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Midnight Wedding
Sophie Weston


Holly Dent needs protection–but Jack Armour's suggestion isn't quite what she had in mind. Although they've only just met, Jack insists the best way to keep Holly safe is by making her his wife!He claims his motives are purely chivalrous, that their marriage will be strictly temporary. But is Jack fooling himself? Their secret midnight wedding is followed by a passionate wedding night, and everything becomes a little more complicated….







“I think it’s great that you have so many people who want you to be happy. Even though this isn’t real—I mean—”

“You mean even though this isn’t a real marriage,” said Jack, suddenly harsh.

“Well, yes.” Holly was taken aback. “But they don’t know that. They still wish you well. I think you ought to appreciate that. And remember it always.”

His voice was cynical. “On the cold dark nights when I’m alone?”

Holly winced. “Don’t.”

“You know, I never expected to spend my wedding night planning for the lonely times to come.” Holly hadn’t heard that note of savagery from supercontrolled Jack Armour before.

“But you knew,” she stammered. “You agreed…. It was your idea….”


Born in London, Sophie Weston is a traveler by nature who started writing when she was five. She wrote her first romance while recovering from illness, thinking her traveling was over. She was wrong, but she enjoyed it so much that she has carried on. These days she lives in the heart of London with two demanding cats and a cherry tree—and travels the world looking for settings for her stories.

Thrilling romance:

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Books by Sophie Weston

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3630—THE SHEIKH’S BRIDE




Midnight Wedding

Sophie Weston







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




CONTENTS


PROLOGUE (#u1d33b4ba-bc01-54e8-a372-df52c7d5dbec)

CHAPTER ONE (#u31d4559f-4469-5f2e-a482-445ce3d4ba78)

CHAPTER TWO (#u7aad88c4-77c1-534b-8b73-113f19e047d4)

CHAPTER THREE (#ubd16aeb5-8d71-5b13-8118-ae8daad2451d)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)




PROLOGUE


THE group of international journalists was miserable. Ignaz was fourteen thousand feet up in the Andes. The near-vertical track had challenged even the state-of-the-art Land Rover. The rain was relentless, the disaster site was a uniform mud colour and the press officer was clearly out of his depth.

‘What the hell am I going to photograph?’ muttered Elegance magazine’s star feature writer.

‘It will stop in half an hour,’ said a crisp voice behind them.

They all swung round. And saw a Greek god in khaki shorts. There was a silence filled with something between awe and screaming resentment.

‘Jack,’ said the press officer with unmistakable relief. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is Dr Jack Armour.’

‘Oh, wow,’ said Elegance magazine reverentially.

It was not difficult to see why. Dr Jack Armour was tall. Not just tall, but somehow larger than life. His skin was tanned to dark gold and you could see a lot of it. In contrast to the journalists huddling in their protective clothing, he wore the minimum, magnificently impervious to the steady downpour. Droplets ran down the muscled chest, darkening the dusting of hair there to black. His long legs were bare.

‘Dr Armour is the American expert I was telling you about. It is he who will show you round the emergency recovery site. Please feel free to ask him anything you want.’

‘Dr Armour!’ muttered Elegance magazine. ‘That is sex on a stick.’ She raised her camera.

‘Good morning,’ said the Greek god, amused.

He led the way up the hillside, moving as easily as a mountain goat, while he kept up a level of informed commentary. The muscular legs made nonsense of the mud, the slope and the ice-rink-slippery patches of exposed rock. Rain dripped off him. He seemed unaware of it, even though his sleeveless cotton jacket left his arms and much of his bronzed chest naked to the elements.

The journalists breathed hard.

‘Sorry about the pace,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got to wind this up fast. I’m flying to Paris today.’

‘Lucky you,’ said one of the panting journalists ruefully.

‘I hate the place. But there’s a meeting I can’t miss.’

Elegance magazine was shocked and said so. ‘Hate Paris? City of culture, city of lovers?’

Jack Armour laughed aloud at that. ‘When I go to Paris I’ll be concentrating on natural disaster statistics. No sightseeing. No sex.’

She pursed her red-painted mouth. ‘So when do you do your—sight-seeing?’ The last two words were loaded with meaning.

The laughter died out of his face, leaving his eyes so dark they looked black in the sulphurous light.

‘Shut up,’ hissed a British journalist out of the corner of his mouth. He knew the man and his sore points.

Jack Armour ignored him and fixed Elegance magazine with a level gaze. It made her shift uncomfortably, a new experience for her.

‘A guy in my line of work has no time for—sight-seeing,’ he said deliberately.

‘But—’

‘Shut up,’ the British journalist hissed again.

Jack’s expression was as yielding as steel. ‘Tried it. Found it doesn’t work. End of experiment.’

Something in the harsh voice silenced even Elegance magazine.




CHAPTER ONE


HOLLY stepped carefully out of the elevator, balancing her tower of caterer’s boxes with concentration. She was working hard to repress a superstitious shiver. She hated these huge, impersonal buildings, no matter how luxurious. They reminded her of visiting her mother at work in that vast office in London.

Most of the time she managed to forget all of that: mother, London and that other life. It was nearly eight years ago, after all. Then a train crash had taken her mother’s life and, along with it, every familiar thing in Holly’s schoolgirl existence. It sometimes seemed to her that ever since, wherever she was, she had been a stranger passing through.

The mirrored doors of the elevator reflected back just how much of a stranger. These days she hardly recognised herself. She had shot up on long colt’s legs. Her mid-brown hair had lightened. Now in some lights it almost looked gold. It was still uncontrollably curly. So she kept it long and plaited it for work. Now in her dungarees and baseball cap she looked like a gawky schoolboy.

Here in Paris she had been reborn as a delivery boy, she thought wryly. For the time being.

Her mother, she now realised, had tried to prepare her for life’s unpredictability.

‘Everything’s temporary, Hol,’ she would say, over and over.

All these years later, Holly could recall her huge eyes. Even when she was laughing with her daughter they had always seemed sad.

‘You’ve got to look after yourself,’ she would mutter, hugging Holly to her suffocatingly. ‘Nobody else will.’ And then, when she was exhausted, beyond laughter or sadness, ‘Forgive me.’

Of course Holly had not known there was anything to forgive then. Or nothing more than half her class had to forgive, chiefly the frequent absence of an overworked career mother. She had never known her father. She could not guess that her mother had left a message for him in her will.

But she had. A shocked and grieving Holly had found herself tidied up and transferred to his millionaire’s home in the American mid-West before she knew what was happening to her. So that was when she had discovered for herself the other great truth her mother had bequeathed her: ‘You can’t trust a man, except to break your heart.’

Holly gave herself a mental shake. That was all behind her now. Well behind her. The father she had never really known was dead. The stepsister who had been affronted by her very existence was far away; five years and a whole continent away.

And if that meant that Holly was alone—well, fine. If her heart was lost in ice floes at least no one could get at it. She was footloose and solitary and safe.

Congratulating herself on her successful life planning, she hefted the boxes into a more comfortable position and started to plod off along the miles of deep-piled silence to the offices of the International Disaster Committee.

‘Thank you, gentlemen,’ said the Chair. ‘You have given us a lot to think about.’ It was dismissal.

Jack bit back a protest. He had not yet covered half the topics he had prepared. There should have been plenty of time. He had established that Armour Disaster Recovery was scheduled to present their case through lunch. But that had been before Ramon’s outburst. The Chair did not like emotion. Jack sympathised—and knew when to cut his losses.

He rose to his feet. ‘Thank you, Madam Chair.’

Ramon Lopez stared up at him in disbelief. ‘We can’t just leave. The committee—’

‘Has our paper,’ Jack supplied smoothly. He took hold of Ramon’s chair behind his back and gave it a sharp tug. ‘And of course we will be available to answer any questions that they have. You have my number?’

The Chair consulted the business cards she had set out in front of her place at the conference table. She was very professional.

‘Yes, thank you, Dr Armour. I am sure we will have plenty of questions. It will be very helpful if you can keep yourself available.’

