She was trying to silence the jangling of her nerves at his unexpected presence—in her bedroom, with her only in her night attire. She fought to make her voice normal, as composed as she could make it.
‘Or are you going to find a way of getting out of it? I don’t mind coping with her on my own if you want to bottle it,’ she added helpfully.
His expression darkened again. ‘No, I’ll have to come along as well. If I don’t she’ll end up landing Hans with some overpriced monstrosity!’ He gave an exasperated sigh.
Tara couldn’t help but give a laugh, though it earned her yet another darkling look. ‘I’ll take a bet she’ll go for the most garish, opulent pile she can find,’ she said, preferring to have a dig at Celine than let herself be distracted by Marc Derenz’s overpowering, and utterly unfairly impactful presence in her bedroom. ‘Gold bathrooms and crystal chandeliers in the kitchen.’
‘Very likely,’ he replied grimly. ‘Oh, hell, why on earth did he marry the damn woman?’ he muttered to himself.
‘Well, she’s certainly a looker,’ Tara conceded, still trying to make normal conversation. ‘Over-done-up, to my mind, but presumably it appeals to your friend.’
He shook his head. ‘Not Hans,’ he said. ‘The last thing he wants is any kind of trophy wife.’
Tara couldn’t keep the caustic note from her voice. ‘Are you sure? Most men like to show off the fact that they can acquire a woman that other men will envy them for.’
Marc’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that your experience?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s pretty common in the world I come from—models are, after all, the ultimate trophy females to make a man look successful.’
Was there bitterness in her voice? She hoped not, but being with Jules had made her wary. What would a man like Marc know, or care, about men like Jules, who needed to feel big by draping a model on their arm? He certainly wouldn’t need to.
A man as rich and as drop-dead gorgeous as he is doesn’t need to prove a thing to anyone!
The thought was in her head before she realised it was there.
Then it was wiped right from her mind. Marc Derenz had taken a step towards her.
‘Can you blame them?’
There was something different in his voice, in his stance, in the way he was looking at her.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, every nerve in her body was jangling again—louder than ever. What the hell was she doing, talking to him like this? Standing here in her bedroom, wearing only her silk pyjamas, while Marc Derenz stood there far too close to her, looking so unutterably damn sexy with his loosened tie, his jacketless shirt, the hint of a shadowed jawline...
She caught the scent of his aftershave—something expensive, custom-designed, a signature creation made for him alone...
And his eyes—those deep, dark eyes—like slate, but suddenly not hard like slate, but as if a vein of gold had suddenly been exposed in their unyielding surface...
She couldn’t drag her own eyes from them...
Couldn’t drag breath into her lungs...
Could not focus on a single other thing in the universe than those dark, gold-lit eyes resting on her...
The room seemed to be shrinking—or was it the space between them?
He started towards her again, lifted a hand. She caught the glint of gold at his cuffs, echoing that same glint in those dark eyes of his that were now holding hers...holding her immobile, breathless, so she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move...
She could only hear the blood surging in her veins, feel electricity crackle over her skin, as if all he had to do was touch her—make contact...
‘Can you blame them?’ he said again.
And now there was a husk in his voice, a timbre to it that did things to her insides even as his outstretched hand reached towards her, a single finger drawing down her cheek, lingering at her mouth.
His eyes were playing over her face and she felt a kind of drowning weakness slacken her limbs. Making it quite impossible for her to move a muscle, to do anything other than simply stand there...stand there and feel the slow drift of his fingertip move across the soft swell of her lips. Only his touch on her mouth existed...only the soft, sensuous caress...
‘Pourquoi es-tu si, si belle?’ His murmur was a low husk as he lifted his other hand to slide it slowly, sensuously, around the nape of her neck, through the tumbled masses of her loosened hair. ‘Why is it that I cannot resist your beauty?’
She felt her eyelids flutter, felt her pulse beating in her throat, felt her lips parting even as his fingers splayed across her cheek, cupped her jaw to tilt her face to his lowering mouth which she could not, for all the world, resist...