Billionaire's Mediterranean Proposal

CHAPTER TWO

TARA HEARD THE WORDS, but they took a moment to register. She knew only that they’d been spoken with the slightest trace of an accent that she hadn’t noticed in his curt instruction to her before.

She had still been trying to quench her reaction to the man who had just appeared out of nowhere in front of her. Blocking her. Demanding her attention. Just as he’d demanded she walk across to him and Blondie and twirl at his command.

OK, so that was her job here tonight, but it was the way he’d done it that had put her back up!

As now he was doing all over again—and worse. Because she did not want to feel that kick of high voltage again, that unwelcome quickening of her pulse as her eyes focussed, however determinedly she tried to resist, on that planed hard face and the dark eyes that were like cut obsidian.

The sense of what he’d just said belatedly reached her brain, as insulting as it was offensive.

She started to open her mouth, to skewer him with her reply—no way was she going to tolerate such an approach, whoever the hell this man was!—but he was speaking again. An irritated expression flashed across his face.

‘Do not,’ she heard him say, and there was a distinct tinge of boredom in his voice, as well as curt irritation, ‘jump to the tediously predictable assumption you are clearly about to make. All I require is this. That you accompany myself and my guest back to her hotel, where—’ he held up a silencing hand as Tara’s mind raced ahead to envisage unspeakable debaucheries ‘—she will get out and you will stay in the car with me and then return here.’

The words were clipped from him, and then his eyes were going past her towards one of the fashion designer’s hovering aides. He summoned him over with the same imperious gesture he’d used to draw her over to show off the gown she was wearing.

The man came scuttling forward. ‘Monsieur Derenz, is there anything you require?’ he asked eagerly.

Tara heard the obsequiousness in the man’s voice and deplored it. The last thing rich guys like this one needed—let alone those with the kind of tough-looking face that he had, who expected everyone to jump at their bidding—was anyone kow-towing to them. It only encouraged them.

‘Yes,’ came the curt reply. ‘I’d like to borrow your model for a very temporary engagement. I require a chaperone for my guest, Mrs Neuberger, as I escort her to her hotel. Your model will be away for no more than half an hour. Obviously I’ll pay you for her time and take full financial liability for her gown. I take it there’ll be no problem?’

The last was not a question—it was a statement. The aide nodded immediately. ‘Of course, Monsieur Derenz.’ His eyes snapped to Tara. ‘Well? Don’t just stand there! Monsieur Derenz is waiting!’

And that was that.

Fulminating, Tara knew she didn’t have a choice. She needed the money. If she kicked off and refused then her agency would be told, and as this particular fashion designer was highly influential, there would be no hope that her objection to being shanghaied in this manner would be upheld.

All the same, she glared at the man shanghaiing her as the aide scuttled off again. ‘What is this?’ she demanded.

The man—this Monsieur Derenz, whoever he was, she thought tautly—looked at her impatiently. She’d never heard of him, and all the name did was confirm that he was not British—a deduction that went not just with his name and slight accent, but also with the air of Continental style that added something to his stance, and to the way he wore the clearly hand-made tuxedo that moulded his powerful frame in ways she knew she must not pay any attention to…

‘You heard me—my guest needs a chaperone. And so do I!’

Tara could see his irritation deepen as he spoke.

‘I want you to behave as if you know me. As if—’ his mouth set ‘—we are having an affair.’

This time Tara did explode. ‘What?’

That dark flash of impatient irritation seared across his face again. ‘Cool it,’ he said tersely. ‘I merely need my guest to be…disabused…of any expectations she may have of me.’

‘She’d be welcome to you!’ Tara muttered, hardly bothering to be inaudible.

How had she managed to get inveigled into this? Then something pinged back into her mind.

‘Did you say five hundred pounds?’ she demanded. No way was she going to come out of this empty-handed—not for putting up with this man commandeering her like this.

‘Yes,’ came the indifferent reply. ‘Providing you don’t waste any more of my time than this is already taking.’

