The Valentine Bride
‘Anywhere,’ he said. ‘You decide.’
The restaurant she chose was close to her office and she was greeted with warmth by the staff. This, rather than Bella Lucia, was clearly the restaurant she used to meet with her clients, with the media people she was wooing.
His failure.
They were shown to their table, served quickly and efficiently, left to themselves and, much as it pained him to admit it, on this occasion she’d made the right choice. If they’d gone to one of his restaurants, his attention would have been constantly distracted by what was happening around them. His ears tuned to the reactions of fellow diners, listening out for problems instead of to her.
He’d seen his father act that way. The business had always been more important to him than anything. Anyone.
He’d tried to emulate him in business, if not in his personal life.
Tonight he needed to focus his full attention on Louise, put his whole heart into getting her on board.
It wasn’t difficult. At seventeen, when she’d returned from Italy a newly minted woman, she’d been stunning. The years since had only added layers of character, style, polish and it was easy to see why a man of any age would want to worship at her feet. He couldn’t afford to join them.
‘How was your trip to Australia?’ he asked. ‘Melbourne, wasn’t it? Did you enjoy it? What’s it like?’
‘Is that code for would it make a suitable venue for a Bella Lucia restaurant?’
She was warning him to back off, he realised, telling him that her other, newly discovered, family was nothing to do with him. He wanted to dispute that. She was a Valentine and all her family were important. This was not the time, however.
‘Are you suggesting that I have a one-track mind?’ he asked.
She took a sip of water. Said nothing.
Obviously she was.
‘So?’ he pressed, turning her question to his own advantage. Getting her to open up about Bella Lucia. ‘Melbourne? What do you think?’
‘I think you’re leaping to the conclusion that I give a damn about Bella Lucia.’
‘It’s fed, sheltered and kept the designer clothes on your back for two-thirds of your life,’ he reminded her. ‘Paid for the apartment that Uncle John gave you when you decided it was time to leave home. I think you might give the tiniest damn, don’t you?’
It was cruel. She blushed, swallowed, but he’d got her. She might be angry, bitter, but she knew what she owed to John and Ivy Valentine. She might not want to play happy families at the moment, but she wasn’t a fool, she must know she couldn’t walk away from them that easily and if she needed reminding, he’d be happy to oblige.
But while he’d hooked her, she wasn’t happy about it.
‘How do you plan a marketing campaign?’ he asked, bowing to her expertise, using flattery to reel her in. ‘Where do you start?’
For a moment she resisted, toyed with the linguine she’d ordered. He didn’t leap in, try to push her.
‘The first thing is to establish the brand,’ she said, at last.
‘Brand?’ He frowned. ‘We’re not one of Nash’s fast-food outlets.’
She dismissed his remark with an impatient gesture. ‘Don’t be so narrow in your thinking, Max.’ Then, ‘What do you think brings someone through the door of a Bella Lucia restaurant?’
‘It depends which someone. Which restaurant. They’re each unique. Individual in style, atmosphere. A man who met his colleagues for a business lunch at Berkeley Square would probably choose to take his wife for dinner in Knightsbridge, might have a coming-of-age celebration for one of his children in Chelsea.’
‘Who would he take to Qu’Arim?’
He thought about it. Thought who he’d take there, then shook his head to clear the image he had of Louise there. With him.
‘A woman he was in love with,’ he said. Then, ‘The oasis is the very essence of romance.’
‘A very over-used word.’ She regarded him for a moment, then said, ‘If it was a fabric, what would it be?’
‘A fabric?’
‘Cotton?’ she offered. ‘No? Cashmere? Tweed? Velvet? Linen? Silk?’ She ticked them off on her fingers.
‘Silk,’ he said. ‘With a touch of cashmere.’
‘And if it was a time of day?’
‘Night,’ he said, before she could list the options. ‘Black with a sliver of moon, stars close enough to touch.’
‘Every man a desert sheikh, every woman his captive slave? That’s not romance, Max, that’s a sexual fantasy.’
‘Is that bad?’
‘Probably not,’ she admitted, a touch ruefully. ‘It’s not very PC to say this but sex sells.’ Then, more to herself than him, ‘I wonder what a woman’s response would be.’
His smile was slow, thoughtful. ‘I’ll take you there. Then you can tell me.’
