Mediterranean Tycoons. Michelle Reid

‘Well, do you take sugar in your coffee or don’t you?’ she demanded.

      ‘Strong, black and sweet,’ he answered, then turned his head to look at her, his golden eyes darker than usual and reflecting an expression she could not quite read.

      But she felt it make its old strike at her solar plexus and frowned as to why it had. They couldn’t be discussing a safer subject unless they switched to the weather.

      ‘It seems to me, cara,’ he then said ruefully, ‘that your family is as dysfunctional as mine, which makes us more in tune than you would like to think.’

      Opening her mouth to argue with him, she closed it again, because she realised he was probably right. ‘I still don’t like sugar in my coffee,’ she said firmly, and put her cup on the table.

      He just laughed, and rang for the steward to bring another cup.

      For some unknown reason her mood lightened. She even ate a couple of sandwiches and felt herself begin to relax.

      ‘Where are we going?’ she finally decided to ask him.

      ‘Well, that took its time,’ Luc mocked, getting up to stride down the cabin. ‘The Caribbean,’ he enlightened as he opened up what turned out to be a drinks cabinet and selected a bottle from the row. ‘I have a place there, hidden away on a paradise island with only pelicans for company—want one?’

      He turned to show her what looked like brandy. Lizzy shook her head.

      ‘Scared you will get tipsy again?’

      ‘Scared I’ll fall asleep.’

      ‘Fortunately for you—’ he came back with two glasses and sat down again ‘—falling asleep on board this plane is not a problem because we have a bed to sleep in through that door you can see at the other end of the cabin.’

      Expression as bland as he could make it, he waited for her nervous glance towards the door set into the bulkhead, then silently offered her a glass.

      It was either take it or endure another round of sarcastic comments from him, Lizzy knew that.

      ‘With a nine-hour flight ahead of us, with or without the brandy, you are going to discover a need for that bed.’

      ‘With or without you?’ It was out before she could stop it.

      His golden eyes lit up. ‘Was that an invitation?’

      ‘No, it was not!’ she denied.

      ‘Then take the brandy,’ he said. ‘You are safe with me—for now.’

      It was the for now that made her feel edgy, but it was the lazy challenge in his tone that made her take the brandy from him and defiantly toss it to the back of her throat.

      ‘Not a good idea, cara,’ he said as he watched her fall into a fit of gasps as the brandy burnt like fire all the way down to her stomach.

      He was right and it wasn’t. The brandy went straight to her head. She lasted a full long hard-fought-for hour before she succumbed to the need to lie down and close her dizzy eyes.

      Luc offered to help her down the cabin. She refused with a stiff dignity that cost her plenty to make it all the way into the small bedroom without stumbling over her own feet.

      A few minutes later, wearing only her bra and panties, she was curling up beneath a soft duvet covered in the smoothest linen, and dropping into a muzzy sleep with what felt like the world playing drumbeats on her head.

      For hours she slept, she didn’t know how many, before she came drifting upwards into semi-darkness with the muted sound of the plane’s engines to remind her where she was.

      Her head had cleared and she felt so much better than she’d felt when she’d come in here. She was hungry too, but the idea of getting up out of the comfortable bed and getting dressed to go out there and face Luc had her turning over in the bed with the intention of staying right where she—

      Shock froze the air in her body when she saw him. He was lying on his front right beside her with his dark head resting on the pillow next to her pillow and his wide naked shoulders glowing bronze in the soft light coming from the lamp on his side of the bed.

      From being completely relaxed to the point of a wonderful bonelessness, she was already in the process of tensing up when she realised he was asleep and she let the tension seep away again on an inner swirl of tingling relief.

      The black satin crescents of his eyelashes were resting peacefully against his high cheekbones and his mouth was the most relaxed she had seen it, its sensual shape all the more beautiful in repose, and his hair was ruffled, revealing a hint of a glossy black wave she hadn’t ever noticed before.

      Held by a curiosity she knew she should not be giving in to, Lizzy let her eyes roam over his arms, thrown up against the pillow, the width of his shoulders and long bronzed back exposed because the duvet had slipped down so low.

      Her fingers scrambled at her own part of the duvet, inching it carefully over her shoulder because his nakedness reminded her about her own near nakedness.

      Was he naked—as in completely naked? The intimacy of the situation struck like a feather being drawn across the surface of her skin. Her nostrils flared and she picked up the warm scent of him, clean yet so irresistibly male it sent the moist tip of her tongue sliding on a slow circuit of her warm lips for a reason she refused to examine.

      And the skin covering the muscles she could see shaping his body wore a sheen that made her think of suntan oil, though she knew the effect was due to his own natural oils conditioning his skin while he slept.

      Her husband, she thought, trying the title out to see how it felt, and still found the concept as alien to her as having the two of them lying here together in this bed.

      ‘Grey,’ a deep, dark, slumberously warm voice murmured.

      Lizzy started, her eyes leaping up to his face. He was awake. She tensed, her fingers gripping the duvet. She would have dived right out of the bed if she weren’t aware that she was wearing the sheerest leaf green bra ever fashioned and matching panties that made a mockery of the name.

      ‘Sexy soft smoky grey—no, don’t move away,’ he said when she went to do just that, and with a lithe shift of his body he rolled onto his side and propped his head on the heel of his hand so he could look down into her wary face and the scented fire flow of her hair where it spread across the pillow.

      ’Bellissima, ’ he chanted softly. ‘La signora bella De Santis. ‘

      ‘No,’ she denied. ‘Will you stop calling me beautiful?’

      ‘Strange creature.’ He smiled, reaching over to stroke the stray curl from her brow. ‘You have the most exquisite face I have ever seen on any woman and the most fascinating determination to deny it. I would love to know why that is.’

      ‘I won’t respond to your kind of flattery—’ the curl flopped back again and Lizzy swiped at it frowningly ‘—just because you…’

      Her voice trailed away, teeth pressing into her bottom lip when she realised what she had been about to say next.

      Moving that bit closer to her so she felt the tingling sting of his chest hair prickle the skin on her arm, he prompted, ‘Because I—what?’

      ‘Because w-we’re married and—here,’ she finished—then shook out an unsteady gasp when one of his legs arrived across both of hers. ‘W-what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

      ‘Getting comfortable with my wife.’

      Her fingers let go of the duvet so she could use them to push him back again, but it came as a tingling shock to her racing senses to feel the solid heat of his muscled body and the crisp warmth of his chest hair prickle against her palms. The whole situation was a tingling shock, she decided, snared by the living warmth of his leg weighing heavy on hers and the expression