The Frenchman's Love-Child

CHAPTER NINE

TABBY and Christien went to Paris with the nursemaid, Fanchon, in tow. The specialist, an expert in the field of childhood asthma, gave Jake a brief examination and booked him in for tests the following day.

Christien owned a seventeenth century town house on Ile St-Louis. It had an incredible location on a picturesque tree-lined quay overlooking the Seine. Admitting that he had several calls to return, he left her to dress for dinner in a guest room. She put on a slender white dress with a plaited brown leather belt that hung low on her hips, and when she tucked their son into bed he wished her goodnight in careful French.

Sleek and handsome in a designer suit, Christien came forward to greet her when she walked into the imposing drawing room. A portly older man stood smiling beside the trays of glorious rings spread out in front of the windows to catch the best light.

Christien curved a light arm to her spine. ‘I want you to choose your engagement ring.’

‘Wow…you’re being so conventional,’ she mumbled to cover her delight and surprise with a little cool.

‘Maybe it’s too conventional…If you prefer we can scrap the ring idea,’ Christien countered very seriously.

‘Don’t be daft…I was only teasing.’ Having registered that facetious comments could get her into trouble, she hastened over to the rings and fell madly in love with a diamond in a wonderful art deco setting.

‘Take your time,’ Christien censured, distrusting impulses.

‘No, this is it…this is the one,’ she insisted. ‘It’s my favourite era.’

He took her to an exclusive restaurant for dinner.

‘This is how it should have been the first night…I should have waited,’ Christien conceded. ‘But I couldn’t keep my hands off you-’

‘Let’s not talk about stuff like that.’ Tabby was getting short of breath just looking across the table at his lean dark features and the aura of sexy confidence he exuded.

‘I want to marry you,’ Christien said harshly. ‘I really do want to marry you.’

‘But I don’t want it to be just because of Jake or…’ But she bit back the word ‘sex’ for suddenly she could see how unfair she was being. He didn’t love her, but she was pushing as if she thought pressure might somehow change that and, of course, it wouldn’t. If lust and his son were all she had to hold him, maybe she was just going to have to come down to earth and get used to that reality.

She scarcely knew what she ate at that meal. She saw other women glancing at him, admiring that hard bronzed profile, the grace of the lean hands he used to express himself while he talked. An intensity of love that was almost terrifying filled her.

‘Shall we go to a club?’ he asked over coffee.

‘Not in the mood.’ She didn’t trust herself to look at him in the cab. She wanted him. She wanted him so badly it hurt to say no to herself. He followed her into Jake’s room. From the floor he retrieved the worn white stuffed lamb that Jake had slept with since he was a baby. He slotted it in beside their son and straightened his bedding.

‘Bon Dieu…I can’t believe he’s ours,’ Christien confided huskily. ‘When I think about him or look at him I have that same sense of wonder I used to have as a child at Noël…at Christmas.’

Her eyes prickled. ‘Thank goodness…I thought it was only me who could get soppy about him.’

In the corridor, Christien paused, lean, powerful face taut. ‘If I had known you were carrying my baby, I would have been there for you,’ he asserted in a driven undertone. ‘But that day at the accident enquiry, I didn’t trust myself to be alone with you-’

‘But why?’ she whispered, breaking into that emotive flood.

‘I was angry as hell. I believed that you’d two-timed me with the biker. I’d let that conviction destroy even the good memories I had of you,’ he admitted grimly. ‘I was still very bitter. I didn’t want you to know what I was feeling.’

He had freed her from the fear that he had rejected her that day because she was Gerry Burnside’s daughter. She knew how strong his pride was, but he had told her more than he probably realised. All those months later, he had still been furious and bitter over her supposed betrayal. The longevity of those emotions suggested to her that she had meant something rather more to Christien Laroche than a casual summer lover.

‘But I can see that you thought I was cruel. That was never my intention. I didn’t appreciate that I had the power to hurt you that day,’ Christien completed.

She stretched up on tiptoes, linked her arms round his neck and raised shining eyes to his. ‘I know. Thank you for my gorgeous ring.’

With infuriating control, Christien set her back from him again. ‘We have an early start tomorrow.’

It was a warm night and she wasn’t in the mood to go to bed. Earlier in the evening, Christien had given her a tour of the apartment and there was a pool in the basement. She descended the stairs and used the atmospheric lighting to illuminate the glorious pool shaped like a lake. Never had she seen a stretch of water look quite so enticing.

Stripping where she stood, she padded down the Roman steps and sighed with appreciation as the cool, silky water washed her overheated skin. She swam a length and then let her eyes drift shut while she floated.

