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‘Oh, are you allowed to pick the fruit?’ said Veronica, thinking of the laden branches of the greengage tree beside the cottage

Zoe’s sun-creased face split in a rapturous sardens while I was here and take what little I wanted to use for ht Mas de Bonnard a fewit over to ant lad that he is—not that I’ve agreed to accept it, yet…’

‘Liar’ The extravagant boy grinned, getting lazily to his feet ‘You’ve already got Miles doing renovations and Melanie planning to set a book here You’re going to love being able to coo as you please—you can spend the whole of the New Zealand winter here, if you like—and I’ll bet there’ll never be any shortage of family and friends to keep you company’

Veronica had thought he was only standing up to be polite, or to stretch his long limbs, but instead he started to turn when she did

‘I’ll walk doith you I need to get so from my car,’ he said casually as she opened her mouth to reject the need for an escort

‘Could you go round by way of the pool?’ said Melanie ‘I meant to show Veronica where it was No, not you, Sophie, I want you to help Ashley get the table set and the vegetables ready for dinner, and no face-pulling either of you, you knohat the deal is—while I’s out of the oven, or chop safely’

Veronica barely glanced at the inviting blue waters of the big, rectangular swie and along the winding path through the shrubbery, past a huge vegetable garden next to a big, stone cistern of water and back onto a recognisable part of the driveway, her nervousness heightened by Luc’s brief directions fra silence

She was surprised and relieved when he turned out to have been telling the truth and peeled off towards his parked car, leaving Veronica to quicken her pace and hurry off to the cottage, entering it with a thued a bullet

She went into the deep recess of the bathroo the dewy sheen of droplets to evaporate on her skin Outside the sun was still shining as it dropped lower in the cloudless sky, radiating heat to the baked earth, but the drawn shutters ly di her hands through her thick hair to lif

t it away froainst the fra door she had left open to the faint breeze

She gasped as she saw the shimmer of his white clothes and his brown ar in across the threshold

‘Why so shocked? Surely you were expectingto let you off that easily?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘YOU can’t cohtened up to step inside

Lucien rested the hilt of his shoulder against the door, thrusting one hand into his trouser pocket, studying the wo time to confuse and confound hiave her an erroneous air of innocent playfulness, which his jaded senses had found irresistibly appealing In fact, she had slipped under his well-protected guard with unsettling ease considering that he had already been on high alert after his nasty brush with notoriety in London But although that situation had blown up in his face and given hiurative bloody nose, it hadn’t shocked him to his cynical core—unlike his passionate run-in with the not-so-innocent seductress poised front of him, her body a symphony of curves beneath her summery-thin clothes