Original Sin

She caught herself up sharply. What idiotic fantasies were these? How could she be allowing her brain to run riot with such adolescent melodrama? She was twenty-two, a languages graduate filling in the summer before taking up a responsible job at an embassy. To date she’d had countless casual boyfriends—enjoyed lots of platonic friendships with the opposite sex, too. How could she be feeling this...this illogical kaleidoscope of emotion half an hour after meeting Christian Malraux?

She resolved to take a stern grip on herself.

But inside the restaurant, seated opposite her new employer at a check-clothed table, she met the smoky, sleepy, slightly bored blue gaze across the menu and felt the breath knocked out of her lungs again.

‘Seafood of all kinds is excellent in Charente Maritime,’ he told her coolly, assessing the slight involuntary flush of her cheeks with an air of detachment. ‘Just about every kind of fish that swims in the sea is caught and cooked and coated in some cunning sauce.’

‘Yes...I already know the area. That’s the main reason I chose this particular job. I have a penfriend fairly close by. I used to spend summers with her and her family.’

‘Where do they live?’ The query was perfunctory.

‘Saintes.’

‘A beautiful town. The Roman amphitheatre is extraordinary.’

‘Yes...’ She studied the menu unseeingly. This cool small talk was somehow infinitely disturbing. ‘I...I think I’ll have the raie.’

‘Would you like some wine?’

She nodded. ‘Chteau de Mordin produce a Sauvignon, don’t they?’

A slow smile altered the brooding darkness of the face opposite her. He thrust long, spatulate fingers through the persistent fall of dark hair on his forehead, and narrowed his blue eyes speculatively.

‘You have already done your homework, mademoiselle?’

‘I’m a naturally inquisitive person. Chteau de Mordin houses a co-operative of a hundred and forty-five vine growers, covering seven hundred hectares. You primarily make pineau cognac, which is one part cognac to three parts grape juice, with wines a secondary product. You produce three white wines, including a cuvée spéciale, plus a ros and a red.’

He laughed, completely demolishing her fragile composure. Christian Malraux had a deep, husky, infectious laugh and excellent, even white teeth. The slash of brilliance against the dusky tan of his skin make her think, irrationally, of pirates.

‘Little Miss Efficiency. My friend at your college was right when he said I’d be sorry to lose you.’

Emily was appalled to find herself blushing. Even more mortified when she realised that Christian Malraux was aware of her hot cheeks.

‘What an intriguing mixture you are, mademoiselle...’

‘Please, call me Emily!’ she snapped, pressing her hands together in the soft silk of her lap, willing herself to be cool and collected.

‘Emily.’ He said it consideringly, rolling the syllables deliberately, teasing around his tongue, his accent more in evidence. ‘Oui, d’accord. Emily. You must call me Christian.’

There was a momentary pause. Lost in the sleepy black-fringed blue eyes, Emily found she was holding her breath.

‘Yes. Thank you...Christian.’ She’d only spoken the man’s first name, for heaven’s sake. She felt as tense as if she’d just confessed some intimate secret...

The waiter came. Christian dispatched their order, then turned his attention back to her still-flushed face.

‘As I was saying,’ he continued softly, as if there’d been no interruption, ‘you are an intriguing mixture, Emily. Cool enough to use judo successfully against a man, to defend yourself. Professional enough to carry out detailed background research for what is merely a temporary job. Yet you look so fragile, as if a man could crush you if he held you too tightly.’

‘I...’

‘And shy enough to blush like a schoolgirl when you are paid a compliment.’

‘I don’t normally blush!’ she protested with a soft vehemence which clearly amused him even more. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I’m feeling a little...off balance tonight. For obvious reasons!’

‘Ah. You mean your enchanting...nudity...on our first meeting?’ he goaded, equally soft. The smile sent her into a helpless inner tailspin. ‘Or perhaps you mean you are still shaken by the unpleasant incident with Vernon?’

‘Both,’ she agreed shortly, glancing up in some relief as their wine arrived. ‘You know, I came here this summer to brush up my business French,’ she went on hurriedly, desperate to switch the persistent spotlight off herself and her emotions, ‘yet we’ve done nothing but speak English.’

‘We are not talking business, Emily.’ Wretched man. He was enjoying watching her squirm!

‘No...’

‘Shall we agree to speak French in the vineyard office?’

‘I suppose so.’

He was humouring her, she recognised frustratedly. Her new employer was obviously finding her intensely amusing. She took a long mouthful of the cool white wine. It tasted faintly of apricots and wild herbs, with a crisp refreshing bite to it. A basket of aromatic fresh bread had been placed on the table. She realised how hungry she was. Tension or no tension, with or without Christian Malraux’s extremely unchivalrous taunts, she was going to enjoy this meal.

To distract herself from the mocking blue eyes she inspected her surroundings in greater detail. The restaurant was busy, buzzing with talk and laughter. Several French families were eating, plus a sprinkling of Germans, and English. Behind her she could hear voices in her native tongue busily deciphering the intricacies of the fish menu with the aid of a dictionary.

‘This is an attractive restaurant,’ she murmured politely, switching into French deliberately. ‘Is there still a mill-wheel?’

‘Yes. If we’d wanted to we could have sat outside on the grass, near the mill-stream,’ Christian confirmed coolly, also switching to French. ‘But the mosquitoes can be unpleasant.’

‘Another time I’ll wear repellent. I love eating out of doors. It’s such a luxury in England.’

‘Tomorrow night I will bring you here, and you may cover yourself in insect repellent and sit by the mill-stream, Emily.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t suggesting that you bring me here again...’

‘Do not begin blushing again,’ he advised her, with a lazy, speculative grin.

‘I wasn’t!’

But she felt on fire all over as his casual gaze moved slowly, assessingly, from the top of her copper-blonde head, down over her wide brown eyes to the petite curves of her breasts under the silk camisole. Braless, she felt, to her acute chagrin, the tips of her breasts begin to tighten involuntarily in response to that challenging appraisal.

‘Your French is excellent, Emily,’ he praised quietly, leaning nonchalently back in his chair and sliding his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘Is your Spanish also as good?’

‘Reasonable. I suspect my French is better, because I’ve spent more time in France. With my penfriend’s family. In my teens. So...’ she sought, once again, to switch the subject, to shrink back from the spotlight ‘...what was the career which took you abroad so much?’

‘Journalism.’

Did she imagine the slight hardening of the lines around Christian’s mouth? The slight withdrawal?

‘What sort of journalism?’

‘I was a foreign correspondent on a national newspaper. Then I reported foreign news for television.’

‘I see.’ She stared at him in mounting curiosity. Their first course had arrived, a platter of fresh langoustines, and she picked thoughtfully at one of the rigid shells with her fingers, finding herself staring at the beady little eyes of the shellfish with an abrupt shudder of sympathy.