The Temp and the Tycoon. Liz Fielding

time she’d have been there…

      The cup rolled away down the aisle and the child started to cry. Talie found it really, really hard to stay put when every instinct was urging her to leap up and retrieve it. Instead she took a deep breath and, as she turned the page, hit the buzzer to attract the attention of the stewardess.

      ‘Good decision,’ Jude said.

      She’d written it down before she realised that it was a comment rather than dictation. Clearly his eyes weren’t as firmly closed as she’d imagined.

      The flight passed without further incident. She typed up the notes Jude had dictated until the laptop battery beeped a warning that it was about to go flat. But if she thought all she had to do was hit ‘save’and then relax for the rest of the flight, she was mistaken.

      Jude stopped working on some figures, took a special adapter from his own laptop bag and leaned across her to plug it into the power outlet of the aircraft—obviously concerned that she’d do fatal damage to the aircraft electronics if he left her to do it herself.

      He might be an unmitigated bastard as a boss, but he did have gorgeous hair, she thought with an envious sigh as she got an unexpected close-up. Dark as bitter chocolate, perfectly cut so that every silky strand knew its place. Even the lick that momentarily slid across his forehead needed no encouragement to return to order.

      She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and comforted herself with the thought that good hair wasn’t everything.

      Kindness was much more important.

      He refused all offers of tea, coffee, even lunch when it arrived, and, taking only water, kept working. She had no idea if he expected her to follow his example, but enough was enough. He might be able to function on fresh air, but she needed a substantial amount of calories if she was going to keep up this level of output. She made a mental note to stock up on an emergency supply of chocolate at the first confectionery outlet she passed.

      After the stewardess had removed her tray, he began again. This time dictating notes for an after-dinner speech he was going to make to some business group, stopping just before her right hand began to scream for mercy.

      She began to wonder if Heather’s daughter had really gone into early labour. She might just have decided that she could do with a break, and could always say it had been a false alarm…

      Mentally slapping herself for having such evil thoughts, she applied herself to the keyboard, and was taken by surprise when the Captain announced that they would shortly be arriving at JFK.

      ‘I don’t believe it! A yellow cab!’

      Jude glanced across the road to where a constant stream of cabs was picking up new arrivals. ‘No, you’re right. It’s yellow.’ Then, spotting his driver climbing out of a waiting limo, he said, ‘This is our car.’