Fall from India Place (On Dublin Street 4)

“Thanks,” Francesca said earnestly. “I haven’t had a showing in almost a year. I’m very nervous.”

“I’m excited to see your work. I’m sure it’ll be amazing,” Lin said, glancing around the mostly empty ballroom. Some of Francesca’s framed sketches had been mounted on the walls, but some were displayed on erected panels throughout the room.

“I hope so. I’m a little nervous about the different medium. Let’s go and check your wrap,” she suggested, waving toward the far corner of the room.

“Wow. What a dress,” Francesca said a few seconds later when Lin removed her wrap. “You always manage to look like you just walked off the runway, but this . . . very sexy,” Francesca praised with a grin.

Feeling uncommonly self-conscious, Lin handed her wrap to the smiling coat check girl. What had made her choose the halter tuxedo dress, after all? Her back, shoulders, and arms suddenly felt overexposed, the bare skin prickly and sensitive.

“I can’t wait until I can wear a dress like that again,” Francesca said touching the slight bulge of her stomach.

“You could wear it now,” Lin said, meaning it. “You’ve hardly gained a pound beyond the baby’s weight.”

“Yeah. Like I could pull off that number,” Francesca said, looking at Lin’s dress and laughing. A spark of sudden interest flew into her eyes and she took a step toward Lin. “We have to talk about what you think of Kam. Ian hinted that things must have become . . . interesting when you two met the other night.”

An alarm began ringing in Lin’s brain. “Interesting? What did Ian mean by that?”

Francesca opened her mouth to reply, looked over Lin’s shoulder and checked herself. “Hi,” she called in greeting. “Here’s Lin. She looks amazing, doesn’t she?”

The prickling of awareness on her bare shoulders and back amplified. She turned around. Lucien and Kam stood just behind her, their heights similar, two formidable, extremely handsome men. Kam’s stare dropped fleetingly over her. She couldn’t quite interpret his rigid expression, but his eyes were like gleaming quicksilver in the mask of his face.

“They delivered the suit all right?” she asked him. He just nodded once, his stare on her unflinching.

Hungry?

“It . . . it looks great,” she stammered. It was a monumental understatement. Kam was devastating in the well-cut black suit with crisp white dress shirt and royal blue tie.

“How did the tour at Schnell go this afternoon?” she asked.

“Good. Jim was great,” he said, referring to the vice president who had met with Kam as a favor to Lin. “Thank you again for setting it up for me.”

“It was my pleasure,” she said.

Kam was clean-shaven for once and his dark, russet-tinted hair was neatly groomed and combed back in thick waves. He’d told her his mother was Irish. Were those reddish highlights the Irish influence in him burning through the swarthy Gallic? It was like she’d never seen him before.

“Lucien,” she said, realizing she’d been staring at Kam. She stepped forward to exchange a kiss of greeting with Ian’s older brother.

“Hello. Francesca is right. You look incredible,” Lucien greeted her in his low, fluid, French-accented voice.

“Thank you.” She stepped back and experienced an awkward moment. Shouldn’t she greet Kam in a similar fashion? He was Ian’s brother as well, after all. Fortunately, she was spared having to decide. She saw the Gersbachs enter the ballroom along with a dozen or so other attendees.

“There they are,” she said in a muted tone, leaning her head subtly toward the door. Francesca nodded in understanding. Lin took Kam’s hand and started to lead him toward the father and daughter. It was easy to touch him when her excuse was guiding him to a business interaction.

That’s what she told herself, anyway, as she tried to ignore the feeling of his large, warm hand tightening around her own and her heartbeat began a steady throb in her ears.

•   •   •

He heard Lin greeting the Gersbachs and introducing them, but he wasn’t really listening. Even though he wasn’t looking at Lin, the vision of her still burned in his mind’s eye. She usually wore her hair up. The only time he’d seen it down was when they’d been in bed together. Then, it’d been a waving, curling, tumbling delight that fell to her mid back. Tonight, she wore it down, but it had been straightened. Without the curls and waves, it fell in a straight, fluid line almost to her waist. It was drop-dead sexy. As Lucien and he had approached her, the silky curtain of it brushed her naked back, the vision disrupting rational thought.

She’d turned, and it was like silk whisking against silk. He was suddenly overcome with a brutal, primal need to be inside her once again, pounding inside all that soft, sleek glory, straining to build a crashing crescendo in the harmonious orchestra that was Lin. A pulse began to throb in his temple and his cock at once as he’d met her stare.

How inappropriate could he be? He really was going to ruin this whole fucking night.

“. . . he just arrived on Monday. Isn’t that right, Kam?”

He blinked and the present moment plummeted into his awareness jarringly.

“Yes,” he said, realizing that Otto Gersbach’s hand was extended. He shook it and mumbled something that was mostly unintelligible except for the word pleasure. He did the same when he was introduced to Brigit Gersbach. Brigit stared at him with wide blue eyes like he was part of the exhibit. Kam glanced uncomfortably sideways at Lin, looking for a cue as to what he should do or say next. Her hand looped around his elbow, and it suddenly didn’t matter.