Annie’s Secret

The Balfour Legacy

Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, “I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.”

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Other Books By

EIGHT SISTERS, EIGHT SCANDALOUSLY SEDUCTIVE STORIES

THE Balfour LEGACY

Scandal on the night of the world-famous one hundredth Balfour Charity Ball has left the Balfour family in disarray! Proud patriarch Oscar Balfour knows that something must be done. His only option is to cut his daughters off from their lavish lifestyles and send them out into the real world to stand on their own two feet. So he dusts off the Balfour family rules and uses his powerful contacts to place each girl in a situation that will challenge her particular personality. He is determined that each of his daughters should learn that money will not buy happiness – integrity, decorum, strength, trust…and love are everything!

Each month Mills & Boon is delighted to bring you an exciting new instalment from The Balfour Legacy. You won’t want to miss out!

MIA’S SCANDAL – Michelle Reid

KAT’S PRIDE – Sharon Kendrick

EMILY’S INNOCENCE – India Grey

SOPHIE’S SEDUCTION – Kim Lawrence

ZOE’S LESSON – Kate Hewitt

ANNIE’S SECRET – Carole Mortimer

BELLA’S DISGRACE – Sarah Morgan

OLIVIA’S AWAKENING – Margaret Way

Prologue

Italian ski resort, January 2006

‘HAVE your friends all deserted you…?’

Annie, having been gazing apprehensively down the Italian mountain slope, trying to decide whether she felt up to the risk of skiing down her first black run, now felt a quiver down her spine that owed nothing to the danger of the slope or the chill in the air and everything to the sound of that huskily accented voice that spoke so teasingly behind her.

That quiver turned to a delicious shiver as she turned and took her first look at the man who had spoken. Very tall, and dressed all in black, with wide shoulders and narrow waist and hips, he looked like one of those male models her older sister Bella so often worked with. Except there was nothing in the least false or affected about this man’s raw sexuality.

Black reflective sunglasses prevented Annie from seeing what colour his eyes were, but the rest of him certainly took her breath away. Shoulder-length dark hair showed beneath his woollen ski hat; the face behind the sunglasses was tanned, with high cheekbones and a long aristocratic nose above a sensually chiselled mouth, and his square jaw was strong and determined.

He gave her a devilish grin, his teeth very white and even against the dark swarthiness of his skin. ‘Or perhaps you simply changed your mind about attempting this particular run?’ he taunted.

That was exactly what Annie had done!

She hadn’t been too sure if she wanted to come on this holiday when a dozen or so of her university friends had suggested they all go on a post-Christmas skiing trip to Italy before they settled down to studying for their final exams in the summer, but surprisingly the past week had been a lot of fun. The weather had been perfect. The skiing fantastic. And there had been a noisy party in their chalet every night, usually with lots of other guests staying at the resort invited to join them.

After years of suffering the fierce competitiveness of her sisters when they went on their annual winter holiday to Klosters, Annie had found herself blossoming in the more relaxed company of her friends. So much so, that today, with only three days of her holiday left to go, she had decided to attempt a black run. Unfortunately she had chickened out after the last of her friends had already set off to join the others for hot chocolate in the cafeteria at the bottom of the mountain.

Only to now find herself being challenged by this gorgeous Italian…

‘I was just taking a breather,’ she excused, not quite truthfully.

He flashed her a hard, knowing smile. ‘Then perhaps you would care to join me in a race to the bottom?’

And perhaps she wouldn’t! It would be foolish, totally reckless, to accept this gorgeous man’s challenge. Wouldn’t it…?

Foolish and reckless, Annie acknowledged. But after being practical and sensible all her life, wasn’t it time she did something foolish and reckless, like following this sexily attractive man down a mountain? Of course it was!

Annie straightened determinedly. ‘That’s fine with me!’ She dug her poles into the soft snow to push herself forward onto the run.

An experienced if only competent skier, Annie was no match for the skill of the man who overtook her within seconds of them setting off, his style much more daring than her own as he hot-dogged down the mountain ahead of her.

Needing all her concentration just to remain upright, Annie nevertheless found herself watching the sheer elegance of the man’s style. He moved so smoothly, so capably, that just looking at him was exhilarating. By the time she skied to a halt beside him at the bottom of the mountain her cheeks were flushed and her eyes a bright periwinkle blue.

‘That was fun!’ She laughed up at him breathlessly.

‘Yes, it was.’ He gave her another of those devil-may-care smiles as he removed his sunglasses to reveal the deepest, darkest brown eyes Annie had ever looked into.

‘Want to try it again?’ she suggested enthusiastically, reluctant for this time with him to end. With three beautiful sisters older than her, Annie rarely found herself the object of any man’s interest, let alone one as gorgeous as this one.

The man grinned down at her. ‘I have finished skiing for today and now it is my intention to return to my chalet and drink schnapps.’

The light went out of the young woman’s deep blue eyes, her smile becoming noticeably disappointed. ‘Oh.’

He looked down at her speculatively. ‘Perhaps you would care to join me?’ he asked.

