Her knees turned weak.Do this again.Gosh, there was a whole lot of meaning in ‘again’. Now the consequences she’d blithely ignored last night roared back to bite her. What happened next? Should it happen again? Was that a casual ‘again’? Or an I’ll-leave-it-with-you ‘again’? Hattie cursed herself and her stupid brain, which had gone into analytical overdrive. That was the problem when you’d been stuck in one relationship for years, you didn’t know the rules anymore.
Luc placed a finger on her forehead between her eyebrows. ‘You’re frowning. It’s easy.’ God that French accent, it made her toes curl. ‘I’d very much like to take you to bed again. There are lots of things I’d like to do but there is no pressure. I’d like to get to know you some more –’ he grinned, a wicked glint shining in his eyes – ‘all of you, and spend some time with you. Would that be okay?’
She gave him a tremulous smile and nodded. ‘That would be … okay.’ More than okay but she felt perhaps she ought to play it cool. After all, Luc probably did this sort of thing all the time.
Luc whistled as he helped to prune the vines and cut back some of the vigorous canopy. Today he could take on the world even though at this time of year, the job was never-ending. The prospect of a good harvest was very promising as was the rest of the day. He couldn’t wait to see Hattie again even though he’d only left her warm naked body a couple of hours before.
He smiled as he thought of her and her unabashed enjoyment in bed last night. There were no sides to her, her responses were genuine and honest. Describing her as sweet would make her sound insubstantial and sickly when she was anything but. If he had to describe her like a wine, he’d choose a Chablis, light and elegant with a honeyed warmth about her. She was so different from the brittle sophisticates he’d dated in the city and he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
‘Do you have to whistle so loudly?’ complained Alphonse as he came off a call, putting his mobile in his pocket. ‘That bastard Robard is playing games. He’s suggesting they might not have the capacity to press our grapes separately.’
Luc grinned. ‘What if we had our own press?’ Alphonse’s eyes widened comically.
‘Yes, the money from the wedding will pay for our own. I’m going to see a distributor in Paris to buy one.’
‘No one is that happy just about a wine press.’ He narrowed his eyes and studied Luc’s face. ‘Did you sleep with the English girl?’
‘What, Fliss?’ Luc focused on reaching up to a particularly long tendril of vine, hiding a smile.
‘No! Not her,’ said Alphonse in a strangled voice. ‘She’s a harridan.’
‘Oh, you mean Hattie,’ teased Luc.
‘You know exactly who I mean. She’s nice,’ said Alphonse and when Luc turned to him, added with a sly smile, ‘Far too good for you.’
‘I think she might be,’ acknowledged Luc gravely, realising that his friend spoke the truth. But he did wonder about Alphonse’s extreme reaction to Fliss.
‘You like her.’ Alphonse stilled and stared at his friend in disbelief. ‘You really like her.’
There was a short silence before Luc said with a touch of wonderment, ‘I do.’ After a second short pause, following a series of mini explosions between the synapses in his brain, he added slowly because he was still coming to terms with it, ‘I think she might be the one.’
‘Really?’ Alphonse gave him a bug-eyed look of alarm, studying him as if hoping that at any moment Luc might turn round and say, ‘Only joking.’
Except Luc wasn’t going to do that.
‘Yes.’ He sighed, equally disconcerted by the rogue feelings that had not so much crept up on him but leapt on him and pinned him down with a ferociousness of emotion that had blindsided him.
‘Are you sure?’
Luc nodded. ‘Do I sound crazy?’
‘No. Yes. No.’ Alphonse shook his head in bewilderment. ‘But Luc, my friend, you barely know her. She’s only been here for a month.’ He frowned, lines of genuine concern creasing his forehead.
Luc sighed again. Alphonse was his oldest friend. He knew Luc better than anyone except possibly Marthe. ‘That’s what makes it so crazy … but since she arrived I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. When I’m with her … I feel like I do know her.’ He paused but he had to say it. Alphonse was his best friend. They didn’t lie to each other. ‘She’s like coming home.’ Saying it out loud made it sound fanciful and overly sentimental, even more so when Alphonse’s mouth opened in horror.
‘I know.’ Luc held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘It’s mad.’
‘No, I was going to say it sounds very dull. No fireworks? No electrical surges? No tsunamis?’
Luc shook his head, a sudden smile breaking out across his face at the memory of the previous night. ‘I didn’t say that. I promise you she makes my heart beat faster.’
Alphonse’s expression was sceptical. ‘Are you sure it’s not just a rush of blood to –’ he nodded towards Luc’s groin ‘– robbing you of your ability to think straight? Can’t you shag your way out it and come out on the other side to regain your senses.’
Luc pursed his lips, wishing he hadn’t said anything. ‘No, I don’t think I can,’ he said ducking his head into the nearest vine, wielding his pruning shears with sudden enthusiasm.
‘Someone looks like the cat that ate a full pint of cream,’ drawled Fliss when Hattie came into the kitchen that morning.
‘Wouldn’t they drink it?’ Hattie asked, hoping to change the subject with this quick, if pedantic, reply.
