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‘Look at me,’ Xavier said.
She made herself do so. He leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead. And suddenly it was all right, just fine, and not embarrassing at all, and she gave a wide smile again. Happiness filled her like a warm balloon, and she felt that familiar feeling of starting to float up from the ground.
She met his eyes, and now it was all right—more than all right. It was fine and lovely and—right. That was the word for it. Not that she wanted to think about words just at the moment—or about anything, really. She just wanted to go on feeling as if she was lighter than air, and happy and floating. Sunlight filled the room—bright sunlight from drawn-back curtains—sending golden dust motes shimmering through the air.
‘Everything is good, cherie,’ he told her softly, ‘because you are here with me.’ He lowered his mouth to brush hers lightly, lingeringly. Then he drew back, nodding towards the coffee she still held.
‘Drink up,’ said Xavier, that half smile at his mouth again. It made his mouth even more beautiful, thought Lissa dreamily.
Obediently, she took another mouthful of coffee, the fragrance and taste of it carrying with it all that was France—pavement cafés and sunlit balconies. She watched Xavier drink from his own cup, and everything about the gesture registered as if in ultra-focus—the way his hand was splayed under the saucer, holding the weight of the cup, the elegant turn of his wrist as he lifted the cup, the fall of his hair as he lowered his head slightly to drink. Dreamily, she took another draught.
Then, ‘Ça suffit.’ It was decisively spoken, and then Xavier was setting down his cup, and removing hers from her grasp. For a moment, just a moment, Lissa’s eyes widened in alarm and anxiety. Was he going to send her packing now? Politely, of course, and charmingly, but packing all the same. Put her on a plane back to London, and get on with his own life.
But as he straightened and turned back to her she realised, with a dissolving stomach, that sending her packing was the last thing on his mind. That decisiveness had not been about getting on with his busy day, but about—
His kiss was long and slow and warm, and dissolved not only her stomach but every cell in her body. She gave herself to it, to the soft, sensuous delight of it. Her hands slid of their own volition across the smooth wall of his half-bared chest, her body sliding down into the bed. His mouth caressed hers, and she gave herself, wholly and entirely, to the soft, sensuous delight that was Xavier Lauran making the most beautiful love in the world to her.
They stayed one day in Paris.
‘I must clear my desk, hélas,’ he told her ruefully. ‘But tomorrow morning we can leave.’
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, wide-eyed.
‘You’ll see,’ he answered, a half smile playing on his face.
He knew exactly where he was going to spend this time with her. The season was a little early, but it was better than the heat of summer, and there would be no crowds to get in their way. It was a place he never took his amours to, but Lissa was different. Different how, exactly, he still did not ask—or answer. He only knew that the kind of affaire he was used to would not work with her. Lissa was not someone to leave in his apartment while he kept up his daily routine of business meetings and high-pressure work, spending only evenings with her in restaurants, or at the theatre or the opera, or social engagements, as had been his custom wi
th Madeline and her predecessors over the years. No, he wanted Lissa to himself twenty-four-seven—safe by his side, in his bed. He had thought her forever forbidden to him—and now that fate had given her to him after all he would not neglect her.
So it was well worth breaking his neck all day, driving his PA and directors as if the devil were chasing them, in his attempt to clear his desk of all essential tasks. Some were impossible to complete, and those he could not postpone he undertook to do remotely. A couple of hours a day on the laptop, in communication with his office, would be the maximum he would commit to.
Besides, he argued to himself, when had he last taken a holiday? He gave an ironic grimace—the French took more holidays than most other nationalities, and his staff, like all sensible people, made the most of them, but he, running the whole company, seldom took time off.
Well, now he would. Now, with the woman he had thought never to have beside him, he would for once play hooky.
Even as he formed the thought, another plucked at his mind.
What about Armand? Should he not contact him? Find out how it was that he and Lissa had parted?
He blocked it out. It didn’t matter what had happened between them—all that mattered was that Lissa was not bound to his brother anymore, and was free to come away with him instead. After all, hadn’t Armand asked him not to interfere in his affairs of the heart? And hadn’t he learned—almost at a cost that chilled him to contemplate—that it would have been wiser by far to have done just that? Instead he had blundered in, intent on doing his best for his brother, guarding him from making a mistake that would cost him dear. No, this time around he would do nothing. Armand’s life was his own—whatever had happened between him and Lissa was not his concern. All that was his concern was that the woman he had so catastrophically desired when she was his brother’s intended wife had now, wonderfully, been set free for him to claim.
Had Lissa been in love with Armand? No, that was impossible. There was not the slightest vestige of a broken heart, or any such thing. If he had not known what Armand had been to her, he might never have guessed at the recent presence in her life of any other man.
For a brief moment a flicker of, not unease, but perhaps uncertainty glimmered in his mind. He blocked it out. Appearances had been deceptive when it came to Lissa—none knew that better than he. His first sight of her had made him think her a cheap putain. How wrong he had been. It had been a mask, that cheap, tacky appearance—a costume necessary for her job. And though he naturally would have preferred that she had never worked at the casino, that was all over now anyway. Besides, she had been prepared to lose her job rather than compromise herself morally. So that, again, was another mark in her favour.
And she had turned him down because of her commitment to Armand.
That was what had convinced him about her. She had resisted him because of her brother.
Memory flickered in his mind again.
Someone very important to me …
That was how Lissa had described Armand to him—not knowing that she was talking about his own brother.
Was Armand still important to her?
No—he could not be. Certainly not emotionally—he had established that already, and her very presence in his bed confirmed it. Financially, then? Perhaps—he had to consider the possibility. Seeing inside the grim place she lived had brought home even more forcibly just how impoverished her life was. He could understand Armand, with his wealth and social position, being a temptation to her. And while—as was obvious—she had not loved Armand as a wife should love her husband, still that did not mean she had not held him in regard. Certainly enough to turn down another man. Even when she had responded to his desire for her she had still said no.
