Seduction on the Cards Read online

  He’s a scheming rat. But a rat in great shape. A girl can admire that.

  She slammed her visor down again, hoping he was oblivious to her exploration.

  “Only another few minutes,” he yelled. “You’ll need to hang on tight at the top—it’s very steep.”

  Kerri found he was right. They roared up the Wadestown Hill and then turned aside and growled higher and higher until civilization disappeared. Up here the big trees were really thrashing as gusts of wind wrenched their branches about. She clung to him, half-thrilled, half-fearful, until he passed between brightly-lit stone gateposts and reached more level ground.

  He glided to a halt, braked, and removed his helmet.

  “Off,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Kerri grimaced at being ordered about. She pushed herself away from him and dismounted less than gracefully.

  “Where the hell are we?” she demanded after she’d pulled off her helmet. She thrust her hand through her hair to fluff it up again, and watched as Alexandre sat spread-legged on the bike, doing the same to his.

  Her disobedient fingers itched to help.

  The harbor lay dark and restless far, far below. The city lights danced in the water and sprinkled the lower hills.

  “Gaston calls it ‘The Top of the World’,” Alexandre said as he swung a long leg over the seat and set the bike it on its stand in the sizeable parking area. “Wait,” he added, stepping close in front of her to block her way, and cupping her face in his hands. He tilted her from side to side so the light from the gateposts fell across her face, and Kerri was surprised to find herself letting him. “Yes, he’ll like you,” he said, stroking his hands over her hair the way she’d wanted to do to his. “Such a naughty girl. Such a pretty girl. So hard to resist.”

  “Don’t do that!” she protested, finally swerving away and crunching across the fine gravel towards the big old house. In those few seconds he’d set her body on fire again, and her brain had turned white, and the scent of almonds perfumed the air all around her. She stopped in confusion and shook her head.

  Damn the man—he had no right making her feel like that. She was supposed to be working, for heaven’s sake. She resumed her unsteady progress across the gravel while Alexandre retrieved something from one of the bike’s pannier bags. Finally she clattered up the timber steps to the welcoming light of the entrance porch.

  The door swung open.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Bonjour, bonjour,” their host exclaimed. Kerri found herself swept up, kissed on both cheeks, and released.

  She sagged back against the wall and tried to regain her composure.

  As Alexandre joined them he was engulfed in Gaston’s enthusiastic embrace as well.

  “Bonjour Alex,” boomed Gaston—who she could now see was as chubby and fair as Alex was lean and dark. He followed his greeting with a stream of rapid conversation which Kerri’s school French lessons certainly hadn’t prepared her for, and shepherded them along a wide hallway to an immense golden space that smelled divine.

  She gazed about, dimly registering Alexandre was reminding Gaston to speak English.

  From floor to ceiling the room was devoted to food. Copper and cast iron saucepans and fry-pans of all sizes hung from ceiling racks. An immense amount of white crockery stood stacked on open shelves. Jars of sauces, pickles and herbs marched in disciplined ranks along the walls. Plaits of garlic and dark salamis hung from hooks. And any space between bulged with recipe books, children’s paintings of fruits and vegetables, gadgets and implements Kerri couldn’t hazard a use for, and hundreds of bottles of wine.

  She swiveled slowly, taking it all in. What a place to describe for the paper! On a huge stove fragrant steam rose from a stock-pot. Tall glasses clustered ready on a polished granite counter. A series of work-tables occupied the middle ground, and in a large curtain-framed alcove at the rear, a dinner table was sumptuously set for three.

  “Champagne first,” Gaston declared as Alexandre handed over two bottles still in their wrappings.

  “But not these,” Alex countered. “They’ve had a rough ride up the hill, have they not, Kerri? They must be all stirred up.” He raised a meaningful eyebrow in her direction. “Gaston,” he continued, mouth quirking ever so slightly, “this is Ms Kerrigan Lush. Kerri—meet my very dear friend Gaston Picard.”

  Kerri fumed at the ‘all stirred up’ implication but somehow kept a tight rein on her tongue. She shook hands.

