Authors: Ann Christopher
Already this woman had captured his imagination.
Which meant that he was, after all, still capable of feeling something more than an occasional and unadorned physiological need for a woman’s body.
“And what’s your name?” he asked.
“Sir?” The flight attendant came up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. “I have your drink. And you need to take your seat because we’re about to pull away from the terminal.”
Marcus ignored this interruption. His attention felt as though it had been hermetically sealed around the woman in front of him, and the rest of the universe needed to sit down and shut up until he found out who she was.
He waited.
Her lids lifted to reveal stormy eyes and an otherwise unreadable expression.
“Claudia,” she said softly. Reluctantly.
Claudia.
Perfect.
“Sir?” The flight attendant was getting impatient now, and her sharp tap on his shoulder told him the air marshals were in his near future if he didn’t buckle his ass up in the next three seconds. “I need your cooperation. I’d hate to have to call the pilot.”
Marcus stayed where he was and held up an index finger to placate the flight attendant. “And are you married, Claudia?”
Claudia’s lips tightened with growing annoyance. “No.”
His entire being breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“And you’d best sit your arse down before you get booted off the flight, hadn’t you?” Claudia continued, sweeping her arm wide to gesture at his seat.
He sat, keeping one eye on her to make sure she didn’t try any shady moves, like switching seats. But the flight was full, and she sat beside him, leaving him to uncomfortably ponder why this woman affected him so strongly. It was nothing to get worked up about, he assured himself. Just a beautiful and unexpected complication on a routine day.
The flight attendant, meanwhile, looked stern as she passed him his drink. “We’re not going to have a problem with you, are we, sir?”
“The odds are fifty-fifty on that,” Claudia muttered.
“Not at all.” Marcus took a fortifying sip of Scotch and looked at Claudia. “Can I buy you a drink?”
“Drinking’s a nasty habit,” she said flatly. “I don’t drink.”
“That must lead to a great deal of dehydration,” Marcus told her.
Trying to stifle her grin, the flight attendant strode off down the aisle.
Claudia glared at Marcus.
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “Am I disturbing you?”
“No.” She crossed her legs, fiddled with her seat belt and smoothed her bangs. Marcus decided the fidgeting was an encouraging sign. “Yes. Look. Let’s get a couple things straight.”
“Let’s.”
“I get your type,” she informed him. “I get your type all the time. I seem to attract your type.”
“My type?”
“A handsome player—”
“I
am
handsome, aren’t I?”
“—with enough disposable income to buy expensive Scotch, a few Armani shirts and a fancy car—”
“It’s a Range Rover.”
“—and enough charm to think that women will line up and mud-wrestle each other for the honor of being the next notch on your bedpost. Well, I am not a notch-to-be. Let’s get that straight. I am on a business trip and cannot be seduced by a drink and a few soulful looks from you. Understood?”
“You’re very blunt, aren’t you?”
“Blunt works for me. It eliminates tons of bullshit. Are we agreed?”
“I don’t think you’re a notch-to-be.”
“But I am right about my assessment of you.”
It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t bother to argue. Far too many people in the world spent far too much time denying the truth about themselves and wasting other people’s time. Not him.
“Oh, you’re right,” he admitted.
“I knew it,” she crowed.
He stared at her, waiting for her triumphant and dismissive smirk to recede so he could be sure he had her attention when he told her the one thing he never told other people.
Which begged the question: Why was he spilling his guts to a stranger on a plane?
“How else was I supposed to cope after my wife died?” he asked her.
Claudia’s eyes widened with shock.
Man. Those eyes.
Arrested, he searched them and found things that tied his belly up in knots. Compassion. Interest. Vulnerability.
“You should never lie about the death of a loved one,” she said, low, and he instinctively knew that she, too, had suffered a great loss.
“I’ll never lie to you about anything, Claudia.”
She stilled, staring at him.
Turning away, he sipped his Scotch with grim satisfaction and stared out the window, watching the rain as it continued to fall from the darkening sky.
Chapter 2
T
his,
Marcus thought an hour later, still staring out the window, was why he hated to fly.
Though it was only seven, the sky was a doom-laden black that did not seem especially receptive to large aircraft. White-hot lightning strikes, forked and angry, were growing closer and more frequent, as though they were determined to overtake the plane and send it spinning back to earth, where it belonged.
He hadn’t bothered with his noise-canceling headphones because: (a) what if the pilot made another announcement about the deteriorating weather; and (b) what if Claudia decided she wanted to talk to him? He didn’t want to discourage that by appearing aloof.
