Summer Sins: Bedded, or Wedded? / Willingly Bedded, Forcibly Wedded / The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain

So it was well worth breaking his neck all day, driving his PA and directors as if the devil were chasing them, in his attempt to clear his desk of all essential tasks. Some were impossible to complete, and those he could not postpone he undertook to do remotely. A couple of hours a day on the laptop, in communication with his office, would be the maximum he would commit to.

Besides, he argued to himself, when had he last taken a holiday? He gave an ironic grimace—the French took more holidays than most other nationalities, and his staff, like all sensible people, made the most of them, but he, running the whole company, seldom took time off.

Well, now he would. Now, with the woman he had thought never to have beside him, he would for once play hooky.

Even as he formed the thought, another plucked at his mind.

What about Armand? Should he not contact him? Find out how it was that he and Lissa had parted?

He blocked it out. It didn’t matter what had happened between them—all that mattered was that Lissa was not bound to his brother anymore, and was free to come away with him instead. After all, hadn’t Armand asked him not to interfere in his affairs of the heart? And hadn’t he learned—almost at a cost that chilled him to contemplate—that it would have been wiser by far to have done just that? Instead he had blundered in, intent on doing his best for his brother, guarding him from making a mistake that would cost him dear. No, this time around he would do nothing. Armand’s life was his own—whatever had happened between him and Lissa was not his concern. All that was his concern was that the woman he had so catastrophically desired when she was his brother’s intended wife had now, wonderfully, been set free for him to claim.

Had Lissa been in love with Armand? No, that was impossible. There was not the slightest vestige of a broken heart, or any such thing. If he had not known what Armand had been to her, he might never have guessed at the recent presence in her life of any other man.

For a brief moment a flicker of, not unease, but perhaps uncertainty glimmered in his mind. He blocked it out. Appearances had been deceptive when it came to Lissa—none knew that better than he. His first sight of her had made him think her a cheap putain. How wrong he had been. It had been a mask, that cheap, tacky appearance—a costume necessary for her job. And though he naturally would have preferred that she had never worked at the casino, that was all over now anyway. Besides, she had been prepared to lose her job rather than compromise herself morally. So that, again, was another mark in her favour.

And she had turned him down because of her commitment to Armand.

That was what had convinced him about her. She had resisted him because of her brother.

Memory flickered in his mind again.

Someone very important to me …

That was how Lissa had described Armand to him—not knowing that she was talking about his own brother.

Was Armand still important to her?

No—he could not be. Certainly not emotionally—he had established that already, and her very presence in his bed confirmed it. Financially, then? Perhaps—he had to consider the possibility. Seeing inside the grim place she lived had brought home even more forcibly just how impoverished her life was. He could understand Armand, with his wealth and social position, being a temptation to her. And while—as was obvious—she had not loved Armand as a wife should love her husband, still that did not mean she had not held him in regard. Certainly enough to turn down another man. Even when she had responded to his desire for her she had still said no.

Besides, Armand’s e-mail had said he hadn’t yet proposed to her. She might not even have realised he was in love with her, wanted to marry her—yet she had still turned him down that night because of Armand’s presence in her life.

Whatever had changed Armand’s mind about her—or even hers about him—there was only one thing of importance now. Whatever Armand might have wanted—might still want—it was too late.

She is with me—that is all I care about. She is free to come to me. I have claimed her, and she is mine.

He would think no more than that.

‘Xavier, no! I can’t accept—I really can’t.’

For answer he waved an impatient hand. ‘I insist,’ he said.

Her mouth looked mutinous for a moment. ‘I won’t let you buy me clothes.’

Xavier took her hands in the middle of the formidably chic salon of one of the top French couture houses, where he had taken her after breakfast the morning they were due to leave Paris.

‘Do it for me, cherie. To keep me happy. I want to see your beauty set off to perfection.’

She bit her lip. ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘It isn’t right.’

He gave a Gallic shrug. ‘Then why not regard them as a loan—nothing more—as you did the dress at the hotel?’

She frowned a moment. ‘What did you do with it, anyway? That dress?’

He shrugged again. ‘I believe I gave it to the maid. She was very grateful.’

