by Julia James
Somehow she got herself back downstairs again, picked up her things and left the casino.
Just as last night, the rain was coming down heavily. She shivered, but not because of the wet. She had just lost her job. She knew it. Knew the manager would sack her instantly as soon as he found out she had no intention whatsoever of accepting a ‘private hire.’ Worse, she wouldn’t even get the wages she was owed for this week’s work.
Anger and intense depression mingled venomously inside her. Avoiding the front of the casino, she made her way with rapid, urgent footsteps to the main road. At least there were plenty of buses at this time of night, and the Tube was still running. Another thought struck her. What reason could she give for getting home so early? She didn’t want to say she’d lost her job because she’d been offered one she wouldn’t take.
Well, she would think up something on the way home. She would have to. That was the least of her problems.
Acid still curdled in her stomach, and more than acid. Anger, gall and bitterness. More even than that. But she would not give it words. Instead she found other words.
Creep. Jerk. Slimeball.
She said them in her head, over and over again, pounding them down on the pavement with each hurrying step.
A car pulled on to the pavement ahead of her.
She recognised it instantly. Equally instantly she swerved out on to the roadway in automatic avoidance.
‘What are you doing?’
The voice was a demand, wanting an answer. She didn’t even look around.
He strode up to her, catching her arm as she tried to plunge through the traffic.
‘You’ll kill yourself!’
She tried to tear herself free, but he was strong, the grip around her forearm unyielding.
‘Let go of me, you total creep.’ She tugged again, just as ineffectually. Rain was streaming into her eyes.
‘Comment?’ The surprise in his voice snapped something in her. She wheeled on him.
‘I said let go of me, you creep! You pig! How dare you try and buy me like that? My God, I might work in that fleapit, but the only work I do is to get jerks like you to buy rip-off drinks. You’ve got no right to think I do anything else. So take your bloody “private hire” and—’
He said something in French. Abrupt. Basic. Very basic.
His grip tightened on her arm as she stood struggling at the kerbside behind his chauffeured car.
‘I do not know what you have been told, but clearly you have been misinformed.’
His voice was icy. Formal. Lissa glared round at him, anger still boiling in her—and still that unwanted awareness of him.
It was a mistake to look at him. Even as she did so she felt again the incredible blow that went right through her solar plexus. The streetlight etched the planes of his face, and the sudden hardness in them, in his eyes, sent an unwilling thrill of reaction through her.
She fought against it.
‘Oh, do me a favour,’ she threw at him scornfully. ‘I wasn’t born yesterday. When I get told that you’ve paid “premium price”—’ she emphasised that heavily ‘—for a “private hire”—’ she emphasised that even more heavily ‘—I don’t damn well need it spelt out in neon lights. Nor do I need the creep running the casino to spell it out for me that I either do it or get fired.’
The icy expression in his eyes changed suddenly. Devastatingly. Lissa felt her insides dissolve.
The grip on her arm loosened, but he did not relinquish her. Instead, he guided her up onto the safety of the pavement again.
‘Don’t—’ She hustled back at him, but he ignored her. Then he turned her to face him.
‘You take insult,’ he informed her, ‘where none is intended. At least not by me.’ He took a sharp breath. Something changed in his eyes as he looked down at her. Then they were veiled. He dropped her arm. She should have bolted, but she didn’t. She just stood there, in the pelting rain, blinking at him. She didn’t know why, but she did all the same.
‘I wanted to see you again,’ said Xavier Lauran.
Her face didn’t change, but something else did, deep inside. She went on blinking at him. Staring at him.
‘I wanted to see you again,’ he repeated—as if, she thought, he was confirming it to himself.
‘Why?’ Her question was blunt. Unforgiving.
There was a slight alteration in his features, a lift of his eyebrow.
‘Why? Because …’ he paused. ‘Because when I gave you a lift home yesterday night I …’ He fell silent a moment. Then he spoke again. ‘You were different,’ he said bluntly. ‘A quite different woman from the one you had been at the casino. A woman I wanted to see again.’
