The Night That Started It All

by Anna Cleary

  Luc frowned. ‘Without informing his staff?’

  Emilie coloured and cast a glance at her husband, who’d just joined them. ‘Well, Rémy’s always been—private.’

  ‘Secretive,’ Neil put in.

  ‘Neil. Don’t say secretive.’ Emilie gave her husband a spousely shove. ‘I’m sure he’s done nothing wrong. He may just have forgotten to leave a message.’

  Reading Neil’s suddenly bland face, Luc had the impression Neil didn’t share his wife’s confidence in her charming brother.

  Shari took a moment to nerve herself before pressing Neil and Emilie’s bell. She’d stopped wearing the ring weeks ago, of course, but if anyone asked her about it, if they even mentioned Rémy’s name, she still wasn’t sure how far she could trust herself not to turn into a complete wuss and burst into tears.

  Too emotional. Just too emotional.

  Emilie opened the door.

  ‘Enfin, Shari, after all this time …’ She stopped short, looking Shari up and down. ‘My God. Is it really you? You look … incroyable.’ Emilie kissed her on both cheeks and dragged her inside. ‘I adore it. So sexy and mystérieuse.’ Emilie thought she was speaking in English, but it often came out sounding like French.

  With gratifying awe she examined Shari’s transformation. The stripe across her eyes was intriguing enough, Shari supposed, but it was her chiffon dress and new five inch platforms that really had Em reeling.

  ‘Oh-h-h,’ the darling woman enthused. ‘I am green. How can you walk in them? But what have you done to your eyes?’ Shari’s heart suffered a momentary paralysis, but Emilie continued exclaiming. ‘Pretty, so pretty. Is that frog a tattoo, really?’

  Shari eased back out of the direct light. ‘You know me. Always faking it.’

  Emilie giggled. ‘No, don’t say so. Now, where’s Rémy?’ She peered out into the dark street.

  Shari tightened her grip on the strap of her shoulder purse. ‘Rémy isn’t coming.’

  ‘Not?’ Emilie looked nonplussed. ‘Oh, but … quick, phone him. Tell him he has to. Our cousin is here to see him and he’s looking so stern everyone is terrified.’

  Shari looked steadily at her. ‘No, Em. I can’t.’

  Emilie blinked bemusedly at her, and Shari was about to drop the bombshell when more guests piled in through the gate and hailed the hostess.

  Shari seized her escape.

  ‘Catch you later.’ She smiled, and walked through to the party like a woman riding a storm.

  It was a while since she’d visited. As things had deteriorated on the engagement front, she’d chosen to avoid the perceptive gazes of her brother and Em. Little changes had taken place in their home since the last time she’d dropped by to hang and read to their little girls.

  Tonight the rooms were crowded, people spilling from the living rooms to the pool terrace. A small army of hired staff was flitting about, distributing hors d’oeuvres like largesse to the poor.

  Heading for a quiet corner, Shari felt conscious of eyes turning to follow her. For a scary moment she feared her stripe wasn’t holding up, until a likely lad stepped in her path and told her she looked hot.

  Hot? Oh, that glorious word. Pleasure flowed into the dry gulch where her self-esteem had once bubbled like the tranquil waters of an aquifer. Her spine stiffened all by itself. She loved the sweet-talking hound.

  Standing way taller on her new platforms, she blew him a kiss. ‘Too hot for you, sweetie,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she swished by.

  There now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?

  She greeted a few faces she recognised, flashed a wave here, a smile there, just as though everything in her little corner of the world was hunky-dory. She hoped no one inquired about her so-called fiancé. She should never have promised to allow Rémy time to break the news to Em in his own way. She might have known he’d never drum up the courage.

  Face it, she’d known all along she should have told Neil and Em herself. Weeks ago, she saw now, instead of feeling she had to avoid them all this time. How much could she tell Emilie about her beloved Rémy, though? It was clear she couldn’t reveal anything tonight, with her sister-in-law under pressure.

  And she’d have to be careful how much she told Neil. She’d long sensed he didn’t like Rémy. He’d always been so protective of her, heaven knew what he might do if he knew about this last thing. And how might that impact on Emilie?

  She spotted Neil then, standing in a group with a tall, dark-eyed, sardonic-looking guy who was scanning the room, looking gloomy and detached.

