it about—and would I even understand the title?’ he added with good-humoured self-deprecation.
For all that her incandescent beauty lit up the room for him, she lived in a world that was far, far distant from the cut and thrust of his.
He watched her take a sip from her drink, admiring her delicate fingers, the elegant air she had about her. She was wearing a mid-price-range cocktail dress, with a square neckline and cap sleeves, which, although it was fitting for the purpose of a formal conference dinner, had little pizzazz about it. Her hair was dressed in a neat pleat, and her make-up was subdued. She looked what she was—an academic dressed up for the evening.
Desire curled in him, focussed and demanding.
She was answering him now, and he paid attention, subduing his primitive response to her.
Her voice, light and crisp in the English style, had warmed with an enthusiasm that came, he knew instinctively, from the intellectual passion in her that lit up in her eyes, animating her fine-boned face.
‘My research field is cosmology—understanding the origins and eventual fate of the universe. This poster is just one small aspect of that. I’m running observational data through a computer model, testing various options for the geometry and density of space which might indicate whether, to put it at its simplest, the universe is open or closed.’
Nic frowned in concentration. ‘What does that mean?’
Her voice warmed yet more as she explained. ‘Well, if it’s open, the expansion that started with the Big Bang will cause all the matter in the universe to be dissipated, so there will be no stars, no planets, no galaxies and no energy. It’s called heat death and it would be really boring,’ she said with a moue of dislike. ‘So I’m rooting for a closed universe, which could cause everything to eventually collapse back in a Big Crunch and trigger another Big Bang—and the universe will be reborn. Far more fun!’
Nic took a mouthful of bourbon, feeling the strong liquid ease pleasantly down his throat.
‘So, which is it?’ he asked in his laconic fashion.
She gave another moue. ‘No one knows for sure—though it’s tending towards open at the moment, alas. Whichever it is we have to accept it—even if I don’t like it.’
Nic felt himself shake his head. ‘No. I don’t buy that.’
She was looking at him questioningly, her eyes beautiful and wide.
He elaborated, his voice decisive. ‘We should never accept what we don’t like. It’s defeatist.’ His jaw set. ‘OK, maybe it applies to the universe—but it doesn’t apply to humanity. We can change things, and it’s up to us. We don’t have to accept the status quo.’
She was still looking at him, but her expression was one of curiosity now. ‘That sounds like it runs very deep in you,’ she said. Her eyes rested on him a moment, as if reading him.
He gave a half-shrug of one shoulder, as if impatient. ‘We can’t just accept things as they are.’
She frowned slightly. ‘Some things we have to, though. Some things we can’t change. Who we are, for example. Who we were born as—’
Like I was born Donna Francesca—that’s in me whether I want it to be or not. It’s part of my heritage—an indelible part. For all the changes I’ve made to my life, I can’t change my birth.
‘That’s exactly what we can change!’ There was vehemence in his reply, and he took another slug of bourbon. Memories were pressing in on him suddenly—bad memories. His hapless mother, abandoned by the man who’d fathered her son, abandoned by all of the other men who’d taken up with her—or worse. His memory darkened. Like the brute who had inflicted beatings on her until the day had come when Nic had reached his teenage years and had been strong enough to protect her from thugs like that....
I had to change my life! I had to do it for myself—by myself. There was no one to help me. And I did change it.
She was looking at him, a slightly curious look in her eyes at the vehemence of his expression, her beautiful grey eyes clear in her fine-boned face.
She gave a slow nod. ‘Then perhaps,’ she said, in an equally slow voice, ‘we have to bear in mind that old prayer, don’t we? The one that asks that we be granted the courage to change what we can, but the patience to accept what we can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.’
Nic thought about it. Then, ‘Nope,’ he said decisively. ‘I want to change everything I don’t like.’
She gave a laugh—a deliberately light one. ‘Well, you wouldn’t make a scientist, that’s for sure,’ she said.
He gave an echoing laugh, realising with a sense of shock that he had spoken more about his deepest feelings to this woman than he had ever done to anyone. It struck him that to have touched on matters that ran so very deep within him with a woman he hadn’t known existed twenty minutes earlier was....
Significant?
I don’t have conversations like this with women—never. So why this one?
It had to be because of her being a scientist—that had to be it. It was just that, nothing more.
She’s a fantastically beautiful woman—and I want to know her more. But there have been a lot of beautiful women in my life, when I’ve had time for them. She’s just one more.
She was different, yes, because of her being an incredibly talented astrophysicist when the women he was usually interested in were party girls, prioritising good times and carefree enjoyment, which allowed him time out from his obsession with building his personal empire. Females who didn’t ask for commitment. For more than he could give them.
But thinking about the assorted women who’d been and gone in his life was not what he was here to do. He was here to make the most of this one.
He flexed his shoulders, feeling himself relax again, his eyes focussed on drinking in her extraordinary entrancing beauty.
She had finished her drink, and so had he. With every instinct in his body, long honed by experience, he knew it was time to call time on the evening. He’d set the wheels in motion, but tonight was not going to get them further to the destination he wanted for them both. She was not, he knew, the kind of woman who could be rushed. He’d followed through on the impulse that had brought him across the casino floor to her, and for now that was enough.
He signalled the barman, signed the chit as presented, making sure his scrawling ‘Falcone’ was visible only to his employee, and got to his feet with a smile.
Fran did likewise. Her emotions were strange—new to her—but she smiled politely. ‘Thank you for the drink,’ she said.
The long dark lashes swept over the blue, blue eyes. ‘My pleasure,’ came the laconic reply. ‘And thank you for the science tutorial,’ he added, the smile warm in his gaze.
‘You’re welcome,’ Fran replied, her smile just as warm, but briefer, more circumspect.
She headed towards the bank
