Conquering Sabrina (13 page)

“Sabrina, let me introduce you to our friends.”

Sabrina allowed Raoul to introduce her to the strangers cluttering the large room filled with antique furniture, which she had a distant memory of having chosen herself.

“Sabrina, this is my brother Luc.”

Luc Valoire was dark and handsome, just like his brother, but he lacked the unmistakable masculine firmness and definition to his frame and facial characteristics. His appearance was reckless; a devilish dark shadow lined the contours of his jawline, giving him a magnetic rough charm that would attract more than his fair share of women. But his wide smile that bore down on Sabrina gave him a dangerous, almost leering countenance that activated her guard. Her fleeting memory told her he was a man that loved to live life to masculine excess without apology and took what he wanted without remorse. He was a constant headache for his older brother, who more times than enough had sorted out his gambling debts and disagreements with angry husbands.

Luc reached out to put his arms around his sister-in-law, but Sabrina found herself taking two steps back before she even realised what she was doing. Her back hit a solid muscled wall, Raoul. His arm slipped protectively around her shoulders.

“One step at a time, Luc. To Sabrina, everyone in this room is a stranger, including myself.”

Luc frowned but nodded, watching Raoul’s fingers trace the smooth skin of Sabrina’s shoulder as though he was mesmerised. But his attention was quickly turned when a woman appeared by his side, wearing a revealing backless blue dress that clung seductively to her tall svelte body. His arm slipped around her waist.

“And you already know Cressida.” Raoul’s voice was stiff.

“How could I possibly forget?”

Sabrina smiled condescendingly, holding the reins of her irritation and outrage tight. She couldn’t believe Raoul had the nerve to invite his mistress to dinner. But now was not the time or the place and she was damned if she was going to give Cressida the satisfaction of seeing her lose control.

Cressida looked her up and down, assessing her appearance in comparison to her own and gave her a mocking pitiful smile. Sabrina clenched her fist at her side, wishing she could wipe the smile off Cressida’s face.

“Raoul, the snow is falling heavily. It makes the grounds look quite beautiful. Wouldn’t it be romantic if we were snowed in together all weekend.”

Raoul laughed.

“Yes, it would be romantic,” he said, looking down at Sabrina.

Sabrina felt her shoulder shrink from his grasp. She was desperately trying to maintain her absolute faith in Raoul, but Cressida was now making it extremely difficult with her presence.

“Well, I think it’s time we went into dinner, everyone. If you’d all like to go through, Sabrina and I will join you in a moment,” Raoul instructed.

Sabrina ducked to move out of Raoul’s hold. She took up position at the fireplace for the second round of their battle regarding the issue of his infidelity. Irritated by the slow movement of their guests from the room, she drummed her fingers against her folded arms.

“I had no idea she was coming,” he said quietly, his voice as smooth and rich as dark chocolate.

She tried to ignore the caress it made over the ache of her restless anger and anxiety. She spun on her heel.

“Liar.”

It was a vicious accusation, tripping all too easily from her mouth.

Raoul’s eyes darkened, but his voice retained its spellbinding smoothness. She’d never been able to resist the French language; now he was using it to every advantage to calm her.

“Luc brought her with him, just to cause trouble like he usually does. He had no right. I thought at least on this occasion he would behave himself.”

He turned to one of the tall windows and looked out at the heavy snowfall.

“I would ask them to leave, but I’ve been informed the roads are blocked. They are predicting more heavy snowfall and it looks like we will be cut off.”

Sabrina said no more. Too hurt and confused.

Francine entered the room, stopping their conversation dead.

“Monsieur Valoire, Madame Valoire’s brother has arrived.”

Julian Michaels rushed into the room. He hadn’t even taken his coat off and he was moaning about the French traffic and the snow holding him up. He stopped and stared at Sabrina.

“Sabrina, it really is you.”

Julian Michaels’s handsome fair features paled for a moment and then a smile widened his mouth and lit his face, providing it with much needed warmth. He rushed to put his arms around her and hugged her close. She felt such warmth and sibling love in his embrace and it pained her that she was incapable of reciprocating.

