his hand, palm up, over the centre console between them.
She glanced down and then back up at him, throat moving on a swallow. Slowly, as if she thought his palm might be electrified, she placed her hand in his.
His chest expanded, a surge of oxygen energising him as it always did when he brokered a difficult business deal.
‘Let’s just have a look around. If you want to go up, we can. If you don’t, we’ll just watch a few balloons take off and then go and meet Jack early.’
She scrunched her brow. ‘Jack?’
‘My cousin. He’s an architect and property developer. He’s visiting the hotel building site I want to show you today.’
She nodded, clearly reaching a decision. ‘No. I want to go up.’
He grinned. She was so determined. So possessed. Completely hardcore. However much she downplayed her accident, it must have shaken her up. It would shake anyone. And yet she was still willing to buy into his grandiose scheme to show her a good time and his vision for his outdoor adventure charity.
He squeezed her fingers. ‘Let’s do this.’
‘It’s amazing!’ She clung to him.
He wanted to keep her prisoner in this basket for ever. Her arm was snaked around his waist, her hand under his jacket forcing a fist into his chest to massage his heart until the blood sang through his arteries.
He positioned his body behind her, his arms either side of her, holding the lip of the basket in front of them, his chin on her shoulder, seeing what she saw.
‘Having fun?’
Her hair tickled his cheek and he pressed a kiss to the soft skin of her neck. Fuck, when she bestowed that rare and beatific smile on him, he felt like a king.
She laughed—a throaty sound that shot straight to his balls.
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
Her heart pounded so hard and fast, he could feel it thrum through his chest where he was pressed against her back.
‘I can’t believe how beautiful it is up here.’ She rested her head back against his shoulder, a small shudder leaving her.
If he’d orchestrated a huge romantic gesture, he couldn’t have anticipated a more perfect reaction from her. She softened against him, her body heavy, pressing back, covering him from thigh to shoulder. Every time the burner fired and the balloon lurched gracefully higher she laughed, or caught her breath and pressed closer—as if she trusted him over the sturdy basket and the balloon’s skilled operator.
The only way to improve on this morning would have been for them to have woken side by side, slaking his need to constantly taste her, feel her, be inside her.
What the actual fuck was happening to him? He barely knew her, but already he wanted more of her.
‘Tell me something…’ His lips traced her earlobe, catching the small gold earring dangling there. Would she play the game they’d started over dinner last night? Would her personal admissions soften like her body?
She sighed—a soft escape of air. ‘I’m a trained yoga instructor, although I haven’t taught for many years.’
He groaned, his imagination running wild. ‘Fuck, could you be any hotter? I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a naked demonstration of the Downward-facing Dog?’
‘Pervert!’
Her chuckle warmed his blood, lifting him higher than the balloon could ever carry him.
‘You tell me something.’
Her words echoed his and he grinned. She relaxed deeper into his chest. Her delicious scent tickled his nose.
He took a deep breath. ‘I was a game developer in my teens. A real bona fide computer nerd.’
And he’d had the dodgy haircut to prove it—a detail she didn’t need to know.
‘I guessed. The T-shirt yesterday kinda gave you away.’
He loved it that she was so observant—that she saw him.
They watched the horizon in strangely comfortable silence, with only the birds for company. He’d just pointed out the spires of Oxford in the distance when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
His stomach dropped. He’d given Molly strict instructions to forward all calls but one to Jeremy in his absence. That meant he couldn’t ignore this call—no matter how rude it seemed to answer, or how badly timed.
He stepped back enough to fish the device from his pocket, keeping one arm banded around Libby’s waist.
‘Mother.’
A pause. Acid surged into the back of his throat.
‘Zander? Is that you?’
Hairs prickled on his neck. He knew that wobble in her voice. Dreaded it. Eight in the morning and she’d likely drunk so much she couldn’t remember who she was calling. Or she’d suffered one of her ‘spells’, during which she could barely function, shutting herself away for days on end.
‘Where’s Clive?’
His mother’s second husband protected Alex from the worst of his mother’s issues—something he was grateful for and felt guilty about in equal measure.
‘Golf. I just wanted to say I’ll see you Saturday, at the wedding…’ Her voice trailed off but the line stayed connected.
Fuck.
‘Mother? Maman?’
He’d have to go to her. What if she’d drunk herself into a coma? What if she’d taken something?
Firing a text to Clive, he swore under his breath.
Releasing Libby, he turned and spoke to the pilot.
‘Is something wrong?’
Libby touched his arm, dragging him back to the present, away from a past that refused to lessen its hold on him no matter what he did.
‘I need to visit my mother. She’s…unwell.’
Still grieving for Jenny, all these years later. Reminding them of their loss with her bouts of depression and her periods of drinking too much. Fanning the flames of his guilt for his own shortcomings.
He could have been a better brother. A better son. It might not have saved Jenny—he wasn’t to blame for her death after all—but it might have made all their lives a little easier. Salvaged his parents’ marriage. Made Jenny’s short life happier.
The balloon began its descent, taking the atmosphere with it. Libby paled, as if her own fears, her own demons, had resurfaced with his ill-timed family interruption.
‘It’s