‘I would?’ She blinked up at him owlishly. ‘I mean…yes, I would.’ She gave a firm nod.

‘Luc.’ He removed his ski glove before proffering his hand.

She returned the gesture, her hand small and warm in his much larger one. ‘Annie.’

Luc had kept to himself since his arrival at the resort two days ago, but nevertheless he had seen the group of university students intent on having a good time. He had noticed this young woman in particular as she seemed to stand slightly apart from the antics of her friends. She was certainly worth noticing, with her long, rich chestnut-coloured hair, the vibrant blue of her eyes flashing whenever she laughed and the way her blue ski suit outlined the lush, feminine curves of her body. He’d been consumed by a curiosity to see the lushness of those curves without the ski suit…

If nothing else, her joining him for schnapps might succeed in a temporary banishment of the mess Luc had left behind him in Rome.

‘I will wait here for you if you wish to tell your friends where you are going.’ He glanced across to where her friends were seated outside the cafeteria, chatting and laughing together as they enjoyed warming drinks.

‘I—Yes.’ Colour warmed her cheeks. ‘How thoughtful of you.’

Not thoughtful at all, Luc acknowledged cynically, but merely an effort on his part to make sure that the night he was now contemplating enjoying with this young woman was not interrupted by her friends if they came looking for her.

He reached up and gently touched the creaminess of her cheek, instantly aware of the darkening of those wide blue eyes and the way her breath caught and held in her throat. ‘Do not keep me waiting long, hmm?’ he encouraged throatily.

Once again Annie felt that thrill of awareness down the length of her spine. Dear God, this man was lethal. Absolutely, one hundred per cent lethal. And for once in her so-far-practical life, Annie was going to be daring. Reckless.

And to hell with the consequences.

Chapter One

Lake Garda, Italy

June 2010

‘I’LL be home in a couple of days, darling.’ Annie spoke warmly into her mobile, totally unaware of the sunshine and beauty of the scenery of the lake outside the long windows of the bustling hotel as she hurried down the carpeted hallway to the conference room on the ground-floor level. ‘I love you too, Oliver—oomph!’ Annie was brought to an abrupt—and painful—halt as she crashed into an immovable object.

A warm, firmly muscled, very male object, Annie recognised as the free hand she had raised to steady herself came to rest on one broad shoulder and she felt the ripple of those powerful muscles beneath her fingers.

‘I’m so sorry—’ Annie’s laughing apology strangled in her throat, her face paling, as she looked up into the coldly brooding, breathlessly handsome face.

No…

It couldn’t be Luc!

Could it?

Annie felt absolutely stunned. Could this man really be the same one she’d met four and a half years ago? Apart from the fact that she had only ever seen the tall and lithely muscled Luc in ski wear or casual denims and cashmere sweaters, and this man was dressed in an expensively tailored suit and white silk shirt with a silver-coloured tie meticulously knotted at his throat, he certainly looked a lot like the man Annie had met, and spent a hot and steamy night with, all those years ago.

Except…

That Luc had had shoulder-length dark hair, whereas this man’s hair was cut short—in an effort to control the inclination it’d had to curl? But this man’s eyes, dark as onyx in an arrogant and harshly uncompromising face, were the same. As was the long slash of a nose, and the chiselled mouth above a ruthlessly set jaw.

He looked identical, and yet, at the same time, so very different…

The Luc Annie had met on an Italian ski slope four and a half years ago had possessed a reckless glint in the ebony darkness of his eyes. His hard grin had betrayed that same air of devil-may-care that had drawn the quiet and—until then—eminently sensible twenty-year-old Annie to him, like a moth to a flame.

There was not even a hint of that dangerous recklessness now in those penetrating black eyes that returned Annie’s gaze so coldly.

Eyes that also seemed to totally lack the same jolting recognition that she now felt…

Annie removed her hand as if burnt from the broadness of his shoulder as she took an involuntary step backwards. At the same time becoming aware that she hadn’t so much as drawn in a breath since she had looked up and instantly recognised her fiercely passionate lover in this icily controlled man.

Annie took a much-needed breath. ‘Scuse, signore—’

‘I speak English, signorina,’ he bit out curtly.

Dear God, that voice…

No amount of steely coldness could ever disguise the voice that had once murmured husky encouragements against Annie’s throat and breasts as she climaxed again and again beneath the fierce, possessive thrusts of his hard body…

It was Luc.

But a different, much colder Luc than Annie remembered.

Twenty-six-year-old Luc had been wild and restless. Everything he did—from skiing to lovemaking—had been possessed of a driving, single-minded energy that dared anything and anyone to deny him. The same single-minded energy with which he had set out—and succeeded—in seducing Annie…

No one looking at the man standing in front of her could ever doubt that he possessed that same determination of purpose. But now that energy was as fiercely controlled as it had once been wild, and his emotions were hidden behind a face that showed only an arrogance and ruthlessness that made Annie shiver as he continued to look down at her coldly from a vastly superior height.

Luc’s patience, never at a premium, evaporated with each second that this young woman continued to stare up at him as if she had seen a ghost. Or her worst nightmare. Certainly not the reaction that Luc was accustomed to evoking in any woman!

