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The polite enquiry at the entrance to the restaurant interrupted his vision.
‘Yes,’ he said distractedly, impatiently.
His glance needled around the restaurant.
And froze.
The image in his head—the one his eyes had frozen on—solidified.
Tara—it was Tara. Here. Right in front of him. Across the dining room. Sitting at one of the tables.
There was someone with her—someone with his back to him.
Someone that Tara was looking at. Gazing at.
Smiling at, her face alight with pleasure and delight.
He saw the man she was smiling at offer something to her, saw the flash as it caught the sunlight. Saw her lean forward a little, reach out a long, slender forearm. Saw what it was that she touched with her index finger, how the delight in her eyes lit her whole face.
Saw her lean closer now, across the table, saw her bestow a kiss upon the cheek of the man he now recognised.
Saw blackness fill his vision. Blinding him...
Memory seared into his blinded sight.
Marianne across that restaurant, sitting with another man, his diamond glittering on her finger, holding up her hand for Marc to see...
Still blinded, he lurched away.
There was blackness in his soul...
* * *
Just as she brushed her soft kiss of congratulation on Hans’s lined cheek, Tara’s gaze slipped past him.
And widened disbelievingly.
Marc?
For a second emotion leapt in her, soaring upwards. Then a fraction of a section later it crashed.
In that minute space of time she had registered two things. That he had seen her. And that he had turned on his heel and was walking out of the restaurant again as rapidly as the mesh of tables would allow him.
That told her one thing, and one thing only. He had not wanted to see her. Or acknowledge her presence there.
She felt a vice crushing her as she sat back in her seat, unable to breathe. She urgently had to regain control of herself. If Hans noticed her reaction he might wonder why. If he turned he might see Marc leaving the restaurant. Might go after him...drag him back to their table. She would have to encounter Marc again—Marc who had turned and bolted rather than speak to her.
If she’d ever wanted proof that he was over her—that he wanted nothing more to do with her—she had it now. Brutally and incontrovertibly!
The vice around her lungs squeezed more tightly. I’ve got to get out of here!
She didn’t dare risk it! Didn’t dare risk an encounter with him that he so obviously did not want! It would be mortifying.
‘Hans, I’m so sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for lunch after all.’ The excuse sounded impolite, but she had to give it. ‘Do please forgive me!’
She got to her feet; Hans promptly did the same.
‘I’m so very pleased for you—you and Ilse.’ She tried to infuse warmth into her voice but she was keeping an eye on the exit to the hotel lobby. Was it clear of Marc yet? If she could just get to the corridor leading to the side entrance Hans had brought her in by she could escape...
