by Various
HE DIDN’T see her coming; he felt it. A sudden charge in the atmosphere, a ripple in the air, like an electric current wired straight to his heart. The jolt reverberated through him and the little hairs on the nape of his neck prickled with awareness as his fingers instinctively clenched around his drink.
Please, no more pity.
‘Hello, there.’ Her voice was pleasantly low, pitched to an inviting huskiness. Max thought he detected an English accent, which became more pronounced when she spoke again. ‘I had to come over here to see if you are as bored as you look.’
‘Even more so,’ he returned a bit flatly. He turned his head to look at her, at least as much as he could. He saw a sweep of golden hair, the smooth, pale curve of a cheek and the glitter of green—her eyes as well as her top. She smelled faintly of rose water. His gut clenched with an unexpected spasm of desire.
‘Oh, dear. That is bad,’ she returned with a little laugh that sounded like the tinkling of crystal bells. ‘Will another drink cure it, do you think?’
‘I’ve had too many already.’ His voice came out brusque again; he couldn’t help it. What was the point in encouraging this little flirtation? If she knew…
‘Well, I haven’t.’ He saw her raise her arm, slender and pale, and soon a waiter hurried over. She plucked a glass from the tray and, turning back to him, took a sip. ‘If you’re so monumentally bored, why did you come this evening?’
‘Because my company donated a quarter of a million dollars to fund these monstrosities on the walls.’
She paused for a tiny second, and then gave an abrupt and unpractised laugh; it was a wonderfully throaty gurgle, so different from her earlier calculated peal. His gut clenched again, and he found himself wondering if her hair was as soft as it smelled, if a smell could even be considered soft. His other senses, he realised, were heightened by his lack of sight. Was the faint smell of roses a perfume or soap? He inhaled it every time she moved, faint and yet so temptingly evocative.
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, her voice still filled with laughter. ‘You’re Max Monroe. The one with the thundercloud.’
‘That’s the first time I’ve heard that,’ he replied drily. For the first time in weeks he was enjoying himself, or close enough. He was actually not remembering.
‘Well, you haven’t exactly been the life and soul of the party, have you?’ she said, and he felt her shrug, felt the slippery feel of her silk top against her silken skin. How he could feel it, he didn’t know; he certainly couldn’t see it. Yet even though his eyes saw little more than blurred shapes, a bit sharper at the edges, his body felt something else. Every part of him prickled with awareness, with longing.
He wanted her.
He hadn’t been with a woman since his accident, hadn’t felt another’s touch except for the cool, clinical hands of a doctor, and now suddenly he craved it. Needed to be close to someone, to breathe her scent and feel her skin. And more than that. To move with her, inside her. To ease the emptiness, to not be alone.
Even if it couldn’t go anywhere, even if only for a night. Even if it was with one of society’s shallow darlings, as she surely must be.
‘I don’t suppose I need to be the life and soul of this party,’ he finally said, ‘with guests like you to give it some energy.’ He knew her type, knew what kind of beautiful, confident woman walked over to a strange—and sulking—man and asked him for a drink. It was the kind of woman he pursued, the kind of woman he’d always wanted.
And he wanted her now. She didn’t need to know he was almost blind; she wouldn’t even stay the night. He’d make sure of that.
He felt her tense for a tiny moment, felt it like a shiver in the air. Then she shrugged and took another sip of champagne. ‘I can’t deny I like to have fun,’ she said lightly.
He shifted his weight; his leg, still recovering from the accident, was starting to hurt. ‘Are you having fun tonight?’
She gave another practised laugh. ‘No, I think I’m as bored as you are. I’m just better at not showing it.’
‘Right, I’m the one with the thundercloud.’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘My friend Karen organised this event,’ she explained, her tone breezy. ‘She was rather put out at how unhelpful you’ve been, you know. She said I’d recognise you by the thundercloud over your head. And of course—’ She stopped suddenly and, even though he couldn’t really see her, Max’s eyes narrowed.
‘And?’ he asked softly.
