Red Wine and Her Sexy Ex

‘You waited just a little too long before you denied it,’ Guy said. ‘You never really got over her, did you?’

Xavier shrugged. ‘I dated.’

‘But you’ve never let any of your girlfriends close to you—not the way you were with Allie that summer.’

‘It was a long time ago, Guy. We’ve both grown up. Changed. We want different things out of life.’

‘It sounds to me,’ said Guy, ‘as if you’re trying to convince yourself.’

He was. Worse, he knew that he was failing. ‘It’s just the surprise of seeing her again. Let’s drop this, Guy. I don’t want to discuss it.’

‘OK, I’ll back off,’ Guy said. ‘But if you decide you do want to talk about it, you know where I am.’ He patted Xavier’s shoulder, then topped up their glasses. ‘Just as you were there for me when it all went wrong with Véra.’

Long nights when Guy had ranted and Xavier had listened without judging.

‘Maybe Lefèvre men just aren’t good at picking the right women,’ Xavier said. ‘Papa, you, me—we’ve all made a mess of it.’

‘Maybe.’ Guy shrugged. ‘Or maybe you and I just haven’t met the right ones yet.’

Allegra had been the right one for him, Xavier thought. The problem was, he hadn’t been the right one for her. And he needed to remember that, if he was to have any hope of a decent working relationship with her.

In London, Allegra didn’t have a minute to breathe. Between sorting out a marketing plan for the vineyard; offering the lease of her flat to Gina, her best friend at the agency; sorting out what she wanted to take to France immediately and what could stay until she’d decided what she needed at the farmhouse; picking up her things from the office and trying not to bawl her eyes out when Gina threw a surprise leaving party for her and the whole of the office turned up except for her muchloathed ex-boss…There just wasn’t a spare second to think about Xavier.

Until she was on the train from London to Avignon. That gave her seven hours to think about him, and to fume over the fact that he hadn’t even acknowledged the receipt of her proposals, let alone asked her when she was coming back.

Getting angry and stressing about it wasn’t a productive use of her time; instead, she mocked up the content for her proposed changes to the vineyard’s website and a running feature about being a rookie vigneronne. But when she arrived at the TGV station, prepared to find a taxi to take her to the old central station to catch the local train through to the Ardèche, she was surprised to see Xavier leaning against the wall.

Though she wasn’t surprised to see that he was attracting glances from every female in the place. Even when he was scruffy from working on the fields, he was a beautiful man. Today, he was dressed simply in black trousers and a white shirt, with an open collar and his cuffs rolled back slightly; his shoes were perfectly shined, too, she noticed, and he looked more like a model for an aftershave ad than a hotshot businessman.

He seemed to be scanning the crowds, waiting for someone. When he saw her, he lifted a hand in acknowledgement before coming to meet her.

He was waiting for her?

She set her cases down. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hello to you, too.’

‘Bonjour, Monsieur Lefèvre,’ she chorused dutifully. ‘Seriously, what are you doing here?’

‘I had business in Avignon and you need a lift back to Les Trois Closes. So it seemed sensible for me to wait for you.’

Served her right for thinking, just for one second, that Xav might’ve made a special trip to Avignon to pick her up. Of course not. He’d admitted to working crazy hours, and he certainly wouldn’t let up the pace for her. This was the man who’d pushed her away and broken her heart. He hadn’t wanted her then, and he didn’t want her now. ‘Thank you. How did you know I was going to be here?’

‘Hortense told me.’

Allegra blinked.

Xavier shrugged. ‘Now, are you going to stand there and argue all day, or can we go?’ He lifted her suitcases.

‘I can handle them myself,’ she protested.

He shot her a look. ‘Men in London might no longer have manners, but this is France.’

She subsided. ‘Thank you.’

Another Gallic shrug. ‘Ça ne fait rien. How was London?’

‘Fine.’

‘And this is all you’ve brought with you?’

‘I put some of my things in storage.’

‘In case it doesn’t work out here.’ He nodded. ‘It’s sensible to play it safe.’

It sounded like a compliment, yet it felt like an insult. She decided not to rise to the bait. ‘Did you get the proposals I emailed you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

In other words, he was going to be difficult. ‘How was your business meeting?’ she asked.

‘Fine, thank you.’

She coughed. ‘Vineyard business, would that be?’

‘No, actually.’

Infuriating man. Would it really kill him to tell her?

As if he read her mind, he smiled. ‘All right, if you must know, I bunked off for the afternoon and had lunch with Marc.’

‘Marc, as in Monsieur Robert? Harry’s—my lawyer?’ she corrected herself.

‘We didn’t discuss you,’ he told her loftily.

She scowled. ‘You know, sometimes you can be so obnoxious.’

‘No, really?’ He slanted her a look as he put her cases into the back of his four-wheel drive. There was the tiniest, tiniest quirk to his lips, a hint of mischief in his eyes—just like the Xav she remembered from years ago, rather than the wary stranger he’d become—and suddenly she found herself smiling back.

‘Welcome back to France. Come on, I’ll drive you home,’ he said.

Home. Was he being polite, or did he mean it? She wasn’t sure.

‘What happened to your sports car?’ she asked as she climbed into the passenger seat. The one his father had bought him for passing his driving test, an ancient classic car with a soft top. The one in which he’d driven her all round the Ardèche, showing her all the beauty spots—from the natural wonder of the Pont d’Arc, a huge stone arch across the Ardèche river, through to the Chauvet Grotto with its incredible thirty-thousand-year-old cave paintings, and the beautiful lake in an old volcano crater at Issarles.