The Night That Started It All Read Free Page B

or what? If it had been Rémy he’d have been pouring the stuff down her throat to make her more compliant.
    This vodka was a highly underrated substance. She could feel a warm glow coming on. Amazing how it could boost the confidence. Despite the fabled ice packing her mouse veins, she was pretty sure if she passed by that guy she could scorch him with her body heat.
    In a roomful of people, why not give it a shot?
    Enough of all this shillying and shallying, surely it was time to hug the birthday boy. With a deep breath, and assuming her most glamorous and mysterious expression, she summoned her inner Amazon and swished across to Neil, where she planted some lipstick on his cheek.
    ‘Happy birthday, bro,’ she said huskily.
    Dear old Neil looked appreciatively at her. ‘Didn’t I see you in the movies?’ He gave her a brotherly hug, then peered into her face. She had to steel herself not to flinch away for fear of him spotting the reason for her disguise. ‘That’s not a tattoo there, is it?’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘What do you think, Luc? Do we want our women branded with frogs?’
    But the guy’s dark velvet gaze had travelled well beyond her frog. He was drinking her all in, razing her to the parquet. True, tonight her curves were exceptionally appealing, but anyone would have thought this was the first time he’d ever laid eyes on a woman.
    Though she seriously doubted it. Not with his bones.
    Her chiffon top slid off one shoulder and she saw his eyes flicker to the bare section. Against all the odds, a shivery little tingle shot down her spine.
    The guy queried Neil without taking his eyes from her. ‘
Qui est-elle?’
    ‘My sister,’ Neil said, his arm around her. ‘This is Shari. Shari, meet Luc. Em’s and Rémy’s cousin.’
    ‘Oh.’ An unpleasant sensation rose in the back of Shari’s throat and she took an involuntary backwards step. The door guy. He hadn’t mentioned being related.
    The guy’s eyes—
Luc’s
—sharpened, while Neil goggled at her in surprise.
    Recovering her party manners with an effort, Shari pulled herself together.
    ‘De
light
ed,’ she lied through her teeth. Lucky she was holding the two shot glasses and wasn’t required to touch Rémy’s cousin. Just her luck though, Neil chose that moment to exercise what he considered his brotherly prerogative, and snatched the glasses from her.
    ‘Thanks for these,’ he said, and swilled the contents one after another.
    Trapped. There was no preventing the Frenchman from taking her hand.
    ‘Shari,’ he said. ‘
Enchanté, bien sûr
.’ He leaned forward and brushed each of her cheeks with his lips.
    Oh, damn. Her skin cells shivered and burned, though they’d been inoculated against the male members of this family.
    Not that this guy resembled the Chéniers, with their reddish hair and blue eyes. Where Rémy was impulsive, surface cute and brutal, this cousin seemed more measured. Graver. Seasoned. Harsher face, experienced eyes. Dark compelling eyes, with golden gleams that reached into her and made her insides tremble.
    ‘Do you live nearby?’
    Ah, the voice. The deep, dark timbre was even more affecting without the intercom, that tinge of velvet accent around the edges.
    Clearly he didn’t recognise hers. She guessed she must have sounded different over an intercom with a busted eye and a swollen nose.
    ‘Paddington, across the harbour. And you?’
    ‘Paris. Across the world.’
    She cast him a wry glance beneath her lashes, and he smiled and shrugged. The tiny, instantaneous communication lit the sort of spark in her blood a recently disengaged woman probably should have had the taste to ignore.
    In a perfect world.
    No wedding ring marred the tanned smoothness of his hands. A faint chime in her memory struggled to retrieve something of a story she’d once heard over coffee with Emilie. Something about a Parisian cousin, possibly a Luc—or did she say a duke?—and a woman. Some sort of scandal.
    If he was