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At twenty she had been shy and severely lacking in confidence, unable to disguise her massive crush on the handsome, enigmatic Frenchman who had turned all their lives upside down, but to him she must have seemed a pushover. She had been a pawn in a far more serious game.
‘You always did seriously undervalue yourself,’ Luc murmured dryly, as his eyes skimmed her flushed face and huge navy blue eyes. ‘I admit there were a number of reasons why you were suitable…’
‘All to do with money and prestige, and none to do with love,’ Emily finished for him. She didn’t want to hear every cold, calculated detail of why he had decided to marry her. She already knew it was because her parents had offered him Heston Grange at a massively reduced price if he married one of the Dyer daughters, thereby retaining the family’s link with their heritage. It was archaic, she thought bitterly. She felt like a brood mare, sold off with a suitable dowry, but Luc hadn’t even wanted her for her childbearing ability. He hadn’t wanted children at all, which made his sudden determination to gain custody of their son all the more shocking.
‘Jean-Claude is a Vaillon,’ Luc repeated stubbornly, ‘and from now on the Château Montiard will be his home, not some filthy dump in the middle of nowhere.’
‘San Antonia is not filthy. The farmhouse is beautiful and Jean-Claude loved it there.’
‘Really.’ Luc’s brows rose as he murmured sardonically. ‘He must be a child prodigy to express his opinion when he’s not even a year old. Tell me, chérie, what would you have done if he’d been taken ill? The nearest hospital is miles away. For someone who expresses such maternal devotion, you seem to have little regard for his well-being.’
‘While you, of course, are an expert on child care,’ Emily snapped furiously. ‘Jean-Claude was perfectly well cared for, but it’s not easy being a single mother and I was grateful for the help of the other members of the commune.’
‘You were a single mother by choice,’ he pointed out hardily, ‘but you never gave Jean-Claude a choice. You forced him to live his life with only one parent and you denied me a relationship with my own son. Now it’s your turn to suffer,’ he told her darkly, and she shivered at the contempt in his gaze.
‘For heaven’s sake, can’t we be adult about this?’ she cried despairingly and he gave a harsh laugh.
‘It would be a first for you, chérie, that’s for sure, but I’m afraid you’ve pushed me way beyond the boundaries of wanting to be reasonable. Now that I have my son I have no intention of ever letting him go, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.’
The car was slowing and Emily glanced out of the window, frantically searching for the signs to the airport, but there were none. Instead they drove through the gates of what appeared to be a private airfield and sick fear gripped her. How could she have forgotten that Luc owned his own private jet? There was no bustling airport, no queues at the check-in desk where there might have been an opportunity to grab Jean-Claude and run. Luc’s plane was ready and waiting on the runway. He had stated that he was prepared to take her to his château for their son’s sake but he couldn’t force her to resume the role of his wife, could he?
Suddenly her pride was an expendable commodity she would gladly sacrifice in return for her baby and she stared beseechingly at Luc as the car drew to a halt. ‘Please, don’t do this,’ she begged huskily. ‘I can’t live without Jean-Claude but neither can I live with you. You must see that.’
‘Surely, if you have any sense of fairness you must see that it is my turn to have him now,’ Luc replied coldly. ‘Jean-Claude is coming home with me, with or without you.’
‘But you didn’t want him!’ she cried, her voice rising with frustration. ‘From the moment you knew I was pregnant you made it clear that you had no interest in either of us. You slept in another room,’ she reminded him huskily, ‘when you bothered to come back to the flat at all. And you were completely uninvolved in my pregnancy. You didn’t even show up at the hospital for my ultrasound scan.
‘Do you have any idea how I felt that morning?’ she demanded bitterly as a wave of memories hit her. ‘The fact that you’d spent the night with Robyn was unforgivable but I still thought…hoped you cared enough about our child to want to see the first pictures of him. I sat in that waiting room alone surrounded by excited, happy couples, and I prayed you would come,’ she whispered brokenly. Every time they called my name I allowed someone else to go in my place until there was no one left, just me on my own with a very sympathetic nurse who tried to make a joke about men being useless timekeepers.’ She scrubbed her eyes furiously with the back of her hand, desperate that he didn’t see her cry. ‘But you hadn’t mistaken the time, had you, Luc? You just didn’t care about the baby or me, and that’s why I left. I knew I’d outstayed my welcome.’
