Irish Fling

by Valerie Douglas

  Someday everyone on the planet would have inexpensive access to the Internet…

  A new market, yes ― both for those to whom profit alone mattered like Jacques while also changing the world.

  Jacques who settled into the seat next to hers.

  As always, he lifted her hand to his lips. “Cherie.”

  “Jacques,” she said, smiling.

  He was uncharacteristically serious.

  Ah, she was both beautiful and charming. To his surprise, he was oddly pleased she’d resisted his wiles until she’d reconciled with Aidan. Some things should remain pure, he had discovered. To succeed too often made the conquests less satisfying over time. One had to lose now and then to stay sharp.

  “Have you had any offers for your software?” Jacques asked.

  Curiously, warily, Ali looked at him. “A few.”

  Keeping her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand, Jacques smiled a little.

  “Very wise. Let me ask this and forgive me if it is too personal. Your relationship with Aidan, will it be professional as well?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “we haven’t talked about that yet. Why?”

  Was he going to make an offer? That would complicate things.

  Jacques looked at her, giving it consideration. If Aidan hadn’t spoken of his plans to her, it was for him to do. Still, he needed the answer to his question if he was going to proceed with his own plans. Aidan’s offer for the company had appeared serious, but they might change with Alex in the mix. That would also change Jacques’s.

  “Let me know when you speak to Aidan,” he said.

  Frowning a little, Ali watched him go.

  Down by the stage Aidan was talking and answering questions. He hadn’t missed the little exchange, though.

  What was Jacques up to now?

  A little puzzled, Ali returned to coding, trying to create a search program that would compare one set of blueprint dimensions to those of another, finding enough similarities. Sort of like facial recognition systems.

  It took a little time for Aidan to break away but finally he was able to escape, striding up the aisle to drop into the seat next to Ali.

  She glanced up at him with an absent smile, pressed a finger from her lips to his in a silent request not to interrupt her train of thought.

  With a smile of his own, he kissed the finger. Her smile broadened even as she finished the line with one hand, tapping the keys with one or two fingers. Keeping the hand he had he pressed his mouth into her palm.

  Heat wound down through her, from her arm, through her heart, down into the her core.

  With a sigh she saved her work and half-turned in the seat to look at him.

  Every time she looked at him it seemed her breath caught a little, those blue eyes were so beautiful. The feel of his lips against her palm sent curls of heat through her as he captured her other hand with his own, threading his fingers through hers before he caught her chin with his free hand to draw her in for a quick kiss.

  That was even better.

  “I saw Jacques,” Aidan said.

  Frowning a little, Ali nodded. “He wanted to know if I’d had any offers and in light of our relationship whether that would be professional as well.”

  Aidan took a breath, raised her hand to his lips again, thinking.

  Looking up, he found Ali’s molten golden eyes on him and the wariness made his heart clench.

  “No, a gra,” he said, “I love you. Just listen…”

  He took a breath.

  “When I began Kerry it was to be a launching pad,” he said. “Not the end product. It was only the beginning. But to start, I had to make compromises. To get the financing I needed a money man. To raise more to take it to the next stage, I had to accept a Board of Directors. As CEO I have a great deal of power but I still have to answer to the Board and to Brian as my CFO.”

  Ali could almost feel the ties constricting around him.

  “That wasn’t what I’d planned, what I’d wanted,” he said. “I wanted to be the developer, creating new technology, finding the new talents and nurturing them. That’s what Kerry’s profits were to me, a means to an end.”

  He looked up into her eyes.

  “When I met you I had already begun the process of selling Kerry. With the profits from my part of the proceeds, I wanted to start a new company to do nothing but research and development, then sell the finished product. I want you to come with me.”

  Ali’s breath caught at all the possibilities, a dozen different projects in the back of her mind.

  “Jacques’s is one of the companies interested,” Aidan said, his eyes on hers. “So Jacques knew. If I hired you for Kerry ― and Kerry could definitely use you ― then he wouldn’t need to hire you himself if he bought the company. You’d already be part of the package and likely increase what I could ask for Kerry.”

  Holding her hand lightly he continued, “I’d planned to talk to you about this later, somewhere private, then give you time to think. This new venture… I won’t lie it’s a risk. I won’t be able to offer you much to start…but you’d have the freedom to develop whatever project you wish.”

  She swallowed hard, looking into his eyes, wanting to laugh. He was trying so hard to sell the idea to her. He didn’t need to.

  “We’ll fight,” she said.

  Aidan went still, looking into her eyes, seeing the gold shift, the green glimmer. Fairy eyes and they’d entranced him from the first.

  He caught her face in his hands, smiling widely.

  “We will,” he said, “I’ll argue back. You’ll insist it can or can’t be done…”

  She laughed, seeing the light in his blue eyes. “And you’ll insist I show you, prove it.”

  “And you will,” he said.

  Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes.

  “Ali,” he said but he understood as they laughed into each other’s faces.

