Billionaire's Mediterranean Proposal

by Julia James

  Not after last night. Not after that kiss—that disastrous, dangerous, completely deranged kiss that she should never have let happen!

  No, any physical contact with him that wasn’t forced on her by the necessity of playing the role he was paying her to play, was totally défendu. Totally forbidden. And she mustn’t forget it. Not even to wind the man up. Or try and lighten him up. It was just too risky...

  Because, however overbearing and obnoxious he could be, she was just too damned vulnerable to what he could make her feel.

  Sobered, she followed him into the mall.

  * * *

  ‘Fraulein, how very good to meet you!’

  Hans Neuberger was shaking Tara’s hand genially, his face smiling. He had a nice face, Tara decided. Not in the least good-looking, and late middle-aged—a good twenty years older than his wife—but with kindly eyes.

  She smiled warmly back. ‘Herr Neuberger,’ she returned.

  ‘Hans, please!’ he said immediately, and she liked him the more.

  They were in the magnificent Art Deco salon once more, and Hans Neuberger had just arrived. He’d kissed Celine dutifully on the cheek, but she’d turned away impatiently. Tara thought her a fool to treat her kindly husband with such open indifference.

  ‘Hans! I’m glad to see you!’

  Tara turned. Marc was striding in, holding out his hand to his guest in greeting. She stared, disbelief etching her features.

  Good God, the man could smile! As in really smile! Not the cynical, humourless indentation of his mouth she’d seen so far, or that infinitesimal chink she’d seen at lunchtime, but an actual smile! A smile that parted his mouth, reached his eyes to crinkle them at the edge. That lightened his entire face...

  She felt her breath catch.

  Gone, totally, was the hard-faced, bored, impatient, ill-tempered expression she was so used to. Just...gone. It made him a completely different person—

  She reeled with it, still hardly believing what she was seeing. And she felt something shift inside her, rearrange itself. Marc Derenz...smiling! It was like the sun coming out after thunderclouds...

  She stared on, bemused, aware that her pulse had suddenly quickened and that it had something to do with the way Marc’s smile had softened his face, warmed his eyes... It warmed something in her as well, even though it was not directed at her in the least.

  But what if it were—?

  No. She shut her mind off. It was bad enough coping with the utterly unfair impact the man had on her when he was being his usual ill-humoured self. She could not possibly think how she would cope if he were capable of being nice, for heaven’s sake!

  It was a resolve she had to stick to throughout dinner. She was helped in that by focussing her attention on Celine’s husband. Hans Neuberger really was far too nice to be landed with a shrew like Celine. He was clearly hurt and bewildered by her dismissiveness, and Tara did her best to divert him.

  ‘I think Marc said you’re based in Frankfurt? All I know about it is the huge annual book fair. Oh, and that it was the birthplace of Goethe.’

  Hans’s kindly face lit up. ‘Indeed—our most famous son! And Germany’s most famous poet—’

  Celine’s voice was sharp as she cut across him. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hans, don’t start boring on about poetry! Who cares?’

  The rudeness was so abrupt that Tara stared. Hans was silenced, looking stricken. Tara felt immensely sorry for him and rallied to his defence.

  ‘I’m afraid I know very little about German poetry—it didn’t really come into my English Literature course at university, alas,’ she said politely.

  ‘Speaking of university...’ Marc’s voice interjected now, as he picked up the baton. ‘Has your youngest—Trudie—graduated yet?’

  As Hans answered Tara saw Marc throw a glance at her. There was something in his eyes she’d never seen before. Appreciation. Appreciation, evidently, for coming to Hans’s rescue as she had.

  She blinked for a moment. Then gave a minute nod.

  For the rest of the meal she did her best to shield Hans from his unpleasant wife, drawing him out about Goethe and the German Romantics, comparing them with the English Romantics of the same period. Marc joined in, widening the discussion to include French poetry too, keeping the conversation going.

  Celine seemed to be in a foul mood—though whether that was because she was clearly being cut out of a conversation she was incapable of contributing to, or whether it was just because her husband had arrived, Tara wasn’t sure and didn’t care.

