Luc scanned the headlines and bylines with a distracted air, unable to voice even to himself what—who—he was looking for.

Then he saw it.

‘Piano Prodigy…pregnant?’

The photo was a blurry shot of Abby walking down a street in London. The newspaper had helpfully added a red circle to highlight the slight swell of her middle.

It only took up a few inches of space on the third page of the arts section. Abby, Luc realised, was hardly news any more.

Yet she was, it seemed, pregnant. And he knew without even a flicker of doubt that if there was indeed a baby then it was his.

He pushed the paper away, unfocused, unseeing, his mind spinning with thoughts he could barely articulate. The coffee at his elbow grew cold and the sun rose in the sky, casting longer and longer shadows on the floor.

Finally, as if shaking himself from a dream, Luc rose. He reached for his cellphone, flicking it open and punching buttons. When his assistant answered, he spoke tersely. ‘I need the jet. This morning.’

Luc snapped his cell shut and gazed out at the River Seine winding through the city, at the cherry trees just beginning to blossom. Then, turning away from the charming sight, he prepared to pack for his trip to England…to find Abby.

Kate Hewitt discovered her first Mills & Boon® romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories, and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.

After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years and now resides in New York State, with her husband, her four young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com

Count Toussaint’s Pregnant Mistress

By

Kate Hewitt

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Anna and Brenda, for giving my girls a love of music. Thank you for all you do!! K.

CHAPTER ONE

THE applause had ended and a hushed silence came over the concert hall, a wonderful expectancy that gave the room—and Abigail Summers—an almost electric excitement.

She took a breath, her fingers poised over the keys of the grand piano on the centre stage of the Salle Pleyel in Paris, closed her eyes, and then began to play.

The music flowed from her soul through her fingers, filling the room with the haunting, tormented sounds of Beethoven’s twenty-third sonata. Abby was not conscious of the audience who sat in enthralled silence, who had paid nearly a hundred euros simply to listen to her. They melted away as the music took over her body, mind and soul, a passionate force both inside her and yet separate from her. Seven years of professional playing and a lifetime of lessons had taught her to completely and utterly focus on the music.

Yet, halfway through the Appassionata, she became…aware. There was no other word for the feeling that someone was watching her. Of course, several-hundreds of people were watching her, but this—he, for she knew instinctively it was a he—was different. Unique. She could feel his eyes on her, even though she didn’t know how. Why.

Who.

Yet she didn’t dare look up or lose her focus, even as her cheeks warmed and her skin prickled, her body reacting with sensual pleasure to a kind of attention she’d never experienced and couldn’t even be certain was real.

She found herself longing for the piece to end, all twenty-four minutes of it, so she could look up and see who was watching her. How could this be happening? she wondered with a detached part of her mind even as the music rippled from under her fingers. She’d never wanted a piece to end, had never felt the attention of one person like a spotlight on her soul.

Who was he?

Or was she just being fanciful, thinking that someone was there? Someone different. Someone, she felt strangely, for whom she’d been waiting her whole life.

Finally the last notes died away into the stillness of the hushed hall, and Abby looked up.

She saw and felt him immediately. Despite the glare of the stage lights and the sea of blurred faces, her eyes focused immediately on him, her gaze drawn to him as if by a magnet. There was something almost magnetic about it, about him. She felt as if her body were being irresistibly pulled towards him even though she remained seated on the piano bench.

He gazed back, and in the few seconds she’d had to look upon him her buzzing brain gathered only a few details: a mane of dark, slightly raggedly kept hair, a chiselled face, and most of all blue eyes, bright, intense, burning.

Abby was conscious of the rustling of concert programs, people shifting in their seats, the wave of speculative concern that rippled through the room. She should have started her next piece, a fugue by Bach, but instead she was sitting here motionless, transfixed, wondering.

She didn’t have the luxury of asking questions or seeking answers. Taking a deep breath, she willed herself to focus once more, to think of nothing but the music. The beauty.

Yet even as she began the piece by Bach, the audience seeming to sit back in their seats with a collective sigh of relief, she was still conscious of him, and she wondered if she would see him again.

Jean-Luc Toussaint sat in his seat, every muscle tense with anticipation, with awareness, with hope. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time—months at the very least, most likely years. He hadn’t felt anything at all. Yet when Abigail Summers, the world-renowned pianist prodigy, had come onto the stage he’d felt hope leap to life inside him, had felt the ashes of his old self stir to life in a way he had never thought to experience again.

He’d seen pictures of her, of course; there was a rather artistic photograph of her outside the Salle Pleyel, a graceful silhouette of her at the piano. Yet nothing had prepared him for the sight of her coming onto the stage: her head held high, her glossy, dark hair pulled into an elegant chignon, the unrelieved black evening-gown she wore swishing about her ankles. Nothing had prepared him for the response he’d felt in his own soul, for the emotions—hope, even joy—to course through him.

He’d tried to dismiss the feelings as mere desperate imaginings, for surely he was desperate? It was six months since Suzanne had died, and little more than six hours since he’d discovered her letters and realized the truth about her death. Had felt the blame and the guilt, corrosive and consuming.

He’d left the chateau and all of its memories for Paris, avoiding his flat or any of the remnants of his former life. He’d come to this concert as an act of impulse; he’d seen a billboard advert and he’d wanted to lose himself in something else, to not have to think at all, or even feel.

He couldn’t feel; he was poured out, empty, barren of emotion…until Abigail Summers had crossed the stage.

And when she’d played…Admittedly, the Appassionata was one of his favourite sonatas; he understood Beethoven’s frustration, the inevitability of the composer’s disability and his own inability to stop its relentless development. He felt that way about his own life, the way things had spiralled downwards, out of his control…and without him even realizing it until it was too late—far, far too late.

Yet Abigail Summers brought a new energy and emotion to the piece, so much so that Luc found his hands clenching into fists, his eyes burning as he gazed at her, as if he could compel her to look up and see him.

And then she did. Luc felt a sudden jolt of recognition, which seemed impossible, as he’d never met or even seen her before. Yet as their eyes met he felt as if something longmissing had finally slid into place, as if the world had righted itself, as if he had finally righted himself and been made whole.

He felt hope.

It was a heady, wonderful, addictive feeling. It was also frightening, feeling so much, and yet still he wanted more. He wanted to forget everything that had happened, all the mistakes he’d made in the last six years. He wanted that blissful oblivion, to lose himself in this look, this woman, even if only for a time. Even if it couldn’t last.

Their eyes met and locked, the moment stretching and spiralling between them. Then, as the audience grew restless, she looked back down, and after a tense moment—he didn’t think he imagined that hesitation—she began to play.

Luc sat back and let the music wash over him. That one look had caused a deep hunger to open up inside him, a restless longing to connect with another person, with her, as he never truly had with anyone. Yet even as the hunger took hold of him he felt the more familiar hopelessness wash over him. How could he want someone, have someone, when he had nothing, absolutely nothing, left to give?

