One Night with His Wife

by Lynne Graham

  But she had changed. Last night he had been waiting for her to tell him she still loved him. He could not understand why her failure to do what he definitely hadn’t wanted her to do should have irritated the hell out of him. Quite deliberately, Luc dredged up purgative memories of their six-week marriage. Star calling him every hour on the hour…Star reading poetry out loud over breakfast…Star waiting for him every night when he came home, even if it was the next morning…Star, outrageously sensitive and vulnerable but as subtle as an army tank, and yet so loving, so incredibly loving and giving…

  His hooded gaze chilled on that final reflection. Over the last eighteen months she had been loving and giving with how many other men?

  At that moment, the limo pulled in at the tiny mews house where Emilie had lived for over forty years.

  ‘Is Emilie expecting us?’ Star asked awkwardly.

  ‘Bien sûr…I contacted her before I arrived with you last night.’ Luc watched Star lean forward with the evident intention of undoing her daughter’s seat restraint. ‘Why don’t you leave the children sleeping? My chauffeur will watch over them. I don’t expect this to be a long visit.’

  Star frowned. ‘But—’

  ‘Indeed, I imagine that you will be relieved when this meeting is at an end.’

  Star stiffened. ‘I’m very fond of Emilie. I may be upset and embarrassed about what’s happened, but I’m still looking forward to seeing her.’

  Luc looked singularly unimpressed by that claim. Star tilted her chin. Emilie was already waiting at her front door, a tall, spare woman with soft white hair and a remarkably fresh complexion for a lady of seventy-two years.

  ‘I was delighted when Luc told me that he would be bringing you with him.’ Emilie greeted Star with a warm and affectionate hug and whispered, ‘Thank goodness you’ve finally told him about the twins.’

  While Star reddened at that misapprehension on the older woman’s part, Emilie went to peer into the limo at the slumbering babies. ‘I do hope they wake up before you have to leave.’

  In the pretty sitting room, Star sat down opposite Emilie.

  ‘I was most annoyed when I found out that my accountant had dragged you into this, Luc,’ Emilie confided, disconcerting both her visitors.

  ‘I wasn’t dragged, Emilie…and Hodgson was only doing his job.’

  ‘But he completely misread the situation. I offered Juno my money; she didn’t ask me for it and she didn’t want to accept a loan from me. I persuaded her to accept my help. Now that the gallery had failed—through no fault of hers, I might add—I will not have the poor woman hounded as if she’s a criminal!’

  That spirited defence of her mother took Star entirely by surprise. Luc’s dark, devastating features betrayed no reaction whatsoever.

  ‘Juno’s a kind and decent woman who’s had a very difficult life and more than her fair share of bad luck.’ Emilie proclaimed in determined addition.

  Tears stinging her eyes in a hot, emotional surge, Star reached across and grasped Emilie’s hand with very real gratitude. ‘My mother means well…she always means well…but nothing ever seems to go right for her,’ she agreed shakily.

  ‘Or for anybody else in her vicinity,’ Luc completed in a gritty undertone.

  ‘I know that she shouldn’t have run away like this,’ Star acknowledged tautly, ignoring that comment.

  ‘But Juno didn’t run away. She came to see me first.’ Emilie’s smile of recollection was wry. ‘Full of crazy ideas about how she might rescue us both from ruin…bless her heart. She does try so hard!’

  ‘Bless…her…heart?’ Luc studied his father’s elderly cousin much as he might have studied someone intellectually challenged.

  ‘A well-known artist had agreed to exhibit at the gallery opening night,’ Emilie explained with a sigh. ‘But last month he pulled out. I’m afraid the other artists backed out then too. By then, all the money had been spent on setting up the gallery and funding the advance publicity. It really wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘Only Juno could emerge from this fiasco white as driven snow,’ Luc commented icily.

  Star flinched.

  Luc met Emilie’s anxious blue eyes and produced a reassuring smile. ‘However, I’m relieved that you’ve not been as upset by this business as I had feared, Emilie. And, believe me, you have nothing further to worry about. As Juno is my mother-in-law, I will naturally replace the money you’ve lost.’

  Emilie frowned. ‘I really couldn’t allow you to do that, Luc.’

