The Frenchman's Love-Child

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN the knocker sounded, Tabby was curled up dozing on the wicker chair that she had brought through from the sun room.

Startled into wakefulness, she almost leapt out of her skin. Who the heck would come calling after midnight? Ought she to answer the door so late? Snatching up the bright patchwork crochet blanket she had draped over the chair, she wrapped it round herself, for she was only wearing a camisole nightdress.

It was Christien, black hair tousled by the faint breeze, brilliant golden eyes locking to her. Thud, bang, crash went her heartbeat, while her tummy see-sawed as though the floor had dropped away below her. Eyes glinting a glorious green from below a feathery fringe of tumbling hair the colour of honey, she stared out at him, soft, full mouth damp and pink.

‘Why have you come back?’ Tabby whispered unevenly.

Christien did not even need to think about that. He had come back because he could not stay away. He closed the door behind him. He reached out and detached her fingers from the colourful blanket. Thick black lashes cloaking his gaze, he slid the blanket slowly down from her narrow shoulders.

‘Christien…?’ she queried unsteadily.

His breath rasped in his throat as he scrutinised her lush, inviting curves. Unquenchable lust gripped him in a hold tougher than any vice. White cotton moulded her high, full breasts and the fabric was too thin to hide the rosy prominence of her nipples. He wanted to touch her, taste her, drive her insane with the same desire that burned in him. ‘If Sean had still been here with you…I think I’d have ripped the bastard limb from limb,’ he confided not quite levelly.

Tabby whipped the blanket back up round her again but her hands were shaking. ‘I don’t sleep around…I never have and I never will. You had no reason to think he’d still be here, but even if he had been it would be none of your business-’

‘But I’d have made it my business, ma belle.’

Although she knew she should not, she looked up at him. The smouldering intensity of his dark golden gaze set off every sensual alarm bell she possessed but she moved not an inch. Indeed, she felt incapable of moving. For almost four years she had concentrated all her energies on being a loving mother to Jake and studying for her degree at art college. She had had to push herself very, very hard to cope as a single parent and a student, who also needed to work a part-time job. There had been little space for dating in her gruelling schedule, but then that had not really been a sacrifice when no ordinary male could dislodge Christien from her mind. Christien with his black hair falling over his bronzed brow, danger flashing gold in his stunning eyes, not a single note jarring the sheer, riveting perfection of his hard, all-male beauty. Christien, the ultimate of impossible acts to follow.

Dry-mouthed, she settled her focus back on the real live male in front of her. ‘Why do you want to make me your business again?’

‘I don’t know.’ A rough, humourless laugh was dredged from Christien. ‘It’s madness…but I’m still here.’

It shook her that Christien should say it was madness to be with her again and yet stay. He was mere inches from her, drop-dead gorgeous and virile and, that close to him, she felt boneless.

‘You should leave-’

‘Should but won’t.’

‘Is that a threat or a promise?’ she whispered.

‘What do you want it to be, mon ange?’

His presence was both threat and promise and she knew it. She had never stopped wanting him, had never learned to hate him. How could she when she understood the very forces that had ensured they stayed apart? The enormity of the tragedy that had engulfed their families that summer had shattered the tenuous remains of their relationship.

‘What do I want?’ She wanted him, only him. It was a truth that was rooted so deep in her that even pride could not make her deny it. ‘Take a guess…’

Eyes shimmering hard and bright, Christien snatched in a ragged breath. He reached out and lifted her right off her feet and up into his arms in a demonstration of confidence and unapologetic masculine strength that made her feel weak and wanton and dizzy.

He took her mouth with stormy hunger and pried her lips apart to ravish the tender interior. A violent shiver of response racked her. Her heart hammering, she stretched up to him to deepen that connection. It felt so good she was instantly, helplessly addicted to her own craving for more. He pinned her up against the wall and his tongue plunged and withdrew between her readily parted lips with fierce, driving hunger.

Wrenching her stinging lips from his with a mighty effort, she shut her eyes, fighting to maintain even a shred of restraint. ‘The whole world’s spinning,’ she mumbled.

In an almost clumsy movement that bore little resemblance to his usual sure, fluid grace, he peeled her back off the wall and clamped her to his big, powerful length. He held her tight, so tight she could barely squeeze air into her constricted lungs.

‘I’m sorry…I feel out of control,’ he grated.

Her arms linked round him then and a smile like the sunrise started inside her where he couldn’t see it. This was the guy who rarely took more than one glass of alcohol because feeling anything other than in total command of himself was anathema to him. To make him feel out of control even momentarily was an achievement of no mean order and to hear him confess it was a joy.

‘I’m never in control with you,’ she whispered back with neither resentment nor pleasure, just acceptance that that should be the case.

Christien felt light-headed with a triumph as old as time itself. She was his, she was still his. He was not a guy who reasoned in what he believed were primitive sexist terms and he had never felt possessive around any other woman. But she was different and, with her, he was different too and that was a conundrum he had never wasted any time agonising over. He set her down in the bedroom where an old Anglepoise lamp burned on an upturned box next to the bed. He did not think of himself as imaginative but he was already picturing the bare room furnished with the kind of pretty feminine clutter she adored.

Eyelids sensually lowered over his dark golden gaze, Christien treated her to a fierce, intent appraisal that fired her very skincells with awareness of her womanhood. ‘I take one look at you and I’m so hungry for you I’m in agony,’ he confessed huskily, sinking down on the edge of the bed and drawing her forward to stand between his spread thighs.