Abby sank onto the stool in front of the mirror in her dressing-room backstage. She let out a shaky breath and closed her eyes. The concert had been endless. She’d paced restlessly all through intermission, which had hardly benefitted her playing in the second half. If her father and manager had been present, he would have urged her to drink some water, to relax and focus. Think of the music, Abby. Always the music. She’d never been allowed to think of anything else; before tonight she hadn’t known she wanted to.

Yet seeing that man—who was he?—had caused something inside her to shift, loosen, and she was aware of a need she’d never felt before. A need to see him, talk to him, touch him, even.

She shivered, a reaction both of longing and a little fear. Her father wasn’t here, he was back at the hotel with a head cold, and for once she didn’t want to think of the music. She wanted to think of the man. Would he come? Would he try to get backstage and see her? There were always several dozen appreciative fans who tried to meet her; some sent flowers, congratulations, invitations. Abby accepted the gifts and refused the invitations. That was her father’s strict policy; part of her allure, he insisted, was her sense of remoteness. For seven years she’d been kept at a distance from her public, from life itself, in order to build her reputation as the talented and elusive Abigail Summers, Piano Prodigy.

Abby made a face at her reflection in the mirror. She’d always hated that nickname, a name coined by the press that made her feel like a trained poodle, or perhaps something a bit more exotic, a bit more remote, as her father had always wanted.

Right now she had no desire to be remote. She wanted to be found, known. By him.

Ridiculous, her mind scoffed. It had been but a moment, a single look. She hadn’t dared look at him again; she’d been too afraid, fearful of both seeing and not seeing him again. Both possibilities seemed dangerous. Even so, the memory of those few shared seconds resonated through her body, every nerve twanging with remembered feeling.

She’d never felt that way before. She’d never felt so…alive. And she wanted to feel it again. Wanted to see him again.

Would he come?

A light, perfunctory knock sounded at the door and one of the Salle Pleyel’s staff poked her head through. ‘Mademoiselle Summers, recevez-vous des visiteurs?’

‘I…’ Abby’s mouth was dry, her mind spinning. Was she receiving visitors? The answer, of course, was no. It was always no. Send them a signed program, Abby, and be done with it. You can’t be just another girl. You need to be different.

‘Are there many?’ she finally asked, in flawless French, and the woman gave a little shrug.

‘A few…a dozen or so. They want your autograph, of course.’

Abby felt a sharp little stab of disappointment. Somehow she knew this man would not want her autograph. He wasn’t a fan. He was…what? Nothing, her mind insisted almost frantically, even as her heart longed for it to be otherwise. ‘I see.’ She swallowed, looked away. ‘All right. You may send them in.’

The concert-hall manager, Monsieur Dupres, appeared in the doorway, a look of disapproval on his dour face. ‘It was my understanding that Mademoiselle Summers did not accept visitors.’

A crony of her father, Abby thought with a cynical smile. He had them in every concert hall.

‘I believe I know whether I accept visitors or not,’ she replied coolly, although her palms were damp and her heart was thudding. She didn’t question staff and she didn’t make a fuss. That was her father’s job. Her job was simply to play. And that had been enough, until now. At least she’d always thought it had. Right now she was hungry, anxious, craving more than the safe, ordered, managed existence she’d been living for as long as she could remember. She met the man’s gaze directly. ‘Send them in.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Send them in.’

His lips tightened and he gave a shrug before turning away. ‘Very well.’

Abby smoothed her hair back with her palms and checked her gown. In the mirror the black silk made her skin look pale, almost ghostly, her grey eyes huge and luminous.

Another knock sounded at the door and she turned, smiling even as her heart sank.

It wasn’t him.

None of them was, it was a cluster of middle-aged women and their sheepish husbands smiling and chattering as they thrust out their programs for her to sign.

What had she expected? Abby asked herself as she chatted back and gave the requisite signatures. That he would find her backstage, and come bearing a glass slipper? Did she think she lived in a fairy tale? Had she really expected him to find her at all?

Suddenly the whole notion seemed ridiculous, the moment when their eyes had met imagined and laughable. She’d probably made up the whole thing. The stage lights were usually so bright she couldn’t make out any faces in the audience. Was he even real?

Abby felt her face warm with private humiliation. The crowd of well-wishers trickled away, followed by a glowering Monsieur Dupres, and Abby was left alone.

Lonely.

The word popped into her mind, and she forced it away. She was not lonely. She had a busy, full life as one of the world’s most sought-after concert pianists. She spoke three languages fluently, had visited nearly every major city in the world, had legions of adoring fans—how could she possibly be lonely?

‘Yet I am,’ she said aloud, and winced at the sound of her forlorn voice in the empty dressing-room. She only had herself to talk to.

Slowly, reluctantly, she reached for her coat, a worn duffel that looked incongruous over her evening gown. She could hear the sound of the night-janitor starting to sweep the hallway outside, the concert-hall staff trickling away into the evening and their own lives.

What would she do? Take a taxi back to the hotel, perhaps have a glass of hot milk while she went over the evening’s events with her father, and then to bed like the good little girl she was. Her fingers fumbled on the buttons of her coat.

She didn’t want to play out the staid script her life had become, didn’t want the role her father had given her years ago. Seeing that man, whoever he was, had awakened in her a need to experience more, be and know more. To actually live life.

Even if just for a night.

She sighed, trying to dismiss the feelings, for what could she do? She was twenty-four years old, alone in Paris, the evening ahead of her, and she had no idea what to do, how to slake this thirst for life, for experience.

Monsieur Dupres knocked on her dressing-room door once more. ‘Shall I have the night porter summon a taxi?’

Abby opened her mouth to accept, then found herself shaking her head. ‘No, thank you, Monsieur Dupres. It’s a lovely evening out. I’ll walk.’

The manager’s heavy brows drew together in an ominous frown. ‘Mademoiselle, it is raining.’

Abby refused to back down. This was a tiny, insignificant act of defiance, yet it was hers. ‘Still.’ She smiled. ‘I’ll walk.’

With a shrug Monsieur Dupres turned away. With her fingers clenched around her handbag, Abby left the dressing room and the concert hall behind her, stepping out into the cool, damp night alone.

Alone; she was completely alone on the deserted Rue du Faubourg St Honoré. The pavement was slick with rain, the lights of the speeding taxis washing the road in pale yellow.

Abby looked around, wondering what to do. Her hotel, a modest little establishment, was half a mile away. She could walk, she supposed, as she’d told Monsieur Dupres she would do. A little stab of disappointment needled her. She wanted to experience life, so she was walking home alone in the rain—how ridiculous.

Her heels clicked on the pavement as she started down the street. A man in a trenchcoat hurried by, his collar turned up, and Abby glimpsed a pair of lovers entwined in the shelter of a doorway; the woman’s upturned face was misted and glowing with rain.

Abby walked, conscious more than ever of how alone she was. A woman dripping with furs and jewels stepped out of the bright lobby of an elegant hotel, her haughty, made-up face glowering with disdain at the world around her.

Abby slowed to a stop, the light from the lobby pooling, golden, around her feet. Through the ornate glass doors she could see a marble foyer and a huge crystal chandelier. As the door swooshed shut she caught the sound of clinking crystal, the trill of feminine laughter.

