did a perfect mock gasp through his perfect teeth. Smirked. ‘Now who’s defensive?’
‘Not defensive…’ she said, bending into the car and knocking the top of her damn hair on the doorframe.
He slung himself inside after her and she scooted further along the seat. The backs of her thighs felt the cool of the leather, but the heat from his left leg where it sat open, relaxed and rock-hard, seeped right across the inch or so of space between them. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it.
‘Just perceptive.’
He cocked her a look, his arm stretched across the back of the seat and his hand just lying on his other thigh. The car started up and she noted other taxis and cars for a moment. Coming and going. And she was going further away from the club—her home away from home.
‘You’re perceiving too much, then. There’s no subtext—I’m out tonight to spend time with my sister. We don’t see a lot of each other at the moment—she’s mainly in London and I’m mainly in Barcelona, for Fern’s school and business. So…’
He looked at her for a long moment and she nearly had to look away—his gaze was that intense.
‘I’m here for them. Always.’ Finally he drew his eyes from her and stared out of the window. ‘But Angelica has her London circle, so it’s all cool. She’ll catch us up.’
He turned back round, actually shifted his leg up a bit on the seat until it was pressing against hers. She moved back, crossed her legs, stared straight ahead. He had turned that intense look back on her.
‘No, I’m definitely not embarrassed to be seen with you.’
She flicked her eyes and couldn’t help but twist him a little smile. She should know better, but he was a work of art. Maybe not her type—but undeniably attractive, and undeniably good at working women. Thank goodness she wasn’t stupid enough to fall for him.
‘That’s such a relief.’
He laughed. ‘You don’t look relieved. You look uptight and anxious.’
She felt that—and worse. She’d had—what? Three glasses of champagne over three hours? At the party of the season? And now she was in what might as well have been a hearse, heading to a party for two that neither of them wanted to attend.
‘I’ll cope.’
‘Sure you will. You’re hard as nails. You can cope with anything.’
She spun round to see him watching her. Baiting her.
‘Anything you could throw at me, that’s for sure.’
His eyes lit up. His smile tilted and as the car sped along and the lights from outside brightened, then dimmed, then brightened, she saw his wicked, wicked mouth mock her. She saw it and she felt it. That same heavy tension she’d sensed twice around him now. She had to get a grip—it was beginning to feel as if her comfort zone was somewhere about two miles back. Where her immunity to men was second nature—normally.
‘You’re a very interesting person, Tara.’
It felt as if he had put his hand on her jaw, turned her to face him, but his hands were in plain view and it was some deep, feminine instinct that had her moulding herself to his will. Thankfully she was ruled by her head and not by her gut. Fortunately she could remember how to deal with very persuasive men…
She turned away, saw the back of the driver’s head. Noted his eyes flick to hers in the mirror. He probably saw scenes like this every night of his life. What a shame she wasn’t going to oblige this evening.
‘So I’m told.’
‘But I get the feeling you don’t really know yourself yet.’
She felt her jaw tighten and her teeth clench. How arrogant.
‘That patronising comment doesn’t even deserve an answer.’
‘But I’m pretty sure you’d like to give me one anyway.’
She shifted right round on her seat. He was watching her, smiling softly.
‘What would you know about me at all?’
His eyes never left hers. Dark and demanding. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, and that swell of fog or emotion or awareness bloomed around them again. She felt as if she was breathing in his air. As if something of herself was seeping into his space.
‘Just what I say. You’re a very interesting person but you don’t fully know yourself yet…or you wouldn’t be battling the attraction that clearly exists between us.’
‘You must have some ego to think that every girl who rides in the back of your car wants to kiss you.’
He shrugged. ‘I think you do.’
Still he stared, and still she stared back.
‘Because you dropped one on me as you were leaving and I didn’t slap your face? That doesn’t mean I want to repeat it.’
‘You don’t want to repeat it?’
A low, quiet probe.
The car had stopped. She didn’t know if they were at lights or at their destination. But nothing could drag her eyes away from his to check. A shadow was cast across his face, lighting only the mocking twist of his mouth. But his eyes flashed like polished coals in the darkness.
She swallowed. ‘Not a chance.’
He was utterly still, completely and intensely present. She knew he could read her, but the chance of her admitting that? Zero. Even as she thought it the urge to feel his lips and taste his mouth swept over her. A shocking pleasure pulse throbbed between her legs. The air swirled thicker. She was definitely not in her comfort zone any more.
‘Better get the party started, then.’
He broke it. Moved fluidly to the door handle. Stepped outside and held out a hand for her. She ignored it and gripped the doorframe instead. Stepped out and straightened in the lemony light of early dawn. The most sober, most disconcerted she had been at this time of day since…since she’d started realising that hedonism and ambition could be neatly packaged together. Since she’d purposely and deliberately burned every bridge that led her back to small-town, small-minded Ireland.
So what if her family looked down on her? She knew the truth. She knew she had a cast-iron marketing campaign that made her unpalatable to them and delicious to others.
She smoothed down her dress and touched her hand to the back of her hair. She dreaded to think what her face was like—lipstick probably smudged all over her mouth and the panda eyes slipping south. Who knew? That might be her best form of defence.
He was watching, waiting. Chivalrous, she supposed. A doorman stood sentry and a plush carpet swept ahead. The car behind them moved off and she had a sudden image of walking into this nineteenth-century apartment block with him, black suit, and her, white dress, as if she had done it a thousand times before.
Boy, she needed
