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‘You were plastered all over him.’
Her breath hissed between her teeth. ‘He had just told me that his wife is expecting their first baby after several years of trying to get pregnant. I’m really happy for Nigel and Clare. Howdareyou behave like a possessive jerk?’
Jace was intrigued by Eleanor’s outburst of temper. A year ago she had kept her passionate nature hidden from him, or maybe he had not taken the time to discover the real woman behind her rather bland shell. There was nothing bland about her now, he brooded, his eyes fixed on her moist lips as her tongue darted over them.
‘Eleanor, are you ready to launch?’ Nigel called out.
‘Ready,’ Eleanor shouted above the noise of the burner that was shooting flames into the mouth of the canopy.
Jace tensed when he realised that the balloon was rising into the air and the crew had let go of the ropes which had secured the basket to the ground. ‘Do you actually mean to go up in this thing?’ He watched Eleanor fiddling with the burner equipment. ‘Surely we need someone with us who knows what they’re doing?’
‘Idoknow what I’m doing. I’m a qualified balloon pilot.’
‘You?’
‘Why are you so shocked?’
He blew out a breath. ‘I didn’t know you were a fan of dangerous sports.’
‘Ballooning isn’t dangerous when it’s done properly.’ She held his gaze and Jace looked away first when she said drily, ‘You never really knew me.’
After a moment, Eleanor said, ‘I gained my balloon pilot’s licence a while ago. The weather is unpredictable in England, so I went to a flight training school in Turkey and did a crash course.’
The ground was a long way down. Jace took a deep breath. ‘That’s not funny.’
‘What? Oh, sorry, no pun intended.’ She stared at him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m not a fan of heights,’ he gritted, his jaw clenched.
‘But you own your own jet and regularly fly across the world for business.’
‘I trust my pilot.’
‘Well, like it or not, you’ll have to trust me. I’m going to turn the burner off now that we have reached the right altitude.’
The silence that enveloped them was like nothing Jace had ever experienced before. ‘Look at the view,’ Eleanor urged him. ‘Isn’t it incredible?’
The Oxfordshire countryside was spread beneath them, a patchwork of fields criss-crossed with green hedges and the silver glint of the river. But Jace still felt ill at ease. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Wherever the wind takes us. There is no way of steering the balloon. The only control the pilot has is altitude. We’ll go higher if I turn the burner on to heat the air inside the canopy, and when we land I’ll open a vent to allow the air to escape from the balloon so that I can control the rate of descent.’
Jace was captivated by Eleanor’s enthusiasm. ‘I love ballooning because every flight is an adventure,’ she told him. ‘One day I hope to fly over the African plains. I’ve heard that the views of the wildlife on the Serengeti from a balloon are amazing.’
‘And for an adrenalin junkie there is the added risk of landing next to an irate lion,’ Jace said sardonically. When he’d met Eleanor fifteen months ago he had thought she was sweet and charming, but adventurous was not an adjective he would have used to describe her. ‘What made you decide to train as a balloon pilot?’
‘You did,’ she said quietly.
He frowned. ‘How so?’
‘You made me feel like I was worthless. I needed to prove to myself that I deserved better than to be a pawn in your revenge.’
Jace swore. ‘I never thought you were worthless.’
Eleanor turned away from him and curled her hands over the edges of the basket. ‘Pappoús introduced me to ballooning. He had a friend who was a pilot and used to take me for flights.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I loved my grandfather and I foolishly fell in love with you. But you are as ruthless as you have told me Pappoús was.’
‘Theos!I am nothing like Kostas.’ Jace’s nostrils flared as he sought to control his anger. But guilt curdled in his belly when he forced himself to scrutinise his behaviour. He had betrayed Eleanor’s trust. Even worse, he had justified his actions by telling himself that in a war there were always innocent casualties. Hurting Eleanor’s feelings had been the price he’d been prepared to pay to seize control of the Pangalos and destroy Kostas’s legacy. Grimacing, Jace acknowledged that he could not change what he had done in the past. But he owed Eleanor his honesty before she married him.
The soundless flight of the balloon was surreal, and the air smelled crisp and clean when Jace inhaled deeply. There was something magical about drifting across the endless blue sky.
