The Bachelor's Cinderella: The Frenchman's Plain-Jane Project

“I’m sorry,” he said, as they disentangled themselves.

“Please don’t say that.”

“I have to.”

“No. Don’t apologize. If you have to be sorry, don’t tell me so.”

And Etienne realized just what she meant. She had almost moved away completely, but he gently tried to pull her back.

Meg resisted.

“If you think I meant that I was sorry for wanting you, then you’re very wrong.” Even though he was sorry for that. Wanting her complicated things when he wasn’t going to stay.

“It’s all right.”

“No. It isn’t. I’m not Alan, Meg.”

How did the Americans say it? Bingo. Her eyes came to rest on him, and he saw the truth.

“When you and I touch, there’s nothing pretend about it for me,” he told her. “I desire you, very much. If I’m sorry, it’s not because the kiss was a lie but because it wasn’t. You and I…touching or…doing more…I can’t stay, Meg. I won’t lie to you about that. That’s why I’m sorry. I shouldn’t start something I can’t follow through on.”

She smiled then. Actually smiled when his body was screaming with the need to pull her to him. And then a sad little look came on her face. “All that moving around you do…I…It’s none of my business, I have no right to even ask why, but…”

“Her name was Louisa,” he said. “I’d known her forever. She was shy but not with me. Our families knew each other and from the day Louisa and I were born, our parents joked about how Louisa and I would marry. Only when my father died, it wasn’t a joke anymore. I was the only remaining Gavard male, and my mother pinned all her hopes on me. I inherited the Gavard estate and all the responsibilities and commitments and history that that entailed. I was expected to do the right thing, marry the right woman, have the right child. So, I did all those things. Or I attempted to.

“I hated it, but it was my duty and my mother grew hysterical at the thought that I might fail the family name. So, I married Louisa and found out that she loved me. And also found out that I could break her heart because I was gone all the time on business. Fragile and afraid of my mother’s intimidating ways, she stayed alone or in the Paris penthouse, and she was bitterly unhappy when I was gone.”

Meg bit her lip. Her eyes were dark with concern. “Etienne, I shouldn’t have pried. You don’t have to tell me this.”

“Maybe I need for you to know. I came here to save Fieldman’s, but I don’t ever want you to think that I’m better than I am. Do you understand?”

Slowly she nodded. “You want me to think that you’re worse than you are.”

If the next part wasn’t so awful, he might have smiled. Instead he shook his head. “I used Louisa to achieve my goals. Marry a woman of good family? Check. I did that. Beget an heir?”

He paused. “She didn’t even want children at first, but she felt that if she had the Gavard heir, I would stay home. And I wanted her to have it. But even when she was pregnant, even once she had explained why she agreed to get pregnant, I didn’t slow down my business trips. I wasn’t even there when the stress of pregnancy and an undetected congenital heart defect precipitated a heart attack that took her life and the life of our son.” Anger at his inability to go back and change things, to take back all his mistakes, left him suddenly speechless.

Meg touched his hand. “How could you have known?” she said softly. “I know you would have prevented their deaths if there was any way you could have, Etienne.”

But he couldn’t respond. No matter the situation, no matter how much he wished he could reverse time and change the results of that day, he couldn’t. He had failed Louisa long before the day of her death. He had broken her heart. And when, after Louisa’s death, he’d told his mother that he was abdicating his place as the head of the family, dropping control of the family firm except for this small part he had started himself, and that he would not even consider ever starting another family, he’d broken her heart and failed her, too. Because after that, no matter how many times he apologized for his careless, thoughtless words, she felt responsible for pushing him into grief and she died feeling that way.

The truth was that he was hell on women. He disappointed and hurt them without trying. But, he promised himself, not this time. Please not this time.

He looked at Meg. She looked so sad, so chagrined. “I opened up old wounds by being nosy and speaking out of turn the way I always do. I—I’m so sorry I intruded.”

Etienne shook his head. “No. It needed to be out in the open so that you understand completely, Meg. I’ve had reason in my life to regret how I’ve handled my associations with women, but that’s not going to happen this time. I won’t give you false promises of any kind,” he told her, “but I won’t disappoint you by failing to help you, either. Beyond business I have no right to get involved with anyone and you have the right to know that. Because when I go, I’m going to miss you. But I’m still going to have to go. I never stay. I can’t.”

She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. Finally she took a step closer rather than a step farther away. “Then, if the clock is ticking, I’d better start learning how to be a totally independent woman and head of this company quickly, hadn’t I? I’d better learn all the lessons you’re willing to help me with, Etienne. I don’t want you to have regrets. Instead I want to be a testament to your training, a worthy protégée. I’m going to do it. With your help, I’m going to go meet those newspaper people right now and be all that you intend for me to be.”

