by Julia James
‘Cocktails at eight, Ms Mackenzie. Do not be late. I don’t appreciate tardiness,’ he instructed brusquely.
With that, he left her. And as she watched him stride across the balcony Tara suddenly felt as if she’d gone six rounds with a heavyweight.
She picked up her book, conscious that her heart-rate was elevated. One thing was for sure—she was going to earn her money here.
As she settled back in her lounger a stray thought flickered. I should have asked for danger money—I think I’m going to need it.
But whether that would protect her from Marc Derenz’s unyieldingly flinty manner, or from his much more devastating impact on her, she did not care to examine...
CHAPTER FOUR
MARC WAS IN his office, staring moodily at his computer screen, paying the display no attention. He kept a fully kitted-out office in all his properties, so that he could keep constant tabs on his business affairs.
It had been his habit to do so ever since his vast inheritance had landed on his too-young shoulders. If he hadn’t kept a tight grip on everything, shown everyone he was capable of running the bank, he’d have been sidelined by his own board. Doing so had made him appear hard-nosed, even arrogant sometimes, he was aware, but imposing his will on men a generation older than him had been essential. Even now, over a decade on, the habit of command was ingrained in him, whoever he was dealing with.
Including women who were being paid handsomely to do a very simple job, and yet who seemed to find it impossible not to simply take on board his very clear instructions without constantly answering him back!
His mouth tightened. This nonsense with Hans’s wife was causing him quite enough grief as it was. To have Tara Mackenzie constantly interrupting him, gainsaying him, answering him back, was just intolerable!
He gave a sigh of exasperation. She had better adopt a more gracious and compliant attitude once the Neubergers arrived, or she would never convince the wretched Celine that they were an item.
Why can’t she just be like other women are with me? he demanded of himself in exasperation. All his life women had been eager to please him. So why was this one so damn un-eager? With her stunning looks, she could have made him far better disposed towards her.
Maybe I should win her over...
Whatever her self-righteous protestations, she had, he knew with his every well-honed male instinct, reacted just the way he’d intended when he’d kissed that tender spot inside her wrist that evening of the fashion show... It had had exactly the effect on her he’d wanted. Started to melt her...
So maybe I should do more of that, not less...
The thought played in his mind. It was tempting...oh, so tempting...to turn that obstreperous antagonism towards him to something much more...co-operative...
It would be a challenge, certainly—he had no doubt of that. But maybe he would welcome such a challenge. It would be an intriguing novelty, after all. So different from being besieged by over-eager females...
He thrust the thought from him, steeling his jaw. No, that would not be a good idea! Did he really have to run through all the reasons why Tara Mackenzie, whatever her allure, was out of bounds to him?
No, he did not. He pulled his keyboard decisively towards him. All he had to do was get through this coming week, using the woman he was paying an exorbitant amount of money, to keep the wretched Celine off his case.
Tara Mackenzie was here to do a job, and then leave. That was all.
All.
Decision reaffirmed, he went back to his work.
* * *
Tara cast a professionally critical eye over her reflection. And professional was the word she had to keep uppermost in her mind. This, she reminded herself sternly, was just as much a job as striding down a catwalk. And Marc Derenz was simply her employer. She frowned momentarily. Thankfully only for a week or so.
For a week I can put up with his overbearing manner!
And, of course, for the ten thousand pounds he was paying her.
She nodded at her reflection, that showed her in a knee-length royal blue cocktail dress, from a very exclusive luxury label, her make-up immaculate, hair in a French pleat, and one of the pieces of top-brand costume jewellery she’d found in the suitcases around her neck. Yes, she looked the part—the latest woman in Marc Derenz’s life. Couture-dressed and expensive.
So—time to go onstage. One of the maids had told her she was being waited for downstairs, so she made her way to the head of the Hollywood-style staircase. From the top she could see a white-jacketed staff member opening the huge front doors and stepping aside to let Marc Derenz’s guests enter, just as Marc himself issued forth from another ground-floor room.