She paused. ‘The scar,’ she said quietly. She lifted her hand and for a moment Max thought she was going to touch him. He didn’t move. Her hand—he could tell it was pale and slender, at least—hovered in the air for a moment before she dropped it back to her side. He felt as if everything had suddenly changed, the light, flirtatious banter turning dark and intimate and far too intense. He didn’t want her pity, yet he craved her touch. ‘I suppose it’s a bit like the elephant in the room,’ she said, her voice quiet, rueful and perhaps a little sad. ‘No one ever talks about it. Were you in a car accident or something?’
‘Something.’ Although he spoke tersely, Max felt a reluctant flicker of admiration for her candour. So few people he knew actually told him the truth, unvarnished and unpalatable. He was surrounded by sycophants and social climbers who only told him what they thought he wanted to hear.
And doctors. Doctors at least told him the truth.
‘I’m sorry anyway,’ she said quietly, and he could tell she meant it. She surprised him, and he didn’t want to be surprised. It was easier when she was shallow, when he could believe she was shallow. He wanted a bed partner, not a soulmate. It was too late for that, too late for him.
They were both silent for a moment, and Max wondered if she would walk away. He should walk away; he would, except he was afraid he might bump into a pillar or a waiter or God knew what else. He hadn’t expected that unguarded moment, hadn’t wanted it. Had he? She was a shallow, beautiful socialite; she’d said as much, and he wanted to take her at face value.
To take her, and then leave her, for surely he had no other choice.
‘So,’ he said, and pitched his voice to a low, sensual hum that had her leaning closer to hear him. He breathed in the rose-water scent again. ‘Are you really as bored by this party as I am?’ There could be no mistaking his innuendo or his intent.
She was silent for a long moment, and he turned so their faces were close, so he could look directly at her, or as directly as he could, in the periphery of his vision. And for a moment, despite the floaters and spots and blurs, he felt he saw perfectly. Her eyes were vivid green, her mouth a perfect pink curve. She was smiling.
‘Yes,’ she said softly, ‘I think I am.’
Resolve fired through him. ‘Good,’ he said, placing his empty glass on a tray. ‘Then why
don’t we both get out of here?’
Zoe watched as Max started stiffly from his corner; he walked with careful, deliberate steps that made her wonder if he’d hurt himself in whatever ‘something’ had caused that scar. He was clearly expecting her to follow him, and after a second’s hesitation she did.
She didn’t usually leave parties with perfect strangers. Despite her party-girl reputation, she wasn’t quite the wild child her older sister Bella was. She didn’t do one-night stands. She preferred to dance and laugh and flirt—and then go home alone.
Yet hadn’t the rules changed? Hadn’t she changed? She wasn’t Zoe Balfour any more. She could do whatever she wanted. And she’d sensed in Max Monroe something she felt in herself, a darkness, a despair. Like called to like, she supposed, and she wanted to follow him.
She wanted to be with him.
Of course, there was no denying he was an attractive man. Her belly clenched, a coil of desire unfurling and spreading out through her limbs with sleepy warmth as she stared at his broad back and trim hips, his long, powerful legs still taking their careful strides as he weaved his way through the party’s crowd,
and Zoe followed. She wasn’t, she realised belatedly as they made it to the foyer, even conscious of the stares.
She handed her ticket to the woman at the coat check and took her filmy wrap. Max, she saw, had uttered a few terse instructions into his mobile. He slid it back into his jacket pocket and turned to her.
‘My car will be here in a moment.’
‘Brilliant,’ Zoe answered, for lack of anything else to say. She was realising how little she knew this man, how tense and even angry he seemed.
Was this—could this possibly be—a good idea?
‘You don’t have to come,’ he said abruptly. Zoe started in surprise. ‘You seem nervous.’
She gave a little shrug. ‘No matter what you may think, this isn’t my usual behaviour.’
‘Oh?’ He arched one eyebrow, his expression one of slightly smug curiosity. He had her all figured out, Zoe supposed. Or thought he did. Well, she’d thought she had herself figured out too. She was only now realising she didn’t. ‘So what is your normal behaviour?’ He paused. ‘Who are you?’
