Midnight Wedding

Behind her Ramon laughed. ‘Ouch.’

Holly flushed furiously. She could feel her ears tingle with it. There was a microsecond when she wanted to throw things, make him eat his words, make him look at her. Look and see more than a delivery robot.

Then the practical Holly reasserted herself. Reluctantly she curbed her temper. Pierre would never forgive her if she kicked a client. He might even sack her and she needed the job. She would have to get out of there before the temptation to hit him became overwhelming.

She almost snatched the docket from Señora Martinez and stuffed it into the canvas bag. It was full of flyers for the club where she worked in the evening. She was supposed to be circulating them. She had almost forgotten until now. With a gasp of guilt, she looked at her watch, clutched the bag to her and fled.

Another black mark in a bad, bad day.

First, a late night playing the flute at Le Club Thaïs had made her oversleep. Then there had been a delay on the Metro. By the time she’d got to work Chef Pierre had been growling with fury over intruders who interrupted his baking, the phone had been ringing off the wall and no one had even started to make up the day’s orders.

And then, to cap it all, a tall dark stranger who looked as if he’d just stepped out of a dream, had scored an easy point off her because she’d let her temper out of its cage.

No more temper, Holly vowed, punching the elevator button as if it were a personal enemy. ‘No more smart remarks.’

‘A message from the Chair, Mr Armour.’

Señora Martinez was wary as she handed over a sheet of paper. The Chair always said Jack Armour was a tough negotiator but Elena Martinez had never seen him anything other than charming before. She did not know why he had challenged the young delivery girl like that. She felt sorry for her.

Jack opened the paper and scanned it rapidly.

‘You and I,’ he told Ramon in a dry voice, ‘have got the afternoon off. The committee does not want us back.’

Ramon looked as if he might cry.

Elena Martinez said helplessly, ‘But of course you are welcome to…’ She gestured at the boxes Holly had brought.

Jack grinned suddenly. ‘No, thanks. We’ll pass on the picnic. The committee can have our share.’ He buffeted Ramon lightly between the shoulder blades. ‘No need to look like that. We can go play, now.’

Roman protested. ‘But the committee, the contract…’

Jack laughed aloud. ‘The committee has my mobile number and the contract is on the table. They can call when they’re willing to sign.’

On which magnificent announcement, he swept Ramon out of the office and into the elevator.

‘We should have stuck around,’ objected Ramon as they descended to the ground floor. ‘We should have gatecrashed that bloody committee again. We should—’

‘Cool it, Ramon.’

‘But—’

‘Wait until we get out of the building.’

‘What?’

Jack cast a meaning look at the closed-circuit camera above their head. Ramon subsided.

Jack tapped his fingers on the wood panelling.

‘I’ve had three months up to my neck in mud and bureaucracy. I can use some major frivolity. Paris is good for that.’

Ramon hunched his shoulders. ‘What sort of frivolity?’

‘Good food, great wine, music.’

‘That means you’re going to cut the Combined Agencies’ dinner,’ Ramon diagnosed gloomily. ‘I’ll have to do it on my own again. You know I hate these things.’

Jack was unimpressed. ‘Take a date.’

‘Who do we know in Paris?’

Jack chuckled. ‘You could always ask the chairperson. She was impressed by your Latin charm.’

‘I couldn’t—’ Ramon began in lively alarm. Then he saw Jack’s expression and relaxed. ‘Take a date yourself. Then I can have the night off for once.’

Jack did not stop smiling. But suddenly it did not reach his eyes any more.

Hell, thought Ramon. Good score, Ramon. Second time in half an hour.

To cover his discomfort, he said roughly, ‘That kid who brought the food—you should have got her number instead of beating up on her. Then you’d have a date yourself.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Too much of a fighter.’ But at least he was smiling again as if he meant it. ‘I wonder who she really was?’

‘What?’

They were getting out of the elevator. Ramon looked back at the camera, suddenly worried. ‘Do you think she was some sort of spy? Political? Industrial? What?’

Jack laughed. ‘Hey. Calm down. No one spies on the guys who put up tents at disaster sites.’

‘But back in the elevator you said—’

‘Back there I didn’t want you bad-mouthing the committee. It would undoubtedly get back.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Security guards rent out embarrassing bits of the surveillance tapes.’

