Midnight Wedding

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 jacket 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.’