Her frown came back, along with a sigh in exasperation. ‘Is it me or yourself you’re mocking when you talk like that?’
‘Both of us, I think,’ he said, then added more neutrally, ‘Come and take a look at what we’ve done with the famous Bressingham dining room.’
He placed a light hand to her lower back to urge her to turn. Her spine arched away from the heat in his fingers. Without comment he dropped the hand again, and together they walked up the rest of the stairs with her body still tingling from the briefest of touches.
Nothing had changed here either, she saw, drawing to a stop at the top of the staircase to simply absorb what was to her the loveliest room in the building. This was where life happened at the Bressingham, she recalled poignantly. A place where the hum of conversation blended with the chink of silver on china, and people relaxed in comfortable chairs while enjoying food prepared by gifted magicians. And it all took place beneath the great crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, now beautifully restored to their original glory.
The old grand piano still stood in its corner. The same brick-dust-red paint still warmed the walls. All it needed was covers placed on the tables and she would almost believe she was standing here, by the same maître d’s station, waiting to be seated for a romantic dinner.
With the man she loved…
The tears threatened again, pressing like weights against her throat in their desire to escape as a new set of memories suddenly rose up to haunt her.
‘This is where we first met,’ André murmured, telling her that his own memories were coinciding with hers. ‘I’d come here for dinner and you were playing maître d’…
She’d glanced up from her table plan to find herself looking at the most gorgeous man she had ever set eyes upon. Samantha progressed the memory. Smooth and suave, breathtakingly sophisticated in a black silk dinner suit, he’d tossed a devastating grin at her, had touched a long finger to her black bow tie and had said, ‘Snap…’
‘You took my breath away.’ André took back the moment. ‘So much so that I think I said something really stupid, like “Snap” and touched your bow tie…’
Samantha swallowed. So did he.
&
nbsp; ‘As I drew my finger away it brushed the underside of your chin, and it was like touching a small piece of heaven…’
‘Don’t,’ she whispered unevenly.
‘Why not?’ he demanded. ‘Don’t you think the ruthless rat of a tycoon should be allowed any sentimentality?’
‘I just don’t want to talk about it,’ she answered painfully.
‘Well, I do—’ And before she could do more than gasp out a protest, he placed his hands round her waist and, with the minimum of effort, picked her and plonked her back down again, right behind the old-fashioned maître d’ station.
Her eyes leapt up to his and her mouth parted to issue a stinging rebuttal. But instead the words clogged in her throat and she found herself locked into a painful replay of one of the most precious moments in her life.
‘That’s right.’ André growled. ‘Look all wide-eyed and startled, just as you did that evening, and remember, cara, just who it is you’re looking at!’ His hand came up, a finger settling beneath her chin. The skin there seemed to actually preen itself. ‘For I am the guy who took one look at you, with your glorious hair and sensational eyes, and skin like the smoothest substance I’ve ever known, and fell so head-over-heels in love with you that he would rather cut his own throat than ever hurt you!’
Angry—he was stunningly angry, she realised belatedly. All that cynicism and mockery had been hiding a deep and burning anger, which was now spitting out at her from eyes as cold as black diamonds in a face chiselled from the hardest rock.
‘Then, why did you?’ She hit right back at him, and if his eyes were hard hers were harder. With a toss of her head she dislodged the finger. ‘I gave every single cell of myself to you—and you threw it all right back in my face! That isn’t love, André! How dare you even call it that!’
‘Are we talking about Raoul here, or the Bressingham?’ he gritted.
‘Both,’ she said. ‘Both!’
A door opened somewhere below them. André turned like a serpent sensing attack as a woman in an overall walked across the foyer and disappeared through the door by reception.
‘Who was that?’ she questioned shakily.
‘A cleaner,’ he replied, swinging his eyes back to her with a new frustration burning in them, because the interruption had ruined the moment, and he knew he would never get it back. ‘There is a whole army of them around somewhere,’ he added, withdrawing his aggressive stance with a sigh. ‘Where to now?’ he asked coolly.
She shook her head, still shaking from their confrontation. ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘I—y-you choose…’
But André didn’t want to choose. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her! ‘Can’t you see—can’t you tell what I’ve tried to do here?’ he bit out angrily.
‘Kept to the letter of your contract with my father.’ She nodded.
He sighed in frustration. ‘Any second now,’ he gritted, ‘I am going to kiss that closed mind of yours right out into the open.’