outer door with a hand on her elbow. She trembled beneath his touch, just slightly, just enough to make it impossible to think of anything but touching her.
When they climbed into the back of the taxi, closed themselves into the confines of that rear seat that somehow seemed so isolated despite the driver right in front of them, Brent noticed that intimacy again.
It was there in the knowledge of his body close to hers, their thighs touching where his legs sprawled and hers were folded neatly in front of her.
‘I’m excited to have the chance to attend the Awards ceremony with you.’ Fiona smiled as she turned her head to search his gaze. Smiled with an edge of awareness that he should have wished wasn’t there.
Instead, a part of him that just didn’t want to obey him revelled in her reaction, even as he thought of all the things he wouldn’t like about the evening. ‘I don’t exactly adore public events, but this one is important for my work.’
‘I could take them or leave them most of the time myself,’ Fiona admitted, ‘but I’m excited about tonight. I want your nominated design to win. I’ve studied all the candidate works and yours is by far the best.’
Her faith in him made him smile. ‘I appreciate your confidence in me, though there are several other very talented contenders.’
They discussed the other works and their designers for the rest of the journey. Brent talked, but he never lost his awareness of her. She smelled of soft woman’s skin, of subtle perfume that made him think of a tropical stretch of beach at midnight at the height of summer.
As they arrived at the converted mansion that would house the Awards ceremony, Fiona vehemently assured him there was no chance anyone else would be the winner tonight.
Brent wanted so very badly to lean forward and kiss the passionate declaration right off her lips. He allowed himself one brief touch of her forearm with his fingertips instead and they climbed from the taxi and made their way past several function rooms to the largest one, reserved for the ceremony. He had to do better than this and yet, with each passing moment, his determination to keep at arm’s length from her became more and more difficult to follow.
The venue was busy, with multiple functions taking place in a variety of rooms. Brent turned his attention away from all of that and focused on the woman at his side. On their joint interest in the night’s events, he meant!
‘Oh, why can’t he stop droning on and hurry up and just announce it?’ Fiona couldn’t hold the words back any longer. She whispered them against Brent’s ear where they sat at the table with a number of other guests.
Yes, she shouldn’t have leaned in so close and let her lips touch him that way, and no, she simply couldn’t care about that fact right now.
They’d done all the right things all night, had mixed and mingled and every other thing they had to do. And all the while, through everything, the awareness of each other had simmered. Something had changed. Maybe it was Brent, maybe it was Fiona herself. Or perhaps it was both of them, striking sparks off each other in this different setting.
If he truly was attracted to her, if he was the exception rather than the rule…
A short bark of stifled laughter came from her employer’s lips. He turned to smile at her, turned his head quickly enough that her lips brushed fully across his ear before she pulled back.
His smile turned to sensual consciousness between one breath and the next.
Fiona’s senses fluttered as their gazes caught and held. A moment later she sat straight in her seat again and Brent sat straight in his and the keynote speaker continued his spiel about the history of the award. There’d been no break in proceedings, but her heart was pounding. That expression in Brent’s eyes…
‘The award.’ She murmured the words beneath her breath. That was what was important right now. She shouldn’t have said anything about the keynote speaker going on too much. She should have waited patiently and then she wouldn’t have ended up with her mouth pressed to Brent’s ear.
Well, right now patience wasn’t her strong suit. Her senses were all out of whack because of what had just happened. And she wanted that award for her boss!
Are you sure you don’t just simply want your boss?
Tonight, in formal suit, white shirt and bow tie, he looked better than James Bond. She could attribute his impact on her to the flattering clothing and the tie that exactly matched the colour of her eyes.
Her eyes. As though he’d chosen to wear it to complement her, not himself.
That’s rather whimsical, don’t you think, Fiona?
And attributing his appeal to any of those surface things simply wouldn’t be honest, and she knew it.
Brent bent his head to hers and whispered, without getting too close to the shell of her ear, ‘Whether I win the award doesn’t matter one way or the other, you know.’
To a degree he was right. He would still be the highly successful landscape designer he was. But she wanted the industry recognition for him, believed he’d earned it, and wanted his peers and the various connections here tonight to see him win.
Fiona was about to explain those things when he reached out to cover her hand where it rested on the snowy linen of the tablecloth.
His deep voice whispered into her ear again. ‘Don’t stress, okay? We’re fine here and look on the bright side. Whatever the outcome, we got a nice meal out of it.’
‘We did, didn’t we?’ She laughed, as he had no doubt expected she would. And her hand turned. Her fingers curled around his and held on.
‘For luck,’ she murmured, and knew it was far more than that.
Brent made no attempt to break away from their joined touch. Instead, his fingers repeatedly stroked over hers as the speaker finally announced the third place, and a runner up, and finally, after a pause in which the whole room seemed to wait breathlessly…
‘And the winner of this year’s Deltran Landscaping Award is…Brent MacKay of Brent MacKay Landscaping Designs, for his design of Tarroway Gardens!’
‘Oh, I knew they’d give it to you. I’m so proud, Brent. Congratulations!’ Somehow Fiona ended up with her arms around Brent’s shoulders.
By itself that would have been okay, but his arms closed around her in return and she felt the touch of his fingers against the flesh between her shoulders, the press of strong forearms covered in suit cloth against her upper arms.
The scent of his aftershave and his skin filled her senses and his mouth pressed against her hair. The moment of congratulation and excitement became something more, became a promise of what she had wanted all through this public night.
But people clapped, and the room and their surroundings came back. Brent got to his feet and gripped her hand and used that grip to tow her onto the podium with him. He introduced her and her role in the company, said a little about his work as he held their tucked hands at his side.
His acceptance speech was short and succinct and witty and wry. He stopped once in the middle and his shoulders tensed. His hand squeezed
