he would switch to the public elevators in order to access the building’s street floor. Otherwise one or the other of them was bound to notice Adam was crazy in love with the girl himself.
Lucia stalked across the courtyard, which still glistened with the misty rain that had fallen earlier in the evening. Though, to be honest, to call her progress stalking was perhaps overstating it a bit, given that she was wearing strappy sandals with four-inch heels and a gown that limited her stride to something more mincing than regal.
To her extreme annoyance, her escort kept pace with her without compromising his natural elegance one iota.
“I don’t see why you should be upset,” Corbett drawled in an undertone as, in a seemingly natural gesture, he placed one hand on her back just below the edge of the silver fox stole she wore, wrapped tightly against both nervous shivers and Paris’s December chill.
“You might have mentioned it,” she shot back, suddenly breathless.
“I thought I just did.”
“It would have been helpful if you’d done so before I got dressed. I would’ve chosen something a little more—” she swept a hand downward across her front “—a little less…”
The neckline hadn’t seemed that revealing when she’d decided on this particular dress for this evening’s “date,” but now, judging from the caress of the stole’s satin lining she felt with each heaving breath, it did leave quite a lot of her uncovered. Again, to be honest, she hadn’t been thinking all that much about décolletage when she’d chosen the slithery gold gown. She’d chosen it because the color complimented her tawny skin and brought out the auburn highlights in her hair.
Uh-huh, right. Girl, you chose it because it shows off your booty, and you know you look hot in it. If you’re going to be honest…
“You look quite lovely,” Corbett said, in the same tone he might have used to inform her she had a smudge on her cheek. “It isn’t as though you’re meeting the queen, you know—or even the bloody prime minister. Just a minor member of Parliament and his bride—hardly worth getting upset over.”
“A minor member of Parliament and his wife who happen to be your parents.” The last word emerged in a furious hiss. She halted and turned to face him. The horde of butterflies in her stomach turned happy flip-flops at the sight of him, so slim and tall and elegant in his evening dress, the gleaming white of his shirtfront only inches from her own heaving—and now largely uncovered—breasts. She drew a deep breath. “Corbett, you are going to be introducing me to your parents as your, um… They will probably think we…” She paused, met his gaze of cool appraisal, then muttered tartly as she turned to continue her promenade across the courtyard, “Then again, if you’re going to look at me like that, they probably won’t think anything at all.”
“Look at you like…what?”
“Like you’re studying a wine list. Or the morning stock report.”
“Would you prefer me to leer?” He was there beside her, effortlessly in step with her once again, his expression mildly amused. “Perhaps drool a little?”
Lucia had to quell an urge to kick him. How could he be so completely at ease, when she felt as awkward as when she was queen of the geeks in high school? And as nervous as if the captain of the football team had asked her to the prom?
Before she could think of a witty riposte, Corbett said dryly, “Don’t worry, my father will do enough of that for both of us. Well—probably not the drooling.” Then his hand was on her back again, touching her in a way he probably meant to be courteous or reassuring, and his laugh held more warmth and genuine amusement than she’d ever heard in it before. “Don’t worry, I’m joking. I seriously doubt the Honorable Andre Lazlo will be undone by a bit of cleavage.”
Lucia tossed him a look, incapable of coherent speech or thought now that he was touching her again. He smiled back at her, his austere features romantically shadowed by the courtyard’s security floodlights. “Never mind, my dear. You’ll understand, once you’ve met my mother.”
Nodding to the footman dressed in Dickensian costume, Corbett took Lucia’s gloved hand and deftly tucked it into the crook of his elbow. He added in an ominous tone, “You would probably be wise to steer clear of Edward, however.”
Lucia had visited the Paris offices of the British Embassy several times on various errands for the Lazlo Group, but this was her first visit to the ambassador’s residence, the grand old building on the rue du Faubourg St Honoré. She barely had a moment to appreciate the spare but elegant entry hall, with its patterned marble floor, red velvet draperies and sweeping curved staircase, before yet another footman was there to relieve her of her stole. She felt decidedly more vulnerable without it. It’s a mission. It’s what he trained me for. I can do this. She lifted her head high and pasted on the confident smile she knew Corbett expected from her.
She was less successful in controlling the tremors inside.
Corbett was aware of the quiver. Slight though it was, he felt it unmistakably even through his jacket and shirtsleeve. He was on the verge of saying something reassuring, but thought better of it. He was the one from whom she was trying so hard to hide her nervousness; she’d hate that he’d noticed.
He felt twinges of protectiveness to her and reminded himself that he’d trained her well, she had no reason for jitters.
That gave way to compassion. Anyone might be a bit nervous at the prospect of meeting the parents of the boss on whom she had a slight crush.
Then guilt: It was wrong of me to use her like this. Isn’t fair to her.
Although, damnation, he’d been careful to treat her with absolute decorum. Damned hard to do, too, when she was so incredibly beautiful. He could smell her hair, her skin, her own signature fragrance, that sweet, sassy scent that always made him think of warm tropical nights. Jasmine, perhaps?
“Dahling! There you are. Vere have you been, édes fiú? You terry-ble boy!”
The voice he both adored and dreaded soared across the crowded ballroom like the cry of an eagle. At his side, Lucia gave a start and threw him a look, half query, half alarm.
“That would be Mother,” he said resignedly, “obviously channeling the Gabor sisters.”
Lucia braced herself to meet the couple sweeping down upon them. To her the Honorable Andre Lazlo and his wife seemed to belong to another age, and the chamber music rising above the hum of genteel conversation a fitting accompaniment for them as they glided over the gleaming parquet floor. Lydia-Maria didn’t need a towering powdered wig, panniers and a black beauty spot artistically applied to her heart-shaped face in order to fit perfectly with the grand ballroom’s eighteenth-century splendor of carved paneling and gilded mouldings, cascading chandeliers and red velvet draperies. In her platinum pouf and shimmering white gown, with a neckline that plunged dangerously close to the limits of decency—Yes, Corbett, I see what you meant!—she seemed to glitter like the brightest diamond in a rococo setting.
Her husband, by contrast, seemed almost austere in his tux, even with a festive swath of red, white and blue ribbon across his chest. He was a tall man, regal in bearing, handsome in an ascetic sort of way, with silver-white hair and luxuriant moustache to match, and the ice-blue eyes he’d bequeathed to his younger son.
This
