He looked down at their hands, still clasped, and gently released her. She had to suppress the impulse to hold on, refusing to let him go. But she must not give in. She was strong. She was in control. She’d just said so.
At the airport a limousine was waiting to convey them into the heart of Paris. She watched in delight as the landmarks glided past, and they came to a halt in the Champs Elysées in the glamorous heart of the city.
La Couronne towered above her, grandiose and beautiful. Stewards hurried forward to greet their employer and regard herself with curiosity. One of them seized Cassie’s bags and invited her to follow him.
‘I’ll join you later,’ Marcel said.
Her accommodation was high up, a luxurious suite where a maid was waiting for her. She’d been wondering what to expect, but the reality took her breath away.
‘My name is Tina,’ said the maid. ‘I am here to serve you. I will start unpacking.’
‘Thank you. I’ll go and freshen up.’
She went into the bathroom and regarded herself critically in the mirror. Marcel had told her to soften her appearance, but so far she hadn’t done so. On the journey he’d glanced at her appearance but made no comment. Now she loosened her hair, letting it fall about her face, not in waves as he’d once known it, but long and straight.
I’m not really Cassie any more, she thought. I’ve been fooling myself.
Sighing in frustration, she left the bathroom and immediately halted at the sight that met her eyes.
‘Tina let me in,’ Marcel said. ‘I came to see how you were settling. If you’re ready I’ll show you around.’
‘Fine, I’m almost finished. I’ll just—’ She raised a hand to her hair, but he stopped her.
‘Leave it.’
‘But it’s all over the place. I can’t go around looking as though I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards.’
‘True, but it won’t take much to make you a little neater. Just brush it back here—and here—’
As he spoke he was flicking his fingers against her blonde locks, sending them spinning back over her shoulders, then smoothing them away. She tried not to be conscious of his fingertips softly brushing her face, but some things could never be driven away. The touch of a lover’s hand, the feel of his breath whispering against her face in agitated waves.
But he’s no longer my lover. Remember that.
Firmly she pushed feelings aside. She couldn’t afford them.
‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘I really want to see the hotel.’
‘I suppose you’ve read enough to know the background,’ he said, showing her outside.
‘I know it was once the home of the Marquis de Montpelier, a friend of royalty, who could have anything he wanted, including three wives, five mistresses and more children than he could count.’
‘Until the Revolution began, and they all went to the guillotine,’ Marcel supplied. ‘If you look out of this window you can almost see the place where they died.’
There in the distance she could just make out the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine had once stood.
‘I wonder how often they looked at that view, never dreaming of what would happen to them in the end,’ she murmured.
Now, she thought, their palace was the centre of a business empire, and the man who controlled it was safely armoured against all life could do to him.
‘Some of the building still looks as it did then,’ Marcel told her. ‘I keep it that way for the historical interest. Plus I have a friend who claims to have second sight and swears she can see the ghosts of the Montpelier family, carrying their heads under their arms.’
‘And you make the most of it,’ she said, amused.
‘Let’s say the rooms on that corridor are always the first to be hired.’
‘Do you live on that corridor?’
He grinned. ‘No, I don’t like to be disturbed by howling spectres.’
As they went over the building she recorded her impressions into a small microphone while Marcel listened, impressed.
‘Now let’s go to my apartment,’ he said, ‘unless you’re tired.’
‘No, let’s keep working.’
She was eager to see where he lived and learn what it could tell her about his present personality. But when they arrived she was disappointed. Only the room he used as an office was accessible. The rest was kept hidden behind closed doors.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ he said. ‘Access anything you want on the computer.’
He went out into the corridor, and she began to familiarise herself with his computer, which was state-of-the-art. She had expected no less. There was a mountain of information for her to take in and she went quickly from one item to the
next. A casual onlooker would think she couldn’t possibly be absorbing information with such brief glances, but that would be a mistake. She had a photographic memory, which in the old days she’d hidden because it clashed with her sexy image. Marcel had been one of the few people to discover that beneath the ditzy surface was a mind like a machine. That was it!
She gasped as she realised that she had the answer to the question that had teased her. When she and Marcel had exchanged phone details yesterday, she’d offered to return his and he’d said, ‘You could have memorised it by now.’
She’d barely glanced at the scrap of paper, yet he’d known that would be enough for her because he knew something about her that no stranger could have known.
‘A great brain’, he’d called her, laughing as he clasped her in his arms.
‘How do I dare to make love to a woman with such a great brain? A mighty brain! A genius! Some men might find that intimidating.’
‘But not you, hmm?’
‘No, because she has other virtues. Come here!’
Now, sitting in Marcel’s office, she began to shake with the violence of the emotion possessing her. She’d guessed that he recognised her, but now she was sure. He had brought her here, to the heart of his own world. Couldn’t she dare to hope that they might open their arms to each other and put right the wrongs of the past?
She’d thought she wanted vengeance, but that was being crowded out by other sensations beyond her control.
Now was the moment, and she would seize it with eager hands. If only he would return quickly.
She heard footsteps in the corridor. He was coming. In just a few moments everything would be transformed. The old attraction was beginning to rise up inside her, and surely it was the same with him. There might even be happiness again.
But the next instant the dream died, smashed to smithereens by something she knew she should have anticipated, but had carelessly overlooked.
Which meant there was no one to blame but herself.
FROM outside came an urgent tapping on the door and a woman’s voice in a high-pitched scream of excitement.
‘Marcel, mon chéri—ouvrez le porte et me prendre dans tes bras. Oh, combien je suis heureux que mon véritable amour est de retour.’
Her