Pure Princess, Bartered Bride

by Caitlin Crews

  Something passed between them, electric and intense. Gabrielle was aware of the wind chimes in the nearby trees, the faint sounds of traffic in the distance, but she was otherwise held spellbound by his commanding gray gaze, unable to look away from him.

  “I accept that,” he said at length, turning to reach for his phone as it rang, signaling the end of the moment.

  He answered the call in French, excusing himself from the table with a quick word and moving inside.

  Gabrielle watched him go. He moved with the same focused intent and leashed power that he did everything else. It was only when he disappeared from view that she realized she had not taken a full deep breath since she’d stepped out onto the deck.

  She nearly laughed. It seemed her armor worked as well on Luc Garnier as on anyone else—which astonished her.

  Because already you believe he is somehow superhuman, she chided herself. He is only a man.

  But she remembered the way he’d touched her, the way she’d writhed in his arms, and she doubted it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  GABRIELLE stood on the elegant terrace high over the city of San Francisco and watched as the last of the day sank over the horizon, the beautiful northern Californian city lighting up all around her as darkness claimed it fully. The sun took the warmth of the day with it, and Gabrielle shivered slightly as evening gathered around her. She pulled her silk wrap closer over her bare shoulders, but made no move to go inside.

  She could hear Luc’s voice echo from behind her, inside the library in the luxurious penthouse suite into which he had retreated to make some business calls. She was just as happy to take a few moments to herself to try to process the past few weeks. To try to breathe.

  Had it been only a month? It seemed like so much longer. But it had been nearly four full weeks since Luc had appeared at Cassandra’s front door in the Hollywood Hills and everything had changed. She felt changed. What worried her was that she couldn’t decide if she had changed in the way she had feared so much—what if she’d lost her ability to discern whether or not she had lost herself? Didn’t losing herself mean that she might not be able to tell?

  Luc had arrived in such a fury, but the storm had passed during that long, exquisite first night. It was almost as if Luc had woken up the following morning a different man. He was not suddenly easygoing or relaxed, of course—he was still Luc Garnier, and Gabrielle imagined he could never be affable or pleasant as some men were—but he had changed. He had gone out of his way to be courteous—solicitous, even.

  That same day he had swept Gabrielle off for an afternoon trip up the matchless California coast. He had taken her on a helicopter ride over pretty Catalina Island, then out to dinner in the charming town of Santa Barbara, with its mix of Spanish, Mediterranean and Moorish architecture that again reminded Gabrielle of her home in Miravakia. After a dinner of spicy Cajun food, a car had whisked them away, up into the foothills, to the luxurious San Ysidro Ranch, which managed somehow to be as unpretentious as it was elegant. Their exclusive and private cottage house had been a little gem, hidden away in the trees along one of the creek side paths on the ranch property.

  And all the while, Luc had talked to Gabrielle as if she was a human being—his wife and not merely his newest business acquisition. Gabrielle had been in very real danger of being swept off her feet by this far more accessible version of Luc—until she’d discovered her own bags at the cottage.

  “What is this?” she’d asked, momentarily confused by the sight of them. “Why are my bags here?” It would have been one thing to find a single overnight bag—but she’d seen her entire suite of travel bags lined up neatly against the wall.

  “I had everything sent ahead,” Luc had said, as if that should have been obvious. He’d studied her for a moment. “Will you not be more comfortable?”

  “I do not need all my bags, surely?” Gabrielle had said, suspicion sparking in her gut—especially when he’d turned away from her and pulled out his ever-present PDA. “How long will we be away from Cassandra’s house? One night? Two?”

  “We are not going back,” Luc had said, without glancing up from the PDA in his hand. He’d scrolled through a message, frowned, then slid the device back into his pocket. He’d strolled across the room and fixed himself a drink, all without turning to see her astonishment. Suddenly the reality of her situation—of her marriage and her husband—had come flooding back to her. How could a single afternoon have so bewitched her? How could she have forgotten for a moment?