  Gaston’s eyes widened with appreciation.

  “When you said you were bringing a journalist, Alex, I expected a dried-up old plum with fierce spectacles and hairs on her chin,” he teased. “Not this enchanting child. How did you manage to steal her away from her mama and papa?”

  “A dried-up old prune,” Kerri corrected. “And I’m plenty old enough to vote,” she added. “He stole me away from my friend Sarah with...blackmail.”

  She flashed a disdainful glance in Alex’s direction, and turned back to smile at Gaston. “Do you have somewhere I can leave my jacket and rearrange my hair?” she asked before he queried her mention of blackmail. “Your friend considers a motor cycle adequate transport for a ‘working’ dinner.”

  “Try directing a taxi up here in the dark,” Alex suggested. “They’d want danger money.”

  “And you can surely afford that?” Gaston queried. “Beaufort Technologies goes well, oui? All your clever little machines?”

  “Oui, mon ami. The business goes well.”

  Gaston nodded with satisfaction and turned to Kerri.

  “This way,” he invited. “We have a special room for our cooking school ladies. We make them feel they are already in France.”

  He led Kerri through to an anteroom and powder-room furnished so fancifully she imagined she’d been transported to a high-class Parisian salon. The plumbing was sleek and modern, but the windows were draped and swagged and tasseled with dusky purples and golds, lamps softly-shaded, and several small deep arm-chairs displayed plump fringed cushions. The walls were painted a mysterious coppery brown, and issues of French Vogue were strewn on a wrought-iron table.

  “Oh, it’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “You’re right—we’ve left New Zealand way behind.” She began to shrug her jacket off in front of the long gilt-framed mirror, and Gaston stepped behind her to assist.

  “Mon Dieu! You will kill us poor men,” he muttered as her breasts rose generously into view.

  Kerri caught his eye in the reflection and gave him an impish grin. “Your friend deserves to suffer,” she said. “I need to pay him back for something.”

  “But will he consider this view torture or reward?”

  “Hopefully torture.”

  “He’d better enjoy his dessert then,” Gaston said.

  Kerri had no way of knowing he was imagining tender individual crème caramels, and wondering if he had time to prepare them. The joke of the crème caramels would not be lost on Alex—especially if each wobbly custard was presented with a single rose-red brandy-soaked cherry on top. He gave Kerri a half-bow and bustled back to his kitchen.

  She checked her reflection once more. Maybe the neckline really was too low? She tried tweaking it a little higher, and then pushed it down to where it had been before. No—it served him right for touching her like that in his office. If he thought her so accessible he could think again.

  Bet you’ll hate looking but not touching, Monsieur.

  She dragged a brush down through her tangled hair and blew herself a kiss in the mirror before sauntering back to the huge golden room.

  Alex lounged against one of the counters as Gaston stirred something in a saucepan. The aroma of garlic and mushrooms wafted past Kerri’s nose. She slowed as she approached the two men. Alex had removed his jacket and tossed it over a chair-back. Her mini-recorder sat on the table next to it. She could see now what her hands had told her—his pale grey polo shirt and very dark trousers clothed a body that was lean through the waist and hips, broad across
the chest and shoulders. Unexpected for a technology geek.

  “I bet you spend a lot of time at the gym.”

  Damn—the words had just slipped out somehow.

  His face showed his surprise.

  “Being nice to me, all of a sudden, cherie?”

  “How am I going to write about you unless I talk to you?” She leaned on the counter beside him and sniffed with appreciation. Gastons’s garlic entirely cancelled Alex’s enticing almond cologne. “We didn’t get a lot discussed this afternoon.”

  She hoped he couldn’t tell she was still jumpy and aware because of his unthinking caress just a matter of minutes ago. Still turned-on and half-wishing she was again pressed against his long warm back with the throb of the bike’s big engine vibrating under them.

  “Such an enjoyable discussion though.” One dark eyebrow winged up and his curly mouth lost its battle to stay serious.

  “For some,” she said airily.