Was that why he was still so very special to her? Tabby asked herself. His ability to look at her with a wondering appreciation that suggested that she was an incredibly gorgeous woman when she herself knew that she was just an ordinary one? A marvel made all the more striking by the simple fact that Christien himself was very much in a class of his own? Even in well-worn jeans and a beige cotton sweater, he exuded exclusive cool and bred-in-the-bone sophistication. He possessed that degree of pure masculine good looks more often seen on a movie screen. Men of his ilk usually gravitated towards classically beautiful women, but she was wildly, humbly grateful that something she couldn’t see and couldn’t begin to understand had brought him to her instead.

Vulnerable and almost dazed by the intensity of her own emotions at that instant, Tabby looked back at him. ‘Christien…?’

‘You’re very lovely, ma belle,’ he said thickly, reaching up to tug the band out of her naturally curly caramel-coloured hair.

‘I’m not-’

‘Shush…’ He finger-combed her hair down onto her taut shoulders, leant forward to let his tongue penetrate between lips as sweet and inviting as juicy strawberries.

She shivered and leant into that kiss, knees wobbling under her, hands suddenly coming down to steady herself on his long, powerful thighs. The swollen tightness of her nipples hurt. The very thought of his expert hands on her made her tremble with eagerness and already she was way beyond rational thought or restraint.

‘Please…’ she heard herself say.

‘I want to take my time…I’ve pictured this too often,’ he murmured roughly.

Mesmerised, she stood there, gazing into gorgeous golden eyes shaded by luxuriant black lashes longer and more luxuriant than her own. Just like Jake’s, she conceded, and her throat tightened and she knew that she would have no choice but to tell him about his son now. Intimidated by the thought, she blanked out her mind.

Reaching up, Christien brushed the camisole straps down over her slim forearms, baring the proud, creamy swell of her breasts. The fabric caught on the taut rosy peaks. On fire with wanting, she felt her nightdress fall to her hips and he vented an earthy groan of bold appreciation.

‘Stop looking at me like that…’ she gasped, racked by shamed embarrassment for the terrible hunger that kept her standing there, exposed and desperate for his touch.

‘I can’t…you are exquisite,’ Christien ground out, hauling her to him and closing his mouth to a pouting pink nipple.

All the breath pent-up inside her escaped in a startled gush, her soft lips parting, her head falling back, sweet, intense sensation thrumming through her in a heady tide while the moist heat at the heart of her quickened. His hands on her rounded hips, he roved from one stiff, sensitive bud to the other and she whimpered in response to urge him on. There was only him and what he could make her feel, and what he could make her feel drove out all else.

Long fingers shaping and moulding her tender breasts, he took her lush mouth again and again and the hard, male urgency of his plundering kiss wiped her out. She clung, gasped, felt the nightdress fall away and cried out low in her throat as he let sure fingers explore the slick, wet flesh between her thighs. She was trembling, utterly seduced by the screaming demands of her own body. He brought her down on the bed and stood over her while he hauled off his sweater with something less than cool.

‘Ciel…I forgot how it feels with you, ma belle.’ Dark colour accentuating his proud cheekbones, he studied her with raw intensity.

‘I’ve never forgotten.’ Tabby was deliciously, wickedly aware of the size and the strength of his big, powerful body and the hard ridge of male arousal jutting below the tight jeans he wore left her weak with wanting. Belatedly conscious of her own nudity and the golden eyes flaming hungrily over her, she curled her legs up and he gave her a slashing smile of wicked amusement.

She could not take her eyes off him. His lean bronzed torso bore a triangular pelt of black curls across his pectorals. He was powerfully muscled but as sleek in movement as an athlete. His stomach was washboard-flat and dissected by a silky furrow of dark hair. She watched him unsnap his jeans, skim them down to reveal boxers and long, hair-roughened thighs and the shame of her own excitement almost overwhelmed her.

‘You make me crazy for you…’ Christien groaned, his rasping, sexy accent sending an evocative quiver down her spine.

He pulled her back to him. He made a praiseworthy effort to be cool, seductive and slow the pace with some seductive kissing, but her tongue twinned with his and he shuddered against her and ground his aching shaft into her pelvis with a raw growl low in his throat. Suddenly she was flat on the bed and he was devouring her with a wild, ravaging kiss. Her hunger went rocketing up the temperature scale and she rose up under him and sobbed his name below his marauding mouth, back arching in an agony of longing as he worshipped her breasts with his lips and his teeth.

‘Please-’

‘If I don’t wait, I’ll blow it,’ Christien grated in raw warning.

‘No…you won’t.’ She would have told him anything.

‘Oui…just like the first time, like a stupid, overeager kid, I’ll hurt you!’ Fabulous bone structure rigid, Christien glowered down at her as he struggled to maintain a grip on his fast-shredding control.

‘That wasn’t your fault.’ Tabby pressed her lips to his strong jawline in a soothing gesture as natural to her with Christien as living. ‘It was my first time and I should’ve told you but I was too embarrassed.’

Christien blinked. Her first time? When they met she had been a…virgin? One hundred per cent innocent, pure and untouched? And he hadn’t noticed? He was stunned by the belated awareness that somewhere deep down where he had had no desire to probe he had always had that suspicion, but had never taken it out and faced it before. Why not? Was it possible that he had been reluctant to accept that amount of responsibility?

‘Christien…?’

Golden eyes haunted by rare guilt, he steeled himself to back off, but her small hands were sliding into his hair, shaping his skull, and he looked down into luminous green eyes and fell victim to their enchantment instead. The drugging collision of their mouths ignited the hunger to a frantic fever again and her desperation only increased when he probed the hot, satin sensitivity between her thighs. She was in sensual torment, arching up to him, begging for more with every fibre of her being.

