A Past Revenge

‘Why?’ she asked sharply.

He looked puzzled by the question, shrugging lightly. ‘It’s only polite—–’

‘I don’t see why,’ she snapped. ‘They haven’t asked us to join them!’

‘Danielle—–’

‘Well, have they?’ she prompted.

‘They only came in a few minutes ago,’ he explained softly.

She sighed. ‘I’d rather not eat with them, if you don’t mind.’

‘But I can’t just pretend they aren’t there.’ He obviously did mind!

‘Lewis,’ her voice was throatily soft. ‘I thought you wanted to be alone with me tonight?’

He flushed. ‘I do—–’

‘Then let’s just act as if we haven’t seen them, hm?’ she touched his hand across the table.

‘But I can see them as clearly as—–’

‘No, you can’t, Lewis,’ she persuaded, giving him a dazzling smile.

‘I—I can’t?’ he was mesmerised by the warmth of her smile.

‘No—–’

‘Good evening, Danielle, Vaughn,’ a familiar gravelly sounding voice greeted them. ‘Audra and I wondered if you would care to join us for dinner?’

Danielle snatched her hand away from Lewis’s as if he had burnt her, looking up reluctantly at the man who now stood beside their table, her stomach giving a sickening lurch at how similar he looked in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt to the man she had first seen seven years ago. It was almost unnatural, no time seeming to have passed at all.

His eyes narrowed at how pale she had suddenly become. ‘Did I startle you?’ he asked in a puzzled voice, as if he wasn’t used to having this effect on women.

‘No more than usual,’ she answered abruptly, ‘and as you can see, Lewis and I have already started our meal,’ she refused his invitation before Lewis could accept, knowing she had to stay away from him tonight, that she was feeling too vulnerable at the moment to deal with him with her usual coolness.

‘Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind if the two of us joined you,’ he returned smoothly.

‘I—–’

‘Please do,’ Lewis cut in firmly as she would have refused once again. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he demanded in a fierce whisper as Nick Andracas crossed the room to bring Audra McDonald over to their table.

‘It must be obvious,’ she glared at him. ‘I didn’t want them to join us!’

‘Oh it was obvious, all right,’ he snapped impatiently. ‘To Andracas too!’

Her mouth twisted. ‘I’m sure he’s enjoying the fact that he got his way in spite of that!’

‘Danielle, he’s a client—–’

‘I’m well aware of what he is, Lewis,’ she told him tautly. ‘And his being a client is the least important of them.’

He looked puzzled by her unusual behaviour, although he couldn’t question her further as the other couple joined them, standing up politely until they were seated.

From what Danielle could gather from Audra’s stilted manner as they ate dinner the other woman was no more eager for the foursome than she was. Only Nick seemed perfectly at ease with the arrangement, Lewis talking incessantly to try and cover the obvious silence of the two women.

Although both women declined Nick’s suggestion that they all go upstairs and dance they somehow found themselves in the smoky atmosphere of the nightclub, a table for four miraculously secured for them, despite the fact that the place was crowded.

‘Would you care to dance, Danielle?’

Her heart sank at the request she had known was coming, the last thing she wanted was to be in Nick’s arms again, for any reason. ‘I think it’s a little soon after I’ve eaten,’ she refused.

‘Perhaps later,’ he nodded, the mockery in his eyes telling her that he knew it was just an excuse, that he knew she didn’t want to dance with him, the fact that she had hardly eaten anything at all telling him she was merely prevaricating.

‘Perhaps,’ she agreed, both of them knowing that it would take a miracle for her to dance with him, or something equally as effective—and Nick Andracas was certainly that. After she had refused to dance with him the third time she could see Lewis was becoming really uncomfortable with the situation, asking Audra to dance as a diversion. With a certain amount of reluctance for leaving the two of them alone together Audra followed Lewis out on to the dance floor.

Nick moved his chair closer to Danielle’s, his leg partially touching hers under the table. ‘Alone at last,’ he mocked her desire to have nothing to do with him.

She looked at him uninterestedly. ‘It would seem so,’ she acknowledged without enthusiasm.

‘You aren’t going to excuse yourself to the powder-room, or something equally boring?’

She flushed at his mockery. ‘No,’ she answered tautly.

‘But you still don’t want to dance?’

‘No,’ she said again.

‘You’re consistent, I’ll say that for you. Or is it just that you prefer not to dance with anyone but Vaughn?’ he leant back in his chair, perfectly relaxed, smoke swirling up to the ceiling from the cigar he held in his right hand.