The Dark Side of Desire. Julia James

use of her napkin over dinner—her lips still looked flushed and beestung.

      Full and inviting …

      She stared, transfixed. Oh, God—was that what Leon Maranz had been seeing all evening? All through dinner? And now—much worse—after that dreadful, disastrous dance her face had a hectic flush to it. Her pupils were distended, her breathing far too rapid.

      This wasn’t her! It wasn’t! It wasn’t! What had happened to her? Where had she gone, that restrained, composed female she strove to be when she was summoned to her father’s side? Because one thing was glaringly, appallingly clear: she wasn’t here any more. She wasn’t sitting on this velvet stool, staring wide-eyed at the reflection gazing back at her. It was a different woman—a completely different woman! Alien and strange.

      Sensual …

      The word formed in her head and she instantly tried to shake it out, as she would a burr on her sleeve. But it wouldn’t go. It would only wind itself sinuously around her consciousness, whispering its poison in her ear.

       Sensual …

      Instantly she rejected the word. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter a jot what Leon Maranz could make her feel! She was not going to have anything to do with him! He belonged to the world of her father—a world in which making ever more money was the most important thing, and spending it as flashily and extravagantly as possible the next most important thing. A shallow, empty, superficial world! She belonged somewhere quite different. In the country, at home at Harford, with her grandmother who loved her so much, needed her so much …

      Nothing could alter that,

      So it was definitely time to put a stop to whatever Leon Maranz had in mind! A complete full stop. Time to send him a quite different message from the one she’d so disastrously given him by dancing with him.