‘You’d better vacate the water if you don’t want to be ravished,’ Christien’s husky drawl warned.

Her eyes flew wide and she flipped over with an ungainly splash. He was hunkered down by the side of the pool, bronzed hair-roughened chest bare. He vaulted upright again.

‘This is my equivalent of a cold shower,’ he told her bluntly. ‘You’re looking at a guy on the edge, mon ange.’

Her face suffused with colour as she noticed the bulge of male arousal delineated by the tight black denim. He unsnapped the waistband, undid the zip with obvious difficulty. Again she noticed the silky furrow of black hair that ran down over his flat, taut stomach. Dragging her half-embarrassed, half-appreciative attention from him, she swam for the steps. Only as she emerged from the water did she appreciate her own nudity and how provocative it must seem to Christien that she had not even set out a towel with which to cover herself.

Christien was stopped in his tracks by the sight of her. Her hair was a thick, damp tangle round her animated face and her skin had the luscious glow of a sun-ripened peach.

‘I swear I didn’t know you were coming down here,’ Tabby muttered feverishly. ‘I swear it.’

‘Stand up…drop your hands…show me what I want to see.’ Christien’s rich dark accented drawl was bold and rough-edged.

She met burning golden eyes and her heartbeat quickened and her head swam. She arched her spine, let her hands fall to her side, listened to the indrawn hiss of his breath with an inner stab of feminine satisfaction. ‘It’s our first date,’ she reminded him.

‘So I’m a sure thing, ma belle.’ His gaze clung to the creamy swell of her voluptuous breasts and lingered on distended pink nipples still beaded with water. A groan broke low in his throat. ‘In fact, I’m a pushover…I’m the sort of guy who gives his all on a first date.’

‘Are you?’ Tabby shivered although she was not cold. She was, however, very wound up. She knew she ought to run like hell. He was putting out vibes like placards: go…or else. She had to be a wanton hussy because just the thought of his knowing hands on her left her giddy and weak. Standing there naked in front of him while he looked her over, she felt shameless, but it was very exciting too.

He reached for her in one sudden movement. He took her mouth with sexual savagery, penetrating fast and deep between her lips with an urgency that sent the blood drumming in a crazy beat through her veins. Trembling with desire, she let herself be carried over to the padded bench by the wall. He spread her there and knelt to lick the crystalline water droplets from her breasts and toy with her pointed pink nipples. He tipped her back and spread her thighs to trace the lush, swollen flesh below the soft curls that crowned her womanhood.

As she lay there open to him, her face burned. ‘Christien-’

‘You’ve got shy,’ Christien teased with hungry appreciation and he located the tiny bud that was unbearably sensitive and wrenched a startled gasp from her.

Hot, almost painful sensation was tugging at her every sense, making it more and more impossible for her to concentrate on anything but her own pleasure.

‘This is one more reason why you have to marry me,’ Christien growled with raw satisfaction. ‘You’re down here at two in the morning because you can’t sleep for wanting me and I’m the same. We belong together.’

‘But-’

‘Don’t you dare say “but” to me,’ Christien told her bossily. ‘You can stuff the separate beds too.’

He slid a finger into the slick heat of her and she was lost. He employed his mouth and the tip of his tongue on her most tender place. Writhing in abandonment, she moaned like a soul in torment and clutched at his hair. Pleasure as she had never known had her in its grip and she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t handle anything but the incredible impact of what he was doing to her. Then, when she was way beyond any form of control, he lifted her up as though she were a doll, turned her over to arrange her exactly to his liking and drove his hard shaft into her tight, wet sheath from behind.

‘Oh…oh!’ Tabby cried out in sensual shock as he held her fast and delved deeper with every sure stroke.

His ruthless domination was indescribably exciting. Setting up a pagan rhythm, he proceeded to drive her out of her mind with excitement. She hit a high in a blinding instant of shattering release and her entire body convulsed in an explosive orgasm. Her legs just collapsed under her at that point. With an understanding laugh, Christien pulled out of her, threw himself down on the bench and lifted her up to bring her back down on top of him.

‘I’m so hot for you, I feel like an animal,’ he confessed raggedly.

She whimpered as he eased back into her passion-moistened depths.

‘Am I being too rough?’ he groaned.

‘No…I’m passing out with pleasure,’ she managed to mumble.

Reassured, he pushed her hair off her damp brow, kissed her and spread her thighs a little more to deepen his penetration with an earthy groan of appreciation. ‘Moi aussi, ma belle.’

The wild pleasure began to build afresh for her. When his magnificent body shuddered with the raw excitement of his own release, he sent her flying to the same uncontrollable heights of fulfilment a second time. It was a burst of ecstasy so intense that her eyes were awash with tears in the aftermath. Clasping him close and glorying in the wondrously familiar scent of his hot, damp masculinity, she knew that she never wanted to let him go.

