Summer Sins. Julia James

at the gaming table, or even dancing with him, the place was so public. The ambience was so off-putting that she never felt any real physical proximity.

      But this.

      Automatically she coiled back into her corner of the seat. It made no difference. He was still far, far too close.

      And he was looking at her.

      Worse than looking. He was seeing her. Seeing her as she really was. The real person, not the facsimile of a cheap hostess she had to be at the casino.

      If only she still had her make-up on. She might look like a tart with it, but it served as a mask, a protective mask. Hiding her, the real her, from the punters and the other girls at the casino.

      Hiding her from this man who had made her stomach flip full circle in the first moment of registering his appearance.

      But she couldn’t hide from him now. Now, in the shadowy confines of this car he’d picked her up in, she was completely, absolutely exposed to him. An invisible shiver went through her—trepidation, alarm, and something quite, quite different. For a moment longer she went on looking at him, feeling her eyes widen, her focus start to blur. Dear God, he was just so incredible to look at …

      ‘Tu parles Français?’ His voice had sharpened.

      ‘Oui, un peu. Pourquoi?’ retorted Lissa, taken aback by the sudden question. And all too aware, with the same disturbing mix of resentment and that other reaction she would not acknowledge, that he had used the tu form of address—the one reserved, when it came to adults, to indicate either superiority or intimacy.

      His response told her exactly which form he had intended—and it was like a cold shower of water. ‘Because foreign language skills are unusual in girls like you. Unless they are foreign to begin with,’ came the blunt answer.

      Lissa felt a spike of antagonism go through her. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Girls like me? I see.’ Her voice was flat. ‘You mean girls too thick to do anything other than work as a hostess?’

      ‘Thick?’ There was a slight frown between his eyes.

      ‘Bête,’ Lissa supplied helpfully, with a tight, humourless smile. Resentment curdled in her. Oh, Xavier Lauran might be God’s gift to the discerning woman, but he was as full of prejudice as any other male when it came to the assumptions he made.

      ‘Enfin, if you are clever enough to speak a language foreign to you, why do you do the work you do?’ The cool challenge of his voice made Lissa’s chin lift. There was something else in his voice as he spoke, but she was too resentful to identify it.

      ‘I might as well ask why a man of your evident intelligence and background chooses to patronise the kind of place I work in?’ she countered sharply.

      His face shuttered. Oh, she thought nastily, he doesn’t like it when some tarty little casino hostess dares to question his behaviour.

      ‘Why do you work there?’

      The question shot at her. Quite ignoring the one she’d just thrown at him.

      ‘It’s a job,’ she answered flatly.

      She looked away. It was an instinctive gesture. She didn’t want to see the expression in the man’s eyes. She knew it would be condemning. And that in itself would worsen the curdling mix of resentment and self-revulsion she always felt whenever she had to face up to how she earned money.

      I don’t have any choice! She wanted to yell at him. But what was the point? A familiar wave of weariness and depression washed over her. Then, as it passed through her, she became aware that the car was already at Trafalgar Square, and was turning to go under Admiralty Arch and down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

      ‘You’ve gone too far,’ she exclaimed, her head twisting round to the Frenchman again before she leaned forward to get the attention of the driver.

      ‘I said I would take you home,’ came the reply, and yet again Lissa got the feeling the man was not used to being questioned.

      ‘No.’

      Her voice was flat. Adamant.

      Xavier looked at her. Curious, he registered. There was something more than negation in that voice. Something that was more akin to …

      Fear. That was what it was. His pupils pinpricked as they rested on her face.

      Yes, that was what was flaring in her eyes right now. There was not doubt of it. And more than fear, too. He had seen it momentarily in the casino, and he had seen it again just now, when she’d turned her face from him. It jagged an emotion in him—one that had absolutely no place in the situation. But it was there all the same.

      What he had seen in her face was there again now, taut behind the fear flaring in her eyes.

      Tiredness.

      Quite evident, quite unmistakeable, exposed in the gaunt contours around her eyes. The girl looked exhausted.

      ‘Mademoiselle, it is no trouble to conduct you to your flat. There is little traffic at this hour, and the detour will not be significant. It is because of me that you missed your bus—permit me to make amends.’

      Lissa sat back, looking at him. His voice was different. She couldn’t tell why, but it was all the same. It was kinder. For some strange, unaccountable reason she felt her throat tighten. She didn’t want this man being kind to her. He was just a stranger. A man who frequented the casino she had to work in because she had no choice—a man who was, therefore, nothing more than a punter. She didn’t want him being kind to her, doing her favours.

      ‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she began stiffly. ‘I couldn’t impose on you.’

      He silenced her objection. ‘It is no imposition,’ he returned, and now the kindness was gone. There was only an impersonal indifference. ‘I need to make several phone calls now to the USA. Whether I make them from my hotel or from this car is irrelevant.’

      As if to prove his point, he slid a long-fingered hand inside his luxurious overcoat and withdrew a mobile phone, flicking it open with an elegant twist of his wrist.

      ‘Give my driver your address,’ he instructed. Then he started up the phone and proceeded to punch a stored number.

      For a moment Lissa just went on looking at him uncertainly. Outside, the tall trees lining the Mall flashed past with the expensively smooth ride the flash car afforded, and then they were circling around the Queen Victoria monument, wheeling past the illuminated Victorian baroque splendour of Buckingham Palace.

      Xavier Lauran lifted the phone to his ear and started to talk. His French was far too rapid for Lissa even to attempt to follow it. He was clearly absorbed in the conversation. For a moment she allowed herself the pleasure of listening to his beautifully timbred voice, fluent in its own language.

      Then the chauffeur was twisting his head briefly.

      ‘If you give me your address, Mademoiselle?’ His accent was French, too, but it did not shiver down her nerves like that of his employer.

      Lissa gave in. Surely she was safe enough? Would a man who was evidently some kind of senior executive in a prestigious international company really risk any kind of scandal?

      Resignedly, she gave her address, and then sat back. As the car headed down Victoria Street towards Parliament Square and the River Thames, she leaned back farther in her seat. The leather seats were deep and soft. Across from her the devastating Frenchman was paying her no more attention than if she was a block of wood, his mellifluous voice rising and falling rapidly, letting her catch nothing more than the briefest word every now and then. Outside, the flickering lights of an almost deserted London strobed in her vision. She closed her eyes to shut it out. Weariness swept down over her. She was so tired she could sleep for a thousand years and not wake.

      The warmth of the car stole through her. Her breathing slowed.

      She