Jack was listening to Yasmin talk as he took a sip of champagne before the crowds parted and he saw her wearing a blush-coloured dress and pink shoes. Both dress and shoes were feminine and unbelievably sexy in a way they hinted tantalisingly at the charms of the woman wearing them rather than brazenly displaying them.
He was struck by the sight of her. Struck enough for his body to go completely still, his hand holding the glass arrested in its descent from his lips.
Then it hit him who she was.
In the last eight months he’d seen her pictures dozens of times, maybe even scores of times in the media.
Belle Abbot, “The Tiny Dynamo”, “The Great American He**ine” and half a dozen other nicknames the press had given her when, eight months ago, she’d witnessed an accident in front of her while driving down the road. A bus carrying school children coming back from an outing had flipped over a bridge into icy waters.
She’d stopped her car, torn out and dove into the freezing sea to save the lives of seven schoolchildren and the bus driver who she’d plunged after, again and again, to pull from the bus.
Two children had swum free themselves, two children had drowned. Both drown victims Belle had pulled from the watery wreckage and one she was still giving CPR when the paramedics finally arrived.
This was all caught on other onlookers’ phones, both in photos and video. They did not help Belle Abbot. No. Instead they sold their photos far and wide. Photos of her dripping wet, diving, breaking the surface with a child’s arm wrapped around her neck, dragging the child behind her, kicking toward the shore.
The press had made a meal of her, as they would because the story was, frankly, astounding.
They hadn’t, however, as the months passed, lost their interest.
Mainly because, when Belle Abbot wasn’t cold, wet and saving lives, she was exceptionally pretty.
Not beautiful, her nose was too pert, her skin was peaches and cream, she was not petite but also not tall.
But she was uncommonly pretty with shining, unbelievably thick, dark blonde hair streaked with honeyed highlights. Her body was perfectly proportioned and lusciously curvaceous. Lastly, she had a classic, elegant style, a bearing that was nearly regal and she was way too photogenic for her own good.
Further, she was an enigma. In a time when instant celebrity was coveted to the point of obsession, she didn’t speak to the press. She didn’t sell her story. She didn’t do television interviews. She didn’t pay any attention to the media at all. She kept her eyes averted, head bowed and went about her daily life as if she hadn’t committed an act of selfless altruism. An act which had already, without Belle Abbot’s input or approval, been made into a television movie.
Her head turned and her grey eyes hit him and Jack felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to his gut.
He was wrong.
Perhaps she wasn’t as photogenic as he thought.
In the photos, she was not beautiful.
But in the flesh, she was a knockout.
It struck Jack that she was with a man, a man who was holding her close and Jack’s eyes moved to the man.
They did this as Yasmin breathed, “I don’t believe it.”
When Jack saw his brother Miles holding Belle Abbot, his still body went rock-solid.
He felt Yasmin’s hand clutch his forearm as Miles turned to look at what had caught Belle’s attention.
Jack watched as Miles’s face took on an expression Jack knew very well. Indeed, Jack had seen it time and again for as long as he could remember.
It was the look Miles got every time Miles engaged him in a competition which happened often between the two brothers. Over the years Jack had vigorously participated, until recently, after their father died (but even before) when Miles’s obsessive competitive streak had turned to unhealthy compulsion.
The look on Miles’s face was filled with triumph.
Jack knew at that moment that Miles was not with Belle Abbot because she was graceful, stylish and extraordinarily sexy.
He was with her to rub Jack’s nose in it.
“Jack, is Miles with Belle Abbot, The Tiny Dynamo?” Yasmin whispered.
“Yes,” Jack’s deep voice clipped tersely.