One Night with His Wife (12 page)

‘Yes…switch off that blasted phone of yours!’ Luc agreed in exasperation, and willingly released her.

‘Phone?’ Star blinked, and only then did she hear the irritating buzz. She peered blankly at her bag, which was lying in a heap where she had left it earlier.

‘I’ll do it!’ Luc offered.

‘No…no!’ Suddenly Star was flying off the bed and running to answer that phone as if her life depended on it.

In a sense it
did.
As the pain of renewed rejection settled on her, she just wanted to run and run from Luc. She snatched the mobile phone from her bag. Rory’s voice
greeted her. The tears came in reaction then, great, unstoppable rivulets pouring down her quivering cheeks. ‘Rory…oh Rory!’ she sobbed, and raced for the bedroom door to take the call in private.

CHAPTER SIX

S
TAR
paced the floor of the giant front hall at Chateau Fontaine. ‘I’ve got to be honest, Rory…I still care about Luc. I can’t lie about that. All I’ve got to offer you is friendship, and you’d probably be better off without it while I’m feeling like this…’

‘You’re not short-changing me.’ Rory’s sigh carried down the phone line. ‘You’ve never offered anything else; you’ve always held back.’

Still in the act of zipping up a pair of beige chinos, Luc reached the galleried landing above just as Star spoke again.

‘I’m so grateful you’re still speaking to me…you know, after everything I’ve just told you. I really, really love you for that!’ Star admitted with tears stinging her eyes again.

‘You married a really smooth rat—’

‘I know he’s a rat, but maybe that was the attraction,’ Star muttered. ‘I imagined I saw all sorts of other things, but now I see how stupid I was, and that has to be for the best, hasn’t it?’

This was not eavesdropping, Luc told himself. He was in his own home listening to his wife telling her boyfriend she loved him.
Loved
him. The way she had loved
him
once? He wanted to yank the phone out of her hand and smash it to bits. Star was
his
wife! Wheeling round in his tracks, Luc strode away again, suddenly knowing only one thing for sure. He had no desire to hear any more.

But the strangest sensation of cold had begun spreading through Luc. He didn’t like it. It was as if a big black cloud was rising at the back of his mind. In the space of little more than twenty-four hours, Star had got under his skin to the extent that he felt he wasn’t in control any more. He liked
that suspicion even less. But the inexplicable gap between what he was thinking and what he was actually doing could no longer be ignored. How else did he rationally explain asking Star to be his mistress? Where had that
insane
idea come from? Exactly when had a concept that far removed from reality crept into his subconscious mind?

It would be sheer madness. He wanted a divorce. He did not want to stay married to her. He didn’t care if she loved another guy. He just wanted to kill the other guy…he just wanted to kill her. No, not her,
him
! That black cloud kept on rising; he couldn’t concentrate. Perspiration beaded his skin. He clenched his fists in angry frustration. He didn’t want to think. Suddenly, he understood that much. In the grip of the powerful nebulous feelings closing in on him, he felt alarmingly unstable. What he needed was a drink.

Star switched off the phone and sank down on one of the hall chairs. All she could think about was what an idiot she had been to imagine even briefly that Luc might want their marriage to continue. So he had asked her to be his mistress instead. Well, there was no prospect of her lowering herself to that level.

But then what other kind of offer could she have expected him to make? She
still
hadn’t told Luc that he was the twins’ father! Just when had she stopped remembering that? Why hadn’t she paused to consider that letting Luc go on believing that Venus and Mars were another man’s children was to fatally colour his view of her and change their relationship?

Oh, golly, gosh, what relationship? she asked herself painfully, her head in her hands as she sniffed. That winter, over eighteen months earlier, Luc had reunited her with Juno. Star and her mother had met first at Luc’s Paris apartment. Afterwards, Luc had taken Star out to lunch. She hadn’t realised then that there was already a woman in his life: Gabrielle Joly had been the ultimate in discretion.

‘I think I fell in love with you the minute I saw you again,’ she had announced over that lunch.

Luc dealt her an arrested glance.

‘I didn’t know anything could feel
this
intense,’ she continued unsteadily. ‘I suppose you’re used to your looks knocking women flat, but what I notice most about you is how lonely you are—’

‘I’ve never been lonely in my life,’ Luc responded drily.