‘We’re sleeping together tonight too,’ Christien delivered, pressing a kiss to her temples, lacing his fingers into her tumbled hair and then smoothing the tangled tresses again. ‘Ciel! Suppose one of us was to die tomorrow…imagine how we would feel if we had slept apart.’

That very suggestion was too much for Tabby in the emotional mood she was in and she sobbed, ‘Don’t ever say anything like that!’

‘I was only kidding.’ Christien hugged her so tight that breathing was an impossibility. For a sickening second he had been jarred by the thought of how he would have felt had she been in that car with her father and his friends that night almost four years earlier, and it was as if he had been punched in the gut by a iron fist.

‘But stuff like that happens-’

‘We’ve already come through a lifetime of bad luck and we’re together again,’ Christien drawled forcefully, but he was wondering uneasily what was the matter with him.

Why was he talking and thinking the way he was? It was weird. He felt decidedly queasy about the amount of unfamiliar emotion assailing him, never mind his own imaginative flight of folly that had caused her to burst into tears in the first instance. Of course, he was fond of her. Naturally. There was nothing wrong with affection, was there? She lapped up stuff like that too, he reminded himself, relaxing again. The hugs, the hand holding, the cards, the flowers, all the stupid, meaningless mush. He hugged her, held her hand and resolved to have flowers sent to her in the morning. He was really only catering to her needs and only a miserable, selfish bastard would withhold the little touches that made her content.

He carried Tabby into a big walk-in shower. ‘By day you can be as proper as a Victorian virgin but at night, you’re mine,’ he told her.

Her body had a sweet, lingering ache of satisfaction that filled her with languor. A towel wrapped round her in a sarong, he took her back up to his room. There he unwrapped her again with the care of a male performing a symbolic act and slid her beneath the sheet. Shedding his jeans, he climbed in beside her and hauled her close. Love spread through Tabby in a warm wave of security. Nestling into him, charmed by the fact that he was holding her hand even though it was not really comfortable, she went straight to sleep.

Christien woke to find his three-year-old son staring at him from the foot of the bed.

‘What are you doing in Mummy’s bed?’ Jake asked, wide-eyed.

‘She had a nightmare,’ Christien responded glibly.

‘What happened to her nightie?’ Jake demanded.

‘It fell off…when she was having the nightmare,’ Christien told him boldly, but a faint flush of colour underscored his superb cheekbones.

Tabby, who had woken up too, started to laugh.

‘You’re supposed to be supporting me here,’ Christien breathed in a meaningful undertone out of the corner of his handsome mouth.

‘You’ll have to do better than that to get support!’ Tabby spluttered, for she was in the grip of helpless giggles.

Christien held her until she subsided: Tabby under one arm, their son, who seemed to find giggles highly contagious, beneath the other. Should he call his own mother to tell her that he was marrying Gerry Burnside’s daughter? He was no coward, but he felt more like sending a note and keeping his distance until the hysterics were over and the tears had dried. Phoning, he decided, would be the safest and kindest first line of approach. Did he then risk taking Tabby for a brief visit? For perhaps ten minutes? He refused to contemplate the possibility of Tabby being slighted or hurt. Ought he to say something to that effect to his mother beforehand? Above Tabby’s vulnerable head, he grimaced and his possessive embrace became even more pronounced.

That afternoon, Christien shepherded Tabby and Jake into his mother’s apartment. It seemed less gloomy than it had been on his last visit. The curtains were no longer half shut and some of the blinds that blocked the sunlight had been raised. He could only stare when his parent walked to greet them, looking quite unrecognisable, not only because she had a tentative smile on her face, but also because she was wearing something other than black for the first time in almost four years: a dark blue dress.

‘Madame…’ Tabby murmured cheerfully, offering her cheek French-fashion for his elegant mother’s salutation.

‘Tabby…’ Christien’s parent murmured in warm welcome, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘Please call me Matilde.’

Jake opened his arms for a hug. Matilde knelt down to oblige and informed the little boy that the French word for grandmother was mamie.

Christien could not credit what he was seeing. It was picture perfect. It seemed too good to be true that the very first time his parent laid eyes on Tabby, she should greet the younger woman like a cherished family member. But there it was: his mother was enthusing over Tabby’s engagement ring and listening to Jake’s chatter while their son hung onto the older woman’s hand.

Christien cleared his throat. Both women gave him an innocent look of enquiry.

‘Non…the show is over,’ Christien pronounced drily. ‘I’m not fooled. I’m not that stupid. The two of you have met before!’

