‘I said. I told you …’ Her voice faltered a little. She could see where he might be headed with this. ‘Not that recent.’

‘How recent?’

She started to feel annoyed at his tendency to fire questions like bullets. ‘Well, officially I gave the ring back a couple of months ago. Though by then it was well and truly on the rocks.’

‘“Officially”.’ He made mock quotation marks with his fingers. There was a definite snap in his voice that riled her. ‘What does that mean?’

She glared at him. ‘Look,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘not that it’s anyone’s business, but he and I imploded almost at the start, only like a fool I kept on …’

He swung about to impale her with his gaze. ‘Forget the excuses. Give me a straight answer. When was the last time you were together?’

Her blood pressure rose. ‘Does that matter?’

‘It may not to some guys, but I have a strong distaste for screwing women who are still hot from my cousin’s bed.’

She flushed. ‘I’m not hot from his bed.’ Her chest heaving with indignation, she added sweetly, ‘Though until a minute ago you could have said I was hot from your arms.’

For an instant his eyes flared, then he concealed them behind his dark lashes. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Wednesday, okay?’

‘This week?’ His frown intensified, though his glance strayed to her mouth.

‘Yes. He was looking for his passport. He accused me of holding onto it after I threw his things out of the apartment. As if I would. He said he had to go to LA on the firm’s business.’

A tinge of contempt touched his face. ‘Vraiment. So … did you give him the passport?’

‘I told you. I didn’t have it.’

His dark eyes flickered over her, searching, suspicious. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe a word she said. The hackles rose on her neck. She was so over being insulted by the men in this family.

‘So,’ he said with maddening silkiness. ‘You sleep with a man on Wednesday, then you sleep with his cousin on Saturday.’

She hissed in a long, simmering breath. ‘Only if his cousin’s very, very lucky.’

The raw anger in her voice finally penetrated Luc’s brain. She wasn’t taking his perfectly natural concerns well. As he scanned her face his certainties suffered a jolt. There was a sparkle in her eyes that gave him pause.

Her luscious mouth was firmly compressed, when only minutes ago those lips had been so soft and yielding, so tinglingly responsive.

She turned away from him.

With quicksilver rapidity a dozen arguments flashed through his mind. From her point of view she might have been telling the truth. She was a woman, after all. What woman ever understood the dictates of honour between men? Particularly men of the same family?

The night’s original agenda scintillated in his mind’s eye. Perhaps he was being harsh. Overly fastidious. If she was no longer officially engaged …

And he’d be gone from Australia tomorrow. They’d be ships in the night, et cetera. Passing on the stormy seas of his bed at the Seasons. Plunging and plunging in the sweet, fresh sheets, her naked beauty his to enjoy to the full. Totally naked, and by lamplight …

Gazing at her sweet profile, he felt a renewed urgent stir in his loins. It would be too cruel to have to sacrifice this now. R'emy would never have to know.

At that admittedly seedy reflection shame started to seep through him. What was he doing? He’d come to relieve R'emy of his job, not his woman. For all he knew they’d had a mere lovers’ tiff and she’d be back in his bed in a few days.

Avoiding looking at her for fear of succumbing to temptation and throwing honour out of the window, he chilled his tone. ‘Let’s be adult about this. I think we have to acknowledge that our recent—interlude—was an error of judgement.’

She turned coolly on her heel and stalked away in the direction of the front door.

‘Shari.’ Galvanised to action, he caught up with her in a couple of strides.

A mere beat ahead of him, she was first to grab the door knob. As he reached over her blonde head to take it from her he heard a small startled sound issue from her throat and just for an instant he noted a curious rigidity in her. He touched her shoulder and she started, then spun around, alarm in her eyes.

‘Pardonne-moi.’ He drew back in concern. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’