And yet as she walked with Théo out of the private medical office in Aix-en-Provence later that day, her heartbeat quickened every time he brushed against her. She couldn’t stop looking at him out of the corner of her eye—at the shape of his body in the black T-shirt, snug over his shoulders and biceps, and the dark jeans that fit him far too well. As Théo bent to lift their recently purchased stroller down the stone steps to the crowded street, her gaze traveled over the hard, muscular curve of his backside and her mouth went dry.
Straightening, he looked at her with heavily lidded dark eyes, then gave her a slow-rising smile. “See something you like?”
With a horrified gasp, Carrie looked away sharply. Her cheeks burned as she pretended to be entranced by a nearby jeweler’s shop window. “I did, actually. There’s a…” She saw a huge diamond ring and her eyes briefly lost focus. “Holy cow, is that thing for real?”
He came closer, pushing the baby stroller, and paused to look down at the diamond ring. “Yes, I believe it is.”
Théo was so close she could feel the warmth of his body, and heat flashed through her that had nothing to do with the noontime sun. Their eyes met, and Carrie suddenly lost awareness of the throngs of people crowding past them, shopping in the charming outdoor market in the nearby square. His dark eyes burned through her, black as burning coals. Embers of heat caused memories to rush through her.
“I need you,” he’d whispered against her skin as his mouth worshipped every inch of her body in the Seattle hotel. “I never want to let you go.” But he had let her go. The instant she’d been foolish enough to love him, he’d ruthlessly dropped her.
She couldn’t be tempted by his charm again. She couldn’t.
Tilting his head toward the enormous diamond ring, he gave her a wicked grin. “Care for a souvenir?”
“No, thanks,” she said stiffly. She glanced down at the baby in the stroller. “One souvenir from you is enough.”
A torturous silence fell between them—a silence filled with memories and regrets. Finally Carrie could bear it no longer.
“So that’s it?” she said to break the silence. “That’s all we need to do?”
“Just the swab of saliva—yes. The lab computers will compare DNA and we’ll soon have the proof if I’m Henry’s father. Or not.”
His voice was easy, casual, not at all tortured. She looked at him incredulously. Didn’t he feel the same agony she felt, being so close? Hadn’t he been kept awake last night, as she had? She looked at his face. He looked fresh, rested, impossibly handsome.
Of course he did. Why should having her in his house have any effect on him whatsoever? To him, she was just one woman out of a hundred.
“I never stopped wanting you, Carrie…I have never forgotten how it felt to have you in my bed.”
He frowned at her. “Chérie, is something wrong?”
“A week here with you just feels so long,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I don’t know how I’ll bear it.” Turning away, she started to push the baby stroller forward through the square. “Carrie. Wait.”
She paused, looking back at him. He looked so handsome, taller and more broad-shouldered than any other man in the square. Any man in the world. Time stopped when she looked at him, as if all the people around them were blurs of a Mistral wind and he were the only solid rock, the earth itself.
“What?” she choked out.
Coming close to her, he gave her a smile that lit up his whole face, all the way to his seductive dark eyes. “You must be starving after only toast and jam for breakfast. It was the best I could manage with my housekeeper gone.”
“No, it was fine,” she stammered. “I loved your toast.”
Hearing herself, she bit her lip in chagrin. I loved your toast? She sounded like an idiot!
His smile widened. “Let me make it up to you with lunch at a good restaurant, cooked by a proper chef. The place I have in mind has three Michelin stars.”
Michelin? she thought blankly. Didn’t they make tires? “Fine. Good. Great.”
She sounded like a blithering idiot, even to her own ears. But what did she care what Théo thought about her? she asked herself fiercely. His opinion meant absolutely nothing to her!
But it was getting harder and harder to believe that. It was one thing to hate him at a distance of five thousand miles, something else entirely to maintain her hatred—or even indifference—when he was right in front of her. After a year of dreaming about him, every time she looked up into his cruelly handsome face she felt a shock. Every time she caught his speculative dark eyes on hers, every time she felt the warmth of his body brush against her own, it caused her to shake and melt somewhere deep inside.
“First we need to get some food,” he said, nodding down toward the bustling outdoor market in the square. “I’m going to make you dinner tonight, and the cupboard is completely bare.”
“What were you planning to do for dinner before?”
“I was going to fly you to Paris and seduce you on the plane, making love to you constantly.” Théo looked at her and held her gaze. Awareness sizzled through her before he said with a shrug, “But now that our plans have changed we will stay alone at the castle tonight. Lilley is home in Minnesota, visiting her family.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I will tell her to return at once.”
Carrie thought of Lilley, Théo’s distant cousin who worked as his housekeeper, being forced to return early. She put her hand over his on the phone. “No, don’t!”