‘Most dogs-’

‘She’s not most dogs. Alice gave me Dolores as a puppy when my mother died. She’s been with me ever since-my one true love. Who needs men when I have Dolores?’ She retrieved the half-baked crumpet, looked at it with regret and started another. ‘Wicked waste.’

‘Taking a dog to Alp d’Estella?’

‘Interrupting the toasting process. It really messes with the texture. Let’s get back to important stuff.’

‘Which is?’

‘Crumpets.’

‘Sure.’

But he still really, really wanted to kiss her.

He didn’t. She didn’t even guess that he wanted to. Forty-eight hours later Pippa found herself in a first class airline seat somewhere over Siberia, heading for…Alp d’Estella?

There’d been so much to do before she’d left that she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep almost as soon as the plane took off. Now she woke to find the internal lights were off and the light from outside was the dim glow of a northern twilight. Across the aisle Sophie, Claire and Marc were solidly asleep. They’d enjoyed having a seat each at first, but then the twins had bundled in together and Marc had lifted his arm rest so he could join them.

They looked like a litter of well-fed puppies. Down in the hold, Dolores was hopefully sleeping as well, in a padded, warmed crate she’d inspected with caution but deemed fit for travel-snoozing. Kids and dog. Pippa’s responsibilities.

Was she putting them at risk? she wondered for about the hundredth time. Surely not. She’d rung the people Max had given as referees and they’d confirmed his story. Max was honourable, they’d said. She’d be safe.

But the kids would be safer at home.

Maybe, but they’d be cold and hungry. With the state of her bank balance she’d been close to needing welfare. And if anything happened to her…

She hadn’t succeeded with the farm, she thought miserably, and where was life sending her now? The enormity of what she’d promised eight years ago washed over her, as it had time and time again since Gina’s death.

What cost a promise?

‘Have you ever thought of walking away from them?’ Max asked from right beside her and she jumped about a foot.

She could barely see him. His seat was at a slight incline and hers was out flat. She struggled with some buttons and her seat rose to upright.

She passed him on the way up.

There was a moment’s silence while she sat bolt upright and felt stupid. Then he leaned over her and touched her seat control again. Her seat sank smoothly to the same incline as his.

She smelled the masculine smell of him as he leaned over.

Their faces were now six inches apart.

She backed up a little, fast, and she felt his smile rather than saw it. ‘Worry not,’ he told her. ‘I’m no ogre, Pippa, hauling you off to my dark and gloomy castle, to have my wicked way with you.’

‘You can hardly have your wicked way when I’m chaperoned by three kids and a dog,’ she managed and she tried to relax. But he was still smiling and she was feeling very…very…

Very she didn’t know what. If only he weren’t so damned good-looking. If only he weren’t so…disconcerting.

He was very disconcerting. And mentioning wicked ways hadn’t helped a bit. He was so…

Sexy.

There were things stirring inside her that had been repressed for years. She swallowed and told herself that these ideas had to go straight back to being repressed again.

They refused to cooperate.

‘Have you left the farm since Gina’s death?’ he asked and she shook her head.

‘You’ve never wanted to?’

‘No. When Alice died, Gina worried there was no extended family. I told her I’d always be there for her kids. It seemed dumb at the time, but I guess that’s what most parents do. They worry about protecting their kids for ever.’

‘And now you’ll look after these kids for ever? That’s some promise.’

‘Gina andAlice were my family. The kids are my family now.’

‘Tell me how that happened? Why were you so close to Gina and her mother?’

She hesitated. There was something about the half-light, the warmth of the pillows and blankets of her bed-cum-seat, and Max’s face being six inches from hers, that meant she either had to accept this closeness or withdraw completely.

She’d hardly spoken of her past. But now…

‘When she was a kid my mother…drank too much,’ she whispered. ‘So did Alice.’

‘Alice drank?’ He frowned. ‘Gina’s mother? My aunt?’

‘Alice used to say it ran in her family,’ she whispered. ‘The royal side. She had a huge fight with her parents and ended up in Australia. She was wild for a long time. With alcohol. Drugs maybe? I don’t know. Anyway she got pregnant and that’s when she met my mother. They were both on their own and pregnant and trying to stay clean. They were friends for a bit. After I was born my mother reverted, but Alice never touched a drop from the time she got pregnant. Whenever my mother was so ill she couldn’t take care of me, Alice was there. In the end it was like Alice had three children. Gina, me and my mother. Only Gina and I grew up. My mother died when I was twelve.’