  “Of course I have to go back!” she had cried. She’d refused to let the easy charm of the ranch cottage distract her. So what if there was a soaring wood-beamed ceiling and a stone fireplace with a cracking fire within? She refused to be seduced by furnishings. “You had no right to just…decide that I wasn’t returning to Cassandra’s house!”

  “Are you angry that I did it, or angry that I didn’t ask you first?” Luc had asked mildly, settling himself on one of the bright sofas.

  He had seemed as perfectly at ease surrounded by the rustic Western décor as he had in Miravakia’s grand cathedral. It was as if he molded whatever room he found himself in to his own specifications, and it had seemed to Gabrielle, glaring at him from beside the grand four-poster bed that dominated the room, as if the cottage had been created with Luc Garnier in mind. It was maddening.

  “I am angry that you seem to have no regard whatsoever for my feelings on this or any other issue,” Gabrielle had replied. Perhaps the shockingly romantic day had lulled her into a false sense of security. It was the only thing that could explain her sudden boldness.

  “We are on our honeymoon, are we not?” Luc had asked, still in that mild way. But Gabrielle had felt a frisson of alarm—or awareness—skitter down her spine. There had been steel beneath his tone.

  “I…I don’t know…” she had said. Honestly. She’d sucked in a breath and dared, “I’ve told you that I think this marriage was a mistake.”

  She’d expected the rage she’d seen the night before—the sardonic remarks, the intimidation, the blistering fury. But he had not done any of the things she’d expected.

  “So you have,” he’d said. He had been unreadable in that moment, only watching her from across the room. He’d risen to his feet, never taking his eyes from hers, and inclined his head. “The fault is mine, I think. Perhaps I need to concentrate on more exciting honeymoon activities than today’s touristy adventures. Perhaps that would put you in a better frame of mind where our marriage is concerned?”

  “I don’t think activities are going to change the fact that I—” Gabrielle had begun, but her words had dried up on her tongue, because he’d pulled the tails of his shirt from his trousers with a quick jerk of his wrists. His dark brows had arched—challenging her.

  “I beg your pardon?” he had said, his mild tone at odds with the sudden sexual heat that had filled the room. “You were saying?”

  Then, still maintaining that disturbing, intoxicating eye contact, he’d slowly unbuttoned the shirt and shrugged out of it. She had been the one to blink, to let her gaze fall—indeed, she’d been powerless to resist.

  Gabrielle had not been prepared for the sight of him in the cheery light of the cottage and the fire instead of the dark of the previous night’s bedroom. His chest was all hard planes and fascinating dips, the wide expanse of his pectoral muscles narrowing to a tight abdomen and lean hips. Dark hair dusted his muscles, making him seem even more impossibly male. He was gorgeous. Beautiful. And Gabrielle had been seized with the urge to taste every bit of his golden skin that she could see.

  But then he’d made everything even worse by raking his trousers off, stepping out of them stark naked.

  “What are you doing?” Gabrielle had managed to whisper, while her heart had hammered at the walls of her chest and the blood had pumped so loudly in her ears she’d thought it might permanently deafen her.

  He’d stood before her with arrogant nonchalance and without a shred of m
odesty. But then he had nothing to be modest about. Gabrielle hadn’t been able to help herself—her eyes had been drawn almost against her will to that place between his legs that she had felt the night before—in the kind of detail that it made her feel dizzy to remember—but had previously only seen on sculptures in museums.

  She’d gulped. If she’d been wearing pearls, she might have clutched them. His maleness had hung thick and proud before him, and as she’d looked at it, it had stirred to life. She’d felt her body respond—her breasts grow heavy, and that wet, coiling hunger roll to life in her groin, fanning out and lighting her afire. She had been fascinated. Her body had simply wanted him. Again. Always.

  As if his male organ had read her mind it had thickened—hardening until it stood away from his flat belly.

