Lovechild

When she had first met him, Liza had called him a rogue, a gigolo. He saw no reason now not to live up to her opinion. Smiling to himself, he closed the space between them. “Hello, Liza.”

“Jacques,” she said his name in a breathless whisper that triggered other memories and sent him tumbling back into the past. Back to those frantic weeks after she had first disappeared and his desperation as he’d tried to find her. Anger, old yet surprisingly raw, bubbled inside him as he remembered coming to the inevitable conclusion: she didn’t want to be found. She didn’t want him.

Even knowing that, it had taken him months before her face, the sound of her voice, the feel of her body had stopped haunting him. Jacques curled his hands into fists as he remembered that dark period after she’d left him.

But he had gotten over her, Jacques reminded himself. He had rid himself of her betrayal just as he had rid himself of those dark, early years in France. Time had allowed him to relegate their affair to a sweet memory to be savored in his old age.

Until today.

“What a surprise,” she said, her voice growing cooler as she regained her composure.

“A pleasant one I hope.”

“Of course.” Her tone dropped several degrees to match the snow falling outside. Her expression still wary, she extended her hand.

Her cool-as-ice manner set off other memories of how she had tried to discourage him the first time they had met by employing that “duchess to serf” technique. It was just as ineffective now as it had been then. Smiling, Jacques brushed his lips across her knuckles and enjoyed a small measure of satisfaction at the slight tremor in her fingers.

When she would have pulled her hand free, Jacques tugged her closer. Ignoring the stiffening of her spine, he leaned closer and kissed one cheek, then moved to the other. Slowly he pressed his lips against her sweet-smelling skin.

He had wanted to unnerve her, to shatter that icy calm she wore like a shield. Instead, he found himself cursing the new flickers of heat in his gut that her scent evoked.

Refusing to back off, even if it meant his getting singed in the process, Jacques tucked a strand of hair behind Liza’s ear. He drew his fingertip along her neck. Her pulse quickened at his touch and Jacques smiled, pleased by her reaction. “It has been a long time, ma chérie.”

“Yes, it has,” she said, her voice a shade less steady as she pulled back. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to meet with the board members of the Art For Kids’ Sake Committee.”

“But you can’t. I mean, this is a closed meeting for board members only.”

“Then I am in the right place.”

“But you’re not on the board.”

“Ah, but I am,” Jacques insisted. “As of last night.”

“That’s impossible. The committee’s board was formed almost a year ago, and we’re already in the final stages of our fund-raising campaign,” she explained. “While I appreciate your offer to serve, as will the rest of the committee, it’s really too late to take on any new members, Jacques. Even you. Obviously there’s been a mistake.”

“It is no mistake, ma chérie.” Jacques grinned as her lips thinned at the familiar endearment.

“Then a misunderstanding,” she countered. “There are no openings on the board. But if you’re interested in serving as a volunteer for some of the fund-raising activities, I’ll be happy to put you in touch with the right person. In fact, I’ll introduce you to Jane Burke right now. She’s the one who’s in charge of—”

Jacques caught her arm as she started to turn away. “Liza, there is no mistake. I am on the committee’s board. I am filling in for Peter.”

“But—”

“He and Aimee could not be here. And you know what a stickler Peter is about fulfilling his responsibilities. He asked me to take his place. And I agreed.” No point in telling her that he now suspected it had all been a con job to get Liza and him together again.

Alarm clouded her eyes. “Is something wrong with Aimee? Is there a problem with the baby?”

“Aimee is fine. And so is the baby,” he assured her, giving her arm a light squeeze. “But according to our friends, this pregnancy has been more difficult than the last one, and Aimee’s doctor thinks it is better for her not to travel right now.”

“I see.”

Jacques wanted to laugh as he watched her school her expression and don what he considered her “duchess” persona again. “Well, it was thoughtful of Peter to ask you to come,” she continued, her tone becoming all business. “But it’s really not necessary. Everything’s under control on this end. I’ll let Peter know that it’s not necessary for you to take his place on the board.”

Jacques tossed back his head and laughed. “I see you have not lost your touch, ma chérie. In fact, you have gotten even better at it.”

Liza frowned. “Gotten better at what?”

“At cutting a man off at his knees, letting him know what little need you have for him.”

“I do no such thing,” she tossed back.

“Of course you do. You push that pretty little. nose of yours up in the air and make your eyes go all frosty with that regal expression....”

“Really, Jacques, I—”

“Yes. That is it. That is the look I am talking about,” he told her grinning. “It always amazed me the way you could tell a man to ‘get lost’ without even opening your pretty mouth.”

Liza’s lips thinned. The look she shot him would have melted a glacier. “Then perhaps you would be wise to heed the message.”

“Ah, that too has not changed.”

She arched her brow imperiously.

“When the look does not work, you use that sharp tongue of yours to finish the job.”

“Honestly, Jacques. You’ve quite an imagination. Perhaps you should consider writing fantasies instead of sculpting.”

Jacques allowed the smile to spread across his face as he moved his gaze from her mouth to her eyes. “If you will recall, sweet Liza, sometimes my sculpting has led to the creation of fantasies. You, yourself, helped me with one of my most memorable ones.”

A rush of color raced up her cheeks at the reminder of the afternoon when he’d given Liza her first sculpting lesson and how that lesson had ended—in a maelstrom of frenzied lovemaking that had left them both exhausted and wanting more of each other.

“I see you do remember,” he said, pleased by her reaction.

“And I see you haven’t changed. A gentleman wouldn’t deliberately attempt to embarrass someone this way.”

“But, ma chérie, have you forgotten? I am no gentleman. I am a Frenchman.”

The look she shot him could have turned flames to ice. Jacques chuckled, only making her expression grow even more chilly. “You would do better to save your wintry glares for someone else, Liza. They did not work on me three years ago, and they certainly will not work on me now. I have grown—how do you Americans say—? ‘a thicker skin.’”

“And evidently an even bigger ego.”

“I will take that as a compliment.”

“It wasn’t meant as one.”

Jacques took her hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed her fingers and enjoyed seeing the cool facade slip a notch. Suddenly the need to bait her, to force a reaction from her, withered at the feel of her soft skin. Desire took its place. It swirled around him, covering him like mist. “Then I guess I will have to try to change your opinion of me. Perhaps by working with you on this fund-raiser, you will discover something in me that is worthy of your praise.”