Читать книгу The Night That Started It All - Anna Cleary - Страница 9

SHARI slipped from the downstairs bathroom, anticipation bubbling in her veins. Luc was across the hall, waiting. Like her, he was spruced again, as immaculate as if their stolen encounter had never happened.

She started towards him just as Emilie emerged from the dining room. They both halted, Luc backing into a convenient doorway before he was noticed.

‘Oh, chérie,’ Emilie exclaimed. ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you. What’s happening with Rémy? Where is he?’

Shari hesitated and glanced past her to see if Luc had heard. Her heart lurched when she saw his expression. He was staring at her, his eyes sharply alert.

‘Well, he … I—I—I don’t know for certain.’ In a low voice Shari added, ‘He’s gone away, I think. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, I promise.’

But Emilie wasn’t to be fobbed off. ‘You don’t know? Come on, Shari, something is going on. We haven’t seen either of you for months. He’s your fiancé. You should know. What game is he playing with you, chérie?’

As she felt the blistering intensity of Luc’s concentrated gaze on her face Shari’s guilty cheeks burned. ‘Tomorrow, Em. I’ll tell you everything. I promise.’

Emilie looked as if she was about to insist, but some other people burst into the hall, laughing, from the dining room, and she compressed her lips. She threw up her hands and exclaimed in a lowered voice, ‘It’s always something with him. When will he ever—? D’accord, Shari. Tomorrow. Don’t forget. I won’t sleep until I know.’ She hurried away to her guests.

Luc waited until they were alone, then bore down upon Shari, his eyes glittering danger. She felt an involuntary pang of alarm.

Resisting an impulse to back against the wall, she stood her ground. ‘I know what you must be thinking,’ she said in a hurried murmur. ‘It’s not how it looks. I can explain.’

‘Of course you can.’ His voice was smooth as silk and laced with sarcasm. ‘You are engaged to my cousin.’ His eyes were hard and accusatory. ‘That was you in his apartment.’

‘Shh,’ she whispered, glancing towards the nearby dining room. ‘Yes, yes, it was me, but no, I’m not his fiancée. Not any more. The engagement, such as it was, has been broken for weeks. Months.’

‘Then how is it Emilie doesn’t know? Your sister-in-law?’ He looked incredulous.

‘Well … I—put off telling them. Rémy’s her brother, Neil’s my brother …’ She spread her hands. ‘Em has had difficulties with her pregnancy and … She’s so attached to Rémy, and any bad news is bad for her blood pressure. Rémy talked me into keeping quiet because he wanted to break the news himself.’ She grimaced. ‘He’s probably dead scared of some of the things I might tell them.’

‘What things?’ His dark eyes were stern.

She glanced at him, then darted a glance towards the living room. ‘This isn’t a good place to talk. I’ll explain more when we’re alone.’ She slipped her hand into her purse and grabbed her mobile. ‘Do you have your own wheels, or shall I phone for a cab?’

‘A moment.’ He raked her with his eyes, then turned sharply away from her as if the very sight were deadly. He crooked an elbow over his eyes, shading them from some dangerous glow she emitted. His voice sounded as if it were being wrenched from the centre of the earth. ‘This—break-up. Just how recent is it?’

‘I said. I told you …’ Her voice faltered a little. She could see where he might be headed with this. ‘Not that recent.’

‘How recent?’

She started to feel annoyed at his tendency to fire questions like bullets. ‘Well, officially I gave the ring back a couple of months ago. Though by then it was well and truly on the rocks.’

‘“Officially”.’ He made mock quotation marks with his fingers. There was a definite snap in his voice that riled her. ‘What does that mean?’

She glared at him. ‘Look,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘not that it’s anyone’s business, but he and I imploded almost at the start, only like a fool I kept on …’

He swung about to impale her with his gaze. ‘Forget the excuses. Give me a straight answer. When was the last time you were together?’

Her blood pressure rose. ‘Does that matter?’

‘It may not to some guys, but I have a strong distaste for screwing women who are still hot from my cousin’s bed.’

She flushed. ‘I’m not hot from his bed.’ Her chest heaving with indignation, she added sweetly, ‘Though until a minute ago you could have said I was hot from your arms.’

For an instant his eyes flared, then he concealed them behind his dark lashes. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

‘Wednesday, okay?’

‘This week?’ His frown intensified, though his glance strayed to her mouth.

‘Yes. He was looking for his passport. He accused me of holding onto it after I threw his things out of the apartment. As if I would. He said he had to go to LA on the firm’s business.’

A tinge of contempt touched his face. ‘Vraiment. So … did you give him the passport?’