‘What for?’ she demanded witheringly. ‘Some “private hire” entertainment?’
‘For dinner,’ he answered simply.
Lissa blinked.
‘I wanted to invite you for dinner,’ said Xavier Lauran. ‘I knew you worked, and I did not know when your night off was. I have limited time in London, so I did not want to waste it. I phoned the casino and asked if it was possible to arrange, as you term it, a “private hire.” By that I meant that I would pay the casino for your time, so they would not lose out, and it would free you to accept my invitation to dinner.’
Emotions were churning through her.
‘Dinner.’ Her voice was flat.
‘Just dinner.’ His voice was flatter.
She stared up at him. Rain washing down her face.
‘Why?’ she asked bluntly.
Again, something changed in his eyes, but she didn’t know what—not in this uncertain light, with the rain streaming down on both of them. A smile crooked at his mouth. Not much of a smile, but a smile all the same. A touch sardonic. A touch wry. A touch humorous. A touch indulgent.
‘Don’t you ever look in the mirror, Lissa? Not in the casino, but at home. When you haven’t got all that mess on your face. If you did, you’d have your answer. The reason I want to see you again. The reason I’m inviting you for dinner.’
‘Dinner,’ she said again. The mouth quirked more.
‘I’m a Frenchman,’ he elaborated, with that same wry, sardonic touch. ‘Dinner is important to me. Tonight I’d like you to share it with me. Just dinner,’ he added. ‘Does that reassure you?’ An eyebrow lifted, as if indulging her.
Reassure her? It stunned her. There wasn’t another word for it. No word, either, for the hollowing in her stomach as she stood there, frozen, motionless, staring up at Xavier Lauran who had not, after all, thought she was a—
‘So, will you accept my invitation? Now that you know what it is. And what—’ his voice bit suddenly ‘—it is not.’
‘You really mean just dinner?’ She could not hide the doubt, the suspicion.
He nodded gravely. ‘And, although I do not wish in any way to harass or hurry you, it would, peut-être, be considerably appreciated if you would give an imminent answer. On account, you understand—’ his eyes glinted ‘—of the inclement English weather we are currently experiencing.’
She stared at him still. His sable hair was completely wet. So were the shoulders of his cashmere coat. Rain glistened on his eyelashes. They were ridiculously long, she thought abstractedly. Far too long for a man. They ought to make him look feminine, but … Her stomach gave one of the flips it did whenever she stopped blocking out all thoughts of this man who had nothing to do with her life. But feminine was the very last thing they made him look. They simply made him look …
Sexy.
That awful, cheap word. Overused, trashy, tabloid.
And true.
Completely, undeniably true.
She felt her stomach dissolve, gazing up at him, at the way the rain made his hair glisten like a raven’s wing, the way it perfected the incredible planes of his face. she just wanted to go on gazing, and gazing and gazing.
He was guiding her towards the car. She hardly registered it. Then the chauffeur was there, opening the passenger doo
r, and she was being ushered inside. She sank back, boneless, into the deep leather seat.
What am I doing?
The question sounded in her mind, but she didn’t pay it any attention. She couldn’t. She just sat there, capable only of feeling that suddenly she was out of the rain, still soaking wet, but at least not with rain shafting down into her face. A moment later Xavier Lauran had climbed in on his side of the car, and the chauffeur was reclaiming his driving seat.
‘Seat belt,’ he reminded her, as the car moved off, and his voice, in the confines of the car, suddenly sounded very French.
Very sexy.
No, she mustn’t think that word. Not now—not with this man who had walked back into her life when she had thought he never would, never could. And whom up till two minutes ago she had had every reason to think a total jerk, a creep, a slimeball, a—
Punter.
Numbly her eyes flew to him as she fumblingly did up her seat belt. He was currently pulling down his own seat belt with an assured, fluid movement. She wanted to watch him. Wanted to watch him doing anything, everything. Because.