‘You’ve got it,’ said Jack. His charm was easy and quite false, though hopefully only Ramon detected it. He patted his pocket and looked round with a friendly smile. ‘Thank God for mobile phones.’

The committee laughed uneasily, one eye on Ramon. It looked as if the passionate Spaniard was not going to move. They braced themselves for a nasty scene.

But Jack was not a personality it was easy to withstand and he was the boss. In the end, Ramon went. Muttering under his breath, but he went. He took the briefcase Jack thrust at him and followed him out of the room.

Once outside in the corridor, he let out an explosive breath.

‘Hell! Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?’

Jack was checking that his mobile phone was switched on. He did not look up.

‘You’ll know better next time.’

‘It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have lost my temper. I should have used sweet reason, like you.’

Jack did look up then. His eyes gleamed with humour. ‘Oh, I don’t know. You sure impressed them when you thumped the table.’

Ramon was on the point of collapse. ‘I have cost us everything. Everything.’

‘Forget it,’ said Jack at last, exasperated. ‘We’ll just have to manage the negotiations differently, that’s all.’

Ramon shook his head wonderingly. ‘Does anything ever faze you?’

Jack laughed. ‘Every setback is an opportunity if you look at it the right way,’ he said, maliciously quoting Ramon’s favourite management guru.

Reluctantly Ramon smiled. ‘Like the New York photographer who wants to take your portrait?’ he retorted, malicious in his turn.

The Armour Recovery e-mail system had been buzzing with the tales of columnist Rita Caruso as the boss’s latest conquest.

‘Oh, you’ve got onto that one, have you?’ said Jack, resigned.

Ramon’s sense of humour was in recovery. ‘Can’t wait to see it.’

Jack snorted and put his telephone back in his pocket. ‘You’ll wait a long time.’

Ramon was all innocence. ‘But you were the one who said we needed publicity.’

‘Not that sort.’

“‘Public awareness of the long-term effects of natural disasters is zero”,’ Ramon chanted.

It was the paragraph on donor fatigue from the report they had left with the committee. He had redrafted the paragraph a zillion times until Jack was satisfied with it. So he knew it by heart, as he now demonstrated.

“‘After the immediate emergency, journalists move on. But more people die in the aftermath of most disasters than in the period of first impact. We must do everything we can to reverse this.”’ He smiled. ‘Doesn’t include some pretty pictures for a lady who fancies you?’

Jack cast his eyes to heaven. Or at least to the over-illuminated ceiling of the plushest corridor in Paris.

‘Come on, man. I’ll sell myself to a bunch of bureaucrats if that’s what it takes to get the job done. I draw the line at stud pics,’ he said brutally.

Ramon was startled. ‘Stud pics?’

‘Caruso’s a photo-journalist with Elegance magazine.’

‘So?’

‘They’re only interested in fashion, sex and gossip. Frankly, I was surprised they bothered to send anyone along to Ignaz.’

Ramon stared. ‘How do you know what Elegance magazine is interested in? When did you have time to read anything except work?’

Jack looked faintly uncomfortable. ‘You only have to look at the news-stands at airports.’

‘Since when did you cruise the women’s magazines stands?’ said Ramon in disbelief.

There was the tiniest pause. Then Jack said levelly, ‘Susana liked it.’

For once Ramon had nothing to say.

To Holly, balancing her boxes like a circus pro, the atmosphere between the two men blasted down the corridor like a fireball. They were at the far end, outside the board room. Two men in city suits: one small and anxious, one tall and dark and icily contained, as if holding his breath to withstand a blow.

Holly was not quite sure how she knew he was bracing himself. His high-cheekboned face was impassive. But somehow she did. It was the way he stood. She had a vivid impression of a man using every ounce of strength to keep the lid on some inflammable substance and not being sure the lid would hold. It was alarming.

I’m glad it wasn’t me who made him look like that, she thought, oddly shaken.

His companion said in English, ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think. I’m an idiot.’

For a moment, the tall man did not answer. Then he said, ‘Conference room fever.’

And she knew the moment of danger had passed.

His companion did not seem so sure. He looked up at the tall man doubtfully.

‘In fact, look on the bright side. At least you’ve got us out of another forty-eight hours in there.’

Holly put one hand up to steady her precarious tower of boxes and marched towards them.

‘Forty-eight hours?’ The other man echoed, horrified. ‘Oh, Jack, surely it won’t take that long.’

Holly realised something else about the tall, intimidating stranger. He was gorgeous. Tough, yes; dangerously controlled, undoubtedly. But, beyond argument, gorgeous.

She frowned. Holly did not like gorgeous men. For very good reasons.

‘I knew I’d made them mad. But forty-eight hours?’

Gorgeous Jack was cynical. ‘Once you let bureaucrats start talking, it will last until they go home.’

The smaller man groaned. ‘If only we didn’t have to do this.’

Jack gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘What we need is a friendly millionaire who believes in forward planning. Failing that, the International Disaster Committee is the best we’ve got.’

Holly had reached them.

‘Excuse me,’ she said from behind her boxes.

She was standing at Jack’s shoulder. The boxes tilted, catching against the canvas bag she wore looped across her body. She compensated, tilting in the other direction. Which might have made her voice muffled. Or maybe they were just too engrossed in their own affairs to notice.

Either way, they did not hear her.

‘If only I hadn’t put their backs up,’ said the second man wretchedly.

‘Not difficult with bureaucrats. They—’

‘Excuse me.’

‘—play status games all the—’ Jack swung round impatiently. ‘What is it?’

His eyes glittered like black diamonds. Holly was transfixed. Even with her boxes rocking off balance, she could not wrest her eyes away.

Gorgeous was not the word. And her instincts were sound: he looked hard, all right. The bone structure was that of a Greek god and, by the look of it, so was the temper. She could imagine people quailing under the intensity of that hooded gaze.

Well, she did not quail easily. She shifted her burden to one side and glared right back at him.

‘May I get past?’

Fierce dark eyes swept over her like a forest fire.

Most people would have blenched. Holly congratulated herself on the difference between herself and most people. She also congratulated herself on not folding up against the wall of the corridor and trying to squeeze meekly past them.

She tapped her foot, to the imminent danger of her boxes.

‘Now. Please.’ It was still just polite. Technically, anyway.

For a moment, Gorgeous Jack surveyed Holly with unnerving concentration.

Holly had always been quick to flare up, even before she’d honed her defensive skills in the battlefield that was her father’s house. Now her temper went onto a slow burn. She stopped pretending to be polite.

‘Now!’

To her fury, he was more alert than she was. He was already moving when Holly felt the boxes finally shift out of balance. Before they could topple, he had swept round and lifted them out of her arms.

He looked down at her, waiting.

‘Thank you,’ she said. She sounded as if she were being strangled.

His mouth twitched. ‘You’re welcome.’ But he did not let the incident interrupt his real interest. Over the top of the boxes, he said to his companion, ‘Don’t beat up on yourself, Ramon.’

Ramon hardly seemed to notice Holly. He was frowning and clearly full of guilt.

‘I should have let you handle it. I flew off the handle.’

Jack shrugged elegantly suited shoulders. The movement, Holly saw with fury, did not even stir the pile of boxes he was holding.

‘You lost focus. Can happen to anyone.’ He sent Holly a brief, indifferent glance. ‘Where are these supposed to go?’

Holly tried to feel grateful. It was not easy.

‘The front desk said it was the office at the end,’ she muttered.

The tall man turned without a word.

‘They’re for some guy called Armour.’ But she was talking to his back.

Great, she thought. Stand back, you poor creature, and let a big strong man take control. She had a long and justified prejudice against masterful men, too. She could have kicked him.

The man called Ramon pattered along beside him, taking two steps to every long stride.

‘But surely they still can’t keep us hanging about here for forty-eight hours?’ He sounded as if he was about to burst into tears.

‘They can try.’

Jack came to the impressive double doors at the end of the corridor and shouldered his way in without even a token knock. Nor, noted Holly, did he bother to acknowledge anyone in the secretariat that he had just invaded.

He dropped the boxes on the nearest desk and said generally, ‘Is that where you want them?’

