still haven’t answered my question as to why it is you don’t dance in public.’
Andy felt decidedly uncomfortable at being the focus of the intensity of this man. It was as if Darius could see into the very depths of her soul. And that by doing so he was also able to see all of her hopes and dreams.
And how most of them had been shattered four years ago.
That notion was ridiculous. This man didn’t know the first thing about her.
‘Hell, now I realise why you seemed familiar to me earlier,’ he murmured slowly. ‘You’re the ballerina Miranda Jacobs.’
So he did know something about her.
He knew everything about her that truly mattered...
Andy drew her breath in sharply. ‘Not any more,’ she bit out stiffly, very aware that her face had paled in shock, and that it was no longer just her hands that were trembling but all of her. ‘Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom!’ She quickly gathered up her black clutch bag before moving along the leather seat, with the intention of making good her escape.
Only to find that escape circumvented as one of Darius’s hands moved quickly across the table and his fingers clamped about her wrist. Not hard enough to actually hurt her, but definitely firmly enough to prevent her from escaping.
The intensity of his penetrating gaze was enough to cause her protest to die in her throat; she knew instinctively, that Darius simply wasn’t a man who took orders, from anyone.
Andy blinked hastily as her vision blurred. She wouldn’t cry. Not here, and certainly not in front of Darius Sterne. ‘Please let go of my arm, Mr Sterne.’
‘Darius.’
She gave a protesting shake of her head. ‘Please, release me.’
He didn’t remove his hand. Andy instead felt the soft pad of Darius’s thumb move caressingly, soothingly, against the sensitive skin of her inner wrist. Increasing her physical awareness of him, despite the fact that seconds ago she had just wanted to escape from the painful memories his words had evoked.
‘I was there that night four years ago, Miranda,’ Darius stated evenly, able to feel the wild fluttering of her pulse beneath the pad of his thumb, to see the look of pained shock in those green eyes for exactly what it was, as well as the deathly pallor of her cheeks. ‘I was in the theatre that night,’ he added, so that there could be no doubts left in her mind as to exactly what he was talking about. ‘The night of your accident.’
‘No!’ she protested weakly.
‘Yes.’ Darius nodded grimly, remembering clearly, as if in slow motion, watching the young ballerina on the stage as she seemed to stumble, attempt to stop herself from falling, before losing her balance completely and crashing down off the stage.
The whole audience had gasped, including Darius, followed by a hushed silence as the music and other dancers froze, and they all waited to know the extent of her injuries.
The realisation that she was the same Miranda Jacobs, the up-and-coming ballerina who had been lauded by the press and critics alike but had been forced to retire four years ago, following that aborted performance as Odette in Swan Lake, now explained so much about her.
That recognition Darius had when he looked at her, for one thing.
Her natural, almost ethereal slenderness, for another.
That fluidity of grace she possessed, just walking across a room. A gracefulness that was apparent in everything she did. Sitting, crossing her ankles, or lifting her champagne glass to her lips.
Everything about this woman was innately graceful.
Even the pained vulnerability he could now see in her eyes.
He had touched on a subject that so obviously caused her immense pain and distress.
Not surprising, when just four short years ago Miranda Jacobs had been called the Margot Fonteyn of her age. She had been an absolute joy to watch that night, mesmerisingly so. And that hadn’t been just Darius’s opinion, but also that of all the reviewers and the newspapers the following day as the headlines had delivered the news of the terrible accident on stage that might possibly mark the end of such a young and promising career.
That had been the end to Miranda Jacobs’s career as a professional ballet dancer; those same newspapers had reported just days later that her injuries were so extensive she would never dance professionally again.
Well, that might be true professionally...
Darius stood up abruptly before moving round the table and exerting a light pressure on Miranda’s wrist as he pulled her to her feet beside him. ‘Let’s dance.’
Her expression was panicked as she pulled against that hold on her wrist. ‘No.’
Darius stilled. ‘Is there any medical reason that says you can’t do a slow dance?’
Her eyes flashed a glittering emerald. ‘I’m not a cripple, Mr Sterne, I’m just no longer capable of dancing in a professional capacity.’
‘Then let’s go.’ His tone brooked no argument as he released her hand to instead place his arm firmly about the slenderness of her waist, holding her possessively into his side as he strode towards the dance floor, deliberately catching the eye of the DJ and giving the other man a barely perceptible nod of his head as he did so.
Mere seconds later the tempo of the music changed to a slow love song.
‘That was convenient,’ Miranda bit out abruptly as the two of them stepped onto the dance floor.
‘No, actually, it was deliberate,’ Darius dismissed unapologetically; he wanted this woman in his arms, and he wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.
She gave a protesting shake of her head, the straight curtain of her hair moving about her shoulders as she placed her hands against his chest, with the obvious intention of pushing him away. ‘I really don’t want to dance.’
‘Liar,’ Darius stated arrogantly as he refused to release her; he had felt the increase of the pulse in her wrist, and his arms about her waist now allowed him to feel the fluttering of excitement that ran through the whole of her body. Very like that of a caged and wounded bird longing to be set free.
Damn it, he was starting to sound poetic again!
If nothing else, his mother’s distant behaviour towards him these past twenty years had taught him that women were fickle and cold and not to be trusted with his feelings.
Nor did he become involved, in any way, with women who were complicated, or wounded, as Miranda Jacobs so obviously was. He carried around enough emotional baggage, the rest of his family’s as well as his own, without taking on someone else’s. Hell, he didn’t become involved with women at all, except in the bedroom, and even then only on a purely sexual basis. Just a scratch to his itch.
But having forced the dancing issue he could hardly back down now. ‘Move your feet, Miranda,’ he encouraged huskily as he lifted her hands up onto his shoulders before pulling her closer still
