The Dark Side of Desire

by Julia James

  While he decided whether to bail out Lassiter he would further his interest in his daughter. He levelled his veiled gaze on her as she reached for a bottle of sparkling water and poured some into her glass. Waiters were already circling with white wine, but she’d covered her glass with her palm, giving her head a slight shake. Did she eschew all alcohol? Leon wondered.

  ‘You don’t drink wine?’ he enquired.

  She seemed to start at his words, and her head jerked around.

  ‘Very seldom,’ she answered, her voice clipped. She made to turn her head away again, as if that were all she were going to say on the subject.

  ‘Empty calories?’ Leon’s voice was bland.

  ‘Yes.’

  She lifted her glass of water, aware of how stiffly she had spoken. But then her spine was as stiff as a poker right now. Why on earth had her father not told her he’d invited Leon Maranz this evening? The answer was obvious, of course. He hadn’t wanted her to know because he hadn’t wanted her to be warned beforehand. And now here she was, trapped between them, wearing a dress she didn’t want to be wearing, with her hair hanging down her back and her mouth covered in vivid lipstick.

  She raised her napkin and made a show of dabbing her lips after drinking, covertly attempting to dab off some of the sticky red layer. Beside her she was aware—ultra-aware—of Leon Maranz’s eyes on her.

  How on earth am I going to get through the evening?

  The question was uppermost in her mind. Closely followed by its companion.

  Why am I being like this?

  She had met plenty of men her father wanted her to take an interest in for his sake, but she had never freaked out like this before! She had always managed to be indifferent, without being so ridiculously tongue-tied and affected. So why was she being like this with this man?

  But then, she acknowledged, with a hollow sensation inside her, no one her father had tried to set her up with before had been anything like Leon Maranz.

  No one could be …

  The words formed in her mind, shaping themselves. No one could possibly have the kind of impact he had. It hadn’t lessened in the slightest in the twenty-four hours since she had first experienced it. Instead it had intensified. She could feel it like a kind of forcefield. She was far, far too close to him for a start—hyper-aware of him only a few inches away from her at the table, knowing she only had to tilt her head slightly to see him, instead of straining forward, apparently finding the floral arrangement in the middle of the table absolutely fascinating.

  But she could still sense him there sitting beside her, his powerful frame set off by the tuxedo, see from the corner of her eye his large, tanned hand reaching for his wine. Nor was sight the only sense he impinged upon. The deep, accented drawl of his voice was resonating in her head as well. And there was another sense, too, more subtle, yet there all the same. His raw, male scent assaulted her, overlaid by the slightest hint of something citrus, musky, in his aftershave.

  She tried to blank it out but it was impossible. Just as blanking out his presence beside her was impossible, however doggedly she stared ahead and toyed with her water. The only mercy was that, thankfully, he seemed to have accepted her reluctance to engage in any conversation with him, however trivial, and had turned his attention to the woman on the other side of him. Flavia could hear her light tinkle of laughter, though what they were talking about she neither knew nor cared.

  ‘Leon! I must have your opinion!’

  Anita’s piercing voice cut across her, demanding his attention. Flavia could have slapped her for it.

  He turned towards her again, away from the woman on his right.

  ‘On what?’ he replied. His voice seemed reserved.

  Anita flapped a heavily beringed hand. ‘Don’t you think Flavia looks so much better with her hair loose rather than pinned up the way it was last night?’

  Like two burning brands Flavia felt her cheeks flare. Anger and mortification warred within her. She wanted to snap viciously at Anita, but Leon Maranz was replying.

  ‘Very … uninhibited,’ he drawled, and Flavia could feel, like a physical touch, his eyes working over her.

  The brands in her cheeks burnt fiercer.

  ‘You see?’ Anita’s voice was triumphant. ‘I told you, Flavia. You could look a knock-out if you tried more! I tell you, darling,’ she said, ‘if you can persuade Leon Maranz to admire you, you’ve got it made!’ She gave a gush of laughter as insincere as it was overdone.

