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I did? I am? Veronica was too dazed to question this distortion of the facts, while Zoe’s second cough sounded more like a smothered laugh.
‘Bonsoir, M’mselle Veronica.’ The slow and lazy intonation combined with the gleam of malice in the dark brown eyes set alarm signals pinging all over her body, his use of French setting her teeth on edge, particularly the heavily accented version of her name. So what if he made it sound sinfully sexy?
‘Kia ora, Lucien,’ she pointedly responded with the traditional Kiwi salutation, trying to pitch her voice to the level of casual amusement without letting it tip over into sarcasm.
Melanie rushed in to fill the pause before it threatened to become awkward. ‘We weren’t expecting Luc for another couple of days but he arrived a little while before you did, Veronica—and promptly crashed out on his bed! And no wonder he’s exhausted—this is his first real break in years.
He works too hard in my opinion, and, on top of all that high-pressure living, he now has all this added stress—’ She broke off, biting her lip and casting a guilty look at her stepson.
‘Don’t worry, Melanie, I have a tried-and-true method of coping with pressure,’ he interposed smoothly, not taking his eyes off Veronica’s pale face, watching the colour mount her face as he said: ‘You might call it one of man’s most cherished stress-relievers.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve at last taken my advice and started doing yoga—’
‘Don’t be naïve, Mel, he’s a twenty-nine-year-old male in his full-blooded prime—he’s talking about sex,’ cackled Zoe.
‘Oh.’ Melanie looked flustered, and then slightly alarmed. ‘You didn’t—you haven’t been getting yourself any deeper into complications, have you?’ she ventured tentatively.
‘Not the kind you’re worrying about, no,’ he said, to her evident relief. ‘I’ve been out of London for the past few days, remember.’
‘Oh, of course—you decided to forget your flights and come down via Paris instead. So you and Veronica must have been staying there at the same time, Luc—it’s a wonder you didn’t run across each other. It’s because Luc owns an apartment in the building that he heard the short-term rental was coming up for sale and persuaded us to buy it as a good investment,’ she told Veronica, who hadn’t realised that the Reeds owned the Paris apartment themselves. ‘He got it at a marvellous price for us. He’s such a cut-throat negotiator…’
‘And yet he looks so harmless.’ She couldn’t help the sarcastic comment. He was still looking at her with that bone-melting intensity, like a predator contemplating a tasty morsel.
‘I’m just a big pussy-cat,’ he purred at her, as if he could read her mind. ‘Actually, Veronica and I did have a brief encounter in the rue de Birague yesterday,’ he said, with what she briefly mistook for appalling candour. ‘She wanted to know the best place to watch the fireworks…’
‘Oh, what a pity you didn’t tell us about your change of plans, Luc. I could have suggested you take Veronica under your wing,’ said Melanie innocently. ‘It was her first time in Paris, you know.’
‘I rather gathered that from her schoolgirl attempts to communicate.’
Veronica’s lips tightened at the deliberate goad. ‘I thought your stepson was French, and at the time he didn’t see fit to enlighten me.’
While Melanie looked disconcerted at the revelation, Zoe’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘So that’s why you pokered up when he said hello? Don’t take it personally, girl, he was probably just trying to keep an extra-low profile, and that’s not so easy in this day and age. You’d be shocked at the ridiculous lengths some people will go to for money, or their fifteen minutes of fame…’
Oh, no, I wouldn’t, thought Veronica with a little shudder. She could only hope that Neil had lost his bid to drag her into the spotlight to relive the embarrassing lowlights of their relationship by the time she flew home.
‘Come and try this wine that Luc brought with him, Melanie,’ Miles broke in, drawing them over to the table where he sat with Ashley and Ross, sipping at a pale rosé. ‘It’s a local one. I think it might be worth a mention in your book.’
As Ross contributed his opinion as a self-proclaimed expert Luc linked arms with Zoe to escort her to her chair and Veronica jumped as his other hand hooked under her elbow, his sun-warmed arm sliding against hers as he anchored her to his side.
‘Relax,’ he murmured, inclining his head until a loose strand of jet-black hair drifted to cling against the mahogany tresses falling in smooth layers around her face. ‘Don’t be so jumpy, or you’ll make them suspicious.’
She was the one who was suddenly suspicious. ‘I thought you wanted me to rue the day,’ she muttered out of the corner of her mouth.
‘Ah, but that’s when I thought you were some ratbag freelance journalist out to get me.’
‘I’d already got you,’ she couldn’t help retorting.
‘But you weren’t scheming to sell me down the river over it…you really hadn’t looked at that newspaper. You had no idea who I was until just now.’ Even in an undertone his voice was rich with a gloating satisfaction. He took such pleasure in her ignorance that she was perversely annoyed.
‘Didn’t I?’ she murmured unwisely, savouring the way his head snapped sideways as she pulled her arm free and quickly slipped onto the empty chair between Sophie and Melanie. Serve him right for suspecting her in the first place.
To her frustration he waited until she was seated before dragging an empty chair around and squeezing it in between her and Sophie, hitching it forward with little bunny-hops of his legs that had the little girl in giggles as she was shunted into making room for him. Perforce, Veronica had to ease aside also, but not far enough to avoid the constant, casual brush of his shoulder and the not-so-casual shift of his hard calf against hers beneath the hanging tablecloth.
Although Veronica guessed she must not have seen him very often in her young life, Sophie obviously thought the world of Luc, for after a shy start she was soon peppering him with questions, to which he patiently responded.
‘Luc has been sending her regular emails at school,’ Melanie confided to Veronica, ‘ever since she wrote to him a few years ago. I didn’t know if he’d find the time to reply, let alone bother to keep it up, but he’s been absolutely marvellous, even helping her with some of her school assignments…which is more than her sister ever did for her,’ she added, with a pointed look across the table.
‘Luc’s the genius, it’s easy for him,’ said Ashley carelessly. ‘I was never any good at ordinary schoolwork. I’m the artistic type—I work on the visual plane.’
