The Dark Side of Desire (6 page)

Making some anodyne reply to whatever it was Anita had just said to him, he turned full face to Flavia.

‘If events such as this one tonight are not to your taste, what
do
you care to do with your evenings? Parties? Clubbing?’ Deliberately he suggested two things that he’d bet she’d loathe.

He could see her start and stiffen visibly as he addressed
her. Presumably she’d thought he’d turned his unwanted attentions to Anita and she was off his unwelcome hook.

As if all too aware of his daughter’s intransigence, Alistair Lassiter answered for her. ‘Oh, Flavia’s a real culture-vulture,’ he effused heartily. ‘Offer her a Shakespeare play and she’s perfectly happy.’

Leon lifted an eyebrow. ‘Indeed? And have you seen the current West End production of
Hamlet
?’ He directed his question at Flavia.

‘No.’ The answer was forced from her.

‘Then I would be delighted to take you,’ came Leon’s smooth reply.

‘I don’t like the lead actor,’ Flavia riposted shortly.

‘The National has
Twelfth Night
running,’ countered Leon.

She looked straight at him. ‘I’ve seen it too often,’ she replied, sounding bored.

No way, no
way
was she going to get cornered into going to the theatre with Leon Maranz. Anyway, she reminded herself with relief, this time tomorrow she’d be back home in Dorset.

‘The National’s production is highly innovative,’ Leon came back.

‘I prefer traditional interpretations,’ Flavia returned dismissively.

She knew she was being ungracious and rude, and hated herself for it, but she had to do whatever was necessary to get Leon Maranz’s attention off her. It was like being caught in a searchlight, pinning her down, trying to disarm her to get past her guard, her desperate defences.

It was imperative that she hold him at bay. Now even more so. Her father’s ingratiating suggestion about the theatre had sent alarm bells ringing yet again. He evidently wanted her to go out with the man, and the only reason he wanted that must be that he’d decided it would further his ambitions to do lucrative business with Leon Maranz.

I won’t be used like that! I won’t!

The rejection was vehement, adamant. She had never let
herself be set up by her father in such a way, and she wouldn’t start now! Not even with a man she was so attracted to.
That
was why she had to cut Leon Maranz—even if it meant she had to resort to open rudeness the way she was doing. He wouldn’t leave her alone, wouldn’t accept that she was refusing to have anything to do with him, refusing to give an inch, a centimetre to him.

And if she didn’t …

Like a traitor to her resolve, her gaze refocussed, for a fleeting moment, on his face. She could feel her pulse surge treacherously even as she hated herself for succumbing. Feel her eyes flare, her breath quicken.

Why this man?

That was the impossible question. The one she had no answer to. The one that confounded everything.

But it doesn’t matter!
The cry sounded in her head, silencing the question she could not—would not—answer. It didn’t matter why this man? Because the only salient thing about him was that he was all bound up with her father and his endless attempts to use her to his own advantage. And because of that it didn’t matter a damn what she thought of Leon Maranz, or what she might otherwise do about the way he looked at her, the way he got under her skin, the way he got past her guard, the way he made her feel. It just didn’t matter!

And this evening didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter that she was being rude to him. It didn’t matter that her father was clearly hopping mad at the way she was behaving, and that Anita was throwing dagger-looks at her. Or that Leon Maranz’s eyes were resting on her as if he had just lifted a stone and seen something crawl out from underneath it

It just didn’t matter …

For a moment sheer, raw misery filled her, intermingled with the self-contempt she could feel flushing through her for the way she was being right now—the way she had been ever since she had realised that it was
this
man her father wanted
her to be nice to. He wanted her to accept his company, his attentions, his invitation to go the theatre with him.

Resentment spiked through her misery. Resentment at her father for putting her in this invidious position in the first place, for not giving a damn about her at all and never having done, for not caring about her mother, or her grandmother, or anyone else except himself and what he wanted. Resentment of Leon Maranz, who wanted to do business with a man like her father and who assumed she was nothing more than a pampered, workshy snobbish socialite!

