in me.
He raised his glass. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass to mine. “To chance meetings.”
“To chance meetings.”
I liked the shape of his hands. And in spite of the hint of nerves, he possessed the air of easy authority that often came with established wealth. Thanks to my father, I’d met many men who carried that aura. And judging by his bronze Rolex and gold cuff links engraved with the initials MCS, combined with the elegant cut of his clothes and the Bolvaint shoes, Martin Cresswell-Smith was accustomed to financial success. I felt something inside me begin to open up. Hope. A possibility that I could live—really live—again. Laugh. Love, even.
“What are you thinking, Ellie?”
“That you don’t look like a serial killer.”
He laughed. Loudly. The sound rich and infectious. He leaned forward, a mischievous light twinkling in his eyes. “But I could abduct you. I could take you away from here to a dark and remote place.”
“Too risky. Too public. CCTV cameras.” I wiggled my hand toward the roof.
He glanced up. “Are there?”
I hesitated, not yet ready to share with him how much I did know about this hotel that bore our family name. “Well, I imagine there might be. In the lobby, at least. And you’d have to take me through the lobby, right?”
“Hmm.” He swirled the rich burgundy liquid in his glass. It caught the glow of the fire. “Maybe a rear service door?”
“Opening a back door would sound the fire alarm.”
He made a wry face. “Okay, you win. Abduction is out.”
I chuckled, reached for an artisan cracker, topped it with soft cheese, and popped it into my mouth.
“So where is the accent from?” I said around my mouthful.
“The better question is where isn’t it from.” He fell silent for a moment and I had a sense he was debating how much to tell me about himself. “I was born in Australia. Melbourne. My mother was originally from Canada. My father is in property development. Shopping malls. International resorts. So we traveled a lot when I was growing up. We spent three years in England, and I went to school there. Some time in the States—Nevada, New York. Then Portugal and France. A year in the Caribbean. Some months on the Red Sea living at a diving resort for a project my dad was working on there. A lot of time in Toronto. I live there now. My business is based in Toronto.”
“And you’re here as part of the AGORA convention?”
He nodded. “A chance to pitch a development proposal in New South Wales. We had backers, mostly out of China, but red tape between the Australian and Chinese governments recently forced my financiers to pull out.” He sipped his drink. “So now I’m looking for some new equity partners and have done a few pitches here.”
“What sort of development is it?”
He looked into my eyes, weighing me, and I wondered what he saw—a tipsy and brainless female unworthy of an in-depth explanation, or someone seriously interested.
“It’s a resort and residential development along the coast about four hours’ drive south of Sydney,” he said. “A very high-end marina with a lodge and rental-cottages component on an estuary.” He glanced at the fire for a moment, then smiled and said, “It’s just north of an area I loved to visit as a kid. We spent several family holidays there. A place called Jarrawarra Bay. We’d go after Christmas each year when I was around nine, ten, eleven, and the last trip was when I was twelve.” He paused. “Those years in some ways were the best part—the truest part—of my life.”
I chilled inside. I’d had almost those exact same thoughts just moments ago—that the years just before and when I was nine—before my mom died—those had been the truest, most real parts of my life. I’d even mentioned this to a magazine journalist who’d written a feature on the “Grieving Hartley Heiress.” It had been a sympathetic piece, for a change. The journalist had lost a child of her own and had understood me. I stared into his baby-blue eyes, memories surging over me.
“What is it?” he said, attentive. “You look like a ghost just walked over your grave.”
“It’s nothing. I . . . just . . . it’s like you read my mind.” I smiled, feeling a deepening kinship with this warm, attractive, attentive, charismatic man who shared my sorts of feelings. “I’ve thought the same thing before. Tell me about those holidays?” I reached for my glass and