He made a mental note to have a helicopter standing by to extract her and take her to the airport.
‘It’s eminently safe, once you have a guide who knows what they’re doing and where they’re going.’
‘And that’s you?’ she said flatly.
‘Yes. I’ve been visiting this tribe for many years, and exploring the Amazon for a lot longer than that. You couldn’t be in safer hands.’
The look Serena shot him told him that she doubted that. His smile grew wider and he arched a brow. ‘By all means you can say no, Serena, it’s entirely up to you.’
She made a derisive sound. ‘And if I say no you’ll personally escort me to the airport, no doubt.’
She stopped and bit her lip for a moment, making Luca’s awareness of her spike.
‘But if I do this, and prove my commitment, will you let me take up the job I came for?’
Luca’s smile faded and he regarded her. Once again that tiny grudging admiration reared its head. He ruthlessly crushed it.
‘Well, as I’m almost certain you won’t last two hours in the jungle it’s a moot point. All this is doing is delaying your inevitable return home.’
Her chin lifted and her arms tightened over her chest. ‘It’ll take more than a trek and some dense vegetation to put me off, Fonseca.’
* * *
The early-morning air was sultry, and the dawn hadn’t yet broken, so it was dark when Serena got out of the back of the chauffeur-driven car at the private airfield almost twelve hours later. The first person she saw was the tall figure of Luca, carrying bags into a small plane. Instantly her nerves intensified.
He barely glanced at her as she walked over behind the driver, who carried the new backpack she’d been furnished with. And then his dark gaze fell on her and her heart sped up.
‘You checked out of the hotel?’
Good morning to you too, Serena said silently, and cursed her helpless physical reaction. ‘Yes. And my suitcase is in the car.’
Luca took her small backpack from the driver and exchanged a few words with him in rapid Portuguese. Then, as the driver walked away, Luca said, ‘Your things will be left at my headquarters until you get back.’
The obvious implication of you—not we—was not lost on Serena, and she said coolly, ‘I won’t be bailing early.’
Luca looked at her assessingly an
d Serena was conscious of the new clothes and shoes she’d been given. Lightweight trousers and a sleeveless vest under a khaki shirt. Sturdy trekking boots. Much like what Luca was wearing, except his looked well worn, faded with time. Doing little to hide his impressive muscles and physique.
She cursed. Why did he have to be the one man who seemed to connect with her in a way she’d never felt before?
Luca, who had turned back to the plane, said over his shoulder, ‘Come on, we have a flight slot to make.’
‘Aye-aye, sir,’ Serena muttered under her breath as she hurried after him and up the steps into the small plane. She was glad that she’d pulled her hair up into a knot on top of her head as she could already feel a light sweat breaking out on the back of her neck.
Luca told her to take a seat. He shut the heavy door and secured it.
As Serena was closing her seatbelt she saw him take his seat in the cockpit and gasped out loud, ‘You’re the pilot?’
‘Evidently,’ he said drily.
Serena’s throat dried. ‘Are you even qualified?’
He was busy flicking switches and turning knobs. He threw back over his shoulder, ‘Since I was eighteen. Relax, Serena.’
He put on a headset then, presumably to communicate with the control tower, and then they were taxiing down the runway. Serena wasn’t normally a nervous flyer, but her hands gripped the armrests as the full enormity of what was happening hit her. She was on a plane, headed into the world’s densest and most potentially dangerous ecosystem, with a man who hated her guts.
She had a vision of a snake, dropping out of a tree in front of her face, and shivered in the dry cabin air just as the small plane left the ground and soared into the dawn-filled sky. Unfortunately her spirits didn’t soar with it, but she comforted herself that at least she wasn’t arriving back in Athens with her tail between her legs...just yet.