Was she regretting that long and beautiful night?
Jay watched from the perfect vantage point as she drifted into the room and assorted bigwigs and flunkies began to lavish attention on her. He watched while someone took her wrap and someone else handed her a glass of champagne. He stood as silent and as still as a statue beside the glass-fronted cases containing a king's ransom worth of jewels. His heart was beating hard and loud and steady. And then at last she turned her head and stared straight into his eyes.
Keri felt the breath catch at the back of her throat. He was wearing black jeans, which clung almost indecently to the hard, muscular shafts of his thighs, and a black roll-neck sweater. His jaw was shadowed and dark and his sage eyes were hooded.
Compared to every other man there-all resplendent in their black ties and shockingly expensive suits-he looked about as basic as could be. If she'd needed the perfect illustration of how very different their two worlds were then it was right there, but somehow she didn't care. Because he looked all man-the only man in the room who looked capable of breaking a door down and rescuing a woman. And then making love to her in a way guaranteed to ensure that she would never forget him.
She did her best not to react, not outwardly in any case, but inside her heart was hammering away so violently at her ribcage that she was certain it would be seen through the slippery silk-satin of her gown.
He was looking right at her. The dress she wore was normal for this kind of function, and it moulded itself to her body as if it had been sprayed on. She wore no bra, just two strategically placed pieces of tape which made her small breasts seem to defy gravity, yet she was no more revealingly clothed than any other woman in the room.
So how come she felt completely naked under Jay's scrutiny?
Her cheeks flushing, she turned away to talk to someone before he could see them.
She moved around the room, being introduced to the movers and shakers by the managing director of the diamond firm. Her photo was everywhere-the isolated backdrop of snow had been stunning, as the art director had intended-but all Keri could think about was that a few hours after those photos had been taken she had been naked in Jay's arms, crying out with amazed pleasure.
He hadn't moved from the spot where he was standing, and after half an hour of looking everywhere but there she could stand it no longer. She grabbed a second glass of champagne and wandered over to him.
'Well, hello again,' she said, with a smile she hoped wasn't too unsure. She held the glass out towards him. 'Drink?'
He shook his head. 'No, thanks. I'm driving.'
'Oh.' Now she felt stupid, standing there with both hands full, and maybe he realised that, for he took the glasses from her and put them on the tray of a passing waitress. Did he have an uncanny knack, she wondered, of knowing exactly what a woman wanted at any given time?
'Better?' he murmured.
'Much,' she lied, because 'better' would be the ability to clear the room completely and have the two of them standing there alone. And then, because this situation was so bizarre and unsettling, she gave him a glassy kind of smile. 'Enjoying yourself?'
In a way. The situation was certainly better than before-but maybe that was because she was about as good to look at as he could imagine. 'I'm working. I'm not here to enjoy myself.'
'Shall I go away again, then?'
'No.' He gave a brief smile. 'Did you come alone?'
'I … well, yes.'
A dark brow was raised in question. 'David not here?'
She looked him straight in the eyes, mesmerised by the soft grey-green light. 'David's just a friend.'
'Is he, now?' he questioned softly. Poor David. But her answer changed things, and Jay gave the stealthy smile of a circling predator. 'Maybe we could go for coffee … or something, when it finishes?'
She would have been a liar if she hadn't admitted to being tempted, because she knew that coffee was the last thing he had in mind, and the sight of him was making all kinds of erotic possibilities lick into life. Her mind flicked through a possible scenario. Would he offer to take her back to some tiny flat on the outskirts of the city with only one thing in mind? Or maybe he would suggest going back to her place, where the differences between them would be so glaringly obvious that it might inhibit both of them? She tried to imagine him climbing into her bed, with its rose-scattered brocade counterpane, and that was when her imagination gave up on her.
Had she really thought that things could be as they had been in the cottage, when the reality of their normal lives was so different?
And Keri realised something else in that moment. That it might be the twenty-first century, and women were supposed to be equal to men, but in something they most definitely were not. She did not want a relationship that was based completely and solely on sex. Once had been spontaneous and gorgeous, but anything else on the same terms would be nothing short of seedy.
She gave him a cool look. 'Sorry. I'll be tired by then.'
He would have suggested a remedy for tiredness, but he could see from the chilly expression on her face that she was no longer the accessible woman he had seduced. He realised that she was about to walk away. So, was the sight of his tough, practical persona in a room full of the glitterati enough to have given her second thoughts?
He saw the faint colour which had washed over her high cheekbones and the hectic glitter of her eyes. No, it was not. 'How about lunch?' he suggested.
Keri blinked up at him in surprise. 'Lunch?'
'I think we've established the fact that you can eat, given the motivation.'
She felt the sudden quickening of her pulse. Had he deliberately said that to remind her of the sensual food-fest they had indulged in?
But lunch wasn't seedy-lunch was civilised-though he did somehow stretch the definition of the word civilised. And it was certainly safer than dinner.
'I can do lunch,' she agreed.
'Monday?'
'Why not?'
'I know a place in Docklands, overlooking the water. It's pretty, and it's close to where I work.'
So he was seeing her on his lunchbreak! Keri let out a small sigh of relief. An hour would mean lunch and only lunch, with no time for anything else. And most people were like Jay, she reminded herself. They worked normal hours with normal restraints. 'We could just go for a sandwich, then,' she said understandingly.
He gave a small smile. 'There's a place called Carter's on the river-do you know it?'
She shook her head. 'No, but I can find it.'
'Okay. I'll see you in there at one.' He slid his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and withdrew a card. 'Here's my number-call me if you get held up.'
As she took the card from him their fingers brushed and it was electric, her skin tingling with just that brief contact. Her head jerked up and she saw the inky dilation of his eyes in silent response. Did this happen for him with all women? she wondered desperately. Could he make them melt with a single touch?
'I'll see you at one,' she agreed, and walked away from him, back across the ballroom, her heart thundering with excitement as she asked herself if she was walking straight into trouble.
It felt like the first date she had ever been out on. On Sunday night Keri had slept badly and woke as soon as it was light, and, terrified of going back to sleep and not leaving herself enough time, she over-compensated and arrived in Docklands with an hour to spare.
The winter weather was unforgiving. A soft, cold haze of rain ruled out a pre-lunch walk, she thought, looking out at the troubled waters of the Thames. There was no art gallery close enough to while away the minutes and no shops to wander aimlessly around. Maybe he could shift his lunchbreak around? Oh, what the hell.
She pulled her mobile out of her pocket and tapped in his number. He picked it up on the second ring.
'Jay Linur.'
'Jay? It's Keri. The traffic was better than I thought and I'm here-is there any chance you could knock off a little early?'
There was a pause.
'Why don't you come up to the office?' he said at last. 'I have some paperwork which I must get done.'