And stopped dead.
Immediately Tara could see why. This was not the Neubergers arriving—this was Frau Neuberger toute seule.
Celine—sans mari—was dressed to kill in a tailored silk suit in crème-de-menthe, five-inch heels, and a handbag that Tara knew, from her modelling expertise, had a waiting list of over a year and wouldn’t give you change from twenty thousand pounds...
‘Marc, cherie!’ Celine cooed as she came up to her host, who was still standing frozen, and lavished air kisses upon him. ‘How wonderful to be here!’
‘Where is Hans?’ Tara heard him ask bluntly, at which Celine gave an airy wave.
‘Oh, I told him we had no need of him! We’ll do perfectly well on our own!’ She patted Marc’s cheek insouciantly with her bare hand, lingering over the contact with her varnished fingernails.
Tara wanted to laugh. Celine was in high fettle, despite the thunderous expression on her quarry’s face. Well, time to disabuse her of her hopes.
She started forward, heels tapping on the marble stairs. A wide, welcoming smile parted her lips. ‘Celine, how lovely to meet you again!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’re so glad you were able to come!’
She reached the hallway, marshalling herself alongside Marc Derenz. Her pulse was not entirely steady—and that was nothing to do with Celine Neuberger and everything to do with the way Marc Derenz had looked at her as she’d walked down towards them. The way his hard dark eyes had focussed totally on her, as if pinning her with his gaze. A gaze that this time was not like a laser, but more... Appreciative. Liking what it saw. More than liking...
She felt a flush of heat go through her limbs, and then, collecting herself, reminded herself that of course Marc Derenz had looked at her like that—he was in role-play just as much as she was! She bestowed an air kiss upon Celine, whose face had contorted in fury at Tara’s appearance.
‘I just adore house-hunting! We’ll have such fun together! I can’t wait!’ she gushed, ignoring the other woman’s obvious anger at her presence there. ‘Why not describe what you’re after by way of a villa over drinks?’ she invited Celine cordially, hoping that Marc Derenz would lead them to wherever it was that cocktails were going to be served. She hadn’t a clue—and if Celine realised that it might give the game away.
Thankfully, he did just that, ushering them both into a sumptuous Art Deco salon, where wide French windows opened onto a terrace bathed in late sunshine. Celine, all but snatching her glass, immediately started to talk animatedly in German to Marc, clearly intent on cutting out Tara as much as she could.
Marc’s expression was still radiating the same thunderous displeasure it had been since he had seen Celine arrive without her husband. For her part, Tara cast a jaundiced eye at the woman.
Honey, you’d be welcome to him! He’s arrogant and bad-tempered and totally charmless! Help yourself, do!
But of course that was out of the question. So, knowing she had to act—quite literally—she stepped forward, a determined smile on her face, placing a quite clearly possessive, hand on Marc Derenz’s arm.
‘I’m hopeless at German!’ she announced insouciantly. ‘And my French is only schoolgirl, alas.
Are you telling Marc what you’re looking for in a house here?’
As she spoke she was aware that the arm beneath her fingertips had steeled, and his whole body had tensed at her moving so closely into his body space. She pressed her hand on his sleeve warningly. Celine was never going to be fooled if she stayed a mile distant from him.
And he needn’t think she wanted to be in his body space! His utterly unnecessary warning from the afternoon echoed in her head, informing her that she was to remember she was only here to act a part. Not to believe it was real.
I wouldn’t want it to be real anyway, sunshine, she said tartly but silently to him.
In her head—treacherously—a single word hovered. Liar.
You might not like him, the voice went on, but for some damn reason he has the ability to turn your knees to jelly, so you just be careful, my girl!
She pushed it out. It had no place in her thoughts. None at all. She was not looking for Marc Derenz to pay her what he so clearly imagined would be the immense compliment of desiring her for real. So there was no need at all for him to have warned her off.