‘I’m the one conducting a market survey,’ she said, swiftly evading the elephant trap she’d so carelessly dug for herself. ‘Tell me more.’
He needed no prompting to describe the setting of the resort, the undiluted luxury. ‘We’re very fortunate, Lou. Surim could have had his pick of international restaurateurs.’
‘The old school tie is still worth something, then.’
‘If you’re going to save someone from a beating, it might as well be a future head of state,’ he agreed.
Louise shook her head. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to be quite that cynical. I know you’re good friends. Do you still play polo in his team?’
‘Not recently. It’s tough finding time to keep match fit.’
‘You need to get out from behind the desk, Max. All work and no play—’
‘Says the lady who’s just worked a ten-hour day.’
‘Twelve, actually.’ She pulled a face, shrugged. ‘I was at the office at eight. But it’s only while I’m working on the HOTfood relaunch.’ Then, quickly, moving on before he could say anything about pots and kettles, ‘Okay, tell me about the food at the new restaurant. Mediterranean? Arabic? What is there beyond tabbouleh, hummus, the mezza?’
He smiled at her ignorance. ‘Arab cuisine was once the most sophisticated in the entire world, Louise, embraced by the mediaeval courts of Europe.’
‘Really? I like that. Tell me more.’
As she pushed him for details, forcing him to reach beyond the basics, Max actually began to relax, feel that this was, after all, going to be possible.
‘I meant it when I said I’d take you there. I’d like you to see it for yourself.’
‘And after Qu’Arim, what then?’ she asked, not picking up on his invitation, but not refusing it, either. ‘How far and how fast are you planning to take this?’
‘How big is the world? The Americas, Asia, Europe.’
‘Europe? Have you considered Meridia?’
‘Obviously it’s on the list.’
‘I suggest you put it at the top. Bella Lucia catered for the coronation, and now that your sister is Queen I’d have a bidding war from the gossip mags to cover the opening of a new restaurant there.’
‘We don’t display our clientele for the media, Lou. We give them privacy.’
‘Okay, I could use that as an angle. Pictures of the interior preopening offering a glimpse of something most people will never see. Mystery, privacy, the unattainable. A glimpse of lace is always more intriguing than total nudity.’
Max found himself staring at the cashmere sweater Louise was wearing. It was some complicated wrap-around thing that crossed over her breasts, offering no more than a suggestion of cleavage, a promise of hidden delights. She didn’t have to explain the allure of the unattainable to him. He’d lived with it for as long as he could remember.
CHAPTER TWO
‘THAT rather depends on who’s wearing the lace,’ Max said abruptly. ‘And what she looks like when she’s shed it.’
Louise raised an eyebrow. What was eating him?
‘You’ve spent more time in Meridia than I have,’ he went on, before she could ask. ‘What are the options for us there?’
She shrugged, let it go. ‘What are the limits of your imagination? Somewhere really sumptuous high up in the old part of the capital, near the castle. Or maybe something completely different. A place where families could sit outside and eat in the summer. Maybe somewhere with a dock, since everybody seems to have a boat.’
Seeing it in her mind’s eye, she was suddenly seized with enthusiasm, her thoughts running faster than she could say them.
‘A lakeside pavilion, perhaps. Something…’
‘Something what?’ Max prompted.
‘Um…Something simple, uncluttered, informal,’ she said, suddenly realising that she was using her hands to describe her thoughts. She’d always done that. Her mother used to say it was her Italian ancestry coming out. Nonsense, of course. There was no Italian connection; John Valentine had been born before his father had ever met Lucia. But then her entire history had been founded on lies…
‘How soon can you wind up your business and join us, Louise?’ he asked, cutting into the black thoughts that threatened to engulf her.
Bringing her back to earth.
‘Excuse me?’ Her tone was deceptively mild. Her assistant would have winced. But for a few minutes there she’d let herself imagine a different future, forget reality, but Max never let her down. Already he was assuming he’d won, but then he was a man programmed never to lose.
‘Why on earth would I give up a business I’ve built from scratch to come and work for you?’
Max smiled. ‘It’s a bit late to start pretending you’re not interested, Lou.’
