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‘It’s too late now. I signed the paperwork first thing this morning. And I mean first thing. He got me out of bed,’ he grumbled. ‘Anyway, there’s no point in getting out of shape with me—just talk to him. He should be there by now.’
‘Who—?’ she began, but even without the tell-tale clink of ice against glass she could tell her father was no longer listening.
She heard the click of his lighter, then the slow expulsion of smoke. ‘Apparently that’s why it all had to be done so early. He wanted to get up to Epernay...take a look around headquarters.’
Margot gazed dazedly across the honey-coloured parquet floor. No wonder her staff were looking so confused. Clearly the newest Duvernay shareholder was already on site. But who was he—and what had he told them?
Her pulse stuttered in time with her footsteps. There were already enough rumours circulating around the company as it was—and what would the bank think if they heard that Emile had suddenly decided to sell his shares?
Silently she cursed herself for not picking up her messages—and her father for being so utterly, irredeemably selfish.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Emile was saying briskly.
Now that the worst was over he was clearly itching to be gone.
‘You’re so rational and practical, poussin.’
She could almost see him shuddering even at the concept of such qualities.
‘Just talk to him. Maybe you can persuade him to sell them back to you.’
He was desperate to be off. If Margot had been the sort to scream or hurl abuse she would have unleashed the tide of invective churning in her throat. But she wasn’t. A lifetime of watching the soap opera that had been her parents’ marriage had cured her of any desire for a scene. For a moment, though, she considered telling Emile in the most irrational, impractical terms exactly what she thought of him.
Only, really, what was the point? Her father’s ‘me first’ morality was precisely why he’d kept the shares in the first place.
‘Although somehow I doubt it...’
Her father exhaled again, and she pictured him stubbing out his cigarette with the same careless force with which he had upended her dreams of taking back control of Duvernay.
‘He seemed absolutely set on having them. But, truthfully, I think I might have done you a favour. I mean, he is the man of the moment, right?’
The man of the moment.
Margot blinked. Her brain was whirling, her thoughts flying in a hundred directions. She had read that headline. Not the article, for that would have been too painful. But, walking through the centre of Paris last month, she had found it impossible to tear her gaze away from the newsstands. Or more particularly the head-and-shoulders shot that had accompanied the article, and those eyes—one blue, one green—staring down the Champs-Еlysеes as if he owned it.
‘Man of the moment?’
Her voice sounded blurred, shapeless—like a candle flame that had burnt the whole wick and was floundering in wax.
‘Yeah—Max Montigny. They say he can turn water into wine, so I guess he’ll give those stuffy vignerons a run for their money—Yeah, I’ll be right there.’
Margot tried to speak, but her breath was thick and tangled in her throat. ‘Papa—’ she began, but it was too late. He was talking over her.
‘Look, call me later—well, maybe not later, but whenever. I love you, but I have to go—’
The phone went dead.
But not as dead as she felt.
Max Montigny.
It had been almost ten years since she’d last seen him. Ten years of trying to pretend their relationship, his lies, her heartbreak, that none of it had happened. And she’d done a pretty good job, she thought dully.
Of course it had helped that only Yves had ever known the full story. To everyone else Max had been at first a trusted employee, and later a favoured friend of the family.
To her, though, he had been a fantasy made flesh. With smooth dark hair, a profile so pure it looked as though it had been cut with a knife, and a lean, muscular body that hummed with energy, he had been like a dark star that seemed to tug at all her five senses whenever she was within his orbit.
Only as far as he was concerned Margot had been invisible. No, maybe not invisible. He had noticed her, but only in the same jokey way that her own brother had—smiling at her off-handedly as he joined the family for dinner, or casually offering to drive her into town when it was raining.
And then one day, instead of looking through her, he had stared at her so intently she had forgotten to breathe, forgotten to look away.
Remembering that moment, the impossibility of not holding his gaze, her cheeks felt suddenly as though they were on fire.
She had been captivated by him, enthralled and enchanted. She would have followed him blindly into darkness, and in a way she had—for she had gone into his arms and to his bed, given herself to him willingly, eagerly.
From then on he had been everything to her. Her man of the moment. Her man for ever.
Until the day he’d broken her heart and walked out of her life without so much as a flicker of remorse in those haunting eyes.
Afterwards, the pain had been unbearable. Feigning illness, she’d stayed in bed for days, curled up small and still beneath her duvet, chest aching with anguish, throat tight with tears she hadn’t allowed herself to weep for fear that her grandfather would notice.
But now was not the time for tears either and, swallowing the hard shard of misery in her throat, Margot greeted her PA with what she hoped was a reasonable approximation of her usual composure.
