Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate (12 page)

Even when he held her and kissed her as if the world could crumble around them before he’d ever let her go.

‘Luc, may I ask you a question?’ she said, propping herself up beside him and letting her eyes feast on the tumbled beauty of the man in her bed.

‘Of course,’ he murmured, smiling at her with sleepy eyes.

‘Why are you always so careful of me when we make love?’

Not the kind of question he’d been expecting. Wariness crept into his eyes as the sleepiness left them. Not the kind of question he looked as if he wanted to answer. ‘You’d rather I wasn’t?’

‘Maybe,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe I simply want to know why you refuse to let passion rule you completely when you’re with me. I worry that you think I wouldn’t be able to cope with whatever lies beneath all that iron control. The thing is, I would cope. I’d probably die of ecstasy if you ever truly let abandon take hold of you while you were taking hold of me. So all I’m saying…what I mean to say…is that there’s no need to hold back on my account.’

Luc’s arm didn’t move from its place around her
shoulder but she felt the withdrawal of the other pieces of him he
did
share with her clear down to her soul.

‘You hold back too, Gabrielle,’ he said gruffly.

‘I do not!’ she said indignantly. ‘You get all of me.’

‘Maybe in this,’ he said reluctantly. ‘Maybe you give everything when it comes to making love, but in so many other ways you hold back.’

‘Name one!’

‘You won’t accept my offer to help you launch your wines,’ he said curtly. ‘You refuse to accept help from the House of Duvalier, even though it would be of benefit to you.’

‘Because of Rafe,’ she said hotly. ‘I know it makes sense to take you up on your offer, but the bottom line is that Rafe doesn’t want to. It’s his business too, Lucien, and I will not go against him on this.’

‘But you will continue to push for his agreement to purchase a vineyard he doesn’t want in a place he never intends to return to? How does that work? How does that benefit the business you built together?’ Luc caught her gaze and held it. ‘Why haven’t you and I sat down together and sorted out a partnership bid on the Hammerschmidt block, Gabrielle? Have you even mentioned that as an option to Rafe? Have you contemplated cutting Rafe out of this purchase altogether and bringing me into it? No. You don’t want to blur the lines of business between us either. Nothing to do with Rafe.
You
don’t want it.’

‘Neither do you!’ she shot at him. ‘You said so yourself. Never mix business with pleasure, you said.’

‘And I have since had time to reconsider those words. I
want
to mix business and pleasure, Gabrielle.
I want you in every part of my life, but I already know what you’ll say to that. No, Luc, I couldn’t possibly live at Caverness. No, Luc, I won’t consider going into business with you. No, Luc, I don’t want to be your wife. You don’t
want
all of me, Gabrielle, it’s as simple as that. You only want the part of me that suits you.’ He drew away from her then to sit on the edge of the bed with his back to her. ‘And then you turn around and wonder why I hold that last tiny piece of me back.’

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, it’s not like that.’

‘Then marry me,’ he said raggedly, still not turning to face her. ‘Buy Hammerschmidt with me tomorrow. Commit to me. All of me.’

‘It’s too soon,’ she protested.

‘Not for me,’ he said and began to gather up his clothes. ‘I’m heading home. I need an early night.’

‘Luc!’ She scrambled upright and snatched for the bed sheet to cover her nakedness. ‘Luc, please…’ He turned and looked at her, just looked at her, and the rawness of his pain nearly brought her to her knees. ‘Stay. We can work something out. Some sort of compromise. A way of doing business together. A time line for…commitment. Something.’

But he shook his head. ‘I can’t deal with you in half measures, Gabrielle. I can’t be civilised and reasonable around you. It’s all or nothing. Always has been.’ His smile was bittersweet as he reached for the door handle. ‘We talked before about what we would do if our affair got out of hand. Well, it is out of hand, Gabrielle. It was never
in
hand, not for me. This is the part where you run.’

G
ABRIELLE
didn’t run. She slept fretfully instead and woke late the following morning. She rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling, wondering in all seriousness whether she needed to get up at all. If she denied the morning, she could probably attempt to deny what had happened last night as well. Just close her eyes and snuggle into the sheets with the scent of Luc all around her and pretend that he was still in her bed and that any minute he would wake and reach for her as he’d done every other morning for the past week.

Only he wasn’t there.

Gabrielle closed her eyes, her mind awash with muddled images and pleading words. Marry Luc. Don’t marry him. Buy the vineyard. Risk the business. Don’t buy the vineyard. Take Luc up on his offer to buy the vineyard together. Restore it together. Live in it together. The list of options went on and on. Make love. Make war. Make Luc see that saying wait didn’t mean that she was saying no to any of his offers. Go to Caverness this morning. Take her suitcase with her. Find Luc. Phone him. Just close her eyes, hope for the best, and
love
him.

