Читать книгу Mills & Boon Modern Romance Collection: February 2015 - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 16

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘NOT ONLY BEAUTIFUL, but you also know how to cook!’ Darius looked appreciatively across the table at Miranda once they had finished what had turned out to be a very enjoyable meal.

And not just because the food had been every bit as good as it smelt.

No, once they had got over that initial tension, and had begun to eat their meal, the conversation had actually flowed quite naturally between them, and whether Miranda realised it or not Darius now knew the answer to at least some of the things he had been curious about earlier. Miranda’s favourite colour was red, her favourite food Italian, and she liked to read murder mysteries. And as that was Darius’s preference too, they had then had quite a lively discussion on the merits of certain authors as opposed to others.

‘A multi-tasker—that’s me,’ Miranda lightly brushed off the compliment as she stood up with the obvious intention of clearing away the dishes.

Darius put a restraining hand on the bareness of her arm. ‘Sit and finish your wine, and I’ll tidy these things away,’ he instructed as he stood up.

‘Helpful as well as handsome?’ she came back dryly.

Darius gave a slow smile. ‘Well, I’ll settle for handsome certainly.’

Miranda frowned as she obviously realised her teasing had backfired on her. ‘Don’t you usually have an army of minions to do this sort of thing for you?’ she teased as she slowly sat down and watched him clear the table.

‘Now, now, Miranda, let’s not spoil the day by arguing again,’ Darius drawled, before slowly stilling as he looked down at her through narrowed lids. ‘Or maybe that was your intention?’

Was that what Andy was trying to do? Put the distance back between them, by deliberately challenging him?

Maybe she was being contentious. Because she was feeling so defensive, after the last few hours had passed more pleasurably than she could ever have imagined. Darius had relaxed in a way Andy hadn’t believed he ever could, as they’d discussed books and theatre and art as they ate. No doubt the delicious red wine had also contributed to their becoming so relaxed in each other’s company.

But it wasn’t real, Andy reminded herself firmly.

Darius was...who he was. And she was who she was.

Outside this apartment, this moment in time, their lives were totally different.

Too different for them to have any reason to see each other again after today.

Even if Darius suggested it. Which Andy had no reason to suppose that he would.

‘Obviously it was.’ Darius sighed his frustration with her silence. ‘What have I done to make you distrust me so much—other than using blackmail to get you to go to the charity dinner with me?’ He grimaced.

‘Isn’t that enough?’ Andy gazed up at him crossly. ‘Darius, normal people don’t use blackmail to force someone into going out with them!’ she added as he looked down at her questioningly.

His mouth thinned. ‘You were being intransigent.’

She gasped. ‘And that gives you the right to use my brother-in-law’s job to blackmail me?’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘It gives me the right to use whatever means are necessary.’

‘No, Darius.’ Andy gave a slow shake of her head. ‘It really doesn’t.’

Darius eyed her impatiently. Obviously, whatever truce had existed between them while they ate was now over. ‘Why don’t you go and see if there’s a film on television we can watch together, while I clear away here?’

Miranda’s eyes widened. ‘You’re staying?’

It hadn’t been his original intention, no. The opposite, in fact. But somehow, this past couple of hours with Miranda had been more enjoyable, more real to him, than anything else had felt for a very long time. And Darius wasn’t willing to give that up just yet.

He shrugged. ‘I thought watching a film was part of the Sunday family ritual.’

She blinked. ‘You aren’t family.’

Darius gave an unconcerned grin. ‘We could always pretend that I am.’

‘No,’ she drawled. ‘We really couldn’t.’

He quirked a brow. ‘No?’

Andy’s eyes narrowed; anyone less like a member of her very normal family she simply couldn’t imagine. She was also a little thrown that Darius now intended staying on after lunch; she had felt sure that he wouldn’t want to, that a couple of hours of normal would be more than enough for him. ‘What do you usually do on a Sunday afternoon?’