‘That’s not true,’ he began, his face twisting with emotions she refused to try and decipher any more.
‘It is true,’ she cried angrily. ‘I didn’t need any more proof of your indifference. How can you blame me for questioning your motives now?’ she finished brokenly.
Luc paused as he opened the door. She looked as young and innocent as on that first day when she had stared up at him and an arrow had pierced his heart. He wanted to hate her—indeed, there had been many times during the past year when he’d convinced himself that he despised her—but she was watching him with those expressive blue eyes. He glimpsed her vulnerability and something tugged at his heart.
He had never been any good at saying how he felt, he conceded, and his conscience prickled as he remembered how his unspoken fears had caused him to appear tense and uncommunicative. His childhood had left scars, a wariness of revealing his emotions. He hadn’t forgotten her scan. Dieu, he would have given anything to be with her but Robyn had been distraught, he had been torn and by the time he had managed to phone and explain the situation, Emily had already left for the hospital. He had been too late but at that point he hadn’t realised the extent of the damage his decision had cost him, and he had never been given the chance to make amends.
‘Wait there while I see if they’re ready for us,’ he growled as he climbed out of the car. ‘I have employed a nanny to take care of Jean-Claude. It might be better if he meets her before we get on the plane.’
‘He doesn’t need a nanny,’ Emily pointed out sharply. ‘I can look after him perfectly well on my own.’
‘Mon Dieu! Do you have to argue about everything?’ He was already striding across the tarmac and she watched him go, adrenalin coursing through her as she tapped on the car’s glass partition to gain the attention of the chauffer. This was probably a hired car, she reasoned feverishly, and it was likely that the driver was Spanish.
‘Drive on, please,’ she requested in a confident tone that did not match the sick fear in the pit of her stomach. The months she’d spent in Spain meant that she was fairly fluent in the language and she smiled reassuringly at the driver. ‘There’s been a change of plan and Señor Vaillon wishes you to take me to the international airport.’
The chauffer was young and his dark eyes flashed with a boldness he made no effort to hide as he responded to her smile.
‘Sí, señora.’
The car rolled forward and she took a sharp breath. ‘As quickly as you can, por favor.’ But it was too late. Luc must have moved faster than the speed of light and already he was wrenching the door open.
‘You little bitch,’ he swore at her savagely, his face contorted with fury. He yelled at the driver to cut the engine and swiftly released Jean-Claude’s safety harness before lifting him into his arms. ‘I was prepared to be fair, to treat you with a respect that you clearly don’t deserve. But not any more,’ he snarled as his fingers curled around her arm.
‘Is everything all right, Monsieur Vaillon?’ The woman at the bottom of the plane’s steps looked calm and professional in her grey uniform. Presumable she was the nanny Luc had hired, Emily thought desperately as she struggled to break free of his bruising grip.
‘Shall I take the baby?’
‘Merci.’ Luc transferred Jean-Claude into the woman’s arms and immediately turned his attention back to Emily, his eyes dark and dispassionate as he watched a single tear roll down her face.
‘You can’t do this,’ she whispered as he jerked her into his arms.
‘Watch me,’ he taunted, and before she realised his intentions his head obliterated the sunlight. It was not so much a kiss as a public branding, his lips hot and hard, forcing hers apart and uncaring if he evoked a response. Emily was so shocked that she simply leaned against his chest fearing that her legs would buckle beneath her. Her humiliation was complete when she was forced to cling to him for support. It was as quick as it was brutal and he released her with a savage imprecation while she stared up at him, her trembling fingers covering her mouth. For a few brief seconds she had been on fire for him, her body reacting instantaneously to his raw sexuality, and her cheeks burned with shame at the speculative gleam in his eyes. He knew the effect he had on her, knew that for those few seconds he had made her forget everything, even her son, and with that knowledge came power.
