Knowing it would take that long to get to the airport from her flat, Inez hadn't even taken the time for a shower or cup of tea, but had dragged on her clothes from the night before with one hand as she'd rung for a taxi with the other. Still doing up buttons, she'd grabbed her purse and run downstairs, rushing outside just as the taxi had stopped in front of her apartment building.
Inez wasn't at her best. No makeup, hair a mess, unshowered, and wearing her day-old clothes, she wasn't likely to impress anyone. Fortunately, Thomas Argeneau wasn't someone she felt she had to impress. She'd only met the man once. After being promoted to vice president of UK operations several months ago, she'd gone to New York to tour the company's head offices. That was when she'd met Thomas, or at least seen him. They hadn't been introduced. She and several other top executives had been in a meeting in Bastien's office when Thomas had sauntered in-unannounced and without knocking-to spout a lot of gobbledy gook that Inez hadn't quite been able to catch except to note that it seemed to be sprinkled liberally with "yos, dudes, and dudettes."
Inez had seen enough movies to know he was talking like a stereotypical 90's California surfer. She somehow doubted the old terms were still used, but it didn't matter since he wasn't from California and-as far as she knew-there wasn't much surfing done in Southern Ontario. She'd decided it was all an affectation. He was just a lazy layabout youth, taking on this surfer lingo in a misguided attempt to impress someone.
It had turned out that Bastien had called for him to deliver something to one of his brothers. Thomas was nothing more than an errand boy, she'd realized, and that had simply confirmed her assessment of him. He was an Argeneau, but rather than get a degree and take a position in the company, he delivered things and talked like a stoned idiot.
Which meant, Inez thought now, that she'd been dragged out of her bed at five in the morning to pick up a man who had no importance, and probably didn't have a good reason to be in the country other than to loaf on new shores. It made him nothing more than an annoying pain in the arse in her mind.
Unfortunately, the request had been made by Bastien, and he was someone she did want to impress. So Inez snatched the receipt the taxi driver handed her, said thanks, and then flung the door open and hurled herself out of the cab to charge toward the Arrivals entrance.
A glance at her watch as she raced through the pneumatic doors and into the milling people said she'd made it to the airport five minutes after Bastien had said the plane would have landed. Inez felt a moment's panic, but then assured herself that he couldn't have got through customs yet.
Reaching the busy arrivals section, she took a moment to orient herself, and then made her way quickly along the row of glass windows toward the gate where Bastien had said she should meet Thomas.
Inez was perhaps twenty feet from where she needed to be when she saw the doors slide open and the man she was there to meet walk out. Forcing a pleasant smile to her face, Inez picked up speed and called out breathlessly, waving a hand to catch his attention.
Her call had been faint enough, Inez didn't think he'd hear, but Thomas did glance her way as he proceeded forward. He even seemed to notice her waving at him, yet he simply continued forward and out of the airport through the pneumatic doors in front of his gate.
Shocked at the apparent snub, Inez stared after him with shock, and then cursed and burst into a run as she saw him walking toward the row of cabs waiting out front. Tossing apologies left and right, she jostled her way through the crowd to the doors and rushed out onto the concrete just in time to see the cab he got into pull away.
Inez stared after the black cab, disbelief giving way to anger. She'd been dragged from her bed and rushed out here only to have the ignorant idiot hop in a taxi and ride off on her.
"Do you need a taxi, love?"
Inez glanced around at the question, and then sighed at the sight of the same smiling cabby who'd brought her to the airport. The man had burbled happily on about this and that and nothing at all the entire ride out from the core of London where she lived. Now she would no doubt get to enjoy the same happy burble all the way to the Dorchester hotel where Thomas was staying.
"What I need is a tea," she muttered, then sighed and nodded and moved to where the man held the taxi door open. Inez didn't see the dark-haired, thin-faced man approaching the cab until they were both nearly to the door. She hesitated in surprise. He didn't. However, before he could slip into the open door, the taxi driver stepped in front of it.
"I'm taking the lady," the cabby announced firmly. "I brought her out, and I agreed to take her back."
