Revealed: A Prince and A Pregnancy (5 page)

‘Oh, no.’ Tempting as it was. ‘You got enough of that throughout your childhood, remember? Then again, you probably don’t. No, I was thinking of something a whole lot more subtle, by way of a demonstration.’ She put her hand to his chest, to his heart, before finally curving it round the back of his neck and pressing her lips to the strong curve of his jaw. Gently.

‘You think I didn’t love you,’ she murmured. Another kiss for that stubborn jaw, followed by the slow slide of her lips across to the edge of his mouth. ‘You think your feelings were the stronger and that you were the only one who was left desolate and grieving.’

She gave him time to move away, she did give him that.

His chest heaved and he drew a ragged breath. But he stayed right where he was.

‘You’re wrong,’ she whispered, and set her lips to his. Lord have mercy on her soul.

His lips were warm and firm. And closed. She touched the tip of her tongue to the crease in them and tasted salt. She felt the shudder that ripped through him, but his mouth stayed stubbornly closed to her. She started to pull away. Experiment over. Experiment failed.

And then his hand came up to cup her face, his lips opened beneath hers, a dam broke somewhere, and the world around her simply disappeared.

Reckless. She was so damned reckless. She always had been, especially when it came to making love. Rafe
deepened the kiss, revelling in her abandoned response. The way her fingers curled into his hair, the way that greedy, generous mouth felt against his. Memories crashed down on him. He remembered that mouth, remembered marking her body with his mouth. He’d never forgotten.

Desire ate at him and she let him feed, encouraging his possession while her scent wrapped around him and clouded his thinking.

And then he closed his hands around her waist and dragged her against him as she wound her arms around his neck and all rational thought stopped. There was only heat and need, such a fierce and roiling need.

Simone’s lips clinging to his, her body so soft against his hardness, and an ache that wouldn’t be eased until he was buried inside her. His body burned for more. The ragged stitching holding his heart together threatened to unravel as he took and tasted as if it were his last drink before hell.

‘Remember me,’ she whispered. ‘Remember this.’

He heard the words. And the wound on his heart tore wide open.

He cursed savagely and dragged himself free of her. Of memories he didn’t want. Of a kiss he couldn’t handle. He cursed again and turned away. One step, and then another while he fought to master the desire that rode him and attempted to recover some of his sanity.

Back to the sink to fill his hands with rushing cold water from the tap so he could splash it on his face and his hair. His T-shirt stayed on. Old pain remained hidden but she knew it was there now and he cursed her for that insight. She should never have come here. She should have known to let sleeping beasts lie.

He reached for the towel and buried his face in it, before tossing it to the bench and turning to face her.

She looked shattered. Dishevelled. And beaten. Not at all the calmly composed mistress of the Duvalier champagne empire.

‘That really wasn’t a good idea, was it?’ she said shakily.

‘No.’

No, thought Simone bleakly.

‘Dammit, Simone,’ he said next, and his voice was tight and hard. ‘What the hell do you want from me? You asked for friendship, conditional or otherwise, and I’m doing my damnedest to deliver, but that wasn’t friendship! It was
war
.’

She knew it. She wished she’d never kissed him. She wished she’d never come. ‘You
wanted
war, soldier boy. From the moment you stepped from your truck,’ she said defiantly. ‘All I did was oblige you.’

‘I did
not
want war,’ he said bleakly. ‘I wanted…something else. God knows what exactly, but something that would satisfy Gabrielle and the children.’

Children? Bewilderment took the edge off her defiance and her shame, and she grabbed it for the lifeline it was. ‘What children?’

‘Gabrielle’s children.’

‘Gabrielle’s
pregnant
?’

‘No.’

She hadn’t been drinking. Swear to God, she hadn’t touched a drop. But she couldn’t for the life of her follow this conversation. ‘Do you think that some day we might manage a simple comprehensible conversation?’

‘Working on it, princess.’

‘Oh, I can tell.’

‘Stop,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m working on it. It would help a great deal if you worked on it too. Do you
want
us to be at loggerheads on Gabrielle and Luc’s wedding day?’

‘
No
, but—’

‘Zip.’ His hand signal repeated the order. ‘Neither do I. We’re starting again. Here and now. Do you still want to see the vineyard?’

