by Julia James
‘Certainly, sir,’ said the other woman, and cast him a warm smile. ‘If madam would like to see our collection?’ Her eyes flickered down to Lissa’s booted feet. ‘And perhaps our footwear, too?’
‘Whatever is necessary. Charge it all to my room.’ He gave the number. Then he glanced back at Lissa. ‘A bientôt,’ he said, and left her to it.
He strode off across the foyer towards the bank of lifts and headed up to his suite. He needed to shed his still-damp clothes, then shower and change. He also needed time.
Time to think straight. Think straight about Lissa Stephens—because Lissa Stephens was rearranging everything inside his head yet again, and he needed to make sense of it. Had to. Urgently. As he stood under the stinging needles of hot water, splintering on his back with the full punishing force of the hotel’s water pressure, he knew that yet again Lissa Stephens had behaved against expectations. It had been shock enough to his system to discover, last night, that out of make-up and hostess costume she looked nothing like the money-grabbing tramp he had initially taken her to be. But now he had something else to make sense of.
Lissa Stephens had thought he’d booked her like a call girl—and she had gone ballistic. Why? Was it because she was too clever to be that unsubtle? Or was it because she had genuine objections to that kind of assumption? And she’d also objected to his assumption that he would provide her with an appropriate outfit for the evening.
His eyes narrowed as he turned off the water and stepped out, reaching for a towel to pat himself swiftly dry.
What game was Lissa Stephens playing?
Was she playing one at all?
Another question seared over the first.
Was it one she played, or didn’t play, with all men?
Or only him?
With an impatient rasp he tossed the towel back on the vanity unit and stared at his reflection.
He knew his own attraction. Women were easy to attract—he had, after all, a potent combination they liked. His looks, his wealth, his position in society. Lissa Stephens might not be aware of the third, but she was certainly aware of the first two. Was that why she was giving her time to him? His eyes hardened suddenly. What if he only possessed the second of those attributes—wealth? Would she be here now, adorning herself downstairs, if he were not a wealthy man?
And was that the main attraction his brother held for her?
He needed to get her measure. It was essential. Imperative.
Then, like a punch to his stomach, he realised he already had it. Why would a woman having an affair with Armand be here, tonight, with another man—unless Armand meant nothing to her? Certainly not enough to stop her having dinner with another man.
But was dinner with another man crime enough in itself? Another thought spiked through his mind. What had she said when she was going ballistic at him in that damn rain? Something about getting fired if she didn’t take the private hire for the evening? Was that why she’d agreed to his invitation to dinner? To keep her job?
Hell—he turned away from the mirror. He still couldn’t get a steer on the girl. Every time he tried to nail her down, apply all the rational powers of his mind to her, the evidence slithered away from him again. With another muttered imprecation he strode through into the bedroom and started to get dressed.
His mood was not good. Damn Armand. Damn Lissa Stephens. Damn having to go through this rigmarole of finding out whether the girl was or wasn’t fit to marry his brother.
And damn most of all, he thought, tight-lipped, as he finished knotting a silk tie at his throat and slipping on his suit jacket, the fact that right now the thought that was uppermost in his mind was just what Lissa Stephens would look like with a decent outfit on.
He slid his wallet and key into the inner pocket of his jacket, punched the lights, and set off to find out.
All thoughts of Armand seemed suddenly very far away, but right now he didn’t care. Right now there was room for only one person in his thoughts. A girl he couldn’t make out.
But whose measure it was essential he got—whatever it took.
CHAPTER FIVE
LISSA SAT, perched on the edge of a leather tub chair, her pulse too rapid, her breathing too shallow. Nervously, she tried to ease the tight material across her knees, but there was no give in it the way she was sitting, legs slanted sideways. Her spine was very straight. Across the scoop of her dress at the back she could feel the fall of her hair grazing lightly as she moved her head to keep the entrance to the cocktail lounge in view. She didn’t look around, because if she did she knew she would catch the eyes of other men present, looking at her. They’d looked at her as she’d walked in, minutes ago, her nervous state making her hyper-aware of their glances. The glances, too, of other women present, checking her out, assessing her.
She knew what they were seeing—another woman like them, looking the way a woman should in a swanky place like this, with its soft lights and softer music emanating from the grand piano in one corner, and the retro-style bar winding sinuously along one wall, staffed by an abundance of barmen.
She’d never been in a place like this before. Before, in her earlier existence, when she’d dressed up to go out it had always been to places that were within her budget, or those of the men taking her out. None of them would have stretched to a swish five-star hotel like this. Here, the clientele was predominantly male, all wearing business suits, or the occasional less-formal-but-still-expensive-looking casual wear.
A waiter came up to her, attentively asking her what she would like to drink.
‘Oh, mineral water. Sparkling, please. Um, thank you,’ she got out. Silently, she hoped Xavier Lauran was intending to show up. She didn’t like to think what even mineral water cost in a place like this. More than she’d want to pay, certainly. The waiter returned almost instantly, but there was nothing so unsubtle as a tab accompanying the bottle and glass, with its sliver of lemon and chunks of ice, and the little bowl of expensive dry nuts set down on the small round table in front of her.
