Page 61 of Signed, Sealed, Married

Gisèle felt that way, transfixed. Stunned.

‘You expect me to believeIprompted you to take over the company?’

He’d said he’d wanted her from the day they met but this was something else!

‘You think I’m lying?’ Adam’s hands rotated on the steering wheel as if he tightened his grip. ‘You know that’s not my style.’ He shot her a sideways glance. ‘It’s fact. I was interested in the company. The figures looked good despite the mistakes that had been made and it met my other criteria. But what tipped the balance was you. Your poise, your smile. There was something indefinable about you, something I wanted.’

There was that word again—want. As if he hadn’t acquired her for the continuity of having a Fontaine still attached to the company.

Gisèle’s chest ached from holding her breath. Or maybe from the effort of not letting herself be persuaded. Because it was too outrageous.

Yet she wanted it to be true.

Because she’d felt it too, that shocking spark of connection. Attraction. Wanting.

She’d believed it was her own personal weakness. What if she weren’t alone in feeling that way?

The idea was too big, too tempting.

Her heart crashed against her ribcage as if fighting to escape, and she had to work to keep her voice even. ‘Don’t tell me—it was my amazing beauty that hooked you.’

Another sideways glance came her way. ‘Youarebeautiful, Gisèle, even if you don’t believe it. But it wasn’t that simple. There was something else. Your warmth, your animation.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t put it in words but it was a spark of something I couldn’t ignore. Something I didn’twantto ignore.’

Adam lifted one hand off the wheel and unerringly found hers in the darkness. His touch was warm, familiar and charged. A flurry of sparks burst in her blood, adrenaline coursing, making her sit straighter.

‘You wanted me as a family representative. A Fontaine to continue the cachet of the family name.’

‘That was only part of it.’ When he spoke again his voice was deeper. ‘It wasn’t all about the business.’

Something potent shivered in the night air between them. Something that made the fine hairs on her arms stand up and the feelings she’d desperately tried to repress stir anew.

‘Why tell me this, Adam?’

‘I want to be honest with you. We’re married. We’re lovers, Gisèle. We have a relationship that means something.’

‘Does it? That’s not how it seems.’ Or was she throwing up objections because the idea of their relationship meaning something real raised the stakes too much? It came too close to what she secretly desired. ‘You pushed me away. That night we had sex, I turned to you later for more but you rolled away, pretending to be asleep. Once was clearly enough for you so I knew you’d been disappointed. Then in the morning you disappeared so fast your feet barely touched the ground.’

‘Oh, sweetheart, you’ve got it all wrong.’

‘Wrong? I was there. Don’t say you were asleep. You knew what you were doing.’

Adam took his hand from hers to grip the wheel as he turned between a pair of stone pillars, large iron gates opening as they approached. Ahead lay a long drive under an avenue of trees.

Instead of being curious about their destination Gisèle found herself fixated on the loss of his hand on hers. How much she missed that simple touch.

Anxiety spiked. She’d fallen so deeply in thrall to him! She didn’t want to feel this way. She’d rather hang onto the simmering anger that had seen her through his absence, her battered pride giving her the strength she’d needed to face him today.

‘I did know what I was doing.’ The admission sucked the air from her lungs. ‘Not because I didn’t want you, Gisèle, but because I wanted you too much.’

He stopped the car inside the gates, turning to her. ‘I’d just discovered you were a sexual innocent. What we’d donewhettedmy appetite instead of diminishing it. I wanted to spend the rest of the night inside you, driving you from one peak to the next. Giving free rein to all the sexual fantasies I’d harboured about you for weeks.’

Adam’s voice grew hoarse, his breathing choppy, as if reliving those explicit thoughts. ‘I was afraid if I took you again I wouldn’t stop, but I didn’t want to hurt you. You’d been a virgin. I was trying to look after you.’

Gisèle’s breathing roughened too, dampness beading her hairline and blooming between her thighs at the thought of Adam wanting to spend the night inside her. Arousal made her shift in her seat, though she knew there was only one way to ease the hollow ache inside.

‘You really mean it.’

The discovery twisted what she thought she knew, making her memory of that night shift and resettle into a different pattern.

---