‘I…’In her enthusiasm she’d leaned into the table and suddenly realised just how close they were. Close enough for her to drown in dangerously deep blue eyes that had been mesmerising her for as long as she could remember. Close enough to catch the warm, male scent of his skin. To feel the tug of something she’d been resisting since she was old enough to understand that it was wrong.
She sat back, putting enough distance between them to feel, if not safe, then in control. ‘My interest is purely professional, Max.’
There had been a time she would have died of happiness to have Max wanting her, needing her, but there was no way she’d give up her independence and crawl back under the shelter of the Valentine umbrella. Not now. She didn’t need them. Didn’t need him.
‘Apart from anything else, I’m considering branching out myself,’ she said, ‘opening an office in Melbourne, using that as my base in Australia.’
He looked as if she’d hit him with a club.
She might have enjoyed that more if she hadn’t been swept away, just for a moment, thinking what might have been. If anyone but Max were involved.
‘You have a life, a family here,’ he protested.
‘You think so? Now Dad’s skeletons have climbed out of the closet I find myself excess to requirements.’
Max looked as if he was going to deny it, but they’d both seen just how far John Valentine would go for sons he’d only just discovered existed. Even when one of them had nearly ruined the company, he’d still been sheltered, cared for. Loved.
‘Have you told your parents? That you’re considering moving to Australia?’
Louise swallowed. ‘Not yet.’
‘You’re hurting, I understand that, but don’t cut yourself off from your family, Louise.’
Family, family…He was always going on about the precious family; as a boy he’d spent more time with hers than with his own…
‘I take it the toy boy is part of the plan,’ he said, an edge to his voice that could have cut glass.
Relieved to be out of the quicksand of family relationships, she managed an arch, ‘Are you, by any chance, referring to Cal Jameson?’
‘If he’s the one who was all over you at the Christmas party, then yes, that’s who I mean.’
‘He wasn’t all over me,’ she declared.
So much for her vow to keep her cool. With Max, that was only ever going to be a temporary measure.
‘Oh, please. You arrived at the Christmas party dressed like some centrefold Santa—’
‘I always come as Santa!’
With the long-running friction between her father and Uncle Robert—Max’s father—the family Christmas party was a minefield of tension at the best of times and she’d taken to turning up in a Santa suit bearing a sack filled with clever little presents matched to each member of the family. Her contribution to peace on earth in the Valentine family; bath oil on troubled waters.
This year, though, there had been two new family members; the sons that John Valentine hadn’t known existed until a few months ago. Her only reason for pouring oil would have been to set fire to it so she’d abandoned the traditional ‘ho, ho, ho’ Santa outfit in favour of a red suede miniskirt with matching boots, a white angora crop top and a mistletoe navel ring—one that lit up and flashed in the dark.
Her cheeks heated at the memory. With the twenty-twenty vision of hindsight it was obvious that inviting Cal to kiss her under the mistletoe—purely to wind up a scowling Max—had been a mistake.
She should have anticipated that he’d ask, ‘How far under…’
‘I have family in Australia,’ she said, quickly, before Max made the kind of remark guaranteed to provoke her beyond reason. ‘A married sister.’
‘You barely know her,’ he pointed out, infuriatingly reasonable.
‘And already I like her a lot better than I like you. Nothing has changed, Max!’ She stood up, desperate to escape, desperate for air. ‘I don’t need this.’
He was on his feet, blocking her exit before she could take a step. ‘You need it,’ he said. ‘You need it like breathing. Admit it. You’re lit up with excitement at the thought of coming back.’ She shook her head, but he repeated the words. ‘Lit up like the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square.’
‘No!’
‘You’re a Valentine, Lou. Bella Lucia is in your blood.’
She almost gasped at his lack of understanding. Where had he been the last few months? Had he any idea…?
No. Of course not. Max didn’t do ‘feeling’. He was so utterly focussed on Bella Lucia, so absorbed by it, that he didn’t need normal human emotion.
Well, she would just have to explain it to him. In words of one syllable…
‘Is that what you really think?’ she demanded.
‘It’s what I know. It’s what I see—’
‘Shall I tell you what I’ll be doing tomorrow?’ she demanded, not interested in what he could see. The question was purely rhetorical; she was going to tell him whether he wanted to know or not. ‘I’m going to be taking afternoon tea in the restaurant on the top floor of the National Portrait Gallery. Minimalist elegance, smoked salmon sandwiches and great views should conversation prove difficult.’
