The Dark Side of Desire (2 page)

He was a rich man. She could see that easily. Not just because of his bespoke suit and clearly expensively cut sable hair, but because of the aura he projected, the air of supreme control.

A man to draw eyes.

Especially female eyes.

And she could see why—helplessly acknowledged the effortless power of his frame, the strongly defined features that comprised a blade of a nose, a planed jawline, a wide, mobile mouth and, above all, the dark, opaque, hooded eyes that were resting, focussed and targeted, on whoever it was he was looking at.

Who is he?

The question formed itself in her head, though the moment
it did so she tried to erase it. What did it matter who he was? There were any number of people at her father’s parties, and one more or less made no difference. But even as she thought it she knew it was not true. Not for this man. This man was different …

She swallowed, freeing the breath that had been stuck in her throat, and as she did she realized with a start that her pulse had quickened. Realised, too, with more than a start, with a hollowing, knifing dawning, that somehow—and she didn’t know how, couldn’t know how—the man’s gaze had shifted, pulled away from whoever it was in the room he’d been looking at and he was now looking at
her …

Right at her.

Instantly, instinctively, she veiled her eyes, shutting him out of her vision as if he were some kind of threatening presence—disturbing and disruptive—making herself invisible to him.

Tautly, she returned her gaze to the people she was with, and haltingly resumed her conversation. But her mind was in tumult, and when, some indeterminate time later, she heard her father’s voice directed at her, she welcomed the interruption to her mental consternation.

‘Flavia, my darling, over here a moment!’ he called in the doting, caressing voice he always used to her in public.

Dutifully she made her way towards him, trying to put out of her head the image engraved on her retinas of the darkly disturbing man who had so riveted her. She could feel agitation increasing her heart-rate.

As she approached her father the shifting pattern of guests moved, showing that there was someone standing beside him. Her agitation spiked erratically and her eyes flared involuntarily.

It was the man who had drawn her eye—more than her eye—a moment ago. Numbly, she walked up to her father, who was smiling with a benign air. ‘Darling.’ Her father’s
hand reached for her arm and closed over it. ‘I’d like to introduce you—’

Flavia let herself be pulled forward. Her mouth had gone dry again. She could hear her father saying something, but it was like a buzz in her ears. All she could focus on was the man standing with her father. The same tall, broad-shouldered, confident-stanced man she’d seen in the doorway.

‘Leon Maranz. And this is my daughter, Flavia.’

Her father’s voice was affectionate and indulgent, but Flavia didn’t care. All she could do right now was gather her composure, which had no reason—
no reason
, she echoed vehemently—to go all to pieces like this.

With palpable effort she made herself speak, forcing herself to say what was socially required. ‘How do you do, Mr Maranz?’ she said. Her tone was clipped, distant. Her acknowledging glance at him was the merest flicker, the barest minimum that social courtesy demanded.

She wanted urgently to take a step back, to move away, keep her distance. Up close like this, the impression he’d made on her that she’d found so disturbing even from halfway across the room was a hundred times stronger. Just as before she took in height, easily topping six feet, and shoulders sheathed, like the rest of his lean body, with the material of a bespoke handmade suit that, like the pristine white shirt he wore, stretched across a torso that was honed and taut. He might scream ‘filthy rich’, but fat cat he was not …

More like a sleek-coated jaguar …

That strange, disturbing, subliminal shiver seemed to go through her again as the thought passed across the surface of her mind.

‘Ms Lassiter …’

The voice acknowledging her clipped greeting was deep, almost a drawl. There was an accent to it, but not an identifiable one. She didn’t need a foreign name, or a foreign accent, to know that the last thing this lean, powerful, disturbing man was British. The natural olive hue of his tanned
skin, the sloe-darkness of his eyes, the sable of his hair and the strong, striking features all told her that—had told her so right from the moment she’d set eyes on him.

