Susan Stephens Selection: The French Count's Mistress / The Spaniard's Revenge / Virgin for Sale / Bedded by the Desert King

Maybe it didn’t look too bad to him, but as far as Kate was concerned it was the end of an era and there wasn’t even time to mourn. And with the deadline she had to meet the devastation inside the cottage was nothing short of a total disaster.

The flimsier objects as well as the soft furnishings had been utterly consumed, and the heavy cupboard doors as well as the beautiful oak table and rustic-style benches appeared scorched beyond redemption; the wood charred to dust in some places. But it was far more than the loss of a deadline Kate saw as she looked around. It was the loss of a very important part of her life. Shattered ornaments lay scattered about the floor, and there was no sign at all of the photograph albums she had been studying amongst the stinking wet debris. Of the two old carver chairs, one slumped miserably on three legs instead of four and the ceiling had fallen down in the far corner of the room, exposing the rafters above, though they seemed unharmed, Kate saw thankfully. But the white walls had been transformed into an ugly mishmash of yellows and browns shaded with banners of soot. A groan escaped her as she forced herself to turn full circle.

‘Arrêtes!’ Guy insisted, taking her upper arms in a strong grip as if to shake some sense into her. ‘There’s nothing here that my men can’t repair. It’s all superficial.’

As his touch ripped through her, she burst out, ‘Superficial!’ Kate shook her head incredulously. ‘I can’t believe you just said that, Guy de Villeneuve. You’re such a man!’

‘I certainly hope so—’

As their eyes met, the furious look she flashed at him ricocheted back on her senses. ‘Only a man could look at a home reduced to a cinder and insist that the damage is superficial,’ she said, shifting the heat into her accusation.

‘But it is,’ Guy insisted. ‘The structure’s sound.’

‘But everything’s lost!’

‘Ah,’ he murmured, releasing her to slip his hand into his pocket. ‘Not quite everything.’

‘My locket!’ Kate gasped.

‘The men brought it to me this morning,’ he revealed, holding it so that the chain was wrapped around his wrist and the locket swung free in front of her face.

But Kate’s mind was still over-loaded with emotion and for a few seconds she couldn’t think straight.

‘Aren’t you going to say thank you?’ Guy said as he took hold of her arms.

‘You kept it from me,’ Kate said irrationally, trying to pull away.

Guy’s voice was low and intense as he stared into her eyes to deliver the correction. ‘I chose my moment to give it to you. Didn’t you think I would know how distressed you would be when you saw this—?’ He gave a brief glance around. ‘I wanted the recovery of the locket to put this calamity in perspective…make it seem what it is—superficial.’

‘OK,’ Kate mumbled, facing away as she struggled to untangle the jangling impressions in her head.

‘That’s not good enough,’ Guy insisted, cupping her chin in his hand and bringing her round to face him again. ‘And I’m still waiting,’ he said, directing his words at eyes tightly shut.

‘For?’ Risking a glance at his face, Kate instantly wished she hadn’t.

‘For you to say thank you,’ Guy murmured in a voice that made her breathing seem noisy by comparison.

Their frozen tableau of clean, neatly pressed normality should have formed an oasis amidst all the devastation, but Kate felt as if she was standing at the gateway of another world…a world she wasn’t sure she should enter. It hadn’t always been easy standing on the outside looking in, but it was safe.

Silence wound around them like a shield, protecting her against the reality that would have to be faced some time, but not yet, whilst ribbons of sunlight slipped through the damaged shutters to light up their faces. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured, dipping her head with relief that it had been safely said.

But as Guy released the chain into her hand he slipped a hand either side of her face. ‘Better now?’ he murmured. And this time there was no escape from his eyes. As Kate looked into them she knew that if this was another of his games it was one she hadn’t played before. Her heart stopped as she saw his intention reflected in his fast darkening stare and in the curve of his sensuous mouth. But then he let her go and stood back as if to show that she was free to move, free to pretend the moment had never happened.

Then of its own accord her body inclined towards him and his mouth brushed hers with the lightest touch—a reassurance maybe, support in a difficult moment, a gesture of friendship. She didn’t mean to sigh her encouragement, to move closer until his tongue teased the seam of her mouth, parting her lips, tasting, touching and exploring in the lightest most leisurely dance of retreat and advance. Her breathing raced as she felt her lips swell in response to the languorous teasing and the nip of his teeth. But he made no move to address the ache between her thighs and only went on tormenting her with the same unflinching control so that each time she tried to close the short distance between them he moved away, always denying her the firmer touch she craved.

‘Stop… Stop it now, Guy!’ She managed to force out at last as she stumbled away from him. ‘I don’t know what game you’re playing but whatever it is I’m not ready for it.’