He shrugged. ‘Work. Being wealthy isn’t all parties and holidays on private yachts, Miranda,’ he added as her eyes widened in surprise. ‘Of course it has its benefits, but Midas Enterprises owns and runs multinational companies all over the world, and we employ thousands of people. With all of that comes responsibility, to both those companies and their employees.’

‘Poor little rich boy?’

He grimaced at her derision. ‘Hard as it might be to believe...sometimes, yes.’

Actually, it wasn’t all that hard for Andy to believe at all; she had already realised that with great privilege came even greater responsibility. That no matter how nice it must be to be as rich as Darius and Xander Sterne so obviously were, to be able to buy what they wanted, and do whatever they wanted, that they couldn’t necessarily do it when they wanted. That they might be seen to play hard, but they also had to work hard, in order to run those companies they owned all over the world, and in turn continue to provide thousands of other people with their own livelihoods.

She stood up. ‘Then I suggest we leave clearing away the rest of this for now, and instead go to the park over the road and walk off lunch. We can choose a film to watch together when we get back. Does that sound a good plan to you?’

‘A walk in the park?’

Andy grinned as she heard the doubt in his voice. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of it, Darius. You place one foot in front of the other and—’

‘I know what walking is, Miranda. I can just think of a more enjoyable form of exercise!’ He eyed her expectantly.

‘And breathe in the fresh air,’ Andy continued with determination even as her cheeks warmed as the gleam in his eyes told her exactly what form of exercise Darius would prefer! ‘Admire the flowers, watch the ducks in the pond, the people walking their dogs, and the kids playing on the swings and slides. It’s what us less privileged people do for fun after lunch on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.’

‘Very funny.’

She chuckled as she reached up a hand and pulled the confining band from her hair, allowing its silky straightness to fall about her shoulders. ‘Stop grumbling and let’s go!’ She slipped her bare feet into a pair of ballet pumps near the door.

‘You’re awfully bossy today.’

She quirked a blonde brow. ‘You really shouldn’t complain when I’ve just cooked you lunch.’

‘I’m not complaining. Surprisingly, I think I like it.’ Darius stepped close enough for Andy to be able to feel the heat of his body. ‘Are you this forceful in bed too?’

Andy felt a quiver of awareness run the length of her spine as the huskiness of his voice caressed all the way to her core. Her breasts tingled with sensitivity, the nipples hardening and pressing against the soft material of her bra, and an aching warmth spread between her thighs. ‘I...’ She cleared her throat as her voice came out as a croak. ‘Could we just go for that walk now?’ she snapped impatiently.

Darius was still chuckling about her reaction as they left the apartment before crossing over the road to enter the park.

Andy’s complete awareness of Darius wasn’t helped by the fact that he insisted on holding her hand, his fingers laced intimately with hers, as they strolled through the park together.

* * *

‘Now do we get to enjoy my form of exercise?’ Darius murmured an hour or so later, as he turned to take Miranda in his arms the moment the two of them had re-entered her apartment.

‘Darius...’

‘I’ve been suffering the torments of hell for hours as I watched the way your jeans hug the tautness of your bottom and imagined your breasts beneath that over-large T-shirt,’ he groaned.

‘I don’t think that’s appropriate, Darius.’

‘Has anyone ever told you that you think far too much?’ He raised his hand to cup one side of her now heated face, the soft pad of his thumb moving lightly across the fullness of her bottom lip.

‘Has anyone told you that you don’t think enough?’ she countered. ‘Today, our lunch, the walk in the park, was as far as this goes for us, Darius, so let’s not do anything that might complicate things, hmm?’ she continued with determination. ‘We both know there’s absolutely no reason we need ever meet each other again after today.’

His eyes narrowed, his jaw tensed. ‘I don’t like that idea.’

‘Tough.’ She grimaced.