Without waiting, he helped himself to her arm and started to walk back with her across the room, to where Tara could see the blonde woman who, apparently, had the idiotic idea that this man being tall, dark, handsome—and presumably, judging by how obsequious the aide had been, very rich—in any way compensated for his high-handed behaviour and peremptory manner.

As he walked her towards the unwanted blonde he bent his head to her. ‘We have been together only a short while…you are reluctant to leave your work early, being highly conscientious—and if you pull away from me like that one more time your money is halved. Do you understand me?’

There was a grim note in his voice that put Tara’s back up even more. But he was still talking.

‘Now, tell me your name.’

It was another of those orders he clearly liked giving.

‘Tara,’ she said tightly. ‘Tara Mackenzie. And I need to get my bag and coat first—’

‘Unnecessary.’ He cut her off. ‘You’ll be back here soon enough.’

They had reached the blonde, who was looking, Tara could see, like curdled milk at their approach.

‘Ah, Celine—this is Tara. Tara—Frau Neuberger.’

His voice was more fulsome, and there might well be relief in it, Tara thought.

‘Tara’s been given the all-clear to leave early, so we can drop you off at your hotel. Alors, allons-y.’

He cupped a hand around Celine’s elbow and drew them both forward simultaneously, his guiding grip allowing no delay. Moments later they were on the pavement outside the hotel, and Tara found herself stepping into a swish chauffeured limo. She settled herself carefully, mindful of her horrendously expensive gown, arranging the skirts so they did not crush.

The man she was supposed to be giving the impression that she was having an affair with—however absurd!—sat himself down heavily between her and the blonde—who, Tara was acidly amused to see, was faffing about with her seatbelt in order to get the man she wanted to make some form of body contact and fasten it for her. Sadly for her, it seemed he did not return the desire.

‘Marc, cherie, thank you!’ Tara heard the woman gush.

OK, Tara connected, Marc Derenz. She still had no idea who he might be, but then so many of the richest of the rich were completely unknown to the wider world. To the plebs in it like herself. Well, what did it matter who he was? Nor did it matter that he seemed to possess the kind of physical appeal that was so annoyingly able to compete with her resistance to his peremptory and quite frankly dislikeable personality.

She glanced at him now, as the car moved off into the London evening traffic. His profile was just as tough-looking as his face—and the clear set of his jaw indicated that his mood had not improved in the slightest. She heard him make some terse reply in German to the blonde at his side, and then suddenly he was turning to Tara.

Something flickered in his eyes. Something that made Tara’s insides go gulp even though she didn’t want them to. Suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt the close physical proximity of this man—felt, of all things, that it wasn’t Blondie who needed a chaperone, it was her…

That flicker in those dark, dark eyes came again. And this time it was more than just a flicker. It was a glint. A glint that went with the set of that tough jawline.

‘Tara, mon ange—your seatbelt…’

His voice was a low murmur, nothing like as brusque as it had been when he’d spoken to Blondie, and there was only one word for its tone.

Intimate…

Out of nowhere, Tara felt herself catch her breath. She heard her thoughts scramble in her brain. Oh, dear God, don’t look at me like that! Don’t speak to me like that! Because if you do…

But there was something that was even more of an ordeal for her than the husky, intimate tone of his accented voice that was doing things to her that she did not want them to do—because the only reason she was here in this plush limo was to provide fleeting cover in a situation that was none of her making and that would be over and done with inside half an hour, tops…

Only it seemed that Marc Derenz was utterly oblivious to what she didn’t want him to do to her—to the effect he was having on her that she must not let him see! Because her reaction to him was totally irrelevant! Totally and absolutely nothing to do with her real life. And totally at odds with the way she should think of him—as nothing but a rich man moving other people around for his own convenience and not even bothering to be polite about it!

But it was impossible to remember that as he leant across her, reaching for her seatbelt, invading her body space just as he invaded her senses. She could feel the hardness of his chest wall against her arm, see the cords of his strong neck, the sable feathering of his hair, the hard-edged jawline and the incised lines around his mouth. She could catch the expensive masculine scent of his aftershave. His own masculine scent…

Then, in a swift, assured movement, he was reaching for the seatbelt and pulling it across her. And in those few brief seconds the breath stopped in her lungs.

