A Lesson In Seduction

‘You might have told me,’ Rosalind protested in chagrin as the stewardess glided away. She scrambled to her feet, acutely conscious that her breasts were humming from his unexpected touch.

‘You didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. You were having too much fun jumping to conclusions and patronising my ignorance,’ he said sardonically.

Rosalind. was tempted to flounce off, except that what he said was perfectly true. Her green eyes sparkled as her mouth curved self-mockingly. ‘I was, wasn’t I?’

A twitch of his extraordinary brows showed that her ready confession was unexpected, and evidently unwelcome. ‘You also lie extremely well,’ he accused unsmilingly.

His chilly disapproval earned him a taunting little bow. “‘If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me; I had it from my father,”’ she said sweetly. The obscure Shakespearian quotation was certainly apt—she had learned much of what she knew about acting at Michael Marlow’s knee...including how to make blank verse sound like modern, everyday speech!

He gave her a darkling look, as if he suspected that the lyrical apology was not her own and was frustrated by his inability to challenge her sincerity by quoting its source. She had already guessed that Mr James liked to be safely armoured head to toe in facts before he proceeded into verbal engagements.

Unable to resist rubbing his nose in it, she placed a hand over her heart and flaunted a more recognisable quotation. ‘Ah, “parting is such sweet sorrow”, isn’t it, Mr James?’ She batted her eyelashes shamelessly at him. ‘But now I know that you’re such a boringly well-organised individual I suppose I’ll have to find someone else to patronise. Enjoy the rest of your trip. Ciao, baby.’

She turned and sauntered on her way, making sure she gave her hips an extra swivel just in case he was still watching.

He was, and it was fortunate for Rosalind’s peace of mind that she couldn’t see the expression on his face. It was a mask of cold-blooded calculation, the mouth a cruel, hard line of satisfaction, the eyes hot and hungry, seething with an unstable combination of unwilling admiration and reluctant contempt.

The bitter face of a man on a particularly unpleasant mission.

And who was determined to succeed.

CHAPTER THREE

ROSALIND clamped her shoulder bag to her side as she jogged across the shimmering tarmac towards the small, colourful, twin-propellered aircraft. A steamy, swirling Singapore wind whipped her hair into a red halo as she cast an angelic smile of apology at the uniformed airline officer standing beside the lowered steps at the rear of the fuselage. She had been deep in conversation with a young German tourist when she had realised she was going to be late for her connecting flight. She had made it with barely thirty seconds to spare!

The door Was pulled smartly shut behind her, shutting out the baking afternoon sun, and Rosalind’s smile swept around the narrow, nineteen-seat cabin before zeroing in on the gap halfway up the left-hand side of the aisle. She eased herself between the rows of single seats, scattering apologies as her bag banged protruding elbows, and crammed herself gratefully into her seat. She could see the pilot looking back through the open door of the cockpit and she gave him a cheeky thumbs up.

‘You nearly missed the flight.’

Rosalind looked across the aisle into a pair of familiar, dark, disapproving, bespectacled eyes.

Oh, no! The insipid Mr James was a reminder of the country and complications she was trying to escape.

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to Tioman too,’ she blurted out as the plane began to vibrate with engine noise.

‘No, I’ll be parachuting out halfway there,’ he said drily.

Considering that they were on a non-stop, terminating flight, his sarcasm was justified, but just as Rosalind was appreciating his glimmer of wit he spoiled it by adding ponderously, ‘That was rather reckless of you, cutting it so fine. You could have wasted your ticket.’

‘Nonsense; I had it timed perfectly to the last second,’ she lied airily. ‘When you’ve flown as often as I have you’ll realise that there’s an art to minimising boring waiting times.’

‘Right,’ he murmured, eyeing her flushed complexion, slicked with perspiration from her dash to the plane, and the green shirt which clung in interesting patches to her dampened skin.

Rosalind rummaged in her bag and produced a moistened towelette which she used to blot her face, uttering a sensuous sigh of pleasure as the cooling alcohol evaporated on her hot skin. He was still in his suit, she noticed, although he had removed his jacket and tie as a concession to the heat; his ubiquitous laptop was jammed under his feet. Was he going to work all the way across the South China Sea, the way he had across the Pacific?