Alana blushed. ‘That’s very … nice of you to say.’ The man was attractive in a heavy-set kind of way, but there was something faintly menacing about him. He’d moved subtly and now he effectively blocked her from the room. In order to move, Alana would have to push past him or go into the garden. She didn’t want to retreat to a dark area where he might follow her.
‘Please.’ He held out a hand. ‘Can I know your name?’
Alana sent up a silent prayer for Pascal to find her. Where was he? She couldn’t ignore the man, as that would be unaccountably rude. So she shook his hand very perfunctorily and whipped hers back before he could clasp it. ‘Alana Cusack; I’m very pleased to meet you. Now, please, my friend will be looking for me.’ Except patently he wasn’t. A very familiar feeling of pain clutched her deep down inside.
She went to move past the man, but he stopped her with an arm. Alana flinched back from the contact.
His voice now held a distinctly threatening tone. ‘But I haven’t told you my name yet, and your accent—where are you from? It is so pretty.’
Alana was beginning to feel desperate. Even though Ryan had never physically harmed her, the latent threat had always been there, and now the memory was making her feel panicky. ‘Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t really want to know your name, OK? Now, I’m sorry, but would you please get out of my way?’
After a long, tense moment, he stepped back with hands held high and spread. ‘Go then, if you want, it’s your loss.’
Alana seized the opportunity and fled. Her heart was hammering, and she had an awful, sick feeling in her chest, an overwhelming sensation of foreboding. She pushed through the crowd and then she saw Pascal, and the whole room tilted crazily, the chatter dulling to a faint roaring in her ears.
He was at the bar, talking to a woman. He didn’t look as if he was in a hurry to go anywhere, much less to look for Alana. The woman was stunningly beautiful—blonde, tall, slim, in a sparkling gown with a thigh-high slit that was being provocatively displayed. She had a hand on Pascal’s waist and was leaning in, her whole body arching seductively into his. His head was bent towards hers as if she were telling him something intimate.
It all hit Alana at once, and again she felt acutely self-conscious in her revealing dress. She hated the compulsion that had led her to wear it now. But, worse than that, she’d let herself be taken in again by a man who lived his life searching for the next thrill, the next pleasure-point. The next adoring female. She could see all too well, in a room like this, how she must have been such a novelty. The innocent Irish cailín. And then, like watching a car crash in slow motion, she saw Pascal’s hand go to where the woman’s rested on his waist. He was about to thread his fingers through hers, lift her hand to his mouth. Alana knew it. But just before she could turn away her humiliation became complete. They both turned, as if they could sense her watching them.
The glittering, too-bright icy-blue gaze of the woman was mocking, triumphant. Pascal’s was … She didn’t wait to find out. Turning, Alana stumbled and pushed through the crowd until she was finally free of the room and burst out into the spacious and hushed lobby. She walked quickly to the door on jelly legs, where a doorman rushed to open it for her.
CHAPTER FIVE
ALANA stood on the steps, shivering.
‘You would like me to get you a taxi, madam?’
‘Yes, please,’ Alana said gratefully to the nice doorman. She had no idea where she would go—all her stuff was at Pascal’s—but she just wanted away from here.
‘She doesn’t need a taxi, she’s with me. Can you send for my driver, please?’ a familiar deep voice, throbbing with anger, came from behind her and she stiffened in rejection.
A harsh hand on her arm pulled her round. She met furious dark eyes, and everything in her rebelled against his anger. The fact that the doorman had already scurried off to do his bidding made things even worse.
‘I believe that I just ordered a taxi; thanks all the same for the offer of the lift.’
‘What the hell just happened back there?’
‘Why, I believe what just happened is that you saw a better option and decided to pursue it, leaving me at the mercy of a … a creepy, slimy lounge-lizard.’
His hand tightened on her arm. ‘What are you talking about? Did someone come on to you? Did someone do something to you?’
‘No,’ she dismissed him furiously, while trying to shake him off unsuccessfully. ‘Not that you would have noticed anyway. But, thanks, you’ve saved me going back in to look for you. If you could give me the keys to your apartment, I’d appreciate it; I’ll get my things and be gone by the time you get back. No doubt you’ll be wanting the place to yourself tonight?’
‘And why would that be?’ His voice was arctic, but Alana was on fire.
‘Do you really need me to spell it out, Pascal? I thought you were more sophisticated than that.’ She berated herself bitterly now for having allowed herself to be seduced by him.
‘Apparently not so sophisticated that I can go to the bar to get a drink for my date and turn around to find she has disappeared, only to find her again and have her run from the room as if I’d chased her out myself.’
He’d been looking for her? A reflex to stop, to apologise, was quashed as she remembered the woman. They’d looked far too cosy. She’d only known Pascal two weeks. Did she really think she could trust him? Her astounding naïvety mocked her mercilessly.
‘Your companion might have another impression. She seemed to think that you were quite interested in what she had to offer.’
Pascal could recall only too noxiously what the British model Cecilia Hampton had been offering. She’d all but wrapped herself around him like a clinging vine, and had spoken in an absurdly quiet, jarring little-girl voice—a well-worn ploy to get a man to come closer, whereupon she’d all but thrust her enormous fake bosom in his face. He’d been feeling foolish ever since he’d stalked away from Alana to get drinks, and had turned back to get her, imagining all the predatory males in the room moving in on her, but she’d disappeared.
His car drew up at that moment and, heaving a sigh of relief, he hurried Alana down the steps and into the back, making her slide along the seat and getting in beside her, not giving her a chance to get out. Or say a thing.
In the back of the car Alana ripped her arm from Pascal’s grasp, her skin hot and tingling. ‘How dare you? I want you to let me out this minute. I’ll get a cab.’
She sat forward and opened her mouth to speak to the driver, but Pascal hauled her over and she lay sprawled inelegantly against him. With his other hand he flicked a switch and the privacy window slid up with a hiss.
The air was electric around them. Alana was very aware of how she lay practically across his lap, in a pose of supplication that galled her. His body was tense and taut, and unmistakably hard. It made her feel sick, that he could so easily transfer his desire from one to another.
‘Isn’t there something wrong with this picture?’ she gritted out, holding herself as tense and as far away as possible.
‘Yes,’
