Heaven Scent (41 page)

‘Look, I don’t want to abandon Seraphina, especially not if she needs a friend. But if we’re talking about “appropriate”, I think we both know that’s gone out of the window.’

Xavier’s eyes flashed. ‘I’m not talking about Seraphina. I’m talking about us . . . about me and you.’

‘What about . . . us?’ Cat faltered.

He dashed his cigarette to the ground. ‘Do you really need to ask me that?’ He pulled her to her feet by her shoulders, his jacket almost falling off. He stared down into her aquamarine eyes, daring her to disagree with him.

Cat gulped. So he felt something too. ‘But . . . we row . . . constantly. We literally can’t have a conversation without shouting at each other.’ She could feel his hands burning into her shoulders. ‘You drive me mad and I . . . I obviously infuriate you.’

Xavier rubbed his thumb across her mouth, removing all trace of her lipstick. ‘Yes.’

Cat could feel her legs going wobbly. How did he
do
that? ‘It’s . . . it’s wrong,’ she said, trying again. ‘I was married to your cousin, for heaven’s sake . . . to Olivier.’

‘Fuck Olivier,’ Xavier growled, gathering her up in his arms and heading inside the stable. He didn’t want to hear about his twat of a cousin, he didn’t want to think about him anywhere near Cat’s beautiful body. He kissed her, hard, and she kissed him back, wrapping her arms round his neck, clinging to him. She felt him move back until she was up against the wall. Her breath came in ragged gasps. She felt Xavier hike her skirt up, his hand running up the back of her leg. He lingered behind her knee for a moment, before she wrapped her leg round his waist and pulled his mouth down on to hers again. He ripped the pins out of her hair and it tumbled down around her shoulders. As he sank his hands into it, she unbuttoned his shirt with feverish fingers.

Impatiently, Xavier removed her hands and tore the shirt over his head. Faced with his tanned torso, Cat sucked in her breath and grappled with the zipper on her dress.

‘I . . . I couldn’t do it up myself,’ she breathed, struggling. ‘Seraphina had to do it . . .’

Reaching round, Xavier tugged the zip down with infinite slowness, allowing the black dress to fall to the floor in a pool of satin. He gazed at her standing there in a black lace bra and thong, then his mouth was searching for hers again. Xavier cleared a space on the floor and they fell down, tearing off the rest of their clothes.

As Xavier’s hot tongue connected with her aching nipples, Cat groaned pleasurably. Suddenly, she stopped him and he looked down at her, his dark hair flopping into his eyes.

‘I . . . I know you think I do this sort of thing all the time,’ Cat stammered, going red. ‘But I don’t. This is . . . serious. More serious than anything I’ve ever done.’

Xavier nodded. ‘Same here.’ He ran a hand down her quivering body. ‘I’m in . . . I think I . . .’

‘Me too,’ Cat said, pulling his body on top of hers urgently. ‘Stop talking and show me.’

‘My pleasure,’ Xavier murmured, finding her mouth again. Pushing her thighs apart with his, he lost himself completely.

 

Back at the château, Delphine was delivering the final speech of the night. She felt tired and frail but she was sure it was only because it had been such a dramatic evening. Leaning on her cane, she smiled at her audience.

‘So it gives me great pleasure to ask you to join me in toasting the fiftieth anniversary of Rose-Nymphea,’ she announced, motioning for the band she had hired to strike up. As they performed a jaunty version of ‘Happy Birthday’, Delphine searched the room for Guy. He was still missing and she was worried about him. He had looked so destroyed out there in the pool house and she felt responsible . . . well, partly responsible. Delphine chewed her lip. Xavier was nowhere to be seen either and Leoni looked preoccupied; she was standing in the corner, alone. Ashton was at the opposite end of the room, as far from Leoni as possible. Had they had a row? Delphine sincerely hoped not; she had high hopes for the pair of them. Jerard was a nice enough man, rich, if not exactly well appointed, but she had always thought Ashton and Leoni were meant to be together.

