At this moment, his head full of conflicting impressions of Dee and this woman standing in front of him-a woman with whom he'd shared a night of pa.s.sion-Rik couldn't for the life of him see the bright side!

CHAPTER FOUR.

'WHAT on earth are you doing here?' Sapphie showed her displeasure at having been shown out to the terrace of the George V, where she was expecting to have breakfast with Dee and Jerome but instead had found Rik Prince sitting at the table set for four.

Alone.

Not the sort of shock she needed first thing in the morning!

Especially after the sleepless night she had just spent, going over and over in her mind her conversation with Rik the previous evening in an effort to see if she had said too much, or revealed more than she intended. That was what she had been afraid of all along, of course.

She had finally come to the conclusion that she hadn't said anything that would rouse his suspicions...

Rik put his coffee-cup down on the table, clearly no more pleased to see her than she was him. 'It may have escaped your notice, Sapphie,' he drawled hardly, 'but, unlike you, I happen to be a guest at this hotel!'

Sapphie had half expected-and prepared herself!-for seeing him again at some stage during her breakfast with Dee and Jerome. But she just hadn't been expecting him to be sitting here and expecting to eat with them. And all before she had even had her first cup of coffee of the day too!

'Jerome called me earlier this morning and suggested I have breakfast with him and Dee. At the time I couldn't think of any reason not to,' Rik confessed, confirming Sapphie's suspicions as she reluctantly sat down on the chair the waiter pulled back for her. 'I don't believe there was any mention of your being here too.' Otherwise he wouldn't be here either, his tone implied. A tone Sapphie chose to ignore as she turned smilingly to the waiter and ordered another pot of coffee; she had a feeling she was going to need it!

'Rather a sudden decision of theirs to go on to London later today, isn't it?' Rik opined, once the two of them were alone.

Sapphie had been a little surprised herself when Jerome had called her on her mobile and explained the reason for them breakfasting together, because the couple had originally planned to spend another couple of days in Paris.

Although perhaps, given Rik Prince's unexpected presence here, it wasn't so surprising, after all...

Jerome was, on the surface, the most genial of men, and his indulgence towards his wife seemed boundless. But Sapphie had been perfectly serious when she'd warned Rik that Jerome drew the line at pandering to Dee's flirtations.

Having witnessed her sister unashamedly leading Rik on the previous evening, Sapphie knew that Jerome would have had to have been blind not to see it too. Admittedly, despite talking to Dee exclusively, Rik hadn't seemed to be giving her sister any encouragement.

Sapphie eyed Rik a.s.sessingly now. 'Isn't it?' she came back noncommittally, smiling her grat.i.tude at the waiter as he poured her coffee before putting the pot down and departing.

Rik's gaze narrowed. 'And what's that supposed to mean?'

'Rik, I'm really not going to get into an argument with you before I've even had my coffee!'

He continued to look at her for several seconds, and then he gave a begrudging smile. 'It really isn't surprising that I never guessed you and Dee are related; besides the fact that you look absolutely nothing like each other, you really are nothing alike. I certainly can't imagine having a conversation like this with her!'

Sapphie sipped her coffee before answering, not sure whether or not to take his remark as a criticism. But considering that Rik seemed to think Dee was just about perfect-apart from the little fact that she already had a husband, of course-it probably was!

'Feeling better now?' he prompted mockingly as she rapidly finished one cup of coffee and poured herself another.

'Not particularly, no,' she answered flatly; where were Dee and Jerome?

Nine o'clock, Jerome had told her when he rang her earlier, and it was already ten minutes past now.

Rik grinned at her disgruntled att.i.tude. 'Perhaps we should just go ahead and order breakfast? I noticed you hardly ate any dinner last night, so you're probably hungry.'

Sapphie gave him a sharp look, not having been aware that he had noticed anything the previous evening except Dee.

And that, she realised with an inner feeling of panic, felt distinctly like jealousy on her part!

No such thing, she instantly a.s.sured herself. What was the point of her feeling jealous about this man? Her feelings for him were going nowhere. Nowhere that she could allow them to go, anyway!

She put her coffee-cup down again. 'Shouldn't we wait for Dee and Jerome?'

'Mr Prince?' The waiter had once again appeared silently beside their table. 'Mr Powers has just telephoned down, sir,' he continued as Rik looked up at him enquiringly. 'He sends his apologies, but he and Mrs Powers aren't going to be able to join you, after all. He hopes that you and Miss Benedict will continue without them.'

An awkward silence followed the man's departure as Sapphie suddenly had an idea of what Jerome was trying to do, and Rik, she was sure, was desperately searching for a way to extricate himself from this situation!

'Hm,' he mused slowly. 'What's all that about, do you think? Why didn't Jerome call one of us directly on our mobiles?'

Sapphie had to admire Rik's shrewdness; most men wouldn't have realised that it was about anything!

But she didn't need to think about it herself; suddenly she knew exactly what Jerome was up to. It would have been laughable, if only Jerome hadn't chosen Rik Prince, of all people, to try and match make her with!

