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‘You heard the boy, Catherine, he has work he needs to do.’
Silver-haired, and in his mid-sixties, Charles Latimer obviously adored his wife, and Darius knew that the older man did everything in his power to ensure her happiness. But even Charlie knew better than to argue when Darius made a statement in that flat, uncompromising tone.
‘He didn’t say it was work.’
‘It is,’ Darius bit out tersely, deliberately choosing to ignore Xander’s accusing glare.
He had turned up tonight, hadn’t he? Had made the required appearance at his mother’s private birthday dinner celebrations, as he would make an appearance at the more public celebrations next weekend, at a dinner given in aid of one of his mother’s numerous charities. What more did any of them want from him? Whatever it was, the estrangement between Darius and his mother was now such that he wasn’t willing to give it.
He gave another glance towards the back of the restaurant, having just decided exactly what he did want.
* * *
‘It was Xander you were looking at, wasn’t it?’ Kim questioned with concern. Three years older than Andy, she had always taken her ‘protective big sister’ role very seriously, even more so since the loss of their parents.
Andy didn’t reply immediately, continuing to watch Darius Sterne as he suddenly stood up abruptly from his table.
The woman seated at the table with the three men was beautiful, but obviously aged in her fifties, and with her blonde hair and dark eyes she bore a resemblance to Xander Sterne. Perhaps she was the twins’ mother? Although Andy could see no resemblance to Darius whatsoever.
The older man didn’t look like either of the brothers, so perhaps he was the twins’ stepfather?
Whatever the relationship between the Sterne twins and the older couple, it had been impossible not to miss the edge of tension at the table since the twins sat down. A tension that seemed to ease as Darius Sterne now left their company.
Andy’s gaze continued to follow him as he walked towards the back of the restaurant.
‘No,’ she finally answered her sister distractedly, her breath leaving her in a whoosh as Darius disappeared from view down a marble corridor at the back of the restaurant.
Allowing her to realise she had actually stopped breathing, as well as being unable to take her eyes off him until he disappeared, his elegance of movement so like that of a stalking predator. A sleek and powerful jaguar, perhaps, or maybe a tiger? Definitely something feral and lethal!
‘I advise you not to even bother looking at Darius Sterne, Andy,’ Kim said hastily. ‘Admittedly he’s gorgeous, in a dark and dangerously compelling way, but he’s also way out of your league, my love. Well out of any sane woman’s league!’ her sister added with feeling.
Andy took a much-needed sip of the champagne in her glass; her mouth had gone dry just from watching Darius Sterne.
‘There have been stories and hints in the newspapers for years regarding the extent of Darius Sterne’s darkness,’ Kim cautioned as Andy made no reply.
She turned to give her sister a teasing smile. ‘You aren’t saying he’s into black magic?’
‘More like wielding whips and paddles.’
Andy almost choked on her champagne. ‘Kim!’ she finally managed to splutter incredulously. ‘Why is everyone so obsessed with that stuff nowadays?’ Personally, she could imagine nothing more demeaning to a woman than having some man put his collar of ownership on her and demanding she call him master. Or tying her to his bed before doing whatever he wanted with her. Or that same man demanding that she kneel subserviently at his feet until he told her otherwise. It made Andy’s skin crawl just to think about any man treating a woman like that.
Even a man she found as fascinating as Darius Sterne.
Her sister held up her hands defensively. ‘I’m not responsible for the gossip about him.’
‘You’re responsible for reading it,’ Andy scolded. ‘What’s printed in the gutter press isn’t gossip, Kim, it’s pure fantasy most of the time. Sensationalised speculation, and luridly made-up headlines to encourage people to buy their newspaper rather than someone else’s.’
Her sister shrugged slender shoulders. ‘You’ve heard the saying, there’s no smoke without fire.’
She raised her brows. ‘I also remember Mum telling us years ago that it isn’t wise, or fair, to listen to gossip or hearsay, that we should make our own minds up about other people.’
‘If Mum were here, I have no doubts she would also tell you that there’s nothing in the least wise in being attracted to a man like Darius Sterne,’ her sister stated with certainty.