‘Yes. But not if—’

‘Stop!’ he ordered, exasperation writ clearly on his features. ‘I swear you’ve become irritatingly argumentative in your old age.’

Old
age
? She was twenty-six. ‘Better that than an autocratic bore.’

He sent her a sinner’s smile. ‘You’re not bored.’

‘This is never going to work,’ she muttered as her body responded lovingly to that smile.

‘I knew you’d see it my way eventually,’ he said. ‘But for the sake of this wedding, let’s pretend there’s at least an outside chance that it might. Twenty minutes to tour the plant. Another twenty to show you the vines, after which I’ll take you up the hill and show you the view. An hour, at most, and during that time we shall attempt to find new common ground. How hard can it be?’

‘You’re right. We need to think positive,’ said Simone. ‘No touching. No talk of the past. No incendiary comments. No problem.’
She
needed to stop thinking about that heart-wrenchingly beautiful tattoo. ‘Got any alcohol?’

‘Follow me.’

He showed her the crushing plant, the mixing, processing, and ageing vats—stainless steel and state-of-the-art, all of them. The bottling equipment was older
and labour-intensive, but his volumes were small at the moment too. Doubtless he would trade up and it would be replaced when volumes grew.

The brand-new wine storage shed stood behind the processing one and if it lacked a little something by way of character when compared with the storage caves of Caverness, well, that was only to be expected. Temperature controlled and ruthlessly organised, his oak barrels stood in neat rows, pale as sand and also very new.

He noticed her frown and gave a Gallic shrug. Seasoned oak wine barrels were a rarity in Australia and the people who had them held them, he told her. They were impossible to import. He’d had to buy new.

He kept strictly to the topic of winemaking.

Simone aided his endeavour by asking technical questions.

Rafael gave technical answers and stayed at least three metres away from her at all times.

Apart from the hungry snake of desire in the pit of her stomach, her greedy eyes, and his warning glares, everything seemed to be going very well.

Only forty-nine and a half minutes to go.

They headed for Rafe’s work vehicle, a high-wheeled table-top truck and completely incompatible with a knee-baring sundress. Her dress rode up to high thigh as she settled into the passenger seat.
Damn
Gabrielle and her wardrobe suggestions. She
knew
she never should have listened to them. Rafael’s hands went to the steering wheel and stayed there. His knuckles turned white. His gaze turned black.

‘Fix it,’ he said tightly.

She fixed it.

Rafe drove. He wasn’t three metres away from her
now. Simone battled the tension that came with enforced proximity and tried to think of questions that would make it go away and stay away, but she was running out of questions and Rafe’s answers were getting shorter. Yes, the trellising was his design. He’d wanted maximum sunlight, better air flow through the canopy and easier picking. Yes, the companion planting worked to keep pests away. The predatory ladybirds he released onto the vines also worked to keep pest numbers low.

Yes, he did eventually have to spray towards the end of the growing season. Yes, it wiped out his ladybirds. He released new ones straight after harvest.

Yes, the ducks were in residence in order to keep the grubs down.

No, they did not have names.

He showed her the dam and the wetlands below the vines. Half a dozen waterfowl and a pair of magnificent black swans had made the wetlands their home.

The swans didn’t have names either.

He drove up a steep dirt track to the top of a hill and showed her the lay of his land while the minutes ticked away, the silences grew longer, and the tension between them reached excruciatingly lofty heights.

‘What time is it?’ she said.

‘Four thirty-eight.’

Thirty-eight minutes in each other’s company without bloodshed was good. ‘You about ready to call it an hour?’

‘God, yes,’ he muttered gruffly, and that was that.

He stood staring at the view while she got in the truck and smoothed her skirt down her legs as far as it would go. ‘It’s all good,’ she said. ‘You can get in now,’ she added, and sent him a bright and guileless smile to deflect the glittering gaze he shot at her.

He got in. They started down the dirt track at speed. Rafe was clearly in a hurry to put an end to this tour. It wasn’t wimpish to cling to the door handle and start reciting the Lord’s Prayer, was it?

He shot her a glance, still glittering but this time tinged with amusement. He slowed down a fraction.

‘I got a letter today,’ he said.

Letters were good. Of course…it all depended what was in them. She eyeballed him cautiously.