Without thinking about what she was doing—or why—Abby caught the closing door and thrust it open once more, even as the night porter leapt to attention a second too late. She dismissed him with a wave of her hand and slipped inside, the warmth and light of the hotel enveloping her with a strange new, electric excitement as she stood uncertainly in the doorway.

She’d been to hotels before all over the world. She was utterly familiar in foyers such as these, could issue commands to a bellboy or concierge in many different languages. Yet now as she stood there alone, uncertain, everything felt new. Different. For this time she was alone, no one knew who or where she was, and she could do as she pleased.

The question was, do what?

‘Mademoiselle…?’ A bellboy started forward, eyebrows raised in query. Abby lifted her chin.

‘I’m looking for the bar.’

The man nodded and gestured to a room off to the right panelled in dark wood. Abby nodded her thanks and started towards the long, mahogany bar, still with no idea what she was doing…or why.

She slid onto a leather stool, her hands clasped in front of her. The bartender, dressed in a tuxedo, was slowly polishing a tumbler. He glanced at her, taking in her worn coat and the diamanté straps of her evening gown visible from the open collar. Expressionless, he raised an eyebrow.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Yes.’ Abby swallowed. She’d ordered wine, she’d drunk champagne; on occasion she’d had a nameless cocktail at one function or another. Now she wanted something different.

‘I’ll have…’ She swallowed, her mouth dry. ‘A martini.’

‘Straight or on the rocks?’

Oh, great. Did she want it with ice? What was even in a martini? And why had she ordered one? She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like it. ‘Straight,’ she said firmly. ‘With an…olive.’ She had a vague collection that it came with olives. If she didn’t like the drink, at least she’d have something to eat.

The bartender turned away, and Abby’s gaze roved over the bar. Only one other person was sitting there, all the way at the other end, and before he even looked up or acknowledged her presence—with a shock that felt like an icy finger trailing down her spine and diving into her belly—she knew.

Him.

CHAPTER TWO

SHE knew it was him; she felt it in that tremor of electric awareness that rippled through her body; every nerve and muscle was on high alert as her heart began to beat with slow, heavy, deliberate thuds. He sat on the last stool, a tumbler of whisky in front of him, his head bent.

Then he raised his head and Abby’s breath caught in her throat, the sheer emotion of the moment turning her breathless and dizzy as he turned so that his gaze met and held hers, just as it had once before. For a long, taut moment neither of them spoke, they simply looked. The look went on far longer than it should have, than was appropriate for two strangers staring at each other in a bar. Still Abby could not look away. She felt as if she were suspended in time, in air, motionless and yet waiting.

‘You’re even lovelier in person.’ He spoke in English with a faint French accent, his low voice carrying across the empty room. Shock rippled through her at the realization that he knew who she was; he recognized her. Of course, plenty of people recognized her. She was the Piano Prodigy, after all. Yet under the quiet heat of his gaze Abby knew he wasn’t looking at her as a prodigy, or even a pianist. He was looking at her as a woman, and that felt wonderful.

‘You remember me,’ she whispered. Her voice trembled and she blushed at the realization, as well as the revealing nature of the statement. She couldn’t dissemble. She didn’t know how to, and she wasn’t even sure she wanted to.

He arched one eyebrow, with the flicker of a smile around his mouth and in his eyes. ‘Of course I remember you,’ he said, a gentle, teasing lilt to his voice—although Abby saw an intensity in his fierce blue eyes, the same intensity she’d seen in the concert hall and had responded to. ‘And now I know you remember me.’

Her blush deepened and she looked away. The bartender had delivered her martini, complete with an olive pierced by a swizzle-stick, and she seized the drink as a distraction, taking far too large a sip.

She choked, gasping as the pure alcohol burned its way to her belly, and she returned the glass to the bar with an unsteady clatter.

She felt rather than saw the man move from his stool to the one next to hers, felt the heat emanating from his lean form, inhaled the woodsy musk of his cologne. And choked a bit more.

‘Are you all right?’ he murmured, all solicitude, although Abby thought she heard a hint of laughter lacing the words. She wiped her eyes and took a deep, cleansing breath.

‘Yes. It…went down the wrong way.’

‘That happens,’ he murmured, and Abby knew he wasn’t fooled. She decided she might as well be candid.

‘Actually, I’ve never had a martini before,’ she said, turning to look at him. ‘I had no idea it would taste so…strong.’ Now that he was here, just a few feet away from her, she took the opportunity to let her gaze sweep over him. He was tall, well over six feet, dwarfing her own five-eight frame. His hair was dark with a few streaks of grey near the temples, and long enough to raggedly reach his collar. His face held an austere beauty; the chiselled cheekbones, fiercely blue eyes and strong jaw all worked together to create an impression of strength, yet also, strangely, of suffering. He looked and walked like a man apart, a man marked by life’s experience. By tragedy, perhaps.

Abby knew she should dismiss such impressions as fanciful, yet she could not. They were too strong, too real, just as the connection she’d felt between them at the concert and now in the bar felt real.

‘Why did you order a martini?’ he asked.

‘I wanted to order what I thought was a sophisticated drink,’ she admitted baldly. ‘Isn’t that ridiculous?’

He tilted his head, his smile deepening to reveal a devastating dimple in one cheek. His gaze swept over her worn coat, the black silk of her gown gathered around her ankles, one high-heeled sandal dangling from her foot. ‘It surely is,’ he agreed, ‘considering how sophisticated you already are.’

Abby choked again, this time in laughter. ‘You are quite the flatterer, Monsieur…?’

‘Luc.’

‘Monsieur Luc?’

‘Just Luc.’ There was a flat finality to his words that made Abby realize just how anonymous this conversation really was. She had no idea who he was beyond his first name. ‘And I know who you are,’ he continued. ‘Abigail.’

‘Abby.’

He smiled, a gesture that was strangely intimate, making warmth spread through Abby’s body. A warmth she’d never experienced before but knew she liked trickled through her limbs like warm honey, making her feel languorous, almost sleepy, even though her heart still beat fast. It was a warmth that drew her to him even though she didn’t move, made her believe in the fairy tale. This really was happening. This was real. She’d found him, here in this bar, and he’d found her. ‘Abby,’ he murmured. ‘Of course.’

Of course. As if they knew each other, had known each other long before this moment, as if they’d been waiting for this moment. Abby felt she had been.

‘So.’ Again he smiled, no more than a flicker as he gestured towards the martini. ‘What do you think?’

Abby made a face. ‘I think I prefer champagne.’

‘Then champagne you shall have.’ With a simple flick of his wrist, Luc had the bartender hurrying over. A quick command in rapid French soon had him producing a dusty bottle of what Abby knew must be an outrageously expensive champagne and two fragile flutes. ‘Will you share a glass with me?’ Luc asked, and Abby barely resisted the impulse to laugh wildly.

In all her years playing in concert halls she’d never had an encounter like this. She’d never had any encounters at all, save the few carefully orchestrated conversations or programsignings her father arranged. They’d always made Abby feel like she was an exotic creature in a zoo to be watched, petted, admired and then left.

