Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate (10 page)

The evening started well as far as Luc was concerned. Josien was resting in her rooms and did not require visitors. Hans saw to Josien’s meal. Luc saw to everyone else’s. Simone saw Gabrielle’s unease and tried to put it to rest with easy talk about nothing much, and Gabrielle tried to settle and follow Simone’s lead; she really gave it a solid shot.

But she jumped six feet when Luc settled down to watch television beside her, and she did not snuggle up beside him as had become her habit. Gabrielle did not look out of place to Luc’s eyes, but he could tell from looking into her eyes that she was finding the entire experience acutely uncomfortable.

Behind the mask of self-assured lover lay the heart of the housekeeper’s daughter and she saw no place for herself here, and Luc could think of no other way to ease her anxiety than to take her to his room and within their lovemaking make the world around them disappear, at least for a little while.

Simone yawned loudly after the end of her favourite show, pleading tiredness before swooping down to give Gabrielle a kiss on each cheek before doing the same to Luc. ‘Come with me into Epernay in the morning if you feel like it,’ she offered to Gabrielle. ‘I’ll show you what I do. Lucien, may I see you for a moment?’

Luc followed his sister into the hallway, wary for no reason he could fully comprehend other than he thought he was in trouble and he couldn’t figure out why.

‘What are you
doing
?’ she said when she judged
them far enough away that Gabrielle could not hear their words.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Gabrielle’s wound so tight you could snap her with a glance.’

‘Yes, thank you. I had noticed.’

‘Well,
do
something.’

‘Do what? Tell her to stop feeling like she doesn’t belong here? It doesn’t work that way, Simone. Gabrielle has to fight that particular battle herself.’

‘It’d help if you got rid of Josien,’ muttered Simone. ‘She’s a good housekeeper, Lucien, but can’t you see that this won’t work? You can’t have the housekeeper’s estranged daughter in your life as your mistress and expect
anyone
to feel comfortable. If you want Gabrielle in your life—and clearly you do—Josien and her intolerance will have to find a place out of it.’

Luc shoved a hand through his hair, cursing the promise he’d made to a dying old man. ‘Josien stays,’ he said curtly.

‘But
why
? You don’t like her, Luc. You tolerate her. We both do. As for Gabrielle…Gabrielle’s afraid of her and with good cause. Can’t you see that it’s time we let her go?’

‘Josien stays,’ he said tightly. ‘I promised Phillipe she would always have a home here.’

‘Why would he demand such a promise of you?’ Simone’s eyes grew even more troubled. ‘I know he acted like the king of the damn castle at times, but Josien’s not an indentured serf and it’s not our duty to look after her for the rest of her life, or ours. Give her a job in one of our other offices if you must. Send her
to Paris, make her a House of Duvalier sales rep and watch her slay the competition. Ask her if she’s ever considered doing something other than keeping house at Caverness and, if she has, make it happen for her. I don’t care what it takes, Lucien, just get her
away
from here. Because this thing you have with Gabrielle won’t work until you do.’

‘She’s right,’ said a voice from the shadows. Josien’s voice. Luc turned and there she stood in the doorway to the library, looking tragically beautiful and disturbingly frail. Hans stood behind her, a silent, watchful presence.

Simone groaned, but then she rallied. Luc watched as Simone’s eyes grew hard and completely without mercy, harder than he’d ever seen them. ‘
Have
you ever considered doing something else for a living, Josien?’ Woman to woman and smothered in ice. Luc’s gaze met Hans’, the older man lifted his hands in surrender. Not buying in. But Luc had to. Simone had left him no choice.

‘There is an opening in the Paris office for a sales rep,’ he offered carefully. ‘We also have an apartment there that you could use until you found your feet.’ He wasn’t reneging on his father’s promise. Surely he wasn’t. ‘You could go to Paris once you’re more fully recovered and take a look at both the accommodation and the position on offer.’

‘I could drive you.’ Hans stepped forward and offered his arm to Josien with a gentle smile. ‘Make sure you did not overtax yourself. I’ve never seen Paris in the springtime. Have you?’

Josien stared at Hans, her eyes wide and uncertain,
and then she did something that Luc had never seen her do. She blushed. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I have not.’