Because she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Because he made her stomach go hollow. Because he stopped the breath in her lungs. Because—
He’s a punter.
The thought pulled her up short. One of those men who thought spending an evening in a two-bit casino being fawned over by women, drinking third-rate champagne and throwing money around pointlessly on stupid gambling was a good time.
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be here. It was wrong—all wrong.
‘What is it?’ He’d paused in the act of fastening the seat belt. His eyes focussed on her intently. Questioningly.
‘Why did you come to the casino last night?’
Her question was stark.
For a moment he stilled. Then he answered.
‘Why do you ask?’
She brushed some raindrops from her hair.
‘It’s hardly your kind of place, is it?’
He didn’t bother to disagree.
‘I was bored. I was passing. I’d been to a play in Shaftesbury Avenue I hadn’t liked, so I walked out. I didn’t feel like going back to my hotel. The casino was an impulse, nothing more, just to pass some time.’ His voice was offhand. Then it changed. So did the expression in his eyes.
‘But I’m glad I did go in. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you. And I will tell you, in complete honesty—’ he levelled his gaze at her ‘—that until I saw you at the bus stop last night your appeal to me was precisely zero. But then …’ He paused. ‘It was unexpected,’ he said.
His eyes swept down over her, washing away her guard. She shouldn’t let it be washed away, but it was gone all the same.
‘It made me want to see you again.’
Simple words.
Doing very unsimple things to her.
He was still looking at her, with that same disarming expression. ‘Would it be so very hard to have dinner with me?’ he said. There was a quizzical, amused cast to his eye.
Her eyes were uncertain, confused.
She shouldn’t do this. She should make him stop the car, get out, go home. Back to her real world. She shouldn’t let herself be taken away like this, by a man who did things to her insides that made it impossible to think straight, to think logically, rationally, coolly, sensibly, sanely.
The litany trotted through her head, every word a compelling, urgent argument to tell him to stop the car and let her out. Then into the litany another thought arose, inserting itself into her mind.
If she didn’t get out it would mean she’d keep her job at the casino. They wouldn’t know she’d just gone for dinner.
But did he really mean just dinner? Was she an idiot to believe him?
‘Dinner? That’s all?’ Her voice was sharp.
‘Exactement. In the public dining room of my hotel. It will be very comme il faut, je vous assure.’ There were undertones to his voice, but she could not identify them. She was focussing on the words.
He had used ‘vous’ to her. The formal mode of address, implying not familiarity or superiority—but courtesy.
A knot inside her that she hadn’t even been aware of untied itself.
But another one still remained. One that was much harder to untie. Impossible.
She should go home. She should not do this. If she wasn’t working, she should be at home.
Because there was no point, no point at all, in having dinner with this man.
But it would be worth it if only for the memory.
She took a breath—and made her decision. Looking straight at him.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Il me fait un grand plaisir de vous accepter, m’sieu,’ she enunciated carefully. Then she looked at him uncertainly. ‘Was that correct?’ she asked.
His mouth quirked. Tension seemed to have gone out of his face.
‘It will do perfectly,’ he said.
He relaxed back into his seat, his shoulders easing.
‘Where did you learn French?’
‘At school,’ she volunteered. She, too, sat back into the contours of the seat. ‘Same as everyone else, really. I can just about get my way around France, but that’s all. I can’t really have a proper conversation, or read novels or watch TV or anything demanding. It always seems a bit bad, really, that the British—and the Americans, too, I suppose—can get away without knowing another language fluently. English is de rigueur, presumably, in business circles outside France?’
She was babbling, she knew, but it seemed important to her somehow to have an innocuous conversation—one that had nothing to do with where she worked, or what she’d thought he’d hired her for. A conversation she could have had with anyone.
‘English now is very much the lingua franca, it’s true, but I also speak Italian, Spanish, and some German, as well.’
Her reply was another burble.
