Heaven Scent (43 page)

Guy felt repulsed, both by his mother’s actions and by Seraphina’s. He was angrier with Seraphina because she was his daughter but, really, his mother was appalling these days. He laced his fingers together, wondering what he should do. He wanted to speak to Elizabeth, to ask her advice because he was at a complete loss and it was making his head and his heart ache. But he couldn’t, he could never ask Elizabeth anything ever again.

He saw his mother approaching and he shook his head at her in disgust.

Delphine flushed. Unlike the night before, Guy now looked to be fully in control of himself. He was wearing a spotless white shirt with a silver tie that matched the colour of his neat hair. He was pale beneath his tan and his brown eyes were aflame with anger but other than that, he looked scarily calm. Xavier often looked this way, Delphine mused, in the seconds before he erupted. She needed to have her wits about her.

‘Now, I know you’re cross,’ she said in a soothing tone, fully aware it was an understatement, ‘but I can explain.’

Guy gestured to a chair. ‘Well, come on then, Mother. I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got to say about all of this.’

She limped to a chair without her cane. Guy’s aloof expression remained unchanged. If his mother was trying to get the sympathy vote, she’d have to do better than that, he thought harshly.

Delphine touched a hand to her snowy-white chignon shaking and, uncharitably, Guy was pleased to see it. His mother was always so in control, so restrained. She had always presented herself as a figurehead, someone to emulate and follow, but this time she had gone too far.

‘You have every right to be disappointed in me,’ she started.

‘Disappointed!’ Guy exploded. A vein throbbed in his head and Delphine stared at it worriedly. ‘Disappointed doesn’t even come close to how I’m feeling right now, Mother.’

Delphine inclined her head. ‘I know you don’t understand why I hired Yves – I mean, the private detective,’ she said hurriedly, realising the use of Yves’ name would be like a red rag to a bull for Guy. ‘But I really thought I was doing the right thing. My friend Cybille—’

‘Your friend Cybille is a poisonous old dragon,’ Guy growled, slamming his hand down on his desk. ‘She doesn’t care about you or about this family. All she cares about is her place in society. She’s nothing more than a social leech.

Delphine was taken aback. ‘I hardly think that’s the case,’ she protested, her brows knitting together. It wasn’t true – was it? ‘She recommended the private detective and I hired him because I was worried about Cat Hayes. I thought she might have a secret, something that might help us if she refused to go. Or that might damage the family in some way,’ she added, thinking that sounded better.

Guy shot her a withering glance. ‘Blackmail?’ he asked, looking revolted. ‘Surely we haven’t stooped to that. Surely we haven’t become people who resort to these sorts of tactics, Mother. Those are the kind of people who usually target wealthy families like us.’

‘It’s not blackmail, it’s insurance,’ Delphine protested automatically, using Cybille’s words. ‘Cybille says—’

‘I don’t want to hear another word about Cybille!’ Guy roared, making her jump. ‘This is about Seraphina. I’m furious with you for bringing that pervert into our house but I’m more concerned about my daughter thinking she can sleep with men twice her age. Does the girl have no morals?’ He was ranting now and he couldn’t stop. ‘First she rides round her college naked and now this!’

‘Guy!’ Still stinging from Guy’s comments about Cybille, Delphine wasn’t going to let that one pass. ‘Seraphina does have morals and, for the record, she didn’t have sex with Yves.’ Guy winced. ‘I agree that we need to be concerned but have you thought about why she did this?’

Guy let out a hoarse laugh. ‘I’ve thought about nothing else, Mother! Don’t you think I’ve asked myself why my teenage daughter wants to become a model? Don’t you think I’ve asked myself over and over why on earth she wants to hurt me by sleeping with a man in his thirties?’

Delphine stared at him. ‘You think Seraphina did this to hurt you?’

‘Why else?’