Caged, she realized. I’ve felt caged all my life. Until now.

This moment felt free.

‘Yes,’ she said, surprised at how simple the decision was. ‘I will.’

Luc led her to a cozy table for two in the corner of the deserted bar, and Abby sank onto the plush seat, watching as the waiter popped the cork and poured two glasses of champagne, the bubbles zinging wildly.

‘To unexpected surprises,’ Luc said, raising his glass.

Abby couldn’t resist asking, ‘Aren’t all surprises unexpected?’

His smile curved his mobile mouth and glimmered in his eyes. ‘So they are,’ he agreed, and drank.

Abby drank too, letting the champagne slip down her throat and through her body. The bubbles seemed to race through every vein and artery. She stared at the bubbles in her glass and watched them pop against the side of the flute as she desperately thought of something to say.

She’d played in the concert halls of nearly every European capital, she could navigate airports, taxis and foreign hotels, yet in the presence of this man she felt tongue-tied, and even gauche, uncertain, unable to fully believe that this was even happening.

Yet it was.

She slid a sideways glance at him and saw that there was a particularly hard set to his jaw, a determined resoluteness that seemed at odds with his light tone, the glimmer of his smile. He possessed a hardness, Abby thought suddenly, a darkness that she didn’t understand and wasn’t sure she wanted to.

He downed the rest of his champagne, turning to smile at her, the darkness retreating to his eyes alone. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again. It is providence, is it not, that you came here?’

Providence. An act of fate, of God. Abby gave a little helpless shrug of assent. ‘I don’t know why I did. I usually take a taxi straight home after a concert.’

‘But tonight you did not.’

‘No.’ The admission was no more than a breath of sound, and Luc’s direct blue gaze met hers.

‘Why not?’

‘Because…’ How could she explain that the single moment of seeing him in the concert hall had changed her, made her want and feel things she’d never felt before? That single glance had opened a well of yearning inside her, and she didn’t know how it could be satisfied. ‘Because I felt restless,’ she finally said, and Luc nodded. Abby felt as if he understood everything she hadn’t said.

‘When I saw you,’ he said in a low voice, rotating the stem of his champagne flute between his long, lean fingers, ‘I felt something I have not felt in a long time.’

Abby’s breath hitched and her fingers tightened around her own glass. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘What did you feel?’

Luc opened up, surprising Abby with the bleak, stark honesty of his gaze. ‘Hope.’ He reached out to brush a stilldamp tendril of hair from her cheek, his fingers barely touching her, yet still causing a wave of sensation to crash over her, dousing her to her core. ‘Didn’t you feel it, Abby? When you were at the piano and you saw me? I have never—’ He stopped, then started again. ‘It was like a current. Electric. Magical.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, the word catching in her throat. ‘I felt it too.’

‘I am glad.’ Luc’s mouth quirked upwards in a tiny smile, although there was a curious bleakness to his words. ‘It would be a sad thing if only one of us had felt it.’ He reached for the champagne bottle and topped up both of their glasses, although Abby had hardly had a sip. ‘Were you pleased with your performance tonight?’

‘I don’t know.’ She took a tiny sip of champagne. ‘I can’t remember much of it.’

Luc laughed softly. ‘Neither can I, to tell you the truth. When you came on stage and I saw you, the rest fell away. I was simply waiting for the moment when I could speak to you. I never thought it would be granted to me.’

‘Why didn’t you—?’ Abby stopped, biting her lip to keep the words, the revealing question, from coming. Luc arched an eyebrow.

‘Why didn’t I…?’ he prompted, and Abby shook her head. It didn’t matter; he filled in the rest. ‘Why didn’t I come to see you after the performance?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, the word no more than a whisper.

Luc stared into his glass for a moment, before lifting his head and giving her that direct gaze that seemed to reach right inside her and seize her soul. ‘I didn’t think I should.’

‘But…’ Abby couldn’t think of what to say or ask, how to articulate that she’d wanted him to see her, had almost been expecting it. It sounded desperate, ridiculous. All they’d shared was one look—and now a glass of champagne. She set her half-empty glass down on the table. ‘This doesn’t seem—’

‘Real? No. Perhaps not.’ Luc glanced away for a moment, his mouth tightening, his jaw tensing. Abby felt as if she’d said the wrong thing and wished she could take it back. Then he turned back to her, smiling faintly, although she still sensed a certain sorrow in him, saw it in his eyes. ‘Perhaps now is the time to be prosaic. Tell me about yourself.’

Abby shrugged, discomfited. ‘If you read my bio in the program—’

‘That might give me facts, but surely not the true essence of who you are?’

‘I’m not sure I know what the true essence of myself is.’ She made a face, eliciting a chuckle from him. ‘That sounds rather mysterious.’

‘And I meant to be prosaic. Tell me some other things, then,’ he said as he gestured to the bartender, who hurried over. He glanced back at Abby. ‘Have you eaten? Champagne on an empty stomach is not wise.’

As if on cue, Abby’s stomach growled. She gave a little laugh. ‘I haven’t,’ she confessed, and, flicking open the menu the bartender had provided, Luc quickly ordered. ‘Is that all right?’ he asked as he handed the menu back. ‘I do not wish us to be bothered by such details as what food to order.’ Abby gave a little shrug of assent, although she thought she’d heard him order escargots and she really wasn’t fond of them. Somehow it didn’t matter.

‘So.’ Luc propped his elbows on the table, his eyes seeming to glint and sparkle in the dim light. ‘Tell me something. Tell me what your favorite colour is, or if you’re scared of spiders or snakes. Did you have a dog growing up? Or a cat?’ He took a sip of champagne, smiling at her over the rim of the glass. ‘Or perhaps a fish?’

‘None.’ Abby reached for her own glass. ‘And both.’

‘Pardon?’

‘No pets, and I’m scared of both spiders and snakes. At least, I don’t like them very much. I haven’t had much firsthand experience.’

‘I suppose that’s a good thing, then.’

‘I never really thought about it.’ Abby took a sip of champagne. ‘And what about you?’

‘Am I scared of snakes or spiders?’

‘No, I’ll pick different questions.’ She paused, thinking. What did she want to know about him? Everything; the answer sprang unbidden into her mind. She wanted to know him, to have the chance to know him. To go to sleep and wake up at his side…‘Do you snore?’ she blurted, then blushed.

‘Do I snore?’ Luc repeated in mock outrage, one eyebrow arched. ‘What a question. How should I know such a thing?’ His lips curved into a smile that did curious things to Abby’s insides, so that her stomach felt as quivery as a bowl of jelly.

‘No one has ever told me I snore, at any rate.’

‘Ah. Um…good.’ She fiddled with her napkin, blushing, and wishing she wasn’t. She stilled in shock when she felt Luc’s hand cover her own, heavy and warm.

‘Abby. You are nervous.’

‘Yes,’ she admitted. She forced herself to look at him. ‘I’m not—I don’t—’ She swallowed. ‘I don’t usually accept invitations from strange men.’

‘That is probably just as well,’ Luc replied. ‘But I promise you, you are safe with me.’ He spoke with a raw, heartfelt sincerity that Abby could only believe. There was no question of doubt.

