Her heart ached for them and for all the lost they represented.
Aidan watched.
He’d known the tour was on the schedule and that Ali would be on it. As he’d known she would come here, here of all places, and that she would leave the others to see it privately. Rather than take the bus, he’d driven himself, just to insure he could see her alone. In a way, beyond its meaning in this place, that sculpture would have more of a connection to Ali than it would to many.
She looked lovely, fragile. And alone.
Then the tour guide approached with the others in tow, and the moment was lost. Ali stepped back, wandered toward the pool with its depiction of broken weapons at the bottom.
It was an old Irish custom to break the swords and such that had been used in battle and toss them into a river to cleanse them as a promise of peace between those who’d fought.
Ali needed a moment to herself to recover from the impact of the statue.
The tour guides rounded up their charges for the return trip via the luxury buses back to the hotel and the venue.
Monstrous black chugging things, the huge vehicles were incredibly plush on the interior, with drinks holders and a server to bring those drinks to the passengers. The second rounded the corner just as Ali reached the curb.
Ali never knew what exactly happened but all of a sudden everyone around her staggered off balance. Someone shoved and to her shock she found herself falling out into the street in front of the second bus.
Terror shot through her.
A strong hand reached out, snagged her arm and hauled her back hard against a familiar strong muscular chest.
Ali looked up as her breath caught. Blue eyes and dark wavy hair.
“Aidan.” Her heart thumped hard and not just from the close call.
She hadn’t even known he’d come. Why would he? Like all the places she’d taken him, it was ancient history for him.
For a moment as she looked up at him, looked into his blue eyes as a dozen different memories washed through and over her. The sudden fear was powerful but the pain of his leaving was still sharp, even if the need for him was still strong. It took everything she had not to lay her forehead on his chest, to seek comfort after the hard, sudden burst of terror.
But she couldn’t.
All Aidan had seen was Ali falling in front of the bus.
Instinctively he’d reached for her, fear for her jabbing sharply through him. He’d known in that moment exactly how much it would cost him to lose her, forever.
For a second he looked down at her to catch the flash of vulnerability on her face, the need no one saw but they two and then it was gone as if it had never been. She smiled, unsteadily.
“Thank you,” she said, moving away.
“Are you all right?” he asked gently, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms, hold her and keep her safe. That near disaster had frightened him badly but he didn’t know how she’d react if he actually did as he wanted so badly to do. Would she have pushed him away?
She nodded, “I’m fine.”
“Ali, we need to talk,” he said.
Those incredible eyes flashed to his. Her voice was soft. “Do we? About what? And how is Devon?”
“Ali,” he said. “I was wrong. Devon and I weren’t together when we were.”
He missed her, missed the scent of her. It hurt more than he’d though it would.
“And? Wrong about what?” she asked. “It didn’t take you long to have her back, did it?”
The bright sheen of tears glimmered in her gilded eyes.
Gently he brushed the soft hair back from her face, the soft skin of her cheek. He shook his head, trying to find the words to convince her.
“Ali,” he said, “it wasn’t like that, it’s not like that, and Devon and I aren’t together anymore.”
For a moment, Ali closed her eyes and then she broke away, walked toward the buses.
Ali looked back at him once. He was so beautiful.
“But now I have something you want,” she said. Although Kerry Electronics hadn’t yet approached her for the software she’d developed, all the bigger companies except Jensen had.
“Ali…”
Aidan saw it, as her turned expression wistful… Perhaps his case wasn’t hopeless.
The buses returned them to hotel for dinner with a little time to go to their rooms to freshen up and change.
Ali was grateful for it and the chance to take a few minutes to relax after the sudden scare and the encounter with Aidan. Fool that she was, she was still in love with him.
Chapter Nineteen
Each day of the Symposium, the event organizers arranged for some sort of special entertainment as they had with the tour of the Garden of Remembrance. Tonight they’d arranged for everyone who wished to go to one of Dublin’s hottest nightclubs. The music pounded and throbbed, the bass and drums vibrated in your bones.
Adam had high hopes. It was a younger environment, a younger generation. One where he was at home. This was more his environment, although Jacques was here as well.
Trying to be subtle, he scanned the crowd, difficult with the flashing lights and gyrating figures, to see if Alex was here.
It was Jacques, though, who saw her first and he drank in the sight of her with pleasure and anticipation, his body responding in much the same way. Leaning his elbow on the bar, he watched her walk into the nightclub, saw her eyes brighten when she spotted familiar faces.
His body tightened.
The dress might as well have been painted on her, a bright tomato red that complimented her sunny hair and golden eyes, brought color to her cheeks and matched the lipstick she wore. It was the body, however, that held Jacques attention. She had a woman’s body, with breasts and hips, a tight firm, rounded bottom. She wasn’t one of these skinny creatures favored by the American magazines or the fashion industry but lush and lovely.
He sighed with pleasure, then glanced at Adam.
This would be entertaining. Lightly he tapped his subordinate on the arm, nodding his head to draw Adam’s attention.
