He offered his finest pilot’s handshake, decisive and confident, qualities a person ought to value in a man charged with transporting her across sea and sky.
As Will prepped for takeoff, Leigh reached out to touch the panel of a gauge on the console. Scowling, he snatched her hand away and set it firmly on her knee.
“Don’t get handsy,” he said, pulling a cloth from a compartment and buffing away whatever fingerprints Leigh may have left on the glass. He might not dress like a captain, but this plane was more than his meal ticket—it was his baby. And he didn’t let strangers poke and prod and leave smudges on his baby.
Leigh frowned, looking annoyed. “Sorry.”
After a brief safety spiel, Will started The Passport, and soon enough the beaches of Barbados were slipping by from several hundred feet up. He wondered what she was thinking, given her intent gaze. Maybe the same things he always did—all that sand, all that water. All this, all to herself.
He spoke over the drone of the engine. “You didn’t need to bribe me, you know.”
She frowned again.
“It’s your name on the ticket. Doesn’t bother me if your old lady’s got her panties in a twist about what you’re up to.” He flashed her a grin, one that made her cheeks flush from discomfort, he guessed. “Want your money back?”
“Nah. You earned it.” Her casual tone was a put-on, Will could tell.
“Must be nice to be able to take or leave a hundred bucks.”
“I suppose.”
“Nice to be able to take or leave a husband.” It was a mean jab, he knew, but bound to earn him a response, a bit of information about his passenger. Maybe a sound slap, had he not been operating a plane. “So which did you do?” Will prompted. “Take him or leave him?”
“I left him,” she said coolly.
“Good for you. Hope you’ve got a lovely settlement coming to you.” An even lower blow, but Will had accepted a generous offer to collect information on this woman, and he didn’t like the thought of tweezing it out with some sympathetic, smooth-talker act. He’d goad it out of her. At least that way he wouldn’t be exploiting some false confidence.
Her face burned and she turned to glare at him. “That’s a really rude thing to say.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it’s really rude.”
“Good thing I don’t fly for tips.”
She blinked, clearly incredulous, and shook her head. All that friendliness she’d showed him in the terminal fell away, surely sinking deep beneath the waves below.
“Not too late to swim, if you’re offended by the service.”
“No, thank you. Though I suspect I’ll be sitting in the cabin on the way back.”
“Probably wise. My old man was a cabbie in New York. My gifts of customer service are purely genetic.”
“A very rare and malicious disorder, I’m sure. Thank goodness you’re not contagious.”
He grinned, rather enjoying the dig.
“And since you’re so nosy, you may as well know there’s no settlement, because I didn’t get married.”
Will swallowed. “Duly noted.” He’d expected to feel some kind of triumph at such an informational coup, but he didn’t. It actually felt bad, a nauseous little twist in his gut.
“I was just teasing, you know.” Will met her eyes as much as was possible through two pairs of shades. “Taking the edge off?”
“More like sharpening it.”
“Not my intention.”
“I hope your landing approaches are smoother than your social ones.”
“Sorry.” He didn’t make an effort to sound especially sorry. Nausea notwithstanding, the tactless approach was working. “I’ve never had a runaway Hollywood bride in that seat before.”
She pursed her lips. “Do you know who I am?”
Enough to know some sleazebag back in L.A. will pay good money to hear what you’re up to. “There’s only a few types who vacation at this place, and when they’re women coming from Los Angeles, I can usually narrow it to actress or model or Hollywood wife. And we’ve ruled out wife.”
Leigh held her tongue.
“Not that I need to know,” Will said with a theatrical sigh of disinterest. “I’m just the chauffeur.”
Leigh countered with a haughtiness that struck him as un-practiced. “I have a chauffeur, sometimes, and he’s far better at diplomacy than you.”
“I have no doubt.” Will gave her another searching look. She wasn’t the woman he’d been expecting, and fruitful though it was, she didn’t deserve the antagonism… but he couldn’t deny he liked the way his teasing made her cheeks go pink. Still, he softened his tone. “Don’t take this personally if you can help it, but I didn’t have you pegged as a woman scorned.”
“No?”
He shook his head. “More like an escapee. Thought maybe I was your getaway driver.”
Her lips parted, but no reply followed. Her look said he was right, that she had escaped. From what, Will couldn’t guess, but one thing seemed clear—her flight was no publicity stunt.
He felt another pang in his middle.
Will had designed his life as free from obligations and guilt as humanly possible, expressly to avoid the ugly emotions he felt now. He didn’t want to report on this woman anymore, but at the end of the day, she was nothing to him. He needed the money for things that mattered. Things that mattered far more than a few innocuous tidbits leaked to some slimeball editor thousands of miles away in Hollywood.
Leigh’s hackles seemed to lower. “You are,” she finally said. “You’re my getaway driver.”
She relaxed back into her seat and they were quiet for ten minutes or more.
Will pointed into the distance. “See that?”
Leigh squinted at a dot in the turquoise ocean. “Is that it?”
“Yup. That’s your hideout.”
“Wow. That is private.”
“Eleven square miles of paradise. Nothing but white sand and swaying palms and room service.”
“Sounds heavenly. Though it’s probably nothing exotic to you.”
Will laughed. “Are you kidding? I’ve lived on that tiny speck for seven years now, and I still wake up every day pinching myself.” The second he abandoned the prying, the sourness in his stomach eased.
“You live there?”
He nodded. “Fly people back and forth twice a day for a passable stipend.”
“Wow.”
“You say that a lot, you know.”
“Oh. Yes, I suppose I do.”
“You’re very easy to impress,” Will said as the plane began its descent. “I like that in a woman.”
“Yes. That would be a requisite for a man of your charms.”
He laughed again, then realized he might be in danger of actually liking Leigh Bailey, celebrity runaway bride or not. That didn’t bode well for his gig.
The island grew closer, and Will could make out two of the villas from this angle, two tiny blue swimming pools, two docks