‘I know.’

A black-jacketed waiter swept in silently with a tray. He didn’t speak or even look at them, simply served the food while maintaining the aura of complete privacy they had been enjoying in the empty bar. When he left, Luc gestured down to their plates, to the delicate fan of asparagus amidst paperthin slices of beef. ‘Is this all right?’

‘It looks delicious.’ Abby picked up her fork and toyed with a piece of asparagus. ‘Were you surprised to see me here?’ she asked after a moment. ‘In the bar?’

‘You were like an apparition,’ Luc told her. ‘And yet, at the same time…’ He paused, contemplating. ‘It was as if I knew you would come, and I hadn’t realized it until I saw you.’

‘That’s how I felt too,’ Abby whispered, and Luc smiled.

‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly, almost regretfully, ‘some things are meant to be.’

‘Yes,’ Abby agreed, and then added with an uncertain laugh, ‘Except, as I said before, it hardly seems real.’

‘Nothing good ever does,’ Luc replied, and Abby glanced up, startled. It was a cynical statement, a belief born of suffering, and she wondered what had happened in Luc’s life to make him say and believe such a thing. ‘But tonight is as real as anything is.’

Abby nodded, wanting to lighten the mood. ‘So I know you don’t snore,’ she said, popping a piece of asparagus into her mouth, ‘but I don’t know much else.’ She paused, thinking. ‘You’re French.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you speak English almost perfectly.’

‘As you do French.’

She accepted the compliment with a graceful nod. ‘You’ve never heard me play before.’

‘No.’ He took a sip of wine. ‘You’re quite the detective.’

‘You don’t live in Paris?’

‘No.’

Feeling relaxed and yet also a little bold, she added, ‘You’re rich.’

Luc gave a shrug of assent as only the rich could do. ‘I have enough. As do you, I suppose?’

Abby nodded slowly. Yes, she had plenty of money. Her father took control of it, had done since she’d started playing professionally at seventeen. She had no idea how much money she had, or what kind of accounts it was kept in. Her father gave her spending money, and that had been enough. She’d never needed much; she liked to visit museums, buy cappuccinos in their cafés, or books. Her clothes were mostly picked by a stylist, who also took care of her hair, her nails, her make-up. She ate in restaurants and hotels, and sometimes on trains. There was little she needed, and yet somehow right now it all made her sad.

‘You look rather wistful,’ Luc murmured. ‘I didn’t mean to make you sad.’

‘You didn’t,’ Abby said quickly. ‘I was just…thinking.’ She smiled, wanting to shift the attention from herself and her own dawning realizations about her life. She’d been happy, or at least content, until tonight…hadn’t she? Yet in Luc’s presence she was happier and more alive than she’d ever felt before. It made her aware of the deficiencies in her life, how before this her life had been mere existence, simply a waiting period for this moment. For him. ‘You’re not from Paris, so where are you from?’

Luc paused, and Abby had the sense that he didn’t want to tell her. ‘Down south,’ he said finally. ‘The Languedoc.’

‘I’ve never been there.’

He gave a little smile. ‘It has no concert halls.’

Her life had been defined by concert halls: Paris, London, Berlin, Prague, Milan, Madrid. She’d seen so many cities, so many gorgeous concert halls and anonymous hotel-rooms, and she felt it keenly now. The Languedoc. She wondered if he had a villa, or perhaps even a chateau. For some reason she imagined a quaint farmhouse with old stone walls, a tiled roof and brightly painted shutters amidst gently waving fields of lavender. A home. She gave a little laugh, shaking her head. Now she really was imagining things.

‘Do you like it there?’

Luc paused. ‘I did.’ He spoke flatly, and Abby felt a new tension coil through the room. Then he shook it off with an easy shrug of his shoulders and smiled, leaning forward so Abby could see the lamplight glinting in his eyes; she inhaled the tang of his cologne. ‘But enough of me. I want to know of you.’

Abby smiled back, feeling self-conscious. It seemed as if neither of them wanted to talk about themselves. ‘Fire away.’

‘I read in your biography that the Appassionata is one of your favourite pieces to play. Why?’

The question surprised her. ‘Because it’s beautiful and sad at the same time,’ she finally said.

‘And that appeals to you?’

‘It’s…how I’ve felt sometimes.’ It was a strange admission, and one she hadn’t meant to confess. One, she realized, she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself. She loved music, loved playing piano, and yet somehow her life, the pinnacle of success, hadn’t happened the way she had wanted it to. Or at least it hadn’t felt the way she’d wanted it to. She felt like she was missing something, some integral part of life, of herself, that everyone else had.

Did she expect to find it here, with this man? Was such a thing possible? Abby took another sip of champagne. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It is one of my favourite pieces, for the reason you just named, I suppose.’ He nodded, smiling faintly. ‘Beautiful and sad.’

Abby gave a little laugh. ‘We both sound so gloomy! I love playing it, at any rate.’

The waiter returned to clear their plates, and then disappeared again as quietly as a cat. Abby was conscious of time passing; it must be nearing midnight. Her father, if he was awake, would be expecting her. Would he wait up? He had a cold, and had probably taken a sleeping tablet. He wouldn’t worry, because for seven years her routine had been unfaltering—play the piano and return to the hotel, at first by chauffeured car and later by taxi.

When would she return tonight, and how? How would this evening end? The thought made her insides fizz with both wonder and worry, for she didn’t want it to end. Not yet, not ever. This was a snatched moment, one night carved from a lifetime of music and duty—strange how those went together—and she wanted to savour it. She wanted it to last for ever.

‘What are you thinking?’ Luc asked, and before Abby could answer he continued, ‘Are you thinking that time is running out? That we only have a few hours left?’

‘How did you—?’

‘Because I am thinking the same.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Perhaps that is all we are meant to have.’

‘No!’ The word was ripped from her, a confession, followed by another, deeper one: ‘I don’t want the evening to end.’

Luc gazed at her, his head tilted to one side, his eyes dark. ‘Neither do I,’ he replied quietly, and then, his tone turning wry, added, ‘And so it won’t. We have four more courses left, surely? This is France, after all.’

‘Bien sûr,’ Abby agreed after a moment, although she hadn’t been talking about food and, she believed, neither had he. Yet what had she been talking about? What did she want? Her insides tightened, coiling in anticipation and awareness.

Luc smiled easily, and as if on cue the waiter brought the next course, a terrine of vegetables and herbs that was as light and frothy as air.

The evening passed in a pleasant blur of wine, food and easy conversation. It was easy, surprisingly easy, to talk to him, to slip off her heels and curl her feet under the folds of her gown, to try the escargots with a wrinkled nose as she confessed, ‘But they’re snails. I’ve never got over that somehow.’

‘If you could do anything,’ Luc asked as the waiter silently cleared their third course, ‘what would it be?’

By this time Abby was all too relaxed, her chin propped in one hand, her eyes sparkling. ‘Fly a kite,’ she said, earning a surprised chuckle from Luc. ‘Or learn to cook.’

‘Fly a kite?’ he repeated. ‘Really?’

