Fast And Loose. Elizabeth Oldfield
head that he’d be directing, and I’ve become used to the idea. And I liked it. And when we spoke on the phone he seemed a pleasant individual. And…’ Aware of waffling, Darcy heard her voice fade away.
‘And you’ve never lusted after him,’ Keir completed.
To her fury, she felt her cheeks start to burn again. He had not forgotten what had been the most embarrassing incident in her entire life. Damn it. Damn him. But he need not think that she would be covered in girlish confusion this time.
Darcy had once acted the role of Cleopatra at stage school and now she eyed him with icy and regal disdain. ‘I’ve never lusted after you,’ she declared.
A smile played around the corners of his mouth. ‘No kidding?’
‘I had a crush, that was all. A mild, innocent schoolgirl crush, which lasted for an extremely short time.’
‘And your innocence lasted for an extremely short time after that because you became a hot item with the young Lothario Gideon McCall.’
At his mention of the actor whom she had once dated, Darcy frowned. The distaste in Keir’s tone indicated that he could be recalling how, on the expiry of their romance, Gideon had spoken about it to the Press. Her frown deepened. If Keir did not approve of Gideon’s lurid and elaborately fabricated kiss-and-tell which had been pounced on by the tabloid newspapers, neither did she; though it had served one useful purpose.
‘Gideon was a humanoid calamity, but regrettably when I was younger——’ she shone a cheesy smile ‘—I did not have such great taste in men.’
‘Ouch,’ Keir murmured.
‘However, now I’m far more discerning.’
He lifted a brow. ‘Heaven be praised for maturity. So why are you reluctant to work with me?’ Keir asked, returning to his earlier enquiry.
Having stalwartly denied her first reason, Darcy was left with the second. But by the time the so-called ‘artistic differences’ with her father had occurred she had been avoiding Keir Robards like the plague so he had not been aware of her feelings, her conclusions, nor of the blame which she had later apportioned.
She bit deep into her lip. She balked at revealing any of this now, balked at reviving hurtful memories which could, if she threw caution to the winds, lead to the flinging of a dramatic indictment. What was the point? Her much loved father was dead. Nothing could be changed.
‘You’re afraid that as I’ve not directed since— when?—last fall I might be rusty?’ he said, when she remained silent.
As he had hesitated Keir had brushed his fingertips across his mouth in thought and drawn her gaze. He had a thin upper lip and a fuller, sensual lower one. Once she had spent hours fantasising about those lips, that mouth—how it would feel when he kissed her, how after much delirious kissing, when her own mouth was softly bruised and tender, his would move slowly and tantalisingly down her naked body; how his lips would brush across the peaks of her aching nipples, how he would open his mouth and——
Darcy dragged her eyes away. What was she thinking?
‘Correct,’ she declared, grabbing gratefully, if untruthfully, at his suggestion.
While she never sought out information about Keir Robards it was impossible to avoid the occasional newspaper paragraph or comment made by a colleague within the theatre. So she knew that he would accept a directing assignment—sometimes a stage play, sometimes a film but, during the past seven years, never again in England—then vanish from public view for perhaps several months before he became involved in the next. What he did in between times was a mystery.
‘I often have gaps and yet—touch wood——’ Keir leaned forward to press long, blunt-tipped fingers to the table ‘—so far I’ve managed to do a good job. I intend to do a good job this time.’
And never mind any damage you might inflict on others, Darcy thought bitterly.
Pushing back his cuff, he checked the vintage Rolex watch which was strapped to his broad wrist. ‘It’s eight-thirty,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we find our table and carry on talking in the restaurant?’
Darcy clenched her fists, the fingernails biting into her palms. She did not want to dine with him. No, no, no. What she wanted to do was deliver a series of ringing slaps to his freshly shaven jaw, spin on her heel and march out; but that would be a big mistake.
Although Keir might direct intermittently, he possessed considerable status, and if she antagonised him too much it could rebound and damage her career. People in the business would notice her withdrawal from the play and ask questions, and all it would need would be a comment from him about Darcy Weston being unreliable or frivolous or plain contrary and other directors might think twice about employing her, regardless of her talent and unblemished track record.
So she must extricate herself in a manner which would maintain some entente even if it was a tad less than cordiale—though how she was going to manage this she did not yet know.
She rose to her feet. ‘Let’s,’ she agreed.
As they set off across the lobby towards the Brierly’s renowned and rosetted French restaurant Darcy was conscious of Keir prowling beside her. She was tall and, in her heels, sometimes taller than her escorts, which could be a handicap, but, at six feet four and well-built, he was very much the superior male.
She cast him a sidelong glance. While she half despised herself, his strong presence gave her a curiously protected feeling.
‘I wonder whether Maurice has arranged for you to be fed with oysters, followed by asparagus sprinkled with rhino horn?’ Keir remarked. ‘All washed down by champagne.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I got the impression he expects you to be poleaxed by my fatal charm and he might’ve asked the restaurant to dish up an aphrodisiac or two to help things along.’
‘If he has he’s wasted his time,’ Darcy said pertly.
Keir raised his brows. ‘Whatever you eat or drink, you’re not going to wrestle me to the ground, drag me beneath the table and have your wicked way with me?’
‘And break the first rule in the Brierly’s etiquette manual, which is “Do not cause a public scene”? Aw, come on.’
He gave the hint of a smile. ‘Then how about taking me up to the privacy of my room, perching on my knee, slipping your fingers between the buttons of my shirt and——?’
‘No!’ Darcy squeaked as images from the past danced like a chorus line of humiliating ghosts before her. She gulped in a breath. ‘Out of the question,’ she said, biting on every last syllable.
‘Pity,’ he remarked, and briefly placed a hand between her shoulder blades, where it felt as if it scorched a hole in her jacket. ‘After you.’
In the restaurant the maitre d’ ticked off the booking, which had been made in Maurice’s name, and led them to a quiet corner. As they threaded their way between pink-damask-clothed tables, Darcy was aware of a hush in the general buzz of conversation and several discreet glances.
It seemed that either one or perhaps both of them had been recognised, or, regardless of his identity, the interest of the diners had been drawn by Keir’s loose-limbed grace. It would be the latter, she decided astringently. His power to incite admiration had always been potent.
‘I’m not sure about working with Jed Horwood,’ Darcy declared after menus had been read, their choices given, and they were eating cold starters of lobster with mango and curry sauce. She had been searching for an excuse to leave the play, and here she had found one which contained an obliging degree of truth.
‘I know he breaks box-office records with his blast-’em-to-hell pictures, but——’ she wrinkled her nose at the thought of the American macho-man who, after forging a movie career armed with a Beretta, a forty-four-inch chest