Kitabı oku: «His Perfect Partner»

CHAPTER ONE

JEAN-LUC MANOIRE frowned. He wasn’t entirely sure that he was doing the right thing. Indecision and compulsion were unhappy bedfellows, and neither was a state of mind that he was at all comfortable with.

Too late now. They were here. He leant forward and touched his chauffeur on the shoulder, indicating that he wanted the car to slow.

Jean-Luc stared up at the tall iron gates. They told the story as well as any inanimate object ever could—rusty, they hung awkwardly from the crumbling stone wall that surrounded the estate. He inhaled a deep breath, more conscious than ever of the conflicting emotions which were churning around deep inside. ‘D’accord, Emile. Continuez!’

The car glided forward, the tyres crunching on gravel. The trees that lined the drive were just coming into bud. Lime, he remembered, looking up at the tall, statuesque framework of branches, at least one hundred years old.

The house looked empty and neglected. He hoped the enquiries he had made proved to be reliable. Time was money, and driving this far out of London on such a tightly scheduled trip, only to find her not at home, would be aggravating to say the least.

His mobile phone rang and he retrieved it from the briefcase at his side and took the call he had been expecting. He spoke into it, his comments brief and to the point as he listened to his personal assistant many miles away in Paris, confirming the fact that the final transaction on an important business deal had been completed without a hitch.

Business. That was all he had to focus on—just business. The rest…the other, more complex reasons for his involvement here had to be put to one side, or else how would he cope? He still doubted his ability to act with absolute composure. He had been dwelling on this meeting for days—ever since the situation here had first come to his attention.

A death notice in the English papers, that was all it had taken. Thoughts of her, banished for so long, had haunted him day and night. He couldn’t sleep, he could barely eat, business had lost its attraction.

Except for this deal…She would agree to it. The generosity of his offer made financial sense. Her advisers would practically force her to accept.

And if they didn’t?

She would have changed—he had prepared himself for that, counted on it. Because if she were the same how would he ever be able to get through…?

Arrêtez! How Rachel looked after all these years, her reaction on seeing him again—none of that could be dwelt on. He needed to be in control. He was over her—this was just an exercise to confirm as much. Devastation was a strong word, and it had applied to him, but that had been six years ago.

Jean-Luc cursed silently as a vision of Rachel, lying beneath him, golden hair splayed out, eyes wide with trust and love, jolted into his mind—that days later she could have disregarded what they had had together and walked away from him, from his love…

Just business. He must remember that.

‘Here you are! I wondered where you’d got to.’

Rachel turned sharply at the sound of the elderly woman’s voice. She watched as Naomi approached, forcing a smile. ‘How did you know I was here?’

‘I spotted you from one of the upstairs windows.’ Naomi folded her arms across her ample chest and sighed. ‘Your Aunt Clara was a hoarder and no mistake—there’s still a ton of junk to clear out up there.’

‘Yes, I should be doing something.’ Rachel rose to her feet. ‘Sorry, Naomi, I didn’t mean to leave you alone for so long. I just needed a breath of fresh air.’

‘Now don’t be silly, my girl, I’m not complaining. You needed the break. It’s been a week since your dear aunt’s funeral and you haven’t let up for a minute.’ The old woman placed a sympathetic arm around Rachel’s shoulders and squeezed gently. ‘I’ve come to find you because you have a visitor.’

‘Not another creditor?’ Rachel asked wearily. ‘I thought we’d had our fill of those.’

‘And so did I, but these things are best faced. He gave me this card.’ She held out a gilt-edged business card to Rachel. ‘From some corporation or some such,’ she added. ‘I’d tell you what it says, but I’m blind without my reading glasses. Important, though—if the look of him and his car are anything to go by. Wealthy,’ she added, with an approving nod.

Rachel shrugged as she read the name. ‘JSJ Corporation. Means nothing to me, but, then…’ she sighed ‘…neither did the hundred and one other names that were thrust under my nose by the accountant.’ She stood up, stretching her arms high above her head. ‘OK, let’s go back. I may as well see what this man wants and get it over with. Tomorrow is crunch day, anyway. I have to face the bank manager to discover exactly how deep the estate is in trouble, and decide—or rather be told—what has to be done.’

