Invitation to Provence(64)



Lucas exclaimed with delight when he saw the red lacquer bridge, and she told him the story of how her greatgrandfather had been in love with a geisha. She explained that of course the relationship had not worked; they could never have married, with her culture … and his. In those days you couldn’t take a woman away from that life. Perhaps it was the same even now, she didn’t know. When the affair was over, her despondent greatgrandfather had built the beautiful bridge to remember his beautiful geisha by.

Lucas put his arm around her shoulders. She stiffened, afraid even to touch his hand as they walked across that lovely little red bridge together.

“Rafaella,” he said, turning her to face him. “Rafaella,” he said again. His lips were cool and unexpectedly gentle on hers, savoring her, tasting her as he might a piece of fruit. Then he buried his face in her neck and Rafaella flung back her head so that her long dark hair swung behind her. He twined the strands around his fingers and ran his lips up along the angle of her jaw, planted drifts of tender kisses over her closed eyelids, ran his hand over the high curve of her cheekbone. Then his lips fastened purposefully on hers, drinking in her mouth, her tongue, her sweet breath of rosé wine and fruit.

Rafaella’s arms were around his neck, pulling him close so that not even the breeze could have found access between them. Her head swam. She felt that sexy slipperiness between her legs again, felt her nipples harden, felt a flush of heat that she had never known in her life before. She was tumbling into an abyss.

She pulled away from him. “Come with me,” she whispered in a voice so low and throaty she hardly recognized it as her own. Taking his hand, she led him onto the grassy island to the little white gazebo, half hidden by roses and jasmine. Inside were a couple of couches, a table and chairs, an old painted cupboard with drinks and glasses.

They sank onto a sofa and Lucas slid the gypsy chiffon blouse down her shoulders to her waist. He held her away from him for a moment, a look of wonderment on his face. “I never expected you to be so beautiful, Rafaella,” he whispered, and then his mouth found hers and she wanted him so badly that nothing else mattered.

“Oh god,” Rafaella cried out as he entered her, but what she meant was Oh Lucas, because this was different from the beach in Greece with the pebbles sticking in her back and Henri breathing heavily all over her. This, she thought wildly as true sexual rapture lifted her over the edge into a chaos of many pleasures, was what loving a man was all about.

Lucas had come for a weekend. That weekend turned into a couple of weeks, then a month. In the end, except for his polo-playing activities, it was more than two years before Lucas Bronson left the chateau—and Rafaella—forever.





49





THINKING BACK, Rafaella saw that she had lived through those two years in a haze of sensuality. Her skin was more alive to the touch, her hair more glossy and silken, her breasts more taut, and her belly full of yearning. She remembered the times Lucas’s eyes would catch hers across the dinner table, holding them with that deep, dark, hot look that turned her molten with silken juices. They would leave their guests still at the table, drinking wine, talking, and laughing, and slip away to her lamp-lit bedroom and its great bed, where they slid into each other’s arms, murmuring with pleasure, unable to get enough of each other.

When Lucas was away (which, now that she thought about it, had been most of the time), she’d kept that special glow of a woman in love, and she’d kept her home filled with her friends and the friends of her boys. Though her sons were grown—Felix was twenty-three and at business school and Alain was nineteen and studying at the Sorbonne—when they were home she’d devoted her time to them as she always had. She did her best to make sure they were happy, though with Felix, she never knew what really made him happy, if anything. But Alain kept her company and kept her amused. He was always laughing, always teasing, always had a girl or two around. She told Alain he was like his aunt Marguerite, a flirt and naughty to boot. He grinned and said, “So what’s wrong with that?” “Not much,” Rafaella had said, laughing too. She hadn’t realized then that there was another side to Alain, and she would find out about it later, the hard way.

Lucas had been living at the chateau for about a year when he came home from playing polo in Argentina, bringing his son with him.

“This is Jake,” he said. “He’s just turned sixteen. I thought it was time he learned there’s more to life than cowboys and cattle and a thousand acres of pampas.”

Looking at Jake, Rafaella had seen a handsome, shy young man, tall like his father and with Lucas’s light gray eyes. He wore jeans and scuffed old cowboy boots and a shirt that was rapidly becoming too small for his wide shoulders. He looked warily back at her and she’d smiled, wondering what he saw with those intense eyes, what he thought of her—after all, she was his father’s mistress.

“You’re very beautiful” were Jake’s first words to her.

“Et alors, vouz êtes un homme du monde,” Rafaella had exclaimed, laughing. “You are a man of the world. You already know how to pay compliments.” And Jake blushed and bit his lip, not knowing what else to say.

“Come, Jake.” She’d put her arm through his. “Let me show you the chateau. Now you are going to live here with us you must choose your room, whichever one you like. Even if there are already guests in it, we’ll throw them out, move them somewhere else. I’ll simply tell them, sorry, but this is Jake’s room now.” And Jake lowered his head, overwhelmed with shyness.

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