Latin Lovers: Seductive Frenchman

She let Xavier pass her to come into the small hall, feeling a hysterical giggle bubbling up from somewhere deep in her belly.

‘Dominic, this is Xavier Salgado-Lézille. Xavier, this is Dominic Miller—an old friend of mine.’

The men looked at each other with deep suspicion. Jane knew she had to put Dominic out of his misery. She threw a quelling look at Xavier and showed him into the sitting room, shutting the door behind him.

Leading Dominic away from the door, she said, ‘Xavier is my baby’s father … and it wouldn’t be fair to take you up on your offer because …’ her voice gentled ‘… I’m not in love with you.’

‘Are you in love with him?’

She nodded her head mutely.

‘Is he in love with you?’

She shook her head. ‘But he will take care of me and the baby if I so wish. I know that. You don’t have to worry about me.’

She pressed a kiss to his cheek, making him colour again.

‘Are you sure you’re OK …? I can stay if you want.’

Jane shook her head, ignoring her rapid pulse. Dominic was no match for Xavier.

She let him out, the difference in the two men comical as they passed in the hallway. At the sitting room door took a deep breath before going in.

Xavier was pacing the small room, dwarfing it with his size and presence.

‘Who was that?’

She bristled at the proprietorial tone in his voice, hating the effect he was having on her.

‘He’s my best friend’s brother.’

‘What did he want?’

‘It’s none of your business what he wanted.’ She sat down to disguise the trembling in her legs, then contradicted herself, saying disbelievingly, ‘As a matter of fact, he asked me to marry him.’

‘Did you say yes … Janey, love?’ Xavier’s voice was sharp.

She looked up. His face was shuttered, his eyes giving nothing away. Her heart twisted at the mocking way he repeated Dominic’s friendly endearment.

‘What’s it to you? I can marry whoever I want.’

He hauled her up against his chest so quickly that she didn’t have time to protest before his mouth descended and his lips found hers. After a second of shock she was like someone dying of thirst who had found water in the desert. With a small whimper she wrapped her arms around his neck, and their tongues collided in a heated feverish dance.

Time stood still.

She was home.

Then he thrust her away from him.

‘That’s why it’s my business. You’re carrying my baby—and don’t tell me you react like that with everyone.’

Shocked blue eyes clashed with blistering green.

‘That’s why, if you marry anyone, it’ll be me. No one else. Our baby deserves to be brought up within a marriage. He is going to be my heir, and as such will be afforded the necessary ceremony for his inheritance.’

The shock of what he was suggesting rendered her speechless for a moment.

‘I will not marry you just for the sake of an heir. Don’t be so ridiculous … It would be a sham … and anyway it could be a girl,’ she pointed out somewhat pedantically.

He threw off his overcoat and jacket, loosening his tie. He was like a panther in a confined space. Hands on hips.

‘Boy or girl … You would deny our child—possibly the only child I may ever have—its inheritance?’

Jane gasped. ‘Are you threatening me? That if I don’t marry you then you will effectively deny its existence?’

‘It won’t be up to me … Before my father died he added a codicil to his will stating that should I have any children outside marriage they wouldn’t be entitled to anything. It was his way of ensuring the line would continue in our family’s name, ensuring that the island stays in the family.’ He shrugged. ‘He was very conservative, and there’s no way around it.’

She had a sudden memory of the numerous pictures of Xavier with countless women in the press, and words tumbled out, barely coherent to her muddled brain.

‘You’ve had to check that out already? Maybe you have other children dotted around the world—Milan, Paris—?’

He took her by the shoulders. ‘No, I don’t. I don’t make a habit of jumping in and out of bed with countless partners, and I always make sure I’m protected…. Just with you … with you something happened.’

His hands were biting into her shoulders. Something had happened, all right, and she could see how much he hated to admit it. It was in every strained line in his face. He had been taken over by the lust of the moment, whereas she had been taken over by much, much more. She could remember all too well what had happened. She had let good sense out and madness in. She tried to avoid his probing gaze.

