The Devil's Touch (2 page)

Smiling, cheering faces pressed at him as he made his way through them like a film star on the red carpet. Then he turned his head and suddenly she was there – he was face-to-face with the young woman.

She was clutching a glass of wine and he could see her hands were shaking.

She was staring at him intently, with an unfathomable expression – it might have been contempt, amusement… or maybe something much more intriguing. She tilted her head slightly, now it was an invitation – or was it? He had known so many women, yet this one left him feeling unsure. Maybe it was her youth. Her awkwardness.

She paused as their eyes locked. One of her hands flew to her mouth and he saw how long and delicately tapered her fingers were – and that she wore no rings. She touched her lips with the tip of one finger; the lip was trembling wet and glossy, and her eyes were huge and unblinking.

Lucien realized he had been mistaken about her age. Now, with just a few feet separating them, he saw her make-up had been skillfully applied and that there was an awareness in her eyes he hadn’t been able to detect across the crowded room. He added a few years to her age. Maybe twenty-four.

Her mouth was too wide and her nose a little too angular to be truly beautiful. Her smooth skin was the color of honey and there was a fine dusting of soft freckles across her cheeks that cosmetics hadn’t completely concealed. She had thin arched eyebrows and her eyes, even in the subdued lighting of the restaurant, were deep green flecked with rods and stars of gold.

As he gazed at her, the girl’s whole pose suddenly changed. The finger on her lip drifted archly to touch at her cheek and the glossy pink lips became a provocative pout. She lifted her chin slightly, accentuating the tilt of her head and the cascade of golden hair, and hooded her eyes behind long curling lashes.

Her hip came forward and she seemed to arch her back slightly, lifting and pressing the shape of her breasts against the black fabric of her dress so the swelling mounds of white creamy flesh showed above the line of her bodice with each fluttering breath.

“Hello,” she said. Her voice was low and throaty, but made reedy by her nervousness.

With a sudden shock of astonishment, Lucien realized what the girl was doing.

She was hitting on him!

For a long moment he was too stunned to speak. He clenched his jaw in disbelief, the incredulity of the moment making the blood rise in his cheeks. The girl’s gesture was so artless, so unnatural that he fought to keep his expression impassive.

Lucien raised an eyebrow at the girl in a weary mocking gesture – and then turned away to set his empty glass on a side table. When he turned back, the girl was standing defiantly right in front of him.

Angelica Benson snatched wine from the silver tray and thanked the white-coated waiter with a grateful nervous smile. The glass gave her something to do with her hands as she stepped through the restaurant doors and fidgeted on the edges of the crowd.

She stole a glance at her reflection in one of the full-length glass doors and her shoulders slumped a little. She felt uncomfortable in the dress. She made a little face of disappointment and drank nervously.

She wished she’d had more time to prepare. She wished her favorite blouse and skirt weren’t stuffed into the bottom of a packing box. She wished she hadn’t spent so much time fixing her hair and applying her make-up to cover teary eyes in the yacht club’s bathroom.

She wished today had never happened…

It was an elegant, extravagant event, the crowd was a mixture of influential bankers and financiers and Angelica scanned the room, her eyes sweeping over the assembled people, picking out individual faces and assessing them.

Most of the men were greying and distinguished, accompanied by middle-aged wives dripping in diamonds and gold. Angelica focused her attention on the smattering of younger men.

A vaguely familiar face from her office caught her interest for just a moment. He was a good-looking guy who worked in the accountancy department at her bank. She had seen him from time to time, and she recalled chatting to him in a hallway. He was well-built, and quite handsome – but he wasn’t what Angelica was searching for.

Not tonight.

Not after what had happened today.

What she needed tonight was a man’s man.

She took a sip of her wine, feeling the alcohol send tingles down her spine and warm her empty stomach. When the glass was empty she reached for another from a passing waiter. She ran an appraising eye over two more men before discounting them also.

And then she saw the tall man in the corner of the room.