‘I need to be inside you…’ Dark blood delineating his hard cheekbones, Christien dragged her under him.

He plunged his swollen member into her damp, heated core and thrust deep. Sensual shock momentarily held her still. She could feel him stretching her and it had been so long that her own excitement was almost unbearable. His pagan possession thrilled her to the depths of her wanton soul. Her blood roared through her veins and her heart thundered as he drove her into his stormy rhythm. She was flying higher than she had ever flown and then she was crying out his name and her body was jerking, convulsing, breaking apart in a sweet, sweet rush of ecstasy. It felt so good, so wonderful it almost hurt and a surge of tears stung her eyes. His magnificent body shuddered over hers and she clutched him tight in the aftermath. It was as if she had been in suspended animation for almost four years and had suffered a sudden revival. She was in shock.

Christien emerged from the wildest, hottest orgasm of his life and struggled just to breathe again. He rolled over, carrying her with him, and stared down at her in a daze, pushing her tumbled honey-coloured hair back off her flushed, oval face with a lean brown hand that he noticed was trembling. That shook him even more.

Tabby drank in the musky, sexy scent of his damp skin and revelled in the familiarity even as a little voice shrieked inside her that she had just committed an act of insanity.

Christien pressed his lips to her smooth brow and rearranged her slight body over him. ‘Once is never enough with you-’

‘Don’t be greedy,’ she teased, snuggling into him like a homing pigeon, determined not to think about what she was doing.

‘I should have guessed that you were a virgin when we met,’ Christien breathed, for he was only just beginning to disentangle that startling reality from the miasma of misinformation with which he had deliberately fenced his memories of her in the intervening years.

‘You didn’t want to know…you thought it might commit you in some way,’ Tabby whispered abstractedly. ‘I told myself you hadn’t noticed but I was really just trying to explain what I wasn’t old enough to understand.’

It had been almost four years since Christien had been treated to that amount of blunt honesty and his even white teeth momentarily gritted together. As a rule women wrapped up the unpalatable truth around him and never ever voiced it. ‘It wasn’t like that…’

Of course, it had been, Tabby reflected painfully. She had been besotted, out of her depth and trying to be something she was not and he had taken what all young, virile males were programmed to take: sexual conquest of a willing woman. Everything that had happened between them had been inevitable according to their sex, right down to her having fallen head over heels in love and him having got bored with her.

‘It was…and you got bored-’

His long, lean length had turned very tense. ‘I didn’t get bored…you went off with the lout on the Harley.’

‘I didn’t-’

Christien lifted her off him and dumped her down onto the mattress by his side. ‘For once in your life, tell the truth-’

Infuriated, Tabby sat up. ‘I am telling the truth!’

‘Where is the bathroom?’ Christien demanded.

‘Downstairs.’ Tabby compressed her lips, green eyes fiery. ‘I went out for a ride with Pete, and Pippa and Hilary were with his friends on their bikes. It was just a night out and nothing happened-’

‘Ciel! Don’t give me that! I saw you snogging him in the village…little slut!’ Christien suddenly shot at her with a passionate fury that took even him aback and was a far cry from the cool he preferred to show the world.

Tabby froze while Christien sprang out of bed and hauled on his jeans. She remembered that as she’d clambered off the motorbike that evening Pete had leant forward and kissed her before they’d parted. It had lasted only a second and she had not wanted to shoot him down in flames in front of his mates and hers by making a three-act tragedy out of something so small.

‘You saw that…’ she gasped in genuine horror. ‘Oh, no!’

Unimpressed, Christien sent her a sizzling look of derision. ‘Did you do it on the bike with him the same way you laid yourself across the bonnet of my car for me?’

‘Don’t be disgusting!’ Tabby launched at him in a rage of quivering mortification and then she fell still again, agile brain working fast. It was like a missing piece of jigsaw puzzle suddenly slotting into place for her. But unlike with the average jigsaw that missing piece had changed the whole picture. Taken in isolation, what Christien had seen must have looked damning. During that week, he had been away in Paris and he hadn’t been in touch and then he had seen her kissing someone else.

‘Why on earth didn’t you confront me?’ Tabby slung at the lean bronzed back heading down the stairs.

‘You think I would lower myself to that level?’ Christien shot back at her in disbelief.

Tabby almost screeched her frustration out loud and raced in his wake.

Christien emerged in shock from his brush with the primitive plumbing facilities. ‘There is no place to wash!’ he condemned with incredulity.

‘There’s a sink and a geyser that gives hot water…I want to talk about Pete-’

‘So that was his name…’ Christien snarled. ‘You tart!’

‘Stop it!’ Tabby launched at him. ‘My friends were there and so were his and it was broad daylight. I went for a spin on his bike…that’s all. That stupid little kiss you saw was all that ever happened between us!’

‘You think I am about to believe that?’

‘Why not? I didn’t kiss him back but it didn’t even last long enough for me to push him away…it was innocent. I was nuts about you-’

‘And the biggest liar in Europe!’ Christien countered with crushing effect.

She paled and then flushed beet-red with guilt for it was unanswerable. ‘But not about that,’ she persisted tautly. ‘I wouldn’t have gone with any other bloke and you should have known that. But then maybe you did and you just needed another excuse to put me out of your life.’

Christien swore in French but he had stilled too and doubt was touching him for the first time. Back then he too had believed she was too keen on him to stray. However, at the time newly aware of just how young she actually was, he had also known just how short-lived a teenage infatuation could be.

