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She checked the socket, and the input port for the cable. Frowning, she turned her attention back to the screen as it vibrated just once.
Hey sis, hope you’re having FUN! :) Have sent you an email with latest journal info and relevant sections. Catherine travelled to Arabia! After scandalous rel with Benoit forced her out of England. Long story! All in email. Love S&S
And that was it.
Skye had disappeared from the face of the planet for more than three days. And nothing. Her sisters hadn’t worried—hadn’t contacted the British Embassy, the coastguard or anyone else. They’d hoped she was having fun.
She fell back against the seat and stared out of the window. It hurt, she realised. Hurt that they hadn’t worried about her in the same way that she worried about them. Guilt sliced through her. Of course she hadn’t wanted anything bad to have happened to them, but...but it was clear that they didn’t need her. All this time, for as long as she could remember, that was what had driven her—the conviction that without her they wouldn’t be okay. She had made almost her entire life about them and she couldn’t blame them for not having the same focus on her, because that was what she’d intended when she’d decided to step up to the role that her mother had stood back from. She’d wanted them to have their lives and live them. But...
‘Are you not going to call them?’ Benoit asked from where he stood at the top of the walkway in front of the cockpit.
Skye forced a smile to her lips. ‘We’re so close to finding the map, I thought I’d wait until I know where I...where we stand.’
Instead, fighting back the sting of tears, she fired off
a text.
Lots of fun. Will tell you all about it soon. Just off to France (!) to see if the map is still with the Chalendars. Will take a look at email asap. Love S
Given just how desperately she had tried to escape in Costa Rica, Benoit was a little surprised that Skye had barely touched her phone. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she put her phone down and looked out of the window. His fiancée...
A fiancée he’d spent the entire night before thoroughly ravishing. In an instant he was hard and was forced to pull his laptop closer so as not to embarrass the flight attendant. He took a deep breath to calm himself, deeply resentful of the way even just the thought of her raised his pulse and blood pressure. He was thankful that she’d had the presence of mind to insist on only one night. Because even just one more night and Benoit was almost one hundred per cent sure that he’d never be able to let her go, let alone out of his bed. Never had he experienced anything like it. In the past, his tastes had been wide, varied and thoroughly investigated. But Skye...seeing her fall apart, feeling it in his hands, against his mouth...
He cursed out loud, drawing a frown from Skye before she resumed her watchful gaze at the window. He needed the flight back to the Dordogne to get himself under control. Because if he didn’t he could lose everything.
Just over eleven hours later the jet taxied on the small private landing strip near the chateau in the Dordogne. He’d spent the entire flight furiously countering demands, threats and coercive emails from the family board members about the upcoming meeting in two days, tight-lipped and grim-faced while Skye slept and drifted to her phone during her waking moments, reading, frowning, smiling...her face so expressive as she reacted to whatever she was reading.
As the jet finally came to a stop, he stood and walked over to where Skye was, once again, asleep. Just before rousing her, he saw the petite frame of his great-aunt through the small circular window, swathed in layers of silk tugged about her on the wind, holding an impossibly tiny creature in her arms. He bit back a curse. The chihuahua had hated him on first sight and ever since had made numerous attempts to destroy any kind of footwear he possessed.
‘Benoit?’
He looked down at Skye, who was slowly blinking her eyes open in a way that he’d missed that morning in Costa Rica before the helicopter arrived. He felt an urge to smile, to soften the edge of concern he saw in her gaze—which was precisely why he didn’t. ‘We’re here.’
‘The map,’ she exclaimed eagerly.
He was thankful that at least one of them had some last thread of common sense.
‘We have a welcoming party.’ He gestured to where Skye would be able to see Anaïs through the window, hoping that she was ready. Because he sure as hell wasn’t.
The wind that whipped about her took Skye by surprise. But not as much as the look on the older woman’s face the moment she locked gazes with Skye. A sharp, high pitched yap drew Skye’s attention to Anaïs’ folded arms where something struggled within the swathes of pink and cream silk covering the woman’s diminutive frame. With a sigh, Anaïs bent to the floor and released a tiny dog, straining at its lead as if the small animal was determined to break free and ravage...Benoit? Yes. Most definitely the chihuahua’s focus was fixed on the man behind her on the steps leading down from the small jet.
Clearly, he and the little dog had history. But when Skye’s gaze met with Anaïs, once again she felt an unusual sense that the woman was pleased to see her. There was an unaccountable look of recognition in her eyes but Skye wasn’t quite sure how that could possibly be.
‘Benoit Chalendar, the first thing you are going to do is get rid of that beard,’ Anaïs said in English as he hugged her, her hand reaching for the jawline Skye now knew intimately.
‘It is lovely to see you too, Anaïs,’ he said, leaning into her hand and pressing a kiss into the palm. ‘I am well, thank you for asking,’ he said, somehow managing to dodge the chihuahua without inflicting damage on the small dog trying to devour his leather shoes. When Anaïs bent to pick up the yapping dog, Skye was sure she heard Benoit chide her for encouraging ‘the little beast’.
‘And your hair needs a trim. You look like a hippy,’ Anaïs stated firmly whilst managing to convey a heart full of love within the words.
Benoit cast a look to Skye before replying. ‘I promise to address the situation, once we’ve had refreshments and time to catch up.’
Anaïs followed Benoit’s look and nodded. ‘In the library, I think.’
‘We don’t usually meet in the library.’ Benoit frowned.
‘This time we will,’ she said assuredly, leaning past Benoit and holding out an exquisitely jewelled hand. ‘Anaïs Chalendar. It is nice to finally meet you.’
As Anaïs led them back through the jaw-dropping grounds of a chateau that looked as if it had come straight out of the fairy tales she used to read to Summer and Star when they were young, Skye turned over Anaïs’ words in her mind, trying to make them fit. Finally? Did Anaïs already know that she was to marry her great-nephew?
