The gun cracked, the silencer failing as the bullet plowed into the concrete ceiling.
Both of them hit the concrete floor hard and the man broke free, rolled away, kicking, bringing the gun around to point at Aidan.
“Aidan,” Ali cried, in horror, as she saw the gun turn toward him.
He dove for cover…taking her with him, rolling, covering her body with his own.
The Gardai behind him fired, taking the man in the shoulder, driving him back. Keeping his gun leveled on the man on the floor Ryan advanced even as the man tried to bring the gun up again.
The civilians were scattered in both directions. In his ear, he could hear the announcement of backup coming.
“Drop the gun,” he said, sharply.
Ignoring the instruction, the man brought the gun around.
Fear spurted through Ryan, although he ignored it as he had to. This had been plain-clothes duty, he didn’t have his jacket on.
“Drop the gun or I’ll be forced to shoot.”
Ryan could see it in the man’s eyes. He himself was now the target. Ryan put a second bullet into him.
Quickly he stepped forward, kicked the gun away. The perpetrator’s eyes rolled. Carefully Ryan knelt, checked the pulse. Still alive. It was a relief. Ryan didn’t want the first time he’d fired a weapon on duty to be the first time he took a life.
Rolling the man over, Ryan secured his wrists.
They all heard running feet from below them.
Ryan held his identification up.
“Garda,” he shouted.
Chapter Twenty Eight
The Conference building was empty, most of those attending the Symposium having returned to the hotel, oblivious to the drama that had taken place around them, behind the scenes. The wait staff had yet to arrive. Only Ali, Aidan and Jacques remained, waiting outside the Conference Center with Gardai Commissioner Colm MacNeill.
MacNeill was a big man, bluff, with pale blue eyes in a ruddy, broad face. Those eyes were sharp and aware. He wasn’t a man to be messed about with.
All of them were in plain clothes, the uniformed Gardai sent away with the suspect in Declan Monaghan’s custody. The man was in surgery at the moment, but expected to live. A search had begun for his accomplices.
Sean Burke came out of the building, wearing the full gear of a bomb disposal officer, and quickly stripped it all off. Sweat ran down his face as the Commissioner nodded, Sean’s own Chief Superintendent looking on.
“It’s been disabled, sir,” he said, not liking the attention one whit, “and the explosives rendered harmless. Thanks to Miss Dearborn’s recollection of the wiring diagram, I might add.”
It had made his job immensely simpler since he’d had plenty of time to study it.
There had been some skepticism over devoting so much manpower on such slight evidence. It had only been Sean’s insistence that they couldn’t let it go on the chance it was real that had kept the investigation going. It was a chance they couldn’t afford to take.
MacNeill nodded grimly. He turned his eyes on the civilians.
One was one of the richest men in the country while the two others were foreign nationals, one of them also a wealthy man in his own right. The girl ― those eyes were astonishing ― word was she was some kind of computer genius. Oddly, she didn’t look it.
There wasn’t much he could do to control them, except ask.
Aidan held Ali close, nearly as closely as she held him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. He brushed his cheek against her hair, remembering the gun turning toward her.
He glanced at Jacques standing nearby, his dark eyes were unreadable.
“The Taoiseach would like to keep this whole affair quiet,” Colm said, quietly. “Until now, we’ve been lucky enough as a nation to escape the attention of some of these groups. We’d like to keep it that way. We’ll prosecute but we’ll keep the whole thing quiet. A statement will be made to the effect that a terrorist ring was broken up but not the extent to which they were very nearly successful.”
It chilled him even to think about it. The Taoiseach himself would have been there that night, too.
“This Symposium is too important to Ireland as a whole to have it overshadowed by this. Ireland has waited too long to become a power in the world to have men like these highjack it. So, we’d like to ask the three of you to keep this whole affair to yourselves. Not that we’re not grateful…”
Aidan looked at Ali and over at Jacques.
The idea of the kind of media attention it would generate didn’t thrill any of them.
Ali looked at Aidan and nodded.
With a Gallic shrug, Jacques assented as well.
“Then we’d like the Symposium to go on as if nothing has happened. What the three of you do is entirely up to you.”
With a sigh, Jacques said. “What is it they say in America, Alex? The show must go on?”
The Commissioner nodded. “Thank you. We do owe you a debt.”
Chapter Twenty Nine
If there had been more time, but there was barely enough for them to return to the apartment and change for the evening’s festivities. All they had time for was a quick shower, Ali standing a moment in Aidan’s arms as he held her. It had to be enough and then he waited in the main room, a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking out over the city as she changed.
They’d both come close to dying that day.
How close do you have to come before you realized what was truly important and how short life might be? he wondered.
Aidan was the only thing Ali saw as she stepped out of the bedroom, a tall handsome man standing by the windows in a tuxedo, his dark hair curling over his collar. His reflection in the windows gave her a glimpse of his face, his blue eyes focused on the glass of whiskey in his hand. He was so handsome.
There were some men who looked ridiculous in a tuxedo and some who wore it like it was more than just tailored for them, as if it were natural. Aidan was one of those.