So far, though, no dice.
The turbulence was beginning to worry him.
Just a little.
The seat-belt lights had been on the whole time, but he checked his belt again, tightening the strap, just to be safe.
To top it all, the cabin’s quiet and darkened mood was the perfect incubator for brooding thoughts of Renee, their life together and his sudden life alone. Renee, who’d been dark-skinned and petite, and smelled of roses—180 degrees different from the woman next to him.
And why did his brain insist on putting Renee and Claudia side by side?
“That’s quite a shameful trick. Despicable, really,” said Claudia, calling him back to the present.
Marcus shifted to face her, pleasantly surprised to hear her voice again. They hadn’t spoken to each other this whole time, nor had they bothered with the in-flight movie, which was the kind of ridiculous comedy that made him wish they’d stop letting chimps with crayons run the studios in Hollywood. He’d idly flipped through this month’s
Vanity Fair,
trying not to be so acutely focused on her closeness and the prickling awareness that hummed all up and down the right side of his body. She, meanwhile, kept her head bent low over some reading she was doing on her tablet.
Naturally, he’d peeked.
What was she reading?
Vanity Fair.
But now she was looking at him, brows lowered with disapproval.
“Despicable?”
he echoed. “Now, there’s a word we don’t hear often enough in the United States.”
“Despicable. Claiming to have a dead wife in a blatant ploy for sympathy from me.”
“I can think of other things I’d prefer to have from you.”
Her accusatory gaze flickered but didn’t fall. “Then why did you tell me?”
Wasn’t that the billion-dollar question?
“I have no idea,” he told her, the confession rankling him. “And you do realize that you’re engaging in idle chitchat with a stranger on a plane, right?”
She nodded toward the window. “What else am I to do while we wait for lightning to strike the plane?” Pausing, she pressed her lips together as though trying to stop herself from saying anything else. “Besides. Talking about your departed wife isn’t idle or chitchat, is it?”
“True.”
They sat in a pregnant silence for several seconds.
“What happened to her, then?” Claudia asked softly.
Marcus stared at her, wondering why she was asking and, more important, why he was telling. Something warm and encouraging—not prurient but genuinely interested, and not pitying but understanding, which was an entirely different and acceptable thing—shone on her face. He decided that beneath the caustic armor, Claudia was a complex woman with a beating heart.
He added that to the growing list of things that fascinated him about her.
“Skiing accident. We’d gone to Aspen to celebrate our first anniversary.”
Claudia’s face fell. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, dismissing this sentiment.
Sorry
.
Was there ever a more useless word?
“I don’t look like her, do I?” she asked.
“You don’t look anything like her.”
Claudia dimpled, looking mollified.
Without warning, the plane dipped.
It was the kind of sudden plunge that usually only happened on a roller coaster. All around them, people cried out in shock and then murmured with nerves. He and Claudia both reflexively grabbed the arms of their seats, putting their hands perilously close together in the middle.
They shared a shaky attempt at laughter.
“Did I mention I don’t care for flying?” Claudia said.
“No?”
“Yes. God didn’t intend for machines to hurtle through the air at a thousand kilometers per hour and fifty thousand kilometers above the ground. It’s unnatural.”
“Agreed.”
“And have you memorized the nearest exit? I’m planning on you to lead me to safety when we crash-land and I become one of the panicked horde.”
If the plane hadn’t been juddering like the inside of an earthquake simulator, this image might have made him grin. “I have a hard time picturing you panicked about anything. You seem pretty tough.”
She managed a tight smile. “I am tough.”
“But are you tough enough to carry me to safety on your back when I start screaming hysterically?”
She laughed.
The plane plunged again. Watching the smile collapse off her face, he tried to beat back his growing panic and say something witty and comforting. But as the plane kept falling—how long did it go on? Five seconds? Ten?—a woman behind them began sobbing and a baby’s screech rose up over the din, and nothing came to mind.
So he did the only thing he could think of, which was grab Claudia’s warm hand, hang on for dear life and wonder if he should say some prayers and, if he did, whether God would bother to listen any more than He had when Marcus had begged Him to spare Renee’s life.
Finally—finally—the plane leveled out.
Not that he had any illusions that they were out of danger.
Neither did Claudia, apparently.
She clung to him with hands that were soft but strong. Her eyes were teary, and her skin a sickly gray.
“To tell you the truth, Marcus, I really hadn’t planned on dying today.”
“We’re not dying today, beauty,” he told her.
“You can’t be sure.”
He thought about that and decided, “Yeah. I can.”
