on a friend’s invitation. He said the food would be good.”
“I trust you found that to be true,” she said, a hint of ice creeping into her voice.
This man had rescued her, and she was genuinely grateful. Her initial inclination, which had been to view him as some kind of knight in shining armor, seemed to be fading.
Of course, she was well aware that most knights had been lacking in the courtly graces. Their forte had been the battlefield. She could hardly deny his skill there.
“You plan the menu?” He leaned forward, putting his arms on the top of the SUV.
“I was on the committee,” she said stiffly.
“Could I make a suggestion?”
“About the menu?” There was something surreal about the conversation, considering what had just transpired.
“Fewer frills and more substance.”
Despite her anger of a moment ago, she felt a tinge of sympathy. Dinner probably had seemed meager to a man his size. The appetizer had consisted of three large prawns, a dollop of crabmeat and a couple of avocado slices. The entrée, a nice piece of sole, had been surrounded by a selection of lightly sautéed vegetables. She had left food on her plate, but by no stretch of the imagination could the meal be called substantial.
“Steak and potatoes,” she said, deliberately lightening her voice.
“It’s hard to go wrong with a good steak. Especially at those prices.”
“I’ll ask the committee to take it under advisement,” she promised, controlling her urge to smile.
“Almost makes me wish I could be at next year’s shin-dig.”
Something subtle about his intonation indicated he was aware she was patronizing him. It made her feel like a jerk.
“What happened to your shawl?”
“Stole,” she corrected automatically, welcoming the change of subject.
Her eyes considered the concrete ramp that stretched in front of the SUV. Even with the headlights shining down it, she couldn’t see a thin spill of red anywhere.
Her purse was also down there, she remembered. And more important, so was her wallet.
There was nothing in either that was irreplaceable, but it would be a hassle. Besides, they should still be there. She doubted those thugs had had the presence of mind after he’d finished with them to search for them on their way out.
“My evening bag’s down there,” she said. “Somewhere between the foot of the ramp and the elevator.”
She turned her head, focusing again on the man in the darkness on the other side of the car.
“They snatched your purse?”
“I threw it to them. I thought maybe they’d take it and let me go, but…I don’t think they were after money.”
For some reason, she wasn’t comfortable putting into words what she believed their motives were. Not to him.
“Maybe they wanted that.”
He had inclined his head in her direction, but it took a couple of seconds before she figured out what he meant. She reached up to touch the replica of the diamond necklace Hepburn had worn in the movie. The central stone, had it been real, would have been between fifteen or twenty carats.
“It’s paste.”
“You think they knew that?”
It made sense. As much as anything about tonight.
“I’ll get your purse,” he said. He slammed the rear door of the SUV, the sound echoing under the overhang as the driver’s side door had earlier.
Only when he started down the ramp did she realize she was about to be left up here alone. Although the headlights illuminated the ramp, the area behind his car was dark and shadowed. She shivered, remembering the hard fingers of the boy closing around her arm.
“I’ll show you where he threw it.”
She had already taken a step, attempting to catch up with him, before she realized she still held her sandal in her hand. It would take longer to put it on than to take the other off.
Balancing on one foot, she slipped the second shoe off as she watched him walk down the concrete incline. The fabric of the tux, illuminated by the car lights, emphasized the play of muscle in his back and shoulders. Regretfully pulling her eyes away, she laid her shoes on the hood of his car. Then, picking up her skirt as she’d done before, she hurried after him.
He slowed briefly, plucking her stole off the railing where it must have landed when she’d dropped it. Without stopping, he held it out to her. The wisp of fabric looked very delicate dangling from those long, dark fingers.
She grabbed the stole as he let it trail behind him and wrapped the material around her shoulders as he continued to stride ahead of her.
When he reached the end of the ramp, he turned toward the elevator area where there was more light. Apparently he spotted her bag and wallet at the same time she did.
She glanced nervously toward the outside exit to the deck, still expecting the reappearance of her assailants. When she looked back, the man who had rescued her had already picked up her belongings and was holding them out to her.
For the first time she could see his face. He was dark enough that there was already the shadow of a beard on his lean cheeks. A discoloration, which she suspected would become a very colorful bruise by morning, marred the line of his jaw.
She raised her eyes from that injury to meet his. A cut, still bleeding sluggishly, had been opened above his right brow. Under it, the eye was beginning to puff.
Despite that, a jolt like the one she’d felt as she’d met those same dark eyes while descending the runway stairs tonight seared a path like lightning through her chest.
Same eyes. Same force-field intensity. Same man.
Chapter Three
“I’m John Edmonds, by the way.”
“Kelly Lockett.”
He didn’t make another jibe about her name, despite the fact that this was the second time she’d given it. She hadn’t liked the crack he’d made before, and in all honesty, he couldn’t blame her.
From everything he’d read, and that had been quite a bit since Griff had given him this assignment, she had never embraced the Lockett lifestyle. She might have rejected their example of conspicuous consumption, but it was clear, both by her comments from the dais about her brother and her reaction to his remark, that her rejection hadn’t extended to her family.
“You told me,” he said.
Watching her blush would have been highly diverting in other circumstances. The color started just above the top of the strapless gown and spread upward. It wasn’t blotchy or unbecoming, just a flush of pink under the smooth porcelain of her skin.
It was increasingly obvious why they’d chosen the Hepburn gown for her. There was a resemblance both in the glossy, dark hair, arranged tonight in a classic French twist, and in those big brown eyes. And her features had the same kind of elegant purity.
The only difference was there was nothing in the least waif-like about Kelly Lockett. She was slim, but undeniably a woman. She filled out the bodice of the red dress in a way the actress never had.
“You should check that everything’s there,” he suggested, slightly lifting the purse and billfold he was holding out to her, one in each hand.
“He didn’t want anything,” she said, reaching out to retrieve them. “He thumbed through the money and then tossed the bag aside without taking it out.”
As