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‘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 wri
st.
‘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 slept.
In the opposite corner of the passenger seat, Xavier paused in his interrogation of his west coast sales director. His eyes rested on her.
His thoughts were mixed. Contradictory.
The sharp shadows of her face in the streetlight set her cheekbones into relief. Long lashes swept down over her pale cheeks. In repose, her tiredness seemed to have ebbed, leaving nothing behind except the question as to why Lissa Stephens should look so tired when she had all day to sleep.
And another question, as well. Far more troubling.
Why did he feel a stab of pity at her being so tired—and why did the exhaustion in her face merely emphasise the extraordinary beauty of her bone structure?
He wanted to go on looking at her—just looking.
