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With a heavy, hard heart, she got to her feet. She had to get out of here. She had to get changed and go home, back to her real life. She went out into the washroom area, collecting her bag of clothes from the cloakroom, then retired back into the cubicle to change. The jeans were still damp, but tough. Her jacket would keep her warm enough, and it was still early enough to travel by Tube, which would be warmer. She’d go straight home, not back to work. She couldn’t face it—not tonight. Would Xavier Lauran complain about her to the casino manager? Consider himself short-changed because she hadn’t come across for him, even after all the soft soaping he’d given her? Well, too bad. She’d assumed she was out of a job when she’d left the casino this evening—so if she was, she was.
Leaving a tip for the attendant she could ill afford, she headed out of the Ladies. The beautiful silk dress was folded back into its tissue paper, the shoes nestling in the base of the bag, stockings neatly wrapped. No one would want to wear them, obviously, but they belonged to Xavier Lauran. He’d paid for them, and he would get them back, along with the rest of what he’d dolled her up in.
She glanced warily around as she marched towards the concierge’s desk, but there was no sign of him. Good—he’d left.
She clumped heavily on the marble floor, and didn’t care. She reached the concierge and hefted up the boutique bags.
‘For Mr Xavier Lauran,’ she said shortly. ‘I don’t know his room number.’
‘Certainly, madam,’ the uniformed concierge said, and lowered the bags behind his desk. She nodded her thanks, and headed to the main entrance of the hotel. The revolving doors opened on to a portico where taxis and cars could draw up. Was Xavier Lauran’s chauffeured car still waiting for her? She didn’t care if it was. She wasn’t getting into it anyway. There was a Tube station quite near here, and the rain had stopped finally. It was chilly, but dry. She wanted to go home.
She hovered on the exterior concourse a moment, getting her bearings. She was somewhere in Mayfair, on the corner of one of the grand Georgian squares, but for a moment her orientation was awry. She glanced around.
And there was Xavier Lauran. Tall, hands plunged into the pockets of his cashmere overcoat. Immobile. Waiting.
He walked up to her. She tried to walk past him. He blocked her instantly, hands slipping from his pockets and catching her by her elbows.
‘Lissa—please. If you do nothing else, let me apologise.’
She stared up at him.
‘I behaved like a brute. An oaf. And I’m sorry—truly sorry.’
How he did it she didn’t know, but he guided her to the far end of the concourse, where there were no people, no cars, no doorman.
He looked down at her. There was an expression in his eyes she hadn’t seen before. It made him look … different. She didn’t know why. Could only know, right now, that her heart had started to thump. With hard, heavy slugs.
And that her throat was tight, so tight.
‘I’m truly sorry,’ he said again, and his voice was different, too, though she couldn’t tell why.
He was speaking again, and she forced herself to listen over the pounding of her heart.
‘If there is someone else in your life, then I understand. And I respect you for being honest with me—and I am sorry, truly, for having placed you in this position in the first place. Making you feel that you had to accept my invitation or risk your job—even though it’s a job I wish you didn’t have.’ He took a breath. It seemed ragged to her ears.
‘I told you I was merely inviting you for dinner, and you have my word that at the time that is all I intended. Nothing more. But—’ He took another indrawn breath. ‘When I saw you, dressed as your beauty should be dressed, I was simply blown away. I have no other excuse. And I thought …’ his eyes washed over her, and she felt her legs weaken. ‘I thought you were responding to me in the same way, for the same reason.’ His mouth pressed minutely, then released. ‘Which is why I made the invitation that I did. I did not mean it insultingly or cheaply.’
His hands around her elbows eased upwards, and without her realising it he was drawing her closer to him.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said softly. ‘Even now, knowing as I do that you are not free, even with that knowledge I still want for this one, single time—this. Allow me, please—for it is all I can have of you.’
He lowered his head to hers.
His kiss was heaven. Soft, and lingering and exquisite. She gave herself to it, gave herself with all the yearning she was filled with to the magic in his lips, his touch, taken for those few precious moments to a paradise she had not known existed.
And then, even as her heart soared, he was drawing away from her, letting go of her.
‘Goodbye,’ he said softly.
And then he was walking away.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘I’VE got a booking for you at an insurance company.’
The temp agency girl’s voice was brisk and businesslike. Lissa forced herself to concentrate. It was punishingly hard. For a start she was tired—but that was nothing new. Her late nights at the casino always left her tired. She should be grateful, though, that she still had a job there. She had so very nearly lost it.
But what was new, horribly, bleakly new, was this sense of the world having had all the colour drained out of it. Everything was grey.