She smiled, remembering the man who’d danced with her in a pub, the loose and natural way he moved, and now this man, tall, contained…and she loved both sides of him equally well, as he loved her.
A movement by the bedroom door caught his eye and Aidan turned.
His breath and his heart caught at the same time….
She was so lovely….so beautiful… Breathless, all he could do was stand there and take her in.
For the first time he saw her with her sunny hair caught up on top of her head, a loose tumble of curls secured by amber pins to reveal her long, slender throat, her smooth bare shoulders. Her lovely eyes were smoky, glowing golden, a light brush of color had been stroked across her cheeks, her lips a glossy coral.
The dress…was astonishing.
Silk in the rich golden colors of her eyes clung to her breasts, ran down her body like melted caramel, over her hips, clung to her thighs, swirled around her legs with every step.
“Incredible,” he said, in amazement, walking toward her, putting down his whiskey to pick up another box. “Beautiful. Close your eyes, Ali.”
She looked at him, at the look in his blue eyes, then she closed her eyes obediently, feeling him step behind her.
Aidan couldn’t resist, he brushed a kiss across her smooth skin of her bare shoulder first. His body went hot and hard, imagining sliding his hands around her, to take those full breasts in his hands, feel the nipples harden beneath the silk. She trembled a little, a small sigh whispered from her. He smiled.
Something cool settled around her throat but it warmed quickly. Something brushed just lightly between her breasts. Ali raised her hand to touch them, the smooth stones….
“All right,” Aidan said, “you can look.”
In the mirror of the windows she just stared in wonder.
A single strand of chunks of amber came together in a deep V, each separated by a single bead of emerald surmounting another piece of amber, dangling from a gold chain between her breasts.
“They matched your eyes,” Aidan said, sliding his hands down her arms, as she turned her head against his chest.
Her throat was tight, her fingers shaking as she touched the stones.
“I love you, Ali,” Aidan said, turning her, cupping her lovely face in his hands.
Looking up into his blue eyes, her own shimmering, Ali said, “I love you, too, Aidan.”
Chapter Thirty
The Grand Hall had been converted into the grand dining room Ali had envisioned earlier, and the scent of centerpieces warred lightly with the perfumes and colognes. Above their heads chandeliers glimmered, on the tables candles flickered within glass globes, the soft light of both adding an air of romance, despite the brightly lit dais.
Ali, seated at a table with Jacques and Adam―both looking dashing and handsome in their tuxes ― watched Aidan on the stage.
“First let me apologize to Bill for standing him up at lunch this afternoon,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the man himself with a wry grin, “but unforeseen circumstances beyond my control pulled me away,”
The memory of Ali crouched on the floor of the parking garage, her eyes huge, seeing her death before her, flashed into his mind. He pushed it aside, kept his voice light. But the image stayed.
“Bill, I owe you a Guinness.”
The crowd chuckled.
Looking out over them, Aidan smiled. “I also want to make an announcement. It may come as a surprise to many of you but Kerry Software is now the newest subsidiary of Consortium Electronique. Effective immediately upon completion of the sale, I will resign as CEO...”
He and Jacques had come to that agreement during the cocktail party before dinner.
There was a gratifying gasp of surprise from some. He could imagine Brian’s fury, and didn’t care.
Ali felt Jacques dark eyes looking her way. She didn’t meet his questioning glance, this was Aidan’s announcement.
The part he hadn’t told Jacques.
“To start a new company, Draíochta,” Aidan continued, “with a new partner. Ali, love, will you stand up?”
Heads turned her way. Her heart pounded as she rose to her feet.
“Some of you may know her. Alexandra Dearborn?”
She stood as the spotlight found her and bowed her head a little in acknowledgement.
In the spotlight, to Aidan’s eyes she looked even more beautiful, the amber necklace at her throat making her eyes glow. The silk clung to her. A part of him wanted to stride across the floor, strip the silk away from those ripe curves, and feast… His body tightened.
Across the room Dennis Jensen looked daggers at her. Ali smiled back at him sweetly.
“And, if I’m lucky, to convince her to marry me as well…”
Caught off guard, Ali’s head whipped around. She just stared at him, startled.
Had she heard right?
“So, now, what was it I was supposed to be doing? Oh, yes, introducing Mr. William Gates, otherwise known as Bill. Most of you know him or of him, so he needs little introduction… Bill Gates…once of Microsoft, considered one of the richest men in the world, now of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation…”
Aidan stepped back from the podium, applauding.
Stepping up to the podium, Bill Gates said, “I don’t know if I can top a marriage proposal…”
Ali sank into her chair in disbelief. Had he just said what she thought he said?
Jacques leaned toward him as Aidan arrived at their table.
“We need to talk,” he said.
There were a few details Aidan had left out
Draíochta.
Jacques wanted a piece of that.
“In a moment, Jacques, I’ve something more important going on here,” Aidan said, drawing up a chair by Ali and taking her hands.
They were cold. She was never cold.
She looked at him, her golden eyes huge.
“What do you say?” he asked softly. “A life together. A home, Ali…”
Those eyes regarded him solemnly.