  Her eyes had flown to his, silver and amused in the firelight.

  “I am going to sit in the hot tub out on the patio,” Luc had said lazily. He’d reached over and picked up his drink, as urbane and sophisticated as if he had been dressed in full black tie. “Perhaps you would like to join me?”

  Gabrielle had gaped at him, her breathing erratic. His naked body had been all she could think about—the sight of all that bare skin and maleness making her feel wild and mad and jittery.

  “I’ve only been in a hot tub in the spa,” she’d said. Idiotically.

  “This will be different,” he’d promised, amused. He’d held out his free hand, commanding and regal, making her feel distinctly overdressed by comparison. She had wavered, her body clamoring for her to throw herself at him while her mind warned her that the bags were a lesson she could not afford to ignore—so peremptory and arrogant and—

  But then he’d smiled. One of his rare, heartbreaking smiles. One that flashed that fascinating dent in his lean jaw and made his eyes gleam like highly polished platinum.

  “Trust me,” he’d said.

  And she’d found herself moving toward him without another thought…

  Gabrielle shivered on the terrace in San Francisco—but not from the cold. She darted a look over her shoulder, but Luc was still indoors. She could still hear his voice—the dark, rich caress of French when he talked to his assistants, the lyrical lilt of Italian when he spoke to his right-hand man.

  She would never look at a hot tub the same way again.

  And that had only been the first night.

  Luc had hired a sexy little convertible and they’d meandered their way along the spectacular California coast, their bags turning up in one luxurious suite after the next in places Gabrielle had only ever read about. Big Sur, the Carmel Valley, Monterey. Gabrielle had hardly known where the rugged beauty of the California coastline left off and her husband’s began. He’d made love to her every night, over and over, with a ferocity that had made her toes curl and her heart sing, the nights bleeding into the days until she felt as aware of his body as she was of her own.

  He was more dark magic than man, she thought, and she knew she was spellbound, enchanted. Every night, she tried to resist him. Every time he touched her she tried to hold something of herself in reserve—to keep some small part of herself safe. But now as she stood with all of San Francisco laid out before her, she was forced to wonder what that small, hidden part of her mattered when every other fiber of her being seemed to dance to his tune at his command. How could she have allowed this to happen? Unlike her father, whom she had blindly followed for years out of a sense of duty and familial obligation, and her own helpless love for him no matter how remote he seemed, she had known immediately that she should not do the same with Luc. And here she was, a scant few weeks later, turned inside out because he wished it.

  The worst part was, she could summon up only the most distant kind of alarm.

  Did she wish it? Was she pretending to want to resist him while secretly thrilling to her own surrender? Was it not surrender at all, but instead the acceptance of pure, unadulterated pleasure—something she had never permitted herself before?

  Something in her suspected that it might be true—though she shoved it aside.

  Someday this spell will break, she told herself now, sternly, and then what will you have? A marriage that resembles your relationship with your father much too closely. A life completely and utterly controlled by a man you never wanted, never chose.

  But she wasn’t sure she cared as much about that possibility as perhaps she should.

  “Gabrielle.”

  Just her name on his lips and her sex melted, while the rest of her body surged to attention. Just her name. He was lethal. She turned to see him standing in the French doors that led out to the terrace. He was dressed all in black—trousers, and a cashmere turtleneck that made him look impossibly French even as it clung to his spectacular chest, defining his lean, tight muscles. He frowned. It no longer made her heart beat in panic—but that didn’t mean she had grown immune to him. Not by a long shot.

  “There is a chill in the air, and a breeze this high up,” he said. “You’ll catch cold.”

  “It’s a beautiful evening,” she replied, smiling. She didn’t move. It was one more little rebellion, hardly noticeable at all except to that tiny part of her she hid away, tucked deep inside.

