Bad Boys of London: The Complete GYPSY HEROES Collection (67 page)

I feel empowered by my new resolve. I won’t have sex with Shane. I’m not some slut who can’t control herself. Today, I will be very careful not to get into any kind of situations where we are both half naked again.

Today, I will be more guarded.

But the resolution makes me feel trapped. The future stretches bleak and pointless. Excruciating, actually. What about what I want? A wretched knot of nerves deep inside me shudders painfully.
Don’t think about it now, Snow.

I square my shoulders and, kicking away the fragrant sheets, leave the splendid room fit for an Oriental potentate. I wash in a fabulous green-veined marble bathroom. Water plinks from the polished gold taps onto the ancient stone.

There are glass jars of sweet-smelling salts and I drop in handfuls and watch them bubble and fizz. The air fills with their perfume. The longing for the unattainable feels only like a faint ache. I am used to that feeling. I brush my teeth as the bath fills. I undress and slip into the warm, silky water.

‘Ahh …’

I lean my head back and sigh. I don’t allow myself to think of anything. When the water cools, I step out of the bath, dry myself on a soft lemon-scented towel, and pull on an apple green T-shirt and a pair of skinny jeans. I stop and look at myself in the gilded mirror. The color of my top makes my eyes look good.

I make the bed before closing my bedroom door and going downstairs.

As I walk down the grand steps, I try to imagine what it must be like to actually live here. There can be only one word to describe it: magnificent. I wonder who else lives in this vast property. Someone must be cleaning the house, the pool, the grounds. Whoever they are, they are doing an admirable job. There isn’t a speck of dust to be seen anywhere.

As I get to the bottom of the stairs, an unsmiling woman appears in the archway leading to the other end of the house. She has salt and pepper hair that is neatly tied into a bun at the back of her head, and she is wearing a black dress and heavy shoes with gleaming buckles that I associate with Victorian times.

‘Bonjour, mademoiselle,’ she greets. Her voice is as somber as her attire, and her lips have barely moved.

I am pretty certain she is saying ‘Good morning,’ and that the reply should be ‘Bonjour, madam,’ but I’d be stuck after that. The extent of my French is ‘Bonjour,’ ‘Bonne nuit’ and ‘Merci.’ ‘Sorry, I don’t speak French,’ I admit with an apologetic shrug and smile.

‘Ah, oui. Monsieur Eden est à l’extérieur,’ she says formally, and points in the direction of the pool.

‘Oh, merci,’ I say.

‘Je vous en prie,’ she replies, which I presume must be ‘You’re welcome’ to my ‘Thank you.’

I smile politely.

She nods again gravely, and retreats into the shadows behind the arch.

I walk out to the pool. In the daylight, it has lost its magical appeal. It seems newer and more nouveau riche, but it is stunningly beautiful all the same. I go beyond the submerged pillars and see Shane working shirtless in the garden. His body is magnificent in the morning sun. I walk up to him.

I shade my eyes and call out, ‘Good morning.’

He turns to look at me, and I find myself inhaling sharply. Damn, the man is edible.

‘Mornin’,’ he says, and wipes the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. He sticks the shovel he was using into the ground and takes a few steps toward me. I swallow hard. Dear me!

As he approaches, I see everything I did not see in the soft lighting of the pool. His chest is a mass of glistening, rippling muscles, and his shoulders are covered in beautiful tattoos. Sweat is running off his body in rivulets. My heart swells and I feel almost intoxicated, but I try to appear unaffected. He stops about a foot away from me and I can actually smell him, and he smells damn good. Wow! Who would have thought that sweat could smell so tantalizing? Oh, God. I can’t believe I’m crushing on him like a schoolgirl.

‘Um … what are you doing?’ I babble.

‘I’m planting some rose bushes,’ he says.

‘Mmm …’ I say, my eyes sliding hurriedly away from his body and finding about five pots of rose bushes on the ground. And all my high and mighty resolutions crumble to dust. I want to feel his velvety skin on mine and to taste his tongue again.

