He started to ask what they were, but the owner of the auberge was approaching, asking what else they might like. They ordered cheese and coffee, changing the subject to what they would do in the afternoon. It was an easy conversation, relaxed and convivial.
Marc’s eyes rested on her as they discussed what she might like to see. She was so different, he observed. That all too familiar argumentative antagonism was gone, that back-talking that had irritated him so much. Oh, from time to time there was a wicked gleam in her eye when she said something he knew was designed to try and wind him up, but his own mood was now so totally different it had no effect except to make him laugh.
She’s easy to be with.
It was a strange thing to think about her after all the aggro, all the tension that had been between them.
We’ve both lightened up, he mused.
Only one area was generating any tension between them now. But it was at a low level, like a current of electricity running constantly between them, visible only in sudden veiled glances, in the casual brush of hands, in body contact that was not intentional or was simply necessary, such as handing her a menu, helping her back into the low-slung car as they set off again, catching the light floral fragrance of her scent.
His eyes wanted to linger on her rather than on the road twisting ahead. On their constant mutual awareness of each other. He let it run—low voltage, but there. This was not the time or the occasion to do anything about it. That was for later...for this evening. And then... Ah, then... He smiled inwardly, feeling sensual anticipation ease through him. Then he would give it free rein. And discover, to the full, all that he burned to find in her.
There would be no more drawing back—no more hauling himself away, castigating himself for his loss of self-control, no more anger at himself for wanting her so much...
I am simply not going to fight it any more.
He had not deliberately sought her out, or selected her for a relationship. She had come into his life almost accidentally, certainly unintentionally, because of his urgent need to protect himself from Hans’s amoral wife—but she was here now. And after all he’d had to put up with over Celine, damn it, he deserved a reward!
He glanced sideways at her as they drove back down towards the coast. And she deserved something good too, didn’t she? She’d done the job he’d set her—triumphantly!—so why shouldn’t he make sure that now she had as enjoyable a time remaining as he could ensure?
He would do his best, his very best, to ensure that. It was impossible for her to deny the desire that flared between them, and now there was no more aggravation, no more frustration, no more confusion, no more role-playing and no more barriers.
As his eyes went back to the twisting road ahead, and he steered his powerful car round the hairpin bends, he felt his blood heat pleasurably in his veins. Whatever the risks of breaking the rules he lived his life by—Tara would be worth it.
Most definitely worth it...
* * *
Tara sat at the silvered Art Deco dressing table, carefully applying minimal eye make-up—just a touch of mascara tonight was all that was needed—and a sheen of lip gloss. Her mood was strange. Everything was so similar to the previous night, when she’d been making up her face and getting dressed for that yacht party with Celine’s awful friends, and yet everything was totally different.
Marc was different.
That was the key to it, she knew. That ‘bear with a sore head’, as he had called himself with total accuracy, was simply gone. She couldn’t help but make a face at how he’d railed at her. This time yesterday he’d laid into her furiously in this very room for daring to take matters into her own hands, and to damn well lay off him! But her ploy had worked—and he’d had to admit it had worked even better than either of them could have imagined!
And now, mission more than accomplished, they could both have their reward for freeing poor Hans from his ghastly wife.
Reward...
The word hovered in Tara’s head. Beguiling, tempting.
She knew just what that reward was going to be...
Impossible not to know...
And to know with a certainty that had been building up in her hour after hour, all day.
Marc was right—whatever was happening between them, it was powerful and irresistible. They wanted each other—had done since first seeing each other, and had gone on wanting each other all through those torturous days when they’d both been forced to pretend in public what they had tried so hopelessly to deny in private.
They wanted each other. It was the one undeniable truth between them.
It was as simple as that.
Her eyes flickered around the beautiful room and she looked out through the windows to the darkening view beyond, over the gardens and the sea. Her very first thought on arrival here had been how gorgeous it all was, and how she should make the most of it.
Well...a half-smile played around her mouth...now she was going to make the most of it. And of the man who came with it.
The man who, even when he was at his most overbearing, his most obnoxious, his most short-tempered, possessed the ability to set her pulse racing, her blood surging, her heart-rate quickening...