‘Lunch,’ Christien explained with the utmost casualness as he pulled out a seat for her occupation. ‘I don’t know about you but I am very hungry. I usually eat at one.’
Tabby sank down and watched the waiter pour the wine. ‘I thought this house belonged to someone else and you were thinking of buying it.’
A broad shoulder lifted in a fluid shrug. ‘No, it’s already mine but I’ve never been here before,’ he admitted. ‘Property is an excellent investment and I buy most of it through advisors sight unseen.’
‘I can’t imagine owning a house and not being curious enough to come and see it,’ she admitted, reminded more than she liked of the vast material differences between them, something she had airily ignored and refused to consider important when she had first known him.
Over a sublime meal of endive salad followed by delicate lamb cutlets that melted in her mouth and a blackberry tart, Christien entertained her with stories of the rich history of the locality before moving on to describe the beautiful, tranquil water meadows of the Sologne as a nature lover’s paradise. It was a hot, sultry afternoon and the sky was a deep, intense blue. Far across the lush valley she could see the fanciful turrets of one of the many châteaux in the area. Only birdsong challenged the silence and it was idyllic.
‘You haven’t offered a single opinion on this place yet,’ Christien commented.
‘It’s fantastic…you’ve got to know that.’ Tabby nibbled at her lower lip, colour lighting her cheeks as she squirmed on the acknowledgement that her standards might well lie far below his. ‘But then, of course…I don’t know what you’re looking for.’
‘What pleases you, ma belle.’ Christien captured and held her startled upward glance. ‘That’s all I seek.’
Meeting those rich dark eyes framed by black spiky lashes, she could hardly breathe for the pure bolt of longing that shot through her and tightened her skin over her bones. Almost giddy with the force of her response to him, she took a second or two to register what he had just said.
‘What pleases…me?’ Tabby echoed, uncertain of his meaning.
In a graceful movement, Christien rose upright and stretched out a lean brown hand in invitation. ‘Let’s take another tour…’
He walked her slowly through the house again, but only on a superficial level was she appreciating the beautiful rooms and the stupendous outlook from every window. Her thoughts were in turmoil. Was he asking her to live with him here in this fabulous house? Why else would he care what pleased her in the property stakes? She sucked in a quivering breath in an effort to steady herself, but a wild burst of joy was thrilling through her.
‘You like it here…don’t you?’ he prompted.
‘Who wouldn’t?’ Tabby was so scared that she had picked him up wrong that she vented a discomfited laugh
‘It might be too quiet for some, but it strikes me as the perfect environment for an artist. Peaceful and inspiring,’ Christien murmured huskily.
It was little more than twenty-four hours since she had arrived in France. Could her eminently sensible and practical Christien be so impulsive? Could he have decided so quickly that he wanted to recapture what they had shared almost four years earlier? Did he, like her, feel bitter at the events that had driven them apart? Was he as greedy as she was to make up for lost time?
Tabby focused on the bottle of champagne in the ice bucket sitting on an occasional table and belatedly took note of the reality that he had chosen to stage the dialogue in the main bedroom. Coincidence? She di
dn’t think so. She tried not to smile at how he planned even romantic gestures for she did not want to offend his pride. At seventeen she had once told him angrily that he had no romance in his soul at all and he had made extraordinary efforts to prove her wrong with surprise gifts and flowers and holding hands without anything more physical in mind. But she had always recognised the cold-blooded, purposeful planning it took for him to make an effort to do anything he saw as an essential waste of time.
‘This property is also very convenient to Paris where I spend most of my working week.’ As if to stress that leading declaration, Christien drew her back against his lean, muscular length.
The heat and proximity of his lithe, masculine frame tightened her nipples into stiff little points and stirred a dulled ache between her thighs. Trembling, she leant back into him for support. It seemed that he had spoken the truth when he’d told her that the manner of his father’s death would never have kept him from her. Tears burned behind her eyes, tears of happiness, and her throat constricted. He was being crazily impractical and that was so out of character for him that it could only mean that he still had strong feelings for her.
Tabby stared hard into the mirror across the room that reflected them both: Christien, so straight and tall and serious and beautiful, her own reflection that of a woman so much smaller, decidedly rounder in shape and a great deal more given to smiles. ‘This is so romantic…it must have taken loads of planning-’
‘You used to say that the essence of real romance was not being able to see the strings that were being pulled to impress you,’ Christien interposed.
‘So I was too demanding at seventeen, now I give more points for effort and imagination like that lovely meal-’
When he spun her round and looked down at her, a tremor of almost painful awareness ran through her slight figure for she was weak with wanting. ‘Do you, chérie?’ he asked in a roughened undertone. ‘Or when you hear what I have to say, will you accuse me of trying to manipulate you?’
‘Perhaps I had better hear what you have to say first,’ Tabby said breathlessly.
‘I brought you here to suggest a very simple arrangement which would answer both our needs. I offer you this house in place of Solange’s property…’
Her lips parted company. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘No, you would be doing me a favour. A straight swop. Nothing as tasteless as money need change hands. I would prefer not to cut a business deal with you.’ His brilliant dark golden eyes urged her to smile at that teasing assurance.
But Tabby had never felt less like smiling. She was also far too busy schooling her features not to betray how much he had wounded her and how bitter was the sting as her own foolish, extravagant hopes crashed and burned. His great-aunt’s cottage in exchange for a luxury home five times its size and possessed of every opulent expensive extra? He wanted her off the Duvernay estate very, very badly. After the night she had spent in his arms, that continuing determination felt like a hard, humiliating slap in the face.
‘I’d like to leave now.’ Her green eyes shiny as polished glass in her determination to show no weakness or emotion, Tabby walked out of the bedroom into the hall. ‘I still have so much to do back at the cottage. I have to return to England for a week tomorrow.’