For a moment, he braced himself above her, his eyes wide with shock, his arms so rigid that the tendons quivered in the pale light. Then, with a groan of pure agony, he collapsed against her.
She felt his sudden gush of liquid heat, the powerful aftershocks which shook them both, and finally, as the world outside swam back into focus, the horrified realization of what she’d said struck home.
The silence which ensued boomed with unbearable suspense and she sought desperately for words to fill it—something sane and uncompromising. Something which would reverse the damage she’d done with her impulsive confession, and return them both to that lovely, intimate place they’d shared, such a short time ago.
Nothing came to mind and, frantic to fill the void, she muttered haltingly, “Have I ruined everything, Ethan?”
He pulled away from her, swung his legs over the side of the bed and combed his fingers through his hair. “You’ve taken me by surprise,” he said.
“Me, too. I had no idea I was going to…say what I did.”
“I know. Which is why we both need to sleep on it.” He shook his head, as if to clear it of thoughts he didn’t want to entertain, and reached for his clothes.
As miserable then, as she’d been transported, mere minutes before, she watched as he pulled on his pants, thrust his arms into the sleeves of his shirt, and tucked the tail in at his waist. That he couldn’t be gone soon enough was patently obvious.
Yet, at the last, he stopped at the foot of the bed and said kindly, “Don’t look so traumatized, Anne-Marie. You’re off the hook. I’m very well aware that you spoke in the heat of the moment, and will wake up in the morning wondering what in the world possessed you.”
But as things turned out, she didn’t come to that realization quite so soon. Not, in fact, until the following evening.
CHAPTER TEN
“TRULY, these friends of yours know how to throw a party!” Solange’s mother, Veronique Fortier, who’d arrived on Bellefleur just that afternoon with her husband, stepped out of the Beaumont limousine in the forecourt of the Tourneau mansion, and surveyed the scene with a condescending approval which, in Anne-Marie’s opinion, fell nothing short of insulting. “I confess, we had not expected such glamour and sophistication in so provincial a spot, n’est-ce pas, mon amour?”
Monsieur le Consul Maurice Fortier, suave and silver-haired, slipped an arm around his wife’s fashionably thin frame and smiled apologetically at Josephine, who was glaring at the mother of the bride with fire in her eyes. How he’d managed to climb so high in the diplomatic corps with a spouse given to such decidedly undiplomatic remarks was something Anne-Marie had never been able to fathom.
“From all I’ve so far seen, Bellefleur appears to me to be thoroughly charming,” he murmured.
In one respect, though, Veronique was quite right. The Tourneaus had spared no expense or trouble to make the evening memorable. Massive bouquets in lacquered jardinieres lined the steps and entrance hall, filled the reception rooms with their exotic perfume, and spilled down the terraces outside to join the profusion of flowers growing in the walled garden to the rear.
In the large, formal salon, a harpist plucked softly at her instrument for the pleasure of those guests seated there and at the small tables on the adjoining terrace. Down on the beach where a younger crowd gathered, the throbbing beat of a steel band filled the night.
Long, linen-draped tables in the dining hall groaned under a selection of Beluga caviar, prawns, smoked Scottish salmon, and Atlantic lobster flown in fresh that morning. A fleet of white-clad servants stood ready to serve guests. Champagne flowed like water.
The place was already crowded when the Beaumont contingent arrived, and for that, Anne-Marie was grateful. The strain of behaving as if nothing untoward had occurred between her and Ethan the previous night was taking a frightful toll, and it didn’t help any that social etiquette demanded he act as her escort now.
“Please don’t feel you have to stay with me,” she said stiffly after, with faultless courtesy, he’d introduced her to the Tourneaus. “I’m sure there are other people here whom you’d rather socialize with, and I’m long past the age where I need a baby-sitter.”
He snagged a couple of glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and pressed one into her hand. “Drink this, Anne-Marie,” he ordered. “It might help sweeten your mood. And just for the record, I never allow myself to be coerced into spending time with someone I’d prefer to avoid.”
