Her eyes shot up to his, startled, then cynical. “Sure I do.” She pulled the bowl of fruit closer and stuck the first juicy morsel with her fork a bit too harshly.
“Why is that so hard to believe?” he asked, tossing the papers he’d been reviewing onto the table beside his plate.
“I know what I look like with makeup on and without it. And there’s a huge difference.”
“I agree.”
She looked at him, seeing the male appreciation in his eyes and her heart started up a painful rhythm. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“I’m fine. Why were you up so late last night?”
She concentrated on her fruit, although she could barely taste the succulent pieces since she was too anxious about the fact that he knew she’d been up late. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize there was a lights out. If you’ll give me a deadline, I’ll ensure to break it again tonight.”
He chuckled and Darcy’s skin felt warm, almost hot from the sound. “I’m sure you will.”
“What are you going to do today?” she asked, trying to change the subject.
“Check in with my investigators to see if they’ve made any progress on finding that stupid fiancé of my sister’s for starters.”
“And?”
“And then I have other work to do.”
She tried not to ask. Told herself she didn’t want to know. She tried very hard to suppress her curiosity, but the words seemed to spring from her mouth despite her efforts to not care. “What do you do?” she asked softly, as if she had some control, but not enough to stop the words from leaving her mouth.
He looked at her with equal curiosity. “You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
“I try not to delve too much into other peoples’ lives. I’ve lived with people invading mine for too long so I try to be considerate.”
“That’s very generous of you but a bit of a puzzle.”
“Why’s that?”
“Don’t you thrive on the publicity?”
Darcy thought about that, considering how to phrase her answer. She hated the publicity, but she couldn’t live without it. “Let’s just say the press and I have a symbiotic relationship, shall we?”
Sergei looked across the table at the woman with her hair no longer perfectly coifed, no makeup and, as he looked closer, he could see freckles on her face. The woman who had arrived at his house yesterday afternoon had been exactly what he’d been expecting. But overnight, a new person had emerged. Someone fresh and lively, spirited and, if her vocabulary and reading choice was any indication, a very intelligent woman. “For a woman who implies frustration with the invasion, you certainly court the attention extremely well. The mystery surrounding your comings and goings is legendary and adds to the thrill when you actually show up at some nightclub. How do you reconcile those actions against your words?”
Darcy was in a tough situation again. She couldn’t explain without revealing too much about herself. “Let’s just accept that we both have mysterious sides to our lives, shall we?”
He chuckled and Darcy enjoyed the sound, feeling like she’d genuinely accomplished something. “Fair enough,” he conceded. “What will you be doing today?”
“What am I allowed to do today?” she countered.
“Anything you like.”
“Fly back home?” she asked with a falsely bright smile because she already knew the answer.
“Anything you like, as long as it’s still on the island.”
“Can you tell me some of my options? Since this is my first visit, and my last, I’m not aware of what kinds of entertainments might be available.”
Sergei controlled the disgust that roiled through him at her complete lack of ambition. “There’s a beach, a pool, a library and a game room. Do what you want, but behave.” He stood up and left, not bothering to give her specifics on where the game room was or acknowledge that she couldn’t really swim without a bathing suit. The man truly was a jerk, she thought as she watched him disappear into the relative darkness of the house.
But as prisons went, this one was pretty nice, she thought as she sipped a glass of juice in the lovely morning air. She could smell the ocean in the distance and there was nothing wrong with reading under some lovely palm tree, she thought.
Darcy savored the fruit of the morning and took her time with her cold juice, enjoying the smells and sounds and relaxed atmosphere. She hadn’t had a vacation since high school and even that had been stressful since her father had taken her to Italy to introduce her to several men he wanted her to consider for a husband. He’d fought with her brother constantly as well, adding to the stress but since their conversations had been in Italian, she hadn’t been able to grasp the meaning of the arguments. The whole week had been a painful trial at trying to come up with one objection after another for men who were all mafia related and therefore, completely outside the bounds of possibilities for husband material, while at the same time, decipher if her brother was a friend as he had been when she was little, or foe if he had decided to align himself with her father’s business interests. Besides, at the time, she’d barely been seventeen years old and didn’t want to get married, so the whole issue had been traumatic.
After breakfast, she went back to her bedroom and found the book on top of the completely made up bed. She’d hidden it under the pillows but someone had come into her room during breakfast and straightened up. She’d have to do a better job at hiding her pastimes, she thought as she picked up the book and strolled down to the beach.
Finding a lovely shade tree, she opened her book to the place she’d stopped after falling asleep the previous night and became immediately absorbed in the saga once again.
Chapter 6
“Finally gotten hungry enough to come out of hiding?” he asked, then waved to the empty chair on the other side of the table. “Please join me for breakfast. There’s plenty and I’m just about finished.”
Darcy looked at the comfortable chair, the coffee cup and the servant who was even now stepping forward with a silver coffee urn. “Are you angry with me for some reason?” She pretended not to care, but there was just something about this man that suddenly made her want to impress him. She pushed that aside, knowing thoughts like that were dangerous. He was not her friend and would use anything he discovered about her to destroy her if he needed to, hence the reason she’d avoided him as much as possible the previous day.