‘Then you got the ultimate excuse to stay away, didn’t you?’ In Tabby’s anguished gaze was the terrible memory of their meeting like strangers in the hospital waiting room thronged with those whose lives had been damaged by Gerry Burnside’s drunk driving and for ever shadowed by the lost lives of those who had not survived that night.

Gerry Burnside had driven round a corner on the wrong side of the road and he had crashed the four-wheel drive head-on into Henri Laroche’s Porsche. Tabby’s stepmother, Lisa, had been the only adult who had not been in her husband’s car and she had been having hysterics in the waiting room. Pippa had been shattered by the death of her mother and waiting to hear how the emergency surgery on her father had gone. Hilary and her little sister, Emma, had been huddled together, bereft of both their parents. Jen’s mother had been badly injured as well and Jen had been praying for her survival.

Christien had appeared with Veronique Giraud, his beautiful dark eyes bleak with shock and grief, and Tabby had wanted to go to him to hold him, but she had not had the nerve to reach out in that moment to the man she loved, who had lost his father through her father’s drunken, inexcusable recklessness at the wheel.

‘My father’s death…the crash…it would never have kept me from you.’ Lean strong face taut, Christien hauled her into the sheltering circle of his strong arms.

‘I wasn’t involved with Pete,’ Tabby told him again, determined to make him listen to her.

Christien knotted one hungry hand into her hair and kissed her breathless, shutting out the uneasy feelings she had stirred up. He had no desire to rehash the past. All he could think about was the next time he would be with her and the time after that and how often he would be able to fly up from Paris to be with her. Here in his great-aunt’s summer house on the Duvernay estate? Impossible! He would find her a much more suitable and far superior property elsewhere…

Somewhere in the early hours, Tabby opened her eyes and moaned with helpless pleasure beneath Christien’s expert ministrations. ‘Again…?’ she mumbled, marvelling at his stamina and luxuriating in him being so demanding too.

‘Are you too tired?’ His gorgeous accent was as effective on her as the effortless way he had managed to turn her liquid with longing even while she was still half asleep.

‘Don’t you dare stop,’ she muttered and he laughed huskily and pushed her to fever pitch before he finally, mercifully answered the great shameless tide of hunger he had roused and left her limp and dazed with an overload of satisfaction.

When Tabby wakened again, dawn had been and gone and when she stretched she discovered a dozen aches in secret places. She flipped over to survey Christien while he slept. Black lashes curled against a bronzed cheekbone, blue black stubble roughened his handsome jawline. The sheet was twisted round his hip, a muscular, long brown arm and a slice of hair-roughened chest exposed. Her chin resting on her folded arms, she suppressed a dreamy sigh. It was as if time had gone into reverse and she didn’t really want to wake up and acknowledge the older, wiser individual she was supposed to be four years on.

He was the father of her son, so it wasn’t surprising that she had never been able to forget him. In any case, it now seemed clear that only a stupid misunderstanding had separated them that summer. Such a little thing too that she could almost have screamed her frustration to the heavens: he had seen Pete kiss her and had assumed she’d been cheating on him. Of course that was Christien: the supreme pessimist and cynic always expecting the worst. Her lush mouth quirked. Oh, yes, she now understood why he would not even spare her five minutes on the day of the accident enquiry. His fierce pride would never allow him to overlook or forgive betrayal. For the first time, she also saw that the very ferocity of his rejection then had been revealing.

Last night, she had slept with him again. Over and over and over again. She was shameless, but she knew that if he woke up she still wouldn’t say no to him. He was the only guy she had ever slept with but she was literally his for the asking every time and if she still loved him-and she suspected she did-was that so bad? Especially when fate seemed to be giving them a second chance? Or was it Solange who had given them a second chance? Had the older woman guessed that when she left the cottage to Tabby it would bring Christien into contact with her again?

Tabby smiled because a crazy happy feeling was bubbling up inside her. But then she tensed again for there was no denying that Christien was in for a major shock when she told him about Jake. She decided that she would prefer to spend some time with Christien before she made her big, stressful announcement. Just for one day, she bargained with her conscience, so that they could rediscover their relationship and sort out any other misunderstandings before she delivered the news that he was also the father of her three-year-old son. How was he likely to feel about that? Appalled? Pleased? But wasn’t she rather putting the cart before the horse as well as being very presumptuous? What if…Christien had made love to her again out of simple lust? What if he just wanted to walk away from her again when he woke up? What if what they had just shared meant nothing at all to him?

Pale as parchment and feeling sick at that potential scenario, Tabby averted her gaze from him and crept out of bed. When she checked her watch, she grimaced for it was already almost nine. She had loads and loads of things to get done and very little time in which to accomplish them. Tomorrow she had to leave early to catch the ferry back to England again, she reminded herself doggedly. Lifting her overnight bag, she headed downstairs to freshen up and get dressed. She would call Alison from the public phone box she had noticed in the village and speak to Jake. She had to buy in wood and get the range going as well as stock up on basic groceries. In little more than a week’s time she would be bringing Jake back over to France with her and she needed to make the cottage as welcoming as possible for his benefit.

Ought she to leave a note for Christien explaining where she had gone and when she hoped to be back from her errands? Wouldn’t that make her seem a little clingy and desperate? She winced, feeling too vulnerable to lay herself open to the risk of rejection. It was better to do nothing at all. He knew where she was and he would have to go home for breakfast anyway as there was no food whatsoever in the kitchen. In any case, when she had made love with him the night before, she conceded painfully, she had demonstrated a remarkable ability to overlook the biggest stumbling block between them: the horrid accident in which his father had died. No matter how Christien felt, she was certain that his family would react to the news of his renewed involvement with her, not to mention the reality of her son’s parentage, with horrified disgust. Fifteen minutes later, Tabby drove off.

