Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate (6 page)

‘I thought I did,’ she countered tartly. ‘That was before Luc informed me that you and he had stayed in contact. What was that all about?’

‘You,’ said Rafael curtly. ‘The first time he called you were still on the plane to Australia. He wanted to check that I was meeting you. One thing Luc doesn’t lack is a sense of responsibility. He wanted me to call
him once you’d arrived safely. He wanted to know how you were every now and then. I saw no harm in telling him.’

‘You told him I was a weeping, self-pitying wreck?’ Gabrielle closed her eyes in mortification. ‘Gee, thanks.’

‘I told him you were fine,’ said Rafe dryly. ‘You know I’d never betray you.’

Gabrielle closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. Not game to speak for fear of the words on her tongue.

‘How’s Josien?’ asked Rafe. ‘Did she want to see you?’

‘She’ll live.’ This she could talk about, never mind that there was no keeping the bitterness from her voice. ‘And, no, she did not.’

Rafe didn’t say I told you so. He didn’t need to. ‘You okay with that?’ he asked gently.

‘Which bit?’ she said savagely, and let loose a black humoured chuckle of her own when Rafe laughed. ‘Truly, Rafe, I’m fine.’

‘Fine as in you’re a weeping, self-pitying wreck, or fine as in fine?’

‘Fine as in I’ve finally learned my lesson and I’m moving on,’ Gabrielle told him vehemently. ‘Josien can’t hurt me any more. I won’t let her.’

‘I like it,’ said Rafe. ‘There’s something in your voice that makes me believe it.’ His voice wrapped around her, familiar and comforting. ‘Sometimes you’ve just got to let people go, Gabrielle. For your own sake.’

‘I know.’ Gabrielle took a deep and shuddering
breath.
Don’t go there
, a little voice whispered.
Don’t even visit that place where fathers aren’t fathers and Rafe is only half yours. Don’t dwell there
. ‘I’ve been looking at distribution options hereabouts,’ she said in a stronger voice. ‘Looking hard. It’s not easy, Rafe. It’s a closed system and I don’t have the family name, the contacts or the leverage to open any doors. Luc’s offer to let us hold a wine tasting for distributors at Caverness is a generous one and will open those doors. It could make a big difference to our entry point into the market. If there was no personal element to consider I’d be jumping all over his offer. It’s exactly the kind of upmarket opportunity we need to start this ball rolling.’

Rafe said nothing.

‘I haven’t said yes,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I knew Luc’s offer wouldn’t sit particularly well with you. I don’t know that I’d feel all that comfortable doing business with him either. But I’d like you to consider it. As I’m doing.’

‘I don’t want his help.’ Her brother’s voice hardened. ‘I do not want our business becoming entwined with that of the House of Duvalier.’

‘Not even if it benefits us more than it benefits them?’

‘Especially if it appears to benefit us more than it benefits them. They’re not the most successful family-run champagne dynasty in France because of sheer dumb luck, Gabrielle. Luc’s offering us this deal because he’s after something.’

‘Atonement?’ suggested Gabrielle.

‘You,’ said Rafael bluntly. ‘You’re a grown woman,
Gabrielle, and I know you can handle yourself. I just don’t know if you can handle Luc. There’s wildness in him underneath all that iron control. Always has been, always will be, and you’ve always called to it. He’s always shielded you from it. Over and over I’ve watched him, Gabrielle. He was always so careful and controlled around you, always protecting you.’

‘Protecting me from what?’

‘Himself,’ said Rafe.

‘So he has a wild streak that he never indulges. So what? He’ll be careful, I’ll be careful, and we’ll both be fine,’ she said lightly. ‘Have a little faith and don’t let concern for me colour your decision. If the answer’s still no once you’ve thought about it some more, so be it. I just want you to give it due consideration.’

‘I can’t,’ he said gruffly. ‘I know it makes good business sense, Gabrielle. But I can’t do it.’

Gabrielle bit her lip and nodded, never mind that he couldn’t see her. ‘All right. That’s all I needed to know.’ Time to move on. ‘I’m emailing you the details of an old vineyard that’s for sale a few miles from Caverness. The old Hammerschmidt place—do you remember it?’

‘The abandoned one?’

‘You do remember it,’ she said. ‘I think it has potential.’

‘To buy or to lease?’

‘To buy.’

‘So you still want to go back there to live? Even with Josien the way she is?’

‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle firmly. ‘Josien has nothing to do with my decision to return. I love it here, Rafe. I know you and Angels Landing will always be there for
me, but Australia doesn’t call to me the way it calls to you. It never has and it never will. I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you—I would never abandon you. I want you in my life. I need you in it. You know that, don’t you?’

‘Here comes the but,’ said Rafe gruffly.

‘No buts,’ she said, deliberately striving for lightness. ‘I want our wines to sell well over here. I want to stay and work hard and make that happen, but most of all, behind it all…’ she closed her eyes and let her heart speak for her ‘…I just want to come home.’

‘Y
OU’VE
been avoiding me,’ said Luc as he eased himself into the vacant wicker chair opposite Gabrielle.

Gabrielle looked up at him and tried to persuade her heart that he was just another charming rake of a man, no different from any other man and certainly no finer. She was sitting in a pavement café, a strong and sweet black coffee at her elbow and a folder containing potential properties for purchase spread out in front of her. A week had passed since she’d dined at Caverness. A long, frustrating week filled with a lot of hard work and no significant visible or calculable gain. Whatsoever.

‘Why?’ he said next, lounging back in his chair, a brooding, elegant presence as he surveyed her through bold black eyes.

‘Maybe I’ve been working,’ she said as she closed the folder and sat back in her chair, glad of the dark sunglasses that covered her eyes and to some extent hid the heat in her cheeks. ‘Maybe I haven’t given you a second thought.’

‘Maybe you haven’t,’ he said with a charming grin. ‘And that would be depressing, considering how often
I think of you.’ He toyed with the menu, tossed it aside. ‘I’ve arranged to tour the Hammerschmidt vineyard. I want to take a closer look at the soils and the vines. Would you care to join me?’

‘To what end?’ she said warily. Gabrielle did want to look over the old vineyard before it went to auction. She didn’t necessarily think it was a good idea to do so with Luc. ‘You’re not really suggesting we do as Simone suggests and form a partnership, are you? Because I can’t see it working for us.’

‘Neither can I. Never mix business with pleasure, angel. And I do plan to pursue the pleasure angle.’

‘So why look at this place together, then?’

‘Because it would give us both an advantage over other bidders come auction day. They’re asking twenty-two million euros for the property, Gabrielle. I can only see about thirteen million in assets that are of use to me. I want your opinion on its worth to someone with different plans for it.’

‘So…this would be like a business meeting for us, as opposed to something more social?’

‘Definitely,’ said Luc. ‘Although I’m not opposed to pleasure coming afterwards. I’m not opposed to sorting the pleasure element of the day out
now
so that we know where we stand on that particular subject. Have dinner with me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you want to?’ he offered.

‘No, what I want to do is get a distribution network for our wines in place.’

Luc’s eyes sharpened. ‘All you have to do is ask.’

‘If only it were that simple,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve
spoken to Rafe about your offer to hold a wine tasting for us at Caverness.’

‘I’ve spoken to him about that too,’ said Luc. ‘He didn’t refuse. I took that as a good sign.’

‘He didn’t say yes,’ Gabrielle felt obliged to point out. ‘I think I can safely say that he’s not likely to say yes any time in the near future. Just my sisterly opinion.’ Backed by a definitive no. ‘He’s a little concerned about what might be in it for you.’

‘I’m wounded by his cynicism,’ said Luc. ‘I’m also the tiniest bit impressed by it. My father always used to consider cynicism the mark of a clever businessman. What exactly does Rafe think I’m after?’

‘Me,’ she said dryly.

‘Ah.’

‘Is he wrong?’

Luc shrugged and his midnight eyes gleamed. ‘I can’t deny it—the thought of having you has crossed my mind. It’s a very pleasurable thought. But my motives for helping you get your wines in front of the right people are a little more straightforward than that.’ Luc’s eyes lost that lazy gleam and shadows moved into place. ‘My hands were tied all those years ago when Rafe asked for support. I wanted to go into partnership with him, offer him the House of Duvalier’s backing. Phillipe did not. My father forced an ultimatum upon me. Rafe or Caverness. I chose Caverness.’

‘Bastard,’ muttered Gabrielle.

Luc smiled grimly. ‘Me or my father?’

‘Your father.’

‘To him, it was just good business. Why risk a reputation that had been generations in the making on an
unknown? Why provide his only son with the distraction of another business to build when he needed me here?’

‘So you’re defending your father?’