  The moment seemed charged, as the city rushed into nighttime below them, bridges and buildings sparkling and spreading out in all directions. Gabrielle felt an emotion she could not name roll into life inside of her and begin to grow. She didn’t know if that was what made her want to weep, or if it was the odd, arrested look in his eyes—as if he was seeing her for the first time. She swallowed against it.

  “You look lovely,” Luc said, crossing to her. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. Even the barest touch of his mouth against the back of her hand made her quiver. And he knew it. She could see the sure, sensual knowledge in his silvery gaze.

  It is only sex, she told herself, fighting her body’s instant response. Physical chemistry. It doesn’t mean anything more than that. There was no magic, no sorcery, no spell. He was just a man, and she had never explored her passions before. It was simple, really.

  She’d been telling herself some version of the same story for weeks.

  She wished she believed it.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice hushed. She had dressed for the evening in a simple black sheath, and had secured her hair in a low, sleek ponytail, held with a jeweled clasp at the nape of her neck.

  “I apologize for abandoning you,” he said, searching her face as if he could see the struggle she thought she’d hidden from view. “I’m afraid my business does not lend itself to holidays, no matter how much I might wish it to do so.”

  Gabrielle smiled automatically—though she knew him well enough after these intense, close weeks to suspect that it was not the business that did not lend itself to time off, it was Luc himself who refused it. But she backed away from saying such a thing—from exploring the implied intimacy that knowing anything about him suggested. She had to keep something in reserve or she would end up with nothing. Why was that so hard to remember?

  “I watched the sun set over the Golden Gate Bridge,” she said, smiling up at him. Light, easy. Her polite hostess mode, all surface and shine. She clung to it—determined to feel as composed as she sounded. “How could I possibly feel abandoned?”

  Her eyes were dark, with no hint of green—which, Luc had come to know over the past weeks, meant she was upset. She gave no other sign. Her smile was perfect, her body at ease. Yet he could feel her distance and he hated it.

  “I am glad to hear that a sunset and a foreign city are adequate replacement for me,” he said dryly, watching her closely. Her lashes swept down, covering her eyes, and when she looked up again he saw humor there.

  “Was that a joke?” she asked.

  “I never joke,” he replied in the same tone, and she laughed.

  “Have you concluded your business?” she asked, angling her body away from his as he moved closer. It was subtle thing—unconscious, perh
aps—but Luc noticed it. He frowned. “It must be quite late in Europe.”

  “I decided to let everyone sleep tonight,” Luc said. “But only because I expect them to work even harder in the morning.”

  She crossed her arms over her torso, pulling the wrap tighter around her body. She gazed out over the city, remote and beautiful. He did not see the city arrayed at his feet—he saw only her. He wished that he could penetrate her mind, explore her secrets. He had accepted that she had this power over him—a power no other woman had ever had. He had realized that he wanted to know her in a way that went far beyond the carnal. He assumed it was because she was his wife; knowing that he would be with her for the rest of their lives was reason enough to have a deeper interest in her, surely? He should have expected it. And like anything else, he told himself, this urge to know her would pass in time. It had to.

  “Are you a good boss?” she asked, startling him. “Do they like you?”

  Luc was incredulous. “Like me?” he asked. He rolled his shoulders back and frowned slightly. “I’ve never given it a moment’s thought. They obey me, or they are replaced.”

  “I will take that as a no, they do not.” Amusement made her voice rich.

  “Is that how you plan to rule your country?” he asked derisively. “As a popularity contest? I doubt you will find that the most efficient form of government.”

  “There is a difference between fear and respect,” she replied, seeming unperturbed by his harsher tone. It occurred to him that it had been a long time since he’d managed to get under her skin with only a few words. “Surely a good ruler should strive for the latter rather than the former?”

  “This is all very naïve, Gabrielle,” Luc said dismissively. “Yes, it would be delightful if my employees adored me. But what should I care if they do not? As long as they work hard, perform well and remain loyal, they are rewarded. If they wish to be loved in return, perhaps they should adopt a domestic animal.”