‘Why should it prove difficult?’ Then, barely able to conceal his satisfaction, ‘You’re kissing off the Australian?’
‘What? No…’ She swiped at the air in front of her face, pushing his interruption away, pushing him away, the pervasive power of his presence. ‘Cal isn’t…’
‘What?’
‘Cal isn’t any of your business,’ she snapped. ‘I’m meeting my mother, tomorrow.’ Then, just to be sure he understood, ‘Not your aunt, Max. Not Ivy Valentine.’ Not the woman who, all her life, she’d been told was her mother. ‘I’m meeting Patricia Simpson Harcourt, the total stranger who, it seems, actually gave birth to me. The woman who’ll be able to tell me who my father was, what he looked like, because the only thing I do know about him is that he wasn’t John Valentine.’
‘Louise—’
‘You do see, don’t you?’ she asked, cutting short his attempt to interrupt, to tell her that it didn’t matter. Because it did. ‘You do see how wrong you are? Valentine blood does not flow through my veins. Not one drop of it. The only liquid connecting me to the Valentine family is the ink on the adoption certificate.’
‘Please, Lou.’ He caught her hand, refusing to let her pass him. Escape. ‘Don’t do anything hasty. Bella Lucia needs you.’ Then, almost as if it hurt him to say the words, he finally said what she’d always wanted to hear. ‘I need you.’
His words brought her up short. She might mock his dedication, but Max had always been the one everyone else depended on. The one that everyone else turned to in a crisis. For him to admit that he needed anyone had to be a first. For him to admit that he needed her…
‘Y-you sacked me,’ she said, more to remind herself what he’d done than jog his memory. It had been a scene neither of them was likely to forget. ‘In front of the entire restaurant. You didn’t care that I was family then—’
‘That was the problem, Lou,’ he cut in. Then, more gently, ‘That was always the problem.’
‘I-I don’t understand.’
‘Don’t you?’
Of course she did. As a girl she’d worshipped him. She should have grown up, got over it. It hadn’t worked out like that. Quite the contrary. Even now he had the power to reduce her to a gibbering idiot, a mass of exposed hormones. All it took was the touch of his hand to turn her to jelly. If she didn’t get out of here now…
‘Don’t you?’ he insisted. ‘Are you really that stupid?’
‘Thanks for that, Max,’ she said, snatching away her hand. For a moment she’d thought that maybe, just maybe, they could make a fresh start but she’d been fooling herself. ‘You’ve just reminded me why I’d rather starve than work for you.’
As Louise strode towards the door a waiter held out her coat. She didn’t pause to let him help her into it, but grabbed it and as he leapt to open the door walked out into the cold rain.
She glanced up and down the street, hoping to spot a cruising cab, but there wasn’t a sign of one and, without stopping to put on her coat, she began to walk.
‘Not one drop…’
Max was rooted to the spot for long seconds as her words echoed in his head, as the reality of what that meant sank in.
‘Shall I bring the bill, sir?’
The waiter’s voice jerked him out of the moment of revelation and he realised that he was letting Louise walk away, that if he didn’t do something to stop her right now he’d have lost her, or, worse, that she wouldn’t stop walking until she was out of all their lives. Not just lost to him, but to the family who loved her.
Not bothering to reply, he tossed a credit card on the table and headed for the door.
The same waiter, apparently anticipating his reaction, was holding his coat out and the door open so that nothing should impede him.
Louise was walking swiftly along the street, the high heels of her boots ringing against the wet pavement, her coat trailing from her hand. The fact that she was oblivious to the rain now coming down in torrents, soaking her hair, soaking her through to the skin, gave him hope.
She was upset, angry. If she didn’t care, she would be neither.
‘Louise!’ His voice echoed along the empty street, but she neither slowed nor quickened her pace, made no sign that she’d heard him. ‘Wait!’
A cab turned the corner and, ignoring him, she raised a hand to hail it, forcing him to sprint along the pavement to head her off.
‘Here’s a point for you,’ he said breathlessly as he leaned against the door, blocking her escape.
She didn’t protest, just turned away as another cab appeared, but he reached out, caught her hand before she could summon it.