‘Don’t you have a gardener?’ I ask because my skin is sizzling and I can think of nothing else to say.

‘I do, but I like working with the land,’ he says.

‘Oh, OK,’ I say, my gaze following a drop of sweat as it travels down between his taut pectorals.
I could lick that off him.
The air between us buzzes with desire.
Mine.
The undeniable truth is: To hell with it all. I want this man with a burning need. I want to rest my chin on his hard chest and watch him sleep. And when I feel like it, I want to kiss him awake.

‘Are you going to stand there all day staring at me?’ he teases.

I flush all over. I am so distracted by his big, golden body, it is embarrassing. ‘I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first one,’ I mutter, taking a step back.

‘Give me ten minutes to finish up here.’ He raises one glorious eyebrow.
God, how good-looking is this guy?
‘Want to have that swim or maybe walk around the garden before breakfast?’

‘OK,’ I say unsteadily, and am turning away when his hand catches my arm.

I look up into his face. His eyes are crinkled up against the sun and flame blue in his tanned face. ‘You look beautiful this morning. I could stand here all morning staring at you,’ he says softly.

I can’t help it: the heat creeps up from my throat and up to my cheeks. Suddenly, the desire in my head is out in the open, in the darkening of his eyes, in the tightening of his jaw. 

‘Now, on your way, before I throw you on the ground and show the rabbits how it’s done.’

I stumble away quickly. When I am halfway to the house, I turn around and see him standing where I had left him, just staring at me. After that, I don’t turn around anymore.

Once past the house, I decide not to swim but to explore the gardens. An elderly man in faded clothes and a battered hat is trimming some bushes in the far corner of the property. He lifts his hand to me in a wave, and I return the greeting absent-mindedly. I guide my feet out beyond the garden, which is haphazardly crammed with all kinds of flowering plants.

There are butterflies and birds aplenty, but it is not the kind of properly manicured garden I would have expected for a house like this. Still, it has a charm all its own. The type of charm that sinking rusty old tram cars in the ocean produces after ten years. That’s when it becomes a gloriously colorful reef and the home of hundreds of diverse schools of fish.

As I walk through the garden, I sense the true elegance of allowing nature to take its own course. It is like being in a lost, secret garden. In some places the weeds are taking over, but, even then, there is rich beauty to it. Bushes and creepers have been deliberately allowed to become overgrown to help bury the vulgarity of superfluous statues and stone arches. A sort of balancing of scales.

I like it, but it makes me wonder why someone would buy a stupendously beautiful, but totally nouveau riche chateau like Saumur and allow the grounds to go their own wild way like this.

A fat, ash-gray cat with yellow eyes comes and meows by my feet. I reach down and tickle her behind her ears. She rubs her head against my legs before wandering away to curl up on an old, sunlit bench.

As I venture farther, I realize that some of the property is thickly planted with bushes and low-hanging trees, but that a great part of it is pure meadow. Not far away I can see a wide expanse of water glistening in the sun. There is a Moroccan style tent by the edge of the water. Inside there is a bed with lots of jewel-bright red and green cushions.

For a while I sit at the edge of the water and look out at the glinting surface. It is serene and peaceful, but my mind is in turmoil. I have never wanted anybody the way I want Shane, but I am not a free agent … yet. Lenny is still in the picture, and it would be wrong and ugly of me to betray him, and … yet, I want Shane. The desire is so strong I don’t think I will be able to resist it for much longer.

But, as I sit motionless and contemplate the silent beauty of the water, a profound transformation takes place in me. There are no mobile phones, no police sirens, no car horns, no emails, no birthdays to forget, no queues, no terrorists, no wars. All the stress, noise, fears and distractions that form part of my everyday life seem to belong to a different world.

The sun warms my skin and reflects off the water, and still beauty and peace in the air trigger ancient genes that humans must share with all the other creatures we have evolved with. My body relaxes, my pulse slows, my body feels charged, and I feel as if I have come home.

