sandals wide and brought them crashing down on his temple.
Mark had suddenly had enough of standing around talking to the same people, having the same conversations he’d had last week. He needed fresh air.
Instinctively he headed for the kitchen, then paused at the threshold. Why had he come this way? He had the feeling he was looking for something but had forgotten what.
Nonsense, his conscience said. You know exactly why you’re here … who you’re looking for.
But it didn’t matter. She wasn’t there.
So he ducked past the busy catering staff and out of the French windows to the small lawn.
The floodlights on the outside of the house made the dark night even blacker, and it took him a few moments to realise he wasn’t alone. A movement at the end of the lawn caught his eye and he made out two silhouettes. He almost grinned and shrugged it off as a couple of guests slipping away to get friendly, but something made him look again.
Piers was up to his old tricks, it seemed. He was a notorious flirt. The only reason Mark had invited him was because he needed his firm’s specialist legal knowledge on a recording contract he was putting together. Still, Piers was relatively harmless, and most of the females in their circle of acquaintance knew how to deal with him. Mark peered deeper into the darkness. Just who was he with this time, anyway?
And then he was running, the sound of his own blood rushing and swirling in his ears. He worked out regularly enough, and his legs were pumping beneath him, but somehow he seemed to make torturous progress, like the slow-motion running in a dream.
The woman Piers was slobbering over was Ellie.
And there was no way he was going to let some jumped-up little twit who worked for his daddy’s law firm foist himself on one of his staff. She might not know how to—
Mark almost slipped on the damp grass.
Perhaps she did.
He watched as Ellie gave Piers a first-class whack with her shoes. Piers stumbled and fell on the damp grass, clutching a hand to his head. Mark finally skidded to a halt in front of them and yanked Piers up by his collar. His right fist was itching to make contact with that pretty face. He ought to flatten him for treating Ellie that way.
‘Mark, no!’
The panic in her voice was all he needed to make him reconsider. He released the slimy runt and gave him a shove in the direction of the house.
‘Go home, Piers. You’re drunk.’
Piers wiped saliva from the edges of his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Steady on, Mark!’
He marched towards Piers and stopped inches from his face. Piers might have a reputation for being a ladies’ man, but Mark had never suspected how nasty he could be with it. How could a man who appeared so polished during the working week turn out to be such a rat? Once again he’d believed the best in someone, only to be utterly disappointed.
‘No. You steady on,’ he said, with more than a hint of controlled fury in his voice. ‘Don’t ever set foot in this house again. In fact, don’t bother to set foot in my offices again, either. As of Monday I will be seeking new legal representation—you and your firm are fired.’
Piers tugged at his tie and stood as tall as the whisky would let him.
‘Now, look here. I could sue you for assault, manhandling me in that way!’
‘Yes, you could. And I could tell the paparazzi hiding in my front bushes how you got plastered at my party and tried to grope one of my guests. I’m sure the partners at Blackthorn and Webb would welcome the publicity, don’t you?’
Piers turned tail and lurched towards the house. Mark watched until he was out of sight, then faced Ellie. ‘I’m so sorry about that. Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’ Her voice quivered enough to call her determined face a liar.
‘You gave him one hell of a clout with those shoes!’
The shell-shocked expression gave way to a delightfully naughty smile. ‘You should have warned him I was dangerous to mess with.’
The fingers of Mark’s right hand wandered to the spot near his left collarbone, where she’d bitten him only a few weeks earlier. At the time he’d been livid, hadn’t found it funny in the slightest. Tonight, however, he found he couldn’t find it anything but, and he started to laugh.
To his surprise, Ellie joined him. Softly at first, with a giggle that hinted she was holding more of it in than she was letting out. But eventually she was laughing just as hard as he was, and the more he saw her eyes sparkle and her cheeks blush, the more he wanted to keep the moment going.
Look at her. When she smiled like that, lost the glare and the frosty expression, she was … Not beautiful. At least not in the way Hollywood and the media defined the word. But he couldn’t stop looking at her.
And why would he? She was laughing so hard she’d gone pink in the face and her eyes were squeezed shut. Any minute now he thought she’d keel over. It was adorable. Just as she threatened to make his prediction come true, she clutched at the air to steady herself. Her hand made contact with his upper arm and all the shared laughter suddenly died away.
Ellie looked away and tucked and escaped curl into the clip on top of her head. It bounced back again, unwilling to be leashed. His desire to reach forward and brush it away from her face was almost overpowering, but he’d done that so many times with other women. It would be too much of a cliché.
She looked up at him and shivered.
‘You’re cold.’
She started to protest, but he swung his jacket off and carefully hung it round her shoulders. It must be the night for clichés. This, too, was something he’d done more times than he could remember too—one of his moves, part of the game.
But it wasn’t like that with Ellie. She’d been cold, and he’d done something to remedy that. He wasn’t playing any games. Mainly because he didn’t know what the rules were with her. She made him feel different—unpolished, uncertain—as if he wasn’t in control of whatever was going on.
He looked at the warm light spilling from Larkford’s every window. He really ought to get back to his guests.
She moved slightly, and the friction of material between his fingers reminded him he was still holding the lapels of the jacket firmly. He really should let go. But Ellie was looking up at him, her eyes soft and unguarded, just as they had been when she’d stared down at him from the landing.
He’d liked that look then, and he liked it now. There wasn’t a hint of greed or artifice in it. And that was a rare thing in his world. It was as if she saw something that surprised her, something that everyone else missed.
He’d seen her skirting the edge of the party, boredom clear on her face. And when he’d turned back to Melodie and the record producer he’d been chatting to he’d suddenly seen the whole gathering through Ellie’s eyes, as if he’d been given X-ray specs that cut out the glare and the glitter, revealing