‘How did you know?’ Tabby demanded in exasperation.

A rerun of Veronique’s first meeting with his parent after their engagement had replayed in Christien’s memory. Although she’d known the brunette since childhood, his mother’s polite reception of her future daughter-in-law had had little warmth. A belated deduction that came as a sincere shock to Christien led him into a rare indiscretion.

Christien studied Matilde in surprise. ‘You didn’t like Veronique…’

The older woman was taken aback by his lack of tact in referring to his former fiancée on such an occasion and then she sighed in answer. ‘Even when that young woman was a little girl, I thought she was sly.’

‘So how did you meet Tabby?’ Christien asked, only casually wondering why Veronique had such a very bad track record when it came to befriending her own sex. Sly?

‘Ask us no questions and we will tell you no lies,’ Tabby interposed at an instant when, ironically, she was gasping to ask a curious question on her own account. Veronique? Had Christien and his parent been referring to the same woman whom she had met in the Dordogne?

Matilde announced that she wanted to throw a party to celebrate their engagement. As a distraction it was very successful, particularly as Christien was also caught up in silencing his son’s innocent attempt to tell Matilde that Tabby had had such a bad nightmare that her nightie had fallen off.

Having left Matilde’s apartment, Tabby and Christien were in the lift before Tabby had the opportunity to say, ‘Veronique…was that the same Veronique I met years back?’

Christien gave her an uncommunicative nod of confirmation.

So he had been seeing the other woman. Tabby almost winced. She was disappointed in him. All right, Veronique had been beautiful and stylish and clever, but she had also been a cold, nasty piece of work as Tabby had found out to her cost after that car crash when she had gone up to the villa in the hope of seeing Christien again. But there it was, deserved or otherwise, evidently Veronique had finally got what she had wanted all along: her chance to shine with Christien as something other than a good mate. For once, however, life appeared to have handed out its just deserts for Christien had obviously been less than impressed, Tabby reflected with a satisfaction that was only human.

But that satisfaction was just as swiftly replaced by a disconcerting stab of unease that prompted her to say, ‘I gather that you and Veronique were together a while back…so I don’t have anything to do with you breaking up with her, do I?’

‘Ne fais pas l’idiote…don’t be silly!’ Telling all, Christien had decided, would only cause distress. In fact it was a kindness to keep quiet for Tabby was happy and an awareness of how recently he had been engaged to Veronique would only make her very un- happy…

On the night of their engagement party, Tabby twirled in front of a giant gilt-edged mirror in the grand salon at Duvernay and then twirled again for good measure.

Courtesy of Christien’s generosity, an antique Cartier diamond necklace of deco vintage encircled her throat. It looked fabulous and her dress had a to-die-for glamour that thrilled her. Ruby-red in colour, it bared her shoulders, hugged her shapely figure to perfection and fell into a flirty hem round her ankles, scoring on all three counts of being feminine and sexy and chic into the bargain. But without Matilde, she would never have had the nerve to enter the high fashion emporium on the Rue St-Honore where she had found the gown.

The past eight days had been hugely enjoyable for Tabby and jam-packed with activity and entertainment. With Christien she had picnicked below the chestnut trees in the Jardin des Tuileries, visited Disneyland Paris with Jake, toured fabulous art collections and on one memorable occasion had gone out clubbing until dawn. They had talked about her career as an artist and stolen hungry kisses behind doors like guilty teenagers. They had spent virtually every daylight hour together with Christien making up business hours most evenings and Tabby was now fully convinced that she had had very good taste when she’d fallen in love with him almost four years earlier.

He had become so romantic since then too, she thought blissfully. He kept on sending her flowers and buying her little gifts, like the teddy bear with the silly smile that he had said reminded him of her…and big gifts like the diamond necklace and a gorgeous deco bronze of a dancing woman. With Matilde Laroche being so welcoming, Tabby truly felt as though she was becoming part of a family again and that it should be Christien’s family was a source of real joy to her for it healed the wounds of the past.

In between times, and regardless of the reality that she had yet to officially give her agreement to marrying Christien, their wedding plans had marched on with Matilde in enthusiastic charge. Tabby’s actual spoken agreement had come to seem quite unnecessary. In just thirty-six hours, they would undergo a civil ceremony in the mairie or town hall, and that would be followed by a church blessing.

Tabby could hardly wait for the wedding, not least because she and Christien would finally be able to make love again. They had both learned an embarrassing lesson by letting Jake catch them in the same bed before she had a wedding ring on her finger. Not the least of their punishments had been Jake’s earnest suggestion that he keep his mother company at night in case she had another nightmare. Indeed Tabby and Christien had reached the conclusion that it was their duty to set their son an example until that magical moment when they could freely point out that married people slept in the same bed.

