To Be the Best

And they both knew deep in the innermost recesses of their hearts that they had finally fulfilled their destiny.

The antique ormolu clock on the white marble mantelpiece began to chime loudly.

Paula and Shane both started in surprise and glanced across at it, and Shane exclaimed, ‘Good Lord, it’s nine-thirty already, and I booked a table at the Espadon for quarter to ten. Can you get ready in fifteen minutes, darling?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Paula said, putting down her glass, stretching, then smothering a yawn behind her hand.

Shane stared hard at her and scowled. ‘You’re terribly tired,’ he said in concern. ‘How thoughtless of me to expect you to go downstairs to the restaurant. It’s a hot bath for you, my girl, and immediately. We’ll have a snack from room service tonight.’

‘Don’t be silly, I’m fine,’ Paula began and paused, yawning again. ‘Well, to tell you the truth, it has been a long day,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps you’re right about eating in the suite.’

‘I know I am.’

As he spoke, Shane stood up, reached down, took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet. He laid his arm around her shoulders and propelled her towards the bedroom door. ‘I wish I’d cancelled Kevin’s weekend off and sent him with the plane to collect you this evening – ’

‘I’m jolly glad you didn’t cancel it!’ Paula cried, giving him a sharp, almost reproving look. She was fond of Kevin Reardon and was aware that the pilot’s devotion to them frequently caused him to neglect his personal life. ‘Kevin’s been looking forward to his girlfriend’s birthday party tomorrow night for weeks now. Anyway, he made a good messenger, didn’t he? It was Kevin who delivered your note to the store this morning, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, it was.’ Shane grinned as he proceeded to bundle her into the bedroom. ‘Come on, get undressed and take a hot bath, and whilst you’re relaxing I shall order supper. What do you fancy?’

‘Oh anything you like … I’ll leave it to you, darling.’

‘How about a picnic … with some of your favourite things? And another bottle of bubbly.’

Paula laughed gaily. She said, ‘If I drink any more champagne I might just pass out.’

‘That’s permissible,’ Shane shot back, ‘you have your husband here to look after you.’

‘True. And a very special husband at that.’ She stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek.

Shane’s arms went around her and he caught her to him for a moment, tightening his grip, kissing the top of her dark head, and then he suddenly let go of her abruptly, stepped away from her.

‘I’d better be a good boy and go and order supper, otherwise you never know what might happen. After all, I have been deprived of you for two whole weeks, and I don’t mind telling you, I’ve missed you like bloody hell, my love …’

‘Oh Shane darling,’ she said slowly, very softly. ‘Yes … I know what you mean …’

It was the inflection in her voice, the sudden longing on her face that made him instantly take a step forward.

She reached out her hand to him.

He took it.

Their clasped hands tightened and they moved into each other’s arms swiftly. He bent his face to hers, seeking her mouth, and felt the sudden hotness of her cheeks, and the knowledge that she always wanted him as much as he always wanted her aroused him, made his heart begin to clatter erratically. They kissed, a long deep kiss, and he let his tongue explore her mouth, and they shared a feeling of the most profound intimacy.

Paula was suddenly trembling in his arms and together they swayed on their feet as if they were intoxicated, and of course they were – with each other – and then they half-stumbled, half-walked in the direction of the bed, their arms still wrapped around one another.

Shane stripped her of her clothes.

She went and lay down on the bed, waiting for him, and her eyes never once left his face as he flung off his own clothes. As she watched him intently she was hardly able to contain herself, wanting him so much, and when she saw how excited he was she felt a shiver trickle down her spine.

As Shane stared back into those violet eyes turning inky black with longing for him, he was possessed by such a violent desire for her it sent the blood rushing to his head and made his heart begin to pound against his rib cage. He felt dizzy and lightheaded as he walked across to the bed and stretched out beside her.

Pushing himself up on one elbow, he bent over her, looked down into her face.

She gazed up at him.

Their eyes locked and held for the longest moment of the most intense and adoring communion, and then he touched her cheek with two fingers, moving their tips across her brows, her eyelids, her nose and onto her mouth; slowly he traced the outline of her lips and parted them and rested his fingertips against her tongue. She sucked on them and the sensuality of this little act inflamed him, made the fire leap through him. Immediately, he crushed his mouth to hers. It was hard and insistent and their teeth grazed as he kissed her with mounting passion, and as he did he moved his fingers away from her lips, slid them along the elongated line of her lovely throat. They did not linger there, but moved on to fondle her voluptuous breasts, then slipped further down to flutter lightly across her flat stomach until they were finally resting between her thighs.

Shane began to stroke her lovingly, languorously, in slow motion, and with such tenderness he seemed hardly to be touching her at all. But he could feel the velvet softness of her increasing and he continued to stroke, to explore, until his fingertips came to nestle against that precious core of her that was the fountainhead of her womanhood.

