Invitation to Provence(62)
“You’ll always love and remember Amanda and the baby you never got to see. You must. You have to face up to the fact that life goes on.”
She lay back against the cushions and opened her arms and took him to her. His body trembled over hers. “Franny,” he said, and there was that tremor of desire in his voice, “I want to make love to you.”
Her long, narrow eyes widened as they met his. “I know,” she said as he stopped her mouth with kisses, and at last, naked as those earlier lovers in the gazebo, they made love.
48
LYING IN BED, Rafaella thought the old gazebo was a fine place for making love on a soft late-summer night. She remembered the first time Lucas kissed her on the red Japanese bridge, how her knees had turned to jelly and nothing else in the world had mattered.
It was strange how destiny worked, she thought. If she had not been overcome by loneliness that afternoon in the silent chateau with its sad, shuttered rooms with the furniture covered in dust sheets, she would never have dreamed up the family reunion, never have got in touch with Jake. Then he would not have met Franny and their lives would have taken a different path. She thought how wonderful fate could be sometimes, when it played into your hands.
And she also thought of how, if she had not been in Cap d’Antibes on that beautiful summer evening, more years ago than she cared to remember, she would never have met Lucas Bronson, and her own life would have been different, too.
She was forty-one years old and alone that day at the H?tel du Cap when she noticed the handsome man by the deserted pool overlooking the Mediterranean. It was a warm summer evening when all the world seemed to have been tinted blue; a blue haze hung over the indigo sea and the sun had hidden itself behind a blue-black cloud. Perhaps she should have recognized that dark cloud as an omen, but of course she didn’t. She just heard the thump of her own heart as she sat watching him.
He was the most graceful man she’d ever seen, long-limbed with a tight, hard body. His skin was tanned a light gold and his too-long black hair was still wet from his swim and tucked back behind his ears. Tiny rivulets of sweat trickled into his dark springy chest hair and of course she noticed—what woman wouldn’t—he was wearing one of those skimpy bathing suits that left little to the imagination.
She had been married for half her life to an older man who didn’t give a damn about her. Other men had flitted in and out of her life, nothing serious, just a fling here and there, but now her heart gave an unfamiliar leap. Behind her in the bar, a man was playing the white baby grand and singing a soft love song, “A kiss is just a kiss” … and she knew she would remember that tune, “As Time Goes By,” and that soft, husky voice for the rest of her life.
The man turned and gave her a long, lazy look over the top of the chaise. She smoothed her red skirt guiltily and sat up straighter, giving him a haughty glare that said she certainly had not been staring at him.
“I knew somebody had their eye on me,” he said.
“You were right,” she admitted, blushing, “I did,” and they both laughed.
He came over to her table. “I’m Lucas Bronson,” he said, “and I’m happy to meet you. Did you know your eyes match the blue of the day?”
She thanked him for his compliment, feeling strangely lightheaded, as though somehow she knew fate had come calling on her. His hand was firm as he took hers and still cool from his swim, and he did not let go. He just looked at her for a long moment, taking her in. He was so close she could smell the salty sea on his skin.
Finally he said, “I like you Rafaella Marten, and I like your wine. It is yours, isn’t it, the Domaine Marten?” She nodded and he said, “I’ve heard all about you, someone told me you would be here and that we should meet each other.”
He let go of her hand and returned to his chair, picked up his towel, and slung it around his neck. “I’ll see you again,” he said, looking at her the way no man had ever looked at her before, a deep, dark look full of sensual promise that turned her to jelly. Then he sauntered off down the path to the hotel, leaving her feeling as though Zeus himself had descended from the heavens.
“You must remember this …” The piano player was still singing. “As Time Goes By.”
After that, she’d hung around the bar every day for a week, expecting to see him, to hear from him—a call asking her to lunch in Antibes, to dinner in Cannes, to a rendezvous on the moon… . She would have taken anything. But she got nothing.
Devastated, she went back home to the chateau, telling herself she was ridiculous to feel let down by a man she’d met only once and with whom she’d exchanged only a few words. But she knew those words hadn’t expressed what was going on between their linked eyes. What she didn’t know was that this was Lucas’s usual modus operandi with women. Of course she’d heard he was a famous polo player, but now she discovered he was also famous for his love affairs, usually with rich society women.
It didn’t matter. She was sick to have him, so she wrote inviting him to the chateau for a weekend house party along with a half dozen other guests. Then she moped around nervously, waiting for his reply. Two days later he telephoned.
“How are you, beautiful Rafaella in the red skirt?” he said, completely ignoring the fact that if she hadn’t sent him the invitation he might never have called her. She reminded herself that she was forty-one years old, certainly old enough to know what she was doing—and certainly old enough to know better. Lucas was dangerous, but that didn’t stop her. He said he would be happy to spend the weekend with her … “alone” his voice implied, and so of course she immediately canceled all the other guests. “Wear the red skirt for me,” he said as he rang off.