By Request Collection April-June 2016. Оливия Гейтс

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СКАЧАТЬ after all this time …’ She stopped short, looking Shari up and down. ‘My God. Is it really you? You look … incroyable.’ Emilie kissed her on both cheeks and dragged her inside. ‘I adore it. So sexy and mystérieuse.’ Emilie thought she was speaking in English, but it often came out sounding like French.

      With gratifying awe she examined Shari’s transformation. The stripe across her eyes was intriguing enough, Shari supposed, but it was her chiffon dress and new five inch platforms that really had Em reeling.

      ‘Oh-h-h,’ the darling woman enthused. ‘I am green. How can you walk in them? But what have you done to your eyes?’ Shari’s heart suffered a momentary paralysis, but Emilie continued exclaiming. ‘Pretty, so pretty. Is that frog a tattoo, really?’

      Shari eased back out of the direct light. ‘You know me. Always faking it.’

      Emilie giggled. ‘No, don’t say so. Now, where’s Rémy?’ She peered out into the dark street.

      Shari tightened her grip on the strap of her shoulder purse. ‘Rémy isn’t coming.’

      ‘Not?’ Emilie looked nonplussed. ‘Oh, but … quick, phone him. Tell him he has to. Our cousin is here to see him and he’s looking so stern everyone is terrified.’

      Shari looked steadily at her. ‘No, Em. I can’t.’

      Emilie blinked bemusedly at her, and Shari was about to drop the bombshell when more guests piled in through the gate and hailed the hostess.

      Shari seized her escape.

      ‘Catch you later.’ She smiled, and walked through to the party like a woman riding a storm.

      It was a while since she’d visited. As things had deteriorated on the engagement front, she’d chosen to avoid the perceptive gazes of her brother and Em. Little changes had taken place in their home since the last time she’d dropped by to hang and read to their little girls.

      Tonight the rooms were crowded, people spilling from the living rooms to the pool terrace. A small army of hired staff was flitting about, distributing hors d’oeuvres like largesse to the poor.

      Heading for a quiet corner, Shari felt conscious of eyes turning to follow her. For a scary moment she feared her stripe wasn’t holding up, until a likely lad stepped in her path and told her she looked hot.

      Hot? Oh, that glorious word. Pleasure flowed into the dry gulch where her self-esteem had once bubbled like the tranquil waters of an aquifer. Her spine stiffened all by itself. She loved the sweet-talking hound.

      Standing way taller on her new platforms, she blew him a kiss. ‘Too hot for you, sweetie,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she swished by.

      There now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?

      She greeted a few faces she recognised, flashed a wave here, a smile there, just as though everything in her little corner of the world was hunky-dory. She hoped no one inquired about her so-called fiancé. She should never have promised to allow Rémy time to break the news to Em in his own way. She might have known he’d never drum up the courage.

      Face it, she’d known all along she should have told Neil and Em herself. Weeks ago, she saw now, instead of feeling she had to avoid them all this time. How much could she tell Emilie about her beloved Rémy, though? It was clear she couldn’t reveal anything tonight, with her sister-in-law under pressure.

      And she’d have to be careful how much she told Neil. She’d long sensed he didn’t like Rémy. He’d always been so protective of her, heaven knew what he might do if he knew about this last thing. And how might that impact on Emilie?

      She spotted Neil then, standing in a group with a tall, dark-eyed, sardonic-looking guy who was scanning the room, looking gloomy and detached.

      Luc noticed his host waving at someone and suppressed a yawn. These Australians were so open. So forward. So relentlessly friendly and lively. To a jet-lagged Frenchman, a houseful of them was overwhelming. He listened, nodded, made meaningless conversation with strangers and mentally gritted his teeth.

      These days, an hour in any roomful of couples was an eternity.

      He watched a couple’s unconscious linking as they chatted with other people. Hands brushing. Hips. Under duress he could admit to himself he missed those touches. The tiny automatic intimacies a man had with his lover.

      At least he lived cleaner now. No promises, no lies. And no pain. It was honest, at least.

      As though in ridicule of this absurd reflection a pang of yearning sliced through him. If only he could grow used to this life with no alleviating softness in it. No excitement. No warm body to open to him in the deep reaches of the night. What he needed was a …

      Through a chink in the crowd his eye was snagged on a flash of colour. He looked. And looked again. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a face, and for a minute the breath was punched from his lungs.

      The crowd moved, and now only her soft blonde hair was visible to him. He waited, not breathing, until she angled his way again. Ah. An intriguing sensation thrilled through him. It was her eyes. They were fascinating. So deep and alluring and mysterious. Eyes to haunt a man.

      He felt his blood quicken.

      The crowd parted again and he was able to take in the whole of her. She’d have fitted in well in any nightclub, but in this assembly she looked almost theatrical. Fragile, with her long legs in the high heels, the soft chiffon dress slipping off one shoulder, neat little shoulder purse knocking against her hip.

      Mesmerised, he couldn’t drag his gaze away.

      Shari smiled as a waiter proffered a tray. She helped herself to a shot of vodka, downed it, then replaced the empty glass and took another to be going on with. She was casting about for a friendly face when she noticed the dark-eyed guy still watching her, his brows lowered and intent.

      What the …? Had she broken the vodka laws?

      His eyes had a strangely hypnotic quality. A girl had to ask herself if it was really the vodka that was so capturing his attention.

      She attempted to crush his impudence with a haughty glare, but he didn’t even flinch. Shaken by a momentary pang of insecurity, she hastily drowned it with another gulp of the potato elixir.

      For goodness’ sake, she was at risk here of tipsiness, not a good thing in platforms. If the guy didn’t look away soon she’d be unable to lie on the floor without holding on.

      Luc was aware other women were probably present. Pretty women with breasts and soft hair. Women with an air of mystery. Blondes. Legs, long and lovely, shimmering with every slight movement.

      He just hadn’t until this moment burned to touch one particular one.

      Shari eyed her vodka guiltily. Although why should she? She was free, single and twenty-eight, and it was a party. She called the waiter back and rescued another glass from the tray. Turning then to face her examiner, she held them up and waved them at him, then took a sip from each.

      His frown intensified. He shook his head at her a little, and she felt her blood stir thrillingly. At the same time a nervous shiver slithered down her spine. This guy was inviting СКАЧАТЬ