him down because she had commitments elsewhere to someone ‘very important’ to her. And that someone was Armand. And that she had turned him, Xavier, down tonight meant only one thing—Lissa Stephens’s loyalty was to his brother.
Did she love Armand? Was her commitment to him out of love, or because a rich man was offering her marriage? Offering her an escape from the casino, from that squalid place she lived, from the poverty of her life?
He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.
For all that he had found out about her, for all the time he had spent with her, talked with her, she was still a mystery—a contradiction. A woman possessed of rare beauty, as well as—so his conversation with her this evening had amply demonstrated—clear intelligence. And yet she chose to work where she did. Was prepared to make herself look like a tart night after night, and yet had walked out of her job when she was required to do anything more than look like one. A woman who accepted an invitation to dine with him, a wealthy man—and yet who refused to let him buy her a dress to go with the invitation. A woman who gazed deep into his eyes as if she were prepared to drown herself in them—and yet who said ‘I can’t’ when it came to anything more.
Well, he thought, with a bitter, bleak weariness, it was his turn to say I can’t.
He could do no more. He accepted it. He had done everything in his power to discover the true worth, or lack thereof, of the woman his brother said he wanted to marry.
A hollowing, savage humour stabbed through him. But it had no humour in it—only a bleak, bitter irony that cut to the very quick of him. In the end he had discovered only one thing about her that he knew to be true. And it was a knowledge that mocked him.
Cursed him.
As it would curse any man who shared his fate, a fate he would wish on no man, but which had fallen upon himself.
Because the one, overwhelming truth that he knew about Lissa Stephens was that he desired her. Wanted her.
For himself.
The woman his brother wanted to marry.
Forbidden desire.
A curse from hell itself.
CHAPTER SIX
LISSA sat at the table, very still. The champagne, the wine, all the magic of the evening had drained out of her, emptying out of her like water down a well.
She hadn’t thought it would be like this. So brutal.
But then—she gave a twist to her mouth—she hadn’t thought at all, had she?
She’d sat here, floating on air, entranced by the magic of the evening, and had never thought of how it must end.
Because she hadn’t wanted it to end. She knew that this was all there could be, and she hadn’t wanted it to end, had wanted it to go on for ever and ever.
But it hadn’t. Of course it hadn’t. This had been a time out, that was all, a brief, magical time out. A gift that would at the stroke of midnight dissolve, leaving nothing behind but memories.
She felt her throat tighten. She had known the evening would end, but not like this.
She heard again, felt again, the savage civility of his voice, felt his absolute repudiation of her, dropping her hand as if it were rotting meat.
Did he have to be so brutal?
She felt tears prick in the back of her eyes and blinked, angry with herself.
Oh, come on. Wise up. Why the Little Miss Sensitive act suddenly? she berated herself. He’d said ‘dinner’, but obviously he’d had more in mind than that, and he hadn’t liked being turned down. Men never liked being turned down—and a man like him probably never had been. That was why he’d stormed off like that. She’d caught him in the most delicate part of male anatomy: his ego.
Her face puckered. But he wasn’t like that. He hadn’t been all evening. He had been wonderful. Attentive, charming, engaging, with that dry, ironic humour that brought a glint to his eye and a smile to her mouth. He had been the perfect dinner companion, and as for everything else—well, that had just been magic, the only word for it.
Until that brutal departure. Her throat tightened again, and she took a jerky sip of cooling coffee, forcing it down to try and open her throat.
It had been so out of place, that flare of icy anger. She took a painful breath. Surely a man as sophisticated, as obviously experienced with women as he was, could have managed the scene more gracefully? Even if he’d smarted at her rebuff, he need not have shown it—he could have extricated himself with élan, with a smooth word, affecting regret, with sophistication and charm. But he hadn’t. Obviously when it came to bedtime, Xavier Lauran, for all his cool sophistication, all the seductive magic of his eyes, his voice, was just another man who thought the price of a meal included a woman for the night.
He’d promised her ‘just dinner’ and like a fool she’d believed him.
She slid out from her seat. Presumably the waiting staff would take care of petty concerns like the bill, and although there was someone instantly there to help pull the table back sufficiently and bid her good-night, she knew it was pretty obvious that her escort had stormed out on her. Well. She gave a silent, heavy sigh. What was that to her? Nothing. Just as it was nothing that Xavier Lauran had proved, after all, to be a man who for all his expensive packaging still operated on the same sordid, commercial premise that any of the punters at the casino did when they thought they could indulge in some ‘private hire’ with the hostesses.
The only difference was, they were more honest about it.
She walked out of the restaurant, head held high.
She needed to change. Her own clothes had been put in another bag from the shop, and she’d checked it in to the Ladies’ Cloakroom. They would be damp still, she knew, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was getting out of here. If the boutique was closed, she’d simply put the dress, stockings and shoes neatly folded inside the original bags, and leave them with the concierge to be given to Xavier Lauran. What he did with them she didn’t care. Hand them on to the next stupid female he wanted to have for dinner … and breakfast.
Not, of course, that breakfast was necessarily on the menu. Who knew? Maybe he just chucked them out after he’d had sex with them and sent them home in his damn chauffeur-driven car. Maybe they were OK with that sort of treatment. Maybe Xavier Lauran deliberately picked up girls like he’d clearly thought her to be, cheap hostesses in cheap casinos, because he knew they’d be so impressed by him, by his flash car and his offer of dinner cooked by a French chef, and the free run of a five-star hotel boutique. Maybe Xavier Lauran deliberately—
‘Lissa—’
She stalled, head whipping around. He was heading towards her, walking from the bank of lifts. His stride was rapid, intent on intercepting her. She started forward again, her pace increasing urgently. She had to get to the Ladies. It would be sanctuary. Safety. Safe from Xavier Lauran, who’d smiled so devastatingly into her eyes and who’d only wanted a night of sex with her.
She made it to the Ladies, hurling herself inside and then standing there trembling. She dived into a stall and plonked herself down on the closed unit. She
