“They divorced?”
“No. He refused to grant her a divorce, so she ran away.”
“Why did she run?” He drew mind-numbingly erotic circles on the inside of her bicep with his thumb.
“According to the diaries I found after she…died, my father was physically abusive. She wrote that she left the first time he struck me. I don’t recall being hit, but I do remember my mother sending me to my room whenever my father started yelling. And I remember the fights and arguing and the sound of my mother crying. I remember kissing her boo-boos.” The last phrase came out in a strangled whisper as the past descended over her like a dark, oppressive cloud.
He muttered something she suspected was a curse. “Why did she not have him arrested?”
Feeling chilled despite the sunny day and warm temperature, Stacy pulled away and hugged herself. “She tried once, but my father was wealthy and powerful. He had friends in high places and the hospital records of her injuries mysteriously disappeared, so the charges were dropped. In her diary she claims reporting him only made him angry and vindictive.”
“You said earlier that your mother had to choose between food and rent. Could she not demand monetary support from your father?”
“No. She wrote that the one time she called for help he threatened to kill her if he ever found her.” The memories rose up to choke her and a shudder slithered through her. She’d never confessed the full extent of her past to anyone. She didn’t know why she wanted to now except perhaps she wanted Franco to understand why financial security was so important to her. For some reason it was important that he know greed hadn’t been the motivating factor in accepting his proposition. “One day he did.”
A moment of shocked silence stretched between them. “Mon dieu. What happened?”
“I came home from my first class in night school and found my mother and a man I didn’t recognize dead in our apartment. The police identified him as my father. He’d found us with the help of a private investigator. The CSI guy said my father shot my mother and then himself.”
She squeezed her eyes tight against the memory of red blood pooled on the white kitchen floor and having to walk through it to see if her mother was still alive, and then rib-crushing panic when she realized she wasn’t.
Franco yanked Stacy into his arms and hugged her tight enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs. One big hand rubbed briskly up and down her spine. His lips brushed her forehead. She leaned into him, absorbing his strength and accepting comfort in a way she’d never allowed herself before, but then she gathered herself and withdrew, because leaning on him was a habit she couldn’t afford. But she instantly missed his embrace.
The empathy in his eyes made hers sting with unshed tears. “So now you know why I accepted your proposition. I want a home. Nothing as grand as this. But a place that’s all mine.”
“What of your father’s estate? If he had wealth, then why did you not inherit?”
A question she’d asked herself countless times until she’d learned the truth. “He left everything to his alma mater.”
“And you did not contest his will or file a wrongful death suit?”
She shifted on her feet and studied the sunlight reflecting off the windows of the chateau. “No. Either would have cost money I didn’t have. And I couldn’t risk running up years of legal fees and then losing and being in debt.”
“Stacy, no court in the States would have denied your right to his estate after what he took from you, and a lawyer would have accepted you as a client with payment contingent upon a settlement.”
She dug the toe of her sandal into the gravel drive and debated full disclosure. What did she have to lose? She lifted her gaze to Franco’s. “Immediately afterward, I wondered if I could have stopped him if I’d been at home, and I said as much to the police detective. He told me that from the extra bullets in the gun and the photographs of me in my father’s rental car, they suspected he had intended to kill me too.”
The ultimate betrayal. A parent who wanted her dead.
“By starting school and changing my schedule I wasn’t where he thought I’d be.” She walked to the back of the car, struggled to regain her emotional footing and waited for Franco to open the trunk.
“After that I didn’t want anything from him except answers which he couldn’t give me. The executor of the estate let me walk through my father’s house before the auction. Mom’s makeup table looked like she’d gone out for the day and would return any minute, and all the clothing she’d left behind hung in the closet even though she’d left eleven years before. My room was the same. It was like a shrine to an eight-year-old girl. It creeped me out.”
“And you had no one to turn to?”
“No one I trusted.” Trust. There was that word again. She realized she was beginning to trust Franco and that couldn’t be good. He was rich. She hadn’t seen signs of him abusing his power or the law, but she’d known him less than two weeks.
“You have accomplished much by moving on instead of letting your past destroy you.” The approval in his voice wrapped her in a cocoon of warmth.
“I didn’t want my mother’s sacrifice to be in vain. She left to protect me.”
He stroked his knuckles along her cheekbone. “You have done her proud.”
His words were a soothing balm she hadn’t known she needed, and the tenderness in his eyes made her yearn for something, but what exactly, she wasn’t sure. She stepped closer.
“Franco, Franco, Franco,” a childish yell splintered the intimate spell. Stacy flinched and backed away. Close call. She couldn’t afford to become dependent on him or his approval.