A single tear fell, tracking down her cheek. “Maybe it’s time for you to be with your wife. What was her name?”
He hesitated. “Renee. We were sweethearts at NYU. Got married right after graduation.”
“Maybe it’s time for you and Renee to be reunited.”
He thought about that, too, and looked inside his heart.
He was high up in the clouds, as close to heaven as he’d ever get while alive. Renee was surely in heaven, and he’d always thought, when he wasn’t angry at God, that they’d be together there one day, if Marcus didn’t screw up the rest of his life too badly.
But now, oddly, in this come-to-Jesus moment ten years after her death, Renee felt very far away.
And Claudia was right here, touching him, and she was real.
“No, it’s not,” he said, certain now. “I’ve got a lot more living to do. And so do you. Don’t you?”
She hesitated, then nodded, trying to smile.
The plane banked sharply to the left.
Chaos erupted. Several people screamed and began to pray. Lights flashed overhead. Someone ran down the aisle. The captain’s voice, urgent now, came over the intercom, and said something about remaining calm and diverting the plane to Chicago for the night.
Marcus blocked all of it out and focused on Claudia.
“I have a confession to make,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I lied earlier. I would have slept with you. You’re wicked sexy.”
He made a wheezy sound, somewhere between a surprised laugh and a choked sob. “Glad you think so.”
To his astonishment, she pried one of her hands loose, cupped his face and leaned in, giving him a lingering kiss.
Her lips were firm. Sweetly tender. Promising.
“For luck,” she said when she pulled away, leaving him just dazed enough to cut through some of his panic.
“I feel luckier already,” he murmured.
Then the plane plummeted.
Chapter 3
C
laudia’s fingers tightened around his, crunching them in a bone-crushing grip. Glancing down, Marcus saw that her knuckles were white, and when he looked back at her face, he saw that she was blindly staring at the seat back in front of her. Her expression was stark with terror and perfectly mirrored the way he also felt.
The plane leveled out and bumped along, reminding him of a mogul skier racing down a steep mountain slope, before resuming its shuddering descent to O’Hare airport.
“Oh, God,” Claudia murmured to herself.
That did it. He could suffer through the fear if he had to, but Claudia’s fear, he discovered to his own surprise, was unacceptable. The need to make this ordeal easier on her rose up in him, primitive and urgent, and he went with it.
“Claudia,” he said, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, “talk to me.”
She blinked and slowly turned to face him. “What?”
“Tell me something about you. Something quirky.”
Her lips curled in a sickly smile. “This isn’t a first date, Marcus.”
“What? You have something else to do right now?”
She hesitated, her gaze darting to the window, where clouds were racing past at an alarming rate. “Well,” she said after a beat or two, “I spend an embarrassing amount of time watching the Olympics. Only I prefer the obscure events, like synchronized swimming in the summer and—”
“Curling in the winter.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes widening with surprise. “You know curling?”
“Oh, I know curling,” he admitted grimly. “Curling and I go way back. And we’ll never speak of this conversation again. Assuming we don’t crash, burn and die in the next few minutes. Agreed?”
“Agreed. Now you. Obscure fact, please.”
“I love cats. If I could figure out how to have one without getting its hair all over my clothes—”
“Well, you need a Devon Rex cat, of course! The ones with the great pointy ears, like bats. They hardly shed at all. I have two back home in London waiting to be shipped over—Merry and Pippin.”
His jaw dropped. “You’re a
Lord of the Rings
fan?”
“Who isn’t?”
“Ah...” Shaking his head, he shot her a bemused grin while he tried to recover from the shock of being confronted with a woman who was this interesting, smart and
cool
—all in one sexy package. “To start with? The last six or eight women I’ve dated.”
“Well, no wonder you’re no longer with them!”
“Good point. Your turn again.”
“I hate New Year’s,” she confessed. “Does that count?”
His grin widened. “Most overrated holiday ever. Agreed?”
“Absolutely.” Really warming to the conversation now, she loosened her grip on his hand, allowing his blood to circulate again. “Pet peeve?”
“People who smack their gum—”
“Yes!” she cried. “Like cows chewing their cuds. It’s absolutely disgusting!”
“Oh, and people who talk on the phone while driving,” he added. “Get off the road, moron. You’re not so important that you can’t wait ten minutes to return a call.”
“Agreed. Why are you wearing all black?”
“I always do,” he told her. “Power color. And everything matches.”
She stared at him, her smile slowly fading until he began to feel uncomfortable.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly.
“You don’t like black?”
