by Susan Napier
However, all the activity did serve as a welcome distraction from her own weighty problems, Regan acknowledged. And although Lisa and Saleena outstripped her in street-smarts, Regan was the one they turned to when they wanted down-to-earth advice on practical matters—like how to get a pizza stain out of a silk camisole or how to fill in their tax returns. Because she had studied law, she was a valuable source of information for friends who had disputes with their landlords or whose sleazy boyfriends had stashed a joint in their handbags. It didn’t matter to them that Regan had dropped out of her degree the previous semester, a year before she was due to graduate, it only mattered that her informed opinion was free. To Regan what mattered was that she felt valued, something that her shredded confidence had badly needed.
Pierre drifted back with more murmured apologies for the elusive Monsieur and offered her a small plate of delectable canapés and a glass of champagne. Thinking that it would be unwise to mix her drinks, Regan declined the latter and hungrily consumed the former.
Her stomach gurgled in gratitude. Lunch had been a hurried sandwich at her desk and breakfast had been a mere kick-start from a cup of espresso. In the last few weeks her normally healthy appetite had dwindled to almost nothing, but now she found herself suddenly utterly ravenous.
She pressed the button concealed under a side-table, and when Pierre appeared with startling speed and stealth she sheepishly asked if there were any more canapés.
‘They really were delicious,’ she added, to excuse her greed. ‘You must have a splendid cook.’
‘But that is me.’ After a couple of vodkas, his ugliness of grin seemed actually endearing. ‘I am, after all, a Frenchman, and we excel at such things. I am pleased that you enjoy them.’
The ballads drifted to an end, and Regan realised that she had been waiting in the apartment for over an hour. Somehow, it hadn’t seemed that long. She put on some moody jazz, and turned up the volume.
Placing her empty glass on the bar, she yielded to nervous curiosity and practical necessity and wandered down the hall to find the bathroom. It was as luxurious as the rest of the apartment, boasting a multi-head shower and an oval sunken bath almost twice the size of the entire bathroom back at the flat. Big, fluffy towels warmed on a heated towel-rail, and to Regan’s amusement the toilet seat was also kept at a cosy temperature! Every conceivable toiletry a guest could require was thoughtfully provided, including—she discovered when she opened one of the drawers—a selection of various brands of tampons and condoms, nestled side by side in ironic juxtaposition.
She couldn’t resist peeping into the half-open doors further down the hall to discover an office, two huge single bedrooms and, at the far end, an even bigger room with a sprawling king-sized bed which looked, to Regan’s magnified awareness, as if it would sleep an army.
Most definitely the master bedroom, she decided, backing out…but not before she had noticed the black silk sheets, the tubular wooden slats on the teak bed-head and ends, unnervingly reminiscent of prison bars, and the vast mirror on the wall opposite the bed.
At least it wasn’t fixed on the ceiling! she thought as she hurried back to the bar, wondering what she would do if ‘Monsieur’ turned out to be seriously kinky.
She diluted another icy vodka with a splash of tonic. She still wasn’t entirely confident that she could handle a normal man’s basic requirements, let alone satisfy one who demanded a performance artist in bed. But Pierre had said that the apartment was designed for use by a number of corporate executives, she reminded herself, in which case the master bedroom was generic, and not the personalised domain of the current occupant.
In fact, she thought, looking around the living area with a more critical gaze, there were no personal touches that she could see in the whole apartment. Like a plush hotel suite, or a photograph in an interior design magazine, it was sterile of private clutter. Unlike a permanent residence there were no books, photographs, knick-knacks or stray possessions to give any clue to the character of the present occupier.
When she tired of mooching around she absently kicked off her shoes and curled up on the wide, squashy cushions of the couch, sipping her drink, nibbling snacks and closing her eyes to soak up the music. She had almost dozed off when, coinciding with the end of the jazz disc, Regan heard the distinctive closing clunk of a heavy door and a rumbling exchange of masculine voices.
