kit…’ She looked across at him, suddenly wanting not to make him angry, but to make him laugh. ‘Safety pins…’
If he was tempted to smile, he did a manful job of hiding it and, too late to do any good, she wished she’d kept a rein on her temper, or at least her tongue.
A first, that.
They made the airport in what must have been some kind of record, for silence as well as speed, on roads that were relatively clear so early in the morning. Although half an hour had never felt so long.
Things didn’t improve when they reached the terminal building. Max just leaned across her, took an envelope out of the glove compartment and handed it to her.
‘You handle the check-in while I go and park.’
Unmistakably an order and considering it was combined with the silent treatment her immediate reaction was to tell him to stuff Meridia, stuff Bella Lucia and to go run his own errands. But even as she opened her mouth she found herself recalling her earlier regret and-another first-kept her peace.
‘Right. Well, I’ll be-’
‘I’ll find you, Louise,’ he said, cutting her short. Then, ‘Will you please move, before I get a parking ticket?’
She manfully resisted the temptation to drop his passport and the tickets in the nearest bin and take a taxi home, but he was unappreciative of her restraint and once they were boarded, closed his eyes, suggesting that even silence was a strain. That he couldn’t bear to look at her.
Because he thought that she was involved with Cal? Nothing else had changed since the evening they’d spent talking about the business over supper, not touching, keeping their distance after that searing kiss.
Which meant what, exactly?
That he was jealous?
She glanced at him as if some clue might be found in his posture. In the give-away tension around his closed eyes as she watched him.
‘Are you together?’ The stewardess, breakfast tray in hand, joined her in regarding Max, unsure whether or not to disturb him.
‘Never met him before in my life,’ Louise replied, turning away and smiling up at the woman.
‘Oh. Right. I don’t suppose he said anything about breakfast, then?’ The woman sounded harassed. No doubt someone had already given her a hard time for trying to do her job, something Max would never do. He knew the stresses and was always considerate of anyone in the service industry.
Unless it was her, of course.
He’d always made an exception in her case.
And recalling her revelatory thoughts about Cal, she asked herself, So why would he bother? Unless he cared?
The stewardess was still waiting.
‘Breakfast? Oh, wait, he did say something about looking forward to it.’ Feeling a desperate urge to smile, she instead raised her eyebrows, inviting the woman to agree that he was clearly crazy. ‘I guess he didn’t have time to eat before he left for the airport.’
That finally did raise a smile-or maybe it was a grimace-and Max opened his eyes, straightened in his seat.
‘Now would be a very good time to use one of those safety pins, Louise,’ he said. ‘To fasten your lips together.’
Max regretted the words the minute they left his mouth. He’d spent most of the weekend reminding himself that it was always a mistake to mix business with pleasure, but when she’d swept out of the front door in that dramatic scarlet coat, sexy little hat, common sense had taken a hike. Even so, he’d thought he’d covered himself with the most innocuous of remarks.
“Got everything?” What was there to take offence at in that?
And now he’d done it again. This time with intent.
Apparently they couldn’t be together for more than a minute without one of them lighting the blue touch-paper. This time he was the guilty party and there was an apparently endless moment while he waited for the explosion. He was ready for it, wanted it, he realised in a moment of searing self-revelation. At least when they were fighting he knew he had her total attention. That she wasn’t thinking about anyone but him.
It didn’t happen.
Instead of taking the tray from the still hovering stewardess and tipping it in his lap, she leaned forward, picked up her bag and, from a miniature sewing kit, extracted a clip of tiny gold safety pins.
She unhooked one, turned and offered it to him. ‘Go ahead, Max.’
In the clear bright light of thirty thousand feet, her eyes were a pure translucent silver and for a moment he couldn’t think, speak, move.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she prompted. And pushed out her lips, inviting him to get on with it.
It was all he could do to stop the brief expletive slipping from his own lips.
‘It’s a bit small,’ was the best he could manage. ‘The pin,’ he added, quickly, in case she thought he was referring to her mouth.
Too late, he realised that there was no safe answer as she lifted one brow and said, ‘So, I have a big mouth.’
Pushing him, inviting him to do his worst…
He felt a surge of relief. This was better. ‘Too big for this pin,’ he said, closing his hand around hers. Happy to oblige.
They were six miles above the earth. Where could she go?
‘Sorry about that,’ she said.
Her mouth was innocent of a smile but without warning a dimple appeared in her left cheek and he felt a surge of warmth, knowing-because he knew her as no one else did-that it was there.
‘I’m rarely called to pin up anything bigger than a shoestring strap, or a broken zip at a photo-shoot.’ The dimple deepened as if she were having serious trouble keeping the smile at bay. ‘I’ll make a note to pack something larger in future.’
‘Good plan,’ he said, taking the pin, letting go of her hand. Touching her was firing up the kind of heat that no shower was cold enough to suppress. ‘In the meantime I’ll hang onto this one, just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘Just “in case”’, he said, dropping it into his ticket pocket. ‘Who knows when one will encounter a shoestring- strapped damsel in distress?’
Then, because this elegant, perfectly groomed version of Louise was so different from the way she’d looked on Saturday, warm, tousled and sleepy from the bed she’d shared with Cal Jameson-when for a moment he’d looked into her eyes and seen himself reflected there, as if he were the centre of her soul-he turned away, unable to bear it.
‘I’ll pass on the food, thanks,’ he said to the stewardess. ‘Just leave me the juice.’
‘Me, too,’ Louise said. Then, turning to him, ‘Do you want to run through what we’re doing today, Max?’
Not as much as he’d hoped, but work had always served him well enough in the past.
‘Why not?’ And he watched as she produced a folder, opened it, handed him a copy of the papers. Within minutes he was absorbed in the ideas she’d managed to throw together over the weekend. ‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘Considering the distractions.’
For some reason that made her smile.
‘I spoke to my mother, too. Ivy…’
‘You called her?’
‘She called me. She wanted me to go to lunch yesterday.’
‘Perhaps there was something in the stars.’ She frowned, not understanding. ‘My mother called me, as well. She wanted me to bail her out of jail.’
He hadn’t meant to tell her. He’d never told anyone. Not his father, not Jack. She was his mother. His cross.
‘Max…’ Louise laid her hand over his. ‘I’m so sorry. Is she in desperate trouble?’
‘Nothing that money won’t sort out. Unpaid bills. It just took a bit of sorting out.’
