Chapter Four
Arielle finished the washing up and wondered what to do next.
Her mind was still blank. A strange air of dissociation seemed to be possessing her.
A kind of preternatural calm. Maybe it was some kind of aftershock.
She stared blankly out of the kitchen window recalling her juddering reaction earlier when she’d been totally overwhelmed.
She had very nearly gone into a complete breakdown, shaking and convulsing like that, terrifyingly out of control…
But he stopped it—pulled me back.
His blunt words came back to her—that her home had never been hers in the first place. Protest rose in her throat, then subsided. Bleakness filled her.
I have to face the truth. That Mas Delphine was never mine. So it was never mine to lose.
Pulling that self-protective sense of dissociation around her as best she could, she went out onto the terrace.
There was no sign of the man. She could not see him anywhere in the gardens, nor by the pool when she walked past it.
Yet his monstrous car was still there, parked in the shade of the old chestnut tree by the pond.
Suddenly she could feel the oppressive heat and an immense sense of weariness overcoming her.
Exhaustion of mind, body and spirit from the catastrophe that had broken over her like a pitiless tsunami that morning.
She felt herself sink down onto one of the padded loungers, shaded by the house.
She leant back on it shutting her eyes. She would rest. Just for a moment…
Lycos lifted his head from his pillow, for a second not knowing where he was.
Then recall flooded through him. He was at the mas he’d won from the boorish Gerald Maitland.
He’d diverted off the road to Paris to take a look at it.
He rose to his feet, feeling refreshed. He’d gone up to the bedroom as the effect of driving all night had caught up with him and had flaked out on the counterpane.
He glanced at his watch. He must have slept for a good couple of hours and the light had changed in the dusky room.
Crossing to the window he looked out over the garden and the view beyond.
He’d made the decision to stay the night. But why?
There was nothing to keep him here. He’d seen the place, got the measure of it, knew what to instruct whatever realtor he engaged to sell it for him. So, there was no point in staying longer. He might as well return to his normal life.
And yet…
His gaze rested on the scene beyond. It really was lovely and very peaceful.
Nothing was moving, other than a few hens who’d wandered into the garden and were pecking about in the vegetation, and the chorus of cicadas was soothing.
The scent of honeysuckle and lavender wafted up to him, fragrant in the warm air.
He flexed his shoulders. A swim would be good. If the ducks had no objection.
His mouth tugged into a half-smile unconsciously as he turned away.
He put his suitcase onto the bed, lifting layers till he’d found his swim shorts.
He swiftly changed into them keeping his polo shirt on.
He collected his sunglasses and helped himself to the bath towel from his shower that morning, which had been drying on an old-fashioned wooden towel rack beside the wardrobe.
Barefoot, he headed downstairs, let himself out onto the terrace and made his way around to the pool.
Where Arielle was he had no idea, but right now his focus was on the pool.
He turned the corner of the house and stopped dead. He’d found not Cinderella, but Sleeping Beauty fast asleep on a lounger in the shade.
Slowly, silently, on bare feet on the paving stones, he went up to her and gazed down at her.
She was half on her side, the yellow tee shirt pulled across her breasts, outlining them and shaping them for his view.
Her slender legs were slanted, bare arms by her sides.
Her hair was coming loose from its confining knot, forming tendrils around her face.
He could see her breathe softly, her breasts rising and falling gently, her eyelashes dusky on the tender curve of her cheek, her lips very slightly parted.
Of its own volition his hand reached out, one finger carefully brushing away a lock of hair that was teasing the corner of her mouth.
Did she sense his touch, light though it had been?
She moved slightly and he drew his hand back, but continued to gaze down at her. She really was so very, very lovely.
Like no other woman I’ve seen…
The women he usually consorted with were a world away from this pastoral Sleeping Beauty.
His women, the ones he selected for his pleasure when pleasure was what he wanted, were chic and sophisticated.
They had perfect hair, perfect make-up, perfect sex appeal and perfect allure.