She leapt up from the couch, almost tripping over in her haste, smoothing down her dress and then her hair, unconsciously biting on her lower lip as she looked towards the entranceway. The voices faded briefly to a murmur and then became more distinct, Pierre’s and one other…deeper and more staccato, edged with a weary impatience.
Suddenly Regan realised that she was curling her stockinged toes into the thick carpet, and she looked desperately around for her discarded high heels. She scooped them up and was hopping on one leg, still cramming the first shoe on her foot, when a living cliché came sauntering down the stairs.
He was tall, dark and handsome, wide-shouldered and lean-hipped, and he moved with the fluidity of an athlete.
Regan was stricken. She had gone from the ridiculous to the sublime in the space of a few hours!
This was going to turn out to be another nerve-shattering case of mistaken identity, she just knew it! Her whole mad plan had been doomed from the start.
He couldn’t possibly be the man she had been waiting for; he was simply too unbelievably perfect!
CHAPTER THREE
‘ALLOW me…’
Regan hadn’t realised that she had dropped her other shoe until he stooped to pick it up.
‘Uh, thank you…’ she faltered, still balanced like a stork on her bare foot, stunned by the impact of his appearance.
Close up, the new arrival wasn’t as classically handsome as he had first appeared. But he was certainly tall—over six feet—and his black suit and midnight-blue shirt and tie accentuated his dark colouring. His raven hair was thick and well-shaped, springing back from a slight widow’s peak to brush his collar at the back. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, she guessed, and already carrying a tiny trace of grey at his narrow temples.
There was intelligence in his gaze and cynicism in the hard cast of his features—a gambler’s face, tense and watchful but betraying little of his own thoughts.
His eyes, which she had somehow expected to be also dark, were a light, penetrating steely-grey, slightly hooded under their heavy lids, and his stern Roman nose was framed by prominent cheekbones and a granite jaw. For such an athletic-looking man his skin was surprisingly pale and fine-grained, except on his lower cheeks and upper lip where it was roughened by a blue-black growth that was well beyond a five o’clock shadow.
Regan had to look a long, long way up at him, and as he inclined his head to meet her curious gaze she noticed the tracery of scars writhing up the left side of his lean throat and licking up under his jaw: the unmistakable scars of an old burn. To leave such a permanent stamp the injury must have been serious, and agonisingly painful.
So…he was damaged too—only his scars were on the outside…
Regan’s eyes flickered down to the flimsy black shoe cupped in his large hand as she fought to reject the dangerous rush of empathy. She saw that his hands, too, bore evidence of scarring, but it was absurd to think that a man like him would ever want, or need, her sympathy.
‘I—I took them off,’ she explained breathlessly, lowering her shod foot to the floor and transferring her weight to it, going on tiptoe with the other to maintain stability.
He smiled at her redundant comment, a slow curve of his well-defined mouth that made her wobble on her uneven perch.
‘So I see,’ he murmured on a light, teasing note that was totally at odds with his air of hard-bitten cynicism and the hooded wariness of his eyes.
His stroking thumb measured the length of the delicate spike heel in his hand. ‘Were they hurting you?’
His voice was deep and rasping, the husky
edge abrading her senses like velvet sandpaper.
‘No—I—I was just lying down…’
He arched his graceful brows and she was aghast to feel herself blush as she was visited with a sudden mental image of herself languishing nude on black silk sheets, like a slave girl awaiting the arrival of her lord and master.
‘On the couch,’ she firmly emphasised, her mouth unknowingly prim.
‘Of course,’ he agreed, the quicksilver amusement in his penetrating eyes making her wonder whether he could read her skittish mind. She went hot all over. Naive she might be, but surely she wasn’t that transparent?
She tossed her head, rejecting the appalling notion, and adopted a pose of haughty confidence which came immediately under assault.
‘May I?’
Without waiting for an answer he knelt on the white carpet and encircled the ankle of her stockinged foot with lean fingers, tugging lightly to lift it from the floor.
Regan squeaked as she teetered off balance on her spindly heel, and grabbed at his shoulders to stay upright. Even through the padding of expensive fabric she could feel the shifting layers of solid muscle.
