The Billionaire Bodyguard(18)

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.'