It had to be an old magazine. Not that that quite wiped out the huge sense of hurt she was experiencing. Naturally it was a smack in the face to appreciate that Gabrielle Joly must also have shared a bed here with Luc at one time. Suddenly all her own memories began feeling soiled. She turned the magazine round, just to check the date of it. Only then did she realise in sick dismay that the spoiling of sentimental memories was the least she had to worry about!
The magazine was only two months old, so when Luc had jotted down ‘Gabrielle arriving’ it had been barely a month before Star had come back into his life. Star hugged herself, suddenly chilled to the marrow. How could she now have faith in anything Luc had told her about Gabrielle Joly?
Luc had allowed her to believe that Gabrielle had been out of his life for a long time. And yet Gabrielle had still been his mistress as recently as two months ago! Star was shattered. Was Luc planning to keep both a wife and a mistress? What else could she believe? If Gabrielle Joly still held his interest after what Star now estimated to be a relationship of several years’ duration, the beautiful blonde had to be very important to him. Far more important than Star had ever been prepared to consider…
CHAPTER TEN
STAR was gutted by misery.
She would have to wait until they got back to the chateau to confront Luc with her suspicions; it would be sheer madness to embark on what was likely to be a very distressing scene at the outset of a journey home.
So Luc had to make his own breakfast. He had never had to do that before, and it was not an entirely successful operation. When he tried to kiss Star good morning, he got pushed away and snapped at. By the time they boarded the jet, the atmosphere was explosive. Ignoring Luc’s repeated demands to know what was wrong, Star concentrated her attention on Venus and Mars.
Ten minutes into the flight, Luc rose from his seat. ‘Look at me, Star—’
‘I don’t want to look at you right now,’ she admitted tightly, and lifted her magazine higher.
Luc snatched it out of her hands with a suddenness that shook her into looking up.
‘Stand up,’ he told her, dark eyes glittering with anger. ‘We’ll talk in private.’
‘No, I—’
‘D’accord…’ Without warning, Luc simply bent down, scooped her out of her seat and carried her down the plane. ‘We are not going to fight in front of the children.’
‘Put me down this minute…’ she hissed furiously.
Luc dumped her down into another seat and lounged back across the aisle from her.
‘We’re flying home to a very big party.’
That startling announcement took the wind from Star’s angry sails. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Being such a romantic guy,’ Luc drawled with withering derision, ‘I decided to stage the wedding reception we never had as a surprise. Three hundred guests will be waiting to greet us, including your mother and her seriously rich new husband, Bruno Vence. Be warned, Bruno is very small, and he has hair and eyes that are an exact match of yours. And now for the best bit of all. Your wedding dress is waiting for you in the main sleeping compartment.’
‘My…my what?’ Star gasped, already sufficiently thrown by the announcement of the reception and utterly bewildered by the apparent fact that he seemed to know more about Juno’s husband than she did.
‘You never had the wedding you wanted. Since that was my fault, I have arranged for a church blessing, and this time you get to wear a wedding dress.’
‘I can’t…I just can’t.’
Luc lowered his arrogant dark head. Shimmering dark eyes alight with outrage locked onto hers. ‘Oh, yes, you will!’ he growled. ‘You will not embarrass me in front of three hundred people. So ship out, dress up and join the grown-ups. Being in a bad, bad sulky mood is not an excuse for your behaviour since you got up this morning!’
‘How about…Gabrielle?’ Star whispered raggedly.
Luc stared at her, a pleat forming between his winged ebony brows. ‘I don’t see the connection.’
‘I’ll show you…wait a minute.’ Star hurried back to her original seat to lift her bag and dig out the magazine cover she had brought from the villa as evidence. Her hands shook. Now the moment had come, she didn’t want to confront Luc. Her head was spinning. He had organised these wonderful, wonderful events for her as a surprise, she was now appreciating in shock. They were to have a church blessing and she was to wear a wedding dress and finally be officially introduced to loads of relatives and guests as his wife. And if it hadn’t been for the magazine cover she was crumpling between her hands, right now she would have been ecstatically happy.
