‘We really shouldn’t,’ Darius murmured huskily as he moved away from the door. ‘Not until you’ve answered my question,’ he added grimly.
‘Which one?’ She raised her chin challengingly.
His eyes glittered down at her just as determinedly as Darius shrugged. ‘I believe they were one and the same question.’
‘No, they weren’t.’ Andy sighed as she turned away to stand nearer the conference table, having known by the stubborn set of Darius’s jaw that she wasn’t about to escape this room until he was ready for the two of them to leave. ‘Obviously Tia is a ballet dancer,’ she dismissed. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard of her?’ Andy had avoided looking at any newspaper articles or other ballet gossip since the accident, but even she knew that Tia was now one of England’s prima ballerinas.
As she had once hoped to be.
‘Business pressures mean I haven’t had time to go to the ballet for years,’ Darius dismissed. ‘Now tell me why seeing her again upset you so much,’ he insisted determinedly.
Andy shrugged as she turned away from his probing gaze. ‘Surely it’s only natural for me to be a little upset at seeing one of my old colleagues, and to be reminded of—of the fact that I’ll never dance professionally again?’
‘Now tell me the real reason.’
Andy knew, from how close Darius’s voice was, and from the way his breath ruffled the soft downy hair at her nape, that he had crossed the room and was now standing just behind her.
So close to her, in fact, that Andy could feel the warmth of his body through the material of her gown, his unique and intoxicating smell—warm, virile male and that lemon-based cologne—invading her senses.
‘Talk to me,’ he prompted huskily.
Andy gave a shake of her head, in an effort to stop herself from falling any deeper under Darius’s seductive spell.
‘Tell me the real reason seeing Tia Bellamy upset you.’ His voice had hardened.
She tensed. ‘I already have.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
Andy realised it had been a mistake to turn and face Darius as she suddenly found herself pressed flush against the hardness of his body as he easily pulled her into his arms.
A move she attempted to resist at first, only to capitulate with a sigh, and rest her head against the solidity of his shoulder, when Darius simply refused to release her but instead tightened his arms about her in order to prevent her escape.
‘Tell me,’ he encouraged gruffly as he rested his cheek lightly against her hair.
That was something Andy couldn’t do. Something she would never tell anyone ever again. She had tried four years ago to tell people what she thought had really happened the night she went tumbling down off the stage, smashing her right hip and thigh bone and effectively ending her ballet career. No one had believed her. No one had wanted to believe her.
In the end Andy hadn’t been sure that she believed it herself either.
Admittedly Tia had been her understudy for the Odette/Odile role in Swan Lake, and had immediately taken over after Andy’s accident, but she couldn’t really have pushed Andy deliberately, in order to achieve that ambition. Could she?
Andy had convinced herself in the months of surgery and convalescence that had followed her accident that the events of that night must all have become muddled in her mind. That it had been the initial pain, and then the strong drugs they had given her to dull that pain, that had caused some sort of delirium, resulting in the weird dreams she had just thought were real when she woke up.
Tia’s almost triumphant air this evening, when she’d announced she was rehearsing for the lead in Giselle, her condescension about the way Andy looked and was dressed this evening, her pitying glances when she mentioned Andy’s dance studio, now caused Andy to once again question her memories of that night four years ago.
ANDY MOISTENED THE dryness of her lips before answering Darius. ‘I’ll make a deal with you,’ she murmured huskily. ‘I’ll answer your question if you’ll tell me the reason for the friction between you and your mother.’
Darius gave a rueful chuckle. Miranda might have been shaken by that meeting with Tia Bellamy, but not so much that she couldn’t think logically enough to ask him for the one thing she knew he couldn’t, or rather wouldn’t, give her. ‘We both know that isn’t going to happen.’
She gave a shrug. ‘Then neither is my answer to your own question.’
Darius moved his head back slightly so that he could look down at her as he murmured appreciatively, ‘You are one very dangerous lady.’
Miranda’s eyes glowed with mischievous humour. ‘I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being that before.’
Darius sobered as he looked down into the beauty of Miranda’s face: those warm green eyes, her flushed cheeks, the full and tempting pout of her lips. Yes, to him, at this moment, she was most definitely very dangerous. ‘Maybe that’s because no one else has ever been as determined as I am to know you better?’
‘Or in the way in which you want to know me better?’ Andy countered ruefully.
Darius quirked one dark brow. ‘Is that a bad thing?’
It wasn’t ‘bad’ exactly—the intensity of desire Andy could see in Darius’s eyes just scared the hell out of her.
It didn’t help that Andy was so aware of his body pressed so intimately against her own. Or how alone they were in this room. She certainly couldn’t dismiss the sexual tension that now surrounded the two of them, and appeared to hold both of them in its thrall.
Which, considering there were five hundred people in the huge ballroom just a short distance away, was totally inappropriate.
‘What did Tia Bellamy mean when she said you need to wear long gowns, Miranda?’ Darius asked unexpectedly.
So unexpectedly that Andy felt her cheeks pale. ‘That’s none of your business, Darius.’
‘I’m making it so,’ he insisted softly.
Andy shook her head in denial. ‘I think we should go back to the ballroom now.’
‘I disagree.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘If I stop asking questions will you agree to stay here a little longer?’ Darius leant back against the conference table and took Andy’s bag from her unresisting fingers and placed it on the table behind him. He settled her in between his parted legs, his arms light about her waist as his lips nuzzled and tasted the warmth of her throat.
Much as she knew she shouldn’t, Andy wanted nothing more than to stay here with Darius. And not just because she had no wish to bump into Tia Bellamy again, or engage in more conversation with Darius’s family.
She had been physically aware of Darius since the moment he’d arrived at her apartment earlier this evening, and that awareness had only deepened as they’d sat in the warm confines of his car, and become even greater when Darius first placed, and then kept that possessive hand pressed against her spine as they’d entered the hotel together.
Alone with him now, just the two of them in the silence of this conference room, Darius’s lips a warm and arousing caress against the column of her throat, Andy had absolutely no defences against the heat of desire warming and spreading through the whole of her body. Nor could she deny that now