The Dark Side of Desire by Julia James Read Free Book Online Page B

narrow straps showing too much bare shoulderand arm and—for her—too much décolletage, modest though it was by Anita’s sultry standards.
    But Anita’s damage was worse than the style of the dress. Letting down her hair had completely changed the image she habitually presented to the world. Instead of a neat, confining chignon, her loosened hair formed a long, slinky coil down her bare back, its unfastened tresses softening her face. As for the slash of scarlet lipstick Anita had applied—even after several hours and Flavia’s liberal use of her napkin over dinner—her lips still looked flushed and beestung.
    Full and inviting …
    She stared, transfixed. Oh, God—was that what Leon Maranz had been seeing all evening? All through dinner? And now—much worse—after that dreadful, disastrous dance her face had a hectic flush to it. Her pupils were distended, her breathing far too rapid.
    This wasn’t her! It wasn’t! It
wasn’t
! What had happened to her? Where had she gone, that restrained, composed female she strove to be when she was summoned to her father’s side? Because one thing was glaringly, appallingly clear: she wasn’t here any more. She wasn’t sitting on this velvet stool, staring wide-eyed at the reflection gazing back at her. It was a different woman—a completely different woman! Alien and strange.
    Sensual …
    The word formed in her head and she instantly tried to shake it out, as she would a burr on her sleeve. But it wouldn’t go. It would only wind itself sinuously around her consciousness, whispering its poison in her ear.
    Sensual …
    Instantly she rejected the word. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter a jot what Leon Maranz could make her feel! She was not going to have anything to do with him! He belonged to the world of her father—a world in which making ever more money was the most important thing, and spending it as flashily and extravagantly as possible the next most importantthing. A shallow, empty, superficial world! She belonged somewhere quite different. In the country, at home at Harford, with her grandmother who loved her so much, needed her so much …
    Nothing could alter that,
    So it was definitely time to put a stop to whatever Leon Maranz had in mind! A complete full stop. Time to send him a quite different message from the one she’d so disastrously given him by dancing with him.
    Squaring her shoulders, she scooped up her hair, twisting it fiercely around her fingers until it was pinioned against the nape of her neck. Then, helping herself to some of the complementary hairgrips laid on for guests at the vanity unit, she ruthlessly pinned it into place. A tissue scrubbed repeatedly over her lips dealt with the remnants of Anita’s wretched scarlet lipstick.
    She got to her feet. Lifted her chin. She had the rest of the evening to get through somehow, but get through it she would—she must. She would refuse point-blank to dance with Leon Maranz again—refuse to do anything other than offer him the barest civility.
    She stared at herself. With her hair up, her lips pale once more, she looked almost her normal self. Only the faint, betraying flush of the skin on her cheeks told of her discomfiture.
    Unconsciously she felt the unseen pressure of his hand at her waist, hers on his shoulder. For one lingering moment she could
feel
Leon Maranz’s touch …
    Then, with a sharp little rasp in her throat, she got to her feet and walked out of the powder room.

CHAPTER FOUR
    L EON levered his broad shoulders away from the wall that he’d been propping up while Flavia Lassiter hid from him in the Ladies’ Room. Now, finally, she had emerged, as he’d known she would have to eventually, and was walking briskly forward. She’d managed to put her hair up again, and the last remnants of the stunning lipstick that had turned her mouth into a tempting curve had disappeared, but nothing could hide the sinuous beauty of her body in the elegant, figure-skimming evening