‘Really?’ he murmured sardonically.

‘You know what I mean,’ she said, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, as if that was all it took to hide her arousal. But from the look on his face the moment had passed—she might even have imagined it to judge from the steely determination on his face. But what was his game? Was this a test? If so, it seemed his intention was to prove to her that in spite of all her denials she was as attracted to him as ever. And the way he had closed himself off now from her was simply to make the point that she should not think, even for one moment, that he felt the same.

‘This might look bad,’ he said coolly, turning his attention to the ruined kitchen. ‘But upstairs there’s hardly any damage at all. And even this is all cosmetic.’

Kate’s mind was still churning as she fixed her gaze on Guy’s broad, uncompromising back. He was so focused, so composed. How could that be when his kiss had left her reeling and confused? And did he really expect her to be able to enter into a rational discussion about the state of the kitchen?

‘Look at this, for example,’ he continued, apparently unaware of her state of mind as he pointed to a row of cupboards. ‘These doors can easily be replaced and they’re so solid—’ He rapped one with his fist and opened it. ‘Everything inside is completely unharmed. ‘See,’ he said, whipping out a couple of terracotta bowls. ‘Not even a crack in one of these. You could easily serve up a meal for half the village.’

‘All of them, I hope,’ Kate murmured, determined to show she could be as untroubled as he was by The Kiss.

‘Ah, yes,’ Guy said as he replaced the bowls. ‘Your house-warming party in three weeks’ time.’ Planting his hands on his lean hips, he looked at her. ‘I guess that’s my target for getting everything here back to normal for you.’

He was clearly pleased to see what he must have imagined was her return to clear thinking, Kate thought, imposing a smile on her strained features. Lucky for her he couldn’t sense the mayhem in her mind. Suddenly it was all too much for her—the loss of Aunt Alice, the deception, the devastation at the cottage, not to mention Guy’s reminder of the impossible deadline she had set herself. She had to get out of the cottage—into the fresh air.

‘You can cook?’ Guy demanded, oblivious to the storm clouds brewing as he followed her out. ‘If not, don’t worry about it. I’ll arrange something with Madame Duplessis. No one need ever know.’

That suggestion doused the aftershock of his kiss more effectively than any bucket of cold water. As a child, her life had been ordered for her, but things were very different now. She was in charge of her own life. ‘I can manage, thank you,’ Kate broke in, turning her face to the sun as she gulped in air. Perhaps it did sound ungrateful, but she had to put him straight.

‘I’m sure you can,’ he said. ‘But if you need any help, don’t be afraid to ask.’

She couldn’t let him go on. ‘When I knew my career as a dancer was over…’

He broke in, taking hold of her arm for emphasis. ‘I noticed your limp. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’

‘I retrained as a Cordon Bleu cook,’ Kate went on steadily in an attempt to avoid discussing something that could only strengthen his impression of her as being the same headstrong character he had known years before.

‘I’m impressed,’ Guy said with a small shrug. ‘But I’m more concerned about the tragic loss of your dancing career. That must have been terrible for you.’

‘Not as terrible as what happened to your father…and Aunt Alice,’ Kate pointed out. ‘Compared to that, it hardly seems worth mentioning.’

‘Of course it’s worth mentioning,’ Guy insisted calmly. ‘You must have been at the peak of your career when it happened. I used to read about you all the time in the arts columns…and then nothing.’

Kate’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘That’s right. But I was too tall.’

‘Nonsense,’ Guy argued. ‘All the critics said you were a dream.’

‘Yes,’ Kate said, forcing out a short laugh. ‘But it was always my mother’s dream, not mine. And in a strange sort of way the accident freed me.’

‘Freed you?’ he said in a puzzled voice.

‘Yes. To be myself,’ Kate explained. ‘To do what I wanted to do.’

‘To start up in business?’

He clearly found the idea bewildering, but for Kate breaking into the world of commerce had fulfilled her dreams however crazy that might seem to Guy. ‘That’s right,’ she confirmed. ‘At first I thought of becoming a chef, but that wasn’t quite right for me. Then one day when I was trawling the Internet to find a holiday I hit on the idea of opening a travel agency with a difference. A one-stop shop which you could access via the Internet, put a package together yourself, but also with the option to ask for advice from staff who really knew what they were talking about. At first I was the only staff member,’ she said with a self-deprecating laugh. ‘But if there was one thing my career as a dancer had given me it was the chance to see the world. So Freedom Holidays took off like a rocket—beyond all my wildest expectations. At last I’d found something I wanted to do—something I enjoyed.’

‘Past tense,’ Guy observed shrewdly.

‘Not at all,’ Kate returned quickly. ‘I still love what I do. But now it’s time to expand.’