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 door, 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
