The Night That Started It All

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 belong 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.

That sealed it. Stepping out into the balmy night air, Shari knew she was doing her sisterly duty. Luc was her responsibility. Looking after him was her given work.

He glanced down at her. ‘Do you love that moment when you feel suspended on the edge of something?’ His dark eyes shimmered with a light that made her insides frizzle and fry.

‘On the edge—of what?’ The night seemed to gather around her and listen.

‘Something—exciting. Perhaps unforgettable.’ His eyes caressed her face with a seductive awareness. ‘You’re not nervous, are you?’

‘Yes.’ She gazed at him. ‘At this moment, I’m quite nervous.’ He looked taken aback, and she hastened to stutter, ‘A—a-are you in Sydney long?’

He made a negative gesture. ‘Tomorrow I must fly out. I really came tonight in pursuit of my cousin. There are things I need to discuss with him on behalf of D’Avion. But for once in his life Rémy has done something—great.’

‘What’s that?’

He smiled to himself, then shot her a glance. ‘Failed to show.’

Hear hear, she could have cried above her thundering heart. It was reassuring to know he saw through Rémy. Maybe he was one of her kind, after all.

They reached the end of the pool terrace and paused. Beyond, pale garden lights reflected the moonlight and illuminated the pathway that snaked down through the shrubbery to the boathouse. Beyond, lights glimmered from craft moored in the bay.

She noticed Luc’s glance stray towards the path.

With a surge of adrenaline she knew wickedness beckoned down that shadowy track. Or—maybe just friendliness. A respectful cousinly chat. She was no longer engaged. Why should every move be such a struggle?

Though this might be the moment she should let slip her knowledge on the subject of Rémy. Tell Luc his charming cousin was bound to be in LA by now. No doubt with a woman along, maybe even the twenty-year-old he’d recently taken up with. That was if he’d been able to find his missing passport, after turning over the apartment and her in his fruitless, vindictive search.

It was all so ugly. The old revulsion threatened, and she turned impatiently away from all things Rémy. Tonight she needed to wipe him from her mind.

‘Are you very important in D’Avion?’ she said conversationally, just as if she hadn’t noticed their feet were on the path.

The air was heavy with the sweet sultry fragrance of night jasmine. The back of Luc’s hand touched hers and her skin cells shivered in welcome.

They turned the corner and were out of sight of the house. Excitement infected her veins with a languor, as if her very limbs had joined the conspiracy.

‘Very,’ he said gravely, though his eyes smiled. ‘And you? Are you in the theatre, by some chance?’ She shook her head, and he considered her, his lashes heavy and sensual, his eyes appreciative. ‘Let me guess.’ He touched her nape, drew a caressing finger down to the edge of her top. Magic radiated through her skin and into her bloodstream. ‘Something creative. You give the impression of not always being bound by the ordinary rules. Would that be true?’

Her heart lurched. It was such a line, but all at once it seemed quite possibly true. Especially now she was in disguise.

‘Oh, well.’ She hated to exaggerate her minuscule claims. ‘I guess I’m an artist of sorts.’ She flashed him a brilliant smile. Gouache, crayons and cuddly possums didn’t go with five-inch heels and red toenails, but they had their excitements.

‘So you paint?’

She barely hesitated before she nodded. ‘Partly.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Well, I write stories for children. And paint—you know, the illustrations. I’m not that good yet, but I have actually had a book published. It’s a picture story book about a cat.’

She pulled herself up, not wanting to babble on about herself and bore the man to tears, but he was gazing intently at her as if genuinely interested.

He drew in a breath. ‘Tiens. Shari, that’s very impressive.’ He spoke so warmly she couldn’t doubt his sincerity. ‘You are a genuine author.’

Inwardly, she absolutely glowed. ‘Oh, in a very small way.’

He took her hand and pulled her to face him. It had been so long since a man had touched her in that special way. She trembled inside her bones with a nervous yearning. What if she froze and couldn’t summon the necessary fire? What if she embarrassed herself and shied away at the crucial moment like a scared animal?

She felt her mouth dry to an uncomfortable clumsiness.

‘You are modest.’ He said rather hoarsely, ‘I think you are not what I expected.’

She said breathlessly, ‘What did you expect?’ Compelled to moisten her lips, she saw a hot flare in his eyes.

He kissed her then, a firm, purposeful sexy pressure that shot a delicious flame through her blood and made her entire being tremble with longing.

Ready to swoon, she moved against his hard body, opening up to the full sexy onslaught, but he pulled back and released her. He gazed at her, his eyes unreadable, then traced the outline of her face with his finger. He pressed her lower lip with his thumb and her insides melted in the blaze.

