The car stopped. Mia stared and her heart began to pound heavily in her chest for in front of them, just as Carol had indicated, stood a gleaming white Gulfstream jet, with its engines running.
‘No,’ she breathed. ‘No!’ she gasped more strongly as a horrified suspicion of what was actually happening here began to take a firm hold on her. ‘Carol, this is—!’
But Carol was already clambering out of the car—and taking Suzanna with her!
‘Leon!’ Mia entreated jerkily.
‘Trust us,’ he said, then climbed out of the car—and that was when panic suddenly erupted.
‘You can’t do this!’ she protested, scrambling out of the car in time to see Carol and Suzanna disappear onto the jet. ‘No!’ she shouted after them. ‘Oh, God!’ Leon’s arm came round her shoulders. ‘Leon, for the love of God, you don’t understand!’
‘Believe me,’ he said soothingly, ‘I do understand. It’s OK …’ He began urging her towards the plane. ‘Alex has fixed everything. You have no need to worry. Trust him, Mia. He has your best interests at heart …’
Best interests at heart? Her blood pressure began to rise in a swirling red mist that almost completely engulfed her. She stumbled up the steps, dangerously out of control and near collapse. With her eyes she frantically searched out and found Suzanna—then saw the man who was squatting next to the child, talking to her.
‘Alex,’ she gasped in confusion.
His dark head came up, his eyes giving her a look of such grim determination that any small threads of pretence she might have been clinging to that this was not what she feared it was snapped at that moment.
As if in rehearsed confirmation, Suzanna’s voice reached out towards her, shrill with rising excitement. ‘I’m coming to Greece to live with you, Mia! I don’t have to go back to that horrid school!’
‘No,’ she breathed in pulse-drumming horror. ‘Alex, you just can’t do this!’
‘Go and sit next to Carol and fasten yourself in, Suzanna,’ Alex urged the ecstatic child.
He straightened, lean and lithe and dauntingly real in a casually loose taupe linen jacket, black trousers and a black T-shirt that did nothing to disguise the tight contours of his body as he began striding towards her. Even in the midst of all this trauma Mia found herself in a tense state of suspended animation, her senses remembering the man’s sensual might and not the might of his ruthless intellect.
‘Be calm,’ he was murmuring soothingly. ‘There is no need to panic …’
No need to panic. The words rattled frantically around her. No need to panic? Of course there was a need to panic! This was wrong! This was crazy! It was going to ruin everything!
Behind her she heard the muffled thud of the plane’s outer door sealing into its housing and the jet engines give a threatening roar. Her whole body quivered in violent reaction, the clammy heat of horror suddenly racing through her blood, and on a whimpering groan of pained accusation aimed at those compelling dark eyes that were coming ever closer she pitched dizzyingly forward into total oblivion.
She came round to find herself stretched out across two soft leather chairs, with a pillow tucked beneath her head and Alex squatting beside her, his fingers impatiently dealing with the tiny pearl buttons that held her blouse collar fastened at her throat.
He looked pale, grim-faced and extremely angry. ‘I swear to God, with everything I have in me,’ he railed at her the moment he saw her eyes flutter open, ‘that you will spend the rest of this pregnancy locked away in a bloody stress-free environment!’
The blouse button sprang free. He sat back on his heels, his eyes flashing with rage when he saw her catch in a greedy breath of air.
‘And the power dressing gets its walking orders as well!’
Still too dizzy to fight back, Mia lifted an arm to her face so she could cover her aching eyes with decidedly icy fingers. Almost instantly, the hand snapped away from her eyes again. They were already in the air! She could hear the aircraft’s engines as nothing more than a faint purr as they flew them ever further away from England!
Shakily she pushed herself into a weak-limbed sitting position, her green eyes flicking urgently around the plush cream interior of the cabin.
They were alone. ‘Where’s Suzanna?’ she demanded jerkily.
‘In the galley with Carol, having the time of her life,’ Alex said sardonically. ‘We told her you were sleeping. She didn’t see you swoon into my arms so she believed us.’
Is that what I did? Swooned right into the arms of the enemy?
So, what’s new? she grimly mocked herself. You’ve been swooning into those arms from the very beginning! Knowing he was the enemy has never made any difference.
‘Is anything else too tight on you?’ Alex asked. His hands were already pushing the grey jacket down her arms.
‘Will you stop doing that?’ she snapped, trying to slap his hands away.
But the jacket came off, and his grim face did not unclench from the tension locking it as he angrily tossed the jacket away. Then he seemed to make a concerted effort to get a hold on his temper. A deep sigh ripped from him, his big shoulders flexed