  ‘Of course you could.’ Luc did not take that claim seriously.

  But, conscious of the level of Emilie’s discomfiture, Star was now studying the older woman with questioning concern.

  ‘This is a family matter,’ Luc pointed out with impressive conviction.

  ‘Is it?’ Emilie pursed her lips. ‘Families live together and support each other, Luc. But you and Star have been apart for a long time now. In those circumstances, how could I possibly allow you to repay Juno’s loan? I can’t think of her as your mother-in-law when I know that your marriage must be over.’

  A silence in which a dropped pin could have been heard had spread while Emilie explained her reasoning. That the older woman was serious about what she was saying was clear.

  Star stole one fleeting glance in Luc’s direction. His pronounced stillness suggested that he was as stunned by this development as she herself was. It had not occurred to Luc that Emilie, who invariably agreed with everything he said and did, might flatly refuse an offer of financial restitution! And why was Emilie refusing? Emilie believed that their broken marriage meant that she could not consider Juno’s debt as being either a family concern or Luc’s responsibility.

  ‘On the contrary, Emilie,’ Luc countered with brilliant dark eyes, a faint smile curving his wide, sensual mouth. ‘Our marriage is not over. Star and I were about to tell you that we’ve just embarked on a trial reconciliation.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LIKE a woman caught up in a sudden polar blast of bone-chilling cold, Star simply froze in position.

  Her stunned gaze fixed to Luc’s bold, masculine profile while he focused his entire attention on Emilie. A trial reconciliation? Star could not credit her own ears! Luc was famed for his ice-cool nerves and fast reactions in times of crisis. How could a male as clever, cautious and controlled as Luc have made such an insane announcement?

  ‘That is the most wonderful news I’ve ever heard!’ With a sudden smile of surprise and pleasure, Emilie scrambled up to clasp Luc’s hand and extend her other hand expectantly in Star’s direction.

  ‘Star…’ Luc prompted, in probably much the same commanding tone he employed with slow-moving junior employees at the Sarrazin bank.

  But Star stared at Emilie’s extended hand and found she simply couldn’t move a muscle. Of course, she knew what Luc was trying to do. She understood why he had suddenly pulled that whopping fib like a rabbit out of a magician’s hat. But how did Luc think that such an enormous lie could be carried off? Pretending that they were having another go at their marriage would demand far more of a convincing show than Luc could fondly imagine.

  No doubt he thought he was telling a little white lie which he could easily shrug off again with a regretful sigh at some stage in the future. But then he wasn’t aware that Emilie and Star had remained in too close contact for such a pretence to work. And Star was furious at the idea that she might be forced to stay out of touch with Emilie to support that same pretence!

  Star collided unwarily with Luc’s intimidating dark gaze. Get up and play your part, that hard, warning scrutiny urged. When she failed to move, he bent down and closed his other hand over hers to literally lift her up into doing his bidding.

  ‘I’m so very happy for you both.’ Emilie folded Star into her arms. ‘Although,’ she added hesitantly, ‘I’m not quite sure I like the sound of that word “trial”, Luc. Particularly with young children involved—’

  Star jerked back into life and
interrupted the older woman by pressing a harried kiss to her cheek. ‘I’m so sorry, but we really do have to rush off now, Emilie. You know what Luc’s schedule is like! I hope you’ll allow Luc to sort out this financial thing for you.’

  ‘Of course Emilie will,’ Luc asserted.

  ‘Yes, and then I shall visit you all in France this month,’ Emilie announced with an even brighter smile of anticipation, seeming not to notice that Star’s expressive face fell by a mile in shock. ‘Now I can really look forward to spending the summer at Chateau Fontaine with Star and those beautiful little children of—’

  ‘Gosh, got to run…love you so much, Emilie. See you soon!’ Star carolled wildly, yanking on Luc’s hand with desperate determination to drag him out of the room before the older woman could spill the beans about the twins’ parentage.

  Shell-shocked by the experience of visiting Emilie when Luc was in an inventive mood, Star climbed back into the limo and just sat there like a stone effigy, her bemused dismay as to how Emilie’s expectations could possibly be met etched in her face.

