‘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 j
acket 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 your
self. 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.’
Midnight Wedding Page 3