She peeled back the tight satin casings, having to tug hard to free the puffy little finger of her left hand. She looked at the exposed damage with detachment, deciding that the mottled bruising wouldn’t be too obvious in the subdued lighting of the next room.
The next room, where champagne and Dan Miller waited...
In other circumstances she might actually have quite liked him, Jane thought woozily. Downstairs he had been boisterous and full of brash insensitivity, but in private the rough diamond had revealed himself as something of a closet romantic. No matter what Ryan had said, she didn’t believe that the older man would physically hurt her.
The knowledge gave her the courage to venture out, leaving the discarded gloves screwed up on the vanity unit.
She was grateful to discover that the curious waiter was gone, and accepted a brimming glass of champagne with fatalistic calm. No one was coming to rescue her. She would have to do it herself. Before, Dan had just been a cardboard cut-out figure in her consciousness, just a prop in her private battle with Ryan. Now he was all too real, a human being, someone who was gruffly generous and capable of being hurt...
It was all Ryan’s fault!
Jane drained her glass quickly and then sat down on the edge of the bed as she found her head spinning.
‘Dan...’ She had something important to tell him, she knew. Something very, very important...
‘Of course, my dear,’ he said with exaggerated courtesy, sloppily refilling her glass before she could tell him that that wasn’t what she wanted. She realised that he was none too steady on his feet, either. Although Ryan had ordered the wine that had been served with their dinner, he had drunk even more sparingly than Jane, and as a result it had been Dan who had ended up consuming most of the two bottles.
He staggered and she instinctively grabbed hold of the elbow of his jacket and pulled him safely down beside her, then bent to place her glass on the floor. The blood rushed to her head and the glass wobbled on the thick carpet, tipping over and sending ice-cold bubbles splashing over her feet. Jane squeaked, kicking off her dripping shoes, the flurry of her legs sending her toppling back on the bed, her dress riding up around her thighs.
Dan fell back beside her, the champagne bottle still clasped in his hand, and Jane let out another shriek as the golden liquid foamed out of the narrow neck onto his chest. He merely grinned at the sight of the fizzing cascade and she raised herself on her left elbow, righting the bottle and instinctively brushing at the huge wet patch that had appeared on his half-unbuttoned shirt.
‘Why don’t you just lick it off me, honey?’ he invited good-humouredly, his free hand sliding under her hip to roll her on top of him.
Engrossed in their damp tussle, neither of them heard anything, but suddenly the door to the room crashed open and, almost simultaneously, Jane felt herself plucked off the bed and set ungently on her feet.
‘Sorry, mate—change of plan.’
Ryan Blair reached down and hauled Dan up from the bed by his soggy shirt-front, plucking the champagne out of his hand as he marched him to the door.
When Dan spluttered a protest, Ryan bent to murmur something in his ear and the older man’s resistance collapsed like a pricked balloon. With a muttered goodbye in Jane’s vague direction he allowed himself to be bundled into the hall, hurrying off even before the door was kicked shut with a polished heel.
Jane stared at Ryan as he leaned back against the door, shooting the privacy bolt behind him with an ominous clunk. His pale jacket seemed to glow in the dimness, warning her of the volatile energy sheathed within its smooth contours.
‘Wh-what did you say to him?’ she demanded defensively. ‘And how did you get in?’
The door was still intact, so he couldn’t have broken it down, and she was horrified by the thought that someone from Housekeeping might have glimpsed her
rolling around on the bed with Dan.
He chose to answer her second question first. He tossed something with a clatter onto the table beside her evening bag. ‘I booked the room, remember?’
A key. He had kept a key!
He folded his arms across his chest. ‘And I told Dan that I’d regretfully just found out that you were suffering an occupational disease in its most infectious phase...’
Jane flushed with humiliation. ‘Why, you—’
He kicked away from the door. ‘Be careful. Be very, very careful what you say, Jane. I’m not in the pleasantest of moods.’
She circled warily away from him. ‘You never are!’
Suddenly the mental fogginess was gone, her lethargy replaced with a raging restlessness, her body taut with a fierce readiness. Everything around her came into sharp focus, colours were more vivid, sounds more penetrating. She could even hear his breathing, quick and shallow, and the whispering rasp of his clothing against his skin as he moved. If she listened carefully enough, she believed she could hear the blood pulse in his veins. Certainly she could see it throbbing heavily in his temple as he prowled closer. The shadow on his jaw seemed darker, emphasising the image of almost overpowering masculinity.
She put her hands behind her, where he wouldn’t be able to see them shake.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ Her effort to sound strong and assertive came out like a sullen complaint.
He slid his jacket down his arms and threw it carelessly onto the floor. ‘Ungrateful bitch!’