Tempestuous Reunion

How dared he suggest that she had somehow chosen to return to a period of the past when they had still been together? That night in Drew’s apartment, Luc had trapped her between two impossible choices. Either she sacrificed Drew or Daniel. With every fibre of her being she would have fought to keep Daniel from Luc.

But Drew also had a strong hold on her loyalty, both in his own right and in his sister’s right as well. She owed Harriet a debt she could never repay for helping her when she had hit rock-bottom. How could she have chosen between Daniel and Drew? Faced with the final prospect of telling Luc that he had a son, she had shut her mind down on Daniel to protect him.

Luc poisoned all that he touched. And if he was prepared to marry her simply to ensure her continuing presence in his bed, why shouldn’t he accept Daniel as well? Luc, she sensed fearfully, would want his son. Five years ago, Daniel would have been a badly timed, unwelcome complication. Luc had not over-valued her precise importance to him. She was convinced that he would have expected her to have an abortion. But times had changed…

Daniel was innocent and vulnerable, a little boy with a lion-sized intellect often too big for him to handle. Once Luc had been a little boy like that…and look how he had turned out. Hard as diamonds. Cold, calculating and callous. Did she want to risk that happening to Daniel? Daniel already had too many of Luc’s traits. They had been doled out to him in his genes at birth.

He was strong-willed, single-minded and, if left to his own devices unchecked, exceedingly self-centred. Catherine had spent four and a half years endeavouring to ensure that Daniel grew up as a well-rounded, normal child rather than a remote, hot-house-educated little statistician, divorced by his mental superiority from childish things.

She hated Luc, oh, God, how she hated him! Enshrouded in lonely isolation, she clung ferociously to the hatred that was her only strength. She squashed the sneaking suspicion that Luc was not as callous and cold as she had once believed he was, tuned out the little voice that weakly dared to hint that Luc might have changed. Anger and self-loathing warred for precedence inside her as she cried.

So what if she had to go through the wedding first? As soon as they landed in London, she would leave him. She had done it before; she would to it again, and this time she wouldn’t be so dumb. She would take her jewellery with her and sell it. With the aid of that money, she could make a new life for herself and Daniel. She would do it for Daniel’s sake.

Misery crept over her with blanket efficiency. It hadn’t been real; none of it had been real. She had been living out a fantasy. The background had been so cruelly perfect. A castle for the little girl who had once dreamt about being a princess. A white wedding for the teenager who had once believed in living happily ever after. But, for the woman she was now, there was nothing, less than nothing. And wasn’t that her own fault? A grown woman ought to have been able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality.

A certain je ne sais quoi, he had called it. A certain three-letter word would have been less impressive but more accurate. Sex. Luc’s fatal flaw and probably his only weakness. A certain je ne sais quoi, unsought and on many occasions since unwelcome, he had admitted. And you really couldn’t blame him for feeling like that, could you? It must be galling to acquire that much wealth and power and discover that you still lusted after a very ordinary little blonde with none of the attributes necessary to embellish your image.

‘Catherine? Are you OK?’ Luc demanded, startling her.

‘You b-bloody snob!’ she flared on the back of another sob.

Silence stretched.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he blazed from the other side of the door. ‘If you don’t come out of there, I’ll smash the lock!’

‘Force is your answer to everything, isn’t it?’ Abruptly galvanised into action by the mortifying awareness that he had been listening to her crying, she stood up, stripped off, and walked into the shower, hoping the sound of it would make him go away.

Sex, she thought, loathing him. The lowest possible common denominator. And, after a five-year drought, her value had mushroomed. In fact it had smashed all known stock-market records. In return for unlimited sex, Luc was graciously ready to lower his high standards and marry her. Well, bully for him, and wasn’t she a lucky girl?

Little wonder he didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He was sensationally attractive, super-rich and oversexed. Nine out of ten women would contrive to live with his flaws. Unfortunate that she was the tenth. Unfortunate for him, that was!

He might get a bride, but he wasn’t getting a wife. He would live to regret forcing her to go through with the wedding. When she took off within hours of it, the public embarrassment would be colossal. Then she could stamp the long-overdue account ‘paid in full’. Getting mad got her nowhere; getting even would restore her self-respect. Luc might have set her up, but he had set himself up as well.

Pay-back time was here. She would go down in history as the woman of principle who had rejected one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. It was perfect, she decided, the old adrenalin flowing again. Shame she wouldn’t be able to stay around to take advantage of the publicity. She could see the headlines. Why I couldn’t live with Luc Santini.

Tying a towelling robe round her, she abandoned the entrancing imagery with regret and padded back to the bedroom, a woman with a mission now, a woman set on revenge and nobody’s victim.

* * *

A cork exploded from a bottle like a pistol shot. His dark head thrown back as he let the excess champagne foam down into his mouth, Luc was a blaze of stunning black and gold animal vibrancy in the strong sunlight. He straightened and poured the mellow golden liquid expertly into a pair of glasses, white teeth flashing against brown skin as a brilliant smile curved his mouth. ‘Force is not my answer to everything.’ Magnificent lion-gold eyes skimmed over her. ‘You look like a lobster. You’ve been in there so long, you must have used up all the hot water in the castle.’

She hadn’t expected him to still be waiting for her. The filthy look she gave him ought to have withered him. Naturally it didn’t. It drifted impotently off him like a feather trying to beat up a rock. Crossing the carpet with feline grace, he pressed a glass into her hand. ‘You’re not in love with Huntingdon,’ he drawled. ‘If you were, you would have slept with him.’

Just looking at him drained her. Her nerves were suddenly in shreds again. Her hands weren’t steady. It was an unequal contest. She wasn’t ready for another confrontation and he knew it, conniving and ruthless swine that he was! She marvelled at his arrogance in believing that he could bring her back to heel within the next twenty-four hours. That was, of course, what he was banking on.

‘You wouldn’t understand a man like Drew if you lived to be a thousand.’ Her cheeks had gone all hot, and she tossed back the champagne in the hope of cooling down her temperature.

‘He attracts you because he’s a loser. You feel sorry for him.’

Her teeth gritted. ‘Drew is not a loser.’

‘He’s run a healthy family firm off its feet with a series of bad business decisions,’ Luc traded succ

inctly.

‘And any day of the week, he’s still a finer man than you’ll ever be!’ she launched shakily.

The superb bone-structure hardened. ‘You’re in a privileged position, cara. I would allow no one else to say that to me with impunity.’