Trish Wylie - The Bachelor's Cinderella - The Frenchman's Plain-Jane Project

“I read a lot, camped out in front of the television and gained weight. My reticence, my awkwardness and my height made me stand out at school, and not in a good way, either. So, I kept to myself and I never learned how to interact with people the way most women do. Except for here where Mary protected me.”

“Meg, don’t criticize yourself,” Etienne said, stroking her hair.

She shook her head. “I didn’t tell you this so that you would feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t. You’re unique and I mean that in the best way.”

“It’s just…I’m sorry that I made such a fuss. It’s hard for me to be a public person. It’s what I want to be able to do. It’s why I asked you to help me, and all right, I’m past my little fit. I’ll be better in a few minutes.”

Etienne saw red. He absolutely shouldn’t have done this without telling her. What’s more, he should have known all this about her background. Many people, maybe even most suffered from stage fright, but Meg had been forced to apologize for her appearance and for her very existence to the two people who should have pledged themselves to nurture and love her. And here he had gone and made things difficult for her and she was actually trying to apologize to him!

He gazed down into her eyes, those earnest, lovely eyes. Her lips were parted and he just knew she was going to try to reassure him some more and tell him that she would be fine, that he was not to worry that he had ambushed her.

It was too much. Etienne gave a small tug and pulled her deeper into his arms. He took her mouth with his own and swallowed her soft gasp of surprise.

Her body molded to his and for several seconds she was still as he tasted her, breathed her in and worshipped her lips. She was soft and very sweet and…

Meg shifted against him. She looped her arms around his neck and tilted her head. Her lips slid beneath his own, and flame shot through him.

A small moan escaped her, driving him insane to have more of her. He deepened the kiss, took more of her. He plunged his hands into those soft curls to hold her still.

But she wouldn’t be still. Her body slid over his as she returned his kiss, and the heat climbed higher within him.

He wanted her. All of her. Right here. In this room. Right now. He wanted her for hours. For days. And to hell if anyone returned to the office who would wonder what was going on, who would remember how she had been taken advantage of by a man before…

Etienne groaned and stilled.

Meg froze.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as they disentangled themselves.

“Please don’t say that.”

“I have to.”

“No. Don’t apologize. If you have to be sorry, don’t tell me so.”

And Etienne realized just what she meant. She had almost moved away completely, but he gently tried to pull her back.

Meg resisted.

“If you think I meant that I was sorry for wanting you, then you’re very wrong.” Even though he was sorry for that. Wanting her complicated things when he wasn’t going to stay.

“It’s all right.”

“No. It isn’t. I’m not Alan, Meg.”

How did the Americans say it? Bingo. Her eyes came to rest on him, and he saw the truth.

“When you and I touch, there’s nothing pretend about it for me,” he told her. “I desire you, very much. If I’m sorry, it’s not because the kiss was a lie but because it wasn’t. You and I…touching or…doing more…I can’t stay, Meg. I won’t lie to you about that. That’s why I’m sorry. I shouldn’t start something I can’t follow through on.”

She smiled then. Actually smiled when his body was screaming with the need to pull her to him. And then a sad little look came on her face. “All that moving around you do…I…It’s none of my business, I have no right to even ask why, but…”

“Her name was Louisa,” he said. “I’d known her forever. She was shy but not with me. Our families knew each other and from the day Louisa and I were born, our parents joked about how Louisa and I would marry. Only when my father died, it wasn’t a joke anymore. I was the only remaining Gavard male, and my mother pinned all her hopes on me. I inherited the Gavard estate and all the responsibilities and commitments and history that that entailed. I was expected to do the right thing, marry the right woman, have the right child. So, I did all those things. Or I attempted to.

“I hated it, but it was my duty and my mother grew hysterical at the thought that I might fail the family name. So, I married Louisa and found out that she loved me. And also found out that I could break her heart because I was gone all the time on business. Fragile and afraid of my mother’s intimidating ways, she stayed alone or in the Paris penthouse, and she was bitterly unhappy when I was gone.”

Meg bit her lip. Her eyes were dark with concern. “Etienne, I shouldn’t have pried. You don’t have to tell me this.”

“Maybe I need for you to know. I came here to save Fieldman’s, but I don’t ever want you to think that I’m better than I am. Do you understand?”

Slowly she nodded. “You want me to think that you’re worse than you are.”

If the next part wasn’t so awful, he might have smiled. Instead he shook his head. “I used Louisa to achieve my goals. Marry a woman of good family? Check. I did that. Beget an heir?”

He paused. “She didn’t even want children at first, but she felt that if she had the Gavard heir, I would stay home. And I wanted her to have it. But even when she was pregnant, even once she had explained why she agreed to get pregnant, I didn’t slow down my business trips. I wasn’t even there when the stress of pregnancy and an undetected congenital heart defect precipitated a heart attack that took her life and the life of our son.” Anger at his inability to go back and change things, to take back all his mistakes, left him suddenly speechless.

Meg touched his hand. “How could you have known?” she said softly. “I know you would have prevented their deaths if there was any way you could have, Etienne.”

But he couldn’t respond. No matter the situation, no matter how much he wished he could reverse time and change the results of that day, he couldn’t. He had failed Louisa long before the day of her death. He had broken her heart. And when, after Louisa’s death, he’d told his mother that he was abdicating his place as the head of the family, dropping control of the family firm except for this small part he had started himself, and that he would not even consider ever starting another family, he’d broken her heart and failed her, too. Because after that, no matter how many times he apologized for his careless, thoughtless words, she felt responsible for pushing him into grief and she died feeling that way.

The truth was that he was hell on women. He disappointed and hurt them without trying. But, he promised himself, not this time. Please not this time.

He looked at Meg. She looked so sad, so chagrined. “I opened up old wounds by being nosy and speaking out of turn the way I always do. I—I’m so sorry I intruded.”

Etienne shook his head. “No. It needed to be out in the open so that you understand completely, Meg. I’ve had reason in my life to regret how I’ve handled my associations with women, but that’s not going to happen this time. I won’t give you false promises of any kind,” he told her, “but I won’t disappoint you by failing to help you, either. Beyond business I have no right to get involved with anyone and you have the right to know that. Because when I go, I’m going to miss you. But I’m still going to have to go. I never stay. I can’t.”

She didn’t blink, didn’t flinch. Finally she took a step closer rather than a step farther away. “Then, if the clock is ticking, I’d better start learning how to be a totally independent woman and head of this company quickly, hadn’t I? I’d better learn all the lessons you’re willing to help me with, Etienne. I don’t want you to have regrets. Instead I want to be a testament to your training, a worthy protégée. I’m going to do it. With your help, I’m going to go meet those newspaper people right now and be all that you intend for me to be.”