With need, the need to lose himself in a woman—this woman—for a moment, a night. For surely it could be no more? He had nothing more to offer; his heart felt as lifeless as a stone…except when it fluttered to life as he gazed at Abby. Yet he knew how little that was, and that was why the evening must end here, now. For Abby’s sake.
‘Abby.’ He tried to smile, yet the movement hurt. He didn’t want to let her go. She was the first good thing that had happened to him in so long, perhaps ever, and he couldn’t bear to make her walk away. Not yet. Please, he offered in silent supplication, not yet.
Abby smiled and braced herself for rejection. Did he actually feel sorry for her? Had she just offered herself on a plate only to be pushed away?
‘Do you know what you are saying?’
‘Of course I do.’ Brave words. She let her fingers skim his wrist. ‘I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.’
Luc gazed down at their entwined hands. Abby felt a wave of something dark and unrelenting emanate from him, a deep sorrow, an endless regret. ‘You are a beautiful woman,’ he said in a low voice, and disappointment stabbed at her with icy needles.
‘But…?’ she prompted sadly, and Luc looked up and smiled.
‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘You won’t.’ More brave words, Abby knew. Foolish words, perhaps. Yet at that moment she felt like anything would be better, or at least more bearable, than walking away from Luc and the blossoming feeling of possibility he evoked in her just then.
Luc sighed, a heavy sound, and he shook his head slowly. Abby waited, holding her breath, hoping.
Then he stood, almost lazily reaching out to draw her to her feet, their fingers still twined.
‘Where are you going?’ Abby asked as she rose.
‘The question,’ he answered, tugging on her hand, ‘is where are we going?’
Abby let him lead her out of the bar; the only sound was the swoosh of her gown around her ankles. Back in the lobby Luc had a rapid discussion with the concierge, and seconds later he led her to a bank of lifts. Abby’s breath caught in her throat. She could hardly believe this was happening, that she was allowing it to happen, that she had asked for it to happen. She barely knew Luc, and yet…
Yet she knew him, perhaps better than she’d ever known anyone before. She couldn’t turn away from this—him—even if she wanted to, even if she tried. She had no choice; her desire and need were too great.
The heady, surreal feeling didn’t leave her as they stepped into the lift and Luc pressed the button for the top floor: the penthouse suite.
They rode in silence and Abby felt sure Luc could feel her heart beating; it felt as if it were thudding right out of her chest. She gave a sideways glance and saw how calm and unconcerned he looked. Determined, resolute even.
The lift came to a halt and the doors opened directly into the suite, which took up the whole floor.
‘Come,’ Luc said, and Abby followed him into the sumptuous living-room, all velvet sofas and spindly gilt-tables, with about an acre of Turkish carpet. Abby stood in the doorway, mindlessly smoothing the silk of her gown, feeling shy and uncertain despite her earlier bravado.
She knew it wasn’t the luxurious suite of rooms that put her on edge. In her years as a concert pianist she’d seen and experienced her fair share of luxury. No, it wasn’t the room. It was the man.
He’d casually dropped the key-card the concierge had given him on a side table and shed his suit jacket, the muscles of his back and shoulders rippling under the smooth, silken fabric of his shirt. For a brief moment his body was in profile, his face in shadow. Abby didn’t think she was imagining the grim set to his jaw, or the accompanying shiver that rippled through her body at the sight of him and the darkness emanating from within that beautiful body.
Yet then he turned to her with a little smile, his expression light and easy, and she wondered if she’d been imagining it after all.
‘Aren’t you going to come in?’ he asked, laughter lurking in his voice, and Abby lowered her gaze.
‘I…’ She licked her lips. Now was not the time for cold feet, surely? ‘I’m not sure.’
Luc frowned and strode towards her, his hands coming to curl around her shoulders. ‘Abby…are you afraid?’
‘Not…exactly.’ Abby tried to laugh, but it came out wobbly and uncertain. ‘Not of you,’ she amended. ‘More of…the situation.’ She licked her lips again, hurrying to explain. ‘And I’m not afraid. I just…don’t know what to do. I know what I said, but…’
Luc’s hands relaxed on her shoulders, sliding down her bare arms to leave a wake of goosebumps before he loosely linked her fingers with his own.
‘We can simply sit and chat,’ he told her gently. ‘I enjoyed talking to you.’
‘I did too,’ Abby admitted. ‘That is, talking to you, not to me.’
‘Abby.’ Luc chuckled softly as he brushed her cheek with his knuckles. ‘I understand.’
Abby gave a little nervous laugh. ‘You must think me incredibly gauche,’ she said and he raised his eyebrows.
‘Not at all.’
‘Really?’ She laughed again, the sound more normal and easy. ‘Because, listening to myself, I think I sound gauche.’ She met his gaze directly, her own gaze open and candid. ‘I don’t know what to say or do.’
‘There’s no script, is there?’ Luc asked. ‘Or did I not get the memo?’
‘No script,’ Abby confirmed as, still holding her by the hand, he led her to the sofa. ‘But surely certain things are…expected?’
‘Abby, I promise you, I have no expectations. I was amazed to see you in the bar, and I’m even more amazed to see you here.’
They were sitting on the sofa now, Luc’s thigh nearly pressed against her own. Abby slipped off her heels and tucked her stocking-clad feet under the silken folds of her gown.
‘Anyway,’ Luc continued, ‘I don’t think you gauche at all. Refreshing, I would have put it.’
‘Isn’t that just a nice way of meaning “different”?’
‘Different is good.’
‘Different means different,’ Abby insisted. ‘Abnormal, weird.’
Luc reached out to touch her ankle through the folds of her gown. It was an almost absent-minded caress, his long, lean fingers lingering on the delicate bones even as his eyes, and his smile, never left her face. ‘Is that how you’ve felt?’
‘Sometimes.’ Why, Abby wondered, was it so easy to talk to him like this? To admit, confess things, she never had before even to herself? ‘Piano was pretty much my life from about age five,’ she elaborated with a shrug. ‘I stood out.’
‘At school?’
She shook her head. ‘Not really. I was home-tutored from age eight so I could devote more time to music.’
‘Those kids on Hampstead Heath, then?’ Luc guessed, and Abby wondered how he knew so much so quickly. ‘Them?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed wryly. ‘Them.’
In