“I also wear only black,” she said, lowering her gaze. “Same reasons.”
“Oh,” he said faintly.
He was getting an eerie prickle on the back of his neck.
He and Claudia sure had a hell of a lot in common.
“Where did you go to school? And what did you study?” he asked, trying to keep it light when the silence became awkward. But then the strangest thing came out of his mouth: “And I’m giving you fair warning. If you give any more perfect answers, I’m probably going to fall in love with you before the flight’s over.”
She snorted. “Well, you’d be the first man who’s ever had that problem with me. Anyway, my major is so obscure, it’s really doubtful.”
“Try me,” he said, that eerie feeling growing until the skin all over his body felt prickly and alive.
“I went to King’s College, London. I focused on classical studies with an emphasis on ancient Roman art and Latin.” She grimaced. “I loved it, of course, but people’s eyes usually glaze over when I mention it. So you see? Your heart is safe from me, isn’t it? And what did you study?”
He paused, utter disbelief getting the best of him. “Ancient history.”
She blinked those big gray eyes at him. “Oh,” she said softly.
Marcus stared at her, frozen with conflict. On the one hand, she was a wondrous new creature, as foreign and spectacular as a mermaid sunning on the beach.
On the other hand, she was like...
She was...
She was astonishing. That was the only word he could think of to describe her.
“Claudia,” he began, running his thumb over the back of her hand again.
To his keen disappointment, she snatched her hand free and turned to face the seat in front of her again, but not before tipping her head at the window. “I think we’re out of danger. I can see the city lights below.”
Lights? What? He didn’t care about any lights.
Smoothing her skirt over her thighs, she shot him a sidelong smile so cool and detached it was as though they’d reverted back to the second they first met, when she clearly didn’t want to be bothered with him. As though they’d never talked at all.
As though they were merely strangers on a plane.
“I do hope we land soon,” she told him, unbuckling her belt. “This flight has been a complete nightmare. I can’t get off this plane fast enough. Can you?”
“Claudia.”
“Excuse me, won’t you?” Even though the seat-belt light was still on, she stood and moved into the aisle, steadfastly refusing to look at him. “I think I will run to the loo after all.”
“Claudia.”
She was already gone, her long strides taking her as far away from him as possible.
Her name was still on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it back because now wasn’t the time.
And anyway—he had no idea what he’d been trying to tell her. Only that it felt important.
* * *
There she was.
A powerful bolt of relief shot straight through Marcus, so strong it nearly made him dizzy. Once again juggling his overnight bag and briefcase, he waded into the crowd at O’Hare and tried to keep her in sight, because he didn’t want to lose her again. Thank God she was so tall, and thank God he could walk fast, too. Since fate was giving him a second chance to connect with Claudia, despite her ego-damaging determination to disappear, he intended to make the best of it.
But why hadn’t she waited for him to collect his overnight bag from the overhead bin?
Why was she so determined to ditch him after everything that happened on the plane?
“Claudia.” He picked up his pace, edging around a couple of gangly teenagers trying to walk and text at the same time, and came level with her. Though she had to see him out of the corner of her eye, Claudia didn’t break stride, causing another little piece of his admittedly oversize ego to disintegrate into dust. But what was life without a challenge now and then? “Claudia.”
Her hesitation was brief, no more than the space between one blink and the next. But it was long enough for him to register the slight straightening of her spine, as though she was gearing herself up for the unpleasant task of getting rid of an overzealous panhandler.
Another jab to his ego.
“Why, Marcus.” There was a dryly bored note in her voice that the English accent seemed to magnify, making him feel like the village idiot. “We meet again. What a surprise.”
“Well, O’Hare’s such a small airport.” He fell into step with her as they continued the endless walk to ground transport where, they’d been told, a shuttle would take all the passengers to their designated hotel for the night. “We were bound to run into each other.”
The edges of her mouth tried to curl, but she locked it down before it blossomed into a full-fledged smile. “Or perhaps you have the tendency to resist all efforts at eradication and turn up again and again, like a bad rash.”
“So I’m growing on you, then. Like a rash.”
Another dimpling half smile made lust tighten low in his belly, but she seemed determined not to give him an inch. “No, actually. I’m wondering if I need to try a stronger ointment to get rid of you.”
“Now, why would you want to get rid of me?” he murmured.
“Hmm. Let’s see.” Hitching her bags higher on her shoulder, she made a show of fishing her cell phone out of her pocket and thumbing through it. Her floor-eating strides never slowed, and impatience crept into her tone. “We’ve narrowly survived a near-death experience and have been diverted from our destination. I have a client who’d been expecting me for dinner, and I’ll have to call him to—”
“Have dinner with me instead.”
