The Party Starts at Midnight

by Lucy King

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a simple clarification of the facts for the purposes of moving forward.’

  He tilted his head, his smile deepening a little. ‘Fair enough. Jet lag doesn’t suit me.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought excessive alcohol suited jet lag.’

  ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘Then why the overindulgence?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call an inch of whisky an overindulgence.’

  ‘An inch?’

  He nodded. ‘An inch.’

  ‘You could have fooled me,’ said Abby dryly. ‘The place reeked.’

  ‘I know. And I also know why.’

  ‘Now I’m intrigued.’

  ‘Exhaustion caught up with me while I was at my desk. I crashed out. I must have knocked over the glass. Got the stuff all over me.’

  The glass on its side and the stained papers in his study flashed into her head and Abby nodded. ‘That sounds feasible, I suppose. And Jake’s part in the proceedings? Because to be honest he doesn’t seem like the procuring type.’

  ‘He isn’t. What he offered to send me was actually a bottle of malt.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said slowly, as it all became clear. ‘And therein lies the misunderstanding.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Embarrassing.’

  ‘Not my finest moment,’ he said dryly.

  ‘I can imagine.’ She nodded, then as the going had been pretty good so far decided to push a little further. ‘So why do you need cheering up?’

  ‘It’s been a long week,’ he said without even a flicker of hesitation.

  ‘We all have those,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t always lead to a misunderstanding like that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So?’ she said, wondering firstly when she’d last had a conversation that was quite such hard work, and secondly why she wasn’t just giving up on it.

  ‘I’m not a huge fan of Christmas.’

  Abby stared at him. Crikey, who didn’t like Christmas? ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Why not? I love it.’ Not least because it was excellent for her bank balance.

  ‘I find it...’ He paused, as if searching for the right description. ‘Uncomfortable.’

  ‘Uncomfortable?’ That was an odd word to use.

  ‘Everything closes down, you can’t get anything done, it goes on for far too long and the quest for Christmas spirit is relentless. It’s over the top, tacky, not to mention a load of commercial crap.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Abby, faintly taken aback by the extent of his list of Christmas grievances—most of which were her reasons for liking it—although it certainly explained the way he’d seemed so distant during the party. ‘Well, that would do it.’

  He nodded briefly. ‘Good. So there you go. Not a fan of Christmas.’

  ‘Evidently not.’

  ‘I’m not a huge fan of dancing either, but you are. You do it well, by the way. Very well.’

  Leo hadn’t moved but something about his mood had changed. Darkened a bit. Made her shiver, although definitely not with cold. ‘I’m surprised you noticed,’ she said, her voice a note lower than normal. ‘You seemed rather engrossed in conversation.’

  ‘Oh, I noticed,’ he said softly. ‘And you noticed I noticed.’

  Damn, had he seen her stumble? Had he worked out why? How deeply humiliating if he had.

  Deciding that was a direction in which she really didn’t want the conversation to go, Abby made a point of peering round him. ‘What happened to the brunette?’ she asked, aiming for mere curiosity, not jealousy, and just about managing it.

  ‘I have no idea. What happened to Jake?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Silence fell again, tense and crackling, and as she looked at everything but him her mind raced with questions such as why had Leo suddenly brought that particular moment up? Why? And what was she supposed to do with it?

  Nothing, was the answer to that, she thought, and when she couldn’t stand the awful silence any longer she glanced at her watch and grimaced because, oh, great, she had to be up in five hours.

  ‘Well,’ she said, shooting him a quick glance and an overly bright smile. ‘You might not be a fan of Christmas but I’m not a fan of two a.m., so I should be heading home.’

  Frowning slightly, Leo pushed himself off the door frame. ‘Of course,’ he said, running his hands through his hair, dishevelling it a bit more. ‘Can I call you a taxi?’

  ‘I have my car just outside.’

  ‘Then I’ll walk you to it.’

  And even though he made her feel nervy and on edge, to say nothing of what he did to her internal organs, as it was late and undoubtedly dark and deserted on the street and she wasn’t an idiot, Abby nodded and smiled, and said, ‘That would be kind. Thank you.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  WHATEVER IT WAS that he was feeling, thought Leo, watching Abby get to her feet with a faint wince, and striding forwards to pick up her coat from the chair it was currently draped over, it wasn’t kind.

  Part of him felt relief. In contrast to the last time they’d spoken the conversation they’d just had had gone better than he’d expected. He might have spent the last hour or so pacing around the lobby of the hotel driving himself nuts with thoughts of how difficult she could make things for them if she wanted, while he waited for her to finish so he could catch her alone, but thankfully there hadn’t been a problem.

  He needn’t have worried because conversationally he’d actually got off very lightly indeed. Apologising again had been a breeze. Explaining had only been mildly uncomfortable. And he hadn’t even had to go into too much detail about why this time of year always set him on edge because to his surprise—and relief—Abby had bought his pretty flimsy excuses.

