to suggest that his colleagues should be seated. Lifting her chin, she took a few steps towards him. ‘It’s a matter I should like to discuss with you in private.’
‘As you can see, I am in a meeting. My secretary—’
‘This won’t wait.’ She was pleased to hear her voice so steady as she drew herself up to confront him. But it was impossible not to notice the speculation behind his faintly amused gaze and she was relieved when he turned away briefly to study some documents on the table in front of him.
‘An appointment would have made everything possible,’ he said evenly, but when he glanced up a flash of something hot in his eyes belied the reasonable tone of voice.
The implied challenge only fanned Kate’s determination and the characteristic glow in her emerald eyes dwindled then froze into shards of green ice. ‘I telephoned your secretary before I left England, asking for an appointment, but she said your diary was full for the rest of this month.’
The Count brought his head up slowly to confront her. ‘Did you leave your name, mademoiselle?’ His stress on the last word was intentional—calculated to provoke. It did its job.
‘Yes, of course,’ Kate retorted in a clipped tone that suggested he should know her better than to imagine she was so inept. But how could he know anything about her? she realised with a jolt, stopping short of slipping into the combative argot of her youth. Guy de Villeneuve only knew the child she had been and not the woman she had become. ‘I asked your secretary most specifically to inform you that Kate Foster had called.’ She was pleased to hear the change in her voice—and to see a shadow briefly darken the Count’s face as he realised that a member of his staff was to blame for the oversight. But she also knew he was far too subtle to make his displeasure public.
‘Well, Kate Foster,’ he said, enunciating each syllable with sardonic precision. ‘Until I know what it is you want to talk to me about, I can hardly be expected to ask these gentlemen to leave.’
Kate confined herself to a raised brow as their eyes clashed, but then her gaze was drawn to a muscle flexing in his jaw—a jaw that was already shaded with stubble so early in the day. Her eyes flickered up to his lips and bounced away again fast—but not before she had seen the knowing smile tugging remorselessly at the corners of his mouth.
It both troubled and excited her to know he hadn’t lost the art of reading her responses. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other men beginning to relax. The confrontation promised some light relief for them. She blanked them out. ‘I am here to discuss La Petite Maison.’
The Count responded to the hard edge in her voice with a stare of almost hypnotic intensity before swinging around to address his colleagues. ‘Gentlemen, forgive me. We will reconvene this meeting tomorrow morning at nine.’
Round one to her, Kate thought, relaxing minutely. She waited in silence until the room cleared, lifting her chin in resolute defiance as the men walked past her, gazing with naked interest at the woman who presumed to interrupt the schedule of the Count de Villeneuve.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ the Count invited as the door finally closed on the last of them.
Kate glanced at the two easy chairs facing each other across a fireplace carved from a single block of Carrara marble and then back again to the confident individual standing in front of her. The Count’s suggestion would immediately put her at the receiving end of his legendary hospitality rather than on the opposing side of what might well turn into a legal dispute between them. ‘I prefer to stand, if you don’t mind.’
‘As you wish.’
As if sensing her unease, the Count remained where he was…too far away to touch, but close enough for her to detect the scent of warm clean man overlaid with the aroma of citrus fruits and spice.
‘Kate, se passe? Have you forgotten me?’
Kate’s face flared red as she met his amused gaze. How could she forget? Instinctively her gaze slipped to his lips.
‘Is it all coming back to you now?’ he murmured with what she suspected was more than a hint of satisfaction.
The heat teasing her senses was proof enough…but that same delicious sensation served as a warning too. ‘I haven’t come here to reminisce,’ she said firmly. ‘My only concern is for the present—’
‘Mine, too,’ he assured her smoothly. Turning on his heel, he strode away from her across the peach-veined marble floor to where an intricately inlaid cherry wood desk stood in front of a tall arched window. ‘Won’t you come and sit down?’ he invited, holding out a chair opposite to his own comfortably padded leather swivel seat.
His gaze was like a silken lasso drawing her across the room, Kate thought, fighting the urge to move.
‘Come,’ he urged gently, as if dealing with a highly bred mare. ‘Come and tell me what’s on your mind, Kate. Whatever your problem, I’m sure I can find a solution for you.’
His containment was driving her crazy, she realised, consciously steadying her breathing. His inflexible control had always brought out the worst in her. But, even as she told herself that she had changed beyond recognition in the years since they had last met, she found herself thrusting one hand on to the swell of her hip and speaking to him in the same furious tone she had once adopted as a self-willed teenager.
‘Talking won’t solve this problem, I’m afraid.’
‘May I ask what would satisfy you?’ he enquired, the gleam in his eyes betraying not only his recognition, but his enjoyment of her lapse.
The answer that sprang unbidden into Kate’s mind made her eyes widen with alarm. Guy de Villeneuve was in his late thirties and occupied the front cover of Time magazine with almost monotonous regularity. Kate, for all her commercial success, was just brushing twenty-six and had a life devoted to work, where there was no time for romance, let alone the type of relationship her over-active imagination had just conjured up.
‘Now you’re here it won’t hurt you to relax,’ he continued reasonably. ‘Can you come away from the door? I don’t bite.’
It was impossible to read his face…but it had been more than ten years, Kate reminded herself. She was out of practice. But if he thought he could make her nervous…make her forget the reason for her visit… She started walking towards him with her head held high and her dancer’s carriage almost concealing the slight limp that was the legacy of the accident that had almost killed her.
‘It would be a start if you could explain why La Petite Maison has been so badly neglected,’ she agreed frostily.
Now it was the Count’s turn to grow still as he watched her progress towards him. ‘Ah, that,’ he murmured distractedly.
‘Yes, that,’ Kate agreed. ‘Well?’ she pressed. ‘How do you explain it? I have been paying money into the Villeneuve estate office for almost six months now. Money I imagined would more than cover any necessary maintenance on the cottage until I was in a position to come over here and take charge for myself.’
‘Oh, par pitie, Kate!’ His elegant gesture silenced her. ‘It was understood by all the tenants that as soon as I had restored the estate to its original purpose the holiday cottages would have to go.’
‘Well,