Holly was tempted, childishly, to say no it wasn’t. Fortunately, the room’s elegant chief occupant took charge before Holly could go to war.

She rose and rushed forward, flustered out of her professional calm.

‘Oh, Mr Armour. I didn’t realise…Yes, there would be fine.’

Holly realised she knew her. Señora Martinez had ordered in from Chez Pierre before. She was multilingual, super-efficient and famously unflappable.

She did not look unflappable now. One casual look from those fierce dark eyes and she was stammering like a schoolgirl.

‘There are messages…The Director was asking…But I thought you’d still be with the committee…’

Holly watched in astonishment. Gorgeous Jack must be quite something, she thought. Señora Martinez was normally a Madonna of calm.

Now he said cheerfully, ‘The committee threw us out, Elena.’

No sign now of that fury Holly had surprised in the corridor. In fact, he was smiling at Señora Martinez with such conscious charm it set Holly’s teeth on edge.

It worked though. Señora Martinez laughed, blushed and shook her head at him.

‘I’m sure they did no such thing, Mr Armour. I know they were all very impressed by your company’s proposal.’

Holly did not like being ignored. The man had not spared her a glance since that flicker of amusement in the corridor. Now she seized upon the name.

‘Armour, huh?’ She placed herself in front of him and said loudly, ‘Lunch for ten.’

He was blank. ‘What?’

Silently she held the delivery docket out to him.

At least he looked at her then. He was impatient. He did not take the docket. But he looked.

‘Yes?’ If it was possible to sound more indifferent, Holly could not imagine it.

She could have danced with fury.

The trouble was, she knew what he was seeing and it was not impressive. The white buttoned chef’s jacket was grubby after a morning’s rapid deliveries through this busy part of Paris. And the baseball cap that covered her unruly golden-brown hair was frankly tatty.

She stuck her chin in the air and stood her ground. ‘I want a signature for the delivery,’ she said truculently, adding with a respect that was as unconvincing as it was belated, ‘sir.’

The man’s eyes narrowed, arrested. Señora Martinez looked shocked.

‘My good child—’ his voice was a drawling insult ‘—what in hell would I do with lunch for ten?’

Holly’s temper went through the top of her head.

She said sweetly, ‘I don’t care if you take every single piece of quiche Lorraine and feed it to the pigeons. I want my signature.’

He had a long curly mouth. It made him look mocking without even trying.

‘On the contrary. You want my signature. And believe me, no one gets that without working for it.’

Holly ground her teeth.

Señora Martinez intervened fast. ‘Here is a misunderstanding.’ Her perfect English was slipping under stress. ‘The food is for the Committee’s meeting with Mr Armour. It is I who ordered it.’ She grabbed the docket and leaned it against her knee to scribble a signature.

Holly hardly looked at her.

‘Mr Armour’s meeting?’ she said, letting her eyes drift up and down his tall figure with barely disguised scorn. ‘Well, God bless America.’

Señora Martinez and Ramon exchanged alarmed glances. Gorgeous Jack, by contrast, began to look as if he was enjoying himself.

‘Oh? Why?’

‘The only nation in the world,’ said Holly quoting her employer, gourmet chef Pierre, ‘to make eating at the conference table a moral imperative.’

There was a startled silence. Holly pulled the peak of her baseball cap down defiantly.

The Greek god certainly looked like the sort of man who would refuse to permit lunch-breaks until the world fell into line. Yet somehow, with those unreadable eyes fixed on her, Holly felt as if she had made a very big mistake. And a complete fool of herself into the bargain.

Then he shrugged, confirming all Holly’s prejudices about his nationality and his indifference to food.

‘So I’m the king of the carry-out. What does that make you?’

Holly stared, taken aback.

‘I guess you don’t like the stuff,’ he suggested. ‘You just sell it.’

Oh, he was so confident, so pleased with himself, all high slanting cheekbones and black laughter. She had seen arrogance like that before.

Her brother-in-law and his best crony, the guy who ran her father’s company, had both been like that. So certain that they were right; so certain that the awkward, illegitimate newcomer would realise it in the end and fall into line. Suddenly Holly wanted to scream at all of them. She wanted to so much she choked on it.

He smiled. ‘Game, set and match to the slob who gets the pizza, huh?’ And turned away.

Behind her Ramon laughed. ‘Ouch.’

Holly flushed furiously. She could feel her ears tingle with it. There was a microsecond when she wanted to throw things, make him eat his words, make him look at her. Look and see more than a delivery robot.

Then the practical Holly reasserted herself. Reluctantly she curbed her temper. Pierre would never forgive her if she kicked a client. He might even sack her and she needed the job. She would have to get out of there before the temptation to hit him became overwhelming.

She almost snatched the docket from Señora Martinez and stuffed it into the canvas bag. It was full of flyers for the club where she worked in the evening. She was supposed to be circulating them. She had almost forgotten until now. With a gasp of guilt, she looked at her watch, clutched the bag to her and fled.

Another black mark in a bad, bad day.

First, a late night playing the flute at Le Club Thaïs had made her oversleep. Then there had been a delay on the Metro. By the time she’d got to work Chef Pierre had been growling with fury over intruders who interrupted his baking, the phone had been ringing off the wall and no one had even started to make up the day’s orders.

And then, to cap it all, a tall dark stranger who looked as if he’d just stepped out of a dream, had scored an easy point off her because she’d let her temper out of its cage.

No more temper, Holly vowed, punching the elevator button as if it were a personal enemy. ‘No more smart remarks.’

‘A message from the Chair, Mr Armour.’

Señora Martinez was wary as she handed over a sheet of paper. The Chair always said Jack Armour was a tough negotiator but Elena Martinez had never seen him anything other than charming before. She did not know why he had challenged the young delivery girl like that. She felt sorry for her.

Jack opened the paper and scanned it rapidly.

‘You and I,’ he told Ramon in a dry voice, ‘have got the afternoon off. The committee does not want us back.’

Ramon looked as if he might cry.

Elena Martinez said helplessly, ‘But of course you are welcome to…’ She gestured at the boxes Holly had brought.

Jack grinned suddenly. ‘No, thanks. We’ll pass on the picnic. The committee can have our share.’ He buffeted Ramon lightly between the shoulder blades. ‘No need to look like that. We can go play, now.’

Roman protested. ‘But the committee, the contract…’

Jack laughed aloud. ‘The committee has my mobile number and the contract is on the table. They can call when they’re willing to sign.’

On which magnificent announcement, he swept Ramon out of the office and into the elevator.

‘We should have stuck around,’ objected Ramon as they descended to the ground floor. ‘We should have gatecrashed that bloody committee again. We should—’

‘Cool it, Ramon.’

‘But—’

‘Wait until we get out of the building.’

‘What?’

Jack cast a meaning look at the closed-circuit camera above their head. Ramon subsided.

Jack tapped his fingers on the wood panelling.

‘I’ve had three months up to my neck in mud and bureaucracy. I can use some major frivolity. Paris is good for that.’

Ramon hunched his shoulders. ‘What sort of frivolity?’

‘Good food, great wine, music.’

‘That means you’re going to cut the Combined Agencies’ dinner,’ Ramon diagnosed gloomily. ‘I’ll have to do it on my own again. You know I hate these things.’

Jack was unimpressed. ‘Take a date.’

‘Who do we know in Paris?’

Jack chuckled. ‘You could always ask the chairperson. She was impressed by your Latin charm.’

‘I couldn’t—’ Ramon began in lively alarm. Then he saw Jack’s expression and relaxed. ‘Take a date yourself. Then I can have the night off for once.’

Jack did not stop smiling. But suddenly it did not reach his eyes any more.

Hell, thought Ramon. Good score, Ramon. Second time in half an hour.

To cover his discomfort, he said roughly, ‘That kid who brought the food—you should have got her number instead of beating up on her. Then you’d have a date yourself.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Too much of a fighter.’ But at least he was smiling again as if he meant it. ‘I wonder who she really was?’

‘What?’

They were getting out of the elevator. Ramon looked back at the camera, suddenly worried. ‘Do you think she was some sort of spy? Political? Industrial? What?’

