‘The short-haired strawberry-blonde?’
Luc nodded curtly, irritated that he’d even asked the question now, and by the fact that she’d caught his eye. Why? His solicitor knew him too well—knew that Luc never asked a question that wasn’t utterly relevant in some way.
‘That’s Jesse Moriarty. Of JM Holdings.’
Luc frowned, taking in the slim figure of below average height. She was turned sideways to him through the thronged room, and unlike every other woman there was dressed in a dark grey trouser suit. She stood out precisely because she was dressed differently and because she looked acutely self-conscious on her own.
Even from here he could see the pained expression on her face and the almost white-knuckled grip on her glass of champagne—which she wasn’t drinking. She was staring fixedly at something in the distance.
His solicitor must have assumed Luc hadn’t heard of JM Holdings and was explaining. ‘When she does decide to float it, the rumour is that it’ll be worth upwards of fifty-five million. Not bad for someone who emerged onto the jaded IT scene just a few years ago.’
Luc asked now, ‘What’s her background?’
‘She got a scholarship to Cambridge and while she was studying computer science and economics she patented the anti-hacking system that’s now being used as the highest level of security within companies across the globe—not to mention your own company. Some say she’s a genius.’
Luc’s eyes narrowed on the slight figure. She didn’t look like a genius. She looked lost, fragile. Alone in the crowd. He was surprised by a surge of something that felt curiously protective within him, as if he wanted to go over there and take her hand.
His solicitor was saying in a low voice, ‘She’s known by those who work for her as The Machine. In her personal dealings she’s rumoured to be positively arctic—no mention of love affairs … my money says she’s gay—’
His solicitor broke off as he was accosted by someone he knew; he shot Luc an apologetic glance as he was led away. Luc welcomed it. He didn’t care for that kind of lazy commenting on women, and wasn’t the kind of man who felt uncomfortable standing alone. He was aware of the sudden interest in the women nearby now that he was alone, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off Jesse Moriarty.
He’d heard of JM Holdings. Of course he had. The supposedly unhackable security system she’d devised was genius. He’d just never imagined that the notoriously publicity-shy person behind JM Holdings would be this slight and very young-looking woman.
At that moment she broke her gaze from whatever she’d been staring at and turned to face towards where Luc stood. His whole body tensed. In contrast to the slightly mannish clothes she wore she had a pretty face: heart-shaped, with huge eyes. She looked pale, slightly shellshocked. He saw her put the still full glass onto a passing waiter’s tray and she started to move towards him through the crowd.
He could see as she came closer that she wore a white shirt under her jacket. The look was very classic and cool, and yet utterly unfeminine—especially compared to the women decked out in haute couture finery around her. It was as if she’d wandered into the wrong place, and yet the intent in her expression told him she was definitely in the right place.
She was so close now that he could see just how tense she was, the faint sheen of perspiration on her brow. She wore no make-up, but she didn’t need it with that perfect skin, and that made a jolt of awareness run through his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman with no make-up. It was curiously intimate.
Luc didn’t move a fraction, but as Jesse Moriarty came alongside where he stood someone stepped backwards into her path and she pitched sideways helplessly. Luc’s hands had stretched out even before he knew what he was doing and wrapped around slender upper arms.
Huge eyes widened and stared up into his. They were so dark grey they looked almost navy blue, and for a second Luc forgot everything. Who he was. Where he was. All he could see were those huge eyes and this woman under his hands. He saw two pink flags of colour come into her cheeks, the way her eyes darkened even more. There was something so inexplicably appealing about her that it snuck right under the iron-clad guard Luc had built up over years, which had become like a second skin … When he realised that he jerked back, all but thrusting her away from him as he did so.
He was reacting on a very deep and primitive level to this moment and to how effortlessly she’d managed to enthral him. The only women who enthralled him were women he allowed to enthral him. There was little that was spontaneous about it. So this whole bizarre interlude with a complete relative stranger made his voice unintentionally harsh. ‘You should watch where you’re going.’
He saw hurt and chagrin flare in those huge eyes before her expression cleared and became completely cold. The words of his solicitor came back to him: positively arctic.
She stepped back. Her eyes darted up and down once, quickly, and then she said with a husky tone which caught at Luc’s pulse, ‘It was an accident.’
The look she left him with could have frozen over the Sahara. And then she disappeared into the heaving throng and Luc had an even more curious impulse to snatch her back and—what? Apologise? His conscience mocked him. Was he getting soft in his old age? He knew well that the women who populated his world, whether they be business colleagues or more mercenary types searching for a rich meal ticket, were not vulnerable creatures who wore their hearts on their sleeves or in their huge expressive eyes. Oh, he knew those kind of women existed, but more often than not they were an illusion designed to entrap. He had been entrapped once. But never again.
When he recalled the way Jesse Moriarty had frozen him out so effectively he knew for a fact that she was one of the most invulnerable kind. So why was it so hard for him to get those huge eyes and that slight figure in the unflattering suit out of his mind?
One Year Later …
‘Just what exactly is your interest in JP O’Brien Construction, Mr Sanchis?’
Luc Sanchis sat back in his chair and regarded the bristling woman in front of him, who had just marched into his office as if she owned it and now stood with her hands on his desk, chin stuck forward pugnaciously. The fact that no one ever did this caused a frisson of surprise to run through him.
It had been one year since he’d seen her, and in that year the huge eyes which were looking at him now, spitting dark grey sparks, had proved to be annoyingly memorable. But he was realising that his imagination didn’t live up to reality.
Irritation surged at the unwelcome reminder of momentary human weakness. Even though this was only their second meeting Jesse Moriarty was proving to have a knack for rubbing him up the wrong way. He too stood and placed his hands on his desk, effortlessly asserting his vastly superior height and strength.
‘Ms Moriarty, I suggest that you sit down if you want this conversation to go any further.’
Across the wide oak desk Jesse looked into brown eyes so dark they looked black, and just like last year, when she’d bumped into him at that function, she felt as if she were losing her balance.
The emotional turmoil that had galvanised her to come here and confront him seemed to dissipate, leaving her feeling shaky and very aware of her surroundings. She straightened up and then sat down abruptly in the chair behind her.
She watched as Luc Sanchis took his hands off the desk and sat down too, not taking those remarkable eyes off her for a second. All of a sudden Jesse felt boiling hot in her buttoned-up shirt and jumper. She’d only realised who he was when she’d seen him in a newspaper a few months ago and had put a name to the enigmatic stranger she’d bumped into at that function. The fact that his features had been memorable enough for that to happen had been very disconcerting.
Luc