by Penny Jordan
‘Are you trying to shock me, Mr Gambrelli?’ Darci cut in quickly, hopefully hiding her inner discomfort at the fact that he had guessed exactly what she was—or rather, wasn’t!—wearing beneath her gown.
No doubt, experienced lover that he was, Luc Gambrelli was more than capable of undressing a woman with just his eyes, she acknowledged hardly.
‘Am I succeeding?’ he enquired, those dark eyes glinting with a devilish humour.
Something else Darci hadn’t been prepared for…
She had expected Luc Gambrelli to be as good-looking as sin. And he was.
She had expected him to be arrogant. And he was most definitely that.
But what she hadn’t expected was that he would also have a wicked—and very appealing—sense of humour!
‘Not in the least,’ she assured him with calm dismissal, as she took another sip of her champagne.
‘Good—because I haven’t got to the best part yet,’ he murmured assuredly, laughter glinting in those dark eyes. ‘Once I had you out of your dress I would kneel at your feet, paying homage to your beautiful breasts with my lips and tongue on the way down, and then I would slowly slide off your silk panties—’
‘I’m sure it’s fascinating to hear your fantasies, Mr Gambrelli.’ Her scathing tone told him she considered it the opposite. ‘But then they are just fantasies, aren’t they?’
‘For the moment,’ he agreed, and once again his gaze fixed caressingly on the full pout of her mouth.
Darci knew exactly the effect her looks had on men of all ages—how her height, her unruly red hair and voluptuous breasts prevented most men from taking her seriously. She had been fighting against that prejudice all her life, but especially during her years of training to be a doctor. In fact, she was still fighting it with the male staff at the hospital where she worked. And with some of the patients, too—young men considering her easy bait for their teasing, and most older men reluctant to let an attractive young female doctor care for them at all.
The fact that Luc Gambrelli had taken one look at her and decided not to take her seriously, either, only made her see red!
She was more determined than ever that he needed to be taught a salutary lesson—and that was never to underestimate a woman scorned or, in this case, never to underestimate the friend of a woman scorned!
‘As you said earlier, Luc, this is hardly the place for this sort of conversation,’ she dismissed, with a lightness she was far from feeling. Her breasts ached—her nipples actually throbbed!—and there was a dampness between her thighs from just listening to this man talk about making love to her.
‘Where would you consider the right place to be?’ he encouraged naughtily.
Nowhere, as far as this mesmerising man was concerned!
‘Fascinating as this conversation has been, Luc, I think it’s probably time I rejoined Grant,’ she replied smartly. ‘I—What do you think you’re doing?’ She frowned as Luc Gambrelli reached out and grasped her bare arm, his long fingers dark against her much paler skin.
Yes, what was he doing? Luc wondered impatiently.
Darci Wilde was beautiful, yes. Desirable. Intelligent, too. Certainly quick-witted enough to hold his interest. But wasn’t this an interest, raw as he still was from Wolf and Cesare’s defection to the married state, that Luc was trying to avoid at all costs?
But Darci was so incredibly beautiful, and he was already aroused just from talking about making love to her deliciously sensual body…
‘I wonder if you would care to have dinner with me one evening?’ he asked smoothly, not at all sure of the wisdom of seeing this woman again, but aware that his caution stood little chance of winning out when his body throbbed with a need to know her better.
An urgent need.
A need that at the moment far outweighed those feelings of caution.
Darci looked up at Luc Gambrelli for several long minutes, torn between the satisfaction of having this man invite her out after all, and the fact that, now she had actually spent some time in Luc Gambrelli’s company, she appreciated that Kerry’s warning of yesterday had some merit.
Not that there had ever been any real chance of her actually falling for Luc Gambrelli—not after the way he had treated Mellie. But at the same time Darci had to acknowledge that he really was much more lethally attractive in the flesh. His unusual colouring and undeniable good looks were mesmerising, his every movement was one of elegantly leashed power, and that wicked sense of humour was definitely more appealing than it should be.
