There was no doubt I was intensely attracted to him. Honestly, a woman would have had to be dead to remain unmoved by his fierce looks. But I had never dated an overtly attractive man. In fact, I had only dated one man and by no stretch of the imagination had he been a hunk. Mark had been sweet faced, with thick-rimmed glasses and distinctly Canadian manners. We had dated a month before he could work up the courage to kiss me.
I watched Sinclair speak easily with one of his associates. After a moment, his posture changed infinitesimally and I knew he was aware of my gaze. Immediately, heat pooled at the base of my stomach. I knew that saying yes to this man would rock my world and honestly, I wasn’t sure that I was sophisticated enough to deal with it. Catching my eye, he stared at me, desire blazing so brightly I was sure everyone at the table was aware of the fiery air between us.
“So, Elle.” Cage leaned over to me with a boyish grin on his exotic features. If I hadn’t been so inextricably caught up in Sinclair, I’m sure I would have been bowled over by both his good looks and star power. “Tell me about yourself. What brings you to Mexico?”
My stomach fluttered and I realized that my anxiety had been laid to bed by Sinclair’s charm. I hadn’t thought about the betrayal I had left behind in Paris or my family reunion in over an hour.
“I’m here to paint.”
His eyebrows shot into his hairline and a flicker of suspicion flashed across his face. “You’re an artist. Would I know any of your work?”
I shrugged when I felt Sinclair’s gaze on us. “Maybe.”
“Well, where did you study? A friend of mine is one of the proprietors at MoMA.” The woman beside him snorted derisively but he ignored her. “I know quite a bit about art.”
“European.” Robert Corbett, the only man over sixty in the group, slapped his thick hand to the table and then pointed at me triumphantly. “Irish?”
“I thought French like Sinclair,” Duncan Wright countered, his glasses iridescent in the candlelight.
“Not quite French are you, sucre?” Cage frowned at me thoughtfully.
Before he could press me further, Sinclair chuckled darkly. “Elle is difficult to know. Leave her be.”
It was said with good humor but I knew it was a warning. No one was to press me for details and I wasn’t to offer any.
I should have been angry, at the very least indignant over his privacy clause in our holiday affair, but I only felt a secret thrill of excitement. I wanted to know how his caramelized skin tasted and trace my fingers over the line of the muscles in his torso as it arrowed into the groin. If I could have that, I assured the more conservative part of my conscious, the personal details wouldn’t matter.
“And you, Cage?” I spoke quietly, as if I had a secret to share, so that Sinclair could only wonder at our topic of conversation. Let him worry, I thought with an inner smile.
Cage threw his head back and laughed heartily, his glossy hair catching the candlelight and highlighting his heathen good looks. “Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I think you’ll be playing dumb, Elle.”
I smiled at him over the rim of my wine glass, pleased and surprised by my ease with the singer.
“And how do you know Sinclair?” I took a careful sip of my wine, savoring the robust flavors of the cabernet he had ordered for me. It was delicious, and another current of arousal sparked through my system. The Italian woman in me loved a man who knew his wine.
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say we met through a mutual friend, a very long time ago.” His tone implied that friend and he had shared some very intimate time together and once again, the woman beside him with the buck teeth rolled her eyes.
He laughed and winked at someone over my shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Sin?”
I looked over my shoulder and up, to find him standing behind me frowning. Goose bumps rippled along my skin and I rubbed my exposed arms even though the breeze off the ocean was tacky with warmth.
“If I remember correctly, I introduced you to our ‘mutual friend’ and you took off with her,” he said as he put a warm hand on my shoulder. The heat from his contact seared through the thin material of my dress and made me shudder.
Cage gasped in dramatic objection. “Me? Never. Elle, who do you believe? This French gypsy or the hunky rock star?”
I laughed, at ease with Cage’s mock arrogance. It reminded me of my brother Sebastian’s public persona and unexpectedly, I felt a pang for home. “I am not the right person to ask.”
I tilted my head so that my eyes could meet Sinclair’s over my shoulder. His were dark and troubled, his other hand clenched by his side as he fought to control the emotion in his features. I could sense his pain, his discomfort over Cage’s carelessly worded humor.
“Oh?” he asked quietly.
“Because she clearly favors me,” Cage declared smugly, leaning back in his chair like a king on his throne.
“No,” I spoke softly and ran the fingers of my right hand gently down the outside of his leg nearest to me. “Because I have a soft spot for gypsies.”
His nostrils flared and without looking at Cage, he said, “Trade places with me. Duncan has something he wants to discuss with you.”
Cage looked at the man in question, who only shrugged but Cage did as he was told with a roguish grin.