Pride After Her Fall

For a moment Lorelei actually thought he was saying he was going to dump her at the airport...until her brain caught up with her emotions.

‘You’re taking me with you?’

‘Got it in one.’

‘But I can’t just leave. I’ve got to do something about this.’ She shook the envelope, which had assumed gigantic proportions in her mind.

‘It’s pretty clear you haven’t been doing anything about it for a long time,’ he observed, giving a couple of the buttons on the console a flick. Music filled the cabin with a heavy bass line. ‘A few more days isn’t going to change a damn thing.’

Lorelei wanted to strike back at him—not just because he was imposing his wishes on her, but because he was right. She hadn’t been looking after herself. The Scarlett O’Hara ‘tomorrow is another day’ shtick wasn’t working for her any more, and this was the price she paid. Just as she hadn’t thought through last night. She’d gone into his bed like a kamikaze pilot and wondered why she’d crashed and burned.

There was no way she was going to Paris with him...she wasn’t some little sex doll he could just carry around with him, picking her up and putting her down...

Her thoughts came staggering to a halt. Simone was in Paris. She could find shelter with her best friend, ride out this storm.

‘Very well,’ she said stiffly. ‘I agree to come to Paris with you.’

He shot her an amused look. ‘Paris? Who said anything about Paris?’

She was a little taken aback—by that glimpse of humour more than his words. Did he think this was funny?

‘Where are you taking me? You said meetings. Blue has offices in Paris. I assumed...’

‘Mauritius,’ he said flatly, his expression firming.

Sun, white sand, turquoise-green sea. Bliss.

Oh. Oh...

‘But I don’t have any luggage, my passport, clothes.’ Even as she protested she was rummaging around in her bag. ‘Ah, oui, I do have my passport,’ she said faintly. Was she really going to fly to Mauritius?

He gave her a look she recognised from last night. ‘You don’t need luggage. You don’t need clothes. You won’t be getting out of bed.’

Lorelei narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that so?’

Nash smiled wryly, his eyes back on the road.

‘And just in case that isn’t clear enough for you, Lorelei,’ he drawled, ‘last night wasn’t a one-night stand.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LORELEI was stunned by the natural beauty of the island below as their seaplane coasted in over turquoise water. Mountains rose up against a pale sky and the forest beneath looked thick and mysterious.

She turned to Nash and asked, ‘what are they growing down there?’

‘Sugar-cane plantations. It’s a big part of the economy—apart from tourism.’

‘I take it you haven’t come to harvest sugar?’ she commented, a little smartly.

He hadn’t told her much of anything over their long flight. He’d buried himself in work and she had watched in-flight films and tried to avoid thinking about the mess she’d left behind her at home.

Right now she noticed his expression cooling both in regard to her and the view. His arm around the back of her seat told her she was still a welcome addition on this trip, but his eyes were those of a man who didn’t share private or working details of his life with anyone.

Apparently being in his bed for one night didn’t give her the right to ask any questions.

Which also begged the question whether he expected a second, and whether she would grant it.

‘My meetings have nothing to do with us,’ he commented, as if that was all that needed to be said.

The resentment she had been trying to suppress since he’d high-handedly made a pretty big decision for her and run roughshod over her wishes reared up. What made it worse was the fact she knew she’d brought this all on herself by burying her head in the sand all these months. Except it wasn’t only about that, was it? It was to do with intimacy, and having this knowledge of him now, and realising for him it wasn’t the same.

Suddenly angry with herself for being so boringly female and needy, she jerked around. ‘Damn you, Nash Blue. I don’t need to be rescued—by you or anyone.’