He looked down at her with deep affection, studying her features, staring into her eyes for the merest hint of recognition. She watched his face crumple with dismay. But he expertly covered the betrayal of emotion quickly. There was determination in his voice that signalled that he would not allow his unhappiness to spoil the reunion. Sabrina looked at him with glassy eyes.

“I’m so glad you are alive and well. Sabrina, I have missed you so much. It just hasn’t been the same. It doesn’t matter that you can’t remember me. That will all come in time.”

She glanced at Raoul. He was leaning against the white fireplace, striking a tall formidable pose. He was as still as one of the sculptures in the Louvre, carved from perfect smoothly toned muscle. He watched Julian with suspicion. Sabrina felt her back straighten with affront as her distant mind acknowledged her need to protect her brother. There was a tension in the air between the two men. Both were too formal in their language with each other. Julian kissed the top of her head.

“I’m going to take you back to London. I have doctors waiting in Harley Street to help you retrieve your memory.”

“Sabrina is not going anywhere.”

Both brother and sister turned to face Raoul.

“Sabrina is not leaving the chateau,” Raoul repeated with heavy warning in his tone.

Julian pulled his sister protectively to his side. Sabrina felt her heart begin to thud with anxiety.

“Sabrina is coming with me,” Julian insisted. “She isn’t staying here one moment longer in this house. I want her home with me. She came to me the night of the ball to tell me you were having an affair and she wanted a divorce. She is coming with me.”

Sabrina’s eyes shot questioningly at Raoul. One dark eyebrow rose, making the pit of her stomach throb with a pleasurable ache. Raoul straightened to his full height.

“I will not continue to defend myself. I am not, nor have I ever had an affair. And Sabrina has no reason to be afraid of me. I would never hurt her, I love her. But then you have never been able to cope with that, have you, Julian?”

“My sister did not imagine anything, Raoul.” Julian continued, ignoring Raoul’s question.

“Look, that’s enough, both of you. Who do you think you are? I am here, you know. Stop talking about me as if I am not here. Don’t I get a say in my own life?” Sabrina interrupted.

Both men were suitably silent. She stared at them, angered by their lack of response.

“I am staying, Julian. I want to find out what happened to me. Once I know the truth, then I will make decisions about my marriage,” she announced with authority.”

She turned on her heel and made her grand exit from the room, ignoring both men and their argument.

Chapter Ten

Sabrina glanced around the table at the faces of the guests in the flickering candlelight. Beatrice and Jacques were married and worked with Sabrina as lawyers. Clearly their relationship was strained with Jacques’s wavering eye that frequently rested on Cressida, roved around to Tamsin, and finished with Sabrina herself. Marie-Claire and Floren were very much in love and planning a family. Alain and Sophie were Raoul’s top executives. Both were eyeing her nervously.

Maxim was unnerving. Maybe because he was a police inspector; she didn’t know. His eye wandered around the table as frequently as her own did, but with more suspicion. He also made her feel uneasy. Then there was the bitch from hell, Cressida, pawing Luc Valoire whilst trying to catch Raoul’s eye. But Sabrina was having her own battle with Luc; his constant vigil of every move and lift of her eyes made her feel scrutinised and embarrassed. He wore the same knowing smile on his lips that Raoul often did.

Then there was Raoul, the man who she was beginning to remember as husband. He did not engage her in conversation and spent most of his time watching his guests with dark suspicion. And her brother didn’t stop watching Raoul and Cressida with a steely eye. If it weren’t for Tamsin’s constant attention, she would have left the room. By the end of the meal, Sabrina was feeling isolated and anxious about everyone. These people were strangers. She knew nothing of their lives, hopes, and dreams. And their conversation amongst each other made her feel ignored once they had recovered from their initial shock of her miraculous return.

By the time coffee was served in the lounge and further stories of the life she didn’t know were recounted with amusement, she couldn’t take anymore. The room full of people made her feel like a freak and lonely with the unnerving notion that they all knew more about herself than she did. Luc’s constant staring and Alain’s nervous suspicious looks made her want to seek the solace of sleep. Once she was sure Tamsin and Raoul were both engaged with conversation, she slipped unnoticed from the room.

