‘But…’
‘Come on, Henri.’ Stephanie caught him by the tie and tugged him gently, at which he obediently fell into line with her. Only as Destiny was leaving the bar herself did Stephanie run up breathlessly to say, ‘Had to tell you, Dessie. That felt so good!’
‘What did?’
‘Being the one to call the shots!’ She dashed back out, pausing to wave at Destiny, and then they disappeared.
The performance had restarted by the time Destiny made her way back to the empty seats, head down in embarrassment at everyone having to shift sideways or lever themselves up to let her through, and it was only when she was sitting that a dark, velvety voice said from one seat along,
‘Hope you don’t mind if I join you?’
‘What are you doing here?’
The question was ignored as Callum shifted one seat along so that he was directly next to her, his elbow resting on the divide between them.
‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated tensely. The perspective angle hadn’t worked at all. In fact, it had monumentally backfired, and she could feel that surge of emotion hit her like a sledgehammer as she glared at his averted profile and breathed in his masculine smell that had nothing to do with aftershave of any description.
‘Shh, the play.’ He settled back into his seat, while next to him she seethed and tried to figure out how Fate could be malignant enough to throw him into her company at this precise moment in time.
‘Aren’t you enjoying it?’ he murmured in a low voice, ‘I can feel you bristling next to me like a steam engine about to explode.’
‘I was enjoying it.’
‘Oh, you mean until I came along.’ He didn’t appear to be disconcerted by that, and when she opened her mouth again his response was to say, ‘Shh!’
So she found herself sitting through the remainder of the play, which had lost its appeal, while questions piled up in her head. But she restrained herself from saying another word until the performance was ended, the encores had been done and the lights were on. She was barely aware of the crowds of people surging past her towards the exit. Nor was she about to look around to see whether Callum was behind her. In fact, she’d almost convinced herself that he had somehow got lost in the crowd, perhaps even trampled underfoot, when she felt the pressure of his hand on her elbow.
‘So where to now?’
‘I’ve got a taxi booked…’
‘Oh, good. Mind if I grab a lift with you? Taxis can be hell to come by at this hour outside a theatre.’ He followed her outside, meekly allowing her to stride towards her taxi, head held high, but once they were inside the car, he turned and said, ‘Where were you planning to eat?’
Originally, she wanted to ask, or now that my escort’s vanished? Then it dawned on her that he was probably aware of exactly why she had been sitting in a row of three on her own. He must have seen her from the start, or else how would he have known where she was sitting? The thought that he’d been watching her made the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. Watching and…laughing?
‘Actually, I thought I might just go home and give food a miss,’ Destiny said in a stiff, polite voice, head carefully averted.
‘Give food a miss? You?’
That made her snap round to look at him, although she had a sneaking suspicion that that had been the intention when he had made his gibe.
‘I do occasionally skip food,’ she told him with glacier-like formality, but the ice in her voice was ambushed by her wide, dilated pupils and for a few heady seconds she was held hostage by his piercing, sexy blue eyes.
It was, he thought, like an attempt to quench a roaring furnace with three drips of water, a token, desperate effort to distance him, and the awareness of that filled him with a crude, primitive sense of triumph. That tentative taste of her one week ago had been like a tantalising aperitif. It had stirred a hunger in him that had been shockingly erotic and one week of absence had done nothing to still it.
Love and animal lust swelled inside him, making his groin ache, and he struggled to let none of it show on his face. The slightest smell of his desire would send her running a mile. In all his life he’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted her, and it was just his luck that she was the one woman whose traditional, principled outlook was like a steel barrier between them.
‘Not tonight.’ He leaned towards the taxi driver and gave him an address, then he sat back and waited for her inevitable question, which was not long in coming.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Just a little place I know where we can get something light to eat.’
He sat back against the door and watched her. Watching her gave him a peculiar feeling of pleasure. Watching her, absorbing the expressions that flitted across her face. Even now, as she turned away, hunching her shoulder like someone trying to fend off danger through body language, he still enjoyed the view. Her skin was like satin, smooth and brown, making her hair look even richer and blonder in comparison. He wanted to reach out and gather it up between his fingers, so that he could pull her closer to him. He imagined her weight against him and the bird’s-eye view he would have of the enticing swell of her breasts, barely restrained by her low-cut neckline. She had a body that always appeared to be bursting to get out of the clothes she wrapped around it.