Nervously, she took a sip of the water poured out for her, then set the glass down again, still staring at the entrance. Twenty minutes was up—she’d rushed to make it on time. Rushed through the process of accepting the first dress that the woman in the boutique had proferred, and shoes and stockings to go with it, then being directed to the lavish Ladies’ Cloakroom where there was ample room not just to change, but to do her make-up and style her rain-wet hair courtesy of the hairdyer the attendant had provided for her.
She took another sip of water and contemplated whether to start on the nuts. But she didn’t want to get her fingers salty.
Her nerves jangled. She didn’t let herself think. Didn’t let herself think about what she was doing. Too late to change her mind now. And besides, she couldn’t. The heavy truth of it was unavoidable. Being here, tonight, was the way she was going to keep the job she didn’t want, but needed to keep.
And she wanted the memory, too. Just the memory. Of an evening spent with the most debonair man she had ever met—an evening far removed from the responsibilities of her everyday life. A daydream that just this one night was a reality.
And, oh, the reality.
He was walking into the lounge. She saw him instantly.
Her stomach hollowed. Faintness drummed in her ears. He was walking towards her, coming closer.
His eyes had gone to her. Seeing her as instantly as she had seen him. And in those eyes was something that simply sent her reeling.
It was a punch to his guts. He could feel it impacting. Like a fist. Blasting right through him.
He went on walking towards her, but he had absolutely no awareness of his surroundings. His entire focus was on the woman he was walking to. The woman who was blasting a hole right through him.
She looked—breathtaking. Stunning. Incredible.
Every last gram of speculation he’d entertained about just what she might look like when she had the right clothes, the right make-up a
nd hairstyle, was confirmed. In spades.
His rapid expert gaze took in the whole package at a single glance. Hair—sleek, long, blow-dried back off her face. Face—every pure, perfect line set off by make-up that was simply another universe away from the garish layers she used at the casino. Now, subtle shadows accentuated the luminosity of her eyes, contoured her cheekbones, and then, finally, a rich sheen of lipstick perfectly delineated the delicate but sensuous curve of her mouth.
As for the dress—he gave a silent salute to the boutique saleswoman. Or was it Lissa Stephens herself who’d chosen that simple, but superbly cut coffee-coloured sleeveless silk shift that went so perfectly with her fair colouring? He didn’t know, didn’t care. Knew only that at last he was seeing Lissa Stephens as he had wanted to see her from the moment he had got out of the car the night before to offer her a lift home after purposely preventing her from catching her bus.
Why had he done that? Stopped her getting her bus so he could offer her a lift? He’d had a good reason, but right now he didn’t recall exactly why. There wasn’t room inside his head for that. For anything. Anything at all except to close in, the way he was doing, on the woman sitting there as he walked up to her. He stopped dead in front of her, looking down.
‘Incroyable.’
His voice was a husk. It turned Lissa inside out and back again. Her lips parted as she tilted her head to gaze up at him.
‘Incroyable,’ he murmured again. His eyes were washing over her, full force, working over every iota of her appearance, sweeping down over her, then back up again, to hold her own helpless, breathless gaze.
‘I knew you would look good, but this…. this is beyond all my expectations.’
For one moment longer his eyes held hers in that incredible, heart-stopping gaze, and then suddenly, like a switch going on, he smiled. She reeled again.
Gracefully, he lowered his lean frame into the adjacent chair, without taking his eyes off her. Immediately, claiming his attention in the most unobtrusive fashion, was the waiter who had served her. As Xavier Lauran’s eyes left her, she felt at last the air returning to her lungs. Then, a moment later, with the waiter disappearing, it left them again. Xavier Lauran turned back to her.
‘You look simply fantastic,’ he told her. His voice was warm, and melting. Melting through her like honey.
She couldn’t say anything. She was bereft of words. She had known in the first moment of seeing him, when he’d walked into the casino last night, that this man was like none she had ever known. But until this moment the full force of his power to render her breathless and helpless had not been turned on her. Now it was. Now, in a heady, incredible rush to her head, she knew that for the first time he was responding to her, and that responsiveness was making his own attractiveness totally lethal.
What was happening to her?
It was a pointless question. She knew with every shimmering cell in her body that what was happening to her now was making her reaction to him of the night before seem like the palest shadow of awareness.
It was like being carried away on a flood-tide—a flood-tide of heady awareness that was making her feel weightless and floating. Floating towards a destination she had no control over.
‘Your champagne, sir,’ said a voice.
She started, realising that the waiter had returned, and that he was bearing a tray with a bottle of champagne nesting in an ice bucket, smoky fumes curling from its opened neck. She watched as he carefully poured a little into one of the flutes on the tray, then proffered it to Xavier Lauran, who inhaled the bouquet and took a considering mouthful.
He nodded, and the waiter proceeded to pour out her glass, then fill the remainder of the other one. Then he was gone. Xavier picked up her flute and offered it to her, retaining his own. She took hers gingerly.
‘Salut.’ He clinked his glass against hers.