And all this—all she was going to have to act out for the duration—was just that. An act. Nothing more.
An act it might be, but it was hard going for all that.
All through dinner she made a relentless effort to be Marc Derenz’s charming hostess—attentive to his guest, endlessly gushing and smiling about the delights of searching for zillion-dollar homes on the French Riviera to this woman who clearly wished her at the bottom of the ocean.
Tara was doggedly undeterred by Celine’s barely civil treatment. Far more exasperating to her was Marc Derenz’s stony attitude.
OK, so maybe he was still blazingly furious that Celine had turned up on her own, but that didn’t mean he could get away with monosyllabic responses and a total lack of interest in the conversation Tara was so determinedly keeping going.
As they finally returned to the salon for coffee and liqueurs, she hissed at him, ‘I can’t do this all on my own! For heaven’s sake, play your part as well!’
She slipped her hand into his arm and sat herself down with him on an elegant sofa, deliberately placing a hand on his muscled thigh. She felt him flinch, as if she’d burnt him, and a spurt of renewed irritation went through her. If she could do this, damn it, so could he!
She turned to him, liqueur glass in her hand. ‘Marc, darling, you’re being such a grouch! Do lighten up!’ she cooed cajolingly.
Her reward was a dark, forbidding flash of his eyes, and an obvious increase in the reading on his displeasure meter as his expression hardened. Her mood changed abruptly. Actually, she realised, there was something very satisfying in winding up Marc Derenz! He was so easy to annoy.
A little frisson went through her. She might be playing with fire, but it was enticing all the same...
She turned back to Celine, who was fussing over her coffee. ‘Marc’s just sulking because he doesn’t want to go house-hunting,’ she said lightly. ‘Men hate that sort of thing—let’s leave him behind and do it ourselves!’
But Celine was having none of this. ‘You know nothing about the area,’ she said dismissively. ‘I need Marc’s expertise. Of course ideally,’ she went on, ‘we’d love to buy here, on Cap Pierre—it’s so exclusive.’
‘So much so that there is nothing changing hands,’ was Marc’s dampening reply.
Dieu, the last thing he wanted was Celine Neuberger anywhere on the Cap. And the next last thing he wanted, he thought, his mood darkening even more, was Tara’s hand on his thigh.
It was taking all his resolve to ignore it. To ignore her, as he had been trying to do ever since his eyes had gone to her, descending the staircase with show-stopping impact, and he’d caught his breath at her beauty, completely unable to drag his eyes away from her.
All his adjurations to himself that Tara Mackenzie was out of bounds to him had vanished in an instant, and he’d spent the rest of the evening striving to remember them. But with every invasion by her of his personal space it had proved impossible to do so. As for her hissing at him like that just now—did she not realise how hard it was for him to have to remember this was only a part he was playing? And then, dear God, she had placed a hand on his thigh...
How the hell am I going to get through this week? Was I insane to bring her here?
But it didn’t matter whether he had been insane or not—he was stuck with this now. And, tormenting or not, she was right. He had to behave as if he were, indeed, in the throes of a torrid affair with her—or else what was the point of her being here at all?
So, now, trying to make the gesture casual, he placed his free hand over hers. Was it her turn to tense suddenly? Well, tough.
To take his mind off the feel of her slender fingers beneath the square palm of his hand, he said, making his voice a tad more amenable, ‘I’m sure you and Hans will find what you’re looking for, though, Celine. How about higher on the coastline, with a view?’
Pleased at being addressed directly, even if did cast a sour look at him all but holding hands with Tara, Celine smiled engagingly.
‘A view would be essential!’ she stipulated, and then she was away, waxing lyrical about various houses she had details for, animatedly wanting to discuss them.