She was recalling how, at the accident enquiry, Solange had made an embarrassed attempt to excuse her relatives’ palpable hostility towards Tabby. ‘My niece, Christien’s mother, is under sedation today. Her suffering is terrible,’ the old lady had confided. ‘We all grieve for Henri, but in time the family will appreciate that many other people have also lost loved ones.’

When Christien wakened, he was surprised to find himself still at the cottage and even more surprised to find himself alone. He never, ever stayed the night with a woman. He could not initially credit that Tabby could have gone out and left him and he entered the sun lounge from which he had a clear view of the garden before he accepted that she was nowhere to be found.

The bright room was cluttered with all the paraphernalia of an artist and when he saw the miniature painting on display he stopped to study it in some amazement. He had never seen anything so tiny, perfect and detailed as that landscape. At least, not outside the giant elaborate doll’s house that his mother had made her lifetime hobby. If the miniature canvas was of Tabby’s creation, she was very talented, but he was convinced that she had to be wrecking her eyesight painting in such a minute scale and he knew he would waste no time in suggesting that she concentrate her skills on larger creations.

She must have gone out to buy something for his breakfast, Christien decided. He wandered back up to the bedroom and strode to the window when he heard a car. A silver Mercedes coupé had drawn up on the other side of the road. A slight frownline divided his level dark brows for Matilde Laroche owned a car very similar, although she had not driven herself anywhere since his father’s death. At the same time, he could not help but uneasily recall her hysterical overreaction the day before to the revelation that Tabby was taking possession of Solange’s property. His Ferrari was sitting parked out front. Really, really discreet, Christien, he mocked himself. Bon Dieu, it was madness to even let it cross his mind that his ladylike parent might be so off the wall that she would lurk outside the cottage like some weird kind of stalker! Even so, suddenly he was very keen to see the car registration, but by the time he reached the front door the Mercedes had driven off again.

Initially, Christien made the most of his time alone to make several calls on his mobile phone and arrange a trip to a property in the Loire Valley. It was picturesque and secluded and enjoyed spectacular views. Tabby was sure to leap at his offer because it would be certifiable insanity to do anything else. When another thirty minutes passed without her reappearance, he started to worry that something might have happened to her. Suppose she had climbed into that clapped-out old van and forgotten that his countrymen drove on a different side of the road from the British? He paled. Jumping into his car, he headed for the village a couple of kilometres away. Tabby would have passed through it the day before and if she had gone out to buy food, it was the most obvious destination.

There on the steep and narrow single street he had the edifying sight of seeing Tabby, looking very appealing in a short, frilled denim skirt and a white T-shirt, standing chattering and laughing while a grinning tradesman loaded up her van with firewood and admired her lithe, shapely legs. Nowhere could Christien see any evidence that she might have gone shopping to provide him with a breakfast or even that she was anxious to hurry back to the cottage!

Tabby saw the Ferrari and froze in dismay. Christien was watching her from the lowered window, designer sunglasses obscuring his expression, handsome jawline at a determined angle. He swung out of the car, six feet three inches of lean, lithe, gorgeous masculinity. A surge of colour warming her complexion, her mouth running dry as she remembered the passion of the night hours, she watched him approach. ‘How did you know where I was?’ she asked breathlessly.

‘I didn’t. I’m on my way home to Duvernay,’ Christien murmured smooth as glass.

Tabby looked snubbed.

Against his own volition, Christien found himself smiling. ‘I’ll pick you up at twelve…OK?’

Warmth and animation leapt back into her expressive face. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I’d like that to be a surprise, chérie.’

When Tabby ought to have been cleaning the ancient kitchen range and scrubbing the terracotta floor tiles, she was washing her hair, daydreaming like a schoolgirl and dampening the single dress she had brought with her in the hope of getting the creases out of it.

Startlingly handsome in tailored cream chinos and a black shirt, Christien collected her and took her to an airfield where they boarded a small private plane.

‘You’re planning to fly us?’ Tabby exclaimed in dismay.

‘I’ve had my licence since I was a teenager…I do own an airline,’ Christien reminded her gently.

‘I don’t like flying and, if I have to fly, I’m probably happiest in a jumbo jet,’ Tabby confided with a grimace.

‘It’s a short flight, ma belle.’ Christien dealt her a wide, appreciative grin that made her heart skip a beat. ‘You have to be the only woman I’ve ever met who would dream of telling me that she hated flying.’

Undaunted by her nervous tension, he kept up a calm running commentary on the sights that she was too ennervated to take in during the flight. He flew with the same confidence with which he drove very fast cars. They landed at an airfield outside Blois where a chauffeur-driven limousine awaited them.

‘Curiosity is killing me,’ Tabby admitted. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Be patient,’ he urged, linking long, lean fingers lazily with hers.

Some ten minutes later, the limo turned up a steep lane bounded on either side by vineyards and finally came to a halt outside an elegant house built of mellow golden stone and ringed by shaded terraces ornamented with urns of beautiful flowers.

‘At least tell me who we’re visiting…’ Tabby hissed.

As Christien mounted the steps a charismatic smile slashed his lean, strong face. ‘We’re the only visitors.’

Recalling the astonishing pleasure of that beautiful mouth on hers, Tabby felt dizzy and it was an effort to think again. ‘Then…what are we doing here?’