  What was clear, though, was that Celine was not about to let her husband’s presence get in the way of her determined pursuit of Marc Derenz, and she was still focusing her attention solely on him.

  She continued to do so, quite blatantly, the following day. She dragged them all out for yet more house-viewings, then insisted on heading to Cannes, so she could trawl through the luxury brand-name boutiques strung out along the Croisette.

  ‘She really is,’ Tara heard herself say sotto voce to Marc, as Celine preened in front of a mirror, ‘the most tiresome woman ever! Poor Hans can’t possibly want to stay married to her!’

  ‘She’s like a leech,’ he snapped shortly. ‘And Hans is too damn soft-hearted for his own good!’

  ‘Can he really not see her true character?’ Tara mused disbelievingly.

  Marc’s face hardened. ‘Men can be fools over women,’ he said.

  She glanced at him curiously. He couldn’t possibly be referring to himself—she knew that. A man like Marc Derenz was made of granite. No woman could make an impact on him.

  ‘Marc, cherie!’ Celine’s piercing call sought to summon his attention. ‘Your taste is impeccable! Should I buy this?’

  ‘That is for Hans to say, not me,’ came his tight reply.

  ‘Oh, Hans knows nothing about fashion at all!’ was Celine’s rudely dismissive retort.

  Tara stepped forward, seizing a handbag from a stand. ‘This would go perfectly with that outfit,’ she said. And it was not for Celine’s sake, but for the sake of her hapless spouse, hovering by her side.

  Celine was hesitating between outright rejection of anything that Tara suggested and lust for the shiny gold bag. The latter triumphed, and she snatched it from her.

  ‘Magpie, as well as leech,’ Tara murmured, her head dipped towards Marc.

  Did she hear a crack that might just be laughter break from him, before it was abruptly cut off? She stole a look at him, but the moment was gone.

  At least, though, the handbag had clinched it and Celine was ready to depart.

  It still took for ever, it seemed to Tara—and probably to Marc and Hans as well, she thought cynically—before they could finally return to the villa. Another grim evening loomed ahead of them, with Celine openly discontented because Marc had flatly vetoed her repeated suggestion that they head for the casino at Monte Carlo.

  But her petulant mood improved markedly when, after dinner, she took a phone call that made her announce, ‘That was the Astaris. They’re on their yacht in Cannes. They’re giving a party tomorrow.’ A frown crossed her brow. ‘I haven’t got a thing to wear for it!’ She turned towards Marc. ‘Do run me into Monte, tomorrow, cherie! I’m sure Tara can stay here and discuss poetry with Hans,’ she added pettishly.

  Not surprisingly, Celine’s blatant ploy to get Marc to herself for yet another shopping expedition failed, and the following morning all four of them set out for Monaco.

  This time, thankfully, Celine availed herself of a personal shopper, who read her client perfectly so that she could emerge triumphantly with a gown that would cost her husband an outrageous sum of money. Full of herself, Celine then demanded that they lunch at the principality’s premier hotel, overlooking the marina packed with luxury yachts, and proceeded to plague her husband to buy something similar.

&nbs
p; It was obvious to Tara that this was the last thing Hans wanted to do, and she took pity on him by deliberately interrupting the flow of his wife’s importuning.

  ‘Tell me,’ she asked, ‘what else is in Monte Carlo besides the casino, luxury shops and yachts?’

  Hans’s face brightened. ‘The Botanic Gardens are world-famous,’ he said.

  ‘Have we time to visit?’ Tara asked. It would be nice, after all, she thought, sighing inwardly, while she was here, actually to see something of the Côte d’Azur other than expensive villas, expensive shops and expensive restaurants.

  ‘What a good idea!’ Celine put in immediately. ‘Hans, you take Tara to the gardens and Marc and I can—’

  ‘I thought you wanted to talk to a yacht broker?’ Marc cut across her brutally, pre-empting whatever scheme Celine was about to dream up to get him on his own.