She took a sip simultaneously with him, then lowered the glass.
Xavier glanced at her. ‘A little better than last night’s, non?’ he said. There was amused irony in his voice, and in the lift of his eyebrow.
A smile broke from her. ‘It’s not even champagne, is it? What they serve there?’
‘Méthode champenoise,’ he agreed, with all the disdain of a Frenchman, for sparkling wine produced anywhere but in the élite Champagne region of France. ‘And atrociously done at that. This, however, is champagne. Not one of the most famous houses, but all the better for that, I believe. And this is a particularly good vintage.’ He took another savouring mouthful.
So did Lissa. ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she said. Then she made a face. ‘I’m sorry—that’s a crass thing to say. I don’t know anything about champagne, I’m afraid—I only know that what they serve up at the casino is pretty grim. As well as being a hideous rip-off, of course. But I can tell this is completely different.’ She frowned slightly. ‘What makes it so good?’
‘Many things. The grapes, the soil, the weather, the slope, and above all the nose of the chef du cave, whose responsibility it is to ensure the quality of the assemblage—the blending of the grapes which gives each champagne its distinctive character.’
Xavier leaned back in his chair, the flute held carefully in his fingers. They were long fingers. Lissa’s eyes went to them, and for the briefest moment she had a vision of their tips just touching her face, even as they were touching the glass. She dragged her eyes away, making herself listen to what he was saying. He was explaining the factors that went into creating a vintage champagne—one that would be made from the grapes of one year’s harvest alone, not blended with those from previous years. She listened attentively, interested in the subject as much as simply revelling in listening to his beautiful, accented voice, revelling in his attention being focussed on her.
‘What are crus?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never understood those, either.’
Xavier enlightened her.
It was good to talk about something like champagne. He could talk without thinking, and that was good right now. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to watch. He wanted to watch the way Lissa Stephens held her champagne glass with a natural grace and elegance, the way she lifted it to her mouth from time to time, and the way her soft lips embraced the lip of the flute. He wanted to watch her gazing across at him, her eyes hanging on his, deep and smoky. He wanted—
‘Your table is ready now, sir, if you would like to go through?’
The maître d’ from the adjacent restaurant was hovering deferentially. Xavier nodded. He got to his feet.
‘Shall we?’ he invited Lissa.
She stood up. She didn’t feel quite steady on her feet, but it had nothing to do with the champagne she’d been sipping.
And everything to do with the man she was about to dine with.
Supremely self-consciousness of his scrutiny, she walked forward into the dining room. The shoes that went with the dress were a fraction tight, but she didn’t care. She only knew the dress itself made her feel like a million dollars, moulding her body and yet simultaneously skimming her contours. She let the maître d’ show them to their table, secluded and private on the far side of the dining room, and took her place on the banquette with the same self-consciousness.
The business of ordering food—a lengthy process, involving no less a personage than the chef himself, emerging from his domain to conduct an intensive, mutually satisfactory conversation in rapid, idiomatic French with this man for whom any chef would proffer his arts and skills—helped her relax. So, too, did the continued sips of champagne. She wasn’t entirely sure how much she’d drunk, because her glass never seemed to be empty. She would need to be careful, she knew, but only with an abstract part of her mind.
Prudence, caution, being sensible—all seemed qualities that had nothing to do with what was happening to her now.
Because what was happening to her now was magic. Pure and simple.
Magic to sit here at the same table as this man, the man who could turn her inside out and back aga
in with a single long-lashed glance. Magic to be so wonderfully, shiveringly aware of what he was doing to her. Magic to listen to his smooth, deliciously accented voice, talking about … well, she couldn’t really think what. But it was easy, undemanding conversation that flowed between them, back and forth, on easy, undemanding topics, and yet she knew, with that same breathless awareness, that it was simply a vehicle for a conversation that was taking place far below the level of her consciousness—a conversation that had one subject only.
Unspoken, but there—in every glance, in every moment her eyes were held by his, in her every helpless gaze.
The exquisite meal seemed to go on for ever, yet was over in a flash. And then, somehow, she was sipping a tiny demi-tasse of coffee, whose intensity of aroma was almost as heady as the wines she had drunk. Too many wines, too much. But she didn’t care. They had served only to exquisitely enhance the headiness lifting her which had nothing to do with alcohol or caffeine.
And everything to do with the man sitting opposite her.
The conversation died away. Around them, the rest of the diners were leaving. The room was nearly empty. The buzz of conversation all around had ebbed. The emptiness of the dining room seemed to throw a web of even greater privacy around them.
More than privacy.
Intimacy.
She felt it like a tangible brush of silk across her skin. It made her feel as if she were caught in a cocoon, cradling her, embracing her.
She gazed across at Xavier. She wasn’t sure at what point he had become Xavier, but now he was.
Xavier—she let the syllables of his name flow silently, caressingly, through her mind. Just as she was letting the warmth of his gaze caress her. She let her eyes mingle with his, let herself look deep into those beautiful, dark eyes that were looking back at her, looking at her in a way that was slowly, very slowly, dissolving her from the inside.