Darius looked down at her searchingly. Her windswept hair framed the delicate beauty of her face: those sparkling and long-lashed green eyes, the flush to her cheeks, those oh-so-kissable lips so soft beneath his caressing thumb. Her neck was gracefully slender, deep hollows visible at the base of her throat. Her nipples were erect and visibly aroused as they pressed against her T-shirt.

The warmth of his gaze returned to her flushed face. ‘I’m going to kiss you now, Miranda. And you’re going to let me,’ he added firmly as she seemed about to protest.

Letting Darius kiss her wasn’t what worried Andy—well, it worried her, but only because she had no idea where it would end. Or if it would end at all...

He continued to hold her gaze, his eyes seductively slumberous and warm and holding Andy captive as his head lowered towards hers.

Her lips parted, her breath leaving her in the softness of a sigh at the first touch of Darius’s mouth against hers; her body melted instinctively into his even as her arms moved about his muscled waist to feel the flexing of the muscles in his back as her hands moved beneath his T-shirt, and she touched the warmth of the bare flesh beneath.

‘Oh, yes, Miranda, I want your hands on me,’ he encouraged gruffly, his breath warm as his lips now travelled across the smoothness of Andy’s cheek and down the arched column of her throat, sipping, tasting, gently biting, followed by the moist rasp of his tongue against that sensitised flesh. ‘I’ve longed to do this since the moment I first met you.’ His mouth captured hers once again, more fiercely this time. ‘And I’ve ached to finish what we started last night.’

Andy’s half-hearted protest died in her throat as Darius’s hands cupped the cheeks of her bottom and he lifted her up so that her feet no longer touched the ground. She knew that everything that had gone before had all been leading up to this. To this moment.

Andy entwined her legs about his waist and the thickness of his arousal now pressed long and hot against her heated core, before his hips moved in slow and sensual arousal against her as he carried her over to the sofa before sitting down.

Her legs were draped either side of him as the kiss deepened, grew hungrier still as they took from each other, her knees resting on the sofa cushions as she straddled his thighs, pressing that lengthy hardness deeper against and into her, as her arms moved up over his shoulders and her fingers became entangled in the heavy thickness of the dark hair at his nape.

She groaned as Darius’s tongue licked across her parted lips, tasting, sensitising, before invading the heat beneath in a claiming sweep, his tongue a sensual caress as it stroked against hers, slowly at first, and then more demandingly as his hands moved beneath her T-shirt to unfasten her bra and cup her bared breasts.

Her back arched instinctively at the feel of Darius’s hands on her sensitive skin; she broke the kiss to give a pleasurable gasp as he captured her nipples between fingers and thumbs, her arousal increasing as he rolled and then lightly pinched those engorged tips.

‘This has to come off!’ Darius pulled her T-shirt up and then tugged it over Miranda’s head to remove it completely before throwing it and her unfastened bra aside, his eyes feeling hot and heavy as he gazed down at her bared breasts.

A lifetime of exercise meant her breasts were small, but perfectly formed, and he cupped a hand beneath each perfect up-tilting mound, enjoying the touch of her silky soft skin as he caressed and squeezed her before slowly lowering his head to capture a nipple into the heat of his mouth.

It took every effort of will on his part not to suckle greedily. He wanted to take this slowly, to savour and enjoy every single moment of making love with Miranda.

To show her that there was every reason why the two of them should—and would—meet again.

He sucked gently on her nipple, taking the time to taste her thoroughly, even as his tongue lathed and rasped across it. He was instantly rewarded by Miranda’s soft mewls of pleasure as her fingers clung to his shoulders and she arched into him, wanting more, demanding more.

Darius gave it to her as he captured her swollen breast in his hand before turning the attention of his tongue and teeth to its twin. He suckled hard as he drew as much of that breast into the heat of his mouth as he could, even as he rolled the length of his arousal up and into the heat between her thighs.

He groaned low in his throat, suckling deeper, harder, as he felt his own pleasure intensify, knowing he too wanted more, that he needed more.