  Flavia’s expression iced over.

  It remained like ice for the whole of the eternally long meal—it was the only way she could get through it.

  She was given some mercy—Anita laid off her, and Leon Maranz, when he wasn’t talking to the woman on his right, or to the other guests across the table who seemed keen to engage his attention, talked to her father. Or rather, she realised, her father talked to Leon Maranz. The edginess he’d displayed earlier seemed to have vanished, and now he was in effusive mode, she could tell, mingling loud bonhomie with an eager attentiveness that told Flavia that, whatever potential use Leon Maranz was to him, it was considerable.

  Was it reciprocated? she wondered as she steadily ate through the courses, despite a complete lack of appetite. Eating was easier than talking. So was being aware of what her father was doing.

  But on what Leon Maranz was doing she was far less clear. There was no evidence of reciprocation, no evidence of anything except the fact that Leon Maranz seemed to prefer her father to do the talking. His laconic answers only seemed to drive her father onward. He was getting more and more exuberant—or, a sudden thought struck her, should that be more and more desperate?

  She glanced sideways at her father. He’d loosened his bow tie slightly and his cheeks were reddening, his eyes becoming pouchy. His glass was frequently refilled, and Flavia wondered how much he’d had to drink. Distaste flickered in her face. Thank God she was going back home tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to get away from her father, away from the shallow, money-obsessed life he lived. However worthy the cause of this evening’s function, she didn’t want to be here in this vast ornate banqueting room, with the scent of wine and flowers and expensive perfume everywhere, the glint of jewellery on the women and the sleek, fat-cat look of the men.

  She wanted to be at home, at Harford, deep in her beloved countryside. Back with her grandmother in the quiet, familiar world so very dear to her … so very precious …

  But for now all she could do was tough it out—get through the evening however long it seemed.

  After an interminable length of time the meal and the fund-raising presentations from the charity directors finally drew to a close, with coffeepots and petits-fours and an array of liqueurs being placed on the tables. At the far end of the huge room on a little stage a band had formed, and was starting to strike up.

  Flavia closed her eyes, trying to shut it all out. She wanted out of here. Now. But it wasn’t going to happen. She knew that. And she also knew, with a heaviness that was tangible, that Anita and her father were going to head off to the dance floor, and she would be left with Leon Maranz. Unless—dear God, please, she found herself praying—he went off with someone else. But the woman on his other side had got up to dance as well, with her partner, and with a hollowing sensation Flavia realised that she was now sitting next to Leon Maranz with empty seats on either side of them.

  Stiffly she reached for the coffeepot.

  ‘Allow me.’

  His hand was before her, lifting the heavy pot as though it weighed nothing and pouring coffee into her empty cup.

  ‘Cream?’ The drawling voice was solicitous.

  She gave a minute shake of her head.

  ‘Of course—more empty calories,’ he murmured.

  She shot him a look. It was a mistake.

  A mistake, a mistake, a mistake.

  He lounged back in his chair, one hand cupping a brandy glass. There was an air of relaxation about him, and yet there was somethin
g else that told Flavia at some alien, atavistic, visceral level of her being that he was not relaxed at all. That he was merely giving the impression of being relaxed.

  It was in his eyes. They were heavy-lidded, yet she could see that they were resting on her with an expression that was not in the least somnolent.

  For a second, almost overpoweringly, she wanted to get to her feet and run—run far and fast, right out of the building. But she couldn’t. It was impossible. She couldn’t do something so obviously, outrageously socially unacceptable.

  She could head for the Ladies’ Room, though.

  She seized on the notion with relief. That would be OK—in fact it would be ideal, because then she could pin her hair up and make sure any trace of Anita’s lipstick was gone.

  She steeled herself to stand up, but before her stiffened limbs could move Leon Maranz pushed back his chair and surveyed her. His eyes moved back to hers, holding them effortlessly, and in the space of time it took to lock eyes with him she became paralysed, unable to move, breathe, to do anything at all except read in his dark obsidian eyes the unmistakable glint of an unmissable message.

