“I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise,” she said, smiling at him.
It was the first time he had seen her genuinely smile, and it changed everything. Maybe that was why he did it. Maybe not. He never knew for sure.
Instead of releasing her hand, Ross raised it to his mouth. He fully intended to place an old-fashioned Continental-style kiss on the back. At the last moment he changed his mind. He turned her hand over and brushed his lips lightly across her palm.
He literally felt the quiver that rippled through her, saw the shiver that shook her from her shoulders all the way down to her knees. The tawny eyes darkened. He even caught a glimpse of something deep down inside them. Fire. Golden fire. Maybe even desire. Licking at him like flames of hot honey. But when he took a step toward her, Diana quickly retreated.
He could take a hint. The sign read Hands Off.
He backed out of her hotel suite. “Lock the door after me, and don’t forget to hook the chain.”
She appeared to be holding her breath. “Yes, Ross.”
Dammit, he didn’t want to leave. It was the craziest thing. “Are you sure you aren’t afraid to stay here alone?”
“I’m sure.”
“You know, the thieves must have had a passkey.”
“I know. But they won’t be back. I don’t have whatever they think they want.”
He grudgingly agreed. “You’re right.”
“Yes, I am. This time.”
He’d run out of excuses not to leave. He gave her a jaunty little half salute. “Adios, then, Diana Winsted.”
She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Goodbye, Ross St. Clair.”
The door closed. Still, he didn’t walk away until he heard the lock click into place.
Ross took the long way back to his hotel. Then he undressed and stood under a steaming shower, letting the water run down his traitorous body.
He called himself every name in the book.
Fool.
Nitwit.
Dumb jerk.
Chump.
Diana Winsted wasn’t his type. And he certainly wasn’t her type. Hell, he had purposely left the life he’d known to get away from women like Diana.
That wasn’t entirely true.
He had left the life he’d known to get away from the man he had become, to find out if he could survive without the benefit of the St. Clair family name and fortune behind him. That was the truth.
Six months, thought Ross as he vigorously scrubbed every inch of skin from his hair to the soles of his feet. He had spent six bloody months out here in what he called the “real world.” Sometimes it seemed like forever. A lifetime or two, at the least. He was tougher. Leaner. Not as polite, but not as mean. He looked inside people, or at least he tried to.
But no one had to look very far beneath the chic, haughty exterior to see that Diana Winsted had all the depth of a wading pool. The woman was definitely not his type.
So why couldn’t he get her off his mind?
Five
Damn the man!
She’d overslept this morning and it was all Ross St. Clair’s fault, Diana grumbled as she hurried through the huge Metro Manila Airport.
It had proved impossible for her to get to sleep after he’d left her hotel room last night. Not because she was afraid the thieves might return. In truth, she wasn’t. But because Ross had kissed her hand and for a moment, for one insane moment, she had seen the sexual hunger in his eyes and knew it was merely a reflection of her own wanton desires.
Dear God, even now when she closed her eyes and relived the touch of his mouth, his lips, his tongue, on the sensitive flesh of her palm, she began to feel strange inside. Not at all like herself.
It had been a brief but surprisingly intimate caress. She didn’t think a man had ever kissed her in quite that way before. It had left her skin sensitized, her entire body atingle, every nerve ending aware that she was alive, that she was a woman and he was a man. It had never happened to her like that before.
Not even with Yale.
It must never be allowed to happen again. She would not get involved with a man like Ross St. Clair. She was engaged to be married and had been for the past six months. The fact that her fiancé had been overseas for all but one of those months was beside the point.
Her plans were made. The church and the country club had been reserved since last winter. Her designer gown was bought and hanging in her closet at home. The wedding invitations were printed, addressed and ready to be mailed. There was no going back now. Her life was in order, and it would stay that way.
Besides, she and Ross had said good-night and goodbye at the door of her hotel room the previous evening.
She had no idea where he was staying in the huge, sprawling city of Manila. She didn’t have the foggiest notion of what his plans were. She had no inkling of where the man was coming from or where he was going to.
It’s better this way, a small voice inside her head whispered to Diana.
It was better this way. Ross was exactly the wrong kind of man for her.
But something told Diana it had been a narrow escape.
The man behind the counter of Asian Air was of indeterminate age and origin. He was gray haired and gray skinned; even his uniform was gray. There was a cigarette dangling from his bottom lip, and one eye was cast in a permanent squint as the gray smoke coiled up into his face.
“You’re late, Miss Winsted,” he announced as she hurried up to the counter.
“I know. I’m sorry. I had some difficulty in locating you.” She wasn’t about to confess that she had overslept. And, once she’d reached the airport, it had taken a good forty-five minutes to find Asian Air’s single gate.
“Everybody else is on board.” She was handed what appeared to be a ticket stub.
“Then I’ll check my bags and we can be on our way,” she said, turning to the porter behind her. She’d had to plead and cajole and finally bribe him with the promise of a generous tip to get him this far.
The Asian Air agent lit a second cigarette from the stub of the first one still clutched between his yellowing teeth. “’Fraid not.”
