The Morning After

‘You were watching me earlier,’ she said half-accusingly. ‘And you know my name.’

He smiled at that, the wry—yes, it was wry—amusement deepening in his eyes. ‘But you are a very beautiful woman, Miss Lacey,’ he pointed out. ‘Your face and your body can be seen plastered on billboards all over the world. Of course I know your name.’ He gave a small shrug of those wide, white-clad shoulders. ‘I would expect every red-blooded man alive to recognise you on sight.’

‘Except that all those other men do not make a point of stalking me all evening,’ she pointed out.

His attention sharpened. ‘Are you by any chance trying to imply something specific?’ he enquired carefully.

Was she? She was by nature very suspicious of men in general. This one seemed to have gone out of his way to be where he was right now.

‘Perhaps you suspect me of spilling the champagne deliberately?’ he suggested, when Annie did not say anything.

‘Did you?’ Cool blue eyes threw back a challenge.

He smiled—the kind of noncommittal smile that tried to mock her for even thinking such a thing about him. But she was not convinced by it, or put off.

‘Things like it have happened before,’ she told him. ‘In my business you collect nut cases like other people collect postage stamps.’

‘And you see me as the ideal candidate for that kind of weird behaviour?’ He looked so amused by the idea that it made her angry.

‘You can’t tell by just looking at them, you know,’ she snapped. ‘They don’t have “crazy man” stamped on their foreheads to give me a clue.’

‘But in your business, Miss Lacey, you must surely accept that kind of thing as merely par for the course.’

‘And therefore relinquish the right to care?’

He offered no answer to that, but his eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her as though he was making a quick reassessment of something he had already set in his mind about her, and a small silence fell.

Annie turned her head away to stare out the cab window so that she did not have to try and read what that reassessment was about. Why, she wasn’t sure, except…

She sighed inwardly. She knew why. She’d looked away because he disturbed her oddly. His dark good looks disturbed her. The way he had been staring at her earlier disturbed her. His shocking kisses had disturbed her, awakening feelings inside her that she had honestly believed she did not possess.

The black cab rumbled on, stopping and starting in London’s busy night traffic. People were out in force, the warm summer night and the fact that it was tourist season in the city filling the streets with life. Pub doors stood wedged open to help ease the heated air inside rooms packed with casually dressed, enviably relaxed people. Cafes with their pavements blocked continental-style by white plastic tables had busy waiters running to and fro, and the sights and smells and sounds were those of a busy international metropolis, all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds mingling in a mad, warm bustle of easy harmony.

She sighed softly to herself, wishing that she could be like them, wishing that she could walk out and mingle inconspicuously with the crowd and just soak up some of that carefree atmosphere. But she couldn’t. Her looks were her fortune, and therefore were too well-known—as the man sitting beside her had just pointed out. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with a scarf covering her head, she would still be recognised. She knew because she’d tried it.

The trouble was, she decided heavily, she was becoming weary of the life she led, the restrictions that life placed on her. Tired of an image that she had created for herself which meant her always having to be on her guard with people—people like the man sitting beside her.

‘The champagne caught your hair.’ The sudden touch of light fingers on a sticky tendril of hair just by her left ear had Annie reacting instinctively.

She jerked violently away from his touch. He went very still, his strange eyes narrowing on her face with an expression that she found difficult to define as he slowly lowered his hand again, long, blunt-ended fingers settling lightly on his own lap.

A new silence began to fizz between them, and Annie did not know what to say to break it. There was something about this man that frightened her—no matter how much she tried to tell herself that she was being paranoid about him. Even that touch—that light, innocent brush of his fingers against her hair—had filled her with the most incredible alarm. Her heart was hammering too, rattling against her ribs with enough force to restrict her breathing.

She bit down on her lower lip, even white teeth pressing into lush, ruby-coloured flesh, and her dusky lashes lowered to hide her discomfort as warm colour began to seep into her cheeks.

Then the cab made a sharp turn, and she saw with relief that they were turning into a narrow cobbled street of pretty, whitewashed cottages, one of which was her own.

Almost eagerly she shifted towards the edge of the seat so that she could jump out just as soon as they stopped. The sound of soft laughter beside her made her throw a wary glance at her companion.