  Luc noticed his host waving at someone and suppressed a yawn. These Australians were so open. So forward. So relentlessly friendly and lively. To a jet-lagged Frenchman, a houseful of them was overwhelming. He listened, nodded, made meaningless conversation with strangers and mentally gritted his teeth.

  These days, an hour in any roomful of couples was an eternity.

  He watched a couple’s unconscious linking as they chatted with other people. Hands brushing. Hips. Under duress he could admit to himself he missed those touches. The tiny automatic intimacies a man had with his lover.

  At least he lived cleaner now. No promises, no lies. And no pain. It was honest, at least.

  As though in ridicule of this absurd reflection a pang of yearning sliced through him. If only he could grow used to this life with no alleviating softness in it. No excitement. No warm body to open to him in the deep reaches of the night. What he needed was a …

  Through a chink in the crowd his eye was snagged on a flash of colour. He looked. And looked again. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a face, and for a minute the breath was punched from his lungs.

  The crowd moved, and now only her soft blonde hair was visible to him. He waited, not breathing, until she angled his way again. Ah. An intriguing sensation thrilled through him. It was her eyes. They were fascinating. So deep and alluring and mysterious. Eyes to haunt a man.

  He felt his blood quicken.

  The crowd parted again and he was able to take in the whole of her. She’d have fitted in well in any nightclub, but in this assembly she looked almost theatrical. Fragile, with her long legs in the high heels, the soft chiffon dress slipping off one shoulder, neat little shoulder purse knocking against her hip.

  Mesmerised, he couldn’t drag his gaze away.

  Shari smiled as a waiter proffered a tray. She helped herself to a shot of vodka, downed it, then replaced the empty glass and took another to be going on with. She was casting about for a friendly face when she noticed the dark-eyed guy still watching her, his brows lowered and intent.

  What the …? Had she broken the vodka laws?

  His eyes had a strangely hypnotic quality. A girl had to ask herself if it was really the vodka that was so capturing his attention.

  She attempted to crush his impudence with a haughty glare, but he didn’t even flinch. Shaken by a momentary pang of insecurity, she hastily drowned it with another gulp of the potato elixir.

  For goodness’ sake, she was at risk here of tipsiness, not a good thing in platforms. If the guy didn’t look away soon she’d be unable to lie on the floor without holding on.

  Luc was aware other women were probably present. Pretty women with breasts and soft hair. Women with an air of mystery. Blondes. Legs, long and lovely, shimmering with every slight movement.

  He just hadn’t until this moment burned to touch one particular one.

  Shari eyed her vodka guiltily. Although why should she? She was free, single and twenty-eight, and it was a party. She called the waiter back and rescued another glass from the tray. Turning then to face her examiner, she held them up and waved them at him, then took a sip from each.

  His frown intensified. He shook his head at her a little, and she felt her blood stir thrillingly. At the same time a nervous shiver slithered down her spine. This guy was inviting a connection. The question was—what kind?

  Shari flicked a glance about to see who else he might be with. He must bel
ong to someone. In that swish dark suit and black silk shirt only a madwoman would have let him out on his own.

  But no. At this actual moment, he only seemed to be with Neil.

  His dark eyes swept her, bold, sensual while at the same time mildly censorious. Was he disapproving of the vodka, or what? If it had been Rémy he’d have been pouring the stuff down her throat to make her more compliant.

  This vodka was a highly underrated substance. She could feel a warm glow coming on. Amazing how it could boost the confidence. Despite the fabled ice packing her mouse veins, she was pretty sure if she passed by that guy she could scorch him with her body heat.

  In a roomful of people, why not give it a shot?

  Enough of all this shillying and shallying, surely it was time to hug the birthday boy. With a deep breath, and assuming her most glamorous and mysterious expression, she summoned her inner Amazon and swished across to Neil, where she planted some lipstick on his cheek.

  ‘Happy birthday, bro,’ she said huskily.

  Dear old Neil looked appreciatively at her. ‘Didn’t I see you in the movies?’ He gave her a brotherly hug, then peered into her face. She had to steel herself not to flinch away for fear of him spotting the reason for her disguise. ‘That’s not a tattoo there, is it?’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you think, Luc? Do we want our women branded with frogs?’