‘I told you. I didn’t have it.’

His dark eyes flickered over her, searching, suspicious. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe a word she said. The hackles rose on her neck. She was so over being insulted by the men in this family.

‘So,’ he said with maddening silkiness. ‘You sleep with a man on Wednesday, then you sleep with his cousin on Saturday.’

She hissed in a long, simmering breath. ‘Only if his cousin’s very, very lucky.’

The raw anger in her voice finally penetrated Luc’s brain. She wasn’t taking his perfectly natural concerns well. As he scanned her face his certainties suffered a jolt. There was a sparkle in her eyes that gave him pause.

Her luscious mouth was firmly compressed, when only minutes ago those lips had been so soft and yielding, so tinglingly responsive.

She turned away from him.

With quicksilver rapidity a dozen arguments flashed through his mind. From her point of view she might have been telling the truth. She was a woman, after all. What woman ever understood the dictates of honour between men? Particularly men of the same family?

The night’s original agenda scintillated in his mind’s eye. Perhaps he was being harsh. Overly fastidious. If she was no longer officially engaged …

And he’d be gone from Australia tomorrow. They’d be ships in the night, et cetera. Passing on the stormy seas of his bed at the Seasons. Plunging and plunging in the sweet, fresh sheets, her naked beauty his to enjoy to the full. Totally naked, and by lamplight …

Gazing at her sweet profile, he felt a renewed urgent stir in his loins. It would be too cruel to have to sacrifice this now. Rémy would never have to know.

At that admittedly seedy reflection shame started to seep through him. What was he doing? He’d come to relieve Rémy of his job, not his woman. For all he knew they’d had a mere lovers’ tiff and she’d be back in his bed in a few days.

Avoiding looking at her for fear of succumbing to temptation and throwing honour out of the window, he chilled his tone. ‘Let’s be adult about this. I think we have to acknowledge that our recent—interlude—was an error of judgement.’

She turned coolly on her heel and stalked away in the direction of the front door.

‘Shari.’ Galvanised to action, he caught up with her in a couple of strides.

A mere beat ahead of him, she was first to grab the door knob. As he reached over her blonde head to take it from her he heard a small startled sound issue from her throat and just for an instant he noted a curious rigidity in her. He touched her shoulder and she started, then spun around, alarm in her eyes.

‘Pardonne-moi.’ He drew back in concern. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

‘You don’t scare me. And you’d better believe that.’

Bemused by the tense glitter in her eyes, he tried to placate her. ‘You’re upset. Shari, please.’ He gestured imploringly. ‘Be reasonable. Maybe you’re angry with Rémy. Try to understand, I cannot allow myself to be exploited as a weapon of revenge in some—dispute between lovers.’

‘Exploited,’ she echoed, her voice low and trembling. ‘Revenge.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, why didn’t I see? You’re just like him.’

‘How am I like him?’ he retorted, stung.

Her eyes sparkled fiercely. ‘Everything you’re saying, every word is—is—accusing me of cheating. You’re calling me a-a-a slut.’

His blood pressure made a surprising leap, but he cooled that purely visceral response. ‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘I am far too polite.’

She wrenched the door open and walked quickly down the path.

After a second, driven by some impulse, he strode in pursuit. He’d almost caught up to where she stood outside on the pavement, when without warning she dashed forward and hailed a passing taxi.

The car drew into the kerb and she scrambled in. As it moved into the road she turned to cast him a last icy, burning look through the window.

He felt stunned. Nom de Dieu. What sort of guy did she think she was dealing with? With fire flaring in his veins, he raced for his hire car.

Attempting to keep her cab in sight among the many, he wove in and out of the traffic—absurdly heavy for a country of this size—rationalising his impulse. At least if he talked to her again he could explain his position more fully. Surely it was important to leave their encounter on a positive note.

They were practically family, weren’t they? She’d be grateful, as he would be. After all, it had been a fantastic few minutes they’d shared. Fantastic.

Her silky softness still seemed to be in his senses, her voice, her very essence … His hands tightened on the wheel. If he was honest, he wasn’t ready yet to call it quits with her.

They left the Harbour Bridge behind, wound a way through the neon city and plunged into a maze of narrow one-way streets lined with terraces. Having lost the taxi a couple of times, he thought he still had the same one in view, and was heartened when he saw the name Paddington on a shop front.

Wasn’t that where she’d said she lived?

Just his luck, he was trapped on the wrong side of a red light. By the time he started again, the cab was out of sight.