Andy was completely lost to the pleasure of Darius’s hands and mouth on her breasts, and the hardness of his arousal pressing remorselessly against her. The pleasure built higher and higher as Darius continued to suckle and caress her, her body aching to be fulfilled.

‘Darius, I need—more.’ She moved restlessly against him, desperately seeking, needing him to press harder against that aching throb between her thighs. ‘Darius, please, I need...!’

His lips and tongue eased the pressure on her breast as he raised his head to look at her. ‘Tell me,’ he encouraged raggedly as his tongue now gently laved her swollen and rosy nipples. ‘Tell me what you need, Miranda!’ he encouraged fiercely as she made no reply.

Andy breathed shallowly as she undulated her hips against the hardness of his arousal, needing that contact, craving it as she was once again held captive by eyes that were now a deep, dark amber.

‘Words, Miranda,’ he encouraged throatily, the visible flush against the harshness of his cheekbones telling of his own desire. ‘I need to hear the words.’

She moistened the dryness of her lips. ‘I don’t—’

‘Tell me!’ His arms tightened about her.

She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. ‘I need you to touch me,’ she groaned pleadingly. ‘I ache, Darius.’

‘Where?’

‘Everywhere,’ she breathed agitatedly. ‘My breasts. Between my legs. Everywhere—’ She broke off as Darius’s hands once again cupped and lifted beneath her bottom, turning her so that she now lay full length on the sofa as he unfastened the button and zip on her jeans.

Which was when Andy remembered and began to panic, her hands moving to cover his in order to stop him from going any further.

‘I already know about the scars, Miranda,’ he spoke softly.

Andy stilled, hardly daring to breathe, sure her heart had ceased to beat too as she gazed up at him with wide and stricken eyes. ‘How could you possibly know?’

‘Logic.’ Darius gently removed her now unresisting hands before he continued to fully unzip, and then peel her jeans down to her thighs and further down her legs. ‘Your injuries in the accident were extensive.’

‘It wasn’t...’ Andy stopped her protest as she realised she had once again been about to claim that her fall four years ago hadn’t been an accident at all; no one had believed her then, and the last thing she needed right now was for Darius to think she was a bitter and twisted hysteric.

‘They would also have required several operations, painful ones,’ Darius guessed grimly. ‘Coupled with Tia Bellamy’s comments last night, about the ankle length of your gown, it isn’t difficult to guess that you have scars.’

He had managed to pull her jeans down the rest of the way as they talked, and he now discarded them completely, his breath catching in his throat as he turned back and saw that Miranda wore only cream silk and lace bikini briefs beneath. Her golden curls were visible against the dampened silk.

And the scars were visible high up on her right thigh—a delicate tracery of surgical incisions that had faded to silver during the past four years, but were still visible nonetheless.

They were scars Miranda now attempted to hide with her hand. ‘They’re hideous.’

‘They’re a part of who you are,’ Darius corrected gruffly. ‘Like war wounds,’ he added softly as he lowered his head and placed his lips gently on each and every one of those scars.

Andy made a choking noise in her throat. ‘Darius!’

He continued to kiss her scarred thigh as he murmured, ‘We all carry scars, Miranda. Some are visible, others not, but never doubt that we all bear scars from our past.’

Andy heard the bleakness underlying Darius’s tone, and wondered what scars he carried around inside him. Recalling the conversation between the two brothers the evening before, it wasn’t difficult to realise that it probably somehow involved the father Xander had described as a bastard. It was—

She gave a gasp, all other thoughts leaving her head, as Darius now hooked his thumbs into her lacy briefs and slowly, purposefully, slid them downwards, until he had her completely naked. Her breath caught and held, the heated warmth colouring her cheeks, as he nudged her legs apart before moving to kneel between her thighs, spreading her legs even further apart as he gazed his fill.

‘Beautiful,’ Darius finally breathed huskily before looking up at her. ‘You’re beautiful, Miranda. All of you.’

