Unwelcome Invader

‘That’s impossible! I was the one who put up the money for most of this. I had a legacy from my grandmother and I spent every cent of it on this place. My father can’t just sell it behind my back without my approval!’

Marc shrugged. His voice was very calm and cool and seemed to come from a great distance.

‘I checked the legal details very carefully before I entered into this contract. I always do. There is no doubt that your father is the legal owner of this property, nor that it is unencumbered by any mortgages. These payments you say you made on the vineyards, the wine plant…have you any proof of this?’

Jane was furious at his sceptical tone.

‘I don’t just say I made the payments!’ she shouted. ‘I did make them!’

Marc’s voice continued relentlessly, as if he had scarcely heard her impassioned interruption.

‘No doubt you have documents to prove this?’

Jane’s head swam with exhaustion and disbelief.

‘Yes. No. Not exactly. After I inherited the money from my grandmother my father persuaded me to form a company. It was all terribly complicated.’

‘Not Saddler’s Vineyards Limited, by any chance?’ asked Marc in a hushed voice.

‘Yes,’ said Jane uneasily.

‘Parbleu!’ exclaimed Marc, leaving his place by the mantelpiece and crossing the room to her. ‘I’m extremely sorry for you, Jane. It seems to me that your father has…what’s the expression you Australians use?…sold you down the river. I’ve seen the documents governing the formation of that company. Your father is chief managing director and has a controlling interest in it. You were a very foolish girl to hand over control of your assets to another person in such a manner. What possessed you to do such a thing?’

Jane’s head came up and her eyes blazed. Her blonde hair seemed to crackle around her shoulders with a life of its own.

‘Because I trusted him!’ she cried. ‘OK? I trusted him! He’s my father, for heaven’s sake. He wouldn’t do a thing like this to me.’

‘Wouldn’t he?’ asked Marc quietly.

With a low groan Jane crossed to the fireplace and stood staring unseeingly into the leaping flames. Certain bitter memories of her mother came back to her.

‘Maybe he would,’ she admitted at last in a defeated voice. ‘Oh, not deliberately, I suppose. He’d feel certain that he was doing the right thing and he’d excuse it to himself somehow. Tell himself that he was going to make huge profits for me by putting it into some harebrained scheme of his own. My mother always complained that he ran through all her money before they split up. I used to think it was just bitterness, but now I’m not sure…Are you telling me that I’m financially ruined?’

‘Only if I go ahead with the purchase of this property,’ said Marc. ‘If I don’t, there’s a chance you might regain control of your assets.’

Jane swung round.

‘Then don’t do it!’ she cried passionately. ‘Please, please don’t do it! You said yourself it’s an impressive little vineyard and I’ve worked hard on it. Don’t make me give it up.’

Marc shook his head fastidiously.

‘Why should it matter to me?’ he asked.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_f192466d-a6cf-5359-99ff-39e9ed584901)

‘BECAUSE it’s a question of simple decency!’ cried Jane.

Marc gave her a baffled look, as if he had never heard the word in his life.

‘I still don’t see what it has to do with me,’ he said dismissively. ‘Obviously, the first thing we need to do is phone your father tomorrow morning in New Zealand and find out exactly what the legal position is.’

‘Legal position!’ protested Jane. ‘That’s all that matters to you, isn’t it? The legal position! Don’t you have any feelings at all?’

Marc’s face remained completely impassive. Only the eyes seemed alive—dark, brooding, thoughtful. But his face might have been carved out of granite for all the encouragement it gave her.

‘This is nothing but a business transaction to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve made an extremely generous payment to your father for the option to purchase this property. I’ve also had to make extensive arrangements in France to cover my absence in Australia for three months. Why should I throw away all that when there’s no certainty that I could even help you by doing so?’

Jane gave a defeated sigh. He was quite right. Why should he? After all, it was her own stupid fault she was in this position, although that didn’t make it any easier to bear. Quite the reverse, in fact. She felt shaken, humiliated, betrayed. And instead of making some attempt to comfort her this unfeeling stranger simply stood there, staring at her as impassively as a judge.

‘What are you going to do with the place if you do buy it?’ she demanded accusingly. ‘Winemaking here is a lot different from in France.’

He smiled with unexpected charm.

‘That’s half the attraction for me,’ he said. ‘I want to be one of the flying winemakers. It’s tremendous good luck that the seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres. By spending half the year in Europe and half the year in Australia I can have two vintages. Twice the chance to make superb wine, plus the best of French tradition and Australian innovation. It seems ideal to me.’

‘And you’re prepared to ruin me to do it?’ demanded Jane bitterly.

‘You’re being melodramatic, chérie. You’re not ruined yet. And even if you were, it would be entirely your own doing. You’ve been a naïve, impetuous little fool, you know.’

Jane caught her breath sharply and clenched her fists.

‘You patronising——! I hate you. I wish you’d never come here!’

‘I begin to wish it myself,’ murmured Marc as he met her scowling gaze. ‘You have no manners at all, mademoiselle. You attack me with bottles and torches—what next will it be? A pitchfork? Or just your own teeth and claws? Now that might be interesting.’

Something in that husky drawl sent a throb of unwilling excitement through Jane’s body, which only annoyed her still further. She made an impatient movement towards the door but found that Marc was blocking her way. He made no attempt to move, but simply stood there—large, threatening and intensely masculine. She paused, irresolute, not wanting to make an undignified and very obvious detour around him, but the pause was a mistake. Looking up into those mocking brown eyes, she was suddenly conscious of another reluctant thrill of attraction to him, of an electric tingling in her limbs that filled her with an insane urge to move into his arms. The scent of his cologne, spicy and erotic, drifted into her nostrils and her senses swam. Horrified, she broke away and retreated to the door.

‘Don’t worry!’ she snapped. ‘I’m not going to do anything else to hurt you.’

Marc turned and looked at her with amusement.

‘I don’t believe you could hurt me,’ he said. ‘And where are you off to now? If you’re planning to run off somewhere and sob your heart out, I forbid it.’

Jane gave a choking laugh.

‘What would you care?’ she exclaimed unsteadily. ‘Anyway, as it happens, I’m just going to bed.’

‘I’ll come and prepare a guest-room for you,’ offered Marc.

‘No, you won’t!’ she shouted. ‘I’m not a guest. I live here! I’ve got a perfectly good room of my own upstairs.’

‘Ah, of course,’ murmured Marc with dawning comprehension. ‘The locked room that Monsieur West told me he had left his possessions in. The one opposite the head of the stairs?’

‘Yes, and I might as well warn you right now that I’m not just staying there tonight. I’m staying as long as I like. I won’t move out just to please you and I don’t care what kind of legal contract you’ve got. If you want me to go then you’ll have to drag me out of here.’

Marc’s smile broadened.

‘That too might be interesting,’ he said softly.