The Night That Started It All. Anna Cleary
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tinge of velvet accent around the edges.
Clearly he didn’t recognise hers. She guessed she must have sounded different over an intercom with a busted eye and a swollen nose.
‘Paddington, across the harbour. And you?’
‘Paris. Across the world.’
She cast him a wry glance beneath her lashes, and he smiled and shrugged. The tiny, instantaneous communication lit the sort of spark in her blood a recently disengaged woman probably should have had the taste to ignore.
In a perfect world.
No wedding ring marred the tanned smoothness of his hands. A faint chime in her memory struggled to retrieve something of a story she’d once heard over coffee with Emilie. Something about a Parisian cousin, possibly a Luc—or did she say a duke?—and a woman. Some sort of scandal.
If he was the one, she didn’t care to imagine too closely what had happened with the woman. His part in it.
‘I see stripes are in this season.’ He continued to hold her in his gaze. ‘Do you always binge on vodka?’
‘Unless coke’s on offer.’
Beside her, Neil choked on the bruschetta he was wolfing. ‘Steady on, girl. Luc’ll get the wrong impression.’
She’d forgotten Neil. Smiling, she patted the brotherly shoulder. Neil needn’t have worried. Luc was receiving her loud and clear, all right. For one thing, he seemed drawn by her rose carmine lipstick. She was in a likewise hypnotically drawn situation. The more she looked, the more she liked. Her eyes could scarcely unglue themselves.
He didn’t seem at all fazed by her coke pun either. Instead, he smiled too, as if he understood she was kidding but it was a secret shared only by them.
‘You don’t look like a Chénier.’ Heavens, was that her voice? Suddenly she was as throaty as a swan.
‘I’m not a Chénier,’ he said at once, a tad firmly. ‘I’m a Valentin.’
That was all to the good. She tried not to betray herself by staring, but his mouth was so intensely stirring she couldn’t resist drinking in the lines. Stern, yet so appealingly sensuous. A mouth for intoxicating midnight kisses. The trouble was, a woman could never be sure how a man would turn out beyond midnight.
‘Forgive me if I mention it …’ He moved a smidgin closer and she caught her breath in the proximity. ‘You seem a little tense. Don’t you enjoy parties?’
In need of fortification, she snagged a champagne flute from a passing waiter and let her roséd lips form a charming smile. ‘I adore them. Don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Ah. Then I guess that’s why you smoulder. I was beginning to think you were a misogynist.’ Like his cousin.
She’d once read a novel in which a Frenchman whose honour was being challenged assumed a very Gallic expression. Perhaps that described the expression crossing Luc’s handsome face at that very instant.
She could sense Neil’s ripple of shock. It gave her a charge of pure enjoyment.
Luc’s dark lashes flickered half the way down. ‘I like women. Especially provocative ones.’
‘How about dull, mousy, dreary ones?’
He cocked a brow at her, then, amused, glanced about. ‘I don’t see any here.’
‘They could be in disguise.’
His dark eyes lit. ‘But what dull, mousy, dreary people would ever think of wearing a disguise? Only very exciting, sexy, playful women do that.’
Her spirit lifted with a warm buzz. At last a man was divining her true nature. She was exciting, sexy and playful, given the proper inspirational framework. She felt his glance touch her throat and breasts, and the glow intensified. Imagining his smooth fingers tracing that same pathway, she might have begun to emit a few sparks.
She noticed Neil shift restlessly at her side, then mumble something and drift away.
Alone in a crowded room with a sophisticated Frenchman, another sophisticated Frenchman, Shari felt her feet edge to the precipice. A whisper of suspense tantalised the fine down on her nape. This might have been just a bit of aimless flirting, but something in his eyes, something intentional behind his glance, made the breath catch in her throat.
All men weren’t like Rémy. Of course they weren’t.
The Frenchman gazed meditatively across the room, then back at her. ‘What are you trying to drown with all that alcohol?’
‘Tears, of course. My broken heart.’
‘There are better ways.’
Meeting that dark sensual gaze, she had no doubt of it. The battered old muscle in her chest gave a warning lurch. Keep it light, Shari.
She felt his gaze sear her legs and, smiling, inclined her head to follow his glance. ‘Oh. Have I snagged a stocking?’
‘Not that I can see. Your legs look very smooth.’ His mouth was grave. ‘Quite tantalising.’
His fingers were long. Imagining how they would feel curved around her thighs triggered an arousing rush of warmth to a highly sensitive region. Ridiculous, she remonstrated with herself. Inappropriate. Here she was, raw on the subject of men, bruised, and he was a total stranger. And so close to family. Family connections were such a mistake.
She supposed she was succumbing to flattery. The sad truth was Rémy’s endless series of nubile nymphs had messed with her confidence. Her view of herself had altered. While she’d laughed in his face at some of his insults, always delivered with that mocking amusement, a few had penetrated her heart like slivers of glass.
With a momentary pang of panic it struck her she wasn’t really ready to get back on the horse. But her rational self intervened. How would she know unless she tried a little canter?
As though alive to the odds she was weighing, Luc’s dark eyes met hers, sensual, knowing. ‘Are you with someone?’
Her heart skittered several beats. ‘No. Are you?’
‘No. It’s hot in here, do you find? Will we walk outside in the cool air?’ Smiling, he took the champagne from her and placed it on a side table. The flash of his white teeth was only outdone by the dazzle in his dark eyes.
She felt a warning pang reverberate through her vitals and mingle with the desirous little pulse awakened there. The guy was smooth. But what would the old Shari have done, just supposing a Frenchman had ever been this suave?
Oh, that was right. The old Shari would have fallen into his hands like a ripe and trusting plum. But having finally achieved exciting, sexy and playful status, was she to just throw it all away?
With dinner about to be served, people were swarming inside. Only a scant few were left out there on the pool terrace. But what was the guy likely to do? Black her eye? Could she allow herself to remain socially paralysed for the rest of her life?
While she was still wrestling with the possibilities, Emilie came fluttering by. ‘Oh, Shari. Good, good, you’re looking after Luc. Luc, pardonne-moi, mon cher. I so want to find out all the family gossip. But as you see, now I am a little occupée … Shari can show you …’ One of the staff came to murmur something in her ear, and with more profuse apologies Emilie flitted away to deal with her domestic crisis.
That sealed it. Stepping out into the balmy night air, Shari knew she was doing her sisterly duty. Luc was her responsibility. Looking after him was her given work.
He glanced down at her. ‘Do you love that moment when you feel suspended on the edge of something?’ His dark eyes shimmered with a light that made her insides frizzle and fry.
‘On the edge—of what?’ The night seemed to gather around