The Redemption of Darius Sterne by Carole Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page A

had to wine and dine Miranda, charm her—although that part might be a strain on his usual taciturn nature!—before then seducing her and taking her to his bed, then that was what Darius had decided he had to do. For his own sanity, if not hers.
    His mouth thinned. ‘I was under the impression you no longer danced?’ He swept his gaze up and over her leotard once more.
    â€˜I dance enough to be able to demonstrate the moves to my students, and to be able to do that I need to dress as they do.’ Andy was thankful that the thick white tights she was wearing also hid the mesh of scars on her right hip and thigh.
    â€˜So why are you here, Mr Sterne?’
    He drew his breath in sharply. ‘I came to invite you to attend a charity dinner with me on Saturday evening.’
    To say Andy was surprised by the invitation would be putting it mildly.
    Although she did know, after finally giving in and looking him up on the Internet, that Darius wasn’t now, nor had he ever been, married, or even engaged to be married. In fact, at the age of thirty-three he had never been involved in a single serious relationship, as far as Andy could tell from the information available on him.
    Which, surprisingly, hadn’t been as detailed as she had expected it to be.
    There had been plenty of articles on how successful he and his brother were in business; it appeared they owned
half
the known universe, not almost all of it, as she had first thought!
    There were also numerous publicity photographs of him and his brother, and others taken of him at exotic locations all over the world, with beautiful and glamorous women on his arm. Noticeably the majority of those women had been tall and shapely brunettes.
    But Darius Sterne’s private life seemed to be exactly that: private.
    Oh, on the surface of it there appeared to be plenty of details.
    She’d discovered the names of the schools he had attended, followed by a degree at Oxford University. She’d read up on the social network site that had been the start of the successful business empire that he had owned with his twin brother for the past twelve years. As well, there had been a brief mention of the fact that his father had died when he was thirteen, and his mother had remarried when he was fourteen. But that was all it had been; there was nothing
tangible
about Darius himself. Nothing about Darius Sterne the man, or his relationship with the rest of his family, apart from that business partnership with his twin. And despite Kim’s warnings of a lurid past—and present?—there had been no ‘kiss and tell’ newspaper articles from any women Darius might have scorned.
    Although Andy suspected that the reason for the latter was because Darius either owned, or had influence over, most of the world’s media.
    She now also knew he lived mainly in a penthouse apartment in London, but also owned other homes in several capital cities around the world, including New York, Hong Kong, and Paris.
    But again, none of those things were personal to the man.
    After reading everything she could find that had ever been written on Darius, the only thing that Andy knew with any certainty was that she wasn’t, in any way, shape or form, his type!
    And yet here he surprisingly was, and asking her to go out with him again.
    â€˜Why?’ She picked up a towel and draped it about the dampness of her neck and shoulders, making sure it also covered her breasts. Her cheeks warmed as she walked across the smooth wooden floor towards him. Thankfully, without any sign of the limp she sometimes developed when she was tired.
    And how, Andy wondered irritably, considering that she was covered completely, did the intensity of Darius’s gaze as he watched her approach somehow manage to make her feel as if she were naked from head to toe instead?
    â€˜Saturday is only two days away,’ she taunted as she came to a halt just feet away from him. ‘So