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The corners of his beautiful mouth hinted at a smile. “I’d fly the devil if he paid me. I don’t care who’s in the passenger seat as long as the money is in my account.” His drawl was deep and dark with hints of sophistication that disguised the truth about his background.
When she’d first met him he’d been damaged, bitter and rebellious. He’d cared for no one. Trusted no one.
She’d thought she could change all that. She’d made that classic mistake of thinking she could be the one to tame the wild in him.
Her brain had gone missing in action the day she’d decided to go after Zachary Flynn. To someone who had spent her life on a small island where she knew almost every face she saw in the street, he’d proved fascinating. She’d always strived to exceed people’s expectations. Zach, it seemed, had lived to smash them into the ground.
He’d been the forbidden fruit. The boy every good girl avoided.
He was black to her white, dark to her light, hard to her soft.
Her one big mistake.
In a wild attempt to prove everyone wrong, she’d proved them right.
They’d warned that he’d break her heart and he had. And he’d done it in the most humiliating way possible.
She transferred her attention to the plane. “So this is what you do now?”
“If you mean I target people with too much money and help myself to some of it then yeah, this is what I do. And it seems I’m your ride.” He removed his sunglasses and stood to one side. “Climb aboard, Princess.”
She didn’t want to climb aboard. She wanted to run.
Panic nailed her feet to the ground, but pride drove her forward. If she turned away now he’d know it was because of him. And anyway, if she did that how was she going to get to the island? In this case practicality had to take precedence over emotions. Alternative transport would be expensive and uncomfortable. Her wrist was already hurting and her head was fuzzy from a combination of lack of sleep and the long flight. The hospital had suggested she remain in Greece for another week to recuperate before traveling. Lily had insisted that private travel would make the journey a thousand times easier and Brittany had agreed.
The one thing she hadn’t done was ask questions about her onward transfer to the island.
Why would she? It would never have crossed her mind the pilot could be Zach.
And how pathetic would she be if she let a joke marriage that had lasted barely five minutes affect her after a whole decade? She was bigger than that.
Telling herself it was only a twenty-minute hop at most and that Zach was going to be too busy flying the plane to take any notice of her, Brittany walked up the steps. She was careful to avoid eye contact. He was strikingly good-looking, but it was those eyes that had been her downfall. They were so dark they seemed black, the hard gleam radiating his deep suspicion of mankind. He’d had a way of watching her, his hooded gaze brooding and dangerous, as if daring her to stop wondering and fantasizing and take the leap.
Never one to turn down a challenge, she’d taken the dare.
It had been like trying to tame a feral beast that was inevitably going to turn on her.
She brushed past him and felt the hard swell of his bicep brush against her bare arm. She jerked back, but not before a rush of awareness had burned through her body.
Her gaze slid to his shadowed jaw and from there to the hard lines of his mouth.
She still remembered how it had felt to be kissed by him, and remembering kicked her heart rate up a notch.
“Nice plane.” Her voice was as cold as a Maine winter. “Did you steal it?”
Her question drew a flicker of a smile. “No, this time I was the one who was robbed. You have no idea what price they pin on this baby.”
She wanted to ask how he could afford it, but didn’t want to show that much interest so instead she slid into one of the large leather seats. She wished now she’d chosen to wear something less casual than shorts. They were the practical choice for the life she led, and her favorite product was high-factor sunscreen. She’d learned that any makeup she applied was quickly sweated off in the heat, so she restricted herself to a lip balm that protected against the sun.
As a result, her selection of cosmetics remained mostly unused, but she was woman enough that if she’d known she was going to meet Zachary Flynn after a gap of ten years, she would have raided the makeup counter. Maybe even worn a dress and heels, though her wardrobe contained few examples of either. With enough advance warning she would have called Skylar, who had a talent for color and dressing people.
With the help of her friends, she would have planned the meeting carefully, deciding how she was going to handle it and what she was going to say so that she controlled every moment of the reunion. And she wouldn’t have chosen to do it this way.
Knowing that he was studying her, Brittany resisted the temptation to shift in her seat.
Yeah, that’s right, take a good look at what you gave up. Are you sorry now?
Finally she looked at him, looked into those flinty eyes framed by lashes as dark as coal. Her heart started to pound and her head spun. Tired, she thought. I’m tired, that’s all. But she knew it wasn’t the long flight or the time change that was responsible for the shift in her heart rate. It was seeing him. Panic ripped through her because she didn’t want to feel anything and she was feeling—everything.
