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As she lowered her glass it registered that he hadn’t actually drunk anything at all. Given the quality of the champagne, she was hardly surprised—but then why buy it? For the dozenth time she gave a deliberate mental shrug. Nothing, nothing about this man who for some bizarre and inexplicable reason was in this casino, and for some even more bizarre, even more inexplicable reason was keeping her by his side, was of the slightest concern to her. He was a punter—her sole task was to get him to spend money, and that was all.

Carefully, she slid off the high chair, trying not to wince as her tired, sore feet hit the floor.

Roulette proved just as much of an ordeal as blackjack had. Yet again she had to sit beside him, too close, and watch him reach forward, to place his chips on the squares. This time, because roulette was more random—though the odds were always, as ever, stacked in favour of the house—he did win from time to time. But he played carelessly, as if it didn’t bother him in the slightest whether he won or lost. Opposite, Lissa could see Tanya making eyes at him—to no avail.

Finally, when the last of his chips were gone, and with a slight shake of his head he’d countered the croupier’s offer of more, he turned to Lissa.

‘Tant pis.’ He gave a shrug to dismiss his losses.

She made herself smile.

‘Bad luck,’ she said. It was inane, but expected.

An eyebrow rose. ‘Do you think so? I think we make our own luck in life, n’est ce pas?’

Something shadowed in Lissa’s eyes. Did you make your own luck in life? Or was it external, arbitrary—cruel? Did luck turn in the blink of an eye, transforming happiness to tragedy in the space of a few moments?

The swerve of wheels, the speed of a car, minute seconds of inattention. And instant, devastating tragedy—destroying in moments the happiness of everyone. Destroying more than happiness … so much more.

Her eyes hardened.

Xavier saw the change in her expression—the hardness in it suddenly. It stirred an answering hardness in him. Lissa Stephens, like the Russian girl, or any of the others here, would be a woman who made her own luck—and it would be at the expense of men.

But not—his expression darkened—at the expense of his vulnerable, good-hearted brother.

His eyes flickered briefly over the girl’s face. All his forebodings were proving true—the very thought of Armand entrapped by this excuse for a woman in any way whatsoever was abhorrent. As his own revulsion at the vulgar, tarty image the girl presented impacted in his mind, so, too, did the conviction that his brother could not possibly know what this ‘woman of his dreams’ did for a living.

Well … Xavier’s eyes hardened again momentarily. This was exactly why he’d interrupted his own business schedule—why he’d despatched Armand to visit XeL’s key retailers in Dubai, with instructions to fly straight on to New York from the Emirates to do likewise there. So that he would have the opportunity to make a dispassionate, deliberate investigation into what Lissa Stephens was.

And, whilst he was grimly convinced that he now had all the evidence he needed to condemn the girl as fulfilling the worst of his fears, he would, nevertheless, move on to the next stage as he had planned. He shot back his cuff and glanced at his watch.

‘Hélas, I must go. I have an early morning meeting tomorrow. Bon soir, mademoiselle—and thank you for your company.’

He bestowed a smile on her, somewhere between perfunctory and courteous, and moved off. Lissa watched him go. Wearily, she brushed her forehead. A tight band was pressing around it. Tiredness swept over her in a wave—tiredness and depression.

What was the point of her responding to a man like that? None at all. Even if she hadn’t been working in a place like this, looking like a cheap tart, she still would have had no business registering anything about him. Her life had no room, no time, for anything other than what filled it now.

Guilt shafted through her. Oh, God, how could she dare complain about her lot when she had nothing worth complaining about? Nothing whatsoever compared with—

She shut her mind off. The incredibly disturbing Frenchman had achieved one good thing. He had mopped up the rest of her time here, and now she could go home at last.

A bare ten minutes later, back in normal clothes again, hair vigorously brushed free of backcombing and lacquer, face stripped of its caking make-up, she plunged out into the London night.