Her lips tightened as she noticed that Seraphina was missing too but she guessed her granddaughter was too embarrassed to show her face. At least Max was there, at the back of the room, even if he did seem more interested in talking to Madeleine Lombard than in the party. Still, there were worse girls for him to be mixing with. Delphine frowned in disappointment. Considering this was supposed to be a celebration of the family’s best-selling perfume, her family were in scant attendance. Cat Hayes was also conspicuous by her absence, Delphine thought vaguely but she didn’t care. The girl was hardly her concern.

She realised everyone was staring at her expectantly. She cleared her throat and spoke again. ‘It also gives me great pleasure to announce that my grandson, Xavier, has created a brand new fragrance.’

A murmur of excitement fluttered round the room.

‘And in honour of this, instead of our usual low-key campaigns which simply feature our bottle of scent, we thought such a significant event deserved something special.’

At the back of the room, Max rolled his eyes. ‘Could this be any duller?’ he murmured to Madeleine.

Grinning, she nudged him. ‘Sshh, your grandmother will lynch you if she knows you’re not being one hundred per cent supportive.’

Max yawned in response.

Delphine caught sight of him and narrowed her eyes. God, that child was disrespectful! Still, this should stop him – and everyone else – in their tracks. ‘So I am delighted to be able to introduce you to the person who will be featuring in our new ad campaign to launch Xavier’s fragrance . . .’ As she paused for effect, a vision in a red Dior dress with acres of thigh showing swept into the room, a mane of shining blond hair hanging over one shoulder.

There was a collective gasp from the crowd, the biggest one from Max.

‘Wow,’ Madeleine breathed. ‘Now that’s an entrance . . .’ She glanced at Max, suppressing the urge to close his gaping mouth. ‘Get a grip, Max. She’s stunningly beautiful but there’s no need to look like an idiot.’

Max shook his head. ‘It’s not that,’ he managed in a hoarse voice.

‘Then what is it?’ Madeleine frowned.

‘I have to find Xavier,’ Max murmured, wondering where the hell his brother might be.

‘I think your father said he’d gone to the stables to look for Seraphina . . .’ Madeleine shook her head as Max tore out of the room. What on earth was going on?

In the stables, Cat lay in Xavier’s arms blissfully, wrapped up in his dinner jacket. She had never felt so wonderful in her life. Her chin was red-raw from his stubble, as were several other parts of her body, and she loved the fact that her skin was still throbbing from his touch.

Xavier traced his finger along her thigh, watching her squirm with pleasure. A horse whinnied in the stable next to them and he smiled. ‘That’s my palomino, Cassis,’ he told Cat. ‘She’s probably jealous you’ve stolen my attention.’

‘That beautiful, chocolate-coloured horse is yours?’

He nodded. ‘I got her from Spain. They say the name probably comes from Juan de Palomino who received one of Queen Isabella of Spain’s horses hundreds of years ago. Rumour has it palominos were named after a golden-coloured Spanish grape by the same name, so even though Cassis is a rare chocolate colour, she’s named after my favourite Provençal wine.’ Xavier rolled his eyes. ‘You probably think that makes me sound like a total wine snob, the rich playboy all over again.’

Cat shook her head. ‘I know I was wrong about that . . . I was wrong to compare you to Olivier. Look, me and Olivier . . . we only slept together a few times. It was more of a holiday romance than anything else – if we hadn’t got married, if he hadn’t died, who knows what might have happened to our relationship.’

Xavier immediately felt better. ‘I need to tell you something, too.’ He said, his eyes downcast.

‘That sounds ominous,’ Cat said, feeling her stomach tighten. She ran her hand across his broad chest, wondering when she had ever felt so happy.

‘It’s not,’ Xavier assured her. ‘It’s just that you said in Grasse that I didn’t want to open up to you because I was emotionally retarded and I want to explain.’

Cat blushed. ‘God, the things that come out of my mouth. At least, I meant it at the time but—’

‘There was someone,’ Xavier interrupted, needing to be truthful with her. ‘Someone I fell in love with and she . . . she changed everything.’

Cat felt a pang at his words. Of course he’d been in love before; she just wished the thought of it didn’t make her feel nauseous.

