of it, drawing in a hissing breath before going through to the cockpit, slamming the door firmly shut behind her.
Damn! Damn, damn, damn. Jonas groaned as he dropped down into one of the armchairs. He was tired, regretted ever agreeing to this appointment, especially on a Saturday, and the last thing he felt like dealing with was a woman who enjoyed nothing more than flaunting her equality, an equality that he wasn’t even aware he had questioned—apart from the assumption that she had to be the flight attendant, a nagging little voice infuriatingly reminded him!—before he had even had time to indulge in a much-needed, and so far denied, late breakfast!
‘Would you fasten your seat belt, Mr Noble?’ her voice came coolly over the internal intercom. ‘We’re about to taxi for take-off.’
Jonas did as he was asked, but it did not give him a sense of well-being to know that his life was now—literally—in the hands of Danie Summer—a woman who had shown him nothing but condescending contempt so far during their acquaintance!
CHAPTER ONE
WHO was Jonas Noble?
More to the point, what was he?
Until a couple of hours ago, Danie had believed she had a free Saturday, had planned on having lunch with her elder sister Harrie, and Harrie’s husband, Quinn McBride, before going into town to do some leisurely shopping.
But then her father had telephoned, and, despite her half-hearted objections, had managed, with his usual charming diplomacy, to talk her into flying Jonas Noble to his country estate instead.
But Rome had been less than forthcoming about his visitor, refused—again, charmingly—to be drawn as to the reason for Jonas Noble’s visit.
One thing Danie hated was a mystery. And Jonas Noble himself had been no help in explaining his reason for visiting her father’s home, either. He had proved just as closed-mouthed as her father when she had questioned him a few minutes ago, and his appearance was no help whatsoever in pinning down who or what he could be.
The man didn’t have the look of a businessman for one thing; his dark hair was a little too long. His casual clothing—black denims teamed with a black silk shirt and grey fitted jacket—exuded none of the formal efficiency that businessmen who dealt with her father liked to adopt. Her father excluded, of course. But then, Rome was way past the stage of caring what sort of image he presented—to anyone! Perhaps Jonas Noble was in that kind of position, too…?
Danie shook her head even as she went through the mechanics of flying; she had never heard of Jonas Noble before, and if his photograph had ever appeared in any of the business journals her father subscribed to, then Danie knew she would have remembered him. His was not a face it would be easy to forget!
It wasn’t strictly a handsome face, was too angular for that; his jaw was square and determined, with a firmly sculptured mouth, and slightly aquiline nose. It was his eyes that were so arresting, Danie realised: a deep dark brown, filled with a warmth that softened all those other hard edges.
Careful, Danie, she chided herself, or you might actually start to consider Jonas Noble as an attractive man!
Well, possibly he was, she conceded, but she wasn’t fooled by a man’s good looks. She knew those looks invariably hid a calculating selfishness. Her experience with Ben had more than shown her—
Damn it, where had that come from? She never thought of Ben any more, considered him a part of her life that was firmly shut away from prying eyes—and prying minds. Jonas Noble was the subject under question here, not someone from her past who had cured her of wanting any romantic involvement for the last two years!
Her passenger had one piece of luggage with him, a small case, too small for a suitcase, too large to be a briefcase. So what did it contain?
Well, she wasn’t going to get any answers from the man himself, she conceded wryly, so she might as well put away her curiosity until she saw her father.
She reached up to press a button above her head. ‘We’re levelling out now, Mr Noble,’ she told him coolly over the intercom. ‘This is a non-smoking flight, but please help yourself to the refreshments,’ she added mockingly, a smile curving her lips as she recalled the expression on the man’s face when she’d informed him she wasn’t the flight attendant but the pilot! Not exactly speechless, but close enough. Obviously women didn’t step too far out of their expected roles in Jonas Noble’s world, Danie thought tauntingly.
But planes, and flying, had been loves of hers since she’d been a child, having travelled all over the world with her parents by the time she was five. Instead of dolls, she had had models of planes in her bedroom as she’d been growing up, rapidly progressing to ones that had worked by remote control, taking them outside and flying them for hours. Her father’s pilot at the time, an older man called Edward, had been quite happy for her to accompany him in the cockpit on flights, even found a pair of overalls for her to wear so that she’d been able to help him when he’d looked in the engines.
By the time she was eighteen she had already decided exactly what she was going to do with her life. There had been a little opposition from her father, of course. But as they had recently lost her mother to cancer, those objections had been only half-hearted. Rome was so devastated by the loss. If he had thought about it at all, he would have probably expected Danie would tire of the pursuit during the months it had taken her to get her full pilot’s licence, but he would have been wrong. She loved flying, it was as simple as that.
Men like Jonas Noble were a prime example of the prejudice she had come up against during the time it had taken to attain her licence! Playing at it, seemed to be most men’s opinion of her chosen career, backed up, no doubt, by what they considered to be Daddy’s money.
Well, she had taken enough of that over the years, Danie reflected; if she were playing at anything, it was being polite in the face of the chauvinistic intolerance she had encountered towards her chosen career from men over the last seven or eight years!
Including Ben.
Not again, she told herself impatiently. She hadn’t given the man a thought for months and now she had thought of him twice in half an hour. Unacceptable!
And it was all Jonas Noble’s fault, she considered. There was something about him that brought Ben to mind. She could well do without it, thank you!
She pressed the button above her head a second time. ‘We will be landing in ten minutes, Mr Noble,’ she told him abruptly. ‘I advise you to place any debris from your food and drink in the container provided, and to fasten your seat belt.’ With any luck, his visit with her father would, as he had said, be a short one, and once she had flown him back to town she might just be able to go shopping, after all!
Her father had sent Charles out in the Rolls, and not the Range Rover, to collect his guest from the private airstrip on the estate, Danie noted with some surprise as she brought the jet in to land. Curiouser and curiouser. Rome rarely used the Rolls Royce, had bought it a couple of years ago on a whim, and now considered it a little too ostentatious for his tastes. But it had been brought out of mothballs today in Jonas Noble’s honour. Which again posed the question: who was he?
‘Please remain in your seat until I’ve completely brought the aircraft to a stop, Mr Noble,’ she told him brusquely over the intercom. ‘I will then come back through to the cabin and open the door for you.’
She had done this trip dozens of times before,