All carefully, deliberately, prepared for his delectation.
They knew exactly what a man like him wanted and provided it for him.
Trophy women. Groomed to within an inch of their pampered lives to adorn the arm of a rich man and share a little of his riches, while it pleased him to permit them to do so.
Nothing, nothing at all like the Sleeping Beauty now lying there for him in all her natural loveliness.
Not even knowing that he was looking at her.
How long he stood—motionless, gazing down at her—he didn’t know.
All that he knew was that thoughts were moving inside him.
More than thoughts. He wanted to reach out his hand again, touch her, stroke the soft curve of her cheek, trace the parted outline of her lips, lean down towards her…
brush her mouth with his. Taste the sweetness that she promised. Taste all of it. Taste all of her…
Resolve shaped itself in him. He had not expected to come into possession of this farmhouse in the middle of Provence.
He had not expected to follow an impulse to find it, inspect it and assess it.
He had not expected to find it occupied by this pastoral Sleeping Beauty, this hard-done-by Cinderella.
And yet, so it was. And because it was, he would pause a while. Take his time here, in this quiet, peaceful, unexpected place, and enjoy what it had to offer. Enjoy all of it.
His gaze lingered on Arielle, so peacefully asleep.
And she can enjoy it too. I can be her Prince Charming. Charm her away from her woes for a while. Divert her from her unhappiness at losing her home.
He stepped away, moving to the other lounger, dropping his towel and sunglasses down on it.
He shrugged off his polo shirt and walked to the edge of the pool.
The trespassing ducks had vanished. He thought he could see two white forms under some bushes on the far side of the pool with their heads tucked under their wings, sleeping.
Bracing his body at the edge of the pool, he swallow-dived into its cooling depths, disappearing beneath the water into the world beneath.
Behind him, on the shaded lounger, Arielle’s eyes flew open.
She started. What had woken her? She propped herself up on her elbow, eyes widened.
Then she realised what had roused her. In the pristine waters of the azure pool the lithe, masculine form of the man who was taking her home from her, ploughed down the length in a strong crawl.
He reached the end swiftly, turned and returned down the length, repeating the process several times as she simply stared.
Words rang hollow in her head.
Well, it’s his pool now, along with every other centimetre of my home.
The bitter truth was hard to swallow. Impossible to accept. Yet accept it she must.
Stiffly, she got to her feet. She would leave him to it. Taking possession of her swimming pool, making himself at home in it. Just as he was making himself at home in the entire place and ousting her from all that she loved so much.
He reached the end of the pool again, pausing this time. He looked across at her with one forearm thrown across the tiled edge to hold him in place in the deep water. His dark hair was sleek on his head, lashes loaded with water, cheekbones glistening.
‘Care to join me?’ he asked.
Arielle shook her head.
‘Why not?’ he challenged.
She only shook her head again. She knew she ought to move away, leave him to it, but something held her back.
Something kept her eyes fixated on him, unable to look away.
He was good-looking, lethally so. She’d known that from the moment he’d strolled into the courtyard in the early morning sunshine with his dress tie loose, the top button of his dress shirt undone and as rough jawed as he had been.
As if he were a pirate who had come to seize all she possessed and held dear.
She’d known it again when he’d come down to lunch, freshly-shaven. With his night-dark eyes, his chiselled cheekbones, his bladed nose and the sensual curve of his mouth. Wearing his expensively-styled casual wear, seeming more at home on the glitzy Riviera than at an old-fashioned Provencal mas.
And there in that moment, she knew it all over again as her eyes looked over his broad, bare shoulders, his half-exposed, leanly muscled torso, his bared forearm, his sleek, slick wet hair and his diamond-laden lashes.
She knew it. She felt it.
Felt the strange hollowing inside her that had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with all the tumult and aftershock of what this day had brought her. What this man had done to her.
She turned away, her face burning suddenly with a heat that had not come from the late afternoon sun. She turned and hurried away.
Hearing, as if an echo, a soft laugh behind her…