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and drag the poor, helpless victim to a painful fate.’

      She took her eyes off the pendant only long enough to flick him a scathing look—surely he wasn’t implying that he was in any way a helpless victim? Or unsuspecting, come to that!

      He watched her as he hefted it thoughtfully in his hand. ‘Quite valuable, too, I imagine …’ he mused with an infuriating smile.

      Her hand darted out, but her fingertips barely grazed the delicate chain before his hand snapped shut over his prize, presenting her with an impenetrable fist.

      ‘Or does its sentimental value outweigh the price of the jade? Perhaps it was a romantic gift from a lover—someone you left back in New Zealand?’

      She was unwillingly reminded of the modest diamond chip that Neil had demanded back after their failed engagement—the ring being the only piece of jewellery he had given her during their two-year relationship.

      Lucien obviously wasn’t going to give the pendant back until she told him. ‘My parents gave it to me as a twenty-first birthday present,’ she admitted stiffly. ‘I don’t often take it off, so it’s not surprising that I didn’t notice that the catch was worn.’

      But instead of handing it over he slipped it back into his pocket under her outraged eyes. ‘It would be a pity to risk losing it in someone else’s bed. They might not be as scrupulous as I am about returning it,’ he said glibly.

      ‘You haven’t returned it,’ she was stung to reply.

      ‘There’s no point at the moment, since it’s unwearable. I thought I’d find a jeweller somewhere and get it fixed for you.’

      She didn’t believe his innocent look. He was tantamount to holding her pendant hostage to her good behaviour. ‘That’s not necessary—’

      ‘I know, but I want to do it. Consider it in the nature of an apology.’

      ‘For what?’ she said warily, mistrusting his silky sincerity.

      ‘For what I said to you out there on the road, when I thought you were a stalking journalist. I may have gone over the top with some of my remarks—’ He paused, watching as the most memorable of them popped back into her head.

       ‘The best lay I’ve had in a long, long time …’

      Then as she visibly fought down her blush of chagrin he added simply: ‘About you staying away from me.’

      That was all, and her blush exploded out of control as she realised what he was, oh, so clearly not apologising for …

      ‘I should have given you the slap you deserved,’ she choked.

      ‘Feel free to do it now,’ he invited, spreading his arms and taking another step closer, turning his head to present her with an olive-skinned cheek, his drawn-back hair a sleek backdrop to his neatly moulded ear.

      ‘It would serve you right if I did,’ she said fiercely, her hand twitching with the temptation to rediscover the feel of that fine-grained skin.

      ‘Try it—perhaps we both might like it,’ he urged wickedly, slanting his eyes to meet hers. ‘After all, we did have an unexpectedly exciting time together in Paris. It’s just a pity you had to rush off the way you did, before we had a chance to fully explore all the pleasurable possibilities …’

      Veronica’s grey eyes widened in part shock, part curiosity. He had more than fulfilled her fantasies. What, precisely, hadn’t they explored …?

      He shifted to look her full in the face again. ‘Not that you gave me any hints that you were interested in anything violent or kinky.’ His voice had lowered to that velvety purr she found so disruptive to her thought processes that she didn’t notice he had moved even closer. ‘You were exquisitely responsive to my lightest touch. So what was it that made you select me to be your partner for the night? What do you look for in a man, in a lover, when you go on the prowl?’

      ‘I wasn’t on the prowl,’ she protested. ‘I—I was excited about being in Paris … I just got carried away and so thought I’d—I’d—’

      ‘Find out what a Frenchman was like as a lover?’

      Not just any Frenchman. You! she wanted to blurt in her own defence, but the knowledge that it was the truth was too dangerous to admit. His ego was already puffed up; there was no need for him to know how elemental her attraction to him had been from the first moment she had seen him sitting in the café. How she had woven richly embroidered dreams and fantasies around him before she had worked up the courage to make her reckless approach.

      ‘I wasn’t looking for a lover,’ she denied. ‘Just some company for my last night in Paris, and I thought you looked … interesting.’

      ‘But obviously not interesting enough to stick around for conversation after you’d had your wicked way with me,’ he goaded. ‘You don’t seem to require a very in-depth relationship in your sexual partners.’

      ‘You can talk! I didn’t notice you turning down the chance of a one-night stand!’ she said hotly.

      His eyes gleamed with satisfaction at her response to his inflammatory statement.

      ‘Is that what it was? I thought it was a mutual coup de foudre. I assumed that after our exhausting revels, we’d wake up together in the morning …’

      ‘And what? And share a few laughs about how you fooled me into believing you couldn’t understand me?’ she threw at him.

      ‘Oh, I think that in the heat of the night we understood each other perfectly well,’ he drawled with rock-hard confidence. ‘You might recall I did let slip quite a few extremely fluent English phrases in your ear while I was inside you, and you told me quite explicitly what you liked about my body and what you wanted me to do with it. And when you begged me to make love to you, I certainly didn’t ask for a translation …’

      ‘Did I? I don’t remember—’ She flushed and turned her back, her arm brushing his body. How and when had she let him get so close?

      She realised her strategic error when his arm snaked around her waist, stopping her from walking away.

      ‘Don’t you?’ His muscled arm slowly contracted, drawing her back against his chest, fitting her bottom into the warm saddle of his hips. ‘Are you sure?’ he murmured, his hard chin sinking into the hollow between her neck and shoulder, anchoring their upper bodies together.

      She shivered at the feel of his lips moving against the side of her bare throat as he continued to speak in that dark, sultry tone: ‘I think you’ll find that you remember a lot more than you’re willing to admit.’ His arm was replaced with his big hands spanning the sides of her waist, his fingers slanting down across her hip-bones as he pressed her more snugly against his potent hardness.

      ‘There’s no need to feel shy, Veronica,’ he whispered with shattering insight. ‘See how wonderfully well our bodies are shaped to fit each other. You don’t have to be ashamed of what we did together. It was entirely natural … a man and a woman freely expressing their mutual desire. Je ne regrette rien …’

      She stiffened, wanting to punish him for the accuracy of his perception and at the same time let him know that she wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. No matter how glorious it had felt at the time, the aftermath of her flirtation with fantasy had taught her that she wasn’t cut out to be a spontaneous wild-child.

      ‘I’m not shy. I know it was just a one-time thing, that it didn’t mean anything,’ she said, trying to sound crushingly sophisticated.

      His cheek nuzzled against the side of her throat. ‘Are you sure about that?’ His hands slipped under the edge of her top, his palms skimming up over her bare skin to cup her breasts in their silky-fine casing of stretchy fabric. ‘Don’t you remember how good it felt when there was nothing between your skin and mine … when we

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