Lissa’s eyes widened. ‘That was very generous—it cost a fortune. But not—’ she grimaced, looking about her in this bastion of high fashion ‘—as much as anything here will cost.’ She looked at him straight. ‘Xavier, it’s not just that I can’t accept you buying clothes for me, but it’s because I don’t want you spending your salary like this. I’m not sure how senior you are at XeL, but even so—’

There was the very slightest cough from the stick-thin, scarily chic vendeuse, hovering at a discreet distance. At least, it might have been a cough, or possibly more like a smothered choke. It certainly drew a forbidding glance from Xavier. Then he looked back at Lissa.

‘Let’s just say I buy clothes here at cost.’ He paused minutely. ‘XeL has a cross-holding with this particular design house which allows that. I get a discount.’

Lissa looked at him suspiciously. ‘How much of a discount?’

‘A substantial one,’ he answered smoothly.

It seemed to do the trick, and she gave in, contenting herself with merely stipulating that she would let him buy her—loan her—no more than three garments. As she selected them and went to try them on Xavier pondered whether to tell her that not only was XeL a co-owner of this couturier, but that his salary was that of chief executive and majority shareholder.

He decided against it. She had shown little interest in his work, or XeL—her initial description of XeL as a posh luggage company still rankled slightly—and so far as he was concerned that was all to the good. But he still wanted to see her in decent clothes.

Even though they would be for his eyes only. Where he was taking her would not be in the public eye.

Was it deliberate? Keeping her away from the world he moved in? It could well be, he acknowledged. Was it the last streak of caution or suspicion in his ultra-rational French soul? Not letting her see just how glittering his lifestyle could be? Or was it that he wanted her attention exclusively on himself—and his on her? That was more plausible.

Or was it even, he mused, that Lissa Stephens did not seem to be a woman impressed by displays of wealth? She really had seemed averse to his buying that dress for her in London, and now her objections here, where he’d actually had to trot out some rigmarole about getting a discount—clearly to the amusement of the vendeuse, who knew exactly who he was, of course, and had all but choked when Lissa had worried about whether he could afford such largesse.

Speaking of which …

A few short instructions to the vendeuse sorted the matter. Lissa might think she was only setting out with three paltry outfits, but Xavier had other plans. Now that the vendeuse had her measurements, she could easily provide the rest of her wardrobe. True, where they was going she would not require a large range of formal attire, but she would still need a lot more than the three outfits she was letting him buy. Satisfied, he then dedicated his attention to viewing the first outfit Lissa had emerged to model for him.

Half an hour later everything was complete. Lissa was wearing not the chainstore skirt and blouse she had arrived in, but an impeccably cut dress and jacket that finally did justice to her beauty.

Tucking Lissa’s hand proprietarily into his arm, leaving the salon staff to load the boot of his car waiting outside, he made his exit. The airport was their next stop, and then Nice. But not to the fleshpots of the Côte d’Azur. To somewhere far more private—where he and Lissa could be quite alone together.

Xavier lounged back in a padded chair on the small stone terrace, and let himself be diverted from the market report he was skimming through more out of a sense of duty than any real interest. Though he had, perforce, brought work with him, it was not holding his attention.

But then, nothing during the last two weeks had held his attention—except Lissa.

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.

Xavier had offered to take her to the mainland once, but she hadn’t wanted to go. Her reluctance was not only because she could see little appeal in the overdeveloped coastline, with its marinas stuffed with massive yachts, and its shoreline built up with hotels and high-rise apartments. There was another reason, too—and it was not just because she revelled in having Xavier to herself.

It was because here, on this tiny, secluded isle, she could keep the outside world at bay. Here, she was utterly with Xavier, thinking only of Xavier, being only with Xavier. Absorbing all her mind, her time.

Keeping her mind very far away from what was happening in America, and when she would hear again from Armand.

She did not want to think about that. Did not want that biting undercurrent of anxiety to well up when there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was wait until Armand contacted her. Then she would know.

Until then, she had Xavier. And she must make the most, the very most of him. How short a time she had with him.

Anguish pierced at her, but she pushed it aside. She would not let it spoil this brief, precious time. This magical, wonderful time. All that she would have with him.

Now, reaching out one bare leg, she toed the market report that Xavier held in his hands. She grinned across at him.

‘Oh, chuck the boring old report, Xavier, and come beachcombing with me,’ she teased.

‘Beachcombing?’ he echoed, with a humorous frown at the colloquialism.

‘You know—wandering along the beach to see what you can find.’

‘But there is no beach, only rocks,’ he objected.

She made a face. ‘Oh, you French are so logical. Do come. The water may be freezing, but it’s absolutely beautiful and crystal-clear.’ She looked about her and took a deep breath. ‘I love the scent of the pines—it permeates everything.’