He was standing with a shorter man in a dark suit, and although there was a room full of people between them, Angelica could sense this tall man was different. It wasn’t just the restlessness of him. There was something primal about the way he held himself, about the set of his shoulders and about the gaze of his dark eyes. His eyes flicked around the room like a raptor hawk scanning a far horizon for prey. She felt a sudden chilling flutter of nerves.

Angelica took her glass of wine and edged into the fringes of the crowd, making her way slowly across the room towards a tight knot of men and women by the doors near the marina. She smiled as she approached and the good-looking man from accountancy caught her eye. They exchanged glances and the group opened up to welcome her into their circle.

Angelica nodded distracted greetings. These people were colleagues, each of them senior members of her bank’s team that had worked on the Lance Corporation account. Angelica had earned an invitation to the function as part of that team, even though her lowly administrative tasks meant she was far down on the rungs of office hierarchy, and certainly too insignificant to have been included in the negotiations between her bank and Lucien Lance – let alone ever to have met the notorious entrepreneur.

“We didn’t think you were going to make it,” the good-looking man at her shoulder smiled.

“Neither did I,” Angelica said.

From where she stood she now had an almost unobstructed view to where the tall man stood, and she turned her body casually towards him to get a better look.

The man was strikingly handsome, tall, with broad shoulders, and yet the narrow waist and flanks of an athlete, and he carried his body with that natural athletic poise and confidence of movement that cannot be counterfeited. His face was narrow, with a long square jaw, his features chiseled at the corners of his mouth and in the cleft of his chin.

His hair was thick and jet-black, and although it curled fashionably about his ears and hung down to his collar, it was carefully groomed. It gave him the air of a buccaneer – a dashing, unpredictable touch of flair.

His skin was tanned, smooth and when he smiled she saw how dazzlingly white the perfect large teeth were in the wide thin mouth – but the eyes did not smile. They stayed cold and hidden, although there were crinkles at the corners of his dark eyes. The man was distant and remote – watching from behind a charming façade like a sniper in ambush.

He was perfect.

However men like this one draw women to them like a magnet – women irresistibly attracted to the excitement and thrill of being around him, and Angelica glanced around the room and intuitively understood the glittering sparkle of interest in the faces of women nearby. She heard the whispers of others and she edged away from her work colleagues to overhear two middle-aged women gossiping in hushed conspiratorial tones.

“… absolutely ruthless…” one of the women said.

Angelica moved closer.

The woman’s companion agreed, and they exchanged sly knowing glances and mirthless giggles.

“Who is he?” Angelica thrust herself between the two older women, and her voice was hushed and awed.

The grey-haired woman on her left raised a quizzical eyebrow. She was in her fifties, her hair a grey-gold cloud of tight curls. Her make-up had been applied to highlight her cheekbones. She widened her eyes in surprise and Angelica saw the fine web of lines on the edges of her face like the fine crackling of an ancient oil painting.

“You mean you don’t know who he is?” she asked.

“No.”

The older women exchanged more glances. “He’s Lucien Lance.”

Angelica blinked, and the shock of it was like diving into a glacial mountain stream. She turned from the women’s bemused faces and looked back at the man.

Lucien Lance.

Oh, hell!

She took another sip of her wine, emptying the glass, and as she searched the room for a waiter she asked as casually as her tremulous voice would allow, “Does he have a girlfriend?”

“Several.”

The first woman rested a ring-bejeweled soft hand on Angelica’s arm and explained, her voice rising a little as her eyes twinkled. “Lucien Lance has lots of women, darling. Lots and lots of women. They’re usually tall, glamorous and sophisticated. Mainly models – but none of them last long.” Her mouth curled into a wicked smile. “Most warm his bed for a week or two and then he casts them aside and moves on to the next one.”

The lady at her side smiled and it was a dreamy, wistful little pout of her lips. “He certainly wouldn’t need to ask me twice,” she sighed. “If only I was five years younger…”

“Twenty five would be more accurate,” her friend tittered archly, and there was an awkward feline moment of silence between the women that Angelica recognized but ignored.

“Why doesn’t he settle down?” she asked, fascinated. “He could have his pick of women.”