Ramon stared, torn between affront and suspicion. ‘I don’t believe it.’

Jack shrugged.

‘How do you know?’ said Ramon, half convinced in spite of himself.

‘I’ve done my time as a security guard.’

And that Ramon did believe. He knew that Jack had done every non-career job going while he was trying to get Armour Disaster Recovery off the ground.

‘Though never in a state-of-the-art building like this.’

Jack looked round the entrance hall with a wry smile. Trees wafted in the air conditioning. There was a faint tinkle from a baroque fountain. The marble walls gleamed. Palms were everywhere. Among them, almost unnoticed, a steady stream of people arrived, departed, delivered, left messages. Their heels clipped on the floor. Their voices were lost in the cathedral-high atrium. And not one of them took any notice of anybody else in the flow.

Ramon shuddered. ‘Give me mud every time.’

Jack nodded. ‘Not exactly human size, is it?’

‘Big enough to get lost in—’

But Ramon was talking to himself. As he stared, open-mouthed, Jack suddenly wasn’t there any more. He had cast away his briefcase and was sprinting across the mirror-tiled floor.

Bewildered, Ramon fielded the briefcase and tried to see what had grabbed Jack’s attention. The crowd streamed around him, oblivious.

And then Ramon saw.

It was the fiery delivery girl. She had lost her baseball cap and was backed up against a marble wall. A tall man was towering over her. He seemed to be shouting but his voice was lost in the echoing hall.

The girl did not seem to be following him anyway. Her eyes were quite blank. Terror, thought Ramon.

He had seen enough terror to recognise it easily, even across a crowded cathedral-sized entrance hall. So had Jack. Ramon knew exactly how Jack would react to the frozen panic on the girl’s face.

‘Oh, Lord,’ said Ramon. He stuffed Jack’s briefcase under his arm and pelted after him.

Jack was tall and fit as an athlete after the last three months’ physical demands. But the girl’s opponent was built like a prize fighter with huge shoulders and a neck like a bull’s. Jack should not have been any match for him. But Jack had him in an arm lock in three short, vicious movements.

Ouch, thought Ramon who knew what Jack was capable of in one of his rare fits of fury. He speeded up.

‘That’s enough.’ Ramon grabbed Jack’s arm and hung onto it. He meant to sound authoritative but it came out like a plea.

Jack looked down at him as if he had forgotten where he was. He shook his head a little, as if to clear it. Then looked at the man in his grip.

‘Who are you?’

The man choked out something indecipherable. He put up his hands to ease the pressure on his throat. Jack relaxed his grip a little.

‘What makes you can think you can push women around?’ Jack rapped out.

The man’s chest heaved. He looked furious—and bewildered.

Beyond them, the girl straightened slowly. The black panic left her face but she still looked frighteningly young and vulnerable. A loose golden-brown plait fell forward over her shoulder.

She was panting. ‘He has no right. He’s nothing to do with me.’ Her voice was suddenly very young, too.

The man was conventionally handsome, with chiselled features and expensively styled hair. But when he turned his head to look at her, his expression was as ugly as a street-corner punk’s.

‘Oh, no? I’ve got a piece of paper that says I’m your guardian.’

She flinched. But she did not deny it.

‘Great,’ muttered Ramon. Aloud, he said soothingly, ‘Jack, these people don’t want us interfering in their private affairs…’

Jack ignored him. He looked at the girl. ‘Well?’

‘He’s married to—a relation of mine,’ she said in a hurried, uneven voice. ‘I don’t ask them for anything. I don’t want to have anything to do with them.’ Her voice rose. It was quiet enough but it had the intensity of a scream.

Ramon winced. He was not surprised that Jack did not let the man go.

The man let out a roar of frustration that at last attracted the attention of one of the security guards. He ignored Jack and Ramon. ‘You owe Donna,’ he said. ‘You know it. I know it.’

It sounded menacing, even to a stranger. The girl whitened. Her sudden pallor revealed a dusting of golden freckles across her nose.

The security guard began to stroll over. Jack was still holding the attacker in an arm lock. The girl looked past the man, straight at Jack, her hands twisting.

‘I don’t. I don’t owe anyone. I never asked…Please…’ Her voice was all over the place.

Jack said, ‘Your guardian?’

