Ethan had used a hand to guide her into a convenient seat in the airport arrival lounge. ‘Sit,’ he quietly commanded.
Subsiding without a single murmur, she watched him park their luggage trolley next to her through listless eyes and didn’t even seem to notice that he then walked off without telling her where he was going.
He came back five minutes later to find her sitting more or less how he had left her. As he came to stand in front of her she looked up and, stifling a yawn, she pointed at their assorted luggage. ‘Just think,’ she said, ‘how convenient it would be if we ever got married.’
Following the direction of her pointing finger, Ethan found himself looking at two sets of suitcases, both of which wore the same initials embossed on their leather like a sign from the devil of what the future held for them. He didn’t like it. His mouth turned down in a show of dismay because those near-matching suitcases spoke of one giant step over that fragile line between, I can deal with this, and, The hell I can.
Eve saw he didn’t like it. ‘It was a joke, Ethan,’ she sighed out wearily.
‘Time to go,’ was all he said—heavily.
Taking hold of her arm he pulled her to her feet when all Eve wanted to do was curl up in a dark corner somewhere, go to sleep and not wake up again while he was still in her life!
Then what did he do to throw that last thought right out of her head? He placed an arm around her shoulders, gently urged her to lean against him then kept her that close while pushing the trolley in front of them as they walked outside.
I like him this close, she confessed to herself. I love it when he makes these unexpected gestures of concern. ‘You’ve no sense of humour,’ she muttered in grim rejection of her own weakness.
‘Or your sense of timing is lousy,’ he suggested sardonically.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it hadn’t been the most diplomatic observation to make when they were in effect walking alongside a whole pack of lies. She released a sigh; he acknowledged it by giving her arm a gentle squeeze that could have been sympathising with that weary little sigh. And, because it felt right to do it, she slipped her hand around his lean waist—and leaned just that bit more intimately into him.
As the automatic exit doors slid open for them, a small commotion just behind them made them pause and glance back to see a group of dark-eyed, dark-suited Spaniards heading towards the doors with a pack of photographers on their trail. It was only as the group drew level with them that Eve realised the men were clustered around an exquisite looking creature with black hair, dark eyes and full-blooded passion-red mouth.
‘Miss Cordero, look this way,’ the chasing pack were pleading. Camera bulbs flashed. Miss Cordero kept her eyes fixed directly ahead as her entourage herded her towards the exit doors Eve and Ethan had conveniently opened for them. As they swept by, someone called out to Miss Cordero. ‘Is it true that you spent the night in Port Said with your lover, Sheikh Rafiq?’
Eve felt Ethan stiffen. Glancing up at his face she saw a frown was pulling the edges of his brows across the bridge of his nose. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Who is she?’
‘Serena Cordero, the dancer,’ he replied.
Eve recognised the name now. Serena Cordero was the unchallenged queen of classical flamenco. Her recent world tour had brought on a rash of Spanish dance fever, causing schools dedicated to the art to open up all over the place. It wasn’t just classical dance she performed with sizzling mastery. Her gypsy fire dance could put an auditorium full of men into a mass passion meltdown.
None of which explained why Ethan was standing block-still with a frown on his face, she mused curiously. Unless…‘Do you know her?’ she asked him, already feeling the sting of jealousy hit her bloodstream at the idea that Ethan might know what it was like to have the exotic Serena dance all over him!
But he gave a shake of his dark head. ‘I only know of her,’ he said, making the chilly distinction.
‘Then why the frown?’
‘What frown?’
He looked down at her. Eve looked up at him. The now familiar sting of awareness leapt up between the two of them. ‘That frown,’ she murmured, touching a slender long finger to the bridge of his nose where his eyebrows dipped and met. It was too irresistible not to trail that fingertip down the length of his thin nose. Her hand was caught, gently crushed into his larger hand and removed.
The question itself was no longer relevant: Serena Cordero had suddenly ceased to exist. Mutual desire was back, hot and tight and stifling the life out of everything else.
‘Let’s go,’ Ethan murmured, striving to contain it.
He wanted her, she wanted him. It was going to happen some time, Eve was sure of it. ‘Okay,’ she said.
Attention returned to the exit doors, they stepped outside into the afternoon heat. Coming here from the Caribbean should have meant they were acclimatised to it by now. But the Spanish heat was so dry it scorched the skin, whereas the Caribbean heat was softened by high humidity and cooled slightly by trade winds coming off the sea.
The Cordero entourage had disappeared already. There was a chauffeur-driven car standing by the kerb waiting for them. Eve was glad to escape into the air-conditioned coolness of its rear seat. Having helped to stash their luggage in the car boot, Ethan joined her. The heat emanating from his body made her shiver, though she didn’t know why it did.
Two hours of this, she was thinking breathlessly, as they took off with the smoothness of luxury. The prospect brought back the aching tiredness, the tiredness thankfully dulled the aching pulse of desire. Settling back into soft leather,
