that Darius’s gaze had kept drifting for the past half an hour as he stood at the window looking out.
It was a booth that continued to remain empty, despite the reserved sign sitting in the centre of the black marble tabletop.
Darius’s mouth tightened in irritation with his own feelings of disappointment. Despite her youth, and the delicacy of appearance, he had hoped that the green-eyed blonde would accept the challenge he had laid down by inviting her and her family up to the nightclub as his guests. That the interest he had seen in her eyes would at least make her curious enough to encourage her family to accept that invitation. Learning during his conversation with Colin Freeman that the other man actually worked for one of Darius’s companies had been something of a bonus, after he had all but stalked the man into the Gents.
Even so, the emptiness of that reserved booth now continued to mock him.
He had been a fool to expect anything else. So the beautiful blonde hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him earlier. So what? Wasn’t the mouse just as mesmerised by the cobra?
No doubt the reason for her interest earlier had been because she’d known exactly who he was, and she had heard those dark rumours about Darius Sterne and been fascinated by the danger he represented. A danger that was no doubt the complete opposite of her own safe little life. An arm’s-length danger that she felt comfortable viewing across a crowded restaurant, but didn’t have the courage to actually meet head-on. As she didn’t have the courage to meet Darius face to—
There was the merest prickling sensation of warning at Darius’s nape, a quiver of awareness down the length of his spine before he looked up and saw the green-eyed blonde standing at the entrance to the nightclub.
Her brother-in-law had referred to her as Andy when the two men had spoken earlier. It seemed far too masculine a name for a woman who looked so totally feminine.
Darius’s narrowed gaze remained fixed on her as her brother-in-law spoke briefly to Stephen, the security man Darius had warned to expect them, before the three of them then followed the security guard into the darkness of the club.
Andy walked ahead of her sister and brother-in-law, her head held high, almost in challenge. Almost as if she knew someone was watching her. As she walked her ash-blonde hair moved silkily about her shoulders.
She was taller than Darius had thought when she was sitting down in the restaurant, possibly five-eight in her stockinged feet, putting her height at about five-ten in the two-inch-heeled black strappy sandals she wore. They were conservative heels, considering that some of the women in the club tonight were wearing heels as high as six or seven inches.
Her black dress was also modest in style; it was sleeveless, yes, revealing those bare and gracefully slender arms, but the curved neckline wasn’t even low enough to reveal the soft swell of the tops of her breasts, and its knee-length was a complete contrast to the bottom-skimming dresses being worn by every other woman in the club.
Darius realised she was even less his usual type than he had initially thought she was.
* * *
‘Andy is a man’s name.’
Andy’s fingers tightened about the stem of her champagne glass at the first sound of that huskily censorious voice coming from just behind her. A sexily throaty voice that she knew instinctively, without even needing to turn and look, belonged to none other than Darius Sterne.
After all, who else could it be?
She was pretty sure she didn’t know anyone else in this place apart from Kim and Colin, who were currently out on the dance floor somewhere. And no doubt the couple were still arguing over the fact that Kim hadn’t wanted to come up to the Midas nightclub at all and Colin had insisted that they had to, that it would be extremely rude of him not to take up his employer’s generous invitation.
It was an argument Andy had stayed out of, mainly because her own feelings on the subject were mixed. Part of her had wanted to go up to the club to see if Darius was there, another part of her had hoped that he wouldn’t be.
His presence behind her had now answered that particular question, at least.
But Darius’s sudden appearance at that private booth, so soon after Colin had persuaded Kim to go and dance with him, the two of them having now totally disappeared into the midst of the other gyrating dancers, made Andy question whether or not Colin working for Midas Enterprises had been the reason they had received special treatment, after all...
She had felt as if she were being watched when they arrived at the club. As if unseen eyes were following her progress as she’d walked to the table ahead of Colin and Kim. Although a surreptitious glance around the room had revealed mild interest from several of the men present, it was not enough to have caused that quiver of awareness down the length of her spine.
Except the feeling had persisted.
Just the thought of being watched by Darius now made Andy shift uncomfortably.
She straightened her shoulders, firmly instructing her fingers to stop their trembling as she composed her expression before she turned to look up at him. There would be no wide eyes and gaping mouth for her.
Instead her breath caught in the back of her throat as she was once again struck by the immediacy of Darius Sterne as he stood just feet behind her.
There was that zing of electricity, of course, but he also looked so very tall and sinfully dark in the dimmed lighting of this part of the room.
Andy had to force herself to meet the intensity of his gaze as she moistened the sudden dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue, before finally answering him. ‘It’s short for Miranda.’
Darius nodded, liking the soft huskiness of her voice. And the name Miranda. It was so much more feminine than Andy. As Miranda herself was totally feminine.
Miranda was also a name that a man could murmur fiercely into the side of a woman’s throat as he thrust into her before climaxing inside her...
He was close enough to Miranda now to be able to reach out and touch the silkiness of her hair. Her skin was pale and luminescent, a soft glow against the black of her dress, and she wore little or no make-up, perhaps mascara and a soft peach lip gloss. He could see now that her eyes weren’t just emerald-green, as he had thought they were earlier, but shot through with shards of gold and blue. They were unusually beautiful eyes for an unusually beautiful woman.
A beautiful woman who had once again succeeded in arousing him at a glance. An arousal that had deepened as he’d watched the moistness of her tongue sweep across the fullness of her lips before she spoke with that sexily husky voice.
A voice he could easily imagine crying out his own name as they climaxed together.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he prompted as a waitress appeared and placed a fourth champagne glass on the table before quietly disappearing again.
Miranda raised blonde brows in the direction of that fourth glass. ‘It would appear that you already have.’
‘It would, wouldn’t it?’ Darius acknowledged as he made no move to sit down but instead moved to stand further inside the booth, his back to the room, at the same time as he blocked Miranda from looking at anything but him.
‘Do