‘So, you’re interested?’ said Simone, her eyes still flinty, every inch the autocratic mistress of the house. A mistress who’d had more than enough of this particular employee’s presence. ‘You’ll look at taking a position elsewhere?’

‘Yes,’ said Josien.

Luc returned to the lounge room with a lighter step than when he’d left it. Gabrielle wasn’t on the sofa where he’d left her. She was pacing the room restlessly, every movement of that lithe and lovely body poised as if to run.

‘No,’ he said.

‘You haven’t even heard what I’m going to say.’

‘No, it would not be better if you left. It would be infinitely worse. So stay.’ He shot her a knowing stare. ‘How am I doing so far?’

‘So-so,’ she said grudgingly.

‘So will you stay?’

A tiny smile lifted her lips. ‘I’ll need incentive.’

‘I’ll be sure to provide it.’

‘A little privacy…’

‘My room is very private. So private it’s positively remote. Matter of fact I’m heading there now.’

‘What else is in this room of yours?’

‘A bed,’ he said. ‘Good mattress. Four posts. You’ll like it.’

Her smile grew a little more sure but her eyes stayed uncertain. ‘I don’t know why I’m so worried about being here with you like this. I just am. It was differ
ent at my place. More neutral and less complicated, whereas when we come here…’ She shrugged awkwardly. ‘All the stuff that’s happened between us in the past comes crashing on in. It’s not just you and me any more—it’s Simone and Rafe and Josien as well, and how what we’re doing affects them.’

‘I know.’ He took her in his arms. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?’

‘No.’

‘Well, you do. Fortunately, I have a solution. Come to bed with me. Now. I guarantee I can turn your mind to something that doesn’t require any thought at all.’

Her smile turned wry, but she hooked her arms around his neck and brushed her lips across his. ‘Has anyone ever told you that you have an extremely one track mind?’

‘No, but I am aware of it,’ he countered with a grin.

It took them for ever to reach Luc’s bedroom. He needed to kiss her halfway up the stairs and again at the top of them. Two steps later he cornered her against the wall, just past the gilt-edged mirror, and laid waste to her hairpins before ravishing her neck. His knees almost buckled when he pushed her up against doorway to his study and she wrapped her legs around his waist and dragged his mouth to her breast. He managed to get the door closed behind them, managed to carry her to the big brown leather sofa and deposit her on it before his hunger got the better of him and he pushed her skirt waistwards and, kneeling, set his lips to the soft and creamy skin of her inner thighs.

‘You’ll let me know if there’s anything else bothering you, won’t you?’ he muttered as he wrapped his
hands around her buttocks, dragged her closer, and set himself the task of reaching his final destination some time this decade.

Gabrielle whimpered and twined her hands in his hair, muscles quivering and her eyes dark with desire as she stared down at him. ‘Yes, I’ll let you know.’

‘Like if you’d rather watch something else on television.’

‘Okay.’

He brushed the inside of her knee with his lips. ‘Or if you’d rather have something else for dinner.’

Her hands tightened in his hair. ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll let you know.’ She sounded distracted. She
was
distracted.

He dragged his lips along her inner thigh. ‘What kind of toothpaste do you use?’ he murmured, and grazed her skin with his teeth.

‘Oh, hell,’ she muttered.

‘Not sure I know that one but I’ll do my best. You know me.’ Very deliberately he brushed his knuckles over her panties, sliding his lips a little closer to his goal when she whimpered again and opened her thighs wider for him. ‘I like to fix things.’

‘Luc…’ She strained against him, already lost to sensation, already at the mercy of her body’s response to him. He loved that about her, that she could give herself over to him so completely during lovemaking. Loved it, and feared it because one day, some day, he would follow her, and once he did that would be it for him. There would be no other women—no other love for him—but Gabrielle.

He feared losing himself to her.

He feared he could become utterly obsessed with her.

He feared he already was.

‘Luc, please!’

‘Tell me what you want.’

‘You. I want you.’

‘Where?’ His teeth scraped the edge of her panties.

‘Everywhere.’

‘Hold on,’ he murmured and, pushing her panties aside, set his mouth to her in earnest.

She held on for less than a minute before her first climax overtook her. He freed himself and plunged inside her moments after that, holding on, holding on so very tightly to his control as he drove her to climax again, and again, until finally his screams joined her own.

