Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate

He brushed past her, long, strong fingers moving swiftly over the panel. ‘Cinq six six deux quatre cinq un.’

The alarm cut out abruptly and silence cut in. A loud, ringing kind of silence.

‘Merci,’ she said finally.

‘You’re welcome.’ Lucien Duvalier’s perfectly sculpted lips tightened. ‘What are you doing here, Gabrielle?’

‘I lived here once, remember?’

‘Not for the past seven years, you haven’t.’

‘True.’ Now that quiet had been restored, Gabrielle could look her fill. She studied the tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed man standing before her, trying for detachment and failing miserably. Luc had been twenty-two when she’d last seen him and even then the promise of tightly leashed power and outrageous sexuality had hovered about him like a velvet cloak. Night, the household staff had called him. And Rafael, Luc’s childhood partner in crime, with his fair hair and his teasing blue eyes, had been Day.

‘Sorry about setting the alarm off,’ she said with an awkward shrug. ‘I should have known better than to use the key.’

Luc said nothing. He never had been one for small talk. But it was all she could manage. Taking a deep and steadying breath, Gabrielle tried again. ‘You’re looking well, Lucien.’

When he still made no reply Gabrielle looked past him, across the courtyard towards the chateau tucked snugly into the terraced hillside. ‘Caverness is looking well too. Cared for. Prosperous. I heard about your father’s death a few years back.’ She didn’t feel inclined to say any more on the subject. Had she wanted to lie through her teeth she could have added something about being sorry to hear of old man Duvalier’s demise. ‘Guess that makes you king of the castle now,’ she added recklessly. She met his dark burning gaze without flinching. ‘Should I kneel?’

‘You’ve changed,’ he said abruptly.

She certainly hoped so.

‘You’re harder.’

‘Thank you.’

‘More beautiful.’

‘My thanks again.’ Gabrielle held back a sigh. If Luc wanted to categorise the changes in her, she might as well show him the big ones. She wasn’t a gangly sixteen-year-old on the cusp of womanhood any more. And Luc wasn’t the centre of her life. ‘Look at us,’ she chided lightly. ‘Childhood playmates and here I’ve greeted you with less warmth than one would greet a stranger. Three kisses, isn’t it? One for each cheek and then a spare?’ She moved closer and brushed his left cheek with her lips, breathing in the subtle pine scent that clung to his skin and trying very hard not to let it wrap around her and squeeze. ‘One.’ She pulled back and made for his other cheek, never mind that he stood as if turned to stone. ‘Two,’ she whispered and let her lips linger a fraction longer this time.

‘Back off, angel.’ Luc’s voice was nothing more than a dark and dangerous rumble as his fingers came up to caress her jaw before sliding around to the base of her neck. ‘For your own sake if not for mine.’

A warning. One she would do well to heed. Not that she did. A frisson of awareness slid down her spine and she closed her eyes the better to diffuse it. So he could still make her body ache for his touch. Nothing to worry about. She was older now. Wiser. She knew better than to lose her heart to the head of the House of Duvalier. Not that a few more iron clad reasons to ensure she kept her distance from this man wouldn’t come in handy. ‘Are you married these days, Luc?’

‘No.’

‘Celibate?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’ She brushed his ear lobe with her lips. ‘You seem a little…uptight. It’s just an innocent greeting.’

The fingers at the base of her neck tightened. ‘You’re not innocent.’

‘You noticed.’ She pulled back smoothly, dislodging his hand with a shrug as she stepped away and shot him a careless smile for good measure. ‘You always were observant. Perhaps two kisses are greeting enough for you, after all. Shall we take a rain check on the third?’

‘Why are you here, Gabrielle?’

Here in this place where no one wanted her. Luc couldn’t have made the implication clearer if he’d painted it on a sign and hung it on the door. ‘Simone phoned and left a message. She said my mother had been ill. She said…’ Gabrielle hesitated, unwilling to reveal any more weakness to this man. ‘She said that Josien had been calling for her angels.’ Whether Josien had been calling for her children, who’d been named after two of the winged entities, was anyone’s guess. Rafe thought not. Rafael thought Gabrielle’s decision to travel halfway across the world on the strength of a fevered plea a colossal mistake but even so… Even if Josien refused to see her…

Some mistakes were unavoidable.

