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She’d played it cool. She wasn’t going to let him think that he’d got to her but even sitting here, with his attention miles away, she could feel his presence as if it were a soft, electric undercurrent that was stealthily zipping through her.

No interest in what he had to say? On a personal level? She’d made sure to say all the right things but inside she was burning up with curiosity.

The picture he’d painted of a teenager sworn to fulfil duties he wouldn’t have seen coming was poignant, even though he’d obviously become as hard as granite when it came to reflecting on that through sentimental eyes.

And where had his own life gone in the process?

He was at the top of his game. He’d also had as many women as he could hope for, judging from what Carlos had let slip over time, but why wasn’t he married?

She gazed at him. At his long dark lashes as he idly looked down so that she couldn’t read the expression on his face. At the aristocratic nose and the slashing cheekbones, the downturned cast of his sensual mouth…

Her eyes drifted down, down to his lean, brown fingers clasped together on his lap and the pull of fabric over his muscular thighs.

She looked away quickly, her heart beating fast.

‘Sometimes your past can really have a knock-on effect on the way you live your life and the choices you end up making,’ she said impulsively, over-compensating for a rush of inappropriate thoughts. She blushed when he raised his eyes to hers and looked at her in silence for a few seconds.

‘Forget I said that,’ Hope added quickly. ‘Personal stuff. Not allowed.’

She felt a little unsteady as the silence lengthened between them. His eyes were so dark, so incredibly mesmerising.

Eventually he shrugged and she breathed a sigh of relief. She’d had no idea where she thought she was going with opening that door to information that was irrelevant and none of her business.

Had she completely forgotten what he’d said about keeping things in perspective?

Had she forgotten how much she disliked the man and what he stood for?

The plane was beginning to descend. She looked through the window, even though it was dark outside so there was a limit to what she could actually see.

At least it removed her from the awkwardly tense situation of staring at Javier as if she’d suddenly morphed into a sixteen-year-old adolescent gawping at the cutest boy in town.

The darkness only just allowed her to see the inky black of the Pacific Ocean, stretching endlessly towards a barely visible horizon. Fringing the sea, mountains rose sharply away from the land, as if they were slumbering giants. Distant dark shapes that towered over everything.

She’d never seen anything like it before and, for a moment, she really did forget about the guy sitting next to her.

‘I think this is one of the finest parts of Mexico. My villa is carved into the cliffside and is ocean-fronted. It gives quite a spectacular view.’

Hope could feel Javier’s breath warm on her neck as he followed her lead and gazed beyond her through the window.

She swung round to look at him and was destabilised by just how close he was to her, close enough for her to breathe in whatever woody cologne he was wearing and to see the fine lines around his eyes.

His gaze suddenly met hers, catching her unawares.

‘Have you ever been to this country before?’

‘I’ve never been out of Europe,’ Hope confessed breathlessly. As an afterthought, to remind herself just how much she disliked him, his arrogance and his easy assumptions that money was everything, she added, a little feebly, ‘Not all of us are made of money.’

‘The rumour’s reached me that you don’t need to be a billionaire to afford a holiday in this part of the world. I hear that there are these things called package holidays.’

Then he smiled and she was completely floored for a couple of seconds. The breath left her in a whoosh and her mind went blank.

Even the blood running through her veins felt hot and thick. Just for a second she wondered…

What would she do if he kissed her? Right now? Right here? What would it feel like?

Her body, which had iced over ever since her failed relationship two years ago, roared back to life with frightening urgency.