Dark Blue: Study in Seduction, Book 1 (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

The next morning, Alex had had to work again. The producer of his TV series had brought forward the deadline for the script, so he’d locked himself in the library in a far corner of the house and asked not to be disturbed.

Carla slipped on a bikini and sarong and took her Kindle to the pool but found it hard to concentrate. Even though it was barely eleven a.m., the temperature was in the mid-eighties according to the ancient thermometer on the wall by the water trough. It was a hazy day, wispy clouds taking the edge off the sun’s rays and the air even sultrier than yesterday. She closed her eyes, her Kindle abandoned, replaying last night’s encounter with Alex. She had been reading a translation of Denis Diderot’s
The Nun
on Alex’s recommendation, but it was hard going, despite the dark and mysterious undercurrent.

Memories of Alex, both pleasurable and painful, tormented her.

Her hand strayed to her stomach, resting on the filmy material that covered her lower belly. The urge to slip her fingers under her sarong and inside her bikini bottoms was strong. Alex was working, so she didn’t dare disturb him, even though she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to take her to their room and make love to her if she asked him. Despite the fact that Mme. Lemaitre was visiting a neighbour in the valley, there might still be staff around. The idea of pleasuring herself out here in broad daylight while reliving the previous afternoon’s lovemaking was both powerfully tempting and also a complete no-no.

She pulled the sarong over her thighs. The red marks had faded and were only mildly sore, but the trails made by the lash were still visible.

She’d hated that final stroke, but until then, the experience had driven her to new heights of arousal and pleasure. Perhaps it was the danger that he
would
go too far that had made the whole experience so intense. She was confused about how she’d felt using the martinet on him. Embarrassed at first, silly, though having him stripped naked in front of her gave her a feeling of power. But it didn’t feel right for her and Alex. It wasn’t what they were.

“
Bonjour
.”

Gaby waved from the other side of the pool. Carla steeled herself. Her little bit of peace was about to come to an end. Gaby strolled over, spread a towel on the lounger and sat down. She wore a plain and impossibly chic black one-piece. Carla was in hot pink flowers that had seemed exotic back in Marks & Spencer; now she just felt “terriblee Eenglish”.

“
Où est Alex?
”
asked Gaby.

“He’s working on a script for his TV series up in the library.”

“Ah yes. Of course. I should be working too, but I arranged to meet a director later this afternoon at a chateau near here. This morning I have to myself, so I see you, and I think I will also join you at the pool.”

Carla felt her sarong slip and hastily pulled it over her leg.

Gaby smirked. Had she noticed? “Alex must like you a lot to bring you here. We have never met any of his
belle amies
for a long time.”

“Really?” Carla refused to rise to that particular piece of bait.

“In fact, I don’t think I can remember meeting any of them since he left the States for England, so you must be special, and I am, how do you say,
intrigued
. Now, we are finally alone and can have a good talk together. You can tell me what you really think of the Lemaitres while they are not listening.”

Well, that was direct. Carla laughed it off. “You know what I think. Everyone’s been very welcoming. I’m really enjoying myself.”

Gaby gave a small smile. “Alex’s mother has the perfect manners, always. Everything she does is very correct, but don’t you find her a little cold and distant?
Maman
—my mother does—even if she is her cousin.”

“I really don’t know her very well yet. She’s made me feel at home here.” Carla felt justified in telling a little white lie if it meant thwarting Gaby.

“You English. You are so very polite all the time, never talking about your real feelings, always hiding them. I see this disease infecting Alex since he has been living in England.”

“Really? Well, he takes no prisoners in our tutes, I can assure you.”

“Take no
prisonniers
? Tutes? What does this mean?”

Carla smiled. “That he is blunt. He says what he thinks about people—at least about his students’ work in our tutorials. He pushes us hard, and if he has to be brutally honest to help us, he has no hesitation.” Suddenly it struck Carla that there were two Alexes in her life. The brutally frank tutor and the intensely private man. Did Gaby know both of them?