She turned back. “I beg your pardon.”
“You don’t check your bags, missy. You carry them onto the plane yourself.”
No one had ever called her “missy.” Diana didn’t like it, not one bit. And she did not carry her own luggage anywhere!
“My good man—” although she seriously doubted it from the looks of him “—I have four matching pieces of Louis Vuitton. I will require both your assistance and the porter’s to get them aboard the aircraft.” She instilled a certain firmness, a certain authority, into her voice and took control of the situation. “I can manage the carryon. It will be necessary for the two of you to bring the rest.”
With that, she picked up the smallest bag and headed for the gate, all the while telling herself that if she didn’t look back, that if she didn’t show the slightest sign of hesitation, they would follow her like sheep.
Men always did if they were handled correctly.
Confident that the entourage was behind her, Diana briskly walked out onto the tarmac and toward the twin-engine airplane with Asian Air stenciled on the side.
What had Ross called them last night? Puddle jumpers? He was, apparently, right.
Miraculously she managed to get up the rickety steps without breaking her high heels or her neck and, ducking her head, entered the tiny plane.
The first person she saw was Ross St. Clair.
Her mouth dropped open. She quickly snapped it shut again and scanned the aircraft for an empty seat. There was only one, of course. It was right beside Ross’s.
She vowed she wasn’t going to ask. But in the end, Diana couldn’t help herself. Grudgingly she sat down beside him and breathed through clenched teeth. “Tell me, is this one of those incredible coincidences?”
Ross pushed the wrinkled khaki hat back off his face a
nd said, “Nope.”
“Then you admit that you’re following me?”
“Absolutely,” he stated with a deadpan expression.
The gall. The nerve. The absolute cheek of the man. For a moment—just for one tiny forbidden moment—she mentally saw an image of Ross St. Clair’s bare backside.
Diana gave herself a good shake. “Why?”
He seemed to throw out the first idea that occurred to him. “Guardian angel?”
A soft hoot. “Not even close.”
He tried again. “Bodyguard?”
She rolled her eyes. “Thanks, anyway, but I don’t need a bodyguard. I can take care of myself.”
“Concerned friend, then?”
“We hardly know one another,” Diana felt compelled to point out to him.
The deep masculine voice was bitingly sarcastic. “Concerned stranger?”
She sighed. “You are that.”
He appeared casually intrigued. “What?”
“You concern me and you are a stranger.”
Apparently Ross wasn’t offended. In fact, if anything he seemed amused. He put his head back and laughed heartily. It was a nice laugh, Diana acknowledged.
He made one final attempt to explain his presence. “Let’s just say that I’m a concerned fellow American.”
“I suppose I can accept that,” she remarked after due consideration.
“Once I see you safely into the arms of your boyfriend, I’ll grab the next flight out of town.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” Ross held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
She was still skeptical. She looked at him askance. “Were you ever a Boy Scout?”
Ross removed the shapeless khaki hat, crossed his legs and hung it over his knee. “Yup.” Then he added, “You’d be surprised by what I’ve been.”
“Shocked is no doubt more like it.”
He gazed out the window, then turned back to her and reached for her hand. He held it in his and vowed, “You won’t be sorry I’m along.”
“I am already,” she said, undoing her hand from his.
“Give it up, Diana.” He certainly seemed to be in a chipper mood this morning. “For good or for ill, the fates have thrown us together. We’ll just have to make the best of it.”
They both glanced up as the porter and the Asian Air agent struggled onto the airplane with her luggage.
The agate-colored eyes flickered with mild humor. “I see you’re traveling light, as always.”
Diana sniffed. “I haven’t any idea how long I’ll be on Port Manya. I like to be prepared.”
“That’s my motto—‘Be prepared.’”
She just bet it was.
Suddenly Diana craved a cup of coffee. Very black and very hot. And perhaps a croissant, warmed in the oven and spread with a thick layer of apricot preserves. Her mouth started to water. “Does this airplane have a flight attendant?”
“Nope.”
Her stomach growled softly, protesting the fact that she’d skipped breakfast. “Will we be served anything to eat or drink?”
Ross slouched down in his seat and made himself comfortable. “Highly doubtful.”
She should have guessed. “When do we land on Port Manya?”
He put it into layman’s terms. “We get there when we get there.”
She made a concerned, involuntary movement of her hands. “But isn’t this a regularly scheduled flight?”
Ross turned, his eyes leveled at her. “This part of the world operates by its own set of rules. And rule number one is you get there when you get there and not before.”
Diana swallowed the implied insult. “Once he’s finished stowing my luggage, I’ll ask the ticket agent what time we’re scheduled to arrive.”
“Ticket agent?”
“The one at the counter. The one helping with my bags,” she said loftily.
His mouth twisted into a wry smile. “That’s not a ticket agent. That’s our pilot.”
* * *
Once they were in the air and flying high over a blue ocean dotted with green islands of every size and shape, Ross made an offer she couldn’t refuse. He took a thermos from his knapsack, and said, “Would you like to share a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee? Real coffee?”
