That mobile expressive face went suddenly still, became a professional mask. Aidan cursed God and all the saints to see it…knowing he’d caused it.
“This is Jacques Martin,” Adam was saying, “CEO of Consortium Electronique. Jacques, this is Alex Dearborn.”
Bowing his head slightly, Jacques did the Gallic thing, the gesture expected of him as a Frenchman, he raised her slender hand to his lips, brushed them over her smooth knuckles.
“Enchante,” he said and he was. Those eyes. Astonishing.
“Comme ca va, Monsieur Martin,” Alex said, her accent nearly perfect, smiling, “but a simple handshake would have done.”
Jacques looked at her, surprised and intrigued. Unlike many Americans she’d taken the effort to learn his language and spoke it well.
But he’d seen the flash of pain in her eyes when she looked at Aidan, the betraying stillness. There was a history there and a recent one, too, by the depth of it. She’d recovered swiftly, was quick enough, bright enough and smart enough to be amusing in spite of it. Fascinating. Remarkable…
“No, ma chere,” he said, looking into those astonishing eyes, “It wouldn’t have done at all.”
Eyeing the others, he considered it. This would be an interesting game.
Both Aidan and Adam sensed the shift, alpha wolf to alpha wolf and both went alert when Jacques’s eyes focused on Ali.
“Such a harsh name, a man’s name, Alex,” Jacques murmured.
Something moved inside Ali, an odd quiver at that look. She narrowed her eyes at him.
Ali looked up in those black eyes and recognized a wolf. No. A wolf mated, many for life. Jacques Martin was a a shark. Those eyes were curious but they were flat, black, and hungry. Intrigued, she knew it would take a different woman than she was to tame the shark. He would eat her alive, and make her like it. A little frisson went through her. Dangerous.
Jacques saw it in her eyes, the moment when she recognized him for what he was. The wariness. It would be interesting to see how long she would resist him.
“In a man’s world it’s been helpful, would you prefer Alexandra?” she asked, arching a brow.
Delightful. He smiled. This would be a challenge worth his talents. So many women these days were simply too easy.
“Surely not,” he said. “That’s not what your friends call you…?
Inclining her head gracefully, she demurred. “But, monsieur, I hardly know you…”
Jacques looked at her as with a small smile she looked down. He lifted his eyes long enough to glance over the top of her head to Aidan, to see how he would take it. To look him in the eye as he said the next. Simply because he could.
“Ah,” he said, “but you will….Alex.”
Both promise and threat hung in those words.
Sweet Alex. He would have her calling his name by the end of the week. Jacques made it his goal. He liked goals, they gave one something to reach for…
There was Adam, as well.
Taking a breath, Aidan didn’t respond, couldn’t. He had his own reputation with women but his was nothing compared to Jacques.
Worse, Aidan knew just how much of an innocent Ali truly was, the woman inside. He remembered her tears when he’d left. Jacques always seemed to consider women little more than toys. Ali was vulnerable to a man like him.
Thanks to him.
Aidan closed his eyes. The idea made him sick.
“Can I buy you a drink, ma chere?” Jacques asked.
Ali smiled, aware of too many eyes on her, not all of them entirely friendly ― Aidan’s companion was still cool and distant ― and smiled at the gentleman serving the drinks.
The warmth of it drew a smile in return from him.
“Jameson’s,” she said. “Neat.”
The bartender’s eyebrows lifted, then saw the look in her eyes. The twinkle in them, in eyes like amber, long-lashed and lovely. It took an effort for him not to react. He smothered a smile, bowed his head in acknowledgment and went to fetch her drink.
“Do you know Aidan, Alex?” Adam said, oblivious of the undercurrents. “He’s the CEO of Kerry Electronics, this is his girlfriend, Devon…”
Girlfriend. It was a jolt.
With an effort, Ali forced herself to take a sip of the whiskey as the waiter returned. It went down smoothly, easing the moment when she lifted her eyes to meet Aidan’s…and those of his girlfriend.
