Sean followed the direction of Annika’s gaze and stood there, chuckling.
Judging by the number of people clustered around the buffet table, there was obviously something exciting going on. Sean could see Rob’s head in the crowd but Dee had emerged from the tea rooms wearing far more practical flat gold sandals. Practical, but it also meant that in a room of tall men she was the orchid shaded by the tall trees.
Except that this was one girl who would always stand out in a crowd.
Especially when she was wearing a gold silk sari, gold jewellery and an azure-and-gold bodice which revealed a tantalizing band of the same taut skin he had admired back in the bedroom.
She took his breath away.
This was no clone. This was a real woman showing that she could act the part when she needed to, and revealing yet another side to her personality that he could never have imagined existed.
He had spent the week learning about one side of Dee Flynn. The woman who had taken a risk with her friend and transformed a simple patisserie into something spectacular. Doing what she loved to do, capitalizing on her passion. On her own terms.
When had he last met a woman like that? Not often. Maybe never. Oh, he had met plenty of glossy-haired girls with high IQs who had claimed they were doing what they truly loved, but so few people knew what they wanted in their twenties that it was astonishingly rare.
He had known precisely what he wanted from the first day he’d walked into his dad’s hotel. His career path had been as clear as a printed map. He was going to do exactly what his father had done, start at the bottom and work his way up, even if he was the son of the owner of the hotel chain.
Dee Flynn had done the same.
Maybe that was why he connected with the tiny woman he was looking at now.
They were different from other people.
Different and special.
He was in awe, and ready to admit that to anyone.
Sean stood in silence as the chatting, smiling men and women in business suits who worked for his family filled the space that separated them. But his gaze was locked on one person. And it was not Rob, who seemed to be holding court.
He could hear his brother’s familiar roar of laughter warm the room, but Sean’s ears were tuned only to Dee’s sweet laugh which was like a hot shower.
His senses were razor-sharp. And, as the cluster broke up, he caught sight of her.
She was looking around the room. Looking for him.
She winked at him with a wry smile, shrugged her shoulders and then turned to laugh at something Rob said before they were swallowed up by the trainees and older managers enjoying the delicious food and drink, only too happy to meet the celebrity chef Rob Beresford in person.
The last thing he saw was the slight tilt of her head and a flash of gold silk as she sashayed elegantly away from him.
Dervla Flynn was turning out to be one of the most remarkable women he had ever met in his life, and the last ten minutes had only served to increase his admiration.
He was totally in awe.
Then she slipped out of view as Rob and the whole entourage joined his father in the dining area, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Strange that he was even now reliving that moment when her body had been pressed against his arm.
Strange how he was still standing in the same spot five minutes later, watching the space where she had last stood. Waiting. Just in case he could catch a glimpse of her again, the most beautiful woman in the room.
For that he was prepared to wait a very long time.
* * *
It seemed like ten minutes had gone by, but when the sitar music sang out from the mobile phone in her embroidered bag Dee was shocked to see that she had been swept up with Rob and his dad, talking food and drink, for over an hour.
There was a text message on the screen:
Ready to escape the noise and crush and get some air? Meet you at the elevator in five minutes. Sean
Sean! She had been so engrossed that she had only spent ten minutes with her date the whole evening. Quickly gathering up her skirts, Dee excused herself and skipped up the steps, and instantly caught sight of Sean, who was beckoning to her.
In a moment he had drawn her into the lift and pressed a card into a slot on the lift button before giving her a quick hug.
‘Do you remember that penthouse suite I was trying to talk you into? Well, I seem to recall that this hotel has a private penthouse worth seeing. If you are willing to risk it?’
‘Risk it?’
‘It’s the eighteenth floor, which means a quick trip inside a lift,’ he whispered, and grinned at her shocked reaction. ‘But it does have a balcony.’
And what a balcony!
Dee stepped out onto a long, tiled terrace, and what she saw in front of her took her breath away.
The rain had cleared to leave a star-kissed, cool evening. And stretched out, in every direction, was London. Her city. Dressed and lit, bright, shiny and sparking with street lamps, advertisements and the lights from homes and offices.
It was like something from a movie or a wonderful painting. A moment so special that Dee knew instinctively that she would never forget it.
She grasped hold of the railing and looked out over London, her heart soaring, all doubt forgotten in the exuberant joy of the view.
It was almost a shock to feel a warm arm wrap a coat around her shoulders and she turned sideways to face Sean with a grin, clutching onto his sleeve.
‘Have you seen this? It’s astonishing. I love it.’ Dee breathed.
‘I know. I can see it on your face.’
Then he moved closer to her on the balcony, his left hand just touching the outstretched fingers of her right hand.
But Sean was looking up at the stars.
‘Last February it was snowy and cloudy for the whole of the three weeks that I was back in London. But tonight? Tonight is perfect.’
‘This is amazing. I had no idea that you could see skies like this in London. I thought the light pollution would block out the stars.’
And she followed his gaze just in time to see a shooting star streak across the sky directly above their heads, and then another, smaller this time, then another.
‘A meteor shower. Sean! Look!’
‘What is it, Dee?’ he asked, his mouth somewhere in the vicinity of her hair. ‘Have you made a wish on a shooting star? What does your heart yearn to do that you haven’t done yet?’
‘Me? Oh, I had such great plans when I was a teenager and the whole world seemed to be an open door to whatever I wanted. My parents loved their work, and I was so happy for them when they decided to retire and run their own tea gardens. Warmth. Sunshine. They could not have been happier.’
She wrapped her arms tight around her body. ‘But then the hard reality of running a business in a recession where tea prices are falling hit. And they lost it. They lost everything they had dreamt of. And it was so hard to see them in pain, Sean. So very hard.’
‘But they stayed. Didn’t they?’
She nodded. ‘They won’t come back unless they have to and if they did... It would break them. And that is what scares me.’
She lifted her head and rested it on Sean’s chest. ‘I know that I am in a different place in my life, and there are lots more opportunities out there