Christien appeared in the doorway, a sleek and spectacular masculine vision in an Armani evening suit.

‘Show-stopping,’ he pronounced with intense appreciation when he saw her in the ruby-red dress. ‘You look hot and you’re mine, ma belle.’

The party took off like an express train and the best champagne flowed like a river in flood. Jake got a little over-excited at all the attention he was receiving and had to be reprimanded once or twice. Christien’s relatives were generally very much in the older age group and Tabby found them old-fashioned and formal but kindly and inclined to treat her son like a little prince in waiting. Christien had invited only a handful of close friends to the engagement celebration because it was being staged so close to the wedding. Tabby had only contrived to invite one guest of her own: Sean Wendell. Her aunt and her boyfriend were flying in just for the wedding before they travelled on to Australia but unfortunately Tabby’s friend, Pippa, was unable to leave her father to manage on his own.

Veronique Giraud staged her entrance when the party was in full swing. Tabby noticed the sudden silence that fell and she glanced up. She was dismayed by the other woman’s arrival for she had had no idea that the brunette had been invited. Sporting a stunning black and white evening gown, Veronique headed direct for Christien. As she crossed the floor she performed a couple of fluid teasing steps to the music and extended her hand to Christien. Striding to meet her, he accepted her invitation.

Tabby knew how to jive but had never learned how to do anything else. She had ignored Christien’s effort to persuade her that she could easily learn the steps because she had not wanted to risk making a fool of herself at their engagement party. The sight of Veronique smiling while she gracefully circled the floor in Christien’s arms sent a shard of angry envy and hurt darting through Tabby.

Indeed, just watching Veronique Tabby could feel herself regressing to the intimidated teenager she had been almost four years earlier. On the day that she was to fly back home with her widowed stepmother, she had hurried up to the Laroche villa to make a desperate last ditch attempt to see Christien before she had to leave France. After all, he had not called her, nor had he been answering his phone.

Veronique had come to the door in the wake of the manservant. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded rudely.

Tabby was shocked for, up until that point, the brunette had always been pleasant. She found herself asking if she could see Christien as if she was asking for Veronique’s permission to do so.

‘It’s over. Isn’t it time you accepted that you’ve been dumped? He doesn’t want to see you.’ Veronique dealt Tabby’s white drawn face and shadowed eyes a scornful scrutiny and her lip curled. ‘He thinks he may have to change his mobile number to shake you off!’

At that confirmation that her calls had been received and that the other woman was as aware of that fact as she was of Christien’s evident determination to ignore those same calls, Tabby died a thousand deaths inside herself. Already sick with grief over her father’s demise and the appalling suffering of her bereaved friends, she was torn apart by the pain of Christien’s rejection for she had never needed him more than she needed him then. She turned to leave at that point but Veronique was the kind of female who specialised in kicking her victims even harder when they were already down.

‘Surely you didn’t believe that Christien Laroche would get serious with a cheap little scrubber like you? Do you believe in Santa Claus as well?’ Veronique sneered.

Tabby dragged herself out of the past and back into the present and threw back her slim shoulders. She was not a teenager any longer and in a day and a half she would be Christien’s wife. In those circumstances she could afford to overlook the brunette’s spiteful nature and be gracious. After all, whether she liked it or not, it looked as though Veronique was still firmly entrenched in the ranks of Christien’s friends and would have to be tolerated.

Some of the older guests were leaving and, having bid them goodnight, Christien was hailed by a friend. Tabby left him to it and returned to the ballroom alone. Veronique was coming towards her and Tabby felt pride demanded that she stay still long enough to acknowledge the other woman with a polite smile.

‘Oh, do let me see the ring Christien gave you!’ Veronique exclaimed with mocking insincerity.

‘I’m sure you’re not really interested,’ Tabby said uncomfortably, feeling horribly small and squat when she had to tip her head back to look up at the tall brunette.

‘But naturally I’m dying to make a comparison.’ The brunette extended a hand on which a large solitaire diamond glittered on her middle finger.

‘Sorry…a comparison?’ Tabby stared at her in confusion.

‘This is the ring I wore when I was engaged to Christien. Look closely at it, expect to see it back on my engagement finger again, because when you screw up as a wife he’ll divorce you and I’ll comfort him,’ Veronique forecast.

Tabby was paralysed to the spot. ‘When were you engaged to Christien?’

‘Right up until a little scrubber came out of nowhere clutching her bastard brat!’ the brunette advanced nastily. ‘It pays well to be fertile, doesn’t it?’