A humourless smile curled his lips. ‘Or perhaps it is signora?’ he asked.

‘No, you were right the first time,’ she answered.

Luc felt a slight stirring of memory as the woman spoke softly. Her voice possessed a husky quality that somehow seemed familiar.

He took in her medium height and slender body, clothed in a black business suit and white silk blouse. Her hair was a deep chestnut brown secured at her nape, her face heart shaped. It was an arrestingly beautiful face with a small, uptilted nose, and sensually full lips above a pointed and determined chin. A face dominated by eyes as deep a blue as Lake Garda itself.

Again Luc felt that slight stirring of familiarity. ‘Have we met before, signorina?’ he asked slowly.

She blinked before giving a brittle, dismissive laugh. ‘I don’t know, have we?’ she said, deflecting his question back at him.

Luc bit back his increasing impatience. ‘I believe I asked first?’ he pointed out coldly.

And he could go on asking, as far as Annie was concerned! All this time, all these years, Annie’s worst fear had been that she would somehow, somewhere, meet Luc again. A meeting that she knew would complicate her life in ways she didn’t even want to contemplate.

Now, by some terrible mischance, she had met him again, had met the man who had changed her own life forever—and he didn’t even remember her!

The relief Annie should have felt was overlaid by a deep resentment. This man had literally skied his way into her life and introduced the normally reserved Annie Balfour to an intensity of passion and excitement she had never known before or since, before disappearing again just as abruptly.

Only for her to now realise that their time together, all those wonderful memories that she had never quite been able to put from her mind, had meant so little to him that he didn’t even remember her.

Arrogant louse!

Her chin lifted in silent challenge. ‘I’m sure one of us would have remembered if that were the case, signore.’

Luc wasn’t so sure. The pallor of this woman’s face, the angry resentment he sensed beneath her tone, seemed to tell a completely different story. One in which he had patently not appeared in a good light.

As the only son and heir of a rich and powerful Italian business entrepreneur, Luc’s youth had been one of wealth and privilege, with his every wish being granted. As a consequence, Luc knew he had become arrogant, and possessed of an overconfidence in his own infallibility. A youthfully arrogant belief that had continued after he had proved to have his father’s flare for business, and at only eighteen had been placed in a position of power within his father’s business empire. Until the overconfident Luc had taken one risk too many and the whole of his father’s empire had come tumbling down about their ears…

Luc’s mouth tightened as he thought of that time. Of the past four and a half years when he had concentrated single-mindedly, often ruthlessly, on rebuilding that business empire until it was bigger and better than ever. Years when there had been very few women in his life, and even then only ones who had shared his bed for the night and been quickly forgotten afterwards.

Had the young woman who now stood before him in the crisp black business suit, with her chestnut-brown hair secured in that no-nonsense bun at her nape, the clear lines of her face bare of any make-up to enhance her natural beauty, been one of them?

Somehow Luc thought not. Unlike this woman, those women had invariably been tall and blonde, rich and vacuous socialites. Nevertheless, as he continued to look at her, that feeling of familiarity persisted…

His mouth quirked. ‘You appear to have forgotten your telephone call,’ he drawled.

Annie gave a startled glance down at the mobile she still held in her hand. The mobile from which a concerned voice could be heard squawking, if not the actual words being spoken.

Oliver.

In her utter shock at seeing Luc again, Annie had completely forgotten that she had been talking to Oliver when she had crashed into the tall Italian.

She swallowed hard. ‘If you will excuse me?’ She deliberately turned her back on the powerful effect of this man’s close proximity, intending to escape to somewhere more private to continue her call.

Although she wasn’t sure she was going to be able to talk to Oliver with any degree of normality after this chance, disturbing meeting. In fact, the sooner Annie was able to get away from Lake Garda—no, from Italy altogether—and the man she’d had a one-night stand with, who didn’t even remember her, the better she was going to like it.

Deeply aware that Italy was the place where she had met Luc and behaved so impulsively, Annie hadn’t wanted to attend this management course at the conference centre in a hotel on the shores of Lake Garda at all, and had only done so because her father had insisted.

A father who, still reeling from the death of Lillian, his beloved third wife and Annie’s stepmother, had become dictatorial with all of his daughters following the scandal that had rocked the family to its very core during the celebration of the centenary Balfour Charity Ball the previous month.

Annie froze as she felt strong fingers curl about her upper arm before she had chance to walk away. Luc’s fingers. Long, elegant fingers that nevertheless possessed a compelling strength.

Fingers that had once caressed and touched Annie more intimately than any other man ever had. And which still had the power to send an electrifying jolt of awareness down the length of her arm and up into the fullness of her breasts. Breasts that, to Annie’s embarrassment, instantly responded to the familiarity of that touch as they swelled inside her bra, the nipples pressing against the lacy material.

Annie’s eyes, the deep Balfour blue eyes, were flashing a warning as she turned back to face Luc. ‘Take your hand off me!’ She spoke between gritted teeth, her face having once again paled.

