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Tensions didn’t improve when the ever-efficient Helene called back to say that Merida’s cell-phone still wasn’t responding. ‘She might already be on board or have changed her SIM.’
‘Keep trying,’ Ethan said, but though his voice remained steady, hopelessness gripped his throat like a claw.
He ripped open his bow tie. As the car sped through the tunnel he raked his memory of the day he had been in her apartment and saw the tag on her suitcase in his mind’s eye. Perhaps if this was the return trip of that same ticket...?
He told his driver what was hopefully the carrier of her flight. It narrowed it down—though not by much.
He just hoped to hell she hadn’t already gone.
* * *
Merida was finally at the front of a very long check-in line. The airport was noisy and packed, and her flight was delayed, but finally things were moving.
She still didn’t know if she was doing the right thing by heading home. Leaving was agony. Not just her career, but the life and the friends she had made.
And by leaving she was removing absolutely any tiny, slim chance that Ethan might look her up again.
He’d had months to do that, Merida reminded herself.
She had the start of a headache. Once her case was checked in she’d find a shop—though she wasn’t sure what she could take that wouldn’t affect the baby.
The baby!
She jolted whenever she said that to herself. It still didn’t feel real.
And nor did the sound of Ethan calling her name.
‘Merida!’
She turned and there he was. Impossibly beautiful, suited but with his tie undone. His black eyes met and held hers as he impatiently indicated her to come over.
‘Miss...?’
She was finally being called to check in.
Ethan’s eyes didn’t leave hers, but in the moments before she had seen him the fact she was pregnant had been silently confirmed.
She was thin—too thin, really—but her breasts were bigger than they had been. Her hair was up in a messy bun, and her face was far too pale under the bright fluorescent lights.
It should have been a spotlight, Ethan thought to himself as he made his way over. She should have been on that stage when the curtain went up, not standing washed out with a case by her side about to leave.
‘Come on,’ Ethan said, as if he simply expected her to follow him out to the waiting car.
Which he did.
‘I have to check in. I’ve got a plane to catch,’ Merida said.
‘Not now you don’t.’
‘Miss!’ People were pushing past her and she was being told to move.
‘I have to go.’
‘Merida.’
His voice was incredibly cutting, and very firm, and she got a glimpse of the tough businessman she had heard he was.
‘You called me threating lawyers.’
