The Frenchman's Captive Wife. Chantelle Shaw
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you’ve known a lot so I’ll take your word for it but I’m afraid it’s not an experience I want to repeat.’
‘Is that so, ma petite?’ The sudden amusement in his voice fuelled her anger and she curled her fingers into fists so that her nails bit into her palms. ‘Time will tell, although not too much time, I hope. Patience isn’t one of my finer virtues.’
‘I’d rather kill myself than bear your touch again,’ she snapped with a shudder as she contemplated the certain humiliation that would follow if she ever lowered her guard against him. He inhaled sharply, a nerve jumping in his cheek as he stared at her.
‘Don’t joke about such things, especially as we both know that you’re lying,’ he ground out, and she jerked her head round, startled by the bitterness in his eyes. ‘You might have wrapped that cloak of virginal shyness around you like a nun’s habit but you were a whore in the bedroom. Not that I’m complaining,’ he added silkily when she turned her stunned, pain-filled eyes on him. ‘I may be willing to put up with your presence in my life for Jean-Claude’s sake, but I think I’m entitled to some compensations!’
He swung away to stare out of the window and in the ragged silence that followed his shocking statement she could only stare at his harsh profile. He really hated her, she realised as a combination of pain and panic washed over her. During the brief months they’d spent together after their marriage, she’d glimpsed his ruthless streak in his business dealings. Beneath his charismatic charm lurked a merciless disregard for anyone who dared cross him, and despite his insistence that their marriage would continue, he viewed her as the enemy. For a moment she quailed but from somewhere her pride came to the rescue and she lifted her chin.
‘You don’t really want me back, any more than you want to play happy families with Jean-Claude. I intend to seek a divorce, Luc, and I’ll fight you tooth and nail for my baby. You never wanted him and I can prove that while I was pregnant you were too busy sleeping with your bloody secretary to give a damn about your unborn child or me. This has nothing to do with wanting Jean-Claude, has it?’ She pressed on, ignoring the ominous tightening of his jaw that gave some indication of his fury. ‘This is about your obsession to win, the need to exert your power. You didn’t want me and perhaps when you were good and ready you’d have divorced me, but you can’t bear the fact that I was the one to walk away. I defied you and now you want to punish me by claiming the child you never even wanted to be born.’
‘Enough!’ His voice stung like the crack of a whip as he jerked his head round to face her and Emily visibly flinched, although she refused to drop her gaze. Once she had been in awe of him, her painful lack of self-confidence no match for his brilliant mind and acerbic wit, but she had Jean-Claude to fight for now and she glared across the car, determined not be cowed. ‘Mon Dieu! You have developed the tongue of a viper. I am trying very hard to be fair, which is more than you deserve when you never once gave me the same consideration. You stole my son, and like a thief in the night you hid him from me. Let me set something straight once and for all Emily,’ he growled. ‘I always wanted our child. I longed to hold our baby in my arms, but for all these months you denied me even the knowledge of his existence. Now, finally, I have found him and nothing in this world will ever make me let him go. If you insist on filing for divorce I can’t stop you, but I will fight you for Jean-Claude with all the means at my disposal, and financially those means are considerable. If you want there to be war between us rather than peace, go ahead, but I hope you have the stomach for it because it is a war I will win.’
The car was speeding along the road, the locked doors preventing her escape even if it had been possible to jump out. The plush leather upholstery, the uniformed chauffeur and the discreet but well-stocked bar all indicated a level of wealth that would render any legal fight between them a waste of time. Luc could afford the best lawyers and if he chose to seek custody of Jean-Claude she would stand no chance against him. For the moment at least, she was out of options. Luc had won as usual and she seethed silently. ‘I hate you,’ she spat at him, and he shrugged indifferently.
‘I’m devastated, chérie, but I won’t force you to endure my company. If you really can’t make Jean-Claude and what’s best for him your priority, then you’d better get out now. Say the word and I’ll ask my driver to stop and drop you off.’
Emily glanced out at the barren landscape, which was as dry and unforgiving as a desert. The empty road snaked past jutting boulders and huge, spiteful cacti, and once again fear gripped her. ‘You surely wouldn’t abandon us out here, miles from anywhere?’ she whispered and Luc gave her a chilling smile.
‘Of course not. I’ve told you, from now on Jean-Claude stays with me. But you are free to go wherever and whenever you like, mon amour.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she said sharply, her body clenching in rejection of the careless endearment that even now had the power to make her long for the moon. She had never been his love. ‘Your cruelty is beyond belief,’ she whispered, and he gave a harsh laugh.
‘That you can accuse me of cruelty when you stole my son is also beyond belief but believe this, Emily, I do not forgive easily, and I will never forget.’
The barely concealed bitterness in his voice shook her and she took a deep breath as she concentrated on the scenery flashing past. Slowly her panic faded slightly as she envisaged the bustling airport. Presumably Luc was intending to fly back to England, but he would hardly be able to frogmarch her and Jean-Claude aboard a plane. Hopefully, if she kept her wits, there would be an opportunity to snatch back her son and slip away.
She forced herself to relax and bide her time, but in the tense silence her eyes turned involuntarily towards the man whose presence dominated the car. It wasn’t fair that he was so gorgeous, she thought bleakly, feeling a knife skewer her heart as she studied his stern profile. His incredible bone structure could have been fashioned from marble by one of the Old Masters. His olive-gold skin stretched taut over the hard planes of his face. Despite the fact that he was in his late thirties, there was no hint of silver in his thick black hair, and she closed her eyes on a wave of pain as she remembered the feel of it against her fingers when she had pulled his head down to hers. His mouth was to die for and he had delighted in teasing every inch of her body with it, his tongue a wicked instrument of torturous pleasure during their long hours of loving that had left her utterly satiated.
That had been a long time ago, she hastily reminded herself. In those first heady weeks of their marriage when she’d almost convinced herself she had done the right thing by marrying the enigmatic Frenchman and that he might one day even grow to love her as she loved him.
The illusion had been quickly shattered. They had spent the weekend after their wedding in Paris, too absorbed in their mutual passion for each other to do much sightseeing. On their arrival back in London, Luc had swept her into his arms as the lift carried them up to his penthouse flat, but instead of carrying her straight to the bedroom, he had hesitated in the doorway as the most beautiful woman Emily had ever seen moved forward to greet them.
Robyn Blake, once a world-famous model, was Luc’s sister-in-law as well as his personal assistant. She was exquisite, there was no other word to describe her, and Emily had immediately felt young and gauche, aware that her chain-store dress had been no match for Robyn’s designer outfit.
At first she had been taken in by Robyn’s apparent friendliness. Having spent her childhood in the shadow of her sisters, she was plagued by a crushing lack of self-confidence and had followed Robyn around like a puppy desperate to please its master. She had sought the older woman’s advice on everything from clothes and make-up to the problems that were emerging in her marriage, and it had taken her a long time to realise that Robyn was the cause of many of those problems.
She could not lay all the blame at Robyn’s door, she admitted miserably. Her own insecurity and lack of self-belief hadn’t helped any more than the growing realisation that Jean-Luc Vaillon was incapable of loving anyone. He had treated her suspicions about the true nature of his relationship with his PA with scathing dismissal. It was time she grew up instead of behaving like a silly child, he’d told her, but in her heart she accepted that he had never