‘Miranda?’ Darius shot Miranda an anxious glance as he heard her draw in a deep breath and then give a choked sob. ‘Oh, hell, Miranda, please don’t cry!’ he groaned, frantically looking for a side road he could turn the car into so that he could park up and take Miranda into his arms.
Miranda’s only answer was to bury her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she obviously began to cry in earnest.
‘Hell!’ Darius muttered again darkly, no longer waiting for the right opportunity to get out of the traffic but just flicking on the indicator to signal he was turning the car off the main road.
He lifted his hand in apology to a couple of other drivers as they tooted their protest as he eased the Bentley in front of their vehicles and down into a narrow side road; consideration for other drivers wasn’t high on his list of priorities at the moment—Miranda was.
He pulled the car in next to the pavement and parked before switching off the engine and turning to reach across the leather divide to take Miranda into his arms. ‘I really am sorry I put you through any of this evening, Miranda,’ he murmured into the perfumed silkiness of her hair as she now shook in his arms.
Her only answer was to draw in another sharp breath followed by another sob, as she continued to keep her face buried in her hands and her shoulders shook even harder.
Darius wasn’t sure how to deal with a woman’s tears. Well, he wasn’t sure how to deal with Miranda’s tears.
He was more used to the beautiful women he dated using pouting and wheedling in order to get their own way. And he had certainly grown immune, over the years, to his mother’s brand of emotional manipulation.
But Miranda wasn’t like any of those women. She was too forthright to use wheedling, and she definitely wasn’t the type of woman to emotionally manipulate a man.
If she had been Darius might not have felt quite so impotent right now.
‘Miranda...’
He paused, Miranda having finally lowered her hands from her face before lifting her head to look up at him, and frowned his confusion as he saw that Miranda wasn’t crying but laughing. Well...her cheeks were certainly wet with tears, but they appeared to be tears of laughter rather than distress.
‘Miranda?’ Darius eyed her uncertainly.
She gave a shake of her head. ‘Wasn’t that just the most awful night of your life?’ She chuckled, green eyes gleaming with that same humour. ‘All it needed to make it horrendously perfect was the disapproving presence of my older sister.’
Darius released her to slowly lean back in his own seat, his expression perplexed as he studied her through narrowed lids across the dimmed interior of the car.
In his experience, most women would have taken full advantage right now of the fact that he was responsible for blackmailing her into the midst of that sequence of awkward situations, and they would have made sure he paid a price for it too, either in the form of an expensive gift, or some other form of manipulation. Not Miranda. Miranda was laughing.
It was the first time Darius had seen her laugh without restraint. The green of her eyes gleamed with amusement; it brought a flush to her cheeks; her lips curved into the fullness of a relaxed smile. She looked younger and more carefree than he had ever seen her. And incredibly beautiful.
Although Darius wasn’t a hundred per cent sure it was altogether flattering, hearing her class the time the two of them had spent together in the conference room as part of the most awful night of her life.
‘Oh, come on, Darius,’ Andy encouraged as she saw the frown between his eyes. ‘Admit it, it was so awful there’s nothing else to do but laugh.’ She took a tissue from her clutch bag and mopped the dampness from her cheeks.
‘It had its moments of humour,’ he allowed grudgingly.
Andy grinned across at him. ‘It had all of the hallmarks of a disaster movie.’
He eyed her irritably. ‘I don’t consider all of the evening to have been a disaster.’
Andy pretended to give the idea some thought, hoping that in the dimly lit interior of the car Darius couldn’t see the blush in her cheeks that revealed that she knew exactly which part of the evening he was referring to. ‘Well, no,’ she finally conceded. ‘For instance, I very much enjoyed finally meeting your brother.’
Darius scowled. ‘I’m not sure I didn’t prefer you before you discovered your sense of humour.’
The past four years had been a bit grim, Andy acknowledged ruefully, so maybe she had lost her sense of humour along the way too?
If that was the case she had certainly rediscovered it this evening. Necessarily so. It was either laugh or curl up in a ball and feel sorry for herself, and she had no intentions of doing that; her days of self-pity had been over long ago.
‘Oh, that remark had nothing to do with humour, Darius; Xander is extremely handsome, and he was very charming after dinner.’
‘As opposed to...?’
‘Xander is extremely handsome and charming,’ she repeated dryly.
He scowled. ‘Xander was far from in a charming mood when he arrived at the hotel this evening.’
‘Something had obviously upset him, but he got over it.’
‘Meaning?’
Andy shrugged. ‘The mood was unusual rather than the norm.’
‘Unlike some people you could mention?’
She gave him an innocent glance. ‘I repeat, I found him extremely handsome and charming.’
Darius felt his lips twitch as he tried to control the smile threatening and failed utterly. ‘You really are determined to shatter my ego.’ He chuckled.
‘I believe a little humility to be a great leveller,’ she added pertly.
Darius felt his admiration and liking for this woman grow. Miranda was only twenty-three, and she had already been through so much. She had lost both her parents at only eighteen, and then suffered through the worst disappointment of her life, when her career in ballet came to such a tragic and abrupt end just months later.
But Miranda had survived. She was a survivor, carving out another career for herself, and now he also learnt that she could laugh at herself, and him, even in the midst of the type of adversity she had suffered through this evening.
‘Have lunch with me tomorrow?’ he asked without giving himself time to consider the wisdom of the invitation.
He had no doubts that Miranda was slowly but surely burrowing not just beneath his natural reserve, but also past the barrier he had kept about his emotions for so many years. Tonight he had realised that he not only felt desire for Miranda, but also protectiveness. He didn’t want to see Miranda hurt by the actions of others, like Tia Bellamy who’d slighted her deliberately, his mother less so, but she had still upset her nonetheless. And Darius hadn’t liked seeing Miranda unhappy. At all.
The smile slowly fading from her lips and the warmth from her eyes, she looked across at him searchingly, the interior of the car illuminated from the street lamp outside. ‘Why?’ she finally enquired warily.
There was no hesitation in Darius’s laughter this time as he chuckled throatily. ‘Maybe I would just like to take you out to lunch.’
‘But it’s Sunday.’
‘And?’
She shrugged. ‘Sunday is a day to spend with family, eating roast lunch, before lounging around watching an old movie together on TV in the afternoon, stuff like that.’
‘Is that what you’re doing tomorrow?’
‘Well,