  ‘We’ll fly back to France this evening,’ Luc drawled without skipping a beat.

  A faint frown line indented Star’s smooth brow. ‘Sorry…you said…?’

  ‘You heard what I said,’ Luc informed her drily.

  ‘I’m not coming to France just because you’ve landed us in a heck of a mess with that stupid lie!’ Star exclaimed in vehement accusation.

  Faint colour darkened the superb angles of Luc’s hard cheekbones. ‘Scarcely a “stupid lie”, mon ange. It was the only option left. If Emilie won’t allow me to repay that money, she’ll be homeless by the end of the month. Without the income from the investments she cashed in she can’t even pay the rent on that house, never mind hope to keep herself with the smallest degree of comfort!’

  Star had paled as he spelt out those harsh facts. ‘But—’ ‘Just for once…concentrate that brain of yours,’ Luc advised grimly. ‘Your mother reduced Emilie to this level. Emilie’s very proud, and she might be talking very bravely at the moment. But at her age how do you think she will cope with such a drastic change in lifestyle? Worry and distress will affect her health and will most definitely shorten her life.’

  Star lost even more colour. And by the time Luc had finished speaking she saw that there were no other options. Just as suddenly she felt as if she was in a trap. She loved Emilie; she loved Emilie very much. But it seemed awesomely cruel to Star that she should be forced into such a situation on the very day she had finally mustered the sense and courage to say goodbye to Luc and her feelings for him for ever.

  ‘You can spend the summer at Chateau Fontaine,’ Luc continued levelly. ‘It will be a small price to pay for Emilie’s peace of mind. I will stay in the Paris apartment and make occasional weekend visits. Emilie will soon see for herself that you are being sadly neglected. She’ll be disappointed, but I’m sure she’ll understand when you decide that you do want a divorce.’

  ‘Magic…not only do I get to spend three months away from my boy friend…but I also get to be the one who demands the divorce. Thanks, but no thanks!’ Her bright eyes shimmered with angry pain. ‘You’ll have to come up with something an awful lot better than that!’

  Luc dealt her a cool, considering appraisal, dark eyes diamond-bright. ‘So you’ll have to do without sex for three months. You’ll live.’

  Star shivered with sheer rage.

  ‘Let me be even more frank,’ Luc continued in a tone as smooth as cut-crystal. ‘Your life is a disaster zone. You’re only twenty and already you have two children. Where’s their father?’

  Eyes aflame with defiance, Star stared back at him.

  ‘Do you even know who the father is?’ Luc drawled.

  Furious colour lashing her cheekbones, Star snatched in a ragged breath to steady herself. She wanted to shout back at him, but she didn’t want to waken the twins and distress them. ‘How dare you ask me that?’

  Unmoved, Luc raised a winged brow. ‘Is that a yes or a no?’

  ‘Of course I know…and I deeply resent the suggestion that I might not have known!’ Star dragged her attention from him and focused instead on Venus and Mars. ‘But they weren’t conceived in what you might call a lasting relationship—’

  ‘You had a one-night stand,’ Luc assumed in derisive interruption.

  Star breathed in so deep she wondered that she didn’t simply explode. ‘Yes, I suppose that would be the most apt description,’ she conceded unevenly. ‘The twins weren’t planned—’

  ‘So they just happened along, much like you did yourself? Doesn’t that strike you as a very irresponsible attitude?’

  ‘Their father was irresponsible too,’ Star pointed out dulcetly. ‘And the reason he’s not helping me to support the twins is that he doesn’t know that I got pregnant because I decided not to tell him.’

  Luc shifted a broad shoulder. The slight, elegant Gallic shrug of dismissal suggested his waning interest in the subject.

  Cut off in full swing, and feeling incredibly snubbed by his apparent lack of normal human curiosity, Star thrust up her chin. ‘I can’t fly to France this evening.’

  ‘You must,’ Luc contradicted. ‘You can pack what you need for tonight. I will have the rest of your possessions cleared and flown over tomorrow. We can’t afford to appear lukewarm about our reconciliation at this stage.’

  ‘It just gets worse and worse…’ Star groaned. ‘We’re getting sucked deeper and deeper in.’

