took a deep breath.
‘I have been driving for hours; my back hurts.’ She grimaced as she pressed her hand to the base of her spine. ‘I need a cup of tea and I need a bathroom, the latter fairly urgently.’
‘I suppose you’d better come in.’
The grudging invitation brought a twisted smile to Megan’s pale lips. ‘How can I resist when you ask so nicely?’ Not resisting Luc was what had got her in this position to begin with.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MEGAN followed Luc inside the cottage, her low-heeled shoes clicking on the flagged floor. The interior layout was a surprise to Megan. The internal dividing walls were gone, creating one large open-plan living area that used up the entire ground-floor space. The original flagged floor had been retained, as had the vast inglenook, but the modern kitchen appliances and stylish Swedish wood burner were very sleek and state-of-the-art.
The heat being thrown out by the wood burner made Megan reach for the scarf that was wrapped around her throat.
‘Bathroom…?’
‘Up there,’ he said, a beat behind.
Megan followed the direction of his nod and walked towards the wrought-iron spiral staircase. It wasn’t until she reached the upper floor that she realised that the stairs opened directly into a room. The faint scent of the male fragrance Luc used hung in the air; it made her nostrils flare and sensitive stomach muscles tighten.
So this, she thought, releasing a long sigh, was Luc’s bedroom, her pulse rate suddenly going through the roof.
Luc’s bedroom was a place she had dreamed about a lot lately but she hadn’t expected to find herself there. Furnished in a minimal style she recognised immediately from downstairs. Again the internal walls had been knocked out to make a space that was almost as large as the room below. The roof though was open to the rafters and light flooded in through the window.
Either Luc had just had a spring-clean or he was very neat; there wasn’t a dirty sock or crumpled shirt in sight. In fact there was nothing much in sight beyond a couple of vibrant rugs on the oiled oak floor, a chair, a set of bookshelves and a bed—a large bed.
Megan swallowed. A very large bed, she thought, staring at the smooth sheets and simple throw.
She was looking around for the bathroom when she saw the wall.
‘Oh, my God!’
Up to this point her back had been turned to it, but now she could see that the wall was covered, entirely covered from ceiling to floor in photos. Black-and-white prints that overlaid each other in a gigantic collage.
Even to her uneducated eye it was obvious that she wasn’t looking at snapshots. The subject matter was diverse. They ranged from stormy seascapes and wild mountain scenery to pictures of old wrinkled men sitting around a chessboard, pipes in hands, and women with babies on their backs and water-pots on their heads, to children with even older faces searching rubbish dumps for food.
Faces frozen in time or starkly beautiful places, the pictures all had a quality, not just great lighting or inspired subject matter, but an indefinable something that made the observer stand and stare. Megan did. Despite the urgency of her errand she stood for a long time just looking.
If Luc had taken these himself he was not only very well travelled, but incredibly talented.
She finally managed to tear herself away, her mind still filled with the images she had seen and Megan had to open several doors before discovering the bathroom. Was Luc’s mind as organised as his storage space? Unlike his bedroom, the bathroom was neither spartan nor rustic.
Megan looked around curiously and liked what she saw. It was tiled in pale cream stone tiles, which reflected the light flooding in through the roof windows. The bath, a freestanding decadent French slipper job that could have held half a football team. The bathroom in her flat could have fitted into the state-of-the-art shower cubicle.
‘So this hasn’t started well,’ she admitted to her reflection in the mirror. ‘That means things can only get better.’ With the best will in the world Megan couldn’t inject an authentic note of optimism into her voice.
When she went back downstairs Luc was in the kitchen area at the opposite end of the room. He had taken off his outdoor clothes, including the heavy sweater he had been wearing. He stood there in the dark moleskins that clung to the long line of his well-developed thighs. The rolled up sleeves of his pale blue shirt revealed the subtle sinewed strength of his forearms and the even tone of his dark skin.
Would there ever come a day when she would be able to look at him and not be paralysed with lust? Megan forced herself to release the air trapped in her tight chest.
He didn’t look up even though he must have heard her come down.
Perhaps he was hoping that she’d go away if he pretended she wasn’t there?
She watched as, very much at home in the kitchen, he rattled around in a competent manner in a cupboard, then walked over to a sink and filled a kettle. Even doing something mundane he was always a pleasure to watch and she was glad of anything that delayed the moment she would have to reveal why she was here.
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and her elbow caught against the wall. She winced as pain shot up her arm. She rubbed it and realised that Luc was watching her.
‘Find what you needed?’
She nodded and he returned to his task. ‘Did you take the photos upstairs?’ She did feel a need to break the lengthening silence, but she was also genuinely curious.
‘Yes, did you like them?’
She nodded and then realised he wasn’t looking at her. ‘Very much, you’re very talented.’ Multi-talented, it would seem. ‘Did you train?’ He could easily have made his living out of them. It must have been hard to make the choice between writing and becoming a professional photographer.
‘No, I’ve always taken photos. When I was making a living doing something that bored me rigid it was the only thing that kept me sane.’
‘Why were you doing it if you hated it?’
Luc, who was taking a carton of milk from the big American-style fridge, had his back to her.
‘I had my own business, and I was doing it for the same reason most people do jobs they don’t like.’ He turned, his mocking gaze sweeping across her face. ‘Money.’
‘And did you make a lot?’
‘Yes, I made a lot of money.’ His long, curling lashes lifted from the slashing curve of his cheekbones. ‘And then,’ he added, pinning her with a mocking stare, ‘I lost it.’ He had sold everything he had to pay off the creditors and clients that his partner had stolen from. ‘All of it and then some.’
Aware that she wasn’t supposed to know about his business, she said, ‘That must have been terrible.’
‘I thought so at the time.’
‘I
