Chosen As The Frenchman's Bride. ABBY GREEN
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Coming Next Month
For Lynn and the women upstairs…
PROLOGUE
The poolside, Hotel Lézille, 8.30pm
HE NOTICED her as soon as she appeared in the archway between the lobby and the pool, his eyes drawn there as if pulled by a magnetic force. A rare excitement stirred his pulse. He told himself that he hadn’t come especially to seek her out. She seemed slightly hesitant, unsure. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, but she had a stunningly natural quality about her, which in his world was rare, compelling. In a simple black dress that outlined every slender curve and a generous bosom, she caught his eye again, and he couldn’t look away. Didn’t want to.
The soft waves of her dark hair framed her face. Intriguingly, she seemed to be slightly self-conscious. Or perhaps, he thought with a hardened cynicism that had been honed over years, she carefully projected that vulnerable fragility. God knew she had managed to capture his attention in the street yesterday. Her huge, striking blue eyes had momentarily stunned him, rendering him speechless. And he was never stunned, or speechless. Something in their depths had caught him, combined with that lush mouth, looking up at him so innocently, full of a shocked kind of awe.
Then, amazingly, when he had seen her on the island earlier today, he had followed some base instinct to see her up close again…She was everything he remembered, and more. He recalled how she had trembled under his hands in the street yesterday, and under his look earlier today on the island. He couldn’t ever remember a woman being so blatantly responsive.
His mouth compressed when he thought of her refusal to have dinner with him. That certainly hadn’t happened in a while, if ever. Was she playing some game? He wouldn’t be surprised…He was constantly amazed at the lengths some women went to just to get his attention. Playing hard to get wasn’t a new trick…
He mentally dismissed the bottle redhead to his left, who was chattering incessantly, oblivious of the fact that his attention had long wandered from her far too obviously surgically enhanced assets.
With a barely perceptible flick of his wrist a man materialised at his side, bending low.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Who is that woman?’ He indicated to where she stood.
‘She’s not a guest with us, sir, but I can find out if you like…’
He just shook his head and dismissed him.
The ennui that had settled over him recently was definitely fading as he took in her graceful progress through the tables to reach her companions. With a skill based on years of reading people and body language, a skill that had tripled his fortune many times over, he assessed them in seconds, focusing on the man he guessed was her date. No competition. His heart-rate speeded up pleasantly as he contemplated them from under hooded lids. He decided now that he would conveniently forget the blow to his pride when she had refused him earlier. She was definitely worth pursuing. A surge of anticipation and desire made him feel alive in a way he hadn’t in months…
CHAPTER ONE
Earlier that day…
JANE VAUGHAN wandered up and down the bustling jetty with a frown appearing over the ridge of her sunglasses. She couldn’t remember exactly which gate she’d been at yesterday; now there were lots of bobbing boats and people lining up to get on board. The man she’d approached had taken no deposit, nor given her a ticket, but instead had reassured her that if she came back to him he would make sure she got on the right boat…the only problem now was that she couldn’t spot him anywhere.
Bumping into that stranger in the street just afterwards must have scrambled her brain more than she’d thought. She shook her head wryly. She’d never thought herself to be the kind of woman that would spend a night fantasising about someone she had bumped into for mere moments. A newly familiar heat flooded her belly, however, as his tall, powerful body and hard-boned face swam into her mind’s eye, his image still as vivid as if he were standing right in front of her. She shook her head again, this time to shake free of the memory. Honestly, this was so unlike her.
She went towards a gate that looked familiar, tagging onto the end of a queue. When she got to the man at the top he seemed a little harassed. At her query of, ‘Excusez-moi. C’est le bâteau pour les îles?’ he just gestured impatiently into the boat. She hesitated for a moment, before figuring what was the worst that could happen? So if she didn’t end up exactly where she’d expected to then it would be an adventure. They were going somewhere, and she was on holiday, not everything had to be strictly organised. She needed to relax more.
Once they were underway she had to admit grudgingly that she was enjoying the breeze and the sun across her shoulders and bare legs. The brightly patterned halterneck dress she wore was a present from her friend Lisa, given with an order to make herself more visible.
She pushed her sunglasses onto her head, tipping her face up to the sun, and for the first time since landing on the Côte D’Azur a week ago felt a rush of wellbeing and freedom. She didn’t even really miss her friend’s presence. Lisa was meant to have travelled with her—after all, it was her family’s villa that Jane was staying in. But at the last minute Lisa’s father had been rushed into hospital with a suspected heart attack, and this very week was undergoing a delicate operation. The conversation she’d had with Lisa the night before her departure had been rushed, but her friend had been insistent.
‘Janey, if you don’t go then I’ll feel guilty on top of everything else. Anyway, you’ll be doing us a favour. No one has been at the house for months, and it needs to be aired, so look at it like that.’
‘But I can’t just leave when you might need me most…’
‘Look,’ Lisa pointed out, ‘you know my family. It’ll be like Picadilly Circus in the hospital, and we’ve been assured Dad is going to be fine…Seeing your little face here would only upset me, and I mean that in a good way.’
She knew Lisa was just being brave, that the outcome was anything but assured, and didn’t want to put her under any more pressure.
‘OK, OK.’
Jane had given in. Lisa was right; there wasn’t anything she could do. With a formidable mother, four sisters and three brothers she would only get in the way. And of the three brothers one in particular was intent on pursuing Jane. Not sure how she felt about Dominic, who was lovely, if a little dull, Jane was well aware that the campaign would have been taken up with enthusiasm by Lisa had she had the opportunity.
She got up and wandered over to the railing, shades back on against the glare of the sun, the sea spray catching her every now and then.
She still couldn’t help a little pang of guilt at enjoying her solitude so much. She really hadn’t expected to embrace it, but for the first time in her twenty-six years she was truly alone, without the crushing responsibility she’d carried for so long.
And it felt good!
Looking up from her contemplation of the foaming sea, she saw that they were approaching an island.