Fiona McArthur - Escape For Mother's Day - The French Tycoon's Pregnant Mistress

Alana just nodded faintly, sorry she’d brought it up now.

But then he answered, ‘It was my grandfather.’

‘Your grandfather?’ She avoided looking down at her notes, but she knew there had been no mention of a grandfather.

He nodded. ‘I was sent to the south of France to live with him when I was in my teens.’ He shrugged minutely, his eyes still unreadable. ‘A teenage boy and the suburbs of Paris isn’t a good mix.’

Something in his eyes, his face, made her want to say, ‘it’s OK; you don’t have to answer’, and that shocked her, as she never normally shied away from asking tough questions. And she didn’t know why this question was generating so many undercurrents. But he continued talking as if the tension between them didn’t exist.

‘He was hugely involved in league rugby, which is a more parochial version of the game. Very linked to history in France. He instilled in me a love for the game and all its variations.’

Alana had no doubt that she’d touched on something very personal there, and the look in his eyes told her she’d be playing with fire if she continued. All of a sudden, she wanted to play with fire.

‘You never considered playing yourself?’

His eyes were positively coal-black and flinty now. He shook his head slightly. ‘I discovered that I had a knack for using my head and making money. I prefer to leave rolling around in the dirt to the professionals.’

Alana coloured. Was he making some reference to the fact that she was playing dirty, straying into the no-go area of questions into his past? She looked down for a moment to gather herself, and realised that she’d asked all the scripted questions. And then some. She opened her mouth to start thanking him and signing off, when he surprised her by leaning forward.

‘Now I have a question for you.’

‘You do?’ she squeaked. His eyes had changed from black and flinty to brown and … decidedly unflinty.

‘Will you have dinner with me tonight?’

Shock and cold, clammy fear slammed into Alana. And then anger that he was asking her in front of an entire crew. The camera was still rolling. She could feel tension snake through the small studio. She tried to laugh it off, but knew she sounded constricted. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Lévêque, that my boss doesn’t approve of us mixing business with pleasure.’

Rory darted forward, while motioning for the crew to start wrapping up. ‘Don’t be silly, Alana, this is an entirely unique situation, and I’m sure you’d be only too delighted to show Mr Lévêque gratitude for taking time out of his busy schedule to do this interview.’

Pascal sat back, fully at ease. ‘This is my last evening in Dublin. I thought it would be nice to see something of the city. I’d like your company, Alana, but if you insist on saying no, then of course I will understand.’

He stood up and looked down at Rory, straightening his cuffs. ‘Can you have the tape of the interview sent over to my hotel? I’m sure it’s fine, but I might take the opportunity to approve it fully if I’ve got some time on my hands.’

In other words, surmised Alana from the tortured look on Rory’s pale face at the possibility of losing their biggest scoop to date, Pascal could turn right round and deny them the right to broadcast it. She stood up then, too, and spoke quickly before she could change her mind.

‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Lévêque. I’d love to have dinner with you. It would be a pleasure.’

‘I DON’T appreciate being manipulated into situations, Mr Lévêque.’

Pascal looked at Alana’s tight-lipped profile from across the other side of the car, and had to subdue the urge to show her exactly how much she might appreciate being manipulated. He knew she felt the simmering tension between them too. At one point during the interview earlier, when she’d had the temerity to dig so deep—too deep—their eyes had stayed locked together for long seconds and he’d read the latent desire in those green depths even if she tried to deny it.

‘I prefer to think of it as a gentle nudging.’

She cast a quick look at him and made some kind of inarticulate sound. ‘There was nothing gentle about it. Your unspoken threat was very clear, Mr Lévêque—the possibility that you could deny us the right to the interview.’

‘Which is something I could still very well do,’ he pointed out. As if on cue, Alana turned more fully in her seat. Her eyes spat sparks at him, and he felt a rush of adrenaline through his system. He was so tired of everyone kowtowing to him. But not so this green-eyed witch.

‘Is this how you normally conduct your business?’ she hissed, mindful of the driver in the front.

He moved closer in an instant, and Alana backed away with a jerk. She could smell his unique scent; already it was becoming familiar to her. One arm ran along the back of the seat, his hand resting far too close to her head, his whole body angled towards her, blocking out any sense of light or the dusky sky outside, creating an intimate cocoon.

‘There’s nothing businesslike about how you make me feel. And let’s just say that I don’t normally have to use threats to get a woman to come for dinner with me.’

Alana was reacting to a million things at once, not least of which was her own sense of fatal inevitability. ‘No, I saw your track record; it doesn’t appear as if you do.’

‘Tell me, Alana, why are you so reluctant to go out with me?’

And why are you so determined? she wanted to shout. Her hands twisted in her lap, and Pascal caught the movement. Before she could stop him, he had reached down and taken her hands in his, uncurling them, lacing his fingers through with hers. Alana could feel a bizarre mix of soporific delight and a zing of desire so strong that she shook.

‘I … don’t even like you.’

‘You don’t know me enough to know if you like me or not. And what’s flowing between us right now is nothing to do with like. ’

It’s lust. He didn’t have to say it.

‘I …’

His hands tightened. She could feel his fingers, long and capable, strong, wrapped around hers. She looked down, feeling dazed. She could see her own much paler, smaller hands in a tangle of dark bronze. The image made her think of other parts of her body—limbs enmeshed with his in a tangle of bedlinen. With super-human effort, she pulled her hands free and tucked them well out of his way. She looked at him, and she knew she must look haunted. She felt hunted. Ryan had never reduced her to this carnal level of feeling, and the wound he’d left in her life was still raw. Too raw.

Pascal was close, still crowding her, his eyes roving over her face, but something had changed in the air. He wasn’t as intense. He reached out a hand and tucked some hair behind her ear.

‘I like your hair down.’

‘Look, Pascal …’

He felt something exultant move through him at her unconscious use of his name, and not the awful, prim ‘Mr Lévêque’. He dropped his hand. ‘Alana, it’s just dinner. We’ll eat, talk and I’ll drop you home.’

At that moment she could feel the car slowing down. They were pulling up outside a world-class restaurant on St Stephen’s Green. She seized on his words, his placating tone. She told herself she’d get a taxi home, and then she’d never have to see him again.

She looked at him and nodded jerkily. ‘OK.’

Alana was burningly aware of the interest she and Pascal had generated as they followed the maître d’ to the table. While the establishment was much too exclusive for the clientele to seriously rubberneck, nevertheless their interest was undeniably piqued.

It was another strike against the man who sat opposite her now, broad and so handsome, that despite her antipathy she couldn’t help that hot flutter of response.