Initiation (Master Class, #1) - Sierra Cartwright Page 0,44
at all. He was ready. “Although I wouldn’t mind bedding you, I’m not interested in a quick toss, Ms O’Malley.”
“An autograph? Do you have a pen? Then perhaps you’ll leave me the hell alone?”
Polite, wasn’t she? “I’m not looking for an autograph.”
“Well, then, if you’ll excuse me?”
She stood and turned away. By the time she’d taken two steps, he’d curved his hand around her shoulder and applied enough pressure that she stopped.
Slowly she turned back to face him again. Since he stood nearly a foot taller than her, she had to tip her head back in order to meet his gaze. “Take your hand off me. I’ve another set to prepare for.”
“I’ve travelled halfway round the world to meet you.”
“You should have bought the CD and saved yourself several hundred pounds.” Her smile was chilling. “You’ve met me.” She reached her hand up to pry his fingers off her shoulder. “Release me immediately.”
He was aware of the way she felt beneath him, womanly, but with unaccountable strength. He wanted her. “We’ve important things to discuss, Sinead O’Malley.”
“You are beginning to annoy me.” She exhaled.“I’m thinking maybe you’re a bit off your rocker, Mr…”
He slowly released her.
“Jack.” He extended a hand. She ignored it. Smart lass. “Jack Quinn.”
“Jack Quinn?” Her mouth dropped.
A very perfect, very pink tongue sneaked out. Good God, didn’t that cause another fantasy?
“The Jack Quinn? Hated enemy. Mad as a hatter?”
He didn’t quite know what to say to that. A man who chased a woman halfway around the world because of a comb didn’t seem to be all there.
“Sorry, I didn’t recognise you without the horns and tail.”
“I’ve never been the devil, Sinead.”
“Couldn’t prove that by my family.”
She took her time looking him over from his head to his dusty shoes. Judging by her sneer, she found him wanting.
Not the usual reaction from the ladies.
“So you’re the bastard who’s been stalking me?”
“I’ve been trying to get an audience with your highness for a while now,” he agreed.
“You’ve been following me for six thousand miles, Mr Quinn.”
E-mails, letters, phone calls, messages at venues along the way. “You’re a difficult woman to reach.”
“I’m sorry to say you travelled all this way to have me reject you and your ridiculous marriage proposal in person.” She moved an electrical cord out of the way with her toes. “Since you’re apparently thick or stubborn or both, the answer to your proposal, Mr Quinn, is not just no. It’s hell no. I don’t care if it would make your grandmother happy or secure your family line. I will not marry you. Not now, not ever.”
She gave him a sunny smile that really, he knew, meant ‘fuck you’.
“You are blunt.”
“I need to be as you’re apparently addled. Now I’ll thank you to get the hell off the stage and out of my life.”
“We need to talk, Sinead. We will talk.”
“I have nothing beyond that one word to say to you.” She pulled back her shoulders. “I’m not interested in your family’s problems.”
Her green eyes flashed irritation and her voice dropped an octave or two. “I’m not interested in you, Jack Quinn.”
She’d added the last, he supposed, in case he’d missed her point.
“You can get back on a plane and go home. County Mayo, isn’t it?”
As if she had to ask. Their shared history went back well over eight hundred years. The details of the sordid events were recorded for all time in the Annals of the Four Masters—the compilation of Irish history that dated back nearly two thousand years.
Sinead looked at him. Her eyes flashed venom. “Cuimhnich air na daoine o’n d’thainig thu.”
She speaks the tongue, does she? “Remember the men from whom you are sprung,” he translated.
“I, for one, will never forget.”
“It’s not just my problem, Ms O’Malley. It’s ours.”
“Ours,” she repeated. “Ours?” Her laugh was more an unladylike snort.
“Everything okay here, Sinead?” the drummer asked, climbing onto the stage and offering her a short glass of amber liquid. Good Irish whisky, Jack presumed.
“I can handle Mr Quinn myself.” Sinead accepted the glass.
The young man glared at Jack when Jack unashamedly drank his fill of the woman in front of him. Did the whelp have a crush on the woman? Jaysus, were they screwing each other?
And too bad if they were.
Sinead was going to be his. He’d not let a gobshite stand in the way.
She tipped back her head, exposing the vulnerable column of her throat, then closed her eyes and downed the beverage in a single swallow.
She made a soft kissing sound as