A Lesson In Seduction. Susan Napier

he exploded, grabbing it up and cradling it protectively against his chest like a baby. ‘I’m carrying it on with me.’

      So he could move faster than snail’s pace when he wanted to! Rosalind grinned and tipped him a mocking salute on the brim of her hat.

      ‘So it’s just the two cases going through, then, is it, Mr James?’ asked the airline employee with marked patience.

      He didn’t turn his head, seemingly hypnotised by Rosalind’s cocky grin. ‘Uh, well, I think...’

      ‘He means yes,’ Roz supplied firmly. She began to suspect that his air of muddled confusion presaged a man on the verge of panic. Perhaps the poor lamb was afraid of flying and was trying to put off the evil moment.

      ‘Mr James? May I see your passport now, sir?’

      ‘Passport?’

      Rosalind decided it would be quicker for everyone if she took charge of the bewildered Mr James.

      ‘You have remembered to bring it with you, haven’t you?’ she demanded, stepping up beside him at the desk. ‘Is it in here?’

      She plucked the blue folder out of the hand clamping the laptop to his chest and flicked it open to see an impressive wad of US traveller’s cheques tucked behind the clear plastic pocket. He made a choked sound of protest and she gave him a chiding look to reassure him that she wasn’t a thief. In the other side of the pocket was a slim dark blue cover stamped with the New Zealand coat of arms. She extracted it and, adroitly avoiding his belated attempt to snatch it back, presented it across the desk.

      ‘Do you have any preference for seating?’ she asked him, pushing the travel folder back into his hand as the woman leafed through his passport.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said, his dark eyes flicking over her face in that irritatingly unfocused way, as if he still couldn’t quite believe that she was helping him.

      ‘You know—front seat, back seat, nearest the emergency door...that kind of thing?’ she clarified.

      ‘Emergency door?’ he echoed, with a swift frown.

      The frown had the decidedly odd effect of slanting his wicked eyebrows even more satanically without raising a ruffle on the angelically pure forehead. She wondered idly whether his personality contained as many contradictions as his face. He was actually rather good-looking in a limp-around-the-edges kind of way. At least a woman wouldn’t need to fear being dominated by the force of his personality!

      ‘Look, don’t you worry about it, chum. Just leave everything to me.’ She gave up trying to involve him in the decision-making process and negotiated his boarding pass without further consultation, thrusting his departure card and returned passport at him as the formalities were completed and nudging him away from the desk so that the Japanese couple could take his place.

      ‘Well, go on, then,’ she said to him, when he seemed inclined to hover inconveniently. ‘You can toddle off to the departure lounge now.’

      He didn’t appear to recognise a brush-off when he heard one. ‘Um, I thought I might wait for you... we could have a drink together—or something...’ He trailed off vaguely, flapping his free hand in the air.

      Or something? Rosalind studied him with sudden suspicion. Had he guessed that she was a woman, or did he think he was issuing an invitation to a pretty youth? Maybe that little-boy-lost helplessness was a sexual rather than psychological signal. Either way it was up to her to disabuse him.

      ‘I wasn’t trying to pick you up,’ she said flatly. ‘I helped you out because I felt sorry for you, not because I fancied you.’

      He sucked in a sharp breath, a rush of blood darkening his skin. ‘I wasn’t—I didn’t mean—’

      His outraged stammer almost made her relent. Her initial impression had been right: harmless, prissy, easily embarrassed. But she still needed to get rid of him before she presented her own documentation. Under the country’s privacy laws, airline personnel were forbidden to give out information about passengers, but if the woman mentioned her name out loud she didn’t want anyone close enough to overhear.

      ‘Good.’ She cut him off, pointedly turning her slender back on him. ‘Because I’m not interested.’

      ‘I only wanted to thank you for coming to my assistance,’ he said rigidly, and she grinned to herself at the hint of grit in his milk-shake voice. Maybe he wasn’t such a hopeless wimp after all.

      She didn’t answer, and after a moment was relieved to hear him moving away. The trouble with helping lame dogs was that they had a lamentable tendency to want to cling to their rescuers.

      After she had checked in she headed for the duty-free shop where she spied Jordan browsing amongst the perfumes. He was flying out to Melbourne on a short business trip related to an arts foundation created by Pendragon Corporation and had conveniently saved Rosalind the taxi fare to the airport.

      Their discussion of a couple of days ago having eased her awkwardness in his company, Rosalind gave in to impulse and crept up behind him and whispered menacingly in his ear. ‘Poison!’

      ‘Do you think so?’ he murmured, withering her with his lack of surprise at her sudden ambush. ‘I rather think that Livvy would suit something lighter, fresher...maybe Yves St. Lament’s Paris?’

      As usual he was right. Rosalind waited while he bought the perfume and they chatted briefly before Jordan’s attention was suddenly riveted elsewhere, his eyes slitting as he gazed intently over her head.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rosalind, her overstretched nerves jumping. ‘Who is it? A reporter?’

      Jordan put a heavily reassuring hand on her shoulder as he shook his head. ‘No, no—just someone I know from the old days at the Pendragon Corporation. I’d better go and have a word with him before he comes over and expects to be introduced.’ He kissed her absently on the cheek, eyes still focusing beyond her. ‘Have a good trip, won’t you? And for God’s sake try not to attract your usual quota of trouble!’

      Rosalind bristled at that, and spun around as he left, intending to send him on his way with a few blistering words of self-defence, but at that moment she caught sight of the James man amongst the swirl of people in the public departure area. He was easily picked out—he looked isolated and alone in the midst of groups hugging and kissing their farewells. She hurriedly turned her back and skulked off to bury herself in a magazine in the relative privacy of the first-class lounge.

      

      Rosalind didn’t fully relax until she was on board the plane with the engines powering up. The first-class section was only half-full, which meant that those travelling alone had the added privacy of an empty seat beside them. Rosalind’s assigned seat was an aisle one and she had decided to wait until they were airborne before she shifted to the window.

      ‘Excuse me, Miss Marlow, would you like me to store your hat in the overhead compartment?’

      ‘Thanks.’ With a straight face Rosalind doffed her wig along with the hat, enjoying the flight attendant’s classic double take. They both broke into chuckles and the hostess’s mask of impersonal politeness was banished by the relaxed warmth of their shared moment of humour.

      Rosalind’s natural optimism raised its battered head. She suddenly felt freer than she had in a long, long time. No stresses, no awkward questions, no responsibilities. Maybe this holiday was just what she needed to get her life back on its former smooth-running track.

      She sighed with satisfaction as she ruffled her flattened hair into its normal spiky style and accepted the suggestion that she might like a glass of champagne as soon as the flight took off. She stripped off her jacket and rolled up the sleeves of her green shirt, revealing a slender gold bangle on her left wrist.

      Glancing at the seats diagonally behind her, she saw the ineffectual Mr James wrenching his seat belt unnecessarily tight, his mouth flat and grim, his precious computer sitting on the