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The bitter face of a man on a particularly unpleasant mission.
And who was determined to succeed.
CHAPTER THREE
ROSALIND clamped her shoulder bag to her side as she jogged across the shimmering tarmac towards the small, colourful, twin-propellered aircraft. A steamy, swirling Singapore wind whipped her hair into a red halo as she cast an angelic smile of apology at the uniformed airline officer standing beside the lowered steps at the rear of the fuselage. She had been deep in conversation with a young German tourist when she had realised she was going to be late for her connecting flight. She had made it with barely thirty seconds to spare!
The door Was pulled smartly shut behind her, shutting out the baking afternoon sun, and Rosalind’s smile swept around the narrow, nineteen-seat cabin before zeroing in on the gap halfway up the left-hand side of the aisle. She eased herself between the rows of single seats, scattering apologies as her bag banged protruding elbows, and crammed herself gratefully into her seat. She could see the pilot looking back through the open door of the cockpit and she gave him a cheeky thumbs up.
‘You nearly missed the flight.’
Rosalind looked across the aisle into a pair of familiar, dark, disapproving, bespectacled eyes.
Oh, no! The insipid Mr James was a reminder of the country and complications she was trying to escape.
‘Don’t tell me you’re going to Tioman too,’ she blurted out as the plane began to vibrate with engine noise.
‘No, I’ll be parachuting out halfway there,’ he said drily.
Considering that they were on a non-stop, terminating flight, his sarcasm was justified, but just as Rosalind was appreciating his glimmer of wit he spoiled it by adding ponderously, ‘That was rather reckless of you, cutting it so fine. You could have wasted your ticket.’
‘Nonsense; I had it timed perfectly to the last second,’ she lied airily. ‘When you’ve flown as often as I have you’ll realise that there’s an art to minimising boring waiting times.’
‘Right,’ he murmured, eyeing her flushed complexion, slicked with perspiration from her dash to the plane, and the green shirt which clung in interesting patches to her dampened skin.
Rosalind rummaged in her bag and produced a moistened towelette which she used to blot her face, uttering a sensuous sigh of pleasure as the cooling alcohol evaporated on her hot skin. He was still in his suit, she noticed, although he had removed his jacket and tie as a concession to the heat; his ubiquitous laptop was jammed under his feet. Was he going to work all the way across the South China Sea, the way he had across the Pacific?
Curiosity—her besetting sin—got the better of her. If she was stuck with him as a seat companion for the next hour or so she might as well make the best of it.
‘What a coincidence we’re both going to the same place,’ she remarked as the plane taxied down the runway. ‘Are you going there on business or pleasure?’ she asked, although she thought she knew the answer. Nobody went on holiday wearing a suit!
‘You might say a bit of both,’ he replied. One corner of his narrow mouth indented briefly, as if he was restraining a smile of grim anticipation. He obviously wasn’t expecting to enjoy himself much on either score.
‘And what exactly is your business? You never did say...’ Rosalind trailed off invitingly.
He hesitated. ‘I’m an accountant.’
‘Oh...really?’ Rosalind managed to keep a straight face but she quickly lowered her eyes, knowing they must be brimming with suppressed laughter. ‘I never would have guessed.’
She didn’t fool him one bit. His jaw stiffened. ‘You find my profession amusing?’
‘Of course not; accounting is a very serious, very honourable, highly regarded profession,’ she said earnestly.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ he warned her wryly.
She-let him see her dancing eyes as she burbled, in a little-girl voice of breathless admiration, ‘And so exciting, too. You must get a big thrill whenever you get your accounts to balance.’
His expression was stoical. ‘My accounts always balance.’
He managed to make his conscientiousness sound like a threat. It was too much for Rosalind’s sense of humour.
‘So many thrills, so little time!’ she giggled. ‘No wonder you look so strung up. You have all the hallmarks of a workaholic. I won’t ask you what your pleasure is; it probably has something to do with that laptop. I bet you have no idea how to really kick back and relax. Where are you staying on Tioman?’
When he named the resort her first reaction was amused resignation. So much for her flippant ‘Ciao, baby’. It seemed that they were fated to run into each other.
‘Me too.’
As the words left her mouth a nasty suspicion began to buzz crazily in her head. Ridiculous as it might appear, maybe coincidence had little to do with it...
