Page 124 of The Tycoon's Affair: Tempted By Desire

Something niggled at him—where was thefemme fatale? So far he had to admit that the Sylvie he had here was nothing like the woman who had provoked him beyond measure each time he’d seen her before. Not least when she’d appeared in the church, dressed from head to toe in motorcycle gear. The soft black leather jacket and trousers had moulded to her body in a way that had been indecent—and even more so in a church.

He’d expected her to be a lot more sophisticated, knowing... Giving in to her situation and manipulating him as much as she could. That was how the women he knew operated—ultimately they would follow the path of least resistance and take as much as they could.

That was what had attracted him to Sophie Lewis and made him believe he could marry her—her complete lack of guile or artifice. A rare thing in this world.

And that was as far as the attraction had gone.

Arkim ignored the voice. But he had to acknowledge uncomfortably that if the wedding had gone ahead and he’d married Sophie Lewis he wouldn’t be here now with her sister. And for a sobering and very unpalatable moment Arkim couldn’t regret that fact.

A deeper, darker truth nudged at his consciousness—the very real doubts he’d had himself about the wedding as it had come closer and closer. But he wasn’t a man who spent fruitless time wondering about what might have been. And he didn’t entertain doubts. He made decisions and he dealt in reality, and this was now his reality.

Sylvie was avoiding looking at him and he hated that.

He said, ‘Your eyes... I’ve never seen that before.’

Sylvie was straining with every muscle she had not to let Arkim see how much he was getting to her, lounging on the other side of the table as he was, like some kind of robed demigod. When she’d leant across the table— provoked into taking that food off his fork—and she’d seen him looking down her top, she’d almost combusted.

Distracted, and very irritated, she said, ‘They’re just eyes, Arkim. Everyone has them. Even you.’

She risked a look and saw that half-smile again.Lord.

‘Yes, but none as unusual as you. Blue and blue-green.’

Sylvie hated the frisson she felt to think of him studying her eyes. ‘My mother had it too. It’s a condition called heterochromia iridum. There’s really nothing that mysterious about it.’

Arkim frowned now. ‘Your mother was French, wasn’t she?’

Sylvie nodded, getting tenser now, thinking of Arkim’s judgmental gaze turning on her deceased mother. Sophie must have mentioned it to him.

‘Yes, from just outside Paris.’

‘And how did your parents meet?’

Sylvie glared at him. ‘You’re telling me you don’t know?’

He shrugged lightly and asked, ‘Should I?’

For a moment she processed that nugget. Maybe he genuinely didn’t.

From what she’d learnt of this man, he would not hesitate to take advantage of another excuse to bash her—so, anticipating his scathing reaction, she lifted her chin and said, ‘She was a dancer—for a revue in Paris that was in the same building where I now dance. It had a different name when she was there and the show was...of its time.’

‘What does that mean?’ he drawled derisively. ‘Not so much skin?’

Sylvie cursed herself for being honest. Why couldn’t she just have said her mother had been a nurse, or a secretary? Because, her conscience answered her, her mother would never have hidden her true self. And neither would Sylvie.

‘Something like that. It was more in the line of vintage burlesque.’

‘And how did your father meet her? He doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who frequents such establishments.’

Sylvie pushed down the hurt as she recalled sparkling memories full of joy—her father laughing and swinging her mother around in their back garden. She smiled sweetly and said, ‘Just goes to show that you can’t always judge a book by its cover.’

Arkim had the grace to tilt his glass towards her slightly and say, ‘Touché.’

She played with her champagne glass, which was still half full. She grudgingly explained, ‘He was in Paris on a business trip and went with some of his clients to the show. He saw my mother...asked her out afterwards...that was it.’

Sylvie would never reveal the true romance of her parents’ love story to this cynical man, but the fact was that her father had fallen for Cécile Devereux at first sight—acoup de foudre—and had wooed her for over a month before her mother had finally deigned to go out with him—an English businessman a million miles removed from the glamorous Cécile Devereux’s life. Yet she’d fallen in love with him too. And they’d been happy. Ecstatically.

Familiar emotion and vulnerability rose up inside Sylvie now and she knew she didn’t want Arkim to probe any further into her precious memories.