‘To some extent, yes. Rafe and I put him in an awkward position, Gabrielle. Seen through older, wiser eyes Phillipe did not deliberately set out to crush Rafael’s dreams. We put a proposal to him which he refused. He made a business decision. A safe one. I do not steer as safe a course as my father, Gabrielle, but make no mistake, my offer is not based on sentiment alone. Yes, part of me simply wants to do for Rafael what I could not do before. The other part of me believes that offering patronage to the Angels Landing wines is simply good business. The wines are brilliant. The House of Duvalier’s reputation will be enhanced because of the association and it’s a market we don’t currently cater to. If buyers wanted to source Angels Landing wines through the House of Duvalier, I would take my cut as a distributor.’

She believed him.

‘And then there’s you,’ he said with a sigh that sounded more frustrated than lovelorn. ‘I like to think of my attraction to you as a different problem altogether. I’m attracted to you and don’t see why I should deny it. Our kiss in the garden suggests you’re not exactly indifferent to me. The solution seems fairly straightforward.’

‘You want me to become the
comte’s
convenient mistress?’

‘I’m not a
comte,
’ he said. ‘All I have is the castle.’

‘All right, the billionaire’s preferred plaything, then.’

‘I’m not a billionaire either. Yet.’ His lazy smile warned her it was on his to-do list. ‘No, I want you to become my outrageously beautiful, independently wealthy lover.’

‘Isn’t that the same option?’

‘No, you might have noticed that the wording’s a little different.’

‘They’re just words, Luc. The outcome’s the same.’

‘It’s an attitude thing.’ He looked at her, his smile crookedly charming. ‘So what do you say?’

To an affair with the likes of Luc Duvalier? ‘I say it’s dangerous. For both of us.’

Luc’s eyes gleamed. ‘There is that.’

‘Not to mention insane,’ she pointed out.

‘Quite possibly. Was that a yes?’

She really didn’t know what to say. She’d wanted to come back to the village a sophisticated, self assured, successful woman, and Luc was treating her exactly like one. No need to mention what a fake she felt. ‘So how do we start this thing? If I were to agree to it. Which I haven’t.’ Yet.

‘We start with dinner. Tonight. No expectations beyond a pleasant evening with fine food, fine wine and good company. And we see what happens.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, reaching for her coffee. ‘It seems a little…’

‘Straightforward?’ he suggested. ‘Civilised?’

‘For us, yes,’ she murmured. ‘Where would we eat? Somewhere public or in private?’

‘Somewhere public,’ he said firmly. ‘The restaurant I’m thinking of is a fine one—excellent food, small premises, and always busy. A man might take his lover there if he was trying to keep his hands off her.’

‘Shall I meet you there?’ she said.

‘I will, of course, collect you,’ he said, playing the autocrat and playing it well.
‘Shall I meet you there,
’ he murmured in disbelief. ‘What kind of question is that?’

‘Says the new-generation Frenchman,’ she countered. ‘Liberated, egalitarian, non-sexist…’

‘Helpful, attentive, chivalrous…’ he added with a reckless smile. ‘And very beddable.’

He was that.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you the day—and tonight—to prove that a civilised and pleasurable and manageable affair wouldn’t be beyond us. If you can prove this to my satisfaction, I’ll make love with you. If this gets out of hand, however…’

‘Yes?’ he said silkily. ‘What do you suggest?’

She leaned forward, elbows on the table. Luc leaned forward too. ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ she murmured, ‘but I’m a clever, outrageously beautiful, independently wealthy woman. I plan to run.’

The real estate agent was not waiting for them when they pulled up at the gate to the Hammerschmidt Vineyard an hour later. Gabrielle glanced at Luc suspiciously, her suspicions turning to resignation as he cut the engine of the rumbling Audi and produced a massive set of keys from the centre console of the car. ‘He was tied up with another sale when I saw him this morning,’ said Luc. ‘He said he might be running a little late.’

‘So we wait for him?’ said Gabrielle.

‘No,’ said Luc. Clearly, the master of Caverness waited for no man. ‘We start without him.’

The Hammerschmidt vineyard comprised two hundred acres of prime grape-growing countryside of which less than half had been developed, underground storage caves, a few hundred wooden winemaking barrels in dreadful repair, old fashioned winemaking equipment, and a large two-storey house built in the Napoleonic style. The Hammerschmidts had played at winemaking for years, according to Luc, bankrolled by a seemingly endless supply of family money gained from the business of banking, which, rumour had it, they were extremely good at. They were not, according to Luc, particularly good at making champagne.