‘OK … maybe you don’t, but what you’re suggesting is positively medieval. Surely in this day and age—’

‘Did you really think I’d just walk away? I’m offering you everything on a plate … security, respectability, a name for our child.’

Everything but yourself … This heir is everything to him … as important as she had suspected.

She sought for rational words in a brain that was fast becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. ‘He or she could still take your name, if it’s that important. I can’t … please don’t make me …’

‘There’s no need to go green. It doesn’t have to be a completely unpleasant experience. We’re still attracted to each other—you can’t deny feeling it too, the minute you walked into my office today.’

He didn’t have to remind her of that mortifying fact. She brought huge wary eyes up to his. ‘Yes, but that’s all, isn’t it?’

His face was expressionless. He shrugged negligently. ‘It’s more than a lot of people start out with. Jane, I’m thirty-six. It’s time I got married and produced an heir.’

She felt a hysterical laugh bubble up again. ‘It’s almost as if I’ve fallen in with some cosmic plan to save your family legacy.’

The lines in his face were harsh, and suddenly she didn’t feel like laughing. This was all too real.

‘Don’t mock me, Jane. There aren’t many women who would turn down an offer like this.’

Even though his words reeked with arrogance, she didn’t doubt for a second that what he said was true. She just happened to hold the ace. His seed inside her belly. Lucky her. She had pipped all the contenders to the post. She tried another tack.

‘Yes, but most people start out with love, however misguided … at least it’s there to start.’

‘And where does it leave them in the end? At least we would be going into this with eyes open—without the illusion of love to cloud things. I believe we have something we can work on, Jane. I wouldn’t suggest it otherwise.’

She shifted out from under his hands and sank back down onto the couch, feeling hunted.

Something we can work on …

She knew all too well what he meant. It saturated the air around them.

He hunched down before her, not letting her evade his compelling gaze. ‘Jane, the future of Lézille is at stake if I don’t provide an heir. This could be my only child.’

She looked at him, helpless.

The doorbell rang again. Xavier went to answer it. She didn’t even notice. But she did when she heard the voices. Her mother and Arthur. She closed her eyes. It couldn’t get any worse.

Her mother came into the room with one brow arched so high that it almost met her hairline.

‘Hello, Mum.’ Jane hugged her, feeling the onset of tears in her maternal presence.

She quickly made the introductions, without saying precisely who Xavier was, but she could see that her mother had deduced exactly what his role was.

Unbelievably, Xavier offered to go into the kitchen to make some tea, leaving them alone for a few minutes and making her feel even more confused. How could he come in here and take over so effortlessly? Her mother and Arthur were certainly looking after him with barely disguised awe.

‘So that’s …?’ Arthur nodded in the direction of Xavier’s retreating back.

Jane nodded miserably.

‘Well, darling, you don’t look very happy about it,’ her mother whispered.

I’m not!

Her mother and Arthur looked at each other before linking hands. The lump grew in her throat again.

‘Dear … we’ve had a long think, and we came to tell you that if you’re still determined to go it alone … we’re going to stay here in England.’

Jane started to protest and her mother shushed her, holding up a hand. ‘Now, I know what you’re going to say, but it’s decided … There is no way we can leave you here on your own to bring up that child, and that’s final.’

Despite the encouraging smiles on their faces, she could see how hard it had been for them to make this decision. And there was no way she could let them. Her Mum’s happiness involved Arthur too. And right now they came first. She could mess up her own life, but not the life of this woman in front of her, who had sacrificed so much already.

She heard Xavier’s step approach the sitting room and knew what she had to do. She went with her gut. In that split second she knew she was about to make a choice that was going to change her life. She hoped and prayed that it was the right one. She didn’t have time to consider the ramifications.

He came in to the room with a laden tray. Jane waited until he had put it down and the tea was passed out before speaking, and tried to keep a steady voice.

‘Mum, Arthur … I really appreciate what you want to do for me, but you see there’s no need.’

She glanced at Xavier’s ever unreadable face. She wasn’t going to get any help there. She took a deep breath.

‘You don’t have to stay here because … you see … I’m not going to be here.’

