The Sicilian's Innocent Mistress. Carole Mortimer
what was he doing? Luc wondered impatiently.
Darci Wilde was beautiful, yes. Desirable. Intelligent, too. Certainly quick-witted enough to hold his interest. But wasn’t this an interest, raw as he still was from Wolf and Cesare’s defection to the married state, that Luc was trying to avoid at all costs?
But Darci was so incredibly beautiful, and he was already aroused just from talking about making love to her deliciously sensual body…
‘I wonder if you would care to have dinner with me one evening?’ he asked smoothly, not at all sure of the wisdom of seeing this woman again, but aware that his caution stood little chance of winning out when his body throbbed with a need to know her better.
An urgent need.
A need that at the moment far outweighed those feelings of caution.
Darci looked up at Luc Gambrelli for several long minutes, torn between the satisfaction of having this man invite her out after all, and the fact that, now she had actually spent some time in Luc Gambrelli’s company, she appreciated that Kerry’s warning of yesterday had some merit.
Not that there had ever been any real chance of her actually falling for Luc Gambrelli—not after the way he had treated Mellie. But at the same time Darci had to acknowledge that he really was much more lethally attractive in the flesh. His unusual colouring and undeniable good looks were mesmerising, his every movement was one of elegantly leashed power, and that wicked sense of humour was definitely more appealing than it should be.
His description of how he wanted to make love to her hadn’t been in the least calming, either!
‘Perhaps if I were to assure you, despite what I have just described, that you won’t be on the menu…?’ He mocked her lengthy silence.
Darci’s mouth tightened at the challenge. ‘Perhaps I should assure you that you won’t be, either!’ she came back acidly.
Those dark eyes warmed appreciatively. ‘Tomorrow evening, then? Say eight o’clock?’
‘I’m busy tomorrow evening,’ she took great satisfaction in telling him.
It was the truth, after all; she had a late shift at the hospital tomorrow. But even if she hadn’t, she would have made an excuse not to meet him tomorrow evening. If only to show him she was less than eager to see him again.
The fact that the warmth had faded slightly from those dark eyes, his lips thinning, more than justified her refusal.
No doubt he was used to a more enthusiastic response to his invitations.
No doubt most women would have put off any previous engagement in order to have dinner with him tomorrow or any other evening he suggested.
Well, as Luc Gambrelli was going to learn, Darci wasn’t most women.
And in his case forewarned had definitely been forearmed!
She had no doubt, despite her own reluctance when it came to relationships, that she would have been totally bowled over by his deadly charm if she hadn’t already known what a heartless bastard he really was.
‘Saturday evening?’ he pressed abruptly.
Darci deliberately gave the alternative suggestion some thought, knowing as she glanced at his face from beneath lowered lashes that the egotistical Luc Gambrelli wasn’t best pleased by her obvious hesitation.
He was going to be less pleased when she didn’t even turn up for their dinner date!
‘Why not?’ she finally accepted offhandedly. ‘As long as you intend taking me somewhere sinfully expensive.’ She looked up at him beguilingly, wondering how he liked the idea of literally being used as a meal-ticket.
He didn’t, if the tightening of his mouth and the narrowing of his gaze was anything to go by!
Although it was an emotion he quickly masked as he gave a shrug of those broad shoulders. ‘I’m sure I can find somewhere appropriately sinful,’ he replied.
‘Sinfully expensive,’ Darci corrected—did this man have to reduce everything to the nerve-tinglingly sensual?
‘Of course,’ he drawled, the confident warmth back in those dark eyes as he easily held her gaze and released his grip on her arm to trail his fingers caressingly downwards.
Darci’s breath caught in her throat at the headiness caused by that light touch. Her skin actually seemed to tingle, her own fingers contracting slightly as his thumb intimately stroked the palm of her hand.
It was deliberate seduction, she told herself firmly. Something this man was a master at. In fact, he probably had a diploma on his bedroom wall—as well as several dozen notches on his bedpost!—to testify to his expertise on the subject!
Telling herself that didn’t help in the slightest as those long tapered fingers linked with hers and he once again lifted her hand to his lips, his breath warm against her skin as he brushed his mouth against her knuckles, his dark eyes easily holding hers as his tongue rasped briefly—tasting?—where his lips had just kissed.
A master of seduction? The man should come with a public health warning!
No wonder poor Mellie had fallen victim to Luc’s advances…
‘Until Saturday evening, then, Darci,’ he confirmed, releasing her hand as he straightened. ‘Is Garstang’s sinfully expensive enough for you?’
The exclusive restaurant wasn’t one that Darci had ever been to—a junior doctor’s pay didn’t exactly run to establishments that didn’t even list the prices on their menu!—but she had heard of it, of course, and Grant had been there several times, she knew.
‘It sounds perfect,’ she accepted.
‘I’ll call for you—’
‘No, I’ll meet you at the restaurant at eight o’clock,’ Darci told him firmly; having this man arrange to pick her up was not part of her plan at all.
Garstang’s exclusivity, and the fact that Luc Gambrelli was perfectly confident about being able to secure a booking in a top-class venue that was totally booked months in advance, made it the perfect venue for the humiliation Darci intended to inflict.
She could just picture him now, sitting at the table in the fashionably exclusive Garstang’s, looking oh-so-lethally attractive as he waited for her to arrive.
As he waited.
And waited.
Until it finally dawned on him that Darci had no intention of turning up.
That the legendary lover Luc Gambrelli had been publicly stood up.
Sinfully delicious!
CHAPTER THREE
‘ARE you sure you don’t want to come to the party with Michael and me?’ Kerry paused at the door, on her way out to meet her fiancé for the evening.
‘Perfectly sure.’ Darci grinned at her flatmate reassuringly as she sat on the sofa wearing an old and comfortable pair of pyjamas and wrapped in her duvet. ‘I have the evening off, my favourite DVD—’ she held it up ‘—and a bowl of toffee popcorn; what more could I possibly need?’
‘Luc Gambrelli?’ Kerry suggested provokingly.
‘Forget it!’ Darci protested.
‘Doesn’t it bother you at all that you could actually be out with him this evening, instead of sitting at home alone eating popcorn and watching a film you’ve already seen a dozen times before?’ Kerry sounded incredulous.
‘Not in the least,’ Darci assured her smugly. ‘Just sitting here imagining Luc Gambrelli waiting at a table in Garstang’s for me to arrive is enough to make my evening.’
Kerry looked troubled. ‘You agreed that you would call the restaurant and let him know you weren’t