was. It was made out of chocolate. Perfect in every detail, too, right down to the slot to hold the ring.”

  “Milk chocolate or dark?”

  “Dark. It even had the Boulanger family crest embossed on top of it.”

  “On top of the ring?” Sebastian feigned shock.

  “No, on top of the box.”

  “I hope the ring wasn’t made of chocolate, too.”

  “It’s one hundred percent diamond.” She held up her hand, wagging her fingers, letting the stone’s facets catch and reflect the light. “All three carats of it.”

  “That’s as bright as a spotlight. Be careful. The glare from it can blind you.”

  “It is eye-catching, isn’t it?” she murmured, admiring its fiery sparkle.

  “That’s one word for it,” he responded dryly, and dipped the loofah in and out of the water. “Hand me the soap, will you?” She slipped the scented bar off its ridged ledge and passed it to him. “I’m not surprised you fell madly in love with him. Chocolate’s a turn-on all by itself. Who needs foreplay when you have chocolate, right?”

  She threw him a look of disgust. “You can be so crude sometimes, Sebastian.”

  “That’s not crude. It’s the truth. It has something to do with endorphins. Oops, I dropped the soap.” He groped underwater for it, his hand sliding along the curve of her hip to her thigh.

  A second later, Kitty felt the bar squirt under her leg, and his hand immediately came over the top of her thigh to search for it between her legs. He quickly became dangerously close to areas she didn’t want touched by him.

  She pushed at his arm. “Stop it. I’ll get it myself.”

  “Wait. It’s right here. I can feel it.”

  “Don’t! That’s not it!” As she squirmed to elude his playful fingers, she slipped in the tub. She yelped in alarm as she started to slide under the bubbles. “Stop! I don’t want to get my hair wet!”

  “I’ve got you.” His muscled arm was a band across her breasts, hauling her back upright.

  Suddenly everything about this scene seemed much too intimate. There she was naked in the tub with his hands all over her. And Kitty realized that at some point she had lost control of things. Worst of all, Sebastian knew it.

  “You bastard. Let me go!” She tugged to free herself of his hold, but between her wet hands and his wet arm, she was hardly successful.

  “I’m only trying to help,” he protested.

  “Help, my foot. You’re copping a feel, and you know it.” Abandoning the useless struggle, she located the loofah sponge and slapped at him with it.

  “Hey!” He jerked back to elude contact with it, but he couldn’t elude the splattering of water droplets and bits of foamy bubbles. As he reached up to wipe at his face, he accidentally bumped the plate of strawberries, knocking them into the tub.

  “My strawberries,” Kitty wailed.

  “Let me get that plate out of there before it gets broken.” He plunged both hands into the water.

  “Just leave it alone,” she exploded in anger, and pummeled him with her fists. “Get out of here! Out! Out! Out!”

  “Will you stop it?” he yelled above her shrieks of outrage, hunching his shoulders against the raining blows.

  The bathroom door burst open. Kitty squealed in dismay at the sight of the thunderous look on the face of a tall, dark man with distinctively Gaelic features—the man who was her fiancé.

  “You! Get away from her,” Marcel Boulanger ordered in that gorgeous accent of his.

  Sebastian started to rise, then lost his footing on the wet floor and slipped halfway into the tub.

  “It’s all right, Marcel,” Kitty rushed. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Who is this man?” he demanded, his accent thickening noticeably.

  Half in and half out of the tub, Sebastian replied. “I’m her husband. Who the hell are you?”

  “Your husband?” Marcel scowled blackly at Kitty. “What is this he is saying?”

  “He’s my ex-husband.” She hurried the explanation and pushed Sebastian the rest of the way out of the bathtub, while trying to hide her own self among the bubbles. “We’ve been divorced for years.”

  Whatever comfort Marcel found in that, it was small. “What is he doing here now?”

  “I live here,” Sebastian answered, rising to his feet.

  Kitty hastened to correct that impression. “Not here, precisely. At least, not in the house. He has a studio out back. He lives there.”

  “A studio? This man is an artist?” He eyed Sebastian with considerable skepticism.

  In all honesty, Kitty had to admit that Sebastian didn’t fit the popular image of an artist. He certainly didn’t possess the temperament of one. He was much too easygoing.

  “This is Sebastian Cole. The Ridgedales have two of his landscapes hanging in their Santa Fe home.” Conscious of the rapidly dissipating bubbles, Kitty reached for the oversize bath towel lying on the tub’s tiled ledge.

  The doubtful look vanished as Marcel smiled in recognition of the name. “Ah, yes, you are—”

  “Please don’t say the great Sebastian,” Sebastian interrupted, his mouth slanting in a wry smile. “It makes me feel like a trapeze artist in a circus. Plain Sebastian will do. You must be Mr. Chocolate.”

  Confusion furrowed his brow. “Mais non, my name is Marcel Boulanger.”