The man didn't even glance her way, his attention focused on the driver. Inez had no idea what he said, but suspected he must have promised extra money, because the driver suddenly stepped out of the way for him to get in, closed the door, and got in the driver's seat without another word, or even a glance in her direction.
Once again, Inez was left gaping after a departing taxi.
"Diya need a taxi, lady?"
Inez glanced around with a start as a younger driver hailed her. Mouth tightening, she rushed forward, not willing to allow another ride to be stolen from her. Reaching the car unimpeded this time, Inez slipped onto the backseat, forced a smile, and muttered thanks as the driver closed the door behind her. She then sagged wearily on the seat, thinking she really needed that tea now. Unfortunately, it would have to wait until after she got to the Dorchester and made sure Thomas Argeneau had everything he needed. That had been Bastien's order. "Collect Thomas, take him to the hotel, and see that he has everything he needs."
And that was what she would do. She would make sure Thomas Argeneau had every single thing he needed...right after she gave him a piece of her mind for riding off without her. Then she could have her tea.
"Thanks, just set it there on the table," Thomas said as the bellhop followed him into the suite's sitting room. When the man did and then turned, mouth opening to inform him of all the amenities on offer, he waved him to silence.
"I'm good, thanks," Thomas assured him. Offering the man a tip for seeing him to his suite and carrying the knapsack, Thomas urged him toward the door.
"Thank you, sir." The bellhop's lips spread into a grin that he quickly softened into a more businesslike smile. "Just ring the desk if you need anything. Ask for Jimmy and I'll get you whatever you need."
"I will. Thanks again," Thomas murmured.
Closing the door behind the bellhop, he then turned and stepped back into the sitting room of his suite. Classy, luxurious, tasteful...Nothing less than he'd expect. Aunt Marguerite always had shown good taste.
Moving forward, Thomas collected his knapsack and headed for the door leading into the rest of the suite, intending to place it in the bedroom. The ring of his cell phone made him pause, however.
Dropping the knapsack back on the table, he pulled the phone from his back pocket and flipped it open as he dropped onto one of the love seats.
"Yo?" he said lightly, already knowing who it would be.
"You arrived all right, then?" Bastien asked.
"Of course, dude. The flight was smooth sailing."
"And Inez had no problem finding you at the airport?"
Thomas's eyebrows rose. "Inez?"
"Inez Urso. I called her to meet your plane and take you into the city."
Thomas could hear the frown in Bastien's voice, but ignored it, his mind on his arrival in Heathrow as he suddenly recalled a little, dark-haired woman running through the airport waving. Thomas had noticed her, but Etienne hadn't mentioned there being anyone to meet him so he'd just assumed she was there to collect someone behind him and kept walking. Now that Bastien mentioned Inez, however, he recalled the pristine and tucked-up little miss he'd met some months ago in his cousin's office. But the woman who had been waving so frantically at the airport that morning had been less than pristine and tucked up. She'd looked like she'd just rolled out of bed.
"Thomas?" Bastien said impatiently. "Did she not show up?"
"Yes. She was there," he answered truthfully, a knock drawing his gaze to the door of the suite. Standing, he moved to answer it.
"Good," Bastien was saying as Thomas opened the door. "She's very efficient as a rule, but I did wake her up at five in the morning to collect you and I worried that she hadn't made it there in time."
"Yes, she-" Thomas stopped abruptly as he recognized the woman at his door. His gaze slid over her limp, dark curls, her slightly wrinkled clothes, and her makeup-free face with its irritated scowl. Inez Urso. A very angry Inez Urso, he added, noting the fire flashing in her eyes.
When her mouth opened, Thomas instinctively slammed the cell phone to his chest to prevent Bastien's hearing the tirade he suspected was coming. He wasn't wrong. The phone had barely hit his chest when a barrage of words shot from her full, luscious mouth and poured over him. Unfortunately, very little of it was in English. Portuguese would have been his guess. He gathered that was her mother tongue and the language she slipped into when upset, and Inez Urso was definitely upset.