Adam simply froze, his whole body going hot. For a moment, he could only stare as Alex threaded her way through the crowd, many of them giving way around her, oblivious to the eyes that followed her.
Jacques found it amusing that she had no idea of her beauty. That innocence intrigued him as well.
Freeing his tongue, Adam made himself smile, “Alex….”
It was good to see familiar, friendly faces. This wasn’t Ali’s kind of thing generally but she needed to put in an appearance with those in her own age group, as she’d learned over time.
Adam looked great in a simple white shirt and jeans, his umber hair gleaming under the lights but then he was a handsome man.
As was Jacques, standing dark and brooding beside Adam, a hint of amusement in his dark eyes. He lifted his drink to her sardonically as his eyes traveled from hers and down her body, slowly, appreciatively, as if he mentally undressed her, slowly, sensually, taking his time about it.
Whatever else, she was only human and that look made her shiver.
Smiling, Ali gave Adam a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Adam,” she said, with real pleasure.
“What, Cherie?” Jacques said, “no kiss for me?”
Ali looked at him and went up on her toes to do the same, expertly evading him when he tried to change the kiss into something more intimate.
Her golden eyes met his.
Entertained, Jacques smiled and took a sip of his drink.
Adam hadn’t missed the interchange and kept a smile from his face by main effort. It was satisfying all the same to see Ali keep Jacques at arm’s length. She wouldn’t be an easy conquest.
“What can I get you?” Adam asked her, giving Jacques a look.
Looking at the bartender, Ali said, “A Guinness.”
A little surprised, he nodded.
While she waited for it to build she turned to look over t
he gyrating crowd. She felt fingers slip along the strap of her dress at her back, the touch ephemeral. Jacques. Adam was too straightforward for such subtle seduction. It suited her to ignore it so she did.
Jacques knew she was aware of his touch and was amused by her refusal to acknowledge it.
Leaning an elbow on the bar, Adam leaned into her to talk into her ear. “So how are things going, Alex? The last I heard you were still with Jensen, and dating a what? Professor?”
She shrugged, turned toward the bar to retrieve her beer. Taking a sip, she smiled as she licked the creamy foam from the top. She wasn’t certain whether that wasn’t her favorite part of drinking Guinness or the rich taste.
Adam’s whole body went tight as he watched her lick the head of the beer from those glossy lips.
The question wasn’t as painful as it might once have been but it did remind her of what had come after. Her mind shied away from Aidan so she turned it to Dan.
“He needed a more…proper… Professor’s wife…” she said, with a small shrug that belied how much it had hurt at the time.
Looking at her in that dress, Adam could almost understand it but he shook his head. “His loss.” My gain, he hoped.
“Dance with me?”
With a smile, she let Adam guide her out onto the dance floor.
As always a part of her looked for Aidan but she didn’t think that this was his kind of thing.
Still, like every other woman she did enjoy dancing and Adam was fun.
There were others from the group that had brought her heere so she danced with Jiro, too, who had no grace at all but he was very enthusiastic.
She smiled.
It was Adam, though, who kept drawing her back to the bar and that delicate balancing act between deflecting Jacques subtle advances and increasingly trying not to hurt Adam’s feelings as she fended off his more overt ones.
He kept trying to draw her closer as they danced.
“Adam,” she said, finally, trying to maintain some distance, trying to be gentle, to be kind. “Adam, stop. “
He did.
Adam looked at her, could see it in her eyes.
As she could see the knowledge in his.
“I’m sorry, Adam,” she said, “I wish I felt the same as you.”
Why was it that you didn’t fall in love with the one you should? she wondered.
“But you don’t,” he said.
She looked up into his handsome face, into his warm brown eyes and shook her head even as she brushed the hair back from his forehead.
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry. I wish I did.”
It was nothing more than the truth.
“It’s not Jacques, is it?” he asked.
On a half laugh, she shook her head. “Good God, no. It’s no one, Adam…”
Which wasn’t entirely true but she didn’t know what to make of that or what she could say about it.
Aidan.
Her heart ached.
We need to talk, he’d said. I was wrong.
Wrong about what? And then there had been Devon. She’d noticed that the woman was no longer in attendance but didn’t know what that had meant. Now she knew. She wanted to believe…but who was it Aidan wanted now, Ali or Alex? Because at heart Ali was who she was. She’d trusted him, trusted that he’d known what he wanted…then he’d said goodbye. It had just been a fling.
She sighed.
They walked back to the bar, Adam putting a brave face on even as Ali wished it wasn’t necessary.
Jacques had watched the little exchange on the dance floor, shaking his head. He would never let any woman have so much of his heart. It would be he who would walk away not she, however beautiful and intriguing the woman.
He, did, however have a drink waiting for Adam when they returned to the bar, knowing what the younger man would need.
Reluctantly, Ali let herself be drawn out on the dance floor by another of the Symposium attendees, wishing she could do something for Adam but knowing it would be better if she gave him space. It was clearly getting to be time to leave, though.
To her dismay, though, she discovered Adam had used the time to get himself thoroughly drunk.
