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now that they had made her feel less like herself and more like the girl she imagined she should be. Clementine with the lights turned down.
    Serge watched the emotions flickering across Clementine’s expressive face. Her guarded eyes suddenly made him feel uncomfortable with his crass plan for a couple of nights’ entertainment.
    ‘You still haven’t told me what you do,’ she said, sitting back.
    She genuinely wanted to get to know him, and something tightened up in his chest.
    ‘I’m in sports management,’ he replied, unease making him brief.
    ‘Is it interesting?’
    ‘Sometimes.’
    Clementine’s heart sank. He didn’t want to share any information about himself with her. For a moment she was thrown back to that strange whirlwind of months, almost a year ago, when she had been pursued by another wealthy man who had dodged personal questions as he smothered her in unprecedented romantic attention.
    After her last break-up she had gone back to dating casually—until Joe Carnegie. She had met him through one of her PR jobs and he’d been a client—which meant he was off-limits by her own personal code. But the minute the job was done he’d been on the phone, roses had been delivered to her door. He had encouraged her to play up to her ‘gifts’,as he’d called them, supplying her with spectacular dresses he could show her off in. They would arrive boxed before a date. He had groomed her for a role and she had let him.
    She had been so naive.
    He’d wined her and dined her and treated her like a princess. She had opened herself up to him so quickly, so easily. Until the evening he’d taken her to a swish restaurant, the night she had decided their relationship should move beyond the bedroom door, and presented her with a real estate portfolio. He had purchased her a flat—a place he could visit her whilst he was in town.
    It had never been about her. It had been all about the way she looked on his arm and how well she would perform in his bed. And then it had got worse. A couple of days later she had read in the newspaper about his engagement to a French pop star, who was also the daughter of a leading industrialist. A woman from his own social strata. She had been something else all along. He had always intended her to be his mistress on the side.
    The memory still burned. He’d done a job on her and she was still paying the price. She had told herself she wasn’t going to let it ruin tonight, but already she was second-guessing Serge’s motives. He had been nothing but a gentleman—but so too had Joe Carnegie. She’d already come to the conclusion long ago that she wasn’t very good at working men out.
    She looked around the restaurant, with its ambient lights and the laughter of other patrons and the wonderful smells of old-style Russian food, and realised she’d landed in yet another one of her stupid romantic fantasies.
    ‘Excuse me,’ she said abruptly, shifting to her feet. Serge rose. ‘Powder room,’ she murmured, unable to look at him.
    The mirror in the ladies’ reflected back her pale made-up face and she cursed her lavish use of the mascara wand, becausethose tears prickling in her eyes were going to leave tracks.
    She wasn’t sad. She was damn angry. With herself.
    How in the hell did she get herself into these situations? Did she have ‘sucker’ tattooed on her forehead?
    Two other women joined her at the taps, and Clementine made a show of washing her hands, checking her hair.
    She looked up and recognised one of the girls as their waitress—one of the Kaminski daughters.
    ‘Serge Marinov,’ said the girl, making a sizzle gesture. ‘Lucky you.’
    Yes, lucky me
. Clementine gave her dress a tug and shook her head at her reflection. She was being an idiot. She had an incredible man sitting out there in that restaurant, waiting for her, and she was hiding in the ladies’ loo because one time some other guy had measured her value as low. It was time to suck it up and get