last fence. For, like her, he wasn’t accustomed to divulging any of his secrets—especially personal ones.
They had the power to cause heartache. To draw blood.
Oui, he couldn’t totally trust her. But he could offer an olive branch.
“I read over your plans for the Chateau and I applaud your foresight,” he said.
Her expressive eyes went wide, and her smile brightened the room and his heart. “You did?”
“But of course that’s not what I wish to discuss now. I’d like your opinion concerning a resort I plan to redesign in Cap d’Antibes,” he said, turning his attention to the spreadsheet on the computer. Her radiant expression had burst inside him like the sun cresting the horizon, flooding him with new hopes, new dreams. It made him forget his quest for vengeance.
“Are you familiar with the area?” he asked, his voice sharper than intended.
“Only what I’ve read about the French Riviera,” she said.
He’d take her there. Give her a tour of the old city from a native’s viewpoint. Show her the castle steeped in history and the villas where movie stars and royalty spent their holidays.
He’d escort her to the casinos that never slept. Then do something he’d never done before—take a lover to the old villa where he’d been born.
“Please—tell me more.” She shifted in her seat, her eyes still wide with excitement.
Mon Dieu, to think his business enthused her so! To think her excitement was rubbing off on him—in more ways than one.
“I recently bought the hotel. It’s a fine property, but the last modernization stripped it of its charm.” He leaned forward, captivated by her interest. “I would like to reinstall its original nineteen-forties style.”
She sat back, her expression thoughtful. “You want to recapture its heyday?”
“Oui.” André rocked back in his chair, then tossed his pen on the desk, as if it didn’t matter whether she liked his idea or not. It did matter. He’d seen her credentials and knew she had a head for business.
“It’s daring. Unique.” She smiled, and his heart nearly stopped beating. “And a cutting-edge business strategy.”
“I’ll show you the plans—” His mobile phone chirped and he answered it.
“Bonjour,” said the manager of La Cachette, his high-class resort on St. Barthélemy. “Comment allez-vous?”
“I am well. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“A small matter, really.” The manager explained that there was a continuing problem with an employee—André’s distant cousin.
“Philippe is not doing his job?” André asked.
“No, his work is excellent.” There was a long, tense pause. “It is the ladies. He romances them, and there are complaints.”
André smiled at the mental image that conjured. “So Philippe is working his way through the female employees, non?”
“Employees, guests—it makes no difference to him. Complaints have been lodged.” His manager’s sigh crackled over the line. “Perhaps if you spoke with him?”
“Oui. I will arrive this afternoon. Prepare my suite.”
André ended the connection, then rocked back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, annoyed he had to speak with Philippe again about his discretion and maintaining high business standards. Irked he had to leave Kira here. Though a night away from her might be just the thing to put his emotions back in perspective.
“Problems?” Kira’s voice reached across the desk to stroke over him in a silken caress.
“Oui. An ongoing one.” But no more. His cousin had been warned what would happen if he continued to play around.
He met her gaze, annoyed her excitement had vanished. Was she sorry to see him go, or was it a ruse?
No, she wasn’t deceiving him this time. He’d set out to bind her to him and he’d succeeded. But he’d not anticipated his plan would ensnare him as well.
He should leave her here and attend to business. But he selfishly wanted her to join him.
“We leave for St. Barth within the hour,” he said, clearly surprising her again.
Again her smile dazzled him, warming something that had been far too cold in him. “You’re taking me?”
“But of course.”
Her smile rivaled the sun.
Oui, she was excited to go away with him for the day. He hoped she wanted to see the island and La Cachette—to be alone with him in the romantic city. But she might be seeing this as her chance to contact Peter, perhaps even run away.
His jaw firmed, his heart chilling at those possibilities. He’d provide her with the means to deceive him. He’d charge his investigator to do a deeper investigation of her, turning over every rock in England if need be.
Then he’d have an answer. Then he’d know what the hell to do.
Kira wasn’t a neophyte when it came to five-star hotels, but the moment André escorted her into his hotel on St. Barth, there was something about La Cachette that set it apart from anything she’d seen before. Something besides the old-world beauty of the salmon-stucco structure trimmed in pristine white. Something other than what she’d read about the high-end suites that ran into many thousands of dollars a night.
The elegant hotel overlooking the expanse of turquoise sea made Chateau Mystique pale in comparison. It reduced the Chateau to what it really was—a glitzy hotel on the Las Vegas strip, an edifice of glass and steel and opulence meant to dazzle guests, like countless other ones in the neon town that played all night long.
Her nerves zinged and her senses absorbed the grandeur of it all as André tapped in a code to access a private lift. But once she and André stepped inside it, a far different excitement took root in her.
She’d been intimate with him in every way possible, yet she felt like an exposed novice trembling at his side. A good part of it was because of desire, for she wanted him with a hunger that shocked her.
But she was still shaken over taking the coward’s way out and holding her secret to her heart even after he’d asked for her opinion regarding his property on the French Riviera. At that moment she’d felt their relationship shift, and she hadn’t wanted to ruin it. And it had happened again when he’d offered that bit of praise for her ideas for the Chateau.
Her heart had melted.
After three months they’d gone from captive and captor, to sizzling lovers. Could they find even ground in a partnership in business? As parents?
Could they have even more?
She