Jack laughed. ‘Hey. Calm down. No one spies on the guys who put up tents at disaster sites.’

‘But back in the elevator you said—’

‘Back there I didn’t want you bad-mouthing the committee. It would undoubtedly get back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Security guards rent out embarrassing bits of the surveillance tapes.’

Ramon stared, torn between affront and suspicion. ‘I don’t believe it.’

Jack shrugged.

‘How do you know?’ said Ramon, half convinced in spite of himself.

‘I’ve done my time as a security guard.’

And that Ramon did believe. He knew that Jack had done every non-career job going while he was trying to get Armour Disaster Recovery off the ground.

‘Though never in a state-of-the-art building like this.’

Jack looked round the entrance hall with a wry smile. Trees wafted in the air conditioning. There was a faint tinkle from a baroque fountain. The marble walls gleamed. Palms were everywhere. Among them, almost unnoticed, a steady stream of people arrived, departed, delivered, left messages. Their heels clipped on the floor. Their voices were lost in the cathedral-high atrium. And not one of them took any notice of anybody else in the flow.

Ramon shuddered. ‘Give me mud every time.’

Jack nodded. ‘Not exactly human size, is it?’

‘Big enough to get lost in—’

But Ramon was talking to himself. As he stared, open-mouthed, Jack suddenly wasn’t there any more. He had cast away his briefcase and was sprinting across the mirror-tiled floor.

Bewildered, Ramon fielded the briefcase and tried to see what had grabbed Jack’s attention. The crowd streamed around him, oblivious.

And then Ramon saw.

It was the fiery delivery girl. She had lost her baseball cap and was backed up against a marble wall. A tall man was towering over her. He seemed to be shouting but his voice was lost in the echoing hall.

The girl did not seem to be following him anyway. Her eyes were quite blank. Terror, thought Ramon.

He had seen enough terror to recognise it easily, even across a crowded cathedral-sized entrance hall. So had Jack. Ramon knew exactly how Jack would react to the frozen panic on the girl’s face.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Ramon. He stuffed Jack’s briefcase under his arm and pelted after him.

Jack was tall and fit as an athlete after the last three months’ physical demands. But the girl’s opponent was built like a prize fighter with huge shoulders and a neck like a bull’s. Jack should not have been any match for him. But Jack had him in an arm lock in three short, vicious movements.

Ouch, thought Ramon who knew what Jack was capable of in one of his rare fits of fury. He speeded up.

‘That’s enough.’ Ramon grabbed Jack’s arm and hung onto it. He meant to sound authoritative but it came out like a plea.

Jack looked down at him as if he had forgotten where he was. He shook his head a little, as if to clear it. Then looked at the man in his grip.

‘Who are you?’

The man choked out something indecipherable. He put up his hands to ease the pressure on his throat. Jack relaxed his grip a little.

‘What makes you can think you can push women around?’ Jack rapped out.

The man’s chest heaved. He looked furious—and bewildered.

Beyond them, the girl straightened slowly. The black panic left her face but she still looked frighteningly young and vulnerable. A loose golden-brown plait fell forward over her shoulder.

She was panting. ‘He has no right. He’s nothing to do with me.’ Her voice was suddenly very young, too.

The man was conventionally handsome, with chiselled features and expensively styled hair. But when he turned his head to look at her, his expression was as ugly as a street-corner punk’s.

‘Oh, no? I’ve got a piece of paper that says I’m your guardian.’

She flinched. But she did not deny it.

‘Great,’ muttered Ramon. Aloud, he said soothingly, ‘Jack, these people don’t want us interfering in their private affairs…’

Jack ignored him. He looked at the girl. ‘Well?’

‘He’s married to—a relation of mine,’ she said in a hurried, uneven voice. ‘I don’t ask them for anything. I don’t want to have anything to do with them.’ Her voice rose. It was quiet enough but it had the intensity of a scream.

Ramon winced. He was not surprised that Jack did not let the man go.

The man let out a roar of frustration that at last attracted the attention of one of the security guards. He ignored Jack and Ramon. ‘You owe Donna,’ he said. ‘You know it. I know it.’

It sounded menacing, even to a stranger. The girl whitened. Her sudden pallor revealed a dusting of golden freckles across her nose.

The security guard began to stroll over. Jack was still holding the attacker in an arm lock. The girl looked past the man, straight at Jack, her hands twisting.

‘I don’t. I don’t owe anyone. I never asked…Please…’ Her voice was all over the place.

Jack said, ‘Your guardian?’

She looked at the man, though it was easy to see that she did not want to meet his eyes. ‘Brendan, please don’t do this.’ It was obviously a huge effort to speak with even an attempt at calm. ‘I don’t want anything from you. I never have. I just want to be free.’

Jack’s face was a mask.

Oh, Lord, that’s torn it, thought Ramon.

Jack said slowly, ‘How old are you?’

‘T-twenty-two.’

He looked at the big man in his grip. ‘No one has a guardian at twenty-two.’

‘You do if—’

But the girl was not waiting any longer. The security guard reached them. They all turned to him instinctively, the tight little circle round the girl widening for a moment. She saw her chance and took it. She dived between Ramon and Jack so fast that she knocked Ramon flying. In seconds, she was out through the revolving doors.

Jack’s captive swore. He would have taken off after her if Jack had not wrestled him up against the wall and held him there.

‘I think not,’ Jack said very softly.

‘But that girl is my ward.’

‘She doesn’t seem to think so.’

‘I tell you—’

‘And I tell you, ward or no ward, you will not manhandle her while I’m here to stop you.’

There was a steely note to Jack’s voice which brought the hairs up on the back of Ramon’s neck. Even the stranger seemed to recognise that this was not a man he could bully. Some of the bluster left him.

He took refuge in sarcasm. ‘Sweet little Holly done a number on you too, has she?’

Jack did not answer.

The man tried to push his restraining hand away and failed.

‘That’s a real good act she’s got,’ he sneered. ‘Can’t tell you the number of guys she took in back home in Lansing Mills. That was why she ran out—’

Jack stopped him with a gesture of disgust. ‘Enough, already.’

The security guard decided to intervene at last. He had checked Jack Armour into the committee many times and trusted him. The other man, however, was new to him. Mindful of the fat folder of guidelines under the reception desk, he asked some slow and careful questions. By the time Ramon had appointed himself interpreter and translated them from French, the girl was long gone.

Jack let go of his captive. After a brief struggle with frustration, the man came up with his answers readily enough.

‘My name is Brendan Sugrue.’ He produced a passport from his back pocket. ‘That girl is my sister-in-law. By adoption. My wife and I are her legal guardians. We are from Lansing Mills, Oklahoma. She ran away. I have been on her trail ever since.’

‘Why?’ said Jack. It was quiet enough but it had the force of a bullet.

The security guard looked up curiously from his perusal of the passport.

Brendan Sugrue blinked. ‘She’s young…’

‘Twenty-two-year-olds can take care of themselves.

‘Unstable…’

Jack’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. ‘In what way?’

‘Irresponsible. Wild. She doesn’t listen to advice…’

He saw Jack’s expression. His words dwindled into silence.

‘Doesn’t listen to advice, huh? Sounds like she doesn’t do what you want,’ said Jack softly.

‘Monsieur Armour,’ began the security guard, friendly but minatory.

Jack ignored him.

‘Isn’t that the truth of it?’

‘Monsieur Armour, this is clearly a personal matter.’ The guard returned the passport. ‘As the young lady has gone and no damage has been done, there is no more to be said. Goodbye, gentlemen.’

Brendan Sugrue shook himself. Then he straightened his tie and brushed out the creases in his elegant jacket.

‘Thank you,’ he said to the security guard. The look he sent Jack was less friendly. ‘I’d hoped to clear this up informally. Thanks to your meddling, I’ll probably have to go to the police now. Don’t get in my way again.’

He shouldered his way past Jack and Ramon. The force with which he slammed out of the building sent the revolving doors spinning.

The guard pulled a face. ‘Hope the young lady is a long way away by now,’ he said, all his French chivalry aroused.