“Not as a rule, perhaps, but you haven’t been left with much of a choice lately, have you? I’m the unattached woman who can’t be allowed to feel like a wallflower, and you’re the one stuck with the job of keeping me entertained.”
He inspected her at leisure, his blue eyes thoughtful as they swept from the top of her blond head to the tips of her strappy little gold sandals, and finally came to rest on the agitated rise and fall of her breasts. “Is that why you think I came to your bed last night?” he asked mildly. “To keep you entertained?”
She blushed so deeply, she was sure it was hard to tell where her rose-pink dress ended and her skin began. “I really haven’t given the matter much thought.”
“You’re an atrocious liar, ma chère. You’ve thought of little else, and so, come to that, have I.” He grasped her elbow and held her firmly to his side. “And I think it’s time we spoke frankly to one another about this elephant in the room which no one but the two of us can see.”
“You want to talk about us in here?” She looked around at the crush of people, appalled. “For heaven’s sake, Ethan, I might have spoken out of turn last night, but I don’t deserve to be publicly humiliated for it.”
He smiled. “Of course not here, Chérie! We’ll find a more private place. Did I mention, by the way, how lovely you look this evening?”
“Flattering me isn’t necessary to soften the blow of whatever it is you’re about to tell me.”
“What if I’m merely being truthful?” he said, steering her outside to a quiet corner of the terrace lit only by candles hanging in delicate glass lanterns from the branches of a nearby tree.
Recalling the trouble it had landed her in the night before, she said, “I’m not sure the truth is always such a good thing.”
“It’s the only thing that matters between a man and a woman. How can there ever be trust, if there isn’t truth?”
More agitated by the second, she twisted the pearl ring on her finger and looked away. “You’re right, of course—about everything. I’m not a good liar, never have been, and the plain truth is, I’m not feeling nearly as brave now as I was last night. In fact, I’m downright panic-stricken.”
“Then let me put you out of your misery,” he said, stilling the nervous movement of her hands and raising them to his lips. “You’re a beautiful, generous woman, Anne-Marie, and I’d hate to think I’m too blind to recognize a gem when I see one. But—”
Sweet heaven, in trying to let her down gently, he was going to kill her with kindness! “But you’re not in love with me,” she babbled, unable to bear another tortured moment of uncertainty. “I understand, I really do! For some men, there’s only ever one woman, one great love, and yours was your ex-wife.”
“Lisa?” He laughed incredulously, and slid his hands up her arms. “Wherever did you get such an idea? She is so far from relevant to this situation that her name is an obscenity.”
His touch was firm and sure, his mouth so close that she could practically taste it. For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, a warmth chased away the chill in her blood and, against all odds, a slender thread of hope wound through her despair. Hardly daring to breathe for fear she’d shatter the mood, she whispered, “What are you saying, Ethan?”
Before he could answer, a group of four men came out of the house and when they caught sight of him, immediately headed his way. Cursing softly, he said, “I’m sorry, Anne-Marie, but it’s going to have to wait. These are business associates from Venezuela, here only fo
r a couple of days. There are matters I need to discuss with them, and if I don’t do it now, I don’t know when another opportunity will present itself. Will you wait for me in the garden until I’m finished?”
She nodded, swept away on a buoyant wave of optimism.
“Thank you, mon ange.” Cupping her cheek briefly, tenderly, he gestured to a spot beyond the immediate area. “Hidden behind that screen of bougainvillea is a stone bench overlooking a small reflecting pool where we can talk without being disturbed. I’ll meet you there.”
The place was just as he described, quiet and secluded. Sprays of bougainvillea hung down from the trellis, with a few spent blossoms littering the bench which still retained the heat of the day’s sun. The silver disc of the moon peeped at its image on the surface of the pool, but threw deep shadows everywhere else. Beyond the wall, the sea rolled ashore in long, lazy sighs.
Deciding she was about as close to paradise as she’d ever expected to find herself, Anne-Marie bent to brush away the papery fallen petals, and was about to sit down when footsteps approached on the other side of the screen.