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS chill and raw and spattering with rain, but she didn’t care. After the smoke and cheap perfume and the smell of alcohol in the casino, the dirty London air smelt fresh and clean in comparison. She took a lungful, lifting her face into the drizzle, hands plunging deep into her padded jacket pockets. She was wearing jeans and a comfortable jumper, and flat heeled ankle boots good for walking briskly. Her long hair, in need of a wash after all the lacquer, was brushed off her face into a high ponytail that dipped down her back as she lifted her face. Like one released from prison, she strode off along the narrow alleyway the back of the casino opened onto and made for the more brightly lit street beyond, where her bus stop was.

She walked swiftly—not just because looking sure and purposeful was one of her safety precautions at this time of night in this part of London, but also because she was cutting it fine to catch the night bus she needed to take her south of the river at this early hour of the morning. If she missed the bus it would be well over half an hour until the next one.

As she headed briskly towards the bus stop, a hundred metres away on the other side of the road, the rain intensified. The few cars heading along the road threw up water as they passed, but just as she paused at the kerbside to dart across the road to the stop, impatient to cross because she could see her bus approaching, a large car came right past her, too close to the kerb. Its rear wheels caught a puddle that had formed and water sprayed up at her, soaking into her jeans. She gave a start of annoyance, jumping back instinctively. But what annoyed her even more was that the car, a sleek, black expensive-looking saloon, had promptly stopped dead. It was blocking her path across the road, and she could only, with a mutter of exasperation, dodge around the back of the car, wait for another car to swoosh past, and then hurry across the road. The bus was almost at her stop. She wasn’t going to get to the far side in time to flag it down, and unless someone happened to be using that stop—which they never did—it would just sail by.

Which was exactly what it did, just as Lissa had reached the traffic island in the middle of the roadway.

Damn, damn, damn.

She stared, tight-mouthed, after the departing bus. Her shoulders sagged in depression. Over thirty minutes to wait in the cold and wet—and she wouldn’t get home for well over an hour now. And she was so tired.

‘Mademoiselle?’

Her head swivelled as she turned abruptly. The door of the car that had sprayed her and then blocked her crossing was open, and someone was half leaning out from the rear seat.

It was the Frenchman from the casino.

Even as her stomach gave an automatic, treacherous flip, the rest of her body stiffened.

The car door opened more widely, making a passing car swerve slightly. The Frenchman was getting out, crossing over to her as she stood, marooned, on the traffic island. He was wearing a black cashmere overcoat, superbly tailored, making him look even more of a knockout, and Lissa’s stomach gave another flip at the image he made.

‘It is … Lissa … is it not? I almost did not recognise you.’

Dark eyes flicked over her, registering the completely different appearance she now had. There was surprise in them. Open surprise. And something more. Something that had not been in them before.

‘I hope you will forgive me—were you trying to catch the bus that has just gone?’

‘Yes,’ answered Lissa tersely. Annoyance and exasperation were still uppermost in her emotions. But another emotion was welling up in her—an emotion she didn’t want and pushed back down hard. It had to do with the expression in the cashmere-coated Frenchman’s eyes.

‘Je suis désolé. First my car splashes you—now I have caused you to miss your bus. I hope, therefore, that you will permit me to offer you a lift instead?’

His voice was smooth. Far too smooth beneath the regret he professed to be feeling at what he had done to her.

Her eyes flashed.

‘Thank you, no. There will be another bus shortly. Excuse me.’ She turned her back and strode across the remainder of the road to the bus stop. The rain had got heavier, and the bus stop had no shelter. She hunched her shoulders and tried not to shiver. The wet material of her jeans felt cold on her shins. She did not look at the Frenchman.

At the traffic island, Xavier looked after her for a moment. Her reaction had surprised him. But right now surprise was too mild a word for what he was experiencing. Shock would be more appropriate.

And understanding. Belated, but like a punch through his system.

At last it made sense why Armand was bewitched by this girl.

Stripped of the casino hostess outfit and the gross make-up and hairdo, the girl was quite simply a knockout, even making no attempt whatsoever to look good. He could see at a glance what the layers of overdone, tarty make-up had so successfully concealed. She had a beauty to catch and hold every male eye.

Emotions twisted inside him. Contradictory, powerful—unwelcome.