The question startled her, for it was the question she had not been wanting to ask herself for these past three weeks. She stared at him in astonished silence until he clarified impatiently, ‘I just want your name.’
‘Zoe.’
He arched his eyebrow a little higher. ‘Just Zoe?’
‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Just Zoe.’
A limo pulled sleekly to the curb outside the gallery, and with one arm Max ushered her outside.
The air was balmy, the darkness soft around them. Zoe glanced around, realising she was on a tiny side street in Soho with no idea where or how to find a cab if she even wanted one. The street was empty, the sidewalks deserted, and somewhere in the distance a car alarm set to a mournful wailing.
A man in a chauffeur’s uniform jumped out of the driver’s seat and opened the limo’s door, gesturing for Zoe to enter.
‘Having second thoughts?’ Max murmured in her ear. His breath, cool and scented with mint and champagne, tickled her cheek.
‘More like third thoughts,’ Zoe quipped, and a tiny smile flickered across Max’s face, easing the tension and lightening his features.
‘You’re a beautiful woman, Zoe,’ he said. His face was half averted to her, yet still he slowly, carefully reached out to brush a tendril of hair away from her bare shoulder, his cool fingers barely skimming her skin. She quivered under the tiny caress. ‘I’m sure any man in there would want to be in my position right now.’
‘Most assuredly,’ she agreed lightly. Her heart had started to hammer and she felt suddenly, unreasonably, dizzy with longing. No single touch had ever affected her so much. Made her want so much.
Made her forget…if only for a moment, for a night.
He reached out again, this time letting his fingers caress her collarbone, barely brushing her skin, yet still making her quiver and ache deep inside with an unexpected and fierce longing. ‘It’s up to you, of course.’
Slowly Zoe nodded. When Max Monroe touched her, every thought—every memory, every fear—went clean out of her head. That was what she wanted.
Not just passion, but oblivion.
Slowly, silently, she climbed into the car.
Max climbed in after her, and the chauffeur closed the door. Within seconds they were speeding through the night, the darkness relieved only by the passing lights of an occasional taxi.
Zoe sat back against the plush leather seat, surveying the well-stocked minibar and contemplated downing most of its contents. Had she really just climbed into a car with a total stranger? An angry, bitter, sardonic stranger at that? Well, she thought, swallowing a bubble of nervous laughter, at least it was a limo.
‘Nice ride,’ she said, and forced herself to relax—or at least seem relaxed—stretching her arms along the back of the seat, letting her head fall back as if she were utterly comfortable, completely in her element. ‘So where are we going?’
Although Max sat next to her, he suddenly seemed oceans away, his face averted from hers as he stared out the window at the darkness.
‘My apartment is in Tribeca. Unless you’d rather go somewhere else?’ He turned to her, his smile—although it didn’t quite feel like a smile—gleaming in the darkness.
‘And miss seeing your place? I’m sure it’s something fabulous.’ She gave him a breezy smile and shook her hair back over her shoulders.
‘And I’m sure you’re quite used to fabulous,’ he murmured, and she laughed, the sound husky.
‘Absolutely.’
They didn’t speak again, lapsing into a silence that was tense with unspoken thoughts. Expectations.
Zoe smoothed her silky black trousers, nervously pleating the fabric between her fingers before she forced herself to stop, and affected an air of unconcerned insouciance once more.
The limo came to a stop, and Zoe slipped out after Max. They were on a patch of old cobbled pavement—murder for her heels—in front of what looked like an abandoned warehouse near the waterfront. Zoe’s heart lurched against her ribs. Oh, Lord, what had she got herself into? She turned around; the limo had disappeared and there wasn’t a soul in sight…except Max.
He stood on the uneven cobbles, looking almost frozen, as if he didn’t know where he was going, or was actually afraid to move.
The look of uncertainty on his face visible in the sickly yellow glare of a street lamp banished Zoe’s own fears and compelled her to ask gently, ‘Max…?’
‘This way.’ He spoke brusquely, shaking off that strange, uncertain look, the way a dog shakes off water, before striding across the sidewalk with long, deliberate steps to the warehouse.