Luc seemed a little withdrawn at breakfast the following morning, at least as far as Gabrielle was concerned. They’d spent most of the night in each other’s arms, making love or making war, Gabrielle never quite knew which one it was—all she knew was that when it was over her body was boneless and her mind was blissfully blank.

Whatever was running through Luc’s mind at those times was a mystery to her.

For all his teasing words in the lead up to their lovemaking, Luc never had much to say in the aftermath. He held her, that was all. He held her close and kept his thoughts to himself.

Simone had left for work not long ago, obviously having realized Gabrielle wasn’t going to be ready in time to go with her. Josien and Hans were nowhere to be seen. She and Luc were here alone. She should have been relaxed.
Luc
should have been relaxed.

He wasn’t.

‘I’m sensing a little discomfort here,’ she said as he attempted to disappear inside the morning paper. ‘Have I overstayed my welcome?’

He lowered the paper carefully, a picture of elegance and control. ‘No.’

‘Then talk to me.’

‘About what?’

‘Anything
. Something. Tell me what your plans are for the day and I’ll tell you mine. Ask me what I thought of our lovemaking last night. Tell me what you thought of it.’

‘I thought…’ He set the paper down completely, ran his hands through his hair and looked towards the window. ‘I thought that if our lovemaking had been any more perfect I’d have died from need of you,’ he said quietly. ‘I thought, when I thought at all, that a man would have to be mad not to want to wake up to you every day, and I wondered what the hell I’d do when next I didn’t.’ His gaze cut back to hers, guarded and strangely angry. ‘Is that enough of my thoughts for you, Gabrielle? Do you want more?’

‘I, ah, no.’ There seemed to be plenty to be going on with there. ‘So we, ah, take a lot of pleasure in being with each other. This is a good thing.’ She tried a tentative smile. ‘Isn’t it?’

He stared at her broodingly. ‘So what did
you
think of last night?’

‘I thought…’ She had the insane urge to be utterly truthful, to lay herself bare with her words as well as her body. ‘I thought that if I gave any more of myself to you there’d be nothing left for me.’ She met his gaze head-on. ‘Does that help any?’

‘Not in the slightest,’ he said gruffly, and, leaning across the table, captured her lips with his. ‘What are your plans for the day?’

‘I’m inspecting some wine storage facilities at one of the vineyards first up, then I have a meeting with a distributor in Epernay who’s interested enough in the Angels Landing reds to give me twenty minutes of his time—this is, by the way, a major coup. And then I’m meeting with the Hammerschmidt vineyard estate agent to get some chemical use history and soil and water test information, and quiz him about whether there are any restoration restrictions on the house.’

‘You do know you could get all the Hammerschmidt information directly from me and save yourself that particular part of your day?’ he murmured.

‘Yes, but then the agent would not know who I was and that might prove a problem if I want to bid for the property at auction,’ she whispered back amidst kisses.

‘And do you?’

‘I do. Rafe, on the other hand, needs a little more convincing.’

‘It’s a big investment, Gabrielle, and the place has a lot of drawbacks.’

‘Do you plan to bid on it?’

‘Up to a point,’ he said, and moved his lips to the curve of her jaw. ‘The purchase needs to be an economically smart move for the House of Duvalier. As soon as the price goes above twenty million, the bidding is over for me.’

‘Just like that?’ she said.

‘Yes.’ His mouth continued to wreak havoc with the nerves beneath her ear. ‘Just like that. If your calcula
tions stack up better than mine and you’re prepared to pay more, it’s yours. No hard feelings.’

Gabrielle closed her eyes, wound her hands in his hair, and tried to continue the conversation without whimpering. ‘I’m not sure my calculations are going to get me above that price. For us, there’s also the thought that a twenty-million-euro outlay will buy us a lot more vineyard in Australia than it will over here. That’s Rafe’s argument.’

‘It’s a good one,’ said Luc.

‘I knew you’d say that.’ She was in his lap, he was on the chair, and her body was telling her she wanted this man again.

‘Unless you have it in mind to try and get the land rezoned so you can subdivide and sell off part of it, that old vineyard is a lot more land than you need, Gabrielle. A lot more
hassle
than you need.’ His hands were on the buttons of her shirt. Hers were on his.