He was smiling, ruefully shaking his sleek dark head. ‘I am not intending to jump on you, you know,’ he drawled. ‘I assure you I do possess a little more finesse than to seduce my women in the back seats of black cabs. And,’ he went on, before Annie could think of a thing to say in reply, ‘I did think my behaviour exemplary enough to give me gallant-knight status if nothing else.’

He thought those kisses in the hotel foyer exemplary behaviour? She didn’t. And he could sit there smiling that innocently mocking smile as long as he wanted to, but she would not lower her guard to him. Her senses were just too alert to the hidden danger in him to do that.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said coolly. ‘But gallant knights are so few and far between that a girl does not expect to meet one these days.’

The taxi came to a stop outside her tiny mews cottage then—thankfully. Because she was suddenly very desperate to get away from this strange, disturbing man.

But as she went to slip off his jacket and opened her mouth to utter some polite little word of thanks for his trouble he stopped her.

‘No.’ His hand descended onto her shoulder to hold his jacket in place. ‘Keep it until we arrive at your door,’ he quietly advised, sending a pointed glance at the cab driver. ‘One can only imagine what the champagne has done to the fabric of your dress by now.’

She went pale, remembering that awful moment when she’d caught the cab driver’s gaze fixed on her breasts, so transparently etched against her sodden dress.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered, clutching the jacket back around her.

He said nothing, opening the taxi door and stepping out, then turning to help her join him before he bent to pass some money through the driver’s open window. Annie supposed that she should offer to pay the fare, but somehow this man gave the impression that he would not appreciate such egalitarian gestures. There was an air of the old-fashioned autocrat about him—an indomitable pride in the set of those wide shoulders flexing beneath the white dress shirt as he straightened and turned back to face her.

She shuddered, feeling oddly as though something or someone had just walked over her grave.

‘Y-you should have held the taxi,’ she murmured stiffly as the black cab rumbled off down the street, belching out pungent diesel fumes as it went.

If he picked up on her unspoken warning—that if he was standing in the belief that she was going to invite him into her home then he was mistaken—he did not show it, merely shrugging those big shoulders dismissively as he turned towards her black-painted front door.

‘Your key?’ he prompted.

Disconcerted by his calm indifference to any hint she had given him, she decided grimly not to argue, lowering her pale head to watch her fingers fumble nervously with the tiny catch on her soft gold leather evening bag to get at the key. The quicker she got the door open, the sooner she could get rid of him, she decided, wondering crossly what the heck was the matter with her. She didn’t usually feel like this.

She didn’t usually get herself into crazy situations like this one either. She was very careful not to do so normally.

Normal. What was normal about any of this?

Refusing to allow her fingers to tremble, she fitted the key into the lock, pushed open the door, then forced herself back around to face him. ‘Thank you,’ she said firmly, ‘for bringing me home. And—’ she allowed him a small, dry smile ‘—for saving my embarrassment.’

‘Think nothing of it.’ He sent her a little bow that was pure, old-fashioned gallantry and befitted somehow this tall dark man who reminded her so much of a throwback from another age. South American, maybe? she wondered curiously, then shuddered, not wanting him to be. She had a strange, unexplainable suspicion that it would actually hurt her to find that he might be the same nationality as Alvarez.

If he was aware of her curiosity he did not offer to relieve it. Instead, and with another one of those bows, he held his hand out towards her as though he were going to grab hold and push her into the house.

Defensively she took a big step back, bringing herself hard up against the white-painted stone wall behind her, and almost choking on an uplift of clamouring fear.

‘My jacket,’ he reminded her softly.

Oh, God. Annie closed her eyes, angry with herself because she knew that she was behaving like an idiot and really had no reason for it. He had, as he had pointed out, shown her exemplary behaviour over the whole messy incident!

Except for those kisses, she reminded herself tensely. Those kisses had not been exemplary at all.

Lips pressed tightly together over her clenched teeth, she slipped off the jacket and handed it to him. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured without looking at him.

‘My pleasure,’ he drawled, his long fingers sliding delicately over hers as he took the jacket from her. Her own began to tingle, fine, sharp showers of sensation skittering across the surface of her skin to make her tremble as she whipped her arm across her body in an effort to hide herself from those terribly disturbing eyes.