She looked at the man, though it was easy to see that she did not want to meet his eyes. ‘Brendan, please don’t do this.’ It was obviously a huge effort to speak with even an attempt at calm. ‘I don’t want anything from you. I never have. I just want to be free.’

Jack’s face was a mask.

Oh, Lord, that’s torn it, thought Ramon.

Jack said slowly, ‘How old are you?’

‘T-twenty-two.’

He looked at the big man in his grip. ‘No one has a guardian at twenty-two.’

‘You do if—’

But the girl was not waiting any longer. The security guard reached them. They all turned to him instinctively, the tight little circle round the girl widening for a moment. She saw her chance and took it. She dived between Ramon and Jack so fast that she knocked Ramon flying. In seconds, she was out through the revolving doors.

Jack’s captive swore. He would have taken off after her if Jack had not wrestled him up against the wall and held him there.

‘I think not,’ Jack said very softly.

‘But that girl is my ward.’

‘She doesn’t seem to think so.’

‘I tell you—’

‘And I tell you, ward or no ward, you will not manhandle her while I’m here to stop you.’

There was a steely note to Jack’s voice which brought the hairs up on the back of Ramon’s neck. Even the stranger seemed to recognise that this was not a man he could bully. Some of the bluster left him.

He took refuge in sarcasm. ‘Sweet little Holly done a number on you too, has she?’

Jack did not answer.

The man tried to push his restraining hand away and failed.

‘That’s a real good act she’s got,’ he sneered. ‘Can’t tell you the number of guys she took in back home in Lansing Mills. That was why she ran out—’

Jack stopped him with a gesture of disgust. ‘Enough, already.’

The security guard decided to intervene at last. He had checked Jack Armour into the committee many times and trusted him. The other man, however, was new to him. Mindful of the fat folder of guidelines under the reception desk, he asked some slow and careful questions. By the time Ramon had appointed himself interpreter and translated them from French, the girl was long gone.

Jack let go of his captive. After a brief struggle with frustration, the man came up with his answers readily enough.

‘My name is Brendan Sugrue.’ He produced a passport from his back pocket. ‘That girl is my sister-in-law. By adoption. My wife and I are her legal guardians. We are from Lansing Mills, Oklahoma. She ran away. I have been on her trail ever since.’

‘Why?’ said Jack. It was quiet enough but it had the force of a bullet.

The security guard looked up curiously from his perusal of the passport.

Brendan Sugrue blinked. ‘She’s young…’

‘Twenty-two-year-olds can take care of themselves.

‘Unstable…’

Jack’s eyes narrowed almost to slits. ‘In what way?’

‘Irresponsible. Wild. She doesn’t listen to advice…’

He saw Jack’s expression. His words dwindled into silence.

‘Doesn’t listen to advice, huh? Sounds like she doesn’t do what you want,’ said Jack softly.

‘Monsieur Armour,’ began the security guard, friendly but minatory.

Jack ignored him.

‘Isn’t that the truth of it?’

‘Monsieur Armour, this is clearly a personal matter.’ The guard returned the passport. ‘As the young lady has gone and no damage has been done, there is no more to be said. Goodbye, gentlemen.’

Brendan Sugrue shook himself. Then he straightened his tie and brushed out the creases in his elegant jacket.

‘Thank you,’ he said to the security guard. The look he sent Jack was less friendly. ‘I’d hoped to clear this up informally. Thanks to your meddling, I’ll probably have to go to the police now. Don’t get in my way again.’

He shouldered his way past Jack and Ramon. The force with which he slammed out of the building sent the revolving doors spinning.

The guard pulled a face. ‘Hope the young lady is a long way away by now,’ he said, all his French chivalry aroused.

‘Hope we don’t get involved,’ muttered Ramon, less chivalrous but infinitely more practical.

The pristine floor was scattered with litter. Jack scuffed some with his shoe and then looked down, arrested. To Ramon’s astonishment he fell to his knees and began picking up several dozen bright yellow sheets of coarse paper.

‘Now what?’

Jack held a sheet up to him.

“‘Club Thaïs”,’ read Ramon. “‘Cool jazz, hot beat”.’ He turned it over. On the back there was a menu. He cast a knowledgeable eye over the prices. ‘Just some cheap brasserie. What about it?’

Jack picked up the rest of the flyers. ‘She dropped them.’

Ramon’s heart sank. ‘So?’