The second woman beside Angelica spread her hands wide and shrugged, as if that gesture explained the complexity and the mystery of the man they were all admiring. “Who knows?” she said. “Maybe he has a fear of commitment. Maybe he thinks women only want him for his money and power. Maybe he’s just a user. Nobody knows…” she leaned in so closely that Angelica could smell the expensive aroma of the woman’s perfume. “He’s one of
those
bastards, darling – scorching hot in bed, but an iceberg out of it.”

Angelica’s stomach filled with fluttering butterflies as the two older women launched into whispered speculation about Lucien Lance’s trail of broken-hearted lovers. Now she knew who the man was, Angelica felt her resolve melting. She was terrified. But at the same time everything she had overheard made Lucien Lance seem like the perfect man.

The man she needed tonight.

She wasn’t looking for love. She was looking for a vengeful night of hot steamy passion that would put to rest her doubts and fears, and restore her shattered confidence.

And he was good in bed; that was a significant bonus. If she was actually going to leap off this cliff, then the landing might as well be as pleasant as possible.

Suddenly Angelica realized she was sexually aroused, the tautness under the fabric of her dress and the oozing warm flood at her center surprised her. She felt the thrumming pulse of her blood in her ears and there was a tremble in her thighs.

But it was Lucien Lance!

The man’s reputation as a fearsome businessman with a merciless heart of stone intimidated her.

One of the women beside her touched her shoulder and Angelica leaned in close.

“Everyone calls him Lucifer,” the woman whispered. “Did you know that?”

Angelica did.

She knew the name. Lucien Lance was a corporate raider; one of the elite businessmen who made vast fortunes buying companies that were teetering on the brink of financial collapse and then breaking them apart and selling the collective pieces for profits that counted in the hundreds of millions. He was daring, ambitious and relentless. In the world of finance and investment he was Lucifer Lance – a name given by envious adversaries and one that had been well earned.

Angelica tried to swallow the lump that was jammed in her throat. If she had known men as good looking as this were captains of industry she would have spent a lot more time reading the ‘Wall Street Express’ in her lunch breaks.

“Don’t look so worried, darling,” the first woman batted her heavily painted eyes in Angelica’s direction, her tone patronizing. “He doesn’t actually bite – and he’s certainly not going to be interested in someone like you.”

Angelica glared at the woman and for a moment her expression was ferocious, her eyes snapping with an electric flare. The older woman held her gaze undaunted, subtly making her own eyes wider and artless. Then the woman smiled – a slow complacent provocation that was a clear invitation and challenge.

“Lucien Lance only dates beautiful, glamorous models,” the woman taunted. “You are perfectly safe.”

Angelica narrowed her eyes.

Suddenly, against her will and inclination, angry words came back to torment her.

“What did you expect, Angelica? It’s not like you’re as attractive as Penny. It’s not my fault, it’s nature.”

The words were a bitter deafening echo and Angelica felt the sting of welling tears that shone in her eyes. She took a deep shuddering breath that sounded as a sob, and then suddenly upended the wine glass to her mouth and swallowed the contents in a single gulp.

She pushed her shoulders back, licked her lips glossy, and then took two steps towards Lucien Lance.

And faltered.

Just as her courage had begun to carry her forward she saw an old stooped man in a dark blue suit chiming a spoon against a glass. Everyone fell silent and Angelica stood trembling and awkward, like a deer poised on the verge of flight.

Lucien Lance turned on his heel and stepped up onto a low stage. He was smiling, making a gesture of dismissal and impatience as a few people at the far side of the room began to applaud him.

Angelica felt someone close beside her and she turned as people pressed forward to listen to Lucien Lance. It was the good-looking man from accountancy. He stood with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his elbow brushed against Angelica’s arm but he did not pull away.

“Satan’s son,” the man whispered in Angelica’s ear, his voice a breathy whisper and she had to tilt her head closer to catch his words. She could smell the spicy scent of his cheap aftershave. “The meanest, most ruthless raider on Wall Street,” the man added. His mouth was so close to her ear now she could feel the tickle of vibration when he breathed. “I feel sorry for him – forced to go through life with good looks, fabulous wealth and an endless parade of beddable women.”