Gaby blew out a breath. “Wow. It sounds like he has made quite an impression on you.”

Carla’s hackles rose. “On us all. He’s a very well-respected professor.”

“I see you are angry with me. You are ‘pissed off’. That’s the right word to use,
n’est-ce pas
?”

“No, really, I’m not at all pissed off.” Just bloody fuming, thought Carla, her jaw aching with smiling while she wanted to throw Gaby in the pool. Not because the woman was catty and provocative, but because she had a feeling Gaby knew far more about Alex than she was letting on. Carla tried her own tactic. “Excuse me being direct. Did you know Alex very well when you were young?”

Gaby snorted in derision. “
Well
? Of course I did. We were almost like brothers and sister—the three of us, Olivier, Alex and me. Although brothers and sister is not correct either.”

“Close friends, then.”

Gaby pursed her lips. “Close?
Peut-être
more than that.”

Where was this leading? Carla shifted uncomfortably. She almost wished she hadn’t asked, but she was like a child walking down a path and through a dark archway into the gloom of a castle. She wanted to see what was inside, even though she was afraid of what she might discover.

“He doesn’t talk that much about his life here,” Carla replied.

“Yes, I can understand why he has not spoken about when we were young, perhaps. Not all of his memories of this place are happy,
bien sûr
. Has he told not even you what happened at La Bastide the summer before he went to England?”

Carla stiffened. So this was what Gaby had been waiting to do. Carla longed to know more about him, but she wanted to hear it all from Alex, not this woman who probably carried a torch for him and who certainly, for some reason, was jealous of Carla.
“Take what they say with a pinch of salt,”
Alex had said. Carla had a feeling she was going to need a whole spadeful.

“He’s told me you used to visit during the holidays before he and Olivier went to boarding school. That’s all I know.”

Gaby leaned forward and lowered her voice. “And has he said anything about his father?”

“Only that his parents divorced when he was a teenager. Gaby, I’m not sure that you should be telling me this.” It took a monumental effort of will to say it, but Carla was stung by Gaby’s undisguised relish at revealing intimate details about Alex’s childhood.

Gaby frowned, then shook her head. “So you don’t want to know that his father whipped him here in the courtyard in front of Olivier and me? You don’t want to know that his mother threw the bastard out after that and sent the boys away to school? You really say you don’t want to hear why that shit beat his son half-senseless with the martinet?”

Carla’s skin, burning a few seconds ago, now turned icy.

Gaby’s eyes were glistening, either with triumph or tears or both. “You see, you do want to know, so very much. I know Alex and that he doesn’t like to talk of what happened here, about his father or other things that are painful and upsetting. I also know what he is and what he does in private when the door is closed.”

Carla tried to get up from the lounger. This was a step way too far. Not even to hear Alex’s secrets would she discuss her sex life with Gaby.

“I’m sorry, Gaby, I don’t want to hear any more. What you’ve told me sounds truly awful, and I feel deeply sorry that you were involved, but I’ll hear the rest of the story from him, if you don’t mind.”

Gaby shrugged. “He will not tell you.”

“Then that’s his choice.” Carla stood up and grabbed her Kindle. It killed her to walk away, but she couldn’t bear to hear another word from Gaby.

“He won’t tell you anything about his father or about me or what happened in America,” Gaby called.

“America?”

“Yes. Ask him why he had to leave his post in the States. Why he had to run away to Oxford. Make him tell you what he really is—what a screwed-up, twisted mess he is—and then he will hate you.”

Suddenly, Gaby’s face crumpled as if she was going to cry, and Carla almost relented. While she felt an empathy with Gaby, a sense that they did share a bond—through Alex—she wouldn’t let Gaby see that.

“What goes on between me and Alex is our own affair. I’m sorry you’re upset, but I need to be on my own for a while. I’m sorry.”