Abby shrugged, suddenly conscious of how childish such a wish seemed. ‘When I was a child, I always saw them flying kites on Hampstead Heath.’

‘Them?’ Luc repeated softly, and Abby shrugged again.

‘Them. Other children.’

‘And you never flew a kite?’

‘I was always on my way to piano lessons. Too busy.’ The waiter returned with their dessert and Abby was glad of the reprieve. She hadn’t meant to reveal quite so much with that question and its betraying answer. ‘And cook, because food is so delicious and I’ve never learned how to make anything properly. What about you?’ She took a spoonful of indulgently rich, dark-chocolate mousse. ‘If you could do anything, what would it be?’

‘Turn back time,’ Luc stated matter-of-factly, and Abby started at how grim he sounded. Then he smiled and dipped his own spoon into the rich, chocolatey dessert. ‘So I could have this evening with you all over again.’

Abby smiled, although she didn’t think that was what he’d meant when he’d spoken about turning back time.

All too soon, however, the waiter returned on his silent cat’s feet to clear away their chocolate mousse and pour the coffee in tiny porcelain cups, leaving a plate of petits fours, delicate and frosted pink, on the table.

The evening was almost over, Abby thought sadly. In a few minutes, a quarter of an hour perhaps, she would leave. She would find a taxi speeding down the near-empty Rue du Faubourg St Honoré, slip into its dark interior and give the driver the address of her own staid and respectable hotel half a mile away. Then she would pay the driver and walk through the deserted foyer of the hotel, avoiding the speculative looks of the bored bellboy and the silent censure of the concierge, praying that he would not tell her father, ‘Mademoiselle est revenue trop tard…’

Then she would forget this evening ever existed, and Luc—just Luc—would be nothing more than a distant memory, a dream.

Except…Except, she thought with a jolt, the evening didn’t need to end at the bar. They could go somewhere else. Somewhere private.

A bedroom.

This was a hotel, after all. Was Luc staying here? Did he have a room? The questions, as well as their potential answers, left her dizzy. Was she, a woman who had barely been kissed, actually contemplating a night with this man? A one-night stand?

Yet it wouldn’t be anything so sordid, because they knew each other. They were practically soulmates. The trite word made Abby grimace. Luc touched her hand, his caress light yet so very sure.

‘Abby,’ he said, ‘what are you thinking?’

‘That I don’t want to go home,’ Abby blurted. She felt herself flush and suddenly didn’t care. ‘I want to stay here with you.’

Luc frowned, a shadow of regret in his eyes. ‘It is late. You should go.’

She reached out and curled her fingers around his wrist; her thumb instinctively found his pulse. ‘No.’ Was she actually begging?

‘It is better,’ Luc said quietly. ‘I…’ He sighed, gazing down at her fingers still clasped on his wrist, and lightly, so lightly, traced the delicate skin of her inner wrist with his thumb. Abby nearly shuddered at the simple yet overwhelming contact.

‘Is there any reason why we can’t…be together?’ she asked in a low voice, unable to look at him directly. She kept her gaze fastened on their clasped hands instead. ‘You aren’t…married?’

She felt Luc’s fingers tighten, tense. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not married.’

She strove for a lighter tone. ‘Are you seeing someone?’

‘No,’ he said again, just as simply. ‘There’s no one.’

‘Well.’ Abby took a breath, gathered all her courage and looked up to meet Luc’s dark gaze, offering him a smile. Offering herself. ‘There’s me.’

CHAPTER THREE

SHE was nervous, Luc saw, and he felt regret lash at him, a whip with a sting he’d felt far too many times already. He shouldn’t have let it get this far, yet he’d been so amazed, so overjoyed, by her presence in the bar. It had felt, as he’d told her, like providence. A gift. And now she was offering herself, the greatest gift of all.

He could imagine it so easily. He wanted it so much. He pictured lacing his fingers through hers, drawing her up from her seat and away from the bar with its stale traces of cigarette smoke and spilled whisky and taking her to a room upstairs. The royal suite; he’d give her nothing less. He pictured her gliding through the room, slim and dark and elegant, and then he envisioned himself slipping those skinny little straps from her creamy shoulders and pressing a kiss against the pulse that now fluttered wildly at her throat. His fingers curled even now as he pictured it, aching, as every part of him was aching, with desire.

With need, the need to lose himself in a woman—this woman—for a moment, a night. For surely it could be no more? He had nothing more to offer; his heart felt as lifeless as a stone…except when it fluttered to life as he gazed at Abby. Yet he knew how little that was, and that was why the evening must end here, now. For Abby’s sake.

‘Abby.’ He tried to smile, yet the movement hurt. He didn’t want to let her go. She was the first good thing that had happened to him in so long, perhaps ever, and he couldn’t bear to make her walk away. Not yet. Please, he offered in silent supplication, not yet.

Abby smiled and braced herself for rejection. Did he actually feel sorry for her? Had she just offered herself on a plate only to be pushed away?

‘Do you know what you are saying?’

‘Of course I do.’ Brave words. She let her fingers skim his wrist. ‘I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.’

Luc gazed down at their entwined hands. Abby felt a wave of something dark and unrelenting emanate from him, a deep sorrow, an endless regret. ‘You are a beautiful woman,’ he said in a low voice, and disappointment stabbed at her with icy needles.

‘But…?’ she prompted sadly, and Luc looked up and smiled.

‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

‘You won’t.’ More brave words, Abby knew. Foolish words, perhaps. Yet at that moment she felt like anything would be better, or at least more bearable, than walking away from Luc and the blossoming feeling of possibility he evoked in her just then.

Luc sighed, a heavy sound, and he shook his head slowly. Abby waited, holding her breath, hoping.

Then he stood, almost lazily reaching out to draw her to her feet, their fingers still twined.

‘Where are you going?’ Abby asked as she rose.

‘The question,’ he answered, tugging on her hand, ‘is where are we going?’

Abby let him lead her out of the bar; the only sound was the swoosh of her gown around her ankles. Back in the lobby Luc had a rapid discussion with the concierge, and seconds later he led her to a bank of lifts. Abby’s breath caught in her throat. She could hardly believe this was happening, that she was allowing it to happen, that she had asked for it to happen. She barely knew Luc, and yet…

Yet she knew him, perhaps better than she’d ever known anyone before. She couldn’t turn away from this—him—even if she wanted to, even if she tried. She had no choice; her desire and need were too great.

The heady, surreal feeling didn’t leave her as they stepped into the lift and Luc pressed the button for the top floor: the penthouse suite.

They rode in silence and Abby felt sure Luc could feel her heart beating; it felt as if it were thudding right out of her chest. She gave a sideways glance and saw how calm and unconcerned he looked. Determined, resolute even.

The lift came to a halt and the doors opened directly into the suite, which took up the whole floor.

‘Come,’ Luc said, and Abby followed him into the sumptuous living-room, all velvet sofas and spindly gilt-tables, with about an acre of Turkish carpet. Abby stood in the doorway, mindlessly smoothing the silk of her gown, feeling shy and uncertain despite her earlier bravado.