Her mother and Arthur looked at each other blankly, then at Xavier and then at her.

‘What are you talking about, dear?’

Jane mentally crossed her fingers and took poetic licence with her recent conversation with Xavier. ‘Xavier has asked me to marry him … and I am going to say … yes.’

She could hear a splutter of tea come from his corner of the room. Then she was enveloped in hugs and tears and congratulations. Xavier joined in and answered questions vaguely. She was very aware of his sharp, assessing eyes on her all the time.

She knew she had done the right thing, however, when she saw the badly disguised relief on their faces at the prospect that their dream would be fulfilled after all.

Finally, after what seemed an age, they were gone. She went back into the sitting room to find Xavier standing at the window. He turned around and fixed her with hard eyes.

‘I gather that little charade was for the benefit of persuading your mother that she and her husband could emigrate after all?’

‘Well, it’s not going to be a charade unless you won’t marry me.’

He approached her softly, coming dangerously close. ‘If you were trying to call my bluff then it didn’t work. We will be getting married. I suppose I should have thanked your mother for helping you to come to your decision …’ He gave a short harsh laugh. ‘You couldn’t have made it clearer that it’s the last thing you’d be doing otherwise.’

‘You’re right. I hate you for this.’ Her chest felt tight and restricted, her hands clammy.

A savage intensity flashed over his face so briefly that she might have imagined it before it was gone, and he drawled, ‘That hate will just fuel our passion … because it is still there.’

She vowed there and then that there would be no passion. If he so much as touched her, she wasn’t sure that she could contain her feelings—and if he guessed for a second … her life would be hell.

He left with a promise to return and discuss things in the morning, and after the door shut behind him Jane sagged against it, the stuffing knocked out of her.

Despite everything that had just transpired, somewhere within herself she felt curiously at peace. Was she so straight that once she had agreed to doing ‘the right thing’ she felt good? It couldn’t be. What was more likely, she feared, was that she was such a masochist that even though being married to Xavier spelt certain heartbreak, it also meant she got to be with him … and seeing him again had proved how completely he held her heart in his hands.

The baby. How could she deny this little person access to his or her father? To their birth heritage? Especially one so rich—and not just in monetary terms. She knew instinctively that Xavier would be a good father.

Her mind went a more incendiary route. Would he be faithful if she refused to sleep with him? A man as virile and highly sexed as Xavier would not stand for a celibate marriage. How could she hope to live side by side with him and resist him? All she knew was that she had to, for now. Her emotions were too raw … too close to the surface. Maybe in time, when they were more under control, she could … remain detached. As if there ever could be such a time.

She went to bed with a heavy heart and slept fitfully.

The next morning when she opened the door to admit Xavier he took in her pinched face and the dark smudges under her eyes. The pang that struck him when he realised that he was the one who was making her look this unhappy gripped him unawares. He quashed it ruthlessly.

Jane eyed him warily with crossed arms as he effortlessly commanded her small flat again. He was dressed in a suit that hugged his frame, making him seem even more powerful, dynamic. He looked exotic and foreign, his tan standing out against the grimly grey backdrop outside. Stupendously gorgeous.

‘I’ve arranged for us to be married here in London in just over two weeks time at a register office. It’s the earliest I could arrange … Also it should be easier for your mother and Arthur to attend before they leave for South Africa. If there’s anyone else you want to witness it …’

His efficiency and ability to make the powers that be fall into his plans stunned her—and his unexpected sensitivity to accommodate her mother.

‘Well, yes …’ She thought of Lisa. ‘There’s one or two people, maybe …’

‘Bien. I have to go to New York today, and will be gone until the day of the wedding, so I trust that will give you time to pack up here, tie up any loose ends and inform your work. Molly can arrange to have this place let or sold, whichever you prefer.’

She spoke quickly. ‘Let … that is, I don’t want to sell it.’

Somehow the thought of severing all ties was too much just now.

He shrugged as if he didn’t care.

‘Fine. As you wish. I’ll let her know she can go ahead with arrangements and find a suitable agent?’

