A line forming between her feathery brows, Megan lifted her head to look at the tall figure standing in the shadows. ‘Dance? What on earth are you talking about?’ She glared up at him, bristling with suspicion.
Luc registered the antagonistic glitter in her eyes, but didn’t comment on it. ‘You’re very graceful.’
Megan felt her cheeks grow hot. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I was simply making an observation. You carry yourself like a dancer. I was wondering if you trained at some point…?’
‘Me, a dancer!’ She looked at him as though he had gone mad. ‘I’m a research scientist.’
‘Does being a boffin preclude you having a sense of rhythm?’
She dealt him a look of exasperation. ‘I don’t dance. I…well, I did have a few lessons when I was a kid,’ she conceded. ‘Singing lessons too. They were meant to help my asthma.’
‘Did they?’
‘Well, it got a lot better.’
‘You’re shivering,’ he observed as a fresh shudder ran visibly through her slender frame. ‘I’d offer you a jacket except…’ his grin made him appear almost impossibly attractive ‘…I’m not wearing one.’
Megan watched him place his hand flat against his chest. A shaft of agonising awareness shot through her—she was conscious of every crease and fold of the white cotton that clung like a second skin to the broad expanse of his chest. She was even more painfully conscious of the shadow of body hair sprinkled over his broad chest and the suggestion of muscular definition.
Drawing a deep breath as she struggled to regain her composure, Megan developed a deep interest in his shoes.
‘You can have my shirt if you like.’
Her stomach flipped over at the thought of wearing something that was still warm from his skin, something that still bore the scent of his body.
An awful thought occurred to her. Did he know that she had just been mentally removing it? Had she been that obvious?
‘I don’t like.’ It wasn’t just cold that made her teeth chatter violently, it was images of Luc standing there stripped to the waist, his golden skin gleaming his…Stop this, Megan! This was not the time or place to explore her darker emotions!
‘Do you want to go back to the house?’ she asked him abruptly.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Luc enquired, scanning her rigid face.
After his performance tonight Megan couldn’t believe he had the cheek to ask. Of course she had known when she had gone back to his room and found it empty that she had made a terrible mistake. When she had come downstairs and found him surrounded by a laughing, admiring crowd who were hanging on his every word all her worst fears had been realised.
‘Nothing’s wrong with me.’ She sniffed.
‘I thought tonight went very well.’
Megan released a laugh of bitter incredulity at this self-congratulatory comment. ‘I noticed you were enjoying yourself.’
It would have been hard to miss it!
And to think she had been concerned that he might find himself a little out of his depth during dinner. The gathering had been typical of her mother’s weekends. A diplomat, a poet and his lawyer wife, an actress…least said about the voluptuous Hilary, the better! A retired headmaster, and someone who had written a number one rock ballad, then entered politics.
Far from being out of his depth, her fake lover had been totally at ease. His ability to converse on a wide range of subjects with authority and ease had astounded her and impressed the hell out of everyone else.
Of course she had already known that he was intelligent. Two seconds in his company revealed that. Now she knew that, though he might have no formal education to speak of, he was widely read and amazingly erudite with a sharp wit and deadly charm. Her lips pursed; the recollection of his deadly charm reminded her of how angry she was.
‘Come on, let’s walk in the sun. It might warm you up.’
‘I’m not cold,’ she denied, wrapping her arms around her trembling body.
‘Well, I am.’
After a short pause she followed him back out into the evening sun.
‘Are you going to tell me what I’ve done to make you mad?’
‘You need to ask?’
‘I just did.’
‘It might have slipped your memory that the reason—the only reason you are here is to establish that you find me irresistible. It might be a start if you had deigned to notice I was alive,’ she ground out grimly.
Until he had asked her to take this stroll outside he had acted as though she were invisible. If she hadn’t wanted to get him alone long enough to give him a piece of her mind, she’d have told him where he could stick his stroll!
His dark shapely brows moved towards his equally dark and at that moment damp hairline. ‘I haven’t forgotten why I’m here.’
Megan’s lips tightened. His dismissive attitude really got under her skin. ‘So ignoring me and spending the entire evening talking to someone else’s cleavage is your idea of seeming interested? Interesting technique,’ she admired with heavy sarcasm.
The memory of his humiliating fascination with the actress’s breasts increased the angry tightness in her aching throat. She’d probably hear that woman’s awful laugh in her sleep tonight, she decided, thinking of the shrill, jarring sound. Why was it that every single time men went for obvious…?
Not, of course, that she gave a damn if he fancied the redhead—after all, that hardly placed him in a unique category. Hilary was the sort of woman who demanded and got male attention. No, Megan’s legitimate grouch was the fact he wasn’t fulfilling his end of the bargain. Her acting as an introduction agent for him, a fact she had every intention of pointing out, was not part of the deal.
For a moment her angry eyes met his before her lashes swept downwards and she turned and backed away.
‘Calm down, chérie’ He laughed, catching her arm and swinging her back.
Her shrill, ‘I am calm!’ made him laugh again.
‘Not so as you’d notice.’ The first time he’d seen her he’d wondered what she would look like without her upper-crust reserve intact and he had had ample opportunity to find out today. ‘Unreasonable and ratty is actually not a bad look for you.’
Something in his voice brought Megan’s eyes back to his face. ‘I am neither unreasonable nor ratty!’ She regarded him with simmering dislike. ‘I just don’t like wasting my time,’ she enunciated clearly.
‘I haven’t been wasting anything.’
His patronising tone made her teeth clench. ‘Certainly no opportunity to chat up anything in a low-cut top.’ And if he thought that cleavage was natural he was in for a nasty shock.
‘What we’ve established tonight is that you mind me showing an interest in another woman.’
His smugness made Megan want to scream.
‘Your reaction was perfect,’ he commended calmly.
‘I didn’t react,’ she told him frigidly. Actually, now that she reviewed her behaviour during the interminable dinner, she had to concede that maybe her conduct hadn’t been quite as adult as it might have been, but, in her defence, she had had a lot of provocation.
‘God, and to think I thought you had no sense of humour. Everyone there was aware of the friction.’
Megan inhaled deeply.