Alana was completely taken aback, and immediately felt like apologising. But, looking up at him now, she felt that cool wind still washing over her. She could almost believe that she had imagined his hot look of just moments ago. That she had imagined everything leading up to this point. She had an uncanny prescience of what it would be like to be this man’s enemy.
‘Well, I’m … That is, I hadn’t thought that—’
He cut off her inarticulate attempt to apologise. ‘Like I said, my interest in you is purely professional … as far as the interview goes. However …’ He stopped and moved closer. The air around them changed in a heartbeat. Became charged.
Alana sucked in a breath. His eyes were hot again, making her feel very disorientated.
‘I can’t promise that my interest doesn’t extend beyond the professional.’
As with earlier in the stadium, Alana felt as though the huge, packed ballroom had just shrunk around them. Adrenaline pumped through her along with the desire to flee.
‘Mr Lévêque. I’m very sorry, but you see—’
‘Are you married?’ he asked so quickly and abruptly that Alana was stunned.
‘Yes,’ she answered automatically, and saw something dark flash across his face. And then she stepped back and shook her head. What was this man doing to her brain? ‘No. I mean I am, I was, married.’ She bit her lip and looked out to the room briefly, desperately willing Rory to come back and interrupt them. She looked back up at Pascal with the utmost reluctance. His eyes glittered, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. She wondered how they’d got onto such personal territory so quickly, and then his words came back: I can’t promise that my interest doesn’t extend beyond the professional.
A whole host of emotions and memories was threatening to consume her. And the fact that she was here, in an environment so evocative of her past, was quickly becoming claustrophobic. She took a breath, deeply resenting that he was making her talk about this. ‘I was married. My husband died eighteen months ago.’
Pascal opened his mouth as if to say something, and Alana was already tensing in anticipation. But her prayers had been heard, and Rory bounded up at that moment with drinks. He thrust a glass of champagne at Alana before handing what looked like a whiskey to Pascal. And then panic struck. She put the glass on a nearby table, some of the champagne sloshing out over the rim.
She opened her bag to pull her phone out. Ten missed calls. She groaned, ‘I am in so much trouble.’
She turned to Rory. ‘I have to go.’ She looked at Pascal briefly, welcoming the feeling of panic which was distracting her from his overpowering presence.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m already late for another engagement.’
She started backing away, valiantly ignoring Rory’s none-too-subtle facial expressions. She bumped into someone and apologised. She felt her hair come loose from its sleek chignon and pushed it behind her ear. She was literally coming apart.
‘It was nice to … meet you, Mr Lévêque. I look forward to the interview.’ Liar. He just watched her, a small, enigmatic smile playing around that hard mouth, and stuck one hand deep into a pocket. Alana could already see women hovering, ready to move back in again, and something curdled in her stomach.
‘Me, too,’ he said softly, and lifted his glass like a salute—or a threat. ‘Á demain, Alana.’ Till tomorrow.
It was disconcerting to say the least to try and conduct a coherent conversation while the remnants of the hottest lust he’d ever experienced still washed through his body in waves. Even the welcome knowledge that she wasn’t married failed now to impinge on his racing mind. He was still trying to clamp down the intensely urgent desire to know exactly whom she had gone to meet and where. Was it a date?
‘So, what made you decide to ask for Alana Cusack to interview you?’ Her boss, Rory Hogan, the head of the sports division of the national TV channel, laughed nervously. He was beginning to intensely irritate Pascal with his obsequious behaviour—and also by drawing his attention to the uncomfortable fact that, in the space of the short car journey earlier, Pascal had gone from dismissing Alana Cusack from his head to making a series of calls to find out exactly who she was, and then requesting her for his interview the next day.
Following an instinct, he decided not to dismiss this man straight away. ‘I decided to use her because she’s the best reporter you’ve got, of course.’
Rory’s flushed face got even more flushed. ‘Well, thank you. Yes, she is good. In fact, she’s rather surprised us all.’ The other man looked round for a second and then moved closer. Pascal fought against taking a step back; Rory was becoming progressively more drunk.
‘The thing is, you see, she was only given a chance because of who she is.’
Pascal’s interest sharpened. He injected a tone of bored un-interest into his voice. ‘What do you mean?’
Rory laughed and waved an arm around. ‘See all these women hanging on?’
Pascal didn’t have to look; they were practically nipping at his heels. His lip curled with distaste. Situations like this always attracted a certain kind of woman—eager for marriage to a millionaire sportsman, and the platinum-credit-card lifestyle his wages could afford. The women who had achieved that status lorded it over the ones who hadn’t, but it didn’t make them any less predatory.
‘Well, she was one of them. The queen of them, in fact. Y’see, she was married to Ryan O’Connor.’
Pascal sucked in a breath, shocked despite himself. Even he had heard of the legendary Irish soccer-player. That knowledge fought with the mental image of Alana in front of him just now, in that unrevealing black dress that had covered her from neck to knee, her hair as tidy and smooth as it had been earlier.
Rory was on a roll now. ‘When they got married, it was the biggest wedding in Ireland for years. The first big celebrity-wedding. The Irish football team were having back-to-back wins. Alana was seen as their lucky mascot; she went to all the matches. It was an idyllic marriage, a great time … and then she wrecked it all.’ Rory flushed. ‘Well, I mean, I know she’s not personally responsible, but—’
‘What do you mean?’ Pascal was rapidly trying to remember what he knew about Ryan O’Connor, still slightly stunned at what Alana’s boss was revealing.
‘Well, she threw him out, didn’t she? For no good reason. And Ryan went off the rails. Ireland’s luck ran out, and then he died in that helicopter crash just days before the divorce was through. We ended up giving her a job because she was unbelievably persistent, and she knows sports inside out. It’s in her blood; her father played rugby for Ireland.’
Pascal was still trying to reconcile the image he had of Alana with the women around him in their tiny dresses that left little to the imagination. And yet, he could see her now as she’d been backing away just moments ago; she’d been flushed in the face, and a lock of hair had been coming loose. It had been that which had sent his lust levels off the scale. He’d had a tantalising glimpse of her coming undone, of something hot beneath that über-cool surface.
But the thought that she had been one of those women made everything in him contract with disgust. Yet she certainly hadn’t been flirting with him, despite knowing who he was. Unless it was just a tactic. In which case, he vowed to himself now, he’d play with her to see how far she was willing to go and walk away when he’d had enough. One thing was for certain—he wanted to seduce her with an urgency that was fast precluding anything else.
The next day Alana looked at herself in the mirror of the ladies toilet at work. Nervously, and hating herself for feeling nervous, she smoothed her already smooth hair. She’d tied it back in its usual style for work, and now tucked it firmly behind her ears. She leant close to check her make-up. She’d had to put slightly more on than usual today