‘So maybe she goes there. Works there, even.’

‘Or maybe she works for an agency which delivers flyers and she’s never been over the threshold,’ said Ramon discouragingly.

Jack stood up and retrieved his briefcase.

‘Nowhere this cheap employs agencies for anything,’ he said, stuffing the retrieved papers into his case.

‘OK. Maybe her boyfriend is a waiter there.’

Jack stopped.

‘Most twenty-two-year-old girls,’ pointed out Ramon, sensing an advantage, ‘have boyfriends.’ As Jack still said nothing he ploughed on. ‘Look, who knows the rights and wrongs of this? Maybe Sugrue is right and the girl is nuts. We really don’t need you playing St George again.’

Their eyes met for a long, comprehending moment. Ramon’s were the first to fall. Third time today, he thought. Well done, Ramon.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Jack, I’m real sorry.’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, expressionless.

‘But she can look after herself. You saw that. First chance she had, she took off. And that guy won’t catch her off guard again. She’ll be keeping an eye out for him.’

‘Not much doubt of that.’ Jack’s tone was light but there was a small muscle working in his cheek. ‘She looked like she wasn’t going to stop running for a week.’

Ramon knew that tell-tale muscle all too well. He said desperately, ‘Nothing to do with us.’

Jack just looked at him.

‘We’re only here for another two days.’ Ramon’s voice rose. ‘What could you do in two days? You don’t even know her name.’

Jack stirred the remaining yellow litter with his foot. ‘But I’ve got a clue. And a good deductive brain. And time on my hands until the committee makes its call.’

‘You’re going to go looking for her?’

Jack’s mouth twisted in self-mockery. ‘I’m going to follow my instincts.’

Ramon flung up his hands. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘Maybe.’

The mockery died, leaving only determination. Ramon had seen Jack look like that before. He gave up.

CHAPTER TWO

HOLLY raced out of the building and pelted blindly for the Métro. She could lose herself in the crowd that always filled the busy station.

It was only when she was halfway down the steps that she remembered she was supposed to be in charge of Chef Pierre’s little van. Before taking the boxes up to the committee floor, she had parked illegally in the forecourt of the building. She knew that the attendant turned a blind eye to short-stay catering vans at lunchtime. But if she left it there for much longer he would have it towed away.

She stopped. The man behind bumped into her hard. Holly’s heart lurched and she gave a small scream. But then she turned and saw that he was a complete stranger. Muttering something uncomplimentary, he pushed past her and ran down into the darkness of the Métro.

Holly put a hand to her heart. It still thudded like a power drill. But at least she had her head back together.

She toiled back up the steps into the spring sunshine. Calm down, she told herself. This is Paris, not Lansing Mills. Brendan won’t have the police dancing to his tune here. And even Brendan won’t kidnap me in the public street.

But she still looked round warily when she went back to collect the van. To her huge relief, there was no sign of Brendan Sugrue. Or of her rescuer. That, she was affronted to discover, was no relief at all. In fact, she was definitely disappointed.

‘But it’s just as well,’ said Holly aloud. ‘I don’t need Gorgeous Jack to look after me.’

She got into the ancient van and fumbled the ignition comprehensively. The engine flooded. Holly pounded her fists on the wheel.

‘I don’t need anyone to look after me,’ she raged.

She turned the key again. The engine gave a tubercular cough and died. There was nothing to do but wait.

And think. And remember.

Oddly, it was not Brendan she remembered; not his schemes and manipulation and, when that failed, his bullying. Nor the claustrophobic world of Lansing Mills. Not even her father’s successor with his manicured hands and dead eyes—the eyes that had ultimately stampeded her into bolting for freedom. What she remembered, what she could not get out of her head, was an impatient man with a long sexy mouth and an air of ineffable superiority.

Gorgeous Jack would not have flooded the engine of the temperamental little van, thought Holly, seething. He would have lit the spark at his first attempt. Then he would have driven off with any woman he rescued safe beside him…

‘Stop right there. I don’t need to be rescued,’ Holly told the dashboard, glaring. ‘I haven’t needed anyone to rescue me for the last five years. I don’t need anyone now. Particularly not a superior clown in an Armani suit. I don’t.’

But as she finally switched on the engine and drove out into the boulevard, she could not quite banish Jack Armour’s dark, dark eyes. Or the thought that it would be heaven to have a man like that take over the fight against Brendan.

