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This time there was no doubt. He was smiling directly at her. He was flirting with her. Why?
Ria cast around desperately in her mind for a change of topic and netted one idle thought.
“What does Luc stand for? I assume Lucien?”
He smiled wickedly. “No, it actually stands for Lucifer.”
She stopped walking and stared at him, horrified. “Your parents named you Lucifer?”
“Adrian Lucifer. Lucifer was my mother’s choice, I believe.”
“I don’t…” Her voice trailed off. After all, what could she say? It was his mother, after all.
But what mother would call her son that? Why would she do that to a helpless baby?
A small, humorless smile played around the corners of his mouth as he watched her reaction. He seemed to know what she was thinking because he went on. “My mother and I have a…” He shrugged his elegantly clad shoulders, “…difficult relationship. From what she has said, I believe it began in the womb. Once I was born, it grew worse. She refused to have another child, which probably tells you something.”
“When you first introduced yourself to me, you called yourself Luc. If Adrian is your first name why do you use Luc? Especially given what it stands for?”
“At first I started calling myself Lucifer when I realized it was a way to get my father’s attention.” He laughed at the expression on her face. “Yes, my father and I had a difficult relationship too.”
As Ria continued to stare at him, he added in a lighter vein, “Lyons said it fitted my character far better than Adrian. Somewhere along the line, it got shortened to Luc.”
“So a friend of yours thinks you are a devil?”
He nodded in agreement; then one corner of his mouth lifted in a suggestive smile as he added, “A devil with cards and the ladies.”
She choked at his last comment. Unable to keep quiet a moment longer, she asked him. “Are you flirting with me?”
Ria could tell from his expression he was taken aback and took perverse pleasure from having rattled him. “I only ask because I am uncertain.”
“I must be losing my touch if you don’t know.”
“Don’t feel badly. I don’t recall anyone ever flirting with me before, and I’m not quite sure how it is done.”
“No one has ever flirted with you before?”
What could she say to that? “No.”
“Not even your husband?”
“I had known him a long time before we married, so it wasn’t necessary.”
Uncomfortable with their conversation that could lead to questions she didn’t want to answer, Ria returned to her original query. “As I said, I am unaccustomed to flirting and thus not likely to recognize it, so are you flirting with me?”
He raised an eyebrow and looked at her for a long moment. He then inclined his head and said very softly, in a deep, husky tone that somehow conveyed an image of candlelight and seduction, “Yes, I am flirting with you.”
“Why?” She could tell he was nonplussed. It was so nice to shake him out of his usual calm confidence. She was beginning to enjoy herself.
“Because you are a very attractive woman…”
Waving her hand in the air, she interrupted him. “There are lots of attractive women. Why me? Why are you staying in Little Bridgeton? If you went to London, you could have many far more beautiful women to choose from.”
“Yes, there are quite a few attractive women there—though I would not say a lot. But not all appeal to me. And not all are the right age. I have a liking for”—”He cast an appraising eye over her“—”blue-eyed blondes. I’m also not looking for a permanent liaison but rather an affaire, which limits the field even further. Generally to widows. So you see it is not as far-fetched as you seem to think.”
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “To summarize, you are flirting with me and are offering me carte blanche because I have blond hair, blue eyes, am the right age, and am a widow?”
He stopped walking and turned to face her properly, staring at her with narrowed eyes. Fascinated, she watched as a muscle twitched in his jaw. After a long pause he drawled, “Yes, to a point.”
