by Trish Wylie
‘Then we have the stats—’ she took a measured breath ‘—like horsepower…lift…flight speed…thrust…’
The last word was whispered and while she stared the throbbing pulse sped up. So before she could talk herself out of it, she pushed her mike back to make room and bent forwards, pressing her lips to the spot.
Adam’s low hiss of pleasure thrilled her, a smile forming against his skin as she lifted her hand and set it on his knee. He tensed. She leaned back just enough to be heard in the mike.
‘Cruise speed is two hundred and sixty knots…’ Another kiss a little further up. ‘She can rise to a maximum altitude of thirty thousand feet…’
Impulsively she flicked her tongue out, running the very tip of it over his skin and closing her eyes to savour the combination of warm skin and hint of saltiness on her lips. He was delicious.
Adam let out a low growl.
‘You’re wondering about the range…’ She slid her hand a little higher up his leg, feeling the muscles in his thigh bunch beneath her palm. ‘It’s got a thirteen hundred kilometer range…over a thousand nautical miles…’
Simultaneously she ran her tongue over the sensitive skin below his ear and slid her hand a little higher up his thigh, his body heat seeping through the material of his jeans and into her palm. ‘We could cross the Atlantic with this plane, Adam…’
Then an undiscovered vixen within her asked, ‘How long do you think you would need?’
‘Roane?’ Her name was said on a harsh note.
She moved back enough to be heard and to study a muscle clenching in his jaw. ‘Yes?’
‘If you keep doing that in about thirty seconds I’m gonna crash this plane.’
‘No, you won’t.’ She smiled drunkenly, intoxicated by his reaction.
‘Oh, yes, I will.’ A short burst of deep masculine laughter sparkled into the air. ‘And when we die I’m gonna haunt you for all eternity.’
‘No, you won’t.’ Roane’s smile grew, her gaze tangling with his. ‘I’d have had to disengage the autopilot for that to happen…’
Adam frowned. ‘You reached over.’
‘Mmm-hmm—doesn’t mean I did it, though.’
There was a comical moment of uncertainty when Adam frowned harder at the stick in his hands and then back to her, realization narrowing his eyes. ‘So if I let go of this thing we won’t plummet into the ocean.’
‘No plummeting.’
His voice deepened as he loosened his fingers. ‘Sweetheart, you’re in so much trouble about now it’s not even funny…’
‘Ah-ah-ah.’ She leaned back and waggled a finger at him when he turned her way, joy bubbling effervescently inside her at her achievement. ‘No, you don’t. You’re all mine, remember? Temporary slave. At my command.’
‘I’m calling a do-over due to foul play.’
Roane grinned. ‘What are you, seven? You can’t call a do-over. The rules were set before we left the ground.’
‘You’re a con artist, Elliott.’
‘No-oo…it turns out I have hitherto unknown talents…who knew?’ She shrugged a shoulder and continued grinning ridiculously as she checked the readouts and how far they were from home. ‘I think I might just get to go to the top of the class for this one. Go me.’
When Adam didn’t say anything she looked over at him and found him studying her with hooded eyes, the smile he aimed her way enough to melt her into a puddle on the floor. Then his voice rumbled huskily over her headset.
‘Two words, little girl…’
Roane lifted a brow.
‘Pay…back…’
‘That’s one word,’ she calmly informed him while her body flamed in anticipation.
Adam shook his head as he turned forwards in his seat. ‘The amount of it coming your way merits more than the one word.’
It sent a shiver of excitement up Roane’s spine. But she’d known what he’d do if she was successful, hadn’t she? Maybe it was why she’d put so much effort into it. It had taken very little, surprisingly. Whether that was because his mind had already been engaged on the subject before she’d ever got started or because she’d let him read innuendo where he chose to on an otherwise innocent subject she didn’t know.
But the sense of empowerment it engendered in Roane was unparalleled except for the day she’d gained her pilot’s licence—and her freedom along with it.
Adam’s idea of payback suddenly felt more like a reward…
The plane shook a little and Roane disengaged the autopilot to begin their decent through the mild turbulence. She glanced at Adam and saw his large hands gathering into fists on his knees again.
‘Adam?’
‘Mmm-hmm?’ He made the sound almost absent-mindedly. As if his mind was already engaged on methods of payback…
‘Just out of curiosity…’
The edge to her voice got his full attention. ‘Yes?’
Roane noticed he didn’t seem bothered by the second bump they hit. ‘If I had kept doing what I was doing—just how long would you have needed?’
There was a moment of silence—then laughter. The deep, rumbling, very male sound was mesmerizing to Roane. It changed him. Light danced in his eyes, laughter lines made crow’s feet at the outside edges of his dense lashes, the deep grooves in his cheeks framed his smile while ridiculously white teeth flashed at her. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever laid eyes on. And pretty soon he was going to make love to her. She didn’t know when or where, her imagination was now having one heck of a time with the how—but it was a certainty, a fait accompli…
Roane had always had very fixed opinions on the idea of falling into bed with a man she didn’t know. But it didn’t feel wrong to her; she felt as if she’d known Adam a lot longer than she had, that he wouldn’t judge her for caving in so easily. With him she felt free in a way she never had before. It was addictive. As if doing away with all the associated uncertainties of dating and building a relationship removed all the pressure at the same time. She could just be herself and consequences be damned. It was a rare form of emancipation.
