His proposal is pure convenience…

her desire is anything but!

To convince everyone he’s off-limits, Tara Mackenzie agrees to pose as billionaire Marc Derenz’s girlfriend. It’s purely for show, until the Côte d’Azur rumor mill leaves the world convinced they’re engaged! Resisting Marc’s infuriatingly addictive charm was hard enough before, but becoming his fiancée pushes their desire to new heights. Now Tara’s so deep in their Mediterranean fantasy, dare she believe it could ever be more…?

Step into the billionaire and his fake fiancée’s glamorous world…

JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivalled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise water… What more could lovers want?’

Also by Julia James

The Dark Side of Desire

Painted the Other Woman

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

Captivated by the Greek

A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

A Cinderella for the Greek

The Greek’s Secret Son

Tycoon’s Ring of Convenience

Heiress’s Pregnancy Scandal

Mistress to Wife miniseries

Claiming His Scandalous Love-Child

Carrying His Scandalous Heir

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Billionaire’s Mediterranean Proposal

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08776-6

BILLIONAIRE’S MEDITERRANEAN PROPOSAL

© 2019 Julia James

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For Joyce

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

TARA SASHAYED INTO the opulent function room at the prestigious West End hotel along with the rest of the models fresh off the catwalk. They were still gowned in their couture evening dresses, and their purpose now was to show them off up close to the private fashion show’s wealthy guests.

As she passed the sumptuous buffet she felt her stomach rumble, but ignored it. Like it or not—and she didn’t—modelling required gruelling calorie restriction to keep her body racehorse-slender. Eating normally again would be one of the first joys of chucking in her career and finally moving to the countryside, as she was longing to do. And that dream of escape was getting closer and closer—escape to the chocolate-box, roses-round-the-door thatched cottage in deepest Dorset that had belonged to her grandparents and now, since their deaths, belonged to her.

In her grandparents’ day it had been the only home she’d ever really had. With her parents in the armed forces, serving abroad, and herself packed off to boarding school at the age of eight, it had been her grandparents who had provided the home comforts and stability that her parents had not been in a position to provide. Now, determined to make it her own ‘for ever’ home, she was spending every penny she earned in undertaking the essential repairs and restoration that were required for such an old house—from a new thatched roof, to new drains…it all had to be done.

And now it nearly was. It only lacked a new kitchen and bathroom to replace the very ancient and decrepit units and sanitary ware and she could move in! All she needed was another ten thousand pounds to cover the cost.

That was why she was taking on all the modelling assignments she could—including this evening one now—squirrelling away every penny she could to get the cottage ready for moving in to.

She could hardly wait for that day. The glamour of being a fashion model had worn off long ago, and now it was only tiring and tedious. Besides, she had increasingly come to resent being constantly on show, all too often attracting the attention of men she had learned were only interested in her because she was a model.

She sheered her mind away from her thoughts. Jules had been a long time ago, and she was long over him. She’d been young and stupid and had believed that it was herself he’d cared for—when all along she’d simply been a trophy female to be wheeled out to impress his mates…

It had taught her a lesson though and had made her wary. She didn’t want to be any man’s trophy.

Her wariness gave her a degree of edginess towards men which she knew could put men off, however striking her looks. Sometimes she welcomed it. She wasn’t one to put up with any hassle. Maybe something of her parents’ emotional distance had rubbed off on her, she sometimes thought. They’d always taught her to stand up for herself, not to be cowed, overawed or over-impressed by anyone.

She certainly wasn’t going to be overawed by the kind of people here tonight, knocking back champagne and snapping up couture clothes as if they were as cheap as chips! Just because they were stinking rich it didn’t make them better than her in any way whatsoever—no way was anyone going to look down on her as some kind of walking clotheshorse!

Head held high, poker-faced, she kept on parading around, as she was being paid to do. The evening would end soon, and then she could clear off and get home.

* * *

Marc Derenz took a mouthful of champagne and shifted his weight restlessly, making some polite reply to whatever Hans Neuberger had just said to him. His mood was grim, and getting worse with every passing minute, but that was something he would never show to Hans.