  He let out a roar of delighted laughter.

  Gaston set down his wooden spoon and regarded them both with an air of surprised delight.

  “Flirting, Alex? In my kitchen?”

  “NO!” they snapped in unison, turning toward him with twin expressions of horror.

  Gaston tapped the side of his nose.

  “I sniff a rat,” he said.

  “What does it smell like?” Kerri couldn’t help asking. This reduced Alex to amused splutters, and Gaston to wide-eyed enquiry.

  “Sorry,” she said, repentant. “No Gaston, we are not flirting in your magnificent kitchen. We just seem to rub each other up the wrong way.”

  “Did I rub you the wrong way?” Alexandre asked with a wicked smirk.

  Kerri’s groin became even warmer and wetter. Insufferable man! She struggled not to react.

  “I daresay we can be polite to each other for one evening,” she insisted, reaching over for her recorder and placing it on the counter beside her.

  “This again?” Alex asked, stretching out a long arm, snaring the little machine back and fingering the buttons.

  “Leave it!” she snapped, panicked that Gaston might get to hear some undeniable flirting.

  Alex seemed to take far too long to set it down again, and his lazy smile signaled danger ahead.

  Gaston’s choir-boy face beamed. “Now the champagne,” he declared, setting his spoon aside and easing the cork from a moisture-beaded bottle with a gentle hiss. He poured the pale fizzing wine into three tall glasses. “A toast to you, my friend,” he said, dipping his drink towards Alex, “and to your charming Kerri.”

  “To Felice and your beautiful daughters,” Alex responded. “Where are they, by the way?”

  “At her family’s vineyard. Just until this weekend. Camille starts school on Monday so this is their last chance until the Christmas break.”

  Alex shook his head. “Five years old? I can’t believe it…”

  “My eldest daughter—five years—like that,” Gaston said, snapping his fingers and nodding with apparent amazement.

  Kerri sipped the superb champagne and wondered if her own father had ever spoken as affectionately about her. She’d idolized Anthony Lush. He’d been such fun because he was forever doing something interesting and exciting.

  “You enjoy being a father?” she asked wistfully.

  “You have children?”

  “No, not for years yet.”

  “You cannot imagine, until you have your own, how precious they become. So tiny and vulnerable to begin with. And then with personalities that blossom like flowers.”

  “I loved my Dad. He was really special.”

  “I’m sure you were his much-loved treasure.”

  “His much-loved nuisance, perhaps?” she suggested with a grin, sipping the yeasty wine again. “I adored spending time with him. He used to call me his lucky charm. He taught me how to fill in the Jet-bet forms when the race meetings were on. He’d tell me which horses he favored and I’d mark the squares in for him.”

  “So young?” Alex demanded, a dark frown creasing his brow.

  Kerri shrugged. “Just his bit of fun. Nothing serious. A few dollars.”

  He sent her a fulminating glare.

  The horse-races had always thrilled her. The greyhounds, too.

  “I liked the poker games the best,” she said to Gaston. “All these years later I still have lovely memories of sitting on his knee, watching the cards in his hand when he was playing with friends.” She bit her lip, remembering the cigarette smoke wreathing up around the small group of men...the glasses of beer she’d been very occasionally allowed to sip...the air of suppressed excitement. “I always tried to keep a straight face the way he’d taught me but I bet I was hopeless. He probably lost heaps of games because of me.”

  Gaston set a bunch of green herbs down on his chopping board, took up a vicious-looking knife, and began to shred them with a speed that made Kerri fear for his fingers. “But think how special it would have been for him—a living lucky charm, right there on his knee.”

  “A living lucky charm who wriggled and squeaked and gave the game away all the time, I expect.” She breathed in the sharp herb fragrance.

  Gaston smiled as he peered into his saucepan again. He lifted it off the heat and swirled the contents around carefully. The sweet aroma of warm sugar reached Kerri’s nose.

  “You still play” Alex asked, turning toward her.

  “Sometimes. Only for ten cent pieces, so you can get that disapproving look off your face.”