Jane nodded dumbly.

‘After the wedding we will stop over in Paris for a short honeymoon. We can replenish your wardrobe there.’ He eyed her casual attire critically. ‘You’ll have a certain role to fulfil as my wife, and will need to be dressed suitably.’

His bossy tone was too much.

‘I think I know how to dress myself, thank you very much … You don’t have to spend your money on me.’

‘Very commendable, darling, but somehow I don’t think you could afford even the price tags on the kind of clothes I’m talking about,’ he drawled, with infuriating arrogance.

‘Fine …’ She threw her hands up. ‘If you want to spend thousands on making me into something I will never be except on paper, then go ahead and be my guest.’

He came and stood right in front of her. She could feel his breath warm on her face. Her heart lurched as he drifted a finger down one cheek and underneath to her neck, where her pulse was beating crazily against her skin.

‘Oh, but you will, Jane … you will. Trust me on that.’

Chapter Nine

TWO weeks later Jane was trying to contain herself as she felt an increasing sense of panic threaten to overwhelm her. Lisa and her mother fussed around her as she got ready to go to the register office, their chatter skimming over her head:

‘… and poor Dominic is heartbroken, but he happened to mention that Xavier is gorgeous …’

‘Oh, he is, dear—wait till you see him …’

‘And he really owns a whole island?’

‘That’s nothing … his hotel chain …’

‘Still waters, eh, Mrs V? Who would have thought our little Janey had it in her? And to think of all those holidays spent with him under my nose—the time I wasted on those waiters …’

Jane cut in with wry exasperation. ‘You know, I am here, guys.’

‘Yes, dear, don’t mind us … now, let’s have a look at you.’

She was wearing a fitted cream silk jacket and a matching skirt that was cut on the bias and fell in soft swinging folds to her knees. The material clung to her curves, and the buttons on the jacket closed under her bust, with a lace camisole just visible in a slightly darker shade of off-white. An effective camouflage for her thickening middle.

Her mother hadn’t grilled her too much since her revelations and announcement. She assumed she and Xavier had had some sort of lovers’ tiff, and was blithely unaware of the circumstances—which Jane was quite happy with.

She contemplated the rest of the outfit—sheer tights, and high heels covered in the same material as the suit. It wasn’t bad for the last minute. Lisa had secured her hair with a flower, and stood back to regard her subject, resplendent herself in a vibrant hot pink dress that clashed magnificently with her red hair.

‘Janey, you look like a model … Honestly, what I wouldn’t give for your height and figure … When I get pregnant I’m going to be the proverbial whale from day one.’

Right now Jane would have given anything to switch places with Lisa. But of course she couldn’t. She had to do this, for the baby and to ensure her mother and Arthur’s future. And if she was honest she had to acknowledge the dark part of her that wanted to go through with this—wanted to tie herself to Xavier, whatever the cost.

When she saw him standing at the table in front of the registrar she faltered for a moment, her nerve failing her, but in that instant he turned and saw her. They hadn’t seen each other since that morning in her flat. It all fell away. Some intensity in his eyes held her. Didn’t allow her to break contact. She looked neither left nor right, just went towards him as if he was some kind of homing beacon in a fog. Then she was next to him. It was only the voice of the registrar that brought her back into room and their surroundings.

The words were meaningless. She hoped she made the appropriate response at the right time because she felt disembodied from everything. Before she knew it Xavier was taking a ring from his pocket and placing it on her finger, his hands cool and steady. Then, remarkably, Lisa was handing her a ring—where had that come from?

Jane put it on his finger, it slid on effortlessly. He didn’t let go of her hand until the end of the ceremony.

Once it was over they went outside. Xavier told her that he had arranged for a celebratory breakfast to be held at his London hotel. He led her to a waiting chauffeur-driven Bentley. She could see that there were more people than she had initially noticed, and that there were cars lined up for everyone. He had organised all this?

In the back of the car they were alone once he indicated to the driver to raise the partition. He brought a couple of glasses from a hidden compartment and poured them both some sparkling water. She couldn’t help but be aware of his huge frame encased in the dark grey morning suit. The material stretched over hard thighs only inches from hers.