A close friend of Marc’s late father, Hans had been at his side during that bleak period after Marc’s parents had been killed in a helicopter crash, when their only offspring had still been in his early twenties. It had been Hans who’d guided him through the complexities of mastering his formidable inheritance at so young an age.

Hans’s business experience, as the owner of a major German engineering company, as well as his wisdom and kindness, were not things Marc would ever forget. He felt a bond of loyalty to the older man that was rare in his life, untrammelled by emotional ties as he had been since losing his parents.

It was a loyalty that was causing him problems right now, though. Only eighteen months ago Hans, then recently widowed following his wife’s death from cancer, had been inveigled into a rash second marriage by a woman whom Marc had no hesitation in castigating as a gold-digger. And worse.

Celine Neuberger, here tonight to add to her already plentiful collection of couture gowns, had made no secret to Marc of the fact that she was finding her wealthy but middle-aged husband dull and uninteresting, now that she had him in her noose. And she had made no secret of the fact that she thought the opposite about Marc…

Marc’s mouth tightened. Celine’s eyes were hungry on him now, even though Marc was blanking her, but that did not seem to deter her. Had she been anyone other than Hans’s wife Marc would have had no hesitation in ruthlessly sending her packing. It was a ruthlessness he’d had to learn early—first as heir to the Derenz billions, and then even more so after his parents’ deaths.

Women were very, very keen on getting as close to those billions of his as possible. Ideally, by becoming Madame Marc Derenz.

Oh, at some point in his life, he acknowledged, there would be a Madame Derenz—when the time was right for him to marry and start a family. But she would be someone from the same wealthy background as himself.

It was advice his father had given him: to do what he himself had done. Marc’s mother had been an heiress in her own right. And even for mere affaires, his father had warned him, it was best never to risk any liaison with anyone not from their own world of wealth and privilege. It was safer that way.

Mark knew the truth of it—only once had he made the mistake of ignoring his father’s advice.

Celine Neuberger was addressing him now, her voice eager, and he was glad of the interruption to his thoughts. He had been recalling a time he did not care to remember, for he had been young and trusting then, and he had paid for that misplaced trust with a heartache he never wanted to experience again.

But what Celine had to say only worsened his mood sharply.

‘Marc, have I told you that Hans has promised to buy a villa on the Côte d’Azur! And I’ve had the most wonderful idea!’

Celine’s gushing voice grated on him.

‘We could house-hunt from your gorgeous, gorgeous villa on Cap Pierre! Do say yes!’

Every instinct in Marc rebelled at the prospect, but he was being put on the spot. In his parents’ time Hans and his first wife had often been guests at the Villa Derenz—convivial occasions when the young Marc had had the company of Hans’s son, Bernhardt, and had made enthusiastic use of the pool and gone sea bathing off the rocky shoreline of Cap Pierre. Good memories…

Marc felt a pang of nostalgic loss for those carefree days. Now, all he could say, resignedly, and with a forced smile, was, ‘Bien sûr! That would be delightful.’ He tried to make the lie convincing. ‘Delightful’ was the last word to describe spending more time with Celine making eyes at him. Having to hold her at bay.

A triumphant Celine now pushed even further in a direction Marc had no intention of letting her advance. She turned to her husband. ‘Darling, don’t feel you have to stay any longer—Marc can see me back to our hotel.’

Hans turned to Marc, a grateful expression on his face. ‘That would be so kind of you, Marc. I have to phone Bernhardt—matters to do with the forthcoming board meeting.’

Again, how could Marc object without giving Hans the reason?

The moment Hans had left Celine was, predictably, off the leash. ‘Now, tell me,’ she gushed, smiling warmly up at him, ‘which would suit me best?’ She gestured at the perambulating models.

Marc, knowing his mood was worsening with every passing moment in this impossible situation he’d been dumped in, lanced his gaze around to find the nearest model, whatever she was wearing, determined to give Celine the least opportunity for lingering.

But, as he did so, suddenly all thoughts of Celine went right out of his head.