‘Hope we don’t get involved,’ muttered Ramon, less chivalrous but infinitely more practical.

The pristine floor was scattered with litter. Jack scuffed some with his shoe and then looked down, arrested. To Ramon’s astonishment he fell to his knees and began picking up several dozen bright yellow sheets of coarse paper.

‘Now what?’

Jack held a sheet up to him.

“‘Club Thaïs”,’ read Ramon. “‘Cool jazz, hot beat”.’ He turned it over. On the back there was a menu. He cast a knowledgeable eye over the prices. ‘Just some cheap brasserie. What about it?’

Jack picked up the rest of the flyers. ‘She dropped them.’

Ramon’s heart sank. ‘So?’

‘So maybe she goes there. Works there, even.’

‘Or maybe she works for an agency which delivers flyers and she’s never been over the threshold,’ said Ramon discouragingly.

Jack stood up and retrieved his briefcase.

‘Nowhere this cheap employs agencies for anything,’ he said, stuffing the retrieved papers into his case.

‘OK. Maybe her boyfriend is a waiter there.’

Jack stopped.

‘Most twenty-two-year-old girls,’ pointed out Ramon, sensing an advantage, ‘have boyfriends.’ As Jack still said nothing he ploughed on. ‘Look, who knows the rights and wrongs of this? Maybe Sugrue is right and the girl is nuts. We really don’t need you playing St George again.’

Their eyes met for a long, comprehending moment. Ramon’s were the first to fall. Third time today, he thought. Well done, Ramon.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Jack, I’m real sorry.’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, expressionless.

‘But she can look after herself. You saw that. First chance she had, she took off. And that guy won’t catch her off guard again. She’ll be keeping an eye out for him.’

‘Not much doubt of that.’ Jack’s tone was light but there was a small muscle working in his cheek. ‘She looked like she wasn’t going to stop running for a week.’

Ramon knew that tell-tale muscle all too well. He said desperately, ‘Nothing to do with us.’

Jack just looked at him.

‘We’re only here for another two days.’ Ramon’s voice rose. ‘What could you do in two days? You don’t even know her name.’

Jack stirred the remaining yellow litter with his foot. ‘But I’ve got a clue. And a good deductive brain. And time on my hands until the committee makes its call.’

‘You’re going to go looking for her?’

Jack’s mouth twisted in self-mockery. ‘I’m going to follow my instincts.’

Ramon flung up his hands. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘Maybe.’

The mockery died, leaving only determination. Ramon had seen Jack look like that before. He gave up.




CHAPTER TWO


HOLLY raced out of the building and pelted blindly for the Métro. She could lose herself in the crowd that always filled the busy station.

It was only when she was halfway down the steps that she remembered she was supposed to be in charge of Chef Pierre’s little van. Before taking the boxes up to the committee floor, she had parked illegally in the forecourt of the building. She knew that the attendant turned a blind eye to short-stay catering vans at lunchtime. But if she left it there for much longer he would have it towed away.

She stopped. The man behind bumped into her hard. Holly’s heart lurched and she gave a small scream. But then she turned and saw that he was a complete stranger. Muttering something uncomplimentary, he pushed past her and ran down into the darkness of the Métro.

Holly put a hand to her heart. It still thudded like a power drill. But at least she had her head back together.

She toiled back up the steps into the spring sunshine. Calm down, she told herself. This is Paris, not Lansing Mills. Brendan won’t have the police dancing to his tune here. And even Brendan won’t kidnap me in the public street.

But she still looked round warily when she went back to collect the van. To her huge relief, there was no sign of Brendan Sugrue. Or of her rescuer. That, she was affronted to discover, was no relief at all. In fact, she was definitely disappointed.

‘But it’s just as well,’ said Holly aloud. ‘I don’t need Gorgeous Jack to look after me.’

She got into the ancient van and fumbled the ignition comprehensively. The engine flooded. Holly pounded her fists on the wheel.

‘I don’t need anyone to look after me,’ she raged.

She turned the key again. The engine gave a tubercular cough and died. There was nothing to do but wait.

And think. And remember.

Oddly, it was not Brendan she remembered; not his schemes and manipulation and, when that failed, his bullying. Nor the claustrophobic world of Lansing Mills. Not even her father’s successor with his manicured hands and dead eyes—the eyes that had ultimately stampeded her into bolting for freedom. What she remembered, what she could not get out of her head, was an impatient man with a long sexy mouth and an air of ineffable superiority.

Gorgeous Jack would not have flooded the engine of the temperamental little van, thought Holly, seething. He would have lit the spark at his first attempt. Then he would have driven off with any woman he rescued safe beside him…

‘Stop right there. I don’t need to be rescued,’ Holly told the dashboard, glaring. ‘I haven’t needed anyone to rescue me for the last five years. I don’t need anyone now. Particularly not a superior clown in an Armani suit. I don’t.’

But as she finally switched on the engine and drove out into the boulevard, she could not quite banish Jack Armour’s dark, dark eyes. Or the thought that it would be heaven to have a man like that take over the fight against Brendan.

Now that, thought Holly fervently, I really can’t afford. Put it out of your mind, girl.

She tried. She really tried.

By the time she got to work that evening she had almost succeeded. She slipped into Club Thaïs half an hour after it opened. She came via the fire escape, not for the first time.

‘You’re late,’ said Gilbert, the owner. He followed her into the tiny cupboard under the stairs where the staff left their belongings. ‘The husband catching up?’

He would have been cautious about tangling with an uncertain law. But, as Holly had soon worked out, he was a hundred per cent in favour of running away from a bad marriage. So she had told him what he wanted to hear, that any man who turned up looking for her would be her jealous ex-husband. So Gilbert, a frustrated romantic, was happy to help cover her tracks.

Holly half closed the cupboard door against him. In cramped modesty, she shrugged out of her denim jacket and T-shirt and pulled a black cropped top over her head. ‘Uh-huh.’

Gilbert was not very interested in her personal life. ‘How many flyers did you deliver?’ he said from his stance in the hallway.

‘Got rid of the lot,’ said Holly, conveniently forgetting that half her load had scattered themselves over the floor.

She slithered into the black jeans that all Gilbert’s staff wore, even if, like Holly, they jammed in with the musicians from time to time.

She pushed the cupboard door open and emerged to find Gilbert vainly polishing steam off the wall mirror. He turned, smiling.

‘Good. We need some new punters. It’s slow tonight.’

Not bothering to look in the mirror, she flattened the wisps of hair which escaped from her plait with quick, expert fingers.

‘It may hot up when Tobacco start their set,’ she said comfortingly.

Tobacco—‘this band can seriously damage your health’—were new and cool and the club’s patrons loved them. Not much chance of jamming in tonight, thought Holly, storing her flute carefully behind the discarded clothes.

‘If that happens, I’ll need you to stay late again. OK?’

Holly nodded. That meant good tips and, if Gilbert was feeling generous, a bonus in her take-home cash. If she was going on the run again she would need it. Brendan did not look as if he was open to negotiation—or about to give up.

She looked quickly at the blackboard behind the chef’s head and memorised the menu with the speed of long practice. There were not that many changes to the food at the Club Thaïs. People came to talk, to dance, to drink and, sometimes, to listen to the jazz. The meal was strictly incidental.

For a moment, Holly was sad. The Club Thaïs had been a home from home for her for ten months now. She would miss it.

But there was no point in wasting time on regrets—not about going on the run again; not about having seen the last of Gorgeous Jack. Every moment was for living, her mother had said. In the last five years Holly had come to believe it.

She grabbed her order pad and squared her shoulders against the world.

‘OK, Gilbert, here we go,’ she said gaily. She flung back the swing doors into the restaurant. ‘Let the good times roll.’

‘Why here? Oh God, you’re following that girl, aren’t you?’

Ramon stood at the top of the cellar steps and looked at the half-full cellar with distaste.

Jack’s smile was bland.

‘You said you wanted to see the real Paris.’

‘Not this real.’

‘Come on, Ramon. It’s not like you to pass up a chance to let your hair down.’