When she began to move forward, Thomas automatically backed up, allowing her into the room. He was too distracted to do otherwise, finding it fascinating how a woman who had looked perfectly plain on first sight could become almost beautiful as she berated him. Her eyes were flashing, her cheeks were flushed with anger, her lips flapping so rapidly they were almost a blur. She was also waving a finger angrily under his nose, something he normally found vastly annoying if the women in his family tried it. But coming from this short woman, he found it kind of cute and couldn't help the smile that tugged at his mouth.
Big mistake, Thomas realized at once. Inez Urso did not like his amusement and her rant took on some real energy. Unfortunately, that's when he became aware of the chittering coming from the phone.
Thomas scowled down at it, and then glanced toward the door closing behind the little barracuda still lecturing him, judging whether he could get her back out of the room long enough for him to deal with Bastien. It didn't seem likely, at least not without being rude and Aunt Marguerite had raised him better than that.
He held up a hand for silence. Surprisingly-she obeyed the directive, her tirade ending at once, but then he supposed she'd been close to winding down. At least, her eyes had lost some of their heat, becoming more subdued. Inez was still breathing rapidly from her anger, though, and Thomas found his eyes falling to her slightly heaving chest, noting that with every inhalation, her blouse was stretched tight, threatening to pop a button.
A sharp inhalation drew his gaze back up to her face. Her dark brown eyes were flashing again, her mouth opening to go at him once more. Thomas didn't blame her at all...really...it was perfectly rude to stare at a woman's chest. Aunt Marguerite would be pissed at him too. Still, he didn't really have time to apologize properly, or let her vent with Bastien's voice still squawking into his chest, so Thomas said, "Hold that thought."
Inez blinked at the order, but closed her mouth and Thomas gave her an approving smile before whirling away. He hurried through the small dining area and continued on into a small hallway with two doors leading off of it. The first led into a spacious marble bathroom, the second a bedroom. Knowing the bathroom would have a lock, Thomas slid inside and then locked it for good measure lest the woman follow to finish her lecture. He then took a breath and raised the phone back to his ear. "Bastien?"
"What the hell was that about?" his cousin growled.
"Oh, I...er...sat on the remote control and accidentally turned on the television. Some foreign film was playing and I couldn't figure out how to shut it off," Thomas lied blithely.
"Right," Bastien said with open disbelief. "What was the name of this movie?"
"The name?" Thomas echoed and then scowled. "How the hell would I know?"
"I don't know, Thomas. I thought maybe you caught it before you turned it off. It sounded terribly interesting. I quite enjoyed it when the woman called the man an idiot for making her drag her butt out of bed at five o'clock in the morning and haul herself down to the airport without either tea or a shower only to have him ignore her and march out to get in a taxi and take off to the Dorchester Hotel."
Thomas closed his eyes on a sigh as he recalled Bastien spoke several languages, including Portuguese.
"Hmm," Bastien added now. "That's the same hotel I booked you into. What a coincidence."
"All right, all right, so it wasn't the television," Thomas muttered irritably and then asked, "Did she really call me an idiot?"
An exasperated sigh came through the line. "How could you walk right past her, Thomas? Why would you? For Christ's sake! I called her to make things easier for you and you just-"
"You didn't mention that anyone was picking me up at the airport," Thomas interrupted grimly. "Neither did Etienne. He said you had a plane waiting at the airport and had booked a room at the Dorchester. That's it. There was no mention of anyone waiting for me at the airport, so I just hopped in a taxi."
"Well, when you saw Inez-"
"Bastien, I met the woman once for about three minutes in your office almost six months ago," Thomas pointed out dryly and then acknowledged, "I did see her waving and rushing toward me at the airport, but didn't recognize her. I thought she was there for someone else. How was I to know otherwise when no one told me she would be meeting me," he ended, emphasizing every word.
"All right, I get the point. You didn't know," Bastien said.
"Right," Thomas sighed.
"Okay." A moment of silence passed and then a sigh slid from the phone and Bastien said, "I should have contacted you myself and told you she would meet you rather than counting on Etienne. You'll have to apologize to her for me."
"Are you sure you told Etienne?" Thomas asked.
"What?" Bastien asked, his voice short. "Of course I did."