‘I’m Fintan Malone. You can call me Fin. I’m a friend and colleague of Nick’s. He asked me to look out for you until he got here.’
Ignoring the outstretched hand as a bolt of trepidation shot through her, Brenna didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What devious game was Nick playing with her now? She’d been suffering the most unbearable fear and tension from the moment she’d received that curt formal letter from him six days ago and now, as if to deliberately prolong her agony, he’d sent an emissary in his place. A confident, handsome American with a golden tan no doubt expensively acquired, who she didn’t know the first thing about and didn’t want to know. All she wanted was the opportunity to vent her spleen on Nick, to tell him to go to hell! She didn’t care how much wealth, fame or influence he had now. He wasn’t going to walk roughshod over her a second time. There was no way she was going to let him take Nancy. Not while she had breath left in her body.
‘I don’t need looking out for, Mr Malone, so you seem to have had a wasted journey. It’s Nick I came to see, not some stand-in that he’s sent in his place.’
Without a backward glance Brenna strode away from the door, for once her innate impulse to be polite utterly deserting her. When Fin Malone’s rich- timbred voice arrested her stride, she trembled with fury. If Nick were here now she really wouldn’t be able to trust herself not to do him some damage. Hate was an emotion she normally despised, but right now, God help her, just the thought of the man made her blood boil worse than if a wrecking ball had accidentally demolished her house.
‘I can understand how you must be feeling.’
‘No you can’t!’ Brimming with indignation and rage, she spun round. ‘You have absolutely no idea how I’m feeling. All you need to know is that I’m here under duress and Nicholas Balcon is not getting his hands on my daughter. Not now, not ever. Now you had better just go.’
To her chagrin, Fin Malone stayed put. Like a brick wall stays put. Beneath the crisp white shirt he wore casually with jeans, his muscular biceps strained at the flawless material, drawing Brenna’s gaze even when she didn’t want it to be drawn.
‘Have you eaten?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘It’s just that it’s way past lunchtime and I know you had a long drive to get here. Would you like me to order you some food? I can have it sent up to the room if you like?’
The room? Brenna saw the irony but wasn’t amused. The suite of rooms she’d been shown into by an officious member of the hotel staff was the most luxurious, well-appointed accommodation she’d ever set eyes on, let alone stayed in. With its typically English country-house wallpaper and sumptuous French-polished antique furniture, it was a million miles away from anything that she was accustomed to. This is how the other half lives. This is how Nancy’s father lives, even as Brenna struggled to raise their daughter, to keep the roof over their heads and put food in their mouths.
All the same, she’d never begrudged Nick his success. It had always been a given as far as she was concerned that the man would make it. He was now one of the most sought-after directors in Hollywood – light years away from directing a grammar-school performance of Jane Eyre or Romeo and Juliet with a bunch of eager sixth-formers, and a whole other galaxy away from an affair with a shy and unsophisticated dance teacher who had foolishly once been so besotted with him.
‘I don’t want any lunch, thank you.’ Brenna determinedly swallowed across the cramp in her throat. The fact of the matter was that it would probably choke her if she attempted to eat. Best avoid food for now. At least until she’d calmed down. At least until she knew exactly what twisted little game Nick was playing.
‘Presumably you know when Nick is getting here?’ It was getting harder and harder for her to regard the man in front of her with any sense of ease. It wasn’t every day that a woman was confronted by a man with the physical attributes of a modern-day Hercules as well as movie-star good looks that could certainly make someone even a little less arresting have an inferiority complex. Right now she desperately needed to feel like she was the one in charge so it was even more disconcerting.
‘He got waylaid by something back home but he’s booked on the next flight out.’
‘You mean he’s still in the States?’ Her chin wobbling dangerously, Brenna stared at Fin Malone in disbelief. Just what the blazes was going on?
‘He’s flying out tonight and should be here in the morning.’
In contrast to her own inner turmoil, Fin’s blue eyes reflected implacable calm, like a peaceful ocean without so much as a ripple on the surface to disturb its perfect symmetry.
‘I’ve booked reservations for dinner. They’re for eight-thirty, so I hope you’ll be hungry by then. Is there anything else you need?’
‘Like what, for instance?’
‘Anything.’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘Maybe you’d like some magazines or a book to read?’
Brenna shook her head. ‘I don’t need anything, thank you, and that includes looking after! And you shouldn’t have made dinner reservations without asking me first. If that’s what Nick asked you to do then I’m sorry but you’re wasting your time.’
Her arms crossed her chest, deliberately sending out a signal that she was closing him off from even the remotest chance of friendliness.
‘I wouldn’t be good company anyway. Thanks all the same.’
The glint in Fin Malone’s unsettling crystal-blue eyes caught her off guard. Just what did the man find so amusing? Had she said something funny?
‘Even so, I’ll call for you at eight. We can have a drink in the bar before dinner. By the way, it’s formal attire. I don’t mean to offend you by asking, but did you bring anything suitable to wear?’
Frowning, Brenna thought about the long black evening dress in her suitcase but baulked at the idea of wearing it. She wasn’t sure why she had packed it in the first place, but she supposed at the back of her mind she’d thought that something like this dinner might arise and she hadn’t wanted to appear before her now very successful ex looking like a pauper. Truthfully, she would much prefer staying in her sweater and jeans.
‘Mr Malone, I know you’re doing this as a favour to Nick and please don’t take it personally, but I don’t want to have dinner with you. I came here purely for the purpose of meeting with him and him alone. I don’t want to talk to anybody else. Two days away from my little girl is immensely hard for me, as I’m sure you can appreciate if you have children of your own? I’ve left her with my mother who hasn’t been in the best of health and I’ve also got classes to teach first thing Monday morning. There are things I need to do to prepare for the week on Sunday night.
‘The truth is this is the last place in the world I want to be and I wouldn’t be here at all if it weren’t for that cold-hearted summons from your charming “friend”. So please, why don’t you just go and enjoy your dinner with a much more amenable companion? I’m quite all right here on my own.’
Tucking her dark hair behind her ears, Brenna forced herself to meet Fin Malone’s impenetrable glance without flinching or looking away but everything inside her seemed to clench and tighten unbearably when those flawlessly arresting blue eyes locked onto hers.
‘I’m used to taking care of myself,’ she continued, alarmed at the waver in her voice. ‘Perhaps you’d just be good enough to let me know as soon as you hear from Nick? I’m anxious to get our business over and done with and then go home.’
Instead of responding immediately, Fin crossed his arms casually over the wide muscular chest that was just one of his disturbing physical attributes and smiled.
Why didn’t he seem to be taking her seriously? Was he one of those irritating