CHAPTER 3

          The gesture was fleeting but absolutely earth-shattering. He broke their eye contact, leaving Cassandra feeling curiously emptied. With a brief, succinct excuse muttering something about getting drinks, James left them alone.

          The rest of the crowd Sébastien Monfort had been talking to melted away too. He turned back, fixing on her with that intense gaze again.

“You’ve had time to change, I see. Tell me, is this work too?”

          Cassandra's body got taut. Hot, burning irritation was rising.

“Of course, I changed… It’s a party. And, yes, this is still work.”

          His eyes swept down, taking in what she knew to be a perfectly suitable although very unexciting dress. It was a black shift, high-necked and under a matching jacket. Unrevealing. Neutral.

“You’ve changed, too,” she pointed out, feeling ridiculously self-conscious.

          He was managing to stand out in a crowd of identically dressed men in a traditional black tuxedo, white shirt, and black bow tie. His eyes met hers again.

“Don’t you want to take off your coat? It’s warm in here.”

          Warm! She could feel a drop of sweat roll down between her breasts as if his words had just turned the room into a sauna.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.”

          But all at once the jacket which had felt positively lightweight now felt like a bear skin. To be confronted with him up close and personal was overwhelming. Her eyes wanted to look their fill of his broad, lean body, wanted to rest and dwell and see if he filled out his suit as well as she suspected he did. Who was she kidding? As well as she knew he did. She didn’t have to look to feel the latent power of his taut body envelop her in waves.

          Before she knew what she was doing, Cassandra felt her hand come up in a telling gesture to smooth her hair behind her ear. It was a nervous habit. His eyes narrowed and followed her movement, and Cassandra flushed.

          Damn it! She didn’t want to look like she was in any way aware of him. A smile quirked his mouth.

“Your hair is perfectly… tidy.”

          Was the French guy laughing at her? And then she remembered what James had said. She glared up at him. Her hand dropped.

“Is it true that you requested me for this interview?”

          He shrugged nonchalantly.

“It’s tiresome, but every now and then I have to give in to press demands. So, yes, I requested you… in the hope that perhaps with you asking the questions, it would prove a more entertaining experience than I’m used to.”

          His eyes were hot and sensual. Everything professional in her reacted to his dismissive manner. She smiled sweetly, and something treacherous ignited in her belly when she saw a flare of something in his eyes. Cassandra ignored her body’s response.

“Monsieur (French for ‘Mister’) Monfort, if you think that just because I’m a woman I’m going to confine my questions to what your favorite color might be, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

          James was mad! She couldn’t interview him that evening… Cassandra made a mental note to stay up all night if she had to, to research this man. His eyes narrowed and cooled, and she shivered slightly.

“And if you think that because you’re a woman I would dismiss your ability on that basis alone, then you are much mistaken. Any interest I have in you as far as the interview goes is purely professional. I’ve had your work investigated, and you impressed me.”

          Cassandra was completely taken aback and immediately felt like apologizing. But, looking up at him now, she felt that cool wind still washing over her. She could almost believe that she had imagined his hot look of just moments ago. That she had imagined everything leading up to this point. She had an uncanny prescience of what it would be like to be this man’s enemy.

“Well, I’m… That is, I hadn’t thought that…”

          Sébastien cut off her inarticulate attempt to apologize.

“Like I said, my interest in you is purely professional… as far as the interview goes. However…”

          He stopped and moved closer. The air around them changed in a heartbeat. Became charged. Cassandra sucked in a breath. His eyes were hot again, making her feel very confused.

“I can’t promise that my interest doesn’t extend beyond the professional.”

          As earlier in the stadium, Cassandra felt as though the huge, packed ballroom had just shrunk around them. Adrenaline pumped through her along with the desire to flee.

“Monsieur Monfort, I’m very sorry, but you see…”

“You’re married?” he continued so quickly and abruptly that Cassandra was stunned.

“Yes,” she answered automatically and saw something dark flash across his face.

          And then she stepped back and shook her head. What was this man doing to her brain?

“No. I mean I am… Uhm… I was married.”

          Cassandra bit her lip and looked out to the room briefly, desperately willing James to come back and interrupt them. She looked back up at Sébastien with extreme reluctance. His eyes glittered, and a muscle twitched in his jaw.

          She wondered how they’d got onto such personal territory so quickly, and then his words came back to her. ‘I can’t promise that my interest doesn’t extend beyond the professional.’

          A multitude of emotions and memories was threatening to consume her. And the fact that she was here, in an environment so reminiscent of her past, was quickly becoming claustrophobic. Cassandra took a breath, deeply resenting that he was making her talk about this.

“I was married. My husband died two years ago.”

