When the final merrymaker departed, Christien closed a hand over hers and urged her into the library. She snatched her fingers free of his, folded her arms and finally threw her head high to stare back at him. ‘I can’t marry you now…’
He lost colour, lean, darkly handsome features setting hard. ‘I would have told you about the engagement after the wedding. It wasn’t important but I knew that you would regard it in a different light—’
‘Your engagement to another woman wasn’t important? Wasn’t the least you owed her fidelity? And didn’t I deserve honesty? Do you think I’d have had anything to do with you if I’d known you belonged to someone else—?’
‘Belong? What am I? A trophy?’ Christien made a sudden angry slashing movement with one brown hand, his frustration unconcealed. ‘Last year, Veronique and I talked about how we had got into the habit of using each other as partners on certain social occasions. We were friends and it worked well. We discussed marriage from a practical point of view. I needed a hostess and she valued high social status and a husband who would not interfere in her career, for she is ambitious. We decided that we could have a successful marriage without the emotional entanglements that so often lead to disillusionment—’
‘It sounds like one very creepy arrangement to me,’ Tabby sniped.
‘Fidelity was not required from me. It was not part of our agreement.’ Glittering golden eyes sought and held hers, willing her to listen and understand. ‘I tell you that only because I don’t want you feeling guilty about what happened between us—’
‘Veronique told you that you could sleep around?’ Tabby gave him an aghast appraisal. ‘And you accepted that? That’s disgraceful!’
‘Not in her opinion. Veronique does not attach importance to such matters.’
‘Well, it’s just as well that I’m not marrying you, because if you played away on me, I’d make your life hell!’ Tabby launched fiercely. ‘In fact hell would feel like a four-star paradise by the time I’d finished with you!’
It threw her off balance when Christien seemed to almost smile at that threatening declaration. ‘I know,’ he acknowledged. ‘But tell the average single male that he can have a beautiful, accomplished wife and do as he likes behind closed doors with other women and he’ll go for it…until he finds that there’s something better—’
‘Well, I think it’s disgusting!’ Tabby spun away.
‘But I’m with you now—’
Tabby vented a humourless laugh. He was only with her because all Veronique’s beauty and accomplishments had proved to be worthless in the face of a three-year-old son in his own handsome image. If Jake had not existed and Tabby had been willing to settle for being a kept woman in that opulent house in the Loire valley, Christien would have stayed engaged to Veronique and he would eventually have married her. She could not forgive him for that. She just could not forgive him for choosing to marry her solely for the benefit of their son. After all, she was not his friend, who inspired his respect and admiration as the brunette did!
There was nothing Christien would not do for Jake. She had seen his relief when the consultant had told them that Jake’s asthma was unlikely to get worse and that he looked set to outgrow it. Christien adored his son. He didn’t say it, didn’t need to say it, just lit up with tender pride and protectiveness around Jake and got down on his knees to play with toy cars as if it were the most fun he had ever had. Her wretched eyes misted over. No, she could not fault him for loving Jake. That would be unfair. But she had a right to her own self-esteem and it was being battered into the ground by the cruel confirmation that the only true interest the guy she loved had in her was her wanton talent for meeting his every passionate demand in bed.
‘I’m really sorry that you’ve been upset by this,’ Christien breathed grittily. ‘But it doesn’t touch us. Can’t you see that? I wasn’t in love with Veronique and she wasn’t in love with me either. I offended her pride by rejecting her. But you and I…we have so much more—’
Her throat ached. ‘Yeah…great sex.’
‘Zut alors…don’t talk like that, don’t try to talk down what we have.’
‘I’ve never forgotten the way you dumped me four years ago,’ she confided tightly. ‘You didn’t even have the grace to tell me. You let me come up to your family’s villa chasing after you—’
His black brows pleated. ‘When…when was that?’
‘The day I flew back home with my stepmother, Lisa. Veronique met me at the door. I had to face the humiliation of your very good friend telling me I’d been ditched and that you were going to have to change your mobile phone number to shake me off!’
Christien took a hasty step forward and reached for both her hands. ‘Veronique had no right. She went behind my back. I never discussed you with her, nor would I have allowed her to speak to you in such a way. But at the time I did believe that you were seeing another guy,’ he reminded her. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to come to the villa—’
‘I don’t care. You hurt me then…and tonight you hurt and humiliated me again and I can’t forgive you…won’t forgive you!’ Tabby’s aching eyes were wide to ensure the gathering tears stayed out of sight and she didn’t trust herself to listen to his arguments in his own defence. He was downright gorgeous and she loved him, but just then she hated him too. Trailing her fingers free, she yanked the ring off her finger before she could lose her nerve and set it down on the console table beside her.
‘No…’ Christien grated.
Tabby fled upstairs. She wouldn’t let herself cry. She took a nightdress from her bedroom and stole across the corridor to Jake’s room where she knew she would not be disturbed. Distressed as she was, she was asleep within minutes of climbing into the twin bed next to her son’s. Around dawn she wakened and went for a shower to freshen up. Her head was sore. Too much champagne, just as Christien had said. The night before, she had been all drama and brave defiance. Now in the cold light of day she was trying to imagine what it would do to Jake if the promised wedding failed to take place. He was so excited. And it was not as if Christien were in love with Veronique. But what would it do to her to love Christien without return for years on end? It would humble her, damage her confidence.
The second time she wakened, she was back in her own bed and she sat up in bewilderment. His back turned to her, Christien was lodged by the windows, the curtains partially opened to let the sunlight flood into the elegant room.
‘I moved you in here because we have to talk,’ he breathed harshly.
‘No…I don’t know what to say to you—’
Christien swung round. The lines of strain grooved between his nose and mouth were matched by the brooding darkness of his gaze. ‘I should have asked you just to listen. I’ll do the talking.’
Tabby looped a straying strand of hair off her brow in an effort to hide that she was still reeling from the way events had overtaken them the night before.
‘That day four years back, when you tried to see me at the villa and Veronique spoke to you instead, I was probably drunk. After I’d dealt with the formalities of my father’s death and my mother shut herself away here demanding to be left alone, I spent the rest of that hideous week drunk.’