The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

being crunched underfoot. ‘How very Zen of you. Have you done the same with your mother?’

      Ana sucked in a painful breath. ‘I’ve tried. She refuses to admit she did anything wrong.’

      ‘And yet you still entertain her in your life—even employ her as your manager? Would I be wrong in thinking that on some level you’re okay with what she did?’

      She flinched. ‘Yes, you would be!’

      ‘Then what are you doing about it?’ he challenged.

      About to speak, she froze, unprepared for the slap of realisation that she’d lived with her mother’s behaviour for so long she did silently accept it. ‘I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I know cutting your father off isn’t one of them.’

      ‘You’re right—you don’t have the answers. So don’t throw stones. And do not speak to me about what happened sixteen years ago. As of now, that subject is closed.’ His voice was taut with suppressed anger.

      Whirling away, he strode to the window. His tense shoulders bunched as he slid both hands into his trouser pockets. Dappled sunlight framed his head in a golden halo. Ana stared, astounded by her inability to stop looking at him. But this time she saw past it to the hurt boy beneath. And her heart broke for him.

      ‘How can it be when it colours everything you do?’

      A breath shuddered out of him. ‘Mon Dieu, Ana, I’m trying. Just let it go. Please.’

      She swallowed hard and blinked back threatening tears. ‘Okay, I’ll let it go. For now.’

      After several minutes he turned. ‘Your little stunt with the newspaper has paid off. I suggest you focus on what happens next.’

      ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘It means I’m relocating the ad campaign here,’ he said.

      ‘What?’ Surprise jerked through her. ‘Why? The venue in Scotland has been arranged and it’s all set to go.’

      ‘Since my presence is required where you are, I’d rather stay in a place where I can be guaranteed there won’t be a repeat of any suggestive newspaper articles. There’s very little press intrusion in Switzerland.’

      ‘So for the next three weeks I’m your prisoner?’

      His eyebrows rose. ‘You’d rather return to London and feed more stories to the papers?’

      ‘I want to go home.’

      Despite reassuring herself that she could control her feelings around him, her every instinct protested against spending any more time in Bastien’s disturbing company. The last shoot had overrun a whole week. If the pattern repeated itself she could be here for a long time, perhaps even until her trial. Here with this man who couldn’t fail to elicit intense, dangerous emotions from her.

      ‘That’s not going to happen.’

      Anger exploded inside her. ‘You can’t do this!’

      Her outburst brought a frown. ‘I’m willing to concede that the article may have helped save my company, Miss Duval, but I won’t be giving the press any more fodder for their gossip rags.’

      ‘Seriously—would you stop with the Miss Duval nonsense? It sounds ridiculous, considering we’ve...’ Ana faltered. Had she seriously been about to invite him to call her by her first name because they’d had their hands all over each other not once but twice in the last twenty-four hours?

      She’d truly lost her mind.

      ‘Considering we’ve what? Been intimate?’

      ‘What happened between us wasn’t intimacy,’ she denied through stiff lips.

      A grim parody of a smile curved his lips. ‘I agree. It was undeniably primal, and irritating as hell, but it was not intimacy.’

      Somewhere deep inside her something cracked. Something she hadn’t even known existed. ‘No, it wasn’t.’

      He gave her a quizzical glance before striding to his desk. He reached for a leather-bound file. ‘I’m glad we’re agreed. Tatiana will get the driver to take you back to the hotel. Be ready to leave at six.’

      ‘Leave? Where are we going?’ she asked.

      ‘My château. That’s where the shoot is now taking place. We’ll stay there until it’s wrapped. Oh, and Ana?’

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘I’m trusting you not to do anything foolish like attempt to leave.’

      ‘I’m so honoured by your trust,’ she returned sarcastically.

      His sensual mouth compressed and he sat down, reached for his phone and swung his chair towards the window.

      Ana felt as though she’d been released from the heady power of a vortex. Yet the relief she craved was absurdly missing. Surely she couldn’t want to lock horns with Bastien?

      Irritated with herself, she retrieved her bag and left his office, ignoring the hypnotic husk of his voice as he conversed in flawless French.

      ‘Are you ready to leave?’ Tatiana’s smile oozed enviable confidence.

      Forcing herself to focus, Ana nodded. ‘Yes, thank you.’

      * * *

      Back in her hotel suite, Ana threw down her handbag and pulled the pins from her hair. It seemed a lifetime ago when she’d left here, fearing the worst. The axe hadn’t fallen as she’d expected, yet her instincts warned that she faced a darker threat.

      She hated the idea that she had to remain in Switzerland, but she silently conceded that Bastien was right. What good would returning home do aside from setting the paparazzi on her tail again?

      Going to the window, she opened the curtain and drank in the view. A towering jet of water shot into the sky from the jetty across the lake, its cascading drops creating breathtaking prisms of light.

      Craving a modicum of freedom, she dashed to the bedroom and changed into the clothes she’d worn on the plane. Defiantly, she wore a bra underneath the top this time. The coat covered the worst of the daring slashes and minimised her exposure.

      She left the hotel, making sure to keep it in sight at all times. Using the jet of water as her landmark, she walked along the bank, hoping the fresh air would clear her thoughts.

      Unbidden, Bastien’s face rose into her mind: the haunted look in his eyes when she mentioned what happened sixteen years ago. That he carried baggage from that time was fairly obvious. So did she, after all. But Bastien was lucky. His parents had stayed together. She hadn’t been so lucky. Her mother’s erratic behaviour and bitter rants had worsened after their winter in Verbier because Bastien’s father had returned to his wife.

      His family had survived Lily Duval’s toxic intrusion. He should be celebrating. She and her father hadn’t been so lucky.

      Her phone trilled. She seized on it in relief—until she saw the number.

      Ana contemplated letting it go to voicemail. But her mother would only call back. Lily didn’t like to be ignored.

      ‘Lily.’ Ana had been forbidden from calling her Mother the day she’d turned nine.

      ‘I see you’ve landed herself in a bit of a pickle,’ her mother drawled in carefully cultivated upper-class tones.

      ‘I’m fine. Thank you for asking.’

      Ana had trained herself long ago not to listen for any softening in her mother’s voice but she found herself doing so now, her conversations with Bastien having rubbed at the barrier she’d placed around her heart where her mother was concerned.

      ‘You’re a Duval. Life will knock you down but you have to learn to bounce back,’ Lily snapped.