Gabrielle attempted a nonchalant shrug. ‘So here I am.’

‘Does Josien know of your expected arrival?’ asked Luc quietly.

‘I—’ Nervously, Gabrielle fiddled with the cuff of her stylish cream jacket. ‘No.’

Luc’s gaze grew hooded and Gabrielle thought she saw a flash of something that looked a lot like sympathy in their depths. ‘You always were too impetuous for your own good,’ he murmured. ‘I gather your brother declined to accompany you?’

‘Rafe’s busy,’ she said guardedly. ‘As I’m sure you must be. Luc, if you could just tell me where to find my mother…’

‘Come,’ he said, turning abruptly and heading for the door. ‘Josien is staying in one of the suites in the west wing until she recovers more fully. A nurse attends her. Doctor’s orders. It was that or the hospital.’

Pulling the door closed behind them, and pocketing her keys, Gabrielle hurried to match Luc’s long loping stride. ‘How bad is she?’

‘Frail. Twice, we thought we’d lost her.’

‘Do you think she’ll want to see me?’

Luc’s features hardened. ‘That, I have no idea. You should have called ahead, Gabrielle. You really should have.’

Gabrielle’s apprehension grew claws as they entered the chateau through the western door. Josien Alexander had always been a mystery to her children. Never loving, constantly critical. Gabrielle had spent most of her childhood trying to please a mother who could not be pleased. Gabrielle’s overriding instinct was still to please her, even after seven years of barely any contact with her mother at all. What if Josien didn’t want to see her? What if she hadn’t been calling for her children at all? What then?

The nurse who met them in the sitting room of the suite was a grizzle-faced man in his mid fifties whom Luc introduced as Hans. Hans had a firm handshake, a steady gaze, and a warm smile for Gabrielle.

‘Stubbornest patient I’ve ever had,’ he said. ‘She’s just taken her medication so you’ve about five minutes before she begins to get drowsy. Not that she won’t fight the sleep. She always does.’ Hans gestured towards yet another closed door. ‘She’s in there.’

‘Thank you.’ Gabrielle’s nerves were at breaking point and her body felt weary beyond belief, courtesy of the twenty-three-hour flight from Sydney, but this was the path she’d chosen to follow and follow it she would, no matter what Rafe thought, or Luc thought, or anyone thought. Gabrielle had come to see her mother.

Some mistakes were unavoidable.

‘Would you like me to accompany you?’ asked Luc quietly.

‘No.’ Luc’s offer of support scraped at her, shamed her. Some humiliations were best kept private. Then again, maybe this meeting would go more smoothly with a third party present. With Luc present, Gabrielle amended with brutal honesty, so that Josien could see that, as far as Luc was concerned, the mistakes of the past had been paid for. And they had been paid for, hadn’t they? Surely they’d been paid for? ‘Yes.’

Luc’s lips curved ever so slightly. ‘Which is it?’

Gabrielle’s gaze met his and skittered away. ‘Yes.’

‘Four minutes,’ said Hans dryly.

‘Thanks.’ Steeling herself, Gabrielle reached for the handle to yet another closed door and headed inside. It was warmer in here. Darker too, for the afternoon light had to pry its way through two layers of gauze curtain material before finding entry. A large four poster bed dominated the space so that the figure tucked beneath the fluffy white bedcovers looked tiny in comparison. Seven years ago, Josien Alexander’s hair had been as black as a raven’s wing and had fallen almost to her waist. Now it was streaked with silver and cut to sit just beneath her chin but she was still the most beautiful woman Gabrielle had ever seen. Josien’s eyes—those startling violet blue eyes that had always watched and judged but never smiled—were closed, and Gabrielle was grateful for the reprieve. She needed that moment to bind her emotions tight.

‘Josien,’ said Luc gently. ‘Pardonnez-moi for the lateness of the hour but you have a visitor.’

Josien turned her head and slowly, slowly, she opened her eyes, focussing first on Luc, and then on Gabrielle standing awkwardly beside him. With a swiftly indrawn breath, Josien closed her eyes and turned away.