‘No, this should look like a normal wedding,’ Bastien had decreed.
Yet how could it look or feel normal when neither of them had any family members present?
Lilah felt absurdly guilty that she was about to get married without her father’s knowledge.
Bastien was waiting in the hall. Clad in a superbly tailored pale grey suit, he looked breathtakingly handsome. When she met his long-lashed dark golden eyes her heart thudded and her pulses quickened, and she could feel heat rushing into her cheeks.
‘You look fantastic,’ he husked, closing a hand over hers as she reached the bottom step.
‘When did you get back?’
‘At dawn. I slept during the flight,’ he shared, just as Stefan presented Lilah with a small bunch of flowers and she thanked him warmly.
They came to a halt in the stone front doorway as a photographer stepped forward to capture them on film.
‘I wasn’t expecting him,’ Lilah admitted out of the corner of her mouth.
‘This is not a moment we can easily recapture,’ Bastien declared.
‘But who’s going to be interested?’ she whispered helplessly.
‘Our child will be interested in our wedding day,’ Bastien countered.
‘But...’ Her lips clamped shut on a rush of denial as the photographer asked her to relax and smile.
She was convinced that there wasn’t going to be a pregnancy, or a child, but she could see that Bastien had already decided otherwise.
A limousine whisked them to the mairie, a sleepy creamy stone building sited behind the war memorial in a small village. It was a civil ceremony, conducted by a middle-aged female official. Lilah held her breath as Bastien slid a gold ring on to her finger and she performed the same office for him, albeit more clumsily, all fingers and thumbs in her extreme self-consciousness as she thought about what the gesture actually meant: Bastien was her husband now.
When they emerged back into the sunshine the photographer was waiting, and she laughed and smiled, suddenly grateful that the unsettling ceremony was over and she could forget about it.
She was climbing back into the limo when a sports car shot to a sudden halt at the other side of the road and a woman called, ‘Bastien?’
Bastien stepped back from the limo and swung round as a lithe blonde scrambled out of the sports car and ran to greet him. She wore only a chiffon wrap, which was split to the waist at either side to show off her fabulous legs and brief leopard print bikini pants.
Lilah smoothed her gown over her knees and watched as the blonde kissed Bastien on both cheeks and he returned the greeting. The woman chattered, her slim hands moving expressively in the air. Very French, very chic, Lilah conceded, deliberately looking away from the encounter. Bastien’s dealings with other women were none of her business.
Her tummy flipped, her chin coming up. No, that couldn’t be true or acceptable. She was Bastien’s wife now, and that had to make a difference.
‘Who is she?’ Lilah enquired when Bastien finally joined her and the limo moved off again.
‘Chantal Baudin—one of my neighbours,’ Bastien divulged carelessly.
‘You’ve slept with her...haven’t you?’
The instant those provocative words leapt off Lilah’s tongue she was shocked by them, because she hadn’t even known that that question was in her head.
‘On several occasions over the years since I bought the chateau,’ Bastien revealed, as cool as ice water in tone. ‘She’s a model.’
‘What else would she be?’ Lilah traded drily, while colour flared over her cheekbones like a revealing banner, because she felt as though an evil genie had taken over both her brain and her tongue.
‘We were ships-that-pass-casual,’ Bastien qualified very quietly. ‘Not that that’s any of your business.’
Lilah’s shot a stubborn look at him, sapphire-blue eyes bright and defiant. ‘Oh, it’s my business now,’ she assured him without hesitation. ‘For as long as you remain married to me you have to be a one-woman man.’
A line of colour flared over Bastien’s exotic cheekbones and his dark golden eyes smouldered. ‘That sounds suspiciously like a warning.’
‘It was. Do you expect me to stay away from other men?’ Lilah asked dangerously.
‘Of course,’ Bastien breathed, in a harsh uncompromising undertone.
‘Well, let’s not be sexist about it—the rule cuts both ways. While we’re married, your wings are clipped,’ Lilah pronounced with satisfaction.
‘Presumably you intend to ensure that the sacrifice of my sexual freedom is worth my while?’ Bastien purred, black lashes dropping low over his gaze.