“I had a wonderful time,” a woman’s voice, low, sultry, and unpleasantly familiar, was saying. “Miami is my kind of city and Ethan my kind of man. But we’d have had an even better time if he hadn’t also brought along that tiresome child of his. I ask you, Roberto, what is the point in having more money than you can spend in four lifetimes, if you don’t put it to good use? The boy could very well have been left in the care of the hired servants. Isn’t that what they’re for?”
“Sí,” the man replied, his heavy Spanish accent and the mention of his name enough to clarify in Anne-Marie’s mind where she’d seen and heard both him and the woman before.
Roberto Santos and Desirée LaSalle at the Plantation Club, of course!
“Do I take it then,” he continued, “that you and Beaumont didn’t share the same bed?”
“Alas, no.”
“What a waste. The man’s a bigger fool than I took him to be.”
“But we had adjoining rooms.” She laughed. “Once this family wedding is over and he’s no longer saddled with playing nursemaid to the bride’s little seamstress friend, he and I will pay a return visit to Miami. And I can promise you, Roberto, that when we do, the boy will not be coming with us, nor will there be a door separating us. I’ll see to it that nothing comes between me and Ethan. Nothing.”
“By the bride’s little friend, you’re referring to the Canadian?”
“Yes. Have you met her?”
“Only briefly. I found her charming.”
“Then I wish you the joy of her.” Desirée’s voice, languid with amusement, faded as they wandered away. “I found her quite pathetic, and so, I suspect, does my poor Ethan. But he’s a man of the world. He knows how to make the best of a bad situation and she’s apparently very good with the child. As long as the boy’s happy, Ethan will put up with a lot—too much, if you ask me! Sometimes, I think he’s in danger of forgetting that there’s life beyond fatherhood….”
The bench was not warm, Anne-Marie decided, realizing she was gripping its rounded edge as if her life depended on it. It was cold and hard and brutal. It cut into her hand more cruelly than a knife. Her manicure, perfect until a few moments before, was ruined. As for her heart….
She scrunched her eyes shut and drew in a tortured breath. Oh, the bench was not the only thing cast in stone! A chunk the size of her fist lay lodged behind her ribs where her heart used to be, and the pain it caused made her wish she was dead.
But that wasn’t a choice. Apart from anything else, Ethan Beaumont wasn’t worth dying for, and if she hadn’t known it before, she knew it now. Not only that, she’d see him in a hell to equal hers before she’d sit there in abeyance, waiting for him to show up when it was convenient, armed with more of his double-edged sweet talk!
She stalked back to the terrace, and saw at once that he was still so deep in discussion with his Venezuelan contacts that if she’d fallen in a dead faint at his feet, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Yet for all that she reviled herself for such weakness, she noticed everything about him: the pristine white jacket fitting so snugly across his broad shoulders; his dark handsome head tilted attentively as he listened to his associates; his eyes, turned navy in the candlelight, narrowed in concentration.
He leaned one elbow on the arm of his chair and propped his chin on his fist. Nodded once or twice, then gestured in response to something one of the others said. And remembering with wrenching recall how, the night before, he’d gazed at her with just the same intentness, and laid those long, clever hands on her body, Anne-Marie experienced a bolting ache of despair which made her stagger.
How naive she’d been, to think she’d ever meant anything special to him. Oh, he’d made love to her—or then again, perhaps not. Perhaps he’d merely taken her—and only now did she understand how accurate a term that was. Because he’d stolen her from herself. Robbed her of all the things which once had given her life meaning.
Blindly, she reached out, trying to regain her balance, and felt her hand grasped in a steady masculine grip. “You look pale, señorita,” Roberto Santos murmured, bending over her. “Does the island heat not agree with you?”
Beads of perspiration broke out on her upper lip, her stomach heaved, and she was horribly afraid she might be sick. “Apparently not,” she whispered, at which he slipped his arm around her waist, guided her to an empty table, and pulled out a chair.
“I will find something to revive you,” he said.
“You’re very kind.” She fanned herself with a napkin. “Thank you.”