Ever since their broken engagement five years ago, Jerome had been suffering from a guilt complex where Sapphie was concerned, feeling as if he had let her down when he married Dee instead of her.

The result was that, whenever he could, Jerome sent an eligible bachelor in her direction, in the hope that she would fall in love. Rik Prince, it seemed, was his latest effort, and probably an attempt to kill two birds with one stone; if only he could encourage Rik to be attracted to Sapphie, Jerome would succeed at diverting the other man's attentions away from Dee!

However, Jerome couldn't possibly know that Rik Prince was the very last man Sapphie would ever allow into her life!

Into her own life. And into Matthew's...

Because she had no idea what Rik would say, what he would do, if he was to know that exactly nine months after they had spent the night together she had given birth to a healthy eight-pound baby boy.

Matthew.

Rik's son.

Sapphie had asked herself many times during her pregnancy whether or not she ought to contact Rik Prince about his impending fatherhood. A part of her said he had a right to know, but another part of her had argued strongly against it. Rik had made no effort to seek her out since their night together, had obviously never given a thought to the fact there might be any long-term consequences. If he had, perhaps her decision would have been a different one.

As it was, she had decided against telling him. It wasn't a night she was particularly proud of. She might have fallen in love with Rik on sight, but anyone with eyes in their head on Dee and Jerome's wedding day could have seen that Rik had had eyes for no one but the bride.

Sapphie had set out to deliberately bring herself to Rik's attention at the reception party, had noted his increasingly reckless mood as the evening wore on, even his invitation for her to join him in his hotel suite had been made in an offhand manner, as if he hadn't really cared whether she did or not.

The consequences of that night, she had argued to herself two months later when she'd learnt of her pregnancy, were hers alone. In fact, she had adamantly refused to tell anyone who the father of her baby was.

And when Matthew had been born, so beautiful, his hair dark and soft, with eyes the colour of the sky, she had been glad that she had decided not to tell Rik he was to be a father. This baby would be hers, and only hers.

It would have been too much to subject her beautiful child to a tug of war; even then she had known Rik well enough to know that was what it would have become, that he wasn't the sort of man to shirk his responsibilities. Matthew was too wonderful to ever be cla.s.sed as someone's responsibility!

Which was the reason it had been such a shock to see Rik again yesterday, why she had been desperately trying to alienate him ever since.

Unsuccessfully.

But one glance at him and she had seen how like his father Matthew already was; tall for his four years, his baby features already starting to show signs of the strength of his father's jaw, his mouth a perfect replica of Rik's, as was the deep blue of his eyes.

In fact, she had realised with a sickening lurch of her stomach, if anyone were to see Rik and Matthew together, their relationship would be unmistakable!

Not that she thought for a moment that Jerome had guessed the truth, and that was the reason for his trying to push Rik and her together; Dee and Jerome had last seen Matthew almost eighteen months ago, and he'd been very much a baby then. Also she was sure that the other couple really didn't have any idea that Sapphie and Rik had ever met before.

Something she had been at great pains to emphasise to Rik when she spoke to him yesterday. In fact, she felt as if she had been balancing on a tightrope since meeting Rik again.

But the worst part had definitely been the dread that either Dee or Jerome might mention her son, and that Rik would add two and two together and come up with the correct answer of four!

It hadn't happened, thank goodness, and luckily for her-and for obvious reasons of his own-Rik was no more anxious to reveal their past a.s.sociation than she was.

With any luck, with Dee and Jerome's departure from Paris later today, Sapphie need never think of, or see, Rik Prince again!

And the sooner she got back to the house she and Matthew shared with her mother, to the peace and happiness that was their normal existence, the better she would like it!

'What do you think it's all about?' She answered Rik's question, deliberately turning the focus back to him and away from herself; he wouldn't be any more pleased by Jerome's matchmaking than she was.

Rik eyes narrowed, his mouth thinning. 'No matter what you may think to the contrary, Sapphie, I do not want to be, nor have I ever been, involved with a married woman!'

No, she could believe that, Sapphie accepted; he was too sincere for it not to be the truth. Which meant that he and Dee probably hadn't met again since Dee's marriage...

Not that it made a great deal of difference to her decision concerning Matthew. Guilt on Rik's part was not something either of them needed. Or pity, either.

Sapphie had had to rethink her life and career once she'd discovered she was pregnant and had decided to keep her baby, had known that her high-powered new job a personal a.s.sistant-Dee had insisted that Sapphie couldn't possibly continue to work for Jerome in the circ.u.mstances!-was not a suitable one for a single mother.

Even if she did say so herself, her career change, to a freelance society reporter, had worked out very well. She had made so many contacts and friends during her time as Jerome's a.s.sistant that finding people to interview hadn't been a problem, and neither had finding newspapers and magazines to publish her work. Jerome's publications had been amongst them, her brother-in-law a.s.suring her that what Dee didn't know couldn't hurt her. And, as Sapphie had no personal contact with Jerome, she hadn't felt that she was betraying her sister's trust in any way either.

