One Night with His Wife(26)

Her discomfiture was forgotten. The images Luc evoked chilled her.

‘That’s why I want something better for our children,’ Luc continued in the same level tone. ‘Because I know the cost of getting something less. I’m not prepared to play at being married while you make up your mind about what you want to do.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting we—’

‘You were…and if you start out with the belief that it’s all right to fail, failure becomes that much more likely.’ Releasing her from his light hold, Luc vaulted back upright.

‘That’s not how I see it.’ Her aquamarine eyes frustrated, she scrambled up.

Luc gave her a cloaked scrutiny. ‘I won’t be put on trial.’

‘I’m not putting you on trial, for goodness’ sake!’

His eyes glittered like ice-fire in a shaft of sunlight. ‘I’ve already lost out on the first year of my children’s lives and yet you’re expecting me to spend the next few months wondering whether we’re likely to end up fighting over them in court!’

Taken aback by that statement, Star swallowed uncertainly.

‘And not only that,’ Luc continued with glacial cool, ‘At the same time you actually expect me to behave as if our marriage is normal and treat you as my wife—a bond which requires a sense of trust and security. What do you think I am? A split personality?’

‘How long did it take you to work out that argument?’ Star asked with helpless curiosity, eyes now wide with wonderment.

Disconcerted by that offbeat question, and by the way she was studying him, Luc frowned.

Star gave a slow, rueful shake of her bright head. ‘Never mind. I have to admit that I’m torn between resentment and admiration. You’ve made a very good point and pretty much trashed my argument.’

Without another word, she threaded her feet into her sandals and then whisked up the rug and carefully folded it. She planted the rug into his surprised hands and then, retracing her steps, wheeled the pram in the direction of the path. She glanced back, noting Luc was still poised like a devastatingly handsome statue in the same spot.

‘Aren’t you coming?’ she asked in surprise.

‘What you just said…’ Luc drawled as he strode onto the path. ‘What did it…mean?’

‘I’ll tell you when I work it out. Mmm…’ she sighed with a sunny smile. ‘I love the smell of the woods.’

‘Star, we need to sort this out—’

‘Relax…unwind…loosen your tie,’ Star urged pleadingly.

He wanted to organise their marriage along the strict lines of his daily schedule. Nothing unexpected, nothing outside normal boundaries, everything under his rational, structured control. He couldn’t help himself. His brain was like a steel trap. And arguing with him was a waste of time. She wasn’t about to be browbeaten into changing her mind on the spur of the moment. She was a lateral thinker who worked on gut instinct. Luc was just going to have to accept that.

When they got back to the chateau, they entertained the twins for an hour. After that, Venus and Mars had their tea and Bertille helped Star to bathe them. By the time the children were tucked into their cots Star was hungry, and, since Luc was now home again, she went to change for dinner. Clad in a floaty lemon dress that skimmed her ankles, she went downstairs and joined Luc in the drawing room.

To her surprise, Luc wasn’t wearing his usual formal evening dress. Dressed in beautifully cut khaki chinos and a toning shirt, he looked very elegant, yet very much more casual than she was accustomed to seeing him. In that split-second first encounter with his brilliant dark gaze, her tummy clenched and her pulses quickened. Her awareness of his devastating masculinity intensified to a degree that made her suddenly self-conscious.

‘Where’s your dinner jacket?’ she muttered in a rush to fill in the silence, shifting from one foot to the other, her cheeks warming as she hurriedly lowered her eyes from the downright lure of his.

‘Do you remember telling me that when I wore a dinner jacket I reminded you of the men who appear in old black and white movies?’ Luc enquired gently. ‘Since then, for some reason, I’ve never felt quite the same about dressing up for dinner.’

‘Well, times do change, although they never did here, did they?’ Star started talking in mile-a-minute mode. ‘Your father was a real old stick-in-the-mud for living the way your ancestors did. The last time I stayed here it was like I’d strayed back into the eighteenth century and was living history!’