And yet underlying all those layers of resentment was a deeper layer still—resignation. Resignation because with her grandmother to care for any relationship with anyone was impossible … just impossible …

Emotion twisted inside her, like wires around her throat.

‘I
adore
the theatre!’ Anita’s breathless gush was a welcome invasion of her inner turmoil. ‘And cabaret especially.’ Her eyes widened as if she’d had a sudden idea. ‘There’s a really good new cabaret club opened recently—it’s got rave reviews. How about if we all go on to it now?’ She beamed.

‘Great idea,’ Alistair Lassiter enthused, getting heavily to his feet. ‘I think we’ve done our bit here,’ he said portentously, nodding at the charity signage.

Anita stood up eagerly. ‘Brilliant!’ she breathed, and radiated her fulsome smile at Leon.

Flavia’s heart sank.
Oh, no
. To be dragged off to some wretched club—please, no!

But Leon Maranz was shaking his head. ‘I’ve an early start tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I must be making a move.’

Thank God, Flavia found herself thinking fervently. But the next moment she realised she had been premature—disastrously premature.

‘Well, in that case,’ her father was saying, holding Anita closely at his side, ‘I’d be very grateful if you could see my daughter home safely. You’d be all right with that? I’d worry about her otherwise.’

He spoke with his customary public doting fondness that made Flavia cringe at its falsity. And at the implications of what he’d just asked Leon Maranz to do.

She stood up hastily. ‘I’m perfectly capable of getting a taxi,’ she said tartly.

But Leon Maranz had got to his feet as well. ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he replied. His voice was smooth, emollient. ‘Of course I’ll see you home.’

Her father was rubbing his hands. ‘Good, good,’ he said. ‘Well, then, if we’re all ready for the off …?’

Stiffly, relieved the ordeal of the charity bash was finally over, but more than dreading the journey back to her father’s apartment, Flavia walked briskly from the ballroom. Could she possibly manage to snaffle a taxi immediately outside the hotel and make her getaway?

But getting away from Leon Maranz when he was on the prowl proved impossible. Leon’s chauffeur was already holding the door of his waiting car open for her, and she had no recourse but to climb in. Thankfully the interior was huge, and she squeezed herself against the far side of the wide seat, hastily drawing the seat belt over her and fastening it, lest Leon Maranz attempt the office himself. But he had simply thrown himself into the other side of the seat, fastened his own belt, and stretched his long legs out into the spacious well behind the glassed-in driver.

A moment later the limo was pulling out into the late night traffic of Park Lane. It would take a good fifteen to twenty minutes, at best, Flavia knew with sinking heart, to get to Regent’s Park.

She wondered whether Leon Maranz was going to attempt any form of conversation with her, but to her relief he merely glanced at her, bestowed a brief, social smile upon her, then took out a mobile phone from his tuxedo and proceeded to make a series of phone calls. All were of a business nature, and Flavia allowed herself the respite of letting her head rest
against the smooth, cool leather of the headrest and close her weary eyes.

She didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to see him, long legs stretched out, shirt moulding his broad chest, strong, compelling features animated, as he gave what appeared to be a series of terse instructions to those who were presumably his minions. No, she didn’t want to look at him at all. Wanted to blank him out—write him out of her existence.

In a short while I’ll be done with him and this whole impossible situation will finally be over! I’ll never have to set eyes on him again!

She waited for relief to flood through her—because it must, obviously, at the thought of finally being shot of the man who had caused her nothing but nerve-racking jitteriness all the endlessly long evening.

But it didn’t come.

Instead she felt her eyes flick open, her head turn sideways. Her gaze light on the man who had caused her so much torment.

Out of nowhere she felt her pulse jolt, her throat catch. Her eyes fastened to him, to his aquiline profile, to his features cast into stark relief by the street lights as they moved across his face with the car’s motion. She wanted to gaze at him, not tear her eyes away. Just go on gazing at him. Drinking him in.

She was never going to see him again …

And suddenly—ridiculously, absurdly, insanely—she knew she didn’t
want
never to see him again. Didn’t want to know that for the rest of her life the most she would ever see of this man would be if she looked him up on the internet, or saw his photo in the pages of the financial news.

