The rattle of ice in glasses interrupted them. Luc leapt up and carefully intercepted Bernardo before he could come any closer. Catherine absorbed this defensive exercise with hidden amusement. Anyone would have been forgiven for thinking that her bare back was the equivalent of indecent exposure. Yesterday, a low-flying light plane had provoked an embargo on topless sunbathing and a no doubt fierce complaint to the local airfield. She wondered why it had taken her all this time to notice just how shockingly old-fashioned Luc could be about some things.
He cast her a sardonic glance. 'I love the way you lie out here as though there's nothing happening.'
'Bernardo knows exactly what he's doing.' With an excess of tact, she did not add that if Luc stopped wading in to interfere and organise, imbuing everyone with the feeling that their very best wasn't good enough, the last-minute arrangements would be proceeding a lot more smoothly. Having given the intimidating impression that he intended to supervise and criticise every little detail, he was not receiving a moment's peace.
Tomorrow, she reflected blissfully. Tomorrow, she would be Luc's wife. The 'died and gone to heaven' sensation embraced her again. Whole days had slid away in a haze of hedonistic pleasure since her arrival in Italy. Never had she enjoyed such utter relaxation and self-indulgence. Her sole contribution to the wedding had been two dress-fittings. Her gown, fashioned of exquisite handmade lace, was gorgeous. It was wonderful what could be achieved at short notice if you had as much money as Luc had.
'Tomorrow, I'll be rich,' she mused absently.
After an arrested pause, Luc flung back his gleaming dark head and roared with laughter. 'You're probably the only woman in the world who would dare to say that to me before the wedding.'
She gave him an abstracted smile. Luc? Luc was wonderful, fantastic, beautiful, incredible, divine…With unwittingly expressive eyes pinned to him, she ran out of superlatives, and he sent her a glittering look that made her toes curl. That detachment which had once frozen her out when she got too close was steadily becoming a feature of the past.
Last night, Luc had actually talked about his family. And he never talked about them. The death of his parents and sister in that plane crash had shattered him but he had never actually come close to admitting that fact before. And she was quite certain that he would never admit the guilt he had suppressed when they died. On the rise to the top, Luc had left his family behind.
He had given them luxury, but not the luxury of himself. Business had always come first. He had sent them off on an expensive vacation in apology for yet another cancelled visit and he had never seen them alive again. When he had talked about them last night, it had been one of those confiding conversations that he could only bring himself to share with forced casualness in the cloaking darkness of the bedroom. Until now, she had never understood just how very difficult it was for Luc to express anything which touched him deeply.
Sliding up on her knees, she lifted her bikini top. His dark eyes travelled in exactly the direction she had known they would, lingering on the unbound curves briefly revealed. A heady pink fired her cheeks but, as she arched her back to do up the fastener, the all-male intensity of his appraisal roused an entirely feminine satisfaction as old as Eve within her.
'You like me looking at you,' he commented, lazily amused.
She bent her head, losing face and confidence. 'You're not supposed to notice that.'
'I can't help noticing it when you look so smug.'
Leaning lithely forward, he scooped her bodily across the divide between the loungers with that easy strength of his that melted her somewhere deep down inside. He laced an idle hand into her hair and claimed her mouth in a provocative sensual exploration. The world lurched violently on its axis and went into a spin, leaving her light-headed and weak. It didn't matter how often he touched her, it was always the same. There had always been this between them, this shatteringly physical bond.
And once it had scared her. In her innocence, she had believed it one-sided, had assumed that Luc could, if he wanted, discover the same pleasure with any other woman. She was not so quick to make that assumption now. In the long passion-drenched hours which had turned night into day and day into night, the depth of Luc's hunger had driven her again and again to the brink of exhaustion.
He released her mouth with reluctance. 'You make me insatiable.' The sexy growl to that lancing confession did nothing to cool her fevered blood and she rested her head on his shoulder. 'Somehow, I doubt,' he murmured, 'that it'll take that long for you to become pregnant.'
'Pregnant?' she squeaked, jerking back from him, her first reaction one of shock and, curiously, fear.
His hands steadied her before she could overbalance and he nuzzled his lips hotly into the hollow of her collarbone where a tiny pulse beat out her tension. 'Don't tell me you believed in the stork story,' he teased. 'Believe it or not, what we've been doing in recent days does have another more basic purpose above and beyond mere pleasure.'
She was trembling. 'Yes, but—'
'And we haven't been taking any steps to forestall such a result,' he reminded her with complete calm.
That awareness was only hitting Catherine now. It shook her that a matter which had once been shrouded with such importance could have slipped her mind so entirely. There had been no contraceptive pills in her possession. Evidently she was no longer taking them. Remembering to take them had once been the bane of her existence, invoking horrid attacks of panic when she realised that she had forgotten one or two. If Luc realised just how many near misses they had had, he would probably feel very much as she did now.
That background hadn't prepared her very well for Luc's smoothly talking about having a baby as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Which of course it was…if you were married. In the circumstances, she decided that her initial sense of panic at his comment had been quite understandable. Where reproduction was concerned, she had to learn a whole new way of thinking.
Seemingly impervious to the frantic readjustments he had set in train, Luc ran a caressing hand down her spine and eased her closer. 'Didn't you notice that omission?' he said softly.
'No,' she muttered with instinctive guilt.
'I want children while I'm young enough to enjoy them.'
It crossed her mind that he might just have mentioned that before taking the decision right over her head, as it were. But equally fast came a seductive image of carrying Luc's baby and she was overcome by the prospect and quite forgot to be annoyed with him. 'Yes,' she agreed wistfully.
Engaged on cutting a sensual path across her fine-boned shoulder, Luc murmured huskily, 'I knew you'd agree with me. Now, instead of rushing to look into every baby carriage that passes by, you can concentrate on your own.'
'Do I do that?' she whispered.
'You do,' he said wryly.
Once anything to do with babies had left Luc arctic-cold. Naturally she couldn't help but be surprised that he should want a child with such immediacy. But when she thought about it for a minute or two, it began to make sense. Luc was entering marriage much as he entered a business deal, armed with expectations. He wanted an heir, that was all. You couldn't empire-build without a dynasty. But still she couldn't summon a smile to her face and she couldn't shake off that irrational fear assailing her.