‘Here’s a point for you,’ he repeated more gently as with his free hand he picked a strand of wet hair from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. Held it there. ‘You were adopted.’
‘Hallelujah,’ she said, but she didn’t move, didn’t toss her head to dislodge his hand. ‘For once in your life you were listening.’
Her words were spiky but her voice was ragged, hurting.
She was looking up at him, her eyes leaden in the street lighting, her lashes clumped together by the rain pouring down her cheeks. Or maybe it was tears and for a moment the impulse to kiss her almost overwhelmed him.
Not now…
He’d paid heed to the warning voice in his head all his adult life. Kept his distance even when the only thing in his head had been to stop her anger with his mouth, knowing that she wanted it, too; was goading him, tormenting him, tempting him to do something about the primal response that arc’d between them whenever they were in the same room; urging him to self-destruct. Now there was no impediment, no barrier, only hard-won self-restraint, some instinct warning him that this was not the moment.
‘I was listening,’ he told her, his voice cool, even though every other part of him was burning hot.
‘So?’
So kissing her suddenly seemed the most important thing in the entire world.
This is about the restaurant, not you!
He ignored the voice of common sense. This was important…
‘So you’re not my cousin, Louise.’
‘Give the man a coconut—’
Her skin felt like wet silk beneath his fingers. Her mouth was full and dark and suddenly all the wasted ‘touch not’ years crowded in on him, urging him to taste it, taste her.
‘And if we’re not cousins,’ he continued, a little shakily, ‘we don’t have a problem, do we?’
Not now, idiot! Bella Lucia is more important than scratching a ten year itch.
But…
You’ll blow the whole deal if you kiss her, because it wouldn’t stop at a kiss. She’d come along for the ride, she wouldn’t be able to help herself, but what then? She’d never forgive you…
But she’d come…
‘We don’t?’ she asked, a tiny frown creasing the centre of her forehead. She drew in a breath as if to pursue it further, then shook her head, clearly thinking better of it. ‘You’re taking me for granted, Max,’ she said.
‘No…’
He denied it, but without sufficient conviction to stop her.
‘Yes! You believe that all you have to do is turn up, snap your fingers and I’ll fall in line. I have a career, a successful business, a life of my own—’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. You owe me nothing. But think of Bella Lucia. Think of your father…’
She jerked free of his touch then and he knew that in clumsily mentioning her father, he’d made things worse rather than better. She could have no idea how he’d felt as he’d watched her with her parents. Proper parents who always put her first. Doted on her…
She was hurting too much to listen to him tell her how lucky she was. How lucky she’d been all her life. Right now, he suspected, there was nothing he could say that would help. Maybe he would, after all, have been better served by less thought, more action but he’d missed the moment, allowed her to climb back on her high horse.
‘Enough,’ he said, letting it go. ‘You’re wet through.’ He took her coat, wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘You need to go home, get warm.’ He opened the cab door, saw her safely in and this time resisted the temptation to join her, but instead, on an impulse, said, ‘Would you like some company tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow?’
Louise couldn’t think straight. They weren’t cousins. Well, she’d understood that. In theory. She just hadn’t thought through what that meant. Hadn’t anticipated exactly how she’d feel in that dangerous moment when, for a heartbeat, she’d been sure Max had been about to kiss her. Finally. At last…
‘When you meet this woman who says she’s your mother,’ he prompted, bringing her back to earth.
‘She is my mother.’
‘Is she? Really? More so than Ivy? I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to get my head around that.’
‘Really?’ She heard the sarcasm fuelled by frustration, disappointment, dripping from her voice. Why hadn’t he kissed her? What else could he have meant when he’d said they ‘didn’t have a problem’? ‘Well, if you find it hard, why don’t you try putting yourself in my shoes?’
‘Don’t be so defensive, Lou.’
‘Defensive?’ He thought she was being defensive? ‘You think I should be sweet, biddable, good little Louise and not make a fuss, hmm?’
‘Sweet? Biddable?’ He shook his head, might have been fighting a smile; his face was shadowed and it was hard to tell. ‘Sorry, sweetheart, I know that you’ve managed to fool the older generation with that myth since you were old enough to work out that a smile would bring you more than a scowl, but you’ve always managed to keep that side of yourself well hidden around me,’ he said. Seeing her sarcasm and raising it to scorn.