  Desire.

  It was as flagrant as his audacity in letting his long-lashed eyes rest on her like a physical caress.

  Tangible. Intimate …

  She thrust up from her chair, stood up, every muscle taut like a wire under impossible tension. She had to go—right now.

  ‘Do please excuse me. I really must …’

  Her voice was high and clipped and breathless. Thoughts seared through her mind.

  I can’t cope with this! It’s too flagrant, too overpowering, and it’s all far, far too impossible! Impossible to have anything to do with a man from my father’s world! Impossible to have anything to do with any man when my overwhelming responsibility is for my grandmother. So it doesn’t matter—doesn’t matter a jot what this ridiculous reaction to him is, I can’t let it go anywhere, and I have to stop it in its tracks now. Right now!

  But he wasn’t to be evaded. Instead he matched her gesture, getting to his feet in a lithe, effortless movement, towering over her. Too close—much too close. She stepped back, trying not to bump into the empty chair beside her.

  ‘You know …’ he said, and his voice was a deep, dark drawl that set her nerve-endings vibrating at some weird, subliminal frequency. His eyes did not relinquish hers, did not allow her to tear her gaze away from his. ‘I don’t think I do excuse you, Ms Lassiter. Not two nights in a row.’ The dark glint in his eye was shot through with something that upped that strange subliminal frequency. ‘This time I think I will just do—this.’

  He moved so fast she did not see it coming. His hand fastened around her wrist. Not tightly, not gripping it, but encircling it … imprisoning it.

  He looked down at her, even taller somehow, his shoulders broader, his eyes darker.

  ‘I’d like to dance with you,’ he said.

  He drew her hand into the crook of his arm so that her hand splayed involuntarily on the dark sleeve of his tuxedo jacket, her nails white against the smooth black cloth. She wanted to jerk free, tear herself away, but he was looking down at her still, a taunting smile playing on his lips.

  ‘You don’t want to make a scene, do you, Ms Lassiter?’ he said, and a saturnine eyebrow quirked. The dark eyes were glinting. Mocking.

  Emotion flashed in her eyes. For a wild and impossible moment, she wanted to do exactly what he’d said she could not—tug her hand free of its imprisonment, push away from him, storm off in a swirl of skirts and leave him standing there.

  But there were too many people around. This was a formal function, with people who knew him, knew her father, knew who she was. Too many eyes were coming their way. Heads were turning at other tables set too close by.

  He saw her dilemma, mocked it, and started to draw her away, towards the dance floor beyond. He could feel the stiffness of her body, the anger in the set of her shoulders. Well, he had anger of his own. Anger because she had spent the entire meal as if he did not exist, blanking him out, doing her best to ignore him, refusing to see him, talk to him. Refusing to do anything except the one thing she could not refuse.

  She could not refuse to react to him.

  Satisfaction—shot with grimness—spiked through him. That was the one thing she could not do. She could not hide her body’s response to him. A response that shimmered from her just from his presence at her side, despite the tense straining of her body away from his.

  They reached the dance floor. She resisted him every step of the way, but was helpless to do anything about it lest she break that unspoken code of her class—never make a scene, never draw attention to yourself, never break the rules of social engagement. And he would use that code ruthlessly for his own advantage—to get what he wanted. To draw her to him.

  ‘Shall we?’

  The taunt was in his low voice even as he turned her towards him, slipping a hand around her waist. His other hand clasped hers and he started to move her into the dance.

  Helpless, Flavia could do nothing—nothing at all—to stop him.

  Inside her breast, emotions stormed.

  It was like being in torment—a torment that was lacerating every nerve-ending in her body. Everything about her body seemed to be registering physical sensation at double—triple—the intensity. She could feel his hand at her waist as if it were a brand, her hand clasped in his as if it were encased in steel. Steel sheathed in smoothest velvet.

