in a few short days he’d have the deal tied up and Evelyn and child safely delivered home again.
Easy.
‘Mr Zamos,’ the cabin attendant said, refreshing his water, ‘the captain said to tell you we’ll be landing in half an hour. Would you like me to let Ms Carmichael know?’
He looked at his watch, rubbed his brow, calculating how long she’d slept. If his theory was right, her mood should be very much improved already. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘but I’ll do it.’
There was no answer to his soft knock, so he turned the handle, cracked open the door. ‘Evelyn?’
Light slanted into the darkened room and as his eyes adjusted he could make her out in the bed, her caramel hair tumbling over the pillow, her face turned away, her arm protectively resting over her child’s belly.
Mother and child.
And he felt such a surge of feeling inside him, such a tangle of twisted emotions, that for a moment the noise of that blast blotted everything else out, and there was nothing else for it but to close his eyes and endure the rush of pain and disgust and anger as it ripped through him.
And when he could breathe again, he opened his eyes to see another pair of dark eyes blinking up at him from the bed. Across the sleeping woman, the pair considered each other, Leo totally ill equipped to deal with the situation. In the end it was Sam who took the initiative. He pulled his teddy from his arms and offered him to Leo. ‘Bear.’
He looked blankly at the child and immediately Sam rolled over, taking his toy with him, then promptly rolled back and held his bear out to Leo again. ‘Bear.’
And Leo felt—he didn’t know how he felt. He didn’t know what was expected of him. He was still reeling from the explosion of emotions that had rocked through him to know how to react to this.
‘Bear!’
‘Mmm, what’s that, Sam?’ Eve said drowsily, and she looked around and saw Leo. ‘Oh.’ She pushed herself up, ran a hand over her hair. ‘Have I overslept?’
Her cheek was red where it had lain against the pillow, her hair was mussed and there was a smudge of mascara under one eye, but yet none of that detracted from her fundamental beauty. And he felt an insane surge of masculine pride that he was the one responsible for her exhaustion. And a not-so-insane surge of lust in anticipation of a repeat performance in his near future.
‘We’ll be landing soon. You don’t want to miss the view as we come in. It’s pretty spectacular, they tell me.’
It was spectacular, Eve discovered after she’d freshened herelf up and changed Sam before joining Leo back in the cabin. The sea was the most amazing blue, and she could make out in the distance some of the islands that made up the Whitsunday group. From here they looked like jewels in the sea, all lush green slopes and white sand surrounded by water containing every shade of blue. The sun was starting to go down, blazing fire, washing everything in a golden hue.
‘That’s Hamilton Island,’ he said, indicating a larger island as they circled the group for their approach. ‘That’s where we’ll land before transferring to the helicopter for Mina Island.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, pointing over Sam’s shoulder. ‘Look, Sam, that’s where we’re going for a holiday.’ Sam burst into song and pumped his arms up and down.
It did look idyllic, she thought. Maybe a couple of days relaxing on a tropical island wouldn’t be such a hardship. She glanced over at the man beside her, felt the familiar sizzle in her veins she now associated with him and only him, and knew she was fooling herself.
With Leo around things were bound to get complicated. They always did.
Which meant she just had to establish a few ground rules first.
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