A life, a home…with her.
“Sometimes you just find each other at the right time,” he said.
Ali looked at him, into his blue eyes, and reached out to touch his cheek.
“You’re sure?” she asked, breathlessly. “Are you sure?”
“I love you, Ali Dearborn. I’m sure, Ali,” Aidan said. “You know we’re not much for divorce here.”
She laughed, the sound just escaped her. Her fingers touched her mouth. Tears stung her eyes…
Around them the room had gone silent, even at the podium. Everyone watched the small personal drama at the front of the room.
Neither of them noticed.
Could she live without him? No.
She looked at him with those golden eyes.
“I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you,” she said.
He looked at her. “Is that a yes?”
“It is. Yes,” she said and he caught her up in his arms. “Yes.”
“It’s yes!”
The room erupted into applause.
Ali looked down into Aidan’s laughing face, his blue eyes alight.
Business got done, the speeches were completed, but there seemed to be a lightness to the evening that hadn’t had there before.
As if by proclamation Ali and Aidan had the first dance. For a few moments they waltzed alone under the lights of the chandeliers…not that Ali noticed, or Aidan.
Chapter Thirty One
Waking in the cottage in Kerry with Aidan curled up warm against her back, Ali sighed as she looked at the diamond ring on her finger again in wonder. It still amazed her. He still amazed her. She snuggled back into him, feeling him against her, and then his arms tightened around her.
Gently, Aidan brushed the hair back from her throat and nuzzled there, his lips warm against her throat.
The scent of her filled him and he closed his eyes in pleasure. Gently he nibbled at her ear feeling her shiver…
“You’re giving me goosebumps,” Ali breathed.
Brushing his hands down her arms, he confirmed that statement, smiling.
“Happy Birthday, Ali,” he said.
He drew her closer, curling one arm over her hips to pull her close, the other, beneath her neck, allowing his hand to curl around her breast.
Ali settled into his arms, shivering a little as his mouth moved over her throat. He’d learned all of her favorite spots and introduced her to a few she hadn’t known, like the one at the base of her spine.
Aidan loved the way she trembled when he touched her, the way her body heated and moved to his touch. And she loved to touch him, too.
Even now, as she stretched, her body quivering, her arms reaching up to run her fingers up into his hair, giving him free access to all of her. He loved to run his hands over her smooth belly, pressing the small softness there. Someday…
Ali rolled over to look at him, covering the hand on her belly with her own. She smiled.
To have children, a little girl with eyes like those to spoil…
“Will you make babies with me, Ali my love?” he asked, seeing that belly full, rounded with the child that they’d made between them.
Once more he made her breath catch and Ali reached out to run her hands through his thick dark hair.
He looked up, to see a tear slip down her cheek.
She smiled, sniffed a little. “As many as you want, if we can.”
Bowing his head, he pressed a kiss to her flat belly.
“And if we keep it up,” she laughed softly, “sooner rather than later. You’ll have to marry me to make an honest woman of me.”
It wasn’t as if she couldn’t work from home.
Home. She looked around in wonder.
They’d let the apartment in Dublin go. By mutual consent they agreed to give birth to Draíochta here in the Kingdom, in Kerry. Galway wasn’t that far away, if they needed cities and airports, the others weren’t
that far either. Or Dublin for that matter, by American standards.
So the cottage then had become home… A place to belong….
Aidan looked up to see that wondering look in her eyes. Now and again when she thought he wasn’t looking he would find her running her fingers over things in a kind of wonder. Or looking at the ring he’d put on her finger. There were times it broke his heart to see it, but those times came less often as she began to believe in it.
Truth was, he’d marry her tomorrow but there were a few things that needed done first. Today being one of them.
He lowered his mouth to hers, kissed her softly as his hands molded her, caressed her, as he pressed the hardness of him against her hip. Gently, he combed his fingers through the tight curls between her thighs, teasing her a little as he pressed a kiss to the corner of one of her lovely eyes.
The morning light spilled through the window of the cottage to glow softly on her skin.
Here was his wonder. She was so beautiful. Her mind was incredible. Already there were whispers that Draíochta had a new video game nearly ready for release. The on-line buzz for Chimaera was huge. At its core was a sorceress with tumbling curls that glowed like sunshine and the power to make mortals magicians…
And she was his…
Aidan propped his head up on his free hand, watched her face as he touched her with the other. He loved to watch her golden eyes blur, her lovely body tremble, to see the warm color wash through her skin. Gently, he played with her. She turned her face against his chest, brushed her cheek against it, pressed a kiss there.
Then the first shiver of ecstasy touched her and her head fell back, a breath sighing out of her.
He had only to lower his head and her breast was just there where he could catch the nipple between his teeth to nibble lightly.
Ali quivered as Aidan’s fingers slid down between her thighs, dipped inside her before sliding up to brush against the sensitive folds between them, seeking. A breath shuddered out of her as he found her most secret places and stroked. His fingers slid down, teased at the center of her, in a little, out, as small jolts of pleasure shot through her. His mouth closed around her nipple and he suckled.
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