  Physically, though, well, that was an entirely different story because he hadn’t got off lightly at all. He’d thought he’d had it tough when he’d been watching her dancing earlier and had been filled with the ridiculous urge to shove Jake aside and take over. He’d thought feeling winded and dazed after just a look had been bad enough.

  But that had been nothing compared to what had happened around five minutes ago when their eyes had met and held and held and held.

  That had been downright freaky because on contact time had seemed to stand absolutely still. He’d felt his entire body jolt and he could have sworn the ground rocked beneath his feet. His mouth had gone dry, his pulse had gone into overdrive and his head had spun.

  Feeling totally adrift mentally as well as physically, he’d racked his brains for something to say—anything to break the increasingly tension-laden silence—but all he’d been able to think was that he wanted her, desperately, inexplicably, and he’d been pretty sure that if he’d opened his mouth that was what would have come out.

  Thank goodness he’d come to his senses in the nick of time. If he hadn’t, if he’d told her all the things he wanted to do to her, she’d have been onto the police within seconds. And he might have put on a convincing front as he’d answered her questions and plied her with excuses, but it had taken practically every drop of self-control that he had not to say to hell with it, march over there and just kiss her.

  It was why he’d stayed where he was jammed against the door frame instead of perhaps taking the seat next to her, and it was why it was a good idea she left now. His mood was fragile and his behaviour clearly volatile and the last thing he needed was the slap in the face he might have deserved earlier.

  So he’d put her in her coat, see her to her car, and that would be that. He’d slam her door shut, watch her drive off, and put the whole uncomfortable night behind him. And then order would be restored and he could work on getting himself back to normal.

  Feeling calmer than he had done in hours now
that he had a plan and the end was in sight, Leo held out her coat and tried to defend himself against the effect of her. Five more minutes of this madness. That was all he had to endure. Surely he could hang on that long.

  But apparently he couldn’t because she flashed him a quick smile that made him look at her mouth, then turned and slipped first one arm and then the other through the sleeves and Leo found himself responding, quite helpless to do anything about it.

  He wanted to put his hands on her shoulders and turn her around. He wanted to pull her right up against him and kiss the life out of her, then back her up against the wall and do a whole lot more than kissing. Or drag her with him to the floor or lift her onto a table. He wasn’t fussy.

  It was her mouth, he thought, his head swimming with the unfamiliar intensity of his reaction to her. Red with lipstick, wide and full, and, well, the only word he could think of was luscious, which although not a word he could say he’d ever used before was somehow the only one that would do.

  Or her scent. Something about it was intoxicating him, making a total mess of his control and scrambling his brain but also triggering something buried in there deep. A memory, a feeling, a sensation, perhaps...

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a step forwards, away from him, then turning and smiling up at him again as she started to do up her buttons.

  ‘Flowers,’ he muttered, shoving his hands through his hair as he struggled to work out what it was because for some reason it seemed important.

  ‘What?’ she said, stopping for a moment and lifting her eyebrows in surprise as she glanced up at him.

  ‘Irises. Your scent.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘It’s familiar.’

  ‘I’m sure I’m not the only one who wears it,’ she said, giving him a look that seemed to question his sanity.

  ‘It’s more familiar than that.’

  He tried to place it. Felt it dangling there, tantalisingly just out of reach. He scoured his brain and racked his memory—

  And then it hit him.

  The dream. The woman leaning over him, murmuring his name, touching him, the heat of her body, the warmth of her breath. On his skin, his lips. Close. Very close. In fact too close to suggest anything other than an imminent kiss. From her. From Abby.

  Oh, yes, now it was all flooding back.

  And quite suddenly, totally unexpectedly, the unbearable tension twisting his muscles snapped and Leo felt like laughing.

  The cheek of the woman. The bloody cheek. All that talk about discretion and the implicit questioning of his integrity, delivered with such an air of superiority from up there on the moral high ground, and yet if anything she ought to be the one asking for his discretion and apologising for the near lapse in her integrity. Because if he wasn’t mistaken—and this time he didn’t think he was—she’d been about to kiss him. While he’d been asleep. And if that didn’t smack of lack of judgement, lack of professionalism, he didn’t know what did.

  She’d so nearly got away with it, and he’d bet everything he had that she thought she still had, but she was wrong. Very wrong, because there was no way he was letting this go. Absolutely no way.

  And just like that, Leo felt better than he had all night, all week, maybe even all month. He felt more awake, more alert, more alive because this was going to be fun, and as fun was something he hadn’t had in a long, long time he was going to savour every single second.

  And as all kinds of new and tempting possibilities streaked through his head, he thought with almost dizzying relief that for the first time since he and Abby had met he was back on form, ahead of the game and one hundred per cent back in control.

  * * *

  Her scent was a bit of an odd thing for a man like Leo to fixate on, Abby would have thought, but if that was what floated his boat, that was fine with her. She just wanted to get home, give her body some much-needed respite from everything it had undergone this evening, and put the night behind her.

  ‘Before we go,’ he said mildly, ‘there’s something I’d like to know.’

  Abby glanced up and something about the way he was looking at her had every instinct she had leaping to attention.