Luc scanned her simple dress with its delicate embroidery. ‘But in spite of that, you’re now dressing for dinner.’

Star just grinned; she couldn’t help it: it was just typical that they should be out of step. But as she connected with his magnetic dark eyes a second time, that thought drifted from her again, more elemental responses taking over. All she really wanted was to be in his arms, and she felt she ought to have more control over herself.

‘You do look gorgeous in that dress,’ Luc extended softly. ‘And it’s going to be the perfect foil for my present.’

‘Present?’

Luc swept a gift-wrapped box from the table behind him and settled it into her hands.

In genuine surprise, Star sat down hurriedly to open the box. When she lifted out a chakra necklace, she studied it in total shock. She only recognised what it was because she had once seen one in a book. Each different gemstone and crystal had been exquisitely cut and framed in intricate settings, the whole joined by delicate gold links.

Stunned, Star looked up and stared at Luc in amazement. ‘It’s just gorgeous…where did you get it?’

‘I had it made for you while I was in Singapore. A practitioner skilled in the healing qualities of crystals and gemstones helped me to decide what to include.’

Star slowly swallowed. ‘B-but you—’

Luc touched the first gemstone. ‘Amber for calm, amethyst for spiritual peace, aquamarine for communication…’ he enumerated steadily. ‘Azurite to help you find your life path and to trust in your intuition, topaz to protect you through life changes, opal for meditation, tourmaline to heal past traumas, lapis lazuli to change negative views into positive ones…and a rose quartz pendulum for powerful healing energy.’

‘I just can’t believe this…’ Star mumbled, examining each gem with close interest backed by growing appreciation and excitement at the meaning of so very personalised a present. ‘This means so much to me, Luc…and that you should have taken the trouble, made the effort when you don’t even believe in—’

‘There is a scientific basis to your convictions. Now that I know that, I can handle the concept better.’

‘You mean you don’t think I’m a crackpot any more?’ Star asked hopefully.

‘I never said you were a crackpot.’

‘It must have cost you a fortune…not that that counts for anything, with your wealth…but this is just one of those very, very special gifts that speaks so loud…’ At that point, Star got up and flung her arms round him, her heart singing like a thousand violins reaching a crescendo. ‘You are turning into a really wonderful guy, Luc!’

His arms full of Star, Luc frowned. Turning into? From a rat into a wonderful guy. It was a meteoric rise, he conceded. He had known that she would be really surprised by the necklace, but he was astonished that a gift had the power to inspire her with such an emotional response. But then she was very impressionable. Recalling the amount of cool calculation that had gone into that necklace, he suppressed a very slight pang of conscience.

‘Put it on for me,’ Star whispered.

Taking the necklace from her, Luc undid the catch. She turned round and bent her head for him, felt the cool weight of the jewellery and then, in shock, the hard, sensual promise of his lips pressing to the exposed nape of her neck. Her knees wobbled and every nerve-ending just seemed to sizzle, making her gasp.

‘You are so deliciously responsive, Madame Sarrazin,’ Luc teased huskily above her head as she fell back into the waiting circle of his arms, every inch of her so tormentingly aware of that lean, hard frame of his that she blushed all over.

He held her fast, the warm, sexy scent of him engulfing her, wiping out all self-discipline. Instinctively she pushed back against him, and he vented a roughened groan at that contact. ‘Luc…’ she framed with a desperate little shiver.

‘Relax…’ he urged slumbrously, effortlessly in control when she already felt weak with physical need.

He let his hands roam with sure expertise up over the straining thrust of her urgently sensitive breasts and she jerked and moaned, arching back in a fever of trembling excitement. It had only been a week but it felt like a hundred years since she had last felt his touch.

With a ragged sigh, Luc turned her back to him and stole one devouring kiss full of a hunger that more than matched her own. Then he dragged his mouth free again and held her tight against him until the fever inside her had subsided to a more bearable level. ‘Touching you wasn’t the brightest idea…’ His own breathing was fractured, his deep voice uneven. ‘Particularly not when the bell’s already gone for dinner.’