          Sébastien opened his mouth as if to say something, and Cassandra was already tensing in anticipation. But her prayers had been heard, and James bounded up at that moment with drinks. He thrust a glass of champagne at Cassandra before handing what looked like a whiskey to Sébastien.

          And then panic struck. She put the glass on a nearby table, some of the champagne sloshing out over the rim. She opened her bag to pull her phone out. Ten missed calls.

“Oh… I’m in so much trouble,” she groaned and turned to James. “I really have to go.”

          She looked at Sébastien briefly, welcoming the feeling of panic which was distracting her from his overpowering presence.

“I’m sorry, I need to go. I’m already late for another engagement.”

          Cassandra started backing away, ignoring James’s menacing expression. She bumped into someone and apologized. She felt her hair come loose from its sleek chignon and pushed it behind her ear. She was literally coming apart.

“It was nice to… meet you, Monsieur Monfort. I look forward to the interview.”

          Liar! He just watched her, a small, enigmatic smile playing around that hard mouth, and stuck one hand deep into a pocket. Cassandra could already see women hovering, ready to move back in again, and something curdled in her stomach… Jealousy, maybe?

“Me, too,” he said softly and lifted his glass like a salute or a threat. “Á demain, (French for ‘See you tomorrow’) Cassandra.”

                                                       ***********

          Tomorrow… It was disturbing, to say the least, to try and conduct a coherent conversation while the drops of the hottest lust he’d ever experienced still washed through his body in waves. Even the welcome knowledge that she wasn’t married invaded his racing mind.

          Sébastien was still trying to clamp down the intensely urgent desire to know exactly whom she had gone to meet and where. Was it a date?

“So, what made you decide to ask for Cassandra Applegate to interview you?”

          Her boss, James Hogan, the head of the sports division of the national TV channel, laughed nervously. He was beginning to intensely irritate Sébastien with his fawning behavior. This and also by drawing his attention to the uncomfortable fact that, in the space of the short car journey earlier, Sébastien had gone from dismissing Cassandra from his head to making a series of calls to find out exactly who she was, and then requesting her for his interview the next day.

          Following an instinct, he decided not to dismiss this man straight away.

“I decided to use her because she’s the best reporter you’ve got, of course.”

          James’s flushed face got even more flushed.

‘Well, thank you. Yes, she is good. In fact, she’s rather surprised us all.”

          The other man looked around for a second and then moved closer. Sébastien fought against taking a step back. The Irish man was becoming progressively drunker.

“The thing is, you see, she was only given a chance because of who she is.”

          Sébastien’s interest sharpened. He injected a tone of bored uninterest into his voice.

“What do you mean?”

          James laughed and waved an arm around.

“See all these women hanging on?”

          He didn’t have to look… They were practically nipping at his heels. His lip curled with distaste. Situations like this always attracted a certain kind of woman, eager for marriage to a millionaire sportsman, and the platinum-credit-card lifestyle his wages could afford.

          The women who had achieved that status lorded it over the ones who hadn’t, but it didn’t make them any less predatory.

“Well, she was one of them. The queen of them, in fact. You see, she was married to Brian O’Shea.”

          Sébastien sucked in a breath, shocked despite himself. Even he had heard of the legendary Irish football player. That knowledge fought with the mental image of Cassandra in front of him just now, in that unrevealing black dress that had covered her from neck to knee, her hair as tidy and smooth as it had been earlier. James was on a roll now.

“When they got married, it was the biggest wedding in Ireland for years. The first big celebrity wedding. The Irish football team was having back-to-back wins. Cassandra was seen as their lucky mascot. She went to all the matches. It was an idyllic marriage, a great time… and then she wrecked it all.”

          James flushed.

“I mean, I know she’s not personally responsible, but…”

“What do you mean?”

          Sébastien was rapidly trying to remember what he knew about Brian O’Shea, still slightly stunned at what Cassandra’s boss was revealing.

“Well, she threw him out… For no good reason. And Brian went off the rails. Ireland’s luck ran out, and then he died in that helicopter crash just days before the divorce was through. We ended up giving her a job because she was unbelievably persistent, and she knows sports inside out. It’s in her blood. Both her uncle and brother played rugby for Ireland.”

          He was still trying to reconcile the image he had of Cassandra with the women around him in their tiny dresses that left little to the imagination. And yet, Sébastien could see her now as she’d been backing away just moments ago. She’d been flushed in the face, and a lock of hair had been coming loose.

          It had been that which had sent his lust levels off the scale. He’d had a tantalizing glimpse of her coming undone, of something hot beneath that cool surface. But the thought that she had been one of those women made everything go sour.

          Yes, she didn’t flirt with him, despite knowing who he was… Unless it was just a tactic. In which case, Sébastien vowed to himself now, he’d play with her to see how far she was willing to go and walk away when he’d had enough.