Carla didn’t look back as she left Gaby by the pool. Mercifully, she saw no one as she let herself into her room and locked the door behind her. She curled up on the bed, overwhelmed with confusion. There was so much to take in, so much to try to process and make sense of. Not just the terrible incident with Alex’s father, whatever that had been, but with Gaby’s other accusations.
“Ask him why he had to leave his post in the States. Why he had to run away to Oxford. Make him tell you what he really is—what a screwed-up, twisted mess he is—and then he will hate you.”

Gaby’s words rang out again and again in her head. Alex had told her, right from the very moment he’d invited her to France, that his family were weird and that she shouldn’t take any notice of what they might say. He was clearly surprised, and not in a good way, to find Gaby at La Bastide, and he’d definitely been on edge every time they’d met her for dinner. In fact, Carla would have gone as far as to say he’d kept her as far away from his cousin as possible.

At the first opportunity, Gaby had sought her out to drop her bombshell. Carla was bright enough to know that the bombshell was not simply that Gaby wanted to spill Alex’s secrets, but to let Carla know she had been shut out by Alex and might always be. Gaby wanted her to realise that Gaby—and Olivier—shared bonds with Alex that she never would.

Carla had taken Gaby’s bait, hook, line and sinker. How could she ever have resisted it? She loved Alex. She wanted to understand him, body and soul, and Gaby had sensed that.

So Carla was left with no choice. Whether Alex hated her or not, she had to persuade him somehow to share his pain, no matter what it cost her.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carla heard Alex unlock the door to their room.

“Hello, how was your swim? Are you ready for lunch?” Alex sat on the bed next to Carla and kissed her on the cheek. “I thought you would still be out there by the pool.”

“It’s just too hot.”

“And why’s the door locked? Are you afraid of the cleaner turning into a psychopath?”

She squeezed out a smile. “I’ve got a bit of a headache, and I wanted to try and get some rest in the cool. I didn’t want to be disturbed once I’d managed to doze off.”

His forehead creased in concern, and he rested the back of his hand on her temples. “You do feel warm. Shall I get some paracetamol? Have you had plenty to drink? You could be dehydrated.”

“I’ve had plenty of water, and really, I’m feeling better now. I needed to get out of the sun.”

Alex stared at her. “You’re not telling me the truth, Carla. What’s happened? Are you ill? Because I’ll call our doctor if you are. In fact, I’m going to ring him right now.”

“No!” She sat up, pushing off his hand. “I’m not ill. It’s nothing like that. Oh, Alex…”

His eyes narrowed as she shook her head in frustration. Gaby had been right. She had to know what had happened to Alex at La Bastide and when he was a young academic in the States. Was it something to do with his wife?

“What’s been going on while I’ve been working?” he asked gently.

There was no going back. “Gaby came to see me while I was out by the pool.”

His expression darkened instantly. “I see.”

Did he? Was he really prepared for what was coming? All she needed to know from him?

“Are you going to tell me what she said?”

“That you wouldn’t want to tell me about your childhood here at La Bastide.”

He threw up his hands in frustration. “That’s Gaby. Divide and conquer. I told you not to take what my family said too seriously and to judge their words critically. That’s what you’re trained to do.”

At college, in the cold academic world, she thought, not here with real people. “So are you saying she lied to me about your father abusing you?” she said.

He stood up. “Abuse? There was no abuse. What the fuck has she been making up now?”

“Why would she make it up?” Carla slid her legs off the bed, bracing her hands on the cover, too afraid they would shake if she let go. “Tell me the truth, Give me your side of the story.”

“Mine? It’ll only be a version of the truth. You know that. A version interpreted by me and then translated by you.”

“I don’t care. I at least want a story to get wrong and misunderstand. You know all about me, about Stephen and his affair and how I felt. You’ve shared almost nothing of your own fears and secrets, and I can’t hold on to this fragment of a man any longer. When Gaby tells me that she knows everything about you, how do you think that makes me feel? I’m standing in the shadows at the side of you and her and Olivier—and anyone else who knew about this.”