He pushed the emotions aside. They were unnecessary, and getting in his way. He must not pay them attention—all his focus now must be on the next stage of his agenda for dealing with Armand’s bombshell. The incident just now had been carefully timed and executed, with one of his security men reporting exactly when Lissa Stephens had left the casino, to allow his driver the precise amount of time to make the manoeuvre he just had.

He crossed back to the car and climbed in.

‘Circle to the bus stop,’ he instructed.

He folded himself into the deep interior, bracing himself slightly as the car moved forward in a tight turn to draw up again on the other side of the street. Once more he opened the door, this time to the pavement. To his satisfaction, the rain was now falling steadily in heavy rods. She would be soaking wet in minutes if she didn’t get in the car.

He leaned forward, holding the car door open invitingly.

‘Please accept my offer of a lift, mademoiselle—this is not the weather to do otherwise.’ He made it sound as though she were being childish in her refusal.

A stony glare was cast in his direction for his pains.

‘I’m afraid I don’t get into cars with complete strangers,’ Lissa answered shortly.

Wordlessly, Xavier slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket and extracted a business card. It was a calculated gamble. Armand had told him he had said nothing to his intended bride of his connection with XeL. Now would be the moment when he would find out whether that was indeed true—and whether the ambitious Mademoiselle Stephens had been doing any checking of her own into just how rich a fish she had caught. Would the card, with its simple ‘Xavier Lauran—XeL’, without any title or position added, register with her?

Covertly, he studied her reaction as, reluctantly, she took the card and studied it in the orange glare of the streetlight.

All her face revealed was a slight frown.

‘XeL—is that the posh luggage company?’ she asked, as she lifted her eyes from the card.

Xavier felt a flare of annoyance at the casual description.

‘Among other items,’ he replied, in the same dry voice. ‘Mademoiselle, I do not wish to appear impatient, but do you intend to accept my offer of a lift or not?’

For a moment, he could tell—and the knowledge sent another flare of annoyance through him—she hung in the balance. Then, abruptly, she spoke.

‘Oh, all right, then. I might as well.’ It was hardly a gracious acceptance, and once again Xavier felt a flare of annoyance go through him. She started forward, and Xavier moved to the other side of the back seat. She settled herself into the vacated space and yanked at the seat belt, turning to him as the car started to pull out into the road.

‘If it’s not too much out of your way, could you let me out at Trafalgar Square? There are more night buses from there.’ She spoke sharply still—the result of frustration at having missed her bus, annoyance with herself for succumbing to the temptation of the lift, and of a reason she had absolutely no intention of acknowledging. Not sitting this close to him. Her sharpness was a defence she needed right now.

Xavier lifted an eyebrow. ‘You do not wish to be driven home all the way?’

‘I live south of the river,’ she answered, in the same short tone. ‘It’s miles out of your way.’

‘C’est ne fait rien.’ He spoke with indifference. ‘It is of no consequence.’

She looked at him. Her expression was acidly sceptical. ‘You said in the casino you had an early meeting—you will hardly want to go careering across London at this hour of the night.’

Xavier cast her a caustic look again. ‘I said that merely because I wanted to leave—and I did not want any persuasions to change my mind.’

Was there a flash in her eye? He could not tell in the dim light. What he could tell, though—and he was still coming to terms with the knowledge—was that she had a bone structure that was still impacting on him. And that he did not need, for reasons that he did not want to think about at this moment, when his sole focus must be on the task in hand.

But even though he was trying to suppress it, to his intense annoyance he realised that a seismic shift was taking place inside his head. Some mental fault line was realigning—realigning in a way that made him want to do nothing more right now except study in detail the extraordinary metamorphosis performed on the woman in front of him. How could he possibly have known how different she would look without the gross make-up and the hostess outfit? The question was rhetorical, and he knew it—but knowing it made no difference. He still felt as if he’d been hit on the head with a blunt object.

Urgently he fought back—fought back not just against the seismic shockwave that had crunched through him, but against what it brought in its wake. He knew the name of what that was, but he would not, could not acknowledge what it was. Could not admit it even to himself.

It doesn’t matter. This transformation alters nothing. All it does was explain how she’s managed to fool Armand. He’d obviously only seen the image she was currently presenting—not the image of the evening.

