‘You were thirsty,’ Slade said with lazy amusement.
‘Can I have another?’ she asked with brittle control.
He looked at her for a moment, the expression on his face changing. ‘Sure you can,’ he said levelly, ‘after you’ve eaten a plateful of food and danced some more.’
‘I…I’m not very hungry.’
‘Then I’ll have to feed you mouthful by mouthful, won’t I?’ There was an edge to his voice, like steel wrapped in raw silk. ‘Because you are not going to escape from the fact that you are with me with too much champagne, or going home early or anything else you might be thinking of right now. We are going to eat and dance and drink some more, and tonight, Daisy Summers, you are going to be my woman.’
She stood very still, her heart beating wildly, but he read what she was thinking in her eyes.
‘I only meant that statement in the widest sense,’ he qualified drily. ‘Don’t panic. Unless, of course…’ He let the invitation in the softly drawled words turn her cheeks a brighter pink before he laughed, adding, ‘You need some food down you, wench. End of conversation.’
But it wasn’t the end of the evening and it was an evening in which every little moment conspired together to make it magical. Too magical. Heartbreakingly magical.
The food was gorgeous, the champagne excellent, Slade’s friends bright and witty and on the whole as unpretentious as he was in spite of their Diors and diamonds, but all that remained on the perimeter of her awareness. It was Slade who filled the senses of touch and taste and smell; there wasn’t room for anything or anyone else.
It was gone three in the morning and Daisy was in his arms dancing, wrapped tightly against the hard, solid bulk of his body. It was a slow, dreamy number and her face was pressed against his shoulder, the warm male scent of him enveloping her in a sensuous glow that she had relaxed into utterly.
He had kissed her once or twice during the evening—nothing heavy, almost social kisses—and nuzzled into her neck and ears in a way that had made her knees weak. And that was without him really making love to her, she had thought more than once. Without him using any of the devastating sexual expertise that surrounded him like an aura. What would it be like to go to bed with a man like him, to have him pet her and excite her and do the things she saw waiting in the slumbering depths of those glittering black eyes?
An affair. She considered the words almost objectively, pressed into him so closely she could feel the solid thud-thud of his heartbeat. A man like him would have had lots of affairs, lots of experience. And he was a free agent now, as was she. He would probably think there was nothing stopping them engaging in a light-hearted fun-and-games romance for a few weeks or a few months, however long it lasted. She wished she could think like that. Right now, feeling every inch of him and liking it so much, she really did wish she could be the sort of woman he thought she was. But she wasn’t like that.
Ronald had been her first lover and then only because she had made the commitment of mind and soul as well as body. It wasn’t in her to have a casual liaison—it never had been—but especially not now, not after the miscarriage. She couldn’t really explain it, even to herself, but seeing her daughter’s perfect little face, holding that tiny body close and seeing the minute features and diminutive fingers and toes, she had come to know herself—fully and wholely—for the first time in her life.
It had been that knowledge which had told her Ronald was as dead to her as if he had actually died and that life as she knew it was over, and that she would probably never commit herself to another man as long as she lived. And nothing had changed. Not really.
‘Penny for them?’ There was a huskiness in Slade’s voice, and she became aware he was looking down into her face, his eyes tender and his handsome face smiling.
The feeling which flooded her was a peculiar sensation and she didn’t like it; it stirred her heart, made her yearn for things which were impossible. Something had been happening to her since she had met him and she had to kill it, stone-dead, before she got hurt. And tonight was as good a time as any.
‘They aren’t worth a penny,’ she said lightly, refusing the intimacy his voice had called for.
‘No?’ This time as he lowered his head and took her lips his mouth was hard and hungry and searching but the kiss only lasted a few moments before he raised his head, his voice thick, and said, ‘Let’s get out of here; it’s late.’
Daisy concentrated very hard on the social ritual of goodbyes and smiles and light banter over the next five minutes, but once they were outside in the softly shadowed street she knew she was frightened. Not of him but of herself.
‘It’s only half an hour’s stroll back to Festina Lente,’ Slade said easily as he slipped her hand through his arm, ‘and it’s such a beautiful night I thought it would be good to show you my town bathed in the moonlight. Yes?’
‘Yes, that’s fine by me. After all the food I’ve had forced down me in the last few hours I need some exercise,’ said Daisy, trying to sound casual even as nerves exploded at his touch.
And it was a beautiful night. The sky was black velvet, pierced with stars, in which the full moon sailed with queenly disregard for her subjects and the air was warm and scented with a hundred different perfumes from lush vegetation. It was a night for lovers, Daisy thought with a thread of hysteria which she checked instantly. And she suspected that was exactly what Slade was thinking. This was the seduction scene; all that had gone before was the softening-up process, if she wasn’t very much mistaken. He was very good at this; she had to give him that.
‘Are you afraid of me, Daisy?’
They had been walking slowly, arm in arm, away from the sight and sounds of the party, and the mellow shadows had enclosed them in a silent world which Slade’s faintly accented, dark voice fitted perfectly. She stiffened, not knowing how to reply.
‘Are you?’ he pressed again when she didn’t answer, stopping and turning her face gently to meet his ebony gaze.
She shook her head wordlessly, unable to formulate words for the denial past the lump in her throat. She wasn’t afraid of him but of something else, something which was undefinable even to herself but which was all tied up with the past and the nightmares which still intruded whether she was awake or asleep. There was something ominous and threatening and strangely elusive about the feeling but it was very real.
‘I don’t want to hurt you. Do you believe that?’ he asked softly.
Did she? Daisy looked into the hard, handsome face. It was so easy to say ‘I don’t want to hurt you’ and maybe he didn’t—he wasn’t a monster after all—but he would hurt her if she let him into her life and her body. She knew it without the shadow of a doubt. She shrugged carefully. ‘It isn’t relevant, is it, Slade?’ she said steadily. ‘I am Francesco’s nanny, that’s all.’
The flare of anger in his eyes accompanied a look which was very searching. ‘Perhaps I don’t want you to be just Francesco’s nanny?’ he said with careful evenness.
Daisy shrugged again as she turned and continued walking along the dimly lit street, and after a moment he fell into step beside her, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his trousers now and his eyes straight ahead. ‘It was very bad, your marriage?’ he asked tonelessly.