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“Sure, if you say so…”
“I mean it, Juanita. Now, where’s my straightener?” She furrowed her brow and then remembered putting it in her Ted Baker tote two days earlier.
She might have been going for a week, but it still warranted a rather full suitcase. “You’ll be okay with Miss Kitty?”
“Of course. She’s a dear.” Juanita was doing a noble impersonation of someone who liked felines, but in actuality, she found them scratchy and malting, and would prefer not to get within ten feet of any animal – cat, dog or bird.
Carrie laughed and shook her head from side to side. “Just put food out for her each morning and try to pat her back every now and again.”
“Tom will help me,” Juanita said, the most reassuring comment she could have come up with.
“Thanks, babes. I’ll see you on Sunday.” Carrie kissed her best friend on the cheek, and felt a tug of true affection. “And don’t worry about me. I’m under control.”
Two hours later, sitting in one of Gael Vivas’s private jets, waiting for him to arrive, she desperately wished it were true. Her stomach was a flutter of nerves, and her fingers seemed unable to keep still. She had dressed with care for the flight. A pair of skinny black pants, and a floating turquoise shirt gave her an air of businesslike authority, while also perfectly suiting the more casual nature of their trip. It had the added bonus of flattering her slender shape and bringing out the blue in her eyes. She was as prepared as she could be. Or so she thought.
But the minute Gael arrived on the tarmac, her blood pressure skyrocketed. She knew he was there before she actually saw him, because one of the Vivas branded stewards moved to the top of the stairs and pasted a welcoming smile on her face. Then, there was the sound of his shoes, firm and confident, on the metallic stairs, and finally, Gael. Looming large and imposing, backlit in the frame of the aeroplane door. His eyes scanned the flight and when they landed on her, in a bank of four armchair like seats, he seemed to visibly relax.
Not so, Carrie. She swallowed through a throat that felt suddenly lined with razor blades. He’d changed too, into a pair of black jeans and a button up shirt made of a pale blue and white check. His eyes, those eyes that had stared through her dreams for years on end, we
re fixed on her face now, and Carrie was powerless to look away.
“Good morning,” he said with a small smile. He took the seat opposite her, but no part of their bodies touched. And Carrie was aching to touch him. In fact, if they’d been completely alone, she would have been tempted to cross the small space between them and straddle him, to kiss him hard on the lips and tell him she couldn’t wait to make love with him again.
“Hello.” Her long lashes fanned down onto her cheeks. “Did you sleep well?” She dared to ask, confident none of the flight crew were within earshot.
His smile was tight; unwelcoming. “I never sleep well in hotels.”
Carrie kept her expression neutral, but inside her chest, her heart was hammering. Why was he being so closed off? What had changed? Was he annoyed that she hadn’t spent the night?
“You must be looking forward to getting back to Barcelona then?” She persisted, though why she was trying to make conversation with him, she couldn’t have said.
His eyes met hers, and the mockery in them was unmistakable. “Barcelona is not my home either.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. I have a villa elsewhere. Barcelona is where my offices are, and where I therefore keep an apartment.”
“I see.” Carrie lowered her eyes then, refusing to let him see that she was hurt by his cold manner.
“Put your seatbelt on, Carrie. We’ll be taking off momentarily.”
She did as he said without risking another glance in his direction. The plane began to move at high speed along the tarmac, and Carrie told herself that the dipping sensation in her stomach was because of the change in speed and altitude, not the change in Gael’s manner.
When she’d left him sometime before midnight, he’d seemed… she frowned. She’d been so wrapped up in her own confused reflections that she hadn’t really noticed his manner. Her body had seemed on fire, and her feet had felt as though they were gliding through the hotel.
How had he been? Had that fog of desire and satisfaction not engulfed him in the same way it had devoured her?
She settled back in her chair and stared out of the window. Beneath them, London spread like a web of homes, a knotty, busy city, connected by streets and pavements and the lifeblood of the Thames at its heart. The city faded further and further away, until a bump of clouds obscured it from view altogether. Carrie continued to stare through the window, but she was seeing Gael, trying to recall his words as she’d left.
“You are deliberately choosing to ruin this.”
She’d laughed, and promised that there was nothing to ruin.
Was he smarting over that? Was he offended?
Her eyes flicked to him of their own accord. He was absorbed in a document on his iPad, his face contemplative, his attention focussed. She looked away quickly, before he could catch her staring.
Only twenty minutes out of London the plane hit turbulence. It bounced high, surfing over the fluffiest of clouds, before pitching lower and shaking back and forth. All thought of remaining aloof flew from Carrie’s mind, in a terrified moment of fear.
