After Hours: Black Lace Classics by Crystalle Valentino Page B

drink.’
    Venny thought that Caspar didn’t have to do a thing to justify his existence. Caspar was simply the most elegant and languid man she had ever seen. His dark curls fell to his shoulders in a lush tangle. His face was beautifully defined and faintly familiar, the face of a tortured angel. His dark eyes were set very deep beneath lowering black brows, his mouth was a perfect kissable bow. His skin was pale, and not from makeup. Caspar looked drained and poetic. Caspar was dynamite.
    ‘Spotted my brother, I see,’ said the man in white with the spiked hairdo and the impish blue eyes.
    ‘Hm?’ Venny half-turned in surprise to find that the crowd upon which she was being swept towards the drinks table included him. He was standing very close, and his eyes were gazing as if mesmerised at her naked breasts. Venny felt her heartbeat pick up alarmingly. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, deliberately cool. ‘Wrecked any good cars lately?’
    He smiled. He had the most wonderful smile. Irritated by the observation, Venny looked back at Caspar, who seemed to be reviving slightly now thathe had a luscious dark-haired houri leaning over him so solicitously.
    ‘Only yours,’ said the guy in white. ‘My name’s Micky Quinn, do you remember? And you’re Venetia Halliday.’
    Venny winced. ‘Venny,’ she corrected, her eyes avoiding his as she secured a glass of bubbly. ‘So Caspar …’ she pondered.
    ‘He’s my brother. Caspar Quinn. Younger than me by two years.’ He nodded to the redhead, who was circulating among the sudden throng of guests with an almost manic gaiety. ‘That’s my sister-in-law, Flora.’
    ‘They don’t look very happy,’ observed Venny. She turned and looked at Micky, and although he was drinking champagne he was still looking at her breasts. She turned away again, feeling hot colour engulf her cheeks. Damn Dani and her wild ideas. She should at least have worn a shrug or slung her cosy old pashmina around her shoulders. She felt so exposed.
    ‘They lived together for four years in perfect happiness,’ said Micky with more than a trace of irony. ‘Then one mad New Year’s they decided to get spliced, and they’ve been miserable ever since. And incidentally, that bloke in the pale grey suit and the dark wig is looking very hacked off at your friend.’
    ‘Oh, that’s Dani,’ supplied Venny, draining her glass and anxiously reaching for another before draining that too. ‘And the man in grey’s Jamie, who has it rather fixed in his narrow Glaswegian brain that Dani’s his own personal property.’
    ‘She’s obviously not,’ said Micky.
    ‘Tell him that,’ suggested Venny truculently.
    ‘I saw you come out of the bank yesterday,’ said Micky. ‘Hope you’re not having problems.’
    Venny turned on him with a look that could have shattered stone. ‘I certainly am not,’ she lied.
    ‘Good,’ he said, and watched her reach for another drink and swill it back. ‘You really ought to eat something with that,’ he said. ‘Or you’re going to be totally pissed in an hour’s time, I promise you.’
    Giving him a withering glance, Venny snatched up another glass and drained the contents. ‘And what the hell have you come as?’ she demanded. ‘I think I ought to point out that Dracula never wore white in any of the movies.’
    Micky shook his head and stretched out an arm to the buffet table. ‘I haven’t come as a vampire. I’m a virgin.’
    Venny almost swallowed her tongue in shock as she stared at the roguish blue eyes twinkling away at her frontage. ‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re not convincing anybody.’
    ‘Well, it’s just a costume,’ said Micky, her sarcasm zinging off his hide like grapeshot off a rhino. ‘I thought it was a neat twist.’
    It was, but Venny was not about to say so.
    ‘And you’re supposed to be what?’ he prompted curiously, eyeing her up and down.
    ‘A houri ,’ said Venny frostily, not feeling very houri- like right