By now he’d reached the elevator and stood there a male entity of barely suppressed energy waiting to break free of the confining walls of his office.
Her heartbeat accelerated to a sickening pitch. Since coming to this office, being touched by him, she felt a stronger connection to him than ever.
This was wrong, all wrong. Yet she found herself taking one step, then another, toward him.
Her conscience screamed at her to beg off with some excuse before it was too late.
Still she kept going.
The doors closed, sealing her inside with him. So much for listening to the nagging voice that told her she would live to regret this.
They rode to the roof where his helicopter sat waiting.
She should stop this madness now, before things went any further. But the temptation to go where he led was greater than any force she’d ever known.
He walked to the helicopter with her and helped her get in. The security man she’d drawn in the courtroom for the judge followed them at a short distance. He climbed in behind her.
After fastening the seat strap, she realized she’d become an eager participant in a plan that could lead to her destruction. Yet one look at Payne Sterling sitting in the co-pilot’s, so alive and vital, and no power on earth could tear her away.
The whir of the rotors drowned out the last death gasp of her conscience. There was liftoff.
Rainey was being carried beyond the point of no return.
CHAPTER FIVE
AFTER court, Payne had decided to spend the night at the penthouse working. In phone calls to both Catherine and Diane, he’d told them they could stop worrying. Al
l would be explained when he arrived at Phyllis’s on Friday evening.
He’d made arrangements for Diane to be picked up and driven to his sister’s home where they’d have dinner. The two women had no idea he was bringing a guest.
Catherine would be delighted.
Diane would be disappointed the two of them weren’t going to be alone. But her relief when she met the artist and found out Rainey was no stalker would go a long way to help make up for it.
More aware of the woman seated behind the pilot than he wanted to be, Payne let Mac do the honors of orienting her during the flight. But they were nearing Crag’s Head now.
He turned his head in her direction. “We’ll be putting down shortly. From there it’s a short drive to my sister’s house.”
Rainey nodded her well-shaped head whose hair gleamed a silvery gold in the late afternoon rays of the sun. He could tell she was loving every minute of the ride. Her eyes were drinking in everything.
So were his.
He couldn’t seem to get enough of her charming profile or the mold of her body in the attractive yellow sundress with the white short-sleeved jacket she was wearing.
On impulse he told his pilot to circle Crag’s Head before landing. The stark whiteness of the remodeled lighthouse against the vivid blue of the ocean never failed to thrill him. He wondered what her artist’s eye would make of the view.
Her reaction wasn’t long in coming.
When the helicopter dipped toward his property, she cried out in awe, turning her head every which way to keep it in sight. The pilot swung around, giving her the full treatment.
“Oh—” she exclaimed again in what sounded like absolute delight. “It resembles Le Corbusier’s chapel at Ronchamps I once visited. Yet it’s a lighthouse too. The integration is pure genius. It’s the most fabulous thing I’ve ever seen!”
Her shining green eyes fused with his. “Is it a museum? Can you go inside?”
Her ecstatic response pleased him in ways he didn’t dare contemplate. “I think it could be arranged.”
The comment produced a grin from his pilot who circled lower to land on the pad.