looked at her she could see the relief on his face.
‘That might be the best idea. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good reference.’
She lost her struggle to hide her feelings. ‘Don’t make it sound like you’re doing me a favour. I’m damned good at my job.’
‘Yours, mine and everyone else’s. Not everyone likes being told what to do by a secretary.’
Pride alone kept her chin up, another of her life choices coming back to bite her.
It was strange, but last night had not been a decision in her head, more a collision, one of those celestial events that nothing could stop...and if she could have, would she? The answer should have depressed her, but, in the face of Mark’s unremitting nastiness, the fact it had happened made her feel not less in control, but more. She would never regret last night.
No, weirdly it had not been one of her bad life choices. University...? Lara had laughed at the idea—three years out of her life that gave her zero experience of real life and left her with a pile of debt hanging around her neck. Back then she’d had this crazy idea that talent and enthusiasm would make her rise through the ranks. Maybe true in some firms, but not in the one she worked for. Her glass ceiling had been set very low and her lack of paper qualifications meant she was never going to push through it.
There were no glittering prospects on the horizon, and until now she hadn’t admitted it even to herself, because doing so would mean she’d have to admit she’d made the wrong decision.
‘You know, sometimes it’s better to admit you made a mistake,’ she said.
‘But if you fly back without me, people—’
She suddenly got it. ‘You mean the guys in the office you told will think you’re not up to it?’
‘I didn’t tell anyone,’ he lied, red-faced. ‘If I’m willing to make the best of this I don’t see why you can’t...’
Arms folded across her chest, she looked at him, not seeing sensitivity shining out from behind his horn-rimmed spectacles but a pretty boring, unimaginative and selfish guy.
‘I’m really not your type, am I?’ Part of his attraction, if she was honest—and that was long overdue—was the fact that Mark had never made a pass. She’d never had to fight off advances or ignore smutty innuendo.
It really ought to have occurred to her that he simply didn’t find her attractive. She huffed out a laugh of self-mockery and thought, That’ll teach you, Lara, for assuming you’re irresistible. As for being the strong, quiet, heroic type—well, he hadn’t even asked her where she’d been last night let alone made any attempt to find her.
Mark gave an uncomfortable shrug. ‘You’re beautiful, I was flattered, but—’
Suddenly Lara did not want to hear the but...which was not going to be ego enhancing. Hers had taken quite a battering, and if it hadn’t been for last night and Raoul making her feel... She pushed away the thought. She was not going to turn into the sort of woman who needed a man to tell her she was beautiful in order to be comfortable in her own skin... Skin! A tingle slid through her body.
Images began to tumble through her head, relentless details, vignettes that had been indelibly imprinted. She could hear the soft rasp of her quickened breathing as she relived strong hands against her skin, gliding, and lips warm and moist.
It required every last ounce of self-control she had to banish them, to resist the compulsion to live it over and over. It left her feeling drained and strangely disconnected from reality, which might, she admitted, looking at Mark, not be such a bad thing.
His lips were tight—Lara recognised his fall-back expression when Mark encountered any opposition.
‘And anyway my CV could do with some polishing.’
Her comment succeeded in making Mark look uncomfortable; his eyes darted everywhere in the room except towards her face.
‘I’ll get the first flight home,’ she informed him, and worry about how she was going to pay for it afterwards.
‘You won’t get a refund on your ticket.’
He was right, of course, she didn’t, but the flight had not been as expensive as she had feared, even counting for the bus journey to the airport, which was miles out of the city.
Lara sat amidst frayed tempers and crying babies, sipping something that might have been coffee, when her flight was flashed up as delayed.
Just what she needed!
‘Miss Gray?’
A tall man stood there, brown hair with some premature grey showing at the temples. He carried himself with an air of natural authority—of course, the captain’s uniform helped.
She nodded, immediately wary; airports were not her favourite places.
‘Is there a problem?’ Her imagination went into overdrive, producing any number of disaster scenarios that would bring about this man knowing her name, seeking her out.
Did they send someone in a captain’s uniform to inform you when your family home had burnt down or your mum was lying in hospital after a head-on collision with a bus?
He shook his head and flashed her a reassuring smile. ‘Not at all. No problem, just a message.’
She touched a hand to her chest. ‘For me?’
Her worried frown vanished as logic kicked in. There could be no message for her because nobody knew she was here. She hadn’t explained her travel arrangements to Mark and nobody back home knew she was catching an early flight.
It was obviously a case of mistaken identity.
‘I think you’ve got the wrong person.’ And since when did men in pilots’ uniforms act as messengers?
‘No,’ he said, looking at her hair. ‘If you’d like to follow me...?’
When she thought about it later, Lara put her uncharacteristic docility down to a combination of the uniforms and airports, which were not the sort of places where anyone these days wanted to make a scene.
Airports! How she hated them! Though up to this point the worst thing that had happened to her was lost luggage.
‘I hope this won’t take long, my flight—’
‘Thanks, Justin, I owe you. Give my best to AJ.’
Raoul placed a hand on Lara’s arm before leaning forward, hand extended to the other man. Lara stood there, too stunned to protest the possessive gesture as she watched the two men shake hands like old friends.
‘Any time, Raoul.’ Justin flashed a sheepish apologetic look towards Lara before setting his cap on his head and walking away.
It was a set-up.
As she turned her head to look at the man who remained the life returned to her stiff limbs. Snatching her arm free, she took an angry step away from him.
‘Is he even a pilot?’ she asked bitterly.
‘Yes, he’s a pilot. I called him when I got snarled in the traffic.’ When Raoul had dropped her off and driven back to his place it hadn’t been too bad, but by the time he’d reversed back out it had been straight into rush-hour traffic.
In the interim he’d not actually got out of the car.
The automatic gates closing behind him had seemed to act like a trigger. Without warning the dark thoughts that he had escaped for a few hours last night had come rushing into his head, carrying with them a sense of searing desolation and loss. Unable to fight the downward spiral, he’d sunk deeper and deeper, struggling like a drowning man. Just as his lungs had felt as though they would burst, he had caught a whiff of the perfume that lingered in the confined space, and he had focused on that elusive fragrance, letting it carry him clear.
Over