Christien pushed the door wide on a spacious tiled hall. ‘I’d appreciate a feminine critique of this place.’

Assuming that the house was for sale, Tabby relaxed, flattered that he should want her opinion, but secretly amused that he should have chosen the inappropriate word, ‘critique’ for a property that even at first glance seemed to possess every possible advantage. It enjoyed immense privacy, a swimming pool and a hillside setting blessed with panoramic views of the wonderful wooded countryside. The interior was even more impressive. Fascinated, she strolled from room to room. It was an old house that had been renovated with superb style. Rich, warm colour, antique and contemporary furniture melded in a timeless joining. French windows led out to cool stone terraces and finally to one where she was surprised to find a uniformed waiter stationed in apparent readiness to serve them beside a table already set with exquisite china and gleaming crystal glasses.

‘Lunch,’ Christien explained with the utmost casualness as he pulled out a seat for her occupation. ‘I don’t know about you but I am very hungry. I usually eat at one.’

Tabby sank down and watched the waiter pour the wine. ‘I thought this house belonged to someone else and you were thinking of buying it.’

A broad shoulder lifted in a fluid shrug. ‘No, it’s already mine but I’ve never been here before,’ he admitted. ‘Property is an excellent investment and I buy most of it through advisors sight unseen.’

‘I can’t imagine owning a house and not being curious enough to come and see it,’ she admitted, reminded more than she liked of the vast material differences between them, something she had airily ignored and refused to consider important when she had first known him.

Over a sublime meal of endive salad followed by delicate lamb cutlets that melted in her mouth and a blackberry tart, Christien entertained her with stories of the rich history of the locality before moving on to describe the beautiful, tranquil water meadows of the Sologne as a nature lover’s paradise. It was a hot, sultry afternoon and the sky was a deep, intense blue. Far across the lush valley she could see the fanciful turrets of one of the many châteaux in the area. Only birdsong challenged the silence and it was idyllic.

‘You haven’t offered a single opinion on this place yet,’ Christien commented.

‘It’s fantastic…you’ve got to know that.’ Tabby nibbled at her lower lip, colour lighting her cheeks as she squirmed on the acknowledgement that her standards might well lie far below his. ‘But then, of course…I don’t know what you’re looking for.’

‘What pleases you, ma belle.’ Christien captured and held her startled upward glance. ‘That’s all I seek.’

Meeting those rich dark eyes framed by black spiky lashes, she could hardly breathe for the pure bolt of longing that shot through her and tightened her skin over her bones. Almost giddy with the force of her response to him, she took a second or two to register what he had just said.

‘What pleases…me?’ Tabby echoed, uncertain of his meaning.

In a graceful movement, Christien rose upright and stretched out a lean brown hand in invitation. ‘Let’s take another tour…’

He walked her slowly through the house again, but only on a superficial level was she appreciating the beautiful rooms and the stupendous outlook from every window. Her thoughts were in turmoil. Was he asking her to live with him here in this fabulous house? Why else would he care what pleased her in the property stakes? She sucked in a quivering breath in an effort to steady herself, but a wild burst of joy was thrilling through her.

‘You like it here…don’t you?’ he prompted.

‘Who wouldn’t?’ Tabby was so scared that she had picked him up wrong that she vented a discomfited laugh

‘It might be too quiet for some, but it strikes me as the perfect environment for an artist. Peaceful and inspiring,’ Christien murmured huskily.

It was little more than twenty-four hours since she had arrived in France. Could her eminently sensible and practical Christien be so impulsive? Could he have decided so quickly that he wanted to recapture what they had shared almost four years earlier? Did he, like her, feel bitter at the events that had driven them apart? Was he as greedy as she was to make up for lost time?

Tabby focused on the bottle of champagne in the ice bucket sitting on an occasional table and belatedly took note of the reality that he had chosen to stage the dialogue in the main bedroom. Coincidence? She didn’t think so. She tried not to smile at how he planned even romantic gestures for she did not want to offend his pride. At seventeen she had once told him angrily that he had no romance in his soul at all and he had made extraordinary efforts to prove her wrong with surprise gifts and flowers and holding hands without anything more physical in mind. But she had always recognised the cold-blooded, purposeful planning it took for him to make an effort to do anything he saw as an essential waste of time.

‘This property is also very convenient to Paris where I spend most of my working week.’ As if to stress that leading declaration, Christien drew her back against his lean, muscular length.

The heat and proximity of his lithe, masculine frame tightened her nipples into stiff little points and stirred a dulled ache between her thighs. Trembling, she leant back into him for support. It seemed that he had spoken the truth when he’d told her that the manner of his father’s death would never have kept him from her. Tears burned behind her eyes, tears of happiness, and her throat constricted. He was being crazily impractical and that was so out of character for him that it could only mean that he still had strong feelings for her.

Tabby stared hard into the mirror across the room that reflected them both: Christien, so straight and tall and serious and beautiful, her own reflection that of a woman so much smaller, decidedly rounder in shape and a great deal more given to smiles. ‘This is so romantic…it must have taken loads of planning-’

‘You used to say that the essence of real romance was not being able to see the strings that were being pulled to impress you,’ Christien interposed.

‘So I was too demanding at seventeen, now I give more points for effort and imagination like that lovely meal-’

When he spun her round and looked down at her, a tremor of almost painful awareness ran through her slight figure for she was weak with wanting. ‘Do you, chérie?’ he asked in a roughened undertone. ‘Or when you hear what I have to say, will you accuse me of trying to manipulate you?’