“We’ve met,” she said, her gaze meeting Aidan’s brilliant blue eyes. “I gave Mr. O’Connell a lift when I first arrived in Ireland. His car had broken down.”
Inside she hurt, it was as if her heart bled not blood but acid, pouring into her breast, burning. She’d been foolish, but she wouldn’t show it to any of those here.
The brunette looked daggers at her.
For a moment, Ali looked at Aidan, but only a moment. She swallowed the hot tears in the back of her throat, remembering their time together. Had it all been a lie?
Seeing the suspicious brightness in her eyes, Aidan wanted to reach out to her, to explain, to erase that look.
Then Ali turned to smile warmly at Devon.”It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Devon characteristically just looked down her nose.
The rudeness was impossible to miss.
Unsurprised Ali smiled, nodded and turned with a shrug to Jacques and Adam, all too aware of Aidan standing there.
She tossed back the rest of the whiskey without blinking…feeling a different warmth soften the heartache. And set the glass down gently.
The bartender looked at her and nodded once, poured her another two fingers. She arched a brow at him.
What are you trying to do to me? She asked silently.
Amused, he smiled and inclined his head, clearly aware of the tensions. She nodded, smiled wryly, and sipped the smooth whiskey.
“You were incredible, Alex,” Adam said, loyally, sensing undercurrents. “Wasn’t she?”
Both men nodded.
“It was a most impressive display.”
She smiled and looked at him.
“According to my friend Adam,” Jacques said. “You’re nearly a genius…”
With a small shudder of horror and smile, Ali said, “A genius?” She looked at Adam and Aidan beyond him. “Adam? A genius?” Looking back at Jacques she said, “Let’s just say as Americans do that I’m very bright.”
“And modest, too. Is it true you remember what you see?”
“You wouldn’t want to play me at cards,” she said, smiling. “I’d beat you.”
“Is that a challenge I hear?” Jacques said.
She only smiled in return.
Another attendee broke in to introduce himself and to ask questions about her presentation.
When Jacques had a moment, he leaned across to speak softly to Aidan. “So, you broke her heart, mon ami?”
Aidan looked at him, his glance going cold.
“Merci, mon ami,” Jacques said, with a smile.
As much as they were friends, Aidan had to force back his sudden fury.
It was agony, watching, seeing Ali’s usually mobile face so still, missing her smiles, her bright laughter… yet Aidan stayed. She wouldn’t meet his eyes but he knew she was aware of his presence, and of Devon’s. As Devon was aware of her.
“Gentlemen,” Ali said, “it’s been an interesting evening but I think I’ll call it a night. Please excuse me?”
“You can’t be leaving us so soon,” Jacques said.
“I’m afraid so, yes,” Ali said, softly and carefully extricated herself from his attempted farewell embrace. She couldn’t afford to offend any of these men, or see her nascent career die before it was born. “I’ll see you all in the morning.”
Once in her room with no one to see, Ali could be relax and so laid with her back on the bed and rested her bare feet on the wall. Here it was two AM, but back home it somewhere nine o’clock. Everyone was still up and waiting for her call.
“So, how did it go?” Mol
ly asked.
“Guess who was there?”
“No!” Molly exclaimed.
“Can you handle it?” Cam asked, her voice concerned.
“I’ll manage, Cam,” she said, gently.
Cam worried, Ali could almost feel it.
“Stop it, Cam,” Ali said, “I’ll be fine.”
However much it hurt if Ali was to have future at all, she knew it would be here.
What she couldn’t manage was sleeping in the big bed alone. As she had every night since she’d arrived, she curled up on the loveseat in her suite so she had something at her back. So she didn’t feel so alone.
Aidan tried, although it felt strangely like cheating, as if he betrayed a trust, but it didn’t work anyway. Devon was beautiful, certainly, but everything seemed wrong. He could remember a time when she’d fired him, when he’d tried to please her, personally, sexually, but rarely succeeded. She’d always seemed just out of reach.