  And he was too close to her! Far, far too close! He was holding her, guiding her, turning her into the movements of the dance so that his body was counterpoised to hers, and hers was encircling his. Around and around they moved to the lush rhythm of the music, weaving through the press of other dancers. He was bending her pliantly into the dance, though her body felt as stiff as wood, and she could feel every muscle in her body seeking to strain away from him. It was as if he was endlessly drawing her towards him and she was endlessly resisting him, yet pinioned at her waist by the heat and pressure of his hand against her spine, the velvet steel of his hand around hers.

  He was holding her captive.

  And there was nothing she could do about it! Unless she broke free by force, tore herself away from him and stormed from the dance floor. And she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t because it would make a fuss, make a scene, draw eyes to her …

  Couldn’t because she didn’t want to …

  For a second—one fatal moment as the knowledge knifed through her brain like the edge of a sword, cleaving through her consciousness—she felt the tension in her body dissolve. Felt her body become pliant, supple.

  And he felt it, too. She knew that he felt it, too, by the sudden flaring of his eyes to which she had suddenly lifted hers instead of what she was supposed to be doing, which was to stare rigidly, stonily over his shoulder.

  Shock was in her gaze, and then that too dissolved, and she could feel the weight of her body shift as his hand at her waist seemed to deepen its support of her suddenly relaxed body. His fingers splayed out and she could feel each one fanning across her back, the thin silky material of her dress no barrier at all. And now his dark eyes held hers as she gazed helplessly across at him, feeling the warmth of his hand at her back, the warmth of his clasp on her other hand.

  ‘You see …?’

  His voice was low and intimate—disturbingly intimate, below the level of the music and the conversation all around them. There was a smile—knowing, satisfied—playing at his mouth as he spoke to her. He knew what she was doing, what she was feeling, how her body was reacting to his, how the rest of the world was disappearing, how there was nothing left except themselves, turning slowly together in each other’s arms.

  Each other’s embrace.

  Like a string jerking tight she strained away again, tensing all the lines of her body, maximising the distance between them, stiff and rigid once more. Her eyes cut away, gazed unseeingly out over the room; her lips compressed, hardening the
contours of her face.

  The music stopped, and she felt the tension racking her body lessen. Relief filled her that her torment was over. Impulsively she tugged her hand free, stepping away from him, not caring if the gesture was too abrupt for social usage. She couldn’t afford to care.

  ‘Do please excuse me.’ Her voice was clipped and she would not look at him. Would not do anything except escape from the dance floor.

  She threaded her way as rapidly as she could towards the doors that led out to the foyer, where she knew the powder room was. The ballroom was a blur, her only focus on gaining the haven of the Ladies’. Inside, she collapsed down on a velvet-covered stool in the vanity section of the spacious facilities.

  Her reflection dismayed her.

  Even in demure aqua, the bias cut of the dress did its work—far too well! It sheathed her body with glistening watered silk, its narrow straps showing too much bare shoulder and arm and—for her—too much décolletage, modest though it was by Anita’s sultry standards.

  But Anita’s damage was worse than the style of the dress. Letting down her hair had completely changed the image she habitually presented to the world. Instead of a neat, confining chignon, her loosened hair formed a long, slinky coil down her bare back, its unfastened tresses softening her face. As for the slash of scarlet lipstick Anita had applied—even after several hours and Flavia’s liberal use of her napkin over dinner—her lips still looked flushed and beestung.

  Full and inviting …

  She stared, transfixed. Oh, God—was that what Leon Maranz had been seeing all evening? All through dinner? And now—much worse—after that dreadful, disastrous dance her face had a hectic flush to it. Her pupils were distended, her breathing far too rapid.

  This wasn’t her! It wasn’t! It wasn’t! What had happened to her? Where had she gone, that restrained, composed female she strove to be when she was summoned to her father’s side? Because one thing was glaringly, appallingly clear: she wasn’t here any more. She wasn’t sitting on this velvet stool, staring wide-eyed at the reflection gazing back at her. It was a different woman—a completely different woman! Alien and strange.