‘Perhaps I had better hear what you have to say first,’ Tabby said breathlessly.

‘I brought you here to suggest a very simple arrangement which would answer both our needs. I offer you this house in place of Solange’s property…’

Her lips parted company. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’

‘No, you would be doing me a favour. A straight swop. Nothing as tasteless as money need change hands. I would prefer not to cut a business deal with you.’ His brilliant dark golden eyes urged her to smile at that teasing assurance.

But Tabby had never felt less like smiling. She was also far too busy schooling her features not to betray how much he had wounded her and how bitter was the sting as her own foolish, extravagant hopes crashed and burned. His great-aunt’s cottage in exchange for a luxury home five times its size and possessed of every opulent expensive extra? He wanted her off the Duvernay estate very, very badly. After the night she had spent in his arms, that continuing determination felt like a hard, humiliating slap in the face.

‘I’d like to leave now.’ Her green eyes shiny as polished glass in her determination to show no weakness or emotion, Tabby walked out of the bedroom into the hall. ‘I still have so much to do back at the cottage. I have to return to England for a week tomorrow.’

Christien frowned, for she could not hide her sudden pallor. ‘Tabby-’

‘No, don’t say any more or I’ll lose my temper,’ she warned not quite steadily. ‘After all, you brought me here on false pretences and I’m not under any obligation to discuss ridiculous swops or business deals if I don’t want to.’

‘I did not say you were, but a fair and generous proposition rarely causes offence and usually deserves consideration. I hoped you’d be sensible.’

‘And if I’m not, what then? Threats?’

‘I don’t threaten women,’ Christien contradicted with icy disdain. ‘You’re being irrational. I want to keep the family estate intact and there is no shame in that objective. Nothing that happens between us will change that reality and I won’t pretend otherwise.’

Rigid-backed, Tabby stepped out into the hot, still air and headed for the limousine, for she was desperate to be gone. Irrational? Was it irrational to feel unbearably hurt? Was her very presence within miles of the fancy château where he had been born such an offence? She felt sick at her own stupidity. Like a moth to a candle flame she had been drawn to him again. He had burned her before and after that warning it had been very naive of her to invite such pain a second time. But she was angry with him, so angry that she could barely bring herself to look at him and certainly not to speak.

Two hours later, he brought the Ferrari to a halt beside the cottage. As Tabby leapt out he followed suit at a slower pace. ‘We have to talk this out,’ he drawled with cool determination.

Two high spots of colour burning over her cheekbones, Tabby shot him a splintering glance. ‘No, I don’t want to talk to a guy who thinks of me as being something less than he is!’

‘You have no grounds to accuse me of that.’

‘Oh, haven’t I?’ A rather shrill laugh fell from her lips. ‘You just tried to bribe me…you just tried to buy me!’

‘It wasn’t a bribe. In no way is that house I showed you intended as a bribe. But if I’m asking you to rethink your plans and relocate purely for my benefit, I must offer some form of compensation to make the inconvenience seem worth your while,’ Christien proclaimed without hesitation.

‘You are so smooth! How is it that you manage to make even the unacceptable sound acceptable?’ Tabby demanded with furious resentment.

‘I doubt that you would be reacting like this if I had not shared your bed last night. That has clouded the real issue at stake here.’ Wide, sensual mouth compressing, Christien dealt her a brooding masculine scrutiny.

‘You’re right…that was a very big mistake.’ Tabby slammed the front door loudly shut in his startled face and leant back against it in a tempest of angry, hurting tears.

‘Tabby!’

As he rapped on the door she sucked in a steadying breath, but silent, stinging tears trekked down her quivering cheeks. In letting him stay the night she had regressed to the impulsive, reckless teenage years. She had forgotten all caution and common sense and flung her heart back at his feet. Did she never learn? Why was she so downright stupid around him?

Sean called her on her mobile phone at seven. The day before he had mentioned knowing the Englishwoman who owned the local art gallery and her daughter, who was a potter.

‘Alice has asked us over for drinks. There’ll be a crowd, there always is. You’re sure to meet a few other creative types,’ Sean told her cheerfully.

Tabby felt that company would distract her troubled thoughts from Christien and, although she went out with no expectation of enjoyment, she had an interesting evening. She met several artists living in the area, exchanged phone numbers and garnered useful information about where to buy art supplies. It was two in the morning when Sean brought her home. Only when she saw the lights flick on did she realise that Christien’s Ferrari was parked at the side of the cottage. He climbed out, his long, powerful stride carrying him towards her at speed.

Tabby was very tense but determined to save what face she could and she moved forward with as easy and meaningless a smile as she could contrive. ‘Christien…sorry I’m so late back-’

‘Zut alors…I’m not!’ he bit out, lean, dark handsome features taut with a scorching fury that took her aback. ‘You almost had me convinced that I had misjudged you, but I’ve caught you in the act again. Where have you been all evening? In his bed? First one man, then another. You sleep with me and-’

‘Regret it,’ Tabby slotted in between angrily clenched teeth. ‘Oh, boy, do I regret sleeping with you!’

Appreciating that he had been totally overlooked in the excitement, Sean peered out of his car, which was still parked by the roadside. ‘Do you want me to stay, Tabby?’ he called anxiously.

‘See how you embarrass me!’ Tabby snapped at Christien before she stalked back down the path to urge Sean to go on home and not worry about her.

Christien spread lean hands and swore in fast, furious French, demonstrating all the lack of tolerance typical of a male who had never in his whole charmed life been accused of causing anyone embarrassment.