  “He knows that . . .” Kitty gave Sebastian a dirty look as she maneuvered closer to the side of the tub. “It’s just a nickname he gave you. It’s his idea of a joke.”

  “I sampled some of your family’s wares earlier,” Sebastian remarked. “Kitty had a plate of strawberries dipped in your chocolate. Unfortunately I knocked it into the tub.”

  “That’s what he was doing when you came in—looking for the plate.” With one arm holding the towel high above her breasts and the other hand trying to hold the ends together behind her back, Kitty attempted to stand.

  “Let me give you a hand.” Sebastian moved to help her out of the tub.

  “I can manage just fine.” As she drew away from his outstretched hand, she stepped on a strawberry, slipped, and pitched forward with a yelp.

  Sebastian caught her, swept her out of the tub and into the cradle of his arms, towel and all. Kitty was stunned to find herself in such a familiar position, and not altogether sure how she had gotten there. But the memories were much too strong of all the times their arguments had ended like this, with Sebastian sweeping her off her feet and carting her off to the nearest soft or flat surface and there making love to her. Most satisfactorily, she recalled as color flooded her cheeks.

  “Put me down,” s
he snapped.

  “Whatever you say, kitten.” He released her legs with an abruptness that took her by surprise.

  She managed to retain her grip on the towel as she hissed an irritated “Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.”

  Sebastian simply smiled with infuriating ease and turned his attention to Marcel. “Since I understand congratulations are in order, you might as well know she has a temper.”

  “I do not!” She stamped her foot on the plush bathroom rug. The muffled sound didn’t add much emphasis to her denial.

  Sebastian ignored her. “I wouldn’t worry about her temper, though. I’m sure you already know about her secret passion for chocolate. It doesn’t matter how mad she gets, just pop a piece in her mouth and she’ll melt in your arms.”

  “That is not true.” Kitty pushed the angry words through her teeth and hurriedly wrapped the towel around her. “You’re making me seem like some foolish female, or worse.”

  “Well, you’re definitely female.” His twinkling glance dipped to her cleavage.

  Kitty wiggled the towel higher. “You came in here to borrow a razor. Take it and leave.”

  “She’s a little upset about the loss of the strawberries,” he explained to Marcel. “She hates to waste good chocolate.”

  “Go.” She pointed a rigid arm at the door.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Now, you know you don’t want me dripping water all through your house.” He pulled at the side of his T-shirt, reminding her that half of his clothes were soaked. She hesitated fractionally, visualizing the trail of water through her beautiful home. “You still have that spare terry-cloth robe hanging in the closet, don’t you?”

  She hated the way Sebastian made it sound as though he knew where everything was. Of course, the truth was he did. She shot an anxious look at Marcel, worried that he might put the wrong construction on that.

  “Yes, it’s hanging—”

  “I’ll find it,” Sebastian assured her, and he headed for the bedroom, a faint squelch to his woven-leather sandals.

  Kitty didn’t draw an easy breath until he was out of the room. Even then, she was a little surprised that he hadn’t lingered to make a further nuisance of himself. Fixing the warmest smile on her face that she could muster, she crossed to her fiancé.

  “I am so sorry about this. It must have looked awful when you came in—a strange man in the tub with me. Thank God, he was fully clothed, or—” She broke off the rush of words and allowed chagrin to tinge her smile. “It’s absolutely impossible to explain any of this. You would have to know Sebastian to understand.” Then it hit her that she hadn’t expected Marcel to arrive until much later. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  He seemed a bit taken aback by her question. “Your maid let me into the house as she was leaving. I heard your cries and thought you were being accosted by some thief.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I mean—I thought you weren’t going to be here until eight o’clock.”

  From the bedroom closet came Sebastian’s muffled shout, “I found it!”

  Deciding it was best to simply ignore him, Kitty bit back the impulse to shout back at him to put on the robe and get out. “Pay no attention to him.” She laid a hand on Marcel’s arm, drawing his attention back to her when he half turned in the direction of Sebastian’s voice.

  “Yes, that is best,” he agreed, then explained, “I came early to your house because I received a phone call from home this afternoon. My maman has taken ill. Nothing too serious,” he inserted when Kitty drew a quick breath of concern. “But I must fly home to Brussels tomorrow. It is my desire that you come with me. I wish to have my family meet with you.”

  “You mean . . . leave tomorrow?” she asked in shock, her mind exploding with hundreds of problems that would create.

  “But of course. We would leave in the morning.”

  “Marcel, it simply isn’t possible for me to fly off at the drop of a hat. Not with everything that’s going on at the gallery. This is one of our busiest times of the year. I—”

  “Surely your assistant is able to take charge while you are gone.”

  “Harve is very competent,” she agreed. “But I have a special exhibit scheduled in two weeks—actually less than that. The shipment should be here in two or three days. And there are so many other things that must be coordinated. Honestly, it just isn’t possible. I’m sorry, Marcel, but—”

  A bare-shouldered Sebastian stuck his head around the bathroom door. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need a towel to wrap my wet clothes in.”