‘Well, I can say café con leche, por favor in Spanish, and dov’e il cattedrale in Italian, and I think that’s about it. As for German, it’s just Bitte and Danke. Oh, and I can say epharisto in Greek. But that’s really my lot.’ She gave a self-deprecating smile.
The long eyelashes swept down over his dark eyes. There were no more raindrops on them, but his hair was still clearly wet. So was hers. She could feel water trickling down her back. Another thought struck her. She could hardly dine in a hotel restaurant looking like a drowned rat. But maybe there would be powerful hand dryers in the Ladies, and she could at least get her hair dry. She could try and style it a bit, too, though it was probably best left in a tight pleat. But she could put a bit of makeup on, though—she had enough in her handbag after all. It was the clothes that were the main problem, however. She was just wearing jeans and a jumper—would that really do? Well, it would have to. Anyway, her thoughts raced on, it obviously didn’t bother him, or he wouldn’t have asked her out in the way he had.
Why had he?
The question stung through her thoughts, scattering them instantly. Then into her head his words sounded. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?
A quiver went through her. Was she really the kind of woman a man like him was interested in? She knew she could look good—knew she had been blessed with a face and figure that many women would envy her for. But a man like Xavier Lauran, rich, sophisticated and French, would move in circles where every woman was beautiful and chic, groomed from top to toe in exquisite designer clothes.
Doubt trickled through her. Then she put it aside. A man like Xavier Lauran would know his own mind. If he thought her beautiful enough to interest him, then that was that. He had, after all, no other reason to spend his time with her.
A warm glow began to spread through her. It might only be dinner, but in the evening ahead she would enjoy all she could of it.
She gave a silent mental shrug. Even if she had to do it in jeans and a jumper.
Fifteen minutes later, she realised she’d got that bit as wrong as every
thing else about the evening. She was being ushered across the huge, marble-floored lobby of a West End hotel, and guided distinctly towards the left-hand side.
‘The hotel boutique is still open—I am sure they will have something suitable for you there.’
Lissa stopped dead, and looked round at Xavier Lauren.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He glanced down at her. ‘I don’t wish to be critical, but you’re soaking wet—as am I. And there is, I believe, a dress code at the restaurant here that precludes jeans. So it would be a good idea to avail yourself of the resources of the hotel boutique.’
Lissa swallowed. ‘I’m afraid I can’t afford to buy anything there.’
‘But I can—’
She shook her head. A quick, decisive action. ‘Monsieur Lauran, I don’t let men buy me clothes.’
He went on looking at her a moment.
‘Consider it merely a loan. You can change back into your jeans at the end of the evening.’
‘We could always eat somewhere where there’s no dress code,’ she ventured. ‘There are loads of restaurants around here.’
‘But I have made a reservation at this one. The chef is very good here. He is a Frenchman, you see. I make it a rule in London only to eat where the chef is French. That way I can protect my digestive system.’
There was deliberate humour in Xavier Lauran’s voice.
‘I can think of a number of British celebrity chefs who’d chop you up with meat cleavers for that comment,’ Lissa was driven to retaliate. But the exchange had lightened the moment.
‘Then you can see exactly why I prefer to dine in safety. Now, will you really not agree to my suggestion about the use of the hotel boutique?’
Lissa threw up her hands. ‘OK—but I’m really not comfortable with it, you know.’
Something flickered at the back of his eyes. She couldn’t tell what it was. But then she was more focussed on wondering, for the thousandth time, just how incredible it was just to look at him.
‘Bon,’ he said decisively. ‘Alors—’ He continued to guide her into the boutique. ‘Why don’t you choose something and meet me in, say …’ he shot back his cuff to glance at the thin gold watch around his lean wrist ‘.twenty minutes in the cocktail lounge.’ He cast her a wry look. ‘I myself have to dry out, as well.’ He glanced at the shop assistant hovering not just attentively but positively eagerly, Lissa noticed, but she could hardly blame the woman for her reaction. ‘I am sure it will prove possible to provide suitable facilities for changing?’