‘It was from someone calling himself Etienne de Morsay. Apparently, he’s the head of some remote kingdom on the edge of the Pyrenees. Do you know of him?’

‘Yes.’ It was a startling enough statement and question to get her attention and chase pesky things like unwanted desire for dark angels bearing grudges into the shadows for a time. ‘He was one of my father’s school friends. We used to stay at his estate whenever my father took us to Spain. He was always very nice to Luc and me.’

Simone frowned, remembering the tightness in Luc’s expression upon seeing Etienne de Morsay at the Hammerschmidt auction. ‘He was also the one who bid against Luc for the Hammerschmidt vineyard. The one who pushed the price through the roof. What did he want?’

‘He wants me to work for him for three months and oversee the restoration of a vineyard on his estate. He’s done his homework. He knows a lot about what I’ve done here. I’m trying to figure out how he even knows about me.’

‘Not from me.’ Simone shook her head. ‘I haven’t had any real contact with Etienne in years. He came to Daddy’s funeral. He attended the Hammerschmidt auction. Luc spoke with him afterwards.’ From a distance
they’d looked like jaguar and lion at war over the same prey. Gabrielle had been with them for a time, remembered Simone, but she’d cut out fast. ‘Maybe Luc mentioned you. Or maybe my father did, years ago. I don’t know how you turned up on his radar. What I do know is that this isn’t a small commission. It’s a very prestigious one with significant nonmonetary benefits attached. Etienne de Morsay is a very influential man. Restore his vineyard to glory and your reputation throughout Europe as a premiere vigneron will be assured.’

Rafael drummed his fingers on the steering wheel at her words. He said nothing for a while, just concentrated on the road ahead, and then finally he spoke again. ‘De Morsay says he’s in Sydney. He wants a meeting. And he wants to see the vineyard.’

‘It’s up to you, of course,’ she said delicately, not quite sure whether Rafael was asking for her advice or making a statement. ‘But I would be inclined to arrange that meeting.’

‘I will.’ Rafael slid her a sideways glance. ‘What’s it like, this little kingdom of his on the edge of the mountains?’

‘Maracey?’ said Simone. ‘It’s very rugged. A little bit wild.’

‘What’s its main industry? Its main source of income?’

‘Not grapes,’ said Simone. ‘Brokerage, I think. Maracey territory is neutral ground. A lot of unofficial politicking takes place there. Daddy once said that without de Morsay diplomacy, mainstream Europe would have given up on Spain decades ago.’

They’d made it back to the cellar door car park. Rafe slid his truck into place beside the hired Audi.

‘Thank you for the tour,’ she said politely.

‘Thank you for the information.’

They were being civil. He was not looking at her as if he wanted to bed her, strangle her or both. Clearly, it was time to leave.

‘So…I’ll see you at the wedding,’ she said as she got out of his truck and prepared to shut the door.

‘Looking forward to it,’ he said.

Liar. She didn’t say it aloud. Apparently she didn’t have to. The look Rafe sent her acknowledged how hard he was going to find playing groomsman to her bridesmaid.

‘Play your part, Simone, and I’ll play mine,’ he muttered. ‘That’s all I’m asking.’

‘Of course,’ she said with a bright smile that masked every last one of her tumultuous feelings towards this man, not the least being anger at his assumption that she needed to be told how to behave. ‘I’m all for a wedding-day truce. On one condition.’

His vivid blue gaze hardened. ‘I don’t do conditions.’

He’d do this one. Simone smiled again. ‘I’ll keep my peace with you during this wedding ceremony and reception, Rafael. I’ll do it willingly, and not for you. But afterwards…don’t expect my patience with your boorish behaviour to continue.’

He smiled tightly. ‘You’re not bored.’

She could be gentle with him, just this once. ‘Neither are you. Why is that, do you think?’

‘Shut the door, Simone.’

‘In a minute.’ There was something else he needed to know. Something he would already know, damn him, if only he’d let himself remember the past. ‘Gabrielle and Luc are wonderful together, Rafe. I want their wedding day to be perfect. I want their marriage to be
a success. The demands of the Duvalier empire can be harsh and unforgiving but Luc and I are aware of that. We’ll see to it that those demands don’t crash down on Gabrielle all at once. We’ll take good care of her. On my life and Luc’s, we’ll protect her as you have.’