‘A poor replacement for champagne, but necessary.’

Jane didn’t want him to guess how her insides were churning, the confused anger and frustration she felt at his matter-of-fact tone.

‘Let’s drink to us.’

‘A bit of a lie, don’t you, think? There’s no one around to fool.’

‘Let’s drink to a truce, then, because we’re sure as hell not going to last one week if you stay in that filthy mood. You’ve looked like you were going to your own funeral since you arrived.’

Hot tears threatened. She clinked his glass and took a sip, feeling like a fraud.

‘I’m sorry … it’s just a little overwhelming … Within weeks of seeing you again I’m married and about to emigrate …’

He surprised her by taking her hand in his and lifting it to his mouth. The heat of his lips pressed to her skin made her insides melt. Along with the look in his eyes.

‘Don’t think about it now … let’s just get through the next few days. It’s not exactly been easy for me either, you know.’

For a moment they shared an intense communication. There was something in his face … but then it was gone. A bland expression replaced whatever it was, and Jane couldn’t help but feel he was talking about being forced into a marriage he didn’t want. She reminded herself how single-minded he was. He hadn’t even made an attempt for them to talk about things, get to know one another again. He’d taken off as soon as he knew she’d comply with his demands, spent the last two weeks in New York, and come back only at the last minute. Arrogantly sure of her response.

The car drew to a smooth halt outside the hotel, and they were ushered out and into the melee.

Jane was introduced to so many people that they were soon blurring into one, and her cheeks ached from smiling. Her feet ached too, and for the first time since becoming pregnant she felt exhausted. She was ever conscious of Xavier, and where he was. Whenever she caught his eye he held it for long moments, until she began to get flustered and looked away.

She had just seen off her mother, Arthur and Lisa, whose own parents had come too. Jane had been delighted to see Lisa’s dad, looking so well after his scare. Her friend had promised to visit soon, and her mother was planning on coming when the baby was born.

Standing alone in the doorway of the function room, she felt awkward with all these unknown people. Some of them were friends of Xavier’s and seemed perfectly nice; others were business acquaintances.

Suddenly he materialised at her side, slipping an arm around her waist, and for once she sank gratefully into him, glad of the support.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ he murmured into her ear.

‘Yes, please.’ She couldn’t disguise the relief in her voice.

He brought her up to the penthouse suite. The staff had left out a bottle of champagne and there were rose petals all over the bed.

What a waste …

She turned to face Xavier as he closed and locked the door. He came towards her, pulling off his bow tie and opening his shirt. She could see his eyes darkening and saw the intention in them. It reached out and caressed her across the room, and she could feel every part of herself respond. It was too much. Her feelings were too raw. She backed away.

‘Xavier … please. I’m tired … I want to go to sleep.’

He kept coming. ‘So do I. With you.’

‘No!’ She hadn’t meant for her voice to come out so strident. ‘Just … I need a little space, and I am exhausted.’

She had been exhausted earlier, but now an excess of energy was causing her body to hum, making a lie of her words. Since seeing him again an ache had settled into every cell, an ache that she knew only he could assuage. He stopped in his tracks and she wanted to throw caution to the wind, throw herself at him with an animalistic instinct … rip off his clothes, have him take her right where they were. The strength of her reaction shook her.

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt for now. I’ll go back downstairs for a while. You take the bed … I’ll sleep on the couch.’

‘Xavier, there’s no need—’

‘Save it, Jane. If you think we can share that bed tonight without anything happening then you’re lying to yourself.’

The door closed ominously quietly behind him.

Jane began to get ready for bed, feeling even more miserable. As if she had somehow cut off her nose to spite her face. Her body still hadn’t cooled down since that electrifying look.

She sped through her toilet in record time, and was soon under the sheets, breathing harshly and feeling very silly. After waiting as long as she could, she finally gave in to her exhaustion and slept, not hearing her bedroom door open or Xavier come in and spend long moments looking at her.