With a curt flick of her wrist Alana turned the shower to cold and endured it for a minute. Anything to dampen her flaming hormones.
* * *
At the match later Pascal came and found her at half time, and took her by the hand. She was distracted; she’d been trying to set up an interview for after the match with the England manager.
‘Pascal, I’m working, you can’t just walk up and drag me away,’ she said with a mixture of reproach and breathless anticipation.
He ignored her and took her down into long corridors before ducking into a room full of equipment. He closed the door behind them.
Still holding her hand, he pulled her to him. She was helpless not to respond, her body welcoming his heady proximity. How quickly she’d become consumed by him. Alarm bells weren’t just ringing, they were now joined by sirens and flashing lights.
With quick hands, he undid her ponytail and pocketed the band.
‘Hey!’
Then he put two hands in her hair and mussed it up. He looked at her critically. ‘Much better. And now …’
‘Now what?’
‘Now this.’ He hauled her into him and kissed her deeply, with barely checked passion. She wound her arms around his waist and found her hands lifting his shirt from his trousers, searching for and finding that smooth, taut flesh where the small of his back curved out to firm buttocks. Warmth flooded her. He was opening the buttons of her shirt; she’d tried to put on her tie that morning but he’d kept taking it off her. She could feel the air on her heated skin as he opened her shirt and palmed her breast, her nipple aching against the confines of her bra. She pressed a feverish mouth against his throat.
And then suddenly the spell was broken as someone tried to come in the door behind them. Pascal said something quickly in Italian and started to do up her buttons again. Alana didn’t know how she was going to be able to go back out there and string two words together.
Her brain was mush for the rest of the match and the ensuing interviews, but somehow she managed to keep it together. Pascal was waiting for her, exactly like he’d been waiting and watching that first day in Dublin. Only now … A wave of heat engulfed her … only now it was totally different. She was different.
Her crew feigned extreme lack of interest in the fact that Pascal Lévêque was hovering like a bodyguard. But once the last interview was done, and she’d been given the all clear from the Dublin studio, effectively the rest of the weekend was hers.
In the back of Pascal’s car a short time later, he pulled her over so she was practically on his lap. She’d given up trying to pull away and retain a more dignified position for the sake of the driver. He pressed a kiss to the underside of her wrist and looked up at her.
‘Are you glad to be here now?’
Alana looked down at him and felt the earth move bizarrely beneath her feet even though they were in a moving vehicle. Something very suspicious tightened her chest. She nodded, because she had to admit it. ‘Yes. I am glad.’ She bent her head and pressed a kiss to his mouth, revelling in the freedom she had to do this. They’d achieved an immediate level of intimacy that would be frightening if she thought about it too closely.
She was embarking on an affair with a world-renowned playboy and that was going to be her protection: at no point would she be deluded. At no point would there be talk of love, marriage. It would end when it would end. And she’d take the gift of herself that he’d given back to her, like a guilty, delicious secret. That was all she wanted. This was all she wanted.
Later that evening Alana took one last look at her reflection and turned to leave the room, but just then her door opened. Pascal stopped dead for a moment, his gaze raking her up and down, and then he clapped his hand over his eyes. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Alana felt like a fool. She knew she shouldn’t have worn the dress—it was ridiculous, too tight, too revealing. ‘Look, I can change, I’m not even that comfortable.’
Pascal wasn’t moving.
She took a hesitant step forward. ‘What, what is it? Is it really that bad?’
Alana tried to look back at the mirror self-consciously when she heard something suspiciously like a grunt coming from Pascal.
He’d taken his hand down and was laughing. Then he stopped and walked towards her. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. It was the shock of seeing so much exposed flesh at once.’
Alana all at once felt like laughing and angry. She picked up a small cushion from the chair beside her and threw it at him, but he caught it deftly and kept coming. Dressed in a tuxedo, with his hair still damp from the shower, he was magnificent.
She had to speak to try and negate the effect he had on her, the way his teasing wound through her and impacted a place that was so deep, so vulnerable.
‘I’m going to change right now; I knew this dress was a mistake.’
She went to undo the zip that was under her arm, and Pascal reached her and captured her hand. ‘Don’t you dare. That dress is beautiful.’
Alana’s face flamed. ‘It’s not. It’s too—’
‘So why did you bring it, then?’
She couldn’t answer. He walked her over to the full-length mirror and stood her in front of him. His hands rested on her hips. She could feel him, tall and hard and lean behind her, and it was so seductive.
‘Look at yourself.’
Alana closed her eyes, her cheeks still scarlet. She shook her head. ‘I hate looking at myself.’
‘Alana, look at yourself.’
Something in his voice made her open her eyes, and she immediately looked at him through the mirror. She could feel him sigh behind her.
‘Not at me, at yourself.’
With extreme reluctance, she did. She saw the black silk dress that was cut on the bias and fell to just below her knees in an asymmetric line. She saw one shoulder, pale and bared, and just a hint of a curve of her breast. She saw the strap that held the dress up over her other shoulder with its flamboyant red-silk flower, a splash of vibrant colour.
‘Now, what’s wrong with this picture?’
Alana groaned inwardly. This was so embarrassing. She would bet a million dollars that not one of his previous lovers had had to be reassured about a dress before.
She tried to turn. ‘Look, it’s nothing, I’m sorry. Let’s just go, shall we?’
He wouldn’t let her. He held her fast, and something in the air changed. It became electric.
‘You’re beautiful, Alana. This dress is beautiful on you. It’s not too revealing. In fact,’ he growled with mock lasciviousness, ‘it’s not revealing enough.’
He turned her then to face him, his hands warm on her shoulders. She could feel her breasts peak against the silk of the dress.
He tipped up her chin so she couldn’t avoid his eyes. ‘What did he do to you, Alana? I bet you weren’t always like this.’
Alana struggled not to let the tears brighten her eyes, but there was a lump in her throat. She shook her head. ‘No, I wasn’t. He just … he just made me feel cheap. That’s all.’
She pulled free of his arms and looked at her watch. ‘We should really go.’
He heard the emotion in her voice and watched her precede