‘No!’
Andy looked up at him uncertainly as she heard vehemence in his tone. ‘No?’
It was one thing for Darius to have decided he couldn’t take his attraction towards this woman any further than he already had, and quite another for Miranda to decide to walk away from him.
Damn it, had he really become so arrogant that he couldn’t accept a woman’s lack of interest in him for what it was?
Hell, yes, he was that arrogant!
Most especially when he knew that Miranda wasn’t uninterested in him at all.
The sexual tension between the two of them had been palpable downstairs in the restaurant earlier, and it was even deeper now that they had actually talked, and then danced together.
‘Have dinner with me tomorrow night,’ Darius prompted abruptly as he turned to place a restraining hand on her arm before they could reach the table where her sister and brother-in-law were waiting for her.
‘I— What—? No!’ Miranda looked totally flustered by the invitation.
‘Why on earth not?’ He scowled darkly.
She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘As I said, I’m grateful to you for inviting us up to your club, and—and everything else. It’s made my birthday even more special. I just— This— You and me— It isn’t going anywhere.’
‘I only invited you out to dinner, Miranda, not to become the mother of my children,’ he pointed out dryly.
The colour had first drained and then deepened in her cheeks. ‘And when was the last time you invited a woman out to dinner without the expectation of taking her to bed at the end of the evening?’ Her pointed chin rose challengingly as she looked up at him.
‘And what makes you so sure that isn’t going to happen?’ he purred.
Andy wasn’t sure of anything in regard to her undeniable and unexpected attraction to this man; that was the problem!
It would be too easy to become completely caught up in Darius, in his mesmerising attractiveness, in that arrogance and certainty, only to have all of that crash down about her ears when he realised, when he saw, her physical imperfections.
Physical imperfections, scars, which she had no doubts would illicit either pity or disgust. And Andy wanted neither of those things from Darius.
‘I said no, I won’t have dinner with you tomorrow, Mr Sterne. Or any other time,’ Andy added as she pointedly removed her arm from his grasp. ‘Excuse me.’ She didn’t wait for a response from him this time as she turned and walked away determinedly.
As she turned and walked away from the man she knew, instinctively, was capable of capturing her heart before just as quickly breaking it.
‘I THOUGHT I WOULD wait for your students to leave before I came in.’
Andy froze as Darius Sterne’s voice echoed across her otherwise empty dance studio, her gaze now riveted on the mirrored wall in front of her as she saw his reflection in the doorway behind her.
It had been a week since she had left him at Midas, and he looked as tall and darkly forbidding as ever. Today he wore a charcoal-coloured suit and paler grey shirt and tie, beneath a dark overcoat. The darkness of his hair was even longer than a week ago, and more tousled about those harshly patrician features, his topaz gaze fixed on her intently.
Andy’s last class of the afternoon had just left and she was currently standing beside the barre on the wall going through the routine of exercises and stretches that she did at the end of each day, before going up to her apartment to shower and change.
What on earth was Darius even doing here?
How was he here at all? Andy didn’t remember telling him where her dance studio was located, only that she had one.
He was Darius Sterne, and if he wanted to find out exactly where that dance studio was situated, then no doubt he could just instruct one of his employees to find out for him.
The real question was: why had he?
Andy had tried her best not to even think about this disturbing man for the past week. Or her unprecedented physical response to him!
And for the most part she knew that she had succeeded, spending the weekend either going out with Kim and Colin, or cleaning her flat, and keeping herself busy at her studio the rest of the time, as she kept thoughts of Darius at bay.
Unexpectedly hearing the husky sound of his voice, and just a single glance at his reflection in the mirror, and Andy knew she had been wasting her time trying so hard not to think about this man this past week. She could feel the moist heat gathering between her thighs, and her breasts were already tingling with arousal.
And those were the reasons Andy couldn’t turn and face him, but instead continued to look at his reflection in the mirrored wall in front of her, her fingers now curled so tightly about the barre beside her that her knuckles showed white.
‘I had to separate two of those little angels before class began; they were arguing over whose leotard was the prettiest,’ she answered dryly.
‘Women in the making,’ he teased.
‘No doubt,’ Andy answered dismissively before asking the question she really wanted an answer to. ‘What are you doing here, Mr Sterne?’
At this precise moment, Darius was exerting all of his considerable will power to control the urge he felt to quickly cross the studio and kiss her delectable lips, before baring her body and kissing that too!
Who knew that a woman could look so sexy in a leotard and tights?
That Miranda Jacobs, specifically, would look so sexy in a white leotard and tights, with silky white ballet shoes on her slender feet?
The long-sleeved leotard hugged every inch of her body, outlining her small but perfectly rounded breasts tipped with ripe—and aroused?—berries. His gaze took in her tiny waist, the slight flare of her hips, her bottom two perfectly rounded globes, her legs long and shapely in white tights. Her hair was brushed back and secured in a ponytail at her crown and her face, completely bare of make-up, tinged with a slight glow of warmth to her satiny smooth skin. No doubt the latter was from her recent exertions with the dozen or so small children that had just left with their doting mothers in tow.
He had his own driver, but had chosen to drive himself to the dance studio. He’d arrived about fifteen minutes ago, the amount of other vehicles in the car park telling him that she must have a class on at the moment. Sure enough, shortly after he’d parked his car, the young students had all trooped out and disappeared off with their mothers in their various vehicles and directions.
For some reason Darius hadn’t expected that Miranda would be dressed in the same leotard and tights as her small charges wore. Or that it would take just one look at her in those revealing clothes for his body to harden to a painful throb!
It was a reaction that didn’t improve his temper in the slightest; he had already thought about this young woman far more over this past week than he was happy with—in the middle of business meetings, on a couple of long flights, in the shower, in his otherwise empty bed!—without becoming aroused almost the moment he set eyes on her again.
‘Mr Sterne?’
While he had been lost in the thought of exactly how and when he would like to have sex with her, Miranda had turned to face him, her head tilted curiously as those green and gold eyes looked across at him quizzically.
Miranda Jacobs was all and everything that Darius deliberately avoided in a woman.