He stood, carelessly chic in bespoke casual clothes, looking at her with the tantalising hint of a smile. His saturnine good looks and an intriguing hint of unknowable undercurrents made Flynn Marshall the most compellingly attractive man she’d ever met.
Or maybe it was the gleam in sloe-dark eyes that spread warmth through her. That gleam hinted at shared secrets, a special bond.
‘Flynn? I can’t believe it!’ Her smile widened. She hadn’t a hope of concealing the tumultuous joy filling her chest so that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.
It was as if all those years of learning to conceal her feelings and reveal only a poised, charming face to the world had never been.
With Flynn there was no need for the façade. She knew she was utterly safe with him.
If she experienced a frisson of danger it was delicious danger. A reminder that she was no longer a child but a woman and that he was potently, breathtakingly male.
‘Why were you frowning? You looked grim.’
He brushed long fingers across her brow and something in her chest somersaulted. Ava told herself it couldn’t be her heart, but she was past caring.
Flynn was here with her!
It couldn’t be a coincidence. He’d had no plans to visit Prague. His business was in London.
‘Ava?’
She blinked. ‘I looked grim?’ She’d been thinking of her father. No wonder she’d frowned. ‘I was just reading the guidebook. Do you know this is where the defenestration of Prague took place? The second one. The first was down in the old town hall.’
Was she babbling? Probably. It was hard to concentrate with Flynn standing there, his eyes eating her up. Her flesh tightened, her nipples budding against her lace bra.
Surely he hadn’t looked at her so hungrily in Paris. If he had she might have overcome a lifetime’s scruples and invited him to—
‘Perhaps it’s a national pastime...tossing people out of windows.’
His low voice held the hint of a sexy chuckle. Ava felt it resonate through her. Or maybe that was a reaction to the deep green woodsy scent that was uniquely Flynn’s. It did the strangest things to her.
‘But the Czechs seem such friendly people,’ she said.
‘Who knows? Maybe they have hidden depths.’
Like Flynn.
They’d spent most of last week together in Paris and Ava had felt a connection she’d never experienced with any other man. Maybe because she’d known him when she was young—he’d been an older, intriguing figure, embodying the freedom she’d longed for. He’d been a true friend when she’d most needed one. She’d never forgotten his kindness that night of her father’s party.
Yet she was aware there was a part of Flynn he kept to himself. But who didn’t? Her own experiences had made Ava intensely private.
‘You’re looking serious again.’
Once more that fleeting touch stole her breath.
‘I’m wondering what you’re doing here. You had a crisis to deal with in London.’
Flynn shrugged and her gaze slid along straight, powerful shoulders. Heat trickled through her. She knew she had it bad when a pair of shoulders robbed her of breath.
‘Ah. The emergency.’
But instead of explaining he stepped to one side, inviting her to follow. Immediately a family group took their place at the window, peering over the trees to the red roofs of old Prague.
Ava found herself standing with Flynn in a quiet corner beside another large window. She didn’t glance at the view. Her attention was riveted on him.
With sharp cheekbones, deep-set eyes beneath slanted ebony brows and that strongly carved jaw, Flynn Marshall was enough to mesmerise any woman. His burnished skin hinted at his Romany heritage and the slightly askew set of his long nose, broken years ago, reinforced the aura of physicality in his athletic frame. Even the brutally short cut of his raven hair, which Ava knew would curl around his collar if left to grow, couldn’t tame that hint of wildness.
A wildness that had transferred to her pulse. It racketed too fast.
‘You were going to explain what you’re doing here.’ The words emerged sharply.
His mouth cocked up at one side in a half-smile that she felt in the sudden thump of her heart against her ribs. Ava gripped her book and took a step back—only to find herself against the window embrasure.
Flynn regarded her with laughing eyes, but for once Ava couldn’t join in the joke. She felt clogged with anticipation, her chest constricting.
It wasn’t Flynn’s smile she wanted, but much more. How could she feel so much, want so much, after just a week?
The ache in her chest intensified and perversely Ava resented his effect on her. She hated feeling vulnerable. It was a sensation she’d worked hard to eradicate from her life.
It was a sensation she’d vowed never to feel again.
Ava lifted her chin, projecting something akin to the hauteur that had been her father’s hallmark.
The laughter in Flynn’s eyes died, leaving him sombre.
He raised his hand to touch her again but she stiffened. Opening up to Flynn as she had in Paris had been a completely new experience. Only now did she realise how dangerously far she’d let herself go.
‘I came for you.’ His voice brushed soft as a summer breeze across her sensitised skin.
‘Me?’ The word emerged from her constricted throat.
‘You.’
He leaned closer but didn’t touch her. He didn’t need to. That glowing look melted her resistance and incinerated her doubts.
‘I couldn’t stay away, Ava.’
‘But you had work to do—’
‘I dealt with the crisis in a day and then rescheduled everything that wasn’t critical.’
When he looked at her that way she was tempted to think he shared her feelings. Her breath hitched.
‘One of the perks of being the boss?’ She kept her tone light. ‘Your secretary must love that.’
‘I’m a good employer.’
She heard pride in his voice.
‘And usually I’m easy to work with. I’ve never done this before.’
The air throbbed between them. Surely Flynn heard her heart pounding?
She swallowed, out of her depth. Carefree companionship teetered on the brink of something beyond her experience. Ava had played safe so long. She was torn between joy and fear at the prospect of stepping beyond her self-imposed boundaries.
‘You’ve never played hooky before?’ she teased, her voice uneven. It was easier to pretend she hadn’t read his intense gaze. ‘I find that hard to believe.’
He shook his head, that glimmer of a smile telling her he understood what she was doing.
No one apart from her brother Rupert read her so easily.
‘I’ve done my share of rule-breaking.’
Flynn’s defiance of the established order at Frayne Hall had been legend, and a favourite cause of complaint for her father. He’d accused his tenants’ son of everything from poaching to disrespect and being ‘too bloody clever for his boots’.
To Ava, seven years younger, his exploits had taken on mythic proportions—like those of Robin Hood