“You scared the hell out of me,” she said. “I’m glad you’re retiring.” She didn’t want to lose him.

After lunch, they walked on the beach, and when they got back to the car, she asked him if she could drive. She hadn’t been allowed to drive herself since the first kidnapping. He hesitated and then nodded, handed her the keys, and got into the passenger seat next to her.

She started the car and headed out of Deauville, and a few minutes later, he pointed to the signs on the road.

“I hate to be a backseat driver, but you’re going the wrong way. Paris is behind us.”

“I know. There’s something I want to show you before we go back.” He enjoyed the scenery then, and a little way up the road, she turned into a long driveway, and rode up a hill to the old farm she had seen when she’d gone there alone.

“Do you know the people who live here?” he asked her, and she nodded. “It’s a beautiful old place.”

“I think so too. Let’s get out and look around,” she suggested, and they both got out. The old caretaker came, recognized her and greeted her, and they had a brief conversation in French. “He told us to go wherever we want. Come on, I want to show you the house.” The door was unlocked as it had been before. Mike followed her in, hesitantly, but was immediately taken with the warmth and charm of the room.

“I love this place. Why is it empty? Who lives here?” He looked puzzled and she put her arms around him when she answered.

“We do,” she said, smiling at him. “I just bought it. And there’s a cottage for the bodyguards right near the house. It’s an old farm. The people who owned it died, and their children have all moved away. And now it’s ours to do whatever we want with it. And you can have a ball with the security. Nothing has been touched here since 1950. It all needs to be redone, however we want to do it.” He looked shocked at first and then grinned.

“You’re a little monster, up to mischief the minute I turn my back. I get shot in the chest and what do you do? You buy a house.”

“Well, we don’t have the château anymore, and it’s nice to have someplace to go on weekends. And we like it here. Do you like it?”

“I love it. And more than that, I love you.”

“You have a new job and a title, we should have a house to go with it.” He glanced around the house again with pleasure, and then down at her.

“It really was destiny, wasn’t it? Destiny brought us together—and Pierre de Vaumont.”

“What does he have to do with it?” Theo looked puzzled.

“I was following him, or having him followed, and I fell over you. You were on the same plane he was, which started everything. Now here we are, five months later.”