‘What are you doing?’ she gasped, wondering if he was some kind of weird foot-fetishist. ‘Oh…’
She watched him slide her shoe back onto her foot, wiggling it from side to side to ease the fit. ‘Thank you…you needn’t have bothered,’ she mumbled, embarrassed.
He tipped his head back, making no effort to rise. ‘I enjoyed it,’ he said, meeting her wide-eyed gaze, his fingers still lightly encircling her fine-boned ankle. ‘You have very pretty feet. And legs…’ he added, brushing his fingers gently up her calf to linger in the sensitive hollow at the back of her knee.
Regan stiffened as a violent tingle shot from her toes to her groin. Her heart beat furiously in her chest and her breathing quickened. She was no longer in any doubt. This was it. This was him. ‘Thank you,’ she said again, hoping that she didn’t look as flustered as she felt.
‘I’m sorry you had such a long wait. I hope you weren’t too bored.’ Having thoroughly disconcerted her with his Prince Charming act, he rose slowly back to his full height. Regan felt as if he was surveying every inch of her on the way up, and her body prickled with awareness, her eyes darkening and her nostrils flaring at the warm, spicy male scent that rose from his unbuttoned jacket.
‘Pierre tells me that your name is Eve.’
She nodded, her eyelashes fluttering nervously at his towering proximity. Being short, she was used to men looming over her, but she wasn’t used to feeling such an acute sense of feminine self-awareness.
Unlike Pierre, he didn’t display even a flicker of scepticism. ‘How appropriate,’ he said, capturing her hand and raising her knuckles briefly to his lips. ‘In that case you can call me Adam.’
‘Your name is Adam?’ she repeated, jolted by the brush of his warm mouth into forgetting that the last thing she wanted to do was make an issue out of their names. Who would have thought one innocuous kiss on the back of her hand could feel so flagrantly erotic?
‘One of them,’ he smoothly conceded, stretching the coincidence. He lowered, but did not release her captive hand. ‘So, here we are, Adam and Eve in a garden of delights…and this time there’s not a serpent in sight.’
No serpent, just a worm who had finally turned! thought Regan, rescued from her confusion by a stirring of the wicked sense of humour which had lately been all but smothered out of existence.
‘I’m sorry Cleo had to cancel,’ she lied, sliding her tingling fingers slowly out of his hand, her fingernails scraping deliberately across his relaxed palm, crossing the faint ridge of a scar. ‘I hope you aren’t too disappointed.’ She followed up her words by tilting her head so that her glossy locks slipped against her soft cheek, and giving him what she hoped was a brazen, woman-of-the-world smile.
A faintly arrested expression crossed his face. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’ he murmured, looking from the curve of her mouth to the glimpse of delicate earlobe, bare of ornamentation, to the turbulent depths of her violet eyes, shimmering with defiant excitement.
‘And into every life a little rain must fall,’ she responded vaguely, distracted by the darts of electricity zinging along her nerves into trotting out another of her mother’s irritating maxims.
His lips quirked. ‘Are you talking about Cleo’s life, or mine?’ His voice dropped to an insinuating growl. ‘You’re not planning to rain on my parade, are you, Eve?’
She wasn’t quite sure of his meaning, but judging from his tone it had to be indecent. She touched her tongue to her upper lip. Witty sexual repartee was not exactly her forte.
She blundered on with the cryptic analogy. ‘A man like you is always prepared for any eventuality. I’m sure you come equipped with your own umbrella.’
‘A whole drawerful of them,’ he agreed blandly. For some reason that made her remember what she had seen in the bathroom. No…surely they weren’t talking about contraception?
Were they?
Whatever the topic of conversation, she was not going to ruin her image by blushing again!
‘You look tired,’ she blurted, seizing on the truth as the perfect diversionary tactic. She had noticed the faint blue tinge to the pale skin under his eyes, and the subtle tautness around his mouth and jaw that suggested a stern measure of control, and now she identified the lazy burr that had entered his tone. He was a man who concealed his fatigue well—as he probably instinctively hid any form of weakness.
