Lara tossed and turned, her frustration mounting as she heard Darian’s immediate steady breathing. As the night wore on tiredness gave way to anger and hot tears began to scald at the corners of her eyes. She felt alone and afraid and abandoned.
That’s only because it’s the middle of the night, she told herself. The lowest ebb of all is the hour just before dawn, when you seem to be the only person in the world.
Darian woke to a sound. A
little sniff. In the darkness, he frowned, wanting to ignore it, but there it was again, another tiny little sound, and he sighed. ‘Why are you crying, Lara?’ he asked softly.
‘I’m not.’
‘I know this must be a difficult concept for you to embrace, but couldn’t you just try telling the truth for once?’ he drawled sardonically.
She contemplated ignoring him, but just the sound of his voice reached out and comforted her, like a warm fire. A human voice in the dead of night. ‘Why do you think? It’s bloody uncomfortable on this thing!’
‘Well, you do have a choice,’ he remarked sagely.
Yes, she did. She could lie here like a martyr, or she could take a little decisive action. Picking up her pillow, she walked back over to the vast bed and slid in beside him, taking care to lie on the very edge.
‘Be careful you don’t slip off.’
His voice sounded amused, and it was the amusement which finally made the anger and frustration inside her snap. She flicked the light on, sat up and glared at him, spirals of hair tumbling all over her face. She impatiently pushed them away with the back of her hand.
‘Just why did you bring me here, Darian?’
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’
‘I’m serious!’ she hissed.
He could see that. The woman who had so entranced him with her feistiness at the casting was back. And how. Her cheeks flamed like roses and her eyes sparked a bright sapphire fire. His eyes drifted to her breasts and he felt his body jerk in reaction.
‘Why do you think I asked you?’ he asked tightly. ‘Because I was angry with you.’
‘Surely if you were angry with me then the most sensible solution would have been to wish me as far away as possible?’
‘But sense doesn’t come into it when sex is involved,’ he said bluntly. ‘Does it?’
His voice was curt, almost cruel. ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘It doesn’t.’
He had planned to have his fill of her. To make love to her over and over again, in every way and in every position. To learn every inch of her body like a man conquering a brand-new country. And only when he had done that would he move on and forget her.
But the time had not been right. Not before dinner, and strangely enough not now, even though they were in bed together and he was naked beside her.
If it had been any other woman he would have started to kiss her. He was experienced enough to kiss away her doubts and have her sighing with pleasure, a consummate enough lover to know how to make her beg for him. But he saw the dried track of a tear, the sudden tremble of her mouth, and something stopped him and he knew that he could not. Not when she looked so cold and so lost and so damned vulnerable.
She’s just acting again, he told himself furiously, but that didn’t seem to make any difference. And deep down he didn’t think she was acting at all—she wouldn’t bother pretending not to have been crying quietly in the dark if she was, would she? He got out of bed and slid on a pair of boxer shorts before climbing back in.
‘What are you doing now?’ she asked, a slight tinge of hysteria to her voice.
‘Allaying your fears that I might try it on in the middle of the night,’ he said gravely. ‘See? I’m quite decent now, Lara.’
Decent? If he had swathed himself from head to toe in voluminous sackcloth, then ‘decent’ would still be the last word she would have used. And now she was confused—from being fearful that he would try it on, that she would have trouble resisting him, her self-esteem had taken a great plummet. Didn’t he want her any more?
‘Come here,’ he said, almost gently, and pulled her against him.
‘No.’ She tried to resist the impact of that warm, living flesh. ‘Go away,’ she mumbled, but she didn’t move.
He smoothed the silken tumble of her curls, thinking how soft they felt, the scent of her shampoo drifting towards his nostrils with its wholesome fragrance. For the first time in his life he felt disarmed by a sense of protectiveness—he didn’t know how and he didn’t know why. He just knew that it couldn’t have come at a more unwelcome time. ‘Just go to sleep, Lara,’ he sighed.
With one final sniff she snuggled against him, and it felt like coming home. Like walking into a room with a fire when you had been outside in the cold. But that was all an illusion, she reminded herself. A wish and a dream and a desire—all mixed up in her head and a million miles away from reality simply because she was a million miles from reality.