Of course, it was easy for Ross to say. Rachel couldn’t help but think she had got the raw end of the deal – she was flying straight into the dragon’s den, whilst he was probably sitting on the beach now sipping a cocktail.
She looked down at the phone in her lap and opened the message again. It had been waiting for her when she turned on her phone at Heathrow.
Blackbushe, midday today. I checked your flights, car will be waiting. GU17 9LQ. You’ll see where. Adam.
She shook her head at the self-importance of ‘I checked your flights’. He was telling her he was in control and that he knew she would drop everything to come and meet him. She toyed with the idea of leaning over to tell the driver to turn around, take her back to that hot bath and Pinot Noir at Somerfold, but she couldn’t. Adam knew that, and it drove her wild. He probably knows that too, she thought. That’s why he’s doing it.
Rachel couldn’t quite believe that she had once found Adam Denver attractive. Shuddering, she thought of all the cack-handed seduction attempts she had made over the years. She had been seated next to him at a number of dinner parties, and each time had got so drunk that she could scarcely string a sentence together, let alone dazzle him with her line in witty repartee. He’d been there too on that fateful Tuscan holiday, and during the first couple of days she had invited him to Sienna, for a walk in the poppy fields, to a wine-tasting session at a local vineyard, before a six-foot model called Carina had turned up at the palazzo – straight from a modelling assignment into Adam Denver’s bed. She was older now, wiser. She wouldn’t make those sort of mistakes again.
They turned off the motorway and on to a country road. Where the hell were they going? She wondered about asking the driver, but he had just tapped the postcode into his GPS, so there was no point. It was all big houses and open fields: a golf course? Funny, she didn’t see Adam Denver playing golf, it was a little too parochial for him, a little too Rotary Club, especially out here in deepest Surrey – or was it Hampshire by now? And then she saw it, and began to chuckle despite herself. Of course. Blackbushe was an aerodrome, complete with a tall red-brick control tower and one of those stripy windsocks waving over the dozens of cute little propeller planes parked next to the runway.
She offered the driver a fistful of notes, but he refused to take them. The cab had apparently been paid for on account.
Adam Denver was standing by the double doors to the airport office, wearing a navy flying jacket, cream chinos and aviator sunglasses. He looked like Steve McQueen and Rachel was damn sure he knew it.
‘An aerodrome, Adam?’ she said, wincing as a small plane came in to land, cutting through the air with a roar.
‘Nothing gets past you, does it, Rachel?’ he said. ‘Are you ready for this?’
/> ‘For what exactly?’
He nodded towards the runway and set off without looking to see if she was following.
‘I’ve got some things to attend to,’ he said when she had caught up. ‘I thought we could kill two birds with one stone.’
‘What, in that?’ she said, as she saw where he was leading her. A shiny black helicopter was sitting to one side of the aeroplanes, its bubble-shaped cockpit catching the sun.
‘I thought you might enjoy a ride,’ he said coolly.
‘I’m not some hick from the sticks who has never been in a helicopter before,’ she said as Adam leant over her to strap her in.
‘Here, put these on,’ he said, handing her a pair of headphones with a microphone attached, then turning away to flick switches and start the engine.
Come to think of it, Rachel couldn’t actually remember ever being in a helicopter, and she was secretly rather thrilled as she adjusted the earphones on her head. She glanced over at Adam as he worked, seeing the sharp cheekbones, those lazy green eyes behind the sunglasses.
‘So where are we going?’ she asked, raising her voice over the noise of the helicopter.
Adam reached across her and plugged her headphones into a socket so they could talk on the intercom.
‘Jersey,’ he said, his voice a little crackly.
‘Jersey!’
‘Got somewhere more important to go?’
‘How long is it going to take?’ she said. ‘I’m on a tight schedule and I’ve just flown in from Washington.’
‘Aren’t we the busy girl?’ smiled Adam, pulling smoothly on the lever next to his seat. The helicopter rose into the air and Rachel grabbed at the dashboard to stabilise herself as the ground dropped away beneath them.
She opened her mouth to speak, and for the first time Adam glanced at her. ‘Why don’t you just shut up and enjoy the view?’
It was certainly exhilarating flying over the English countryside, low enough to see people walking along the rivers, cows in the fields, and it was fascinating to watch everything from above, like peering into a hidden world. It was even more exciting to leave the English coast just west of the Isle of Wight and strike out over the Channel, which was twinkling in the late morning sun.
The journey took a little over half an hour, and she was quite sorry when they eventually swooped over the patchwork fields of the island. Adam pushed forward on the controls and the helicopter tilted down towards the large white H of a heliport.
They crossed to the terminal, where a man in a tie was waiting with a clipboard. ‘Morning, James,’ said Adam, signing something with a flourish, then jumping into a dark green Range Rover.
‘You coming?’ he called, leaning out of the window.