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She would not cry in front of Louis. She’d already been the object of one unwarranted Delaroche temper this evening, and she’d be damned if she’d let another Delaroche take his pound of flesh, too. Steeling herself, she raised her chin to look up into the dark shadow of a face she didn’t need to see to have imprinted in her mind.
‘Thank you for rescuing me from the humiliation of being thrown out in front of the press waiting outside, but you have...people to get back to. And if you don’t mind, I’ll find a back way out of here and get safely home before your father realises I didn’t get made an example of.’
‘I don’t think so.’ His voice was lethally quiet. ‘You still haven’t told me why you were discussing Rainbow House.’
Frustration lent her courage and she let out a humourless laugh.
‘The fact that you don’t even know says it all.’
He took a sudden step towards her and made a sound somewhere between a growl and...something, his lips curving upwards into a shape so razor sharp it could hardly be called a smile.
Awareness shot through her, her heart thundering almost painfully in her chest. Her senses all immediately went on high alert, the stunning crispness of the cool night fading into nothing compared to the man in front of her. A reminder of why Louis was one of the world’s most powerful eligible bachelors.
She gripped the rough stone surface of the ornate balcony tighter and it was all she could do not to back away further. To hold her ground rather than tumble over the edge. He was too distracting. A six-foot-three package of corded muscles, so lean and powerful and strong, its beauty was almost too much. No amount of scandalous headlines or scurrilous articles could have prepared her for the effect of being this close to Louis in person. And alone with him.
Not even the proximity the previous week when her mentor had granted her coveted entry into one of Louis’s surgeries.
The moment when she’d seen Louis’s incredible surgical skill for herself. The moment she’d seen a different side to the heinous media image when he’d shown such care and kindness to his patient and their family. And evidently the moment she’d begun to lose her grip on reality, for pity’s sake.
Some small sense of self-preservation pounded inside her and she let out a disdainful, if somewhat nervous huff.
‘Remind me, what is the collective noun for a group of immaculately coiffured, designer-ballgown-dressed, primly preening women who spend all evening zealously clamouring around a less-than-selfless playboy?’
‘I believe they’re called high-society contacts.’ He flashed a wolfish smile that was more bared teeth and another shard of awareness sliced straight through her. Mercifully, Louis appeared oblivious. ‘This is a charity ball, after all. I’m sure even you must understand that the aim is to raise as much money as possible.’
‘I hardly think it’s the charities they’re here for,’ Alex scoffed, recalling the covetous expressions on a sea of female faces when Louis had abandoned them in the ballroom in favour of her.
Only he could have made several hundred women look on with more envy than interest as he’d snatched her from his father’s security detail, only to frogmarch her away, back through the vast estate house and finally here outside in the relative privacy of one of the many ornate stone balconies.
No doubt he thought she should be grateful to him for that much, Alex grumbled to herself as she rubbed her elbow and told herself that it was only tingly from the pain of Louis’s grip. Certainly not the thrill of his touch.
That would be lunacy.
‘I don’t care who or what brought them here.’ Louis shrugged. ‘As long as they support the Delaroche Foundation. The sooner they part with their surplus money, the sooner I can say I’ve done my filial duty and get out of here. Which brings me right back to why you were discussing Rainbow House with my father.’
He advanced on her again, her feeling of suffocation nothing to do with the lacy choker at her throat. Because even without the name or the heritage there would never have been any denying Louis Delaroche. He carried himself in the kind of autocratic and exacting way that many men tried to emulate but few could ever master. For Louis, it seemed effortless, an intrinsic part of who he was. He only had to murmur ‘Jump’ and those around him would frantically turn themselves inside out to become metaphorical pole-vaulters.
Alex sniffed indelicately. Well, his ubiquitous charm wasn’t going to work on her. She
was determined about that. How ironic it would be if, after a life of trying to do the right thing, striving to be somebody worthy of living in this world, someone who could maybe one day make a difference, she should be toppled by something as prosaic as falling for the proverbial bad boy.
Even now Alex could imagine the sadness on her father’s face. The knowledge that he’d been right about her all along. That she was worthless. That it was laughable she should have gone into medicine, a profession in which she was supposed to save lives when she only ever destroyed lives. Their lives. Her mother’s and her brother’s.
Mum and Jack. Or them, as she’d come to think of them. Grief slid over her, as a familiar as a set of scrubs yet in many ways equally as impersonal.
Not that her father ever blamed her aloud. Never made such an accusation. Never once even breathed it. Rather, it was the fact that he’d always been careful never, ever to mention it—never, ever mention them—that screamed louder than anything he could have said.
He was always so careful, her father, to keep subject matter defined. Work was fine, personal life was a no-go. Rainbow House was the only thing the two of them shared that had any connection to Mum and Jack at all.
And so her father must feel it, deep down. That kernel of loathing that she felt for herself. Rainbow House was the one good thing they shared. She had to save it. Whatever the cost.
That last thought helped her to steel her spine again. Lifting her head, she met Louis’s stare head on, refusing to be distracted, however tempting the packaging had turned out to be.
‘Rainbow House is a place for children with life-changing illnesses and their parents,’ she informed him. ‘A place that helps as many children as possible to find a cure, and offers respite for those who can’t get the solution they need, whether it’s a transplant or an operation. It sends families on that one precious memory-making holiday together, and helps fulfil as many bucket-list wishes as possible. Just the kind of place the Delaroche Foundation is famous for supporting.’
‘I know what it is,’ Louis remarked wryly, but the edge to his voice cautioned her.
Was she missing something? What?
