Barbara Dunlop: Transformed Into The Frenchman’s Mistress

His words caused her thoughts to stumble. He’d been watching her? In a complimentary way, or in a creepy, stalker sort of way?

He moved subtly closer. “You were attractive. You seemed interesting and intelligent, and by the way you were making all those other men laugh, I knew you had a sense of humor.”

“Giving me your room key was supposed to be funny?”

His brown eyes turned to molten chocolate. “Not at all. The ball was ending. I wanted to get to know you better.”

Charlotte couldn’t believe his gall. Aside from being young and naive, she’d been on official business that night, and she’d never dishonor her grandfather nor the ambassador’s office by leaving the party with a strange man, particularly a man with Alec Montcalm’s reputation. He was still one of France’s most notorious bachelors. His dates were lucky to stay out of the tabloids.

“It didn’t occur to you to ask me for coffee?” she asked tartly.

“I’m not a patient man.” He paused, and she checked an impulse to gaze into his dark eyes, or to contemplate that rakish slash of a mouth, or the tilt of his square chin. Which left her his nose-straight, aristocratic, slightly flared, as if he was drinking in her scent.

He continued speaking. “The direct approach is sometimes the most effective.”

“You’re telling me that room-key thing works?” She couldn’t really be surprised. There had to be plenty of women who’d give their eye teeth to hop into Alec Montcalm’s bed. Charlotte simply wasn’t one of them. And she never would be.

His quirk of a smile confirmed her suspicions. But then he seemed to tire of the game. He straightened, his expression turning more businesslike. “In my sister’s absence, is there anything I can do for you, Ms. Hudson?”

Charlotte instantly remembered her mission. She also realized she’d made a colossal error by arguing with him. She forced herself to calm down, to step back from the web of emotions he seemed to evoke, and to focus on the reason she’d come.

“When is Raine expected back?” she tried.

“Tuesday morning. She was called to a photo shoot on Malta for Intérêt. ”

Charlotte knew Intérêt was the Montcalm Corporation’s fashion magazine, and Raine was editor-in-chief. Tuesday morning wasn’t going to do it. Jack needed to know this weekend if he could send the film’s location manager to Château Montcalm. Principal photography was set to start at the end of the summer, and they were already behind schedule.

Charlotte supposed she could fly to Malta and talk to Raine there. But she knew the magazine wouldn’t call out the editor-in-chief unless there was a problem. The last thing she wanted to do was catch Raine at a stressful time. It wouldn’t help her cause, and it wouldn’t be fair to Raine.

That left Alec. She had so hoped to avoid asking him directly. But she wasn’t in a position to be choosy.

She took a bracing breath. “There’s something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Alec’s eyes instantly twinkled, and an anticipatory smile transformed his slash of a mouth.

Charlotte battled a spontaneous sexual reaction. There was a reason women from Milan and Prague accepted his room key on the dance floor. The man was sexy as sin.

“Entrer,” he offered, gesturing with his arm and making a small space between his body and the door for her to enter the foyer.

She hesitated, then took the invitation, brushing past him, a tingle invading her shoulder where it contacted his chest.

“Dinner is casual tonight,” he told her. “La pissaladière. And I’ll bring up a bottle of 1996 Montcalm Maison Inouï from the cellar.”

“It’s not that kind of a discussion,” she warned, turning back to face him. Bringing out the big guns from his family’s winery wasn’t going to make her fall into his bed.

“You’re in Provence,” he countered smoothly, closing the door. “Everything is that kind of a discussion.”

She blinked to adjust her eyes to the interior light. “This is business.”

“I understand.” But his expression didn’t change.

“ Do you?”

“Absolument.”

She didn’t believe him for a second. But she had no choice but to stay for dinner. Jack needed the location. She needed the credibility with the Hudson family. And she wasn’t about to blow this chance.

Alec had been handed a second chance.

Three long years later, the sexy woman he’d admired across the dance floor was in his kitchen, looking sexier than ever. If he’d known Raine’s friend Charlotte and his Ottobrate Ballo Charlotte were one and the same, he’d have made this happen a whole lot sooner. But patience was good. Anticipation was good.

And now, gazing at her crystal-clear blue eyes, her dark lashes, her full lips and porcelain-smooth skin, he was glad he’d waited. Her neck was long and graceful, decorated with a delicate, moon-shaped diamond and gold pendant that telegraphed taste rather than extravagance. The suit’s skirt fit her like a glove, emphasizing the curve of her waist, the flare of her hips and her long, sleek, toned legs that ended in a pair of sexy heels.

On the butcher-block island in the terra-cotta tiled kitchen, he popped the cork on the Maison Inouï. It was his family’s signature label, their finest vintage, bottles he saved for very special occasions.

He reached up to the hanging rack, sliding off a pair of crystal red-wine goblets.

Having initially gazed around with interest, Charlotte was now standing uncertainly at the center of the large room.

He nodded to one of the low-backed bar stools on the opposite side of the island. “Hop up.”

She hesitated for a split second, but then slipped gracefully into the leather-upholstered seat, setting her small clutch bag on the lip of the counter.

“Thank you,” she said primly as he placed one of the glasses of wine in front of her.

Alec remembered that intriguing expression, the shield of formality, covering what he was certain was a fiery rebel, chafing beneath the bounds of propriety. He’d tried to test the theory in Rome, but her grandfather, the watchful ambassador, had stopped him cold.

Back then, he’d shrugged the disappointment off philosophically. Women came; women went. Sometimes it worked out. Sometimes it didn’t.

He lifted his wineglass, swirling the small measure of wine, taking an experimental sip and letting the deep, sweet, woodsy flavor of the wine glide over his tongue.

Sometimes a man got another chance.

The wine was perfect, so he filled their glasses.

Charlotte tasted hers, and her eyes went wide with the experience. “Nice,” she admitted with respect.

“From our vineyard in Bordeaux.”

“I’m impressed.”

He smiled in satisfaction at her reaction.

“Not that impressed,” she drawled.

“That was pride of craftsmanship,” he told her.

“My mistake.” But her sea-foam eyes told him she knew it was lust.

Of course it was. But not a problem. He’d back off and let her relax.

“La pissaladière,” he decreed, retrieving a steel mixing bowl from beneath the countertop. He then assembled flour, yeast, sugar and olive oil.

She watched wordlessly for a few moments. “You can cook?”

“ Oui. Of course.” He sprinkled sugar into the bottom of the bowl, adding the yeast and a measure of water. French children learned to bake almost before they learned to walk.

“You do your own cooking?” she pressed in obvious surprise.

“Sometimes.” He nodded to her wineglass. “Enjoy. Relax. Tell me what you wanted to talk about.”

The invitation seemed to sober her, and she took a slow sip of the wine.