‘Take your hands off me,’ she demanded, her voice shaking with outrage, and he threw back his head and laughed.
‘You’re a good actress, I’ll give you that. But you don’t fool me, ma chérie. I know you too well and I have forgotten nothing. I remember vividly what pleases you,’ he breathed in her ear and the warmth of his breath on her skin caused a trembling within her that had nothing to do with fear. ‘Welcome back, my sweet wife,’ he goaded softly as he put his hand in the small of her back and pushed her up the steps into the waiting jet.
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT THE HELL had he done?
Luc stared moodily at the glass on the tray in front of him and with a muttered oath snatched it up and downed its contents in one gulp, although he rarely drank alcohol in the middle of the day. Right now he needed something to anaesthetise the effect that Emily had on him—had always had on him, he admitted begrudgingly, although fortunately she seemed unaware that his emotions were veering dangerously out of control.
She was sitting away from him at the front of the plane, nursing Jean-Claude who had taken an instant dislike to his new surroundings and let his displeasure be known in no uncertain terms. The nanny he had employed, Liz Crawford, had an impressive record in child care, but she had been unable to pacify the baby, whose cries had only subsided once he was in his mother’s arms.
‘He needs me,’ Emily had insisted, and watching them now, mother and son, Luc knew she was right. She was cradling Jean-Claude against her shoulder, rocking gently as she sang to him in her sweet, husky voice, and Luc felt a curious twisting in his gut as he recognised the familiar French lullaby that evoked memories of his own childhood.
He shouldn’t have kissed her, he conceded grimly. He shouldn’t have given in to the basic, almost primal need to hold her in his arms once more. He needed to be in control, to take things slowly and persuade her that coming back to him would be the best thing for all of them, not just the baby.
He had convinced himself that he had every right to hate her but from the moment he’d walked across the courtyard at San Antonia the battle being waged in his head had been lost. She had deprived him of the first year of his son’s life, and when he’d received notice from her solicitor that she wanted a divorce he had been ready to commit murder. If she no longer wanted to be his wife, that was fine, he had assured himself, because he’d had enough of feeling a fool and he didn’t want her back.
Brave words, but unfortunately, as soon as he’d set eyes on her he’d known he could not back them up. He still wanted her, heaven help him. She was in his blood and he’d known instantly that he couldn’t let her go, but the flash of fear in her eyes when she first caught sight of him had shaken him. He had never been an ogre, had he? She had no reason to cower from him and as he stared at her it was confusion rather than anger that filled him. She had ripped his heart out, damn it, when his only crime had been to fear for her safety. He wanted her but he was determined to discover the truth about why she had left him before he could even begin to trust her again. It was nothing more than sexual attraction, he consoled himself. The fierce chemistry that had existed from the moment they’d first met still burned for both of them. He wasn’t blind, he had seen the way she’d looked at him in the car, had known she felt the same primitive tug of awareness, and when he’d kissed her he had felt her response despite her efforts to hide it.
He set his glass back on the tray and resisted the urge to ask for another drink. He might tell himself that he had every right to despise Emily, but the unpalatable truth was that she had stolen his heart long before she had stolen his child. He resented the hold she had over him but seeing her again had forced him to accept that their lives were inextricably linked for ever.
Jean-Claude’s sobs gradually subsided as he fell asleep and Emily reluctantly handed him over to the nanny, who took charge of him with an air of quiet authority. Not knowing what to do, unsure of her role, she glanced round and grimaced as Luc beckoned that she should join him.
‘Why did you sing to him in French?’ he demanded when she slid into the seat beside him, the expression in his eyes unfathomable as he studied her small, delicate face and the way the strap of her top had slid down to leave her shoulder bare.
‘I hoped to bring him up to recognise both English and French,’ Emily explained, her cheeks pink as she hastily readjusted the strap. ‘One of the artists at San Antonia was French and she taught me some lullabies to sing to him.’ She bit her lip at the unforgiving hardness of Luc’s face.
