Page 60 of Signed, Sealed, Married

‘Do they still call you that? Uncouth?’

‘Still? I have no idea. I don’t pay attention to them. I’ve left most of them behind. But the press like to trumpet my outsider status when it suits a headline.’

The silence extended so long he thought Gisèle wasn’t going to say any more.

‘So you went to the effort and enormous expense of acquiring a troubled French company to prove yourself to people who no longer have influence over you?’

She made him sound needy for external validation. His mouth firmed.

‘Maybe that chip on my shoulder is bigger than I thought.’ He hadn’t thought of it that way before. ‘But the kicker was that their comments reflected on my family too. The first time I went to a big gala after winning a business award I took my mother and sister. They had to run the gauntlet of deliberately audible snide comments.’

Gisèle gasped. ‘That’s awful.’

He nodded. ‘I vowed never to put them in that situation again. But they were magnificent. My mother, ever the pacifier, pretended not to hear. My little sister turned to a few of them and asked what they’d achieved in the last year that outshone my business acumen and performance. She was seventeen at the time.’

He heard a choke of laughter, swiftly curtailed. ‘She’s certainly not bashful. Good on her, standing up for you.’

Like Gisèle, ensuring her brother retained a role in the family company. He admired that about her too.

‘I like that you’re protective of each other,’ she continued. ‘You seem to be a close, caring family.’

Did she sound wistful? By all accounts her family had been close, until her father’s death and her mother’s desertion, pursuing one high-profile love affair after another.

Once again Adam felt sympathy and pride for this indomitable woman.

‘There was another reason I was drawn to the House of Fontaine.’

Was he really saying this? It went against his mantra of not revealing weakness or giving power to an opponent. Yet he’d just shared what some would call a weakness with Gisèle—his need to show he’d made it to the topmost pinnacle, where none could look down on him. It hadn’t felt like weakness. Honesty had its own power.

Besides, she wasn’t an opponent. She was far more complex and important.

‘Let me guess. You want a cosmetics line designed for your mother. Or an exclusive perfume. It can be arranged—’

‘Nothing like that.’

Adam took the exit off the autoroute, heart hammering. Opening up wasn’t easy. This was opening himself as he never had before.

She’d been frank about her past, details she’d kept private for years. It was fitting he be equally as frank. Heowedher that.

Besides, he wanted more from Gisèle, much more than he’d imagined initially. He mightn’t be the most emotionally astute man, but he knew she wouldn’t respond to demands.

He didn’t want to demand. He wanted her to want him of her own free will.

Which meant ceding some power to her.

If he stopped to think about the implications he mightn’t follow through. He plunged on. ‘I saw footage of you giving a press conference a couple of months ago.’

‘And?’

‘That’s it. I saw you, Gisèle. And I knew as surely as I know my own name that I wanted you.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

THECARPURREDalong the darkened road as Gisèle stared at Adam’s harsh profile. There wasn’t enough light to read his expression but he hadn’t sounded like he was joking. In the dimness he looked tense rather than smug.

Her fingers dug into her seat, anchoring herself as the world wheeled.

She licked her lips and swallowed, turning to watch the headlights cut the night as the country road curved. The lights illuminated a pair of eyes in the grass, some small animal transfixed by the vehicle.

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