She wasn’t wrong. Lily Duval’s thirst for the limelight made her impossible to ignore.
‘Since we’re being polite, how’s your father?’ she returned, her tone conversational, as if she’d bounced back from the passionate storm that had so nearly ravaged them.
But the wild pulse beating at her throat betrayed her. He prided himself on his control, and even he hadn’t brought his body to heel yet.
‘My father retired seven years ago. He and my mother live in Gstaad for most of the year now.’
His father was living with his guilt from sixteen years ago. Away from the shame he’d brought to his family and the chaos his actions had caused the company.
‘Do you see them often?’ she asked in a low, tentative voice.
He shrugged and answered despite the unsettling ache thinking about his parents brought. ‘I make a trip when my father insists on seeing me.’
‘When was the last time?’
The ache intensified. ‘Three weeks ago.’
As usual his mother had barely known who he was, stoked up by the drugs prescribed for her condition. When his father had tried to prompt her memory he’d only succeeded in agitating her further. The visit had gone downhill very fast and Bastien had left, ignoring his father’s pleas to stay.
‘I’m glad they’re still together,’ she ventured, a wary little smile teasing her lips. ‘Your father was nice to me.’
‘Oui, he’s always had a weakness for a pretty face.’
She flinched, and mingled regret and bitterness bit deep, finally eradicating the last of his unwanted desire. Whereas he’d have smothered the emotions before, this time he gave them space. He needed to remind himself why control over his emotions was imperative. Why the erratic feelings between Ana and him risked pulling away the rivets he’d fastened over his emotions.
Because even as an angelic eight-year-old Ana had charmed and entranced everyone around her—including his father. He remembered his father’s encouragement for Bastien to get to know sweet Ana—‘She’ll be your sister one day, you know.’
The last thing he’d felt towards her then was brotherly, because every time he’d looked at her he’d been reminded that he was witnessing his family’s destruction.
And the woman who sat next to him now, with her smooth legs crossed in the most alluring of ways, her eyelids lowered over chocolate-brown eyes as if keeping seductive secrets from a lover, engendered no brotherly feelings whatsoever inside him. A handful of minutes ago her body, warm and tempting, had surged against his, and her breath had come in passionate pants as she’d lost herself in her pleasure.
Mon Dieu, brotherly was the last thing he’d ever feel towards her.
He clenched his fingers against the urge to grab her chin again and make her look at him; to kiss her again and smother the bitterness of the past and the hunger of the present. He took a deep breath instead, reasserted control and reminded himself of one thing.
Regardless of their past, Ana Duval was as guilty as hell of the chaos now rippling through his life right now. She’d tested his control two months ago and she continued to test the edge of his resolve, reminding him of the vulnerability of emotion.
And that he would not forgive.
CHAPTER FOUR
ANA TOOK ONE last look at her image and brushed a hand over her dark grey suit jacket. Its precise, severe style suited her purpose. With her hair caught and pinned up out of the way, she projected a professional image—one that was far removed from the image the paparazzi had plastered all over the internet in the last twenty four hours.
Although the cost of the Armani skirt suit, chosen hurriedly from the hotel’s boutique last night, would put a serious dent in her finances, she’d had no choice. Facing Bastien’s board members wearing anything from her suitcase wasn’t an option.
A knock signalled the arrival of breakfast, although eating was the last thing she felt like doing.
Bastien’s taut silence after that incident in the car last night gave her little hope that he’d be any different today. He’d closed down, shutting her out as effectively as he’d done at fifteen.
On arrival at their luxurious hotel he’d left her outside her suite with an order to be ready at nine. But sleep had been elusive, and her long, restless night had been spent reliving that kiss and how she would survive the next three weeks in the emotional cauldron that was being around Bastien.
Another knock fractured her thoughts. She let the waiter in and he wheeled a trolley underneath the window facing a picturesque view of Lake Geneva.
In the early-morning light the Alps and Mont Blanc rose majestically in the distance, the rolling range curving almost protectively around the city. She’d travelled to other parts of Switzerland on photo shoots but had never visited its best-known city.
Ana sat down at the table...forced herself to eat two pieces of buttered toast and a mouthful of scrambled eggs. It was just as she lifted the glass of orange juice that she spotted it.
A newspaper was tucked underneath the napkin, and on its front page was her picture. Only it wasn’t just her picture. The photo showed her in Bastien’s arms, emerging from the court yesterday. Showed the way she’d clung to him like a limpet, her eyes closed and her face buried in his neck as if...as if he was her protector.