Luc lowered hooded lids at the vehemence he heard in her tone. No, he had not imagined it earlier; there was definitely some resentment being displayed here towards him, a resentment he wished to know more of.

He made no effort to release her. ‘Would you care to have dinner with me this evening?’

Her eyes widened as she stared up at him uncomprehendingly for several long seconds. ‘What?’ she finally snapped even as the colour rushed back into her cheeks.

Luc gave a brief humourless smile. ‘I asked if you would have dinner with me this evening. In apology for having almost knocked you over just now,’ he added, both of them fully aware that it was her lack of attention to where she was going that had caused the collision.

She gave him a speaking glance. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ she answered drily. ‘But no.’

Luc narrowed dark eyes, unaccustomed to being turned down by any woman. ‘Why not?’ he asked bluntly.

Eyes the colour of cornflowers, and surrounded by thick dark lashes, glared at him fiercely. ‘Because I don’t allow myself to be picked up by men I don’t know in hotel hallways, that’s why! Now would you please let go of my arm or do I have to call a member of the management and have them throw you off the premises for harassing one of their guests?’

That might prove interesting, considering that Luc’s family owned the hotel!

‘That will not be necessary,’ he murmured even as he slowly uncurled his fingers and released her arm. ‘The dinner invitation was no more than a gesture of apology on my part.’ He shrugged dismissively.

Annie, having already been completely thrown by Luc’s unexpected invitation to dinner, thankfully felt the easing of that tingling sensation in her arm and breasts once he had released her.

Just as she also felt slight disappointment that she couldn’t—no, daren’t—accept his dinner invitation…

Oh, no—she couldn’t still be attracted to this man! Could she?

No, of course not! He had erupted into her life, taken what he wanted from her and then literally disappeared into the sunset.

As Annie had taken what she wanted from him?

With three older sisters, all of whom had made headlines in the daily newspapers at one time or another, and three younger sisters—four now!—who looked to be heading the same way, Annie was the one who had always preferred to remain firmly in the shadows of the publicity so often connected with the Balfour name.

A fact her father had been well aware of when he encouraged her to join her university friends on that skiing holiday in Italy more than four years ago.

To Annie’s surprise, away from the pressure and publicity that so often accompanied being a Balfour, and the constant competitiveness so typical of a Balfour family holiday, she had found herself relaxing and enjoying herself.

Consequently, when Luc had flashed that dangerous grin at her and issued his challenge for her to accompany him down the steepest black run at the resort, Annie had been more than open to his heady brand of seduction.

So much so that she had behaved completely out of character after going back to Luc’s luxurious chalet with him. As he had suggested, they had drunk schnapps together while cooking a meal, Annie wrapped in a glorious rosy glow as the two of them made love in front of the blazing log fire.

It had been a time out of time. When she could just be Annie. And Luc could just be Luc.

But who was he really? Annie wondered now as she glanced at him cautiously. Because, from the expensive cut of his hair, the tailored suit, silk shirt and tie and handmade leather shoes, he was obviously someone important.

Not to mention someone she had wanted to avoid seeing again at all costs!

‘No apology is required,’ she assured him crisply. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I really do have to finish my call.’

Luc regarded her with guarded intensity. ‘I cannot help feeling that the two of us have met before,’ he insisted.

‘In another lifetime perhaps,’ she retorted.

‘Perhaps,’ Luc echoed slowly.

There was something about the delicate curve of this woman’s jaw, the deep blue of her eyes, the husky, sexy softness of her voice, that he knew.

Nor had Luc missed her response to merely the touch of his fingers on her arm. Her breasts had visibly swelled beneath the jacket of the black suit, the nipples pebble hard against the soft material of her blouse.

And he thought her eyes once again widened in alarm at his persistence in suggesting that they had met before.

‘Will you be remaining at the hotel for long?’ he asked curiously.

‘The weekend only,’ she replied curtly. ‘But I’m here on business and expect to be kept very busy, so I doubt that we will have a chance to meet again,’ she added firmly.

She so obviously hoped that they would not meet again, Luc acknowledged.

Interesting.

Having taken over as head of the family business empire four years ago following his father’s near-fatal heart attack, Luc was accustomed to being hotly pursued by women intent on becoming his wife or, failing that, his mistress. Whereas this woman could not have shown her lack of interest in him any more clearly.

Which only increased Luc’s own interest in her. An interest he intended pursuing, with or without her cooperation…

He gave a determined smile. ‘I would not be too sure of that, if I were you.’

Once again she blinked, her creamy throat moving convulsively as she swallowed before speaking. ‘Just talking to you has already made me late for a meeting.’ She gave a pointed look at the slender gold watch on her wrist.

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Then a few minutes more will not make any difference, hmm?’

The woman shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, but I dislike tardiness, in myself as well as others.’

Luc knew she was not in the least sorry. In fact, she couldn’t wait to get away!

The fiery snap in her stunning eyes, and the stubborn set of her chin, told Luc that she had no idea how her obvious determination to get away from him only increased his interest rather than diminished it.

‘In that case, I will say goodbye. For now,’ he added softly.