‘After we’ve clinched the deal. Not before. I don’t want to go into an eight o’clock meeting with a hangover from bad wine and worse jazz.’

But Jack was unrelenting. ‘Local colour,’ he said hardily. ‘Savour the experience.’

Grumbling, Ramon followed him down into the dark of the club. The floor was made up of uneven stone flags and the walls, as far as the low lighting allowed them to be seen, were covered in posters for poetry readings and obscure bands.

They sat at a rickety corner table. It was covered with a square of rigid paper and bore half a candle in a chipped saucer.

‘Very ethnic,’ said Ramon sourly.

About half the tables were full. A thin man was making concentrated music with the tabla and there was a desultory hum of conversation. Jack ordered a bottle of red wine and then sat back and surveyed the crowd alertly.

‘You look like you’re waiting for something.’

‘Maybe we’re about to hear the new Duke Ellington,’ said Jack. His voice was lazy, but his eyes were not.

Ramon was dubious. ‘Maybe…’ And then he sat bolt upright. ‘Oh, no.’

‘What?’

‘Damn.’

‘Where is she? said Jack, lazy no longer. His eyes were searching the cellar, hard and intent.

‘Jack, think—’

Jack ignored him. He raised a hand to the waiter and when the man came over said, ‘The young waitress. The one with the long plait. What’s her name?’

The waiter looked at him suspiciously. ‘Holly,’ he said.

‘Holly what?’

The waiter shrugged.

‘Does she work here regularly?’

‘Why don’t you ask her? Hey, Hol. Over here.’

She wove her way between the tables. ‘Yes? Can I—?’ She broke off.

It was him. Him. Her heart went into a nosedive.

Jack stood up.

Her heart levelled out and started to tap-dance.

‘It’s you,’ said Holly not much above a whisper.

It was unbelievable. As if by thinking about him, she had conjured him up like a genie. Perhaps he wasn’t really there, except in her imagination? She shook her head trying to clear it. But even after that he was still there.

Oh, yes, there all right. Tall and dark and just as gorgeous as she remembered.

The waiter knew the story she had told Gilbert. He tensed, suspicious. Holly knew, even though she did not take her eyes off Jack.

‘It’s all right, Marc,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Mr Armour and I met earlier today.’

Marc shrugged and went.

Holly did not move. She felt turned to stone and tongue-tied into the bargain. She looked down at her order pad as if she did not know what it was for.

Jack said, ‘Won’t you join us?’

She swallowed. ‘I can’t. I’m working.’

But she did not go.

‘Holly,’ Jack said. It sounded as if he was tasting it.

Holly felt a convulsive shiver run through her—deep and dark and utterly unfamiliar. It bewildered her. She raised her eyes to his face. With a little shock she realised that he recognised what she was feeling.

She blinked, struck to silence. No one had ever looked at her like that before—as if he knew her every last secret sensation.

He said her name again, so softly that only she could hear it.

‘Holly who?’

His eyes bored into her. The noisy little club seemed to recede, leaving just the two of them alone. Holly opened her mouth but no sound came out of it.

‘You know my name, after all,’ he prompted.

His determination beat at her like a high wind. He did not smile. Holly had never felt such force of will.

Get a grip, she told herself feverishly. Get a grip.

She moistened her lips. ‘I don’t tell my name to strangers.’

He did smile then. It was the same smile as this afternoon—cool and superior, as if he was so certain he was right he did not have to bother to prove it. Quite suddenly Holly’s sense of unreality evaporated like a burst bubble.

‘Hardly a stranger. I took on a guy for you today and stopped him cold.’

‘I didn’t ask you to,’ she flashed.

‘Are you saying you wish I hadn’t?’

She sidestepped that. ‘I don’t approve of violence.’

‘And you wish I hadn’t?’ he persisted.

She tilted her chin. ‘I run my own life, right? If you hadn’t come along, I would have dealt with Brendan.’

‘It looked like it,’ he said drily.

‘I’ve done it before.’

He looked sceptical. ‘Successfully?’

Holly shifted. She was too innately honest to claim success in her dealings with Brendan Sugrue. She was all too aware that her strategy consisted mainly of running away whenever Brendan appeared over the horizon. But she was not willing to admit it to this masterful stranger.

Jack saw her hesitation and pressed home his advantage. ‘So if he turns up here tonight, you don’t need my help?’

‘Tonight?’

In spite of her brave words, Holly flinched at the thought. She could not help it. She looked nervously at the staircase from the entrance.

‘That was a nasty incident this afternoon,’ Jack said more gently. ‘Don’t beat up on yourself. Most people can’t handle physical threats.’

Holly gave him a long look. ‘But you can?’

‘I’ve had a lot of practice.’

‘And that’s supposed to reassure me?’

He was taken aback for a moment. She saw it in his eyes and felt a small glow of achievement.

Then he said, ‘Are you telling me you don’t need me on your side?’

All the lovely triumph drained away, exposing her weakness with horrible clarity. Remembering Brendan’s ugly expression, Holly had a moment of pure fear.

At Jack’s elbow, Ramon murmured a protest. Neither of them paid any attention to him.

Jack’s face was hard. ‘Tell me you don’t need me and I’ll go.’

There was a sudden, odd silence. Their eyes locked. Holly felt stunned but had no idea why. She was as out of breath as if she had been running.

Jack’s eyes flared, then narrowed to slits. She had the oddest feeling that he was even more startled than she was. Startled and not at all pleased.

She did not understand any of it. But she was certainly not going to say that she needed Gorgeous Jack Armour. Not for anything. Not ever.

Sidestepping the issue neatly, she said, ‘You really think he’ll come here tonight?’

Jack shrugged. ‘If I found you, he can.’

She looked round the room. It was filling up but there was no one who looked like Brendan. Though she saw now that Gilbert was waving imperatively from the kitchen doorway.

‘I’ve got to get on with my work,’ said Holly, distracted.

‘I don’t hound women. Tell me to go and I will.’

Their eyes clashed. Locked.

Holly tore her gaze away and sought desperately for something to get her off the hook. She spied the bottle on their table.

‘You don’t have to go. You’re a paying customer.’ She began to back away. ‘Finish your wine.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Jack. He had not moved a step but she felt as if he was pursuing her like her own personal Fate. ‘I’m not here for the wine and you know it.’

Holly met his eyes straight on. ‘So what are you here for?’ She flung it at him like a challenge. ‘Me?’

His eyes flickered.

‘And you say you don’t hound women?’

The sexy mouth thinned to a fierce line. He said harshly, ‘I stopped a nasty piece of bullying this afternoon.’

‘That doesn’t give you any rights—’

‘Maybe not. But it gives me some unfinished business.’

Holly was taken aback. She lost hold of her protective fury in sheer bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Mr Sugrue told me not to get in his way again,’ Jack said thoughtfully.

For a moment Holly did not understand. Then, ‘And that means you have to do whatever he told you not to? Was it some sort of challenge? You can’t leave it alone?’

There was a tiny pause. ‘Something like that.’

She shivered. ‘I shall never understand men.’

He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say, I decided to stay on the case. But it’s your case.’ His eyes were intent. ‘If you don’t want me to, I’m gone.’

The silence demanded an answer.

Cornered, resentful, Holly was forced into honesty. ‘No. Don’t go.’ It sounded as if it was dragged out of her.

‘Holly,’ bawled Gilbert.

‘I’ve got to go…’

Jack said pleasantly, ‘No problem,’ and sat down quite as if she had begged him to stay and he had graciously acceded.

Holly could have screamed.

But Gilbert was becoming too urgent to ignore. With a last look of frustration at Jack, she threaded a quick path through the tables.

‘Take your apron off,’ said Gilbert, too preoccupied to be angry. ‘Tobacco are going to be late and Jerry is finishing now. Get your flute.’

Left at the table, Ramon let out a long breath. ‘Whew. For a moment, I thought she had you on the run there.’

Jack sat back with a faint smile. ‘I knew she was a fighter,’ he said. He sounded pleased about it.

‘Well, you certainly got her mad.’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, his eyes glinting. ‘I did, didn’t I?’