She still did. He still couldn’t touch anything inside her nor was there anything he wanted to touch there anymore.
Not that Devon really understood that. She seemed oblivious to it.
There was nothing there on either side but Devon would have stayed even without it. For the money.
Aidan couldn’t.
But when he asked her to leave she raised an unholy row that went on well into the wee hours.
He remembered Ali’s quiet dignity, her pride when he’d done the same to her.
Remembering her history, Aidan wondered if she’d greeted each move, each new family, with the same pride, the same acceptance, hiding the pain, the hurt of rejection.
Devon came from both a good family and money, she was a professional model, yet she shrieked like a fishwife.
Finally he pushed her out the door and closed it in her face.
Pouring a glass of whiskey, he went to the window. There had to be some way of getting Ali back, some way to get her to trust him again or give him the chance to earn it.
On a dark and quiet street two men met surreptitiously. They spoke briefly, quietly yet vehemently, then they parted, unremarked by anyone.
Chapter Eighteen
Given the support Ali had received from the hardware and software vendors she was duty bound to visit the vendor venue―a huge hall with several large screens set up to hawk the larger vendor’s wares. Jensen had a booth and a big screen, along with all the other large software companies. Not that it was a huge trial for them.
The bigger vendors weren’t the ones Ali needed, though, it was the small ones, the entrepreneurs, the inventors, the ones who walked the edges, tried something new, different, looked outside the box, if they even recognized that there was a box.
She shook hands with the people she knew and those that had known her once upon a time.
Jiro, who’d developed the view screens she used ― he wouldn’t use the term monitors or LCDs, they were view screens ― scowled up at the big displays, none of which could do what his did but yet they dominated the convention floor.
Shaking his head, Jiro said, “Hey, Ali, did you see Jensen’s display?”
In fact, she had.
With a small shrug, she said, “I know, they took my name off Argent. Hey Jim, can I borrow your portable? I wonder if they changed the passwords…?”
They had been bad about it before she left, with so much turnover it had been annoying to change it constantly. Many big companies, with so many employees coming and going, IT departments overloaded, didn’t. They hadn’t been Alex Dearborn, who had frequently used a back door to do programming on the weekends, when she was so inclined.
She grinned.
“Ali,” Jiro chided But he grinned.
Sitting down behind the booth counter, hidden by it, Ali made herself comfortable, running hacks on the two other wireless connections as well as Jensen’s. What she was about to do was semi-illegal. However, she herself had created Argent. It was her baby. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. This would be fun.
The familiar squeaking sound of the ancient game of Pacman suddenly echoed throughout the hall.
Heads turned, looked up at the screens. Laughter broke out.
Margaret, standing in the Kerry Electronics booth, looked up at the screen and snickered. Stopping by to check on how things were going, Aidan followed her gaze up to Jensen’s display and had to swallow laughter.
Pacman chased the word Argent over Jensen’s screens, intent on gobbling it.
Glancing up at the screen, Ali grinned but kept her head down. Jiro chuckled.
The image appeared on another big vendor’s screen as Pacman chased the Argent logo there.
Laughter rolled through the room as more eyes looked up.
Jiro hissed, “They’re looking for you, Ali…”
Peeking around the corner of the stall, Ali saw Dennis Jensen and some of his people fan out among the booths.
Jim had a webcam on the little handheld.
Slipping between two of the booths, Ali peered around a corner to spot Dennis looking thunderous and turned on the webcam, altered the image and sent it to the hacked screens.
One of his people tapped him on the shoulder and he looked up. His face livid, his head swung around quickly to determine the location of the image.
Ali shut the image down as they circled then ducked between two or three booths…
Fingers dancing on the keyboard, lines of code running through her head, Ali looked up to see the image of Dennis’s face expand, his face changing color from white to red as steam came out of his ears…and darted down another aisle, fighting giggles.