‘I don’t think you ever get close to anyone. I’ve been watching you. You freeze people out; you can’t help yourself. Anything personal or emotional and you’re really challenged to stay within a mile of the experience. Like now. You just want me to shut up and you want to escape without hurting my feelings,’ she said guiltily. ‘Well, thanks for listening to me. You can leave now if you like.’

He was trapped then for a little longer. She knew it, and had planned it that way, but her conscience twinged as she watched his long, beautifully shaped fingers close very tautly round his wine glass.

‘You’re just a child,’ he began.

‘No, I’m not a child. I seem like a child to you because I say things out loud that you wouldn’t scream under the worst torture. I’m sorry, but this is the only way I had of getting through to you. You quite like being with me,’ she pointed out shyly. ‘Haven’t you noticed that? And I notice you look at me, and then look away like you shouldn’t be looking, and—’

‘Bon! Ca suffit maintenant.’
Rising from his seat, Luc glowered down at her from his impressive height. ‘If you’re not embarrassed for yourself, I am.’

‘I know. But when you love someone as much as I love you—’

‘You don’t know what love is at your age,’ he drawled with sudden lethal derision.

‘I know more than you do. I don’t think you’ve ever been in love in your whole life,’ Star protested. ‘Love’s messy, and you’re not. Love would make demands you wouldn’t like and wouldn’t want to spare the time for—’

Taking her by the arm when she knew that what he was really desperate to do was gag her into silence, Luc dragged her out of the exclusive restaurant, seemingly blind to the fascinated stares his unusual behaviour was attracting.

Out on the pavement, she whispered, ‘I’m not expecting you to love me back, but doesn’t it give you a warm feeling to know that someone loves you?’

Brilliant dark eyes hooded, Luc thrust her into the back seat of his limo. ‘All that you’re suffering from is adolescent hormones—’

‘No, even if I could never, ever sleep with you, I would still
care
about you!’ Star argued vehemently.

Luc studied her with even more glacial cool. Star got redder and redder, and eventually dropped her head. ‘I’m sorry.’ She hesitated, and then rushed on, ‘Are you going to avoid me now? I couldn’t
bear
that!’

‘Of course I will not avoid you,’ Luc rebutted in exasperation. ‘But nor will we discuss this subject again. Is that understood?’

That same week, Luc had taken Emilie and Star to a dinner party held by some friends of his. Gabrielle Joly had been a guest as well, seated close to Luc and regularly engaging him in conversation. Gabrielle, with her endless legs, gorgeous blonde hair, exquisite face and svelte sophistication. Star felt so sick at the sight of what she feared might be the competition that she just couldn’t eat.

‘Tell me what you know about that Gabrielle woman,’ Star urged Emilie later that evening.

Emilie reddened almost guiltily. ‘I believe she was once a fashion model.’ The older woman hesitated. ‘I know no other way of putting this, Star…Gabrielle is Luc’s mistress, and has been for quite some time.’

‘His…
mistress
?’ The bottom fell right out of Star’s world.

‘Don’t look so horrified, Star. Frenchmen have always made convenient arrangements of that nature. Luc will never ask his mistress to play hostess at the chateau, but he’ll socialise
freely with her everywhere else. Gabrielle would’ve been invited for his benefit this evening. She uses a house just a few miles from here.’

Pale as death, hearing the hollow note in Emilie’s recitation, Star produced a ragged laugh. ‘I wish you’d mentioned her existence sooner, Emilie.’

‘I didn’t want to put you off Luc,’ Emilie admitted ruefully. ‘Whether he realises it or not, he’s already very much attracted to you. Your warmth draws him like a magnet. When he walks into a room, you’re the first person he looks for, and if you’re not there he can’t settle until he knows where you are.’

‘But he already has
her—
’

‘Oh, well, if you can’t accept that a man of almost thirty comes with some worldly experience, you’d be wise to give up on him. And that would be a shame. We all need to be loved. If he doesn’t meet the right girl soon, the kind of girl who’s not afraid to fight through those barriers of his, he’s likely to end up as unhappy as his poor father is now.’

Was it any wonder that with such constant eager encouragement Star continued to love Luc to distraction? And Emilie might have known how Star felt about Luc, but Star didn’t confide in her mother, who was by then renting an apartment in Nantes. Determined to have nothing to do with the Sarrazins, Juno refused to visit Star at the chateau. For her daughter to love Luc Sarrazin would have seemed the ultimate disloyalty. So Star kept quiet.