He cursed long and colourfully. Taking the direction he calculated his quarry must have taken, he crossed a couple of intersections before he reached one where he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone alighting from a stationary cab. The distance was too far for him to be certain it was Shari, but it was a chance. His only chance.

Curbing his impatience, he recircuited the block and waited for the lights again, drumming his fingers on the wheel in his urgency to backtrack.

By the time he reached the terrace he’d estimated was the one, the cab was well and truly gone, the street quiet.

Breathing fast, her heart still thumping painfully, Shari paused in the delicate task of stripping her face bare. She would not accept the verdict. She wasn’t guilty of anything.

She’d done nothing to feel ashamed of. She didn’t care what Luc Valentin thought of her. She’d allowed him to enjoy her body purely out of generosity.

She took some deep calming breaths to slow herself down, then, when her hand was steadier, gingerly dabbed the paint from the bruise, revealing it in all its violent glory.

Was it her imagination it looked worse? She cleaned her teeth, then changed into her flowery old oversized tee shirt and slipped into bed. Lying there in the dark, she rolled the events of the evening around in her mind.

It was his problem if he couldn’t appreciate an honest human exchange without labelling a woman. And the insulting way he’d refused to believe a word she’d said. What was that all about?

She was startled from her reflections by noise from outside. Her heart thudded until she remembered tonight was the neighbourhood’s bin collection night. Hers was crammed full to overflowing with trash left by the previous tenants.

She should get up and take out the bin. She should.

From his park across the street Luc scrutinised the row of houses in the terrace. He suspected 217 could be the one, for a light had recently gone out in its upper front window. Now the entire house was in darkness, as was its neighbour.

What if he was mistaken? He began to see how ridiculous his mad chase was. He couldn’t knock on every door in the terrace. And how likely was Shari to open the door to him anyway? She’d probably accuse him of stalking her.

Le bon Dieu, he was stalking. Whatever it was about her that had got under his skin was compelling him to linger there even now, when he knew he’d lost any opportunity he might have had if only he’d been able to keep the cab closer.

It wasn’t as if he could throw pebbles at her window. The chances were he might terrify some poor little old lady to death.

He was about to cut his losses and call it a night when he heard a familiar rumbling, then at 221 an old guy came into view hauling a wheelie bin. He trundled it through his gate and parked it next to some others lined up under a streetlight.

A minute or two later one after another all the lights came on at 219.

Luc waited, watching, then his heart leaped. Another bin was being wheeled from the gate of 219, this time by a woman.

A blonde woman.

He got out of the car and strode swiftly across the street.

She’d changed from her party clothes into some long, flowing robe-like garment, but as he drew nearer he saw it was Shari. Admittedly, his heart was beating a tad too fast for a cool guy in charge of the situation.

She angled the bin into line with its neighbours just as he caught up with her.

‘Shari.’

She jumped, and with a strangled cry started back through her gate.

Realising the enormity of having suddenly seemed to appear out of the dark, he was filled with contrition. ‘Shari.’ He only just restrained himself from grabbing her. ‘Forgive me for startling you. I—I only want to talk. I just want to explain …’

‘Luc.’ Her voice was stunned, incredulous. ‘Do you have any idea …? What—what are you even doing here?’

He noticed her draw the lapels of her garment close and fold her arms across her breasts. It affected him with a burning desire to hold her to him, kiss her hair.

‘Shari,’ he said thickly, advancing on her. ‘Shari …’

The light fell full on her face then, and he narrowed his eyes for a closer look. With a gut-wrenching shock he saw it wasn’t a shadow darkening the area surrounding her right eye.

She turned sharply away, covering the bruise with her hand, and started striding for the house. ‘Leave me alone.’

After a second of stunned paralysis, comprehension flooded through him and he was aware of a sharp twist in his chest. Her whimsical make-up had had a purpose, after all. He bounded after her onto her little verandah with the blind intention of pinning her down and making her talk to him, but she reached her door first.

Before she could close it, he rammed his knee against it. ‘What happened? Who did that to you? Was it him? Rémy?’

‘Of course not. What do you think, that as well as being a slut I’m a … a …? I had an accident, all right?’ She was flushed and trembling, so achingly vulnerable in her fierce pride he felt something inside him give.

Accident, vraiment. He couldn’t believe that. At the fragile pretence he felt so torn with tenderness and remorse, he hardly knew what he was saying, only that his voice grew hoarse. ‘Shari, chérie. Don’t be so … I didn’t mean to imply … This—this is not how we should say au’voir.’

In the verandah light her naked face was strained, her eyes dark with emotion. ‘We are strangers. We will never meet again. Move away from the door, please.’

She closed it in his face.