She stood before him, tall and elegant and full of confidence, and he had never been so proud of her. But he had also never been so sad to think about the future. Never getting to see her again when his time here was up was going to be…difficult.

But it would happen, nonetheless. He couldn’t even think about staying and taking the risk of seeing Meg hurt or growing to hate him.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_292b9a08-6374-59e1-92d2-8126719d4cd6)

THE room where the meeting was taking place was large with a conference table and cushy, big blue chairs. Ten of the twelve chairs were taken up by reporters, mostly female, all in black suits, and when Meg and Etienne walked in, Meg wanted to turn around and walk right back out again.

But she didn’t. She didn’t even look at Etienne even though she knew that if she did, he would be staring back at her, offering strength and encouragement. She wondered what he’d think if she told him that she was the girl who got poor grades on her oral presentations in school because she was so self-conscious that she stammered and forgot what she needed to say.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to tell him. And she was going to do this right. Because Etienne was carrying too much guilt on his shoulders. She didn’t want to be another weight, another woman he’d end up regretting. Besides, she might be the face of Fieldman’s, but he was the actual owner, the one taking the biggest risk, and she wasn’t going to fail him if she could help it. She prayed that she could come off looking reasonably competent. Or at least not incompetent.

Besides, hadn’t she wanted to forge a place for herself in the world, to be a woman to be reckoned with, to become so self-sufficient that she didn’t need to depend on a man for anything? Well, here was her chance. She needed to take it and she had to remember that wanting a man like Etienne would be self-destructive, a one-way ticket to doom and gloom and certain heartbreak. Anyone with any intelligence could see that.

Meg circled around to the open side of the table, facing the reporters. She tried to recall all the things she and Etienne had spoken about on the way over here, all his coaching, all the statistics and talking points she was supposed to spout, but the only thing she could really remember was his admonition to “be yourself. Just be Meg.”

Meg looked at the group gathered there. She opened her mouth, uncertain of what she intended to say. It was school report day all over again, but then she looked at Etienne. His silver-blue eyes held no hint of concern. He was smiling at her. He believed in her.

“I have the most wonderful job in the world,” Meg began, which was nothing like what she and Etienne had decided on. “Because I’ve been very lucky and because I’ve been blessed to be able to work with wonderful people.

“I got my start at Fieldman’s when I was sixteen. I left a year ago and then was rehired a few weeks ago by Mr. Gavard,” she said, nodding toward Etienne. “We’re…partners and with the help of the other employees of Fieldman’s we intend to not only reenergize the company, but to make it the kind of place people will compete to work for. It’s going to be a furniture friendly, consumer friendly, environmentally friendly and employee friendly company. We’ve already started. Let me show you.”

She pulled out her portfolio of the new product line and some of the ideas she and Etienne had drawn up to make Fieldman’s, small though it was, stand out from the crowd.

“Every drop of paint we use, every piece of technology we buy will be planet friendly. Our furniture is handmade out of materials that are certified chemical free for those people who have medical concerns.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“It is. That’s why we’re grateful that Mr. Gavard has taken over the company, although…he intends to eventually sell most of his shares to the employees.”

“Mr. Gavard,” one reporter said. “What do you say to all this?” The woman was eyeing Etienne as if he were a piece of man-size chocolate she wanted to bite into.

“This is not my show,” he said. “I refer all questions to Ms. Leighton.”

“Your…partner,” the woman said. Then she turned suddenly to Meg.

“Is he really just your partner?”

Meg blinked. How to react? How not to overreact? Instructions flew through her head. Reactions begged to be spoken. She ignored them.

Then she smiled. “Ms. Banner,” she said, reading the woman’s badge. “Look at me. I’m a…decent-looking woman. I have my attributes, I rather like this new hairdo I have, don’t you? But, I ask you…do I seriously look anything at all like the kind of woman Mr. Gavard would be entangled with? The man is absolutely gorgeous and he’s got those great dimples and…Well, of course I like looking at him, but most of you here would make much more likely dating material for Mr. Gavard should he be looking for a date.”

Every woman in the room turned to look at Etienne. Meg smiled and waved.

“He has dimples?” one woman asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Meg said. “And when he doesn’t believe something, he can do this great, sexy thing with his eyebrow. Show them the sexy eyebrow thing, Etienne.”

He crossed his arms. “I think this press conference was supposed to be about Fieldman’s, wasn’t it, partner?”