A little shiver of awareness crept down her spine. He was close to her again, sitting on the side of the tub, his eyes on her. She could feel the way he stared at her. Just knowing his gaze was on her made her body come to life all over again, when it hadn’t had time to settle. His hand spanned her throat, making her jump, and then his finger traced a line from her throat over the swell of her right breast to her nipple hiding beneath the water.
Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes flew open. He wasn’t looking at her face to judge her reaction, but at her body. In spite of the heat, goose bumps rose on her skin. The burning between her legs increased. Her nipple tightened when he tugged and then flicked at the sensitive bud. His actions seemed casual, almost idle, yet he didn’t look away from her breast.
“I’m not a man who forgives easily, Brielle.”
Her heart jerked hard in her chest. She wanted to draw her legs up to her chest and make herself very small. He’d spent years trying to apologize to her and now he was fully aware she’d gone to Jean-Claude’s to tell him she wasn’t going to marry Elie. In fact, she was going to do her best to persuade the Archambaults to allow Fayette to take her place. Elie had no idea how just the thought of Fayette with Elie destroyed her, but she still had gone there with that intention. She couldn’t blame Elie for holding a grudge against her. He’d admitted to Stefano he was angry with her.
Brielle pressed her lips together, aware, as the silence stretched between them, that Elie expected some sort of reaction from her. “From the things you said to Stefano about your relationship with the Archambaults, I did get that.”
“I have no wish to ever work as an Archambault rider again. I don’t want our children to ride the shadows as Archambaults. I want them to grow up as Ferraros, in that family, knowing love and feeling it. I expect the two of us to raise them together and teach them what they need to know ourselves. I appreciate that you trained as a rider and that you’re as good as you are because you can pass that to our children, but if you have hopes that they will ride as Archambaults, they will not.”
His voice was lower than ever. At no time did he look up at her. Instead, he traced the underside of her breast and then moved to her left one, seemingly fascinated by the rounded curves as they floated just beneath the surface.
“Elie, I didn’t expect to marry you so that was never a thought,” she assured him. It took effort not to squirm away from his touch and to keep her breath from catching in her lungs.
“While I might have respect for the Archambaults as riders, I don’t for the way they treat their children. Saying that, Brielle, I have a thousand times more respect for them than I do your parents or sister for what they put you through and I don’t know the half of it . . . yet. You will tell me. I insist on it. You won’t leave anything out. They lied to you about practically everything important your entire life. That is not to be forgiven. Not by me. At some point, your father may decide because you married me, that he is entitled to money or something else from you. He is not. Neither is your sister. They disowned you. That will stand.”
For the first time, his gaze lifted to meet hers. The impact was so intense, she felt it straight through her body like an arrow. Elie was the most compelling man she’d ever met. She couldn’t look away from his dark eyes. Shadows from the two large flickering candles fell across his face, giving him the appearance of mystery.
“Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“I mean what I say. This is one thing we are not going to argue over. You will not go behind my back or there will be severe repercussions. I have no sympathy for a man who would choose one child over another to the point he would lie and deliberately neglect her the way he did you. As for your sister, she is so jealous of you, she is unstable. I will take no chances with your safety.”
No one had ever stuck up for her and she wasn’t exactly sure what to say or do. She wasn’t even sure if she believed him. His speech was the last thing she’d expected of him.
He held her gaze until she felt as if he could see inside her. She had too many secrets, and in the end, she took the coward’s way out and let her lashes fall.
“Fayette never held a job in her life. You began working when you were very young. Why?”
“I liked working.” Working got her out of the house. There was always more work at home. Her parents had let their staff go in order to use the money to pay for all the things they needed for Fayette. Her clothes, her car, her endless classes to shape her into the perfect wife for an Archambault. She couldn’t be expected to do household chores.
“That is not answering the question.” His hand spanned her throat again, very lightly, so her heart beat into his palm. “I can hear lies, ma petite mariée,” he reminded when she hesitated.
She opened her eyes to glare at him. “I have no intention of lying to you. I was considering whether or not I wanted to answer because it’s personal.”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. Instead, it made him look like a great jungle cat about to pounce on her. “Our agreement was to tell the other what was asked of us. We both thought communication was extremely important in arrangements such as ours.”
She had an unexpected urge to splash water all over his incredibly handsome face. “I did my part to pay the bills at home. There were endless bills. Fayette’s training to become the wife of an Archambault wasn’t cheap. We all sacrificed in order to give her that opportunity. We had no one to cook or clean.”
“Other than you,” he corrected.
She shrugged. “That’s true, I did both, but I like to cook. Then my mother got sick. She needed treatment, therapy and medicine. My father quit work to take her to the doctor and hospital and be with her. That meant I had to work more to cover the bills for Fayette.”
“What did Fayette do to help? Did she care for your mother?”
“Sick people make Fayette ill,” Brielle said.
“I see. So, she continued to be a drain on the family’s income even though your mother was seriously ill and your father quit work.”
“Elie, she was going to marry an Archambault. Your family members are extremely wealthy and would provide for my parents later in their lives. She was an investment for them. That’s how they looked at it.”
“Did you believe she would look after your parents if she married an Archambault?”
No one had ever asked her that. She’d considered that question on several occasions. Her sister hadn’t helped with her mother at all, not even when it became evident that their mother wasn’t going to live very long. That had alarmed Brielle. She had decided she would have to find a way to take care of her father in his old age if Fayette refused.
“Brielle?” Elie prompted.