During the fashion show itself he’d paid no attention to the endless parade of females striding up and down the catwalk, focussing instead on his phone. So now, as his eyes caught the figure of the model closest to where they stood, he felt his gaze riveted.

Tall, ultra-slender—yes. But then all the models were like that. None like this one, though, with rich chestnut hair glinting auburn, loosely pinned into an uplift that exposed a face he simply could not take his eyes from.

The perfect profile—and then, as she turned to change direction, he saw a strikingly beautiful face with sculpted cheekbones, magnificent eyes shot with sea-green, and a wide, lush mouth that was, at this moment, tight-set. The expression on her amazing face was professionally blank, but as his eyes focussed on her he felt his male antennae react instinctively—and on every frequency. She was quite incredible.

Without conscious volition he raised his free hand, summoning her over. For a second he thought she had not seen his gesture, for she was moving as if to keep stalking around as the rest of the models were doing. Then, tensing, she strode towards him. He could not take his eyes from her…

The thoughts in his head were flashing wildly. OK, so she was a model—and that put her out of reach from the off, because models were nearly always not from the kind of privileged background he insisted that any woman he showed interest in be from. But this one…

Whatever she had—and he was still analysing it, with his male antennae registering her on every frequency—it was making it dangerously hard for him to remember the rules of engagement he lived by.

As she approached, the impact she was making on him strengthened like a magnet drawing tempered steel. Dieu, but she was stunning! And now she was standing in front of him, a bare metre or so away.

He scrutinised her shamelessly, taking in her breathtaking beauty. And then he caught a flash in her eyes—as if she resented his scrutiny.

His own eyes narrowed reactively—what was her problem? She was a model; she was being paid to be looked at in the clothes she was wearing. OK, so in fact she might have been wearing a sack, for all he cared—it was her amazing beauty that was drawing his attention, not her gown.

But, abruptly, he veiled his appreciative scrutiny. It didn’t matter how stunningly beautiful she was. He had not summoned her for any reason other than the one he gave voice to now. The only reason he would show any interest in her.

‘So, what about this one?’

He turned to Celine. The sooner he could get the wretched woman to spend Hans’s money on a gown—any gown!—the sooner he would be able to get her back to her hotel and finally be done with her for the evening.

His eyes went back to the model. The number she was wearing was purple—a kind of dark grape—in raw silk, draped over her slight breasts, slithering down her slender body. Again Marc felt that unstoppable reaction to her spectacular beauty. Again he did his best to stop it—and again he failed.

‘Hmm…’ said Celine doubtfully. ‘The colour is too sombre for me, Marc. No.’ She waved the model away, dismissing her.

But Marc stayed her. ‘Please turn around,’ he instructed. The gown was a masterpiece—as was she—and he wanted to see what she looked like from the back.

The flash in those blue-green eyes came again, and again Marc wondered at it as she executed a single revolution, revealing how the gown was almost backless, exposing the sculpted contours of her spine, the superb sheen of her pale skin. And as she came back to face them he saw an expression of what could only be hostility.

What is it with her? he found himself thinking. Annoyance flickered through him. Why that reaction? It wasn’t one he was used to when he paid attention to a woman—in his long experience women wanted to draw his attention to them! His problem was keeping women away from him, and without vanity he knew that it was not only his wealth that lured them. Nature had bestowed upon him gifts that money could not buy—a six-foot-plus frame, and looks that usually had a powerful impact on women.

But not on this one, it seemed, and he felt that flicker of annoyance again as his gaze rested on her professionally blank face once more.

For a second—a fraction of a second—he thought he saw something behind that professional blankness. Something that was not that hostile flash either…

But then it was gone, and Celine was saying pettishly, ‘Marc, cherie, I really don’t like it.’

She waved the model away again, and she strode off with quickened stride, her body stiff. Marc’s eyes followed her, unwilling to lose her in the throng which swallowed her up.

A pity she was a model…

For all her amazing looks, which were capable of piercing the black mood possessing him at having been landed with Hans’s wretched adultery-minded wife, the stunning, flashing-eyed beauty was not someone, he knew perfectly well, he should allow himself to pursue…

She isn’t from my world—let her go.

