And understanding. Belated, but like a punch through his system.
At last it made sense why Armand was bewitched by this girl.
Stripped of the casino hostess outfit and the gross make-up and hairdo, the girl was quite simply a knockout, even making no attempt whatsoever to look good. He could see at a glance what the layers of overdone, tarty make-up had so successfully concealed. She had a beauty to catch and hold every male eye.
Emotions twisted inside him. Contradictory, powerful—unwelcome.
He pushed the emotions aside. They were unnecessary, and getting in his way. He must not pay them attention—all his focus now must be on the next stage of his agenda for dealing with Armand’s bombshell. The incident just now had been carefully timed and executed, with one of his security men reporting exactly when Lissa Stephens had left the casino, to allow his driver the precise amount of time to make the manoeuvre he just had.
He crossed back to the car and climbed in.
‘Circle to the bus stop,’ he instructed.
He folded himself into the deep interior, bracing himself slightly as the car moved forward in a tight turn to draw up again on the other side of the street. Once more he opened the door, this time to the pavement. To his satisfaction, the rain was now falling steadily in heavy rods. She would be soaking wet in minutes if she didn’t get in the car.
He leaned forward, holding the car door open invitingly.
‘Please accept my offer of a lift, mademoiselle—this is not the weather to do otherwise.’ He made it sound as though she were being childish in her refusal.
A stony glare was cast in his direction for his pains.
‘I’m afraid I don’t get into cars with complete strangers,’ Lissa answered shortly.
Wordlessly, Xavier slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket and extracted a business card. It was a calculated gamble. Armand had told him he had said nothing to his intended bride of his connection with XeL. Now would be the moment when he would find out whether that was indeed true—and whether the ambitious Mademoiselle Stephens had been doing any checking of her own into just how rich a fish she had caught. Would the card, with its simple ‘Xavier Lauran—XeL’, without any title or position added, register with her?
Covertly, he studied her reaction as, reluctantly, she took the card and studied it in the orange glare of the streetlight.
All her face revealed was a slight frown.
‘XeL—is that the posh luggage company?’ she asked, as she lifted her eyes from the card.
Xavier felt a flare of annoyance at the casual description.
‘Among other items,’ he replied, in the same dry voice. ‘Mademoiselle, I do not wish to appear impatient, but do you intend to accept my offer of a lift or not?’
For a moment, he could tell—and the knowledge sent another flare of annoyance through him—she hung in the balance. Then, abruptly, she spoke.
‘Oh, all right, then. I might as well.’ It was hardly a gracious acceptance, and once again Xavier felt a flare of annoyance go through him. She started forward, and Xavier moved to the other side of the back seat. She settled herself into the vacated space and yanked at the seat belt, turning to him as the car started to pull out into the road.
‘If it’s not too much out of your way, could you let me out at Trafalgar Square? There are more night buses from there.’ She spoke sharply still—the result of frustration at having missed her bus, annoyance with herself for succumbing to the temptation of the lift, and of a reason she had absolutely no intention of acknowledging. Not sitting this close to him. Her sharpness was a defence she needed right now.
Xavier lifted an eyebrow. ‘You do not wish to be driven home all the way?’
‘I live south of the river,’ she answered, in the same short tone. ‘It’s miles out of your way.’
‘C’est ne fait rien.’ He spoke with indifference. ‘It is of no consequence.’
She looked at him. Her expression was acidly sceptical. ‘You said in the casino you had an early meeting—you will hardly want to go careering across London at this hour of the night.’
Xavier cast her a caustic look again. ‘I said that merely because I wanted to leave—and I did not want any persuasions to change my mind.’
Was there a flash in her eye? He could not tell in the dim light. What he could tell, though—and he was still coming to terms with the knowledge—was that she had a bone structure that was still impacting on him. And that he did not need, for reasons that he did not want to think about at this moment, when his sole focus must be on the task in hand.
But even though he was trying to suppress it, to his intense annoyance he realised that a seismic shift was taking place inside his head. Some mental fault line was realigning—realigning in a way that made him want to do nothing more right now except study in detail the extraordinary metamorphosis performed on the woman in front of him. How could he possibly have known how different she would look without the gross make-up and the hostess outfit? The question was rhetorical, and he knew it—but knowing it made no difference. He still felt as if he’d been hit on the head with a blunt object.
Urgently he fought back—fought back not just against the seismic shockwave that had crunched through him, but against what it brought in its wake. He knew the name of what that was, but he would not, could not acknowledge what it was. Could not admit it even to himself.
It doesn’t matter. This transformation alters nothing. All it does was explain how she’s managed to fool Armand. He’d obviously only seen the image she was currently presenting—not the image of the evening.
Because, he reasoned harshly, slamming down that iron control even more tightly over his reactions, it was the putain version of Lissa Stephens that was the one he had to remember—the one that was endangering his brother, the one that made her completely unsuitable to marry him. So what if she suddenly, out of nowhere, had turned everything he’d taken her for on its head? It changed nothing.
But even as he forced the words into his mind he knew them for a lie. Knew that the shock to his system was still ricocheting through him even as he fought to catch and control it.
‘If your driver goes down Piccadilly, he can cut through to Trafalgar Square.’
The girl’s voice cut through Xavier’s thoughts.
‘It is no problem to drive you to your home,’ he answered.
Again, as he spoke, Lissa’s back went up almost automatically. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said stonily, ‘I would prefer to be let out in Trafalgar Square.’
She eyed him suspiciously. She was already regretting her impulsive action in climbing into the car. OK, so he’d shown her a business card—but so what? Xavier Lauran of XeL might be some fancy French businessman, in a league that was light years from the kind of businessmen that frequented the casino, but he was still just another punter for all that. No way was she prepared to let him drive her home. It wasn’t even a public taxi—God knew what he and his driver might have planned for her. Unease prickled over her skin.
For a moment, in the uncertain light of the streets, she thought she saw a momentary expression in the man’s eyes. Then it was gone.
He gave a slight shrug. It seemed a very Gallic gesture.
‘Comme tu veux—’
‘Yes, I do wish—thank you.’ Again, her voice was clipped.
For a moment the dark eyes rested on her. Their expression was unreadable.
He was too close. Too close in this car—too …
Intimate. That was the word. In the confines of the car he seemed far closer than