Still, it would be preferable if she were not caught; how embarrassing, after she’d let so much time elapse! It wasn’t like she could pretend she hadn’t heard him, or she’d been taking a quick nap, or she’d only just that second been beamed down from an alien spacecraft.
Step one, therefore, bearing in mind how the intruder’s steel toe tips clacked on the floor, was to remove her similarly audible ice-pick heels. She slipped her feet, one at a time, out of her gold stilettos, then paused to listen. All she could hear was the whisper of canvases being shifted, interspersed with those murmurs of appreciation.
So far, so good.
She bent down for her shoes and felt her dress pull threateningly across her hips. Don’t tear, please don’t … ah, good! She straightened, shoes in one hand, phone in the other, and paused again. The oohing and cooing in the next row continued. Excellent. She took three silent steps, only to remember—duh!—her evening bag. She looked back, saw it where she’d placed it, on the floor beside the footstool.
Keeping her eyes trained on the end of the row, she edged backwards and adjusted her stance as she considered how best to get her bag while having both hands occupied. Care-ful-ly. She braced her phone hand on the footstool, only to feel another dangerous pull across her hips. This was not going to work. She moved fractionally and the footstool castors gave a little squeak. Uh-oh. Footstool moving. Footstool rolling. Footstooooool—
‘Oof.’ The sound huffed out of her as she landed facedown on the floor. And then she just lay there. One hand still clutched her shoes. The other was stretched out as if reaching for her phone, which had clattered along the floor and slid to a stop at around the halfway mark.
For one long moment, nothing happened.
Had the guy, by some miracle, been too engrossed to hear anything? Cautiously, Sarah pushed up onto her knees … and that’s when she heard those blasted steel toe tips.
So he’d not only heard her, he was on his way to find her, too. Not hurrying, just heading slowly down his aisle, turning at the end, coming towards hers. Stopping.
And there they were. His shoes. Black leather. Perfectly laced, perfectly polished. Nonchalantly classy. Could a pair of shoes look at ease? Because his did. Just hanging out at the end of the aisle asking ‘What’s up?’ in their silent, shoe-like way.
Her eyes moved up, over dark charcoal pants, immaculately fitted suit jacket, tie in red and purple. Red and purple, red and pur-oh.
She’d seen that tie. She knew that tie. Her eyes kept moving along their upward trajectory anyway, because they couldn’t seem to stop. Chiselled, clean-shaven jaw. Slightly hollowed cheeks with the—gulp—dimples.
Hot banker guy.
The man Lane said was so legendary a bed partner, women were lining up for a taste of any body part he cared to offer for their delectation. The man Lane intended to seduce. The man who was, therefore, Adam’s enemy—and by extension, Sarah’s enemy.
‘It’s Sarah, right? Sarah Quinn?’ he asked, and smiled his I’m-so-charming dimpled smile. ‘Lane’s friend? I’m David Bennett. From the bank. Lane’s colleague. We met out in the gallery.’
As though David Bennett didn’t know that every woman at the party knew exactly who he was! The moment Sarah had been introduced to him, his classical good looks, elegantly lean frame, perfect hair and those dimples had walloped her over the head and she’d despaired. How was Adam supposed to compete with a guy who not only looked like that, but was also intelligent, debonair, charismatic, and had the impudence to be friendly, as well, despite Adam glowering at him like the Prince of Darkness?
‘Yes, I remember you,’ Sarah said, and tried her best to inject some hostility into it for her brother’s sake.
But her attempt must have been unconvincing, because David Bennett dared to smoulder as he started towards her, scooping up her phone without breaking stride. ‘And here you are on your knees, waiting for me. Nice.’
David was laughing as he homed in on his quarry—but only on the inside. He didn’t want to make her any grumpier with him than she already was by laughing out loud, but God, how he wished he could. After all his artistic babbling since he’d entered the storeroom, aimed at encouraging her to give up, step out and show herself, in the end she’d done it via a face-plant without any help from him.
Ah well, the result would be the same. She just didn’t know it yet.
It had been intensely frustrating knowing he needed Sarah Quinn in the first instant of meeting her out in the gallery, and in the next instant knowing just as surely she wasn’t going to play ball. Just one conscious look from her was enough to tell David she knew he’d been angling to get her friend Lane into bed. Not that every girl would view him as off limits in such circumstances, but coupled with the tempestuous dynamic between Lane and the brother, Adam, David didn’t like his odds.
He’d wondered whether some concentrated flirting would get Sarah onside, but hadn’t had the chance to find out; she’d hauled Lane away posthaste as though he’d give them both a disease if they stayed in his orbit, had remained frustratingly out of reach for the next twenty minutes, and then pulled a Cinderella and disappeared.
As much as you could ‘disappear’, wearing a dress that stuck out like a bolt of bright lightning in a sea of drab.
But David had seen where she was heading and kept his eyes surreptitiously on the path she’d taken as he’d beguiled the bank’s VIP clients for the next half-hour, waiting for her to reappear.
She hadn’t reappeared, however, so when Anthea from the bank’s investor relations department had made her third beeline for him with seduction in her eyes, he’d finally run out of patience and headed in search of his quarry.
And here she was. Small but perfectly formed Sarah Quinn. Like a present, gift-wrapped and delivered on her knees—a position he’d happily take himself if it would get him what he wanted faster.
Not that Sarah was staying on her knees. She was scrambling up—not an easy feat in that dress. And she was looking at him like he was the enemy. He was going to have to change that. Charm, flirtation, seduction. Humour, intellect, intensity. He had no idea what approach was most likely to work, but he was ready to try them individually and severally until he found the right lure.
‘Yes, I recall what you said about getting blown when you came in,’ she said coolly, and her right eyebrow quirked up in that way that had already intrigued him. Like a sideways question mark, complete with a tiny black beauty spot forming a decisive full stop at the end. ‘But there must have been a lot of women out there proposing service on their knees if you can’t distinguish between the ones who were offering and the ones who weren’t.’
‘I’d say a few rather than a lot,’ he said, all self-effacement as he battled a smile he knew she wouldn’t appreciate when she was trying so hard to sound disdainful.
He heard Sarah give a tiny choke, as though a laugh had taken her by surprise.
Good start.
He fixed a hopeful look on his face. ‘But are you quite, quite sure you weren’t among the ones offering?’
‘Quite, quite sure,’ she said, and rolled her bright blue eyes in a way he guessed she thought was condescending—but somehow was not.
‘Then my hopes are dashed,’ he said dramatically. ‘At least tell me who my rival is.’
‘Your …? Huh?’
‘The man you’re waiting