In this enclosed, contained space, with the anonymous driver invisible behind his smoked glass partition, the outer world beyond the tinted windows was shut out. The world that was full of resentment of her father and responsibility for her grandmother. It all seemed suddenly remote, distant. Instead, there was only the cocooning space of the car’s interior,
a world of its own, closed and intimate. Enclosing herself and the man sitting only a metre away from her, his presence so close it was like a physical pressure on her.

She caught the male scent of him—the faint aroma of brandy, of expensive lightly spiced aftershave. Saw the slight darkening of his jawline, the sable feathering of his hair, the profile of his long dark eyelashes. Everything about him was assailing her senses. She felt faint with it, her breath catching. She clung to the leather strap in the car’s interior, her other hand crushing her clutch bag, her breath held in her lungs, and she could not tear her eyes away from him.

As if in slow motion, it seemed to her, he turned his head towards her. Looked back at her full-on, meeting her helpless gaze. Helplessly she saw him halt his call in mid-speech. In slow motion he seemed to cut his call, slide his phone back into his jacket pocket, keeping his attention totally, completely on her.

And she couldn’t tear her eyes away—still couldn’t. She could feel her eyes flaring, her focus dissolving. Her breath was frozen, and his gaze on her made her feel as she had never felt before …

And then he smiled.

Not a brief, impersonal one as he had before.

A slow, sensual smile.

Personal.

Intimate.

It was as if the whole world had slowed down. The car was at a traffic light and the low, powerful throb of the engine seemed to be vibrating all the way through her, accentuating the slow, heavy throb of her own heartbeat. She felt herself dissolving, melting, kept upright only by the physical power of his gaze levelled on her, holding her like a physical grip, refusing to relinquish her.

He was forcing her to acknowledge him—to acknowledge his power over her. The power of his desire for her …

Of hers for him …

Because that was what it was—she knew it, accepted it. Whatever she might think of this man, she knew that he affected her in a way no other man ever had. In a way that she’d had no idea she
could
be affected. She might resist it, resent it, reject it—but she could feel the potent force of it, feel her susceptibility, her vulnerability. Feel herself, her body, the blood in her veins, answering it. Feel it drawing her …

She sat motionless, her eyes fastened to his, as the low throb of the car’s engine vibrated through her consciousness. She was there, in that captive space, the world beyond nothing but a dim blur of noise and discordant lights. All that existed was her—and the man now reaching out his hand, letting his fingers trail slowly down the curve of her cheek, a smile playing about his mouth.

And she let him. Let him smile at her knowingly, intimately. Let him reach for her, touch her. Let his fingers draw softly down the satin of her cheek. Felt a thousand nerve-endings sigh like velvet melting.

Let him curve his hand around the tender nape of her neck, the tips of his fingers shaping her skull. Let him murmur something … she knew not what. Because her gaze was held by his, liquid into liquid, and then his head was bending towards hers, he was taking her mouth with his.

She could not move. Not a muscle. Not a fibre of her being. Her entire being was in the sensation he was creating, the silk of his mouth laving hers.

Her eyes closed, helpless, as his kiss deepened. And she yielded to it—to him—for how could she do otherwise? How could she do anything but let this exquisite, sensuous touch go on and on and on? She arched towards him, yearning towards him, and the pressure of his fingers at her nape strengthened. She felt with a susurration of shock that his other hand was shaping her breast, splaying across it, and it was ripening to his touch, her nipple cresting against his palm. It was the most incredible feeling she had ever felt. Her mouth was opening to his, and all she wanted in all the world was to have him kiss
her, to arch her body towards him and feel it fire with a pleasure so intense she gave a low, insensible moan in her throat.

‘I’ve been waiting for this moment since the first I set eyes on you …’

His voice was low against her mouth. Husky, but with an intensity about it that penetrated through all the layers of her defences just as his touch, his possessing kiss, had penetrated.

For a long, endless moment his eyes entwined with hers, and she was helpless, utterly helpless, to do anything but let her gaze sink into his, let the slow, heavy slug of her heart resonate with his. His eyes held hers, his mouth grazed hers, his palm cupped her breast …