Tabby unlocked the front door with a trembling hand. ‘I don’t ever want to see you again-’

‘Why did you refuse to let me in when I brought you back from viewing the house earlier? You must have known that I would return here.’ Christien stepped past her and then swung round to treat her to a fierce look of condemnation. ‘Were you scared you might want to spend two nights with the same guy?’

In the moonlight, Tabby shivered with outrage. ‘How can you talk to me as if I’m some slapper who goes with a load of different men?’

‘When I’m around there’s always another guy panting at your heels!’

‘Just to think that your friend, Veronique, once told me that you liked competition!’ Tabby recalled with bitter amusement. ‘I guess that piece of misinformation was advanced with the same self-serving venom as all the other helpful advice she offered me.’

Christien had fallen very still. ‘Ça alors! Veronique would never have said such a nonsensical thing-’

‘Oh, wouldn’t she? Your childhood playmate probably dug out her calculator in that cradle beside yours, worked out what a catch you were and decided right there and then that only she was going to profit. Who knows…who cares?’ Tabby was mortified that she had let that petty bitterness out and paraded it for him to see. ‘Obviously she knew you had a jealous streak a mile wide and guessed that nothing would kill our relationship faster-’

Febrile colour lying along his superb cheekbones, Christien threw back his broad shoulders and studied her with grim disfavour. ‘It shames me to lose my temper as I just have and throw allegations that I cannot substantiate but I don’t trust you-’

Tabby tilted her chin. ‘And I won’t stand for you accusing me of carrying on with other blokes.’

Eyes glittering gold with anger, Christien vented a harsh laugh. ‘What do you expect me to think when you stay out this late and show up with another man in tow?’

‘It amazes me that you can even ask me that when I’m the one who has never, ever had the luxury of knowing where I stand with you…yet you are so good at criticising my behaviour,’ Tabby condemned with a slow, wondering shake of her head. ‘Four years ago, you had another woman in your life called Eloise and you never once mentioned her existence to me. You got away with it too, because I was too scared to ask awkward questions-’

His lean, strong face was rigid. ‘The minute I saw you it was over with Eloise and it was only a casual thing with her. I ended it soon after I met you. I don’t know how you found out about her, but you only had to ask me. Unlike you, I would have been honest-’

Savaged by that reminder of her past dishonesty, Tabby twisted away from him and switched on the light. ‘So I lied about my age and you know why, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be trusted-’

‘No?’

‘No…any more than it excuses you for implying that I’m a tart,’ Tabby told him with spirit.

‘Where were you until this hour?’

‘I’m not telling you, I’m not answering your questions-’

‘Zut alors…’ Christien growled, raking long, lean, impatient fingers through the black silk luxuriance of his hair. ‘What do you expect from me?’

Tabby was amazed that in spite of all she had already said he still had no idea whatsoever. ‘Respect.’

Christien threw up his expressive hands, studied her with fulminating dark golden eyes, but, while he looked as though he could hardly wait to exercise his sardonic tongue on that ambitious request of hers, he stayed silent.

‘Respect,’ Tabby repeated doggedly. ‘You made a mistake when you decided that I was cheating on you with that boy, Pete, that summer and you owe me an apology.’

‘I…do?’ Burnished dark eyes flared down into hers and she could literally feel the hum of his fierce pride threatening to blow the lid back off his temper again.

‘Particularly for the way you treated me at the accident enquiry…I deserved better. You think about that-’

‘Tu parles…the hell I will!’ Christien raked at her and then, as though as disconcerted by that raw outburst as she was, he swung away.

‘So that’s respect and an apology,’ Tabby listed in reminder, deciding to go for gold in the demand stakes. ‘But if you want houseroom in my life, I want other stuff too…and I’m not sure if you could make the grade.’

Involuntarily, Christien almost grinned, wondering if she thought she could train him with her version of ‘the carrot and the stick’ routine. ‘I score very high between the sheets, ma belle,’ he breathed with husky insolence.

‘But unfortunately an awful lot of life takes place outside the bedroom door and offering me a millionaire’s residence in place of a tiny cottage was the last straw. Even though I’ve told you how I feel, you can’t respect your great-aunt’s wishes or my right to live where I choose,’ Tabby spelt out, a great weariness enfolding her, for the stress of the past forty-eight hours and the lack of rest had drained her of her usual high-wire energy.

‘But-’

‘All I want to do right now is jump off my soapbox, fall into bed and sleep like a log,’ Tabby cut in heavily.

Christien bent down and swept her up into his arms to carry her upstairs. ‘As I wouldn’t like you to risk jumping, your wish is my command.’

‘Put me down…’ Tabby protested in weary frustration, so tired that she was very close to tears.

Christien settled her down on the bed and switched on the lamp. ‘Possibly I was more at home in the millionaire’s residence,’ he remarked in a thoughtful concession. ‘But you liked it too…don’t lie.’

Tabby groaned and let her shoes slide off and drop to the floor. She could not be bothered arguing with him and she let her heavy eyes drift shut. Just to refresh herself for a moment, she promised herself.

Christien gazed down at Tabby while she slept, and sighed. He unbuttoned her shirt and eased it off and removed her skirt. He studied the creamy swell of her breasts above her bra and the incredible peach bloom of her skin and suppressed a groan at his own lack of self-discipline. He wanted to get into bed with her. In fact the intensity of his own desire to be with her even when sex was out of the question unnerved him. He tugged the sheet up over her, put out the light and frowned at the uncurtained window and the front door that lacked any form of proper security. A grim look of disapproval crossed his lean, strong face. He knew that he had decisions to make.