Miranda squirmed uncomfortably. ‘I’m feeling a little underdressed.’

Darius clearly heard the embarrassment beneath Miranda’s husky tone. ‘I believe I’m the one who’s a lot overdressed,’ he corrected as he reached for the bottom of his T-shirt and drew it up and over his head before throwing it onto the pile of her clothes already gathered on the floor. ‘Better?’

Andy totally forgot her embarrassment as she looked at Darius’s bared and lightly tanned torso. She drank in his wide and muscled shoulders and chest, defined abs, with not an ounce of superfluous flesh anywhere, testament to the fact that he didn’t spend all of his time behind a desk. There was a dusting of dark hair covering the middle of his chest and tapering down beneath the waistband of his jeans. He was the one who was beautiful, mouth-wateringly so.

‘I’m going to taste you now, Miranda,’ he growled hungrily in warning even as he slid down the couch until he was settled between her thighs, the width of his shoulders forcing her legs even further apart.

‘I— Oh, dear Lord...!’ Andy groaned as she felt Darius’s tongue sweep slowly over her, gasping as he hummed his pleasure.

She couldn’t resist looking down at him, so dark and primal against her fairness, his lids closed, dark lashes fanning the sharp planes of his cheeks.

Andy’s fingers curled into the darkness of his hair as she thought she might die from the pleasure of his lips and tongue.

‘I need you to touch me too, Miranda,’ he encouraged as he moved up onto his knees, unfastening the button and zip of his jeans and pulling them down.

Andy was thrilled to see his excitement and to know that she was the cause of his arousal. She hesitated only briefly before her fingers closed about his length, amazed at how soft the skin was that encased the steel hardness beneath. Instinctively she moved her hand up and over, mimicking the rhythm he had resumed as he continued to caress her with his tongue.

‘Harder, Miranda,’ he paused to groan achingly. ‘Faster.’

She drew her breath in sharply, her fingers tightening about him, squeezing harder, as Darius’s mouth closed completely about her and he suckled deeply, at the same time as he slid first one and then a second finger deep inside her.

Her pleasure rose higher still, threatening to consume her as it rose to a crescendo. Higher, and then higher still, until Andy felt that wave hold, crest, before exploding in a kaleidoscope of sensations, emotions and colours that left her gasping.

Beneath her hand she felt Darius harden before he joined her in his own shuddering climax.

Darius was breathing heavily as he lay against Miranda’s thighs, too physically satiated to want to move. Instead he simply enjoyed the pleasure of having her fingers moving caressingly through his hair as she lay just as relaxed beneath him.

It had never been like this for him before. So intense. So immediate. To the degree that Darius hadn’t been able to control or stem his own pleasure, and he’d experienced the deepest and most intense climax of his life.

Damn it, the two of them had made out on Miranda’s sofa like a couple of teenagers!

Darius might have laughed at himself for that adolescent eagerness if he weren’t so bemused by it.

Not just bemused, utterly confused.

He’d been sexually active since he was in his teens and had always enjoyed sex as a recreation, a release of tension, but this—this time with Miranda had been unlike anything he had ever known before.

He’d felt a connection, the emotions so intense, he had been unable to stop himself from climaxing in her hand like that overeager teenager. And he hadn’t even been inside her yet!

A fact his body was only too well aware of, if the stirring of renewed arousal was any indication.

What did it mean?

What did he want it to mean?

He liked Miranda. Admired her even. But was it more than that? Could it be more than that?

How was he supposed to think, about anything, when Miranda still lay naked beneath him, and with the smell of her feminine musk invading, capturing, all of his senses?

Distance.

He needed distance.

Between himself and Miranda.

Except he couldn’t think of any way, any graceful way that was, to extricate himself from between her naked thighs, let alone from her apartment!