‘We will not meet again, signore,’ she insisted, the delicate colour that entered her cheeks now due to temper rather than embarrassment at her previous rudeness.

Luc found himself giving her one of his rare smiles. ‘Fate has a way of deciding these things for us, I have found.’

Fate had already led Annie into behaving completely irrationally in this man’s company once, and she had no intention of putting that temptation in her way ever again.

Yet, if anything, this Luc was even more devastatingly attractive than the man Annie had met before. There was a hard ruthlessness about him now, a haughty remoteness, that challenged as much as it beguiled.

As for his smile…!

Those moulded, sculptured lips had pulled back briefly over white and perfectly straight teeth, in a familiar wolfish smile that, although fleeting, had nevertheless made Annie’s heart pound harder and louder.

Despite everything, she realised with horror that she was still attracted to him!

Her mouth firmed. ‘I really do have to finish this call.’

Luc’s mocking humour faded as he recalled that she had been talking to someone called Oliver when they had collided a few minutes ago.

A man named Oliver, who, from the lack of rings on her long and slender fingers, had not yet made a public claim on this woman, despite the fact that she’d huskily assured him that she loved him too.

He nodded abruptly. ‘I too am late for an appointment.’

The woman’s smile was saccharin sweet. ‘Then I really mustn’t delay you any longer, must I?’

This woman needed to be put across someone’s knee, and her bottom firmly spanked, Luc decided ruefully. Her bare bottom. Her lush and curvaceous bare bottom.

It was an erotic image that flowered and grew in Luc’s mind and caused his thighs to throb and harden as he became fully aroused—something that hadn’t happened to him in years at just the thought of making love to a specific woman.

Luc had spent years rebuilding his family’s wealth and business empire. Four long years when he had allowed no other distractions, least of all an interest in a woman, to interfere with those plans.

Attractive as this woman was, Luc very much doubted that she would hold that interest for very long either. But her prickly nature indicated a passion that might prove fun while it lasted.

‘Signorina.’ He inclined his head in farewell, secure in the knowledge, in the pleasure, of her presence at Lake Garda for several more days at least.

Annie held her breath as she watched Luc’s long and arrogantly confident strides until he turned left at the end of the hallway, leaning weakly back against the wall of the hallway once he had disappeared from view.

Dear God!

How had this happened? Why had it happened?

It had happened for the simple reason that her father, newly fired with a desire to guide the lives of his wayward daughters into less notorious and hopefully more worthwhile channels, had decided that Annie was to take a more active role in the Balfour business empire by attending this management course!

Her protest that she had no interest in taking on a more high-profile role in her father’s management team hadn’t seemed to matter a jot to him. As the only one of Oscar’s eight daughters who actually worked for him, usually at the office complex at Balfour Manor, Oscar had just overridden all of Annie’s objections by threatening to sack her.

Annie had known that he had meant that threat too. That Oscar was absolutely adamant in his decision that it was time—past time—that all of his daughters went out into the world to find themselves and what they really wanted out of life. Even if the majority of them, Annie included, went kicking and screaming!

Which brought Annie back full circle to her presence here at this glamorous hotel set on the shore of beautiful Lake Garda in Italy.

A hotel at which Luc, her ex-lover, was obviously also a guest…

Chapter Two

‘SO, signorina, you have found time from your busy schedule to relax after all.’

Annie’s heart jolted in her chest just at the sound of that sexily familiar voice, and she was grateful for the dark glasses that shielded the expression in her eyes as she looked up to see Luc standing beside her. She had been hoping for a little peace and quiet as she lay on a towel on the sand of the private beach in front of the hotel.

But she would obviously get no peace today. The man was gorgeous. Decadently. Wonderfully. Indecently. Lethally gorgeous.

Luc had been vitally and excitingly handsome when Annie had met him all those years ago, but the skimpy pair of black bathing trunks that were all he wore now showed an added toughness to the lean and muscled contours of his body.

His skin had always been the colour of mahogany. But his shoulders were wider, and more muscled. A light dusting of dark hair covered a chest and washboard abdomen. His hips and thighs were lean and powerful, and those black bathing trunks seemed to emphasise rather than disguise the telling bulge between those spectacular thighs.

Thighs that Annie had once been intimately familiar with…

She sat up abruptly, her manner instantly defensive as she glared up at him from behind her brown sunglasses. ‘Are you following me?’

Luc felt only amusement at the accusation. Knowing that the flush of heat on her cheeks, and the way her nipples had hardened against the material of her blue bathing costume, was due to physical awareness rather than the angry indignation she wished to convey.

In truth, he’d had no idea she was even on the beach when he decided to indulge in a swim before his meeting later this afternoon. But as he had stood on the warmth of the sand looking for a place in which to place his towel, he had spotted that familiar chestnut-coloured hair that had seemed to glow a deeper auburn in the warmth of the midday sun.

Having swiftly established that it was the little firebrand of earlier this morning, Luc had been unable to resist the impulse to join her. To annoy her further perhaps? She did look so very beautiful when she was scowling at him.