Above all, tell him she loved him.

She glanced at the bedside clock and groaned. It was after nine. Wasn’t there something else she was supposed to be doing this morning besides obsess over her relationship with Luc?

Heaven help her—Josien.

She’d promised to visit her mother.

Get up
, said the little voice inside her.
Get up and go and see her, or are you too cowardly to do that too?

‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle to the latter accusation. She felt fragile and weepy and too cowardly by far to go another round with Josien.

Maybe you could talk to her
, said the little voice.
Tell her about Luc. Ask her advice.

‘No.’ Dear Lord, when had she
ever
taken Josien’s advice? When had her mother ever given her advice worth following? No. Far better if she wanted advice to talk to Simone. Simone would understand her fear of all the steps involved in committing to Luc. All the tangled little threads. Simone
knew
what it was like to be asked to take an irrevocable step into a world she hadn’t been raised to.

Simone knew what it felt like to refuse to take such a step.

Only Gabrielle hadn’t refused. Had she? Gabrielle groaned and flung the sheet aside.

She needed to shower and get dressed and gulp down coffee and decide whether to go to the auction or not, and whether she would go and see her mother or not. She needed to get
up
and get going.

Damned if she was going to run.

A composed and regal Josien opened her door when Gabrielle knocked on it at a quarter past ten that morning. Josien didn’t have anything to say as they walked down the corridor towards the kitchen. Gabrielle didn’t have anything to say either. Wariness ruled Gabrielle’s thoughts. She didn’t know why her mother wanted to see her and she didn’t particularly care. Unless it had something to do with Josien deciding to reveal to Rafe that some anonymous prince was his father. If that were the case, Gabrielle cared a lot.

Hans was making coffee in the kitchen when they arrived. Gabrielle took it in her stride and told him how she liked her coffee when he asked her, and let him fuss over her as he saw her seated at the small wooden kitchen table. He had croissants for her and a selection of jams, a selection of bread rolls too, still warm from the baking.

‘Josien walked into the village for them this morning,’ said Hans with a conspiratorial glance in Gabrielle’s direction. ‘She needed something to do while she waited for your arrival. Something besides fret that you wouldn’t turn up, that is. Sit,’ said Hans to Josien. ‘She’s here now.
Talk
to her. Tell her all those things you told me.’

Josien sat. But she didn’t seem to know how to begin.

‘When do you leave for your new position?’ Gabrielle asked Hans, more to fill the awkward silence than actually wanting to know.

‘Next week,’ said Hans with a lightning glance at Josien. ‘We’ve been offered the caretaker’s cottage at
the entrance to the estate to live in. It needs work. A lot of work. But I’m confident it will be quite comfortable by the time Josien and I have finished with it.’

‘It sounds exciting.’ Gabrielle smiled faintly at his enthusiasm. Another man in need of a challenge. He had a big enough one on his hands with her mother, but then, looking into Hans’ wise and compassionate eyes, she suspected he already knew that.

It seemed amazing to Gabrielle that Josien had chosen a gentle man to be with. A caring man. All the things Josien was not. Maybe he could soften her. Maybe he could succeed where no one else had. She hoped so. ‘A bold new beginning.’ She remembered her own terror at leaving Caverness at sixteen, and the unexpected benefits that had flowed from her departure. She remembered what she’d been back then, and where she stood now. ‘I thoroughly recommend it.’

Josien turned towards the bench and fumbled with some papers. ‘I’m planning on liquidising some of my assets,’ she said in a low strained voice. ‘The Duvalier family has been good to me over the years. I have a nest egg.’

Gabrielle smiled politely. ‘It sounds like you have your plans well in hand.’ Some people did. Gabrielle was not one of them, however. Not today, at any rate.

Josien glanced at Hans, took a deep breath, and spoke again. ‘I don’t know how much money you’ll need to buy Hammerschmidt but there’s money here if you need it. One and a half million euros. If it would help.’

Gabrielle blinked and set her coffee mug down on the table with a clatter.

‘I know what it’s like to want to bring your own monetary value to the table of a wealthy man,’ continued Josien. ‘To want to be seen as worthy.’

‘Oh,
Maman
.’ Every criticism Josien had ever laid on her came crowding into her brain. One by one, Gabrielle pushed them away until only the blindingly obvious remained. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? I don’t have to prove myself to Luc in that manner. He doesn’t care for my wealth or lack of it. He never has. All he sees is me.’ She met her mother’s gaze squarely. ‘That’s the way love should be. Isn’t it?’