Both girls sobered at the mention of their mother. At the time of their parents’ deaths the sisters, Kim twenty-one, and Andy eighteen, had been absolutely devastated by the loss, but with the passing of time they had both come to appreciate the years they had been able to spend with their parents. Andy had always been grateful that at least they had lived long enough to see Kim happily married to Colin, and they had also been present the night Andy had appeared in the lead of Giselle with England’s most reputable ballet company.
Andy’s own accident, just six months after their death, had meant that she would never dance in public again.
Andy determinedly shook off the sadness that realisation still gave her, even four years later. She had her studio, was slowly, sometimes too slowly, making a success of it. She also conveniently lived in the flat above the studio. It was so much more than a lot of people had.
‘I really wouldn’t worry about it, Kim; I’m never likely to so much as set eyes on Darius Sterne again, so it really isn’t an issue,’ she pointed out ruefully. ‘As you said, it’s nice to window-shop.’
‘You ladies are never going to believe what just happened to me in the Gents,’ a red-faced Colin announced as he arrived back at their table before plonking himself back down into his seat to look at them both expectantly.
His wife raised her eyebrows. ‘Do we want to know?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He nodded with certainty. ‘It was nothing like that, Kim!’ He frowned at his wife as her eyebrows had risen even higher. ‘Honestly, sometimes I wonder if your mind isn’t constantly in the gutter.’
‘I think we just had this conversation.’ Andy chuckled as she gave her sister a pointed glance. ‘Kim’s just been regaling me with lurid tales of the licentious behaviour of the Sterne twins,’ she explained at Colin’s questioning glance.
‘One of the Sterne twins,’ Kim defended. ‘I’m sure that Xander is every bit as deliciously gentlemanly and uncomplicated as he appears to be.’
Andy gave a disbelieving snort; Xander Sterne might not be as obviously brooding as his twin brother, but there was no way a man of his age and wealth, and with those Adonis good looks, could possibly have remained single if he was as gentlemanly and uncomplicated as Kim claimed he was.
Admittedly, with that much money, the Sterne brothers could no doubt pick and choose when it came to women. As it would no doubt be difficult for either of the brothers to ever know if a woman wanted them for themselves, or their billions. But even so, it was unusual for two brothers, aged in their early to mid-thirties, never to have married.
Or at least Andy assumed neither of them had ever married; she really knew very little about them. They could both be married for all she knew, but had left their wives and half a dozen children at home this evening.
If that was true, it made Darius Sterne’s earlier flirtation with her decidedly questionable.
Andy decided there and then to look the Sterne brothers up on the Internet as soon as she got home. With special emphasis on learning a lot more about Darius.
‘Do I take it from that remark that it’s Darius Sterne you’ve been gossiping about?’ Colin gave Kim an irritated glance. ‘You do realise that he’s one of my employers? That we wouldn’t even be here this evening if he wasn’t? Talk about biting—literally—the hand that feeds you!’ he added crossly.
Kim’s cheeks coloured guiltily. ‘I was only repeating what I’ve read in the newspapers and magazines.’
‘Those glossy magazines you read that rave about a couple’s marital bliss one month, and then unashamedly write about their break-up the next?’ her husband came back scathingly.
‘He has you there, Kim.’ Andy smiled.
Her sister adopted a look of hurt superiority. ‘You were going to tell us what just happened to you in the men’s room, Colin?’
‘Oh. Yes.’ His youthfully handsome face lit up excitedly again as he sat forward. ‘Anyway, I was just drying my hands, when who do you think walked in the door?’
Andy’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, her breath once again ceasing in her lungs, as she suddenly knew exactly who had entered the men’s room.
The same person who, just minutes after Colin, had also disappeared down that marble hallway in the direction of the loo.
‘Darius Sterne,’ Colin confirmed excitedly. ‘Not only that but he actually spoke to me. I’ve worked for the brothers for seven years now, seen them around the building of course, but I’ve never spoken to either one of them before tonight.’
Kim gave Andy a narrow-eyed glance before turning back to her husband. ‘What did he say?’
