A Scandal Made At Midnight

‘But it’s so sad,’ Liane protested, even though she liked it as well. It captured something of the grief she’d felt when her father had embroiled himself in scandal and their lives had changed so drastically—leaving the little house in Lyon, moving to Paris and then to New York, only to have her father die soon after, so they were catapulted into a new life that had felt unfamiliar and even hostile. It was a loss that ran right through her, like silk shot with silver thread, tingeing everything with sorrow, making her stay in the shadows.

‘Hugo wrote it for his daughter,’ Alessandro remarked, ‘who drowned in the Seine when she was newly married.’

Liane nodded, knowing the story. ‘Her skirts were too heavy and weighed her down, and her husband died trying to save her. She was only nineteen.’

‘Not so much of a fairy tale.’

‘But then fairy tales aren’t real, are they?’ she felt forced to return. She tried to give him a teasing smile but she didn’t quite manage it.

He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping slowly over her, making her feel strangely revealed—not as if he were stripping away her clothes but her very soul, plumbing depths that she’d hidden from everyone. Goodness, but she was being fanciful, thinking this man saw something in her that no one else did—of course he didn’t. He barely saw her at all. But right now she was in the spotlight of his gaze and it made her burn in ways that were both welcome and uncomfortable. Oh, to be seen, truly seen...and yet how utterly terrifying.

‘Is that what you think?’ he asked.

She was hardly about to admit that she longed to believe in the fairy tale, at least for herself. She wasn’t about to spout about true love and the happily-ever-after she yearned for when she already suspected him to be a cynic about such matters, and in any case she didn’t have any evidence to substantiate her dreams, just a deep-seated belief, or maybe just hope, that true love did exist somewhere, that it could blossom into something big and wonderful.

‘It’s what I’ve seen so far,’ she replied as pragmatically as she could. ‘Here you are, making up a fairy tale for public consumption.’ She’d meant to sound light but her voice came out a bit sharper than she intended.

He arched one eyebrow. ‘So you really are disapproving.’

‘I’m not disapproving so much as...dubious,’ she allowed. ‘As to the efficacy or morality of such a scheme.’

‘Morality?’ He folded his arms so his biceps bulged against the crisp cotton of his shirt, his lush mouth hardened into a frown. ‘What is immoral about posting a few images of the Rossi hotels on social media?’

Liane shrugged, discomfited. She wasn’t as disapproving, she thought with a pang, as she was jealous, something she would never, ever admit to Alessandro. ‘You’re bringing Ella along to generate gossip and speculation,’ she hedged.

‘I’m bringing Ella along,’ he corrected, ‘to raise the profile of the hotels on social media.’

‘But you know she’ll make up some silly story through her posts. The Prince and the Princess, et cetera.’ She hoped she didn’t sound jealous.

Alessandro cocked an eyebrow. ‘Will she? I have to sign off on them, remember.’ That steely gaze swept over her yet again, creating a wash of awareness in its wake, making everything prickle and heat. ‘In any case, you are allowing your sister to take part in it.’

‘She’s twenty-two,’ Liane returned with a hint of acerbity. ‘I can’t make her decisions for her.’

‘Too true.’ He propped one shoulder against the bookcase, close enough that Liane could feel the heat of his powerful body, breathe in the citrusy scent of his aftershave that made her senses swim. If she took a step towards him they’d be touching. She imagined the feel of the crisp cotton of his shirt under her hand, the warm skin underneath, even as she strove to stay still and unmoved. Her body, though, felt like swaying towards him, the way a plant might tilt to the sun. So ridiculous. So shaming, especially when she doubted he was feeling anything remotely similar. ‘So you’d rather she hadn’t agreed?’ he pressed. ‘That I hadn’t suggested such a plan?’

She shook her head, not wanting to be drawn. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

‘But you must have an opinion on the matter,’ he observed silkily.

She glanced up at him from beneath her lashes, uneasy to offer an opinion when she—and Ella—were both so dependent on his generosity for the next week. And, she realised, she didn’t want him to think her prudish or stern. Schoolmarmish, even, although she knew that was what she was. ‘Everyone will think the two of you are falling in love,’ she said after a moment, her voice the tiniest bit unsteady.

‘They’ll wonder,’ Alessandro agreed with a shrug. ‘What is that to me?’

‘Nothing, I suppose.’ He obviously didn’t care what other people thought about him. ‘I suppose I don’t like deceiving people,’ she stated finally. Although would it really be deception if they did end up falling in love?

‘Neither do I,’ he replied equably.

She frowned, glancing at him in uneasy confusion. ‘But then why...?’

‘This is hardly deception,’ Alessandro informed her mildly. He angled his body so his shoulder was practically brushing hers, causing every sense to twang to life. She didn’t dare move away, and in truth she didn’t want to. The citrusy scent of him was making her head spin. ‘All marketing is spin, you know. Showing whatever it is in the way you want to. That’s all this is.’

Liane nodded slowly. She knew she wasn’t actually bothered so much by any seeming element of deception, rather than the simple fact of Alessandro and Ella posing as a couple together. Although he’d implied yesterday that he intended them to be no such thing and even right now seemed to think himself immune to her sister’s enviable charms, she still feared it would be inevitable. Ella was gorgeous, charming, funny and always willing to tumble into love. How would a man like Alessandro resist her? He wouldn’t, she thought, unable to keep from feeling despondent, even try.

Her eyes, Alessandro thought, were marvellous—the colour of pansies, or perhaps a bruise. A deep, damaged violet, fringed by silvery lashes that swept her pale cheeks every time she blinked, which had been quite a lot. He made her nervous—something that gave him a sense of both remorse and satisfaction. He realised he enjoyed the ability to affect her, to matter. It was an alarming thought because normally he didn’t want to matter to anyone. Mattering allowed you to hurt and be hurt, to use and be used. He wanted no part of any of that, not even a little bit. Life, he’d long ago determined, needed to be a solitary affair; emotions were not to be engaged.

And yet...he liked the way her eyes widened and her breathing turned uneven when he moved closer to her. He breathed in the flowery scent of her perfume, something subtle and not too sweet. A grown-up fragrance—understated, sophisticated. He felt there was something fragile and vulnerable about her, yet also tensile and strong. A woman of complexities, enigmas, perhaps without her even realising it.

He found her far more fascinating, and even alluring, than her charismatic yet fundamentally insipid sister, who couldn’t look up from her phone for more than thirty seconds, and then only to tease or flirt. There were depths to Liane that he hadn’t sensed in Ella. But why should he compare the two women? Liane was in her own category altogether.

Not, he reminded himself, that it made a bit of difference to anything. He had no intention of taking this burgeoning attraction between them anywhere, as enjoyable as this moment was, as much as he was now wondering what it would be like to lean forward just a little bit, breathe in her fragrance, slide his fingers along the silkiness of her skin, draw her to him...

‘How do you know that poem?’ he asked, easing back slightly. He was curious to learn more about her—and direct the conversation away from the social media scheme he was already beginning to regret. It had been a rather recklessly impetuous decision, so unlike him, and if he was honest with himself he feared it had little to do with the state of the Rossi hotels and everything with the woman before him.

‘It is taught in school in France. It was one of my favourites. I teach it as well.’

‘You grew up in France, then?’

‘Yes, in Lyon and then Paris, but we moved to New York when I was eleven.’

‘How come?’