His Mistress Proposal?: Public Scandal, Private Mistress / His Mistress, His Terms / The Secret Mistress Arrangement

She understood that, but chose to turn his mockery back on him: ‘Et je suis Veronica,’ she replied pertly.

He laughed and inclined his head. ‘Lucien.’

Effervescent emotion bubbled up inside her. She offered him her hand across the table. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lucien.’

‘Enchanté,’he murmured, and she shivered as she felt the warm slide of his palm against hers, his thumb caressing up over her knuckles, his breath warm on the back of her hand as he lifted it to his mouth, holding her gaze as his lips brushed lightly over her skin.

It was a ridiculously over-extravagant cliché of a gesture, as they both well knew, but it still made Veronica feel hot all over, and when she disengaged her hand she wrapped it quickly around her glass in a vain attempt to cool off.

Noticing that his beer-glass was almost empty, she tried to buy some more time by ordering another round, but he protested when she tried to get herself another Kir and she became even more flushed at the idea that he thought she was drunk. But no—by word, gesture and helpful translation from the bar-owner, she divined that he was changing her order to a Kir Royale, and putting it on his own bill.

It was, she discovered, made with champagne rather than still white wine, and was an altogether more superior drink. Judging from her peep of the Champagne label on the bottle that the barman had discreetly turned away to pour, it was also a great deal more superior in price. Her dark-haired companion, then, was obviously not a poor man … something she had already deduced from the expensive labels on his casual clothes.

The champagne went immediately to her head, and banished her former nerves and with them any remaining doubts about the wisdom of what she was doing. You didn’t need to speak the same language, she discovered, in order to have a good time—in fact, in some ways it was more liberating not to have to make sense!

The language differences made deep conversation impossible, but neither of them was in a mood to be serious, so over the course of the evening they invented their own way of communicating.

Across the twin barriers of language and a mutual reluctance to touch on personal subjects, they established the important basics: the fact they were both single, over twenty-one, and currently alone in Paris—she in need of a knowledgeable guide to the best places to be in Paris on Bastille Night, and he … well … her feeble French wasn’t up to questioning his motives even if she had wanted to. It was enough that he found her an entertaining diversion from whatever it was that had had him brooding darkly over his newspaper.

When her stomach gurgled an embarrassing message, he paid their shot at the bar and whisked her around a few corners to the Brasserie Bofinger, where they sat on plush banquettes under the spectacular art nouveau glass dome, and gorged themselves on oysters and champagne. He was amused at their pantomimed tussle over the bill and sulked at her iron-willed insistence on paying it with her credit card, but, catching the devilish gleam in his eye, she suspected he was putting on a great deal of his outrage, and that he enjoyed messing with her head, much as she had enjoyed toying with his expectations, playing to the hilt his role of volatile and moody, but ultimately charming, Frenchman.

At times during the rest of the magical night she had reason to suspect that he might not even be French, and that he definitely understood more English than he was letting on—but neither mattered, for the mystery was all part of the fun.

All that mattered was that he knew Paris—inventive enough to slip them past hotel security for a peek at a glittering masquerade ball and persuasive enough to talk them into the exclusive nightclub of her fancy.

He was also strong enough to muscle their way through the crowds and quick-thinking enough to rescue them when they emerged from the Métro at the Bastille, where they had agreed to say their farewells, to be caught up in a furious scuffle between a flying wedge of riot police and a rowdy mob of political protesters intermingled with drunken youths looking to encourage the fight.

‘Luc!’ she cried as she received a stray elbow in the kidney that almost knocked her to the ground.

‘This way!’ Lucien yelled in her ear, hooking his powerful arm around Veronica’s waist, swinging her away from the moving wall of riot shields and flailing batons, and ducking and diving with her amongst the fleeing crowds being herded away from the centre of the action.

Cutting left down the rue de la Bastille with several dozen others, they ran past the familiar long red awning of Bofinger and right at the next corner, Lucien’s arm falling away to grab her hand, and Veronica blindly trusted herself to his lead, breathlessly running helter-skelter in her flimsy sandals at his side, past the rows of parked cars, and tooting traffic, quickly outstripping the other scattering runners who slowed when the police turned their attention to easier prey. She began to laugh helplessly, for the sheer absurdity of it: Veronica Bell, budding businesswoman and long time goody-two-shoes, on the run from the cops through the night streets of Paris!

They cut left again, and suddenly they were in a place she recognised—the open-sided pedestrian arcade surrounding the Place des Vosges, their running footsteps on the stone paving echoing off the vaulted ceiling. Lights were on in some of the apartments in the seventeenth-century, red-brick buildings facing out onto the square, but the restaurants and cafés and art galleries in the arcade below were closed. Here the shouting and the tumult seemed a long way away, little traffic turning through the square, the park gates locked and the fountains turned off, the neatly clipped row of linden trees around the edge of the park casting ghostly shadows onto the crushed white walkways inside the iron railings.