The black business suit and white blouse she had been wearing this morning had not done her justice, Luc realised once he had crossed the beach to stand looking down at her from behind black sunglasses.

Her bare skin was tanned a pale gold, the top of the blue bathing costume cupping full and exquisite breasts, the thin strip of material that connected the top to the bottom of the costume at the front revealing the toned flatness of her waist and stomach above enticingly curvy hips and long, shapely legs.

‘What if I were following you?’ He answered her accusation teasingly.

A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘Then I really would have to report your harassment to the hotel management.’

‘Please feel free to do so,’ Luc invited as he dropped down onto the sand beside her.

The fact that he seemed so unconcerned by the threat told Annie that he somehow knew she would be wasting her time in making such a complaint.

Just as her inner feeling of panic also told her that she was completely aware—achingly aware—of the hard promise of Luc’s almost naked body so close to her own that their thighs were almost touching.

So close that she could feel the warmth emanating from his body. So close that she could smell his delicious masculine scent. So close she could have easily reached out and touched one of those hard and muscled thighs…

Her fingers clenched so tightly in an effort not to do exactly that, that her nails dug painfully into the palms of her hands. ‘What is it you want, signore?’ she asked instead. ‘Surely there are enough willing women at this hotel that you don’t need to harass the only one who isn’t interested in you?’ Annie hadn’t missed the openly lascivious female glances in Luc’s direction since he had joined her on the sand. ‘Or is that the challenge?’ she added in disgust.

An amused smile curved those sculptured lips. ‘Are you not being a little unkind to these other women?’ He ignored her second taunt.

‘I prefer to think of it as being truthful,’ Annie retorted waspishly.

He raised dark brows. ‘And are you always truthful?’

‘I like to think so, yes.’

‘Hmm,’ he mused softly. ‘So, are you truly not interested in me?’

Annie felt her cheeks colour in a revealing blush. ‘I’m not interested in any man who, when he’s away on business, just wants a weekend fling while out of sight of his wife and family.’

‘And if the man has no wife? Or family?’ he pressed.

Her mouth compressed. ‘Don’t they all say that?’

‘Do they?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Annie replied. She may prefer to spend most of her time at Balfour Manor but that didn’t mean that she didn’t occasionally accompany her father when he went away on business. Or that her father’s presence protected her from the advances of some of the business associates she met at those times. On the contrary; the often scandalous exploits of Annie’s sisters seemed to have given most of those men the impression that all the Balfour sisters were open to seduction!

Luc gave her a hard look. ‘In my case it happens to be the truth.’ Children to inherit, and a wife to provide those children, would one day be necessary, Luc accepted. But he would choose his own time, and the correct woman, when it came to filling that position.

‘I’m still not interested,’ she announced.

He arched mocking brows. ‘No?’

‘No!’ she said with finality. ‘And I very much doubt you usually have to try this hard to seduce a woman into your bed either,’ she added.

It was true that Luc usually only had to show the minimum of interest in a woman in order to make love with her. But of late, he recognised with a frown, those easy conquests had started to pall. To become boring.

To the point that boredom had succeeded in piquing his interest in this bristly brunette? A woman so unlike the tall and model-thin blondes he was usually attracted to? Perhaps.

He moved restlessly. ‘You presume to know me that well?’

Annie gave a derisive snort. ‘I know your type that well,’ she claimed.

‘Indeed?’ There was a dangerous edge to Luc’s voice now.

‘Indeed,’ Annie echoed tauntingly.

Luc continued to look at her for several long seconds, the colour burning in Annie’s cheeks by the time he stretched his long legs out in front of him and leant back on his hands in the sand to turn dismissively and gaze out across the lake.

Giving Annie the opportunity to study him at close quarters unobserved. To once again note the changes in him. What had happened in the past four and a half years to change Luc from that young man, who had met every challenge with a recklessness that bordered on dangerous, to this remote and ruthlessly unyielding man whose every word and action proclaimed contempt for the very wildness he had once possessed in such abundance?

Why should she care what had happened to him, Annie instantly rebuked herself, when the same intervening years had taken their toll on her own life and emotions? When he didn’t even remember their time together that had resulted in those changes in her life. When he didn’t even remember her!

‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go for a swim.’ Annie didn’t wait for Luc to reply as she rose abruptly to her feet and began to walk down the beach to the water’s edge.

Luc slowly turned his head, his gaze admiring as he watched her fluidity of movement as she walked across the sand, arms lightly swinging, shoulders straight, her back long and supple, her hips gently swaying—

He sat forward suddenly, the darkness of his narrowed gaze arrested on her lower back. On the tattoo revealed just above the soft rise of her left buttock!

Luc’s breath caught in his throat as he stared at that tattoo. As the memories of a lush body naked in bed beneath him, wrapped around him, riding him as the woman smiled down at him seductively and her breasts jutted forward temptingly, came crashing into his head.

He rose quickly to his feet to cross the sand in three long, determined strides, before reaching out to grasp her arm and swing her round to face him. ‘Annie?’ he exclaimed as he pushed his sunglasses up into the darkness of his hair to look down searchingly into her face.