Franco lowered his hand and turned to the small boy bolting from the chateau. The child raced down the walk and launched himself at Franco who caught him, swung him in the air and then hugged him while the boy talked far too fast for Stacy to translate the words. Franco replied in the same language, his voice low and tender.
Stacy couldn’t help but stare. Franco looked relaxed and happy. A wide smile transformed his handsome face into a knee-meltingly gorgeous one. If he ever looked at her that way she’d completely forget about his wealth and all the other reasons why he was the wrong man for her.
Who was the boy? Franco had said he and his wife hadn’t had children and yet the affection between the two was unmistakable. She guessed the child to be about six or seven.
Franco set the child on the ground and ruffled his dark hair. “Stacy, this is Mathé. Mathé, this is Mademoiselle Reeves. Speak English for her, please.”
Mathé’s small left hand clutched Franco’s larger one as he shyly mumbled a hello and quickly shook Stacy’s hand. Big brown eyes peeked at her before turning back to Franco with idolization shining in their depths. “Are you staying?”
“Oui, for the night. Go tell your grandmère we will need two rooms.” The boy rushed off.
Stacy’s gaze followed him back to the house. “He’s cute.”
“The housekeeper’s grandson. He has lived here with her since his mama ran off with her lover and left him behind three years ago.” The bitterness in his voice raised a number of questions.
“He’s about the same age your child would have been.”
Doors slammed in Franco’s expression. Any remnants of his smile vanished. He extracted their suitcases and slammed the trunk. “Do not try to paint me as a hero or a sentimental fool. I am neither.”
“Whatever you say. But he’s clearly thrilled to see you.”
“I spend time with him when I can. He has no father and mine is too old to keep up with him.”
“Entrez-vous?” An older man called from the open front door. Stacy recognized him from the photo in Franco’s study.
“Oui, Papa. We are coming.” Franco carried the luggage toward the house. Stacy followed. “I have come to look over the documents you had drafted.”
“You are staying the night?” Stacy thought he asked.
“Oui.”
Her French had improved tremendously in the past two weeks, but Stacy quickly lost track of the heated rapid-fire conversation that followed. Whatever his father said turned Franco’s face dark with anger.
Franco turned to her. “It appears my soon-to-be stepmother has decided to redecorate the house. All of the bedrooms except for mine and Papa’s have been stripped.”
“We could go to a hotel,” she suggested.
“Not necessary. Stacy, is it? I am Armand Constantine. Welcome. Come in.” He extended his hand. “It is not as if you and Franco are not already sharing a bed. I am old, but I am not old-fashioned or easily shocked.”
Embarrassment sent a scalding wash across her skin. “It’s nice to meet you, Monsieur Constantine.”
She shook his hand and followed him inside. The detailed plasters, gilt-framed artwork and period furniture in the entrance hall screamed history—a history Stacy had never had as her father’s house had been built after Stacy’s birth. A wide staircase worthy of a romantic Hollywood movie soared upward from the center of the grand hall.
“Franco, show Stacy upstairs and then bring her to the salon for refreshments.”
Franco remained motionless for several seconds and then nodded stiffly and climbed the stairs. Stacy followed, her eyes drinking in the original oils on the walls, the beautiful antiques and the endless halls. Finally, Franco shoved open a door and walked into a round room that looked as if it belonged to a teenage boy.
She quickly averted her gaze from the double bed covered in a blue spread. Her pulse skipped erratically at the thought of sharing the narrow mattress with him. Sleeping with him—something she had yet to do. “Your bedroom’s in a tower.”
“Oui.” The clipped word drew her gaze from the boyish decor to his face.
“I guess your stepmother didn’t get to your room yet?”
“My room is off-limits to her as it has been to each of my father’s four wives.” He dumped their bags on a large wooden trunk beneath one of the five windows punctuating the walls.
“He’s been married four times?”
“Five if you count my mother. He likes to fall in love. Unfortunately, he falls out of it rather quickly. But not before each of my stepmothers has her turn at emptying the bank accounts and erasing all traces of the previous Madame Constantine from the chateau.”
No wonder he thought every woman had a price. She’d learned more about Franco in the past half hour than she had in the previous two weeks. She’d thought the chateau meant Franco had enjoyed the stability and permanence she’d lacked, but apparently not if he had revolving stepmothers and his home was always being torn apart.
Shelves loaded with sports memorabilia lined the walls. The trophies and ribbons drew her to the side of the room. Bicycle racing. Swimming. Rowing. That explained those wide shoulders and muscular legs. She’d never lived anywhere long enough to join a team, and at one time she’d condemned her mother for that. Stacy had lost count of the times during the past decade she’d wished her bitter words back.