He went on looking at her a moment.
‘Consider it merely a loan. You can change back into your jeans at the end of the evening.’
‘We could always eat somewhere where there’s no dress code,’ she ventured. ‘There are loads of restaurants around here.’
‘But I have made a reservation at this one. The chef is very good here. He is a Frenchman, you see. I make it a rule in London only to eat where the chef is French. That way I can protect my digestive system.’
There was deliberate humour in Xavier Lauran’s voice.
‘I can think of a number of British celebrity chefs who’d chop you up with meat cleavers for that comment,’ Lissa was driven to retaliate. But the exchange had lightened the moment.
‘Then you can see exactly why I prefer to dine in safety. Now, will you really not agree to my suggestion about the use of the hotel boutique?’
Lissa threw up her hands. ‘OK—but I’m really not comfortable with it, you know.’
Something flickered at the back of his eyes. She couldn’t tell what it was. But then she was more focussed on wondering, for the thousandth time, just how incredible it was just to look at him.
‘Bon,’ he said decisively. ‘Alors—’ He continued to guide her into the boutique. ‘Why don’t you choose something and meet me in, say …’ he shot back his cuff to glance at the thin gold watch around his lean wrist ‘.twenty minutes in the cocktail lounge.’ He cast her a wry look. ‘I myself have to dry out, as well.’ He glanced at the shop assistant hovering not just attentively but positively eagerly, Lissa noticed, but she could hardly blame the woman for her reaction. ‘I am sure it will prove possible to provide suitable facilities for changing?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ said the other woman, and cast him a warm smile. ‘If madam would like to see our collection?’ Her eyes flickered down to Lissa’s booted feet. ‘And perhaps our footwear, too?’
‘Whatever is necessary. Charge it all to my room.’ He gave the number. Then he glanced back at Lissa. ‘A bientôt,’ he said, and left her to it.
He strode off across the foyer towards the bank of lifts and headed up to his suite. He needed to shed his still-damp clothes, then shower and change. He also needed time.
Time to think straight. Think straight about Lissa Stephens—because Lissa Stephens was rearranging everything inside his head yet again, and he needed to make sense of it. Had to. Urgently. As he stood under the stinging needles of hot water, splintering on his back with the full punishing force of the hotel’s water pressure, he knew that yet again Lissa Stephens had behaved against expectations. It had been shock enough to his system to discover, last night, that out of make-up and hostess costume she looked nothing like the money-grabbing tramp he had initially taken her to be. But now he had something else to make sense of.
Lissa Stephens had thought he’d booked her like a call girl—and she had gone ballistic. Why? Was it because she was too clever to be that unsubtle? Or was it because she had genuine objections to that kind of assumption? And she’d also objected to his assumption that he would provide her with an appropriate outfit for the evening.
His eyes narrowed as he turned off the water and stepped out, reaching for a towel to pat himself swiftly dry.
What game was Lissa Stephens playing?
Was she playing one at all?
Another question seared over the first.
Was it one she played, or didn’t play, with all men?
Or only him?
With an impatient rasp he tossed the towel back on the vanity unit and stared at his reflection.
He knew his own attraction. Women were easy to attract—he had, after all, a potent combination they liked. His looks, his wealth, his position in society. Lissa Stephens might not be aware of the third, but she was certainly aware of the first two. Was that why she was giving her time to him? His eyes hardened suddenly. What if he only possessed the second of those attributes—wealth? Would she be here now, adorning herself downstairs, if he were not a wealthy man?
And was that the main attraction his brother held for her?
He needed to get her measure. It was essential. Imperative.
Then, like a punch to his stomach, he realised he already had it. Why would a woman having an affair with Armand be here, tonight, with another man—unless Armand meant nothing to her? Certainly not enough to stop her having dinner with another man.
But was dinner with another man crime enough in itself? Another thought spiked through his mind. What had she said when she was going ballistic at him in that damn rain? Something about getting fired if she didn’t take the private hire for the evening? Was that why she’d agreed to his invitation to dinner? To keep her job?
Hell—he turned away from the mirror. He still couldn’t get a steer on the girl. Every time he tried to nail her down, apply all the rational powers of his mind to her, the evidence slithered away from him again. With another muttered imprecation he strode through into the bedroom and started to get dressed.
His mood was not good. Damn Armand. Damn Lissa Stephens. Damn having to go through this rigmarole of finding out whether the girl was or wasn’t fit to marry his brother.
And damn most of all, he thought, tight-lipped, as he finished knotting a silk tie at his throat and slipping on his suit jacket, the fact that right now the thought that was uppermost in his mind was just what Lissa Stephens would look like with a decent outfit on.
He slid his wallet and key into the inner pocket of his jacket, punched the lights, and set off to find out.
All thoughts of Armand seemed suddenly very far away, but right now he didn’t care. Right now there was room for only one person in his thoughts. A girl he couldn’t make out.
But whose measure it was essential he got—whatever it took.
CHAPTER FIVE
LISSA SAT, perched on the edge of a leather tub chair, her pulse too rapid, her breathing too shallow. Nervously, she tried to ease the tight material across her knees, but there was no give in it the way she was sitting, legs slanted sideways. Her spine was very straight. Across the scoop of her dress at the back she could feel the fall of her hair grazing lightly as she moved her head to keep the entrance to the cocktail lounge in view. She didn’t look around, because if she did she knew she would catch the eyes of other men present, looking at her. They’d looked at her as she’d walked in, minutes ago, her nervous state making her hyper-aware of their glances. The glances, too, of other women present, checking her out, assessing her.
She knew what they were seeing—another woman like them, looking the way a woman should in a swanky place like this, with its soft lights and softer music emanating from the grand piano in one corner, and the retro-style bar winding sinuously along one wall, staffed by an abundance of barmen.
She’d never been in a place like this before. Before, in her earlier existence, when she’d dressed up to go out it had always been to places that were within her budget, or those of the men taking
