By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс
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heart muscle was working overtime by the time he caught up with her. When he saw how her eyes hardened to see him, his gut clenched. The impulse to grab her and kiss her, plunge his tongue into her mouth until her knees buckled was overwhelming, but he restricted himself to gently touching her arm.
‘Shari. Please, will you calm down?’
She slowed her pace to a very fast walk, her face set against him.
‘What are you doing? Where are you running?’ He knew his voice sounded too harsh, courtesy of his pounding blood pressure. ‘Should you be running?’
‘I’m going back …’
‘Mais pourquoi? Bien sûr, je suis un bâtard, Shari, mais j’ai …’ In the stress of the moment he didn’t hear everything she’d said, then realised it was the apartment she was returning to. For the moment, anyway.
‘… my things.’
‘But why?’ He’d just launched into an emphatic and just defence of his behaviour when a series of shouts that had been in the corner of his ear all along finally captured his attention. Turning, he recognised Louis, the waiter from the café, jogging along behind him with the shopping bags.
With emotion running higher than the Eiffel, he was hardly in the mood to smile, but there might have something comical in the scene. The red-faced guy puffing to catch up with them acted as a circuit breaker. He was obliged to stop and was relieved to see that at least Shari paused too, looking on with a polite smile while he showered Louis with thanks and euros.
With passions under tighter controls, they resumed walking, Luc racking his brains for something he could say to minimise the damage and manoeuvre events into a situation he could control.
‘Perhaps I need to explain,’ he said, as calmly as he was able with his adrenaline ready to burst the levees. ‘What I said in the café was not intended the way it may have sounded. I didn’t mean you to think I don’t accept your word.’
‘No?’ She cast him the sort of glance usually reserved for snakes.
He felt stirred to defend himself. ‘Chérie. What I said burst from my heart in the heat of the moment.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Mais non. You misunderstand. I was trying to demonstrate how we must trust each other.’ He waved the salad bag. ‘Vraiment, we are in similar boats, you and I.’
‘You think?’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘I doubt if you’d like the view from this canoe, monsieur.’
Anyone would have thought he was a selfish animal, without a vestige of humanity. But since they were approaching his building, he restrained his impassioned defence.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he said with restrained dignity, ‘we are nearly there. Let us not argue before Madame la concierge.’
She froze him with a glance.
It was challenging to know whether she was so complicated because she was a woman or because she was an Australian. Or was it purely the result of her being pregnant? Of course, he had to remember she was used to being with a violent psychopath.
She needed to learn there were guys in the world who knew the meaning of civility, even if they occasionally overlooked a few minor details in the matter of their surroundings.
He turned away from her to greet the concierge. ‘Madame. Comment ça va?’
He listened with greater attention than usual to the latest about the old woman’s grandson, her daughter-in-law, and her arthritic cousin in Nantes. Only when the vieille was threatening to open up her concerns about her entire extended family did he deal with the issue of addressing the boxes he’d instructed the maid to leave with her. As well, he provided Madame with enough euros to cover the cost of postage, along with a generous contribution towards her retirement fund.
After that burst of friendly conversation, the journey up to the apartment was tense, as if one false word could detonate an explosion. He kept to his side of the lift, Shari to hers.
Shari held herself taut, resisting the current of sexual electricity rampant in the confined space.
Every so often his hot angry glance flickered over her, causing her to burn with indignation. While she’d at last intuited that he wasn’t likely to slam her with his fist, it was pretty clear there were other desires percolating through his handsome head.
As if.
Did men ever think of anything else but sex?
He looked as sulky as a boy, but what right did he have to be upset? It was as clear as a bell what she had to do.
In the apartment, while he shoved his purchases into the fridge willy nilly, she said politely, ‘Would you mind if I used a laptop?’
‘Certainement.’ He crammed the door shut on the foodstuffs. Then with the most elaborate courtesy he showed her into his office and switched on his computer. He leaned down to type in a password. ‘If you are wishing to send an email …’
‘I’m booking a flight.’
His handsome face stiffened. ‘I see. Then in that case …’
He hit the Internet connection and stood back, with a flourish of his hand indicating she should use his office chair.
She sat down and clicked to the site. She could feel his hand on the chair, his fingers brushing against her hair. ‘Are you intending to watch over my shoulder?’
He said evenly, ‘I’m not watching. I am remaining here to offer my moral support.’
‘Just a bit late,’ she murmured.
She regretted saying that, actually. Glancing up, she caught an accidental glimpse of his reflection in a mirror that hung outside in the hall.
He’d moved back to glower against the filing cabinet, his arms folded across his chest, dark eyes smouldering, his brow like a storm cloud. Every line of his lean body looked furious. But what did he have to feel so raw about? She was the one In Trouble.
Considering he didn’t want to be burdened with another man’s offspring, he was taking her decision to leave hard. She supposed it must be a macho thing. The caveman wanted to feel in control of the cavewoman, regardless of whose embryo she was incubating.
She typed in her credentials, then scrolled through the flight times.
Disappointingly, all remaining flights for the day had been filled. Conscious of Luc’s acute gaze trained on the screen, she tried for tomorrow’s with the same result. Incredulously she tried the following day’s flights, and the day’s after.
No good. She realised despairingly that, unless she wanted to sacrifice the ticket Neil had purchased for her and try another airline, she was stuck for the whole week.
She even tried other airlines, knowing she’d never really waste Neil’s generous gift. Then, to underline her terrible luck, the website she was struggling with froze.
Only just resisting smashing something and bursting into tears, she stood up abruptly and turned towards the door. ‘This is a waste of time. I’ll go back to the Louvre instead.’
‘Why?’ he said sharply. ‘Because I stated what is true between us? Ecoute.’ He grabbed her and turned her to face him. His dark eyes were cool and stern. ‘I’m not a perfect guy, Shari, but I am attempting to be—to do what is the right thing. I understand you were upset today with the perfumes, the apartment, but—most of that is fixed now. I was tactless to say what I said in the café, perhaps, but what do you expect?’ He flung up his hands. ‘Zut, we are from opposite ends of the earth. And, yes, yes, I know. You are a woman, I am an idiot. I will offend you—you will offend me, perhaps—many, many times, but … Nom de Dieu. This talking with you is like