He held her close to his beating heart, crushing her damp breasts, his hot breath fanning her ear. She felt shattered, and bathed in jubilation. She needed to pinch herself. So this was what all the shouting was about.

Of course she couldn’t rely on it happening every time. It might even have been a fluke, brought on by the forbidden aspects of the scene.

Even so, it was such a precious moment. For a wild minute she adored Luc Valentin. Felt pretty sure she would adore him and this boathouse for the rest of her life.

‘We should go back,’ she breathed into his ear at last. ‘We don’t want to be missed.’

He held her away from him, his dark gaze urgent, compelling. ‘Come with me to the hotel. We’ll have a little supper and enjoy each other properly. You will come?’ He gazed at her, then kissed her. ‘Bien sûr you will.’

Excited, relieved, she hardly knew what she said. ‘Oh. Well … who can resist a little supper? I’ll have to say goodnight to Neil and Em, though, you know. Otherwise they’ll wonder …’

His mouth was grave, though his eyes gleamed. ‘No, we don’t want them to wonder.’

SHARI slipped from the downstairs bathroom, anticipation bubbling in her veins. Luc was across the hall, waiting. Like her, he was spruced again, as immaculate as if their stolen encounter had never happened.

She started towards him just as Emilie emerged from the dining room. They both halted, Luc backing into a convenient doorway before he was noticed.

‘Oh, chérie,’ Emilie exclaimed. ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you. What’s happening with Rémy? Where is he?’

Shari hesitated and glanced past her to see if Luc had heard. Her heart lurched when she saw his expression. He was staring at her, his eyes sharply alert.

‘Well, he … I—I—I don’t know for certain.’ In a low voice Shari added, ‘He’s gone away, I think. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, I promise.’

But Emilie wasn’t to be fobbed off. ‘You don’t know? Come on, Shari, something is going on. We haven’t seen either of you for months. He’s your fiancé. You should know. What game is he playing with you, chérie?’

As she felt the blistering intensity of Luc’s concentrated gaze on her face Shari’s guilty cheeks burned. ‘Tomorrow, Em. I’ll tell you everything. I promise.’

Emilie looked as if she was about to insist, but some other people burst into the hall, laughing, from the dining room, and she compressed her lips. She threw up her hands and exclaimed in a lowered voice, ‘It’s always something with him. When will he ever—? D’accord, Shari. Tomorrow. Don’t forget. I won’t sleep until I know.’ She hurried away to her guests.

Luc waited until they were alone, then bore down upon Shari, his eyes glittering danger. She felt an involuntary pang of alarm.

Resisting an impulse to back against the wall, she stood her ground. ‘I know what you must be thinking,’ she said in a hurried murmur. ‘It’s not how it looks. I can explain.’

‘Of course you can.’ His voice was smooth as silk and laced with sarcasm. ‘You are engaged to my cousin.’ His eyes were hard and accusatory. ‘That was you in his apartment.’

‘Shh,’ she whispered, glancing towards the nearby dining room. ‘Yes, yes, it was me, but no, I’m not his fiancée. Not any more. The engagement, such as it was, has been broken for weeks. Months.’

‘Then how is it Emilie doesn’t know? Your sister-in-law?’ He looked incredulous.

‘Well … I—put off telling them. Rémy’s her brother, Neil’s my brother …’ She spread her hands. ‘Em has had difficulties with her pregnancy and … She’s so attached to Rémy, and any bad news is bad for her blood pressure. Rémy talked me into keeping quiet because he wanted to break the news himself.’ She grimaced. ‘He’s probably dead scared of some of the things I might tell them.’

‘What things?’ His dark eyes were stern.

She glanced at him, then darted a glance towards the living room. ‘This isn’t a good place to talk. I’ll explain more when we’re alone.’ She slipped her hand into her purse and grabbed her mobile. ‘Do you have your own wheels, or shall I phone for a cab?’

‘A moment.’ He raked her with his eyes, then turned sharply away from her as if the very sight were deadly. He crooked an elbow over his eyes, shading them from some dangerous glow she emitted. His voice sounded as if it were being wrenched from the centre of the earth. ‘This—break-up. Just how recent is it?’

‘I said. I told you …’ Her voice faltered a little. She could see where he might be headed with this. ‘Not that recent.’

‘How recent?’

She started to feel annoyed at his tendency to fire questions like bullets. ‘Well, officially I gave the ring back a couple of months ago. Though by then it was well and truly on the rocks.’

‘“Officially”.’ He made mock quotation marks with his fingers. There was a definite snap in his voice that riled her. ‘What does that mean?’

She glared at him. ‘Look,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘not that it’s anyone’s business, but he and I imploded almost at the start, only like a fool I kept on …’

He swung about to impale her with his gaze. ‘Forget the excuses. Give me a straight answer. When was the last time you were together?’

Her blood pressure rose. ‘Does that matter?’

‘It may not to some guys, but I have a strong distaste for screwing women who are still hot from my cousin’s bed.’

She flushed. ‘I’m not hot from his bed.’ Her chest heaving with indignation, she added sweetly, ‘Though until a minute ago you could have said I was hot from your arms.’

For an instant his eyes flared, then he concealed them behind his dark lashes. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Wednesday, okay?’

‘This week?’ His frown intensified, though his glance strayed to her mouth.

‘Yes. He was looking for his passport. He accused me of holding onto it after I threw his things out of the apartment. As if I would. He said he had to go to LA on the firm’s business.’

A tinge of contempt touched his face. ‘Vraiment. So … did you give him the passport?’

‘I told you. I didn’t have it.’

His dark eyes flickered over her, searching, suspicious. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe a word she said. The hackles rose on her neck. She was so over being insulted by the men in this family.

‘So,’ he said with maddening silkiness. ‘You sleep with a man on Wednesday, then you sleep with his cousin on Saturday.’

She hissed in a long, simmering breath. ‘Only if his cousin’s very, very lucky.’

The raw anger in her voice finally penetrated Luc’s brain. She wasn’t taking his perfectly natural concerns well. As he scanned her face his certainties suffered a jolt. There was a sparkle in her eyes that gave him pause.

Her luscious mouth was firmly compressed, when only minutes ago those lips had been so soft and yielding, so tinglingly responsive.

She turned away from him.

With quicksilver rapidity a dozen arguments flashed through his mind. From her point of view she might have been telling the truth. She was a woman, after all. What woman ever understood the dictates of honour between men? Particularly men of the same family?

The night’s original agenda scintillated in his mind’s eye. Perhaps he was being harsh. Overly fastidious. If she was no longer officially engaged …

And he’d be gone from Australia tomorrow. They’d be ships in the night, et cetera. Passing on the stormy seas of his bed at the Seasons. Plunging and plunging in the sweet, fresh sheets, her naked beauty his to enjoy to the full. Totally naked, and by lamplight …

Gazing at her sweet profile, he felt a renewed urgent stir in his loins. It would be too cruel to have to sacrifice this now. Rémy would never have to know.