‘You’re never going to believe it!’ her husband assured her. ‘I can hardly believe it myself.’
‘What did he say, Colin?’ Kim bit out through gritted teeth.
‘Well, if you stopped interrupting me maybe I’d have chance to tell you,’ he teased, obviously enjoying himself now that he had their full attention.
‘Andy, you can bear witness to just how annoying my husband is being right now—because I am seriously going to strangle him if he doesn’t tell us what Darius said to him, in the next thirty seconds.’ Kim’s hazel-coloured eyes sparkled warningly.
Andy was too transfixed by Colin’s air of excitement to take her sister’s threat in the least seriously. Especially when she was sure that Kim had to be just as eager as she was to hear what Darius had said to Colin to make him look so excited.
CHAPTER TWO
DARIUS’S EXPRESSION WAS GRIM as he looked down into the Midas nightclub from the window in his executive office on the second floor.
The club was busy tonight, as it was every night, the glamorous and the famous all wishing to see or be seen as patrons of the fashionable and prestigious members-only Midas nightclub.
Everything about the club spoke of the same opulence as the restaurant on the ground floor; the walls up here were covered in gold silk paper, the dance floor the same gleaming black marble as the pillars supporting the second-floor gallery, where people could stand and talk or just observe the other patrons. The tables placed about the club were rounds of black marble, on gold pedestals, surrounded by comfortable black leather armchairs and sofas.
And Darius, hands in the pockets of his trousers, was able to stand and observe it all, from his aerie on the second floor.
The coloured lights swept across the dance floor full of bodies gyrating to the heavy beat of the loud music. The quietly efficient bar staff, dressed in their black uniforms, were serving champagne and cocktails and everything in between to the people standing about the bar, or sitting at the tables that edged the dance floor. There were curved, leather-seated booths further back in the nightclub, for those patrons wishing for a more private, intimate evening.
It was to one of those booths in particular that Darius’s gaze had kept drifting for the past half an hour as he stood at the window looking out.
It was a booth that continued to remain empty, despite the reserved sign sitting in the centre of the black marble tabletop.
Darius’s mouth tightened in irritation with his own feelings of disappointment. Despite her youth, and the delicacy of appearance, he had hoped that the green-eyed blonde would accept the challenge he had laid down by inviting her and her family up to the nightclub as his guests. That the interest he had seen in her eyes would at least make her curious enough to encourage her family to accept that invitation. Learning during his conversation with Colin Freeman that the other man actually worked for one of Darius’s companies had been something of a bonus, after he had all but stalked the man into the Gents.
Even so, the emptiness of that reserved booth now continued to mock him.
He had been a fool to expect anything else. So the beautiful blonde hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him earlier. So what? Wasn’t the mouse just as mesmerised by the cobra?
No doubt the reason for her interest earlier had been because she’d known exactly who he was, and she had heard those dark rumours about Darius Sterne and been fascinated by the danger he represented. A danger that was no doubt the complete opposite of her own safe little life. An arm’s-length danger that she felt comfortable viewing across a crowded restaurant, but didn’t have the courage to actually meet head-on. As she didn’t have the courage to meet Darius face to—
There was the merest prickling sensation of warning at Darius’s nape, a quiver of awareness down the length of his spine before he looked up and saw the green-eyed blonde standing at the entrance to the nightclub.
Her brother-in-law had referred to her as Andy when the two men had spoken earlier. It seemed far too masculine a name for a woman who looked so totally feminine.
Darius’s narrowed gaze remained fixed on her as her brother-in-law spoke briefly to Stephen, the security man Darius had warned to expect them, before the three of them then followed the security guard into the darkness of the club.
Andy walked ahead of her sister and brother-in-law, her head held high, almost in challenge. Almost as if she knew someone was watching her. As she walked her ash-blonde hair moved silkily about her shoulders.
She was taller than Darius had thought when she was sitting down in the restaurant, possibly five-eight in her stockinged feet, putting her height at about five-ten in the two-inch-heeled black strappy sandals she wore. They were conservative heels, considering that some of the women in the club tonight were wearing heels as high as six or seven inches.
