‘No deeper than you dug to find out about my life.’
‘That was for a professional interview.’
‘Do I need to remind you that your questions didn’t exactly follow the script?’
She flushed hotly. His eyes flashed with that same icy fire she’d witnessed earlier. She said defensively, ‘You must know that if you open yourself up to any kind of press attention, then there’s a risk that you’ll be asked about things that are offlimits.’
He inclined his head, the ice still in his eyes. ‘Of course; I’m not so naïve. But somehow I hadn’t expected that of you.’
Ridiculously, Alana felt hurt and guilty. He was right; with another person who wasn’t pushing her buttons so much, she would never have taken the initiative to ask unscripted questions. It had been her reaction to him that had prompted her to try and provoke a response that would take his intense interest off her, that playful teasing he’d seemed set to disarm her with. Again she wondered what she’d scratched the surface of earlier.
She opened her mouth, but at that moment a waitress arrived and distracted them by taking their orders. Conversation didn’t resume until she had returned with a bottle of white wine. They’d both ordered fish. Once they were alone again, Pascal sat up straight. ‘You can tell yourself that you’re here for work, Alana, but I did not ask you here to talk about work. It’s a subject I have to admit I find intensely boring when we could be discussing much more interesting things….’
‘Such as?’ she asked faintly, mesmerised by the way his eyes had changed again into warm pools of dark promise.
He took a sip of wine and she followed his lead unconsciously, her mouth feeling dry.
‘Such as where you went last night, if you don’t date.’
Initially Alana had felt herself automatically tensing up at his question, but then something happened. She found herself melting somewhere inside, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Some part of her was responding to his heat, and it was just too hard not to give in just a little. So she told him about her brother’s fortieth birthday. And that led to telling him about her six brothers and sisters. And her parents.
‘They’re all happily married with kids?’
Alana had to smile at the vague look of horror on his face. She knew people sometimes couldn’t get over the entirely normal fact of large Irish families. She nodded, but felt that awfully familiar guilt strike her. She was the anomaly in her family. She tried to ignore the pain and spoke lightly. ‘My family are a glowing testament to the institution. I have a grand total of fifteen nieces and nephews and my parents have been happily married for fifty years.’
He shook his head in disbelief. ‘And where do you come?’
‘I’m the baby. Ten years younger than my youngest brother. Apparently I was a happy mistake. The age gap meant that despite coming from such a big family I’ve always felt in some ways like an only child. For most of the time that I can remember, it was just me and my parents.’
Alana fell silent as she thought of her parents. She was acutely aware of their increasing frailty, and especially her father, who had had a triple bypass the previous year. With her older siblings busy with families and their own problems, the care and concern of their parents largely fell to her. Not that she minded, of course. But she was aware nevertheless that they worried about her, that they wanted to see her settled like the others. Especially after Ryan.
Alana took a quick gulp of coffee and avoided Pascal’s laser-like gaze. They’d finished their meal, and the plates had been cleared. It was as if he could see right through her head to her thoughts. She hoped the coffee would dilute the effect of the wine, which had been like liquid nectar. She’d shrugged off her jacket some time ago, and the silk of her shirt felt ridiculously sensual against her skin. And she found that it was all too easy to talk to Pascal Lévêque. He was attentive, charming, interested. Interesting.
But then he cut through her glow of growing warmth by asking softly, ‘So what happened with you?’
At first she didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Your marriage. You were about to divorce your husband when he died, weren’t you?’
Immediately the glow left, Alana tensed. She could see his eyes flare, watching her retreat.
Unconsciously she felt for her jacket to pull it back on, instinctively seeking for some kind of armour. Her voice felt harsh. ‘I see that whoever your source was didn’t stop at the bare facts.’
Pascal’s jaw clenched. ‘I’m not judging you, Alana, or anything like it. I’m just asking a question. I can’t imagine it was easy to take a decision to divorce, coming from the family that you’ve described.’
Her arms stilled in the struggle to get her jacket on; his perceptiveness sneaked into some very vulnerable part of her. He didn’t know the half of it. Her own family still didn’t know the half of it. They’d been as mystified and dismayed as the rest of the country at her behaviour. Something her husband had ruthlessly exploited in a bid to win as much sympathy as possible.
She broke eye contact with effort and finished the job of putting on her jacket. Finally she looked at him again. ‘I’d really prefer not to talk about my marriage.’
Pascal was tempted to push her, but could see her clam up visibly. She’d become more and more relaxed over the course of the meal. He’d had to restrain his eyes from dropping numerous times to the soft swell of her breasts under the fine silk of her shirt. He still had no idea why she seemed so determined to cover up as much as possible. But, instead of his interest waning, the opposite was true. He had to admit that was part of the reason he’d asked her out—some kind of bid to have her reveal herself to be boring or diminish her attraction—yet she was intriguing him on levels that no other woman had ever touched.
He was not done with this, with her. But he knew that if he pushed her now, he could very well lose her. This was going to test all his patience and skill, but the chase was well and truly on. So now he flashed his most urbane smile and just said, ‘No problem.’ And he called for the bill. The abject relief on her face struck him somewhere powerful.
Pascal wouldn’t listen to Alana’s protests. He insisted on dropping her to her house, which was only ten minutes from the restaurant. Tucked in a small square in one of the oldest parts of Dublin, her house was a tiny cottage. Pascal’s car was too big to navigate past all the parked cars at the opening of the square, and she jumped out. But he was quick, too, met her at the other side of the car and insisted on walking her up to her door.
She turned at the door, feeling absurdly threatened, but by something in herself more than him. Standing close together, her eye level was on his chest, and she looked up into his dark face. The moon gleamed brightly in a clear sky, and the February air was chill. But she didn’t feel cold. She had the strongest feeling that if he attempted to kiss her, she wouldn’t be able to stop him. And something within her melted at that thought. She blamed the wine. And his innate French seductiveness.
But then suddenly he moved back. Alana found herself making a telling movement towards him, as if attached by an invisible cord and she saw a flash of something in his eyes as if he, too, had noted and understood her movement.
Before she could clam up, he had taken her hand in his and was bending his head to kiss the back of it, exactly as he had the previous night in the hotel. His old-fashioned gesture touched and confused her. Her hormones were see-sawing with desires and conflicting tensions. And then, with a lingering, unfathomable look, he started to walk away down the small square and back to his car. Against every rational notion in her head, Alana found herself calling his name. He half-turned.
‘I just … I just wanted to say thank you for dinner.’
He walked back up towards her with an intensity of movement that belied his easy departure just now. For a second she