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‘I won’t be a moment,’ she said as she got out of the car. Her expression was smiling, untroubled. Then, with a brief wave to him, she hurried into the building.
It was a bank. And Bastiaan knew, with ice congealing in his veins, exactly which bank it was—a branch of the bank that Philip’s cheque for twenty thousand euros had been paid into...
And in his head, imprinted like a laser image, he saw again the telltale shape of the contents of that envelope she’d opened in the car that morning, which had caused her to give a crow of pleasure. Another cheque that he knew with deadly certainty she was now paying into the very same account...
A single word seared across his consciousness with all the force of a dagger striking into his very guts.
Fool!
He shut his eyes, feeling cold in every cell of his body.
* * *
‘All done!’ Sarah’s voice was bright as she got back into the low-slung car. She was glad to have completed her task—glad she’d remembered in time. But what did not gladden her was having had to remember to do it at all. Letting reality impose itself upon her. The reality she would be facing tomorrow...
Conflict filled her. How could she want to stay here as Sabine—with Bastiaan—when Sarah awaited her in the morning? Yet how could she bear to leave Bastiaan—walk away from him and from the bliss she had found with him? Even though all the hopes and dreams of her life were waiting for her to fulfil them...
I want them both!
The cry came from within. Making her eyes anguished. Her heart clench.
She felt the car move off and turned to gaze at Bastiaan as he drove. He’d put on dark glasses while she’d been in the bank, and for a moment—just a moment—she felt that he was someone else. He seemed preoccupied, but the traffic in the middle of Nice was bad, so she did not speak until they were well clear and heading east towards Cap Pierre.
‘I can’t wait to take a dip in the pool,’ she said lightly. She stole a glance at him. ‘Fancy a skinny-dip this time?’ She spoke teasingly. She wanted to see him smile, wanted the set expression on his face to ease. Wanted her own mood, which had become drawn and aching, to lighten.
He didn’t answer—only gave a brief acknowledging smile, as fleeting as it was absent, and turned off the main coastal route to take the road heading towards Pierre-les-Pins.
She let him focus on the road, her own mood strained still, and getting more so with every passing moment. Going through Pierre-les-Pins was harder still, knowing that she must be there tomorrow—her time with Bastiaan over.
Her gaze went to him as he drove. She wanted, needed, to drink him in while she could. Desire filled her, quickening in her veins as she gazed at his face in profile, wanting to reach out and touch, even though he was driving and she must not. His expression was still set and there was no casual conversation, only this strained atmosphere. As if he were feeling what she was feeling...
But how could he be? He knew nothing of what she must do tomorrow—nothing of why she must leave him, the reality she must return to.
Urgency filled her suddenly. I have to tell him—tell him I am Sarah, not Sabine. Have to explain why...
And she must do it tonight—of course she must. When else? Tomorrow morning she would be heading back to the ville, ready to resume rehearsals. How could she hide that from him? Even if he still wanted her as Sarah she could spend no more time with him now—not with the festival so close. Not with so much work for her yet to do.
A darker thought assailed her. Did he even want more time with her—whether as Sarah or Sabine? Was this, for him, the last day he wanted with her? Had he done with her? Was he even now planning on telling her that their time together was over—that he was leaving France, returning to his own life in Greece?
Her eyes flickered. His features were drawn, with deep lines around his mouth, his jaw tense.
Is he getting ready to end this now?
The ache inside her intensified.
As they walked back inside the villa he caught her hand, stayed her progress. She halted, turning to him. He tossed his sunglasses aside, dropping them on a console table in the hallway. His eyes blazed at her.
Her breath caught—the intensity in his gaze stopped the air in her lungs—and then, hauling her to him, he lowered his mouth to hers with hungry, devouring passion.
She went up like dry tinder. It was a conflagration to answer his, like petrol thrown on a bonfire. Desperation was in her desire. Exultation at his desire for her.
In moments they were in the bedroom, shedding clothes, entwining limbs, passions roused, stroked and heightened in an urgency of desire to be fulfilled, slaked.
In a storm of sensation she reached the pinnacle of her arousal, hips straining to maximise his possession of her. His body was slicked with the sheen of physical ardour as her nails dug into his muscled shoulders and time after time he brought her to yet more exquisite pleasure. She cried out, as if the sensation was veering on the unbearable, so intense was her body’s climax. His own was as dramatic—a great shuddering of his straining body, the cords of his neck exposed as he lifted his head, eyes blind with passion. One last eruption of their bodies and then it was over, as though a thunderstorm had passed over a mountain peak.
She lay beneath him, panting, exhausted, her conscious mind dazed and incoherent. She gazed up at him, her eyes wide with a kind of wonder that she could not comprehend. The wildness of their union, the urgency of his possession, of the response he’d summoned from her, had been almost shocking to her. Physical bliss that she had never yet experienced.
And yet she needed now, in the aftermath, to have him hold her close, to cradle her in his arms, to transform their wildness to comfort and tenderness. But as she gazed upwards she saw that there was still that blindness in his eyes.