  ‘I’m afraid there won’t be time for you to cook for Rory.’ Without the slightest warning, Luc’s wide mouth curved into a startlingly charismatic smile.

  Her heart jumped like a bemused bird smashing itself against a windowpane. That so rare smile stole her breath from her throat and sent her treacherous pulses pounding. Her colour fluctuating, she collided unwarily with stunning dark eyes alight with amusement, and her sense of impending tragedy simply mushroomed. Her whole body was taut as a bow, every muscle so tight it hurt, and all Luc had done was smile, filling her with intense awareness of his masculinity and all the raw-edged emotions she had sworn to put behind her.

  ‘Unless you’ve been polishing up your catering skills since we last met, Rory may well live to be grateful for the cancellation,’ Luc extended silkily.

  At that explanatory reference to an incident from their own past, Star’s over-taxed emotions responded by simply flooding her eyes with tears. ‘You are so insensitive!’

  ‘After last night, I could hardly be expected to appreciate that you are that keen on the guy,’ Luc murmured with cool, contemptuous clarity.

  Humiliated by that rejoinder, Star’s hands knotted into fists and she twisted her bright head away, fighting to get herself back under control. He could think what he liked! And as usual he’d read her wrong! Eighteen months ago, in one of her many attempts to persuade Luc to see her as a proper wife, she had given the chateau chef a night off and made dinner one evening. And it had been an absolutely mortifying total fiasco. Anything that hadn’t been overcooked had been undercooked. And, worst of all, Luc had attempted to eat those pathetic edible offerings because he’d felt sorry for her.

  ‘My chauffeur will take you home to pack and bring you to the airport in time for the flight this evening,’ Luc drawled some minutes later.

  Startled by that announcement, Star glanced up and registered that the limousine had already drawn to a smooth halt outside the Sarrazin bank in central London.

  ‘I have several appointments to keep.’ His brilliant dark deep-set eyes were cool as ice. ‘But, as requested, I’ve come up with a better explanation with which to satisfy Emilie when our charade of a marriage disintegrates all over again. On this occasion, you can just tell her the truth!’

  Star studied him in bewilderment. ‘Sorry, I—’

  ‘Did you really think that I wouldn’t work out that Emilie appears to believe that your children are mine?’ Luc demanded with sardonic bite.

  Sin
ce Star had been guilty of thinking exactly that, she was taken entirely by surprise. A split second later, she found she could not meet his hard, challenging gaze either. Her own shrinking reluctance to tell him the truth about the twins had created this particular misunderstanding.

  ‘You never think anything through to its likely conclusion,’ Luc said very drily.

  In this particular case he was undeniably correct, and Star was stung. ‘How did you guess?’ she heard herself asking.

  ‘Emilie would not have welcomed your children had she not believed that I was their father,’ Luc pointed out.

  And, once again, he was quite right, Star acknowledged with gritted teeth. Had the twins been the result of an extramarital affair, Emilie Auber would have been very distressed by their birth. Nor, in such circumstances, would she have been so willing to believe the story of their supposed reconciliation.

  ‘Whatever lies you employed to persuade her into crediting that cosy little fiction are your own responsibility,’ Luc continued. ‘But let me warn you now that while I appreciate the shock which Emilie will suffer when you admit the truth, I won’t allow that lie to stand even temporarily in my own home. No matter what discomfiture it causes you, I have no intention of playing along with that particular pretence.’

  Star scanned his lean, strong face with sudden aghast intensity. ‘But everyone will think I’m a real tart!’

  ‘You said it,’ Luc murmured with lethal cool.

  Pulverised by that final comment, and furious at herself for giving him that opening, Star watched him swing out of the car with predatory grace and stride towards the entrance of the London headquarters of the Sarrazin bank. Somewhat belatedly, it occurred to her that she had been foolish to allow Luc to continue believing that their children had been fathered by another man, foolish to place her own pride ahead of what was, after all, an unalterable fact. And the sooner she told Luc the truth now the better.

  *

  When Star boarded the Sarrazin private jet, she was clutching a squirming Venus under one arm and a clinging Mars under the other. Her floaty blue skirt and white cropped top were sticking to her damp skin. After rushing through the airport, she was feeling really harassed.