The Dark Side of Desire

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.

Sensual …

The word formed in her head and she instantly tried to shake it out, as she would a burr on her sleeve. But it wouldn’t go. It would only wind itself sinuously around her consciousness, whispering its poison in her ear.

Sensual …

Instantly she rejected the word. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter a jot what Leon Maranz could make her feel! She was not going to have anything to do with him! He belonged to the world of her father—a world in which making ever more money was the most important thing, and spending it as flashily and extravagantly as possible the next most important thing. A shallow, empty, superficial world! She belonged somewhere quite different. In the country, at home at Harford, with her grandmother who loved her so much, needed her so much …

Nothing could alter that,

So it was definitely time to put a stop to whatever Leon Maranz had in mind! A complete full stop. Time to send him a quite different message from the one she’d so disastrously given him by dancing with him.

Squaring her shoulders, she scooped up her hair, twisting it fiercely around her fingers until it was pinioned against the nape of her neck. Then, helping herself to some of the complementary hairgrips laid on for guests at the vanity unit, she ruthlessly pinned it into place. A tissue scrubbed repeatedly over her lips dealt with the remnants of Anita’s wretched scarlet lipstick.

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