The Redemption of Darius Sterne by Carole Mortimer Page B

felt with any other woman.
    She frowned. ‘Will any of the press be there on Saturday evening?’
    â€˜Oh.’ He nodded, his brows clearing. ‘Only those officially invited by my mother.’
    â€˜Your
mother
?’
    Darius slowly, reluctantly, released Miranda before stepping back.
    Before he did something stupid, like kissing her again; just that once was enough to tell him that the desire he had been feeling for her this past week had been the tip of an iceberg. That he wanted so much more from Miranda than just a kiss. And that now, when she was still so determined to resist him, as well as tired and hot from a long day at work, wasn’t the right time for the long, slow seduction he had in mind.
    Running his hand through the tousled thickness of his hair made him instantly recall the way Miranda’s slender fingers had been entangled in it just minutes ago. ‘It’s one of my mother’s pet charities,’ he dismissed huskily. ‘As president of that charity, she’s also the main organiser.’
    As far as Andy was concerned, this whole situation had become slightly surreal.
    All of it. Darius’s initial and unexpected appearance at her studio. His invitation to the charity dinner. His having resorted to using blackmail in order to force her into accepting that invitation. A charity dinner, Darius had now informed her, that was being organised by his own mother!
    â€˜Isn’t introducing me to your mother a little too cosy and intimate for you?’ Andy taunted to hide how disturbed she was from the kiss they had just shared. Her legs were still feeling slightly shaky, her breasts an aching, unfulfilled throb.
    A reaction, an arousal, that warned her against spending any more time in this man’s company than she had to. That warned she certainly shouldn’t agree to accompany him to this charity dinner on Saturday.
    Except Andy already knew she was going to say yes.
    Because Darius had blackmailed her into accepting?
    Or was the real reason because she secretly wanted to go out with him on Saturday evening, and it was just easier and less complicated—and less of a challenge to her inner warnings to do the opposite—to let Darius continue thinking she was only agreeing to go out with him because he had forced her to do so?
    Andy had the next forty-eight hours, until she saw Darius again, to decide which of those it was.
    Although she had a feeling she already knew the answer to that question.
    She had been mesmerised by this man from the moment she first looked at him across the restaurant a week ago, even more so later that evening when he came over and spoke to her in the club, before insisting she danced with him. Since then Andy knew she hadn’t been able to get Darius, and the sexual magnetism he exuded so confidently, out of her mind.
    Despite all her efforts to the contrary.
    She felt that magnetism all the deeper now that he had kissed her.
    Darius now gave a scathing snort. ‘There is nothing in the least cosy or intimate about my mother!’
    Andy looked up at him searchingly as she heard the harshness of his tone. A curiosity Darius met with a blank stare, his eyes giving away none of his inner thoughts or emotions, just as the blandness of his expression revealed none of his outer ones, either.
    She gave a grimace. ‘You obviously don’t really want to go to the dinner either, so why bother going?’
    Darius looked away, only to be bombarded with dozens of reflections of the two of them from the mirrored walls, he standing tall and dark before a much slighter and fairer Miranda.
    His breath caught in his throat as he imagined making love to Miranda in this room, with those same dozens of reflections, the two of them naked, reflected back at him. How much of a turn-on was just the thought of that? Enough so that his body hardened painfully.
    He could easily imagine the two of them together here, knew that those multiple