She twisted in her seat, tugging at the seat belt to allow her to look at him more closely. “Surely you took some time off for sightseeing.”
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“Not much,” he admitted. “I was only supposed to be over there a couple of weeks. Problems kept cropping up to detain me. I was just trying to get everything settled so I could get back to the States.”
“You must have missed your family.”
“I don’t have family. I had a lot of work piling up here that I needed to attend to.”
“I see.” She settled back into her seat again.
Because he knew Bryan wanted him to keep Chloe entertained, Donovan tried to think of something interesting to say about his weeks in Venice. “The food was good.”
“I’m sure it was.”
“And the sunrises were nice,” he added. “I had a balcony, and I would sit out there and have coffee early in the mornings while I read through paperwork.”
The enthusiasm of her response to that made him glad he’d gone to the extra conversational effort. “That must have been spectacular!” She lifted her clasped hands to her chest as she apparently tried to visualize the scene he’d described so sparingly. “I’ve always wanted to travel. To see some of the places I’ve only read about until now.”
“When you marry Bryan, you’ll be able to travel as much as you want.” As he was sure she was aware.
She lowered her hands slowly to her lap. “If I marry Bryan,” she corrected him, her voice a bit cool again.
“The gossip columnists seem to think it’s all been decided.” And he imagined the rumors were correct. Despite her affront at implications that she would marry Bryan for his money, why wouldn’t she want to marry a multimillionaire who could take her to all those places she’d always wanted to visit?
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s something I’m still having trouble getting used to—being in the gossip columns, I mean.”
He shrugged again. “You’d better get used to it. For some reason, people seem to be fascinated with Bryan. Everything he does makes the papers.”
Money, he thought, had a way of drawing attention. Combine a lot of money with Bryan’s good looks, impressive family background, unerringly shrewd business decisions, personal charisma and single status, and the result was that he was included on every Most Eligible Bachelor list published in North America.
Just the hint that Bryan’s name might soon be removed from those lists had the gossips all abuzz with curiosity, despite Bryan’s efforts to keep his personal life private. Someone had apparently tipped off the tabloids about his interest in Chloe, much to Bryan’s displeasure.
That was another reason Bryan had asked Donovan to play escort on this trip. He’d been concerned that Chloe might find herself annoyed by reporters. Donovan rarely had that problem. For some reason, they took one look at him and quietly put away their notebooks.
“One of the so-called reporters called me Zoe,” Chloe muttered, “and another said it was Grace that Bryan’s been seeing.”
Donovan wondered if her disgruntled tone was because she’d been in the papers at all—or because they hadn’t gotten her name right. “The way your sister was talking earlier, I doubt that she appreciated seeing her name linked with Bryan’s,” was all he said.
Chloe winced. “No, she didn’t.”
“What does she have against Bryan, anyway?” Maybe Grace was jealous that she wasn’t the one poised to marry a multimillionaire.
“It isn’t Bryan, exactly. She’s just worried that I’m making a mistake. Grace has a little trouble trusting people—especially wealthy, powerful men. She’s convinced herself I’m going to end up bitter and humiliated. Unlike some people,” she added pointedly, “my sister knows I want more from a marriage than financial security, and she doesn’t believe I can find those things with Bryan.”
“And why is that?”
“She suspects that Bryan is playing me for a fool, and that he has no intention of settling down and raising a family.”
“Bryan does what he says he’ll do.”
“You’re very loyal to him.”
Because she could never understand how much he owed Bryan—and because it wasn’t any of her concern, anyway—he let the comment pass without remark.
They fell quiet again then. Donovan had run out of things to say, and Chloe seemed to have relaxed, if only marginally. Or perhaps even riding in uneasy silence seemed preferable to making stilted conversation with him.
He supposed he couldn’t blame her for that.