‘I honestly believed you didn’t want him,’ she said huskily, ‘but I still hoped to give you a chance to meet him. I want Jean-Claude to know his father and I was going to tell my solicitor that I was happy for us to share custody.’
‘Then why hide away in Spain?’ he demanded impatiently and she sighed.
‘I was ill after Jean-Claude was born. It was a difficult birth and it took me a while to recover. I was staying at my friend Laura’s flat while she set up her cookery school at San Antonia and she invited me to Spain to recuperate. I was so busy looking after a new baby and helping Laura and the time passed so quickly…’
‘What do you mean by a difficult birth?’ Luc growled. ‘Are you saying there were problems?’
‘It was a long labour, thirty-eight hours and he was a big baby. I lost a lot of blood,’ Emily admitted, and Luc’s face darkened as he fought to control the nausea that swept through him. He should have been there. She should have given him the opportunity to support her during her labour but he had driven her away. She was his wife, the woman he had sworn to protect, but once again, it seemed, he had failed in his duty.
‘If you had stayed with me, you would have received the best medical care,’ he muttered savagely, trying to disguise his pain. ‘You needn’t have suffered, yet out of spite, a ridiculous urge to hurt me, you put not just your life at risk but his, too.’
‘Hurt you!’ Emily stared at her husband with blank incomprehension in her eyes. ‘When I mentioned the idea of starting a family you were adamant that you didn’t want children. Jean-Claude’s conception was a mistake—somehow the antibiotics I’d been prescribed interfered with the reliability of the Pill—but you refused to believe me. I remember how angry you were when I told you I was pregnant. It’s not something a new bride is likely to forget,’ she added painfully.
‘Sacré bleu! It was our honeymoon,’ Luc said explosively, ‘and you did not tell me, chérie, you waited until we were on a remote island in the Indian Ocean before you collapsed. It was the emergency medic airlifted from the mainland who informed me of your condition.’
He could not repress a shudder as he relived the moment he had lifted her limp, lifeless body into his arms and had run up the beach, calling frantically for help. It was happening all over again his mind had drummed over and over, dismissing any semblance of calm in a tidal wave of terror. He had truly believed he had been about to lose her and it had been as devastating as the realisation of how deeply he cared. He had been unable to bear the thought of carrying on without her. He wasn’t strong enough to survive such pain again, and even after it was made clear that she was in no danger, he had withdrawn into himself as a form of self-protection. He didn’t want to love her. Love hurt.
‘I hadn’t known I was pregnant. It was as much of a shock to me as it was to you,’ Emily muttered miserably, but with a savage oath, Luc swung away from her, flipped open his laptop and was instantly immersed in his work.
He obviously did not want to discuss the past, she thought darkly. Perhaps he felt guilty about the way he had treated her. She didn’t know and she told herself that she didn’t care. She knew from experience that he would resent any disturbance while he was working and she stared bleakly out of the window, wishing she found it as easy to dismiss him from her thoughts.
She must have been the only member of the Dyer household who had forgotten the dinner party planned to honour the potential saviour of Heston Grange, Emily recalled as memories of her first meeting with Luc filled her mind. Rushing in from the stables in her muddy jodhpurs, she had stumbled to a halt, her embarrassment excruciating when she’d viewed her elegant sisters and silently seething mother, but everything had faded to insignificance when she’d caught sight of Jean-Luc Vaillon for the first time.
The world really could tilt on its axis, she thought with a rueful smile, remembering the way she had literally grabbed hold of the back of a chair for support when he’d surveyed her with his cool grey stare. With his amazing facial bone structure and lean, hard body, he had been the sexiest man she had ever met and she had been unable to repress a shiver when he’d trapped her startled gaze with his, the gleam of amusement in those silvery depths warning her that he was aware of the effect he’d had on her.