But a single word echoed in his head, all the same. Domage…

A pity…

* * *

Tara wheeled away, gaining the far side of the room as fast as she could. Her heart-rate was up and she knew why. Oh, she knew why!

She shut her eyes, wanting to blank the room. To blank the oh-so-conflicting reactions battling inside her head right now. She could feel them still, behind her closed eyes, slashing away at each other, fighting for supremacy.

Two overpowering emotions.

Impossible to tell which was uppermost!

The first—that instinctive, breath-catching one—had come the moment she’d seen that man looking at her…seen him for the first time. She certainly hadn’t seen him at the fashion show, but then she never looked at the audience when she was on the catwalk. If she had—oh, she’d have remembered him all right…

No man had ever impacted on her as powerfully—as instantly. Talk about tall, dark and devastating! Sable-hair, cut short, a hard, tough-looking face with a blade of a nose, a strong jaw, a mouth set in a tight line. And eyes that could strip paint.

Or that could rest on her with a look in them that told her that he liked what he was seeing…

She felt a kind of electricity flicker through her and her expression darkened abruptly. The complete opposite emotion was scything through her head, cutting off the electricity.

Liked it so much he just saw fit to click his fingers and summon me over so he could inspect me!

She fought for reason. OK, so he hadn’t actually clicked his fingers—but that imperious beckoning of his had been just as bad! Just as bad as the way he’d so blatantly looked her over…

And it wasn’t the damn gown he was interested in.

That opposite emotion, with a jacking up of its voltage, shot through her again. As if she was once again feeling the impact of that dark, assessing inspection…

She threw the switch once more. No—stop this, right now! she told herself. So what if he’d put her back up? Why should she care? That over-made-up blonde he’d been with had treated her just as offhandedly, waving her away. So why get uptight about the man doing so?

And so what, she added for good measure, that she’d had that ridiculously OTT reaction to the man’s physical impact on her? He and Blondie came from a world she wasn’t part of and only ever saw from the outside—like at this private fashion show. Speaking of which…

She gave herself a mental shake, opened her eyes and continued with her blank-faced perambulations, showing off a gown she could never in all her life afford herself. She was here to work, to earn money, and she’d better get on with it.

Oh, and if she could to stay on this far side of the room… Well away from the source of those emotions in her head.

* * *

‘Marc, cherie, now, this one is ideal! Don’t you think?’

Celine’s voice was a purr, but it grated on Marc like nails on a blackboard. However, at last, it seemed, Hans’s wife had found a gown she liked and was stroking the gold satin material lovingly, not even looking at the model wearing it. This model was smiling hopefully at Marc, but he ignored her. He was not the slightest bit interested.

Not like that other one.

He cut his inappropriate thoughts off. Focussed on the problem at hand. How to divest himself of Hans’s wife at last.

‘Perfect!’ he agreed, with relief in his voice. Could they finally get out of here?

His relief proved short-lived. Celine’s scarlet-tipped fingers curled possessively around his arm.

‘I’ve seen all I want here. I’ll arrange a fitting for that gold dress while Hans and I are in London. But right now…’ she smiled winningly at Marc ‘…do be an angel and take me to dinner! We could go to a club afterwards!’

Marc cut short her attempts to commandeer him for the rest of the evening. Never one to suffer irritation gladly, he knew his temper had been on a shortening fuse all evening. It was galling to see his father’s old friend in the clutches of this appalling woman. How on earth could Hans not have seen through her?

But then dark memory came, though he wished it would not. Hadn’t he been similarly blinded once himself?

Oh, he could tell himself he’d been young, and naïve, and far too trusting, but he’d been made a fool of all the same! Marianne had strung him along, playing on his youthful adoration of her, carefully cultivating his devotion to her—a devotion that had exploded in an instant.

Walking into that restaurant in Lyons, Marianne thinking I was still in Paris, seeing her there—

With another man. Older than Marc’s barely two and twenty. Older and far wealthier.

