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
TABBY 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.
‘This is how it should have been the first night…I should have waited,’ Christien conceded. ‘But I couldn’t keep my hands off you—’
‘Let’s not talk about stuff like that.’ Tabby was getting short of breath just looking across the table at his lean dark features and the aura of sexy confidence he exuded.
‘I want to marry you,’ Christien said harshly. ‘I really do want to marry you.’
‘But I don’t want it to be just because of Jake or…’ But she bit back the word ‘sex’ for suddenly she could see how unfair she was being. He didn’t love her, but she was pushing as if she thought pressure might somehow change that and, of course, it wouldn’t. If lust and his son were all she had to hold him, maybe she was just going to have to come down to earth and get used to that reality.
She scarcely knew what she ate at that meal. She saw other women glancing at him, admiring that hard bronzed profile, the grace of the lean hands he used to express himself while he talked. An intensity of love that was almost terrifying filled her.
‘Shall we go to a club?’ he asked over coffee.
‘Not in the mood.’ She didn’t trust herself to look at him in the cab. She wanted him. She wanted him so badly it hurt to say no to herself. He followed her into Jake’s room. From the floor he retrieved the worn white stuffed lamb that Jake had slept with since he was a baby. He slotted it in beside their son and straightened his bedding.
‘Bon Dieu…I can’t believe he’s ours,’ Christien confided huskily. ‘When I think about him or look at him I have that same sense of wonder I used to have as a child at Noël…at Christmas.’
Her eyes prickled. ‘Thank goodness…I thought it was only me who could get soppy about him.’
In the corridor, Christien paused, lean, powerful face taut. ‘If I had known you were carrying my baby, I would have been there for you,’ he asserted in a driven undertone. ‘But that day at the accident enquiry, I didn’t trust myself to be alone with you—’
‘But why?’ she whispered, breaking into that emotive flood.
‘I was angry as hell. I believed that you’d two-timed me with the biker. I’d let that conviction destroy even the good memories I had of you,’ he admitted grimly. ‘I was still very bitter. I didn’t want you to know what I was feeling.’
He had freed her from the fear that he had rejected her that day because she was Gerry Burnside’s daughter. She knew how strong his pride was, but he had told her more than he probably realised. All those months later, he had still been furious and bitter over her supposed betrayal. The longevity of those emotions suggested to her that she had meant something rather more to Christien Laroche than a casual summer lover.
‘But I can see that you thought I was cruel. That was never my intention. I didn’t appreciate that I had the power to hurt you that day,’ Christien completed.
She stretched up on tiptoes, linked her arms round his neck and raised shining eyes to his. ‘I know. Thank you for my gorgeous ring.’
With infuriating control, Christien set her back from him again. ‘We have an early start tomorrow.’
It was a warm night and she wasn’t in the mood to go to bed. Earlier in the evening, Christien had given her a tour of the apartment and there was a pool in the basement. She descended the stairs and used the atmospheric lighting to illuminate the glorious pool shaped like a lake. Never had she seen a stretch of water look quite so enticing.