‘You’re a very different woman on your own turf. You know that, right?’
Roane thought about that, her voice low. ‘I guess. I’ve never really thought about it before. On the ground I’m…grounded…no pun intended.’
When she accompanied the last word with a wry smile Adam smiled devilishly at her. ‘Well, then, we’ll have to see what we can do about making you soar when you’re on terra firma, won’t we? ’ Cause this version of you? It’s somethin’…’
It was the nicest compliment anyone had ever paid her, a part of Roane blossoming and growing under the warmth of his praise. And that feeling?
That was somethin’…
CHAPTER SIX
ADAM WATCHED AS his father considered his chess move. Roane had been right; further into the routine of the day he was vastly more lucid than he’d been the first morning Adam saw him. By late afternoon he was giving Adam a run for his money.
Playing chess was the one thing they’d done that Adam remembered with any degree of fondness. It had been an especially important break during the times when they’d disagreed on pretty much anything and everything else. The arrogance of youth had begun butting heads with the self-perceived wisdom of experience by Adam’s early teens…
He sighed lightly—as much at the new perspective on the past as the amount of time the old man was putting into considering his move. Stubborn old bastard. Despite the fact he was much frailer than Adam remembered, the description still held true. Adam had heard the way he talked to the nurse, who obviously had the patience of a saint.
His father reached out a pale-skinned hand and moved his rook. Adam calmly reached out and moved his knight.
The old man frowned. ‘Been practising.’
‘Every now and again.’
‘You always were too smart for me, boy…’
Adam frowned. Where had that come from?
‘You
r mother was smart. Get it from her. Look like her too.’ He smiled down at the board. ‘Beautiful woman…’
Adam watched as his father’s chin lifted, a look of confusion on his face. ‘She here?’
‘No, she’s not here.’ It wasn’t the fact the old man was confused enough to ask about the ex-wife who’d died when Adam had been ten that surprised him. It was the fact he looked so stricken when he was told she wasn’t. ‘It’s your move.’
His father looked into the middle distance. ‘She never liked the island. Couldn’t settle…’
‘I know.’ Adam’s mother had viewed the island as a desert rather than the oasis, especially during the off season.
‘Tried. Both tried. Didn’t work.’
‘I know.’
He looked Adam in the eye. ‘She took you away.’
Adam clenched his jaw. ‘I visited. You taught me to play chess.’
He smiled wistfully. ‘You learned fast. Beat me when you were seven.’
Adam nodded. ‘It had patterns I liked. They made sense.’
‘Always good with math. Made money that way, didn’t you?’
The statement made Adam’s eyes narrow. ‘How do you know that?’
But his father’s attention was waning again, his gaze searching the room. ‘Dinner at five.’
When Adam checked his wristwatch and found it was ten to, the nurse magically appeared to announce, ‘Mr. Bryant needs to get ready for dinner now.’
‘Dinner at five,’ his father repeated.
‘That’s right, Mr. Bryant. Now, let’s get you to the table, shall we?’ She smiled warmly at Adam. ‘Will you be joining your father?’
‘No, I have a few calls to make. But I’ll come back.’ He helped the nurse to get his father to his feet, surprised at how much shorter he was compared to Adam’s memories. He’d always remembered Edward Bryant as an imposing bear of a man. ‘We have a game to finish.’
His father smiled, lifting a hand to pat Adam’s forearm. ‘We’ll play chess, boy. I’ll teach you.’
Adam went for a walk to fill in time. He was restless, and not just because his father was so changed. Feeling restless wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for Adam. He got itchy feet several times a year. The difference was he was usually in a position to do something about it. Like visiting one of his projects or driving across country to a different city to see friends or check out something he’d found interesting enough to invest in.
But within a few hours of stepping back onto the island that day he was restless in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. The thing was, it had very little to do with the location—if anything he quite enjoyed revisiting some of his favorite places on the estate.
No, this had more to do with the woman who was thousands of feet up in the air taking businessmen to Boston. Something she’d neglected to tell him she was doing until they’d been safely on the tarmac and his thoughts had been focused entirely on a very sensual payback.
So he’d left her with a kiss that had barely scratched the surface of how turned on they both were by the game she’d played in the air. And walking away from her had cost him his first cold shower in…for ever…
When his phone rang he frowned—the sound seemed so out of place where he was. Time for a reality check from his new life, it seemed.
‘A. J.—it’s Sol.’
Adam’s gaze strayed towards the main house as he made his way up the grassy, tree-lined laneway. ‘You get the information I wanted?’
‘I did. He’s been trying to buy up shares for the last eighteen months. But you still hold the majority.’
‘Does he know that?’
‘Not that I can tell. You’re pretty well hidden. You wanted it that way.’
‘I still do.’ Adam breathed deep. Then he asked the question that had been bugging him for the past half-hour. ‘Does anyone else know?’