She knew it wasn’t the luxurious suite of rooms that put her on edge. In her years as a concert pianist she’d seen and experienced her fair share of luxury. No, it wasn’t the room. It was the man.

He’d casually dropped the key-card the concierge had given him on a side table and shed his suit jacket, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling under the smooth, silken fabric of his shirt. For a brief moment his body was in profile, his face in shadow. Abby didn’t think she was imagining the grim set to his jaw, or the accompanying shiver that rippled through her body at the sight of him and the darkness emanating from within that beautiful body.

Yet then he turned to her with a little smile, his expression light and easy, and she wondered if she’d been imagining it after all.

‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ he asked, laughter lurking in his voice, and Abby lowered her gaze.

‘I…’ She licked her lips. Now was not the time for cold feet, surely? ‘I’m not sure.’

Luc frowned and strode towards her, his hands coming to curl around her shoulders. ‘Abby…are you afraid?’

‘Not…exactly.’ Abby tried to laugh, but it came out wobbly and uncertain. ‘Not of you,’ she amended. ‘More of…the situation.’ She licked her lips again, hurrying to explain. ‘And I’m not afraid. I just…don’t know what to do. I know what I said, but…’

Luc’s hands relaxed on her shoulders, sliding down her bare arms to leave a wake of goosebumps before he loosely linked her fingers with his own.

‘We can simply sit and chat,’ he told her gently. ‘I enjoyed talking to you.’

‘I did too,’ Abby admitted. ‘That is, talking to you, not to me.’

‘Abby.’ Luc chuckled softly as he brushed her cheek with his knuckles. ‘I understand.’

Abby gave a little nervous laugh. ‘You must think me incredibly gauche,’ she said and he raised his eyebrows.

‘Not at all.’

‘Really?’ She laughed again, the sound more normal and easy. ‘Because, listening to myself, I think I sound gauche.’ She met his gaze directly, her own gaze open and candid. ‘I don’t know what to say or do.’

‘There’s no script, is there?’ Luc asked. ‘Or did I not get the memo?’

‘No script,’ Abby confirmed as, still holding her by the hand, he led her to the sofa. ‘But surely certain things are…expected?’

‘Abby, I promise you, I have no expectations. I was amazed to see you in the bar, and I’m even more amazed to see you here.’

They were sitting on the sofa now, Luc’s thigh nearly pressed against her own. Abby slipped off her heels and tucked her stocking-clad feet under the silken folds of her gown.

‘Anyway,’ Luc continued, ‘I don’t think you gauche at all. Refreshing, I would have put it.’

‘Isn’t that just a nice way of meaning “different”?’

‘Different is good.’

‘Different means different,’ Abby insisted. ‘Abnormal, weird.’

Luc reached out to touch her ankle through the folds of her gown. It was an almost absent-minded caress, his long, lean fingers lingering on the delicate bones even as his eyes, and his smile, never left her face. ‘Is that how you’ve felt?’

‘Sometimes.’ Why, Abby wondered, was it so easy to talk to him like this? To admit, confess things, she never had before even to herself? ‘Piano was pretty much my life from about age five,’ she elaborated with a shrug. ‘I stood out.’

‘At school?’

She shook her head. ‘Not really. I was home-tutored from age eight so I could devote more time to music.’

‘Those kids on Hampstead Heath, then?’ Luc guessed, and Abby wondered how he knew so much so quickly. ‘Them?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed wryly. ‘Them.’

In the ensuing silence Abby felt herself staring at his leg, at the taut muscle underneath the dark wool, as if fascinated by that one limb, and in truth she was. She wanted to touch it. Him. Wanted to feel the hard muscle underneath, to slide her hand along his hot skin…

What was she thinking? Feeling? Whatever it was, it coursed through her, electric and magical, as he’d described it. It made her breathless, heady and shy, even as her hand lifted almost of its own accord, her body emboldened even if her mind was not.

Her eyes flew to Luc’s face. He was smiling at her, too much knowledge glinting in his own eyes. He reached out and stroked her cheek with one finger, and Abby could barely keep from shuddering. She found herself leaning in to that little caress, openly, wantonly, until her cheek was cupped in Luc’s hand.

He hesitated, and Abby saw the concern and doubt flicker across his face. She closed her eyes to it, not wanting this moment to end. She wanted it to go on for ever, to stretch it out and savour each precious second.

‘Abby…’ His voice came out as a breath, a plea. Abby’s only response was to turn her head so her lips brushed his palm. She acted on instinct, on need, knowing this was foreign territory, frightening and dangerous, yet exciting and wonderful too. How could she feel so much? She felt as if she’d been numb all her life and was only now melting into emotion, springing into vitality.

Luc leaned forward and kissed her, his lips softly brushing hers. Abby’s breath hitched at the contact. Twenty-four years old and she’d never been kissed before—not properly, anyway. She’d had her fair share of air kisses, the European double-cheek kiss and some perfunctory pecks. It was all part of the entertainment business.

But this…this was wonderful. And she wanted more. She deepened the kiss, surprising herself, and perhaps Luc as well. She was untouched, unschooled, but need was the best teacher and it drove her to open her mouth, to touch her tongue lightly to his; his other hand came up to cradle her face as his tongue began its own exploration, and Abby felt herself spinning, her breathing grew ragged, her heart racing as it never had before.

She heard Luc’s breath hitch as well and felt a sharp thrill at the thought that perhaps he was as affected as she was by what was undoubtedly a small, ordinary kiss for most people. Except right now nothing felt small or ordinary; it felt big and special, and wonderfully exciting and new.

Her hands bunched on his shirt, her fingernails snagging on the buttons before she smoothed her palms out, felt the muscles of his chest leap and jerk under her hands. Luc’s lips trailed along her jawbone, and then he lowered his head to press a kiss to the silken curve of her neck, dropping lower to her collarbone, and then lower still to the soft swell of her breast above her evening gown.

Abby gasped. She’d never been touched so much, felt so much. Wanted so much. Luc’s hair, soft and springy, brushed her lips as he continued his path of kisses. Driven by instinct, Abby arched backwards to allow him more access, her mind still spinning, her body lazy and languorous and yet so alive… And then it stopped.

He lifted his head, leaving her skin suddenly cool. One of her dress’s diamanté straps had slipped off her shoulder, and, smiling wryly, Luc righted it.

‘You should go home, Abby.’

Abby started; she was not expecting this, not wanting it. She felt a crushing sense of disappointment she’d hardly thought possible. ‘But…why?’ Her voice sounded lost and forlorn, and Abby saw an answering bleakness flicker in Luc’s eyes.

‘Because I don’t want to take advantage of you. You’re young and innocent, and you should stay that way.’

A white-hot flame of rage blazed through her. ‘I’m not a china doll to be kept on a shelf and left alone.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘That’s how everyone sees me, Luc. How everyone treats me.’ Abby swallowed convulsively, suddenly ridiculously near to tears. She needed Luc to understand this; she wanted to be understood for once. ‘Someone to be admired—petted, perhaps, but not touched. Not—’ She stopped abruptly, yet her mouth still formed the word silently…Loved. ‘You’re not taking advantage of me if I say yes,’ she whispered.

