‘Here.’ Ethan stood up and went down on his haunches beside Mia as he handed her one of the small cloth napkins Karen had brought with their drinks. ‘Looks like you’re going to need to change out of that damp jumper and denims after take-off …’ he murmured unapologetically.
‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary.’ Mia shot him a belligerent glance as she began to mop up the sticky juice from the front of the cream sweater and black denims she had worn to travel in. ‘I have some clean clothes in my bag I can change into before we land,’ she said as the roar of the jet’s engines warned that take-off was imminent.
‘Is everything okay, Mr Black?’ A concerned Karen had appeared beside them.
‘Miss Burton just had a small accident with her juice,’ Ethan dismissed as he straightened.
As if the spill had been Mia’s own fault! When in fact it had been Ethan—with his far from impersonal remark about Mia’s private life—who had caused her to choke and splutter.
‘I’m fine.’ She looked up to smile at the other woman as she handed her the damp napkin, waiting until Karen had returned to her seat at the front of the plane before turning to glare at Ethan as he resumed his own seat. ‘For your future reference—my sex-life is absolutely none of your business!’ she hissed in answer to the question that had caused all the upset.
He steadily returned her glaring gaze. ‘At least I was honest about my interest.’
Yes, he had been. Too much so as far as Mia was concerned. Besides which, she had no intention of Ethan knowing that her sex-life had been non-existent the last five years. That Friday evening was the first time she had been in the least intimate with a man since she and Ethan had last made love five years ago.
It wasn’t for lack of opportunity. Mia must have been invited out by at least a couple of dozen men during the last five years, and she had accepted at least half of those invitations. For an initial date, at least. None of those men had made it to a second date, let alone been invited to share Mia’s bed for the night.
Because, as Mia had realised last week when she saw him again, none of those men had been Ethan …
Which was pretty pathetic of her, when Ethan had no doubt gone to bed with dozens of other women since the two of them had been together!
Her mouth firmed. ‘Try being less honest!’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I thought honesty was what a woman wanted in her man?’
‘Not that degree of honesty.’ Mia frowned her irritation. ‘And you aren’t my man!’
Ethan gave a shrug. ‘Maybe if you were to ask nicely …?’
Mia’s heart gave a lurch as the jet taxied down the runway before taking off smoothly. ‘If you’re trying to distract my attention from the fact that I’m on my way to see my father for the first time in five years, then don’t bother!’ She eyed Ethan scathingly.
Was that what Ethan had been doing? In truth, he wasn’t really sure what he had been doing. Hadn’t really been sure since seeing Mia again on Thursday. Which was quite an admission from a man who always made a point of knowing exactly what he was doing, and why!
‘You would rather I just left you to wallow in your own self-pity for a couple of hours?’ he came back challengingly.
Her eyes widened. ‘I’m not feeling in the least self-pitying.’
Ethan studied her intently. ‘Then what are you feeling …?’
What was Mia feeling?
In regard to Ethan—too damned aware of him for her own peace of mind!
In regard to seeing her father again …? Tense? Apprehensive? Maybe even a little scared …?
Mia had always been something of a ‘Daddy’s girl’—even more so after her mother’s accident had brought them closer still—and although Ethan probably wouldn’t believe her she had deeply missed that closeness with her father after walking out five years ago. The thought of seeing him again, of the two of them perhaps being strangers to each other, was enough to tie Mia’s stomach up in knots.
As for seeing Grace again …
‘Nervous,’ Mia admitted abruptly.
Ethan’s expression softened slightly. ‘If it’s any consolation I believe William, after the obvious initial elation at knowing you’re alive and well, is feeling just as apprehensive about meeting you again, too.’
Was it a consolation? In a way it was, yes, Mia realized, as some of the tension began to ease from the stiffness of her shoulders. ‘Your mother has already spoken to him?’
Ethan gave a slight inclination of his head. ‘Not the easiest conversation she’s ever undertaken, I gather.’