‘I thought…’ said Josien brokenly. ‘I thought I was helping.’

‘I know,’ murmured Gabrielle, close to tears. ‘I’m so sorry,
Maman
. You and I, we never get it right. I never think I’m good enough for you. You never seem to see the real me, only what others might think of me. I want the vineyard for
me, Maman
. Not to impress Luc. Not because I want to build an empire. I just want to stay here and work hard and love Luc, and be me. That’s all I’m trying to do.’

‘The money’s there,’ said her mother. ‘If you need it.’

Gabrielle smiled and blinked away the sting in her eyes even as she shook her head in despair. ‘Thank you.’

L
UCIEN
woke the morning of the auction with his control stretched thin and his temper dangerously close to erupting. He didn’t know where he’d gone wrong with Gabrielle last night, only that one minute she’d been accusing him of not giving enough and the next minute he’d been heading for the door. There’d been heated discussion about giving and taking. There’d been an ultimatum in there too, one he never should have delivered. That was the problem with ultimatums. They delivered it all.

Or nothing.

Simone wasn’t about when he stalked into the kitchen and set the coffee maker to making coffee. He’d need to advertise for another housekeeper soon. Not live in, as Josien had been, but someone from the village who would come and go as needed. Two people, perhaps, who would share the load between them and call in extra help when needed. Simone often railed against the maintenance that was such a necessary part of the upkeep of Caverness. Heating it in winter, airing it in summer, chasing away the damp and making sure
it shone. For all its elegance and grace, Chateau des Caverness asked a great deal of the people who cared for it. Gabrielle knew that. She was right to be wary of it. Who the hell lived in a castle this day and age anyhow? Why did he need to? Maybe, with Simone’s agreement, they could turn the chateau into their head office—centralise the House of Duvalier’s management operations here, open part of it to the public, keep just one wing of it available for family, and go and live elsewhere.

A place where the ancestral wealth didn’t stare down at a person from every portrait and tapestry. A place where a woman not comfortable with the trappings of old money would feel more at home.

Luc smiled humourlessly. Finally a reason for buying the Hammerschmidt Manoir that made sense. He and Gabrielle could have made a comfortable home of it. Oh, it was still a little grand, still a home that would require maintenance, but it would have been theirs. Not his, but theirs, and together they could have stamped their mark on it.

Except that Gabrielle had not been enamoured of that suggestion either.

Auction day today. He’d told Simone he’d meet her there.

It was the last place he wanted to be.

He’d made his bid last night. His bid for Gabrielle’s heart.

And he’d lost.

Gabrielle was running late. She’d returned to her rented apartment before heading for the auction and had
lingered there too long. Wiping benches that hadn’t needed wiping, changing clothes that hadn’t needed changing. Anything to keep from confronting the real issue—what to do about Luc. Gabrielle believed what she’d said to her mother. Luc cared nothing for her station in life or lack of it. He cared for her. Enough to offer up everything he could by way of helping her get established here. Enough to make her his lover. Enough to want to marry her.

Enough.

There were no parking spaces out the front of the elegant hotel in Epernay where the estate agents were holding the auction. Gabrielle finally found a parking spot two streets away, and running slightly late became running alarmingly late. An auctioneer’s assistant met her at the door, his smile relieved as he signed her in and allocated her a bidding number. He ran through the deposit requirements should her bid be successful and Gabrielle nodded dutifully and looked around for the one face she hoped to see above all others.

But she couldn’t see it.

She’d gone to the chateau directly after visiting with her mother.

Luc hadn’t been there either.

Not that she had the foggiest idea what to say to him when she
did
find him. It would depend on what she saw in his eyes. On what kind of opening he was prepared to give her. She scanned the crowd again, spotted Simone, and headed towards her. Where the hell was he?

Luc strode into the auction room with moments to spare, nodding to the auctioneer’s assistant who hurriedly greeted him and pointed him to where Simone sat waiting, third row from the front, with an empty chair on either side of her. He’d thought maybe Gabrielle would be sitting with Simone but she wasn’t. He spotted her on the far side of the room, standing with her back to the crowd as she stared out the window, her profile pensive and her arms wrapped around the waist of her sleek black business suit.

