at her château.”
Her château? Like hell. Still, Tate must have been wonderful fun for a young niece, who had no reason to be jealous of her just because the comte had adored her instead of his own son. For all her faults, his outrageous, American stepmother had made his father happy. His own pretentious mother had not.
And he damn sure had not.
Remy’s teeth clenched, but when Amelia continued to stare at him, a stillness descended on him. Her nondescript face with those spiky lashes and naive gaze wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t. But it was growing on him.
Why couldn’t he stop looking at her? Why did he feel so…so…
Aroused was the word he was trying to pluck from the ether.
Abruptly he looked away.
She sucked in a breath. “So, you’re French and I’m going to France,” she said lightly. “How’s that for a coincidence?”
“Yes.”
“We meet in the market. And now here again. Why?”
No way could he admit he’d stalked the hell out of her. “I can’t imagine.”
“Maybe it’s fate.”
Fate. Horrible concept. He could tell her a thing or two about fate. Fate had made him the despised bastard of the father he’d adored. Fate had hurled him into André at 160 miles an hour and then into Pierre-Louis.
She was still rattling on as Remy remembered the long months of Pierre-Louis’s hospitalization after the amputation. But at least he’d…
“I mean London is so huge,” she was saying. “What is the chance of that?” When her shining eyes locked with his again, she must have sensed his darkening mood. Spiky lashes batted. “Is something wrong?”
Her soft voice and sympathetic gaze caused a powerful current to pass through his body.
He shook his head.
“Good.” Amelia smiled at him beguilingly. “Then maybe…maybe…I mean, if your offer’s still open, I think I will have that cup of tea, after all, even if we did just meet.”
A cup of tea? As he stared into her hazel eyes he found himself imagining her naked on cream satin sheets. Why was that? She wasn’t his type. He felt off balance, and that wasn’t good.
He should run from this girl and leave the negotiating with her to his agent. He’d had the same cold feeling of premonition right before the crash.
This is it, he’d thought when his steering had jammed and his tires had begun to skid on pavement that had been slicker than glass.
Every time he looked at Amelia pure adrenaline charged through him.
This is it. And there’s no way out, screamed that little voice inside his mind.
Run.
Two
If only she could look at him without feeling all nervous and out of breath, but she couldn’t. So she fidgeted.
He was sleek and edgy and yet he seemed familiar, which was odd because he wasn’t the sort of man a woman with youthful hormones onboard would easily forget.
Curious, intrigued, attracted, Amy couldn’t help studying him when he wasn’t looking. His thickly lashed eyes were brown and flecked with gold. The brows above them were heavy and intimidating. He had the most enormous shoulders and lots of jet-black hair that he wore long enough so that a lock constantly tumbled across his brow.
He was too amazingly gorgeous to believe, and far too male and huge to be sitting across from her in such a ladylike tea shop. But here he was.
Amy bit her lips just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.
Despite his powerful body, he looked so elegant in his long-sleeved, black silk shirt and beige silk slacks. So grown up and successful compared to Fletcher, who wore old bathing trunks and T-shirts.
“Have you ever been to Hawaii?” she asked, struggling to make the kind of small talk that beautiful, polished Carol would be so good at.
Lame. Did she only imagine that he looked bored?
“No. Why do you ask?” His deep, dark, richly accented voice made her shiver.
“Because I live there. Because lots of tourists come there and I thought…maybe I’d seen you. I mean, you seem so familiar.”
“Do I?” Did she only imagine a new hardness in his voice?
He cocked his head and stared at her so intensely she couldn’t quite catch her breath.
Continuing to gaze at her in that steady, assessing way, his big, tanned hand lifted his wafer-thin teacup to his sensual mouth. She was too conscious of his stern lips, of his chiseled cheekbones, of those amber sparks flashing in his eyes, of his long, tapered fingers caressing the side of the tiny cup.
A beat passed. His eyes scanned the other women in the tea shop before returning to her. She swallowed.
When he grinned, she blushed.
“I—I’m not usually this nervous,” she whispered.
“You don’t seem nervous.” His low tone was smooth. Everything about him was smooth.
When she touched her teacup to lift it, it rattled, sloshing tea. “Oh, God! See? My hand is shaking.”
“Did you skip lunch?”
“How did you…? Why, yes, yes I did! There were so many things to look at in the markets. Sometimes I forget to eat when I shop.”
“I skipped lunch, as well. Maybe we’ll both feel better if we have a scone. They’re very good here.”
“Do you come here often?”
“Never. Until now. With you.”
“Then how do you know they’re good?”
“Reputation. I have a friend who comes here.”
Amy imagined a woman as beautiful as Carol. His friend would be delicate—slim and golden and well-dressed, the type who wouldn’t be caught dead shopping at the Camden Market. His type.
Ignorant of her thoughts and comparison, her companion was slathering clotted cream and jam on his scone. When he finished, he handed the dripping morsel to her. Then he made one for himself. When she gobbled hers much too greedily, he signaled the waitress and ordered chilled finger sandwiches and crisps.
Licking jam and cream off the tips of her fingers, she willed herself to calm down. He was right; she was shaking because she was starving, not because he was gorgeous and sexy and maybe dangerous.
She was perfectly safe. They were in a sedate tea shop with a table and a tablecloth, pink-and-gold china teacups and saucers between them. They were surrounded by lots of other customers, too. So, there was absolutely nothing to be nervous about.
“So, you haven’t been to Hawaii,” she mused aloud, staring at his hard, too-handsome face with that lock of black hair tumbling over his brow. “Are you famous?”
He started.
She bit into a second scone, and the rich concoction seemed to melt on her tongue. “A movie star?” she pressed, sensing a strange, new tension in him as she licked at a sticky fingertip. “Is that why you look so familiar?”
“I’m an investor.” He was watching her lick her finger with such excessive interest, she stopped.
“You don’t look like an investor,” she said.
“What did you have me pegged for?”
“You have a look, an edge. You certainly don’t seem like the kind of man who goes to the office every day.”
Did