Because, he reasoned harshly, slamming down that iron control even more tightly over his reactions, it was the putain version of Lissa Stephens that was the one he had to remember—the one that was endangering his brother, the one that made her completely unsuitable to marry him. So what if she suddenly, out of nowhere, had turned everything he’d taken her for on its head? It changed nothing.

But even as he forced the words into his mind he knew them for a lie. Knew that the shock to his system was still ricocheting through him even as he fought to catch and control it.

‘If your driver goes down Piccadilly, he can cut through to Trafalgar Square.’

The girl’s voice cut through Xavier’s thoughts.

‘It is no problem to drive you to your home,’ he answered.

Again, as he spoke, Lissa’s back went up almost automatically. ‘Nevertheless,’ she said stonily, ‘I would prefer to be let out in Trafalgar Square.’

She eyed him suspiciously. She was already regretting her impulsive action in climbing into the car. OK, so he’d shown her a business card—but so what? Xavier Lauran of XeL might be some fancy French businessman, in a league that was light years from the kind of businessmen that frequented the casino, but he was still just another punter for all that. No way was she prepared to let him drive her home. It wasn’t even a public taxi—God knew what he and his driver might have planned for her. Unease prickled over her skin.

For a moment, in the uncertain light of the streets, she thought she saw a momentary expression in the man’s eyes. Then it was gone.

He gave a slight shrug. It seemed a very Gallic gesture.

‘Comme tu veux—’

‘Yes, I do wish—thank you.’ Again, her voice was clipped.

For a moment the dark eyes rested on her. Their expression was unreadable.

He was too close. Too close in this car—too …

Intimate. That was the word. In the confines of the car he seemed far closer than he had in the casino. That was because in the casino, even though she might be crushed up next to a punter at a table, or perched beside him at the gaming table, or even dancing with him, the place was so public. The ambience was so off-putting that she never felt any real physical proximity.

But this.

Automatically she coiled back into her corner of the seat. It made no difference. He was still far, far too close.

And he was looking at her.

Worse than looking. He was seeing her. Seeing her as she really was. The real person, not the facsimile of a cheap hostess she had to be at the casino.

If only she still had her make-up on. She might look like a tart with it, but it served as a mask, a protective mask. Hiding her, the real her, from the punters and the other girls at the casino.

Hiding her from this man who had made her stomach flip full circle in the first moment of registering his appearance.

But she couldn’t hide from him now. Now, in the shadowy confines of this car he’d picked her up in, she was completely, absolutely exposed to him. An invisible shiver went through her—trepidation, alarm, and something quite, quite different. For a moment longer she went on looking at him, feeling her eyes widen, her focus start to blur. Dear God, he was just so incredible to look at …

‘Tu parles Français?’ His voice had sharpened.

‘Oui, un peu. Pourquoi?’ retorted Lissa, taken aback by the sudden question. And all too aware, with the same disturbing mix of resentment and that other reaction she would not acknowledge, that he had used the tu form of address—the one reserved, when it came to adults, to indicate either superiority or intimacy.

His response told her exactly which form he had intended—and it was like a cold shower of water. ‘Because foreign language skills are unusual in girls like you. Unless they are foreign to begin with,’ came the blunt answer.

Lissa felt a spike of antagonism go through her. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Girls like me? I see.’ Her voice was flat. ‘You mean girls too thick to do anything other than work as a hostess?’

‘Thick?’ There was a slight frown between his eyes.

‘Bête,’ Lissa supplied helpfully, with a tight, humourless smile. Resentment curdled in her. Oh, Xavier Lauran might be God’s gift to the discerning woman, but he was as full of prejudice as any other male when it came to the assumptions he made.

‘Enfin, if you are clever enough to speak a language foreign to you, why do you do the work you do?’ The cool challenge of his voice made Lissa’s chin lift. There was something else in his voice as he spoke, but she was too resentful to identify it.

‘I might as well ask why a man of your evident intelligence and background chooses to patronise the kind of place I work in?’ she countered sharply.

His face shuttered. Oh, she thought nastily, he doesn’t like it when some tarty little casino hostess dares to question his behaviour.

‘Why do you work there?’

