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His hand fell from her wrist. Miranda spun away; she could hear him laughing behind her. She wanted to scream but her throat had closed up. She wanted to run but there were people jammed in all around her. Desperate little sounds rose in her throat as she fought her way across the room while she prayed that Moratelli wouldn't follow her...
"Miranda?"
She did scream this time, as a man's hands closed on her shoulders, but the sound was lost in the noises blasting from the band.
"No," she said, struggling fiercely against the hard press of those hands, "don't—"
"Baby, what is it?"
She looked up and saw Conor.
Hi
s arms folded around her. For long seconds they stood that way, while her heart raced so hard she could hear its pounding beat in her ears, and then Conor drew back just enough so he could look down into her face.
Something had damn near scared the life out of her.
A familiar rage rose inside him. If only she hadn't been so determined to blow him off. He'd have been here, watching over her...
Hell, who was he kidding? It was his fault, not hers. She'd tried to lose him but, in the end, it was he who'd lost her. First the rental car had broken down and then an army of taxis had flashed by, their drivers oblivious to his waving arms. When he'd reached the point of desperation, he'd stepped out in front of one, ordered its occupants out, flashed his ID at the driver as if this were the States and he had the right to commandeer a cab in the first place. Then he'd ordered the frightened driver to take him here, pronto.
By the time he'd finally reached the hotel, you couldn't have fit another person into the ballroom with a shoehorn but he'd forced his way into the mob and set out to locate Miranda.
Just when he'd decided she'd managed to give him the slip, he'd spotted Nita hanging on to some guy. There was no point in playing cat and mouse. Nita knew he was tailing Miranda; he'd even seen her watching him from the window tonight. So he'd clapped his hand on her shoulder, turned her towards him and asked, without any preliminaries, where in hell Miranda was spending the evening if not at this godforsaken party.
"Don't be silly, handsome," Nita had purred. "She's here."
"Where?" he'd growled, and Nita had given a throaty laugh and said why, the last she'd seen, Miranda had been right over there, in that corner.
He'd caught a quick glimpse, just enough to know Nita was pointing him in the right direction, and he'd set out towards her. But some jerk had blocked his view and his path and the next thing he'd known, Miranda had been clawing her way through the mob, her beautiful face white with fear, her eyes shining with it, and now she was here, in his arms, and dammit to hell, he would kill whatever son of a bitch it was who'd put that look of terror into her eyes.
"Conor," she whispered, "oh, Conor!"
He slid his arm around her shoulders and brought her close against his body.
"Let's get out of here," he said, and she nodded.
He led her to the door, shouldering his way through the mob, ignoring the protests of those he shoved out of his way. At last, they broke free and reached the comparative quiet of the lobby. He clasped her shoulders, his eyes hard and questioning as they locked on hers.
"What happened?"
She put her hand to her heart. She could feel its fluttering beat hammering beneath her fingers.
"There was a man."
"What man?"
She stared at him blankly, her eyes glassy. Conor's fingers bit into her flesh.
"Answer me, dammit!"
"A—a man came up to me."
"Who was it? Did you know him?"
"I met him last week. At—at the party Jean-Phillipe took me to." She shuddered and Conor drew her against him again, stroking her hair until he felt the tremors stop. "I was talking to someone, you see, and I was going crazy, trying to figure out a way to get rid of him, and..." She swallowed hard. "And this man suddenly came up to me. He said hello and I said hello, and then he acted as if we'd arranged to meet here."
"Had you?"