By now, a number of the other vendors were into the spirit of the game on a slow Saturday morning after opening night and before too many folks filled the hall. They put spotters out, each searching for Ali as she darted among and behind the attendees. All of whom looked innocent as soon as they spotted any of Jensen’s people wearing their distinctive orange shirts.
“Ali,” someone called.
Ducking around the corner, Ali looked up at the screen as Dennis’s face got bigger, remembering the moment when she’d gone to him, asked that the pressure be taken off. No one else carried as large a load as she did.
“If you can’t take the heat, Dearborn,” he’d said, “get out of the kitchen.”
The obvious sexual reference had taken her aback. For a moment she’s stared at him in disbelief. She was exhausted. Looking back at her schedule she couldn’t see a single week that she’d been home for more than a day or two.
Everyone who wasn’t watching the screens looked for the culprit, delighted to see Jensen getting a bit of comeuppance.
At Jensen they were trying to shut her connection down but she fought them on one screen. On another she’d already taken the image to one of the other vendors, through the wirelessly connected workstations that had been set up for the vendors.
Dennis’s favorite phrase flowed out through his on-screen ears like something out of Monty Python skit, tickertape spilling out, “We’re a 24/7 company…”
It had been neither a metaphor nor a joke. She’d known months when she’d only been home one day, mornings when the phone had rung at five AM.
His screen head swelled further, stretched even as Ali glanced around a corner.
“Ali,” someone hissed, “they’re coming.”
Swallowing laughter, she darted between two stalls, collided hard with one tall, hard body.
Looking up, her breath caught.
Aidan.
He steadied her, seeing the light of mischief and merriment flicker in her eyes, so alive, so beautiful. That was the Ali he remembered. Then a flash of remembered hurt darkened them as their eyes met.
A voice hissed in warning, “Ali.”
It brought her back and she remembered why she was there.
For just a moment, devilment gleamed once again in those molten gold eyes. Her fingers flashed on the keyboard.
She looked at Aidan, grinned merril
y and whispered, “Pop!”
Above him, Dennis Jensen’s head burst, to general merriment, then Ali spun away. She glanced back at him once…then she was gone as everyone applauded wildly.
The calm cool and very poised woman in the professional business suit standing at the podium of the small conference hall later that morning looked nothing like the mischievous imp in a loose casual dress who hacked into the computer systems in the Vendors area.
It had been an interesting display of computer coding. Aidan couldn’t help but admire both… She was a chameleon, brilliant, bright.
At mid-afternoon the event organizers had arranged for a bus tour to the Garden of Remembrance, one of the few sites in the city Ali had been desperate to see. Knowing it was part of the tour, she’d left it until now. If she’d once envisioned seeing it with Aidan, there was the saving grace that she hadn’t. There were no memories of him here.
Commemorating those who’d sacrificed for Irish freedom, the Garden was an unforgettable memorial to centuries of struggle, death and the survival of a culture against all odds. Their culture, their very language banned, the Irish had found a way to preserve them, as others hadn’t. Some parts of it had more meaning to Ali than others.
As everyone disembarked from the two very plush buses to follow the tour guides, content to follow the standard tour paths, Ali slipped away. All she’d wanted was the ride.
This was one of the few places she’d wanted to see without any distraction. She wanted this private moment. If nothing else she badly needed to spend some time by herself but there was one thing in the Gardens she’d desperately wanted to see―the heartbreaking sculpture of the Children of Lir.
Dedicated to all those who’d lost their lives in the fight for Irish freedom, the sculpture depicted an old Irish legend ― a wicked stepmother who had turned her stepchildren into swans to deny them their heritage.
It was an incredible piece of artwork, showing the children in the midst of their heartbreaking transformation. Ali had always had the sense they still clung to their old forms, helpless in the act of being changed, reaching. Their fingers trailed… Photographs had always made her eyes sting but to see the real thing? To see it in real life…? She wanted to touch them, understood what it was they reached for, what their siblings reached for as they flew up toward the sky…
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