glossed lips. He hungered for her with a raw, naked need that would not and could not be denied.
‘Is there anything else you need, monsieur?’
Her voice was a whisper, her eyes full of anticipation.
‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘You.’
She gazed up at him. Her eyes were large and full of questions Etienne could not wait to answer. His body took control, pulling her into his arms and holding her tightly against him. Gwen was in the grip of feelings so powerful that she simply melted against him. His hands went to her hair, his fingers digging through its thick tumble of soft, caramel-coloured curls. Tipping her head back, he feasted his eyes on her face. Uncertainly, she mirrored his movements, raising her hands to the lush darkness of his hair. It was short and silky, tempting her fingers to explore him with the same overpowering need that fuelled his desire. When his beautiful mouth took possession of hers it was with a passion that powered straight through her body.
Gwen had never experienced anything like it. Etienne Moreau overwhelmed her with such fire and urgency that she felt like a leaf in a hurricane. Her heart pounded, while her mind became a perfect storm of images—his tongue penetrating her mouth, his hands luring her onwards until he withdrew, teasing her. Gwen was left quivering from head to foot, at the mercy of so many sensations her brain could hardly cope. Hungry for his kisses, she rose on tiptoe, desperate not to lose contact with his body for an instant. Teased into peaks of excitement, her nipples thrust against the lacy restraint of her bra until it hurt. He was filling her senses so totally she barely noticed. She no longer knew or cared what was right or wrong.
Suddenly the wail of a police siren tore through the streets below, startling them both, and they jerked apart. Once she was deprived of the hard temptation of him, arousal flooded Gwen’s brain until speech was almost beyond her.
She looked up at him, still dazed, as he allowed his hands to drop lightly onto her shoulders and gently eased her away from him. Then he stepped back and looked down at her. His lips were slightly parted. She could see from the quick rise and fall of his chest that he was breathing fast. The arms that had held her so tightly now hung loosely by his sides, his hands and their long, strong fingers slightly curved. Her eyes took in every detail of him, from his hawk-like profile and the glint of perfect white teeth against the pale gold of his skin, to his easy stance. Here was a man who took women in his stride. As she slowly returned to earth after their paradise of a kiss a sudden increase in the clatter of silver and china from inside the restaurant dealt the final blow to her dreams. Dinner was being served. She had abandoned her staff when they needed her most. Kissing a man when she should have been supervising them was bad enough. When that man was also a guest and probably a friend of her landlord, her guilt became a real wall of worries.
Gwen had brothers. She knew what men were like. The thought that this aloof man with the smouldering eyes might tell Nick, her landlord, about their kiss made her feel sick. Nick and his family had been good to her, letting her buy out the business for a good price. They had taken a loss on the deal, but it had still cost Gwen everything she’d had and hefty loans from her parents and the bank. Nick was still owner of the little gite in the hills where she was staying. His rich, influential friends were Le Rossignol’s best customers, so she needed to stay on the right side of them. This was not the way to do it.
A breeze sighed over the balcony, but this time it was chill. It reminded Gwen of the groans of ‘I told you so’ waiting for her back at home if her dream of running a top-class restaurant in France failed.
Etienne’s face was expressionless; he seemed to have retreated from her. ‘This was an accident. Accidents happen,’ he said in a low voice.
Gwen tried to catch her breath. It wouldn’t be held, and escaped as a sigh. His attitude should have come as a relief to her. Instead it left an aching void. She wanted this man to want her, in exactly the same hot, heady way she wanted him. It nearly sent her over a precipice of temptation. Colour flared in her normally pale cheeks. What had possessed her to do a thing like that? With his relentless masculinity close enough to touch, that was an easy question to answer. Etienne’s body was a powerful incentive for Gwen to behave in a way she would never have dreamed possible. He roused her to fever pitch, but now he was leaving behind a burning ache for him, deep within her body.
‘Tension expresses itself in many ways,’ he added. A tiny muscle flinched in his jaw as he spoke.
The tilt of his chin and that macho dismissal told Gwen all she needed to know. Now she understood why Clemence had warned her about this man. He was the sort who took what he wanted, without offering anything in return. He would never feel the need to feign interest in her as a thinking, feeling human being.
‘I discovered long ago that money and manners don’t often go together, monsieur,’ she said icily. ‘I’ mcertainly not proud of this little interlude either, I can assure you.’
Picking up his forgotten glass, she started towards the French doors.
‘But I am.’ Etienne’s voice was low with amusement and he seemed to have recovered his wicked smile, as if the odd tension that had covered him a moment ago had been shrugged away. ‘It’s in my blood, cherie. You are irresistible. I succumbed to your charms. What better reason for pride could there be?’ he finished in a throaty whisper.
Gwen gave a huff of disapproval at that, but she was hiding a blush as she hurried away. Those words of his would echo in her head for the rest of her life. He called me irresistible! she marvelled. No one had thought to give her such a compliment before. Five feet three with a tumble of unruly honey-blonde waves, she felt too short and shapely to turn heads. Her bright blue eyes with their long dark lashes were a good feature, there was no denying it. But irresistible? Me? she wondered, wishing she could believe him. There was no doubt she had preened before her bedroom mirror when she had first tried on this stunning dress, but that had been behind a securely locked door. Now the delectable Etienne Moreau had kissed her, and complimented her. Much more of his talk and she might—just might—start believing it!
There was no time for Gwen to try out her budding self-confidence. As she left her office the countess Sophie steamed towards her with an evil glint in her eyes.
‘I hope you aren’t annoying my stepson,’ she warned, a purplish stain flushing through her thick layers of face powder and blusher. ‘He doesn’t take kindly to being manhandled by the lower orders.’
If only you knew! Gwen thought. The lovely Etienne hadn’t been showing any signs of prejudice a few moments earlier.
‘I took the count a drink, showed him where the first-aid kit was and thanked him for saving me from unwanted attention. That’s all, madame,’ Gwen said boldly.
The fat, bejewelled countess looked down her fleshy nose at Gwen. ‘Good. I hope this sort of thing doesn’t happen often. I expect better from a place that charges so much.’
With that, she swept away to the sympathetic company of her grand friends. Gwen felt her eyes filling with furious tears. She pressed her lips together tightly, to stop a vicious retort bursting out. Her bills couldn’t be paid until she had banked the balance of this awful woman’s invoice. All the loathsome countess had to do in her pampered life was sign cheques and authorise payments. Gwen earned every cent of her money. To get it, she had to smile politely all evening while being bullied and generally treated like dirt by her so-called ‘betters’. One of her mother’s favourite sayings came back to haunt her: ‘The rich get all the pleasure, the poor get all the pain’.
She bolted into the kitchens. For the rest of the evening