Her black dress was also modest in style; it was sleeveless, yes, revealing those bare and gracefully slender arms, but the curved neckline wasn’t even low enough to reveal the soft swell of the tops of her breasts, and its knee-length was a complete contrast to the bottom-skimming dresses being worn by every other woman in the club.
Darius realised she was even less his usual type than he had initially thought she was.
* * *
‘Andy is a man’s name.’
Andy’s fingers tightened about the stem of her champagne glass at the first sound of that huskily censorious voice coming from just behind her. A sexily throaty voice that she knew instinctively, without even needing to turn and look, belonged to none other than Darius Sterne.
After all, who else could it be?
She was pretty sure she didn’t know anyone else in this place apart from Kim and Colin, who were currently out on the dance floor somewhere. And no doubt the couple were still arguing over the fact that Kim hadn’t wanted to come up to the Midas nightclub at all and Colin had insisted that they had to, that it would be extremely rude of him not to take up his employer’s generous invitation.
It was an argument Andy had stayed out of, mainly because her own feelings on the subject were mixed. Part of her had wanted to go up to the club to see if Darius was there, another part of her had hoped that he wouldn’t be.
His presence behind her had now answered that particular question, at least.
But Darius’s sudden appearance at that private booth, so soon after Colin had persuaded Kim to go and dance with him, the two of them having now totally disappeared into the midst of the other gyrating dancers, made Andy question whether or not Colin working for Midas Enterprises had been the reason they had received special treatment, after all...
She had felt as if she were being watched when they arrived at the club. As if unseen eyes were following her progress as she’d walked to the table ahead of Colin and Kim. Although a surreptitious glance around the room had revealed mild interest from several of the men present, it was not enough to have caused that quiver of awareness down the length of her spine.
Except the feeling had persisted.
Just the thought of being watched by Darius now made Andy shift uncomfortably.
She straightened her shoulders, firmly instructing her fingers to stop their trembling as she composed her expression before she turned to look up at him. There would be no wide eyes and gaping mouth for her.
Instead her breath caught in the back of her throat as she was once again struck by the immediacy of Darius Sterne as he stood just feet behind her.
There was that zing of electricity, of course, but he also looked so very tall and sinfully dark in the dimmed lighting of this part of the room.
Andy had to force herself to meet the intensity of his gaze as she moistened the sudden dryness of her lips with the tip of her tongue, before finally answering him. ‘It’s short for Miranda.’
Darius nodded, liking the soft huskiness of her voice. And the name Miranda. It was so much more feminine than Andy. As Miranda herself was totally feminine.
Miranda was also a name that a man could murmur fiercely into the side of a woman’s throat as he thrust into her before climaxing inside her...
He was close enough to Miranda now to be able to reach out and touch the silkiness of her hair. Her skin was pale and luminescent, a soft glow against the black of her dress, and she wore little or no make-up, perhaps mascara and a soft peach lip gloss. He could see now that her eyes weren’t just emerald-green, as he had thought they were earlier, but shot through with shards of gold and blue. They were unusually beautiful eyes for an unusually beautiful woman.
A beautiful woman who had once again succeeded in arousing him at a glance. An arousal that had deepened as he’d watched the moistness of her tongue sweep across the fullness of her lips before she spoke with that sexily husky voice.
A voice he could easily imagine crying out his own name as they climaxed together.
‘Mind if I join you?’ he prompted as a waitress appeared and placed a fourth champagne glass on the table before quietly disappearing again.
Miranda raised blonde brows in the direction of that fourth glass. ‘It would appear that you already have.’
‘It would, wouldn’t it?’ Darius acknowledged as he made no move to sit down but instead moved to stand further inside the booth, his back to the room, at the same time as he blocked Miranda from looking at anything but him.
‘Do we have you to thank for the champagne?’ She held up her glass.
Darius nodded. ‘It’s the same champagne you were drinking with your meal earlier on this evening.’
A frown appeared between those magnificent green eyes. ‘You noticed that from across the room?’