‘These are difficult times, my dear. If only I’d understood what was going on maybe you wouldn’t be in this mess.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Rachel’s voice was kind. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. Aunt Clara was…’ Rachel smiled. ‘Well, she was what she was—a strong-willed woman. She wouldn’t have been advised by anyone. When she decided on a course of action she stuck to her guns, no matter what anyone else said or did. There’s nothing any of us could have done, even if we had realised what was going on. You know that as well as I do.’

‘Yes…’ Naomi’s already creased forehead became even more lined. ‘That is so true.’ The old woman was silent for a moment, then she added in more upbeat tones, ‘Shaun phoned again—did I tell you?’

‘Yes.’ Rachel heaved a breath. ‘Yes, you did. Naomi…it is over between us. I know you’re fond of him, but—’

‘But the two of you are perfect for each other! I believe it, and I know Shaun does, too.’

‘No.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘Naomi, I don’t want to disappoint you because I know Shaun’s your nephew—’

‘Great-nephew,’ Naomi corrected. ‘His mother is my sister’s daughter.’

‘He’s a relation,’ Rachel continued. ‘I like him, I like him a lot, but…it just wasn’t working out between us.’

‘You need someone.’ Naomi’s voice was firm. ‘Like Shaun.’

Rachel didn’t bother to argue any further. In many respects Naomi was like her Aunt Clara had been—stubborn, sure of her own point of view. Indeed, the two woman had virtually grown up together, albeit one as the mistress and the other as the maid.

They walked in silence towards the back of the house, both women, so varied in age and appearance, deep in their own thoughts.

‘I’ve shown him into the drawing room,’ Naomi announced, as they reached the kitchen door. ‘Do you want to spruce yourself up a bit before you go in?’

Rachel paused, glancing at her reflection in the pantry window. Her long blonde hair was shiny and clean, if a little ruffled. She lifted her hands and resecured the ribbon , which was hanging loosely down her back. ‘I don’t look that bad, do I?’ she asked.

‘Your clothes aren’t very smart,’ Naomi informed her with her customary bluntness. ‘It’s as well to give a good impression.’

Rachel looked down at her clean, if rather tatty denims and comfortable violet jumper. ‘Oh, well, it can’t be helped,’ she replied. ‘I don’t suppose my appearance will make much of a difference to things. Besides, it’s not worth changing. I want to get back and continue going through Aunt Clara’s things afterwards.’ Rachel threw Naomi a self-deprecating smile.

‘I’m still foolishly hoping that I’ll discover some hidden treasure that will get us out of this financial nightmare—a forgotten Constable, or a rare first edition, something of that sort.’

‘From what I’ve seen you’ve got as much chance of that as of me winning the lottery!’ Naomi announced with a snort.

‘But you never buy a ticket for the lottery,’ Rachel replied, her thoughts elsewhere, most particularly with the ordeal of having to face another creditor.

Naomi’s face curved into a grim smile. ‘Exactly!’ she retorted.

Rachel paused, before entering the drawing room. She felt so tired. Nothing could have prepared her for the shock of the last few days. Her aunt’s sudden death had been bad enough, but to discover that her finances were in the mess they were had only served to drag Rachel’s emotions down further.

Still, she was determined to get through this one way or another—to see the whole sorry episode through to the end. She felt it was her keen duty to do all she could to protect the Grange as far as was humanly possible. It had been in her family for generations, and although she took it for granted, hating the miles of draughty corridors and high-ceilinged rooms, she didn’t want to see it lost to the bank.

Sonia, one of the women from the village who had been working at the Grange for as long as Rachel could remember, smiled sympathetically at her as she descended the stairway, carrying yet another sackful of rubbish from her Aunt Clara’s chambers. ‘Looking better up there,’ she commented. ‘You’ll soon have this all sorted out, don’t you worry.’

Rachel returned her smile, preparing to open the drawing-room door, and wished she shared the woman’s confidence.

‘Sorry to have kept you,’ she began briskly, as she walked into the drawing room. ‘Only, as you can imagine, it’s a bit hectic around here at the moment.’

The man, who was standing at the far end of the room before the fireplace, turned as she spoke, and the first stab of recognition felt like a knife, twisting deep in her stomach.

