‘Not in this instance. The specialist concerned is a family friend.’
Her face flamed with embarrassment. They called in at the cottage so that she could pack, for he had suggested they stay the night in the city. Zipping shut the bag, suppressing a groan at the noisy sound of Jake spilling his Lego bricks over the tiled floor, she turned round to see Christien watching her from the bedroom doorway. He looked incredibly tall and dark and lethally attractive. Her mouth ran dry, tummy muscles tightening.
/> ‘You’re never going to live here,’ he commented.
Tabby tried to shrug as though she didn’t care either way.
‘I always play to win…’ he murmured silkily.
Her lashes lowered over her eyes as she evaded the stunning directness of his gaze. A ripple of awareness ran down her spine in the heavy silence. The sexual buzz in the atmosphere was intense and her heart was thumping like mad. She drew in a quivering breath. Her nipples were pushing in stiff little points against the lace of her bra cup and a wave of hot pink washed her face.
She watched his brilliant eyes darken and shimmer. He extended a lean brown hand and she grasped it, let him tug her forward.
‘We shouldn’t,’ she said shakily.
‘What’s a kiss, ma belle?’
Downstairs she could hear Jake making ‘vroom-vroom’ sounds while he played with his cars. Christien leant down. His breath warmed her cheek. She was so excited she stopped breathing. Without laying a hand on her, he tasted her lips, suckled them, savoured the eagerness with which she opened the moist interior to him. She strained up to him, electrified by the penetrating sweep of his tongue, the greedy ache stirring between her thighs in response.
‘Christien…’ she whimpered shakily.
‘Stop acting like a hussy…this is our first date-’
‘A first date?’ Tabby parroted.
Crhistien frowned. ‘You asked me for what you called a normal relationship-’
Tabby was nonplussed. ‘I did?’
‘A request which was in effect a direct challenge for me to redo what I seem to have got very wrong the first time around four years back-’
‘It…it was?’
Christien laughed. ‘So you had better learn how to say no…loud and clear. It takes two to play this game and I need all the help I can get.’
Bemused chagrin warming her face, she dropped the heavy bag at his feet and preceded him downstairs. Her body felt heavy on the outside and tight and achy on the inside. In her mind separate beds had already fallen in stature from being a common-sense precaution to being a rather naive and narrow-minded embargo. It was slowly dawning on her that on that score she had no right to feel superior to him: she might love him but, when it came to the lust factor, she was as guilty as he was.
CHAPTER NINE
T ABBY and Christien went to Paris with the nursemaid, Fanchon, in tow. The specialist, an expert in the field of childhood asthma, gave Jake a brief examination and booked him in for tests the following day.
Christien owned a seventeenth century town house on Ile St-Louis. It had an incredible location on a picturesque tree-lined quay overlooking the Seine. Admitting that he had several calls to return, he left her to dress for dinner in a guest room. She put on a slender white dress with a plaited brown leather belt that hung low on her hips, and when she tucked their son into bed he wished her goodnight in careful French.
Sleek and handsome in a designer suit, Christien came forward to greet her when she walked into the imposing drawing room. A portly older man stood smiling beside the trays of glorious rings spread out in front of the windows to catch the best light.
Christien curved a light arm to her spine. ‘I want you to choose your engagement ring.’
‘Wow…you’re being so conventional,’ she mumbled to cover her delight and surprise with a little cool.
‘Maybe it’s too conventional…If you prefer we can scrap the ring idea,’ Christien countered very seriously.
‘Don’t be daft…I was only teasing.’ Having registered that facetious comments could get her into trouble, she hastened over to the rings and fell madly in love with a diamond in a wonderful art deco setting.
‘Take your time,’ Christien censured, distrusting impulses.
‘No, this is it…this is the one,’ she insisted. ‘It’s my favourite era.’
He took her to an exclusive restaurant for dinner.