was sitting right at the back, almost as if he didn’t want to be there. She knew most of the journalists who covered this kind of story but, wearing antique 501s, and with a mop of thick dark hair that looked as if it had been combed with his fingers, he didn’t look like any kind of small-town newspaper man she’d ever met. He looked like a man made for a much bigger stage. Casual he might be, but he made the elegant main hall of the Assembly Rooms look small.
She was smaller than he had imagined from her photographs, and reed-slim, but the neat burnished cap of bright hair, the pale delicate skin, the elegant black dress were pure drama, and every eye in the room was fixed on her, waiting for her to speak.
Matt was not easily impressed, nor, he suspected, were the journalists who had gathered there, and yet he felt a quickening in the air, a stir of anticipation as she looked around the room, acknowledging acquaintances with the briefest of smiles.
Then her gaze came to rest on him, lingering in a look that seemed to single him out, to hold his attention, and just for a second he had the disconcerting sensation that she could see right through him, recognise him for what he was.
He had wondered, looking at her photograph in Parker’s office, if her eyes could really be that impossible shade of blue, or whether, like her hair, the colour had been enhanced for effect.
But there was no need to enhance anything. The effect came from something that lit her from within and he knew what it was. Passion.
And her look, he discovered, as for just a moment their gazes locked and held, had a kick like a mule.
Matt hadn’t been affected in that way by a woman since Lucy Braithwaite had kissed him in the vestry after choir practice, cutting short a promising career as a solo treble.
He was still struggling to recover his breath when Nyssa Blake took a sip of water before finally beginning to speak.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming to Delvering today,’ she began.
Her voice, unexpectedly low and slightly husky, rippled through him, stirring the small hairs at the nape of his neck. Was that how she did it? How she drew supporters to her, twisted cynical newspaper hacks around her dainty fingers, walked past security guards without let or hindrance? Did she just turn on the lamps behind her eyes, murmur in that low voice and turn them into her willing slaves?
He rubbed his hand over his face in an attempt to pull himself together. He hadn’t come to the press conference to join the Nyssa Blake fan club. He simply wanted to get the measure of the girl…woman…
Well, he was doing that all right. But it sure as hell wasn’t what he had expected.
‘I do hope you have all taken advantage of this opportunity to look around Delvering, to talk to local people, to discover for yourselves what exactly is at stake here,’ she continued. Then quite unexpectedly she grinned, and for a moment he saw the girl, still there behind the sophisticated veneer. ‘But don’t worry if you haven’t,’ she said, indicating the projector with a wave of her hand. It was a gesture that would have done justice to a geisha, controlled, exquisitely graceful, and for just a moment his body seemed to do a loop-the-loop as he imagined what that hand could do to him. ‘I’m about to enlighten you, so save your questions until after the show.’
There was a murmur of laughter as the light dimmed until there was just a small shaded lamp over the notes on the lectern, the powerful beam from the projector directing all eyes to the screen with its aerial view of the small market town of Delvering.
As if this was a prearranged signal, several people leapt to their feet in the darkness. There was an angry yell that turned into a cry of pain from the man standing by the projector as it was overturned, hitting the floor was a crash that blew the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
The heavies. He didn’t have to see them to know. He’d recognised them for what they were, despite their suits and their careful interest in Nyssa Blake’s work, and he’d assumed they were minders. He’d been wrong.
And there was one right in front of the lectern.
Without pausing to consider the wisdom of his actions, Matt Crosby hurled himself towards the shaded light that illuminated nothing but Nyssa Blake’s small hands, frozen in the act of turning over the first page of her notes.
CHAPTER TWO
STARTLED by the crash, Nyssa looked up. The room was dark beyond the small circle of light illuminating her notes and for a moment she froze. Then, as her confused wits began to make some sense of the sounds coming out of the darkness, she began to move.
Too late.
She stepped straight back into the waiting arms of a man who, as he seized her from behind, clamped his hand over her mouth, cutting off her instinctive shout for help.
Matt was still feet away when she let out a startled protest, instantly muffled, and it didn’t take much imagination to supply a picture of a large hand covering her face, a burly arm pinning her arms as she was lifted from her feet.
Surging forward, Matt carried them both down onto the floor and, just to make sure he’d got the message, crashed his fist into the man’s nose. It was something he’d regret later, when he had time to feel the pain. But not now. Now he simply had to get Nyssa Blake out of there.
He leapt to his feet and, without stopping to waste time or breath in explanations, caught hold of her as she scrambled up, determined on escape. Assuming he was her attacker, renewing his assault, she struck out at him and her bunched fist connected with the side of his face as he lifted her to her feet. Ignoring the dizzying blow, not stopping to explain, he shouldered her and carried her through a small door that led into a corridor, blinking in the sudden light.
Ignoring the main entrance, he headed for the rear of the building and burst out into the fading light of the late August evening, crossing to the narrow side street where he’d left his car.
Nyssa Blake was yelling and kicking all the way, but all hell appeared to have broken out on the pavement in front of the Assembly Rooms and no one was taking any notice. Anyone whose business it was to notice undoubtedly assumed he was the guy now trying to put his nose back together.
Neatly done, Parker, he thought grimly as he opened the driver’s door of his car, pushed her in and, still hanging onto her, followed. She immediately stopped struggling, and as his grip was hampered by the awkward angle gave a deft wriggle and escaped his grasp. Matt slammed the door behind him and pressed the central locking switch before she reached the door handle.
Small she might be, but when she turned and lunged furiously at him, nails outstretched, it was all he could do to hold her off. And the mule kick effect wasn’t confined to her eyes.
‘For crying out loud, will you stop that? I’m not trying to hurt you,’ he said sharply, then swore as the toe of her fashionable shoe connected with his shin for a second time. She wasn’t listening. As she came at him again he was forced to abandon passive defence and instead grabbed both her arms, pinning them behind her as he dragged her hard against him so that she could no longer strike out. His leg thrown over her, pinning her to the seat, dealt with her feet.
For a moment she continued to struggle furiously. He simply hung on until she realised she was wasting her time. Then she went quite still and opened her eyes to look up at him.
‘Okay, you win,’