‘You taste douce.’ His voice was a little gravelly.

Douce. Douce? Was that all? To her parched senses he tasted like man and sex and long, hot nights.

With her adrenaline pumping like crazy, they resumed walking until they reached the end of the path where the boat-house gazed out over the water, its windows blank and enigmatic. As they stepped onto the boardwalk near the landing stage, the moonlight contoured the Frenchman’s face with hard lines and angles. She caught the desire glowing in his velvet eyes, and felt confused.

Having seduced her thus far, was he having second thoughts?

‘What sort of things inspire you to write?’ he said.

‘Oh, well.’ She made an expansive motion with her hand. ‘All sorts. Owls. The moon.’ His mouth was so achingly close. Her lips, her entire being hungered to be touched, stroked, enjoyed, caressed, pampered, kissed, loved …

Would he touch her again, or was that it?

‘Owls?’ He sounded surprised.

‘Oh, owls are really very magical, ethereal beings. Have you … have you ever read—Rebecca?’

He frowned in thought. ‘What is that? Is it to do with owls?’

‘No, no.’ She laughed heartily. ‘It’s … I guess it’s a romance. A—mystery. A bit of a thriller. Rebecca has the family boat-house furnished like a private apartment. Her secret love nest where she can meet her illicit lover.’

He lifted his hands. ‘I don’t think I know it. Romances, enfin …’ He made an amused, negative shrug.

What an idiot she was. Of course men didn’t read romances. Just as well, or they’d know too much.

His eyes glinting, he cast a smiling glance at Neil and Em’s boathouse. ‘What do you think? Would this one—have furniture?’

All the fine hairs stood up on her spine and shivered in suspenseful, gleeful exultation. She hesitated a breathless instant, then spread her hands. ‘Well, we could always see. I know where they keep the key.’

He looked keenly at her. Said offhandedly, like a guy who didn’t care one way or the other, ‘Are you sure?’

The thing was, though, his voice had deepened in timbre just that betraying bit.

She gazed fleetingly into his eyes, not needing to read beyond that hot, lustful gleam. He cared all right. He wanted her, and she felt propelled by a wicked, reckless desire to mount that untamed stallion and do something wild.

‘Sure I’m sure.’ Her breath came faster.

She slipped her hand under the iron tile between the pylon and the floor where she’d seen Neil hide the key a dozen times.

Bingo. It was there.

Her hands shook so badly as she fitted it into the lock, she had to hunch to prevent Luc from seeing.

Once inside, she was assailed with the boat smell of paint and varnish and salty, fishy weekends. Neil’s cruiser floated silently in the lower room, a ghostly presence in the silent dark. A flight of steps led to the upper loft where supplies were stored.

Shards of moonlight illuminated the walls. Shari indicated the way, stumbling once on the stairs. Luc took her arm to steady her.

She didn’t speak, just turned her breathless gaze to him. Even in the dim light his eyes were burning. Her blood ran hot in her breasts, fanned fire between her legs.

They finished the climb to the loft. She was trembling again, in the grip of something more elemental now than mere nerves. She faced him, aflame.

He pulled her to him. This kiss was a rough and hungry collision, his tongue in her mouth, possessive, lustful, his hands in her hair, moulding her shoulders, unfastening her bra. She dragged at his shirt and fumbled to release the buttons, avid to feel his naked skin beneath her palms.

With the mingled scents of aftershave, wine and man rising giddily in her head, she thrilled as he stroked her breasts. Then his mouth closed over her nipple and the blaze in her blood roared. She sobbed in deep quivering breaths as he slipped his hand inside her pants, caressing, stroking her engorged sex until she swooned with ecstasy.

Then he slid a finger inside her and massaged, sending waves of erotic pleasure thrilling through her burning flesh. She rocked against his hand, maddened, desperate.

‘Oh,’ she groaned, clinging to his shoulders. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’

To her intense disappointment his hand paused. She felt his hot breath on her neck.

‘I don’t have any protection with me,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Do you have anything?’

‘What? What?’ She could hardly believe her ears, but the exigency of the moment must have jerked her memory, because she dredged up an image of a thin emergency package in the deepest reach of her purse.

Maybe fate or the devil were on her side, for, scrabbling among the debris, her fingers located the precious article. She held up the battered package.

‘Here,’ she breathed in triumph.

She saw his eyes as he snatched it from her. Their focused, hungry gleam incited such an intense and burning heat in her, such an inferno of responsive lust, she could barely wait for him to sheathe himself.