that flattened out as the internationally renowned singer came to the end of the number she had been belting out, and above the applause that followed another peal of husky laughter reached him.
He swore, causing several of the nearest masked faces to turn.
Great, now he was the one raising brows while his wife flirted with just about every man in the room. Well, enough was enough!
On the specially constructed stage, the singer took another bow and in turn applauded the musicians. Raoul tuned out her voice as she bent to the microphone and explained why one of the charities this event was raising money for was so close to her heart.
That had been the response to his every negative comment about this event—but it’s for charity.
On stage, the singer went on to speak of a change in mood that brought a spatter of anticipatory applause. He craned his neck to catch sight of his Lara. Ice slid into his eyes as he stared over the heads of people at his wife just as the guy she was with leaned in to say something in her ear. Raoul recognised him as the son of a media tycoon whose idea of a day’s work was giving an interview to a magazine about the stress involved in being him.
Raoul could recall being seated next to him at a dinner once and having been narcoleptic with boredom before the main course was served.
Not that Lara seemed bored. Her eyes sparkled, the emeralds sparkled, the guy touched her arm...and he heard a snapping noise in his head. Blood pounding in his ears, he crossed the room, his progress impeded by the fact that manners meant he couldn’t just push his guests out of the way.
He responded with a grunt to a couple of greetings and then the effort became too much and he adopted a selective deafness policy.
Lara laughed, even though she hadn’t actually heard the punchline of the joke. She was really working hard at this hostess thing but, heaven help her, there were limits. This man was monumentally boring.
‘Sorry, duty calls.’ Lies were a lot easier when you had a mask to hide behind.
It was odd, but the more miserable she felt, the easier it became to laugh and act as if she were having a great time. And she would have a great time, she told herself, even if it killed her, which it just might. Or perhaps Raoul might—In the periphery of her vision she could see his dark head as he made his way towards her.
Across the sea of faces their eyes met. He was the only person in the room not wearing a mask, and as their glances connected she was very glad of her own to hide behind. Something close to panic broke free as he continued to weave his way through their guests. He not only moved with the elegance of a jungle cat, but he projected the same lethal grace you associated with that animal. It was all she could do not to run.
Lara took a deep breath, told herself she was being ridiculous, and turned back to the boring man who still hadn’t got to the punchline of his next story. She struggled to pick up the thread of his conversation while wondering how this young man managed to say so much without actually saying anything at all.
* * *
Raoul reached her side just as the band struck up the opening bars of the famous hit. An expectant hush descended on the room as all eyes turned to the stage. Though not quite all eyes.
Raoul’s were on her.
Raoul extended an arm towards Lara. ‘My dance, I think.’ He slid a look towards the other man who had faded away in Lara’s mind the moment Raoul appeared, and in fact was already backing away looking distinctly uneasy.
Lara didn’t blame him. If a wolf could smile it would have copied Raoul’s.
‘I don’t want to dance.’
The singer’s husky, mellow tones filled the room as couples around them began to gyrate and twirl.
‘And I don’t care what you want. This is about what I want.’
She pulled in a tense breath as he tugged her into his arms. He was an excellent dancer and she was swept along by the slow, sexy beat of the music and the thrill of being in his arms—that part never lessened. Lara wasn’t aware of his intention until he danced her straight out of one of the big double doors that had been thrown open earlier.
The ribbons attached to her mask fluttered in the breeze as they stepped outside.
She spun around to face him, still clutching the exotic mask to her face. ‘Will you take that damned thing off?’ He took hold of her wrist and pulled the mask down, anchoring her arm to her side and jerking her towards him.
Without her shield Lara felt exposed under the ravaging intensity of his glittering stare.
‘Dio, but you’re so beautiful.’
She felt him shudder, a deep ripple of movement that exploded through his body.
His mouth, not hard but sensuous, his firm lips warm and seductive, moved over hers, his tongue sliding between her parted lips. When his dark head lifted his intense stare made her dizzy. ‘Raoul, you can’t, people are staring.’
‘Can’t a man kiss his wife?’
There was kissing and there was kissing, and that had definitely been the latter!
‘I’m jealous.’
The abrupt declaration made her stare. He had never said anything like that to her before.
‘Wasn’t I meant to be?’
The question made her eyes wide. She opened her mouth to hotly deny the question and closed it again. Wasn’t there an element of truth in what he said?
‘You don’t make me sound like a very nice person,’ she returned, hurt quivering in her voice.
‘I don’t want nice! I want not to be pushed away, treated like the enemy. We do not seem to be making each other happy, Lara.’
Lara felt the tears press at the back of her throat.
‘The only place we don’t fight is in bed.’
She took a deep breath, her hostility falling away as she felt a sob rise in her throat. She had always known this would happen, she just hadn’t expected it to be here, now.
‘So you are saying you want a divorce? I think you might have chosen a less public place.’
‘This is not a public place, it is my home.’
‘You didn’t want any of this, did you? I knew it and I still went ahead and—I’m sorry.’ Just like the baby. ‘I just wanted to do something that I could control...and if I don’t fill the time I think about—’ She lifted her hand to her head. ‘It just doesn’t stop.’
‘I understand,’ he said gently. ‘I really do, but, Lara, we have to get on the same page with this thing. After all we both want the same thing, don’t we? I don’t want a divorce.’
Thinking of the way she’d been behaving, Lara wondered why not.
Raoul stood there wondering the same thing himself. What had happened to his safe compartmentalised life?