Once again the memory of those golden limbs entwined with his flashed graphically into his head. As did the silky softness of her skin as he’d kissed and tasted every inch of her body—the length of her back, that distinctive tattoo, the full curve of her bottom—before he had turned her over and explored the curve of her neck, the hard pebbles of her breasts, the gentle slope of her belly, the tiny nubbin nestled amongst the auburn curls between her legs as she writhed beneath him in the throes of ecstasy…

The sudden pallor of her cheeks, and the slight trembling of her body, told him all too clearly that this woman had those same memories—just as she had when they’d met earlier this morning!

His eyes narrowed furiously. ‘You denied earlier that we had ever met before!’

Annie gave a bitter laugh. ‘No, what I actually said was that surely one of us would have remembered it if we had,’ she reminded him. And one of them had remembered; how could Annie ever forget? Yet obviously Luc had! ‘Something obviously just triggered your own memory,’ she added sarcastically. ‘What was it?’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘The tattoo,’ he bit out.

Annie’s eyes widened. ‘My unicorn?’

Several of her university friends had decided to acquire tattoos during their first year at Cambridge, and Annie, with a desire to be accepted for herself rather than as a Balfour, had foolishly allowed herself to be dragged along too. Most of the other girls had opted for dolphins or butterflies, but Annie had known as soon as she saw the unicorn that it was the one she wanted.

How ironic that its existence should have succeeded in alerting Luc to her identity when nothing else had!

‘Your unicorn,’ he echoed grimly as he grasped both her arms. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier that we had met before?’ He shook her slightly.

‘And what was I supposed to say when you obviously had no memory of that meeting?’ Annie hissed. ‘“Hey, remember me? I’m the woman you spent the night making love to when you were on a skiing holiday four and a half years ago before dumping me the following morning.”?’ She scowled at him. ‘Somehow I don’t think so, Luc’

Well, when she put it like that…

Having spent the past few years deliberately blocking all memory of his ignominious fall from grace, and the dire consequences to his father because of that recklessness, Luc now clearly remembered the night he had spent making love with this woman.

Luc frowned. ‘We need to talk—’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ Annie interrupted derisively. ‘So we were lovers.’ She shrugged. ‘I remembered it. You obviously didn’t. End of story.’ She grimaced. ‘Now, would you please let go of me, Luc—you’re causing a scene.’ She looked about them pointedly to where several of the other hotel guests were now watching their exchange with open curiosity.

‘Ignore them!’ Luc rasped. He didn’t give a damn what the other hotel guests thought of them. Or him. He only cared that for some reason Annie had chosen not to remind him of their prior relationship.

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ Annie snapped. She only hoped, once Luc had released her, that she didn’t add to their curiosity by collapsing at his feet! Her legs certainly felt shaky enough for her to do that.

She couldn’t believe this was happening. Why did Luc have to suddenly remember their brief time together? It would have been so much easier, for everyone, if she could have just attended the rest of the conference without seeing him again—without him remembering—before returning home to England with no one any the wiser.

That Luc had now remembered their meeting was a complication she could well have done without. One that raised too many questions in her own mind…

The fact that he’d looked so grimly formidable at having remembered that meeting certainly wasn’t reassuring.

Annie forced the tension from her body and permitted a relaxed smile to curve her lips. ‘Let’s not make a big deal out of this, Luc,’ she dismissed lightly. ‘It was a little unflattering that you didn’t remember me initially, of course, but—’

‘Stop it, Annie!’ Luc said impatiently even as his fingers tightened on her arms.

‘Stop what?’ she asked, frustrated at his behaviour. ‘It’s great that you now seem to want to get together and discuss old times, but really, what would be the point when—’

‘I said, stop it!’ Luc repeated with controlled aggression. ‘The Annie I met before—’

‘The Annie you met, and who you’ve only just remembered,’ she pointed out fiercely, ‘was twenty years old and extremely naive!’ She gave a huff of derisive laughter. ‘I’ve grown up a lot in four and a half years, Luc. Enough to know when a man’s only interest is in taking me to bed!’ she added insultingly.

Luc felt the nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched cheek as he considered how she had learnt such a thing. Apart from that night she had spent with him, that is…

How could he not have remembered Annie when they met earlier this morning?

A part of him had remembered, came the instant answer to that question. An inner part of him had recognised both Annie and the huskiness of her voice. The part of him—that recklessly overindulged young man who had almost ruined his family and caused his father’s heart attack—that Luc had long tried to bury in the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind.

Until he saw the unicorn tattoo on her lower back and all of those memories came rushing back with a vengeance.

Her hair had been longer four years ago, of course—a wild cascade of wavy chestnut curls that reached almost to her waist. Her body had been more youthfully rounded then too, her curves lush rather than athletically toned as they were now, and her face had also been fuller, the cheekbones not so defined.

But he should have remembered the deep blue of her eyes and those long dark lashes. Should have remembered how he had enjoyed the plump fullness of her lips when he’d kissed them. When she had kissed him, on the lips, and other more intimate parts of his body. He should have remembered—

‘I was your first lover!’ he exclaimed.