She looked at Jacques, who shrugged. Only the first drink had been his idea. He now had a very entertaining redhead with him.
With a sigh, she looked at Adam. “Come on, let’s get you back to the hotel.”
He smiled at her drunkenly. “Pretty Alex.”
“Yes,” she said.
Rather than be tied to the hotel’s limousine service, riding back and forth with strangers, Ali had opted to drive herself. She was grateful now, too, that she’d bypassed the valet service in favor of parking the car in the parking garage. Otherwise this would have been embarrassing on many levels. But she couldn’t leave Adam here, not as he was.
She unlocked the doors with a flick of the key fob and poured Adam into the car.
“Buckle up,” she said before closing the door.
“Sorry, Alex,” Adam said obeying as she slid into driver’s seat.
Looking at him, at the misery in his eyes and understanding it all too well, Ali brushed the hair back from his forehead.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Adam,” she said before putting the car in gear.
At first, the mushiness in the brakes was just puzzling. Then she started down the long circular ramp and it wasn’t puzzling any longer. Fear shot through her as she pumped the pedal. For a moment, they gripped and then even that was gone. Their speed increased.
Even through his alcoholic haze, Adam realized something was wrong.
“Alex?” he said.
“Just hold on,” she said, glancing at him.
Desperately, she depressed the clutch, downshifted with a crunch of gears, the tires squeaked as the gears grabbed. Again, trying to use the gears to slow them as they shot past the levels with alarming speed. One hand was locked on the steering wheel, her arm and shoulder screaming with pain as she hauled on the wheel, the other hand was clenched on the gear shift as she downshifted again.
The tires bit with a screech as they whipped around another turn, slowing, the car protesting the stresses put on it.
Pulling on the hand brake didn’t help. There was nothing there. Nothing.
Hoping against hope that no one pulled out in front of her on the bottom level Ali felt the car slow as they hit a level surface and brought the car to a stop in a free parking space.
Trembling, she laid her head against the steering wheel.
“Wow,” Adam said.
Letting out a sigh, she said, “Yes, wow.”
She still had to get them both back to the hotel. In the morning, she’d call the rental service people.
In lieu of the nightclub, some of the Symposium attendees had opted instead to hang out in the hotel bar but it had grown late and the party, such as it was, was breaking up.
Standing with a group of others just outside the bar, everyone’s attention was drawn to a commotion by the doors.
Aidan turned, startled to see Ali walk with Adam Delaville draped over her slender shoulders.
It was the dress that caught his attention at first.
Tomato red, it clung to every inch of her lovely body, stopping at mid-thigh to reveal her long, beautiful legs in mile-high heels. His body went hot and hard even as he took in the tumble of sunny hair, the smoky eyes and the lush, wet mouth. She looked incredible…
For a minute, he felt a scorching burst of jealousy, then she brushed her hair back from her face wearily and he realized Adam leaned on her drunkenly. She shifted her shoulders, looking around in dismay.
He was walking across the floor toward her even as her eyes found his.
A thousand things went through Ali’s mind at the sight of Aidan, not least of which was that he was still incredibly handsome, that he still had the power to make her heart ache and yearn at the same time, and that this had to look terrible.
“It’s not what
it looks like,” she said, “he got drunk. I need to get him to his room.”
“That I can see,” Aidan said, sympathetically. “Adam, what have you gone and done?”
Looking at Aidan blearily, Adam said, happily, “Aidan! Good to see you old buddy.”
“Go on, Ali,” Aidan said, “I’ll take him from here.”
“Would you, Aidan?” she said, gratefully. “Thank you…”
She pushed her hair back tiredly and pulled the high heels off, shrinking by inches. “It’s been a rough night, my feet are killing me, and to top it all off I had problems with the car.”
“Don’t worry, Ali,” Aidan said, “I have him.”
With a sigh, she looked at him, the confusion in her eyes clear.
Ducking a little to catch Adam’s eyes, Ali looked at him and said, gently. “Good night, Adam. I am sorry.”
“Good night, sweet Alex,” Adam said, smiling ruefully and goofily.
They both watched as she walked away across the lobby, shoes dangling from her fingers.
Adam sighed as she stepped into the elevators. “She doesn’t love me, Aidan…”
“Doesn’t she?” Aidan asked as he maneuvered the other man into another elevator.
“No,” Adam said. “She’s so pretty. I asked her out when she was at Jensen but she was already seeing someone… A professor?”
Aidan managed to get Adam’s door open with the key from Adam’s pocket.
Easing his friend down to the bed, he pulled the other man’s shoes off.
“He dumped her,” Adam said, “because she wasn’t a proper professor’s wife…”
The words stung, Aidan hearing an echo of his own words to her and remembered her own words about it. No wonder she’d been so hurt…
“Idiot,” Adam murmured, rolling over on his side.
Aidan could do nothing but agree.
“What happened to the car?” he asked, curious.
Burrowing into the covers, Adam said. “Brakes failed. It was very exciting. Damn but she drives good.”
Irish Fling Page 13