She now also knew he lived mainly in a penthouse apartment in London, but also owned other homes in several capital cities around the world, including New York, Hong Kong, and Paris.
But again, none of those things were personal to the man.
After reading everything she could find that had ever been written on Darius, the only thing that Andy knew with any certainty was that she wasn’t, in any way, shape or form, his type!
And yet here he surprisingly was, and asking her to go out with him again.
‘Why?’ She picked up a towel and draped it about the dampness of her neck and shoulders, making sure it also covered her breasts. Her cheeks warmed as she walked across the smooth wooden floor towards him. Thankfully, without any sign of the limp she sometimes developed when she was tired.
And how, Andy wondered irritably, considering that she was covered completely, did the intensity of Darius’s gaze as he watched her approach somehow manage to make her feel as if she were naked from head to toe instead?
‘Saturday is only two days away,’ she taunted as she came to a halt just feet away from him. ‘So did your original date have to cancel?’
Andy gave an inner wince even as she asked the question; if Darius Sterne’s original date had cried off, for whatever reason, then there was a multitude of women who would happily have taken her place. He certainly didn’t need to resort to going to the trouble of seeking Andy out, for the sole purpose of inviting her to go with him.
‘I didn’t have a previous date.’ He raised dark brows, as the same thought obviously crossed his own mind. ‘It is a bit short notice, I admit, but I only arrived back from a lengthy business trip at six o’clock this morning.’
‘And no doubt you immediately thought of me!’ she dismissed scathingly.
‘What makes you think I ever stopped thinking of you?’ he challenged.
Andy found it hard to believe that Darius had given her a single thought after their first meeting, especially when he seemed to have been out of the country for the past week.
And yet he was asking her to believe that just hours after his return he had come here to see her?
Andy was determined not to read too much into that. ‘Arrived back from where?’
‘China.’
‘They don’t have telephones in China?’
His jaw tightened at her sarcasm. ‘You didn’t give me your telephone number or email address.’
‘I didn’t give you the address of my dance studio either, but you don’t seem to have had any trouble finding that out for yourself,’ she countered.
His eyes glittered his displeasure at the underlying sarcasm in her voice. ‘I thought you would prefer that I came here and made the invitation in person.’
‘Did you?’ Andy mused. ‘Or did you imagine I might find it harder to refuse you in person?’
Darius had convinced himself this past week that Miranda Jacobs couldn’t possibly be as intractable as he had thought she was being that night at his club. That maybe she had just been playing hard to get last week, in an effort to pique his interest. Just five minutes back in her infuriating company, and he knew that Miranda was every bit as stubborn as he had first thought she was.
He wasn’t used to being told the word no, by any woman. Not once, but twice!
Darius slid his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers, rather than reach out and touch Miranda, not sure which would win out if he did touch her: his need to shake her or kiss her!
‘You didn’t seem to have any problem with saying no to me in person last week.’
She gave a shrug of those slender shoulders. ‘Which begs the question, why are you bothering to ask me again, when you already know the answer?’
Darius breathed in sharply, his hands clenching in his trouser pockets, as he once again fought the need he felt to reach out and shake this woman. An impulse he resisted because he had every reason to believe he would then be tempted into kissing her. Senseless! ‘I thought the charity benefitting from the dinner might be of interest to you,’ he bit out between tightly clenched teeth.
Andy eyed him guardedly, very aware of the tension thrumming through Darius’s lean and muscled body, as he now stood just inches away from her.
Of excited awareness thrumming through her own body.
Just as she was also aware of how alone they were in the studio, with only the distant noise of the traffic outside to disturb the tension between the two of them.
She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘Why are you doing this, Darius?’ she asked softly. ‘What possible interest can you have in taking out a failed ballerina?’
‘You didn’t fail, damn it!’ Darius cut in harshly, his brief elation at finally hearing her call him Darius having been completely overridden by the anger he now felt at hearing her describe herself as a failure.
Once he had accepted that his desire for Miranda wasn’t going to go away, he had made it his business to find out all that he could about her.
And a failure wouldn’t have fought and struggled her way back onto her feet after undergoing numerous operations, in the way that he now knew Miranda had needed to do four years ago.
A failure wouldn’t have studied and worked so hard in the years since, in order to earn a teaching certificate in the subject she loved, but could no longer participate in herself.
A failure wouldn’t have spent most of her share of the inheritance left to her and her sister by her parents five years ago to open up this dance studio.
The Internet truly was an intrusive thing...
Even if he had made the start of his fortune out of it!
And the ballerina Miranda Jacobs, and the tragic accident during her performance of Swan Lake, had once been part of that public domain. Not so much once she had begun her long recovery and disappeared from the newspaper headlines; stories in the tabloids were always fleeting, instant things, with none of those newspapers interested in reporting anything long-term.
Darius had his own method of finding out anything that he wanted to know. And, within days of meeting her, he had wanted to know everything there was to know about Miranda.
‘I doubt you have ever failed at anything in your life,’ he repeated.