Lilah clashed with expectant dark eyes, brilliant as stars in a black sky, and her tummy performed a somersault while damp heat gathered at her feminine core. She shifted uneasily on the seat, uncomfortable with the potent physical effect Bastien had on her. Even when he annoyed her he could still make her want him. One glance at those high cheekbones and those stunning eyes and she melted into a puddle of longing.
Lunch awaited them on their return to the chateau. The table had been set with white linen, lace and rose petals, and Lilah stiffened in dismay when she saw it because it was very bridal and romantic. But the meal was superb, and Bastien’s businesslike account of how he had dealt with the problems at his Asian manufacturing plant relaxed Lilah again.
Bastien studied Delilah, ultra-feminine and lovely, in a dress that merely enhanced her petite proportions, wondering if she was pregnant. He wanted a child, he acknowledged. Perhaps it was simply that he was ready for a child and for a change in lifestyle. But would he have felt that way with any woman other than Delilah?
‘I should get changed,’ Lilah murmured over coffee.
‘I want to take off that dress.’
Lilah coloured. ‘It’s the middle of the day, Bastien.’
‘My libido is not controlled by the clock. In any case, we’re newly married and anything goes,’ Bastien pointed out smoothly as he rose from his chair.
But Lilah refused to think of them as a married couple, thinking it wiser to regard their current relationship as simply an extension of their original arrangement. In other words, barring the ring on her wedding finger, she was still Bastien’s mistress and his desired entertainment between the sheets. It would be very unwise, she thought, to start thinking of herself as occupying any more important or permanent role in Bastien’s life.
Lean brown fingers closed over hers and she walked upstairs with him, her slender body taut with anticipation. She listened to the faint buzz of his mobile receiving messages and suppressed a sigh. Bastien never, ever switched his phone off, and it set her teeth on edge.
Bastien glanced at his phone and frowned when he saw the text. Chantal was making a nuisance of herself. He had told her that he was not alone at the chateau and she should have taken the hint that he wasn’t available. Perhaps he should have mentioned that he had just got married, but why telegraph that news when there might be no need to do so? After all, if Delilah hadn’t conceived he would soon be alone and free as a bird again, he reminded himself. And that was what he wanted, wasn’t it? What he had always wanted: freedom without rules or ties.
Obviously he still had to get Delilah out of his system. Surely one more week would do that? Although he grudgingly admitted to himself that he did not like the prospect of parting with her. Why did the thought feel like a threat?
And then the sure knowledge hit him like a bombshell, blowing apart everything he had believed he knew about himself. He didn’t want to let Delilah go. He wanted to keep her.
Struggling to rationalise that aberrant urge, he ran down the zip on her dress very slowly and eased her smoothly out of its concealing folds. Her porcelain-pale skin showed to advantage against the defiantly unconventional scarlet bra and panties she sported. For some reason he had expected to find her wearing blue underpinnings, in line with that old bridal rhyme about something old, something new. He scanned her slender legs, but there was no garter to be seen either.
‘Something blue?’ he queried.
‘It wasn’t a real wedding, so I didn’t see the point of bothering with tradition,’ Delilah explained cheerfully.
Exasperation and annoyance shot through Bastien, who had assumed that she would be more sentimental. ‘It felt real enough to me.’
‘It’s not real when you’ve already planned the divorce before you get married,’ Delilah told him with vehement conviction.
‘No man of my wealth marries without a pre-nup. And I won’t be divorcing you if you’re carrying my child,’ Bastien pointed out, lifting her up to seat her at the foot of the bed, while wishing she would stop talking about divorce.
‘I just don’t think that it’s very likely...that I’ll be pregnant,’ she extended, feeling insanely bare in her flimsy underwear while he remained fully dressed.
‘Time will tell,’ Bastien traded, easing off her silk sandals. ‘And I do have an entire week to concentrate on getting you pregnant.’
Her bright blue eyes flew wide. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Now that we’re married it would be silly to start taking precautions again,’ Bastien pronounced.
‘Not to my way of thinking. If there is a decision still to be made on that score I don’t think I want to plan to have a baby with a womaniser,’ Lilah told him tartly.