By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ by strolling out to the kerb and summoning one with a piercing whistle. Normally that would have delighted an Aussie girl from Paddo. Not today.

      Shivering, she climbed into the taxi like a serving wench into a tumbril. Neil and Emilie had provided her with all the details she needed. Rémy, her former lover, fiancé and abuser, was to be buried at Père Lachaise.

      With her feet pressing an imaginary brake through the floor, Shari was carried inexorably through the cemetery gates. The car followed a winding street through a city of stone. At the very end loomed a domed chapel.

      Her heart lurched. Gathered in front was a small congregation of mourners, all garbed in black. But superimposed on her vision of all of them was Luc. He was standing a little apart from the others looking grim and inaccessible. Her stomach clenched itself nastily.

      It was the crunch of her tyres on gravel that dragged Luc from his reverie.

      He turned and narrowed his gaze against the grey glare, attempting to make out the taxi’s occupant. The graceful curve of cheek and neck he glimpsed beneath the hat brim looked youthful and extremely feminine. Surely …

      No, it couldn’t be Manon. She wouldn’t have the gall to come here, flaunting her condition.

      Shari got out, not sure she could trust her legs to support her. As the taxi drove away she stood on the stone apron before the chapel, an alien in a foreign land. All eyes turned to stare at her.

      Shari felt the instant Luc recognised her. A tremor jolted through his tall frame that communicated itself to her at a deeply visceral level. For whole seconds he stared at her, the curious intensity blazing in his dark eyes paralysing her where she stood.

      He started towards her.

      Shari’s heart accelerated, far too fast. It was the first time she’d seen him in daylight. How could she have forgotten how—how he was? He looked powerful and autocratic, the expression of his strong, lean face grave and intent. As he neared she tried not to focus on the stirring lines of his mouth. Oh, Lord. This was hardly the time to be reminded of how it felt to be kissed by that mouth, but as he approached her insides roared into a mad, uncontrollable rush.

      ‘Shari.’ He searched her face, then bent formally to kiss each of her cheeks.

      She’d mentally prepared herself for this. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t allow him to touch her, kiss her, even brush her cheek with his roughened jaw, let alone touch her with his gorgeous lips. But when it came to the crunch …

      ‘Bonjour,’ she breathed, barely able to stand on her marsh-mallow knees. She felt the backs of her eyes prick and was possessed by a despicable longing to cling to his lapels.

      Though gentle, his dark velvet voice seared her nerves like a bow drawn across the strings of a cello. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

      ‘Oh. Oh, yes. Thanks. I know. It’s dreadful, isn’t it? Same—same to you, of course.’

      Amber glowed in the depths of his dark eyes as they searched hers. With chagrin she supposed he was looking for traces of the bruise.

      ‘You must be desolated,’ he said.

      Was he serious? Was this more mockery?

      He continued. ‘I did not expect … When did you arrive? Why did you not say? Who are you with? Where are you sleeping?’

      Beneath her silken finery her breasts all at once felt indescribably tender. Some of the insulting assumptions he’d made during their previous encounter flooded back with raw immediacy, and she found herself breathing rather fast.

      ‘Perhaps you mean with whom.’

      His eyes glinted. ‘Comment?’ He tilted up one thick black brow. ‘Vraiment, it’s coming back to me. How you are.’

      How she was, though, seemed to wholly concentrate his attention, because he devoured her from head to toe, raking her ensemble with a wolflike, smouldering curiosity that eliminated the rest of the world from her awareness. At the same time, the smoothness of his deep voice was having its old hypnotic effect. She might have been walking with him through the shrubbery on a summer’s night.

      ‘You are very pale. Your lips are pale.’ He examined them with an intense interest. ‘And you are thinner.’ His gaze swept over her, lingering a second longer than was necessary below her throat. ‘Though not too thin, fortunately.’

      Scandalously, her overly sensitive breasts swelled to push the boundaries even of this new bra, and she began to feel almost aroused.

      Inappropriate. Thoroughly inappropriate.

      All these conflicting sensations were making her giddy, but somehow she stayed upright and said things. Some things, at least.

      As if in a dream she inclined her head. ‘I’m sure you mean that as a compliment, though I have no idea what you expected. It’s only been a couple of weeks.’

      She realised she’d made a gross tactical blunder when the ghost of a smile touched his mouth and she caught a glimpse of his white, even teeth. ‘Five weeks and three days, to be exact.’

      ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said crushingly. ‘I haven’t been counting.’

      She had the disconcerting feeling that the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth signalled satisfaction. But what did he have to be satisfied about? Why did he think she’d come here? For him?

      He gestured then to the fascinated onlookers, in particular to a couple of elderly women who were circling to view her narrowly.

      ‘Maman, Tante Marise, c’est Shari,’ he said. ‘La fiancée de Rémy.’

      ‘Ex-fiancée,’ Shari corrected hurriedly, but her words were lost in the babble as family members closed in around her and subjected her to a gamut of curiosity. Only thing was, their questions, arguments and observations were all for each other, not for her.

      Not that she’d have understood them anyway. Their French was so rapid and idiomatic she could scarcely pick up a word.

      Except for the term fiancée. That was being bandied about quite furiously.

      The next thing she knew someone patted her, though stiffly. Then someone else murmured something to her about Rémy and gave her a kindly nod. More people spoke to her, some with increasing warmth until everyone, including a hearty uncle with a face not unlike a truffle, seemed to be hugging her, kissing her and calling her ma pauvre and ma puce.

       CHAPTER SIX

      SHARI had visualised herself sitting in the rear of the chapel, alone, concealed perhaps by a marble pillar, a remote, mysterious, but essentially inconspicuous ghost. That wasn’t how it went.

      For one thing the ghost space was heavily occupied. Once inside that chapel, the passing of a life cut short was uppermost, whether or not Luc Valentin was present, overwhelmingly attractive and closely scrutinising her every move. As for being inconspicuous, the aunts СКАЧАТЬ