She managed a tremulous smile for the cabin attendant who welcomed her to the plane. Then she was inside the cool interior and he was there, standing with his back to her at a rack filled with magazines, seemingly oblivious to her presence. She wished she could be so oblivious to his, but she could not.
Just the sight of him was enough to make her heartbeat skip and her skin tingle while she sensed a pooling heat building between her thighs. She cursed her body’s wayward reaction and wished she could look away. Damn the man! When would she ever be able to look at him and not think of sex? After all the things he had said to her, after the way they had parted, after all the years that separated them, still he conjured pictures of tangled sheets, tangled limbs and long, hot nights filled with sin.
Then again, how was it possible not to think of sex when it was some kind of god that filled your vision? Was there some kind of formula for masculine perfection; some ratio of leg-length to height or shoulder-width to hip? Some magic number that nature had allocated at conception that marked a man for physical supremacy?
If so, this man was it, and that was just the view of his back.
He turned then, as the attendant ushered her to the seat across the aisle, and the blast of resentment in his eyes made her catch her breath and forget all about magic numbers.
‘Bahir,’ she uttered in acknowledgement.
‘Princess,’ he said sharply on a nod before he returned his attention to sorting through the rack. She was amazed he’d managed to pry his jaw apart enough to form the word, it had been so firmly set.
The cabin attendant chatted cheerily while she settled Marina into her wide leather seat, but Marina caught not a word of it, too consumed by Bahir’s reaction, too stunned to think about anything else.
So that was what she would get—the silent treatment.
Clearly Bahir was as resentful of being in her company as she was being in his. Equally clearly, he was in no mood for small talk.
Which suited her just fine.
So long as she could eventually find the words to tell him he was a father.
He tried to focus on the business magazine he’d selected from the rack but the words were meaningless scrawl, the article indecipherable, and he tossed it aside. Hopeless. It was no different from the online journal he’d been reading since he’d boarded the jet in Nice, his attention riveted not by the words he was attempting to read but by a simmering resentment that bubbled faster and more furious the closer the plane got to Al-Jirad. Why the hell had he agreed to this again? He still wasn’t sure he had agreed. But Zoltan had called and said she’d agreed to go with him and he knew he would have looked weak if he’d refused again.
Much better to look like it didn’t matter a bit.
Except that it did.
Because right now, as the attendant stowed Marina’s hand luggage and made her comfortable, and as he tried to pretend she wasn’t there, his focus was still held captive by the images captured on his retinas—those damned eyes, her pupils large, catlike and seductive. The jut of her collarbones in the vee of the open neck of the fitted ruffled shirt that flirted over her curves, and the jewel-studded belt hugging her swaying hips.
He growled, his nostrils flaring. He picked up his laptop again, determined not to give in, trying to find focus instead of distraction. Because, if it wasn’t enough that his mind was filled with images of her, now he could smell her. He remembered that scent, a blend of jasmine, frangipani and warm, wanton woman. He remembered the taste of it on her glistening, sweat-slickened skin. He remembered pressing his face to the curve of her throat and drinking it in as he plunged into her sweet depths.
He shifted in his seat and slammed the computer shut as the plane started to taxi to the runway. How long was the flight to Pisa—three hours? Four? He growled again.
Too long, however long it took.
How did you find the words to tell someone he was a father? Not easily, especially when that man sat across the aisle from you, rumbling and growling like a dark thundercloud. Any moment she expected to see lightning bolts issuing from his head.
And that was before she had managed to find the words.
What was she supposed to say? Excuse me, Bahir, but did I ever tell you about our son? Or, Congratulations, Bahir. You’re a father, to a three-year-old boy. It must have somehow slipped my mind …
The plane came to a halt at the start of the runway and she glanced across the aisle to where he sat, his posture closed off, his expression grim. Even though she let her gaze linger, even though she was sure he would be aware, still he refused to look her way.
And she wondered how, even if she could find the words, was she supposed to tell him about his child when he wouldn’t even look at her?
Did he hate her that much?
How much more would he hate her when he learned the truth?
The engines whined, preparing for take-off, echoing her own nerves, spun tight by his presence, and spun even tighter by the search for the words to tell him.
She closed her eyes and let the jet’s acceleration push her deeper into her seat, forcing herself to relax as the whine became a scream and then a roar as the plane launched itself and speared into the sky.
It wasn’t as though there was a rush. They had four hours of flight time and then a two-hour drive to her home in the most northern reaches of Tuscany. Why tell him now and spoil the fragile if tense cease-fire that seemed to exist between them? For he would not remain silent once he knew. He would be intolerable. Perhaps with a measure of justification. Still, why make their hours together more difficult than they already were?
No, there was plenty of time to tell him.
Later.
They were an hour into their flight when they were given the news. One hour of interminable and excruciating silence, filled with the static of all the things that were left unsaid, until the air in the cabin fairly crackled with the tension, a silence punctuated only when the smiling flight attendant came to top up their drinks or offer refreshments.
But this time she had the co-pilot with her and neither of them was smiling.
‘So fly around it,’ Bahir said after they’d delivered their grim message, too impatient for this trip to be over to tolerate delays, whatever the reason.
‘That’s not possible,’ the co-pilot explained. ‘The storm cell is tracking right into our path. And the danger is we could ice up if we try to go over. The aviation authorities are ordering everyone out of the area.’
‘So what does that mean?’ Marina asked. ‘We can’t get to Pisa at all?’
‘Not just yet. We’re putting down at the nearest airport that can take us. We’ll be beginning our descent soon. Just be prepared as we skirt the edges of this thing that it could get a bit rough. You might want to keep your seatbelts fastened.’
Bahir usually had no trouble sitting. He could sit for hours at a stretch when his luck was with him and the spinning ball might have been his to command. But right now he couldn’t sit still a moment longer.
He was up and out of his seat the moment they’d gone. God, if it wasn’t enough that he had to spend six hours in her company, now he would be forced to spend even more time. He raked clawed fingers through his hair. And with her sitting there, her legs tucked up beneath her and those eyes—those damned eyes—looking like an invitation to sin.
‘The co-pilot suggested keeping your seatbelt fastened.’
He ignored her as much as it was possible to do. That was the problem with planes, he realised. There was not enough room to pace and to distance yourself from the thing that was bugging you, and right now he sorely needed to pace and find distance from the woman who was bugging him.
Besides,