No, Mia could imagine that it wouldn’t have been. In fact she had no idea how Grace would even have gone about starting such a conversation.
‘Talking of my mother …’
Mia’s gaze was wary as it met Ethan’s narrowed one across the width of the coffee table. ‘Yes?’
‘I would advise that you keep your opinions to yourself where she’s concerned.’
Her brows rose. ‘Threats, Ethan?’
‘Not at all,’ he said easily. ‘I’m sure my mother is perfectly capable of dealing with any amount of rudeness shown to her—from you or anyone else.’ There was a wealth of admiration in his voice. ‘My warning was in regard to William; I very much doubt he would take kindly to any slight you might try to give Grace,’ he added ruefully.
Mia’s mouth firmed. ‘I’m well aware of where my father’s loyalties now lie!’
Ethan sighed his frustration. ‘It’s never been a question of loyalties—’
‘Could we just stop talking now, Ethan?’ Mia sighed. ‘I’m irritable and tired and would prefer to take a nap rather than talk any more.’
‘Like me to show you where the bedroom is …?’
‘I already know exactly where the bedroom is, and I’m perfectly happy napping here in the chair, thank you very much!’ Her cheeks felt hot.
‘Please yourself.’ Ethan gave an uninterested shrug before turning away to look out of the window.
Giving Mia the opportunity to study him unobserved. Ethan looked just as arrogantly male-model gorgeous as usual, but the lines beside his eyes and mouth were deeper today, and seemed to indicate that his mood wasn’t as confidently relaxed as he wished it to appear.
That perhaps he was feeling just as apprehensive about the coming meeting between Mia and her father as she was …?
‘Stop fussing, Mia, you look fine!’
Easy for Ethan to say, Mia fretted inwardly as she sat beside him. He was behind the wheel of the car that had been waiting for them at the private airstrip. As she had said she would, Mia had changed out of her stained sweater and jeans into a fitted green sweater and short denim skirt before leaving the plane, and—as Ethan had just pointed out so impatiently!—she had started fidgeting more with the hem of that skirt the closer they got to her father’s villa.
It was just after nine o’clock in the evening. The traffic had been heavy on the motorways, less so after they turned off towards Grasse, and almost non-existent now as they drove up the narrow roads into the hills above the town.
At any other time, and with any other reason, Mia would have enjoyed being back amongst these fragrant and beautiful terraced hills; in the past she had always loved spending the summer months here. But knowing they were only a mile or so from the villa now, from seeing her father again, made Mia feel far too apprehensive to be able to appreciate the warmth of the darkening evening and the ever-present sound of the bullfrogs croaking.
She turned to look at Ethan. ‘I didn’t think to ask earlier … Is leaving England so suddenly inconveniencing you in any way?’
He gave her a brief glance. ‘Professionally or socially?’
Mia’s mouth thinned. ‘Professionally, of course.’
‘Of course,’ he echoed. ‘Is this a trick question? If I say no, then you’ll obviously assume I don’t have enough to occupy my time as CEO of Burton Industries. And if I say yes, you’ll then say good?’
M
ia gave a pained frown. ‘I don’t think I have ever given you reason to call me spiteful, Ethan …’
No, she hadn’t, Ethan conceded. He still wasn’t completely sure of the Mia who sat beside him now, but since being with her again—talking with her, hearing the reasons she had disappeared five years ago—he certainly didn’t think that had been done out of spite, but rather a sense of self-preservation. Her mother’s suicide and the knowledge of her father’s relationship with Grace all coming at the same time had just been too much for Mia to deal with. Their own relationship had just become a part of that whole emotional mess she had wanted to escape from …
‘Sorry.’ Ethan gave a brief apologetic smile even as he continued to keep his gaze on the narrow and winding road ahead. ‘And, no, it wasn’t too difficult to cancel my appointments for the next couple of days.’
