The Night That Started It All

Luc was aware other women were probably present. Pretty women with breasts and soft hair. Women with an air of mystery. Blondes. Legs, long and lovely, shimmering with every slight movement.

He just hadn’t until this moment burned to touch one particular one.

Shari eyed her vodka guiltily. Although why should she? She was free, single and twenty-eight, and it was a party. She called the waiter back and rescued another glass from the tray. Turning then to face her examiner, she held them up and waved them at him, then took a sip from each.

His frown intensified. He shook his head at her a little, and she felt her blood stir thrillingly. At the same time a nervous shiver slithered down her spine. This guy was inviting a connection. The question was—what kind?

Shari flicked a glance about to see who else he might be with. He must belong to someone. In that swish dark suit and black silk shirt only a madwoman would have let him out on his own.

But no. At this actual moment, he only seemed to be with Neil.

His dark eyes swept her, bold, sensual while at the same time mildly censorious. Was he disapproving of the vodka, or what? If it had been R'emy he’d have been pouring the stuff down her throat to make her more compliant.

This vodka was a highly underrated substance. She could feel a warm glow coming on. Amazing how it could boost the confidence. Despite the fabled ice packing her mouse veins, she was pretty sure if she passed by that guy she could scorch him with her body heat.

In a roomful of people, why not give it a shot?

Enough of all this shillying and shallying, surely it was time to hug the birthday boy. With a deep breath, and assuming her most glamorous and mysterious expression, she summoned her inner Amazon and swished across to Neil, where she planted some lipstick on his cheek.

‘Happy birthday, bro,’ she said huskily.

Dear old Neil looked appreciatively at her. ‘Didn’t I see you in the movies?’ He gave her a brotherly hug, then peered into her face. She had to steel herself not to flinch away for fear of him spotting the reason for her disguise. ‘That’s not a tattoo there, is it?’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you think, Luc? Do we want our women branded with frogs?’

But the guy’s dark velvet gaze had travelled well beyond her frog. He was drinking her all in, razing her to the parquet. True, tonight her curves were exceptionally appealing, but anyone would have thought this was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on a woman.

Though she seriously doubted it. Not with his bones.

Her chiffon top slid off one shoulder and she saw his eyes flicker to the bare section. Against all the odds, a shivery little tingle shot down her spine.

The guy queried Neil without taking his eyes from her. ‘Qui est-elle?’

‘My sister,’ Neil said, his arm around her. ‘This is Shari. Shari, meet Luc. Em’s and R'emy’s cousin.’

‘Oh.’ An unpleasant sensation rose in the back of Shari’s throat and she took an involuntary backwards step. The door guy. He hadn’t mentioned being related.

The guy’s eyes—Luc’s—sharpened, while Neil goggled at her in surprise.

Recovering her party manners with an effort, Shari pulled herself together.

‘Delighted,’ she lied through her teeth. Lucky she was holding the two shot glasses and wasn’t required to touch R'emy’s cousin. Just her luck though, Neil chose that moment to exercise what he considered his brotherly prerogative, and snatched the glasses from her.

‘Thanks for these,’ he said, and swilled the contents one after another.

Trapped. There was no preventing the Frenchman from taking her hand.

‘Shari,’ he said. ‘Enchant'e, bien s^ur.’ He leaned forward and brushed each of her cheeks with his lips.

Oh, damn. Her skin cells shivered and burned, though they’d been inoculated against the male members of this family.

Not that this guy resembled the Ch'eniers, with their reddish hair and blue eyes. Where R'emy was impulsive, surface cute and brutal, this cousin seemed more measured. Graver. Seasoned. Harsher face, experienced eyes. Dark compelling eyes, with golden gleams that reached into her and made her insides tremble.

‘Do you live nearby?’

Ah, the voice. The deep, dark timbre was even more affecting without the intercom, that tinge of velvet accent around the edges.

Clearly he didn’t recognise hers. She guessed she must have sounded different over an intercom with a busted eye and a swollen nose.

‘Paddington, across the harbour. And you?’

‘Paris. Across the world.’

She cast him a wry glance beneath her lashes, and he smiled and shrugged. The tiny, instantaneous communication lit the sort of spark in her blood a recently disengaged woman probably should have had the taste to ignore.

In a perfect world.

No wedding ring marred the tanned smoothness of his hands. A faint chime in her memory struggled to retrieve something of a story she’d once heard over coffee with Emilie. Something about a Parisian cousin, possibly a Luc—or did she say a duke?—and a woman. Some sort of scandal.

If he was the one, she didn’t care to imagine too closely what had happened with the woman. His part in it.

‘I see stripes are in this season.’ He continued to hold her in his gaze. ‘Do you always binge on vodka?’

‘Unless coke’s on offer.’

Beside her, Neil choked on the bruschetta he was wolfing. ‘Steady on, girl. Luc’ll get the wrong impression.’

She’d forgotten Neil. Smiling, she patted the brotherly shoulder. Neil needn’t have worried. Luc was receiving her loud and clear, all right. For one thing, he seemed drawn by her rose carmine lipstick. She was in a likewise hypnotically drawn situation. The more she looked, the more she liked. Her eyes could scarcely unglue themselves.

He didn’t seem at all fazed by her coke pun either. Instead, he smiled too, as if he understood she was kidding but it was a secret shared only by them.

‘You don’t look like a Ch'enier.’ Heavens, was that her voice? Suddenly she was as throaty as a swan.

‘I’m not a Ch'enier,’ he said at once, a tad firmly. ‘I’m a Valentin.’

That was all to the good. She tried not to betray herself by staring, but his mouth was so intensely stirring she couldn’t resist drinking in the lines. Stern, yet so appealingly sensuous. A mouth for intoxicating midnight kisses. The trouble was, a woman could never be sure how a man would turn out beyond midnight.