of us ever knew about that,” she said absently, trying not to let him see how much it hurt to know that he couldn’t see a future as a husband and father. Now that she knew what he really did for a living, she could understand why. He was never going to be a family man. “We thought it was the trust your mother left you that kept you in Armani suits,” she added in a subdued tone.
“No, it wasn’t. I like my lifestyle,” he added with a pointed glance in her direction. He stretched lazily, pulling the silk shirt he was wearing taut across the muscles of his chest. A flight attendant actually hesitated as she started down the aisle, helplessly drinking in the sight of him. He was a dish, all right. Callie didn’t blame the other woman for staring, but the flight attendant had blond hair and blue eyes and she was lovely. Her beauty was like a knife in the ribs to Callie, pointing out all the physical attributes she herself lacked. If only she’d been pretty, she told herself miserably, maybe Micah would have wanted more than an occasional kiss from her.
“Would you care for anything to drink, sir?” the flight attendant asked, smiling joyfully as she paused by Micah’s side.
“Scotch and soda,” he told her. He smiled ruefully. “It’s been a long day.”
“Coming right up,” the woman said, and went at once to get the order.
Callie noticed that she hadn’t been asked if she wanted anything. She wondered what Micah would say if she asked for a neat whiskey. Probably nothing, she told herself miserably. He might have kissed her in the airport, but he only seemed irritated by her now.
The flight attendant was back with his drink. She glanced belatedly at Callie and grimaced. “Sorry,” she told the other woman. “I didn’t think to ask if you’d like something, too?”
Callie shook her head and smiled. “No, I don’t want anything, thanks.”
“Are you stopping in Nassau or just passing through?” the woman asked Micah boldly.
He gave her a lingering appraisal, from her long, elegant legs to her full breasts and lovely face. He smiled. “I live there.”
“Really!” Her eyes lit as if they’d concealed fires. “So do I!”
“Then you must know Lisette Dubonnet,” he said.
“Dubonnet,” the uniformed woman repeated, frowning. “Isn’t her father Jacques Dubonnet, the French ambassador?”
“Yes,” he said. “Lisette and I have known each other for several years. We’re…very good friends.”
The flight attendant looked suddenly uncomfortable, and a little flushed. Micah was telling her, in a nice way, that she’d overstepped her introduction. He smiled to soften the rejection, but it was a rejection, just the same.
“Miss Dubonnet is very lovely,” the flight attendant said with a pleasant, if more formal, smile. “If you need anything else, just ring.”
“I will.”
She went on down the aisle. Beside him, Callie was staring out the window at the ocean below without any real enthusiasm. She hated her own reaction to the news that Micah was involved with some beautiful woman in Nassau. And not only a beautiful woman, but a poised sophisticate, as well.
“You’ll like Lisse,” he said carelessly. “I’ll ask her to go shopping with you. You’ll have to have a few clothes. She has excellent taste.”
Implying that Callie had none at all. Her heart felt like iron in her chest, heavy and cold. “That would be nice,” she said, lying through her teeth. “I won’t need much, though,” she added, thinking about her small savings account.
“You may be there longer than a day or two,” he said in a carefully neutral voice. “You can’t wear the same clothes day in and day out. Besides,” he added curtly, “it’s about time you learned how to dress like a young woman instead of an elderly recluse!”
5
Callie felt the anger boil out of her in waves. “Oh, that’s nice, coming from you,” she said icily. “When you’re the one who started me wearing that sort of thing in the first place!”
“Me?” he replied, his eyebrows arching.
“You said I dressed like a tramp,” she began, and her eyes were anguished as she remembered the harsh, hateful words. “Like my mother,” she added huskily. “You said that I flaunted my body…” She stopped suddenly and wrapped her arms around herself. She stared out the porthole while she recovered her self-control. “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “I’ve been through a lot. It’s catching up with me. I didn’t mean to say that.”
He felt as if he’d been slapped. Maybe he deserved it, too. Callie had been beautiful in that green velvet dress. The sight of her in it had made him ache. She had the grace and poise of a model, even if she lacked the necessary height. But he’d never realized that his own anger had made her ashamed of her body, and at such an impressionable age. Good God, no wonder she dressed like a dowager! Then he remembered what she’d hinted in the jungle about the foster homes she’d stayed in, and he wondered with real anguish what she’d endured before she came to live in his father’s house. There had to be more to her repression than just a few regretted words from him.
“Callie,” he said huskily, catching her soft chin and turning her flushed face toward him. “Something happened to you at one of those foster homes, didn’t it?”
She bit her lower lip and for a few seconds, there was torment in her eyes.
He drew in a sharp breath.
She turned her face away again, embarrassed.
“Can you talk about it?” he asked.
She shook her head jerkily.
His dark eyes narrowed. And her mother—her own mother—had deserted her, had placed her in danger with pure indifference. “Damn your mother,” he said in a gruff whisper.
She didn’t look at him again. At least, she thought mistakenly, he was remembering the breakup of his father’s marriage, and not her childhood anymore. She didn’t like remembering the past.
He leaned back in his seat and stretched, folding his arms over his broad chest. One day, he promised himself, there was going to be a reckoning for Callie’s mother. He hoped the woman got just a fraction of what she deserved, for all the grief and pain she’d caused. Although, he had to admit, she had changed in the past year or so.
He wondered if her mother’s first husband, Kane Kirby, had contacted Callie recently. Poor kid, he thought. She really had gone through a lot, even before Lopez had her kidnapped. He thought about what she’d suffered at Lopez’s hands, and he ached to avenge her. The drug lord was almost certain to make a grab for her again. But this time, he promised himself, Lopez was going to pay up his account in full. He owed Callie that much for the damage he’d done.
It was dark when the plane landed in Nassau at the international airport, and Micah let Callie go ahead of him down the ramp to the pavement. The moist heat was almost smothering, after the air-conditioned plane. Micah took her arm and escorted her to passport control. He glanced with amusement at the passengers waiting around baggage claim for their