‘So you prefer we think of it as my just having made a career change?’ she mocked. ‘A step sideways, if you’ll excuse the pun?’
‘I prefer to think of it as you working with what you have left,’ Darius dismissed briskly; annoying as Miranda was being, he was determined not to argue with her. ‘So, about this dinner on Saturday?’
‘You mentioned I might be interested in the charity?’
Darius masked his inner triumph as Miranda showed a grudging interest. ‘It’s in aid of disabled and underprivileged children.’
A charity that did interest her, Andy admitted irritably, and one she already worked with; she gave over one of her sessions a week to working with disabled and/or underprivileged children.
Had Darius already known that?
Of course he had. He was a man who would make it his business to know anything he wanted to know. And for some reason he had wanted to know about her.
Or maybe it was that he thought of her as some sort of charity? Someone who had once been in the public eye, but now lived and worked in obscurity, at her little dance studio in the suburbs of London?
‘You know, Miranda, I was really hoping to do this the nice way.’
Andy looked up at him sharply. ‘What does that mean?’ She eyed him warily, not at all comfortable with that feral smile now curving those sculptured lips. It was not the genuine smile she had visualised last week, but nevertheless it still put two attractive grooves into the lean hardness of his cheeks.
‘If you just say yes, to accompanying me to the charity dinner, then you’ll never need to
know.’ He shrugged.
Andy’s unease only increased at his pleasant tone. ‘Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact that my brother-in-law works for you?’ She had been very aware of that fact from the moment Darius had approached and spoken to her in the club last week. She just hadn’t believed he would actually stoop to using that connection in order to impose his considerable will.
Until now.
‘Intelligent as well as beautiful!’ His smile was genuinely appreciative. ‘Yes, my brother and I have been in several meetings this week, listening to our managers as they listed all the reasons why we no longer need such big IT departments in our offices around the world, most especially in London. A drop-in workforce is, I’m afraid, inevitable. It’s just a question now of deciding who is or who isn’t expendable.’
And they both knew that Colin worked in the IT department of the London offices of Midas Enterprises! ‘That’s despicable.’ Andy was incredulous.
‘I know,’ Darius drawled. ‘And I feel so bad about it,’ he added insincerely.
Andy glared up at him, not sure if she wanted to punch him on his arrogant nose or just slap his face. Either way she knew it would give her only a fleeting sense of satisfaction. Nor was it an action that Darius would leave unpunished—and possibly by deciding that Colin was definitely expendable at Midas Enterprises.
‘Colin is a real person, with financial responsibilities,’ she snapped. ‘He’s not some toy you can play with just to get your own way.’
Darius shrugged. ‘Then stop being difficult.’
She eyed him scathingly. ‘Are you really so desperate to secure a date for Saturday evening that you would resort to blackmail?’
‘I’m not desperate at all.’ His humour had faded as quickly as it appeared, his eyes now hard, his mouth a thin, uncompromising line. ‘And I don’t want a date with just anyone, Miranda. I want a date with you.’
She eyed him impatiently. ‘Is this because I said no to you last week? Because no woman is allowed to say no to the imperious Darius Sterne? Are you so arrogant, so full of your own importance, that—’ Andy’s insulting tirade was brought to an abrupt halt as she felt herself pulled effortlessly into Darius’s arms before his mouth came crashing down to capture hers.
It was by no means a gentle or exploratory kiss; it was more like being swept along on a tidal wave as his mouth devoured hers, his arms about her waist moulding her softness against the hardness of his chest and thighs, as his tongue now stroked, caressed, the soft sensitivity of her parted lips, before plunging into the moist heat of her mouth.
Andy was totally overwhelmed by the onslaught of desire that coursed through her as her hands moved up his chest and grasped onto his shoulders, before her fingers became entangled in the silky dark thickness of hair at his nape as she moved up onto her toes to return the heat of that kiss.
She was totally aware of the sensitivity, the arousal of her breasts, as her engorged nipples rubbed against the abrasive material of his coat. Only the thin material of her leotard and Darius’s trousers stood between the hardness of his thighs and the heat that now burned between her own thighs.
Darius was breathing hard when he finally broke the kiss, his eyes the colour of dark amber as he continued to hold her in his arms as he looked down at her. ‘That’s the reason I’m willing to use blackmail in order to get you to agree to go to this dinner with me on Saturday evening.’
Andy felt light-headed as she gazed up at him, and she realised that was because she had forgotten to breathe for the duration of that punishing kiss. A kiss she inwardly acknowledged she hadn’t wanted to end.
What was wrong with her? This man had been nothing but arrogant and pushy since she first met him. To the point that he was now trying to blackmail her into going out with him on Saturday evening, and using Colin’s job as leverage to do so.
Damn it, she wasn’t even sure she liked the man.
Did she have to like him in order to be aroused by him?
Obviously not, if the heat of desire that still consumed her was an indication.
