‘What’s she like?’ He was clearly tired as usually he would never have allowed himself to voice such a personal question. But he couldn’t deny that he was curious. Something about this woman was niggling at him. Like a puzzle that he wanted to solve.
Skye smiled but again that smile... It was...sad?
‘She’s loving and enthusiastic and creative, but not the most down-to-earth. She is truly a free spirit.’
‘And you’re not?’
‘No, it’s just that when you’re a child, school and homework and clothing are actually mandatory, not just governmental interventions on parenting and free will.’
‘She’s a nudist?’ he asked, the image of the self-contained, conforming Skye in front of him and the free-living and loving picture she was painting jarring in his mind.
‘No—’ Skye laughed ‘—not really. She just values her freedom to be how nature intended, freedom to love who she wants, be how she wants. But in reality that doesn’t quite work when you have three children to drag into adulthood.’
Or two. Because Benoit had the distinct impression that it wasn’t her mother who had nurtured her children into adulthood but Skye.
Anger ignited in his gut and it took Benoit a second to get a hold on his feelings. The power of them had taken him by surprise while Skye seemed oblivious. In his mind’s eye he saw his mother, the look on her face as he had caught her packing her bag that last night.
‘Is it cooked okay?’
‘Yes. Very okay,’ he said, forcing an answer to numb lips as he returned to the present. He smiled belatedly and she cocked her head ever so slightly as if sensing something was wrong.
‘I’ve been thinking about your map,’ he said, forcing a change in subject and his mind onto the goal he should not have strayed from. ‘The only person who might be able to help is my Great-Aunt Anaïs.’ Even if their last parting had been heated, Benoit knew her love for him was as undeniable as his love of her and not even Chalendar Enterprises would change that. Especially if he found a way to keep it, despite her attempts. ‘Anaïs is all about family duty, honouring the past to secure the future. She’s also devious enough to have kept something like that a secret from me this l
ong,’ he said, a smile pulling at his lips.
‘You love her,’ Skye noted.
‘You sound surprised? Of course I do. Anaïs took care of us after our father’s death. Two orphaned teenage boys, as wilful as we were wayward.’
‘Were?’ she said sceptically.
‘You think I’m wayward?’ he replied, trying to avoid the truth of his past but knowing he couldn’t. ‘Our childhood was different to yours. My father might not have left, but sometimes I wonder if we would have been better off if he had.’
‘Don’t say that.’
She was right. He shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have revealed as much. If there had been a thought that she might have understood...it disappeared like smoke.
‘When the helicopter arrives,’ he said, getting himself back on track, ‘it will take me back to France, to the Dordogne where Anaïs lives.’
‘And you’ll take me?’ The hope shining in her eyes was startling. For a moment he didn’t want to douse that hope. But he had a company to save.
‘That’s up to you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I have a proposition. One that you’ll need to think seriously about before agreeing,’ he said, his eyes locking with hers, confirming the seriousness of what he was about to say.
‘What proposition? You know I have nothing to give you,’ she said, frowning. ‘And I doubt you need money.’
‘Not money. I don’t need that. But I do need a wife.’
CHAPTER SIX
SKYE STARED AT Benoit, waiting for him to laugh and tell her it was all a joke.
‘You can’t be serious,’ were the only words to escape her lips.
‘I am,’ he said, his blue eyes hardening like ice. ‘I have something you want—’ the dismissive shrug of his shoulders just plain irritated her ‘—and you could be something I need. It’s a simple exchange.’