At that explanatory reference to an incident from their own past, Star’s over-taxed emotions responded by simply flooding her eyes with tears. ‘You are so insensitive!’
‘After last night, I could hardly be expected to appreciate that you are that keen on the guy,’ Luc murmured with cool, contemptuous clarity.
Humiliated by that rejoinder, Star’s hands knotted into fists and she twisted her bright head away, fighting to get herself back under control. He could think what he liked! And as usual he’d read her wrong! Eighteen months ago, in one of her many attempts to persuade Luc to see her as a proper wife, she had given the chateau chef a night off and made dinner one evening. And it had been an absolutely mortifying total fiasco. Anything that hadn’t been overcooked had been undercooked. And, worst of all, Luc had attempted to eat those pathetic edible offerings because he’d felt sorry for her.
‘My chauffeur will take you home to pack and bring you to the airport in time for the flight this evening,’ Luc drawled some minutes later.
Startled by that announcement, Star glanced up and registered that the limousine had already drawn to a smooth halt outside the Sarrazin bank in central London.
‘I have several appointments to keep.’ His brilliant dark deep-set eyes were cool as ice. ‘But, as requested, I’ve come up with a better explanation with which to satisfy Emilie when our charade of a marriage disintegrates all over again. On this occasion, you can just tell her the truth!’
Star studied him in bewilderment. ‘Sorry, I—’
‘Did you really think that I wouldn’t work out that Emilie appears to believe that your children are mine?’ Luc demanded with sardonic bite.
Since Star had been guilty of thinking exactly that, she was taken entirely by surprise. A split second later, she found she could not meet his hard, challenging gaze either. Her own shrinking reluctance to tell him the truth about the twins had created this particular misunderstanding.
‘You never think anything through to its likely conclusion,’ Luc said very drily.
In this particular case he was undeniably correct, and Star was stung. ‘How did you guess?’ she heard herself asking.
‘Emilie would not have welcomed your children had she not believed that I was their father,’ Luc pointed out.
And, once again, he was quite right, Star acknowledged with gritted teeth. Had the twins been the result of an extramarital affair, Emilie Auber would have been very distressed by their birth. Nor, in such circumstances, would she have been so willing to believe the story of their supposed reconciliation.
‘Whatever lies you employed to persuade her into crediting that cosy little fiction are your own responsibility,’ Luc continued. ‘But let me warn you now that while I appreciate the shock which Emilie will suffer when you admit the truth, I won’t allow that lie to stand even temporarily in my own home. No matter what discomfiture it causes you, I have no intention of playing along with that particular pretence.’
Star scanned his lean, strong face with sudden aghast intensity. ‘But everyone will think I’m a real tart!’
‘You said it,’ Luc murmured with lethal cool.
Pulverised by that final comment, and furious at herself for giving him that opening, Star watched him swing out of the car with predatory grace and stride towards the entrance of the London headquarters of the Sarrazin bank. Somewhat belatedly, it occurred to her that she had been foolish to allow Luc to continue believing that their children had been fathered by another man, foolish to place her own pride ahead of what was, after all, an unalterable fact. And the sooner she told Luc the truth now the better.
When Star boarded the Sarrazin private jet, she was clutching a squirming Venus under one arm and a clinging Mars under the other. Her floaty blue skirt and white cropped top were sticking to her damp skin. After rushing through the airport, she was feeling really harassed.
Luc strode out to greet her. Sheathed in a formal navy pinstripe suit embellished with a silk geometric print tie, he looked shockingly sexy. A guilty little tremor ran down her backbone.
‘Do you realise how long we’ve been waiting for you?’
Her backbone became suddenly less sensitive. ‘I’m sorry.’
She could have bitten her tongue out as soon as she said it. Unfortunately, Emilie had trained her too well, to always apologise for being late. However, Star had had a very difficult afternoon. With no prior preparation, packing for herself and the twins and closing up Highburn Castle had been serious hard work.
She had phoned Rory as soon as she’d got home. He had arrived while she was still struggling to get organised. He had been shattered when she’d told him that she was flying back to France with Luc. While she had still been trying to explain Emilie’s financial situation, he had walked out in a temper. Now she could not imagine how she had ever thought she could hold onto any kind of relationship with Rory when Luc had stolen her life and her freedom for months to come.
