He let his eyes rest on her, deliberately, lingeringly.Thiswas what he’d wanted the evening to be about. Seeing her beauty celebrated, revealed again, displayed again.
Working its magic again.
He took it in, her perfect features, her deep-set luminous eyes, her sculpted cheekbones, her lushly curving mouth, the way her golden hair swept around her shoulder, the soft folds of her silken gown.
There is no woman more beautiful than she who has this effect on me.
He felt it, knew it. Gave himself to it.
Chapter Nine
LAUREL SWALLOWED HER CHAMPAGNE, the delicate mousse beading in her throat. Xander’s last words echoed in her mind.Let’s just have this evening.
Her eyes were resting on him, and she felt something turn over inside her—familiar but from so long ago…
How gorgeous he is, how I revel in gazing at him. How I always did. And still do.
That was the truth she could not deny. Could only accept.
His words came again.Let’s just have this evening.A wave of weariness went through her. Opposing Xander, fighting his condemnation of her, whether it was for the bracelet or keeping Dan from him, fighting his high-handed intention to uproot their lives, hers and Dan’s, sweeping all before him in his imperious will, fighting—above all now—her punishing, unpardonable susceptibility to him. Fighting, fighting, fighting.
She was tired of it all. So tired.
Her eyes still rested on him as she set back her champagne flute. His eyes were resting on her in return, but there was in them an expression she had not seen before. Not challenging, not expectant, but waiting.
But not impatiently, not making assumptions, not doing anything at all except letting her choose to accept what he’d said. If she herself wanted to…
Let’s just have this evening.
And suddenly they were her words too. She would have this evening, She would have it for herself.
For the pleasure of Xander at his best, for putting aside, just for this evening, everything tormented and tormenting that lies between us.
Just for this evening.
Slowly, very slowly, she nodded.
“Just for this evening,” she said.
She felt the weariness of fighting him, of all that she must resist about him, fall away like a heavy cloak. Around her shoulders her loosened hair felt like the silk of her gown softly draping her body. To look good again…beautiful…was suddenly a release, a pleasure. If Xander was as gorgeous as only he could be, then she, too, she knew, was at her best as well.
Even in Greece she had never looked this glamorous, worn so beautiful a gown. Dan had chosen well.
A little smile lifted her lips as she thought it, meeting the smile in Xander’s eyes—his dark gold-glinting eyes that had always made her breath catch when they rested on her.
As they were now. His lashes sweeping down, making her breathless all over again.
He lifted his champagne glass to her.
“Thank you,” he said softly.
And the wash of his eyes was a caress.
Xander felt the last of his tension ebb from him. The very last of it. Before his eyes, holding hers, he’d seen her let fall the final hesitation. His smile on her was warm, embracing. Now he could give himself to the evening ahead.
Because now she is giving herself too.
Just as he was.
