Helping Sarah

Chapter 4

Michael

I shrugged one shoulder as I carefully removed a piece of non-existing lint from my trousers. "You know I've been looking for something to do that isn't work."

It wasn't the best explanation for my stupidity, but I couldn't very well tell them that I'd looked into a pair of eyes the colour of coffee and spoken without thinking. The mocking would never end.

Alistair's brows drew together in a deep frown. "I do know, but this?" He glanced at James and quickly added, "No offence."

Our friend just inclined his head.

I shrugged. "I'd like to help her."

"But why not do so under your own name?"

"Because... Because she didn't recognize me," I said slowly, and even I could hear the astonishment in my voice. It didn't stem from conceit, but from three months of more attention from women – and men – than in all the twenty-nine years of my life prior to that article in the local Cambridge newspaper that had brought me to sudden and unwelcome fame.

A beautiful woman who lived in the same city as me and didn't recognize me, who didn't flirt with me or wanted something from me, was so novel that I hadn't been able to just let her walk away from me.

I'm still not proud of what I did, and I can't even use the excuse of what so often happens that my mouth had opened before my mind had time to consider the words or the consequences or the possible repercussions. No, the lie about my name was deliberate, and at least it meant I could help Sarah incognito.

That part in all this I didn't need to consider or ruminate; I wanted to help her. I wanted to see relief in her eyes instead of the vulnerability that had been there when she'd asked for James. To be honest, it was the haunted look in those brown eyes that had prompted me to tell her I helped him. It was the way they pleaded with me that had made me offer my help. It was the complete lack of recognition when they looked at me that made my heart thump and made me lie to her about my name.

My list of transgressions towards Sarah had grown quite long in the space of a very short time.

Alistair stared at me with as much of a frown as his imperturbable façade would allow.

"She's from Cambridge," I elaborated, "but she doesn't know who I am."

His perfectly manicured eyebrows formed a crease between them. Alistair had had a first row seat to Bridgette and quite a few of the other women who had sought me out. Hell, with his title he was often himself subjected to the same kind of fervent female focus. He of all people would know the wonder of meeting someone who didn't know or care how much was in your bank account or whose goal in life it was to be styled Your Grace.

"You're sure?" he asked, his voice dripping with scepticism, but as he had also had a first row seat to all my failures with women for more than ten years the tone of his voice didn't surprise me.

Anything business or technology related and my instincts are spot on, but when it comes to women, I'm quite certain I don't possess those correct instincts. Not ones who give me any useful advice, at least.

Hence Bridgette.

But she had been the first to sidle up to me after that article, the first to batter her eyelashes at me, and she'd caught me completely unawares. Not so Sarah. At least... I didn't think so.

I scratched my jaw. I didn't think Sarah had come here to flirt her way into my wallet. She'd have to be extremely skilled to have found me here as even I hadn't known I'd be here today until Bridgette had jumped into my car while I waited for the gate outside my house to close behind me this morning.