‘Where have you
been
?’ asked Simone as he took the seat beside her. ‘The auctioneers have been waiting for you to arrive for the last ten minutes. They almost started without you. I almost started without you. Gabrielle’s been looking for you too. She was hoping to speak with you before the auction, but then she went over towards the window to try and get better reception on her phone. That or to spare my tender feelings,’ said Simone, the lightness of her words at odds with the shadows in her eyes. ‘I think she’s calling Rafe now. She’s already spent the last ten minutes trying to call you.’

He’d neglected to recharge his phone last night. Just one more thing amongst the many things he should have done differently last night. ‘Did she say what she wanted to speak to me about?’

‘No.’ Simone settled back in her chair as the auctioneer began his spiel. ‘Too late, brother. You’ll have to speak with her afterwards. Looks like we’re away.’

Gabrielle turned, startled, when the auctioneer cleared his throat and began to speak in that penetrating,
staccato way auctioneers had of speaking. Deliberately fast, deliberately trying to force urgency into a situation that called for cool deliberation. Deliberately encouraging the reckless decision.

She hadn’t been here in this crowded and claustrophobic auction room. She’d been a million miles away, sleepy and sated and snuggled up in Luc’s arms. Reliving last night’s lovemaking. Rewriting it. Omitting her stupid statement about Luc holding back. Instead she’d closed her eyes and breathed Luc in and then she’d slept and woken in his arms. No questions, no arguments, no tension. No this.

It was time to phone Rafe. She did so hurriedly, scanning the room as the auctioneer continued his spiel. Luc had arrived, finally, and taken his place beside Simone. Dark eyed and radiating tension, he looked dangerously out of patience with the world in general and probably her in particular. He looked her way with a question in his eyes and her heart began to pound. He didn’t ignore her. He didn’t cut her down with a glance. He wasn’t smiling—there wasn’t a lot to smile about—but the way was not closed to her; he’d given her that much and for now it was enough. Rafe picked up his phone and Gabrielle spoke quickly and quietly into hers. ‘It’s me. I’m at the auction.’

‘Where are we up to?’ he said, his voice calm and reassuring, an anchor in an ocean of uncertainty.

‘They’re describing the property. I’m looking at a slideshow of it now.’ A very beautiful, well-put-together slideshow showing all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of the property. ‘Rafe?’ she said ten
tatively, knowing full well that now was not the time to say what she had to say. ‘He asked me to marry him.’

Rafe cursed in rapid dialect French. The language of his childhood, a language he rarely used these days unless his patience was being severely tested. ‘And?’ he said tightly.

‘The auctioneer just asked for someone to start the bidding at eighteen million.’

‘Let someone else open the bidding,’ said Rafe, ‘and tell me what you said to Luc.’

‘I said I needed more time. Luc said he didn’t. He offered to buy Hammerschmidt in partnership with me.’

Rafe swore again and Gabrielle held the phone a little further away from her ear as she waited tensely for him to stop. ‘Did you agree?’ asked Rafe finally.

‘No. They have a starting bid of sixteen million.’

‘Luc’s bid?’

‘No.’

‘What do you want to do, Gabrielle?’

‘Cry,’ she said faintly.

‘Not an option, angel,’ said Rafe. ‘What’s the bid?’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Luc’s bid?’

‘No.’

The bidding continued, slowing to increments of two hundred thousand. The auctioneer spoke again and Gabrielle relayed his words. ‘Nineteen and on the market.’

‘If you want it,’ murmured Rafe, ‘I suggest you bid.’

Gabrielle nodded. ‘Nineteen-two,’ she said into the phone.

‘Whose bid?’

‘Mine.’

‘You mean ours,’ said Rafe.

‘I don’t know what I mean,’ she muttered, perilously close to tears—optional or not. ‘Nineteen-six.’

‘Whose bid?’

Gabrielle’s gaze met Luc’s. ‘Mine.’

‘Lucien, what are you doing?’ asked Simone.

‘Nothing.’

‘Yes, I gathered that,’ she said with the patience one might afford a dimwit. ‘Aren’t you meant to be bidding?’

‘Yes.’ But not against Gabrielle. He simply couldn’t bring himself to do it. If Gabrielle wanted the old vineyard, he would not stand in her way. ‘I asked her to marry me.’

‘Really?’ Simone lost all pretence of not being particularly interested in the unfolding events. ‘Fast work. I know you have history, but still…Very fast work.’

‘I love her.’

‘Yes, I gathered that,’ she said dryly.

‘I asked her to consider buying this place together.’

‘Good idea,’ she murmured, graciously neglecting to remind him that she had been the one to suggest that particular notion in the first place.

‘She said no,’ he said grimly. ‘To both.’