  Celine sulked visibly, then ordered Hans off to find out who the best yacht broker in the principality was. Dutifully the poor man went off to ask the hotel’s concierge. Perking up at her husband’s absence—however temporary—Celine leant across to Marc, resting her hand on his sleeve in her possessive fashion, stroking it seductively.

  ‘A yacht is so essential these days—you must agree!’ she oozed. ‘Do help me persuade Hans, cherie!’

  There was a cajoling, caressing note in her voice, and her scarlet nails curved over his arm. Her over-made-up face was far too close to his, her eyes greedy for him, openly lascivious—and suddenly, out of nowhere, Tara had had enough. Just enough.

  There was something in her that absolutely revolted at seeing Celine paw at Marc the way she did. Something that was the last thing she should feel about him—but feel it she did, and with a power that shook her.

  Parting her lips in an acid grimace she leant forward. ‘Celine,’ she said, sweetly, but with a bite to her voice that could have cut through steel wire, ‘call me old-fashioned, but I would prefer you, please, to take your hand off Marc!’

  Immediately Celine’s eyes snapped to Tara. There was venom in them. And in the words she snapped out too.

  ‘Oh, my, how very possessive! Anyone might think you have ideas about him!’

  It was a taunt—an obvious one—and Tara opened her mouth to retaliate. Except no words came. Only a spearing dart of emotion that should not be there...should not exist at all.

  And then, suddenly, Marc’s voice cut across her consciousness. She felt her hand being taken, turned over, exposing her wrist. Before she knew what he intended he had dipped his head, grazed his mouth across that tender skin, sending a million nerve-endings firing in her so that she could only stare at him, eyes widening...

  ‘I very much hope Tara does have ideas about me...very possessive ideas!’ she heard him say. ‘For I most certainly do about her!’

  His voice had dropped to a low purr, and now his gaze was holding Tara’s with an expression of absolute intentness.

  Was he trying to convey a message? She didn’t know—could only feel all those nerve-endings still firing inside her like a hail of fireworks as the dark gaze on her suddenly lifted, shifting to Celine. Tara felt his hand, large and strong, enfold hers, meshing his fingers into hers...possessively.

  She saw him smile—a smile, she suddenly thought, that had a twist of ruthlessness to it. A ruthlessness that was entirely explained when she heard him speak.

  ‘You can be the first to know, Celine.’ That same deep, steely purr was in his voice. ‘Tara is my fiancée,’

  Fiancée? Tara heard the word, but could not credit it. Where had that come from?

  Urgently, she looked at Marc, burningly conscious not just of what he had dropped like a concrete block on them all, but even more of the tightly meshed fingers enclosing hers. Possessively...very possessively.

  With a corner of her consciousness she heard a hissing intake of breath from Celine.

  ‘Fiancée? Don’t be absurd!’

  Her derision stung. Stung with an echo of Marc’s voice telling her not to get ideas about him, telling her this was playacting only and for no other purpose.

  And it stung with much more. With the way his mouth had felt like velvet on the tender skin of her wrist just now, taunting her...tempting her...

  Of its own volition and entirely instinctively, with an instinct as old as time and as powerful as the desire she felt for the man who had brought her here, Tara felt her mouth curve into a derisive smile, a mocking laugh.

  Because he did not desire her for himself, but only to block another woman’s access to him.

  She felt her hand lift to Marc’s cheek, felt herself lean towards him. Felt her mouth reach for his, open to his, to feast on it, possessive with passion and naked desire...

  How long she kissed him she did not know, for time had stopped, had ceased to exist. There was only the sensation of Marc’s mouth, exploding within her, the taste of him, the scent of him, the weakening of every part of her body as desire flamed inside her...

  Dazed, she drew back, gathering what senses she could, knowing her heart was pounding in her breast but that she had to say something. Anything.

  Deliberately she gave that mocking little laugh again. Clearly Celine had wanted proof of the engagement Marc had suddenly and out of nowhere imposed upon the scene.