His description of how he wanted to make love to her hadn’t been in the least calming, either!
‘Perhaps if I were to assure you, despite what I have just described, that you won’t be on the menu…?’ He mocked her lengthy silence.
Darci’s mouth tightened at the challenge. ‘Perhaps I should assure you that you won’t be, either!’ she came back acidly.
Those dark eyes warmed appreciatively. ‘Tomorrow evening, then? Say eight o’clock?’
‘I’m busy tomorrow evening,’ she took great satisfaction in telling him.
It was the truth, after all; she had a late shift at the hospital tomorrow. But even if she hadn’t, she would have made an excuse not to meet him tomorrow evening. If only to show him she was less than eager to see him again.
The fact that the warmth had faded slightly from those dark eyes, his lips thinning, more than justified her refusal.
No doubt he was used to a more enthusiastic response to his invitations.
No doubt most women would have put off any previous engagement in order to have dinner with him tomorrow or any other evening he suggested.
Well, as Luc Gambrelli was going to learn, Darci wasn’t most women.
And in his case forewarned had definitely been fore-armed!
She had no doubt, despite her own reluctance when it came to relationships, that she would have been totally bowled over by his deadly charm if she hadn’t already known what a heartless bastard he really was.
‘Saturday evening?’ he pressed abruptly.
Darci deliberately gave the alternative suggestion some thought, knowing as she glanced at his face from beneath lowered lashes that the egotistical Luc Gambrelli wasn’t best pleased by her obvious hesitation.
He was going to be less pleased when she didn’t even turn up for their dinner date!
‘Why not?’ she finally accepted offhandedly. ‘As long as you intend taking me somewhere sinfully expensive.’ She looked up at him beguilingly, wondering how he liked the idea of literally being used as a meal-ticket.
He didn’t, if the tightening of his mouth and the narrowing of his gaze was anything to go by!
Although it was an emotion he quickly masked as he gave a shrug of those broad shoulders. ‘I’m sure I can find somewhere appropriately sinful,’ he replied.
‘Sinfully expensive,’ Darci corrected—did this man have to reduce everything to the nerve-tinglingly sensual?
‘Of course,’ he drawled, the confident warmth back in those dark eyes as he easily held her gaze and released his grip on her arm to trail his fingers caressingly downwards.
Darci’s breath caught in her throat at the headiness caused by that light touch. Her skin actually seemed to tingle, her own fingers contracting slightly as his thumb intimately stroked the palm of her hand.
It was deliberate seduction, she told herself firmly. Something this man was a master at. In fact, he probably had a diploma on his bedroom wall—as well as several dozen notches on his bedpost!—to testify to his expertise on the subject!
Telling herself that didn’t help in the slightest as those long tapered fingers linked with hers and he once again lifted her hand to his lips, his breath warm against her skin as he brushed his mouth against her knuckles, his dark eyes easily holding hers as his tongue rasped briefly—tasting?—where his lips had just kissed.
A master of seduction? The man should come with a public health warning!
No wonder
poor Mellie had fallen victim to Luc’s advances…
‘Until Saturday evening, then, Darci,’ he confirmed, releasing her hand as he straightened. ‘Is Garstang’s sinfully expensive enough for you?’
The exclusive restaurant wasn’t one that Darci had ever been to—a junior doctor’s pay didn’t exactly run to establishments that didn’t even list the prices on their menu!—but she had heard of it, of course, and Grant had been there several times, she knew.
‘It sounds perfect,’ she accepted.
‘I’ll call for you—’
‘No, I’ll meet you at the restaurant at eight o’clock,’ Darci told him firmly; having this man arrange to pick her up was not part of her plan at all.
Garstang’s exclusivity, and the fact that Luc Gambrelli was perfectly confident about being able to secure a booking in a top-class venue that was totally booked months in advance, made it the perfect venue for the humiliation Darci intended to inflict.
