Billionaire's Mediterranean Proposal

Whatever she had—and he was still analysing it, with his male antennae registering her on every frequency—it was making it dangerously hard for him to remember the rules of engagement he lived by.

As she approached, the impact she was making on him strengthened like a magnet drawing tempered steel. Dieu, but she was stunning! And now she was standing in front of him, a bare metre or so away.

He scrutinised her shamelessly, taking in her breathtaking beauty. And then he caught a flash in her eyes—as if she resented his scrutiny.

His own eyes narrowed reactively—what was her problem? She was a model; she was being paid to be looked at in the clothes she was wearing. OK, so in fact she might have been wearing a sack, for all he cared—it was her amazing beauty that was drawing his attention, not her gown.

But, abruptly, he veiled his appreciative scrutiny. It didn’t matter how stunningly beautiful she was. He had not summoned her for any reason other than the one he gave voice to now. The only reason he would show any interest in her.

‘So, what about this one?’

He turned to Celine. The sooner he could get the wretched woman to spend Hans’s money on a gown—any gown!—the sooner he would be able to get her back to her hotel and finally be done with her for the evening.

His eyes went back to the model. The number she was wearing was purple—a kind of dark grape—in raw silk, draped over her slight breasts, slithering down her slender body. Again Marc felt that unstoppable reaction to her spectacular beauty. Again he did his best to stop it—and again he failed.

‘Hmm…’ said Celine doubtfully. ‘The colour is too sombre for me, Marc. No.’ She waved the model away, dismissing her.

But Marc stayed her. ‘Please turn around,’ he instructed. The gown was a masterpiece—as was she—and he wanted to see what she looked like from the back.

The flash in those blue-green eyes came again, and again Marc wondered at it as she executed a single revolution, revealing how the gown was almost backless, exposing the sculpted contours of her spine, the superb sheen of her pale skin. And as she came back to face them he saw an expression of what could only be hostility.

What is it with her? he found himself thinking. Annoyance flickered through him. Why that reaction? It wasn’t one he was used to when he paid attention to a woman—in his long experience women wanted to draw his attention to them! His problem was keeping women away from him, and without vanity he knew that it was not only his wealth that lured them. Nature had bestowed upon him gifts that money could not buy—a six-foot-plus frame, and looks that usually had a powerful impact on women.

But not on this one, it seemed, and he felt that flicker of annoyance again as his gaze rested on her professionally blank face once more.

For a second—a fraction of a second—he thought he saw something behind that professional blankness. Something that was not that hostile flash either…

But then it was gone, and Celine was saying pettishly, ‘Marc, cherie, I really don’t like it.’

She waved the model away again, and she strode off with quickened stride, her body stiff. Marc’s eyes followed her, unwilling to lose her in the throng which swallowed her up.

A pity she was a model…

For all her amazing looks, which were capable of piercing the black mood possessing him at having been landed with Hans’s wretched adultery-minded wife, the stunning, flashing-eyed beauty was not someone, he knew perfectly well, he should allow himself to pursue…

She isn’t from my world—let her go.

But a single word echoed in his head, all the same. Domage…

A pity…

* * *

Tara wheeled away, gaining the far side of the room as fast as she could. Her heart-rate was up and she knew why. Oh, she knew why!

She shut her eyes, wanting to blank the room. To blank the oh-so-conflicting reactions battling inside her head right now. She could feel them still, behind her closed eyes, slashing away at each other, fighting for supremacy.

Two overpowering emotions.

Impossible to tell which was uppermost!

The first—that instinctive, breath-catching one—had come the moment she’d seen that man looking at her…seen him for the first time. She certainly hadn’t seen him at the fashion show, but then she never looked at the audience when she was on the catwalk. If she had—oh, she’d have remembered him all right…

No man had ever impacted on her as powerfully—as instantly. Talk about tall, dark and devastating! Sable-hair, cut short, a hard, tough-looking face with a blade of a nose, a strong jaw, a mouth set in a tight line. And eyes that could strip paint.

Or that could rest on her with a look in them that told her that he liked what he was seeing…

She felt a kind of electricity flicker through her and her expression darkened abruptly. The complete opposite emotion was scything through her head, cutting off the electricity.

Liked it so much he just saw fit to click his fingers and summon me over so he could inspect me!

She fought for reason. OK, so he hadn’t actually clicked his fingers—but that imperious beckoning of his had been just as bad! Just as bad as the way he’d so blatantly looked her over…

And it wasn’t the damn gown he was interested in.

That opposite emotion, with a jacking up of its voltage, shot through her again. As if she was once again feeling the impact of that dark, assessing inspection…

She threw the switch once more. No—stop this, right now! she told herself. So what if he’d put her back up? Why should she care? That over-made-up blonde he’d been with had treated her just as offhandedly, waving her away. So why get uptight about the man doing so?

And so what, she added for good measure, that she’d had that ridiculously OTT reaction to the man’s physical impact on her? He and Blondie came from a world she wasn’t part of and only ever saw from the outside—like at this private fashion show. Speaking of which…

She gave herself a mental shake, opened her eyes and continued with her blank-faced perambulations, showing off a gown she could never in all her life afford herself. She was here to work, to earn money, and she’d better get on with it.

Oh, and if she could to stay on this far side of the room… Well away from the source of those emotions in her head.

* * *

‘Marc, cherie, now, this one is ideal! Don’t you think?’

Celine’s voice was a purr, but it grated on Marc like nails on a blackboard. However, at last, it seemed, Hans’s wife had found a gown she liked and was stroking the gold satin material lovingly, not even looking at the model wearing it. This model was smiling hopefully at Marc, but he ignored her. He was not the slightest bit interested.

Not like that other one.

He cut his inappropriate thoughts off. Focussed on the problem at hand. How to divest himself of Hans’s wife at last.

‘Perfect!’ he agreed, with relief in his voice. Could they finally get out of here?

His relief proved short-lived. Celine’s scarlet-tipped fingers curled possessively around his arm.

‘I’ve seen all I want here. I’ll arrange a fitting for that gold dress while Hans and I are in London. But right now…’ she smiled winningly at Marc ‘…do be an angel and take me to dinner! We could go to a club afterwards!’

Marc cut short her attempts to commandeer him for the rest of the evening. Never one to suffer irritation gladly, he knew his temper had been on a shortening fuse all evening. It was galling to see his father’s old friend in the clutches of this appalling woman. How on earth could Hans not have seen through her?

But then dark memory came, though he wished it would not. Hadn’t he been similarly blinded once himself?

Oh, he could tell himself he’d been young, and naïve, and far too trusting, but he’d been made a fool of all the same! Marianne had strung him along, playing on his youthful adoration of her, carefully cultivating his devotion to her—a devotion that had exploded in an instant.

Walking into that restaurant in Lyons, Marianne thinking I was still in Paris, seeing her there—