He gave a smile, putting down the report, glad to do so. ‘You have missed the mimosa, which is a shame—its scent is quite exquisite. We’re missing the lavender, too—we saw the fields on the Île St Honorat, remember, where the monks grow it to make their liqueur.’ He cocked an eyebrow at her. ‘Would you like to visit Grasse while we are here? It is the centre of the perfume industry in France—and XeL has a parfumerie there which I could show you. And we really should go to St Paul de Vence, which is not too far from there. The Matisse chapel is nearby, and in the village itself is the celebrated Colombe d’Or Hotel, which has its very own art collection from the famous artists who stayed there. We should have lunch there.’ He made a rueful face. ‘I have shown you very little of the Cote d’Azur, hélas.’

He sounded regretful as he watched Lissa drop with her innate grace into the lounger beside him.

‘It hasn’t bothered me,’ she assured him. ‘I’m happy here at the villa. Blissfully so!’

It was true she could hardly recall ever knowing such happiness, as she had here in their private, secret world, with their private, secret happiness.

She sought to rationalise her reluctance to leave the island and the villa.

“I wish the whole Riviera were still like this—just pine trees and a rocky shoreline, with a few villas and maquis up in the hills, with deserted bays and headlands and beaches every few miles. It’s such a shame it’s been so spoilt.’ She caught herself as she finished, and it was her turn to put on a rueful expression. ‘I’m sorry—I should not be so critical.’

But he was not offended—far from it. ‘There are still some parts that are not concreted over,’ he said with a half smile. ‘Up in the hills, away from the coast in the Alpes Maritimes, where St Paul de Vence is, for example, is far less spoilt. Even on the coast there are some parts less ugly and less modern. Beaulieu, between Nice and Monte Carlo, still lives up to its name of “beautiful place” and just on the Italian border Menton could still be mistaken for the last century, or even the one before. My mother lives there with my stepfather—’

He broke off suddenly. Then, scarcely missing a beat, he resumed.

‘Antibes, too, is far less touristy—a working town—and on the Cap d’Antibes is the Musée de Napoleon. Did you know that he landed on the coast there when he escaped from Elba?’

Lissa was diverted, as Xavier had intended. It had been a slip of the tongue to mention his mother and stepfather.

‘Didn’t the King send an iron cage for him to be imprisoned in when he was captured?’ she said, groping in her memory.

Xavier laughed. ‘That was what Marshal Ney promised to do. He’d turned from Bonapartist to Bourbonist after the Restoration. He set off with an army to stop Napoleon in his tracks—iron cage and all. But instead he went over to him, and his army, too. Then Napoleon marched on Paris.’

‘To meet his Waterloo,’ Lissa finished. ‘Trounced by the English!’

Xavier shook his head and gave a laugh. ‘Ah, your Wellington only beat him thanks to the Prussians. Napoleon had won the battle already, but the Prussian army arrived in the nick of time to save Wellington’s neck. Don’t they teach you proper history in English schools?’

His eyes were dancing, and Lissa grinned. ‘We’re just taught that we won, that’s all,’ she said impishly. She tugged at his arm. ‘Anyway, you’re only trying to talk about history to get out of coming down to the beach with me. Come on, lazybones! We need some exercise before lunch.’

Xavier caught her fingers and started to nibble one.

‘I can think of excellent exercise—and we don’t even have to walk ten metres,’ he murmured, with a glint in his eyes.

But Lissa got to her feet and tugged at him again. With a show of reluctance he stood up, tossing the market report aside on the table.

‘Eh, bien—let us go and comb the beach, then, if you insist,’ he said resignedly. Long lashes swept down over his eyes as he baited her gently.

He took her hand and she felt its warmth and strength closing around her fingers, making her feel suddenly safe and cherished.

A little tremor went through her, and, like a ghost whispering in her head, she heard again the warning to be careful.

She heard the words, felt them imprinting, but in their wake came another whisper, that set through her a deeper tremor yet.

Too late.

‘Honestly, Xavier, you’re such a wimp. The water’s not that cold.’

Lissa grinned with amused exasperation at Xavier’s adamant refusal to do as she was. They’d gained the headland of the tiny promontory, scrambling over rocks to get there, and were now sitting on a large, flat rock that projected slightly over the sea. Lissa had not hesitated to take off her canvas shoes and dangle her toes in the water. It was cold, no doubt about it, but that was hardly adequate reason for wimping out.

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