‘It’s been a rough day. But don’t worry, I’m rapidly getting my second wind,’ he promised drily. He shot his cuff and glanced at his no-nonsense steel watch. ‘I know it’s late, and we may not get there for cocktails, but we can still make the banquet. If you’ll just give me a few minutes to change…’
He had thought she was complaining! ‘Oh, no—I didn’t mean—er Y-you don’t have to rush—’ she protested, laying a restraining hand on his elbow as he turned away.
All his former wariness had returned, and his smile was sharp with cynical understanding as he looked over his shoulder at her. ‘Nonsense. You came here expecting to attend an elegant party at the most exclusive restaurant in town and I don’t intend to deprive you of the pleasure,’ he soothed.
Regan ignored his words in favour of his tone. He was tired, but he was resigned to going out because it was part of the unwritten bargain, and he was obviously a man who strictly honoured his obligations, however tiresome.
‘I really don’t mind if we go out to dinner or not,’ she said, her hand tightening on the fabric of his suit.
‘Really?’ He turned back, but it was clear that he didn’t believe her. He thought her a clone of the worldly Cleo—a selfish little cat who was out to milk their bargain for everything she could get.
‘I’m not very hungry, anyway,’ she told him, letting her hand drop. ‘An expensive meal would be totally wasted on me. I think I ate too many of Pierre’s wonderful canapés,’ she explained ruefully.
There was a tiny pause as he studied her expression. ‘So you would be quite content if I asked him to prepare a light meal for us here, instead,’ he said slowly.
‘I actually don’t think I could manage anything at all,’ she confessed, her earlier appetite having been swallowed up by the tension of meeting him. ‘Whereas you probably need something substantial after your tough day…’
‘But you’re happy to keep me company while I eat…’
What did he think, that she would sulk and pout because he wanted to eat and she didn’t? ‘Of course.’
‘And we’ll join the party afterwards…’
‘We don’t have to do that, either, if you don’t feel like going out. Unless, of course, there’s some reason that you need to be seen making an appearance there,’ she added hurriedly when his eyes narrowed, taking on a new and disturbing intensity.
‘So…what you’re suggesting is that we not leave the apartment at all?’
His soft-voiced drawl made Regan’s knees go weak as she realised the full implications of her impulsive offer. If they didn’t go out, then there would be nothing, and no one, to distract them from the real purpose of the evening. No way to hide from the consequences of her own actions.
‘You’re willing to forgo the excitement of a night on the town because I’ve had a rough day?’ he continued in that same tone of silken curiosity.
She grasped her courage and opted for honesty. ‘I expect that I’ll have all the excitement I can handle right here,’ she confessed, her wry words provoking him into a deep, purring laugh.
‘Both kind and flattering—the perfect companion after a hard day at the office! I look forward to finding out how many other virtues you possess.’
Regan basked in an unexpected thrill of accomplishment. She had captivated his jaded interest—made him laugh. Maybe this was going to be easier than she had thought. After all, unlike her husband, this man wanted her to be sexy and seductive!
‘If you were expecting a virtuous woman, you’re going to be severely disappointed.’ She flirted up at him through her lowered lashes.
He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted it until her eyelashes flew wide. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he mused, looking deep into her slumberous eyes. He brushed the pad of his thumb across her mouth, causing it to quiver and part, and then pressed firmly against her plump lower lip. She gave a little gasp as the tip of her tongue tasted the saltiness of his skin.
He misunderstood her tiny flinch. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not smearing your lipstick…it appears to have worn off.’
His tolerant humour made it obvious that he was used to women whose looks were their stock-in-trade.
Regan’s eyebrows crumpled at the dent to her glamorous self-image. She had never thought to recheck her lipstick. ‘It must have gone to garnish the canapés,’ she laughed huskily, to disguise her chagrin. ‘I’ll put some more on while you’re talking to Pierre about dinner—’