‘Ah,’ said Simone delicately. And then, with the mysterious way she occasionally had of reading his mind, ‘Maybe you rushed her. Maybe that was what she wanted to talk to you about. Maybe she’s had time to think your offers over and she’s changed her mind. Women do
change their minds on these things, you know.’ She eyed Gabrielle narrowly. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t
tell
me.’

‘Glare at her later,’ said Luc. ‘Don’t distract her while she’s bidding.’

‘
Me
glare at her? Look at you! You look like you want to shove a poker through someone and roast them over hot coals. Smile at her, for heaven’s sake. No, not like you plan to eat her. For goodness’ sake Luc, where are your
manners?
Show a little control.’

‘Gabrielle happens to think I have plenty of control,’ he said, and tried not to think of a naked Gabrielle tied to a pole. ‘She’d prefer I lost a little more of it at times.’

‘Brave woman,’ said Simone. ‘Dangerous move. I did warn her, but she never listens. She never has, when it comes to you.’ Simone slid him a curious glance. ‘Are you planning on giving her what she wants?’

‘Yes.’

Simone sat back in her chair and smiled widely at the world, resting her elbows on the armrests as she crossed her legs and set her sandal to swinging. ‘It’s amazing what people will bid when they want something bad enough,’ she said cheerfully. ‘God, I love auctions.’

‘There’s a new bidder,’ said Gabrielle into the phone. ‘A woman.’ Gabrielle nodded as the auctioneer glanced questioningly at her. She nodded a second time and waited. ‘Twenty million,’ she said, feeling faint. ‘Not ours.’

‘What’s Luc doing?’ asked Rafe.

‘Watching me.’

‘Yes or no question, Gabrielle. Could you be happy at Hammerschmidt without Luc in your life?’

‘No.’

‘Stop bidding,’ said Rafe.

‘I think Gabrielle’s reached her limit,’ said Simone, sitting up a little straighter and losing the smile. Luc thought so too. Gabrielle was speaking rapidly into the phone, her brow furrowed. She’d already shaken her head at the auctioneer to signify no. The auctioneer was merely giving Gabrielle and whoever was on the other end of the phone with her—and that would be Rafe—time to confer. Gabrielle shook her head again. Another no. The woman bidding against Gabrielle began to look smug. But not for long.

‘New bidder,’ said the auctioneer. ‘Gentleman at the back. Thank you, sir. Your bid at twenty million two hundred thousand.’

Simone swivelled in her seat to see who’d joined the bidding. So did Luc.

‘Isn’t that Daddy’s old school friend?’ said Simone. ‘The prince?’

Yes. Only he’s not a prince these days. He’s a king.’

‘I didn’t know he had an interest in vineyards’

‘It comes and it goes,’ said Luc grimly. What the hell was His Royal Highness Etienne de Morsay doing here? Why now? Why this vineyard? Luc didn’t believe in coincidences. He didn’t believe in fairy tales either. Etienne wasn’t here to make amends. He was here because he wanted to keep Rafael from gaining a foothold back into Europe. What other reason would he have for bidding?

‘There’s another new bidder,’ said Gabrielle, frowning into the phone as she stared at the man at the back of the room and tried to remember where she’d seen him before. Nicely built for an older man. Broad shouldered, well clothed—the man carried the unmistakable veneer of old and distinguished wealth. ‘I feel like I should know who he is, but I don’t.’

And then the distinguished-looking gentleman turned his head to look directly at her with eyes as blue as a clear summer sky, and then she knew.

If she hadn’t been leaning against the window she’d have stumbled. As it was she struggled for breath as she tried to make sense of the why of it. What on earth was Rafael’s real father doing bidding on Hammerschmidt? Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence. Could it?

And then her gaze whipped around the crowd as the auctioneer announced yet another new bidder.

Luc.

‘Luc just bid against him,’ she whispered into the phone.

‘What price?’ asked Rafe.

‘Twenty-one.’

The prince with Rafael’s eyes bid again. Luc topped him. The prince bid again. And again, while she stared at this man, this prince, this monster, and watched him shatter any last hope she had of ever calling Hammerschmidt home. ‘It’s twenty-four five now.’

‘Give Luc my congratulations,’ said Rafe.

‘It’s not his bid.’

‘No, but the final bid will be.’

‘What makes you think he’ll succeed?’ Gabrielle winced as the bidding went up again, too high for
comfort or for common sense. ‘What the hell is he
doing
? He’s way past his stop price. This is insane!’

‘That’s Luc for you,’ said Rafe, grim amusement laying heavy on his voice. ‘He never could see straight when you were around. You might want to consider marrying him, angel. He’s buying this place for you.’