  ‘We were going to keep it secret—weren’t we, darling?’

  Her glance at Marc was brief. She did not meet his eyes...did not dare to. Then she looked back to Celine across the table. She had to stay in role, in character—that was essential, however hectic her pulse was after that insanely reckless kiss that she had been unable to prevent herself from taking from him.

  ‘Don’t say anything to Hans, will you?’ she said to Celine. ‘Marc wants to tell him himself—before we announce it formally.’

  The expression on Celine’s face was as if she had swallowed a scorpion—or a whole bucketful of them. Then Hans was coming back to the table. He started to say something about yacht brokers but Celine cut across him. She was furious—absolutely seething.

  Tara’s glance went treacherously to the man she had just kissed with such openly passionate abandon...

  But then so was Marc...

  CHAPTER SIX

  MARC YANKED ON his DJ and strode to the connecting door, pulling it open and striding into Tara’s bedroom. He still could not believe he’d done what he’d done. Telling Celine that Tara was his fiancée! And then letting her kiss him—again. Had he gone mad? He must have. But had there been any other way of getting Hans’s damn wife to lay off him?

  Even as he’d made that momentous announcement he’d been appalled at himself. Danger had shimmered all around. Every precept he’d lived his life by had been appalled.

  And now he had to do what he was intent on doing—make it absolutely crystal-clear to Tara Mackenzie that he had spoken entirely on impulse, exasperated beyond the last of his patience by Celine. It was a final means to an end—nothing more than that. Being his fiancée was every bit as fictional as his original proposition.

  His mouth set in a grim expression. That devastating kiss she’d given him had not been fictional in the least! It had been searingly, devastatingly real...

  But he absolutely could not risk that. Risk anything like that at all! Not with Tara—the woman he should have nothing to do with whatsoever outside the playacting he was paying her for...

  She can’t be anything in my life—I can’t risk it. And I can’t risk her thinking she can be anything in my life. Wanting any of this to be real...

  His eyes went to her now. She was sitting at the dressing table, putting on her lipstick. She was quite at home in his villa, in this bedroom with its luxurious atmosphere, with its priceless pieces of Art Deco furniture, the silver dressing table set, the walls adorned with paintings from the thirties by artists whose prices in auction rooms were stratospheric.

 
Tara looked perfect in the setting—as if she belonged there...

  But she doesn’t belong. I hired her to play a part, and the fact that the part has suddenly become that of my fiancée changes nothing!

  That was what he had to remember.

  That the searing desire he felt for her was not something he could permit.

  Part of him registered that, yet again, she was looking totally stunning. The russet silk halter-necked evening gown left her sculpted shoulders bare and skimmed the slender contours of her spectacular body, and her glorious hair waved lustrously over her shoulders in rich abandon.

  Her head swivelled sharply as he strode in, and she dropped her lipstick on a silver tray.

  ‘We need to talk!’ Marc’s voice was brusquer than he’d intended, but he did not care.

  Tara’s chin lifted, her eyes defiant. She got to her feet and got in first. ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ she said. ‘I know I was impulsive, kissing you like that, but—’

  He strode up to her, took her shoulders. He’d had to wait hours for this moment! He’d had to endure babysitting Hans at the yacht broker’s so he didn’t end up buying a damn yacht for his appalling wife, then endure the car ride back to the villa, and then endure Tara disappearing up to her room to shower and dress for the evening. He was not going to wait a single interminable moment longer!

  ‘It was totally unnecessary!’ he barked.

  ‘It was totally necessary!’ Tara shot back. She wrenched herself free. ‘Look, you’d just dropped that on me out of the blue! Saying I was your fiancée! I didn’t know what to do—only that I had to follow your lead and make it look real!’

  ‘Dieu, it looked real, all right! It damn near earned a round of applause from everyone there! And, worse, it nearly got seen by Hans.’ He took a rasping breath. ‘Hans must not know anything about this—do you understand? Because it isn’t real! You do understand that, don’t you?’

  His eyes were skewering hers and his hand slashed the air for emphasis.