For a brief second it had felt as if the old man knew what Adam had been doing since he left. It suggested he’d kept tabs on him. But if he had then why had Jake needed to hire people to find him?
‘Not unless they’ve been doing a lot of digging.’
‘How would we find that out?’ The thought of someone poking their nose in his business irritated the hell out of Adam. He didn’t like his privacy invaded. Being judged because of his name had never appealed to him, nor had the associated publicity. His mother had been hounded by scandalmongers until the day she died.
Sol hesitated. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
Meaning Adam would have to try and find out from the old man—without giving anything away. He didn’t want to play his hand yet.
After running through a few things with Sol he made his way back into the house, and found his father asleep. The nurse appeared beside him. ‘He gets tired after dinner sometimes. He’ll nap. I left the pieces on the board if you decide to continue the game.’
Adam nodded, frowning at what could have been an analogy for other things.
‘I’m sure he’d like you to stay. He talks about you all the time.’
It was the second time someone had told him that since he came back. It was still hard for Adam to believe. But he nodded and made his way to the end of the room where there were bookcases jam packed with everything from books on economics to the classics. Sitting on an ancient leather chair with a high wing back, he stretched his legs out in front of him, his gaze randomly discovering a pile of old photo albums. There to help jog the old man’s memory, most likely.
Lifting one, he opened it.
Roane came into the room so silently he didn’t know she was there until his father stirred. ‘That you, girl?’
‘It’s me, Edward.’ Her voice was impossibly soft and Adam looked around the edge of his chair to see her bending over to place a kiss on the old man’s forehead. ‘I’ve come to read to you.’
‘You’re a good girl.’
Roane smiled at him, reaching for a book on the night-stand. ‘We’re still reading Dickens. Great Expectations, remember?’
‘You weren’t here.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ She pulled an armchair over. ‘I had to fly to New York. But I’m here now.’
Adam watched as she tucked her hair behind her ear and opened the book, her voice clear and mesmerizingly feminine as she began to read.
It had been a long time, if ever, since a woman had wound him as tight physically as Roane had and then left him hanging. Adam hadn’t liked it. But what he liked even less was the sudden realization that he’d spent the rest of the day thinking about her. She’d been in the back of his mind the whole time—like whispered words just out of earshot. It wasn’t supposed to be that way.
His distraction was proving too distracting…
In the soft glow of a reading lamp she was incredibly beautiful. Not in a classical way, not in a supermodel way, but in a completely fresh and…untouched-by-the-world way. She had the same timelessly serene beauty as the island, as if she were a product of her surroundings rather than genetics. In New York he’d told her she should see the world. But Adam had the feeling she would never be quite the same anywhere else. She belonged where she was…in the very place Adam never had…
He leaned back into his chair, careful not to let the leather creak. Then he continued to look through the album, watching his early life unfolding until something she was saying caught his attention. Lifting his hand from the album he randomly toyed with one of the thin leather bands on his wrist while he listened to her voice as she read.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been.
Her voice wove as much of a spell over Adam as the words she was quoting.
Pause you who read this…and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
; Like when he chose to take a dip in the ocean after a long drive across country to the stretch of beach he had gone skinny dipping on countless times in his late teens? Where Roane had found him; the first link on one memorable day…
Adam frowned at the thought. Why did it suddenly feel more important than it was? He’d never been a romanticist. His mind wasn’t built that way.
‘Where’s the boy?’
Roane’s voice was infinitely patient in reply. ‘Adam’s not here. Not right now. But he’s home. He came to see you. He’ll come see you again.’
Adam leaned forwards and saw her take his father’s hand in hers, a gentle smile on her lips a she reassured him, ‘Really this time. You didn’t imagine it.’
‘Gone too long…’
‘I know. But he’s here now.’
Adam was still coming to terms with the idea of having been talked about with Roane before he’d even ‘met’ her—he wasn’t sure how he felt about that—when something happened that he never thought he’d see: his father began to silently weep.
His voice cracked on the words, ‘Where’s the boy, Grace?’
Adam’s mother’s name…
Roane had to clear her throat. ‘He’s—’
‘Here.’ Adam set the album to one side and stood up, his gaze finding Roane’s and noting the surprise in her eyes before he used the word he hadn’t used in a long, long time. ‘Dad—I’m right here.’
Still aware of her gaze following his every move he walked to his father’s bedside and placed a hand on his shoulder. A cold hand rose to his, the old man’s voice threaded with emotion.
‘Sorry, boy. I let you down.’
‘It’s all right, Dad.’ He nodded at Roane’s lap. ‘Keep reading.’
The even tone was absent from her voice when she started reading again, indicating how unsettled she was by his appearance. So when Adam stepped back and pulled a chair over to sit opposite her he purposefully kept his focus on his father. After a while her tone evened out, taking on the hypnotic edge that eventually lulled his father to sleep.
When it did Adam looked at Roane, her gaze rising from the book to tangle with his. It might only have been seconds they stared at each other, but it felt like longer to Adam. Then they rose at the same time, met at the door, and walked through the house to the outdoors—not talking or touching until they got to where the air felt infinitely lighter than it had before and Adam felt as if he’d shed twenty pounds.