‘Models?’
She said the word as if he’d said waitresses or cleaners. In Celine’s eyes women who weren’t rich—or weren’t married to rich men—simply didn’t exist. Let alone women who might possibly interest the likes of Marc Derenz.
Her eyes flashed petulantly. ‘Well, which one, then?’ she demanded. She was thwarted, and she was challenging him.
It was a challenge he could not help but meet—and he called her bluff with the first words that came into his head. ‘The one in the dress you didn’t like—’
‘Her? But she looked right through you!’ Celine exclaimed.
‘She’s not supposed to fraternise while she’s working.’
Even as he spoke he was cursing himself. Why the hell had he said it was that model? The one who had stiffened up like a poker?
But he knew why. Because he was still trying to put her out of his head, that was why—trying and failing. He’d been conscious of his eyes sifting through the crowded room even as Celine was cooing over the gown she was selecting, idly searching for the model again. Irritated both that he was doing so and that he could not see her.
She was keeping to the far side of the room. Not coming anywhere near his eyeline again.
Because she is avoiding me?
The thought was in his head, bringing with it emotions that were at war with each other. He shouldn’t damn well be interested in her in the first place! For all the reasons he always stuck to in his life. But he could remind himself of those reasons all he liked—he still wanted to catch another glimpse of her.
More than a glimpse.
Another thought flickered. Was it because she hadn’t immediately—eagerly!—returned his clear look of interest in her that she was occupying his thoughts like this? Had that intrigued him as well as surprised him?
He didn’t have time to think further, for Celine was counter-calling his bluff.
‘Well, do introduce me, cherie!’ she challenged.
It was clear she didn’t believe him, and Marc’s mouth tightened. He was not about to be outmanoeuvred by Hans’s scheming wife. Nor was he going to spend a minute longer in her company.
With a smile that strained his jaw, he murmured
, ‘Of course! One moment.’ And he strode away across the room with one purpose only, his mood grimmer than ever. Whatever it took to shed the clinging Celine, he’d do it!
His eyes sliced through the throng, incisively seeking his target. And there she was. He felt the same kick go through him as had when he’d first summoned her across to him. That racehorse grace, that perfect profile—and those blue-green eyes which now, as he accosted her, were suddenly on him. And immediately, instantly blank.
And not in the least friendly.
Marc didn’t give a damn—not now. His temper was at snapping point after what he’d put up with all evening.
He stood in front of her, blocking Celine’s view of her from the other side of the room. Without preamble, he cut to the chase. Whether this was a moment of insanely stupid impulse, or the way out of a hole, he just did not care.
‘How would you like,’ he said to the model who was now staring at him with a closed, stony look on her stunningly beautiful face, ‘to make five hundred pounds tonight?’
CHAPTER TWO
TARA HEARD THE WORDS, but they took a moment to register. She knew only that they’d been spoken with the slightest trace of an accent that she hadn’t noticed in his curt instruction to her before.
She had still been trying to quench her reaction to the man who had just appeared out of nowhere in front of her. Blocking her. Demanding her attention. Just as he’d demanded she walk across to him and Blondie and twirl at his command.
OK, so that was her job here tonight, but it was the way he’d done it that had put her back up!
As now he was doing all over again—and worse. Because she did not want to feel that kick of high voltage again, that unwelcome quickening of her pulse as her eyes focussed, however determinedly she tried to resist, on that planed hard face and the dark eyes that were like cut obsidian.
The sense of what he’d just said belatedly reached her brain, as insulting as it was offensive.
She started to open her mouth, to skewer him with her reply—no way was she going to tolerate such an approach, whoever the hell this man was!—but he was speaking again. An irritated expression flashed across his face.