Of course, Zoe saw as they approached the building, it wasn’t an abandoned warehouse at all. Perhaps it once had been, but as they came closer signs of its upscale refurbishment were clearly visible. Instead of what had first looked like broken or blank windows, Zoe saw they were merely tinted. The front doors were made of the same thick, tinted glass, with polished chrome handles. A doorman leapt to attention as they approached and swung the doors open. Max stalked through them, in an almost military march, with Zoe hurrying behind in her heels.
This wasn’t, she thought a bit resentfully, the most auspicious beginning to the evening. Yet even so, she wasn’t tempted to turn away. Max Monroe fascinated her, and more than that, he somehow managed to reach a place inside of her she hadn’t known existed, even now wasn’t sure was real. When he’d touched her she felt something stir to life that she hadn’t realised was asleep—or perhaps even dead. Something—someone—that had nothing to do with Zoe Balfour, and all to do with just Zoe.
And that was why she followed him through the building’s foyer with its polished floor of slick black marble, to the bank of gleaming, high-speed lifts. Max stepped inside, his finger trailing along the buttons until he reached the top one, and pushed PH. The penthouse. Of course.
The Balfour apartment on Park Avenue was a penthouse as well, with its dignified drawing rooms and separate servants’ quarters. It was a beautiful, well-preserved relic from another age, a different century, and Zoe knew instinctively Max Monroe’s penthouse was going to be something else entirely.
And it was. The lift doors opened straight into the apartment, and Zoe felt as if she were stepping into the sky. The apartment had floor-to-ceiling windows on every side, and the Hudson River gleamed only a block away, the lights of one of Manhattan’s many bridges twinkling in the distance.
She turned, and from the other side saw the Empire State Building’s needle point heavenward, a sea of skyscrapers behind it, filling the horizon.
She turned slowly in a full circle, savouring the view from every direction, until she finally chuckled a bit in admiration and turned to Max, who had shrugged out of his jacket and was even now loosening his tie. He didn’t look at the view at all.
‘Impressive,’ she murmured. ‘Do you ever grow tired of the view?’
‘No.’ He spoke so fla
tly Zoe wondered if she’d said something wrong.
Max moved around the apartment, flicking on a few lamps, bathing the room in a warm glow. Zoe glanced at the austere furnishings: all high-end bachelor pad with sleek leather sofas and uncomfortable-looking chairs made out of chrome, a designer glass coffee table she thought she’d seen featured in a decorating magazine, and a glimpse of a spotlessly clean stainless-steel kitchen that looked to have every gadget and appliance and was clearly never used.
Her heels clicked against the Brazilian cherry-wood floor as she came to stand by a window. Actually, Zoe saw, it was a door, made so seamlessly it looked like a window except for a discreet metal handle that led out to a wide terrace.
She heard Max cross the floor, felt him stand behind her. It amazed her how attuned she was to his movements, so that even before he reached out she knew he was going to touch her, was waiting for him to touch her.
He lifted his arm slowly—so slowly—and Zoe tensed, ready for his touch. Yet when it came it still shocked her, the heaviness of his hand on her bare shoulder sending ripples of awareness along her arm and through her body, deep into her belly. Neither of them spoke.
His hand slid along her shoulder, down her arm, as if he were slowly, languorously learning the landscape of her body. His fingers twined with hers as he pulled her around so she was facing him, his eyes dark and fathomless, his face seeming harsh in the yellow light cast from the buildings behind her, a sea of sightless skyscrapers. He moved so her back pressed against the glass and she could feel his heat, the hardness of his chest and thighs.
Her heart hammered with slow, deliberate thuds and her knees actually felt weak. She’d never had such a reaction to a man—to anyone, anything—before. And he hadn’t even kissed her.
Yet he was going to, Zoe knew that, felt it. She wanted him to, and yet she could hardly believe this was happening, that she’d come here, found him. Her nerves leapt to life and she opened her mouth to say—what? Something, preferably something light or clever, to diffuse the intensity of the moment, of him, but before she uttered a word—and she wasn’t even sure she could—she was prevented by his mouth coming down on hers.