‘I’m glad—Oh, good Lord …!’ Mia gave a low groan as the lights of her father’s villa came into view. All of them. The place was lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree! In expectation of their arrival? Probably, Mia acknowledged warily …
Ethan gave her another quick glance. ‘It really is going to be okay, Mia.’
‘I’m just not sure I can do this!’ Her heart was now thumping so loudly in her chest that she was sure Ethan must be able to hear it too. Her hands tightly gripped the seat either side of her, her nails digging into the soft leather.
Ethan parked the car in front of the huge closed electronically operated iron gates at the entrance of the driveway, lowering the window but making no effort to press the intercom and ask for admittance. Instead he turned in his seat to look Mia. She looked very young in the moonlight, her face white, her eyes dark and apprehensive as she looked back at him.
‘Come here.’ Ethan reached out and took Mia in his arms, instantly becoming aware of how much she was trembling. ‘It’s going to be fine, Mia,’ he murmured soothingly, even as her head rested against his shoulder and her hands clung to the front of his polo shirt. ‘You’re going to be fine,’ he added firmly. ‘The only thing you have to remember—the only thing that really matters—is that William loves you.’
Mia pulled away slightly, her eyes glittering with unshed tears as she looked up at him in the darkness. ‘But what if when I see him again I realise that I no longer love him?’
‘Of course you love him!’ Ethan frowned down at her. ‘He’s the same man who sat on your bed and read you bedtime stories when you were very young. Who put you up on the back of a horse for the first time when you were five. Who taught you to ride a bicycle when you were six. Who—’
‘How do you know those things, Ethan?’ Mia breathed as she looked up at him incredulously.
He quirked one dark brow. ‘How do you think I know …?’
‘My father …’
‘Of course.’ Ethan smiled down at her. ‘You obviously have no idea how proud he’s always been—still is—of his only daughter! He’s going to be even more impressed once he hears of the financial success you’ve made of Coffee and Cookies.’
Mia blinked up at him. ‘You think …?’
‘I am, so I know he’s going to be, too.’
Mia gave him a startled glance. Ethan was impressed by her success with Coffee and Cookies …? ‘It’s just a coffee shop—’
‘It’s your coffee shop, and you’ve made it uniquely your own,’ he added admiringly. ‘The couple of dozen boxes of cookies you sell every week to several specialist shops in town don’t do the coffee shop’s reputation, or your own, any harm either!’
Strangely, at the last moment Mia had decided to pack one of those boxes of cookies in her small overnight suitcase.
She had told herself it was so she had something to snack on if she needed to, but could the real reason have been because deep down she had wanted to show her father that she had made a success of her life this past five years? Nowhere near the scope of the worldwide successes of Burton Industries, of course, but nevertheless Mia was proud of what she had managed to achieve by the sweat of her own brow.
‘I’ve sampled the product, remember?’ Ethan continued dryly. ‘I have no idea what your recipe is, but your cookies are orgasmically good!’
Mia’s cheeks suddenly felt warm as she clearly remembered Ethan’s groans of pleasure as he ate one of her triple chocolate cookies. So similar to the groans of pleasure he made during lovemaking …
‘Is this another effort on your part to distract me?’ she murmured, so very aware now that Ethan still held her in his arms, and that his chest felt very warm against her breasts through the thin wool of her sweater.
Ethan’s eyes glittered silver as he looked down at her. ‘Is it working?’
Mia was held captive by that mercurial gaze, her mouth feeling suddenly dry. ‘Oh, yes …’
‘Good,’ Ethan said softly, his gaze moving down to the lure of Mia’s slightly parted lips. Full and sensuous lips that he knew would feel soft and warm beneath his—that were soft and warm as he gave in to that temptation and lowered his head to capture them with his own!
He had been wanting to do this again since—hell, since Friday evening!