Xavier stared past her. ‘She made me do crazy things. I wasn’t myself when I was with her but she had this hold over me, you know?’

Cat nodded. She did know; she had felt the same way about Olivier.

‘It was serious between us, really serious. She found out she was pregnant and I was so happy. Then, within a few weeks, my mother died and the baby too . . . a miscarriage.’

Cat was too shocked to speak. Whatever she had imagined was behind Xavier’s shutters, this wasn’t it. She wanted to stop him because she could see how much it was hurting him to say it all out loud but now that Xavier had opened the floodgates, he couldn’t seem to close them again.

‘My girlfriend . . . she left, without a word,’ he said in a flat tone. ‘She wouldn’t talk about it and I thought the worst of her. I had terrible suspicions that maybe she hadn’t suffered a miscarriage . . . that she had never really wanted the baby in the first place.’

‘So you stopped making perfumes,’ Cat said, abruptly realising what had caused Xavier to turn his back on his passion.

‘I felt dead inside. Probably the way you did when your parents passed away. Except that for me, I didn’t want to live each second as if it was my last.’ Xavier’s mouth tightened and he met her eyes. ‘I
wanted
to feel dead . . . I didn’t want to feel anything. I couldn’t find the enthusiasm to do what made me happy . . . I couldn’t bear it.’

Cat stared at him. All at once, she understood Xavier; the casual girlfriends, the refusal to make perfumes, the desire to live life mindlessly and without regret. He was protecting himself. Like her, he had been broken; he had just responded to his pain and grief in a different way. Cat took his chin in her hand and kissed him, tenderly. Xavier kissed her back, grateful she had listened without judging him.

Pausing, he slipped his dinner jacket from her lightly tanned shoulder and kissed it. ‘This is the first time I’ve trusted anyone enough to tell them about it. It’s been years and the worst thing about it was that this woman is in the public eye. No one knew about us but still, I had to see her name, her face, everywhere.’

Cat tensed. An awful thought had just occurred to her but she couldn’t be right . . . she
couldn’t
be. ‘Who . . . who was she?’ she asked, her breath catching in her throat.

Xavier swallowed. Did he trust Cat enough? He decided he did. What had just happened between them had meant more to him than anything ever had before. ‘She’s an actress . . . only well known in France.’ Hearing something outside, Xavier sat up suddenly. Throwing Cat’s clothes at her, he hurriedly dressed. ‘That sounded like Max. What on earth is he yelling about?’

Cat shimmied into the dress, feeling as though she could throw up. Catching Xavier’s arm, she stopped him. ‘The woman who broke your heart, what’s her name?’

Xavier stared at her curiously. ‘You won’t even have heard of her. She’s—’ He turned as Max burst into the stable, his chest heaving.

‘Xavier, you have to come up to the house,’ he panted, leaning over to catch his breath. ‘Grandmother . . . she arranged a surprise and you’re going to be so angry.’

‘What’s going on?’ Discreetly, Xavier tucked Cat’s bra into his pocket but Max’s words had sent a chill down his spine.

Max straightened up. ‘Just follow me . . . you have to.’ Shooting Cat a curious glance and noticing that her hair was loose and studded with straw, he said nothing. Instead, he headed out of the stable.

Xavier threw his dinner jacket round Cat’s shoulders and grabbed her hand. She stalled, panicking. She had a horrible feeling she knew exactly what Delphine’s surprise was and she had to warn him; she simply had to ‘Xavier . . . Delphine’s surprise . . . I can only apologise . . .’

‘What? Let’s go. Max must have come looking for me for a good reason.’ Filled with apprehension, Xavier pulled Cat after him and they hurried towards the house. Cat breathlessly tried to explain the appalling mix-up but she knew she wasn’t making any sense and he wasn’t listening any way. Xavier’s dinner jacket fell from her shoulders as they entered the main salon but Cat didn’t even register the sudden chill she felt.

Xavier stopped dead when he saw Angelique. She looked stunning in her red dress. She was holding court in the room while photographers went crazy around her. Exuding star quality, she worked the room like a pro, shaking hands and murmuring greetings, politely accepting the gushing compliments of the star-struck crowd.