‘I don’t know why you’re cross, Seb?’ She’d pouted. ‘Why shouldn’t I have a bit of fun? Your father had an affair with that awful...’ She’d given a heartbroken sob and allowed the tears she could produce at will to fall.
‘I’ve heard it all before, Mother, so don’t expect any sympathy from me. Get divorced, have affairs, get remarried—I’m bored with the entire never-ending cycle—but if you embarrass Fleur again, we’re finished.’
The tears had stopped; she’d actually looked almost scared. Even though he’d known it wouldn’t last, it had still made him feel like a bastard.
‘You don’t mean that, Seb.’
On the point of retracting, he’d pulled back. ‘Every word,’ he had lied. No matter what she did, she would always be his mother, but this was about Fleur, and she needed protecting. ‘Do you ever think about the people you hurt when you’re doing exactly what you want?’ He’d searched her beautiful face for a moment before shaking his head. ‘Sorry, that was a stupid question.’
A scowl glued to a face that caused several female heads to turn his way, Seb strode towards the entrance of the Pink Unicorn that had been geared out for the occasion with, surprise, surprise, garlands of dried red roses. If there was one of those damn things on his pillow he would... He sighed and thought, what was the point? The rest of the world was so caught up with the romance fable one single voice of logic would be lost in the brainless babble.
Allowing himself a superior smile, he turned his head to brush the snowflakes that had begun to fall off his shoulder. The night might end with a few cases of exposure, he thought as his cynical stare brushed over the heads of the clusters of couples. The mild contempt etched into his lean patrician features gave way to one of stark shock as his sweeping survey came to a shuddering stop.
As he stared, the scorch of heat that began in his belly spread through his body like flash fire, darkened the intense brown of his deep-set eyes, framed by straight, strongly delineated brows almost as dark as his long, curling lashes, to jet black.
He didn’t notice what she was wearing beyond the fact the dress she had on was blue and he would very much have liked to see her without it. She had a sensational body, sinuous curves and endless legs, and the lust that had erupted at the sight of her gave a fresh kick in his belly and lower, where it settled as his hot, hungry stare slid over those delectable curves before he dragged it back to her face.
The sense of recognition was crazy because he had never even imagined a woman who looked like her, let alone met one. Her face was a perfect oval, but it was not the symmetry of her features that held his gaze or caused his stomach muscles to clench viciously, but her expression, as, laughing, she looked up at the falling snow, her head thrown back a little to reveal the long, graceful curve of her throat.
Her lips were full, her eyes big in the light from an overhead lantern, her hair a wild explosion of tempestuous colour, gold, red, then gold again, curls that fell down her slender back almost to her waist.
A whoosh of cold air hit his face, breaking the grip of the spell that had held him motionless for countless seconds. Lowering his heavy eyelids long enough to give his nervous system time to recover from the carnal impact of the redhead, Seb dragged a hand across his dark hair and released the breath that had been trapped in his chest in a long, slow, hissing sigh.
He looked again, already distancing himself from that initial uncontrollable visceral reaction. It had been a long day and he’d been too long without... There are some things, thought Seb, that a man cannot rely on his PA to schedule... Like a life...?
Just as he was making a mental note to free up his weekend and deciding who he might share it with—that part had never been hard for him—the redhead’s laughter drifted his way. Low and husky, it had a deliciously tactile quality. It felt like a finger running up and down his spine.
Not accustomed to envy, he experienced a twinge of something close to that emotion as he turned his critical, hostile gaze on the man who had invited this laughter...husband...lover...? As the thought slid through Seb’s head the man in question turned and placed a hand under his partner’s chin, drawing her face up to his.
This time, the sense of recognition Seb experienced was not to be wondered at: the lucky man was the husband of the local GP. Alice Drummond was a woman Seb had time for. She juggled a demanding career with two children and a husband who, at twenty, had written one book someone had called insightful, which was the sum total of his achievements to date, and he was still living off the kudos.