Ethan had spent the whole time Mia had been asleep on the plane watching her unobserved. Lingering the longest on the fullness of her lips above that firm and determined chin …
Lips that he now parted with a single sweep of his tongue, pulling Mia more firmly into his arms and crushing her breasts against his chest as he curved her into him before deepening the kiss. Mia’s fingers became entangled in the dark thickness of Ethan’s hair as she returned the heat of those kisses, the ragged sound of their breathing blocking out even the noisy croaking of the bullfrogs.
Ethan’s arousal was instantaneous, together with the need he felt to lay Mia down across the seat and dispense with the barrier of their clothes …
‘Ethan? Ethan, is that you?’
It took Mia several precious seconds, and several greedy kisses, to realise that the voice she could hear was real and not a figment of her overheated senses. For her to recognise the disembodied voice coming over the intercom outside the window as belonging to Grace.
That recognition had the same dampening effect on Mia as having a bucket of ice-cold water thrown over her!
CHAPTER NINE
‘DO YOU think you could try looking a little less as if you’re paying a visit to the dentist?’ Ethan rasped his impatience—and his sexual frustration!—as the two of them got out of the car parked in front of the brightly lit villa.
Not that he could exactly blame Mia for putting such an abrupt end to those passionate kisses—Ethan had found it more than a little deflating to his own libido to hear the sound of his mother’s voice when his thoughts, his emotions, were so deeply enmeshed with stripping Mia naked!
Even so, Mia could have looked at him with a little less revulsion as she pulled sharply out of his arms and moved as far back in her seat as it was possible for her to go.
Giving Ethan the impression that he had turned into some sort of monster she should avoid even coming into contact with! Or, perhaps more accurately, as if that voice had just reminded Mia that he was Grace Black’s son …
His jaw tightened. ‘Shall we just get this over and done with?’
Mia’s face was pale once again, her green eyes huge in that pallor as she looked over at him. ‘I have no idea what I’m supposed to say when I see my father again, let alone your mother!’
‘I’m sure you’ll think of something.’ Ethan gave an uninterested shrug before moving to the back of the car to take their two small cases out of the boot.
Mia wasn’t so sure … She hadn’t seen her father for five years,
Grace for even longer than that; exactly what did you say to a father in these circumstances, or to the woman he had married within months of the death of your own mother?
Ethan seemed to feel no such reluctance as he strode past her with their suitcases and began to ascend the stone steps leading up to the front of th
e villa. As if those passionately heated kisses of a few minutes ago had no significance whatsoever, Mia accepted heavily as she slowly followed him up the steps.
And maybe to Ethan they hadn’t? He had been intent on distracting Mia since picking her up from her apartment earlier this afternoon, in any way available to him. It would be ridiculous of Mia to hope those kisses had meant anything to him other than adding to that distraction.
Even if they had meant much more than that to her …
Much as Mia might try to deny it, to distance herself, her physical response to Ethan burned just as strongly as it ever had. Perhaps, with maturity, even more so.
Mia’s meandering thoughts came to an abrupt halt, and so did she, as the front door of the villa was thrown open, light spilling out around them as her father stood silhouetted in the doorway.
Mia’s breath caught in her throat, and her heart stopped beating in her chest as she looked up at him and instantly saw both how little, and yet how much, he had changed in the last five years. He was thinner than he used to be, and at the same time still as tall and strong. His iron-grey hair showed signs of having turned white at his temples. His face was as ruggedly handsome, and yet it too was thinner, with more lines beside his eyes and mouth than Mia remembered being there.
That sense of numbed disorientation seemed to last for hours, and yet Mia knew it had only been seconds as this new image of William became superimposed on the old one, so that he was suddenly just her father. Strong. Handsome. The rock Mia had always been able to depend upon.
Mia’s eyes misted over with tears as she saw the hungry pleasure that lit up her father’s eyes as he gazed his fill of her. She took a step towards him, only to come to an abrupt halt as she saw movement in the tiled hallway behind William, along with a brief flash of auburn hair. Instantly she recognised the elegantly lovely Grace as she hovered there supportively.
As if she might rush forward and catch William if he should fall.
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