after being bodily against a human furnace.
Hannah took another step back. ‘Why has James deposited your luggage beside mine?’
‘I’m researching.’
‘What? The difference between Tarmac in Tasmanian and New Zealand airports?’
Humour flickered behind his eyes. It made her senses skedaddle and a purely feminine heat began to pulse. Then he slid his sunglasses into their usual hiding place and she had no chance of reading him.
‘Less specific,’ he said dryly. ‘Try Tasmania.’ Then he sauntered on past.
‘Wait!’ she called. ‘Hang on just a minute. What am I missing here?’
‘You sell yourself short on your PR abilities. You sold me.’
‘Sold you what?’
‘Tracts of wild, rugged, untouched beauty. Jagged cliffs. Lush forests. Roaring waterfalls. Lakes so still you don’t know which way is the sky. Sound familiar?’
Sure did. One of her many effusive speeches about her gorgeous home.
He continued, ‘It got me to thinking. So it’s decided. The team know what to do in New Zealand. They’ll go that way, while I do a solo recce of this area this weekend.’
So that was what they’d been cooking up in the back of the jet. She’d been busy playing holiday, so as not to get caught up in office stuff—sipping on a cocktail, reading a trashy magazine and listening to the music blaring from her iPod—and she’d blissfully let it all go by.
She must have been gaping like a beached fish, because he added, ‘Don’t panic. I have no intention of invading your holiday. Spencer’s hired me a car and planned me a course.’
Hannah snapped her mouth shut. The fact that he was staying was still beyond her comprehension. But mostly she was struggling with the intense sense of envy that the one time she’d cut herself off was the one time she could have proved her producer potential. Sure, Spencer was great with an online map, but nobody in Bradley’s circle knew the island, the detail, the most TV-worthy spots of her home island more than her.
Her timing couldn’t have sucked more.
An insistent voice knocked hard on the back of her brain. Let it go. Give yourself a muuuuuch needed break. And come Tuesday sit him down and tell him exactly why he needs to put you in charge of the project.
‘Okay,’ she said, overly bright. ‘Well, that’s just … excellent. Truly. You won’t regret it.’
With that she turned away and headed towards her luggage. And that was when she heard it. A penetrating feminine voice shrilled thinly in the far distance.
‘Yoo-hoo! Hannah! Over heeeeere!’
Her conflicted emotions fled in an instant at the sound of that voice. And, boy, did she not blame them?
Why? How?
The text! She’d sent Elyse a quick message saying she’d be getting in early, and how. Dammit!
‘Hannah!’
She frantically searched the small crowd awaiting the arrival of loved ones from behind a chicken wire fence. With their matching long, thick and straight dark brown hair, pale skin, shiny baubles, and head to toe pink get-ups, Hannah’s mother and sister stood out from the small, chilly, rugged-up crowd like flamingos in a flock of pigeons.
As though the years hadn’t passed—as though she didn’t have an amazing job and a great apartment, cool friends and real confidence in where she’d landed—Hannah’s hand went straight to her hair. Only to remember she’d done nothing with it that morning and now, as she stood on the windy Tarmac, it was making a fly for freedom in just about every direction possible.
In about five seconds flat she went from respected ace assistant to a TV wunderkind to skinny tomboy shuffling a soccer ball around the backyard while her glamorous mother and sister shopped and groomed and giggled about boys.
Her mother pushed through the crowd, opened a gate that probably meant she was breaking about half a dozen aviation safety laws, and headed her way. Hannah knew the grown-up thing to do was walk towards her, waving happily, but she was so deep into meltdown mode she began to physically back away.
And that was when she felt an arm slide beneath her poncho to settle gently but firmly in the curve of her back. The wall of warmth that came with it stopped her in her retreat as nothing else could have.
She must have been putting out such a silent distress call even her famously self-contained boss had felt it. Had come to her defence. Gallantry was becoming a bit of a pattern, in fact. If only the feel of him so close didn’t also make her knees forget how to keep her legs straight.
And she needed every ounce of strength she had for what was about to happen. For coming up against her mother unprepared and un-liquored-up. And for subjecting her fuss-phobic boss to the living soap opera that was her family.
Bradley and her mother. Oh, no.
Brain suddenly working as if she had a sixth-sense, Hannah leaned in closer and said, ‘Take a sharp left now, head into those bushes to the east and you’ll hit the main road in about three minutes. Hail a cab from there. Go!’
His eyebrows came together and he laughed softly. ‘Why on earth would I want to do that?’
‘See that vision in pink hurtling our way? That’s my mother. And if you don’t run now you’ll feel like you’ve been hit by a hurricane.’
But it was too late.
She felt Bradley stiffen behind her. His fingers dug into her skin. If her brain hadn’t been working overtime on how to keep her boss from going into a meltdown right alongside her she might just have groaned with the intense pleasure of it.
Virginia’s eyes had zeroed in on Bradley with a vengeance. No wonder. A six-feet-four hunk standing in the shadow of his own private jet wasn’t something any woman could easily ignore. Especially a strikingly beautiful woman currently between rich husbands.
Elyse, ever the mini-Mum, tottered in her wake.
Hannah felt Bradley grow an inch behind her as he breathed in deep. Then he broke the tense silence with, ‘So, to downgrade the hurricane to mild sun shower, what do I need to know?’
Just like that, the Tarmac beneath her feet felt like familiar ground. At Knight Productions they never went into any meeting without being completely prepared for any outcome. Without knowing they’d never accept no for an answer. And Bradley always got his own way.
‘Number one: call her Virginia,’ Hannah punched out. ‘Not Mrs anything. She’s never liked to be thought of as a wife or mother. If people think she is either, it’s proof she’s of a certain age. Do that and you’re ahead of the curve.’
Bradley’s eyebrows all but disappeared into his hairline, but at least his death grip relaxed. ‘Who does she think people think you were? Her fan club?’
Hannah laughed. Unexpectedly. She turned to find he was looking far more relaxed and less rock-like than she could ever have hoped. And as she turned his hand slipped further around her waist. Her breath went AWOL.
‘Relax,’ he murmured, leaning closer. ‘You are so wound up you’re actually beginning to scare me just a little. Don’t panic. Mothers love me.’
She shot him a look of despair. ‘That’s not the problem. I mean, look at you. I have no doubt my mother will adore you.’
A muscle twitched beneath his eye and his mouth lifted into a sexy half-smile. ‘You think I’m adorable?’
‘To the tips of your designer socks,’ she said, her voice as blank as she could manage. ‘And, just for the record, along with tall men who own private jets my mother also adores rhinestones,