Delphine lifted herself out of her chair with difficulty. Contrary to Guy’s assumption that she had left her stick behind on purpose, she had actually taken a tumble that morning and broken her stick in two. Thankfully, nothing else was broken but it made getting around extremely difficult. Still, she wasn’t about to admit to such a thing – she was in a weak enough position as it was without adding physical frailty to the list. Delphine gazed at her son sadly. He really couldn’t see what was going on under his nose at the moment. Seraphina was acting up and doing things that were totally out of character all he could come up with by way of explanation was that she wanted to upset him.

Delphine limped to the door. Someone needed to tell Guy to wake up and smell the coffee but she wasn’t sure the message should come from her and certainly not at this moment in time. He was too angry with her to take anything she had to say seriously and he was also playing the martyr, not that he knew it.

‘I’ll speak to you when you calm down,’ she said quietly. ‘And Guy, please take care of yourself. Think of your blood pressure. All this stress isn’t good for you.’

Guy wondered when his mother had taken to stating the obvious. He didn’t want to feel this stressed, for God’s sake! He caught sight of Seraphina mooching around outside and felt furious all over again. He knew he needed to confront her and find out what she was playing at but he wasn’t sure he trusted himself not to strike her. Best to wait it out and try to calm down first.

Gazing at the photograph of Elizabeth on his desk and feeling like a total failure, Guy put his head in his hands and wept.

Locked away in his lab once more, Xavier’s emotions were all over the place and he was desperate for a cigarette. The last twenty-four hours had changed everything. Realising he had feelings for Cat . . . Angelique turning up out of the blue . . . Cat being behind the whole thing . . .

Xavier held up a phial of his fragrance. It was the unfinished article and without the missing ingredient it was pleasant, certainly, but not good enough. He wanted this fragrance to be the greatest achievement of his career to date – his comeback, if you like. He knew it was very close to being a bestseller and one of those fragrances that would last for years to come. It was young, sophisticated and sensual, a playful, sexy fragrance that had real staying power and an intoxicating, heady afterglow.

Xavier slotted the samples he’d created into a box. He’d created them so he could play around with the combinations and quantities once he had the missing element. Having got this far, he wanted this fragrance ready as soon as possible and he knew organising everything in advance would help.

Thoughts of the night before flooded back into his head. Xavier knew he couldn’t be angry with Cat about it. She didn’t know about Angelique because he hadn’t told her. Even last night, he hadn’t mentioned her name. He vaguely remembered Cat trying to tell him something as he’d dragged her back up to the house and he guessed her rambling words had been an attempt to warn him about what he was about to be confronted with.

The trouble was, even though Xavier knew it wasn’t Cat’s fault, he still couldn’t go near her at the moment. She might have been oblivious of the fact that Angelique had been the woman who’d changed everything in his life a few years back but she had still brought the source of all his pain back to the forefront.

He pulled his fragrance notes towards him and stared at them blindly. Xavier knew it was pointless trying to work but he didn’t know what else to do. Last night in the stables, everything had seemed perfect . . . the chemistry between himself and Cat had been electric. Their mutual passion had astonished both of them. They had more or less confessed to falling head over heels in love with one another, which made Angelique’s arrival all the more disruptive. Tearing off his lab coat, Xavier headed round the side of the lab for the much-needed cigarette. Drawing on it sharply in an attempt to steady his nerves, he sensed someone behind him and tensed. He smelt her before he saw her, the pungent aroma of jasmine seeping under his nostrils like creeping smoke.

‘Angelique.’

She was wearing a black sundress that plunged almost down to her navel, revealing her luscious breasts. Angelique’s mouth curved up bewitchingly. ‘You lied last night,’ she said, running her eyes down him in what could only be described as a possessive manner. God, but she had forgotten how sexy he was, Angelique thought, feeling her groin respond the way it always had around him. Those dark, dark eyes like melted chocolate, the almost black hair that looked particularly gorgeous when it was tousled the way it was now. That taut, toned body . . .

Why on earth had she left him back then? Pulling herself together, she put that thought aside. She knew exactly why she’d left him. It hadn’t been guilt, exactly, so much as the realisation that she wasn’t ready for what he had to offer. She had made mistakes – one notable one that would remain dead and buried forever – and she had allowed her life to spiral out of control.

