The Socialite's Secret. Carol Marinelli

you,’ she said. Her arms went around his neck and Luke went to peel them off but then he heard the desperation in her voice. ‘Please.’ Scarlet closed her eyes. She was so tired of the noise and no doubt drama would await her when she returned to the hotel. It felt like for ever that she had been trying to escape. She looked up at Luke and he was so calm and so slightly bored with it all, as was she, and she gazed into his beautiful eyes. ‘I’ll make it worth your while.’

      ‘You don’t need to offer sex, Scarlet.’

      ‘I want to spend some time with you.’

      ‘Why don’t you ask me to take you for dinner?’

      ‘Dinner?’ Scarlet frowned.

      ‘Well, it’s nearly one, so I’m not sure where.’ Luke smiled but he let her hands remain around his neck and his hands moved to her hips. The urge to kiss her was back.

      ‘I haven’t eaten since breakfast,’ Scarlet admitted.

      It was almost that time again, Luke thought, but then he pushed that aside. Unlike most men, the thought of a one-night stand didn’t thrill him—his father’s perpetually roving eye meant that he’d lived with the fallout for long enough to learn from James Edwards’s mistakes.

      ‘You really want to take me for dinner?’

      ‘I do.’

      ‘I’m sorry I lied to you,’ Scarlet said. ‘I just wanted to see if you’d like me if I was normal.’

      ‘You are normal,’ Luke said.

      As was his body’s reaction to her.

      There was a need, an absolute need to get her away from here, to just talk, to get to know her some more and, yes, to get to that mouth.

      ‘Can you lose your bodyguards?’ Luke asked. He couldn’t stand the thought of them overseeing things. He wanted Scarlet away from the hype and he knew he would take good care of her. Judging by her previous offer to make it worth his while, they didn’t take proper care of her either.

      ‘I can’t.’ She shook her head. ‘You don’t get how it is—I can’t go anywhere without them.’

      Luke didn’t play games.

      Ever.

      ‘Can you lose your bodyguards?’ he asked again, and Scarlet heard the warning. If she said no, he’d be gone.

      ‘They’ll dial 911 if I disappear.’

      ‘Well, they shan’t get very far if they do,’ Luke said, and he told her the UK emergency number. ‘I’ll take care of you but I’m not buying you dinner with an audience.’

      He wanted to take her for dinner!

      ‘I could go to the loo and try to …’

      ‘Climb out of the window?’ Luke scoffed at her plans. ‘Why don’t you simply tell them that you’re having a night off?’ But then he halted as he realised, for the first time, that life in her world wasn’t that simple.

      ‘Please take me for dinner,’ she said.

      ‘I’ll go outside and wait down the back,’ Luke offered. ‘If you can’t get out of the loo there will be an emergency exit. But,’ he warned, ‘if you tell your bodyguards what you’re up to, if I even get a hint that they’re around, I’ll hand you back over to them. I’m not going to be playing your celebrity game, Scarlet.’

      Luke meant it.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      WHAT THE HELL was he doing? Luke thought as he stood in a cold, dark, basement alley next to bins and looked up at the tiny windows.

      She’d never get through them, Luke realised.

      Maybe she had changed her mind, Luke decided, because it had surely been ten or so minutes that he had been waiting. He was just about to give in when he saw one red shoe poke out of a very small gap in a window, followed by one skinny, pale leg and then another.

      ‘I’ve got you,’ Luke said, as he guided her legs out and tried not to notice that her dress was bunching up. He moved his hands from her flesh and then held her by the hips and negotiated Scarlet’s body out of the small opening. As he dropped her down to the ground he turned her around. She was breathless and Luke could see the exhilaration in her eyes.

      Not just that she was free!

      Scarlet’s dress was ruched up from her rather undignified exit and she could still feel where his hands had made contact with her thighs. Now she faced Luke and, despite his very cool demeanour, Scarlet knew that he was as turned on as she was.

      Her hands moved up back around his neck and she moved into him for warmth and for confirmation of his arousal.

      ‘Oh,’ Scarlet said.

      An odd remark perhaps but she could feel him on the length of her stomach and those hands on her hips let her rest there a moment. His voice when it came was a bit ragged.

      ‘Come on.’

      He got the ‘Oh’ comment. Luke was feeling it too.

      That urge to kiss was there and a whole lot of other urges too but a stinking dark alley wasn’t at the top of his wish list and her bodyguards would no doubt realise that she was missing some time very soon. So, rather than kiss her, Luke grabbed her hand and they ran up some metal stairs and out onto a seedy street and then turned into another.

      Luke hailed a black cab and, a touch breathless, they both climbed in.

      He gave the name of a restaurant that he knew stayed open late, which he had been to with friends a couple of times when he’d been in London. It was nice and low-key with booths where they could tuck themselves away and he could get to know her some more.

      Luke wanted that.

      He really did, but as the taxi took off, the driver glanced in the rear-view mirror and must have seen just who his fare was.

      ‘Scarlet!’ He turned and smiled and it annoyed Luke that Scarlet smiled back and that she and the driver started talking about Anya’s performance. Was it possible to have a conversation that didn’t include her mother?

      ‘Just drop us here,’ Luke said, as they reached a busier street. They walked into a different restaurant from the one he would have chosen but the reaction to her was the same there and they left.