Ramon gave up. ‘Let’s eat.’

They had finished their rough pâté and were waiting for a Moroccan stew when a new musician walked onto the small dais. She had a long golden-brown plait over one shoulder and a gleaming silver flute in her hands.

Ramon, who was drinking his wine, spluttered. Jack remained unmoved. Though when she put the instrument to her lips and went into a long bluesy riff that made the instrument sound like a saxophone, his eyes narrowed.

‘What’s she doing that for?’ muttered Ramon when he got his breath back.

Jack did not answer him. ‘Versatile,’ he mused.

He did not say anything else, though he listened with attention. Holly finished her solo. A keyboard player joined her and they went off on a wild ride that had enough salsa rhythms to persuade some of the crowd to push back their chairs and dance.

‘Very versatile,’ Ramon said drily. ‘Sounds like a girl who’s been taking care of herself for years, doesn’t she?’

Jack did not answer. His face was unreadable. He turned his chair slightly so that, without actually diverting his attention from the musicians, he could keep an eye on the door at the top of the stairs.

Ramon sighed.

The cellar filled up. The staff slid between tables and dancers, carrying impossible burdens of plates of food and bottles and thick short glasses for the wine. The whole place began to hum. The music got louder.

‘This is good,’ shouted Ramon, enthusiastically mopping up the last of his stew with a piece of crusty baguette.

And so it was. The party atmosphere seemed to infect everyone except Jack. Holly, half dancing in her concentration, was oblivious of everything but her music. So no one noticed when the thick-set man came in and stood on the stairs for a minute, scanning the heaving cellar.

No one but Jack, that was. He was out of his seat before Ramon knew what was happening.

‘Get a cab,’ Jack flung over his shoulder, as he made for the musicians. ‘Meet us out the back. Quickly.’

There were times when you did not argue with Jack. Ramon knew this was one of them. He went.

Holly was hot and her hair had started to stick to her neck. When Harry gave her the high sign that he was going into a solo, she lowered the flute with a grin of relief. There was a surge of uninhibited applause. She bowed, laughing.

But then a powerful hand took hold of her.

‘Time to go.’

Alarmed, she swung round. But it was not Brendan. It was Jack. And he was holding her as if he owned her.

‘Excuse me,’ said Holly, brave on salsa and success.

He was impervious.

‘The brother-in-law from hell just walked in,’ he told her with a bland smile. ‘Do you want to stand and fight? Or run?’

Now that Harry was playing, she might just as well not have been there as far as the audience was concerned. No one questioned Jack’s possessive grip on her arm, Holly saw. Just as no one would question Brendan if he chose to…

She stood very still, suddenly no longer hot. Deep inside, she began to shiver in the convulsive, mind-blinding way she thought she had forgotten. And now remembered all too well.

Trying to think, she pushed a hand through the loosening hair at her temple.

‘I don’t know.’ She sounded stupefied.

Jack was brisk. ‘Well, make your mind up fast. He looks as if he knows he’s come to the right place.’

She stared across the cavernous room. Brendan was still scanning the waiters. He had not focused on the musicians yet. He had never taken her music seriously. None of them had. She winced, stabbed by another painful shaft of memory.

And at that moment Brendan caught sight of her. He ran down the stairs and began to push his way between the tables, brushing waiters out of the way. He never took his eyes off her.

Panic gripped Holly. She could not think straight. She could not move.

She heard Jack give an exasperated exclamation. He half-pulled, half-carried her off the dais and through the swing doors into the kitchen.

‘It’s all right, kid,’ he said under his breath. ‘Hang on to me. I’ll get you out.’

Gilbert was at the kitchen hatch. He made to bar their way.

‘You’ve got a difficult customer out there,’ Jack told him briefly. ‘Stall him.’

One concerned look at Holly’s dazed expression, and Gilbert fell back, nodding. The doors banged behind him as he bustled into the club.

Jack took the flute out of Holly’s limp grasp and swept her up the stairs and into the alley. It was full of empty boxes and vegetable matter. The smell shocked her out of her frozen daze.

‘My bag…’

‘Pick it up tomorrow.’

She thought: He sounds as if he has done this before.

It was a startling thought; alarming, in one way. But Holly was beyond alarm and, anyway, there was a steady, unshockable capability about Gorgeous Jack that made you rely on him. Normally it would have set her teeth on edge. Now she was just thankful. She leaned into him, trying to pull herself together.

There was a car at the end of the alley. Holly saw a light on its roof and stiffened.

‘Police…’ she said under her breath.

Jack looked down at her, his eyes suddenly sharp.

‘Taxi cab. I told Ramon to get one.’

He took her hand and ran her to the waiting car.

The Armour Disaster Recovery delegation was staying at a small hotel, immensely comfortable and almost impossible to find. Jack took her there without even asking her. Without asking, either, he booked a room for her and then took her into the small bar.

Holly huddled by the spring fire, her hands tight round the small strong coffee which was all she could be pushed into accepting.

Jack said, ‘For the last time—Holly who?’

She gave in. ‘Dent. Holly Dent.’

He nodded. To her surprise, there was no sign of triumph there. ‘I think you have to tell me about it.’

She swallowed. ‘My bag—’ she said again. She felt as if she had lost her identity along with her canvas shoulder bag and an old tee shirt.

Jack looked at Ramon. The Spaniard sighed.

‘I’ll go back to the club and get it. Anything else?’

‘My flute.’

‘I brought that with me. It’s behind the bar,’ said Jack.

‘Oh?’ She gave a wavering smile. ‘That’s a relief. I wouldn’t want Brendan to get his hands on it. He can be stupid sometimes.’ She rubbed her shoulder unconsciously, as if she felt the shadow grip of a heavy hand.

Jack and Ramon exchanged glances. A muscle worked in Jack’s jaw.

But all he said was, ‘OK. Your bag. That’s it?’

Holly shook her head helplessly. ‘The flute case. The clothes I wore to work. Um—I can’t think. Gilbert will know.’

Ramon nodded to Jack and went. Holly hardly seemed to notice.

Jack sat back in the tapestry chair and watched her carefully.

‘Why does this man frighten you so much?’ he said at last.

Holly jumped and came out of her unhappy reverie. She did not look at him. ‘It’s a long story.’

She was rubbing her shoulder again as if it hurt her. Jack watched. He had seen an unconscious movement like that before. He suspected he knew what it meant. Out of sight, his hands clenched.

But his voice was neutral, utterly uninvolved. ‘Has he some hold over you? Legally?’

What a minefield that question was, thought Holly wearily. She sipped her coffee and said at last, ‘Maybe.’

Jack was silent for an unnerving minute.

She lifted her chin. ‘What?’

‘I don’t think it is very clever of you to play games with me,’ he said softly. ‘I’m not likely to help you if you don’t tell me the truth. And at the moment I’d say I’m your best bet.’

Probably my only bet, thought Holly. If Brendan could track her down to the Club Thaïs so quickly, he could probably track her down anywhere she went. He must be making Donna throw money into the search.

Poor Donna! Not knowing her own father, she had clung to her stepfather. And then to find that he’d left his company to the blood daughter he had only just discovered! Donna had felt rejected, but Brendan was, quite simply, furious. And Donna, hurt, loving and blind, did what Brendan told her.

Holly shivered. Oh, yes, so much better to pack your heart in ice. And not let any man take you over.

‘So?’ prompted Jack.

Holly brought herself back to the present with an effort.

She selected quickly from the miserable complications of her personal history.

‘I don’t know whether he has any legal claim to be my guardian and that’s the honest truth.’

Jack preserved an unimpressed silence.

‘Look,’ she said, half-exasperated, half-desperate, ‘he is married to my stepsister. My parents died within a couple of years of each other—’ and what a continent of complications she skipped over there ‘—and I ended up living with them.’

It telescoped a bit but it was basically true.

‘That doesn’t explain why you’re afraid of him.’

Holly flinched.

‘Well?’

Her eyes fell. ‘We—er—didn’t agree on my future. So I left.’

‘What did you disagree about?’