From writing those articles and meeting all those glamorous people-in some cases, unbelievably glamorous-had come the idea for writing a book. Ambitious, she knew, but it had been amazing how popular a novel with murder in Hollywood as its main theme had proved to be...

She gave Rik a scathing glance. 'I don't think I'm the one you have to convince of that,' she scorned. 'Do you?'

Rik was growing more than a little tired of bearing the brunt of Sapphie's derision. Especially as he was the one with a grievance, since he was still not completely convinced of her innocence when it came to what had happened five years ago.

He had thought over what she had said last night-in fact, he hadn't been able to sleep for thinking about it. But if he was to accept what Sapphie claimed had happened five years ago, if he was to believe her version of things, then that made him nothing but the idiot she had once claimed him to be, for believing in Dee so absolutely. And he wasn't ready to admit to that. Not yet.

But one thing he was willing to admit, to himself at least, was that he had never yet been bored in Sapphie's company. As he had been by Dee's last night...?

Well...yes. But, he had also decided during his wakeful hours last night, maybe it was the five years' gulf between himself and Dee that had made it impossible for them to converse easily. That, and the presence of Dee's husband and sister!

'I think you're exaggerating Jerome's concern about Dee,' he rasped harshly, leaning back in his chair to look at Sapphie through narrowed eyes.

If she had suffered from any sleeplessness last night because of their previous heated exchanges, then it certainly didn't show, Sapphie looking refreshingly lovely this morning in a cream sundress that deepened her tan and brought out the red highlights in her hair, those amber eyes still clear and shining.

d.a.m.n it, her eyes were always challenging when she looked at him. Something else he was finding he disliked intensely.

Sapphie's feelings for Jerome Powers all those years ago could hardly have been mild, considering she had been engaged to him. In fact, she'd claimed they were the reason she had ended up in bed with Rik. Which, considering her continued scorn about his emotions towards Dee, he found highly hypocritical!

It was a no-win situation as far as he could see, no matter how they continued to argue about it.

'How about we order some breakfast?' he suggested. 'That should be a safe topic of conversation, at least!'

'I'm not hungry,' Sapphie refused.

Neither was he. 'Then how about you and I go for a walk? You might work up an appet.i.te,' he persevered.

'How about you and I...?' Sapphie gave a frustrated shake of her head. 'Haven't I got it through to you yet that I don't want to spend any more time in your company than I have to?'

Rik held on to his temper with effort. 'I believe you may have mentioned it once or twice.'

Her eyes flashed like molten gold. 'Then you have your answer, don't you?'

Rik held up the palms of his hands. 'I was only suggesting a walk, Sapphie, not a morning in bed together!'

She gasped, colour darkening her cheeks as she hastily looked about them to see if anyone was listening to their conversation.

They weren't; Rik had already checked. His only fun in this situation might be in teasing Sapphie, but he had no intention of causing her a moment's embarra.s.sment in front of others. There was a certain dignity about her, a self-possession, that stopped him from ever doing that.

'Come on.' He stood up, moving to pull back her chair so that she had no choice but to stand up. 'A walk in the sunshine will do us both good.' It might also help to clear the cobwebs in his brain after his sleepless night. 'My intentions are strictly honourable, Sapphie,' he declared as she looked slightly dazed at finding herself outside the hotel and walking towards the River Seine and the looming Eiffel Tower.

She shot him a quick, disapproving glance, keeping her distance as they progressed along the avenue. 'I've only ever been that stupid once in my life!'

Stupid? Was that how she thought of their night together? He had considered her his salvation at the time and whenever he had allowed himself to think of her afterwards it had always been with a smile of remembered affection.

And no matter what Sapphie might have felt, he had thought of her during the intervening years, had often wondered where she was, what she was doing, if she ever thought of him with the same affection.

Obviously not, if her horror at seeing him again yesterday was anything to go by!

'I never thought of you as stupid, Sapphie,' he a.s.sured her huskily. 'Although, having talked to you, I do understand your reasons a little better now-'

'You think I was a diversion to stop you from interfering with Dee's wedding,' she reminded hardly.

He winced at the accusation, knowing it was deserved, and regretting that he had ever said anything so hurtful. But he had been hurting himself yesterday and had hit out at the only person that he could. No excuse, he knew, but it was what had happened.

One thing he did know; her description of her engagement to Jerome, her love for him, had definitely rung true...

Rik squirmed uncomfortably. 'I might have been a little hasty when I made that remark-'

'Might have been!' she echoed. 'I was twenty-three years old, Rik, and although I had been engaged to marry Jerome, the two of us had never been lovers. You were my first. Or were you too preoccupied that night with your own emotions to realise that?'

No, of course he hadn't been; that was an aspect of their night of pa.s.sion that had always puzzled him. But, until just now, time and distance had convinced him that he must have imagined that small initial barrier to their lovemaking-that, of course, Sapphie couldn't have been a virgin. Anyway, women simply didn't give their virginity away to a complete stranger, did they?

Though Sapphie had...