Rachel stared, her blue eyes wide with shocked surprise. She clutched her chest involuntarily as a kind of protection for her heart, which had jolted painfully at the first sight of him and was now pounding away like a steam engine out of control. She shook her head, a slow, disbelieving movement that felt as strange and as awkward as the situation that now presented itself.

It was…No. No! She forgot to breathe. Yes, yes! It was him. Her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her; grief and stress and a too-vivid imagination hadn’t made her lose her sense. He was here, in this bright, sunny drawing room with its faded chintz and eclectic assortment of flowers and books and china ornaments, looking even more out of place than he had done all those years ago.

Rachel stared at the dark, silky hair, tamed and cut now into a short, almost severe style, at the strong jaw and finely moulded mouth, and felt a wave of dizziness overcome her. Jean-Luc! She reached out trembling hands and gripped the back of a nearby chair for support.

‘Hello, Rachel.’ His voice was deep, smooth—not so heavily accented now, but still with the same mesmeric quality. ‘How are you?’

He hesitated for a moment, then crossed the room towards her, holding out his hand in formal greeting—as if, she thought, to greet her thus was the most natural thing in the world.

He hadn’t expected this—that she should look virtually the same. He had learned of her rise up the career ladder, and had convinced himself that she would look altogether more sophisticated, more a woman of the world, more, in fact, like many of the women he now dated. But she didn’t. Here she was, six years older, and she was still as fresh and young and as beautiful as ever…

Rachel forced her gaze away from Jean-Luc’s face, stared at his strong, tanned fingers for a moment in a daze and then found herself shaking his hand. ‘I’m…fine,’ she murmured automatically. ‘Just fine…’

‘I’ve come at a difficult time.’

‘Yes.’ She couldn’t think straight, hardly knew what to think. He looked older, more sensationally attractive, if that were possible, but different. Sharper, groomed, more…polished and refined, not like the Jean-Luc Manoire she had known and loved. Not at all.

‘I was sorry to hear about the death of your aunt.’

‘Were you?’ Now that the horrendous initial shock was over, Rachel could begin to think a little more clearly. ‘I don’t see why,’ she added stiltedly. ‘You always disliked her.’

‘And that translates to wanting to see her dead, does it?’ His voice was mild, but there was the hint of steel at the edge of each perfectly spoken syllable.

Rachel released a taut breath. It had been a foolish remark, born out of shock and sheer nervousness. He wasn’t the sort of man you could treat casually—she should have remembered that.

She glanced down at the faded carpet, desperately trying to compose herself, and said, ‘No, of course it doesn’t.’

‘You sound weary. You look—’

‘I know how I look!’ Rachel’s voice was tinged with anger. She pursed her lips, determined to save him the trouble of lying. ‘I look a mess!’ She cleared her throat, conscious of her trembling voice. She usually looked immaculate—her position as manager of a small prestigious hotel in the Cotswolds demanded it. Typical, she thought, that he should see me this way—so ragged and ill at ease.

‘Let’s forget the formalities, shall we?’ she continued. ‘I think I’d just prefer it if you told me what it is you’re doing here!’

Her words set the tone. She watched his expression. Not a flicker of expression marked Jean-Luc’s angular face—just the slightest tightening of the jaw, maybe a hardening of the ebony eyes. He knew how she felt, how she wanted things to be, how things had to be.

‘Very little has changed here,’ Jean-Luc commented, glancing around the room that looked as if it had been locked in a time warp for the past fifty years. His dark eyes came to rest on Rachel’s pale face. ‘Except maybe you.’

‘I’m older!’ she responded flatly. But not wiser, she thought despondently, aware of the agony of her thudding heart. Definitely not that.

‘And poorer, I understand.’ Jean-Luc’s glance was cool, controlled. Almost cruel in its ability to calmly survey her face.

He wondered if he would be able to keep this up—to act as if the sight of her had little or no effect on him. He was a man who supposedly thrived on challenge, but this was a bigger challenge than any he had ever attempted—except maybe the one of trying to forget her, of course.

Rachel met the uncaring gaze with a cold expression, marvelling in some far-off corner of her mind at her capacity to even begin to cope with this conversation. ‘Yes, quite poor.’ Her voice was like ice.

‘A shock, I should think,’ Jean-Luc continued. ‘Your aunt always gave such a good impression of being a wealthy woman.’