Marc’s father had still been alive then, and Marc only the prospective heir to the Derenz fortune. The man Marianne had been all over, cooing at, had been in his forties, and richer even than Marc’s father. Marc had stared, the blood draining from his face, and had felt something dying inside him.

Then Marianne had seen him, and instead of trying to make any apology to him she had simply lifted her glass of champagne, tilted it mockingly at Marc, so the light would catch the huge diamond on her finger.

Shortly afterwards she had become the third wife of the man she’d been dining with. And Marc had learnt a lesson he had never, never forgotten.

Now, his tone terse, he spoke bluntly. ‘Celine, I already have a dinner engagement tonight.’

Hans’s wife was undeterred. ‘Oh, if it’s business I’ll be good as gold,’ she assured him airily, not relinquishing her hold on his arm. ‘I sit through enough of Hans’s deadly dull dinner meetings to know how!’ she added waspishly. ‘And we could still go clubbing afterwards…’

Marc shook his head. Time to stop Celine in her tracks. ‘No, it’s not business,’ he told her, making the implication clear.

Celine’s eyes narrowed. ‘You’re not seeing anyone at the moment. I know that,’ she began, ‘because I’d have heard about it otherwise.’

‘And I’m sure you will,’ Marc replied, jaw set.

He did not want a debate over this. He just wanted to get Celine off his hands before his temper reached snapping point.

‘Well, who is it?’ Celine demanded.

Marc felt his already short fuse shortening even more. He wanted to get out of here—now—and get shot of Celine. Any way he could. The fastest way he could.

He said the first thing that came into his head in this infuriating and wretched situation. ‘One of the models here,’ he answered tersely.

‘Models?’

She said the word as if he’d said waitresses or cleaners. In Celine’s eyes women who weren’t rich—or weren’t married to rich men—simply didn’t exist. Let alone women who might possibly interest the likes of Marc Derenz.

Her eyes flashed petulantly. ‘Well, which one, then?’ she demanded. She was thwarted, and she was challenging him.

It was a challenge he could not help but meet—and he called her bluff with the first words that came into his head. ‘The one in the dress you didn’t like—’

‘Her? But she looked right through you!’ Celine exclaimed.

‘She’s not supposed to fraternise while she’s working.’

Even as he spoke he was cursing himself. Why the hell had he said it was that model? The one who had stiffened up like a poker?

But he knew why. Because he was still trying to put her out of his head, that was why—trying and failing. He’d been conscious of his eyes sifting through the crowded room even as Celine was cooing over the gown she was selecting, idly searching for the model again. Irritated both that he was doing so and that he could not see her.

She was keeping to the far side of the room. Not coming anywhere near his eyeline again.

Because she is avoiding me?

The thought was in his head, bringing with it emotions that were at war with each other. He shouldn’t damn well be interested in her in the first place! For all the reasons he always stuck to in his life. But he could remind himself of those reasons all he liked—he still wanted to catch another glimpse of her.

More than a glimpse.

Another thought flickered. Was it because she hadn’t immediately—eagerly!—returned his clear look of interest in her that she was occupying his thoughts like this? Had that intrigued him as well as surprised him?

He didn’t have time to think further, for Celine was counter-calling his bluff.

‘Well, do introduce me, cherie!’ she challenged.

It was clear she didn’t believe him, and Marc’s mouth tightened. He was not about to be outmanoeuvred by Hans’s scheming wife. Nor was he going to spend a minute longer in her company.

With a smile that strained his jaw, he murmured, ‘Of course! One moment.’ And he strode away across the room with one purpose only, his mood grimmer than ever. Whatever it took to shed the clinging Celine, he’d do it!

His eyes sliced through the throng, incisively seeking his target. And there she was. He felt the same kick go through him as had when he’d first summoned her across to him. That racehorse grace, that perfect profile—and those blue-green eyes which now, as he accosted her, were suddenly on him. And immediately, instantly blank.

And not in the least friendly.

Marc didn’t give a damn—not now. His temper was at snapping point after what he’d put up with all evening.

