Stranded With The Boss

As it climbed, wind battering the fuselage, doubts assailed her mind. What if she’d made a foolish mistake, trusting her life and the lives of her precious children to this arrogant stranger? What if he meant them harm, or lacked the competence to get them safely to Anchorage? She should have held out for a charter flight. Surely they would have been able to find something to accommodate her if she’d given them enough time.

As the plane leveled off from its steep climb, she began to breathe again. The man at the controls appeared to be a skilled pilot. His hands moved with a sureness born of experience. His expression radiated calm confidence. She still wasn’t certain he was safe, but at least he was competent.

As if sensing her gaze, he glanced toward her. In that brief instant something about the light on his face and the set of his mouth struck her like a thunderbolt.

She knew who he was.

Until today she’d never met him face-to-face. But she’d seen his photo on company bulletins when she’d worked for Trans Pacific. He was the CEO, secretly referred to as “The Dragon” in part because of his name but mostly because of his management style.

He was Dragan Markovic, the man whose company she was suing.

* * *

Dragan leveled off at ten thousand feet and eased the Porter to a cruising speed of one hundred and thirty-two miles an hour. If the weather held, they should make it to Anchorage before dark. The time included a stop in Ketchikan for refueling and maybe a quick snack, eaten on the run.

He’d been flying since his late teens and was no stranger to handling small planes. In the past couple of summers he’d flown big-money clients to the company-owned lodge on a hidden inlet northeast of Petersburg for salmon fishing. But this was his first long-distance flight in the new Porter. So far, so good. At least as far as the plane was concerned.

He glanced to the right, where his pretty, redheaded passenger sat in grim silence, hands clasped in her lap. Was she nervous about the flight or was something else bothering her?

Dragan had hoped to draw her into a conversation. But the lady wasn’t making things easy. “Are you all right?” he asked, speaking into the mike. “Not getting airsick, are you?”

“I’m fine.” He could hear the tension in her breathing. “But I can’t help wondering what you have in mind for us, Mr. Markovic.”

So she had figured it out—and she wasn’t happy.

Dragan weighed the wisdom of speaking in his own defense then rejected the idea. He’d learn more if he let her take the lead.

“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” she demanded.

He stalled for time, checking the instrument panel. “If you’d known, would you have come with me?”

“Certainly not. I’m not even supposed to be talking to you. My lawyer would have a fit if she knew about this.” Turning in her seat, she glanced back at the twins.

“Knowing your lawyer’s reputation, I can imagine that. How are your babies doing?”

“Fine. They’re fast asleep.” She settled back into the seat. “Would you have invited me along if you’d known I came with so much baggage?”

She was sharper than he’d expected. Dragan managed an edgy laugh. “I plead the Fifth.”

“I saw the look on your face when I showed up with my twins,” she said. “You don’t like children much, do you?”

Dragan blocked the images that sprang up in his memory—sharp-boned faces, haunted eyes—images he’d spent the past twenty years trying to forget. “No comment,” he said.

“Then what do you have to say about tricking me onto your plane?” Her tongue gave a disapproving click. “You said you own the charter company...did you have something to do with my flight being canceled?”

There was no good way for him to answer, so he stayed silent.

Her voice was even frostier when she spoke again.

“Kidnapping’s a federal offense, Mr. Markovic, especially now that you’ve crossed the U.S. border. That’s Canada down below us.”

“I didn’t kidnap you. I offered you a lift to Anchorage. You accepted, and that’s exactly where we’re headed. We’ll be landing before nightfall. Call me Dragan, by the way.”

She was silent, her rose-petal lips pressed together in a thin line. Dragan could sense the tension building in her, the outrage, the fury. When the explosion came he was braced for it, but her words still stung.

“Of all the arrogant, low-down, presumptuous, high-handed tricks—” The words ended in a sputter. She stared down at her clenched hands. “How could you do this with a clear conscience? How could you just manipulate me into coming with you?”

“The question you should be asking isn’t how. It’s why.”

“All right. Why?” She gazed straight ahead into the sky-scape of drifting clouds. “Suppose you tell me.”

Dragan made a show of checking the altimeter while he thought out his answer. “There are two sides to every story,” he said. “Before we face off in front of a judge, I wanted to hear yours.”

“You could have just offered to take me out to dinner.” Her voice was flat, stubborn.

“Would you have accepted? You said you weren’t supposed to talk to me—a restriction that I find absolutely absurd. How are we supposed to settle matters if I can’t even find out what’s truly bothering you until it’s all dragged out in court? As it is, you have a captive audience here. You can say anything you like—swear at me, call me every vile name in the book if you want.”

“Don’t tempt me. I don’t work for you anymore.”

“That’s a shame, considering your great performance reviews. Somebody must’ve thought you were doing an excellent job.”

“You read my file?”

“Of course I did.”

“Then you know that before I was fired for supposedly not being able to handle the work attached to my position, I applied for a desk job in the Seattle office. It would’ve been a step down, but with the babies coming, I couldn’t travel and I wanted to be closer to my parents in Bellingham. I filled out the papers but I didn’t even get an interview. The next thing I knew I’d been fired.”

“Actually, I didn’t know that. None of that was in your file.” Dragan remembered noticing what had appeared to be missing information.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “Maybe you should pay more attention to what’s going on in your company, Mr. Markovic. It’s not just about the bottom line. It’s about the people.”

Her words burned like the jab of a hot poker. Stunned for an instant, he recovered his voice. “It’s Dragan. And I hope you’re prepared to explain what you just said.”

She shrugged. “You’ll hear it all tomorrow—in court.”

Dragan held his tongue, hoping she’d say more. But she’d lapsed into stubborn silence. The lady was tougher than he’d expected—and smart. Too smart to discuss the case with a man she saw as the enemy. He had to give her points for that.

Not that he was about to give up. Whatever it took, he was going to crack Tessa Randall’s protective shell and discover the real story behind her lawsuit.

But wanting to settle the lawsuit wasn’t all that was motivating him. Tessa had gotten to him in a way few women did. He wouldn’t be satisfied until he knew what made the sexy redhead tick.

* * *

Tessa gazed downward through the cockpit’s wrap-around window. She’d taken a fair number of flights between Seattle and Anchorage, but always by commercial jet and usually with her nose in her laptop. Only now, at a slower speed and much lower altitude, did she realize what heart-stopping views she’d missed.

Glacier-carved peaks, dotted with jewel-like hanging lakes, rose out of pine-carpeted slopes. On the right, the ocean stretched to the horizon. The coast between was a maze of wooded islands and sun-sparkled inlets. “Magnificent,” Tessa murmured, forgetting she was wearing a mike.

“Isn’t it?” Dragan’s deep, gravelly voice came through the headphones, startling her. “Amazing what nature can do, given a few million years.”