She moistened her slightly bruised lips with the tip of her tongue before answering him, instantly wishing she hadn’t, as she tasted Darius on her lips: a heady mixture of warm honey and desire. She gave a determined shake of her head in an effort to dispel the fog of desire that seemed to have taken over her brain. ‘Will the press be there?’
‘What?’ Darius had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
If he was honest, at the moment he had no idea what day of the week it was. Kissing Miranda had been so much more than he had been expecting. So much more intense than anything he had ever felt with any other woman.
She frowned. ‘Will any of the press be there on Saturday evening?’
‘Oh.’ He nodded, his brows clearing. ‘Only those officially invited by my mother.’
‘Your mother?’
Darius slowly, reluctantly, released Miranda before stepping back.
Before he did something stupid, like kissing her again; just that once was enough to tell him that the desire he had been feeling for her this past week had been the tip of an iceberg. That he wanted so much more from Miranda than just a kiss. And that now, when she was still so determined to resist him, as well as tired and hot from a long day at work, wasn’t the right time for the long, slow seduction he had in mind.
Running his hand through the tousled thickness of his hair made him instantly recall the way Miranda’s slender fingers had been entangled in it just minutes ago. ‘It’s one of my mother’s pet charities,’ he dismissed huskily. ‘As president of that charity, she’s also the main organiser.’
As far as Andy was concerned, this whole situation had become slightly surreal.
All of it. Darius’s initial and unexpected appearance at her studio. His invitation to the charity dinner. His having resorted to using blackmail in order to force her into accepting that invitation. A charity dinner, Darius had now informed her, that was being organised by his own mother!
‘Isn’t introducing me to your mother a little too cosy and intimate for you?’ Andy taunted to hide how disturbed she was from the kiss they had just shared. Her legs were still feeling slightly shaky, her breasts an aching, unfulfilled throb.
A reaction, an arousal, that warned her against spending any more time in this man’s company than she had to. That warned she certainly shouldn’t agree to accompany him to this charity dinner on Saturday.
Except Andy already knew she was going to say yes.
Because Darius had blackmailed her into accepting?
Or was the real reason because she secretly wanted to go out with him on Saturday evening, and it was just easier and less complicated—and less of a challenge to her inner warnings to do the opposite—to let Darius continue thinking she was only agreeing to go out with him because he had forced her to do so?
Andy had the next forty-eight hours, until she saw Darius again, to decide which of those it was.
Although she had a feeling she already knew the answer to that question.
She had been mesmerised by this man from the moment she first looked at him across the restaurant a week ago, even more so later that evening when he came over and spoke to her in the club, before insisting she danced with him. Since then Andy knew she hadn’t been able to get Darius, and the sexual magnetism he exuded so confidently, out of her mind.
Despite all her efforts to the contrary.
She felt that magnetism all the deeper now that he had kissed her.
Darius now gave a scathing snort. ‘There is nothing in the least cosy or intimate about my mother!’
Andy looked up at him searchingly as she heard the harshness of his tone. A curiosity Darius met with a blank stare, his eyes giving away none of his inner thoughts or emotions, just as the blandness
of his expression revealed none of his outer ones, either.
She gave a grimace. ‘You obviously don’t really want to go to the dinner either, so why bother going?’
Darius looked away, only to be bombarded with dozens of reflections of the two of them from the mirrored walls, he standing tall and dark before a much slighter and fairer Miranda.
His breath caught in his throat as he imagined making love to Miranda in this room, with those same dozens of reflections, the two of them naked, reflected back at him. How much of a turn-on was just the thought of that? Enough so that his body hardened painfully.
He could easily imagine the two of them together here, knew that those multiple reflections would push his desire for Miranda to overload as he watched and enjoyed the two of them making love together.
He visualised the two of them, completely naked, as he stood behind Miranda, her silky, luminescent flesh very pale against his more olive skin as they stood close enough to the mirrors for him to see every nuance of expression on her face, but far enough away to ensure those multiple reflections.
His arousal would be pressed between the delicious globes of her bottom as he cupped her breasts in his hands, listening to her groans of pleasure as he played with and caressed her nipples, until they stood proud and full, and aching for more. Then he would move his hands lower, fingers splayed possessively across the flatness of her stomach, before moving down to allow his fingers to part the pale curls between her thighs and reveal the bud beneath, a bud that would be so aroused it would peep visibly from beneath its hood.
And then he would watch, would feast his eyes on that swollen nubbin as his fingers stroked and caressed. Would watch Miranda’s silken thighs part as she allowed him greater access, pressing into his caressing fingers as she gasped her climax.
Then Darius would go on his knees in front of her, greedily licking and caressing her to another orgasm.
And then again, and again.
He wanted to be able to watch that reflection as he parted her thighs before thrusting his length into her. To see how wet and swollen she was for him, a silken glove as she took all of him inside her, before he began to thrust into her, time and time again. And he would watch the ecstasy on Miranda’s face as she climaxed for him again, before allowing himself to fall over that edge of pleasure with her.
The Redemption of Darius Sterne Page 5
