doesn’t have to. It’s obvious,’ the youngster retorted defensively. ‘It would have solved his problem if I’d drowned.’
Fleur watched her eyes fill with tears and told herself that the smart thing to do would be to say nothing. Getting involved with the Rochas family was the last thing she wanted to do. She would get no thanks and if anything went wrong—a more-than-likely scenario—she’d be the first person he’d blame.
‘And I suppose you told him that.’ So much for not getting involved, Fleur.
The girl lifted her chin defiantly and shrugged. ‘He didn’t deny it.’
As bad as her father, Fleur thought, stifling a sigh as she studied the stubborn set of the girl’s jaw. ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Not when he’s got that whole macho, man-of-steel-never-explain-yourself-to-anyone thing going on.’
The waspishly exasperated retort drew a reluctant chuckle from the girl. Pausing halfway up the path and unashamedly eavesdropping, Antonio paused. It was the first time he had heard his daughter laugh.
‘Don’t you like him?’
Fleur, surprised by the question, considered it.
‘Your father isn’t the sort of person that people like.’ Like was a tepid term and nothing about Antonio was tepid. She thought about his mouth and the way her insides dissolved when she looked at it and said, ‘He’s the sort of person people love or loathe.’
‘Which camp do you fall into, Fleur?’
The colour flew darkly to Fleur’s cheeks as a tall figure moved from the concealing shadow of a holly bush. He was wearing a grey cashmere sweater, dark, well-tailored casual trousers and a natural air of authority. He looked drop-dead gorgeous. So no change there.
Damn the man, he was always where you didn’t want him to be. He was always making you feel things you didn’t want to feel, she thought with a gulp of sheer despair as she realised that she had no control whatever over her reaction to him.
She had managed to go twenty-five years without feeling primitive sexual awareness so why now? Why him?
One dark brow at a satirical slant, his blue eyes shone with malicious humour as he scanned Fleur’s feverishly flushed face. ‘Or should I not ask?’
‘You’re an expert at doing things you shouldn’t,’ she retorted, then almost immediately wished she hadn’t, because the comment brought his gaze to her mouth and she knew he was thinking about that kiss.
Worse still, so was she!
‘How long have you been standing there?’ she demanded, lifting her chin.
‘How do you think I feel?’ his daughter appealed to Fleur. ‘He never lets me out of his sight, and he won’t let me see my real dad.’
Fleur turned shocked eyes on Antonio. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
The girl laughed bitterly. ‘You think that because you don’t know him like I do,’ she claimed.
A very timely reminder, thought Fleur. You don’t know him at all, which made the fact that when he was this close she could think about nothing else but how his body would feel against her own all the more hideously appalling!
‘For the moment it’s better if you settle into your new life.’
The teenager glanced over at Fleur. ‘See…I told you so.’ Then, whipping her head back to her father, she snapped, ‘I don’t want a new life; I liked my old life.’
‘You’ll adapt,’ Antonio told her grimly. ‘How is your leg?’ he said, turning to Fleur.
‘It’s fine. I get the stitches out Thursday.’
‘But it could have been otherwise. Something you might like to remember, Tamara, the next time you feel the urge to demonstrate your independence. It is very often innocent bystanders who get hurt.’
The girl flushed and looked guiltily towards Fleur. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘One of the first lessons you need to learn, Tamara, is that a person, at least one with any guts, takes responsibility for the consequences of their actions and doesn’t try and blame someone else.’
Fleur wasn’t surprised to see the tears spring to the youngster’s eyes. The average hard-bitten board member of a multi-national, she reflected, would have struggled not to be intimidated by his coldly peremptory tone and icy manner.
‘Go wait for me in the car, Tamara,’ he added tiredly as he switched his attention back to Fleur, who wished he hadn’t. The dark shadows under his eyes ought to have made him look haggard, but actually they made him look even more darkly dangerous in a sexy way.
‘I wi—’
Fleur breathed again as his attention switched back to his daughter.
‘You will do as I ask for once and try not to inform every passer-by that you are being kidnapped.’
With one final resentful look at his stern profile, the girl flounced off.
Fleur could not control her exasperation. ‘You’re such a prat!’
His dark head came around with a snap.
Refusing to back down in the face of the astonished hauteur stamped on his autocratic features, she pursed her lips and added firmly, ‘Don’t look at me like that; you are. A grade-A, total and absolute…’ She heaved a sigh and shook her head. ‘I’m wasting my breath, aren’t I?’
Some of the frostiness faded from his dark features as he gave an expressive shrug. ‘I am willing to admit I have flaws.’
She closed her eyes for a split second and thought, No visible ones.
Fleur pushed aside an image of him naked—drawn from her imagination—and, opening her eyes, released a rueful, though not totally convincing, laugh.
‘My, what a concession,’ she retorted huskily.
‘And no experience in being a father.’
She tried very hard not to see the flicker of pain, quickly concealed, that flashed briefly in his eyes. She didn’t want to feel empathy for this man; it was the short route to emotional complications she could do without.
Fleur’s eyes travelled the length of his lean, vital body and she repressed a sigh. Who am I kidding? The man is a walking, breathing complication.
‘Well, talking to her would be a start.’
‘Madre mía…!’ he ejaculated, looking less than grateful for the advice. ‘Do you think I have not tried?’ He took a deep breath and continued in a more moderate tone. ‘It is…difficult. The child resents me.’
Fleur looked at him incredulously. ‘Is it any wonder?’ she asked him. ‘You won’t let her see the man she’s presumably thought of as her father for the past thirteen