She could just picture him now, sitting at the table in the fashionably exclusive Garstang’s, looking oh-so-lethally attractive as he waited for her to arrive.
As he waited.
And waited.
Until it finally dawned on him that Darci had no intention of turning up.
That the legendary lover Luc Gambrelli had been publicly stood up.
Sinfully delicious!
CHAPTER THREE
‘ARE you sure you don’t want to come to the party with Michael and me?’ Kerry paused at the door, on her way out to meet her fiancé for the evening.
‘Perfectly sure.’ Darci grinned at her flatmate reassuringly as she sat on the sofa wearing an old and comfortable pair of pyjamas and wrapped in her duvet. ‘I have the evening off, my favourite DVD—’ she held it up ‘—and a bowl of toffee popcorn; what more could I possibly need?’
‘Luc Gambrelli?’ Kerry suggested provokingly.
‘Forget it!’ Darci protested.
‘Doesn’t it bother you at all that you could actually be out with him this evening, instead of sitting at home alone eating popcorn and watching a film you’ve already seen a dozen times before?’ Kerry sounded incredulous.
‘Not in the least,’ Darci assured her smugly. ‘Just sitting here imagining Luc Gambrelli waiting at a table in Garstang’s for me to arrive is enough to make my evening.’
Kerry looked troubled. ‘You agreed that you would call the restaurant and let him know you weren’t going to turn up,’ she reminded her reprovingly.
Yes, as a concession to Kerry’s worrying the last two days Darci had agreed to do that. She just hadn’t said when she would do it!
Twenty, even twenty-five minutes past eight o’clock should do it, she had decided. Long enough for the egotistical Luc Gambrelli to be made to feel decidedly uncomfortable at the curious glances of the other diners and the restaurant staff that were sure to be directed his way as it became more and more obvious, as the minutes slowly ticked by, that his date for the evening wasn’t going to turn up.
‘Stop worrying, Kerry. I will call the restaurant and make my excuses,’ Darci promised.
‘Dammit, I forgot to tell you!’ Kerry exclaimed. ‘Mellie phoned earlier. She wanted to know how Grant’s premiere went on Thursday.’
Darci frowned. ‘She did?’
‘Stop looking so worried, Darce,’ her friend replied. ‘I wasn’t stupid enough to tell her what you’re up to.’
‘Good.’ Darci breathed her relief.
‘Although I probably should have done,’ Kerry continued. ‘I’m sure Mellie would be the first person to tell you to just let this go.’
‘I am letting it go,’ Darci rejoined. ‘Do stop worrying, Kerry! After tonight I don’t expect to hear from Luc Gambrelli ever again.’
Kerry raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Let’s hope not.’
‘Just go, and let me enjoy my movie and my popcorn,’ Darci told her friend laughingly, as Kerry still hesitated in the doorway.
She heaved a genuine sigh of relief when her flatmate finally complied. Although Darci had a feeling that Kerry might be right when it came to how Mellie would feel about her interference where Luc Gambrelli was concerned…
Oh, well, it was too late now—and she really did intend to stay well away from the Sicilian in future.
She wait until half past eight before telephoning Garstang’s and asking them to pass a message on to Luc Gambrelli that she wasn’t well and so wouldn’t be able to meet him after all, hastily refusing the offer of having Mr Gambrelli brought to the telephone so that she might tell him that herself; she didn’t want to even hear that sexily persuasive voice again!
But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t thought about Luc Gambrelli a lot over the last two days—that she hadn’t remembered the delicious shiver that had run down her spine as his lips had brushed across the back of her hand, and how her body had responded as he’d detailed how he would like to make love to her, while all the time that devilish sense of humour had glinted in his eyes.