‘She was a wealthy woman,’ Rachel responded swiftly. ‘She just made some wrong choices, invested badly…’ Her voice trailed away. ‘Am I to presume, then, that you’ve come all the way here to offer your condolences?’ she asked, after a slight but telling pause. ‘You’re a little late. The funeral was early last week and, as you can undoubtedly see,’ she added, glancing at the muddled room, ‘I am still in the middle of sorting through and clearing everything out. So, if you’ll excuse me—’

‘You misunderstand, Rachel,’ Jean-Luc replied crisply, forestalling her retreat towards the door. ‘This isn’t a social call.’

‘No?’

‘Naomi gave you my card, I presume?’

Rachel had almost forgotten about it. She thrust a hand into the pocket of her jeans and retrieved it. ‘She did.’ She hesitated a moment then walked on slightly unsteady legs over to a side table, where a selection of bottles and glasses stood on a tray. She poured herself a measure of mineral water and took a healthy gulp—her mouth was so dry she could hardly talk any more.

‘Not that it meant anything to me—JSJ Corporation?’ She glanced at the card in her hand, raising arched eyebrows—trying to play it cool. ‘Another faceless conglomerate—is that who you work for?’

‘In a manner of speaking.’ Jean-Luc strolled over to stand beside her. ‘May I?’ he asked, and began pouring a small measure of whisky into a tumbler before Rachel could say a thing. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it. JSJ has its fingers in several very large pies.’ He reeled off a handful of well-known projects that had received recent media attention in countries worldwide, and Rachel finally had to admit defeat and acknowledge with a slight nod that she had heard of at least some of them.

‘OK! OK! I get the picture. JSJ is a legitimate firm.’ She moved away—because to stand so close to Jean-Luc after all these years was torture of the worst kind—and walked over to the window to look out through the leaded panes at the car parked on the weedy, gravelled drive.

It was large and swish and very expensive. It matched this new image of Jean-Luc, the one that Rachel was having such difficulty coming to terms with—immaculate, powerful, an uncompromising presence that made heads turn and would not, or could not, be ignored.

He had clearly done very well for himself. Rachel had imagined her success in the hotel trade as being pretty impressive, considering she had started on one of the bottom rungs of the ladder as a lowly part-time receptionist and had worked her way up with determination and not a small amount of natural flair, but it was clear that her achievements were nowhere near on the same scale as this.

A chauffeur-driven car meant status, and that equalled success far beyond anything she had ever, or would ever, manage to achieve.

She spun around and said, ‘Forgive me for being dense, but I still don’t see what a company like the JSJ Corporation would find of interest here—a run-down country estate like this. Is your boss totally mad?’

‘I’m beginning to think so.’ She turned then to look at Jean-Luc. There had been something in his voice…‘The initials of the company—they obviously don’t mean a great deal to you,’ he added briskly.

‘No.’ Rachel lifted her shoulders in an uncaring shrug, turned back toward the window and closed her eyes tightly against shared memories which were bombarding her senses. ‘Why on earth should they?’

Jean-Luc, Saul, Jerome—an excessive number of names, I always thought, but, then, my mother and father did only manage to have one child.’

‘JSJ…?’ It took a moment for Rachel to realise the significance of what he was saying. ‘Your company?’ she added in disbelieving tones. No matter how hard she tried, Rachel couldn’t hide the astonishment in her voice. She looked at this new, sharp, hard Jean-Luc—so different from the man she had worshipped, loved—and tried to reconcile the differences between now and six years ago. ‘You mean you actually own…?’

Her voice trailed away in shocked disbelief as she stood and stared and tried to come to terms with the fact that Jean-Luc, the student, had transformed himself into a business magnate of quite incredible proportions.

‘Six years is a long time,’ he drawled smoothly. ‘What did you expect? That time should have stood still? That I would still be tending other people’s gardens?’

‘No, of course not!’ Rachel’s voice was hard. ‘But it’s not that long ago either…’ She made up her mind, and walked towards the door on legs that felt like jelly. ‘Would you please leave?’ She wondered if he could see the glistening of tears in her eyes from this distance, and decided that he probably couldn’t. ‘I don’t think we have a great deal to say to one another!’