Oh, God, what has he got—what has he got?

But it was a futile question. She knew exactly what he had.

Raw, overpowering sexuality. Effortless, unconscious, and knocking her for six.

It was all over in a moment and he was back in his position in the middle of the wide, capacious seat, turning his attention to Blondie, who was relentlessly talking away to him in rapid French. Tara could see her long red nails pressed over Marc Derenz’s sleeve, her face upturned to his—claiming his attention. Ignoring Tara.

The woman’s rudeness started to annoy her—adding to her resentment of the way she’d been commandeered for this uninvited role. Well, if she was supposed to be riding shotgun, she had better behave as if she were!

Cutting right across Blondie’s voluble chatter, she deliberately brushed her hand down Marc Derenz’s sleeve. It was an effort to do so, but she forced herself. She had to recover from her ludicrous reaction to his fastening her seatbelt for her. She had to recover from her ludicrous reaction to his overpowering masculinity full-stop.

After all, she told herself robustly, she’d lived with her looks all her life and had been a model for years—she was a hardened operator, able to give short shrift to men importuning her. No way was this guy going to cow her just because he had the looks to melt her bones. No, it was time to prove to herself—and, damn it, to him too!—that she wasn’t just going to meekly and mildly put up and shut up. Whatever it was about him that riled her so, she wasn’t going to let him call all the shots.

In which case…

‘Marc, baby, I’m sorry I gave you a hard time over leaving early. Forgive me?’ She leant into him just a fraction, quite deliberately, and put a husky, cajoling note into her voice.

His head swivelled. For a moment she saw an expression in his eyes that should have been a warning to her. But it was too late to regret drawing his attention to her.

‘You’ll have to accept, mon ange, that I have severe time constraints in my life. Hélas, I have to be in Geneva tomorrow, so I wanted to make the most of tonight.’

He sounded regretful. And intimate. It was an intimacy that curled right down her body. He didn’t have a strong French accent, but, boy, what he had worked…

And then Blondie was jabbering in German, and he turned to her to reply.

Relief drenched through Tara. If that was him simply acting the role of attentive lover…

She dragged her mind away, steadied her breathing. Oh, sweet Lord, whatever he had, he definitely had what it took to get past her defences.

Her expression changed. It was just as well that his personality didn’t match his looks—he had all the winning charm of a ten-ton boulder, crushing everyone around him! And it was even more just as well, she was honest enough to admit, that her acquaintance with this man was going to be extremely short-lived.

She’d see this exercise through, get back to work, and be a useful five hundred pounds the richer for it. All feeding into the Escape to My Cottage in the Country fund. She made herself focus on that subject for the remainder of the thankfully short journey, doing her best to ignore the very difficult to ignore presence of the man sitting next to her, and grateful that he was being monopolised by Blondie, who was clearly making the most of him.

As the car pulled up under the portico of the woman’s hotel Tara sat meekly while the other two got out. Marc Derenz escorted Blondie indoors, to emerge some minutes later and throw himself back into the car, this time on the far side vacated by Blondie.

‘Thank God!’ Tara heard him say—and he sounded as if he meant it.

Tara couldn’t resist. He was such a charmless specimen, however ludicrously good-looking. ‘Such a bore, aren’t they?’ she said sweetly. ‘Women who don’t get the message.’

Dark eyes immediately swivelled to her, and Tara reeled inwardly with the impact. It was like being seared by a laser set to stun. Despite the effort it cost her, she gritted her teeth, refusing to blink or back down.

He didn’t deign to answer, merely flicked out his phone and jabbed at it. A moment later he was in full flood to someone he clearly wanted to talk to—unlike herself—and Tara assumed from his businesslike tone, that business was what it was.