‘I asked the sommelier on my way out of the restaurant,’ he admitted huskily as he slid into the leather seat opposite her, his gaze continuing to hold hers as he poured himself a glass of champagne.
A blush warmed her cheeks and she was the first to look away.
‘We were celebrating.’
‘Oh?’
She nodded. ‘It’s my birthday today.’
Darius found himself scowling. What were the chances of this woman’s birthday being the same day as his mother’s?
‘I’m twenty-three today,’ Miranda supplied abruptly, as if his continued silence unnerved her.
So she was ten years younger than his own thirty-three years, Darius realised—and a lifetime in experience. Yet another reason why he should just get up and walk away from this woman.
‘Would you like to dance?’ he heard himself say instead, his mind, or another, more demanding, part of his anatomy, obviously having other ideas on the subject.
The soft curve of her jaw instantly tensed. ‘No, thank you.’
‘That was a very definite no,’ Darius murmured.
‘I don’t dance in public.’ Those green eyes now met his probing gaze unblinkingly.
Darius looked at her searchingly, noting the increased tension in her shoulders, and the way her fingers had tightened about her champagne glass until the knuckles showed white. Of course, it could be that he made her nervous just by being here, but somehow he thought there was more to it than that.
‘Only in private?’ he prompted softly.
‘Not then, either.’
‘Why not?’ he demanded abruptly.
She blinked at his terseness, before just as quickly regaining her composure. ‘Maybe I’m just no good at it?’
Darius couldn’t believe that when everything about this woman spoke of grace and poise: the delicate arch of her throat, the way she held herself so elegantly, her fingers long and tapered, her legs slender and shapely. Even her feet and toes appeared graceful in those black strappy sandals. They were graceful and elegant toes he could all too easily imagine moving caressingly along the bare length of his thigh as he made love to her.
‘Now tell me the real reason,’ he bit out harshly.
Andy gave an inner start, not just at Darius’s perception, but also his ability to cut out all unnecessary conversation and just go straight to the point of what he wanted to know. No doubt that stood him in good stead in business, but she found it more than a little disconcerting on a personal level.
Everything about this man was disconcerting on a personal level. The perfect fit of his suit jacket over those wide and muscled shoulders. The flatness of his abdomen beneath the black shirt. The long, long length of his legs.
Those sharply arresting features, dominated by the intensity of that probing topaz gaze as it remained fixed on her so intently.
She forced a smile to her lips. ‘You appear to know my name, and have helped yourself to some of my birthday champagne,’ she added dryly, ‘but so far you haven’t even bothered to introduce yourself.’
‘Let’s not play games, Miranda; we’re both aware that you know exactly who I am.’
Yes, of course Andy knew who he was. She just had absolutely no idea what Darius was doing even talking to her, let alone engaging in what she felt sure was, for him, flirtation.
Just looking at that hard and chiselled face was enough to tell her that this wasn’t a man who would heap flowery compliments and charm on a woman in order to seduce her. That he was far too self-contained, too sure of his own attractiveness, to ever need or want to do that.
But she did believe he was flirting with her now.
Oh, yes, every single nerve-ending in Andy’s body was screaming out that awareness; her nipples were hard buds against the soft material of her dress and there was a heat, a swelling, between her thighs.
Darius Sterne was definitely flirting with her. Andy just had no idea why he was even bothering with someone like her when there were so many glamorously beautiful women in the room. Women who would be only too happy to dance or do anything else with or for him.
‘Of course.’ She nodded. ‘It was very kind of you to extend an invitation to Colin and his family to come up and enjoy your nightclub, Mr Sterne.’
‘I thought I said no games, Miranda,’ he bit out challengingly.
She eyed him warily. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘We both know I invited you to come up to my nightclub, Miranda, so that the two of us could meet,’ he corrected harshly. ‘Your sister and brother-in-law were incidental to that invitation.’
Andy swept a slightly hounded glance in the direction of the dance floor, silently cursing when she still couldn’t see Kim and Colin amongst the writhing bodies, let alone send one of them a silent plea for help. She was finding it more and more difficult to maintain any semblance of polite conversation with a man who just refused to reciprocate that politeness.