‘Good morning, Simone.’
‘Good morning, madame.’ Simone hesitated. Colour was creeping over her cheekbones and she seemed flustered. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming in today. But he—Mr Montigny, I mean—he said you were expecting him.’
Smiling, Margot nodded. So it was true. Just for a moment she had hoped—wanted to believe that she had somehow misunderstood Emile. But this was confirmation. Max was here.
‘I hope that’s okay...?’
Her PA’s voice trailed off and Margot felt her own cheekbones start to ache with the effort of smiling. Poor Simone! Her normally poised PA looked flushed and jumpy. But then no doubt she’d been a recent recipient of the famous but sadly superficial Montigny charm.
‘Yes, it’s fine, Simone. And it’s my fault—I should have called ahead. Is he in my office?’
She felt a stab of anger. Max had only been back in her life for a matter of minutes and already she was lying for him.
Simone shook her head, her confusion giving way to obvious relief. ‘No, he said that he would like to see the boardroom. I didn’t think it would be a problem...’
Margot kept smiling but she felt a sudden savage urge to cry, to rage against the injustice and cruelty of it all. If only she could be like any other normal young woman, like Gisele and her friends, drinking cocktails and flirting with waiters.
But crying and raging was not the Duvernay way—or at least, not in public—and instead she merely nodded again. ‘It’s not. In fact, I’ll go and give him the full guided tour myself.’
Straight out the door and out of my life, she thought savagely.
Turning, she walked towards the boardroom, her eyes fixed on the polished brass door handle. If only she could just keep on walking. Only what would be the point? Max Montigny wasn’t here by chance. Nor was he just going to give up and disappear. Like it or not, the only way she was going to turn him back into being nothing more than a painful memory was by confronting him.
And, lifting her chin, she turned the door handle and stepped into the boardroom.
She saw him immediately, and although she had expected to feel something, nothing could have prepared her for the rush of despair and regret that swept over her.
It was nearly ten years since he had walked out of her life. Ten years was a long time, and everyone said that time was a great healer. But if that was true why, then, was her body trembling? And why did her heart feel like a lead weight?
Surely he shouldn’t matter to her any more? But, seeing him again, she felt the same reaction she had that first time, aged just nineteen. That he couldn’t be real. That no actual living man could be so unutterably beautiful. It wasn’t possible or fair.
He was facing away from her, slumped in one of the leather armchairs that were arranged around the long oval table, his long legs sprawled negligently in front of him, seemingly admiring the view from the window.
Her heart was racing, but her legs and arms seemed to have stopped working. Gazing at the back of his head, at the smooth dark hair that she had so loved to caress, she thought she might throw up.
How could this be happening? she thought dully. But that was the wrong question. What she needed to ask—and answer—was how could she stop it happening? How could she get him out of her boardroom and out of her life?
Letting out a breath, she closed the door and watched, mesmerised, as slowly he swung round in the chair to face her. She stared at him in silence. This was the man who had not only broken her heart, but shattered her pride and her romantic ideals. Once she had loved him. And afterwards she had hated him.
Only clearly her feelings weren’t that simple—or maybe she had just forgotten how effortlessly Max could throw her off balance. For although heat was rising up inside her, she knew that it wasn’t the arid heat of loathing but something that felt a lot like desire.
Her mouth was suddenly dry, and her heart was beating so fast and so loud that it sounded like a drumroll—as though Max was the winner in some game show. She breathed in sharply. But what was his prize?
Gazing into his eyes—those incredible heterochromatic eyes—she saw herself reflected in the blue and green, no longer nineteen, but still dazzled and dazed.
All those years ago he had been model-handsome, turning heads as easily as he now turned grapes into wine and wine into profit. His straight, patrician jaw and high cheekbones had hinted at a breathtaking adult beauty to come, and that promise had been more than met. A shiver ran through her body. Met, and enhanced by a dark grey suit that seemed purposely designed to draw her gaze to the spectacular body that she knew lay beneath.
Her breath caught in her chest and, petrified that the expression on her face might reveal her thoughts, she pushed aside the unsettling image of a naked Max and forced herself to meet his gaze.
He smiled, and the line of his mouth arrowed through her skin.
‘Margot...it’s been a long time.’
As he spoke she felt a tingling shock. His voice hadn’t changed, and that wasn’t fair, for—like his eyes—it was utterly distinctive, and made even the dullest of words sound like spring water. It was just so soft, sexy...