‘So there’s no reputation to be bought,’ she said wryly.

‘None whatsoever,’ said Luc. ‘The Hammerschmidt name is most definitely a liability. If you bought it, you’d rename it.’

‘So what would you call it?’

‘I think Folly’ he said. ‘Because whoever buys it is definitely going to be half mad.’

‘Angels Curse?’ she said. ‘No, too dark. Angels Falling?’ Gabrielle frowned. ‘Possibly a little bit downbeat. Angels Wings? Angels Flying? There. That one could work. Nice tie-in to the core business. Kind of uplifting.’ She stared out over the old vineyard. ‘Because, boy, does this need lifting up.’

‘If ever you’re looking for marketing work, call me,’ said Luc. ‘I would love to let you and Simone loose on a House of Duvalier campaign.’

‘So much blind faith,’ said Gabrielle airily, but her head ballooned from the compliment, putting a spring
in her step and a smile on her lips. ‘So how long has this place been on the market?’

‘Six months,’ said Luc. ‘But it’s been vacant ten years or more. The vermin have taken up residence, along with the pests. It’s a mess.’

According to Luc, the people hereabouts were more than ready to see someone who knew what they were doing take over the vineyard.

That someone being him.

If she were a neighbour she’d be all for the House of Duvalier coming in here with their money, knowledge, reputation, and the wherewithal to set this place to rights too.

The house took Gabrielle completely by surprise. Simone had called it a wreck. It wasn’t.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said in wonder.

‘It’s a façade,’ said Luc. ‘Wait until you step inside. The house is uninhabitable.’ Luc punctuated his words with the turn of the door key in the lock before putting the shoulder of his immaculate suit to the door and shoving hard. The door gave way but not by much. There seemed to be a build-up of garden debris behind it, garden debris that rustled even as Gabrielle stepped back and leaned down to peer into the pile from a safe distance away. Australia had taught her the value of being wary of those things that rustled in the undergrowth. Things that rustled in the undergrowth in Australia had a habit of being dangerous, if not lethal.

A narrow black nose appeared, followed by the sweetest little face imaginable, dominated by liquid brown eyes and surrounded by needle-sharp spines. With sleepy dignity the hedgehog made its way to the
front door and peered outside before turning and ambling back down the darkened corridor. The garden debris rustled again and a miniature version of the first hedgehog followed.

‘Well, maybe not
completely
uninhabitable,’ said Gabrielle and grinned when Luc gave her one of those looks that suggested she was being ridiculous.

‘After you,’ he said, the epitome of good manners.

Gabrielle looked at her shoes, then looked at the hedgehog nest. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to carry me over the threshold? Because, by all means, feel free.’

‘That would involve touching you,’ said Luc, ‘and we both know that’s never a good idea.’

‘I’m curious,’ said Gabrielle as she carefully picked her way through the hedgehog house. ‘How do you plan to conduct this civilised affair without ever actually touching me?’

‘I didn’t say I
wouldn’t
be touching you,’ he said. ‘I have touching plans. But the time between that first touch and being, for want of a better description, all over you, won’t be very long. I’m pacing myself. Waiting for the right moment.’ Gabrielle stepped on something slippery and wobbled alarmingly before putting her hand to the wall to steady herself. Luc put one of his hands to her waist.

She stepped away quickly. Luc let go fast, as if he’d been burnt.

‘That wasn’t it,’ he murmured. ‘A civilised man would not make love to a woman in a ruined
manoir
.’

‘How very thoughtful of you.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘The things I have planned very definitely require a bed.’

Gabrielle closed her eyes and suppressed a needy whimper. If he kept talking in that low liquid voice about the things he might require from a lover, she for one wouldn’t be needing a bed. ‘What kind of things?’ she whispered helplessly.

‘Wicked things.’ His voice rumbled through her. ‘Wanton things.’ She bit her lip as her breasts responded to the caress in his words, tightening, peaking, aching for his touch.

‘Stop,’ she begged. ‘Lucien, please. Not here.’ When she opened her eyes he was staring down at her, his grin rueful and his eyes dark with need.

‘Stopping is something we won’t be doing, I guarantee it. I’m seriously considering laying in a week’s worth of supplies beforehand.’

Only a week’s worth? Gabrielle had seven years’ worth of longing for this man to ride out. It was going to take longer than a week.

‘We, ah, should probably try and keep interruptions to a minimum,’ she said.

Luc’s smile had more than a hint of the devil in it. ‘I like your forethought.’