Mistress for a Month

A passerby, a man, gave Remy and the black bra dripping from his right hand a sharp look.

“I’m really awfully tired,” she said.

“All right.” He dropped the lacy underwear into the appropriate bag and then handed her her things.

Her face again burned an adorable shade of red when she looked up at him from beneath those inky lashes, which were as sexy as her butt.

“In that case, I guess it’s goodbye,” he said.

“You’re French.”

“Yes, and alone. Big city. I prefer Paris.” Deliberately he allowed his accent to thicken.

“Of course. I love Paris, too. I’ve been there many times. With my…”

She looked wistful. Was she thinking of Tate? Her quick, sad smile struck a chord inside him. She’d probably loved Tate very much, he thought. His father damn sure had. He himself knew what it was to chase ghosts.

“Are you here on business?”

“Of a sort,” he replied.

“I like your accent. It’s elegant, but not snotty. You know, sometimes French people are so—”

“I like yours, too,” he said before she could insult the French, who were his people, after all, which might cause him to defend them. “You’re American?”

She nodded. “I’m on my way to France on rather a sad errand.”

The light left her beautiful hazel eyes. “A favorite aunt died. I—I used to spend every summer at her château.”

Her château? Like hell. Still, Tate must have been wonderful fun for a young niece, who had no reason to be jealous of her just because the comte had adored her instead of his own son. For all her faults, his outrageous, American stepmother had made his father happy. His own pretentious mother had not.

And he damn sure had not.

Remy’s teeth clenched, but when Amelia continued to stare at him, a stillness descended on him. Her nondescript face with those spiky lashes and naive gaze wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t. But it was growing on him.

Why couldn’t he stop looking at her? Why did he feel so…so…

Aroused was the word he was trying to pluck from the ether.

Abruptly he looked away.

She sucked in a breath. “So, you’re French and I’m going to France,” she said lightly. “How’s that for a coincidence?”

“Yes.”

“We meet in the market. And now here again. Why?”

No way could he admit he’d stalked the hell out of her. “I can’t imagine.”

“Maybe it’s fate.”

Fate. Horrible concept. He could tell her a thing or two about fate. Fate had made him the despised bastard of the father he’d adored. Fate had hurled him into André at 160 miles an hour and then into Pierre-Louis.

She was still rattling on as Remy remembered the long months of Pierre-Louis’s hospitalization after the amputation. But at least he’d…

“I mean London is so huge,” she was saying. “What is the chance of that?” When her shining eyes locked with his again, she must have sensed his darkening mood. Spiky lashes batted. “Is something wrong?”

Her soft voice and sympathetic gaze caused a powerful current to pass through his body.

He shook his head.

“Good.” Amelia smiled at him beguilingly. “Then maybe…maybe…I mean, if your offer’s still open, I think I will have that cup of tea, after all, even if we did just meet.”

A cup of tea? As he stared into her hazel eyes he found himself imagining her naked on cream satin sheets. Why was that? She wasn’t his type. He felt off balance, and that wasn’t good.

He should run from this girl and leave the negotiating with her to his agent. He’d had the same cold feeling of premonition right before the crash.

This is it, he’d thought when his steering had jammed and his tires had begun to skid on pavement that had been slicker than glass.

Every time he looked at Amelia pure adrenaline charged through him.

This is it. And there’s no way out, screamed that little voice inside his mind.

Run.

Two

If only she could look at him without feeling all nervous and out of breath, but she couldn’t. So she fidgeted.

He was sleek and edgy and yet he seemed familiar, which was odd because he wasn’t the sort of man a woman with youthful hormones onboard would easily forget.

Curious, intrigued, attracted, Amy couldn’t help studying him when he wasn’t looking. His thickly lashed eyes were brown and flecked with gold. The brows above them were heavy and intimidating. He had the most enormous shoulders and lots of jet-black hair that he wore long enough so that a lock constantly tumbled across his brow.

He was too amazingly gorgeous to believe, and far too male and huge to be sitting across from her in such a ladylike tea shop. But here he was.

Amy bit her lips just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

Despite his powerful body, he looked so elegant in his long-sleeved, black silk shirt and beige silk slacks. So grown up and successful compared to Fletcher, who wore old bathing trunks and T-shirts.

“Have you ever been to Hawaii?” she asked, struggling to make the kind of small talk that beautiful, polished Carol would be so good at.

Lame. Did she only imagine that he looked bored?

“No. Why do you ask?” His deep, dark, richly accented voice made her shiver.

“Because I live there. Because lots of tourists come there and I thought…maybe I’d seen you. I mean, you seem so familiar.”

“Do I?” Did she only imagine a new hardness in his voice?