“I just finished a dinner meeting with Darby Hogue,” she provided as if he’d asked.
“Where?” In his suite? That would explain the hair, the eyes, and the smile. Luc never would have guessed Darby even knew what to do with a woman, much less put that soft dewy look on her face. And he never would have thought Jane Alcott, the archangel of gloom and doom, could look so warm and sexy. Damn.
“In the hotel restaurant, of course.” Her smile fell. “Where did you think?”
“The hotel restaurant,” he lied.
She wasn’t buying it, and as he’d come to expect in the short time he’d known her, she wasn’t going to let it go either. “Don’t tell me you’re one of the guys who think I slept with Virgil Duffy to get this job.”
“No, not me,” he lied some more. They’d all wondered, but he didn’t know how many actually believed it.
“Great, and now I’m sleeping with Darby Hogue.”
He held up a hand. “None of my business.”
As the last strains of the piano died, Jane slid into the chair opposite him and blew out a breath. Damn, so much for a little peace.
“Why do women have to put up with this crap?” she said. “If I were a man, no would accuse me of exchanging sex for a promotion. If I were a man, no one would think I had to sleep with my sources just to get the story. They’d just slap me on the back and give me high fives and say…” She paused in her rant long enough to lower her voice and her brows at the same time. “ ‘Good piece of investigative journalism. You’re the man. You’re the stud.’” She ran her fingers though the sides of her hair and pushed it from her face. Her sleeves fell back and exposed the thin blue veins of her slim wrist, and the material of her sweater pulled across her small breasts. “No one accused you of sleeping with Vigil to get your job.”
He lifted his gaze to her face. “That’s because I’m the stud.” They all had their crosses to bear, and after the day he’d had, he didn’t have the energy to pretend sympathy and understanding. Luc Martineau didn’t have the time or energy or inclination to worry about a pain-in-the-ass reporter. He had his own damn problems, and one of them was her.
Jane looked over the table at Luc and crossed her arms over her chest. The light overhead picked out the blond in his short hair and settled on the broad shoulders of his blue chambray shirt. The color of his shirt brought out the blue of his eyes. After the two martinis she’d had during dinner, everything was surrounded by a nice cheery glow. Or at least it had been until Luc insinuated that she and Darby were sleeping together.
“If I had a penis,” she said, “no one would think I was having sex with Darby.”
“Don’t be too sure about that. We’re not altogether sure of the little weasel’s sexual orientation.” Luc reached for his beer and Jane’s lungs squeezed a little. He’d left the top two buttons of his shirt undone and the soft material fell away from his chest, exposing his clavicle and the top of his muscular shoulder and neck.
She could set Luc straight on that score, but she didn’t bother to inform him that Darby had wanted dating tips over dinner. “How’re your knees?” she asked as she rested her forearms on the table.
He raised the Molson’s to his mouth and said, “One hundred percent.”
“Completely pain-free?”
He lowered the bottle and sucked a drop of beer from his bottom lip. “What? You don’t know? I thought you made digging into my past your calling in life.”
His conceit was outrageous and a little too close to the truth. For some reason she could not even explain to herself, Luc intrigued her more than the other Chinooks. “Do you really think that I don’t have anything better to do than to spend my time thinking about you? Digging up a little of the goods on Luc Martineau?”
Fine lines appeared at the corners of his eyes and he laughed. “Sweetheart, there is nothing little about Luc’s goods.”
The Jane who wrote the Single Girl column would have a sophisticated comeback and dazzle him with her wit. Honey Pie would take him by his hand and lead him to a linen closet. She’d unbutton the rest of his shirt and place her mouth on his warm chest. Breathe heavily the scent of his skin and melt into his hot hard body. She would see for herself if he told the truth aboot those goods. But Jane was neither of those women. The real Jane was too inhibited and self-conscious, and she hated that a man who made her catch her breath was the same man who looked through her and found her so lacking.
“Jane?”
She blinked. “What?”
He reached across the table and the tips of his long fingers brushed hers. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” It was the slightest of touches, maybe not even quite a touch, but she felt the tingles from it travel through her palm and up her wrist. She stood so quickly the table rocked. “No. I’m going to my room.”
The combination of alcohol, Luc’s molten mojo, and the grind of the last five days sloshed about in her brain as she looked around for the bank of elevators. For a few seconds she was disoriented. Three different hotels in five days, and suddenly she couldn’t remember where the elevators were. She glanced toward the registration counter and spied them off to the right. Without a word, she walked from the lobby bar. This was not good, she told herself as she moved across the hotel lobby. He was so big and overtly male, he made her wrist tingle and her brain go numb. She st
opped in front of the elevator doors, her cheeks hot. Why him? She didn’t like him. Yes, he intrigued her, but that wasn’t the same as liking him.
Luc reached around her from behind and pressed the elevator button. “Going up?” he asked next to her ear.
“Oh, yeah.” She wondered how long she would have stood there like a fool before she realized that she hadn’t pressed a button.
“Have you been drinking?”