Within seconds he returned, bearing a tall glass of water. Grateful, she accepted it and after a sip or two, rolled the side of the frosted tumbler across her heated forehead.
“Better?” Roberto Santos inquired, taking a seat opposite and watching her from heavy-lidded eyes.
She nodded. “Much. I don’t know what came over me so suddenly. The heat has never bothered me before tonight.”
“Then perhaps the blame lies elsewhere.”
“I’m sure it does,” she said, not about to admit anything incriminating which might find its way back to Desirée LaSalle’s malicious ears. “I suspect I’ve been working too hard and not getting out enough.”
“Is there anything I can do to remedy that?”
A commotion at the table in the corner caught her attention and, turning her head, she saw that Ethan had noticed both her and her companion. His glare fairly scorched the distance separating them, and he’d started up from his table so abruptly that a glass had fallen and smashed on the floor.
Deliberately turning back to Roberto Santos whose glance had followed hers, she said, “I’m actually feeling much better suddenly. If you’ll join me, I’d like a glass of champagne and something to eat, and after that, I think I’d like to dance.”
His teeth gleamed in a small, knowing smile. Rising, he offered her his arm. “It will be my pleasure to accommodate you on all counts, Señorita Barclay. Shall we go inside?”
“By all means. And let’s not stand on ceremony. Please call me Anne-Marie.”
“I shall call you Anna-Maria,” he murmured, dipping his head to hers until his black ponytail almost brushed her cheek. “It flows more musically in Spanish, don’t you agree?”
“Sí,” she cooed, favoring him with her most dazzling smile, all the time vividly aware of Ethan as she swayed past his table close enough that he could have tripped her up if he’d had the wits to stick his foot out far enough. But he appeared too paralyzed with rage to move.
Fine! Let him stew in his own juice, for a change!
Once inside the house, though, with no Ethan for a captive audience, the game of one-upmanship lost what little charm it possessed. “I’m really not up to this, after all,” she said, begging off a third energetic samba with Roberto. “Would you be kind enough to find Monsieur Beaumont’s driver and ask him to take me home?”
/>
But it turned out that, not ten minutes earlier, Josephine and Louis had commandeered the chauffeur for the same task. “Which is no problem at all, Anna-Maria,” Roberto assured her. “I’ll be happy to drive you there myself.”
She knew that, in accepting, she was courting trouble, but it didn’t compare to what she’d already endured that night. If he tried to make a pass at her, she’d set him straight in very short order.
He surprised her, though, making no effort to touch her or engage her in innuendo of any kind. If anything, he seemed genuinely sympathetic, an impression borne out when, before leaving her at the villa gates, he handed her a business card and said, “If circumstances were otherwise, I would suggest a different way to end this evening. But I see that you are deeply troubled and so I will say only this: if I can be of service to you in any capacity during the remainder of your stay here, Anna-Maria, you have only to ask. I can be reached at this number anytime, day or night.”
Embarrassed to find herself on the brink of tears, she took the card and said, “You’ve already been of enormous help. I don’t know how I would have managed tonight, if you hadn’t stepped forward to pick up the pieces when I fell apart at the Tourneaus.”
He shrugged. “I had no choice. I am not a popular figure on Bellefleur as, I’m sure, you’re probably aware. I have made mistakes and will likely make many more before I die. But I am not the monster Ethan makes me out to be. I am simply a man who finds it difficult to turn his back on a woman in distress. So I say to you again, if you need me, you have only to call.”
“No,” she said wearily. “It wouldn’t be fair, and my stay here is almost over anyway. So do yourself a favor and forget this night ever happened, Roberto. I certainly intend to.”
A midnight hush hung over the moon-dappled gardens as she made her way down to her quarters. That such calm beauty reigned all around while nothing but ugliness ate away at her, was more than she could bear. Stripping off her sandals, she ran barefoot the last hundred yards and didn’t stop until, out of breath and out of emotional stamina, she gained refuge inside the villa.
In the Best Man's Bed Page 13