That was the crux. Holly resolutely refused to admit the image of her father. She had an odd feeling that if she thought about him, Jack would know it. It was as if Jack were a mind-reader. Or could read her mind, at least.

She said woodenly, ‘I wanted to continue my education.’

Jack’s deep-set dark eyes bored into hers as if he were the judge and she were a criminal. Holly narrowed her own eyes and stared straight back at him defiantly.

‘All right,’ he said at last. He didn’t sound as if he believed her; just as if he was letting it go for the moment. ‘So how can he stop you? Money?’

She shook her head violently. ‘No. I’ve never taken any money from them. I don’t want any.’

She sounded as if the very idea filled her with horror, thought Jack. He stored the information away for future consideration.

‘So—how can he have any hold over you? If you really are twenty-two.’

Quite suddenly, Holly laughed. Sweet and true and startlingly youthful, her laugh rang round the little bar, waking up the drowsy barman with its genuine amusement. Jack was surprised and, for once, it showed.

‘You’re probably right,’ she said ruefully. ‘Only they live in Smallville, USA, and my father left a crazy will. I know I ought to have challenged it. But, frankly, I wasn’t ever going to convince a local court to see it my way.’

Jack raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not? I should point out that I’m from Smallville, USA myself,’ he said drily.

‘Then I shouldn’t need to explain,’ retorted Holly. ‘There isn’t a lawyer in the county who would take me as a client in a case against the family. They’re respected citizens.’ Full of irony, her eyes met his. ‘Which means big local employers. Pretty well the only employers.’

‘Ah,’ said Jack in immediate comprehension.

She sighed. ‘It’s understandable, I suppose. I was only seventeen and I’d lived in Lansing Mills for less than two years. Everyone had known Donna since before she was born. And Brendan since he married her. I suppose people thought they were just trying to take care of me. Stopping me doing silly things. All for my own good.’ For a moment she looked unbearably sad.

Jack knew that look. He had seen it too many times. It was the look of a prisoner resigned to the trap she was in. It always turned something over in his stomach, making him rage, making him want to make the prisoner rage.

Instead he said woodenly, ‘So you took the law into your own hands. You ran.’

The sad look dispelled. For a moment she looked naughty—and very young.

‘Yup.’

‘Why, exactly? Why then?’

She evaded that. ‘My daddy left a will saying that Donna was to look after me until I’m twenty-five unless I get married.’

All the bright naughtiness vanished. She looked as if she were tasting poison.

Jack said slowly, ‘And no one gets married at seventeen, right?’

She evaded that too. ‘They thought that meant I should stay at home, not go to college or travel or anything. Donna,’ she added, ‘never travelled.’

‘They were unkind to you?’

Holly stared into the fire.

‘They wouldn’t have thought so,’ she said at last, carefully.

Jack pondered in silence. ‘You were afraid of that man this afternoon,’ he said at last. ‘I saw it.’

Holly’s head reared up. Startled hazel eyes met his. They were unguarded for a moment and very, very wary.

And blazing.

‘You don’t trust me an inch,’ Jack said on a note of discovery. ‘Do you?’

Her lids fell, veiling the betraying expression. She gave a shrug.

‘Why should I?’

He made an exasperated noise. ‘I got you away from Brendan Sugrue. Twice.’

‘Yes, you did,’ she said coolly. ‘I ask myself why.’

There was a blank silence. ‘Not an inch,’ Jack repeated.

She shrugged again. ‘Why should I trust you?’

‘Because you don’t have many choices. And you need help.’

Her spine snapped vertical. ‘No, I don’t.’

He ignored that. ‘What made you run away from home?’

Their eyes met: hers alarmed, furious; his impassive. Hers were the first to fall.

She said flippantly, ‘I didn’t like having to be in by ten.’

A longer silence this time. She turned her head away but his eyes never left her profile.

Then Jack said very softly, ‘Why don’t I believe you?’

The barman interrupted. ‘Mr Armour. There is a phone call for you.’

Jack hesitated, not taking his eyes off her. Holly sat still under the raking inspection. But when he shrugged and went to the bar she sagged in the chair as if an interrogation light had been turned off.

Oh, boy, had she misjudged Jack Armour, she thought. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. She did not often do that. She had learned to sum people up quickly. On the road, these last five years, her survival had depended on her getting it right.

Yet she had looked at Jack Armour and got him one hundred and eighty degrees wrong. She had seen all that overwhelming male confidence and dubbed him Gorgeous Jack. Oh, she was right about the confidence—those slanted, unreadable eyes; the arrogant handsome features; the air of contained power…

Sexy as hell, thought Holly dispassionately. She could manage dispassion now that he was at the bar with his back to her, talking hard into a telephone. Sexy as hell, but much, much more than that. He had known she was not telling him the whole truth. Most people did not. And no one, in her experience, had tried to make her spread out her secrets on a platter for inspection.

She had only just held out, too. In his own way Jack Armour was as determined as Brendan. In fact, he was almost as bad as Homer.

Holly caught herself. She gave a little superstitious shiver. No one was as bad as Homer, she reminded herself soberly. No one. That was why she had run in the first place. And why she was going to keep on running until she was twenty-five and none of Brendan’s clever lawyers could find a way to pull her back.

Hang on to that, she told herself. Two and a half more years to freedom. You’ve come this far. You can do the rest.




CHAPTER THREE


JACK finished his phone call and came back to her.

‘I’ve got to work,’ he told her briefly.

Holly thought, Work! That’s all he’s interested in. I’m getting in the way of it.

She nodded, not looking at him. ‘I’ll wait for your friend to bring my things and then I’ll go.’

Inexplicably, that did not please Jack. ‘It will be late. And what if that guy has found out where you live?’

Holly could not help herself. She shuddered at the thought. But giving way to panic was no solution. She had learned that well over the last five years.

So she tilted her chin and said flippantly, ‘I won’t open the door.’

In spite of the fact that he should be working, Jack did not go. He tapped his foot impatiently. But he did not move from the spot.

‘You could stay here.’

‘No, I couldn’t.’

‘Why not? I’ve reserved a room for you.’

‘Because I can’t afford it,’ Holly said patiently.

That tapping foot was mesmerising. He seemed full of pent-up energy. What would it be like if he caught her up in it? What would it be like if he was not involved with work and on the point of leaving? What if he touched—?

Holly caught her thoughts just as they were about to run away with her.

‘I can’t afford it,’ she said again, not entirely referring to the room rate.

‘I can.’

Holly stiffened. Her years on the road had taught her that offers of free bed and board seldom came without strings.

Jack read her mind, it seemed. His eyes darkened until they looked almost black.

‘No need to look like that. I told you, I’ve got to work tonight.’

Holly felt a fool. She took refuge in indignation.

‘Well, what was I supposed to think? Most guys want something in return.’

Their eyes locked. Holly could almost hear the clash of swords.

And more than that. For a moment, turbulent impatience came off him in waves. As if he could not wait to be off and was furious with himself for staying. As if he could not help himself.

She blinked, utterly disconcerted.

Jack’s mouth thinned. ‘You’ve been playing with the wrong guys,’ he said curtly.

‘I—’

He took no notice. ‘Still, it’s up to you. The room is there if you want it.’

‘But—’

‘No bill.’ He was nearly spitting the words out. ‘No payment in kind. Goodnight.’

And he was gone before she could think of one word to stop him.

‘Damn,’ said Holly with real feeling.

She had simmered down by the time Ramon got back with her things. He came into the bar bearing her flute case and an incongruous plastic bag with a dusty pair of jeans and her canvas satchel spilling out of it. Holly seized the bag and began to rummage.

Ramon felt in his jacket pocket. ‘If you’re looking for your passport, I’ve got it here.’

He gave her an odd look. Holly did not notice. She just grabbed the little booklet with relief.

‘There was no money,’ said Ramon conscientiously. ‘Or keys.’

Holly grinned and pulled a slim fold of notes out of her back pocket. ‘I never take more than running-away money to the club. As for my key—’ She shook her wrist and Ramon saw that she wore a charm bracelet. A serviceable key was attached to it.




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