  But the guy’s dark velvet gaze had travelled well beyond her frog. He was drinking her all in, razing her to the parquet. True, tonight her curves were exceptionally appealing, but anyone would have thought this was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on a woman.

  Though she seriously doubted it. Not with his bones.

  Her chiffon top slid off one shoulder and she saw his eyes flicker to the bare section. Against all the odds, a shivery little tingle shot down her spine.

  The guy queried Neil without taking his eyes from her. ‘Qui est-elle?’

  ‘My sister,’ Neil said, his arm around her. ‘This is Shari. Shari, meet Luc. Em’s and Rémy’s cousin.’

  ‘Oh.’ An unpleasant sensation rose in the back of Shari’s throat and she took an involuntary backwards step. The door guy. He hadn’t mentioned being related.

  The guy’s eyes—Luc’s—sharpened, while Neil goggled at her in surprise.

  Recovering her party manners with an effort, Shari pulled herself together.

  ‘Delighted,’ she lied through her teeth. Lucky she was holding the two shot glasses and wasn’t required to touch Rémy’s cousin. Just her luck though, Neil chose that moment to exercise what he considered his brotherly prerogative, and snatched the glasses from her.

  ‘Thanks for these,’ he said, and swilled the contents one after another.

  Trapped. There was no preventing the Frenchman from taking her hand.

  ‘Shari,’ he said. ‘Enchanté, bien sûr.’ He leaned forward and brushed each of her cheeks with his lips.

  Oh, damn. Her skin cells shivered and burned, though they’d been inoculated against the male members of this family.

  Not that this guy resembled the Chéniers, with their reddish hair and blue eyes. Where Rémy was impulsive, surface cute and brutal, this cousin seemed more measured. Graver. Seasoned. Harsher face, experienced eyes. Dark compelling eyes, with golden gleams that reached into her and made her insides tremble.

  ‘Do you live nearby?’

  Ah, the voice. The deep, dark timbre was even more affecting without the intercom, that tinge of velvet accent around the edges.

  Clearly he didn’t recognise hers. She guessed she must have sounded different over an intercom with a busted eye and a swollen nose.

  ‘Paddington, across the harbour. And you?’

  ‘Paris. Across the world.’

  She cast him a wry glance beneath her lashes, and he smiled and shrugged. The tiny, instantaneous communication lit the sort of spark in her blood a recently disengaged woman probably should have had the taste to ignore.

  In a perfect world.

  No wedding ring marred the tanned smoothness of his hands. A faint chime in her memory struggled to retrieve something of a story she’d once heard over coffee with Emilie. Something about a Parisian cousin, possibly a Luc—or did she say a duke?—and a woman. Some sort of scandal.

  If he was the one, she didn’t care to imagine too closely what had happened with the woman. His part in it.

  ‘I see stripes are in this season.’ He continued to hold her in his gaze. ‘Do you always binge on vodka?’

  ‘Unless coke’s on offer.’

  Beside her, Neil choked on the bruschetta he was wolfing. ‘Steady on, girl. Luc’ll get the wrong impression.’

  She’d forgotten Neil. Smiling, she patted the brotherly shoulder. Neil needn’t have worried. Luc was receiving her loud and clear, all right. For one thing, he seemed drawn by her rose carmine lipstick. She was in a likewise hypnotically drawn situation. The more she looked, the more she liked. Her eyes could scarcely unglue themselves.

  He didn’t seem at all fazed by her coke pun either. Instead, he smiled too, as if he understood she was kidding but it was a secret shared only by them.

  ‘You don’t look like a Chénier.’ Heavens, was that her voice? Suddenly she was as throaty as a swan.

  ‘I’m not a Chénier,’ he said at once, a tad firmly. ‘I’m a Valentin.’

  That was all to the good. She tried not to betray herself by staring, but his mouth was so intensely stirring she couldn’t resist drinking in the lines. Stern, yet so appealingly sensuous. A mouth for intoxicating midnight kisses. The trouble was, a woman could never be sure how a man would turn out beyond midnight.

  ‘Forgive me if I mention it …’ He moved a smidgin closer and she caught her breath in the proximity. ‘You seem a little tense. Don’t you enjoy parties?’