“Going somewhere?”

It was Cressida, standing at the bottom of the stairs. She mounted them and stopped on one down from Sabrina. She smoothed her red-tipped fingers over one of the straps on Sabrina’s dress, a flute of champagne in her other hand.

“I suppose it would be tiring and quite uneasy to be in a room full of people who know you much better than yourself,” she smiled, pausing to take a sip of her drink and lean against the marble balustrade. “Maybe they know things you don’t? Such as how much Raoul prefers the company of my bed to your own.”

“Really?”

Sabrina faked indifference, watching the vixen’s cherry lips pout when she didn’t receive the reaction she was looking for.

“He only wanted you back so he could prove he didn’t kill you. He wants a divorce so we can be married. You were never good enough for him, you could never give him what he wanted and needed in his bed. You were always so inhibited; that’s why he always came to me…”

Sabrina’s hand shot out in a reflex action, swiping neatly across Cressida’s polished face. Cressida’s eyes narrowed, but she laughed.

“You should pack your bags and leave. He doesn’t want you now. Make it easy for him to get a divorce. Or maybe I should tell him about the affair you were having with Luc. I’m sure he would love to hear the details of your torrid affair with his brother.”

“You lying bitch.”

Sabrina’s hand shot out again, but Cressida caught her wrist.

“Do as you are told and nobody will know anything. Then you won’t be responsible for tearing a family up, especially when old delightful Maman Valoire is recovering from a stroke. You wouldn’t want to make her ill again by putting a rift between her sons, would you?”

Sabrina wrenched her hand free. She was about to retaliate with disbelief when Luc appeared. Sabrina gave him a thunderous look as he smiled wickedly.

“Now ladies, what are you arguing about? Has Cressida been filling you in on the parts of your life your darling husband forgot to mention? Don’t you remember that night in your bed when you were feeling so alone and rejected, Sabrina? Don’t you remember how I made you feel wanted again all those lonely nights?”

Alarm bells began ringing inside Sabrina as he approached. They were both lying; they had to be. She didn’t know. She backed away from Luc and lifted the skirt of her dress to run up the stairs. She had to figure this out. She made her way to the blue room, hearing their laughter echo up the stairs and down the corridor of the first floor. She found her way to the blue room she had first been brought to when she arrived at the chateau and locked the door behind her.

* * *

Sabrina leant against the closed door wondering when her torment would end. They had to be lying. She couldn’t have been having an affair. She would never do such a thing. She felt the blood drain from her face. But she didn’t know what she was capable of as Sabrina Valoire. Raoul may have hurt her to the point that she sought solace or retaliation in someone else’s arms. But Luc, his brother, that was taboo. She shivered. The room was cold. She threw a couple of logs on the fire and lit it. She stood back and watched it burst into flame.

“Sabrina, I know you are in there. Open the door.”

It was Raoul. His tone was reprimanding, his knock at the door heavy and demanding.

“No, please, I want to be alone.”

She couldn’t face him, not now, not until she could think clearly and get her head around what she’d been told.

“Sabrina, I have already sent Francine for the spare key. Let me in.”

“No, go away. I thought you were giving me some space. Go back and see your beloved Cressida. She’ll want you more than I do.”

Sabrina grimaced at her words. He was making her sound like a silly jealous and petulant schoolgirl who couldn’t get her own way. There were no words of reply, only the key turning in the lock and the creaking of the old door as it opened.

She stood her ground as he advanced. He was sexy when he was angry, she decided. He was dark and dangerous, his look showed her there would be no mercy. It fired her blood and warmed the most intimate depths of her body. There were memories of arguments and disagreements past, of how they ended. She wanted this one to end the same way, even after all that had passed between them. He banged the door closed, making her jump.

“Why did you leave the room without telling me?” he demanded.

“You’ve been so preoccupied all night, I didn’t think you would mind. Anyway, I wasn’t aware that I had to report all of my movements to you,” she snapped.

“I expect you to stay by my side and not disappear, Sabrina. The last time you left me like that, you disappeared. There are people in this house, Sabrina, some of whom I trust with you and some I don’t. I need to make sure you are safe at all times.”