He held it towards her, opening it. ‘Do you think she will like this?’ he asked.
There was such warmth, such hope in his voice, that Tara could not help but let a smile of equal warmth light up her own face.
‘It’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed, unable to resist touching the exquisite diamond engagement ring within. ‘She will adore it!’ Spontaneously, she reached her hand to his sleeve. ‘She’s a lucky, lucky woman!’ she told him.
And then, because she was glad for him—glad for anyone who had found a happiness that for herself could never be—her expression softened.
‘Let me be the very first to congratulate you,’ she said. And she kissed him on the cheek, an expression of open delight on her face.
* * *
Marc sat in his chauffeured car, frustration etched into his expression. He was burning to find Tara—the imperative was driving him like an unstoppable tide, flooding over him.
He was free. Free to take her back. Free to claim her, to make her his again. There was nothing to stop him, to block him—not any more. Had she been anything like he’d feared she would never have written that letter to him—never have said what she had.
He took it out of his jacket pocket again now, read it again, as he had read it over and over, his eyes alight.
Their expression changed back to frustration. To know that he was free to take her back, to renew what had been between them and yet not to be able to find her...! It was intolerable—unbearable.
But she was not to be found.
He had gone to her flat last night, heading there the moment the private jet from Le Bourget had landed at City Airpo
rt, after urging the car through the traffic, to be told in an offhand fashion by a flatmate that she was away, and they had no idea where.
Thwarted, he had had to repair to his hotel, to kick his heels, and thence to interrogate her modelling agency first thing that morning—only to be informed that she had no modelling engagements that day and that they had no idea where she was and did not care. For reasons of confidentiality they would not give him her mobile number—which he, for reasons now utterly incomprehensible to him, had never known. They would let him know he was trying to contact her, and that was all.
He glowered, face dark, eyes flashing with frustration, as the car moved off into the London traffic. He had occupied himself by calling in on the branch of Banc Derenz in Mayfair, but now he was hungry.
He did not want the manager’s company for lunch. He didn’t want anyone’s company. Only one person.
It burned within him...his sense of urgency, his mounting sense of frustration that he had come to London to find her—claim her. To throw lifelong caution to the winds and to ride the instinct that was driving him now, that her letter had let loose, like a tidal wave carrying him forward...
His car pulled up at his hotel. The very same hotel where he’d deposited Celine the first night that Tara had come into his life.
He’d wanted her then—had felt that kick of desire from the first moment of seeing her, so unwillingly responding to his impatient summons at that benighted fashion show, had felt it kick again when she’d sat beside him in the limo, and yet again creaming in his veins as, with a deliberate gesture, he’d taken her hand to kiss her wrist...to show her that she might be as hostile, as back-talking as she liked, but she was not immune to him, to what was flaring like marsh fire between them...
A smile played at his mouth, as his mind revolved those memories and so many more since then...
And all those yet to come.
Immediately his imagination leapt to the challenge. Their first night together again... The sensual bliss would burn between them as it always had, every time!
His mind ran on, leaping from image to image. And afterwards a holiday—only the two of them. Wherever she wanted to go. The Caribbean, or maybe the Maldives, the Seychelles? The South Seas? Wherever in the world she wanted. Wherever they could have a tropical island entirely to themselves...
Nights under the stars...days on silver beaches...disporting ourselves in turquoise lagoons...lazing beneath palm fronds waving gently in the tropical breeze...
Anticipation filled him, surging in his blood...
The chauffeur was opening his door and he vaulted out. He would grab lunch, and then interrogate that damn agency of hers again. He’d already sent one of his staff from the London branch of Derenz to doorstep her flat, lest she arrive there unexpectedly.
She’s here somewhere. I just have to find her.
Find her and get her back. Back into his life—where she belonged.
He strode into the hotel, fuelled with the urgency now driving him...consuming him. Filled with elation—with an impatience to find her again that was burning in his veins. To have her unforgettable beauty before him once again...
‘Mr Derenz, good afternoon. Will you be lunching with us today?’