Since I Saw You (8 page)

“I’ll think about it,” she whispered shakily when their gazes met again.

The hint of a smile pulled at his lips. She couldn’t make a logical decision with his knowing eyes seeing straight through her and his kiss still burning her palm. She had the uncomfortable impression that while she was unsure of how tonight would end, Kam was one hundred percent positive.

L
in ended up having a wonderful time at lunch, finally letting Kam talk her into sampling his ribs and pizza. He’d been right. The food was delicious. They’d lingered over it until Lin regretfully said she needed to get back to work. Since he’d expressed interest in touring other businesses, she made a phone call on the cab ride downtown and got Kam in for a tour and executive meeting with both Schnell Industries, a young and promising technology company; and Alltell, a major wireless telecommunications company.

“Are you interested in acquiring wireless technology that could make your watch into an organizer and communications device?” she asked him while they were in the cab.

“Thinking about it,” Kam said vaguely.

“Because that’s a fantastic idea,” she enthused. She sat back in the seat, and was considering all the innovative possibilities for Kam’s watch, when she noticed him eyeing her closely.

“You must be very excited, having a groundbreaking product like this. I could really get behind your watch, Kam,” she said sincerely.

“Could you?” he asked. Lin blinked when she sensed the intensity behind his quiet question.

She finished with work early and returned to her condominium, where she decided to practice a new dance routine that had proved challenging for her. Traditional Chinese dance emphasized exquisite control of movement. It was a sort of moving meditation for her, an exercise that helped her find her center, her peace . . . her control.

Something told her that her control would be in short measure tonight.

She ignored the volatile thought and for a while was able to lose herself in the fluid rhythm of the dance. Afterward, she showered and retrieved two potential dresses for dinner from her closet. As she came out of her walk-in closet, she heard her doorbell ring. She draped the dresses over her arm and hurriedly tightened her robe. After checking who it was through the peephole, she swung open the door.

“Hi,” she greeted Richard St. Claire, smiling. “What are you doing home at this hour?” she asked, knowing he was usually working at the restaurant at this time.

“I’m coming down with something. Emile told me to get home and to bed before I spread things to the customers,” Richard croaked, pointing to his chest. “Can I borrow your humidifier? My chest is killing me every time I cough.”

“You sound like you’re about to get laryngitis, too,” she said, alarmed. “Have you been to the doctor?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a fever. I just need some rest.”

“Follow me,” she said, bustling back to her bedroom. She tossed the two dresses on the foot of the bed and entered her bathroom. When she came out a moment later carrying her humidifier, Richard was looking at the dresses. “Going out tonight?” he asked.

“Yes. To Frais,” Lin said, handing him the humidifier.

“Traitor.”

“Elise and Lucien are practically family, just like you and Emile are,” she chastised him fondly. “Besides, Otto Gersbach is a health nut. Doesn’t touch alcohol, and just between you and me, would prefer to dine at restaurants that don’t serve it when his daughter is with him.

“Ah,” Richard said, nodding in understanding. He knew that Elise’s restaurant catered to individuals with a history of substance abuse and their friends and family, taking away the element of alcohol, yet still providing everything else an epicure might desire in a luxury dining experience. “The things you learn about Noble’s business associates would stun the man on the street, Lin. Speaking of which, how did things go on Monday night?” Richard asked. He gave her a give-me-a-break glance when she feigned confusion. “With the sexy Brazilian street fighter?”

She picked up the dresses. “Very well, I think. It
was
just work, you know . . . Ian’s brother,” she reminded him when she noticed his amused expression. “I have a business dinner again tonight with him, in fact.”

“Uh-huh,” Richard murmured doubtfully.

She shot him a cool glance. On the inside, however, her heart began to throb in her chest. She had tried not to be conspicuous in leaving Savaur the other night with Kam, but Richard didn’t miss much. He might have noticed they got in a cab together. Still, that didn’t mean anything necessarily. They might have been sharing a cab.

“He really does look an awful lot like Ian,” Richard said too casually.

“Yes, he does,” she admitted, going to a mirror over her dresser and holding up one dress and then the other. “Although he couldn’t be more different.”

“So being around him isn’t . . . difficult for you?”

She knew what Richard was hinting at, but she didn’t want to discuss it. Richard and Emile were both smart, observant men. She’d never admitted point-blank to either one of them that she had a “thing” for her boss, but they suspected. She ritualistically refused to talk about it with either of them, so why would things be different tonight?

“No,” she replied. “Kam is a unique, shall we say
challenging
personality, but nothing I can’t handle.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely,” she replied, meeting his eyes calmly in the mirror.

Richard studied her face soberly for a second before he shrugged. “You’re a locked chamber when it comes to some things, Lin.”

“I have no reason to lock anything away. Not on this topic,” she lied.

“So socializing with a man who looks so much like Ian Noble is a simple, easy thing for you, eh?”

As easy as sin.

She suppressed the automatic thought and held up the two dresses. “Which one?” she asked.

“Is this some kind of riddle for me to answer my own question?”

She gave him an exasperated glance, and he laughed. Richard considered the two dresses with the air of an expert. He said the name of the designer of the black-and-white dress, as if the choice was obvious. It was a tuxedolike halter cocktail dress with a high neck that left her arms, upper back and shoulders bare. A curved cutout in the front also left a good portion of her legs exposed. It was a structured, geometric design, but the dress was also fiercely sexy.

“Don’t you think it’s too . . .
much
?” she asked doubtfully, examining the dress critically.

“
You
tell me which one,” was Richard’s arch reply.

She held up the decidedly more demure dress with frothy skirt and a high waist and collar.

“Interesting,” Richard mused as he started to leave, carrying the humidifier.

“Be sure to drink lots of liquids. I’ll check in on you later. And the dress is
not
interesting,” she couldn’t stop herself from calling after him. “It’s a perfectly
uninteresting
dress.”

“That was what was interesting about you picking it,” he said before he walked out the door.

•   •   •

Francesca immediately greeted her when she walked into the small ballroom. Lucien’s staff had converted it into a studio to display her artwork.

“Hi! You’re one of the first to get here. Or maybe you’re one of the only to come,” Francesca added worriedly under her breath, before she gave Lin a hug and a kiss on the cheek and Lin reciprocated.

“Don’t be silly. Loads of people will come. You got that wonderful mention in the
Chicago Tribune
last Sunday in the arts section. I just came early to be sure I was here before everyone else. You look beautiful,” Lin said. The vibrant green color did wonderful things for Ian’s wife’s rose-gold hair and dark eyes. The cut of the dress subtly emphasized Francesca’s pregnant state rather than disguising it. Francesca was in the fifth month of her pregnancy, and she looked radiant. Strangely enough, considering Lin’s secret feelings for Ian, she’d never been painfully jealous of Francesca. Perhaps that was simply because the vibrant, fresh, and singularly talented young woman was difficult not to like. Lin’s feelings toward Francesca Noble had deepened from cautious amiability to respect and caring. She understood why Ian was so captivated by his wife. Besides, how could she profess to genuine feelings for Ian and not be glad for his obvious peace and happiness?

“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.

“I can’t tell you what a pleasure this is for us to meet you as well,” Otto was gushing in crisp, Swiss-accented English. “Brigit was very busy with the advertising campaign for the holidays, but she insisted upon accompanying me in order to meet the genius who created such a revolutionary mechanism. Even now, I can’t quite grasp what you’ve managed to accomplish.”

Kam resisted an urge to shrug and just held Otto’s stare.

“He’s modest,” Brigit said in mock-confidential tone to Lin. “The brilliant ones often are.”