The question shot at her. Quite ignoring the one she’d just thrown at him.

‘It’s a job,’ she answered flatly.

She looked away. It was an instinctive gesture. She didn’t want to see the expression in the man’s eyes. She knew it would be condemning. And that in itself would worsen the curdling mix of resentment and self-revulsion she always felt whenever she had to face up to how she earned money.

I don’t have any choice! She wanted to yell at him. But what was the point? A familiar wave of weariness and depression washed over her. Then, as it passed through her, she became aware that the car was already at Trafalgar Square, and was turning to go under Admiralty Arch and down the Mall towards Buckingham Palace.

‘You’ve gone too far,’ she exclaimed, her head twisting round to the Frenchman again before she leaned forward to get the attention of the driver.

‘I said I would take you home,’ came the reply, and yet again Lissa got the feeling the man was not used to being questioned.

‘No.’

Her voice was flat. Adamant.

Xavier looked at her. Curious, he registered. There was something more than negation in that voice. Something that was more akin to …

Fear. That was what it was. His pupils pinpricked as they rested on her face.

Yes, that was what was flaring in her eyes right now. There was not doubt of it. And more than fear, too. He had seen it momentarily in the casino, and he had seen it again just now, when she’d turned her face from him. It jagged an emotion in him—one that had absolutely no place in the situation. But it was there all the same.

What he had seen in her face was there again now, taut behind the fear flaring in her eyes.

Tiredness.

Quite evident, quite unmistakeable, exposed in the gaunt contours around her eyes. The girl looked exhausted.

‘Mademoiselle, it is no trouble to conduct you to your flat. There is little traffic at this hour, and the detour will not be significant. It is because of me that you missed your bus—permit me to make amends.’

Lissa sat back, looking at him. His voice was different. She couldn’t tell why, but it was all the same. It was kinder. For some strange, unaccountable reason she felt her throat tighten. She didn’t want this man being kind to her. He was just a stranger. A man who frequented the casino she had to work in because she had no choice—a man who was, therefore, nothing more than a punter. She didn’t want him being kind to her, doing her favours.

‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she began stiffly. ‘I couldn’t impose on you.’

He silenced her objection. ‘It is no imposition,’ he returned, and now the kindness was gone. There was only an impersonal indifference. ‘I need to make several phone calls now to the USA. Whether I make them from my hotel or from this car is irrelevant.’

As if to prove his point, he slid a long-fingered hand inside his luxurious overcoat and withdrew a mobile phone, flicking it open with an elegant twist of his wrist.

‘Give my driver your address,’ he instructed. Then he started up the phone and proceeded to punch a stored number.

For a moment Lissa just went on looking at him uncertainly. Outside, the tall trees lining the Mall flashed past with the expensively smooth ride the flash car afforded, and then they were circling around the Queen Victoria monument, wheeling past the illuminated Victorian baroque splendour of Buckingham Palace.

Xavier Lauran lifted the phone to his ear and started to talk. His French was far too rapid for Lissa even to attempt to follow it. He was clearly absorbed in the conversation. For a moment she allowed herself the pleasure of listening to his beautifully timbred voice, fluent in its own language.

Then the chauffeur was twisting his head briefly.

‘If you give me your address, Mademoiselle?’ His accent was French, too, but it did not shiver down her nerves like that of his employer.

Lissa gave in. Surely she was safe enough? Would a man who was evidently some kind of senior executive in a prestigious international company really risk any kind of scandal?

Resignedly, she gave her address, and then sat back. As the car headed down Victoria Street towards Parliament Square and the River Thames, she leaned back farther in her seat. The leather seats were deep and soft. Across from her the devastating Frenchman was paying her no more attention than if she was a block of wood, his mellifluous voice rising and falling rapidly, letting her catch nothing more than the briefest word every now and then. Outside, the flickering lights of an almost deserted London strobed in her vision. She closed her eyes to shut it out. Weariness swept down over her. She was so tired she could sleep for a thousand years and not wake.

The warmth of the car stole through her. Her breathing slowed.

She slept.

In the opposite corner of the passenger seat, Xavier paused in his interrogation of his west coast sales director. His eyes rested on her.

