The Best Of The Year - Modern Romance. Annie West

emotion stormed through his gut and his fingers tightened around his glass.

      ‘You’d be surprised how often the same pictures are modified and reused. Anyway, how do you know? Have you been checking up on me?’

      Bastien felt a dull flush creep across his cheeks. He refused to admit he’d taken more than a little interest in her since she’d become the model for the DBH campaign.

      When her eyes collided with his, heat flared within him. ‘I take a healthy interest for professional reasons.’

      She laughed. ‘Really? Are you saying a powerful businessman like you doesn’t have minions to check things like that for you?’ Her voice had grown husky and her head had tilted seductively.

      He grew hotter. He took a few bites of food as emotions tumbled through him.

      They’d long passed civilised conversation and moved on to the subtext of sex and feelings that seemed inevitably to spring up between them when they were alone. His gaze flicked down to her mouth, her throat, caressed her neck and settled on her chest before climbing back up.

      Her tongue snuck out, moistened her plump lips, and right then he would have given anything in the world to taste those lips again.

      But he had to end this fevered need that clawed at him every time he looked at her. ‘Don’t look at me like that, ma petite.’

      ‘Like what?’ she challenged. ‘Help me out here, Bastien. I don’t know how this works. You kiss me when you feel like it, touch me, hold my hand. But I can’t look at you?’

      His jaw tightened. ‘You don’t just look. You beguile with every sigh, tempt me with every breath.’

      Hurt fleeted through her eyes, making him feel deeply unsettled.

      ‘I’m not deliberately trying to.’

      He half laughed, half groaned. ‘I know. That’s the problem.’

      ‘Has it even occurred to you that I react like that because I’m attracted to you?’

      Bastien was used to women speaking plainly about what they wanted from him—sometimes explicitly. Ana wasn’t one of them. He’d witnessed her struggle before succumbing to the incredible chemistry between them last night. The same way she’d struggled with revealing her painful relationship with her mother.

      But the last thing he wanted, or needed, was for her to confuse their sexual encounter with something else. Or, worse, read some deeper meaning into the act. Emotion was messy. Emotion led to heartbreak and rejection.

      She cleared her throat. ‘Last night—’

      He cut in. ‘Last night was all it can ever be.’

      Boldly, she met his gaze. ‘Why?’

      ‘Because letting temptation and emotion rule my life would make me no better than—’ He stopped, shock stabbing him at what he’d almost revealed.

      ‘Than who? Your father? That was what you were going to say, wasn’t it?’

      He jerked upright and walked to the crest of the hill, staring down at the lake.

      ‘Leave it, Ana.’ He growled the warning.

      ‘But I guessed right, didn’t I? What are you so afraid of?’

      He whirled. ‘Afraid! You think I’m afraid?’

      ‘Well...what, then? You won’t let yourself feel, and you snarl at anyone who attempts to get to know you.’

      His laugh sounded edgy even to his own ears. ‘You’d prefer me to wear my heart on my sleeve like some paperback hero?’

      ‘No, but you told me this morning not to be ashamed of my shortcomings. You’re letting the sins of your parent shape the way you live your life.’

      ‘Parents. Plural.’ His eyes met hers. ‘What about you? Did you not hang on to your virginity because you didn’t want to end up like your mother?’

      ‘Yes, but I’m not a virgin any more,’ she pointed out softly. ‘And I’m trying very hard not to be like my mother.’

      The deep conviction in her voice sparked something inside him. Something he realised, to his chagrin, was jealousy. Somewhere between his rescuing her from the courtroom and now she had attained a certain unshakeable confidence that had nothing to do with her poise or profession.

      He stared at her, compelled, unable to take his eyes off her as she took another step closer.

      ‘What happened sixteen years ago was terrible. I was there too, remember? But at least your parents found their way back together and stayed together. You were lucky.’

      Harsh laughter erupted from a place of dark, shuddering pain he thought he’d sealed off for ever.

      ‘Lucky! You call living with a serial adulterer of a father who didn’t bother to hide his transgressions from his family and a mother who instead of protecting her son tried to take her own life in the most dramatic way possible, lucky?’

CHAPTER TEN

      ANA STRUGGLED TO BREATHE. ‘What?’

      ‘You heard me,’ he rasped, his voice raw and pain-filled.

      ‘But I thought... Oh, Bastien, I’m so sorry.’ Her chest felt tight, but it had nothing to do with her asthma. All she felt was overwhelming compassion for what Bastien had suffered.

      ‘Forget it.’ He dismissed her words with a shrug.

      She tried to take a breath but only a distressed wheeze emerged.

      Bastien’s gaze sharpened. ‘What’s wrong?’ he demanded.

      She tried to shake her head but he was already taking her arm. One finger urged her face up to his, where concern was etched.

      ‘Nothing. I’m fine. When did your mother try to take her own life?’

      He dropped his hand. ‘Not now. We need to get back.’

      ‘Bastien, please talk to me—’

      ‘Unless you want to get caught in the rain we need to get moving.’

      She glanced up at the sky, surprised to notice storm clouds rolling over the lake. Whilst they’d been locked in the past the weather had changed.

      She helped him pack their picnic away, despite his terse instruction to let him do it. They returned to the boat in silence, even though she felt his concerned glance more than once.

      Placing the basket in the tiny galley, he led her to the single cabin. ‘Stay down here. If the rain hits the journey back might be a little bumpy.’

      ‘I’ll stay here if you’ll promise me we’ll talk when we get back.’

      He blew out an exasperated breath. ‘Oui, we’ll talk,’ he said. And left.

      Ana tried to relax, but her thoughts churned. Bastien’s parents had stayed together but the circumstances she’d imagined, the assumptions she’d made, were very far from the truth. Another wave of empathy surged through her.

      She headed for the door, but paused and groaned when she caught her image in the mirror beside the bed.

      Her skin was pale, her eyes wide pools of anguish. And some time between leaving the château and now her hair had become a tangled web. She thought of repairing the mess, but gave up.

      The outward mess she could deal with later. It was the inner mess that terrified her—because she feared the path her heart had taken was fraught with danger.

      * * *

      Bastien steered the boat alongside the pier, his thoughts grim. What the hell had happened on that hill in Villeneuve? How