The Night That Started It All. Anna Cleary

riled her. ‘What does that mean?’

      She glared at him. ‘Look,’ she whispered fiercely, ‘not that it’s anyone’s business, but he and I imploded almost at the start, only like a fool I kept on …’

      He swung about to impale her with his gaze. ‘Forget the excuses. Give me a straight answer. When was the last time you were together?’

      Her blood pressure rose. ‘Does that matter?’

      ‘It may not to some guys, but I have a strong distaste for screwing women who are still hot from my cousin’s bed.’

      She flushed. ‘I’m not hot from his bed.’ Her chest heaving with indignation, she added sweetly, ‘Though until a minute ago you could have said I was hot from your arms.’

      For an instant his eyes flared, then he concealed them behind his dark lashes. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’

      ‘Wednesday, okay?’

      ‘This week?’ His frown intensified, though his glance strayed to her mouth.

      ‘Yes. He was looking for his passport. He accused me of holding onto it after I threw his things out of the apartment. As if I would. He said he had to go to LA on the firm’s business.’

      A tinge of contempt touched his face. ‘Vraiment. So … did you give him the passport?’

      ‘I told you. I didn’t have it.’

      His dark eyes flickered over her, searching, suspicious. It was pretty clear he didn’t believe a word she said. The hackles rose on her neck. She was so over being insulted by the men in this family.

      ‘So,’ he said with maddening silkiness. ‘You sleep with a man on Wednesday, then you sleep with his cousin on Saturday.’

      She hissed in a long, simmering breath. ‘Only if his cousin’s very, very lucky.’

      The raw anger in her voice finally penetrated Luc’s brain. She wasn’t taking his perfectly natural concerns well. As he scanned her face his certainties suffered a jolt. There was a sparkle in her eyes that gave him pause.

      Her luscious mouth was firmly compressed, when only minutes ago those lips had been so soft and yielding, so tinglingly responsive.

      She turned away from him.

      With quicksilver rapidity a dozen arguments flashed through his mind. From her point of view she might have been telling the truth. She was a woman, after all. What woman ever understood the dictates of honour between men? Particularly men of the same family?

      The night’s original agenda scintillated in his mind’s eye. Perhaps he was being harsh. Overly fastidious. If she was no longer officially engaged …

      And he’d be gone from Australia tomorrow. They’d be ships in the night, et cetera. Passing on the stormy seas of his bed at the Seasons. Plunging and plunging in the sweet, fresh sheets, her naked beauty his to enjoy to the full. Totally naked, and by lamplight …

      Gazing at her sweet profile, he felt a renewed urgent stir in his loins. It would be too cruel to have to sacrifice this now. Rémy would never have to know.

      At that admittedly seedy reflection shame started to seep through him. What was he doing? He’d come to relieve Rémy of his job, not his woman. For all he knew they’d had a mere lovers’ tiff and she’d be back in his bed in a few days.

      Avoiding looking at her for fear of succumbing to temptation and throwing honour out of the window, he chilled his tone. ‘Let’s be adult about this. I think we have to acknowledge that our recent—interlude—was an error of judgement.’

      She turned coolly on her heel and stalked away in the direction of the front door.

      ‘Shari.’ Galvanised to action, he caught up with her in a couple of strides.

      A mere beat ahead of him, she was first to grab the door knob. As he reached over her blonde head to take it from her he heard a small startled sound issue from her throat and just for an instant he noted a curious rigidity in her. He touched her shoulder and she started, then spun around, alarm in her eyes.

      ‘Pardonne-moi.’ He drew back in concern. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’

      ‘You don’t scare me. And you’d better believe that.’

      Bemused by the tense glitter in her eyes, he tried to placate her. ‘You’re upset. Shari, please.’ He gestured imploringly. ‘Be reasonable. Maybe you’re angry with Rémy. Try to understand, I cannot allow myself to be exploited as a weapon of revenge in some—dispute between lovers.’

      ‘Exploited,’ she echoed, her voice low and trembling. ‘Revenge.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, why didn’t I see? You’re just like him.’

      ‘How am I like him?’ he retorted, stung.

      Her eyes sparkled fiercely. ‘Everything you’re saying, every word is—is—accusing me of cheating. You’re calling me a-a-a slut.’

      His blood pressure made a surprising leap, but he cooled that purely visceral response. ‘No,’ he said coolly. ‘I am far too polite.’

      She wrenched the door open and walked quickly down the path.

      After a second, driven by some impulse, he strode in pursuit. He’d almost caught up to where she stood outside on the pavement, when without warning she dashed forward and hailed a passing taxi.

      The car drew into the kerb and she scrambled in. As it moved into the road she turned to cast him a last icy, burning look through the window.

      He felt stunned. Nom de Dieu. What sort of guy did she think she was dealing with? With fire flaring in his veins, he raced for his hire car.

      Attempting to keep her cab in sight among the many, he wove in and out of the traffic—absurdly heavy for a country of this size—rationalising his impulse. At least if he talked to her again he could explain his position more fully. Surely it was important to leave their encounter on a positive note.

      They were practically family, weren’t they? She’d be grateful, as he would be. After all, it had been a fantastic few minutes they’d shared. Fantastic.

      Her silky softness still seemed to be in his senses, her voice, her very essence … His hands tightened on the wheel. If he was honest, he wasn’t ready yet to call it quits with her.

      They left the Harbour Bridge behind, wound a way through the neon city and plunged into a maze of narrow one-way streets lined with terraces. Having lost the taxi a couple of times, he thought he still had the same one in view, and was heartened when he saw the name Paddington on a shop front.

      Wasn’t that where she’d said she lived?

      Just his luck, he was trapped on the wrong side of a red light. By the time he started again, the cab was out of sight.

      He cursed long and colourfully. Taking the direction he calculated his quarry must have taken, he crossed a couple of intersections before he reached one where he caught a fleeting glimpse of someone alighting from a stationary cab. The distance was too far for him to be certain it was Shari, but it was a chance. His only chance.

      Curbing his impatience, he recircuited the block and waited for the lights again, drumming his fingers on the wheel in his urgency to backtrack.

      By the time he reached the terrace he’d estimated was the one, the cab was well and truly gone, the street quiet.

      Breathing fast, her heart still thumping painfully, Shari paused in the delicate task of stripping her face bare. She would not accept the verdict. She wasn’t guilty of anything.

      She’d done nothing to feel ashamed of. She didn’t care what Luc Valentin thought of her. She’d allowed him to enjoy her body purely out of generosity.

      She took