Luc was poised exactly where she had left him. His darkly handsome face still as glass, he watched her approach. It was a long time since she had seen Luc wear that chilling expression and her skin crawled with foreboding; he had his defences back up. He was guilty; he had to be guilty. He was just waiting to see how much she knew.
In silence, Star extended the magazine cover.
‘High drama,’ Luc breathed with licking scorn. ‘But I don’t read this sort of rubbish.’
‘It’s something you’ve written on the cover…’
Luc perused his own handwriting. His hard jawline squared. ‘So?’
That undeniably aggressive demand for further clarification wasn’t quite the reaction Star had expected. ‘Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it?’ she said shakily.
‘On the basis of two words and a date I scribbled down the last weekend I spent in Corsica, you decided…what?’
Having to spell it all out somehow made it even more humiliating. A burst of anger pierced the fog of pain and despair which had enveloped Star throughout the morning. ‘You’re still sleeping with her…you never got rid of her…all this time that we’ve been married, she’s continued to be your mistress!’ she condemned rawly.
‘Are you finished?’ Dark eyes as glacial and dangerous as black ice rested on her. ‘My relationship with Gabrielle died a natural death several weeks before I even married you! Late last year she got married—’
‘Married?’ Star stressed in shock.
‘During their honeymoon, her husband, Marc, was seriously injured in a road accident. He was only recently released from hospital. When a mutual friend told me of their situation, and of Marc’s need for rest and recuperation, I offered them the use of the villa for a holiday.’
Shaken by what he was telling her, Star blinked rapidly. ‘But—’
‘I haven’t seen Gabrielle since she moved to Dijon last year. I was invited to her wedding but was unable to attend.’ Luc scanned Star’s drawn face with ice-cool eyes.
Star felt awful. ‘Luc, I—’
‘Gabrielle and I were companions and occasional lovers for a couple of years. It suited both of us. Neither of us wanted to be tied down and we parted just as casually,’ Luc informed her grimly. ‘I can’t understand why you should still be so obsessed with her.’
Her face was burning. She could feel the heat of her own severe embarrassment. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she whispered.
‘And I’m really angry with you,’ Luc ground out with a newly learned forthrightness which was ironically very unwelcome at that moment.
The thoughts she had thought, the suspicions she had cherished, the very feelings she had gone through over the past hours since reading that stupid note on the magazine now struck Star as rather hysterical.
‘For two weeks I’ve been planning all this behind your back…the church, the dress, the big party…’ Luc vented a bitter laugh, a really bleak look in his eyes now, which ripped her to shreds inside. ‘And all you’ve been thinking about all morning is walking out on our marriage again! Tell me, were you looking for a good excuse to leave me?’
White as death now, Star gazed up at him, her tummy flipping with fear. ‘It wasn’t like that. I got all worked up, and I was scared you might still be involved with Gabrielle, but maybe that’s because I still feel insecure…Luc, I’m sorry.’
He closed his hands over her slim shoulders in a firm grip. His dark eyes were tough enough to strip paint. ‘You are not leaving me again. I don’t care if I have to chain you to a wall some where…you are not leaving me again!’ he vented with raw emphasis.
Trembling with reaction, Star watched him stride away. She was deeply shaken by the amount of emotion he had revealed in that last speech. This time around Luc had been so quick, so ready to offer her a commitment to their marriage. But she had held back, refusing to give him her trust, making him feel as if he was on trial even though she had denied that. And she loved him so much! So why had she hurt him as she just had with accusations that were patently ridiculous in the light of his behaviour in recent weeks?
Bertille met them at the airport. Enchanted, like Star, when she saw Venus and Mars in the little page boy and bridesmaid outfits Luc had had made up for their children, the young nanny was even more impressed when she saw Star in her wedding gown, wearing a superb Sarrazin diamond tiara in her hair.
‘I really adore the dress,’ Star told Luc in the limo on the way to the church, tracing the beautiful beading sewn into the exquisite fabric. ‘How did you pick it?’