Angelique flicked her hair over her shoulder. That was the past. Now she was back and she was more than ready for Xavier – Xavier and everything that came with him. She caught sight of the box of perfume phials, sure it must be the new fragrance. Was she the inspiration behind it? Angelique was sure she must be. She moved closer.

Xavier glared at her, furious that she was in his lab. He was moved by her presence and he hated himself for it. Angelique had always been a stunning woman, with her Brigitte Bardot-style blond hair and curves like a sex kitten. She was sex personified. She was nothing like Cat, who had a raw, natural beauty that was breathtaking. Angelique was like a fantasy woman . . . a sexual overdose. But who the fuck thought it would be a good idea for Angelique to feature in the ad campaign for his new fragrance? Xavier thought angrily. She was undoubtedly beautiful but she was too overtly sexy for what he had in mind; he would have chosen someone with a more restrained beauty.

‘Admit it,’ Angelique purred, moving closer. ‘You lied to me last night. You said you didn’t miss me but I don’t believe you.’

Xavier wanted to shove her away from him but his brain and his groin were confused. Part of him wanted to tell Angelique to leave, to go back to her pornographic films and her glitzy, movie-star life, and part of him wanted to feel her again, to throw her into bed and revisit the place of so many dark but disturbingly sensual memories. He didn’t trust her and he never would again but could he honestly say he hadn’t missed her over the past two years? He’d be lying if he said her presence wasn’t affecting him now.

As if sensing his weakness, Angelique moved even closer. Her heels scraped on the floor and the noise jarred on Xavier’s already frazzled nerves. ‘So you did miss me. You thought about me as much as I’ve thought about you.’ She ran a scarlet-tipped fingernail along his shirt sleeve. The gesture seemed provocative, but then Angelique could make drinking a cup of coffee seem obscenely suggestive, Xavier thought wryly. He pushed past her, needing some air. Outside, he immediately lit a cigarette, inhaling gratefully.

‘I’ve moved on,’ he sniped at Angelique, who had followed him outside. It was true, even if it had only happened in the past few weeks. Remembering Cat’s luminous, aquamarine eyes, Xavier felt a pain in his heart. He wanted to go to her, to feel her warm, sexy body against his . . . he wanted to block Angelique from his mind forever but he didn’t know what to say to Cat, not yet.

‘There’s always room for a replay, isn’t there?’

Xavier almost laughed. ‘Is that what you think? That you can just come back here and pick up where we left off?’

She shrugged. ‘Why not?’ She smiled. ‘Look, I know we had our problems but we had such a good time, didn’t we, Xavier? Remember the sex.’ She licked her lips suggestively. ‘Remember how good it was?’

Xavier did. As he caught a waft of the jasmine oil she always wore, memories washed over him and he was blinded by vivid images of himself with Angelique. He shrugged them off because they made him feel sick.

‘You’re making fragrances again,’ Angelique said, changing the subject abruptly. ‘And I am the face of the ad campaign. What could be more perfect?’

‘That was nothing to do with me,’ Xavier snapped. ‘Trust me, no one asked me if I thought you were the right person for the brand.’ She wasn’t. Xavier knew it would be a mistake to use her and he would do whatever it took to remove her from the campaign. But she had always had the ability to mess with his mind and she was doing it again.

‘You still care.’ Angelique taunted him hypnotically with her wide blue eyes. ‘Why else would you have reacted the way you did last night?’

Xavier stared at her. He didn’t know what he felt right now. Before he could sort out the maelstrom of emotions churning inside him, Angelique planted her mouth on his hungrily. Realising she had caught him unawares, she thrust her tongue into his mouth, toying with his urgently. Startled, Xavier found himself kissing her back, just for a moment. He felt her arms round his neck and her breasts against his chest and his groin almost let him down as Angelique ground herself against him deliberately. It felt . . . familiar. Not good, not bad . . . but familiar. And then it felt wrong, really, really wrong. Their relationship had been intense, like a honeymoon period. The brief happiness over the baby had been extinguished, and Angelique had packed up and headed back to her life and her career. Their relationship had never officially ended; it was unfinished business.