She fitted in perfectly here. What doubts he might have had had been dispelled the moment he’d helped her into the launch waiting for them at the marina after their flight from Paris had landed at Nice.
‘Where are we going?’ she’d asked, eyes wide.
‘I have a villa,’ he’d told her. ‘But it is not on the mainland. Have you heard of the Îles de Lérins?’
She’d shaken her head.
‘They are a short distance from the coast, near Cannes. In the high season the two main ones, the Île St Honorat and the Île Ste Marguerite, are popular for daytrippers, but this early in the year less so. Besides, my villa is on the smallest of the islands, Île Ste Marie—barely more than an islet.’ He’d smiled down into her eyes. ‘I hope you will like it.’
She had loved it.
As she had exclaimed with pleasure at the simple stone-built villa, hidden beneath fragrant pine trees on a secluded promontory of the tiny island, facing the setting sun, Xavier had felt a last knot inside him dissolve. He had bought this place on impulse, several years ago. He already owned an apartment in Monte Carlo, but that was for entertaining only—for occasions when he had to be on show as the head of XeL, at fashionable events such as the Monaco Grand Prix. This small villa could not have been more of a contrast from the modern, opulent duplex in Monte Carlo, with its panoramic views over the harbour. Though he seldom had time to come here, whenever he did he always wished he could stay longer. Though only ten minutes by fast launch from the mainland, it was a world away on these unspoilt, rural islands.
He did not bring his amours here.
For a moment he tried to imagine Madeline de Cerasse here, or any of the similar women he’d had affairs with, and failed completely. They would have been completely out of place, pestering him to take them back to his Monte Carlo apartment, disliking being stuck here, away from the fashionable restaurants and nightspots where they could socialise and dress up to the nines.
But Lissa—
He lifted his head from the tedium of market analysis by sector and geographical location, and let his eyes rest with pleasure on her. She was clambering over the rocks of the little cove the villa overlooked, as lithe as a gazelle, and with her hair caught up in a ponytail and wearing shorts and a T-shirt, as youthful looking as a schoolgirl.
He watched her gain the land again and set off towards him.
Xavier’s eyes fixed on her. Even in such simple clothes she looked breathtaking, young, fit and natural.
That word again. It came to him over and over again whenever he looked at her or thought about her. She put nothing on for him—no arts, no lures, no coquetterie. She took enjoyment in what he offered her, and … enjoyed it. Enjoyed him. Enjoyed everything of their time together.
As did he her.
Had he ever been this relaxed with a woman? Or this content—just to sit watching her, being with her?
It was a strange thought, and not one that he had had before.
She came up to him, perching herself on a corner of the table that stood on the terrace, at which they generally ate breakfast and lunch. As it always did when she set eyes on Xavier, Lissa’s heart squeezed. She had thought him devastating in business clothes—or none at all, she blushed mentally—but in casual clothes such as the chinos he was wearing now, with a polo shirt stretched across his lean torso, his hair slightly ruffled, he looked even more devastating, lounging back on the padded chair with a lithe grace that made her breath catch.
Was she really, truly here with Xavier? Or was it some fantasy she was imagining real? Yet the glow of her body as she looked at him told her that it was real. Every day—and every night. Real and rapturous.
And it was a rapture that just seemed to get more and more blissful. Every time, it seemed to her, dazed and amazed, was better than the last. In Xavier’s arms she had discovered a sensuality that she had never known she possessed. Although he was clearly so very much more skilled in the exquisite art of lovemaking than she was, she never felt inadequate or inexperienced—never felt that she could not give the same pleasure as he gave her in such breathtaking abundance. And that, she recognised, was the greatest skill of all—to make her feel that she was as beautiful, as sensual, as desirable as she knew he would want a woman to be. She glowed in his arms, and came alive in a way she had never known before.
And it was not just when she was in his arms that he made her feel beautiful and desirable. With every look, she read it in his eyes. And it sent a thrill through her that she treasured.
And a glow that warmed her. Warmed her deep into the core of her being. Just being here, with him. With Xavier.
Yet it troubled her, that warmth she felt. Into her head, words darted a warning: be careful.
She did not—would not—put into words or even thoughts what it was she was warning herself about, but she knew, with some inner instinctive sense of danger, that she must heed that warning.
The blind fate that had taken so much from her in a handful of moments on that terrible day of twisted metal had all but destroyed everything she had once thought would be there for ever. In the same unfathomable way, it had given her this radiantly happy time now. Xavier Lauran had walked into her life—she knew not why, only that fate had made it happen, had given her this gift. For that was what he was to her, she knew. A gift.
Coming from nowhere and, she knew, with clear, non-decieving eyes, going to nowhere.
There was no future with Xavier. There could not be. He was like a glass of the finest vintage champagne, handed to her by the whim of that same fate that had taken so much from her. She would drink the champagne that was her time with Xavier to the full. She would let him go to her head like champagne.
But she would be wise, and never let him go to her heart.
And now, with the bubbles beading at the brim, she gazed smilingly across at him from her perch on the table. She was at ease with him—had been at ease for all their time together. What had they done, day after day? Their nights had been spent in each other’s arms, full of passion and desire that melted the bones in her body, that took her to ecstasy and beyond. Their days had been spent easily, drifting, slipping away one by one. The deep exhaustion that had been a constant part of her life for so long had finally drained out of her in the lazy, lotus-eating days they’d passed here. There was no work to be done in the little villa—a local couple took care of housekeeping and meals and what little gardening there was to attend to on the private grounds.
What did they do each day? She tried to think. They breakfasted late—for sleep came late after lovemaking, and had a tendency to be interrupted by yet more in the night, and their levée was languorous and sensual and protracted. They lingered over breakfast, feasting on fragrant coffee and fresh croissants, with the aroma mingling with the tangy scent of the pine trees and the sun shafting between their trunks, glittering on the azure sea beyond. They would read, and sun themselves, and take a walk through the pine woods or along the sea’s edge. Though it was too cold to swim, the shoreline was beautiful and deserted. There was a motorboat drawn up in the cove, a little one, with an outboard motor, and Xavier had taken her out in it, pottering around the islands, crossing over to the larger, more populated ones. She had loved the Île St Honorat, with its working monastery and old medieval fortifications, and even the twin Île of Ste Marguerite, though its natural beauty had been dimmed by the sad tale of the Man in the Iron Mask, who had been so mysteriously incarcerated in the now-ruined fortress there in the seventeenth century. But both islands had been peaceful and beautiful, with wooded walks and secret beaches.