  She turned back to Gaston and watched as he inspected something delicious-smelling in the oven.

  “And I was allowed to help him scrape the top layer off the ‘scratchies’ in the hope we’d find a big win lurking underneath. Do you do that with your daughters?”

  Gaston shook his head. “Camille is not yet five.”

  “She’d be better putting the money in her piggy bank,” Alex muttered.

  “Don’t be such a spoil-sport! I still get a little tingle of excitement from it. Every time I buy a Lotto ticket or an Instant Kiwi card I think of my dad,” she added.

  She could still picture him on that last morning—smiling and carefree—poor dead Daddy who’d tempted fate one too many times and lost his life because of it.

  She tried to shake the memory away. “Can I ask you questions while you cook, Gaston? Alex said I could interview you both for possible articles in the paper.”

  Gaston peered down once more at the sugar he was caramelizing for the crème caramels.

  “Maybe we should tell you about each other?” he suggested. “That might be interesting—no?”

  Alexandre raised both hands in protest. “Way too interesting. Tell only the truth, and I’ll tell only the truth in return,” he warned.

  Gaston clicked his tongue, and turned away to pour the golden sugar-sauce into three small dishes. He swirled it carefully to coat the sides. Then he started breaking eggs into a copper bowl.

  And for the next two hours Kerri listened, and probed, and laughed, and ate food that was out of this world. As the two men talked, she relaxed until it seemed she was enjoying a pleasant social evening instead of conducting a starchy business interview.

  Alex and Gaston were obviously the best of friends. Gaston was besotted with his wife Felice and his little daughters Camille and Georgine. He and Felice were enthralled with every kind of food and now ran a business which combined Gaston’s culinary expertise with Felice’s viticultural background.

  Kerri discovered Alexandre’s agile mind and fierce ambition were behind a company called Beaufort Technologies that produced specialized medical items.

  “Do you know,” Gaston enquired, “that he started this when he was only sixteen?”

  Alexandre waved the praise away.

  “Not the company, but the first of the clever machines,” Gaston continued. “We had a friend at school who needed regular medication. It was imperative he remembered to take it, because if he did not the consequence
s were terrible for him.”

  “Poor Henri,” Alex recalled.

  “So Alex took apart a cell-phone. This was a very early model, remember—and somehow made it send Henri messages at the right times. And Henri had to signal back that he had taken the meds. And when he showed his doctor—boom!—great interest.”

  “It was just something I could do,” Alexandre said, shrugging his beautiful shoulders.

  “Clever,” Kerri agreed, annoyed to find she admired the man with the wandering hands.

  So he wasn’t just a financial whiz? He was a practical inventor who really had worked for his money, and now used it to do good?

  “Is all your equipment medical?”

  “Not all of it, but allied, I suppose. You might say ‘physical status monitoring’. Some of the devices keep people safe when they’re doing hazardous jobs.”

  “Fighting dangerous fires. Cleaning up chemicals,” Gaston inserted. “With Beaufort you can know a person’s heart is beating safely and their breathing is good.”

  “I’ll strap one on you, my friend, and see how your body performs while you’re cooking with truffles,” Alex teased.

  “Deep breathing. Strong heartbeat,” Gaston chuckled. He turned to Kerri. “And the truffles are superb here in New Zealand. Good enough to offend my countrymen.”

  Kerri nodded. “I think it’s quite a young industry,” she said. “My paper did a story about it earlier this year. They’ve been planting oaks and hazelnuts and infecting the roots with the Perigord black truffle spores somehow. Production is slowly creeping up, and the prices are astronomical. I heard three thousand dollars a kilo.”

  “Excellent to have them fresh at a different time of the year,” Gaston confirmed, offering more wine around the table and not looking in the least surprised by the price she’d mentioned. “So—you’re here for how long, Alex?”

  “Until Monday morning. Then to Noumea again.”

  “You should take Sylvie out on Sunday. Lunch on the harbor? Some sunshine?”

  “She’s available?”

  “For you—of course.”