The Night That Started It All Read Online Free

the one, she didn’t care to imagine too closely what had happened with the woman. His part in it.
    ‘I see stripes are in this season.’ He continued to hold her in his gaze. ‘Do you always binge on vodka?’
    ‘Unless coke’s on offer.’
    Beside her, Neil choked on the bruschetta he was wolfing. ‘Steady on, girl. Luc’ll get the wrong impression.’
    She’d forgotten Neil. Smiling, she patted the brotherly shoulder. Neil needn’t have worried. Luc was receiving her loud and clear, all right. For one thing, he seemed drawn by her rose carmine lipstick. She was in a likewise hypnotically drawn situation. The more she looked, the more she liked. Her eyes could scarcely unglue themselves.
    He didn’t seem at all fazed by her coke pun either. Instead, he smiled too, as if he understood she was kidding but it was a secret shared only by them.
    ‘You don’t look like a Chénier.’ Heavens, was that her voice? Suddenly she was as throaty as a swan.
    ‘I’m not a Chénier,’ he said at once, a tad firmly. ‘I’m a Valentin.’
    That was all to the good. She tried not to betray herself by staring, but his mouth was so intensely stirring she couldn’t resist drinking in the lines. Stern, yet so appealingly sensuous. A mouth for intoxicating midnight kisses. The troublewas, a woman could never be sure how a man would turn out beyond midnight.
    ‘Forgive me if I mention it …’ He moved a smidgin closer and she caught her breath in the proximity. ‘You seem a little tense. Don’t you enjoy parties?’
    In need of fortification, she snagged a champagne flute from a passing waiter and let her roséd lips form a charming smile. ‘I adore them. Don’t you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Ah. Then I guess that’s why you smoulder. I was beginning to think you were a misogynist.’ Like his cousin.
    She’d once read a novel in which a Frenchman whose honour was being challenged assumed a very Gallic expression. Perhaps that described the expression crossing Luc’s handsome face at that very instant.
    She could sense Neil’s ripple of shock. It gave her a charge of pure enjoyment.
    Luc’s dark lashes flickered half the way down. ‘I like women. Especially provocative ones.’
    ‘How about dull, mousy, dreary ones?’
    He cocked a brow at her, then, amused, glanced about. ‘I don’t see any here.’
    ‘They could be in disguise.’
    His dark eyes lit. ‘But what dull, mousy, dreary people would ever think of wearing a disguise? Only very exciting, sexy, playful women do that.’
    Her spirit lifted with a warm buzz. At last a man was divining her true nature. She
was
exciting, sexy and playful, given the proper inspirational framework. She felt his glance touch her throat and breasts, and the glow intensified. Imagining his smooth fingers tracing that same pathway, she might have begun to emit a few sparks.
    She noticed Neil shift restlessly at her side, then mumble something and drift away.
    Alone in a crowded room with a sophisticated Frenchman,
another
sophisticated Frenchman, Shari felt her feet edge to the precipice. A whisper of suspense tantalised the fine down on her nape. This
might
have been just a bit of aimless flirting, but something in his eyes, something intentional behind his glance, made the breath catch in her throat.
    All men weren’t like Rémy. Of course they weren’t.
    The Frenchman gazed meditatively across the room, then back at her. ‘What are you trying to drown with all that alcohol?’
    ‘Tears, of course. My broken heart.’
    ‘There are better ways.’
    Meeting that dark sensual gaze, she had no doubt of it. The battered old muscle in her chest gave a warning lurch.
Keep it light, Shari
.
    She felt his gaze sear her legs and, smiling, inclined her head to follow his glance. ‘Oh. Have I snagged a stocking?’
    ‘Not that I can see. Your legs look very smooth.’ His mouth was grave. ‘Quite tantalising.’
    His fingers were long. Imagining how they would feel curved around her