The Frenchman's Love-Child

Riveted to the spot by the sheer charisma of that knowing smile, Tabby tried and failed to swallow. Closing his lean, shapely hands into the mattress, he hauled it up the stairs, negotiated with ease the bend that had caused her such grief and came to a halt in the room where the bed frame already stood assembled. As she reached the doorway he settled the mattress down onto the frame.

‘Where did you find the bed? On a dump?’ he enquired.

‘It’s old but it’s solid.’ However, her bed had come closer to the dump than she would ever have admitted. Virtually all of the elderly furniture and household effects in the van had come from her aunt’s attic and garage, both of which Alison was clearing in preparation for letting her property.

‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,’ Tabby reminded Christien as she bent to rifle the cardboard box of bedding in the corner and emerged with a folded sheet.

Christien studied the sheet she was unfurling and noted that it had been carefully mended with a slightly different colour of cloth. Did people still patch linen these days? He was more shocked than he would have liked to admit by the sight of that mended sheet. He had a vague Cinderella-like image of her sitting darning by candlelight and, in defiance of that unusually colourful flight of fancy on his own part, he spread his hands in a scornful gesture. ‘Why are you wasting your energy with this? You can’t live here-’

‘You couldn’t,’ Tabby countered, tucking in the sheet at the corners with determined industry, because at least while she was attending to practicalities she was not gawping at him like a lovelorn schoolgirl. ‘You’d be lost without your luxuries, but I’ll be quite happy getting back to basics-’

‘That’s a double bed…who are you planning to share it with?’ Christien demanded without warning.

An image of Jake’s warm little body sneaking in below the covers first thing in the morning to cuddle up to her crossed Tabby’s mind and her green eyes softened and her lush mouth took on a tender curve as she thought of her son.

Raw anger flaring and tensing his hard dark features, Christien strode forward to scrutinise her with brilliant dark golden eyes. ‘If you choose to live on the Duvernay estate, there will only be one man in your bed, and that man will be me…tu comprends?’

In rampant disbelief, Tabby straightened to stare at him. ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘Is that what you wanted…is that why you’re here?’ Christien purred low and soft, though the sting of that insolent enquiry cut like glass against her tender skin. ‘You want to take up where we left off that summer?’

Without even thinking about what she was going to do, powered by hot, deep anger alone, Tabby slapped him. The crack of her fingers against his bronzed cheek sounded preternaturally loud in the hot, still room. ‘Does that answer that question?’

Christien was so taken aback by that physical attack that he fell back a step.

The shock in his stunning golden eyes was patent and Tabby flushed. ‘You made me do that-’

Lean bronzed hands snapped over her wrists like handcuffs. ‘Then I will have to make equally sure that you don’t do it again.’

Tabby tried to pull free of his hold and failed. ‘It is your fault that I hit you!’ she condemned like a spitting wildcat in her frustration. ‘You were very rude. I’m in my own house and I have every right to be here if I want to be. If you enter my home, I expect you to mind your manners-’

‘Or you’ll assault me?’

Still struggling without avail to slide her wrists free, she felt her face flame at that sardonic interruption. ‘Can’t I move to France without you getting the idea that I’ve only come here to chase you?’

Disturbingly, his wide, sensual mouth quirked. ‘Perhaps I want to be caught, cherie.’

‘But I don’t want to get involved with you again-’

‘Non?’ Christien prompted in a husky undertone, employing his hands to draw her closer.

‘Non…’ Tabby told him insistently, but her heart was starting to beat very, very fast behind her ribcage.

‘I can be very well mannered,’ Christien murmured silkily.

‘Not around me, you’re not-’

‘You burn me up, mon ange…’ His arrogant dark head bent as he released one of her hands and raised the other to press his mouth to the centre of her small pink palm.

The heat of that teasing caress made her shiver. Time was running backwards for her. She pressed her thighs together on the hot, liquid sensation of melting at the very heart of her. Already she felt tender and swollen and shame pierced her as sharp as an arrow. She was passionate and so was he and once that had been a source of joy and discovery to her. She had believed that they were a perfect match, but now when she felt the blood run hot in her veins it scared her and she judged it a weakness in herself. As that almost unbearable longing for him held her there, her troubled gaze lingered on his downbent dark head. ‘Don’t do this…’

‘Don’t do what?’ Christien husked. ‘Don’t do…this?’

He sank his other hand into her hair and tipped her head back to skim the very tip of his tongue over the full curve of her lower lip. His breath warmed her skin and she trembled.

‘Or…this?’

He delved between her readily parted lips and she jerked and moaned, only to be racked by a shudder of frustrated longing as he lifted his head again.

‘Tell me what you want, cherie.’

Her hand reached up of its own seeming volition and sank into his black hair. Stretching up on tiptoe, she drew him down to her, for she wanted his mouth on hers so badly that it hurt to be denied it. With an earthy groan, he lifted her up to him and crushed her mouth under his before he strode forward and lowered her down onto the bed. The moment he pressed her down on the mattress, the frame gave and collapsed with the most enormous crash down onto the floor.

Christien swore and snatched her back up again from the tumbled mattress. Still holding her slight body taut to his broad chest in a protective stance, he stepped back to the doorway and surveyed the disassembled bed with incredulous force.

‘I forgot…I still had to tighten up the screws holding the frame together,’ Tabby mumbled unevenly.

‘You could’ve been hurt.’ Christien set her down on her own feet again.

‘I’m glad it happened…it stopped us doing something stupid,’ Tabby asserted tightly.

Firm male footsteps sounded on the staircase. ‘Tabby?’ a familiar voice called. ‘Are you OK? I saw the door open and just came on in when I heard the noise.’

A relieved smile driving the taut tension from her generous mouth, Tabby flipped round Christien’s stilled figure and went to the head of the stairs. ‘Sean…you’re very welcome and I’m about to take shameless advantage of you. Are you any good with a screwdriver?’

Dark eyes veiled, Christien surveyed the young blond male with his self-satisfied smile and designer stubble and experienced a powerfully disturbing desire to kick him back down the stairs again.

‘I brought my tool-kit with me…’ Sean confided as he passed by Christien.

Christien was so pained that he almost winced. Who was this jerk?

‘Sean…er, this is Christien.’

Neither man extended a hand. Each awarded the other a stiff but studiously casual nod.

Tabby tried not to notice that Christien made Sean look small, skinny and in need of a good shave.

‘I’ll sort the bed out…no problem,’ the Englishman asserted, and started to whistle quietly.

‘May I talk to you downstairs?’ Christien murmured to Tabby.

Worrying at her lower lip, Tabby led the way, her slim back rigid.

‘Is the whistling handyman going to be living here too?’ Christien enquired flatly.

Tabby tensed. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business-’

‘So I can just take care of him by going back up there and breaking his neck now, can I?’ Christien incised.

Tabby paled in disbelief.

‘I’m being straight. I don’t want any other guy anywhere near you. Who is he?’

Tabby focused on scorching dark golden eyes and her mouth ran dry. ‘You don’t have the right-’

Christien swung back to the stairs. ‘I’ll go ask him-’