Luc shook his head. ‘Do you even know what you’re saying yes to?’

Abby gave a shaky little laugh. ‘I’m not that innocent.’

He brushed a tendril of hair away from her face, his fingertips grazing her cheek. ‘If I didn’t want you so much,’ he murmured, and with sudden boldness Abby took his fingers and pressed them to her mouth.

‘I want to be wanted.’

‘By me?’ he asked, and he sounded both honoured and incredulous.

Abby smiled against his fingers. ‘Yes, by you. Only you. I’ve never…’ She paused, for there were too many ‘nevers’ about this situation. ‘Don’t ask me to go home,’ she said simply. ‘Let me stay.’

Luc’s eyes darkened, his mouth tightening. ‘I’m a selfish man for keeping you here,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘But, God help me, I will. I don’t want to let you go. Not now. Not yet.’ His voice turned ragged as he added, half to himself, ‘I can’t.’

‘Then don’t,’ Abby replied, and her heart finished silently, ‘ever’.

Silently Luc took her by the hand and led her to the bedroom with its sumptuous king-sized bed. She stood there, still and straight, as he slipped the gown from her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor in a dark puddle of silk. Almost reverently he removed her underwear, and Abby thrilled his touch, and at the fact that she wasn’t nervous or even embarrassed. How could you be embarrassed by someone who looked at you as if you were the Venus de Milo or the Mona Lisa—an exquisite, priceless treasure?

For that was how Luc looked at her, how he touched her. His fingers barely skimmed her skin, and his head bowed almost reverently. When she was naked he brought her to the bed, and Abby stretched out on the cool sheets, expectant, and now just a little shy.

Luc undressed himself, and she watched as his shed clothes revealed a body of tanned skin and taut muscle. Naked, he stretched out next to her and let his fingers brush her navel. She shivered.

‘Cold?’

‘No,’ she confessed, and he smiled and touched her lips where his hand had been, so Abby shivered again.

‘I will do my best not to hurt you,’ he murmured, his head still bent, and Abby lightly touched his hair.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, a new confidence blooming through her. ‘You won’t hurt me.’

And it didn’t hurt. It all felt wonderful, and even more so as Luc touched her, his hands skimming over her body, lips following; every sensation was sharp and exquisite. When Luc let her touch him Abby found herself becoming bold, touching and tasting him as he had her, revelling in his gasps and moans of pleasure.

They didn’t speak any longer, but the lack of words didn’t bother Abby, for surely this ran too deep for words? What need was there to speak of when their bodies communicated so beautifully, working together in silent, sensuous harmony?

And then it stopped. Luc rolled away, leaving Abby bereft, her arms empty and wanting.

‘Luc…’ she said, half-gasp, half-moan.

‘I don’t have protection.’ Luc sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, and ran a shaky hand through his hair. ‘To think how close…’

Abby’s body ached and throbbed with unfulfilled desire. She moved restlessly on the sheets, her fingers bunching against the rich satin, needing more even though she wasn’t entirely sure what ‘more’ would feel like. ‘You aren’t going to…?’

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ Luc gave her a fleeting smile even as he pulled on his clothes. ‘We need protection, Abby. I won’t play roulette with your life.’ He paused, his brows drawing together. ‘That is, you don’t have protection already? You’re not on the Pill?’

Abby shook her head, still dazed with desire. She hadn’t even given a thought to birth control or the implications of what they were about to do.

‘I’ll be back in a moment.’

It felt like it would be a lifetime. With a little smile Abby saw he’d buttoned his shirt wrong; his fingers had been shaking. He pressed a kiss to her damp brow. Abby reached up and touched his jaw, her fingers sliding to his cheek.

‘Hurry,’ she said, and after a second’s pause Luc nodded.

‘I will.’

Luc left the room; in the distance Abby heard the soft ping announce the lift’s arrival, and then the swoosh of the doors opening and closing. Already she felt horribly alone.

The air felt cold on her naked skin and she wrapped the sheet around her, curling into it, desperate for Luc to return. The events of the evening—the champagne, the rich food and the overwhelming emotion—all caused her to suddenly feel exhausted. Without meaning to or even realizing what she was doing, her eyelids slowly drooped shut.

It was a matter of minutes to find the nearest chemist and buy the necessary items. Back in the suite, Luc strode to the bedroom, his whole body tingling with emotion, awareness. He felt so alive.

He stopped short at the sight of Abby lying in bed, her hair spread like dark silk across the pillow, her lashes fanning her cheek. Her mouth, still swollen from his kisses, was pursed slightly in sleep, and he wondered what she was dreaming about.

Him?

Surely that was a dream?

In that moment, the condoms still clenched in his hand, Luc realized with cold, stark clarity how impossible this evening was. How fantastical.

Is this real? Tonight is as real as anything is.

Except, Luc acknowledged as he gazed down at Abby, this wasn’t real. He’d lied. This was but a moment in time, an evening taken from reality. And it had to stop now. He’d been about to take her innocence, Luc thought, the realization lashing him. He’d been about to take what wasn’t his, selfishly, utterly, and then walk away in the morning, for he knew he had no other choice. He had nothing more to give, nothing more to feel. Already he felt the numbness creep over him once more, his mind, soul and even heart turning cold and blank again.

He was so used to the sensation, it was almost comforting, and only the knowledge of how he might have hurt Abby pierced it like a well-aimed arrow. For surely he would hurt her? Unless…

Unless he left now, before he claimed her for his own and took her innocence. If he left now, while she slept, he would hurt her, but not as much. Not as deeply.

Luc let out a ragged sound, half-sigh, half-cry. He didn’t want to go. He wanted nothing more than to lose himself in Abby’s embrace for a few hours.

What a selfish bastard he truly was, and always had been, turning a blind eye to another’s pain as he took and did what he wanted.

No longer. Slowly, aching with regret and loss for what he’d never really had, Luc slid the unused pack of condoms into his pocket. He reached down to kiss Abby’s forehead once more, letting his lips barely brush her skin. She let out a little sigh, and the tiny sound clawed at Luc’s heart, causing little shocks of emotion that penetrated the hard shell he’d surrounded himself with. He’d kept himself numb for so long, he hadn’t thought he could feel again. He didn’t want to. Didn’t want to feel the guilt and regret his own failure caused streaming hotly through him.

He’d failed Suzanne. He’d failed her spectacularly, through month after month of never seeing, never understanding. Never doing anything to save her. He wouldn’t fail anyone else again, especially not someone as innocent and sweet as Abby. He wouldn’t allow himself the opportunity.

She had her life, her music, a whole, wonderful world that had nothing to do with him. It was better that way.

Gently Luc tucked a tendril of hair behind her ear, and let his fingers linger on her cheek before he forced his hand away.

He walked slowly to the doorway, his heart aching, feeling. He forced the emotion away, let the numbness settle over him once more like a mantle, a shroud. His coat draped over one arm, he turned back towards her sleeping form and whispered a single word: ‘Goodbye.’

Then he stole from the room, so quietly that in her sleep Abby didn’t even stir.

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