‘Who disabled the car phone?’ Luc enquired glacially.
‘I did.’ Star owned up straight off. ‘I told you we were stuck in a traffic jam. I didn’t see the point of five-minute bulletins.’
Luc breathed in very deep. A combination of relief and raw exasperation powered through him. Punctual to a fault himself, he found her laid-back attitude infuriating. Star could leave a room promising to be just five minutes and then forget to come back at all. She was very easily distracted. But when telephone contact with the limousine had abruptly been severed, Luc’s stress level had rocketed. He had wondered if Star had changed her mind about their arrangement and gone for the sort of sudden vanishing act her flighty mother excelled at.
‘Do you think you could offer to take one of the twins for me?’ Star prompted as the ache in her arms at the combined weight of the babies reached an unbearable level.
‘Take one of the…?’ Luc just froze.
Star shifted closer and indicated Venus with a downward motion of her chin.
‘Where do I take hold of it?’ Luc demanded.
‘Just grab her before I drop her!’ Star urged.
Luc clasped Venus between two stiff hands and held his daughter in mid-air like an unexploded bomb. Initially delighted by the transfer, Venus then picked up on that adult uncertainty and let out an anxious wail of fright. In response, Luc extended his arms to put an even greater distance between them. Venus squirmed and yelped in panic, clearly thinking she was on the way to being dropped.
‘Hold her close, for goodness’ sake…you’re frightening the life out of her!’ Banding both her arms round Mars, Star sighed with relief at the easing of the strain in her muscles.
Luc grated, ‘I’ve never held a baby before!’
‘Well, it’s about time you learned. Babies are very touchy-feely and like to know they’re secure.’ Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Luc draw Venus closer with such pronounced reluctance she could have kicked him.
‘Why’s she going all slack?’ Luc enquired in a driven undertone.
‘Because she’s in cuddle mode.’ She watched Venus snuggle her curly head down on Luc’s shoulder and just sag, the way very tired babies do.
‘She’s got little bones like a bird,’ Luc drawled flatly. ‘I was afraid I might hurt her.’
In the luxurious working area which made up only about a sixth of the passenger space available on the extensive Sarrazin jet, Star settled Mars into one of the baby seats awaiting occupancy. Luc bent down for her to peel Venus off his shoulder.
‘Cots have been organised for them in the rear cabin,’ Luc advanced.
Star strapped herself in beside the twins. Minutes later, the powerful jet taxied towards the runway. Luc was already perusing a file at the far side of the cabin. Star suppressed a rueful laugh. She had planned to tell Luc during the flight that Venus and Mars were his own flesh and blood. But she was exhausted, and what difference would another few hours make? She would be calmer and better equipped to deal with making that announcement in the morning.
As soon as they were airborne, the stewardess approached her and showed her down to the rear cabin, mentioning that a meal was about to be served, but Star said that she wasn’t hungry. Having settled Venus and Mars into the cots, she decided to take advantage of the bed beside them and get some rest.
About ten minutes later, the door opened with quiet care. ‘You should eat something,’ Luc informed her levelly.
Half asleep, Star flipped over, copper hair tumbling over one exotic cheekbone, aquamarine eyes heavy. Light spilled in from the passage to glimmer over the satin-smooth skin of her slender waist where the crop-top had ridden up. As she stretched unselfconsciously, the extended length of one long shapely leg emerged from the folds of her skirt.
She studied Luc from below her dark lashes, the perceptible tension in the atmosphere tugging at her senses.
‘You look like a gipsy,’ Luc murmured.
The dark, deep pitch of his accented drawl quivered along her nerve-endings, awakening treacherous warmth low in the pit of her stomach.
‘Sauvage…wild,’ he breathed in husky addition.
Suddenly her every muscle was taut. She stared helplessly at him. So tall, so dark, so extravagantly, breathtakingly gorgeous. Hunger surged up inside her with such greedy immediacy she could barely breathe. In a split second she relived the urgent passionate force of his sensual mouth only just over twenty-four hours earlier, the hard, powerful pressure of his expert body moving on and in hers. Sensual weakness cascaded like melting fire through her, her breasts now full and swelling, their pointed peaks tightening into aching prominence. But then, just as suddenly, she remembered how Luc had behaved after he had got out of her bed. Cool, distant, dismissive, all intimacy forgotten.