  Teeth gritted, Kitty snatched a towel off the bar and shoved it into his hands. “There.”

  “Thanks.” With a smile and a nod, Sebastian was gone.

  Struggling to regain her calm, she faced Marcel once again. “All things considered, I think it would truly be best if I met your family another time, especially since your mother isn’t well.”

  “Perhaps it would be,” he conceded, then reached out to grip her upper arms, his gaze burrowing into her with intensity, his eyes darkened with a passion that so thrilled her. “But it pains me to leave you even for a day.”

  “Me, too.” The agreement came easily.

  With a groan of desire, he pulled her against him and his mouth came down to claim her lips. But Kitty found it difficult to enjoy the devouring wetness of his kiss when any second they could be interrupted by Sebastian again. After a decent interval, she drew back from his kiss.

  “We still have tonight, don’t we?” she murmured, one hand on the lapel of his suit jacket and the other pressed against the front of the towel to keep it in place. “After all, we do have an engagement to celebrate.”

  “Indeed, we have much to celebrate. It may require all night.”

  “I certainly hope so,” Kitty replied, then stepped away when he would have kissed her again. “Why don’t you go fix yourself a drink while I finish up here? I promise I won’t be long.”

  As Marcel released a sigh of regret, Sebastian rapped lightly on the door, then looked around it, this time bundled in a white terry robe. “I don’t mean to keep busting in on your little tête-á-tête, but I thought I should let you know I’m leaving.”

  “Promise?” Kitty retorted with a touch of sarcasm.

  “Cross my heart.”

  She didn’t believe him for one minute. “Marcel, why don’t you go with him and make sure he actually does leave?”

  “With pleasure,” Marcel declared, clearly as eager to be rid of him as Kitty was.

  “Something tells me Kitty doesn’t trust me.” Sebastian’s grin was wide with mischief.

  “I wonder why,” she murmured, and followed both men into the bedroom, then ushered them out the bedroom door and closed it behind them.

  Alone in the bedroom, she stood there a moment and struggled to regain that gloriously happy feeling she’d felt earlier. At the moment, she was much too annoyed with Sebastian. The man had an absolute talent for getting under her skin.

  Determined not to let him spoil any more of her evening, Kitty stalked to the huge walk-in closet. The plush throw rug was damp beneath her feet, a reminder that Sebastian had been there before her. As if she needed one.

  “Put him out of your mind, Kitty,” she muttered to herself, needing to hear the words.

  Chapter Two

  Sighing, Kitty scanned the clothes in her closet. Now that Marcel had arrived early, she no longer had the luxury of dressing at her leisure. She told herself that she truly didn’t mind. It was better to look on the positive side of things; this much-anticipated evening would simply begin earlier than she had expected. Now that she had finally gotten rid of Sebastian, everything was going to be as wonderful as she’d thought.

  In the closet, she loosened the towel and used the drier portions of it to wipe the remaining moisture on her skin, all the while surveying her vast wardrobe, regretting that she hadn’t already decided on something to wear. Until now, it was a decision that hadn’t needed to be h
urried.

  “Too bad Picasso isn’t around to do an abstract of this—Woman’s Derriere Amidst a Swirl of Clothes.”

  At the first sound of Sebastian’s familiar voice, Kitty wheeled in fury, snatching the towel back around her. “Don’t you ever knock?” she hurled angrily.

  He stood in the closet doorway, clad as before in the white terry robe, a portion of his wet jeans sticking out of the rolled-up towel under his arm. “It’s a bad habit I’ve got, I’m afraid,” he replied without a smidgeon of remorse.

  “It’s one bad habit you need to concentrate on breaking,” she retorted, then demanded, “What are you doing here again? I thought you’d left.”

  “I forgot the razor.” His expression was much too benignly innocent to be believed.

  “On purpose, I’ll bet,” Kitty guessed, eyes narrowing on him. Careful to keep her bottom covered, she turned back to face the racks of clothes. “Get your razor and leave. Better yet, forget the razor and grow a beard. It would fit the public image of an artist.”

  “You wouldn’t like it,” Sebastian replied easily. “I tried growing one before, and you didn’t care for the way it scratched, remember?”

  “That won’t be a problem anymore.”

  He snapped his fingers as if only recalling their divorce at that moment. “That’s right. You’re engaged to someone else now, aren’t you?”

  “As if you didn’t remember.” She let the sarcasm through.

  “Have you decided what you’re wearing for the big dinner tonight?”

  “That’s what I’m doing now.”

  “I recommend the cranberry silk number.”

  “Good. That’s one I definitely won’t choose,” Kitty retorted.

  “You should. I have to swallow a groan every time I see you in it.”

  There was a part of her that was secretly pleased she could still turn him on. But only a small part.

  She cast a challenging look over her shoulder. “The razor?”

  “Right. That’s why I came back, isn’t it? I’ll just get it and leave.”