While it pained him to realise it, he couldn’t fault the old bastard for his taste.
‘Monsieur Durand, I assure you the will is watertight. Monsieur de la Mare was entirely cognisant when he made it,’ the lawyer said. ‘And Madame de la Mare had no knowledge of the contents of it before today, as per my client’s wishes.’
‘We will see,’ he replied, never taking his eyes off the girl. For that was what she looked like to him. Exactly how old was she? He’d wondered earlier, but he was wondering even more now. She had to be more than a teenager, but in the casual clothes, and out of the revealing dress, she didn’t look like much more. And his father had been in his sixties.
For a moment he considered that age difference. Her gaze darted from Marcel and back to him, her nervousness only increasing his desire.
Exactly how desperate must she have been to consider spreading her legs for an old man? And how could he hold that against her, when he had done things he wasn’t proud of himself as a boy, simply to survive.
He glimpsed the table, where an array of fresh local cheese and fruit and bread had been artfully arranged. And the thick fog of desire finally cleared enough for him to start thinking... If not clearly, then at least coherently.
The solution to this problem was simple. Why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? Surely if she had married an old man for his property, she could be bought. All he had to do was make her an offer she could not refuse—controlling this inexplicable surge of desire would also be a good start.
‘I will stay to eat after all—and try out the wine—so we can discuss the situation further,’ he said.
‘I am afraid I must leave,’ the lawyer said. ‘My wife will have dinner waiting for me.’
The girl’s brows lifted, and wariness flashed across her features. She didn’t like the suggestion that she be left alone with him.
Good, he had the upper hand at last. And that was all that mattered in a negotiation of this sort. He needed to be ruthless now—and stop obsessing about her rigid nipples.
Walking to the sideboard, Maxim poured himself a glass of de la Mare’s wine to keep his hands busy. And concentrate his thoughts on what he wanted to achieve—namely getting his hands on de la Mare’s ancient vines, not his nubile young widow.
He watched an array of emotions cross the girl’s face.
Concern, panic, maybe even fear.
But was she scared of him, he wondered, or the hunger her rigid nipples and shallow breaths had acknowledged, even if she could not?
Satisfaction surged at the evidence that she was finding it even harder than him to control her responses. Whether she was scared of him or the provocative passion that had blindsided them both, he could make her fear work in his favour. If he kept his head.
Before she could formulate a polite way to kick him out of the house he added, ‘This may be my last chance to eat a meal in the house where I was born.’
He couldn’t care less about having a final meal in La Maison. He barely remembered living here; all he could remember was the early mornings spent racing across the fields from the shack where he and his mother had ended up, and working with his father’s field hands in the predawn mist, or after school long into the night and watching and waiting for his father to arrive, and hopefully notice him and how hard he worked. And the day he had come to claim that connection, full of pride and longing, and had been left standing at the back door to meet his father—because he was considered too low-class to enter the house.
His deliberately wistful comment had the desired effect, though, when the sympathy and misplaced sentiment for his plight he had noticed earlier crossed the girl’s face again, and she nodded. ‘I understand, Monsieur Durand.’
The lawyer packed up his laptop and his papers, then snapped his briefcase shut. ‘If you have any questions, Madame de la Mare...’ He inclined his head towards Maxim. ‘Or Monsieur Durand. Feel free to contact me at my office.’ He laid down a business card for each of them. ‘But I do hope we can be civil about this.’ He gave a hearty if strained laugh. ‘I think a quiet meal together to discuss amicably how to proceed makes perfect sense. While de la Mare did not want the vines sold to the Durand Corporation, I see no reason why Madame de la Mare should not lease them to you, Maxim, if you wish to carry on producing the Montremare Premier Cru in your father’s honour.’
Maxim nearly choked on the salty cube of Brie de Meaux he had popped into his mouth. He swallowed his outrage with a sip of his father’s famous wine. ‘That is an interesting possibility,’ he managed, thinking Caron was an imbecile.
He had no desire to do anything in honour of that bastard. And he didn’t want to lease the vines, he wanted to own them. Because only then could he obliterate the last of de la Mare’s legacy. And complete his revenge on the man who had rejected him all those years ago.
But he had no intention of revealing that to either the girl or her lawyer. He had exposed himself enough already. He wasn’t usually a man given to emotion. In fact, he was famous for his cold, clinical business practices. But right now he wasn’t feeling cold or clinical. He was feeling hot and on edge. Somehow he needed to find a way to use that to his advantage in his negotiations with the girl.
As the lawyer left, Maxim watched his father’s widow make a point of sitting in the chair on the opposite side of the table. She picked at the grapes.
She was nervous, as well as turned on. Good—at least he wasn’t the only one unsettled by this inconvenient attraction.
‘How
old were you?’ she asked. ‘When Pierre expected you to come work for him to pay for the use of the shack you lived in?’
‘Ten. Eleven. I don’t recall exactly.’ He shrugged, but the movement was stiff. He could see that damn sympathy clouding her eyes again and it was the last thing he wanted. ‘It wasn’t a hardship,’ he murmured. ‘I enjoyed the work. And I came to love the vines.’
She took the hint, her flush igniting again. ‘I’m sorry, it must be hard for you that he made that bequest.’
‘Not at all, I expected no less from him, Madame...’ He paused. He disliked calling her by that old bastard’s name. ‘What is your prénom?’