to say.
To Holly, balancing her boxes like a circus pro, the atmosphere between the two men blasted down the corridor like a fireball. They were at the far end, outside the board room. Two men in city suits: one small and anxious, one tall and dark and icily contained, as if holding his breath to withstand a blow.
Holly was not quite sure how she knew he was bracing himself. His high-cheekboned face was impassive. But somehow she did. It was the way he stood. She had a vivid impression of a man using every ounce of strength to keep the lid on some inflammable substance and not being sure the lid would hold. It was alarming.
I’m glad it wasn’t me who made him look like that, she thought, oddly shaken.
His companion said in English, ‘I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t think. I’m an idiot.’
For a moment, the tall man did not answer. Then he said, ‘Conference room fever.’
And she knew the moment of danger had passed.
His companion did not seem so sure. He looked up at the tall man doubtfully.
‘In fact, look on the bright side. At least you’ve got us out of another forty-eight hours in there.’
Holly put one hand up to steady her precarious tower of boxes and marched towards them.
‘Forty-eight hours?’ The other man echoed, horrified. ‘Oh, Jack, surely it won’t take that long.’
Holly realised something else about the tall, intimidating stranger. He was gorgeous. Tough, yes; dangerously controlled, undoubtedly. But, beyond argument, gorgeous.
She frowned. Holly did not like gorgeous men. For very good reasons.
‘I knew I’d made them mad. But forty-eight hours?’
Gorgeous Jack was cynical. ‘Once you let bureaucrats start talking, it will last until they go home.’
The smaller man groaned. ‘If only we didn’t have to do this.’
Jack gave a sudden snort of laughter. ‘What we need is a friendly millionaire who believes in forward planning. Failing that, the International Disaster Committee is the best we’ve got.’
Holly had reached them.
‘Excuse me,’ she said from behind her boxes.
She was standing at Jack’s shoulder. The boxes tilted, catching against the canvas bag she wore looped across her body. She compensated, tilting in the other direction. Which might have made her voice muffled. Or maybe they were just too engrossed in their own affairs to notice.
Either way, they did not hear her.
‘If only I hadn’t put their backs up,’ said the second man wretchedly.
‘Not difficult with bureaucrats. They—’
‘Excuse me.’
‘—play status games all the—’ Jack swung round impatiently. ‘What is it?’
His eyes glittered like black diamonds. Holly was transfixed. Even with her boxes rocking off balance, she could not wrest her eyes away.
Gorgeous was not the word. And her instincts were sound: he looked hard, all right. The bone structure was that of a Greek god and, by the look of it, so was the temper. She could imagine people quailing under the intensity of that hooded gaze.
Well, she did not quail easily. She shifted her burden to one side and glared right back at him.
‘May I get past?’
Fierce dark eyes swept over her like a forest fire.
Most people would have blenched. Holly congratulated herself on the difference between herself and most people. She also congratulated herself on not folding up against the wall of the corridor and trying to squeeze meekly past them.
She tapped her foot, to the imminent danger of her boxes.
‘Now. Please.’ It was still just polite. Technically, anyway.
For a moment, Gorgeous Jack surveyed Holly with unnerving concentration.
Holly had always been quick to flare up, even before she’d honed her defensive skills in the battlefield that was her father’s house. Now her temper went onto a slow burn. She stopped pretending to be polite.
‘Now!’
To her fury, he was more alert than she was. He was already moving when Holly felt the boxes finally shift out of balance. Before they could topple, he had swept round and lifted them out of her arms.
He looked down at her, waiting.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She sounded as if she were being strangled.
His mouth twitched. ‘You’re welcome.’ But he did not let the incident interrupt his real interest. Over the top of the boxes, he said to his companion, ‘Don’t beat up on yourself, Ramon.’
Ramon hardly seemed to notice Holly. He was frowning and clearly full of guilt.
‘I should have let you handle it. I flew off the handle.’
Jack shrugged elegantly suited shoulders. The movement, Holly saw with fury, did not even stir the pile of boxes he was holding.
‘You lost focus. Can happen to anyone.’ He sent Holly a brief, indifferent glance. ‘Where are these supposed to go?’
Holly tried to feel grateful. It was not easy.
‘The front desk said it was the office at the end,’ she muttered.
The tall man turned without a word.
‘They’re for some guy called Armour.’ But she was talking to his back.
Great, she thought. Stand back, you poor creature, and let a big strong man take control. She had a long and justified prejudice against masterful men, too. She could have kicked him.
The man called Ramon pattered along beside him, taking two steps to every long stride.
‘But surely they still can’t keep us hanging about here for forty-eight hours?’ He sounded as if he was about to burst into tears.
‘They can try.’
Jack came to the impressive double doors at the end of the corridor and shouldered his way in without even a token knock. Nor, noted Holly, did he bother to acknowledge anyone in the secretariat that he had just invaded.
He dropped the boxes on the nearest desk and said generally, ‘Is that where you want them?’
Holly was tempted, childishly, to say no it wasn’t. Fortunately, the room’s elegant chief occupant took charge before Holly could go to war.
She rose and rushed forward, flustered out of her professional calm.
‘Oh, Mr Armour. I didn’t realise…Yes, there would be fine.’
Holly realised she knew her. Señora Martinez had ordered in from Chez Pierre before. She was multilingual, super-efficient and famously unflappable.
She did not look unflappable now. One casual look from those fierce dark eyes and she was stammering like a schoolgirl.
‘There are messages…The Director was asking…But I thought you’d still be with the committee…’
Holly watched in astonishment. Gorgeous Jack must be quite something, she thought. Señora Martinez was normally a Madonna of calm.
Now he said cheerfully, ‘The committee threw us out, Elena.’
No sign now of that fury Holly had surprised in the corridor. In fact, he was smiling at Señora Martinez with such conscious charm it set Holly’s teeth on edge.
It worked though. Señora Martinez laughed, blushed and shook her head at him.
‘I’m sure