She leant back, not sure if she was feeling irritated by his manner or just glad the whole escapade was almost over. Even so, she unconsciously felt her head twist slightly as the car moved back out into the traffic, so she could behold his profile. Again, she felt that annoyingly vulnerable reaction to him, that skip in her pulse. She jerked her head away.

Oh, damn the man! He might radiate raw sexuality on every wavelength, but his granite personality was a total turn-off. The minute she was out of here and had the money he’d promised her she would never think about him again.

Five minutes later they were back at the hotel where the fashion show was being held and she was climbing out of the limo. Pointedly, she held her door open—no way was he driving off without paying her.

‘You said five hundred,’ she said, holding out her hand expectantly. The only reason, she reminded herself grimly, that she had anything to do with this man was for money! No other reason.

For a moment he just looked at her, his face closed. Then he got out of the car, standing in front of her. He was taller than her, even with her high heels, and it wasn’t something she was accustomed to in men.

She felt her jaw set. There was something about the way he was looking at her. As if he were considering something. She lifted her chin that much higher, eyeballing him, hand still outstretched for her pay-off.

His dark eyes were veiled, unreadable.

‘My money, please,’ she said crisply. What was going on? Was he going to try and welch on the deal? For a sum that would be utterly trivial to a man like him?

Then, abruptly, she realised why he was not reaching for his wallet. Because he was reaching for her hand.

Before she could stop him, or step away, he’d taken hold of it and was raising it to his mouth. His expression as he did so had changed. Changed devastatingly.

Tara felt her lungs seize—felt everything seize.

Oh, God, she heard her inner voice say, silently and faintly and with absolute dismay, don’t do this to me…

But it was too late. With a glint in his obsidian eyes, as if he knew perfectly well that what he was doing would sideswipe her totally, he turned her hand over in his, exposing the tender skin of her wrist.

Eyelashes far too long for a man with a face that tough swept down, veiling those dark, mordant eyes of his. And then his mouth, like silken velvet, was brushing that oh-so-delicate skin, gliding across it with deliberate slowness. Soft, sensuous, devastating.

She felt her eyelids flutter shut, felt a ludicrous weakness flood her body. Desperately she tried to negate it. It was just skin touching skin! But her attempt to reduce it to such banality was futile. Totally futile. The warm, grazing caress of his mouth on the sensitive surface of her skin focussed every nerve-ending in her entire body just on her wrist. She was melting, dissolving…

He dropped her hand, straightened. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, his voice low, his eyes holding hers. The darkling glint in them was still there, but there was something more to it—something that kept her lungs immobile. ‘Thank you for your co-operation this evening.’

There was the merest hint of amusement in his voice. She snatched her hand away, as if it had been touched by a red-hot bar of iron, not by the sensuous, seductive glide of his mouth.

She had to recover—any way she could. ‘I only did it for the money!’ she gritted, going back to eyeballing him, defying him to think otherwise.

She saw his expression harden. Close. Whatever had been there, even if only to taunt her, had vanished. Now there was only the personality of that crushing boulder back in evidence.

With a clearly deliberate gesture he reached for his wallet in the inner pocket of his tailored dinner jacket, and an equally deliberately flicked it open. Stone-faced—determinedly so—Tara watched him peel off the requisite number of fifty-pound notes and hold them out to her.

She took them from him, her colour heightened. There was something about standing here and having a man handing her money—any man, let alone this damn one!

He was looking at her with that deliberately impassive expression on his face, but there was something in the depths of those dark veiled eyes of his that made her react on total impulse. The man was so totally charmless, so totally forbidding, and yet he had so totally shot to pieces her usual cool-as-ice reaction to any kind of physical contact with a man. She’d let him do all that wrist-kissing, let him taunt her as he had and hadn’t even tried to pull away from him.

Now, in an overpowering impulse to get some kind of retaliation, she lifted the topmost fifty-pound note from the wad in her hand. Stepping forward, she gave her saccharine smile again and with deliberate insolence tucked the fifty-pound note into his front jacket pocket and patted it.

‘Buy yourself a drink, Mr Derenz,’ she told him sweetly. ‘You look like you could use one!’