I hadn’t liked, so I walked out. I didn’t feel like going back to my hotel. The casino was an impulse, nothing more, just to pass some time.’ His voice was offhand. Then it changed. So did the expression in his eyes.
‘But I’m glad I did go in. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you. And I will tell you, in complete honesty—’ he levelled his gaze at her ‘—that until I saw you at the bus stop last night your appeal to me was precisely zero. But then …’ He paused. ‘It was unexpected,’ he said.
His eyes swept down over her, washing away her guard. She shouldn’t let it be washed away, but it was gone all the same.
‘It made me want to see you again.’
Simple words.
Doing very unsimple things to her.
He was still looking at her, with that same disarming expression. ‘Would it be so very hard to have dinner with me?’ he said. There was a quizzical, amused cast to his eye.
Her eyes were uncertain, confused.
She shouldn’t do this. She should make him stop the car, get out, go home. Back to her real world. She shouldn’t let herself be taken away like this, by a man who did things to her insides that made it impossible to think straight, to think logically, rationally, coolly, sensibly, sanely.
The litany trotted through her head, every word a compelling, urgent argument to tell him to stop the car and let her out. Then into the litany another thought arose, inserting itself into her mind.
If she didn’t get out it would mean she’d keep her job at the casino. They wouldn’t know she’d just gone for dinner.
But did he really mean just dinner? Was she an idiot to believe him?
‘Dinner? That’s all?’ Her voice was sharp.
‘Exactement. In the public dining room of my hotel. It will be very comme il faut, je vous assure.’ There were undertones to his voice, but she could not identify them. She was focussing on the words.
He had used ‘vous’ to her. The formal mode of address, implying not familiarity or superiority—but courtesy.
A knot inside her that she hadn’t even been aware of untied itself.
But another one still remained. One that was much harder to untie. Impossible.
She should go home. She should not do this. If she wasn’t working, she should be at home.
Because there was no point, no point at all, in having dinner with this man.
But it would be worth it if only for the memory.
She took a breath—and made her decision. Looking straight at him.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Il me fait un grand plaisir de vous accepter, m’sieu,’ she enunciated carefully. Then she looked at him uncertainly. ‘Was that correct?’ she asked.
His mouth quirked. Tension seemed to have gone out of his face.
‘It will do perfectly,’ he said.
He relaxed back into his seat, his shoulders easing.
‘Where did you learn French?’
‘At school,’ she volunteered. She, too, sat back into the contours of the seat. ‘Same as everyone else, really. I can just about get my way around France, but that’s all. I can’t really have a proper conversation, or read novels or watch TV or anything demanding. It always seems a bit bad, really, that the British—and the Americans, too, I suppose—can get away without knowing another language fluently. English is de rigueur, presumably, in business circles outside France?’
She was babbling, she knew, but it seemed important to her somehow to have an innocuous conversation—one that had nothing to do with where she worked, or what she’d thought he’d hired her for. A conversation she could have had with anyone.
‘English now is very much the lingua franca, it’s true, but I also speak Italian, Spanish, and some German, as well.’
Her reply was another burble.
‘Well, I can say café con leche, por favor in Spanish, and dov’e il cattedrale in Italian, and I think that’s about it. As for German, it’s just Bitte and Danke. Oh, and I can say epharisto in Greek. But that’s really my lot.’ She gave a self-deprecating smile.
The long eyelashes swept down over his dark eyes. There were no more raindrops on them, but his hair was still clearly wet. So was hers. She could feel water trickling down her back. Another thought struck her. She could hardly dine in a hotel restaurant looking like a drowned rat. But maybe there would be powerful hand dryers in the Ladies, and she could at least get her hair dry. She could try and style it a bit, too, though it was probably best left in a tight pleat. But she could put a bit of makeup on, though—she had enough in her handbag after all. It was the clothes that were the main problem, however. She was just wearing jeans and a jumper—would that really do? Well, it would have to. Anyway, her thoughts raced on, it obviously didn’t bother him, or he wouldn’t have asked her out in the way he had.
Why had he?
The question stung through her thoughts, scattering them instantly. Then into her head his words sounded. Don’t you ever look in the mirror?
A quiver went through her. Was she really the kind of woman a man like him was interested in? She knew she could look good—knew she had been blessed with a face and figure that many women would envy her for. But a man like Xavier Lauran, rich, sophisticated and French, would move in circles where every woman was beautiful and chic, groomed from top to toe in exquisite designer clothes.
Doubt trickled through her. Then she put it aside. A man like Xavier Lauran would know his own mind. If he thought her beautiful enough to interest him, then that was that. He had, after all, no other reason to spend his time with her.
A warm glow began to spread through her. It might only be dinner, but in the evening ahead she would enjoy all she could of it.
She gave a silent mental shrug. Even if she had to do it in jeans and a jumper.
Fifteen minutes later, she realised she’d got that bit as wrong as everything else about the evening. She was being ushered across the huge, marble-floored lobby of a West End hotel, and guided distinctly towards the left-hand side.
‘The hotel boutique is still open—I am sure they will have something suitable for you there.’
Lissa stopped dead, and looked round at Xavier Lauren.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He glanced down at her. ‘I don’t wish to be critical, but you’re soaking wet—as am I. And there is, I believe, a dress code at the restaurant here that precludes jeans. So it would be a good idea to avail yourself of the resources of the hotel boutique.’
Lissa swallowed. ‘I’m afraid I can’t afford to buy anything there.’
‘But I can—’
She
