Exposed: Misbehaving with the Magnate Read Online Free PDF Page A

Caverness tomorrow afternoon and take a wander through the gardens with me? You could stay for a meal. Try again with Josien if you’ve a mind to, although I don’t fully recommend it. You could attempt a civil discussion with Luc. See if you can find common ground that isn’t rooted in the past. Ask his opinion on setting up a distribution arm here for your Australian reds. Make him feel useful. Men like that.’
    ‘Then what?’ said Gabrielle somewhat sceptically.
    ‘Then you mention your fiancé.’
    ‘I don’t have a fiancé.’
    ‘Not sure you need to mention that.’ Simone started grinning and it wasn’t because of the bubbles. ‘All right, forget the non-existent fiancé. Set the boundaries for your relationship with Luc some other way—but set them nonetheless. Maybe Luc will follow your lead.’
    ‘And if he doesn’t?’
    ‘Run,’ said Simone, and kept right on grinning. ‘Damn, I’ve missed you. Here’s to hilltop reunions, restraint when dealing with troublesome men, and laying to rest the ghosts of our past.’
    ‘Hear hear,’ said Gabrielle and lifted her near-empty not-plastic champagne flute to her lips. Where had all the champagne gone? ‘Restraint, you said?’
    ‘Civilised restraint,’ amended Simone. ‘Nothing to it. More champagne?’
    Gabrielle hesitated. ‘Didn’t you just fill my glass?’
    ‘They’re very little glasses,’ said Simone sneakily. ‘May I remind you we’re talking Chateau Caverness 1955 here? This isn’t just any old champagne.’
    Indeed it wasn’t. ‘All right,’ said Gabrielle, and reached for the magnum with what she thought was a great deal of restraint, never mind Simone’s descent into helpless laughter. ‘Maybe just one.’

CHAPTER THREE
    A T FIVE pm the following afternoon, after an evening of laughter with Simone followed by half a day of sleep, Gabrielle drove, yet again, through the entrance to Chateau des Caverness and parked her car in the gravel courtyard next to the servants’ quarters. Ignoring the door to her childhood completely, she switched on her mobile and found the number Simone had keyed into the phone last night.
    ‘Where are you?’ she said when Simone answered the phone.
    ‘In the orchard, waiting for you,’ said Simone. ‘And if you’ve waited until now to tell me you’re not coming I’m going to be very very annoyed.’
    ‘I’m here,’ said Gabrielle. ‘I just didn’t want to walk through three acres of garden looking for you, that’s all. I’m not exactly wearing sensible shoes.’
    ‘Colour me intrigued,’ said Simone. ‘I thought you’d be wearing something restrained.’
    ‘I am wearing something restrained,’ said Gabrielle. Her square necked knee-length plum-coloured sundress was very restrained. She’d even plaited herwayward hair and woven it into a heavy bun on top of her head, princess style, and secured it with a thousand pins. She’d followed up with the application of very subtle, very expensive, make-up and only the merest dash of her favourite perfume. She was a walking, talking picture of stylish restraint. ‘Except for the shoes.’
    The leather sandals with their delicate straps and flimsy heel were an exercise in idiocy. Idiocy being the word that summed up Gabrielle’s thoughts on accepting Simone’s invitation to tour the gardens and stay for dinner afterwards. Civilised restraint was all well and good in theory. Putting it into practice was hard.
    ‘Take your shoes off, then, and come around the front way on the grass,’ suggested Simone.
    ‘That’s not exactly civilised,’ said Gabrielle. ‘It’s a little unrestrained.’
    ‘Do it anyway,’ said Simone with a snicker. ‘Get all that wild abandon out of your system now so that when you happen across Luc there’ll be none left for him.’
    ‘You’re making a surprising amount of sense,’ muttered Gabrielle.
    ‘I always do,’ said Simone as Gabrielle reached the stone wall, slipped off her shoes, and stepped