I hear my name being called and turn around to see Shane walking toward me. Freshly showered, he has changed into a clean T-shirt and blue jeans. His hair is still wet. With the sun behind him, I can’t see the expression on his face.

I stand and brush my bottom with my hands. ‘The lake is beautiful,’ I say.

‘Well, I like it.’

‘Why have you allowed the place to go to seed like this?’

He looks down at me. ‘I bought this place only because I heard of the sightings nearby of fireflies. And then I set about making the environment irresistible to them. They love moisture, tall grasses and low-hanging trees that they can hide in during the day, and an abundance of insects, slugs, and snails.’

‘Will we see them tonight?’

‘I’ll be very disappointed if we don’t. We’ll come out after dinner. They’re usually around about nine-ish.’

‘You really love them, don’t you?’

He grins. ‘My madness is I have no time for things that have no soul.’

‘Actually,’ I admit, ‘I like it wild and overgrown too.’

‘Then you’ll definitely like the owner of this place.’

‘Is he the one who’s built like a god?’ I ask cheekily. Being cheeky with a man is something I would never have done before I met him. I’m the boring one. Never say boo to a cat.

‘That’s the one,’ he says, and something in his eyes lights up.

I laugh, and in that moment I’m not the girl with the terrible past. I’m just a girl flirting with an irresistibly sexy man.

Thirteen

SNOW

W
e have breakfast at a rickety wooden table under the shade of a massive old oak tree. There are croissants, pastries, cold country butter, homemade jams, and slices of watermelon. An unsmiling Madam Chevalier pours thick, strong coffee into small cups for us. It is too bitter for me, but Shane has no trouble downing his. I decide to stick with orange juice. When she goes back into the house, I whisper to Shane, ‘Is she in a bad mood?’

‘Nope. She’s always like that,’ he says unconcernedly, and bites cleanly into a croissant.

‘Really? Why?’

He shrugs. ‘Fuck knows. Probably disapproves of what I’m doing to the grounds.’

I stare at him. ‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Snow,’ he explains patiently, ‘this woman cooks using a recipe book that is one hundred years old. As far as I’m concerned, she can be as sour as she likes. Don’t judge until you try her Soupe à l’Oignon Gratinée.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t care how good a cook she is; I don’t think I could ever live with disapproving staff.’

He grins roguishly. ‘Here’s something you might not yet have picked up: Madam secretly likes me.’

‘Shane Eden, you are incorrigible.’

‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ he says with a low chuckle.

After breakfast, the elderly man I had seen pruning the bushes ambles toward us with a hearty smile plastered to his ruddy face. Shane introduces us, then tells me that Monsieur Chevalier is taking us to Cannes’ indoor market. He is a much friendlier chap than his wife, and, because he doesn’t speak a word of English and Shane’s French seems to be pretty basic, he compensates with a lot of nodding and grinning. We get into his beat-up truck and he drives us to Forville Market.

It is a large red-brown building that oddly reminds me of the Red Fort in Delhi. Inside, it is vast and cool. Vibrant with shoppers and a seemingly inexhaustible array of produce, it is a treat for the senses. There are stalls dedicated just to mushrooms! All kinds, shapes, colors, and scents. Other stalls specialize in dried meats, fruit, flowers, vegetables, cheese, wine, olives, pastries, bread, spices, honey. And everything looks so fresh and clearly locally produced. It is the opposite of the sterile environment of the supermarket where everything is sanitized, homogenized, and sold under a plastic covering.

Shane buys the ingredients for our dinner: a rack of lamb, baguette sticks, onions, vegetables, pineapple. The sellers all seem to know and like him. One asks about the fireflies and says he wants to bring his son to see them during the week. He tells Shane mournfully that the fireflies have stopped coming to his land. He blames the pesticides.

When we get outside, Monsieur Chevalier packs everything into the back of his truck. The plan is for him to drop us off at Le Suquet, a quirky, hilly town overlooking a harbor, before setting off to Saumur to deposit the market produce with his wife.