when they’re shelling out for sleaze.’
‘Well, thankfully that’s outside my experience.’
‘And what’s inside your experience? Picking up anonymous foreigners in bars for—well, what would you prefer to call it … a “torrid night of passion”?’
Veronica clenched her hands at her sides. Did he really think she was that shamefully indiscriminate? ‘I—you—’
‘Yes, you and I,’ he cut through her faltering attempt to fend off his barrage, ‘burning up the sheets together. And now you seem to want to act as if we never met. What frightens you more, Veronica—the fact that I’m a real person and not some obedient sexual fantasy-figure tucked away in your memories, or the fact that I’ve turned out to be someone you can’t just walk away from?’
She hunched her shoulders. It was his bruised male ego talking, she told herself, that was all. ‘I—it should never have happened,’ she said, moving over to pick up the apricot jam she had left by the sink and put it in the small under-bench refrigerator.
‘But it did happen, and I’m a naturally curious person, I want to know why,’ he pressed ruthlessly on her squirming conscience. ‘Why don’t you want to talk about it? Am I breaking some kind of taboo? Do you have some kinky fetish about bedding men who can only use a foreign tongue, so to speak?’
Her cheeks pinkened at his crude innuendo and she grabbed up a cloth and began to wipe down the spotless bench. ‘No! Of course not—I’m not in the habit of bedding anyone—’
‘You mean this was the first time for you?’ he asked cynically, planting his hip against the edge of the bench, effectively preventing her from continuing her pointless busy-work.
‘Yes—I mean, no,’ she added hastily, in case he thought she was trying to claim to have been a virgin. She threw down the cloth and drilled him with a defiant glare. ‘I don’t see why I should have to answer any more of your insulting questions. My love life is none of your business—’
‘Love life?’ His eyebrows shot up and she cursed herself for that unthinking choice of words. ‘Interesting that you find it insulting that I seek to understand how I fit into your … love life. As for questions—well, isn’t there one you’ve been wanting to ask me?’
Her heart began to thud unevenly in her breast, her breathing growing choppy. Questions could sometimes be as revealing as answers.
‘About this, for example.’ He withdrew his hand from his trouser pocket and she uttered a croaky little sound as he opened it to show her the jade pendant lying in his open palm. ‘I’d strung it from the rear-vision mirror of the car, to remind me to steer clear of perfidious jades,’ he said with gentle malice. ‘I found it in my bed in Paris—it has a damaged catch, otherwise I might have been left to wonder if you’d been a figment of my over-heated imagination. Pretty, isn’t it? Yet cruel in what it actually represents—a vicious hook on which to snag an unsuspecting fish and drag the poor, helpless victim to a painful fate.’
She took her eyes off the pendant only long enough to flick him a scathing look—surely he wasn’t implying that he was in any way a helpless victim? Or unsuspecting, come to that!
He watched her as he hefted it thoughtfully in his hand. ‘Quite valuable, too, I imagine …’ he mused with an infuriating smile.
Her hand darted out, but her fingertips barely grazed the delicate chain before his hand snapped shut over his prize, presenting her with an impenetrable fist.
‘Or does its sentimental value outweigh the price of the jade? Perhaps it was a romantic gift from a lover—someone you left back in New Zealand?’
She was unwillingly reminded of the modest diamond chip that Neil had demanded back after their failed engagement—the ring being the only piece of jewellery he had given her during their two-year relationship.
Lucien obviously wasn’t going to give the pendant back until she told him. ‘My parents gave it to me as a twenty-first birthday present,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘I don’t often take it off, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t notice that the catch was worn.’
But instead of handing it over he slipped it back into his pocket under her outraged eyes. ‘It would be a pity to risk losing it in someone else’s bed. They might not be as scrupulous as I am about returning it,’ he said glibly.
‘You haven’t returned it,’ she was stung to reply.
‘There’s no point at the moment, since it’s unwearable. I thought I’d find a jeweller somewhere and get it fixed for you.’
She didn’t believe his innocent look. He was tantamount to holding her pendant hostage to her good behaviour. ‘That’s not necessary—’
‘I know, but I want to do it. Consider it in the nature of an apology.’
‘For what?’ she said warily, mistrusting his silky sincerity.
‘For what I said to you out there on the road, when I thought you were a stalking journalist. I may have gone over the top with some of my remarks—’ He paused, watching as the most memorable of them popped back into her head.
‘The best lay I’ve had in a long, long time …’
Then as she visibly fought down her blush of chagrin he added simply: ‘About you staying away from me.’
That was all, and her blush exploded out of control as she realised what he was, oh, so clearly not apologising for …
‘I should have given you the slap you deserved,’ she choked.
‘Feel free to do it now,’ he invited, spreading his arms and taking another step closer, turning his head to present her with an olive-skinned cheek, his drawn-back hair a sleek backdrop to his neatly moulded ear.
‘It would serve you right if I did,’ she said fiercely, her hand twitching with the temptation to rediscover the feel of that fine-grained skin.
‘Try it—perhaps we both might like it,’ he urged wickedly, slanting his eyes to meet hers. ‘After all, we did have an unexpectedly exciting time together in Paris. It’s just a pity you had to rush off the way you did, before we had a chance to fully explore all the pleasurable possibilities …’
Veronica’s grey eyes widened in part shock, part curiosity. He had more than fulfilled her fantasies. What, precisely, hadn’t they explored …?
He shifted to look her full in the face again. ‘Not that you gave me any hints that you were interested in anything violent or kinky.’ His voice had lowered to that velvety purr she found so disruptive to her thought processes that she didn’t notice he had moved even closer. ‘You were exquisitely responsive to my lightest touch. So what was it that made you select me to be your partner for the night? What do you look for in a man, in a lover, when you go on the prowl?’
‘I wasn’t on the prowl,’ she protested. ‘I—I was excited about being in Paris … I just got carried away and so thought I’d—I’d—’
‘Find out what a Frenchman was like as a lover?’
Not