‘So polite, Miss Shaw.’ Jean-Luc’s voice was deliberately heavy with mockery. ‘I see those beautiful English manners that I remember so well haven’t entirely deserted you.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you!’ Rachel’s restraint was slowly beginning to give way. ‘I don’t see what possible reason you have for coming here.’

‘This estate is deeply in debt. You are in very real danger of losing everything. That is correct, isn’t it?’ His crisp tones cut through the atmosphere which lay heavy between them.

‘How clever you are!’ Rachel retorted harshly. ‘So my financial position is common knowledge, then?’

‘No, it is not. I have just made it my business to find out what is happening here, that’s all.’

‘Oh, really! And why is that?’ Rachel asked frostily. ‘Am I supposed to feel flattered you’ve taken such an interest?’

‘Flattered?’ He made her suffer by pretending to be dense, and threw Rachel a look of puzzlement that made her want to curl up and die right in front of him, making him almost hate himself. ‘I do not think flattery enters the equation. Oh, I see,’ he added cruelly, ‘you maybe imagined that I had kept some sort of a tab on the place because of old associations?’ There was a cutting smile, the flash of even, white teeth. ‘Sentimentality.’ He arched a dark brow. ‘Never my forte.’

Rachel placed a hand to her brow. She was having trouble coping with all of this. It was bad enough that she should be losing her home, but even worse to have Jean-Luc by her side, pointing out the awful fact. ‘So…what do you want?’ she asked unsteadily, eyeing him with obvious dislike.

‘I can help.’

Rachel looked into the enigmatic dark eyes. ‘Help me? Are you crazy?’ She inhaled, trying to keep her voice as steady as possible. ‘Do you honestly believe that I would want any help of yours?’

‘Whether you want it or not—that is immaterial,’ he replied coolly. ‘You need it. You have found debts every which way you turn because of your aunt’s inability to take financial advice, and tomorrow the bank will foreclose. Isn’t that correct?’

‘I…I have some money of my own,’ Rachel informed him unsteadily. ‘I’m not wildly rich, but I have some resources to call upon.’

‘Enough to retrieve this place from the impatient hands of the bank?’ Jean-Luc shook his head. ‘Stop fooling yourself! You might have scrimped and saved every penny for the past few years, but it would be chicken feed compared to what would be needed to get yourself out of debt and pay for the upkeep of such a large estate.’ He crossed the room towards her, standing close.

‘Are you prepared to lose this place just because you’re too stubborn to listen to what I have to say?’ His tone was harsh and full of derision. ‘I can’t believe you’d be that foolish.’

‘Believe what you like!’ Rachel replied shakily. ‘After all, I was foolish enough all those years ago to allow a smooth-talking Frenchman to get me into his bed!’

Silence. The room seemed still suddenly—even the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to suspend its ticking.

‘As I recall, we first made love on the grass,’ Jean-Luc replied quietly.

‘How dare you?’ Rachel continued shakily. ‘How dare you march in here, telling me that I must listen to you? Just who do you think you are?’

‘I know what I was.’

Rachel gasped as Jean-Luc snaked out a hand to prevent her from flouncing off towards the door. He pulled her close and suddenly it was like six years ago as he looked down into her trembling face, except that this time there was an element of punishment and force in his expression, along with the compelling tension and the supreme sexual vitality which was so much a part of him. ‘This place means something to you. Don’t be a fool and allow old prejudices to cloud your judgement just because we were once—’

‘Let me go!’ Rachel struggled free. She didn’t need to be reminded what they had once been to each other. Every nerve end in her body tingled with recollection—with a dreadful and intolerable yearning that had sparked into life the moment she had set eyes on him. ‘You think you can return after all these years and presume to tell me about the way I feel!’ she retorted angrily. ‘You, of all people!’

‘I don’t presume—I know,’ Jean-Luc informed her with disconcerting arrogance. So this was how it was going to be, he told himself—acrimonious, bitter. And to think that he had once been fool enough to imagine she’d loved him as much as he’d loved her.

‘Now.’ He kept his voice hard. ‘I have come here with a genuine business proposition. Are you prepared to stop acting like a petulant little girl and listen, or do you want to lose everything?’ Dark brows were raised questioningly. ‘Think carefully, Rachel, which is it to be?’