She tore her mind away. Since accepting that he was gone from her life, that he belonged only in the past and that her life had moved on, she had tried not to think of him, not to remember their time together. She had sought to ignore the flickering emotions that came from time to time, uninvited—little eddies that swirled like dust devils, stirring up her memories.
Cesare was asking about her new research post, and Carla was mentioning something about the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and its artworks of the High Renaissance—the subject she wrote about in her professional life.
Fran listened with only half an ear, distracted by the dust devils of memory she had just stirred up, seeking to still them. She swept her eyes out and around, determined to divert her thoughts away from pointless memories of Nic. She was here, in London, and Nic was thousands of miles away and in the past. Where he must stay.
Her gaze threaded through the mass of guests, past the paved terrace with its tables and benches, the stone-rimmed pools and trickling rivulets, along the little pathways lined with topiary, onward towards the fenced perimeter at the roof’s edge.
And stopped dead.
Two people were standing there at the intersecti
on of two pathways. One, a woman in a dark red evening gown, was half turned towards the man beside her—a man in a tuxedo, like all the other men present. A man who was like no other man present. A man who should not be here. Could not be here—not in London, not here, a few dozen metres away from her.
But he was.
And in the bare handful of seconds it took Fran to see him, for her brain to recognise him, she knew with a rush of emotion that was a sudden whirlwind inside her that should not be there, even as he should not be here, that something had leapt within her.
Joy.
* * *
Nic started forward—then halted. She had seen him. He’d seen it in her face, the sudden recognition in her gaze.
He felt his stomach clench, his mind blank. He wasn’t prepared for this. He felt numbed, as if someone had just slugged him in the solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. For a second he could not move. Then, like an automaton, he turned to the woman at his side.
‘Excuse me a moment.’ His voice came from very far away.
He started forward again. Fran was walking towards him, making her way down a path bordered by a low box hedge either side, her stride quickening on her high heels. She came up to him as he stepped towards her, closing the distance between them.
‘Nic! What on earth are you doing here!’ The exclamation in her voice matched the astonishment in her face, in her widened eyes.
Was there more than astonishment in them? Nic thought, feeling again that slug to the solar plexus as his eyes met hers, seeing that sudden leap of expression in them. For a second, nothing else existed.
Then, like another slug, realisation hit him—that seeing her again, here, like this, was going to mean an instant revealing of himself. There was no time for anything else. No time to do anything but fasten his eyes on her, feel the rush of adrenaline in his body, catch the scent of her hair, all so familiar, crowding back into his consciousness as if it had been only yesterday that he’d parted with her. As if the months between had simply vanished.
Dimly, he realised she was speaking again.
‘Are you working here now?’ she was asking. ‘At Viscari?’
Her mind was tumbling over itself, incoherence in her jangling thoughts. Was that why she hadn’t been able to trace him at Falcone? Because he had swapped employers? But the reasons for his vanishing weren’t what was preoccupying her—it was the soaring of her emotions like fireworks going off inside her.
Nic! Oh, Nic! His name sang in her head as her eyes fastened on him, clung almost tangibly to his form, his real, solid frame. He was here, here right in front of her! And it was good—oh, more than good to see him again! It was wonderful!
All her endless telling herself that it had been just a fleeting romance, that that was all it should be, that she had to let him slip away into the past, all melted like ice on a hot stove, evaporating instantly.
That was the truth filling her now, pushing out all the arguments to herself that she’d marshalled to justify why their road trip had had to end. Now, seeing him so tall, so solid, so real—so close...
Blood was rushing to her cheeks, leaping in her veins. She felt that same immediate, primitive response she’d given when she’d first set eyes on him, that instinctive, instant Wow! as she’d felt the hit of his physical impact on her. She could feel it again now, as unstoppable as the hot, surging memories that assailed her.
Nic, his mouth velvet on hers, melting her bones.
Nic, his arms strong about her, sweeping her off to bed.
Nic, his body arching over hers, caressing hers, possessing her, taking her to places that had made her cry out with ecstasy...
It was all vivid in her head, her consciousness. The searing reality of his presence in front of her was so absolutely, totally unexpected—so absolutely, totally wonderful!
It took her a moment, in the rush to her brain, the leap in her blood, to realise that he wasn’t answering her, and her expression faltered for a moment. She dragged herself back to the present, to what was happening now.