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‘So,’ he said, buttering his brioche, ‘what would you like to do now that we have the day to ourselves?’
Tara started. ‘What do you mean?’ She tried to gather her thoughts. ‘Um...if Celine and Hans have gone, I ought to go back to London.’
Suddenly the frown was back again on his face. ‘Why?’ he demanded.
‘Well, I mean... I’ve done what you brought me out here to do, so there’s no point me being here any longer.’
He cut across her. ‘Oh, for God’s sake—there’s no need to rush off!’ He took a breath, his stance altering subtly, as did the expression in his eyes. ‘Look, let’s just chill, shall we? We damn well deserve it, that’s for sure! So, like I say, what would you like to do today?’ His eyes rested on her. ‘How well do you know the South of France—I mean apart from trailing around the damn shops with Celine and seeing those dire houses she dragged us to? Why don’t I show you the South of France that’s actually worth seeing?’
He seemed to want an answer, but she could not give one. How could she? This was a Marc Derenz she had never known existed. One who could smile—really smile. One who radiated good humour. Who seemed to be wanting her company for herself, not for keeping Celine Neuberger at bay.
She felt something flutter inside her. Something she ought to pay attention to.
‘Um... I don’t know. I mean...’ She looked across at him. His expression was bland and she tried to make it out. ‘Why?’ she said bluntly. ‘As in why do you want me to stay? As what?’
That strange feeling inside her was fluttering again, more strongly now.
‘What do you mean, “As what?”,’ he countered.
‘Am I still in your employ, or what? Am I supposed to have some sort of role? Am I—?’
He cut across her questions. ‘Tara, don’t make this complicated. Stay because you’re here...because Celine and Hans have gone...because I want to celebrate their impending divorce. Stay for any damn reason you like!’
He was getting irritated, she could see. For some reason, it made her laugh. ‘Oh, that’s better,’ she said dulcetly. ‘I thought the new, improved Marc Derenz was too good to be true!’
For a second he seemed to glower at her. Then his face relaxed. ‘You wind me up like no other woman,’ he told her.
‘You’re so easy to wind up,’ she said limpidly.
She could feel that flutter inside her getting stronger. Changing her mood. Filling her, suddenly, with a sense of freedom. Of adventure.
He shook his head, that rueful laugh coming again. ‘I’m not used to being disagreed with,’ he admitted.
Tara’s eyes widened. ‘No? I’d never have guessed.’
He threw her a look, then lifted both his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘Truce time,’ he said. He looked at her. ‘You know, I’m not really a bear with a sore head most of the time. You’ve seen me at my worst because of Celine. And,’ he admitted, ‘you’ve caught the sharp edge of my ill-humour because of that. But I can be nice, you know. Why don’t you stick around and find out just how nice, hmm...?’
She felt a hollow inside her, into which a million of the little flutters that had been butterflying inside her suddenly swooped.
Oh, Lord, this was a bad, bad idea! To ‘stick around’, as he’d put it! Yet she wanted to—oh, she wanted to! But on what terms? With what assumptions
? That was what she had to get clear. Because otherwise...
She took a breath. ‘Marc, these past days have been...’ She tried to find a word to describe them and failed. ‘Well, you know—the role-playing. It was...’ she swallowed ‘...confusing.’
She didn’t want to recount all the incidents, the memories she couldn’t cope with, the times when all self-control had been ripped from her.
He nodded slowly. His dark eyes rested on her with something behind them she did not need a code-breaker to decipher.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And it’s time—way beyond time—to end that confusion.’
He did not spell it out—he did not have to. She knew that as he went on.
‘So let’s put the confusion behind us, shall we? And the acting and the role-playing? We’ll just take it from here. See what happens.’ He paused, those dark eyes unreadable—and yet oh-so-readable. ‘What do you say?’
He was waiting for her answer.
She could feel those butterflies swooping around in that hollow space inside her, knew that she’d stopped breathing. Knew why. Knew, as she very slowly exhaled, that whatever she’d said to herself while being so ‘confused’—dear God, that word was an understatement!—about the way this man could make her feel, that now, with just the two of them here, like this, finally free to make their own choices, that she was making a decision that was going to take her to a place with Marc Derenz that she did not know. Had never yet been.