Marc let her run on, saying what was necessary when he had to, aware that the focus of his consciousness was actually the fact that his fingers had—of their own accord, it seemed—wound their way into Tara’s... His thumb was idly stroking the back of her hand, which felt very pleasant to him, and her palm seemed be hot on his leg, which felt more than merely pleasant...
He could feel himself starting to wish Celine to perdition—and not for the reason that he had no interest whatsoever in a spot of adultery with his friend’s wife...
Because he wanted Tara to himself...
He could feel his pulse quicken, arousal beckon...
Maybe the cocktail he’d imbibed, the wine he’d drunk over dinner, the brandy now swirling slowly in his glass, had loosened his inhibitions, faded the reminder he’d been imposing on himself all evening that he had not brought Tara here for any purpose other than to shield him from Hans’s wife.
But what if I had?
The thought played in his mind, tantalising...tempting.
Then, with a douche of cold water, he hauled his thoughts away. He lifted his hand away too, restoring Tara’s hand to her own lap with a casual-seeming move. He got to his feet. He needed to get out of here.
‘Celine, forgive me. I have a call booked to a client in the Far East.’ He hadn’t, but he had to call time on this.
Celine looked put out, but he couldn’t care less. Tara was looking up at him questioningly. Then she took the cue he was signalling. He saw her give a little yawn.
‘We’d probably both better call it day,’ she announced to Celine. ‘I’m sure you’re tired after your journey.’
She was making it impossible for Celine to linger, and Marc ushered them both from the room, bidding his unwanted guest goodnight.
Then he turned to the woman who was not his guest, but his temporary employee, however hard she was making it to remember that.
‘I’ll be about half an hour, mon ange,’ he murmured, knowing he had to give just the right impression to Celine. Knowing, with a part of his mind to which he was not going to pay any attention, that, however much of a siren call it was, he did not want it to be a mere ‘impression’ at all...
He silenced his mind ruthlessly, by force of will, turning on his heel and heading for his office, where he was not about to make phone call to the Far East, but another, far more urgently needed communication.
The whole evening had been nothing but a gruelling ordeal—and not just for the reasons he’d thought it would be. Not just because of Celine.
Because of Tara.
And
what she was tempting him to.
Which he must resist or risk breaking the most essential rule he lived by.
* * *
As Tara gained her bedroom relief filled her. Dear Lord, but that had backfired on her—big-time! Hissing like that at Marc to be more convincing in his role-play! Had she been nuts to demand that? To take the initiative he would not?
Memory was hot in her head, as if it were still happening—sitting up close and personal beside him, so that the heat from his body was palpable through the fine jersey of her dress. And then, after so stupidly getting a kick out of winding him up with her taunt about being a grouch, putting her hand on his thigh.
Hard muscle and sinew...and a strength beneath the material of his trousers that had made her want to snatch her hand away as if she’d touched white-hot metal. But she hadn’t been able to, because his own hand had closed over hers, imprisoning it between the hard heat of his thigh and the soft heat of his palm.
And then she’d felt her throat catch as that casual meshing of his fingers with hers, that slow, sensual stroking of his thumb, had lit up a thousand trembling nerve-ends in her...
No! Don’t think about it! Focus, instead, on getting to bed.
Tomorrow was going to be another long day. Just putting up with Celine was ordeal enough—let alone Marc as well.
Putting him out of her mind as best she could, she got on with getting into her night attire, carefully hanging up the beautiful dress she’d been wearing, then removing her make-up and brushing out her hair. The familiar rituals were soothing to her jagged nerves—as much as they could be soothed.
Aware that she was still on edge, and knowing why and deploring it, but unable to calm herself any more, she headed for the palatial en suite bathroom to brush her teeth. As she did so she glanced askance at the door inset beside it. It was no surprise that she’d been put into a bedroom with what must be a communicating door to wherever it was that Marc Derenz slept, because otherwise it would look too obvious that she wasn’t really there in the role she claimed. But all the same it was unnerving to think that only a flimsy door separated her from him.
