Avoiding Mr Right. Sophie Weston
Luc Henri’s appearance, and decided that Christina did not need a chaperon with such an eminently respectable personage. ‘I’ll see you at the flat,’ she muttered, and disappeared among the crowded tables.
Christina, who had never in her life thought that she needed a chaperon, felt suddenly, alarmingly alone. The friendly crowd and the noise somehow made it worse. She swallowed.
Luc Henri was looking at her with a cynical expression that she did not like at all. He did not speak. Christina cleared her throat.
‘Time and place seem to have caught up with us, then,’ she said flippantly. ‘What are you doing at Costa’s?’
‘I could ask the same. Except that it’s obvious.’
His tone was pleasant enough. There was nothing she could take exception to in the words themselves. So how did she know that he was insulting her, and that he was coldly, furiously angry? Was it the cold glitter of his eyes? Christina glanced round. No one else showed any signs of noticing anything untoward. In fact, no one else was paying any attention to them at all.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ she said.
He gave a bark of laughter. It did not sound amused.
‘Cruising. Isn’t that what they call it?’
Christina’s brows knitted. ‘What?’
He made an angry gesture with his hand, embracing the whole café-the bouzouki player, Costa’s beefy geniality and even the harassed waiters.
‘You make the most of your natural assets, I’ll say that for you. A smile, a lot of long, bare leg and the odd promise of a kiss. It’s a potent inducement, even if I can see that. Is that what you meant when you said you could look after yourself?’
For a moment Christina was so stunned that she did not think she was understanding him properly. When she realised that he meant exactly what she thought he meant, she went white with temper.
‘I think you’re calling me a tart.’
He gave that harsh laugh again. ‘Oh, no. I respect tarts. They’re honest working women in their way.’
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
His eyes looked her up and down in a brief, insulting flick which considered and then dismissed her. She took a step backwards as if he had hit her. Her face flamed. He saw it and smiled.
‘I mean that they deliver what they contract for,’ he drawled. ‘Or so I’m told. Whereas you—’ He shook his head. ‘No, no, my dear.’
Christina took a hasty step towards him. His derisive smile grew.
‘Thinking of slapping my face? You couldn’t do it, you know. You’re much too nicely brought up.’
‘You know nothing at all about how I was brought up.’
‘Oh, I think you’re wrong there.’ He put his head on one side and pretended to consider. ‘I know the signs. I can’t think how I missed them this morning.’
She was trembling with anger. ‘What signs?’
‘Lovely manners. Minimal morals,’ he said succinctly.
They might have been alone. Christina was hardly aware of the crowded café. Neither of them had raised their voice but their argument was too intense to escape attention. They were beginning to attract the occasional sideways look, but she did not notice that either. She could not remember ever being so angry in her life.
‘What right have you got to talk about my morals?’
‘Right?’ He shrugged. ‘None.’
‘Or to sit in judgement on me on the basis of ten minutes’ spying? Or was it as much as that? I didn’t see you when we came in. Maybe you’ve only just arrived. Maybe we’re talking about ten seconds’ spying here.’
‘Call it five minutes,’ Luc Henri said negligently.
‘Well, then—’
‘Five memorable minutes.’
Christina stared.
‘I watched. Fascinating. You kissed the owner. Well, I suppose ownership of a waterfront café brings some perks.’
Christina gasped but Luc did not appear to notice. He swept on, itemising her actions with precision, and putting the worst possible gloss on them.
‘You swung what passes for a skirt at the group at the corner table. And it only took one bat of your eyelashes at the boy who plays that noisy substitute for a guitar to gain his devoted attention.’
She was so angry that she did not even think of defending herself. In fact, after a brief moment of blank outrage, she decided to prove to him that she was every bit as bad as he thought her—and worse. So she gave a careless laugh and shrugged. Her crocheted top slipped off one bare brown shoulder.
Christina felt rather than saw his eyes follow the falling fabric. He could not repress his reaction and it was not disapproval. She. registered it with a glow of something like triumph.
It was utterly unlike her. Anger must have made her reckless, she thought. Resisting the instinct to pull the top back into place, she shook back her hair and lifted her chin defiantly. She met his eyes with a look quite as contemptuous as his own.
‘So?’ she said softly. ‘What business is it of yours?’ For a moment he did not answer. Then he looked deliberately at the sagging top. ‘So you like to play with fire,’ he mused. ‘Now why didn’t I pick that up before?’
Her eyes narrowed to slits. ‘I said, What business is it of yours?’ Her voice rose.
‘Oh, come on, lady. You’re not that nicely brought up.’
She knew he was going to reach for her but she still did not quite believe it. Not now, not here, with a crowd of evening diners looking on. It was not the sort of thing that happened to her. It was not the sort of thing that ultra-civilised men like Luc Henri did.
There was nothing civilised in the way he jerked her off her feet to bring her hard against him. For a moment he held her breast to breast, looking down into her defiant eyes with a curious expression, almost as if behind the anger he was in pain. But the impression of pain was gone in an instant and he was laughing. ‘Burn, fire, burn,’ he said cynically.
And she was engulfed.
The thought flashed across Christina’s mind: well, he is certainly not treating me as if I were his sister now. It was her last coherent thought for some time.
For all the cynicism, he was not playing games. His hands were hard on her slim frame—mercilessly hard. And his mouth was hungry.
The crowded café, the smell of spiced meats and hot bread, the sounds of talk and laughter and wine being poured from rough glass carafes all receded as if they did not exist. Christina’s head fell back under the onslaught of his kiss. Her dazed eyes drifted shut. She felt as if her bones were melting. She had no strength in the powerful circle of his arms, no wish for strength, no resistance at all. All she knew was that her blood was pounding in her veins, driving her deeper and deeper into his embrace. And that she had never felt like this before.
Luc’s arms tightened.
He was giving no quarter, she realised dimly. He was so angry that neither the public place nor her blank astonishment was holding him back. In fact, she had a faint suspicion that they normally would have done and he knew it; so the fact that this uninhibited sexual demand was out of character was adding fuel to his anger. Of the anger there was no doubt at all. Nor of the demand.
His mouth ravaged the softness of hers until she could hardly breathe. She felt the blood beating frantically at his pulse points, battering at her. She felt his breath in her throat, her lungs. She smelled a faint, unfamiliar, woody scent which seemed to come from his light jacket. It failed entirely to mask