awfully feeble-minded.
His smile seemed to grow even more dangerous somehow, and Sara couldn’t help thinking that he had almost certainly picked up on that points beyond business. Probably because of her not too awfully feeble-minded voice.
His verbal response, however, wasn’t quite in keeping with that dangerous smile. “Wanna play Twenty Questions?” he asked.
Sara arched her brows curiously. “I beg your pardon?”
Mr. Cordello lifted his shoulders and let them drop in a shrug that she supposed he meant to look casual, but somehow it didn’t. “Twenty Questions,” he repeated. “It’s a game my brother and I used to play as kids to pass the time on long car trips.” His expression went a bit grim when he added, “Or to drown out the noise of our parents’ shouting at each other there at the end.”
Tactfully, Sara pretended she hadn’t heard that last part, and focused on the first part instead. “You and your brother must be very close. Being twins and all, I mean.”
“Actually, our closeness has less to do with being twins than it does being cast adrift at an early age.”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Sara said.
“Our folks split up when Marcus and I were nine. Marcus went to live with our father, and I went to live with our mother.”
A pang of something sharp and unpleasant twisted Sara’s midsection, and she was surprised to realize how very much she cared about what had happened to this man she had only just met. “That must have been very difficult for you both,” she said softly.
He expelled an exasperated sound. “To put it mildly. We were able to spend a month together every summer, but it never felt like enough. Even now, I wish we had more time to spend together.”
“Yet, as adults, you live hundreds of miles away from each other,” Sara couldn’t help pointing out.
Mr. Cordello shrugged again, almost apologetically this time. “My mother has made Southern California her home, and I don’t want to be too far away from her. She’s—” He halted abruptly.
“What?” Sara asked before she could stop herself, knowing it was impolite to pry. Even if Mr. Cordello had been the one to bring it up.
He expelled a weary breath. “She’s… She’s not very… She has a habit of…” Now he uttered a restless sound. “Let me put it this way. She’s on husband number five, and none of them since my father have been much of a prize. Even my father didn’t do right by her, as far as I’m concerned. But at least he loved her. For a while. She’s just not good at taking care of herself,” he finally concluded. “She needs someone close by to keep an eye on her. On things,” he quickly corrected himself. “So as long as she calls L.A. home, that’s where I’ll be, too.”
Something inside Sara turned over a little bit at hearing his admission. He was a good son. He wanted to make certain his mother was well cared for. In spite of his rough outward appearance, he had a protective, gentle streak inside. She never would have guessed that. And knowing it now…
Well. Knowing it now only made him that much more dangerous, Sara thought. Because it made him that much more appealing. That much more interesting. That much more likable. And she couldn’t afford to like Shane Cordello. She just couldn’t. Circumstances being what they were, it couldn’t possibly go anywhere. She had a career all mapped out, one she hadn’t even had the opportunity to embark upon yet, and it did not include the addition of another human being in her life. And Mr. Cordello might very well be embarking on a new career of his own—heir to a kingdom—one that would turn his entire life upside down. The best either of them could hope for would be something temporary at best. And what would be the point in that?
“Twenty Questions,” Sara said, backpedaling. “How is it that you play such a game?”
Mr. Cordello seemed not to understand the question at first, because he was clearly still lost in memories of his brother and his mother and the mix of everything those two created inside him. Then suddenly he smiled, a smile that was at once relieved and regretful. “I think of something, and you can ask me twenty questions that I have to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to. If you can’t guess what I’m thinking about with twenty questions, I win. If you do guess before you reach twenty, you win. Or we could do it the other way around. You think of something, and I get to ask you questions until I guess what it is you’re thinking.”
Sara gazed at him again, more studiously this time, considering his blue eyes, his full, succulent mouth, the overly long dark hair that was just begging for a woman’s fingers to sift through it. Lowering her gaze surreptitiously, she noted the way the sleeves of his T-shirt strained over salient biceps, and the rich, dark hair that sprung from the V-neck. Then higher again, over the strong column of his throat and the sculpted jaw, darkened and coarsened now by his uncivil beard. And for some reason, she found herself wondering how it would feel to have her own delicate skin abraded by his.
“Maybe you should start,” she said. “You think of something first, and I’ll ask you questions.”
Because God knew there was no way that Sara wanted him delving into her own thoughts just now.
Three
Oh, man. Shane was ninety-nine percent sure he could tell what Miss Sara Wallington was thinking right now, without having to ask her a single question. Because, whether she realized it or not, she was giving off clues like nobody’s business. Really good clues, too. Clues he wanted very badly to pick up and run with. Maybe that washroom at the front of the cabin could prove useful after all…
The thought was just forming in his brain when the small jet suddenly gave a lurch. Automatically, Shane gripped the arms of his seat, but not before he was thrown sideways by another jolt. Then forward by another. And backward by another. Immediately, his gaze flew to Sara’s. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
She shook her head, her expression—and her ferocious stranglehold on the arms of her own seat—indicating that she was clearly as alarmed as he. But where Shane would have expected someone in a pink sweater and pearls and a bun to fasten her seat belt and start wringing her hands and muttering something like, “We’re all going to die, we’re all going to die,” what Sara Wallington did was leap up from her seat and march forward, stating in no uncertain terms, “I have no idea what the hell that was, but I intend to find out.”
No sooner had she stood, however, than the jet began to execute a fierce turn, something that threw her right back into her seat in an awkward sprawl. For one long moment, the jet banked so sharply and so swiftly that neither of them could rise from their seats. When the vessel finally did come out of the turn, though, Sara immediately jumped up again and began her forward march once more.
Shane was about to leap up right behind her when Fawn the flight attendant came striding down the aisle toward them, brushing one hand over the backs of the seats as she came, as if she were preparing for another one of the jet’s odd maneuvers. Reluctantly, he eased back into his seat, because he figured she was going to reassure them that everything was fine, they’d just hit a little turbulence, had had to change course to avoid more, and how about another Scotch or champagne to tide them over for the remainder of the flight, hmm? But instead of reassuring them, as the curvy brunette drew nearer, she whipped out a small automatic pistol and pointed it right at Sara’s heart.
All in all, it wasn’t a development that Shane had anticipated.
“You’ll do well to take your seat, Miss Wallington,” Fawn said in an even cooler, crisper tone than Sara had been using herself on this flight. And that was saying something. “Otherwise,” she added just as coldly, “I shall be obliged to shoot you.”
And again Shane’s pink-sweater-and-pearls-wearing companion surprised him. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said coolly as she stepped forward, and in one fluid effort disarmed the other woman with a good swift kick to her hand. Without hesitation, Sara then scooped up the dropped weapon,