  Uh-oh.

  What was going on now? Because the words were spoken casually enough but she didn’t like the look of that smile. Or his stance. At all.

  His expression, his eyes, were still unreadable but something about him seemed to have changed. He radiated a kind of energy that she hadn’t noticed before, a sense of tight control, and she got the spine-tingling impression that he’d become...well, not predatory, exactly, but there was no doubt that he was training every drop of his attention on her, planning, and sort of waiting, although she couldn’t imagine what for.

  ‘What is it?’ she said cautiously, not at all sure she wanted to know.

  He dug his hands into the pockets of his trousers and fixed her with a look that for some reason made her want to squirm. ‘What happened between you coming into my bedroom and me waking up?’

  Oh. For a nanosecond Abby went still, but then she forced herself to relax, cut the eye contact and continue with her buttons because there was absolutely no way he could know. No. Way.

  ‘What do you mean, what happened?’ she muttered, frowning and biting her lip in the hope that she looked as if she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ‘Nothing happened.’

  ‘Talk me through it,’ he said lazily. ‘Humour me.’

  ‘Couldn’t I humour you on Monday?’ she said, flashing him a quick, cool smile. ‘It’s late and I’ve had a long day.’

  ‘Surely it shouldn’t take too long.’

  Deciding that if she carried on protesting he’d think—rightly—that she had something to hide, Abby looked at him for a second and then narrowed her eyes as if trying to remember. ‘OK, fine,’ she said, tapping her forefinger against her mouth and focusing on a spot somewhere high above his right shoulder. ‘Now, let me think. Ah, yes. I knocked. There was no answer so I went in. Saw you lying there and gave you a prod then a shake, upon which you woke up.’

  ‘You didn’t need to be on your knees to do that.’

  ‘I thought something might have happened to you. Something bad, perhaps fatal. Silly, I suppose,’ she said, going a bit red because with hindsight it had been, ‘but what with the alcohol, I wanted to check you were OK.’

  He nodded, his eyes glinting in the dim light. ‘I see. And then?’

  ‘I told you. I poked you and then you woke up.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘After a bit of an effort on my part. I had to shake you hard.’

  ‘So why did you need to lean in so close?’

  She froze, her mouth going dry. Did he know? No, he couldn’t. ‘I didn’t.’ She frowned, as if running over the scene for the first time all evening, as if it weren’t etched probably permanently into her memory. ‘Well, I suppose I may have leaned in a bit,’ she amended, wondering how far ‘a bit’ could stretch. ‘Just to check your breathing and your pulse, but I wouldn’t call it close.’

  ‘And you didn’t whisper my name?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ she said firmly. ‘I said it loudly. Very loudly.’

  ‘Right.’ He nodded and rubbed a hand slowly along his jaw. ‘Because, you see, the thing is, I had the oddest dream about a woman who smelled of irises who did just that.’

  ‘Intriguing dream.’

  ‘It got better.’

  For whom? ‘Did it? How?’

  ‘In my dream you—’ he shot her a quick, lethal smile ‘—I’m sorry, I mean she—nearly kissed me.’

  Abby stared at him, her heart practically leaping out of her chest because, oh, God, he did know. ‘How strange,’ she murmured, sounding mercifully calm even though her pulse was racing so fast it
could have won the Grand National.

  ‘Isn’t it? So what with your scent and your actions, you can see why I think it might have been you.’

  ‘Except that I’d never do anything so unprofessional.’

  He arched an eyebrow. ‘No?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ It was his word against hers and she was sticking to hers like a limpet.

  ‘Which presumably is why you didn’t go through with it.’

  ‘Utter nonsense.’

  He shook his head slowly and tutted. ‘There I was all vulnerable and defenceless—not to mention unconscious—and you were going to take advantage.’

  Vulnerable and defenceless? Him? Hah. ‘I was going to do no such thing.’

  ‘And to think I was momentarily concerned that my integrity might have been compromised tonight,’ he said, bulldozing her protests of innocence and hitting a nerve.

  She narrowed her eyes. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘We’re even.’

  He smiled and his eyes glinted and for the first time since she’d met him Abby got a glimpse of the man behind the façade, and immediately thought that she should have been careful what she wished for because she didn’t know what to make of that glimpse. She thought she saw triumph and amusement, heat and desire, and despite her best efforts to prevent it her knees went weak with longing.

  And then there was the intent. That just about robbed her of breath because his jaw was set, his eyes were fixed on her mouth and he was walking slowly towards her, and, idiot that she was, she was just standing there as if rooted to the spot.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said shakily as he came to a stop half a foot from her.

  ‘What we both want. What you chickened out of. No matter how much you protest to the contrary I know you’re the woman of my dreams, Abby, and I’d like to realise those dreams.’

  Oh, God, he was planning to kiss her and if he did she’d kiss him back. She knew she would. ‘You said you weren’t interested.’

  ‘I lied. I’m interested.’

  ‘No,’ she breathed, managing to sound outraged, sexy and needy all at the same time, which so wasn’t the plan.