The Night That Started It All (3 page)

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.

‘De
light
ed,’ 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.’