‘You spoke English,’ Veronica accused, tugging at his hand as she slowed down, her chest burning, her free hand pressing against the slight stitch in her side.

She gasped as a police car slid past the end of the square and Lucien spun her behind one of the square pillars that supported the arched ceiling of the arcade, backing her up against the cool stone, his hands sliding around her back to protect her silk top from the roughened surface as his body pressed her deep into the inky shadow. Their panting breath intermingled and she could feel the rapid beat of his heart kicking against her breast and the fear and excitement tangled up inside her until she had to struggle to think.

‘Back there,’ she whispered hoarsely, ‘I heard you—’

He muttered something that could have been French or English or any language under the sun, because by then he was kissing her and nothing mattered any more but the intoxicating taste of his mouth, the spicy scent of his skin filling her nostrils and the feel of his arms tightening around her, crushing her soft breasts against his hard chest. The brush with danger had been arousing and now there was another way to feed their inflamed emotions and ramp up the heart-tingling excitement. Adrenalin spiked in her veins as Lucien bit her tender lip and forced his way into her mouth, his tongue spearing hotly into the silky depths as his hips ground into hers, flattening her bottom against the cool stone. It was pure, plundering, passionate savagery—nothing, nothing, like the light, teasing kisses he had given her earlier at the fireworks … nothing like any kiss she had ever had before in her life!

Veronica hadn’t known what she was missing, but she did now, her inhibitions swept away by his maddening skill. Surrounded by his embrace, her arms trapped at her sides, her hands could only grip at his flanks, her fingers curving under the rise of his buttocks, her short nails digging demandingly into the tight denim weave as she squirmed against him, causing him to shudder and groan her name, plunging deeper into her mouth. The sound of other voices echoing within the arcade wrenched them back into an awareness of their surroundings, but only long enough to acknowledge the raw urgency of their desire.

‘Come …’ was all he said, in a smouldering voice, thick with promise, and she would have followed him to the moon. But heaven wasn’t even further than the next street. He kissed her from pillar to pillar, all the way along the arcade, and once out into rue de Birague he managed the pretence of control just long enough to get her into his apartment, Veronica hugging her delicious secret as they passed her door on the way up the stairs.

She had never thought of herself as wildly sexy until she saw herself through Lucien’s eyes. He wanted her and wasn’t afraid to let her see it, made demands of her that unlocked the secret desires that she didn’t even know that she possessed. And never had a man undressed for her the way he did … slowly, sensuously stripping off his clothes without taking his eyes off her face, watching her watch him reveal his body’s flagrant readiness for love-making, seeing the hectic flush of passion turn her pale, freckle-flecked skin to rose-pink, her grey eyes widen then darken in a shocked fascination that revealed more than she knew, her kiss-swollen mouth parting in luscious anticipation of tasting his tawny flesh, her awed appreciation when he prowled naked towards her making him chuckle, his healthy male ego basking in the flattery.

And then it was her turn, the sultry stroke of his admiring gaze appeasing her shyness, telling her without words how magnificent he found the lavish proportions of her tall body as he unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor, tantalisingly delaying the thrilling moment when he slid his palms under her silk camisole, skimming her swollen breasts in the sexy lingerie as he raked it up over her head, bending his worshipful mouth to the lush, creamy slopes bared by the scalloped lace edge of the lavender bra. His hands were as skilful and busy as his mouth and Veronica closed her eyes as sheer, unadulterated, sensual bliss began to roll over her in waves …

One of which dashed cold water in her face!

Veronica’s eyes flew open, her flush of arousal turning into an embarrassed blush as she registered the gentle rock of the TGV, and realised that a little girl in a pink dress had tripped on her unsteady progress up the aisle and splattered her with chilled water from the open bottle in her hand. Avoiding her innocent young face, Veronica hoped that her X-rated memories weren’t emblazoned on her pink forehead as she accepted the scrambling apologies from the girl’s American mother, assuring her with a cheerful smile that mineral water was excellent for the complexion.

She patted the water into her hot skin as they continued on their progress, chagrined to realise that she had nodded off—although that wasn’t surprising in view of her lack of sleep—and had been reliving her intensely erotic encounter in vivid Technicolor instead of paying attention to the fascinating parade of French towns and villages popping up into sight as the train whipped past the rolling fields of the French countryside.

And now it was too late. According to the multilingual announcement broadcast through the carriage, the high-speed train was slowing down on the approach to the outskirts of Avignon. She would have to make certain she paid attention on the return trip, Veronica lectured herself.

