‘You mean because most men with my wealth should have at least one extremely expensive divorce behind them? I’ve never felt compelled to go down that route.’ Amusement shimmering in his dark eyes, Silvio dragged his gaze from her lips and glanced out of the window. ‘We’ve arrived.’
Why was it that whenever the subject touched on anything personal, he changed the subject? ‘How can we have arrived? There’s no airport—’ Distracted, Jessie looked out of the window and saw a pretty fishing village beneath her. Pastelcoloured houses festooned with flowers followed the curve of the harbour and yachts floated quietly on the clear blue water, their gleaming paintwork sparkling in the bright Mediterranean sunshine. Behind the village she could see mountains and several small churches tucked into the hillside.
A billionaire’s playground, Jessie thought wistfully, looking around for a landing strip of some sort. ‘Where are we—?’ The question died in her throat as she looked down and saw a landing pad directly beneath them.
‘We’re landing on a boat,’ she said faintly, and heard Silvio sigh.
‘Yacht,’ he said with exaggerated patience. ‘It’s a yacht.’
Her head turned slowly and her mouth fell open. ‘We’re supposed to be landing on a yacht? Won’t that sink it?’ She sensed that he was trying not to smile.
‘I sincerely hope not or I’ll have nowhere to hold my champagne reception.’
Jessie gaped at him. ‘Is that your yacht? But it’s huge. When you said a yacht, I presumed you meant something…different.’ Something small. She felt as foolish as she’d felt back in his apartment when she’d realised that the room she had been lying in had been his bedroom, not a hotel room.
Feeling out of her depth and insecure, she sat in frozen silence as the helicopter settled onto the deck as lightly as a bird.
A thousand ways to embarrass yourself.
‘We’re here, Jess.’ Apparently oblivious to the range of emotions that held her pinned to the seat, Silvio rose to his feet and held out his hand to her. He was lean, tall, and so obviously out of her league that her stomach lurched.
That was what all the financial generosity had been about.
He hadn’t been buying his way out of his guilt.
He’d been trying to turn her into someone he wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with.
Ignoring his hand, Jessie picked up her bag and stood up with as much dignity as she could muster. ‘Any other surprises for me? Am I going to be wearing the crown jewels with my dress tonight?’ Seeing two uniformed crew standing on the deck waiting to greet them, her nerve faltered. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t fly me in separately so that you don’t have to be seen with me.’
‘Jessie, relax.’
‘Easy for you to say. You’re the guy who commutes by helicopter.’
‘So do you.’ Unperturbed by her sudden attack of panic, he took her hand and drew her towards the steps. ‘Don’t be self-conscious. No one is judging you.’
‘Everyone is judging me,’ she muttered, too intimidated to even smile at the crew. ‘That’s what people do. They’re looking at me. They’re wondering what you’re doing with me.’
‘You look fine.’
It was the word he always used. Not sexy, or beautiful or alluring.
Just ‘fine’.
She was willing to bet that the women he usually mixed with looked better than ‘fine’. It was all too easy to imagine the crew whispering to each other, wondering whether their boss had gone mad.
Jessie glanced down at the beautiful wooden deck and then at the sleek design of the yacht. She didn’t fit here, did she? It was all alien to her—he had the super-car, the super-apartment, the super-yacht—the woman he needed on his arm was a supermodel. Not her.
And obviously he knew that, which was why he’d bought her the clothes.
He must be seriously regretting whatever impulse had driven him to rescue her.
He was probably worrying about what hideous faux pas she was going to commit at the champagne reception.
So was she…
Jessie lifted her chin, but nerves fluttered around her stomach. What if no one talked to her? Or maybe, if people thought she was his woman, they’d be scrambling to talk to her just to get close to him. And that scenario would come with its own problems because she had no idea what she was supposed to say about their relationship. They hadn’t concocted a story, had they? Where were they supposed to have met? Who exactly was she supposed to be?
Presumably not a penniless nightclub singer in hiding from an unsavoury group of men who wanted to kill her. Imagining the response to that conversation over the canapés, Jessie realised that she didn’t have any small talk. What did women talk about at these events? Shoes? Lipstick?