  Laughing, fighting back tears, she said, “And I will. We’ll make magic, you and I, Aidan O’Connell.”

  “We will that, Ali Dearborn.”

  Standing, he pulled her to her feet. “A full partner, Ali. You’ll be a full partner.”

  Astonished, she could only look at him. “But…”

  He laughed, “You’re the one with the MBA….”

  “Yes, but…” she said, laughing.

  “We’ll announce it on Friday. What do you say if we call the new company Draíochta?”

  It was the perfect name.

  Ali looked at him. “What does it mean?”

  He smiled, “Magic, for as you said, that’s what we’ll be making…”

  Merlin had found his Niamh, the woman who would make the magician a man. And Niamh had found the magician who would give her wings.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Nothing happened. Ali was at turns both grateful and concerned. She knew what she remembered but as if aware that she was being watched, no move was made on her or on anything else. Gardai searched the train stations, the ferries, or any suspect building, discreetly. The last days of the Symposium wound down, or wound up, depending on how you looked at it. Most of the seminars were complete. Today, Friday, was the big day, the finale. Tonight there would be a huge black-tie dinner, the closing speeches and afterwards a Grande Ball.

  The room had already been set up for it. Tables were scattered around the room, with tablecloths in green Irish linen spread across them and place settings of Irish crystal and porcelain. They awaited only the centerpieces to complete them.

  At the moment the room was mostly dark, the glittering chandeliers dark, with only the stage lights lit.

  It was early afternoon, in six or seven hours the room would be filled, the chandeliers would sparkle, and jewelry would glitter as women in elegant gowns and men in dark tuxedos settled into their seats. TV lights would illuminate everything, as TV cameras and webcams recorded the event.

  Ali sat at the back of the darkened hall, watching the r
ehearsals for the night’s festivities.

  Before anything else, there would be the speeches and for all those who thought such things were impromptu and spontaneous, they had only to watch this.

  She watched, smiling, as Aidan flubbed his introduction yet again.

  There were a dozen major dignitaries on stage, trying to get it right…so it would look smooth, natural and perfect on TV.

  Laughing, Aidan shook his head at himself as Bill Gates ribbed him, laughing. He would give the keynote speech.

  Ali had been introduced to him earlier. It still astonished her… She was in geek heaven.

  Dressed only in jeans and a pullover t-shirt for this, as they all were, Aidan was still incredibly handsome. At least to her eyes. She watched, smiling, as they went through it again.

  On her computer screen images chased themselves, rolled and spun, trying to fit themselves against each other. The program she’d written, trying to fit her memory of the blueprint image to the list of possible public buildings. She glanced at it now and again but she’d programmed it to save the images that were close. What she watched were those on the stage, walking through the introductions.

  She looked at the wall behind them, the projections on it and Jiro’s screens…and smiled for her friend.

  It was the same stage she’d used that first night, a unique feature of this particular room, that it could be adapted for a number of different uses, conferences, government meetings, or something like this. The stage could be assembled or disassembled in pieces, be wheeled in or out, set into place and bolted together. She remembered dropping down beneath it, through the maintenance door.

  Frowning, she remembered the wiring diagram.

  At the back of the stage was a load-bearing wall. Her gaze traveled up the paneled wood at the back of the room, thinking of the beams behind it, to the coffered ceiling above them. Fire. Flammable wood. To the stage… She remembered walking stooped beneath it, all the wires that ran through it for power connections, microphones, the screens . The distant, load-bearing central wall had been in the background, in shadow. The wall that held up the ceiling, if that wall fell the ceiling would go with it.

  In her head images came together, pieces of a puzzle fitting one to the other.

  The force of the explosion took out the wall even as the force of it blasted across the stage where Aidan even now stood, where they all would be standing later, the ceiling coming down…

  It came to her in a rush. The wires beneath the flooring, explosives along the wall. The Hall had been already been searched. What if the wiring was all in place, leaving only the explosives to be put in place―a suicide bomber of sorts. The explosion taking it out…the force rushing out in both directions… taking out the stage, too, and all of those on it. Aidan, the first rows... the ceiling coming down on those that remained…

  Aidan….A gra…. My heart….she could see it…

  Her breath caught as she turned the wiring diagram around in her head, fit it to the underside of the deck of the stage. No one would have noticed the additional wires there.

  The bomb was under the stage.

  They had searched, of course, they’d searched, but what if the explosives hadn’t been there yet? What if they’d waited until after the Gardai searched, cleared it. Were they there now?

  Aidan…

  She needed to get him, to get all of them off that stage, first. If she was right…

  There were other people around her, she didn’t dare say what she thought. If someone overheard. Breathless. She slipped her handheld from her pocket and typed quickly, ccing the message to Inspector Burke…

  Aidan felt his phone buzz in his pocket and pulled it out. One look at the message, the recipients and he went still, thinking quickly.

