Read Online Count Toussaint’s Pregnant Mistress by Kate Hewitt - Free Book Online

she could ever possibly want—and now she’d retired? Just like that?
    Why?
    The answer seemed, felt, obvious: because of him.
    Because he’d taken too much from her and then slipped out of her life without a single word of explanation, without even a goodbye.
    He’d convinced himself it had been better that way. If he’d waited, he would have crumbled. He would have taken her in his arms and made love to her; he wouldn’t have let her go. Not then, not yet.
    And then what? She would have become more attached, more involved; perhaps she would have even imagined she loved him. And he would have hurt her, disappointed her, failed her, eventually. Just as he had Suzanne.
    Still, Luc thought not for the first time, he could have softened the blow. Explained…something.
    ‘Luc?’ Luc jerked his unfocused gaze back to his solicitor, who tapped a sheaf of papers with a gold-plated pen. ‘Just going over the winery profits.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Luc said, although he had no idea what Denis had been saying. He forced himself to concentrate, but even so his mind slipped back not only to the article in the newspaper but to that night, to Abby herself.
    He remembered how she’d felt against him; she’d fit perfectly. He could still recall how her hair had had such a soft, flowery fragrance, like lavender. It had reminded him of home, in a good way, which was strange. Amazing, really. When he’d held her in his arms, the ghosts had left him. He hadn’t heard their mocking voices; the memories hadn’t claimed him. He’d been at peace.
    ‘Luc?’ Denis prompted again, and Luc nodded.
    ‘I’m here.’
    But he wasn’t here. Already his mind was miles away, thinking of where Abby could have gone…and how he could find her.
    Abby slipped the home-cooked lasagne out of the industrial freezer and added it to the box of food on the counter.
    ‘Anything else going to Corner Cottage?’ she asked Grace Myer, her boss for the last four months and owner of Cornish Country Kitchen Catering.
    Grace tucked a flyaway strand of greying hair behind her ear and consulted the order. ‘Lasagne, salad, bread and an apple crumble. I think that’s it. It’s just for the one man.’
    ‘He’s here for the week?’
    ‘Yes. He only rented the property a few days ago. Must have been a last-minute thing.’ She laid the order form on top of the box. ‘There you go. You’re all right to go to Helston this afternoon?’
    Abby nodded. ‘No problem.’ Part of the reason Grace had hired her was to do the toing and froing, the heavy work that she couldn’t manage with an increasingly bad back. Abby was glad to do it, glad, actually, to be useful, to keep herself busy and productive in a way she never had been before. It helped to be busy; then she didn’t have quite so much time to think.
    Now she hefted the box and headed out of the thatched cottage from where Grace ran her business supplying self-catering cottages with ready meals. The September day was crisp and sunny with a light breeze blowing in from the sea ruffling Abby’s hair.
    She loaded the box in the back of Grace’s old van and then climbed in the driver’s side. The sea was a bright-blue ribbon along her right-hand side, the sky a lighter blue above her as she drove down the coast road to Carack, the little fishing village where Corner Cottage was located.
    It occurred to her, not for the first time, how much her life had changed in the last six months. That night in Paris, her father’s revelation that their— her —assets had vanished completely, had been the turning point of both her life and career. She’d played two more concerts, played badly, before cancelling the rest of the tour. In a wave of speculative concern and spurious interest, she’d left the music scene, left every despised remnant of the life she’d known. And now she was here.
    She spent most of her days driving to and from various self-catering cottages with boxes of meals. The mundane nature