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Sexy.
That awful, cheap word. Overused, trashy, tabloid.
And true.
Completely, undeniably true.
She felt her stomach dissolve, gazing up at him, at the way the rain made his hair glisten like a raven’s wing, the way it perfected the incredible planes of his face. she just wanted to go on gazing, and gazing and gazing.
He was guiding her towards the car. She hardly registered it. Then the chauffeur was there, opening the passenger doo
r, and she was being ushered inside. She sank back, boneless, into the deep leather seat.
What am I doing?
The question sounded in her mind, but she didn’t pay it any attention. She couldn’t. She just sat there, capable only of feeling that suddenly she was out of the rain, still soaking wet, but at least not with rain shafting down into her face. A moment later Xavier Lauran had climbed in on his side of the car, and the chauffeur was reclaiming his driving seat.
‘Seat belt,’ he reminded her, as the car moved off, and his voice, in the confines of the car, suddenly sounded very French.
Very sexy.
No, she mustn’t think that word. Not now—not with this man who had walked back into her life when she had thought he never would, never could. And whom up till two minutes ago she had had every reason to think a total jerk, a creep, a slimeball, a—
Punter.
Numbly her eyes flew to him as she fumblingly did up her seat belt. He was currently pulling down his own seat belt with an assured, fluid movement. She wanted to watch him. Wanted to watch him doing anything, everything. Because.
Because she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Because he made her stomach go hollow. Because he stopped the breath in her lungs. Because—
He’s a punter.
The thought pulled her up short. One of those men who thought spending an evening in a two-bit casino being fawned over by women, drinking third-rate champagne and throwing money around pointlessly on stupid gambling was a good time.
She couldn’t do this. Couldn’t be here. It was wrong—all wrong.
‘What is it?’ He’d paused in the act of fastening the seat belt. His eyes focussed on her intently. Questioningly.
‘Why did you come to the casino last night?’
Her question was stark.
For a moment he stilled. Then he answered.
‘Why do you ask?’
She brushed some raindrops from her hair.
‘It’s hardly your kind of place, is it?’
He didn’t bother to disagree.
‘I was bored. I was passing. I’d been to a play in Shaftesbury Avenue I hadn’t liked, so I walked out. I didn’t feel like going back to my hotel. The casino was an impulse, nothing more, just to pass some time.’ His voice was offhand. Then it changed. So did the expression in his eyes.
‘But I’m glad I did go in. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you. And I will tell you, in complete honesty—’ he levelled his gaze at her ‘—that until I saw you at the bus stop last night your appeal to me was precisely zero. But then …’ He paused. ‘It was unexpected,’ he said.
His eyes swept down over her, washing away her guard. She shouldn’t let it be washed away, but it was gone all the same.
‘It made me want to see you again.’
