With Celine and Hans gone, and Tara tormenting him with his desire for her, there was only one decision he now wanted to make—and to hell with all his endless damn warnings to himself! To hell with the lot of them!
She was gazing at him now... Tara with her sea-blue eyes set in that breathtakingly beautiful face of hers, her lush lips parted, a frown still on her brow as he answered her question.
‘No,’ he said.
The emotion he felt was in his voice, and he could see that it had registered with Tara as well, for her expression had changed.
‘Gone,’ he elaborated now. ‘As in Hans has flown back to Frankfurt, where he will be consulting a divorce lawyer. As for Celine—I don’t know and don’t care. Presumably to find herself a divorce lawyer as well.’
Tara stared. ‘Divorce?’
‘Yes.’ Marc smiled.
And Tara, to her disbelief, realised that it was a genuine, hundred-carat smile.
It wasn’t just the shock of what he’d said but the dazzling impact of his smile that froze the jug in her hand. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said weakly.
He lifted his coffee cup again, tilted it towards her. ‘Congratulations,’ he said. ‘To both of us! It did the trick—my announcement to Celine yesterday that you were my fiancée and your oh-so-convincing behaviour that went with it!’
He took a mouthful of coffee and continued in that voice that was so different from any she had heard from him before.
‘It rattled Celine into making one last desperate attempt on me. When we got back last night she threw caution to the winds—and herself at me. Full-on. She told me she didn’t want Hans any more, that she only wanted me. What I didn’t realise at the time,’ he went on, ‘when I was disabusing her of her hopes, was that Hans overheard her saying she wanted to divorce him.’ He took a breath. ‘So he is going to oblige her and file for divorce himself.’
Tara’s face lit. ‘That’s wonderful! I couldn’t be happier for him!’
‘Nor me,’ said Marc. His expression changed again. ‘Celine will try and take him to the cleaners, but Bernhardt will make sure she gets as little as possible. He’s been on the phone to me already, thanking me profusely.’
His eyes rested on Tara. They were warm in a way she’d never seen before. So was his voice when he spoke again.
‘And I have to thank you too, Tara.’
His expression was veiled suddenly and his voice suddenly changed again. Now there was something in it that sent flickers of electricity through her, that quickened her pulse, made her eyes fix on his.
‘You don’t need me to tell you how damnably tormenting this whole thing has been! But...’ he gave a heartfelt sigh, rich with the profound relief that was the only emotion in him right now ‘...thank the Lord that is all over now!’
Inside his head Marc heard the very last of his life-long warnings to himself—heard it and dismissed it. He had not come this far, endured this much, to listen to it any more. Hans and Celine were gone—but Tara... Oh, Tara was here—and here was exactly where he wanted her...
And whatever else he wanted of her—well, he was damn well going to yield to it. Resisting it any longer, resisting her, was just beyond him now. Totally beyond him. Yes, she was a woman he would never usually have allowed himself to get this close to physically, but fate had brought them this far and he was not going to deny any longer what was between them.
Up till now it had been playacting—but from this morning onwards, he would make it searingly, blazingly real. It was all he wanted—all that consumed him.
She was gazing at him now, with uncertainty in her face—and something more than that. Something that told him he was not going to be the only one giving in to what had flamed between them right from the very start.
He smiled a smile warm with anticipation. With the relief he felt not just at Celine’s departure but at the thought of his own yielding to what he so wanted.
He poured himself some more coffee, helped himself to a brioche. ‘Now,’ he went on, ‘we just have to decide how we’re going to celebrate the routing of the unspeakable Celine.’
Tara looked at him. Part of her was still reeling from the news that Hans was finally going to get rid of his dreadful wife, but that was paling into insignificance because she was reeling from the total change in Marc.
It was as if a different person sat there at the head of the table. Gone was the tight-faced, ill-humoured, short-fused man who could barely hide his constant displeasure and exasperation. Just gone. Now an air of total relaxation radiated from him, with good humour and satisfaction all round...
The difference could not be greater.
Nor the impact it was having on her.
She watched him sit back in his chair, one long leg crossed over the other, completely at his ease.
Was this really Marc Derenz of the frowning brows, the steel jaw, the constant darkling expression in his eyes?