Someone had discarded a newspaper on the floor beside Karen’s empty seat and she automatically leaned over to pick it up, grimacing as she noticed that it was the same one that Lucien had been reading in the bar. She idly flicked through it, only able to pick out a few words and phrases here and there. Much of the centre of the paper was illustrated with typical paparazzi shots of the usual set of international celebrities caught in embarrassing situations, and Veronica skipped over them, uninterested in the misdoings of minor royals and rock stars going into rehab, or the big Exclusivité—a string of photos of a notoriously volatile actor having some kind of punch-up in a London hotel. On impulse she tucked it into her bag. She would throw it away later, she promised herself—she didn’t need any proxy souvenirs of her night on the town!

As she manhandled her case down the long flight of concrete stairs to the group of glass boxes housing the rental car agencies outside the Avignon TGV station, Veronica was glad that she had had the forethought to buy herself a wide-brimmed straw hat at a Paris market. The heatwave that was baking Paris had also tightened its relentless grip on the South of France, and the aching blue sky was adazzle, the temperature already in the mid-thirties, even though the sun wasn’t yet at its height.

There was a long queue for the rental car, but it moved surprisingly quickly and she was soon stepping back out into the blazing sun nervously clutching the key to her VW Golf. Setting out for the car park, she glanced over towards the adjacent rental agencies and stopped dead, oblivious to the flow of people around her, as she saw a man leaning against one of the counters, laptop and suitcase at his feet, panama hat in hand, joking with the girl handing him a sheet of paper.

It was Luc! The man in the olive shirt and jeans from the Gare de Lyon … Absolutely, unmistakably him!

Snapped out of her stunned trance by a cranky, sunburnt tourist trying to get his suitcase between a concrete bollard and her stalled luggage, Veronica hurried on her way, her thoughts whirling.

Surely this was one spooky coincidence too many, she thought as she quickly shovelled her possessions into the boot of her shiny blue compact and got behind the wheel.

Had he followed her? She remembered telling him at some stage that she would be spending most of her holiday in the South of France, although she hadn’t specified when or how she was leaving. At the time he had gone into a long, and hilariously incomprehensible, rhapsody about the Côte d’Azur, and from the questions she had tried to ask about the famous beaches there he might have thought that was where she was headed.

If he had been talking about his own imminent plans to travel down to the Mediterranean coast then perhaps this could just be shrugged off as another of life’s little strange twists. At the time, it might have amused him to think that they could conceivably run into each other on a beach in Nice or Cannes.

Her pleasure in the thought curdled as her imagination continued to flourish. But what if he had somehow managed to track her down for some sinister purpose of his own? What if he was a stalker? she fretted. Or some kind of conman or kinky killer whom she had thwarted by sneaking off before he could achieve his evil aims?

She suddenly laughed at her wild speculations. In reality, she and Lucien had been ships passing in the night, and all either of them had expected to carry away from their brief encounter was the memory of a good time!

There was a perfectly innocent explanation for them to be crossing paths again. Luc had been carrying a laptop, so perhaps he had come down to Avignon on business. He was probably self-employed, like Veronica, and could pick and choose his working hours.

She was nervous enough about driving on the right-hand side of the road for the first time, as well as doing her own navigation, without adding the paranoic fear that she was being trailed by a psychotic serial killer!

CHAPTER THREE

VERONICA sighed with contentment as she sat at her table under a spreading plane tree in the tiny village square and sipped her cup of coffee, enjoying the faint breeze that feathered warmly around her bare neck and riffled the end of her pony-tail.

Karen had said the Reeds wouldn’t expect her to arrive at their villa, Mas de Bonnard, on the outskirts of the little village of St Romain-de-Vaucluse, until mid-afternoon. As a direct drive, it was only about forty minutes north-east of Avignon, so she had decided to take it slowly, avoiding the larger roads and towns and following the meandering scenic route that Melanie had recommended as being the one they preferred as the prettiest. She had even suggested this very café as worthy of a stop.

Veronica cut another sliver from her glistening pastry and popped it into her mouth, savouring the intense burst of apricot on her tongue.

A sleek silver convertible with red upholstery slid into the cobbled square, following the lone street that passed through the village. As it drew level and slowed almost to a stop for a scamper of children chasing a small dog, the driver lazily took a survey of his surroundings. His eyes were masked by wraparound sunglasses, but Veronica saw his glossy black head jerk in a rapid double take. His jaw visibly dropped, then tightened with a snap and the car braked to an abrupt halt. A long arm was slung across the top of the empty passenger seat as the driver twisted to look over his shoulder and backed sharply in to park parallel with the kerb, springing out of the car without bothering to open the door.

In a few ground-eating strides he was standing in front of her, his black shadow stamping his presence on the sun-dappled tablecloth.

‘Well, isn’t this a cosy little reunion!’

Coffee slopped into her saucer as she flinched at the sarcastic drawl. She looked up into Lucien’s blazing brown eyes, his wraparound sunglasses pushed up on top of his head unmasking his hard expression, his hands planted on his hips, legs astride, male aggression oozing from every gorgeous pore.