  In need of fortification, she snagged a champagne flute from a passing waiter and let her roséd lips form a charming smile. ‘I adore them. Don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ah. Then I guess that’s why you smoulder. I was beginning to think you were a misogynist.’ Like his cousin.

  She’d once read a novel in which a Frenchman whose honour was being challenged assumed a very Gallic expression. Perhaps that described the expression crossing Luc’s handsome face at that very instant.

  She could sense Neil’s ripple of shock. It gave her a charge of pure enjoyment.

  Luc’s dark lashes flickered half the way down. ‘I like women. Especially provocative ones.’

  ‘How about dull, mousy, dreary ones?’

  He cocked a brow at her, then, amused, glanced about. ‘I don’t see any here.’

  ‘They could be in disguise.’

  His dark eyes lit. ‘But what dull, mousy, dreary people would ever think of wearing a disguise? Only very exciting, sexy, playful women do that.’

  Her spirit lifted with a warm buzz. At last a man was divining her true nature. She was exciting, sexy and playful, given the proper inspirational framework. She felt his glance touch her throat and breasts, and the glow intensified. Imagining his smooth fingers tracing that same pathway, she might have begun to emit a few sparks.

  She noticed Neil shift restlessly at her side, then mumble something and drift away.

  Alone in a crowded room with a sophisticated Frenchman, another sophisticated Frenchman, Shari felt her feet edge to the precipice. A whisper of suspense tantalised the fine down on her nape. This might have been just a bit of aimless flirting, but something in his eyes, something intentional behind his glance, made the breath catch in her throat.

  All men weren’t like Rémy. Of course they weren’t.

  The Frenchman gazed meditatively across the room, then back at her. ‘What are you trying to drown with all that alcohol?’

  ‘Tears, of course. My broken heart.’

  ‘There are better ways.’

  Meeting that dark sensual gaze, she had no doubt of it. The battered old muscle in her chest gave a warning lurch. Keep it light,
Shari.

  She felt his gaze sear her legs and, smiling, inclined her head to follow his glance. ‘Oh. Have I snagged a stocking?’

  ‘Not that I can see. Your legs look very smooth.’ His mouth was grave. ‘Quite tantalising.’

  His fingers were long. Imagining how they would feel curved around her thighs triggered an arousing rush of warmth to a highly sensitive region. Ridiculous, she remonstrated with herself. Inappropriate. Here she was, raw on the subject of men, bruised, and he was a total stranger. And so close to family. Family connections were such a mistake.

  She supposed she was succumbing to flattery. The sad truth was Rémy’s endless series of nubile nymphs had messed with her confidence. Her view of herself had altered. While she’d laughed in his face at some of his insults, always delivered with that mocking amusement, a few had penetrated her heart like slivers of glass.

  With a momentary pang of panic it struck her she wasn’t really ready to get back on the horse. But her rational self intervened. How would she know unless she tried a little canter?

  As though alive to the odds she was weighing, Luc’s dark eyes met hers, sensual, knowing. ‘Are you with someone?’

  Her heart skittered several beats. ‘No. Are you?’

  ‘No. It’s hot in here, do you find? Will we walk outside in the cool air?’ Smiling, he took the champagne from her and placed it on a side table. The flash of his white teeth was only outdone by the dazzle in his dark eyes.

  She felt a warning pang reverberate through her vitals and mingle with the desirous little pulse awakened there. The guy was smooth. But what would the old Shari have done, just supposing a Frenchman had ever been this suave?

  Oh, that was right. The old Shari would have fallen into his hands like a ripe and trusting plum. But having finally achieved exciting, sexy and playful status, was she to just throw it all away?

  With dinner about to be served, people were swarming inside. Only a scant few were left out there on the pool terrace. But what was the guy likely to do? Black her eye? Could she allow herself to remain socially paralysed for the rest of her life?

  While she was still wrestling with the possibilities, Emilie came fluttering by. ‘Oh, Shari. Good, good, you’re looking after Luc. Luc, pardonne-moi, mon cher. I so want to find out all the family gossip. But as you see, now I am a little occupée … Shari can show you …’ One of the staff came to murmur something in her ear, and with more profuse apologies Emilie flitted away to deal with her domestic crisis.