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‘The others are in the dishwasher,’ Belle inforle wo alone, Luc I don’t have either the space or the need to own a full twelve-place dinner service’

‘Surely you entertain sometimes?’

‘Not really I prefer to take business clients out, it’s much easier and ly on her bottoood idea to invite male clients into one’s home…’

‘You’ve had proble badly towards you?’ Luc demanded fiercely

‘Er…it was a long tio, e first divorced and it was probably iving inviting a client home’

‘He frightened you? Hurt you? Who…?’

‘Nothing like that,’ Belle hastened to assure hi episode A , really, that was all’

‘You mean one of your clients tried to…?’

‘I’ve told you, Luc, it was all a long tio, and fortunately he accepted that there’d been aBut after that I made the decision not to invite clients home—not that the way I run my life, either private or professional, is any business of yours’

‘Don’t you ever find it lonely living alone?’ he asked her, co her But before she couldon her lips he further confounded her by ad quietly, ‘I know that I do…’

‘You…you live alone…?’ Belle raised her eyes to his face

‘I’ve lived alone since you left,’ he told her simply

Belle’s appetite had completely deserted her, and oddly Luc didn’t seery either

‘Belle…’

‘Luc…’

‘I’lad to see you kept the bedhead,’ he told her huskily, and then he lifted his hand and reached past her to trace the initials and the date he had carved into it ‘I have to adh, as the one you brought’

‘Nor so expensive,’ Belle said quietly, dropping her gaze frouess that the cost she was referring to was not in terms of the e, the dreadful continuing pay to make in terms of broken dreams and lost love

‘Belle…’

As he withdrew his hand frohtened up, Belle lifted her head

His gaze met hers and held it Her whole body started to tre far too fast

Luc started to lower his head towards hers He was going to kiss her Belle just knew it Her heart was racing so fast that she thought it ht explode Automatically she closed her eyes She could alainst her own, taste the wonderful familiarity of his kiss, breathe in his special scent, feel…

‘I o…’

Abruptly her eyes snapped open Luc wasn’t going to kiss her after all

‘It was very thoughtful of you to call,’ she told hiet in touch with Carol and tell her about Great-Aunt Alice’s mistake’

‘It’s quite a coincidence that your niece and …’

‘Yes…I suppose it is’