The colour flooded briefly back into those pale cheeks. ‘Yes. Well.’ She shifted uncomfortably. ‘Everyone has to start somewhere, don’t they?’

Except in Annie’s case Luc had been both the start and the finish.

What would Luc say, what would he do, if she told him that a child had resulted from their night together? That waiting for Annie at her mother’s home was a little boy of almost four, who had Luc’s dark curly hair and sturdy body, and the Balfour blue eyes shining brightly in a face that also bore a very strong resemblance to this man?

To his father.

To Luc.

Annie repressed a shiver of apprehension as she looked up at him, having no doubts that the hard, implacable man Luc now so obviously was took no prisoners. It was there for everyone to see in the hard arrogance of his face and the cold, remorseless darkness of those black uncompromising eyes.

No prisoners perhaps, but if he were to learn of Oliver’s existence, would Luc want to claim his son?

And if he did, what would Annie do about it? Oh, she wouldn’t allow him to take Oliver from her, never that, but would Oliver want to know who his father was? One day maybe. And how would Oliver feel once he learnt that Annie could have told his father of his existence now but had chosen not to do so?

Annie needed time to think. To try to decide what to do for the best. For Oliver’s sake…

‘Would you please let go of me now, Luc?’ she requested calmly. ‘I think we’ve drawn enough attention to ourselves for one day, and I have another meeting to go to this afternoon,’ she added.

Luc’s eyes narrowed as his gaze raked over her face. A face that suddenly completely masked her inner emotions. ‘In that case we will dine together in my hotel suite this evening so that we can continue this conversation.’ He made it a statement rather than a question.

Her eyes widened. ‘I really don’t think—’

‘Think what you like, Annie, but your agreement is the price for my releasing you now,’ he added coolly.

‘The price for—!’ Annie glared. ‘You really have turned into an arrogant snake since we last met, haven’t you?’ she seethed.

Luc gave a hard, humourless smile as he slowly uncurled his fingers from her arm. ‘Perhaps I always was one.’

‘Perhaps,’ Annie said, aware that the anger she felt was the only reason her knees hadn’t buckled beneath her when Luc released her. This whole thing—meeting Luc again, torn between whether or not she should tell Luc about Oliver and what might happen once she had—was turning into her worst nightmare.

His mouth tightened. ‘Humour me, Annie.’

‘I have a feeling that far too many women have already done that!’ she retorted.

He gave a rueful smile. ‘Perhaps.’

Annie sighed her frustration with his obvious intractability. What should she do for the best? Should she tell Luc about Oliver or not? Not to tell him now that she had met him again seemed cruel to both Oliver and Luc, but at the same time Annie feared what Luc might do once he knew he had a three-year-old son.

She sighed again. ‘OK, Luc, I’ll have dinner with you this evening—on two conditions,’ she added swiftly as she saw the triumphant glitter in the depths of those coal-black eyes. ‘One, that I be allowed to leave when I want to.’

‘And if you wish to leave as soon as you have arrived?’

‘I won’t.’ She doubted she would be allowed to leave if she decided to tell him about Oliver!

‘How can I be sure of that?’

‘I don’t lie, remember?’ she pointed out.

‘Very well, I agree to your first condition.’

She looked at him from under long lashes. ‘Two, we dine in the hotel restaurant and not your hotel suite.’

He smiled mockingly. ‘You are…nervous at the thought of being alone with me?’

Nervous didn’t even begin to describe Annie’s feelings of apprehension concerning spending more time with him. She was only agreeing to have dinner with him at all because she already knew this older and harder Luc well enough to realise this situation needed closure. One way or another.

Besides, if she should decide to tell Luc about Oliver during dinner this evening, then Annie knew that the whole of the Balfour family would rise up protectively at any attempt by Luc to take Oliver away from her.

‘Not in the least,’ she denied easily as she turned to pick up her towel and bag. ‘I merely believe in the safety of numbers.’

‘So you are nervous of being alone with me,’ Luc drawled.

‘No, I’m not.’ She flicked back her shoulder-length hair as she turned to meet his gaze unflinchingly. ‘I’m merely hoping that the fact there are other people around—as there are now—will prevent me from giving in to the temptation I have to slap that look of satisfaction off your arrogant face!’

Luc gave an appreciative grin at this fiery response. ‘I will very much look forward to seeing you again at eight o’clock this evening, Annie.’

‘Well, that makes one of us, I suppose!’ she said smartly before turning to stride determinedly up the beach back to the hotel.

Luc remained standing where he was for several minutes after Annie had disappeared inside the hotel, his eyes narrowed in thoughtful contemplation. He had known her before. Intimately. So very intimately. And she had known him just as intimately.

The resentment and anger he had sensed in her this morning now made complete sense. The apprehension he had read in her expression a few minutes ago, almost a look of fear, did not.

What could she possibly have to fear from him?

Could it be that, like Luc, she grew hot at the memory of that night they had spent together? That she became aroused at the thought of the intimacies they had shared? That no matter how she denied it, they might share those intimacies again?

Or could Annie’s wariness of him be for another reason entirely…?

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