He stood in front of her, blocking Celine’s view of her from the other side of the room. Without preamble, he cut to the chase. Whether this was a moment of insanely stupid impulse, or the way out of a hole, he just did not care.

‘How would you like,’ he said to the model who was now staring at him with a closed, stony look on her stunningly beautiful face, ‘to make five hundred pounds tonight?’

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!’

She turned on her high heel, stalking away back into the hotel, not caring about his reaction. If she never saw Marc Derenz again it would be too soon! A man like him could only be bad, bad news.

A man who, like no other man she’d ever met, could turn her into melting ice-cream with a taunting wrist-kiss and a veiled glance from those dark eyes—and who could equally swiftly make her mad as fire with his imperious manner and rock-like personality.

Yes, she thought darkly, definitely bad news.

On so many counts.

* * *

Behind her, stock-still on the pavement, knowing the doorman had been covertly observing the exchange and not giving a damn, Marc watched her disappear from sight, the skirts of her gown billowing around her long, long legs, that glorious chestnut hair catching the light. In his memory he could still taste the silken scent of the pale skin at her wrist, the warmth of the pulse beneath the surface.

Then, his expression still mask-like, he turned away to climb back into his car, and be driven to his own hotel.

As if mentally rousing himself, he reached for the crumpled note in his breast pocket. He slipped it back into his wallet, depleted now of the four hundred and fifty pounds that were in her possession. As his wallet held his gaze, he felt as if the contents were reminding him of something important to him. That he would be wise not to forget.

How much he had wanted to silence that acidly saccharine mouth of hers, taunting him in a way that right now, in the mood he’d been in all evening, had not been wise at all… Silence it in the only way he wanted…

No. Tara Mackenzie was not for him—not on any terms. All his life he’d played the game of romance by the rules he’d set out for himself, to keep himself safe, and it was out of the question to consider breaking them. Not even for a woman like that.

After all, he mused, had it not been for the wretched Celine he would never even have encountered her. Now all he wanted was to put both of them behind him. For good.

It would be less than a fortnight later, however, that he would be forced to do neither. And it would blacken his mood to new depths of exasperatedly irate displeasure…

* * *

Tara was looking at kitchens and bathrooms online, trying to budget for the best bargains. However she calculated it, she still definitely needed at least another ten thousand pounds to get it all done. And even living in London as cheaply as she could—including staying in this run-down flat-share—it would take, she reckoned, a good six months to save that much.

What I need is some nice source of quick, easy dosh!

She gave a wry twist of a smile tinged with acerbity. Well, she’d made that five hundred pounds quickly enough—just for keeping the oh-so-charmless Marc Derenz safe from Blondie.

Memory swooped on her—that velvet touch of his mouth on the tender inside of her wrist…

A rasp of annoyance broke from her—with herself, for remembering it, for feeling that tremor that it had aroused go through her again now.

He only did it to taunt you! No other reason.

With an impatient resolve to put the wretched man out of her thoughts, she went back to her online perusal. Moving to Dorset—that was important to her. Not some obnoxious zillionaire who’d put her back up from the very first. Nor some man who could set her pulse racing…a man who was so, so wrong for her…

A thought sifted across her mind. Would there ever be a man who was right for her, though?

Yes, she thought determinedly—one day there would be. But she wasn’t going to find him here in London, in her life as a model. No, it would be someone she’d meet when she’d started her new life in the country. Someone who didn’t know her as a model at all, and who didn’t see her as a trophy to show off with. Her thoughts ran on. Someone who was, oh, maybe a vet—or a farmer, even—at home in the countryside…

She pressed her lips together, giving a smothered snort. Well, one thing was for sure, it would not be Marc Derenz. And, anyway, she was never going to set eyes on him again.

A sharp rapping on the front door of the flat made her jump. She gave a sigh of irritation. Probably one of her flatmates had forgotten her keys.

She put her laptop aside, padded to the door, and opened it.

And stepped back in total shock.

It was the last person on earth she’d ever expected to see again.

Marc Derenz.

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