For goodness’ sake, he was Darius Sterne, billionaire businessman, well known for keeping his emotional distance from all but his twin Xander—to the point that several of the women he had been physically involved with in the past had accused him of being cold and ruthless.

But he freely admitted that he had no idea right now how to escape this situation without hurting Miranda. And he didn’t want to hurt her; he just needed to get away from her for long enough to be able to think straight. To be able to bring some perspective to the situation. To see if there was any perspective to be found!

The question was how?

This was also something which had certainly never bothered him in the past.

He didn’t believe himself to be a deliberately cruel man when it came to the women he had been involved with, he had just never been interested in them outside the bedroom.

He already knew that Miranda wasn’t anything like the women he usually slept with. She was nothing like the models and actresses he usually took to bed. They were women who were only too willing to sleep with him, even if for nothing more than the boost the publicity of just being seen out with one of the Sterne brothers could and would give to her career.

Had he always chosen women who were deliberately no threat to his closed-off heart?

Maybe.

But Miranda was different.

He’d had to blackmail Miranda into going out with him at all!

He sensed that she was extremely vulnerable, emotionally as well as physically, and his own emotional scars from the past, and the estrangement between his mother and himself, made him the very last man she should ever become involved with.

Which was why Darius needed to leave.

Now!

He pulled away from her, deliberately not looking at her nakedness as he rose to his feet, knowing that if he did his resolve would weaken, and he would simply end up making love with her again.

‘Bathroom?’ he prompted gruffly as he refastened his jeans before pulling his T-shirt back on.

* * *

Darius’s thought were an enigma to Andy, but the fact that he couldn’t even look at her as he dressed didn’t bode well for what he might have been planning in his head for these past few moments.

Which was fine, because Andy couldn’t look at him either, now that the euphoria and pleasure had faded and the stark reality of the fact that she had just made love with Darius on her own sofa became all too embarrassingly apparent.

She had never had a man caress her so intimately before. It made her blush just to think of what she and Darius had just enjoyed together!

At the same time as she couldn’t forget the ecstasy he’d brought her. It was a pleasure such as Andy had never dreamed possible, let alone ever imagined sharing with Darius Sterne.

He might be physically and emotionally distant now, but he hadn’t been at all the cold lover she had feared he would be. No, he had been so considerate of her, so caring of her physical shyness. He had even kissed the scars she had hidden away these past four years!

Which, Andy admitted, had been her complete undoing.

How could she have resisted a man who saw those scars as battle wounds rather than the unsightly imperfection Andy had always considered them to be?

She couldn’t. She hadn’t wanted to.

And Darius had made her first physical encounter so beautiful.

Enough so that she could feel herself falling in love with him?

Whatever her own feelings on the matter, Darius’s distant behaviour told her that the closeness was over.

‘Up the stairs and on the right,’ she answered him huskily, frowning as Darius turned abruptly on his heel and strode off in the direction of the bathroom without so much as glancing back.

It gave Andy time to quickly gather up her scattered clothes, so that she could dress before Darius came back. Except, she realised as soon as she sat up, that there was no way she could put her clothes back on when her thighs and abdomen still bore the evidence of Darius’s climax.

How embarrassing was that!

Maybe if she made a quick run for the kitchen, grabbed a towel, and—

Before she could so much as move Darius had come back out of the bathroom and run lightly down the half a dozen steps onto the main floor space. He was carrying one of her fluffy gold bath towels in his hand, his eyes unreadable as he strode purposefully towards her.

Suddenly acutely aware of her nakedness she instinctively crossed one knee over the other before she leant forward with her elbow on her knee, effectively shielding at least part of her nakedness from him.

‘Here.’

The expression in his eyes was hidden behind hooded lids as he handed her the towel before turning away again, shoulders hunched as he thrust his hands into the pockets of jeans. With his back to her he gave Andy the privacy she needed to use the towel before pulling her clothes back on.

‘Do we need to talk about this?’