“Real coffee. I had one of the restaurants in the airport fill my thermos before boarding.”
Diana confessed, “I think I’d kill for a cup of coffee right about now.”
“I’m glad you warned me,” he said, pouring a generous amount of steaming liquid into the thermos lid-turned-cup. “In that case, you go first.”
“Oh, but I couldn’t,” she protested weakly. “I shouldn’t. I can’t—”
“Sure, you can,” Ross assured her as he urged the coffee into her hand.
“Thank you.” She took a sip, sat back and sighed contentedly. “I didn’t have time for a cup this morning. I overslept.”
The instant it was out of her mouth Diana realized she’d made a mistake in telling him.
The agate-colored eyes narrowed. “You had trouble sleeping last night, didn’t you?”
She shrugged and tried to pass it off as, “Probably jet lag.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Maybe.”
“Anyway, thanks for the coffee.”
He let it go. “You’re welcome.”
Diana followed his gaze to the diamond engagement ring on the third finger of her left hand.
Ross grunted. “Nice rock.”
“Thank you.”
“Is it real?”
“Of course it’s real.” The man really was uncouth!
The mocking look was back in his eyes. “Where we’re going, sweetheart, you don’t want to flash a diamond like that. Wouldn’t be safe. A thief might come along and chop off your pretty little finger to get the stone. You’d better put it away.”
Diana suddenly felt half-sick to her stomach, but she still managed to glare at him. “I’m not a child, Ross. I do the same thing when I’m in most cities back in the States, as a matter of fact.”
She defiantly turned the ring around on her finger until the diamond was concealed underneath. The stone dug into the tender flesh of her palm, but she refused to give Ross the satisfaction of knowing that.
“Now it looks like a wedding band,” he commented, a frown bracketing his mouth.
“It does, doesn’t it?” she agreed, studying the thin gold band on her hand.
“You and the boyfriend set a date yet?”
“Yes, we have.”
He casually inquired, “When is the big day?”
“The second Saturday in September.”
That brought a raised eyebrow. “Here I figured you for a traditional June bride.”
“We considered June. Then Yale was promoted to vice president, and the demands on his time increased. We decided September would work into his schedule better.”
“Another example of business before everything but business,” ventured the man beside her.
“As I said before, I don’t think you would understand.”
Diana didn’t wish to be rude, but what would a drifter like Ross know of responsibility? Of the corporate decisions that Yale had to make each day, decisions that affected hundreds, sometimes thousands of employees?
Her seatmate gave her a quick, penetrating look. “It’s going to be a long day. I suggest we try to get some sleep.” He plunked the wrinkled khaki hat down on his head, pulling it partially over his face. Within a minute or two, he seemed to be dozing.
Diana put her head back and closed her eyes. She was tired and Ross was right: it was going to be a long day.
Diana awakened gradually.
First she was aware of the loud hum of the aircraft’s engines, then the wafting of cool air on her face from a vent overhead and finally, as her eyes blinked open, the fact that the plane was cloaked in deepening shadows.
It was late afternoon.
She turned her head and
found Ross St. Clair watching her. “How long have I been asleep?”
“A few hours.”
She sat up straight, reached behind her to massage the crick in her neck and gazed out the window. Blue skies, blue sea, dots of green islands. Nothing had changed except the time of day. “Where are we?”
Ross shrugged his broad shoulders. “I don’t know exactly. Somewhere over the Pacific. I would guess an hour out from Port Manya.”
Diana suddenly realized they were alone. “Where are all the other passengers?”
“They got off at the last stop.”
“The last stop?”
He patiently explained. “The plane had to refuel. You slept through the landing and the takeoff.”
“And lunch?” she inquired, realizing that the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach was back.
He nudged his knapsack. “I saved you some.”
She shook her head, incredulous. “I can’t believe I slept through the whole thing. I must have been exhausted.”
“Jet lag. It’ll catch up to you like that sometimes.”
“Do you think we’ll reach Port Manya before dark?”
Ross gave a noncommittal grunt. “Chances are the runway on the island isn’t equipped with lights.”
“Meaning we have to land while there’s still enough daylight for the pilot to see what he’s doing.”
He rubbed his jaw and frowned in thought. “That’s it in a nutshell.”
Diana permitted herself a small sigh. “Have you been to Port Manya before?”
“No, but I’ve been on a dozen other islands just like it. It’s a big ocean, the Pacific.”
“Yes, it is.” She fell silent, then reached out and touched his arm and said in a husky voice, “Thank you, Ross.”
He seemed surprised. “For what?”
“For keeping an eye on me while I slept.”
“It was nothing.”
But he was wrong. It wasn’t nothing; it was very definitely something. Where would she be now if he hadn’t decided to come along on this trip?
The answer was clear, she would be the lone passenger on a tiny airplane on its way to a godforsaken island in the middle of nowhere.
Diana turned her head and encountered two agate-green eyes staring at her. Ross might be a little rough around the edges, but he was a gentleman all the same.
Not His Wedding! (Silhouette Reissued) Page 4