Summer Sins

‘What are crus?’ she asked. ‘I’ve never understood those, either.’

Xavier enlightened her.

It was good to talk about something like champagne. He could talk without thinking, and that was good right now. He didn’t want to think. He wanted to watch. He wanted to watch the way Lissa Stephens held her champagne glass with a natural grace and elegance, the way she lifted it to her mouth from time to time, and the way her soft lips embraced the lip of the flute. He wanted to watch her gazing across at him, her eyes hanging on his, deep and smoky. He wanted—

‘Your table is ready now, sir, if you would like to go through?’

The maître d’ from the adjacent restaurant was hovering deferentially. Xavier nodded. He got to his feet.

‘Shall we?’ he invited Lissa.

She stood up. She didn’t feel quite steady on her feet, but it had nothing to do with the champagne she’d been sipping.

And everything to do with the man she was about to dine with.

Supremely self-consciousness of his scrutiny, she walked forward into the dining room. The shoes that went with the dress were a fraction tight, but she didn’t care. She only knew the dress itself made her feel like a million dollars, moulding her body and yet simultaneously skimming her contours. She let the maître d’ show them to their table, secluded and private on the far side of the dining room, and took her place on the banquette with the same self-consciousness.

The business of ordering food—a lengthy process, involving no less a personage than the chef himself, emerging from his domain to conduct an intensive, mutually satisfactory conversation in rapid, idiomatic French with this man for whom any chef would proffer his arts and skills—helped her relax. So, too, did the continued sips of champagne. She wasn’t entirely sure how much she’d drunk, because her glass never seemed to be empty. She would need to be careful, she knew, but only with an abstract part of her mind.

Prudence, caution, being sensible—all seemed qualities that had nothing to do with what was happening to her now.

Because what was happening to her now was magic. Pure and simple.

Magic to sit here at the same table as this man, the man who could turn her inside out and back aga

in with a single long-lashed glance. Magic to be so wonderfully, shiveringly aware of what he was doing to her. Magic to listen to his smooth, deliciously accented voice, talking about … well, she couldn’t really think what. But it was easy, undemanding conversation that flowed between them, back and forth, on easy, undemanding topics, and yet she knew, with that same breathless awareness, that it was simply a vehicle for a conversation that was taking place far below the level of her consciousness—a conversation that had one subject only.

Unspoken, but there—in every glance, in every moment her eyes were held by his, in her every helpless gaze.

The exquisite meal seemed to go on for ever, yet was over in a flash. And then, somehow, she was sipping a tiny demi-tasse of coffee, whose intensity of aroma was almost as heady as the wines she had drunk. Too many wines, too much. But she didn’t care. They had served only to exquisitely enhance the headiness lifting her which had nothing to do with alcohol or caffeine.

And everything to do with the man sitting opposite her.

The conversation died away. Around them, the rest of the diners were leaving. The room was nearly empty. The buzz of conversation all around had ebbed. The emptiness of the dining room seemed to throw a web of even greater privacy around them.

More than privacy.

Intimacy.

She felt it like a tangible brush of silk across her skin. It made her feel as if she were caught in a cocoon, cradling her, embracing her.

She gazed across at Xavier. She wasn’t sure at what point he had become Xavier, but now he was.

Xavier—she let the syllables of his name flow silently, caressingly, through her mind. Just as she was letting the warmth of his gaze caress her. She let her eyes mingle with his, let herself look deep into those beautiful, dark eyes that were looking back at her, looking at her in a way that was slowly, very slowly, dissolving her from the inside.

She knew its name. Had always known its name.

But now—now she felt its power. Power that she had never known.

Till now.

Her hands at her coffee cup stilled. She saw his hand move across the damask surface of the tablecloth. Saw, as if in slow motion, his hand reach for hers.

And touch. Touch with those long, sensitive fingers that she had watched cradle the golden flute of champagne. Now they were devastatingly cradling her fingers, turning her hand over so that her fingers were resting on his square, strong palm.

She felt a thousand feathering sensations in every millimetre that he touched.

His eyes held hers.