The fact that he needed to ask, and the way in which he asked, told Andy that what Darius was actually saying was that he didn’t want to talk about it.

That he regretted what had happened.

Andy wasn’t sure how she felt about what their lovemaking had revealed to her. But no doubt she would have days and weeks in which to agonise over her feelings.

When she would never hear from Darius again.

Which, Andy realised, saddened her more than she liked to admit.

She had tried from the first to resist her attraction to Darius, knew from their first meeting, when she had been so instantly aware of him that it was a foolish attraction at best, and a dangerous one at worst. An attraction she had guessed would only bring her heartache.

She now knew for certain that it would.

Because her reaction to Darius today, and their lovemaking just now, told her that she had allowed her heart to become involved. She had no idea if that tumult of emotions was actually love, but she definitely had strong feelings for Darius, much stronger feelings than she had ever felt for any other man. Strong enough that she had allowed him to see her scars. That she had then given herself to him willingly.

She hadn’t really needed to read all that stuff online about Darius, regarding the history of his brief physical relationships with beautiful models and actresses, to know that he wasn’t the type of man who did emotional relationships.

Any more than Andy was a woman who did purely physical ones.

Although Darius certainly couldn’t be blamed for thinking that she was, after the way she had behaved with him just now.

The best that she could hope for now was to try to salvage at least some of her pride.

She stood up. ‘So...’ She frowned at the sound of a mobile phone ringing. It wasn’t hers.

Darius muttered under his breath as he drew his mobile from the back pocket of his jeans, a frown between his eyes as he checked the number on the screen. ‘I’m sorry but I have to take this.’

Andy nodded abruptly as she turned away to finish tidying up the kitchen, leaving Darius the privacy to take his call. Or at least it started out that way.

‘What the—? When?’ he demanded of the caller harshly. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Tell Xander... Never mind, I’ll tell him myself when I get there.’ He ended the call abruptly. ‘I have to leave immediately, Miranda.’ He sounded distracted.

Andy had already guessed that much from Darius’s half of the conversation. ‘Is everything okay? Well, obviously it isn’t.’ She grimaced. ‘What’s happened to Xander?’ She watched Darius closely, easily noting the pallor of his cheeks, and the shadows in his eyes.

He frowned grimly. ‘He was involved in a car accident during the early hours of this morning, but the hospital had no idea who to contact until he regained consciousness a short time ago and could tell them my mobile number.’

Andy took a step towards him, only to come to an abrupt halt as she recognised that at some time over the past thirty seconds he had placed an invisible wall about himself, and one which she couldn’t penetrate. ‘Is he going to be okay?’

‘Let’s hope so.’ Darius intended to find out the details of Xander’s injuries for himself later; for the moment it was enough to take in that his twin was injured and in the hospital. ‘I really do have to go to him, Miranda.’

‘Well, of course you do,’ she accepted briskly.

Earlier Darius had wanted—needed—to put some distance between them, if only so that he could clear his head enough to try and work out what the hell had happened here today. But he certainly hadn’t wanted to leave under these circumstances.

The sooner Darius could get to the hospital, and see his twin for himself, the better he would like it.

‘Would you like me to drive you to the hospital?’

Darius looked up sharply. ‘Sorry?’

‘I asked if you would like me to drive you to the hospital,’ Andy repeated softly.

‘Why?’ He looked totally bewildered by the offer.

‘It’s what friends do for each other, Darius.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Besides—’ she avoided meeting his piercing gaze ‘—you’re obviously upset, and probably shouldn’t be driving at the moment.’

He continued to frown as he gave a slow shake of his head. ‘I’m going to need my car later...’

‘Then I’ll drive you there in your car and get a taxi back. Look, I’m not asking any longer, Darius, I’m telling you I’m driving you to the hospital,’ she added briskly. An uncertain Darius was definitely out of character. ‘What happens after that will be completely up to you.’

Although she already had a feeling that she wouldn’t be seeing Darius again after today.