“—explain that I’ll be delayed until at least tomorrow—”
“Have dinner with me, Claudia.”
Her jaw tightened. “And I believe I’ve already explained to you that I’m not interested.”
“Ah, but that was before you recanted and admitted that you thought I was—what did you say?—oh, yeah. ‘Wicked sexy.’ And that you would’ve slept with me. I distinctly remember that last part.”
A vivid flush crept over her skin, giving her complexion a delicious sun-kissed look. “That’s one of the problems with you Americans. You have an appalling lack of manners.”
“Appalling?”
“Yes. It’s very bad form to remind a person of what they confessed when they thought death was imminent. It’s almost as bad as...”
She trailed off, but he had no problems following her train of thought.
“As bad as reminding someone of what they said in bed?”
“Yes,” she said tightly, her chin hitching higher.
“Oh, well. What can you do? Americans.” He swerved and dodged, narrowly avoiding being plowed down by a woman pushing a jogging stroller with a squalling baby in it. “So what about dinner?”
“Goodbye, Marcus,” she muttered, speeding up even more. “Have a great life.”
There was something so unyielding about her now—from her rigid spine all the way down to her white-knuckle grip on her phone—that he knew they’d crossed out of lighthearted flirting and into a dark place. At this rate, she might actually slip away without him ever having the chance to break through her protective wall and approach the woman underneath.
He couldn’t quietly stand aside and watch her walk out of his life forever. He wasn’t a stalker, but he wasn’t built for giving up without a fight, either. “Claudia.”
She slowed, keeping her gaze resolutely straight ahead and away from him.
“Can we just—” Rising frustration was making him sound desperate. He hated that, but, let’s face it—he was desperate. “Can we just, I don’t know—can we just talk for a minute?”
She took another step, then stopped.
He was so surprised by this concession that it took him a beat to get his thoughts together. Looking around, he discovered that they were in the high-traffic area just outside one of the terminal’s corner newsstands, a place that allowed him to be elbowed in the back by every other passing person. He held his arm wide and gestured her to a slightly more secluded spot a few steps away, in front of a set of elevators.
They faced each other straight on, which was a vastly different experience from talking while sitting side by side in their seats.
She stared at him, waiting, her gaze direct but also wary and turbulent, and the power of his reaction to her—in his thundering pulse, heating skin and tightening chest—was like a zap of lightning directly to the crown of his head.
He’d been right, then.
He hadn’t imagined it. This woman called to him in some primal way that, frankly, was more than a little worrisome. But if he let her walk out of his life, he’d regret it.
And he’d had more than enough regrets in his life since Renee died, thanks.
Opening his mouth, he tried to put his words together. It was harder than it should have been, possibly because he wasn’t used to having to chase after women, much less breaking into a nervous sweat about it.
What was it about this woman?
“I’m...sorry I’m coming on so strong,” he told her.
“Oh, please—” she began, shifting impatiently and checking her watch.
“Claudia. Look at me.”
She hesitated. Her thinned lips and reluctance to raise her head gave him the boost of encouragement he needed. She felt it, too, then, even though she was reluctant to admit, maybe even to herself, that he wasn’t just some routine punk trying to get in her panties.
“Please.”
Her bright gaze flickered up to his.
His breath caught.
“I’m not a stalker,” he said helplessly. “Look me up on Google if you want.”
A long pause followed, taking a year off his life.
She nodded.
His lungs loosened up and started working again. “Can we have dinner together tonight? In the hotel restaurant, maybe? Or anywhere else you want to go?”
“I can’t.”
“Back in New York, then? Next week?”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“But you feel this...this...chemistry?” What a weak word for something this powerful. “And the connection...when we talked?”
“I feel it, yeah.”
A wild swoop of hope shot through him. “Can we explore what’s going on between us?”
It took her forever to answer. “I can’t,” she finally said, and even though he knew he had a healthy ego, he wasn’t imagining the shadow of regret across her beautiful face or the sadness in her eyes. “I have very poor judgment when it comes to men, I’m afraid.” She shot him a wry smile. “The old Claudia would already be picking out which dress to wear for dinner and which lacy knickers to put on beneath. But I’m trying to be the new Claudia, because I’ve got a new start with a new job in a new country. And the new Claudia needs a break from sex. And from men.”
The hope he’d been feeling crashed and burned, forming a smoldering knot of wreckage in his gut. “But—”