And she had guilty thoughts of him right now, as he sat in the restaurant, waiting for her to arrive, probably under the increasingly pitying gazes of the other customers. Thoughts that kept intruding as she tried to watch her favourite film…
It was only the memory of the way Luc Gambrelli had so callously hurt Mellie that made Darci so certain she had been right to carry out her plan to stand him up tonight. The man simply didn’t have the right to go around breaking women’s hearts without even a backward glance. And especially when that woman was a friend of Darci’s.
Then why did she feel so increasingly uncomfortable about what she had done?
It was ridiculous.
Luc Gambrelli deserved everything he got!
When the doorbell rang, a little after nine o’clock, Darci knew she was relieved at the interruption in her tortuous thoughts. She didn’t in the least mind pausing the DVD to go and answer the door—any visitor would be a welcome diversion.
Until she opened the door and found that visitor was Luc Gambrelli…
Darci gaped at him, rendered totally speechless as she took in how suavely handsome he looked, in a black silk shirt and black tailored trousers worn beneath a tan suede jacket. The latter was almost a perfect match for his overlong, burnished gold hair, and the shirt and trousers gave the strong angles of his face and his superbly moulded mouth a slightly saturnine appearance.
All of it succeeded in making Darci feel completely vulnerable, dressed as she was in men’s striped cotton pyjamas, with her face completely bare of make-up, her hair tousled and her feet bare!
Her legs were in danger of buckling beneath her, she discovered, and she quickly put out a hand to clasp tightly onto the door, the panicky palpitations she could feel in her chest bringing a deep blush to her cheeks.
‘I—What—How—’ She was gabbling like an idiot, Darci recognised disgustedly. ‘What are you doing here?’ She finally managed to string a whole sentence together.
Luc took in Darci’s appearance in one sweeping glance: her tumbling hair, her flushed face, fevered green eyes. His gaze narrowed as he noted the men’s pyjamas she wore and wondered to whom they had originally belonged…
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I was concerned about you after receiving your message at the restaurant you weren’t well,’ he responded. ‘So I telephoned Grant and asked him for your address.’
Those green eyes widened. ‘And he just gave it to you?’
‘Why would he not?’ Luc replied.
‘Well, because—because—’ She gave an incredulous shake of her head.
‘Once I had explained to him that the two of us should have been having dinner together this evening he was quite happy to be accommodating,’ Luc assured her smoothly. ‘May I come in?’
‘I—Well—Yes, I suppose so,’ she accepted grudgingly as she moved back from the door.
Luc stepped inside, noting the crumpled duvet on the sofa before turning back to look at Darci. ‘The maître d’ a
t Garstang’s informed me that you have a fever.’
‘Yes,’ Darci confirmed, hoping the warmth she could feel in her cheeks looked convincing.
Because Luc Gambrelli was a totally disturbing presence in what she had always considered her private sanctum!
He seemed so big—he was well over six feet to her five feet nine inches—and he made the sitting-room seem somehow smaller, his steel-muscled body totally dominating and exuding a power, a barely restrained strength, that caused a rivulet of apprehension to skitter down the length of Darci’s spine.
Did he really believe she was ill? Or was his being here some form of retribution on his part for leaving him sitting in the restaurant all that time?
‘Have you consulted a doctor?’ he demanded to know.
‘I am a doctor,’ Darci informed him, and was rewarded by the raising of dark blond brows as he widened those chocolate-brown eyes.
She hadn’t expected—not in her wildest dreams!—that Luc would actually turn up at her apartment this way after she had stood him up. If she had, she would have kept the door locked and barricaded herself in her bedroom until he went away again!
But she had stopped shaking now, and while her heart was still beating far too wildly in her chest, the palpitations had thankfully ceased.
All she had to do was reassure Luc that her illness wasn’t a hospital case, and then maybe he would leave.
He had to leave!
Because just having him here in her apartment was more unsettling, more disturbing, than anything she had ever known in her life. The overhead light was making his hair appear silkily soft in contrast to the harder planes of his aristocratic face. It was enough to overwhelm a woman’s senses—any woman’s senses!—completely.