Her eyes flickered over him again, trying not to see him, trying to shut him out. She saw something glint briefly, swiftly gone, in his dark, black-lashed eyes—something that exacerbated the strange shiver that was still going through her.

She fought for control.
Self
-control. This was ridiculous! Absurd to be so affected by a complete stranger—some rich, foreign business acquaintance of her father that she neither knew nor cared about, nor had any reason at all to be so … so …
reactive
to!

Her spine stiffened and she could feel the motion drawing her body slightly away from Leon Maranz’s powerful orbit. Withdrawing a fraction—an essential fraction. Again, just for a barest moment, she thought she saw that dark glint in his eyes come again, and vanish.

She took a breath, instinctively knowing she was being less than courteous but feeling an almost atavistic urge to get away from the impact he was having on her. She gave the barest nod of acknowledgement to his return of her greeting, then turned her head towards her father. The relief of being able to look away was palpable.

‘I must check with the caterers,’ she announced. ‘Do excuse me.’

She could see her father’s face darken, knew she was being borderline rude, but she couldn’t help it. Every instinct was telling her to go—get away—right away from the man she’d just been introduced to.

Her glance flickered back to him, as brief as she could make it. His expression was empty, closed. She knew she was being impolite, but she didn’t care. Couldn’t afford to allow herself to care about her rudeness, her glaringly obvious reluctance to engage in any kind of social exchange with him.

‘Mr Maranz.’ Again the barest nod towards him, and then
she turned on her heel trying not to hurry, as she found herself wanting to do, to wave to the doors leading into the dining room, where a sumptuous buffet had been laid out by the hired caterers.

As she gained the sanctuary of the other room she felt her tension immediately ease. But not her heart-rate. That, she realised, was still elevated.

Why? Why was she reacting like this to that man?

She’d met any number of rich, foreign businessmen at her father’s social gatherings—so why was this one playing havoc with her nerves?

Because none of them had ever looked the way this one did!

None of them had had those dark, saturnine looks. None of them had had that packed, powerful frame. None of them had had that air about them that spoke not just of wealth but a lot more …

But what
was
that more …?

As she made herself walk the length of the buffet, pretending to inspect it, absently lifting a silver fork here and there to occupy herself, she knew exactly what that ‘more’ was. Whatever name you gave it, he had it—in spades.

She took an inward breath. It didn’t matter what he had, or that he had it, she told herself resolutely. And it certainly didn’t matter that she’d taken one look at him and felt its impact the way she had. Leon Maranz might be the most compellingly attractive man in the universe—it was nothing to her!
Could
be nothing to her.

Her face tightened grimly. She would never,
never
have anything to do with anyone she’d met through her father! Oh, he’d been keen enough on the idea of her socialising in that way—had actively encouraged it, despite her gritty resistance to any further manipulation by him for his own ends. Leon Maranz was part of her father’s world—and that meant she wanted nothing to do with him, whatever the impact he had on her!

Her expression changed. Bleakly she stared at the picture hanging on the wall above the buffet table. There was another overpowering reason why it was pointless for her to react in any way at all to Leon Maranz. Even if he’d been nothing to do with her father she
still
couldn’t have anything to do with him.

She wasn’t free to have anything to do with
any
man.

Sadness pierced her. Her life was not her own now—it was dedicated to her grandmother, dedicated to caring for her in this the twilight of her life. It was her grandmother who needed her, and after all her grandmother had done in raising her, caring for her and loving her, devoting her life to her, she would never, never abandon her!

Flavia’s eyes shadowed. Day by day the dementia was increasing, taking away more and more of the grandmother she loved so much, and whilst it broke her heart to see her declining, it was even worse to think of what must inevitably one day happen. But until that time came she would look after her grandmother—whatever it took. Including, she knew, dancing to her father’s tune like this.

Other than these brief, unwelcome periods away from home, she would confine her life entirely to the needs of her grandmother, stay constantly at her side. She would do nothing that wasn’t in her grandmother’s best interests. And if that meant denying herself the kind of life that she might have been leading as an independent solo woman of twenty-five—well, she would accept that.