  Just the thought of explosives beneath his feet chilled him. He needed to get everyone off this stage. If Inspector Burke moved quickly enough, though, perhaps there was a chance.

  With a laugh, Aidan said, “I need a break and a Guinness, gentlemen, how about you? I’m buying.”

  He looked around to the others.

  With that charismatic grin he was known for, Gates nodded. “I’ll take you up on that. I’ll always take a free beer.”

  There were chuckles from the others at that.

  The activity on the stage caught the attention of the Garda on duty and then his radio buzzed….

  Someone dropped into the seat next to her. Thinking it was Jacques or Adam Ali instinctively shifted the image on her computer screen to something benign as she turned. Her smile faded a little.

  It wasn’t Jacques.

  She frowned. The man beside her wasn’t someone she knew, although she’d seen him around the Symposium. He was dark-haired and dark-eyed, mid-thirties.

  Concealed by his body and the seats in front of them he had a gun pointed at her. It had a silencer on it.

  Fear shot through her, turned her knees to water.

  There was more than one of them.

  Ali went very still…

  On the stage, Aidan was guiding those on-stage off….

  Please… Aidan was still too close.

  If there was a bomb, did this man hold the detonator? It didn’t seem likely given the gun, but she couldn’t take the chance.

  Aidan stepped down the last step from the stage, looked back into the darkness, expecting that she’d follow…

  Except she couldn’t…

  She looked at the man beside her.

  “Very good, Miss Dearborn,” he said, softly, smiling. “I see you understand. Don’t make any suspicious moves. Get up. We don’t want to attract attention unless you want more people to die.”

  Obediently, she stood, as he took her elbow.

  “You’re extraordinarily lucky. You’ve been a very difficult person to kill,” the man said.

  In her mind’s eye she pictured Aidan’s face as she reached up, her hand shaking, to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, turning on the tiny earpiece as she struggled to remain calm.

  “Aidan,” she said, softly, glancing back to the door across the room as he and those with him stepped out the doors to the rear.

  In her ear she could hear his cell phone ring as she and the man with her walked down the empty halls. Most of the others attending the symposium were in the remaining seminars, or prepared for tonight, while others ate lunch or wandering through the vendors area. This section had been off limits to all but the presenters.

  When the Gardai officer looked around, Ali Dearborn was gone. He swore softly. She was probably with O’Connell and the others. He hurried after them.

  It should have only taken Ali a minute to join them but maybe someone had stopped her on the way, still, Aidan felt a small thread of disquiet go through him as he followed the others.

  His cell rang, glancing at the display, Aidan went still.

  “Go on,” he said, “I’ll catch up in a minute. They have a tab for Kerry. Go ahead and order.”

  And took the call…

  “Ali?” Aidan’s voice said in her ear and she glanced cautiously at the man on her other side to see if he’d heard that small, blessed, whisper of sound.

  He gave no sign of it.

  “The parking garage?” she said.

  Instinctively she knew that was not a place she should go, there were too many shadowed corners there, too many places where a body could be hidden…

  Hers.

  “Be silent,” the man said.

  “The bomb is beneath the stage,” she added, looking at the man with her.

  Just in case, so someone would know for certain.

  His dark eyes darted to her sharply, his jaw tightening. “I said, be silent.”

  Even as he hit speed dial, calling the Gardai, Aidan ran, even as the Gardai officer who was supposed to be watching Ali came through the door Aidan himself had just exited. His heart sank. Ali was alone…

  Seeing Aidan O’Connell at a run and no sign of Ali Dearborn, and Garda officer Rya
n Gordon swore softly, knowing he’d screwed up. He followed at a run, calling his location into the radio.

  As Jacques walked from his car toward the Conference Center he saw pretty Alex and another man come through the doors toward him. He’d seen the man around the Symposium but couldn’t remember what company he was with.

  They were walking too close together. Alex looked pale. Something was wrong here.

  Frowning, Jacques turned toward them, remembering some of the strange incidents that had taken place around her.

  “Alex,” he said, “Cherie…”

  In horror Ali saw Jacques coming toward them… He would see the gun in a second.

  Feeling the man stiffen and turn as Jacques approached, Ali threw herself hard into the stranger, put her shoulder into it.

  She heard the gun go off, the little pop…

  Jacques heard it, too, but it was the crack of the bullet against the cement pillar that made him realize the man was shooting at him. He dove for cover…rolling behind a wall as another bullet fired off into empty space.

  Frantic, Ali struggled to get a grip on the man’s gun hand, to keep the gun away from her, from Jacques.

  With a sharp tug the man pulled free and straight-armed her in the chest, sending her sprawling.

  Desperately, she scrambled around to face him…

  And the gun…

  Through the door, Aidan saw the struggle going on, saw Ali fall, saw her turn, her face going white, her golden eyes huge.

  He hit the doors and launched himself at the man, catching him in a good solid football tackle.