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

did your original date have to cancel?’
    Andy gave an inner wince even as she asked the question; if Darius Sterne’s original date had cried off, for whatever reason, then there was a multitude of women who would happily have taken her place. He certainly didn’t need to resort to going to the trouble of seeking Andy out, for the sole purpose of inviting her to go with him.
    â€˜I didn’t have a previous date.’ He raised dark brows, as the same thought obviously crossed his own mind. ‘It is a bit short notice, I admit, but I only arrived back from a lengthy business trip at six o’clock this morning.’
    â€˜And no doubt you immediately thought of me!’ she dismissed scathingly.
    â€˜What makes you think I ever stopped thinking of you?’ he challenged.
    Andy found it hard to believe that Darius had given her a single thought after their first meeting, especially when he seemed to have been out of the country for the past week.
    And yet he was asking her to believe that just hours after his return he had come here to see her?
    Andy was determined not to read too much into that. ‘Arrived back from where?’
    â€˜China.’
    â€˜They don’t have telephones in China?’
    His jaw tightened at her sarcasm. ‘You didn’t give me your telephone number or email address.’
    â€˜I didn’t give you the address of my dance studio either, but you don’t seem to have had any trouble finding that out for yourself,’ she countered.
    His eyes glittered his displeasure at the underlying sarcasm in her voice. ‘I thought you would prefer that I came here and made the invitation in person.’
    â€˜Did you?’ Andy mused. ‘Or did you imagine I might find it harder to refuse you in person?’
    Darius had convinced himself this past week that Miranda Jacobs couldn’t possibly be as intractable as he had thought she was being that night at his club. That maybe she had just been playing hard to get last week, in an effort to pique his interest. Just five minutes back in her infuriating company, and he knew that Miranda was every bit as stubborn as he had first thought she was.
    He wasn’t used to being told the word no, by any woman. Not once, but twice!
    Darius slid his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers, rather than reach out and touch Miranda, not sure which would win out if he did touch her: his need to shake her or kiss her!
    â€˜You didn’t seem to have any problem with saying no to me in person last week.’
    She gave a shrug of those slender shoulders. ‘Which begs the question, why are you bothering to ask me again, when you already know the answer?’
    Darius breathed in sharply, his hands clenching in his trouser pockets, as he once again fought the need he felt to reach out and shake this woman. An impulse he resisted because he had every reason to believe he
would
then be tempted into kissing her. Senseless! ‘I thought the charity benefitting from the dinner might be of interest to you,’ he bit out between tightly clenched teeth.
    Andy eyed him guardedly, very aware of the tension thrumming through Darius’s lean and muscled body, as he now stood just inches away from her.
    Of excited awareness thrumming through her own body.
    Just as she was also aware of how alone they were in the studio, with only the distant noise of the traffic outside to disturb the tension between the two of them.
    She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘Why are you doing this, Darius?’ she asked softly. ‘What possible interest can you have in taking out a failed ballerina?’
    â€˜You didn’t fail, damn it!’ Darius cut in harshly, his brief elation at finally hearing her call him Darius having been completely overridden by the anger he now felt at hearing her describe herself as a failure.
    Once he had accepted that his desire for Miranda wasn’t going to go away, he had made