‘I’m glad Alice was there for you,’ Max said, his voice carefully neutral. ‘It must have been really tough.’

‘It was. But Alice made it less so. She had no support yet she managed to help Gina and I both through nursing. And when Gina met Donald…that was the wedding to end all weddings. It was our happy ever after.’

‘But happy ever after is for fairy tales.’

‘It is,’ she murmured. ‘But Alice died after Marc was born-she had an aneurism-thinking we were all happily settled. So she did have her happy ever after.’

‘She was broke, though?’

‘There was never any money.’

Max frowned. ‘Our side of the family always thought she’d married well.’

‘I suspect she told her parents that. She just wanted to be shot of them. She hated what the royal family stood for.’

‘That makes two of us,’ he said bleakly. ‘Three counting my mother.’ But then he shook his head, as if chastising himself for going down a road he didn’t want to pursue.

‘But you?’ he said gently. ‘How can you be happy?’

‘I’m happy.’

‘Have you ever had a boyfriend?’

Hang on a minute…What had that come from? ‘Mind your own business.’

‘I’d like to know.’

‘You tell me yours, then,’ she said astringently. ‘And I’ll tell you mine.’

‘Okay,’ he said surprisingly. ‘I’ve had girlfriends.’

She shouldn’t ask. But suddenly she was intrigued. ‘Not serious?’

‘They find out I have money and all of a sudden I’m desirable. It’s a great turn-off.’

‘That’s tough,’ she said, but her voice was loaded with irony. ‘You know, I was actually engaged to be married when Gina and Donald were killed. Tom thought Dolores was bad enough, but when he found I intended to take the kids he couldn’t run fast enough.’

‘As you say-tough.’

‘No,’ she said evenly. ‘These kids are my family, as much as if I’d borne them myself. If Tom didn’t want them, then it was his problem.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘And maybe I don’t blame him. Three kids and dogs is a huge ask.’

‘It’s a huge ask of you.’

Her smile faded. ‘Not so much. I love them to bits. And you…If you threaten their happiness-their security-you’ll answer to me, Max de Gautier.’

‘I’d never do that.’

They fell silent then, but it was a better silence. She felt strangely more at peace than she’d been in a long time. Which was dumb, she told herself. She was heading somewhere she’d never heard of and she had to stay on her guard.

But she wasn’t totally responsible. She glanced across at the sleeping children and she thought in a few minutes the stewardess would bring them something to eat and she didn’t need to work out how to pay for it.

And she was sitting beside Maxsim de Gautier. Any woman would feel okay sitting beside this man, she thought. There wasn’t any chance he might be interested in her-what man would look twice at a woman loaded with three kids, a king-sized debt and a dog?-but she was woman enough to enjoy it while she had it.

‘Why does saving Alp d’Estella matter so much to you?’ she asked, suddenly curious.

‘It just does.’

‘No, but why?’ she prodded. ‘You’ve been brought up in France. Why do you still care about a little country your father or your grandfather walked away from?’

‘I just…do.’

He wasn’t telling the truth, she thought. Why? She stared at him, baffled.

‘Tell me how you learned to milk cows?’ she demanded, moving sideways, and the tension eased a little.

‘That’s easy. My mother was born on a dairy farm south of Paris. My maternal grandparents still live there. It’s run by my uncle now, but it’s great. I spent the greater part of my childhood there.’

‘Your father’s dead.’

The pleasure faded from his voice. ‘I didn’t have any contact with…either of the men my mother was involved with.’

‘And your mother? Where’s she?’

‘In Paris.’

‘When did-Thiérry’s father-die?’

‘When I was fifteen. I’ve always referred to him as my father too.’

‘When did your brother die?’

‘At the same time.’

‘They were killed together?’

‘In a car crash. Yes.’

‘Oh, Max.’

She paused. There were things here she wanted to find out, but she didn’t know the right questions. ‘Do you build in Paris?’ she said at last and he nodded.

‘Yes.’

‘What sort of buildings?’

‘Big ones.’

‘Skyscrapers?’

‘Yes.’

She blinked. She’d never met anyone who built skyscrapers.

‘Do you work for someone?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Do you have a boss?’

‘I…no. I had a fantastic boss. I became his off-sider but he died three years ago. I took over the firm.’

‘So you’re the head of a building firm that builds skyscrapers.’