Instantly, Paula twisted herself into him, bringing her body closer to his, her slender hand reaching out for him, and she began to caress him as delicately as he was her. Shane felt his hardness growing as she unexpectedly moved her hand with greater rapidity and he had to bite back a cry as he began to throb under her touch. He grasped her wrist, stilled her hand, and then he intensified the pressure of his fingertips and she tensed, and held her body rigid. He explored further, slipped deeper into the velvet folds of her, and as he did he heard a strangled cry in her throat.

He leaned over her satin-smooth breasts, very taut and upright, and savoured the hard, erect nipples with his mouth, first one and then the other. She started to gently undulate under his expert fingers, his loving mouth, and she sighed and murmured his name softly, over and over. Now her hands went out to him again, were strong and hard on the nape of his neck and in his thick hair, and they suddenly moved on to grasp his wide shoulders as her excitement accelerated.

Paula stiffened and gasped. She was filling with an exquisite warmth. His touch quickened, became ever more nimble and deft, and she cried out in her excitement, ‘Shane, oh Shane, my darling husband, I love you so much!’ And he said against her throat, in a voice thickened by desire, ‘You’re my true love, Paula, my own true love. Come to me, my darling, so that I can take you to me.’ And she gasped again and said, ‘Yes, oh yes,’ and gripped his shoulders more tenaciously than ever.

Shane thought he was going to explode as she opened up to him like an exotic flower unfolding soft lush petals, moaning his name and shuddering. He was unable to contain himself, and he moved onto her, took possession of her swiftly, raging with the same kind of molten heat that was suffusing her.

She held him to her, as he pushed his hands under her body and lifted her to him and they cleaved together, were joined, became one.

As Shane thrust deeper, lost himself completely in her and in the joy of her, he suddenly thought: I want to make her pregnant tonight. I want another child.

This idea, unexpected as it was, sent such thrills surging through him he moved against her violently and she responded with unbridled ardour, matching his passion equally, and they quickly found their own rhythm as they had all through the years of their marriage. But for Shane, tonight was suddenly like the first time they had ever made love and in an instant the years fell away. He was back in Connecticut, in the barn he had once owned, taking her to him as he had yearned to take her during the years of her marriage to another man, loving her as he had never loved any other woman, as only he and she were meant to love.

And then he was reaching up … reaching into the light … the light was surrounding him … she was at the centre of the light … waiting for him … his dreamlike child of his childhood dreams. And she was his now. Nothing, no one, could ever separate them again. They belonged together for all time, into eternity. He felt weightless … he was soaring higher and higher … rising up into that timeless light … floating into infinity. And he was carrying her with him, holding the world in his arms, calling her name, just as she called his.

And together they crested on waves of ecstasy in the golden shimmering light … were blinded by it and then could see … and oh the blessed peace of it …

Shane woke up abruptly.

He moved his head to the right and looked at the bedside clock. In the dim light he could see that it was almost five.

Paula slept soundlessly by his side.

He braced himself on one elbow, bent over her, touched her face lovingly, but very lightly, so as not to awaken her from her exhausted sleep, and lifted a strand of hair away from her eyes. Then he settled down again, stretched out on his back and closed his eyes, but before many minutes had passed he decided he was not going to fall off again quite so easily, or as quickly as he had just imagined he would. He was suddenly wide awake. Still, he had slept very deeply for the past few hours, as he always did when he was with Paula, as if he were more content and at peace when she was in his bed. Well, of course he was.

He turned over onto his side, made an arc of his body around hers. She was his whole life, and now, lying next to her in the darkness, adoring her in the silence of his heart, he wondered if he had made her pregnant? Weeks ago they had agreed she should stop taking the pill.

Tonight he had planted his seed in her and he prayed that the seed had taken hold and would come to flower as a child … a true love child conceived at the height of passion and spiritual joining. He stifled a sigh, thinking of Patrick. He loved his little boy with a deeply tender and protective love, but he could not help being sad that their first born was not normal. He dare not let Paula perceive his feelings, for fear of underscoring her own pain, but they were never far from the surface and yet, somehow, he always managed to conceal his sorrow from her.

Instinctively, Shane lifted his right arm, put it around her, drew closer, burrowed his face in her fragrant hair, overflowing with his love for her. He closed his eyes again, let himself drift into sleep. Yes, he thought, now is the time for our next child. And he wondered, as he finally dozed off, if that was the real reason he had side-tracked her to Paris.

Chapter 5 (#ulink_ebd42bdd-28e2-540e-ada1-02fa8b9c0cb1)

The Villa Faviola was situated in the town of Roquebrune-Cap Martin, approximately halfway between Monte Carlo and Menton.

It stood in its own small park at the end of the little peninsula of Cap Martin, sheltered by pines at its back, with its many tall windows facing out towards the sea.

Built in the 1920s, it was a lovely old house, sprawling, airy and gracious, with a curving driveway bordered by pines, spacious green lawns that swept down from the terrace past the swimming pool, up to the edge of the rocky promontory and the glittering Mediterranean Sea beyond.