Now that, thought Holly fervently, I really can’t afford. Put it out of your mind, girl.

She tried. She really tried.

By the time she got to work that evening she had almost succeeded. She slipped into Club Thaïs half an hour after it opened. She came via the fire escape, not for the first time.

‘You’re late,’ said Gilbert, the owner. He followed her into the tiny cupboard under the stairs where the staff left their belongings. ‘The husband catching up?’

He would have been cautious about tangling with an uncertain law. But, as Holly had soon worked out, he was a hundred per cent in favour of running away from a bad marriage. So she had told him what he wanted to hear, that any man who turned up looking for her would be her jealous ex-husband. So Gilbert, a frustrated romantic, was happy to help cover her tracks.

Holly half closed the cupboard door against him. In cramped modesty, she shrugged out of her denim jacket and T-shirt and pulled a black cropped top over her head. ‘Uh-huh.’

Gilbert was not very interested in her personal life. ‘How many flyers did you deliver?’ he said from his stance in the hallway.

‘Got rid of the lot,’ said Holly, conveniently forgetting that half her load had scattered themselves over the floor.

She slithered into the black jeans that all Gilbert’s staff wore, even if, like Holly, they jammed in with the musicians from time to time.

She pushed the cupboard door open and emerged to find Gilbert vainly polishing steam off the wall mirror. He turned, smiling.

‘Good. We need some new punters. It’s slow tonight.’

Not bothering to look in the mirror, she flattened the wisps of hair which escaped from her plait with quick, expert fingers.

‘It may hot up when Tobacco start their set,’ she said comfortingly.

Tobacco—‘this band can seriously damage your health’—were new and cool and the club’s patrons loved them. Not much chance of jamming in tonight, thought Holly, storing her flute carefully behind the discarded clothes.

‘If that happens, I’ll need you to stay late again. OK?’

Holly nodded. That meant good tips and, if Gilbert was feeling generous, a bonus in her take-home cash. If she was going on the run again she would need it. Brendan did not look as if he was open to negotiation—or about to give up.

She looked quickly at the blackboard behind the chef’s head and memorised the menu with the speed of long practice. There were not that many changes to the food at the Club Thaïs. People came to talk, to dance, to drink and, sometimes, to listen to the jazz. The meal was strictly incidental.

For a moment, Holly was sad. The Club Thaïs had been a home from home for her for ten months now. She would miss it.

But there was no point in wasting time on regrets—not about going on the run again; not about having seen the last of Gorgeous Jack. Every moment was for living, her mother had said. In the last five years Holly had come to believe it.

She grabbed her order pad and squared her shoulders against the world.

‘OK, Gilbert, here we go,’ she said gaily. She flung back the swing doors into the restaurant. ‘Let the good times roll.’

‘Why here? Oh God, you’re following that girl, aren’t you?’

Ramon stood at the top of the cellar steps and looked at the half-full cellar with distaste.

Jack’s smile was bland.

‘You said you wanted to see the real Paris.’

‘Not this real.’

‘Come on, Ramon. It’s not like you to pass up a chance to let your hair down.’

‘After we’ve clinched the deal. Not before. I don’t want to go into an eight o’clock meeting with a hangover from bad wine and worse jazz.’

But Jack was unrelenting. ‘Local colour,’ he said hardily. ‘Savour the experience.’

Grumbling, Ramon followed him down into the dark of the club. The floor was made up of uneven stone flags and the walls, as far as the low lighting allowed them to be seen, were covered in posters for poetry readings and obscure bands.

They sat at a rickety corner table. It was covered with a square of rigid paper and bore half a candle in a chipped saucer.

‘Very ethnic,’ said Ramon sourly.

About half the tables were full. A thin man was making concentrated music with the tabla and there was a desultory hum of conversation. Jack ordered a bottle of red wine and then sat back and surveyed the crowd alertly.

‘You look like you’re waiting for something.’

‘Maybe we’re about to hear the new Duke Ellington,’ said Jack. His voice was lazy, but his eyes were not.

Ramon was dubious. ‘Maybe…’ And then he sat bolt upright. ‘Oh, no.’

‘What?’

‘Damn.’

‘Where is she? said Jack, lazy no longer. His eyes were searching the cellar, hard and intent.