So it really didn’t matter a jot that her father’s guest had had such a powerful impact on her—it was completely irrelevant! Leon Maranz was nothing to do with her,
could
be nothing to her, and would stay that way.

She gave a little shake of her head. For heaven’s sake—just because he’d had an impact on her, obviously it didn’t mean she’d had an impact on
him
. OK, so he’d seen her looking at him when he’d been standing near the doorway, but so what? With looks like his, a magnetically brooding presence like
his, every other women here would have done the same—were doubtless doing it right now! All she had to do was get a grip, stop reacting to him in this ridiculous way, and avoid him for the rest of the evening. Simple.

‘Tell me, are you always so short with your guests?’

She spun round, dismay and shock etched in her face.

Leon Maranz was standing not a metre away from her in the empty room. His expression, she could see instantly, was forbidding. Equally instantly every resolution she’d just made about getting a grip on her composure and not reacting to him utterly vanished. She could feel herself go into urgent self-protective, defensive mode. She stiffened.

‘I beg your pardon?’

The words might be polite, might theoretically mean what they were saying, but her tone implied utterly the opposite. It was as freezing and as clipped as if she was cutting the words out of the air with a pair of the sharpest scissors.

His expression hardened at the icy tone. ‘You should,’ he said. ‘What reason did you have for snubbing me when your father introduced me?’

‘I didn’t snub you!’ She spoke shortly, aware with part of her mind that she was once again bordering on rudeness, even though she didn’t mean to be. But her nerves were on edge—yet again. His presence seemed to generate such an overpowering reaction in her she couldn’t cope well with it.

He raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘What do you do when you
do
snub someone, then?’ There was a taunt in his voice, but beneath the taunt was another note. Something she could recognise because she knew there was justification for it.

Anger.

For a moment, just the briefest moment, she almost made a decision to do what she knew she must—apologise. Mollify him with a soft word. Defuse the situation. But even as she made that resolve, she made the fatal mistake of meeting his eyes.

And in them was an expression that she’d have recognised even if she’d been blind.

She’d have felt it on her skin—felt it in the sudden heat of her blood, the quickening of her pulse. Felt the wash of his eyes, the open message in them. Felt the breathless congestion in her chest.

He was looking her over … signalling his sexual interest in her … making it plain …

For one long, disastrous moment she was helpless, out of control, taking the full force of what was being directed at her. She could feel the hot, tumid breathlessness in her lungs, the flare of heat in her veins, and then—even worse—the betraying flush of her skin. A tautening all through her body, as if a flame were licking over her …

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t break away from the eyes holding hers.

Then slowly, deliberately, he smiled. Lines indented around his mouth, emphasising the strong blade of his nose, the sensual twist of his lips. Long lashes swept briefly down over his sloe-dark eyes.

‘Shall we start again, Ms Lassiter?’ he murmured, and the deep, faintly accented voice was rich with satisfaction.

And she knew why—because he now knew
exactly
the reason she’d been so short with him. Had found a reason for it that brought that sensual smile to his lips. The smile that was playing havoc with her resolve to be immune to him, to have nothing whatsoever to do with him!

For one endless moment her mind hung in the balance. All she had to do was smile back. Let the stiffness of her spine soften … let the rejection in her eyes dissolve. Accept her reaction to him … accept what he was so clearly offering her. The opportunity to share what was flaring between them so powerfully, so enticingly, to explore with him a new, sensual world that she had never before encountered but which was now drawing her like an enticing flame …

No!

It was impossible! Unthinkable. Leon Maranz moved in a world she didn’t want to have anything to do with. The slick, shallow, glossy, money-obsessed world her father inhabited, which was nothing to do with the reality of
her
life—a reality that had no room in it for any priority other than her grandmother. A life that could have no place for Leon Maranz or anything he offered.