She stepped back and his hand fell away. His eyes flashed. Still the same arrogant Arkim. And what had he meant when he’d said she’d left him behind?
‘What do you want, Arkim? I haven’t finished practising, and I only have this space for another twenty minutes.’
‘I want to talk to you. And I have something for you at my apartment.’
‘Your apartment?’
‘I have an apartment here in Paris. I’m working here for the next few weeks—in my Paris office.’
Ofcoursehe had an office and an apartment here. Hewould.
But still, she resisted. ‘Why, Arkim? Why do we have to talk? I think we said everything, don’t you? Or you certainly did, anyway.’
He looked for a moment, as if he didn’t want to say anything, but then he did. ‘Your sister came to see me... Iknow, Sylvie.’
Sylvie could feel her blood draining south so quickly that she swayed. Immediately Arkim’s hand was on her arm. To her awful shame, her first thought was not of Sophie but of the fact that Arkim hadn’t come because he wanted her back at all...
‘Sophie...came to see you?’ Sylvie was vaguely aware that her phone had been off all day during rehearsals, so she’d been uncontactable.
He nodded. Grim. ‘Look, finish your practice. I’ll wait, and then you’ll come with me...yes?’
There was no way Sylvie could focus now. She’d break her ankle. And that was just at the thought of Arkim waiting for her. She shook her head. ‘No, I’ll change now and come with you.’
She had no choice. She had to know what Sophie’s visit to him meant. And that wasallArkim wanted to talk to her about. As long as she remembered that she’d be okay.
He let her go. ‘I’ll wait for you downstairs. My car is at the door.’
As Arkim waited in the back of his chauffeur-driven car he couldn’t dampen down the swell of triumph...or the swell of his erection. His whole body had gone on fire as soon as he’d seen Sylvie through the door...her lithe dancer’s body moving with such grace and power...in a way he’d never seen before. Beautiful, elegant...passionate. He’d been mesmerised. In awe. In lust.
She’d looked wary at seeing him again, even though he’d felt the resurgence of the powerful sexual connection between them. Yet could he blame her for being wary? He’d behaved like an idiot that last day at the oasis... He’d been acting on a knee-jerk reflex to get rid of Sylvie before she slid herself even more indelibly under his skin...but it had been too late.
He had to concede that even if Sophie hadn’t come—
His thoughts stopped working as Sylvie walked out through the door, her vibrant hair tied back in a knot—damp from a shower? She wore faded skinny jeans that showed her long legs off to perfection, ballet flats and a loose off-the-shoulder T-shirt, with the straps of a vest visible underneath. Her skin was pale again...like a pearl.
Arkim let his driver get out to open the door for her. He literally couldn’t move for fear of making a complete idiot of himself.
When she slid into the back seat on the other side she didn’t look at him, putting her slouchy bag firmly on her lap as she strapped her seat belt on. Arkim wanted to reach across and force her to meet his eyes, force her to know how much he wanted her before he crushed that soft mouth under his and found some sense of peace for the first time in a month.
A flutter of panic at the strength of how much he wanted her made his gut tighten. How relieved he’d been as soon as he’d laid eyes on her...
Sylvie Devereux was still completely wrong for him on so many levels. This was lust. Pure and simple. Unprecedented, but not without its sell-by date.
Then she looked at him with those wide eyes, blue and blue-green, and Arkim’s thoughts scattered to pieces.
‘Why did Sophie come to see you?’
Arkim dragged his brain back into some kind of functioning order. ‘She told me everything.’
CHAPTER NINE
THECARWASmoving at a snail’s pace in the early-evening Paris traffic as Arkim’s words sank in. And even though Sylvie was preoccupied by what he was saying, and what it meant, she was acutely aware of that big, powerful body so close to hers. Legs spread, chest broad.
She had to get it together.Sophie.Hesitantly she asked, ‘When you say “everything”, do you mean—?’
‘I mean,’ Arkim said, cutting her off, ‘I know that she’s gay, Sylvie. She told me everything. About how she was afraid to come out. About how she was railroaded into marriage by her parents because they thought it would sweeten the deal for me. I’d made no attempt to hide the fact that I wanted to settle in England, and I wasn’t averse to settling down with a suitable wife.’
The kind of wife who would remove Arkim permanently from his sordid past...Sylvie thought to herself, with a lurch of pain near her heart.