And utterly untrustworthy, she reminded herself irritably. Having been on the receiving end of it, she knew from first-hand experience that the softness was like spun sugar—a clever trick designed to seduce, and to gift-wrap the parcel of lies that came out of his mouth.
‘Not long enough,’ she said coolly.
Ignoring the heat snaking over her skin, she stalked to the opposite end of the room and dropped her bag on the table. ‘Why don’t you give it another decade—or two, even?’
He seemed unmoved by her rudeness—or maybe, judging by the slight up-curve to his mouth, a little amused. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that. Given the change in our relationship—’
‘We don’t have a relationship,’ she snapped.
They never had. It was one of the facts that she’d forced herself to accept over the years—that, no matter how physically close they’d been, Max was a cipher to her. In love, and blindsided by how beautiful, how alive he’d made her feel in bed, she hadn’t noticed that there had been none of the prerequisites for a happy, healthy relationship—honesty, openness, trust...
The truth was that she’d never really known him at all. He, though, had clearly found her embarrassingly easy to read. Unsurprisingly! She’d been that most clichеd of adolescents: a clueless teenager infatuated with her brother’s best friend. And, of course, her family was not just famous but infamous.
Even now, the thought of her being so transparently smitten made her cringe.
‘We don’t have a relationship,’ she repeated. ‘And a signature on a piece of paper isn’t about to change that.’
His gaze held hers, and a mocking smile tugged at his mouth as he rotated the chair back and forth.
‘Really?’ He spoke mildly, as though they were discussing the possibility of rain. ‘Why don’t we call my lawyer? Or yours? See if they agree with that statement.’
Her head snapped up. It was a bonus that Max hadn’t spoken to Pierre yet, but the very fact that he was hinting at the possibility of doing so made her throat tighten.
‘That won’t be necessary. This matter is between you and me.’
‘But I thought you said we didn’t have any relationship?’
She glared at him, hearing and hating the goading note in his voice.
‘We don’t. And we won’t. I meant that this matter is private, and I intend to keep it that way.’
Max stared coldly across the table. Did she really think that he was going to let that happen? That she was in control of this situation.
Nearly a decade ago he had been, if not happy, then willing to keep their relationship under wraps. She had told him she needed time. That she needed to find the right moment to tell her family the truth. And he had let her beauty and her desirability blind him to the real truth—that he was a secret she would never be willing to share.
But he wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.
‘Are you sure about that? I mean, you know what they say about good intentions, Margot,’ he said softly. ‘Do you really want to head down that particular road?’
There was a taut, quivering silence, and Margot felt her face drain of colour, felt her body, her heart, shrinking away from his threat.
There’s no need! she wanted to shout into his handsome face. You’ve already cast me out of heaven and into a hell of your making.
But she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of knowing how raw her wounds still were and how much he had mattered to her.
She returned his gaze coldly. ‘Are you threatening me?’
Watching the flush of colour spread over her collarbone, Max tilted his head backwards, savouring her fury. He had never seen her angry before—in fact he’d never seen her express any strong emotion.
At least not outside the bedroom.
His pulse twitched and a memory stole into his head of that first time in his room—how the directness of her gaze had held him captive as she had pressed her body against his, her fingers cutting into his back, her breath warm against his mouth.
Margot might have been serious and serene on the surface, but the first time he had kissed her properly had been a revelation. She’d been so passionate and unfettered. In fact, it had been not so much a revelation as a revolution—all heat and hunger and urgency.
Suddenly he was vibrating with a hunger of his own, and he felt heat break out on his skin. Slowly, he slid his hands over the armrests of the chair to stop himself from reaching out and pulling her against him. The muscles in his jaw tensed and he gritted his teeth.
‘Only the weak and the incompetent resort to threats. I’m merely making conversation.’ He looked straight into her flushed face. ‘You remember conversation, don’t you, Margot? It’s the thing you used to interrupt by dragging me to bed.’
Margot stared at him, her body pulsing with equal parts longing and loathing. If only she could throw his words back in his face. But it was true. Her desire for him had been frantic and inexorable.
She lifted her chin. So what if it had? Enjoying sex wasn’t a crime. And it certainly wasn’t sneaky or dishonest—like, say, deliberately setting out to seduce someone for their money.
Eyes narrowing, she yanked out one of the chairs with uncharacteristic roughness and sat down on it. Pulling her bag closer, she reached inside.
Max watched in silence as she pulled out a fountain pen and a leather-bound case. Ignoring him, she flipped it open and began writing with swift, sure strokes. Then, laying the pen down, she tore the paper she’d been writing on free and pushed it across the table towards him.
It was a cheque.