Conscious of her mother’s impatience, she fled upstairs to change into her serviceable navy-blue dress and spent the evening peeping at Luc from beneath her lashes, leaving her sisters to impress him with their sparkling conversation. The head of Vaillon Developments was irresistible with his suave good looks and seductive charm, but despite her sisters’ frantic efforts to capture his attention, Emily glanced up several times during dinner to find him watching her. Embarrassment saw her quickly drop her gaze, but throughout the evening he continued to regard her with a mixture of amusement and another, indefinable emotion in his dark grey eyes.
‘I have a feeling you are happier in the company of horses than humans,’ he remarked a few days later, when he suddenly appeared in the stables. He had accepted her parents’ suggestion to stay at Heston and discuss plans for its possible acquisition, but Emily was too shy to respond to his friendly charm and went out of her way to avoid him.
His husky French accent caused a delicious shiver to run all the way down to her toes, and she blushed and half hid her face against the mane of her darling Arab stallion, Kasim.
‘I find horses are generally less complicated,’ she agreed huskily, and his slow smile took her breath away. He remained chatting for several minutes, displaying an impressive knowledge of horsemanship, although she had been too tongue-tied to respond and afterwards had been furious with herself. She must have appeared a halfwit, but surprisingly he came again the next day, and the next, requesting that she ride out with him, and it was during those blissful excursions through the New Forest that she found herself falling in love with him.
What a fool she’d been, she now thought bitterly, to believe that the charismatic multimillionaire Frenchman would really be interested in a plain little nobody like her. Common sense should have warned her that he must have a hidden agenda, especially when he’d proposed to her so soon after they’d first met. She had ignored her doubts, swept away by his passionate kisses when he’d followed her into the stables and pulled her down into the hay. He’d overwhelmed her senses. She’d loved the way he’d made her feel, loved him and amazingly he’d seemed to want her, too.
Their wedding, in the magnificent grounds of Heston Grange, had been like a fairy-tale, a dream come true, and the dream had lasted for the whole of that first weekend when he had whisked her off to Paris. She had been a virgin on her wedding night, due only to his iron self-control. The memory of the way he had made love to her for the first time still brought tears to her eyes. He had been so tender, so gentle, treating her reverently as if she were made of the finest porcelain. Her untutored body had been eager to learn and his tenderness had given way to a fierce passion that should have shocked her but had only made her love him more.
Unfortunately their arrival back in London had signalled the end of the fantasy. Luc was always busy and always with Robyn, and Emily had resented the elegant American’s close relationship with her husband as she’d struggled to fit in to her new life. As her insecurity grew so did the rows, but six months after the wedding Luc suddenly announced he had a break in his busy work schedule and was taking her on a belated honeymoon. It should have been an ideal time to repair the holes in their marriage, but instead the queasiness she had been suffering from for the past few weeks increased and on arrival at their remote island destination, she fainted. A result of dehydration and hormones, the doctor cheerfully informed her before he dropped the bombshell that she was expecting a baby and one glance at Luc’s shocked face warned her that the fairy-tale was over. The moment he discovered she was pregnant their marriage died.
‘We’ll be landing in an hour,’ Luc suddenly informed her, his cold, clipped tone interrupting her thoughts, although he barely bothered to lift his eyes from his computer screen as he addressed her. ‘I’m sure you remember the way to the bathroom.’
‘I don’t need it, thank you,’ she replied, stung by his indifference. This time he did look up, his brows raised fractionally in disdain.
‘You need to tidy yourself up,’ he told her bluntly, unmoved by the stain of colour that flooded her cheeks. ‘You’ll find your luggage in the bedroom. Hopefully you have something to wear in that vast suitcase that is a little less loud.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Emily said sweetly, her chin coming up. ‘The larger suitcase contains Jean-Claude’s clothes, and this is one of my more discreet outfits.’
‘Then we need to go shopping as a matter of urgency. You look like a tramp,’ he told her, calmly ignoring her gasp of outrage. ‘Your gaudy clothes might be suitable wear for an artists’ commune but you are not a hippy—you are my wife and I expect you to dress accordingly.’
‘You can go to hell. I’d rather run around naked than allow you to buy my clothes,’ Emily snapped furiously, and his mouth curved into an insolent smile that still did strange things to her insides.
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