But then fate took a hand: Roland Sarrazin had a heart attack and was rushed into hospital with Emilie by his side. In all the fuss, Star forgot that she should have visited her mother that day. That evening, Luc returned from the hospital, looking exhausted. Star rushed to offer sympathy.

‘Do you want to talk about how you feel?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Do you want me to talk about something else?’

‘No.’

Luc nodded grim agreement.

‘But you
can’t
want to be on your own!’ Closing her hand over his sleeve to prevent him from moving away, as he always did when she got too close, Star looked up at him with pleading eyes. ‘Isn’t there
anything
I can do to make you feel better?’

Glittering dark eyes gazed down into hers.
‘Go—’

‘Luc,
please—
’

And then he just grabbed her, literally grabbed her up into his arms and brought his mouth down hot and hard and hungry on hers. The shock of that sudden onslaught knocked Star sideways, but his explosive passion blazed up through her like a bush fire. She couldn’t get enough of him and clung like superglue. When Juno was shown into Luc’s library by the housekeeper, Star was welded to every available inch of Luc in enraptured surrender.

There was the most awful scene, with her mother hurling all sorts of ridiculous accusations and threatening to go to the newspapers. After Juno stormed out again, Luc, who had uttered not a single word in his own defence, turned to Star, where she was cringing with shamefaced guilt. ‘We’ll have to move fast to spike your mother’s guns.’

‘She didn’t
mean
those things she said!’

‘She’s very bitter, and right now my father’s peace of mind is of paramount importance. A sordid scandal would destroy him. Since I invited this situation, I must ensure that there are no repercussions,’ Luc drawled flatly, no emotion of any kind showing in his lean strong face. ‘The only way I can do that is to marry you as quickly as possible. Your mother can get no immoral mileage out of that development.’

‘M-marry me? You’re asking—?’

‘Not a
real
marriage,’ Luc emphasised drily. ‘When the need for a cover story is past, we’ll get an annulment. So don’t get excited,
mon ange.
Nothing has changed.’

Star clasped her trembling hands together. ‘Do I get a wedding ring?’

Luc gave a grudging nod.

‘A dress?’

‘No.’

‘What’s wrong with me
pretending
it’s a proper wedding?’

‘Your imagination doesn’t need encouragement.’

They married in a civil ceremony in Nantes, attended only by Emilie and Luc’s lawyer. It was not a secret marriage, but neither was it publicised, and, with Roland Sarrazin so ill, people might have questioned their timing, but not the quietness of the ceremony.

Her father-in-law asked to see her after the wedding he had been too weak to attend.

‘I would not dream of questioning Luc’s choice of bride,’ the older man sighed, surprising Star with that assurance while simultaneously appraising her with a morose dissatisfaction that ensured she would not get a swollen head. ‘I hope I know better than to interfere in my son’s private life.’

Before Star’s thoughts could stray on to the devastating disillusioning reality of having been abandoned on her wedding night for another woman, the cold marble beneath her bare feet became uncomfortable enough to dredge her out of her memories. But she still found herself recalling when, later, a minor car smash had put Luc into Casualty with concussion and sent her running panic-stricken to his side. Flatly refusing to be hospitalised overnight, Luc had come home with her. She had just adored fussing round him, insisting he go to bed and getting her crystals out, determined to heal his headache away.

Now she shied away from the recollection of how appallingly immature she had been just eighteen months earlier, and stood up in sudden decision. It might be the middle of the night, but it was time she came clean with Luc about their children at least. Maintaining that fiction was unfair to him.

But when Star returned to the bedroom, Luc was nowhere to be seen. Too worked up now to settle again, Star pulled
on jeans and a top and went off to find him. Her troubled reflections marched on. How did she stop craving what Luc could never give? A man couldn’t be forced into loving. So why did she keep on letting her emotions get the better of her? Why had she kidded herself that she was strong enough to spend one last night with Luc? That one night had plunged her back into emotional turmoil. That one night had convinced Luc that she would quite happily settle for sex if she could have him no other way. And Luc, ever the banker, was programmed to take advantage of the best deal he could get. Instead of crying like a drippy wimp, she should have lifted one of those giant ornate lamps in the bedroom and simply brained him with it!