His thoughts were mixed. Contradictory.

The sharp shadows of her face in the streetlight set her cheekbones into relief. Long lashes swept down over her pale cheeks. In repose, her tiredness seemed to have ebbed, leaving nothing behind except the question as to why Lissa Stephens should look so tired when she had all day to sleep.

And another question, as well. Far more troubling.

Why did he feel a stab of pity at her being so tired—and why did the exhaustion in her face merely emphasise the extraordinary beauty of her bone structure?

He wanted to go on looking at her—just looking.

Then his sales director was telling him the next set of figures. With a mixture of reluctance and relief Xavier resumed his conversation. Deliberately he looked away from the girl.

Inside him, the same confused flux of emotions continued to recycle.

Emotions that were completely, absolutely, out of place when all that was required was the cool, analytical application of reason.

Yet they continued to circle all the same—to his irritation and displeasure.

‘I believe we have arrived.’

The words, murmured without expression, stirred Lissa to wakefulness. She felt dopey, her mind blurred and unable to focus. Then, with a little shake, she roused herself fully from the torpid slumber the warmth and motion of the car had induced in her.

She sat upright with an effort. The car had paused by the kerb just outside a rundown Victorian apartment block, built in the nineteenth century as social housing for the labouring poor. Unlike many parts of South London, this area had not gentrified, but the virtue of that was that it made the rent of the one-bedroom flat affordable to her. The last thing she needed was to squander money on accommodation.

She blinked. ‘Thank you. It was really very kind of you.’

Her voice was slightly husky with sleep, but she made herself look at the man who’d insisted on driving her home. As her eyes lifted to his face, she felt the same catch in her breath she’d had when she’d first set eyes on him. Weakness flushed through her, and a sense of disbelief that she was really here, sitting in the same car as him. For a self-indulgent moment she just went on looking at him. His face was slightly averted from her, glancing out of his window at the locality. Did his expression tighten? She didn’t know—only knew that the shadows of the car’s interior only served to accentuate the incredible contours of his face.

Then his head turned fully towards her, and his eyes came to meet hers.

Her stomach hollowed. In her still-dopey state she could not tear her own gaze away. She felt her eyes cling to his, in a moment of exchange that was like a bolt through her.

Then, ‘Mademoiselle?’

The cold draught of air at her side and the polite voice of the driver made her realise that the passenger door had been opened. They were waiting for her to get out, the chauffeur and the flash Frenchman.

She broke eye contact and got out.

‘Thank you for the lift. It was very kind of you,’ she repeated, her voice stilted. As she got out her key, she allowed herself one more glance back at the car. It hovered by the side of the road, sleek and dark and expensive. Like the man inside.

She could not see him now—he was just a darker shadow in the dark interior. Something pierced inside her. That was it, then. The last time she’d see him. That moment before she’d got out of the car. Already the driver was climbing back into his seat, closing his own door. Jerkily, she turned away, and opened the door and went inside.

Behind her, she heard the car glide away into the night.

Xavier stared unseeingly ahead of him. The street was scruffy and rundown, with litter blowing around and the dank, bleak dreariness of poverty. Not a good place to live. No wonder Lissa Stephens was eager for a way out of here.

His eyes darkened. But not at the expense of his brother.

He waited for the stab of anger to come—but instead all that came was a repeat of that sense of jarring disconcertion he’d felt when he’d set eyes on her by the bus stop and almost failed to recognise her as the same woman he’d deliberately singled out for his attention in the casino.

How could she look so different? The question sliced through him again, and once more he could give no rational explanation for the difference it made to him. It shouldn’t make a difference.

Yet it did.

And another thought was intruding—where it had no business to be.

If she looked that good without even trying, what would she look like if she were properly dressed and presented?

Immediately, without volition, his mind was there. That long blonde hair, loose but sleek, flicked back off her face, make-up subtle but enhancing the natural beauty she possessed, and her slender body gowned as a beautiful woman should always be gowned.

The image hovered in his mind. Vivid. Powerful. Alluring.

No. He would not sit here fantasising about what Lissa Stephens might look like if she were done up the way she would be if he were inviting her to spend the evening with him.