Julia James – Billionaire's Mediterranean Proposal (страница 8)

She would make the most of everything about her time here. Starting with relishing the delicious lunch about to be served to her out on the balcony, under a shady parasol, followed by a relaxing siesta on a conveniently placed sun lounger in the warm early summer sunshine.

Where Marc Derenz was she didn’t know—presumably he’d turn up at some point and she would go on duty. Till then…

* * *

‘Don’t burn.’

The voice that woke Tara was deep and familiar, and its abrupt tone told her instantly that concern for her well-being was not behind the statement.

Her eyes flared open, and for a moment the tall figure of the man who was going to pay her ten thousand pounds for staying in his luxury villa in the South of France loomed darkly over her.

She levered herself up on her elbows. ‘I’ve got sun cream on,’ she replied.

‘Yes, well, I don’t want you looking like a boiled lobster,’ Marc Derenz said disparagingly. ‘And it’s time for you to start work.’

She sat up straight, feeling her arms for the thin straps of her swimsuit, which she’d pushed down to avoid tan marks on her shoulders. As she did so she felt the suit dip dangerously low over her breasts. And she felt suddenly, out of nowhere, a burning consciousness of the fact that those hard, dark eyes were targeted on her, and that all that concealed her nakedness was a single piece of thin stretchy material.

Deliberately, she busied herself picking up her wrap, studiedly winding it around herself without looking at him. Whether he was looking at her still she did not care.

I’m going to have to get used to this—to the impact he has on me. And fast. I can’t go on feeling so ridiculously self-conscious. I’ve got to learn to blank him.

With that instruction firmly in mind, she finished knotting her wrap securely and looked across at him. Against the sun he seemed even taller and darker. He was wearing another of his killer business suits, pale grey this time, with a sharp silk tie and what would obviously be twenty-four-carat gold cufflinks and tiepin.

Tara made herself look and sound equally businesslike. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘What’s the next thing on the agenda, then?’

‘Your briefing,’ Marc Derenz replied succinctly.

His pose altered slightly and he nodded his head at a chair by the table, seating himself on a second chair, crossing one perfectly creased trouser leg over the other.

‘Right,’ he started in a brisk voice as she sat where he’d bade her. ‘There are some ground rules. This, Ms Mackenzie, is a job. Not a holiday.’

* * *

Marc rested his eyes on her impassively. But he was masking a distinctly less impassive emotion. Arriving here from Paris to find her sunning herself on the balcony had not impressed him. Or, to be precise, she had not impressed him with her lack of recognition that she was here to fulfil a contractual obligation. In every other respect he’d been very, very impressed…

Dieu, but she possessed a body! He’d known she did, but to see it displayed for him like that, before she’d become aware of his presence, had been a pleasure he had indulged in for longer than was prudent.

Because it didn’t matter how spectacular her figure was, let alone her face, this was—as he was now reminding her so brusquely—a job, not a holiday.

Certainly not anything else.

His thoughts cut out like a guillotine slicing down. In the days since he had hired her to keep Celine Neuberger at bay he’d had plenty of second thoughts. And third thoughts. Had he been incredibly rash to bring her here? Was he playing with matches near gunpowder?

Seeing her again now, viewing that fantastic body of hers, seeing her stunning beauty right in front of him again, and not only in the memories he’d done his best to crush, was…unsettling.

Abruptly he reminded himself that she was not a woman from his world, but a woman he’d admitted into his life briefly, under duress only, and not by free choice. That that did not mean he could now break the rules of a lifetime—rules that had served him well ever since the youthful fiasco over Marianne that had cost him so dearly. Oh, not in money—in heartache that he never wanted to feel again.

But I was young then! A stripling! It was calf love, nothing more than that, and that’s why it hit me so hard.

Now he was a stripling no longer, but a seasoned man, in his thirties, sure of himself, and sure of what he wanted and how to get it. Sure of his relationships with the women he selected for his amours. Women who were nothing like the one now sitting opposite him, taking money for her time here.

That was what he must remember. She would—that was for certain. It was the reason she was here…the reason she’d accompanied him from the fashion show. She’d made it perfectly clear then—and again when she’d so brazenly upped what he’d been prepared to offer her to come out here now. That was warning enough, surely?

However stunning her face and figure—however powerful her appeal—his relationship with Tara Mackenzie must be strictly professional only. She was here, as he reminded himself yet again, only to do a job.

It was, therefore, in a brisk, businesslike tone that he continued now. ‘The Neubergers are arriving this evening. From then on, until they leave, you will assume the role you are here to play. What is essential, however,’ he went on, ‘is that you understand you are here to act the part only. You are not to imagine we actually have a relationship of any kind whatsoever or that one is possible at all. Do you understand me?’

* * *

Tara felt herself bridling as his dark eyes bored into hers. He was doing it again! Putting her back right up. And not just in the way he’d said things—in what he had said.

Warning me off him. Telling me not to get ideas about him. Oh, thank you—yes, thank you so much, Monsieur Derenz. It was so necessary to warn me off you! Not.

Would she really ever consider a man with the personality of a lump of granite, who clearly thought every woman in the world was after him?

Indignation sparked furiously in her. ‘Of course, Monsieur Derenz. I understand perfectly, Monsieur Derenz. Whatever you say, Monsieur Derenz,’ Tara intoned fulsomely, venting her objection to his high-handed warning.

His eyes flashed darkly and his arched eyebrows snapped together in displeasure. ‘Don’t irritate me more than you already have, Ms Mackenzie,’ he said witheringly.

‘And don’t you, Monsieur Derenz,’ she shot back, bridling even more at his impatient put-down, ‘entertain the totally unwarranted assumption that I have any desire to do anything more than act the part I am here to play! And,’ she continued, refusing to be cowed by the increasingly black look on his face, ‘I expect you to do likewise. There is to be no repeat of that little wrist-kissing stunt you pulled just before I went back into the fashion show!’ She saw his expression stiffen and ploughed on. ‘No unwarranted body contact at all. I appreciate that my role must be convincing—but it is for public view only.’

Even just pretending to be on intimate terms with him was going to be a challenge. A challenge that, now she was seeing him again, was making a hollow form inside her. Oh, what did the wretched man have that got to her like this?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.